The Blackbird Girls

by Anne Blankman

  She darted in front of him. “Why don’t you go out for a drink instead?”

  His eyes narrowed. “Why? You don’t want me to spend time with you and your mother?”

  “It—it’s such a special night,” she stammered. “Why don’t you finish the evening with another treat?”

  “It’s a lovely idea,” her mother said warmly. “We haven’t been to a bar in a while. We can sit and drink and laugh, like we used to in the beginning.”

  Dyadya Boris smiled. “A romantic evening just for us.” Putting his arm around Oksana’s mother’s shoulder, he glanced at Oksana. “Finish your schoolwork. You know the rules.”

  “Yes, Dyadya Boris.” Dutifully, she stood still as her mother kissed her cheek.

  Hand in hand, her mother and Dyadya Boris walked off down the street. Oksana watched them go, her heart beating very fast. Once they had turned the corner, she flew across the street, dodging automobiles, not caring when the drivers honked their horns at her.

  The alley Valentina had pointed at was dark and lined with rubbish bins. Light from the building spilled into the space, outlining two shadows who stood near the back. Valentina and Babulya!

  Oksana rushed toward them. She hugged Valentina first, then Babulya. “You came for me!” She could scarcely believe they were standing here in front of her. They looked ex-actly the same. Both of them had on dark coats and fur caps. Babulya was smiling, but Valentina looked worried.

  “Khusha, you’re so thin!” Valentina said.

  “Of course she’s thin.” There was a catch in Babulya’s voice. “She hasn’t been properly taken care of in weeks. Where did your mother and her man go?” she asked Oksana.

  “To a bar. They could be there for hours. We have plenty of time to pack my things, and then I can go home with you.” Home to Leningrad with Valentina and Babulya! She could hardly wait to get on the train.

  Babulya’s smile fell. She glanced at Valentina, then back at Oksana. Something in her expression told Oksana they weren’t taking her home with them.

  “You don’t want me.” Oksana’s voice broke.

  “We do want you!” Valentina cried. “We wish you could live with us, but . . .” She sent a helpless look at Babulya.

  “My beloved girl,” Babulya said, pressing her gloved hands on either side of Oksana’s face and forcing Oksana to look at her, “there is nothing we want more in the world than to take you home with us. But if you disappear, your mother will go to the police, and where do you suppose they’ll look? If you stay with us, they’ll find you.”

  Oksana felt cold. “You came all the way here to tell me no? Why didn’t you just write me a note instead?” She tried to pull away from Babulya, but Babulya held tight.

  “We aren’t saying no,” Babulya said. “We are saying we have come up with a plan that will keep you safe. It will require you to be very brave.”

  Oksana didn’t want to be brave. She wanted to be on a train heading to Leningrad, with Babulya and Valentina on either side of her, talking and laughing. But that wouldn’t happen. The alley blurred, and she rubbed angrily at her eyes.

  “I have a friend,” Babulya went on, “a very dear friend who sheltered me during the Great Patriotic War, when I was alone and had no one to help me. She has been my friend for forty-five years, and I would trust her with my life. I would trust her with you.”

  “She lives in Uzbekistan,” Valentina said. “She saved Babulya’s life when they were our age, and now she’s a grandmother with ten grandchildren, and they all live nearby, so you’d have plenty of friends straightaway—”

  Oksana yanked herself free of Babulya’s grasp. “I can’t live with a stranger!”

  Babulya knelt down to look in her eyes. “You already have. You lived with me.”

  Oksana didn’t want to cry, but tears flooded her eyes anyway. How could she run away to Uzbekistan, a province she knew little about? To live with a woman she’d never met and where everything was new and different? She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t.

  “I understand a little of what you must be feeling now,” Babulya said gently. “I was your age when my entire family was killed. Right now, I imagine you feel as though you’re alone in the dark. I promise you, you aren’t. There are people who love you. And there are other people who want to love you, if you’ll let them.”

  “Uzbekistan is so far away.” Oksana’s voice shook. “If I go, I’ll never see either of you again.”

  “Maybe someday,” Babulya said, “our country will change and we can travel freely, without fearing the government is spying on us. Until then, I will keep you in my heart and mind all the time.”

  Oksana let out a sob.

  “My friend is an Uzbek and a Muslim,” Babulya said. “You won’t look like anyone else in her family, and I am sorry for that, for I know how hard being different can be. My friend Feruza and I came up with a story to explain your sudden appearance in her home—if you choose to go, that is.”

  “The story’s close to the truth,” Valentina piped up. “Feruza will say that you’re the orphaned granddaughter of old friends of hers from the war. Lots of Ukrainian and Russian refugees passed through Uzbekistan back then. We’ll pretend you’re the granddaughter of one of them.”

  “Valentina had new identity papers made for you,” Babulya said, pulling a booklet out of her purse and pressing it into Oksana’s hand. It was an internal passport. “She went to your black-market man for help, and he made them for free—and another time, I would be scolding you for doing something so dangerous,” she added, giving Oksana a long look. “Given the situation, however, I’m glad you worked for him!”

  Oksana opened the booklet. There was her photograph, staring up at her, and the name Tereshchenko, Klavdiya neatly typed.

  “You told me once you like the name Klavdiya,” Valentina said into the silence. “I hope it’s all right that I asked Comrade Orlov to give you that name.”

  Oksana thought of how frightened Valentina had been of her black-market work. Valentina had refused to get involved, or to go to Comrade Orlov’s store with her. And yet, for Oksana’s sake she’d found the courage to ask him for false papers. Valentina had done this for her.

  And she thought of Babulya, coming all this way when it would have been safer to stay home and ignore Oksana’s letter. They had done so much for her already, and still they were willing to do more.

  Because they loved her.

  And her mother didn’t. Oksana didn’t know what her mother felt for her, but it wasn’t love.

  “My mother will never love me enough.” Oksana’s voice cracked. “She’s always going to choose a man over me. A horrible man,” she added.

  “There is something broken inside your mother,” Babulya said. “I can’t pretend to understand her, but I promise you that you are kind and clever and artistic and wonderful. You deserve to live with people who will love you.”

  If she went to Uzbekistan, how could she know this new family would be good to her? Babulya had said she’d trust her friend with her life, but what if this friend had changed?

  “Hold out your hand,” Valentina said suddenly to Oksana. She took off her father’s broken watch and placed it in the center of Oksana’s palm, folding Oksana’s fingers around it. “When I feel sad or frightened, I touch this and I feel better. When you feel lonely, you can touch it and pretend I’m there with you.”

  Oksana shook her head no. “This is your most precious treasure.”

  “It’s yours now,” Valentina said.

  Oksana gripped the watch. It did feel comforting. Even more comforting, though, was the knowledge that Valentina had given it to her because she didn’t want her to feel lonely. Because they were best friends. Always.

  She looked at the mouth of the alley. Beyond it, Volodarkovo Street was bright with lighted windows. The apartment was only a minute’s
walk away. She could go inside, and everything would go on as it had before. She’d be hit and belted and so frightened and angry all the time that she would turn into a shadow.

  No, she knew she wouldn’t stay with her mother. Deep down, she’d known ever since her mother had accepted the belt from Dyadya Boris.

  She could run away to an orphanage or to Babulya’s friend in Uzbekistan. Two choices. Only one, though, might include love.

  “Thank you,” Oksana said to Valentina, giving her a hug. She turned to Babulya. “I’ll do it. I’ll run away to Uzbekistan.”

  38

  Valentina

  Valentina’s heart squeezed. She was so happy that Oksana was going to run—and so sad because that meant they probably would never see each other again. She had to swallow hard.

  “Excellent,” Babulya said approvingly to Oksana. “You’d better go to your apartment and pack some things. It would look suspicious if you showed up at the airport without any luggage. Be sure to put some pillows under your blankets, so it looks as though you’re asleep. We need to give you a head start before your mother figures out you’re gone. And hurry!” she added as Oksana started to walk out of the alley.

  Oksana spun around. “I can’t go.” She gasped.

  “Why not?” Babulya demanded.

  “I don’t have a key to the apartment,” Oksana said. “I had one, but Dyadya Boris took it back. A neighbor lets me in, if I’m not with my mother. So when I get my things and then leave the apartment, I won’t be able to lock the door. They’ll realize something is wrong right away, and they’ll look for me and they’ll see I’m not there . . .”

  Her voice trailed off. She didn’t need to finish, though, for Valentina understood what would happen next: Oksana’s mother would telephone the police. They’d probably find her before her airplane even took flight. In order to escape, Oksana needed time to get out of the city and for her trail to run cold.

  “I’ll never escape from them.” Oksana sounded as though she were having trouble breathing. “As soon as they get home, they’ll figure out I’ve run away.”

  “We have time on our side,” Babulya said. “There has to be a solution.”

  There was always an answer, Valentina thought. That was what her father used to say to her, when they were working on their experiments together. She had to figure out how to lock Oksana’s door from the outside, without a key.

  And then she knew.

  She caught Oksana’s arm. “I know what to do. But I have to go inside with you.”

  “You can’t,” Babulya objected. “What if someone sees you and remembers you when the police begin searching for Oksana?”

  “Grown-ups usually don’t notice children,” Oksana said. “Let’s go!”

  Holding hands, they ran across the busy street, weaving between automobiles and ignoring the blare of car horns.

  Inside Oksana’s building, they walked several feet apart, pretending they weren’t together. Oksana’s apartment was on the third floor. After the neighbor had let Oksana into the apartment and gone inside her own place, closing the door behind her, Valentina hurried down the corridor and inside Oksana’s common room.

  While Oksana threw a few things inside a suitcase, Valentina raced to the kitchen, pulling out drawers until she found one that contained a jumble of pens, paper, and odds and ends. She took a pen, a rubber band, and piece of string.

  After pushing the drawers back in, she helped Oksana lay a couple of pillows on the sofa, then spread several blankets on top of them. She thought it looked like a person sleeping.

  “I wrote my mother a note,” Oksana said quickly. “I said I had finished my schoolwork and gone to bed. As long as we can lock the door, she shouldn’t check on me until morning.”

  “I can lock it.” Valentina’s heart hammered in her chest. She could do it. She knew she could.

  Moving fast, she wrapped the rubber band around the dead bolt. She tied the end of the rubber band around a pen. After making a loose slipknot in the string, she pulled it tight around the tip of the pen. “Come,” she told Oksana. Holding the string, she hurried into the corridor, Oksana on her heels.

  Barely daring to breathe, she made sure the string was extended long enough so it would pass beneath the door and into the corridor. She closed the door. Crouched on the floor with the end of the string in her hand, she pulled to the right.

  She felt the string grow taut—and then slacken. The rubber band must have come loose from the dead bolt.

  Quickly, she twisted the doorknob. The door swung open. She was right: it hadn’t locked. The rubber band had snapped, leaving the string dangling free.

  “It didn’t work,” Oksana whispered. “What are we going to do?”

  “I’ll try again. I’ll make it work this time.”

  Once again, Valentina rifled through a drawer until she found another rubber band. This one looked newer than the first one. She wound it carefully around the dead bolt two times. Then she wrapped the string around the pen and left the pen hanging in midair. Clutching the string, she closed the door.

  Her hands were shaking so badly on the string she was afraid she would drop it. She took a deep breath. Then she once more pulled the string to the right.

  She felt it pull on the dead bolt. Click. The door was locked!

  “You did it,” Oksana whispered.

  “Almost.” Gently, Valentina tugged on the string. She heard the pen drop on the other side of the door. The string had gone slack in her hand. The pen was no longer attached to the string—she had pulled hard enough that the slipknot had come loose.

  “When your mother gets home, she’ll see a pen on the floor,” Valentina whispered to Oksana. “But she’ll probably think someone dropped it earlier. The rubber band should have come loose from the dead bolt, but I can’t go inside to check.”

  “You’re brilliant,” Oksana whispered. “Let’s go.”

  Valentina pulled on the string. Once she had all of it in her hand, she hurried after Oksana down the stairs. Once again, they dashed across the darkened street, running until they reached the alley where Babulya was waiting for them.

  “Did Valentina’s idea work?” she asked.

  “Yes,” they said breathlessly.

  “Wonderful. You can explain it to me later. We must hurry.” She pressed a few bills into Valentina’s hand. “I’ll take Oksana to the airport. In case anything bad happens, I want you to be far away. There’s a bus stop down the street, past the big post office. When the bus arrives, ask the driver which bus to take to the train station. If I don’t meet you at the station by dawn, assume the worst has happened and return to Leningrad without me.”

  Valentina swallowed hard. “All right.”

  “Good.” Babulya looked at her, then Oksana, her expression softening. “It’s time to say goodbye to each other.”

  Valentina turned to Oksana. She had to force the words out. “You’ll always be my best friend.”

  Oksana flung her arms around her. “You’re mine.”

  Valentina scarcely had time to hug her back before Babulya had taken Oksana by the hand. “Wait a moment before you come out,” Babulya aid. “We don’t want anyone to think the three of us are a group.”

  Valentina nodded. At the opening of the alley, Oksana stopped to look over her shoulder and wave. Then she followed Babulya into the street and vanished from view.

  Valentina counted to ten, then left the alley. Her heart beat fast. Nobody was looking at her—were they?

  The street was full of people and automobiles. A few yards ahead, Babulya walked alone. Oksana followed several paces behind.

  Valentina turned to the left, the opposite direction Babulya and Oksana had taken. She passed a post office with a big clock. The bus stop was only a bit farther.

  She waited at the corner. A handful of other people, most
ly grown-ups and teenagers, stood there, too. None of them looked at her.

  What if the bus driver didn’t know how to get to the train station? What if she couldn’t figure out how to get there and missed Babulya?

  Automatically, her hand went to her wrist. All her gloved fingers felt was the cuff of her coat sleeve. She’d forgotten—she’d given Oksana her watch.

  A bus, belching exhaust, pulled up to the curb. Its doors opened with a hiss. Valentina climbed inside.

  “Pardon me,” she said to the bus driver, “does this bus go to the train station?”

  “This is bus number five,” he said. “You’ll have to stay on until we stop at the children’s clothing shop, then switch to a different bus.”

  “Thank you.” She found a seat.

  The bus lurched away from the curb. Valentina pressed her face to the window, watching the big buildings roll past. She was so tired. For the past three days, she and Babulya had been on the move constantly. They had left Leningrad secretly, early in the morning while it was still dark. Mama had stayed behind—she couldn’t take time off from her teaching job, and someone had to remain to cover for them. Mama would pretend Valentina and Babulya were sick and home in bed. Every morning she would telephone Valentina’s school to report her absence, and every evening she would cook a supper big enough for three people and carry it upstairs to their apartment. It wasn’t a perfect plan, but it was the best they had been able to come up with.

  After several stops, the bus jerked to a halt in front of a shop. Valentina peered through the window. Although the shop was unlit, she could make out the shapes of mannequins inside it. This must be the children’s clothing store stop.

  Outside, the night air stank of car exhaust. Valentina hopped from foot to foot, trying to stay warm. Finally, another bus pulled up. When she asked the driver, she learned that this was indeed the bus going to the train station.

  It took another thirty minutes to reach her destination. Inside the station, it was dirty and nearly deserted. Valentina walked around the waiting area and peeked into the women’s bathroom, searching for Babulya. No sign of her yet.