“The farm,” she said. Nathan nodded.
Together they raced down the road. Rifka moved so fast she felt as though she were flying. She glanced over her shoulder. Nothing. But the rumble was growing louder.
She and Nathan reached the farm fields at the same time. They ran between rows of planted cabbage, making for the cottage. In the dawn, its white stones looked bluish, as bright as a beacon to Rifka. She flung herself at the front door, hammering on the weathered wood.
Nathan pushed her aside so hard she stumbled backward several steps. “Keep out of sight,” he whispered, and she slunk back even more, confused.
The door opened. An elderly man stood in the doorway, dressed only in trousers and an undershirt. An old lady peeked over his shoulder. “Who are you?” he asked Nathan. “What’s the meaning of this?”
“I’m a traveler,” Nathan said, slipping one hand behind his back and making a staying motion at Rifka. “I was hiking when I heard the German army approaching. Please, if you could hide me until the Germans have passed, I would be so grateful. I can stay in the barn. I won’t cause any trouble, I promise you.”
The old man grunted. “Fine. Now leave me and my wife in peace.”
“Thank you, a thousand thank-yous,” Nathan said. He bowed low, remaining half bent over until the door closed.
Then he snatched up Rifka’s hand, and together they ran from the cottage to the ramshackle barn with its thatched roof.
Inside, it smelled of hay and horses. Slivers of light filtered through the slatted walls. As Rifka’s eyes adjusted to the dark, she saw a horse and a cow in separate stalls, and piles of hay neatly stacked in one corner.
Nathan nodded toward the hay. “Get behind it.”
She scurried around the bales of hay, tucking herself into a pocket of space between the straw and the wall. Her breathing crashed in her ears. It was so loud! She pressed a hand over her heart, begging it to slow down.
Nathan came into view. He squeezed his legs between the hay and the wall. Then he tried to sit down. “I can’t fit,” he whispered.
Together, they pushed the bales of hay forward a precious inch. Then Nathan sank down next to Rifka.
“Why didn’t you want the farmers to see me?” she whispered.
“We don’t know who we can trust,” he whispered back. Then he put his fingers to his lips.
In silence, they waited. Rifka rested her head against the rough wooden wall, listening. Outside, the rumbling had become a roar. The tanks were coming closer.
They grew louder and louder, until the only sound in the world was the roaring of tanks tearing up earth as they rolled toward Kiev. Rifka shut her eyes. Mama and her brothers! What would happen to them?
At last, the roaring lessened. Now Rifka could hear other sounds: the tramp of footsteps and the mutterings of voices. More soldiers. She had to put her hand over her mouth so she didn’t cry out in fear. Barely daring to breathe, she listened to the footsteps thundering past. There must be hundreds of men.
They went on without stopping, finally growing fainter. When all Rifka could hear were the animals shifting in their stalls, she turned to Nathan. He smiled at her.
“We’re safe,” he whispered. “We can keep going south without worrying about running into the Germans.”
She smiled back. Just then, the squeal of unoiled hinges came to her ears. A sudden wash of light flooded the barn. Someone had opened the barn door!
She held herself still. Who was there?
A footstep sounded on the packed earthen floor of the barn. “Boy, where are you?” It was the old farmer.
Nathan stood up. “I’m here,” he said. “Thank you for sheltering me.”
“Get out from that corner,” snapped the farmer. “I want a decent look at you.”
Rifka sat frozen in place. What did the farmer want with Nathan?
Nathan lifted his chin. He stood tall and straight. Without a word, he edged his way around the hay, then vanished from Rifka’s sight. She heard him walking across the barn toward the farmer.
“Call yourself a traveler, do you?” said the farmer. “You look more like a Jew to me. Why else would you hide from the German army?” He must not have expected a response from Nathan because he went on, “Give me all the money you have or I’ll tell the Germans I have a Jew in my barn.”
Rifka’s heart beat faster. Nathan couldn’t give the farmer money—they didn’t have any! Would the farmer turn them over to the Germans?
“I don’t have any money.” Nathan’s voice shook. “But I’ll leave right now. I won’t cause any trouble for your family.”
“Leave?” The farmer sounded angry. “And why should you leave when all four of my sons are in the army fighting those accursed Germans and leaving me and my wife alone to tend to the farm? You’re staying here.”
“What do you mean?” Nathan asked.
“You’ll do the chores we can’t manage,” the farmer said. “In return I won’t shoot you or turn you over to the Germans. Come.”
This was madness! The old man couldn’t force Nathan to remain on the farm!
Rifka waited for Nathan to refuse or fight back. But he said nothing.
The barn door creaked. Rifka peeked over the top of the hay pile. Nathan and the farmer were leaving the barn. Sunlight from outside poured through the door’s opening, showing Rifka the frightened expression on Nathan’s face—and the rifle in the farmer’s hand.
Rifka ducked down behind the hay again. No wonder Nathan hadn’t fought back! What could they do now? How would they get away from here?
All day she remained in the barn. A few times the farmer and Nathan came in: once to milk the cow, and again to brush the horse. Often Rifka heard voices outside: the farmer ordering Nathan to feed the chickens, his wife telling Nathan to fetch water from the well, and Nathan replying, “Yes,” and nothing else.
When night fell, she finally came out from behind the hay. Her body ached everywhere from staying in one position for so long.
She didn’t know what to do. How could she help Nathan escape? Should she sneak into the cottage and find him?
In the darkness, she crept to the cottage.
But she couldn’t open the front door more than a hair’s breadth. Something big, like a bureau, had been shoved against the door from the inside. Clearly, the farmer didn’t want Nathan running away at night. If she or Nathan tried to move the bureau, it would make a racket and wake the farmer.
She turned away from the cottage. There had to be another way!
Her legs were shaking so badly it was hard to walk. She knew she had to eat and drink or she wouldn’t be able to help Nathan or herself.
She drew a pail of water from the well and drank deeply. Afterward, she ate whatever she could find—a hard, small potato wrenched from the ground and kernels of chicken feed in the grass by the henhouse. When her stomach was satisfied, she went to the barn and slept inside on the ground.
The next day she had to wait a long time before she heard Nathan again. “Yes, Comrade,” he said as he came into the barn.
Rifka counted one set of footsteps. Only Nathan was here! She sat up straighter behind the hay, wondering if she dared call out to him.
Nathan’s head appeared over the stack of hay. “You have to get away from here,” he whispered.
“Not without you,” Rifka whispered back.
His face looked deadly serious. “You must. The farmer will never let me leave. All the time he or his wife watches me. He’s outside the barn right this minute, feeding the chickens. I’ll find a way to escape from him somehow, but I don’t know how long it will take. It might be days or weeks. You could starve to death waiting for me.”
“I can’t go on without you! I can’t—”
“You have to! The sooner you leave, the better your chance of survival. Don’t a
rgue,” he went on, interrupting her protests. “You have to go on alone.”
22
LENINGRAD, RUSSIA, SOVIET UNION
MAY 1986
Oksana
ONE DAY SLIPPED into the next. In the mornings, Babulya changed the dressings on Oksana’s shoulder. The damaged skin faded from red to pink to peach. Soon Oksana could lift her arm over her head without any pain. Babulya pronounced herself quite pleased.
Oksana had begun calling Valentina’s grandmother Babulya in her head. She didn’t think Babulya would mind. Sometimes, she wished Babulya was her real grandmother, for she braided Oksana’s hair and cared for her injured shoulder, and when she laughed at Valentina’s jokes she always smiled at Oksana, silently inviting her to laugh, too.
Every day, they ate breakfast in the communal kitchen. Together, Oksana marveled. And if she knocked over the salt or didn’t finish her bowl of kasha, Babulya wasn’t angry. Instead, she would tell her to fetch a dishcloth to wipe up the spilled salt or say sometimes she wasn’t hungry early in the morning, either. Then she would give Oksana twenty-three kopecks to pay for her school lunch, and leave for work at Lebedev’s Market, the grocery shop she managed.
After breakfast, Valentina and Oksana would walk three blocks to school.
They chattered the whole way. Oksana longed to have a sketchbook—a proper sketchbook with thin pages and no lines—and a set of colored pencils. Then she could draw in color for the first time in her life. Valentina said she wanted to construct a robot that could sew and take over Babulya’s evening seamstress work.
Valentina also liked to tell Oksana scientific facts she’d learned from a library book she was reading, like how long it took your fingernails to grow from the bed of the nail to the tip (one month) or how many liters of blood your heart pumped every minute (five to seven).
During school, Oksana tried not to let her mind wander. Because then she would start wondering about her mother. Was she going to be all right? If she died, then Oksana would be alone, and there would be no one in the world who loved her.
The thoughts made her feel prickly and hot all over, as though she were about to be sick. She would stare at something in the classroom, imagining what it would look like if she drew it, sketching imaginary lines in her mind until the sick feeling in her stomach had finally gone away.
After school, she didn’t worry about her mother because she was so busy. She and Valentina had one hour of free time before they had to help Babulya in the shop. They usually played in the schoolyard or in the park, then would trudge to Lebedev’s Market.
The work at the shop was deadly dull. Lebedev’s was set up like most of the shops Oksana had visited: First, customers selected an item they wanted, like a block of cheese, and stood in a line to have it weighed so they knew its price. Then they stood in another line to pay a cashier and get a receipt. Finally, they went to a third line to pick up their purchase.
Oksana and Valentina worked at the third counter, where the groceries were wrapped and given to waiting customers. No matter the time of afternoon, the shop was jammed, with lines winding up and down the aisles like snakes.
Oksana’s hands moved clumsily as she wrapped food in brown paper and tied the bundles with string. She couldn’t make herself move faster, especially since her thoughts were bursting with ideas of what she’d rather be doing, like sketching the customers or playing tag in the park or running alongside the canals lining the river.
“Maria Yakovlena always smacks me for being slow,” Valentina whispered one afternoon to Oksana.
Maria Yakovlena was an elderly lady who worked at the shop. Babulya said she had been born without a sense of humor, and therefore they ought to pity her. Valentina refused to pity anyone who smacked her.
Now Oksana shrugged. She didn’t understand why Valentina got so upset when Maria Yakovlena hit her. “She’s a grown-up,” she whispered back. “She’s allowed to hit.”
“No, she’s not.” Valentina looked startled.
“I’m still waiting for my bread,” a lady complained.
Hastily, Oksana slipped a loaf of black bread into a sleeve of wax paper. She handed it to the lady with a smile.
The lady snatched the loaf. “You two aren’t being paid to gossip.”
Oksana ducked her head. “I beg your pardon—”
“No, we aren’t,” Valentina interrupted cheerfully. “Thank you for explaining our job to us.”
The customer narrowed her eyes, but Valentina only continued to smile innocently at her. At last, the lady turned away and flounced out of the shop.
“Valentina, you mustn’t talk like that!” Oksana whispered.
“Why not?” Grinning, Valentina pushed a bag full of canned vegetables across the counter at the next customer. “She couldn’t prove I was being rude. For all she knew, I was agreeing with her.”
Shaking her head, Oksana concentrated on wrapping her customer’s order. Valentina was too bold!
Valentina poked her in the side. “Do you see the man by the bins of potatoes?” she whispered. “He’s come here for the last three days in a row. Always at four o’clock. Watch him.”
Oksana glanced at her section of counter. Empty. Maria Yakovlena was still weighing the next person’s order.
She craned her neck to see the man at the front of the shop. He was an ordinary-looking fellow, in a shabby blue suit and a black hat. He stood at the bins of potatoes, peering at them as if looking for the perfect one.
“Maybe he likes potatoes,” she whispered.
Valentina shook her head no. “He never buys anything. Watch.”
Obediently, Oksana looked at the man again. His hand hovered over the potatoes. Finally, he picked up one, inspected it closely, then set it down as if dissatisfied. He left the shop, the bell on the door tinkling after he had gone.
Suddenly, a woman at the end of the line set her cans back on a shelf and hurried outside.
“The same thing happens every time he comes in,” Valentina said in a low voice. “He picks up a potato, puts it back, and then a customer follows him out. The potato is a signal, I’m sure of it. He’s telling whoever is watching him that it’s safe for them to meet. I bet he’s a criminal or a spy.”
The words tumbled out of Valentina’s mouth so fast Oksana could scarcely keep up. A criminal in Babulya’s shop! What if the secret police found out—and somehow Babulya got in trouble?
Maria Yakovlena smacked Valentina’s hand. “Lazy girls,” she grumbled, handing them each a block of cheese. “You should have come to my station ages ago to take these.”
Valentina glared at Maria Yakovlena. Without a word, she grabbed the cheese and wrapped it.
Meekly, Oksana took her cheese. She wished she could be stronger like Valentina. Glare at people who dared to hit her. Laugh and smile cheekily at annoyed customers.
But she could only be herself. Weak, cringing Oksana.
The girls worked quietly for the rest of their shift. After the final customer had left and they were sent to sweep the stockroom, Valentina seized Oksana’s hand. “We should ask my grandmother if we can take an afternoon’s leave from the shop. We can wait in the street and once that man comes outside, we should follow him!”
Oksana shrank back. “We mustn’t! What if he is a criminal—or worse?”
Valentina laughed. “What could be worse than a criminal? I’m going to do it,” she added, and Oksana groaned because she knew that meant she would do it, too. There was no way she would let Valentina do something dangerous on her own.
Fortunately, when Valentina asked Babulya that night, Babulya said she couldn’t spare them from the shop this week, so Oksana was granted a reprieve.
Babulya snapped on the radio. Even though they always listened to state-sponsored radio stations, Babulya said it was safer to listen in their apartment than in the communal parlor. “Y
ou don’t want to react improperly to news reports when someone might be watching,” she told the girls.
Oksana didn’t mind. The apartment was cozy. Babulya set up her sewing machine on the table and worked for a few hours, hemming trousers and skirts, sewing pillowcases, and letting out seams on coats. Oksana and Valentina sat on the sofa or their shared bed to do their schoolwork. For a long time, the only sounds were the scratch of their pencils on paper, the whir of Babulya’s sewing machine, and the flat voice of the man on the radio.
“Comrade Gorbachev will now address the nation,” the announcer said.
Comrade Gorbachev was the general secretary of the Communist Party. He often talked to the nation, either on state television or on the radio, mostly about boring things. Oksana returned to her homework.
Then the words “Chernobyl” and “accident” leapt out at her.
She and Valentina sat up straight. Babulya took her foot off the sewing machine’s pedal. Barely breathing, they listened.
Comrade Gorbachev said the area was rapidly being decontaminated and it posed no threat to citizens.
Valentina gasped. “Maybe we can go home soon! Papa will be healed, and we can return to Pripyat!”
Oksana’s stomach twisted. She wouldn’t go back there. Not ever. There was no reason, with Papa dead. No job waiting for him, no apartment for them. Nothing.
Babulya turned off the radio. “What are you working on, Khusha?” It was the first time she had used Oksana’s nickname.
Oksana stared at her homework sheet. The numbers blurred before her eyes. “Geometry.”
“Excellent.” Babulya sat down on the bed between the girls. “You can teach it to me. I was hopeless in mathematics in school, I’m afraid.”
“What about your sewing?” Oksana asked.
“That dress will still be here tomorrow.” Babulya tapped Oksana’s textbook. “Go on, then. Tell me how to find the angles of that triangle.”
Somehow, explaining geometry to Babulya untied the knots in Oksana’s stomach. And she almost brought herself to lean against Babulya. She couldn’t quite manage it, though, so she settled for giving Babulya a smile instead.
The Blackbird Girls Page 13