Philipovna

by Valentina Gal

  “I don’t know how we’ll go on all winter with so little fuel,” Auntie said. “You just get a log in and split it before we have to burn it for the evening fire.”

  “We’re doing the best we can, woman,” Uncle Misha said. “What do you want with no horses or wagons? It doesn’t help that we have no energy either. It takes me all day to do what I used to do in an hour not more than two years ago. The boys are helping, but it’s all we can do to drag one of those blasted logs home, never mind cutting it into something you can throw onto the hearth. Remember to keep your fire small, just big enough to do what you need or we’ll freeze this winter before we can starve to death.” He finished with short breath and yet another coughing fit.

  “Don’t teach me how to build my fires,” she snapped back uncharacteristically.

  One morning as I cleared the table of our breakfast tea things, I heard the sound of an army truck. No one had to tell me. I knew that the time for revenge from the Comrades had come. Uncle Ivan and some Party men that I didn’t recognize emerged from the vehicle and tried to barge into our kitchen.

  “Hold your horses,” Uncle Misha said as he fumbled with the latch on the cottage door.

  “Good to see that you’re receiving guests this morning,” Uncle Ivan said.

  “I issued no invitation,” Uncle Misha said.

  “We’re not here on a neighbourly visit. Get your hat, Michael Ivanowich, and call your boys. Your services are needed for Father Stalin.”

  “I have no plans to be out today. Nor do I owe any services to the kolhosp. I’m not even a member, have you forgotten?”

  “No matter. You are raising an enemy of the people in this house so we mean to teach you where your priorities should be.”

  “An enemy of the people?”

  “Yes. An enemy of the people. Did your niece not say to Comrade Asimov that we killed your son? And did she not say that Father Stalin’s army was responsible? Did she not say that I was involved too?”

  “I don’t know. I was here and she was at school. And may I remind you that she is the top student in her form.”

  “She may be the top student in her form, but she has no manners. She can’t keep her mouth shut either. She also has her mind filled with old fashioned fairy tales, does she not?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “She seems to have some notion that things would be better off with Jesus. You should have cured her of that fairy tale long ago. The state is her new Heaven and Father Stalin her ruler.”

  “Her new Heaven?” Uncle Misha spat at Uncle Ivan’s feet. “With the fairy tale of happy well-fed farmers? While two of her sisters and one brother have passed for no reason other than the greed and filth of the Party?”

  Uncle Ivan pulled out his revolver.

  “Listen here, you stupid, stubborn man. We’re cleaning up this village for the good of the new order whether you like it or not. You can hold out and die or co-operate. That is your choice. We’ll take your land, one way or another. But today, I need workers—workers to bring in the wood for this winter so you’re coming or I’ll blow off your head and the heads of your sons if I have to. As for your mouthy brat, her name is up for examination by the court. The only thing that is keeping her from being picked up is her tender age. She should have been off to prison long ago. No one gets away with treasonous statements like that, so you better stuff her mouth full of rags if you know what’s good for your family.”

  He gave me one of his lecherous stares and motioned to Michael and Alexander to move out along with Uncle Misha. What could they do? He had the gun. They grabbed a hat and jacket and hurried off into the army vehicle. They didn’t return until long after dark.

  The next morning, the army truck and Uncle Ivan arrived bright and early to pick up Uncle Misha and the cousins. They barely had time to swallow their tea before they were off for another day of forced labour. Xenkovna and I decided that we would go out to see if we could gather dead wood from the orchard as a way to try to build up our fuel supply. It was critical now as we didn’t know how long the Comrades would keep our men in servitude.

  “Do you think we can get Mitya to help us?” I wondered.

  “Who knows?” Xenkovna said. “He’s so strange these days. I’m afraid he’s becoming like his poor mother.”

  I said nothing more as that thought frightened me. I couldn’t imagine how he would live in the shadowy world of the woods all by himself with only fairies and goblins as companions. I started down the path toward the orchard. I was so involved in my mind’s wanderings that I almost bumped into the stooped, old man who was walking up the path toward me.

  “Good day Uncle,” Xenkovna said from behind me. “What can I do for you this morning?”

  “Xenkovna, don’t you recognize me?” he asked.

  Then it dawned on me.

  “Uncle Paulo?” I asked. “Is that you, really?”

  “Philipovna, mind your manners.” Xenkovna stepped up on the path beside me.

  We stared at him as if we’d never seen him before. This once solid well-built, robust man with ruddy cheeks and kind eyes looked as if he’d emerged from a grave. His gray skin hung in bags from his cheeks and chin and his eyes had lost their brown lustre. It looked as if every step would be his last.

  “Is that really you?” Xenkovna, who usually could control her composure as well as Auntie, wept openly. “Come in, come in. Mama will be glad to see you. I’m sure we’ll find a cup of tea— or something for you.”

  We turned back into the house and found Auntie praying before the icon.

  “For the love of God, what have they done to you?” she exclaimed upon recognizing Uncle Paulo. She stopped and took a long look, too.

  “I haven’t got much strength left,” he said. “Is Misha here? I’d like to say what I have to say to the both of you.”

  “No, he’s not. The Comrades came and collected the men to bring in wood today,” Auntie said. She proceeded to tell Uncle Paulo what happened over the last winter since he had been here for his chess game.

  “Dear God,” he sighed and wiped his eyes with his sleeve. “How wrong I was. Please tell Misha that he’s right. Though these devils have broken our spirit and taken our land, by the Cross, Misha is right and has been right all along. They will surely defeat us and I say by the Name of our Saviour, they will be worse than any Tsar we’ve ever known. They preach well-being and prosperity but they’ll take everything we have and all we stand for.”

  The tears flowed freely over his sunken cheeks.

  “But we know all of that,” he said. “I guess Misha doesn’t really need to hear it again. Would you please tell him that I came to ask for his forgiveness? I doubt I’ll see the end of this week. I couldn’t go to my precious Maria without asking you to pardon me. I should have never given them my land. My heart broke in two when I watched them chase your Children out of my cherries. I used to love to see the joy on all of the faces that my orchard blessed. My dear neighbour, by the Grace of God, I ask for your forgiveness too.” He reached for Auntie’s hand and kissed it.

  Xenkovna and I stared at him in silence.

  “I have one more thing to tell you,” he said. “Take Philipovna away from here. Take her as far away as you can, so that Ivan can’t get his hands on her. After he and Simon found out what she said to Asimov, they’ve been looking for pay back. I won’t say what he threatened as she is so young and still innocent, but you must get her away — at all costs or death will be the least of her trials.”

  He wiped the sweat off his forehead and finished his tea while we three women sat with our mouths gaping.

  “Where should I take her?” Auntie was the first to speak. “Where? Do you have any ideas?”

  “But I don’t want to go anywhere,” I said.

  “What you want, Child, is irrelevant,” Uncle Paulo said. “What we all want doesn’t matter. We want you to survive. That’s what matters. If you young ones don’t make it, o
ur lives are worth nothing. Our history, our culture, it’ll all surely die. I won’t make it; but you must! You must. For the love of God, for the love of our land and for the love of our ancestors, you must.”

  He said goodbye and went on his way. We didn’t get up to see him to the door. We were so stunned by what he had come to say. We knew that we would never see him again. His words rang in our ears. Each one of us knew that the others were playing them over and over in our minds, but we didn’t have the energy to speak or move for a very long time.

  “Come along,” Auntie finally said. She got up from her chair and went into the room where Mama’s sewing machine was. She pulled out her trunk and started rifling through its contents.

  “We have to find something that we can wrap around you under your clothes,” she said. “I don’t imagine that they keep a good fire at the orphanage. Now put on this shirt under your blouse. It’s old, but it will keep you warm.” She handed me one of the boy cousins’ undergarments.

  “Orphanage!” I screamed at her. “I don’t want to go. I won’t go. I’ll run away the first chance I get.” I stamped my foot.

  “Settle down, Child. Today isn’t the first time I’ve thought of taking you there,” Auntie said. “I promised your mother, on her bible—see. It’s right here. I look at it often and remember. If no one else survives, you have to— you must. I promised.”

  Her tears flowed and she clutched the bible in the same way as I remembered her doing on the day that Godfather decided that I should go with her. She put her arms around me with Mama’s bible between our chests.

  “Do it for your precious Mama, if you can’t do it for me,” she said, whispering. “God has set you aside for something. I don’t know what it is, but I’m sure there is something special that you are being prepared for. Please, Child, do it for your Mama if you can’t for me. I promised your Mama and Godfather ... there is no other way. You must survive.”

  I put on two layers of clothing under my regular blouse; I wrapped my feet with extra rags and stuffed them into a pair of felt boots. Auntie took a small bundle of poppy tea and told me to keep it under my inner clothing.

  “Don’t use this all of the time,” she said. “Save it for those nights that you absolutely can’t sleep or when you really can’t tolerate the pain. It will stand you in good stead if you can manage it. And, for the love of our Blessed Jesus, don’t let any grown-up find you with it. You’re smart enough to do this.”

  She tucked some raw carrots into another small bundle. She found the Unravelled One’s coat that she had almost frozen to death in last winter. She put ashes into her dark brown hair, although she didn’t have to use as many as last time. She kissed Xenkovna goodbye and waited while Xenkovna hugged me with her tears falling all over my face.

  “Tell the men what happened,” she said. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. At least I won’t freeze my hands and feet off this time.”

  We were off to start another new life. We walked down the familiar path that led around the orchard with its naked branches and wound to the river. We followed the river’s bank past the place where we found the Unravelled One by the willows. Their straggly skeletons seemed to be mocking me as they shivered in the cold wind. We crossed the dell whose flowers had long departed and whose grass blew brown and lifeless, as uninviting as the stubble of an empty field. Yet, this was home, the first home that I really participated in, even though it had been prescribed by Godfather and not one that I had been born into like everyone else. To be ripped from its meagre comfort was worse than any death that I had witnessed.

  Auntie pushed on briskly. She kept her eyes directly on the path and wouldn’t look either to the right or left. We followed the river for about half a kilometre before she suddenly stepped off the path and into the forest. She motioned for me to follow. At first it looked like there was no evidence of anyone ever having walked here but, as I became accustomed to the hard travelling, I realized that there had been a trail here some time ago. It had been neglected and hidden.

  “Why are we going this way?” I asked.

  “It’s a short cut,” she replied over her shoulder. “And I doubt if the Comrades have discovered it yet. If they had, there would be a patrol here.”

  “Where does it come out?”

  “At the pasture of the old estate.” “How do you know this path?”

  “Your Mama and I visited the Unravelled One here in the evenings when she was supposed to be shut up in her little room embroidering or sewing or knitting. Now stop talking and save your energy for walking.”

  She pressed on at such a pace that I had no more breath for questions. Within a half an hour, we found ourselves at what was left of a gate in an old, broken-down rail fence.

  We didn’t go across the pasture. We skirted its edge, always checking for any unexpected company, and by late afternoon, Auntie deemed it safe to go on the road that went toward the town where she traded the silver for wheat. We walked for hours, until the gloomy afternoon deepened into twilight and she started looking for a place to settle for the night.

  “We must find shelter soon,” Auntie Xena said. “It looks like it might rain.”

  We passed a cottage that looked inviting with its candle in the window, but Auntie wouldn’t knock on the door.

  “I’m tired,” I said.

  “We don’t want anyone to remember seeing us on the road. I’m sure we’ll find something more suitable,” she answered, and we walked on with me dragging my legs as if they were great trunks of trees. We passed by another cottage with a candle in the window.

  “Please, Auntie, I’m tired. I can’t walk anymore.”

  She looked back at me with a sympathetic tear sneaking out of her left eye.

  “We’ll check the barn,” she said. “Maybe we can rest here without being discovered.”

  “Isn’t it warmer in the house?” I asked.

  “It might be,” she said, “but we can’t count on the folks being friendly. They might accuse us of begging or trying to steal their food. They might turn us in if the Comrades come asking.”

  We carefully sneaked around the back of the house. Fortunately, there was a well behind it with a dipper. We took a long cold drink of water. I wished we had some warm tea as the damp day was starting to make itself felt right into my bones. We checked out the barn. It reminded me of the Unravelled One’s cottage with its cobwebs and scary shadows which were all the more prominent without a candle. I was sure that the Unravelled One would summon up some demon or chort that would put some spell on Auntie and me as we slept. Part of it had already been broken down, not by age or neglect, but I could see that someone had been chopping at the old barn intentionally with an axe or hatchet.

  “Why do you think that half of the barn is missing?” I asked.

  “They probably needed firewood and for some reason couldn’t go to the woods to get it.”

  “Will Uncle and the boys have to chop apart our barn for firewood?”

  “Who knows what we’ll have to do, Child. Now eat your carrots.”

  We found some dirty straw on the floor. Auntie found an old broom and swept it into a pile in the back corner. We sat on the straw and ate our carrots for supper.

  “Now get on your knees so we can say our prayers.”

  She prayed a long prayer, praising His Name, thanking God for my life and hers, blessing those who were left at home and praying for our safety. It was a prayer that I would recite over and over again many times in the coming months. She spread the Unravelled One’s coat on the straw and covered us, as well as she could with her own shawl. We huddled together and as the rain began to fall onto the half of the roof that was left on the barn, I fell into a fitful sleep.

  My New Home

  IWOKE IN the gray dawn, at the time of day when it is between dark and light. I was cold and stiff. I didn’t recognize where I was. Auntie was already up straightening her rumpled clothing. My bones hurt from the hard ground. I felt cranky.

/>   “Get up, Philipovna,” Auntie said. “Smooth out your blouse the best you can. Hurry with your coat and shawl. We must get walking before someone finds out we’re here. We can’t take a chance on being reported to the Comrades.”

  I yawned and rewrapped my cold feet in their rags so that there wouldn’t be any lumps in my felt boots. I combed my messy braid with my fingers.

  “We’ll get another drink of water and be on our way,” she said.

  We wrapped our shawls over our heads to ward off the morning mist. We tucked our coats around us. I peeked around the corner of the barn.

  “I can’t see anyone at the well,” I said. We cautiously started toward the pitcher that we used last night and its promised cold drink of water.

  “Ho, who’s this?” a man said, his voice broke the morning silence.

  I stifled a scream.

  Though the man spoke quietly, his voice startled both Auntie and me as if it were a shot from a cannon. He appeared from nowhere, but he must have come from around the other side of the house. He was tall and lanky, a walking skeleton with unkempt graying hair. His coat was as ragged as our clothing was and his feet were wrapped in rags with no boots at all. In spite of my own discomfort, I felt sorry for him. Though his pale eyes were dull and his cheeks sunken, I could see that he had been strong like Uncle Misha before the famine set in.

  “Where did you come from?” he asked.

  “I can’t say,” Auntie said. “Please, good Uncle, let us have a drink and we’ll be going. Just pretend that you never set your eyes on us.”

  “But where did you come from? Have you and the Child been walking all night?” His voice sounded kind to me, so full of concern.

  “No, good sir, we sheltered in your barn, by the Grace of God. We thank you for it,” Auntie said in an unusually crisp manner.

  “Have you eaten?”

  Neither of us responded. Auntie stared straight at the well.

  “A drink is all we need,” she said.