Philipovna

by Valentina Gal

  We watched them unravel the wires from large spools and attach them to the building. Then they pulled the spools down the road until they disappeared. As the men moved away, the villagers wondered why Comrade couldn’t go talk to a person directly and who was important enough to need a telephone.

  We hurried back to report on what we had seen.

  “I don’t know why we need a telephone either,” Auntie said. “Why can’t they just send a telegram? Oh Dear God, there will really be big trouble.” She sighed and crossed herself.

  She tried to keep things going the way they always had. It was easier in the day because my cousins and I could play and study as normal but the evenings were different. Uncle Misha was called to meetings along with all the other men in the village. We read less and prayed more. We didn’t recite or sing as much either.

  Auntie was conserving food as she was afraid that we wouldn’t have enough till the vegetable garden could be planted but, on Christmas Eve, we worked from daybreak to cook supper. She measured the buckwheat down to the last grain and fussed over the grinding of the poppy seeds that would go into the kutya. She charged me with stirring the mixture of poppy seeds, dried fruit and honey which was simmering on the fire to be reconstituted as its garnish. The fruity steam made me hungry and when Auntie Xena wasn’t looking I licked my finger so I could retrieve a few stray poppy seeds from the cheesecloth they had been stored in.

  “Mind you don’t nibble at the raisins or poppy seeds, Vera Philipovna,” she gently chided. “We only have enough for one portion each and remember, the kutya is the most important part of the supper.”

  “Have you got your spoon ready for this evening?” Uncle Misha asked of Xenkovna when he came in for his tea.

  “Why does she have to have a spoon ready?” I asked.

  “Because she is old enough to knock on the window tonight. If a man’s voice answers, she will be married this year. If it’s a woman, she’ll have to wait.”

  “Tahto,” Xenkovna said, blushing. “I’m not thinking about any of that. There’s enough to do here without worrying about such things.”

  “Never mind,” he said, chuckling. “If she’s old enough to bake a good loaf of bread, she’s good enough for other things. Knock! Knock! Don’t tempt fate and stay an old maid.”

  “Hush,” his wife said, wiping her hands on her apron. “We don’t want to tempt fate and have her gone too soon either. She’s got plenty of time for that.”

  But Uncle Misha kept grinning.

  “I’ve seen Taras peeking over his accordion at her. She may not have anything on her mind but I’d bet my boots he does. Don’t be too surprised if he’s sweet on her. And, if I say so myself, I don’t blame him either. She’s a fine catch.”

  “You’re saying far too much,” Auntie said in an unusually sharp tone.

  Xenkovna blushed again.

  I helped Auntie spread the cloth which her mother had embroidered with the red and black fine cross-stitches that were the special design of our area of the Ukraine. The table was then set with the three layers of kalach that, under Auntie’s watchful eye, Xenkovna had braided into rings. She had brushed them with egg white so that their surface would be shiny and baked them that morning. These rings of bread were stacked in three layers to represent the Holy Trinity and were round to show the eternity of God’s love and faithfulness. My stomach churned with their fragrance and, as the smell of each successive dish blended with the one that preceded it, I thought I’d never live to taste supper.

  Auntie reminded me to never forget the empty place setting for the ancestors. I wondered if my parents were sitting at God’s table too. Would they be angry with me if they knew that I couldn’t remember having such a Christmas with them? Would they really watch me from Heaven? Did they know I had found my good friend Mitya? I could hardly wait for the first star to appear because we couldn’t start the Christmas Eve Feast till it did.

  We knelt beneath the icon and crossed ourselves before reciting the Our Father. Auntie Xena read the prayers for our departed ancestors asking for continuing peace for their souls and praying to The Holy Mother for a special boon of health and safety for all of us. Uncle Misha stood a small sheath of grain by the fireplace and thanked God for the many gifts he gave our family. We spread some hay under the supper table to remind ourselves of the hay on which Our Holy Mother laid the Baby Jesus so many years ago. Uncle Misha led us in the singing of a few of our favourite Christmas carols. We lit the candle in the centre of the kalach and sat down to eat.

  “Mmmm,” Uncle Misha said, smiling, “Xena, I swear that you make the best kutya in the whole country.”

  “Thank God that we have enough food to make it,” she said.

  “Don’t worry so much, Woman. We’ve always made it. It won’t be any different this time should there really be trouble.”

  There was meatless borscht that tasted sweet from all the beets from which it was made served with a generous dollop of smetana, some spicy fish in tomato sauce with eggplant dressing and my favourite pyrizhky, you know those buns with apple filling. I can still feel my mouth watering when I think of them and their cinnamon smell. Auntie didn’t make any extra, as she would have done in the past, because none of the neighbours would be coming to visit. Only Mitya and his mentally ill mother joined us.

  “I couldn’t live with myself if poor Mitya and the Unravelled One didn’t come to eat,” Auntie said.

  Mitya’s father was the last casualty of the war. The Unravelled One was newly pregnant when he was taken. After the birth, instead of thriving and living “for the sake of the boy” the women said, the Unravelled One had sunk into a deep depression that never lifted. She lived with her son in a one-room cottage at the edge of the village surviving on the good will of her neighbours. She only spoke to Mitya and Auntie Xena and never looked anyone else directly in the eye. The other Children were afraid that she had been put under the spell of some Baba Yaga that had wandered into the village from the woods one night, but I liked her. She would peek at me when Mitya and I brought wood from the woodpile or water from the well, and when I brought bread from our house there was a hint of a smile at the corner of her mouth.

  We were not allowed to go carolling either in case one of the propagandists would report us to the Party as “an enemy of the people.” That was the first time I heard that phrase. Uncle Misha told us that the propagandists were the men that Comrade Stalin had sent to teach the new way of life he designed for us. I wondered who “the enemy” was and of which people was he an enemy. My cousins and I moped by the fire feeling deprived of our Christmas pleasures of sweet treats and drinks that would have been enjoyed had we been free to roam and sing our way through the village as usual.

  “Be patient, Verochka,” Auntie said. “School will start soon and your heart will be full of Uncle Peter’s wonderful songs and stories.”

  Uncle Peter was the village schoolmaster. He was loved by everyone as he had been our teacher for years. Long before the war he had built a little house where, each day, those who could, came to school and worked their way through the lexicons. He was a fair but strict teacher. When school started after the New Year celebration which was January fourteenth, I would go with my cousins and finally be like the rest of the Children.

  At last, New Year’s Eve arrived. It was even more subdued than Christmas Eve.

  “Uncle Misha says we can’t go scattering,” Mitya said. “That means I won’t be able to get my first drinks with the men. It’s not fair. It’s the first year that I’m old enough to go round the village with them.”

  On New Year’s Eve, the boys would fill a little sack with wheat and visit their neighbours. At each house they would sing:

  I sew and blow and scatter

  A wind of blessing, good health and plentiful harvest

  And greet you with good fortune for the coming year.

  As the blessing was recited, one of the boys would toss a small handful of grain around the door of t
he house in a sewing motion. He would be rewarded with a glass of liquid cheer which was offered by the womenfolk who remained at home to serve the men and sing a carol with them as they went through the village. We couldn’t spare the grain and we couldn’t trust Comrade Zabluda’s propagandists so my cousins and I sat by the fire and moped ourselves into 1931.

  Going to School

  “FOR THE LOVE of God! Stand still so that I can braid your hair properly.” I fidgeted impatiently as Auntie Xena tied the end of my braid with a piece of red wool and wrapped me in a heavy winter shawl.

  “Yes, Auntie.”

  “And don’t forget to take this bread for lunch.” She handed me a little bundle wrapped in a piece of cheesecloth.

  I ran after my cousins who were already halfway up the path that connected our house to the central path of the village.

  We walked towards the square and the schoolmaster’s house. Other Children joined us, happy to be out in the crisp air and brilliant sunshine. We breathed in deeply and blew out white clouds as our breath froze in the cold morning. The smell of the smoke that curled up from the chimneys teased my nose with its pleasant bitterness. Mitya met us where the path from the other side of the village joined the main one. He greeted me with a snowball on the shoulder.

  “Stop that!” Vera Xenkovna said. “Philipovna has to be good or I’m in trouble.”

  Mitya tossed the next snowball at her back.

  “I’ll take the switch to you when we get home,” she said.

  She dropped her few books and was just about to cuff his ears when we saw Comrade Zabluda coming towards us.

  “Are you idle brats out to cause some trouble?” he demanded.

  Xenkovna picked up her books and brushed the snow off our shawls. The rest of the group moved close to her like a frightened flock of geese clinging to their mother.

  “No, Sir,” Mitya said. “We are on our way to school.”

  “Now listen here, you stupid boy,” Comrade Zabluda said. “There are no ‘sirs’ in the Party. Everyone is an equal and you ignorant farmers will be taught to call us ‘Comrade’.”

  “Yes, Comrade.” Mitya flushed and hung his head.

  I bit my lower lip. What was Comrade Zabluda going to do to him?

  “There’s no school today. Go home and find something useful to do or I’ll give you some important papers to distribute for Father Stalin. Hopefully, there will be someone smart enough in your house to teach you what’s in them.”

  Comrade Zabluda waved us on. Our little group was so stunned by what just happened that we started walking towards Comrade’s wave even though it was in the opposite direction from home. As we passed through the village square, we saw that Uncle Peter’s door was ajar.

  “Uncle Peter?” Mitya called.

  He stepped into Uncle Peter’s house. I felt my heart pounding in my ears.

  There was no answer.

  “What on earth is this?” Xenkovna asked, stepping in behind Mitya. I started to cry. Where were the rest of our schoolmates?

  There was no fire in the hearth. Uncle Peter’s belongings were strewn all over the room and his slate and chalk were tossed about in pieces. A pile of his precious books lay in shreds on the floor. It looked as if there had been a scuffle. This was particularly strange as no one had ever heard the master so much as raise his voice, never mind his hand. Uncle Peter was nowhere in sight.

  “I wonder where he is,” Mitya said. “Who made such a mess of this place? If I find out who it was I’ll punch his face off.”

  “We better go home,” Xenkovna said. “Mama will tell us what to do.”

  As we passed the open door of the village’s only store, we could see that the whole building was a shamble. What wasn’t smashed or broken lay helter-skelter half off shelves or was thrown recklessly onto the table and floor. Uncle Anton who regularly sat attending to his customers was also gone. We stared in silence, for what seemed a long time.

  “What is going on?” Mitya asked. “Who’s wrecking everything around here?”

  “I don’t know,” Xenkovna answered. “Let’s go home.” I could see her eyes glittering with tears. This kind of thing never happened in our village. We never touched property that belonged to another person and were taught to take care of things as they were usually expensive and hard to get in the first place.

  Auntie bundled herself up and told Xenkovna to look after Viktor and the twins.

  “We’ll go to Anna,” Auntie Xena said when we were outside again. “She would know best since she is Uncle Peter’s sister.”

  The crunch of the snow echoed ominously as we made our way to Anna’s house. The wind was picking up so the cold which felt so refreshing earlier in the morning was biting at my cheeks and nose. When we arrived, we were met by many of the villagers. Some stood praying; some were crying and others were wringing their hands in despair. Anna sat weeping.

  “What’s going on?” Auntie asked. She tried to hug the weeping woman, but Anna shrugged her away without saying a word.

  Uncle Anton’s brother spoke first.

  “At midnight, Comrade Zabluda and his Chekists came and arrested Peter and Anton,” he said. “Those devils took fifteen men off into the night and God knows where they are now.” He looked like he was going to retch and two of the men caught him in their arms as he was about to faint away in grief. Someone found Anna’s bottle of vodka and poured him a glass. Uncle Paulo held it to his lips.

  “Take heart, brother. This will warm you for the present. The police have no business with him. There must be a mistake.”

  Mitya and I hung back from the grownups. We had never seen them look so bewildered. We were terrified, but what was it that we were afraid of? If the elders didn’t know why these respected men were plucked from their homes, what did we Children know?

  As the morning dragged on into the afternoon, villagers from the whole area came and went. We learned that the new village officials had helped to round up our own Soviet Party Council along with some of the prominent farmers. At dawn, more military men came and removed the families of the men who had been taken away. With barely the clothes on their backs, the women and Children were piled into sleighs. It was a terrible scene with all of those adults milling about in confused grief. Would I have to go away again? Where would I go and with whom? Later, we heard that the villagers were transported to the railway station and went on north to concentration camps in Siberia. We never saw them again. Siberia, the sound of that word could set one’s bones a-shivering. Uncle Misha fashioned a wooden latch for inside of our door and insisted that Auntie Xena should keep it locked.

  “What do you think that would do to help?” she said. “They can make anyone disappear if they should decide he is ‘an enemy of the people’. Have you forgotten what they did in the war?”

  “The latch will keep out strangers and could buy you a few precious minutes, should you need it, woman,” he said.

  These short, tense exchanges were becoming more frequent. Uncle Misha came home later and later from the endless meetings that took him away from the hearth in the evenings. He and Uncle Simon discussed a lot when they met with Uncle Paulo for their chess games on Sunday afternoons.

  “If you look like you’re co-operating with them,” Uncle Simon said, “they may leave you alone. Besides, it might not be as bad as it was in the war. After all, we have all learned something since then. You should look at their new ideas. They are promising us that every man will get his share.”

  “I’m sticking to myself,” Uncle Paulo said. “I’m an old man and surely they’ll let me keep my orchard and the little garden I have left.”

  “We have to stand up to them,” Uncle Misha shouted. “I’ll not provoke them, but I won’t allow them to confiscate my land.”

  And so it went until Auntie would threaten to take the vodka away and throw them and their chess board out into the snow.

  “They can persuade all they want,” I heard Uncle Misha say to Auntie one
night when they thought we Children were asleep. “I’ll never give up my land. What kind of man would I be if I gave up the land that my father and grandfathers farmed for generations ... and died for? I’d be nothing without it.”

  One Sunday morning when we arrived at the square for service at church, we were greeted with a carnival complete with a military band and merry-go-round. The music was strange, but its military rhythm was compelling. I found myself marching in time to its beat in spite of myself. I heard about merry-go-rounds from my cousins who had gone to the city, but I’d never seen one before that day. I wanted a ride on one of those beautifully painted horses. Up and down, round and round they went hypnotically calling me.

  “Just one little ride, come!”

  I could see Mitya close to the group of Children who were pushing towards this splendid wonder. Of course, he would be one of the first to check it out. I started to push through the crowd myself.

  “Xenkovna, hold Philipovna tight,” Auntie said. “Stay close together. I don’t trust this thing. I’m getting Mitya away from it too.”

  But my eyes were glued to the circling horses — black, white and bay — with their beautifully adorned leathers and brasses. I stared at that merry-go-round till it felt as if the ground was spinning beneath my feet. I tried to pull Xenkovna closer for a better look, but she and Auntie, who had retrieved a yowling Mitya by grabbing his ear, held their ground and kept our family well back at the edge of the crowd. Suddenly, the music stopped; the merry-go-round stood still.

  A man’s voice boomed over a microphone and its echoes reverberated over the frosty village. In one move the crowd turned towards a platform that had appeared in the square during the night. We had all been so enthralled with the new attraction that we didn’t even realize it was there.

  Comrade Zabluda stood in the middle of the platform with his handful of underlings who patrolled and inspected the village to his left. To his right was a group of about eight men dressed in city clothes. They stared at us with harsh eyes and the carnival-like atmosphere in the square fell instantly under an invisible shroud.