In a strange way, this story comforted some of the Children whose parents had died. They all swore that they would be like the good son and would take care of their parents’ graves when they grew up so that they, too, might earn a visit with their lost ones.
“What happens if we can’t find our Mama’s grave?” a quiet little boy from the corner by the stove asked. “The Comrades took my Mama and threw her into a big hole with a bunch of other dead people. Then they covered it up with a machine. We weren’t allowed to say good-bye.”
“You’ll just have to find a nice place that your Mama might have liked and remember her there,” Nikolaiovna said. She dabbed at the corner of her eye with the edge of her shawl.
My favourite was Nikolaiovna’s version of Ivan, the Dragon Slayer. None of us could believe how stupid the dragon really was. His stupidity was so silly that, though the dragon and his mother were hideous and terrible, none of the Children were afraid of him. They laughed at Ivan when he fooled the dragon by squeezing rivers of whey from the varenyky which he had stuffed into his pants and shirt.
“Could anyone really make such a scary dragon believe that Ivan was squeezing water out of the big rock?” one of the little boys asked.
They cheered when Ivan thumped the dragon between the eyes with a rock and clapped their hands when Ivan outsmarted the dragon’s attempt at burning him alive. But the best part was when the dragon went away. Ivan could live in his peaceful village and grow up to be a farmer. No one ever said a word, but I could see the shadows on the Children’s faces and feel their longing for home every time Nikolaiovna told the story.
She asked if we knew any of the stories from our own family. She said that if we could remember them we should, since it was one way we could always hang onto a small part of our parents and grandparents. Some of the older Children told stories that they remembered from around their own hearth, and sometimes the memory of those tales brought on tears. I liked telling the one about the fox going to market and meeting all of the small creatures of the forest as he went.
“Why does a Russian lady like you know so many Ukrainian stories?” I asked the Comrade.
“Because my Mama was Ukrainian and only my Papa was Russian. My Babusya told me the Ukrainian stories and my Papa told me the Russian ones. We had such good times, my sister Natasha and I. She was so little and beautiful with her black curls and hazel eyes. Papa made a big swing that hung in the tree at the front of our house where we sat and ‘told lies’ for hours, especially after Mama died. Natasha’s favourite was the one about Tsarevitch Ivan, the Firebird and the Gray Wolf. Do you know that one?”
“No,” I said. “No one has ever told me a Russian story.”
“Have any of the rest of you heard a Russian tale before?” she asked.
None of the others had heard one either. So she agreed that the next day we would work extra hard before we gathered and she would tell us about Tsarevitch Ivan, the Firebird and the Gray Wolf.
“Aren’t wolves dangerous?” one of the smallest girls asked.
“Don’t they eat chickens and little Children? I’m already scared.”
“Not if they are magic wolves,” Nikolaiovna said. “You’ll have to wait and see. It’s a long story so you will all have to get ready sooner tomorrow. And if there’s any fighting or grumbling ...”
“We know,” one of the little girls said, grinning, “there’ll be no story.”
The next day felt like a holiday. Our enthusiasm must have infected Ivanovna because she started the day with the hint of a smile. The wood was brought in; the floor was swept and the blankets were folded for the day in no time. By noon, the smaller Children were impatient. I found myself hurrying through my chores.
I helped Ivanovna with the medicine in the morning as usual and fed some of the sicker Children their porridge. I tidied up the blankets and tried to make their cramped beds a little more comfortable. As I was giving Gregory his mid-morning drink, one of the girls came in with Malenka.
“She’s so crabby this morning. We can’t do anything with her. Nikolaiovna told me to give her to you since you’re her Little Mama.” She plunked Malenka at my feet and went out to the other room heaving a sigh of relief. Malenka sat staring at me with dull eyes and a fitful face.
“You have to wait,” I said.
She sat on the floor, pouting until I was finished. I picked her up and cuddled her for a while. She clung to me the way she usually did at bedtime.
“Now go play like a good girl,” I said. “I have a lot to do. Pretty soon we’ll listen to a story. You can sit with me then.”
I took her out of the sick room and settled her to play with the others.
As Nikolaiovna was getting ready to tell her story, I took my usual place by the door of the sick room with my ragged blanket around me. It took Malenka a long time to get comfortable. Usually, she would lay her head in the crook of my arm or against my shoulder and fall asleep but today, she squirmed and fussed. Her arms and legs were jerking about as if someone had wound them up with springs. I quietly hummed the lullaby I heard Auntie sing to the twins while Nikolaiovna put more wood into the stove and stirred the fire.
“Come on, Malenka,” I said. “I want to hear the story.” I stroked her red-gold hair, the way I did when I tried to get her to sleep on a restless night. I couldn’t resist sticking my fingers into that mass of shiny curls as tangled and wild as it was.
“Are we all here?” Nikolaiovna asked.
The little ones crowded around her like a flock of chickens around a mother hen. It reminded me of Xenkovna with our own little ones. The room grew quiet as she began:
“Once upon a time, there was a very rich tsar named Vyslav. He lived in a palace which had a beautiful garden, the most beautiful garden in the world. The trees of this garden bore fruit made of sparkling jewels. But his favourite was the one which grew apples made of gold. He had three sons, Tsarevitch Dimitri, Tsarevitch Vasilii and the youngest, Tsarevitch Ivan.”
I was impatient with Malenka’s restlessness. I wanted to listen to Nikolaiovna’s rich voice with its exotic accent. She told how the firebird came at night to steal the golden apples, with its shining crystal eyes and feathers as bright as the brightest moonlight. But Malenka kept on fussing.
“Nikolaiovna,” one of the littlest girls asked, “what is crystal?”
I was happy that she asked because I didn’t know what crystal was either.
“It’s the most sparkling glass you’ve ever seen,” she said. “It’s made with lead and melted into beautiful things like glasses and vases. When it comes off of the glass blower’s wand, it has to cool and set. Then, someone cuts pretty designs in it that send rainbows winking all around a room when candlelight hits the glass or vase.”
Nikolaiovna told us how the two older sons fell asleep when their father commanded them to watch for the thief who stole the golden apples and how Tsarevitch Ivan pricked his own thigh with his dagger in order not to fall asleep. It was so exciting to imagine what the crystal eyes of the bird would look like with their glinting rainbows and the glowing feather that Tsarevitch Ivan finally grabbed out of the fire bird’s tail and wrapped in his handkerchief to prove to his father that he had really stayed awake to watch it come.
Malenka got crankier. I noticed that her breath had a funny smell. Maybe she was thirsty. I finally slipped into the sick room and gave her a little drink of Gregory’s tea.
As Nikolaiovna went on to tell about how the brothers were sent out to look for the firebird, the tea started to do its work. Malenka’s limbs slowly stopped their flopping and, like a rag doll, she finally fell asleep. I was glad. I could get lost in the tale at last.
Would the brothers find the firebird? I wondered who put the stone in the green meadow and who could have written the strange messages on it. I held my breath as Tsarevitch Ivan pondered over his choices. I cried with Tsarevitch Ivan when his horse died. How did the wolf know who Tsarevitch Ivan was after he had wandered a
ll day through a strange forest? Oh, of course, he was a magic wolf. I held my breath with anticipation when Tsarevitch Ivan climbed onto the wolf’s back to fly to the firebird’s palace. What would it be like to really fly like that? Wasn’t it amazing that the wolf knew where to go? And how could it be possible that, after getting the firebird, the golden bridle and falling in love with the beautiful Tsarevna Helen, Tsarevitch Ivan was cut up into pieces by his brothers?
Malenka was deeply asleep now. She seemed to be heavier than usual. When I moved her because my left arm was feeling numb from her weight, I noticed that her cheeks looked a bit pink. But Nikolaiovna’s story was moving forward so I shifted Malenka’s weight to the other shoulder and listened on. The gray wolf found Tsarevitch Ivan who had been cut up into pieces and brought him back to life after he made the crow fetch the waters of life and death. There was a stir of disbelief among the Children.
“Can someone really come back to life like that?” one of the little boys asked.
“My Mama said that Jesus did,” one of the little girls said.
“Shhhh,” Nikolaiovna said. “You can ask questions later. Don’t break the magic spell.”
And she went on to finish. She told how the wolf brought Tsarevitch Ivan back to the palace in the nick of time before the marriage of Helen to the false brother could take place. Nikolaiovna told how Helen the Beautiful related to Tsar Vyslav that the older brothers cut Tsarevitch Ivan into pieces while he was sleeping and threatened her with death if she ever spoke a word about what had happened.
We were all so relieved when the two older brothers were put into prison. We were thrilled to hear about how Tsarevitch Ivan came back to life. We hung on every detail of the fantastic celebration when Tsarevitch Ivan and Helen the Beautiful were married and could finally live happily ever after.
As the Children asked Nikolaiovna their questions, I tried to get comfortable with Malenka. She seemed so heavy and hot.
Hot? I thought. It isn’t hot in here. It isn’t even warm! What’s happening?
Malenka’s face wasn’t pink any more. Her cheeks were flushed red with fever. I jumped up.
“Ivanovna! Look at her! Why is she so hot?”
I knew before she could take one look. Malenka’s breathing was shallow. She had the croup.
“Calm yourself,” Ivanovna said. “Little Children can have fever for any reason, even a little cold or tummy ache. She’s healthy as things go and she has shown no sign of running nose or coughing. I need you to keep your head.”
I couldn’t keep my head. I tried to do what I always did yet, as the afternoon crept into evening, I kept making mistakes. I spilled some of the precious medicine down the front of one of the sick Children. I forgot to make Gregory’s new batch of tea. I earned a cuff on my ear from the impatient Ivanovna when I didn’t hear Larysa call me to help her move a bigger girl until she dropped her onto the floor.
“Will you keep your mind on what you’re doing!” Ivanovna said. “Since that Malenka got sick, you’re useless.”
“She looks like she has the croup. Her face, her breathing. The twins looked like that too. And then she’s going to sound funny and spit up phlegm and sound like a snake and turn purple. And then she’ll die! She’ll die ...”
Smack! I didn’t see Ivanovna’s hand coming. I sobbed louder.
“You’re right,” she said. “She may have the croup. That doesn’t mean you can fall apart and terrify everyone else. Even if she dies, you have to keep your wits about you. What’s the matter with you? Someone is dying here every week. I have no one else and Nikolaiovna has even less help than I do. We’re doing as well as we can.”
I slumped onto the floor by Gregory’s bed and sobbed. The Comrades didn’t do anything to stop me. Larysa stepped over and around me trying to keep things going. I sobbed and sobbed until I fell asleep there.
When I woke up, it was night. The house was as quiet as a house on a funeral day. Ivanovna was sitting by her candle with Malenka in her arms. Malenka’s breath was raspy. As I quietly approached she looked straight into my eyes and tried to smile. That horrible cough caught her mid-smile and that familiar sound ripped at my heart as if someone had swiped at me with a jagged piece of glass.
“Ivanovna,” I whispered.
She acknowledged me with an exhausted stare.
“Ivanovna,” I started again. I knelt at her feet.
“If I begged you, would you get Malenka some good medicine from the doctor in town?”
“Child, if I had the means, I would do anything to get good medicine. But you know yourself, I only have what the Party gives me — and”— the tears were trickling out of her exhausted eyes — “you know there’s never enough and that they don’t care about us.”
“I know how we could get a little bit of good medicine. If we could even just get enough for Malenka, and, and maybe for Gregory ...”
“Child.” Her tears were streaming now. “No medicine will help Gregory. If he lasts a week, he’ll be lucky; the suffering will just drag on. He’s too weak, too tired and doesn’t have enough food to recover from a mosquito bite, never mind a catastrophe like that. Don’t waste your tears on him. It’s just a matter of time. If God is as merciful as everyone says, He’d take the poor boy this minute!”
“Ivanovna, if I tell you how, would you get Malenka some medicine? If any is left you can use it for someone else.”
“Child, is the cold numbing your brilliant mind or what? Don’t let your roof slide off its beams or I’m really in trouble.”
“My roof is still nailed on. If I tell you a secret and show you something, will you go for good medicine?”
“What secret could a little urchin like you possibly have? And what would you know about getting good medicine?”
I felt as if I was bargaining with Mitya again. I had one good shot at getting what I wanted. I either would have to tell her or forget about it. If Malenka had any chance of living, I’d have to do it. I got up and reached for her clothing.
“No, don’t give her to me,” I said. “Not yet. I want to show you something.”
I revealed the little cross.
“Look at that!” she said, her eyes wide with surprise. “I never thought you could keep such secrets. You’re much tougher than you look. If anyone survives this misery, it will surely be you.”
“It’s a small cross. But it’s heavy and, if you take it to the old woman who sells onions at the market, she can show you where the doctor is.”
“It’s beautiful,” Ivanovna said. “It looks like it may be very old and expensive. You’re not from this town. How would you know about the woman at the market and how would you know where a doctor would be? I’d be risking my own skin. You know we’re not allowed to mix with the villagers even though we work for the Party. We’re not supposed to talk about what goes on here.”
I had no choice but to sit at Ivanovna’s tired feet and tell her about the day that Auntie risked her life by walking through the snowstorm. I told of how she begged for bread and traded her silver spoon for wheat and how she was rescued by the doctor.
“If I tell you his name,” I said, “please, please don’t tell anyone. I know he’ll give you medicine. I saw his eyes when he tried to save the twins and Viktor. He wants to save Children, all of them, just like you do.”
She promised that she wouldn’t tell. She said that she would think about taking the cross and trading it. So I took the fevering Malenka from her. I watched Ivanovna settle herself onto her sleeping bench. As I sat through the long, dark hours of that early spring night, I was frightened.
Would Ivanovna keep her word? Would she tell the Party men? Would they put me on trial like they did at Christmas? If they did would it be a simple but shameful round of harassing me? Or would they send me to Siberia this time? I was older now, and I could hear Comrade Asimov’s words in my head: I should know that the old ways were dead and that we should obey Father Stalin if we were to be good little Russians. I knew tha
t the punishment would be meted out according to my supposed sins and that I already had several close calls. Except for the Grace of God, I couldn’t keep on being lucky. As young as I was, I had the sense to know it well. I stared at the candle as it burned to a stub and prayed to the imagined face of my Mama in the heart of the flame.
“Mama, Please let Malenka live. She’s so beautiful. If I die, please let them do it quickly. It might be easier to come to you, and Viktor and the twins and ...”
I must have succumbed to a fitful sleep. Ivanovna was shaking my shoulder and the sheet over the window was faintly glowing yellow with another cold dawn.
“Give me the cross,” she whispered in my ear. “You know how to do the medicine. Not a word to anyone about where I’m going. Tell Marina Nikolaiovna I’m on an errand and nothing more. We’ll both catch it if anyone knows where I’ve been. And if she doesn’t know, she can’t be held responsible.”
I unfastened the gold chain on Malenka’s neck. Ivanovna snatched the cross almost before I could refasten the clasp. Then, she was gone.
Her absence was immediately noticed and the porridge line buzzed with speculation. Nikolaiovna must have come to her own conclusions because, to my great relief, she never asked me a single question. She went on with her day as if it were normal. But Larysa was a different story.
“You have to do what I say,” she said. “I’m the older one so I know better.”
“Ivanovna told me what to do.”
“She’s not here now. And what if the Comrades catch her where she’s not supposed to be? What’s she doing out there anyway?”
“She didn’t say.”
“You have to tell if you know anything.”
“She’s a doctor. She can go where she wants. Why don’t you just shut that big mouth of yours! She gave me instructions before she left.” I was screaming now.
“You have to tell me what they are then. I’m bigger than you are, and older.”
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