“We’ll sing a few carols,” Auntie said. “It is a holy evening whether we eat or not. We have to remember that He suffered just like we do.”
“Was Jesus ever hungry?” I asked Auntie.
“Yes. He went into the desert and fasted. The devil tempted Him three times, but He did not give in. I do know that when He was on the cross, he suffered all of the pain that everyone would ever feel. And he certainly would have been thirsty, especially when they gave him vinegar on a sponge.”
I didn’t feel like singing and neither did the others. But after a couple of half-hearted starts, we all joined in: “God everlasting is born. A Saviour has come from Heaven to forgive our sins ...”
Uncle read the Christmas Story and we prayed again. I was surprised to find that, even though we hadn’t eaten a single crumb, the evening felt special and Uncle’s guitar sang with the sweetest voice I’d ever heard.
“Do you remember what it was like when we went to celebrate Christmas at Pan Kalynowich’s estate?” Uncle Misha asked.
“How could I ever forget?” Auntie smiled with the recollection.
“Will you tell us about it?” I asked.
So Auntie told us of how, in 1914, the whole village was invited to the great celebration for St. Nikolai’s Day. There was a great feast with stuffed geese, and fish, and even a whole roast pig. Auntie and Mama came to help the Unravelled One peel vegetables, to roll the cabbage rolls and to stuff the varenyky. They worked for three days while the house servants polished and cleaned every surface of the great house.
Once the priest blessed the feast and the important guests were served, everyone who helped was invited to join in. They had never eaten such good food, especially the sweet treats that were brought in from Kiev.
“But the dinner wasn’t the best part of it,” Auntie said. “We hadn’t even finished clearing away the dinner when I heard music. The Master had hired a troupe of musicians. There must have been half-a-dozen of them — and could they play! Surely, they were sent from Heaven. It was the first time I had ever heard the bandura.”
“The bandura wasn’t the only thing you enjoyed for the first time that night.”
Auntie flushed with embarrassment. “Misha, don’t tell stories.”
“You’re the one telling stories,” he said. “So go on and finish it.”
“Well, the music was so exciting that I couldn’t help dancing in the corner from where I watched the Party. Since I was just a village girl — and not even a servant, I didn’t want to join in. But, Uncle Misha noticed me. When he asked me why I wasn’t dancing, I told him that I couldn’t because I wasn’t dressed for it. It just so happened that the mistress of the house was near us as we spoke. She said that a pretty girl like me shouldn’t worry about what she was wearing. I said that I wasn’t fit for mixing with the beautiful guests wearing clothes that had been at the kitchen fire for three days. In the end, the mistress felt sorry for me and took me to her room.
“It was a big room with heavy furniture and a mirror that showed my whole shabby outfit from my head to my feet. I was so ashamed when I saw my ragged clothes for myself that I wanted to run home. But the mistress was kind. From a carved trunk, she pulled out a beautiful blue woollen skirt and silk blouse, the ones I still wear to church. She said that since it was St. Nikolai’s special day, it was fitting to give a needy person a gift.
“I was shy and didn’t want to take off my clothes but she turned her back to me while I changed. She laughed when I gave in to my impulse to twirl till the many meters of skirt flared into a huge umbrella and said that it was a pity that such a beautiful girl as me was born into such a poor and low class. She prayed for me as she brushed my hair and tied it with a blue velvet ribbon.
“Uncle Misha couldn’t take his eyes off me when I returned. We danced till the morning — and we have been dancing ever since.”
I went to sleep that Christmas Eve with an empty belly, yes, but also with a head full of stories and a heart full of hope.
We kept to our house trying to conserve our own heat. We prayed and read the Bible both in the morning and before going to bed at night. On the hardest days, Auntie made us memorize Bible passages to keep our mind off of our hunger pains. She made a ritual out of tea breaks through the day.
“You must drink all of your tea, whether you want it or not,” she said. “If you get dehydrated, things will get much worse.”
I wondered how she knew what to do. The lack of food was affecting our sense of well-being so we became lethargic and only visited our neighbours for reasons of necessity. Of course, Auntie was called to tend to those who got ill, but once our neighbours heard that the twins were sick, no one came to our home as they were trying not to get sick themselves. Even the propagandists quit knocking. I was excused from going back to school, especially after word got out that Katerina’s mother and son had both died from a sickness with the same symptoms as the little twins were suffering from.
Auntie had done everything in her wide experience to cure the twins of the coughing, but they started bringing up white phlegm and continued to get worse. When Viktor woke up with a fever, she finally decided that a doctor should be summoned. Uncle had gone to the clerk’s office asking for his papers again.
“It’s been more than two months,” he said. “My family needs medicine and now that the Children haven’t eaten for weeks, they’re desperate for food.”
“No one leaves the village,” the clerk said. “Take it up with the Thousander.”
Uncle asked the Comrade at the meeting in the evening.
“Father Stalin’s orders,” Comrade Zabluda said. “We’re not going to bother him about a little sniffle, are we? I hear there’s a cold going around. I’m sure they’ll survive. After all, they come from good strong peasant stock, don’t they?”
Auntie and Xenkovna struggled through three more nights of the twins’ coughing. Viktor wasn’t improving either. He went from hot to shivering and back to hot in a matter of minutes. His breathing was starting to sound raspy like the twins.
“What should we expect?” Auntie asked, wiping her tearful eyes, “They have no strength to fight with after not having food for so long.” It was decided that Auntie would disguise herself as an old woman and go for medicine.
“They won’t be expecting me to leave three sick Children,” she said to Uncle Misha. “No one has visited for days and Xenkovna can do all of the things I can without real medicine. Make sure you and the boys do everything the Comrades ask of you. I’ll be back in two days.”
Auntie’s transformation was amazing. I sat and watched her put ash in her dark brown hair till it looked gray. She found the oldest ragged coat she could get her hands on. It must have come from the Unravelled One’s trunk because I never saw it till that day. She wrapped her head in a black kerchief and wrapped her feet in extra rags before she put on her felt boots. The shadows under her eyes and her sinking cheeks needed no enhancement as we all looked underfed. She wrapped her best embroidery and the little silver spoon that I had found in the river into a small bundle which fit inconspicuously under her shawl.
“Don’t forget to say your prayers,” she said over her shoulder before she disappeared around the bend where I stood in this gray, miserable dawn thinking over the events of the last two months.
I better hurry, I thought. Mitya wants to get going to the lookout spot. Michael and Alexander must be freezing by now. Before Auntie left it was agreed that she wouldn’t come straight home. If she were fortunate enough to get some food, we must make sure that it wasn’t discovered. She agreed to meet either Mitya or the cousins at the place where the Unravelled One’s house had stood. Since the villagers were superstitious, no one would go looking for her there. Even the Comrades were skittish when it came to things that were connected with the supernatural despite their denunciations of God as a fairy tale. Nevertheless, it had been three days since Auntie had gone. The men kept watch for her faithfully since the night before l
ast, but there was no sign of her yet.
A gust of wind caught at my shawl as I hesitated on the path. I picked up my pail and hurried towards the well.
I better go back and fill the other pail too, I thought. It looked like a blizzard was going to blow in. I certainly didn’t want to have to go for water later.
“It’s about time,” Mitya said when I returned to the house. “I hope Auntie doesn’t get stuck in this weather. Look at those clouds.”
“The weather could be the least of her problems,” Uncle Misha said with a yawn. “Put on the tea and we’ll relieve the boys.”
“Oh Uncle, you shouldn’t go out with me,” Mitya said. “The snow is blowing in pretty good. Maybe you should stay in and rest.”
Uncle Misha coughed and reached for the rags that he used for extra warmth inside his boots.
“Come on girls, get that tea going. I’ll not lie about while my sons catch frostbite.” So we watched Mitya and Uncle Misha go out into the cold. The morning dragged on as Xenkovna and I coaxed tea into the younger cousins and watched them take turns spitting it back. Their laboured breath was getting shallower as the hours passed by. They hadn’t cried since last night. The boys came back and bundled up to sleep by the fire. By noon, the snow was falling steadily. Suddenly Xenkovna dropped Marta and ran out into one of the smaller rooms of the house. She stamped her feet and shrieked at the top of her lungs.
“I can’t take this anymore,” she cried. “If one of them dies it’ll be my fault. Mama will never forgive me.”
“Are they going to die?” I asked. I felt my eyes pop in stunned disbelief. No one said a word about anyone dying!
“What—what’s going on?” Michael jumped into consciousness. “Who’s dying?”
“I don’t know,” I said through my own deluge of tears. “Xenkovna says that they might die.” I flung my arm in the young cousins’ direction, but didn’t dare say that I thought they were looking a little blue.
Xenkovna was sobbing now. Michael got up and went to his sister.
“What’s going on?” he asked gently.
“They’re not any better ... I can’t help them ... I’m so tired ... Mama will kill me if they die. I’m so tired.”
“I’ll stay with them,” he said. “You go and get some sleep. If Mama comes home and sees you like this, it won’t be good. We must be strong. Mama knows that you’re doing your best. We all are.”
“But Taras ... he’s gone and now the little ones ... It’s just not right ... I’m so tired ...” Michael held her in his arms as she went on sobbing. When there were no more tears left, he brought her back to the fire where we let her sleep while we tended to the sick ones. Alexander got up when he heard Xenkovna’s outburst. He went out to refill the water pails. He stacked wood till there was no more room for it in the house. We sat without speaking till twilight crept in.
“Philipovna,” Alexander finally said. “It looks like Marta is turning bluish— or is it the dark afternoon?”
“I don’t know,” I answered. I didn’t bother saying that the Children sounded more like hissing snakes than little ones breathing.
“Light the candle. They’ll be looking for it,” Michael said.
I found a candle and placed it in the window. We sat without speaking again. There was nothing else I could do. No one remembered to make tea. Although Alexander tended the fire, it didn’t seem to be warming the room.
Outside, the wind was blowing harder and the snow was getting thicker. I could feel its draft sneaking through the patched holes in the walls and I knew that if it got any stronger it would have that moaning sound, the one that Taras Shevchenko wrote about in his famous poem about the Dnipro River. The sound of the groaning river and sighing wind not only chilled me to the bone, but would frighten me when I tried to sleep. What if Auntie lost her way? I dared not think about such a terrible thing. Finally Xenkovna woke up again. Her eyes were puffy from crying, but she seemed to be better.
“Do you hear anything?” she said.
We listened.
“Helloooooo, the house!” Someone was shouting in the wind.
“Who’s that?” I asked. “Uncle and Mitya wouldn’t be shouting like that, would they?”
“Something must have gone wrong,” Xenkovna said wringing her hands in fear.
“All of you stay right here,” Michael said. “I’ll check it out.”
“I’m coming with you,” Alexander said. “You’ll lose your way in this blizzard.”
“No, you won’t. Someone has to stay here in case it’s the Comrades again. I wouldn’t put it past them to try to pull another stupid stunt.” He lit a lantern but as soon as he opened the door, its light was blown out.
“Ah, fury,” he said. “This won’t be of any damned use.” He banged down the lantern and out he went into the freezing night with nothing to guide him.
We listened again and after what felt like an hour we heard some stumbling at the door.
Alexander jumped to his feet.
“Who is it?” he asked.
“Open up!” a voice called out and its owner thumped on the door.
“Not till you say who it is,” Alexander yelled.
“For the love of God! Don’t you recognize me—your own father?”
Alexander opened the door a crack.
Viktor started to cry.
Then the wind blew Michael, and Uncle with Auntie in his arms, through the door. Before I could ask about Mitya, he, with two men whom I had never seen before, tumbled in after them. They were dragging a sack. Michael had to put his shoulder to the door and latch it shut against the storm.
Xenkovna rushed to her mother.
“Whoa, not so fast,” one of the strangers said. “I’m Dr. Bondarenko. She may be suffering from frostbite. We need to warm her up slowly. Put some water to heat on the fire — but don’t let it get too hot.”
Xenkovna did is she was told.
They laid Auntie onto one of the sleeping benches and slowly unwrapped the blanket that the doctor put around her. It looked like she was unconscious, but she reached out her hand when Uncle Misha spoke gently to her.
“You see her cheeks and nose,” the doctor said to Uncle Misha. “They’re all white. No rubbing, you’ll damage the skin. Her eyelashes are frozen together. We have to bathe them gently with warm water. And don’t put her right beside the stove right away either. Is there any tea in the house?”
I jumped up to fill the kettle.
Meanwhile, Viktor’s crying got louder and louder. It was only when he started with another coughing fit that the doctor realized that there were any Children in the room.
“Good Heavens! What do we have here? Bring a lamp—now.” He turned to the little cousins. “And my medicine bag. He picked Maria up first. Beneath the lamplight her face was a shade of pale lilac. Her breath had developed a sinister whistling sound and she was too tired to cry. The doctor gently placed a thumb on her chin and opened her mouth. Another cough from Maria sent white phlegm flying everywhere. It was the first time I saw the horrible expression of despair that would become commonplace on the faces of the adults in the village as the winter dragged by.
“She has diphtherial croup. She should have been tended to long before this,” he said. “I’ll give you medicine, but whether or not she will be able to swallow any is another story. It looks like her throat is almost closed with the membrane that grows in the throat with this sickness. Now let’s look at the others.”
“We couldn’t get permission to go for medicine,” Xenkovna said.
“Yes, that’s what your Mama said before she passed out in the wagon.”
He handed Maria to me and went on to examine Marta. She didn’t make a sound either. The furrow on his brow deepened as he gave her over to Xenkovna. But it was obvious that the diagnosis was the same. I noticed that Marta’s skin had turned that funny shade of lilac too. Viktor wouldn’t stay still, but the doctor prevailed and did what he could for him.
; Once the medicine was administered and the Children tucked up again, we sat down by the fire. Auntie opened her eyes and slowly wakened. Uncle Misha bathed her face with warm water. He wrapped her in a blanket and sat her in a chair by the fire. Her hands were too stiff to hold her cup so Uncle helped her sip at the tea.
For the first time since they arrived, the doctor’s companion spoke.
“We’ll sit for an hour and then we must go,” he said.
“Yes, Slavko,” the doctor said. “I know you risked a lot to bring us here. We can’t be caught in this zone.”
“But you’re a doctor!” Uncle Misha said. “Surely you don’t have any restrictions.”
“It seems that he does,” Auntie said weakly. “Let them rest and I’ll tell you the whole story.”
“I have no money to pay for the medicine,” Uncle said.
“We can concern ourselves with those matters later,” the doctor said. “The important thing is that I don’t get caught here by the Comrades.”
“Xenkovna,” Auntie said, “open the sack and boil some porridge. That’s all we have to offer.”
“Thank you,” the doctor said. “We only have time for tea.”
We made a place for Slavko and Doctor Bondarenko by the fire.
They accepted our hospitality, but Slavko kept his eye on the window.
“It’s a good thing you found me on the road,” Auntie said slowly. “When I left home a few days ago, I walked to the first checkpoint. I was very scared that they wouldn’t let me go through, but I acted like I didn’t really know where I was going. The Comrades in uniform laughed and said that if I got lost it wouldn’t matter because it was time an old woman like me was on life’s final journey anyway. So I smiled back at them and kept on going. The Comrades’ reaction made me feel more confident. It meant that my disguise was working.”
Between slow sips of tea and pauses for rest, Auntie went on to tell us how she walked to a town which was two towns away because that was where people told her the nearest market was. At the checkpoint to the market town the Comrades were much more thorough. They searched her— pockets, bundle and all. They made her show them everything she was carrying, and as she had suspected the day I first found the silver spoon, there was trouble. They asked for her papers and lectured her for leaving her town without them. They demanded to know about the real silver. They detained her for hours and questioned her as to who gave it to her; did she belong to the bourgeois family whose initials were on the handle of the spoon?
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