She listened to the wooden creaking of houses settling, and the rustle of wind through chestnut trees. The thud of her feet on cobblestones, the rasping of her breath. It was like music. She hadn’t been allowed to bring her flute, but she could still hear music all around her. It was there, all the time, waiting for someone to notice it. The thought made her smile.
At last the buildings grew smaller and farther apart until they disappeared altogether. The road turned from cobblestones to dirt. Rifka smelled wildflowers and earth. The countryside. They had made it!
“Look.” Nathan pointed.
In the east, the sky was flooded pink and orange. Dawn. Thank heavens, now they would be able to see where they were going.
But Nathan’s face was grave. “We have to be especially careful now. If the German soldiers see us, they’ll shoot us. And some of the Ukrainian farmers will want to kill us. They might even try.”
The August morning was warm and her coat heavy; sweat slicked Rifka’s blouse to her skin. Despite the heat, she shivered. “Why would the farmers want to kill us? We’ve done nothing to them.”
Nathan threw her a scornful look. “We’re Jewish. For some people, that’s reason enough.”
A sick feeling hollowed out her stomach. She knew he was right. “But how would they know we’re Jewish? As long as we don’t tell anyone, we should be safe.”
Shaking his head, he began walking again. She fell in step beside him. The sky was turning to rose and gold, brightening everything beneath it. Now she could see farm fields feathering out in all directions and, in the distance, a forest.
“They can guess,” Nathan said. “We’re dark-haired, we’re on our own, and we’re obviously running from the German army. They’d be fools if they didn’t suspect. Let’s go to the forest,” he added, nodding at the jagged outline of trees on the horizon. “We can hide there and get some rest.”
They reached the woods without seeing anyone. Nathan laid his coat on the ground as a blanket and rested his head on his knapsack. Rifka did the same. She stared up into the canopy of trees. Branches stretched toward one another, blocking out the sky so all she could see were slivers of reddish gold.
She doubted she would sleep. Her thoughts spun like leaves in a windstorm. Mama. Her brothers. Papa, fighting somewhere on the front. The dark streets of Kiev. Ukrainian farmers, with their hunting rifles and knives.
She started to shake. A hand touched her arm. It was Nathan, sitting up. “Don’t be scared,” he said, his brown eyes intent on hers. “I’ll keep you safe. I promised our mothers I would.”
Something about the quiet way he spoke made her believe him. She closed her eyes and slept.
17
LENINGRAD, RUSSIA, SOVIET UNION
APRIL 1986
Oksana
THE CENTRAL TRAIN station in Leningrad was enormous. Weak gray light filtered through the large windows, touching the floor where Valentina and Oksana perched on their suitcases, waiting. They sat beneath the bust of Lenin, as Valentina’s mother had told them to.
Oksana scanned the crowds. The station was crowded: men in business suits, women in dresses, university students carrying knapsacks, everyone in a tremendous hurry. Red banners dripped down the walls. Oksana supposed they had been put up for May Day, which would be celebrated across the Soviet Union tomorrow. It had been Papa’s favorite holiday.
“You’re lucky,” she said to Valentina. The words seemed to burst out of her mouth before she could stop herself. “You got to say goodbye to your father. In the hospital dormitory,” she added when Valentina looked at her.
“I don’t think he knew I was there.” Valentina looked sad. “Most of what he said was nonsense. He seemed drunk.”
“You’re still lucky,” Oksana muttered. She rubbed her shoulder. Why did it have to hurt so much? And why, why had she talked back to her father? That had been the last time she’d seen him, and he had been so angry with her. It had all been her fault. She ruined everything.
She had to stop thinking of that evening or she would start crying right here in the middle of the train station. In front of Valentina, who would probably laugh at her.
“My father said something about black pebbles on the beach,” Valentina said suddenly. “I think he was talking about the Black Sea! We were supposed to go there on holiday this summer.”
“So he did know you were there.” Oksana tried to ignore the twinge of jealousy in her chest. “He was trying to talk to you about happy times.”
Valentina’s face lit up. “That’s lovely! Thank you for figuring that out.”
Oksana ducked her head. Her father would say that gratitude from a Jew was a poisoned gift. That they were liars, all of them.
Except . . . Valentina hadn’t looked as though she were lying when she had thanked Oksana. She had looked happy.
“Valentina Kaplan and Oksana Savchenko?” a woman’s voice said.
Oksana looked up to see a lady in an elegant blouse and skirt. Her dark hair, which was pulled back in a severe bun, was streaked with silver.
If this was Valentina’s grandmother, she looked nothing like the gray-haired lady Oksana had expected. Oksana didn’t know many old folks—few elderly people lived in Pripyat, but there were several babushkas whose job was to sweep the streets. Oksana had often seen them on her walk to school: bent with age, white hair escaping from their head scarves, dressed in black. She had thought all grandmothers resembled them. Her own grandmother did.
“Valentina and Oksana?” the woman asked again. “I hope the journey hasn’t robbed you of the ability to speak.”
“I’m Valentina, and this is Oksana.” Valentina scrambled to her feet. She dipped into a curtsy, which her grandmother acknowledged with a curt nod. “Thank you,” Valentina said, “for letting us stay with you”—she hesitated, clearly not sure what to call her grandmother—“Rita Grigorievna,” she finished.
“Yes, thank you very much.” Oksana curtsied, too.
Valentina’s grandmother sniffed. “There’s no need to use formal terms, as we’re going to be living with one another. Tetya Rita will do,” she said to Oksana, instructing to call her auntie. Then she turned to Valentina. “You, of course, will call me Babulya.”
Oksana was glad she didn’t have to address this aloof lady as “grandmother.” She watched as Valentina forced a smile, saying, “Yes, Babulya.”
“That’s settled, then. Are those bags all you’ve brought with you? Well, I suppose that’s a small mercy, as my room isn’t large. Come along, girls.”
She strode across the station’s main hall without looking to see if they were following. Clutching their suitcases, the girls scurried after her.
“Did she say room?” Oksana whispered.
“I think so,” Valentina whispered back.
Maybe they had misunderstood. Oksana hoped so. Three people squeezed into one room sounded awful.
They stepped out of the station, and the city exploded all around them: buses trundled past, belching exhaust; a tram rumbled closer, its cables shooting off blue sparks; and automobiles sped by, sleek lines of gleaming metal. Enormous buildings spread themselves along the avenue. Some of them were made of yellow stone; others were pastel, as pretty as iced cakes. Oksana hadn’t known buildings could be painted pink or green or blue. She had never seen such color.
And the people. Pedestrians everywhere: whistling, chatting arm in arm, digging through their pockets for spare change. Children circled an old man and his ice cream cart. A couple of mangy cats slunk between the children’s legs, hoping someone would spill.
“It’s beautiful,” Oksana gasped.
“It certainly is,” Valentina’s grandmother said. “This street is called Nevsky Prospekt. I wanted your first sight of Leningrad to be of the most famous street in the city. That’s enough sightseeing for now,” she added briskly. “Come along
. We need to catch the next train to my neighborhood. Your neighborhood now, too.”
Oksana didn’t want to move. She wanted to stay there forever, drinking in the street. She wished she dared to take out her notebook and sketch the scene. But Valentina and her grandmother would laugh at her. Art was what people did who hadn’t talent for anything else.
“Come along,” Valentina’s grandmother said again, and they went back inside the train station to take a subway ride. Valentina’s grandmother said she lived in Avtovo, an area on the outskirts of Leningrad and one of the final stops on the red line.
When they reached Avtovo, Oksana understood why Valentina’s grandmother had wanted them to see Nevsky Prospekt first. Avtovo’s narrow streets were lined with apartment towers. The buildings were little more than piles of bricks and mortar that had been thrown together; in several places, bricks had fallen off, exposing the plaster beneath. Wire-mesh awnings were fastened to many buildings to catch the bricks before they fell to the pavement.
Here there were no pastel houses, no ice cream carts or shiny automobiles. The roads were rutted, the curbs lined with mud. A couple of passersby waved at Valentina’s grandmother, but no one stopped to chat. Oksana shivered in her thin spring coat. Leningrad felt colder than Pripyat.
“This is your new home,” Valentina’s grandmother said at last, stopping in front of a six-story brick building. Its walls were streaked with soot. The smell of cigarette smoke drifted through an open window.
Oksana didn’t understand. All Jews were rich. So why would Valentina’s grandmother choose to live in such a shabby place?
“It looks lovely,” Valentina said quickly.
“Yes, thank you, Tetya Rita,” Oksana said. Maybe the building was nicer inside.
Valentina’s grandmother snorted. “I’m glad to see your mothers taught you some manners. It isn’t lovely, but it’ll keep the snow off your shoulders.”
She unlocked the door and led them into a dingy entrance hall. “Here’s the kitchen,” she said, ushering them through a second door. They found themselves in a room where a large wooden table stood in the middle. An enormous stove took up most of one wall.
“This burner is ours,” Valentina’s grandmother said, pointing to one on the far right. “Don’t use the others—they’re reserved for the lodgers in the rest of the apartments. You’ll have your breakfast and supper down here. I have a hot plate in our room, which we’ll use sometimes. Lunch will be at school.”
A piece of paper had been affixed to the front of each padlocked cupboard. Babulya tapped the one marked GOLDMAN. “This is where I keep our groceries. Don’t try to open any of the other cupboards. You’ll get a tongue-lashing if you do.”
Oksana couldn’t believe it. Valentina’s grandmother didn’t have her own kitchen. She shared with everyone else in the building. But why?
Valentina looked as confused as Oksana felt. “Excuse me, Babulya,” Valentina said, “but is this kitchen for everyone in the building?”
Her grandmother sighed. “I forgot you’ve been spoiled in Pripyat. This is a kommunalka. A community apartment,” she added. “There aren’t many of them left. The government started cutting down on them thirty years ago, but there’s so much demand for housing in the cities that they haven’t been able to get rid of all of them yet. We share a kitchen, bathroom, and corridors with the other tenants. I’ll show you which light switches in the hallways are for us to use.”
She strode out of the room. Oksana followed her. A kommunalka. Only the lowliest people lived there, didn’t they? So that must mean that Valentina’s grandmother was poor. But Papa had always said Jews were secretly rich and hid their wealth.
Oksana looked around the entrance hall. It was small, and water stains had traced brown shapes on the ceiling. The walls were made of beige tiles that hadn’t been washed in a long time. This place certainly didn’t seem like the sort of place a secretly rich Jew would live. It looked like a poor person’s home.
Had her father been wrong?
“The elevator isn’t working.” Valentina’s grandmother’s voice interrupted Oksana’s thoughts. “It hasn’t worked in fifteen years, so get accustomed to going up and down stairs.”
In silence, they climbed to the top story. Three doors flanked the dimly lit corridor: one for them, one for their neighbors, the Kozlovs, and one for the communal toilet and shower.
“You may store your washing-up things in the bathroom,” Valentina’s grandmother said. “Nobody takes anyone else’s toothpaste. But don’t leave our kitchen cupboard unlocked. I’m sure the people on the third floor stole two cans of beets from me last year, but I can’t prove it.”
She unlocked the door to her apartment. Inside was a box of a room. The furniture was simple: a bed in an iron frame, a sagging sofa, a wardrobe, and a table. A shelf held a hot plate, a few cups and bowls, and a teapot. A porcelain sink jutted out from the wall.
Valentina’s grandmother must have been doing her washing when she had come to fetch them at the station, for laundry lines were strung across the room. Skirts, blouses, underclothes, and tights were clipped to the white strings.
This room didn’t belong to a secretly rich Jew. It belonged to a poor person.
Her father had been wrong.
Oksana felt as though she were going to be sick. Quickly, she turned away from Valentina and her grandmother, so they couldn’t see her face. Her cheeks were on fire.
Had Papa been mistaken about Jews? Or had he lied to her? He had told her, again and again, that Jews were thieves. He had said Valentina’s father had stolen his promotion at work by spreading rumors that he was a bad worker. He had said Jews cheated to take others’ jobs or earn the best marks on a test. He had made her promise to be on her guard against them.
No! Papa hadn’t been a liar. She was awful for even thinking such a terrible thing.
Valentina’s grandmother closed the door behind them. “Ever since I finished work yesterday, I’ve been sewing so I could have some clothes ready for you when you arrived. Your mother didn’t tell you I’m a seamstress?” she asked Valentina, who shook her head no.
Her grandmother pursed her lips. “I suppose she hasn’t told you much of anything about me. Never mind,” she said briskly. “During the day, I manage a grocery shop. Ordinarily, I’d be there now, but I took the afternoon off to get you girls settled.”
She pointed at the blouses and skirts hanging from the laundry lines. “At night, I sew clothes to make extra money. Luckily, I had saved enough leftover pieces of fabric from old jobs to make each of you girls a blouse and skirt. I see I’ll need to sew more clothes for both of you. You can hardly go anywhere in those ratty things!” she added, nodding at them.
“Thank you for the clothes,” Valentina said. “That was very kind.”
Oksana ran a finger down the front of a white blouse, lingering over the plastic buttons. A Jew had made this for her. She didn’t know what to think. “Thank you, Tetya Rita,” she said softly.
“It was no trouble.” Valentina’s grandmother busied herself with hanging her purse on a hook. Before she turned away, however, Oksana saw her smile, and she knew she was pleased.
Valentina stood by the door, gripping the handle of her suitcase. “Did Mama tell you if she’s on her way yet?”
“She rang me last night.” Valentina’s grandmother took the suitcases from the girls’ hands and set them on the floor beside the bed. “She’d already sent me a telegram yesterday morning, to let me know you were coming. When she telephoned me, she said she couldn’t get a ticket. The train station had tripled their prices, and there aren’t any tickets to be had anyway. She doesn’t know when she’ll be able to leave Kiev.”
Valentina’s face fell. “But she doesn’t have much money left! She spent almost all of it on our train tickets. What’s going to happen to her?”
Her grandm
other reached out as if she meant to touch Valentina, then let her arms fall to her sides. “She’ll do whatever she has to in order to get to you,” she finally said. “She told me that she has another friend from her university days who she can stay with for a few days. She’ll do everything she can to raise money and find someone who can get her a ticket.”
Oksana didn’t understand. Nothing made sense anymore. Valentina’s mother was so poor she couldn’t buy a train ticket, and her grandmother lived in a poverty-stricken building. These Jews had less than her family.
Valentina’s grandmother helped them unpack their things and store them in the wardrobe, and even though Oksana tried to smile and make the proper responses, all she could think over and over was one thing: Papa had been wrong about Jews.
Which maybe meant he had been wrong about other things.
Something loosened around her chest, like a band that had been released. For the first time since the explosion, she felt as though she could breathe. And even though she didn’t understand why she felt that way, she was glad for it.
18
Valentina
FOR SUPPER, BABULYA showed them how to make pelmenyi, which were dumplings with butter and onions. They were Valentina’s favorite food, but she’d never made them before. When she and Oksana burned the onions, Babulya scolded, “My gracious! Didn’t your mothers teach you how to cook?”
Oksana looked terrified. Babulya laughed and shooed them away from the smoking stovetop. Afterward, when they ate the dumplings and drank their tea, Valentina felt full and warm.
By the time they had finished eating, families from the other apartments had trickled into the kitchen. Soon the room was crowded and fragrant with oil and herbs. Babies crawled across the linoleum; women bent over their pots, stirring soups; and men lounged at the table, smoking or reading newspapers. In the corner, a few children sat on the floor, playing cards.
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