The outskirts proved to be a couple of kilometres from the centre of Rubtsovsk and the barracks were indeed barracks – huge wooden crates built in rows. They were not exactly cosy.
However, we were overjoyed to find that among its occupants were some more old friends from Vilna: the Kaftals. Mrs Kaftal had been a very pretty lady with flirtatious blue eyes, which were now smudged with hurt and bewilderment. Her once lovely soft blonde curls were dead and discoloured. But her daughter Anya was one of the wonders of our exile. Snatched from her home, as we had all been, she had grabbed as her most prized possession her pigskin travelling case fitted out with jars and bottles and vials of creams and soaps and lotions. The result was truly astonishing: in spite of cattle cars, slave labour camps, starvation, burning heat, and vermin, Anya looked lovely. I was to watch her brush her lashes with mascara in the Siberian dawn before she went off to drudgery at the flour mill; I was to watch her remove the flour from her face with a special cream, the flour from her lashes with a special oil, to tweeze her eyebrows, to bleach a tuft of hair over her lip with peroxide, all by the light of the kerosene lamp we had in our barracks room; I was to watch this with awe. Anya was a goddess whom I never got to know really well, but she had transformed vanity into an act of courage.
Her brother Karl had not been as resourceful. Only his flesh seemed to have survived the cattle car and whatever else the Kaftals had been through.
Except that it had no blackboards, the room was a copy of the one at the schoolhouse, the portraits of Lenin, Marx, Stalin and Engels apparently having been delivered with the lumber. But here we had nari, planks about seventy inches wide set on six legs, lined up on the floor, just barely leaving enough room for entrance and exit. These nari may not have been soft as down, but they were beds, one for each family. Some people had straw pads, which they found at the main barracks, and Father said he would try to get some for us. We put our belongings under the bed – we called it our wardrobe from then on – and sat down on the bed with our feet on the floor, the first time in weeks we had been in a normal sitting position. When Father did return with some pads, the thought of sleeping on anything but the bare floor seemed unbelievably luxurious to us. And to me, as I listened to the wind howling outside, the idea of four of us sharing one bed seemed far from a deprivation.
The other luxury was a kerosene lamp; only one, to be sure, for the whole room, but it was the first time since we had left home that the night had any illumination.
The next morning, all the grown-ups – about thirty or forty – were told to go to the police in the barracks next to ours to receive their orders. The police? What kind of amnesty was this to be? I was left alone to wonder.
And to keep an eye on Boris. No one ever knew for sure, but we liked to think that Makrinin himself had seen how upset Boris was at being parted from Father and had arranged for Mrs Marshak and Boris to leave earlier than had been planned.
Boris and I went outside, but not for long. The wind was cold and biting that morning and we scurried back to our barracks room, little knowing that that cold wind was like a gentle spring breeze compared to what was to come later. However, I had seen the village in the distance and my spirits rose.
Keeping an eye on Boris was pathetically easy. A half-starved little five-year-old boy didn’t have much mischief and curiosity in him. His too-large green eyes kept turning towards the door and he kept asking for Father: ‘Where’s Uncle Samuel? Where did he go?’ I could scarcely say, ‘To the police, to the police, to buy a fat pig.’
They came back with the news that they had been assigned jobs: Mother was to work in a bakery, Father on a construction job, Mrs Marshak and Anya at the flour mill, and Karl on a collective. Grandmother and the other old women and the children were not to work. Neither was Mrs Kaftal to work – either then or later. The how and why of this would remain among the mysteries of Siberia. Had she persuaded the authorities that they would have a corpse on their hands? Or had she magically recalled for the occasion her old power as a flirt? When she was pressed to explain her luck, her smudged blue eyes became innocent: ‘Luck? How can you say that? Since you are all to earn some roubles, how will poor little me be able to eat?’
It was a question no one cared to answer.
‘Will I go to school?’ I asked.
Apparently not, Mother had been told, unless we could find living quarters in the village proper. Some children may have considered the absence of school the most attractive Siberian deprivation of all; not me, I always had loved school. Now I would have another reason for praying that we could move to the village. In Siberia, one thing was certain: one was never at a loss for something to pray for.
Mother, destined to have tough jobs, left for the bakery before dawn. She had to walk about two kilometres in the dark to the bakery, which was close to the village. There she kneaded the heavy and extremely resistant dough and formed it into huge loaves, weighing several kilos, which she lifted in and out of the oven on long-handled shovels. When we expressed sympathy, she brushed us off, saying that at least she was warm and not lonely because there were so many rats. But the job was to have a fringe benefit for me: the workers in the bakery received a larger bread ration – and were frisked every night before they went home to make certain they did not increase it further – and Mother shared some of this bread with me.
Father was more fortunate and, because of Mother, quite embarrassed; he had been given the job of book-keeper at the construction job and had to admit he enjoyed it.
I was bored. For the first time in my life I didn’t know what to do with myself. Now my longing for my cousins, my friends, my darling Miss Rachel, became another pain along with that of hunger. I had no books to read, no dolls to play with; as did most of my friends at home, I still loved playing with dolls. Once again there were no children my own age. And poor little Boris, who also had no one to play with, followed me around till I sometimes became very cross with him.
It was still only September, but the wind was bringing colder and colder weather and the steppe was looking more and more desolate. Our rations were very small indeed. We had been issued ration books for use at the state store only. There, we lined up for bread, flour, millet (which tasted ghastly), and occasional treats of sugar, kukurudza – a type of cornmeal – sunflower-seed oil, or – treat of treats – a piece of meat. Since we had not had a chance to grow our own vegetables, we had no potatoes or carrots or cucumbers, the vegetables that those who had been assigned patches managed to extract from an earth in which permafrost and selenites were formidable enemies.
One day, when all we had had the day before was a particularly small ration of bread for breakfast, lunch, and supper, I decided to do some hunting on my own. I went out to the cold and windy potato patches, optimistically lugging a blanket for the haul. I carefully explained to Boris, who came along, that I would try to find potatoes that had been overlooked by their owners. It was the matter of oversight that automatically invoked the law of finders keepers. Boris nodded; it seemed perfectly logical to him.
We walked slowly between the now barren rows, but the stick in my hand was no hazel switch, had no potato-dowsing properties. There was nothing to do but get down on my hands and knees and crawl along, digging my fingers into the cold, hard earth. Little Boris crawled behind me. Our running noses dripped on to the earth; our fingers nearly froze. Each tiny green potato of dubious worth was a nugget of gold and we let out a whoop of delight. We kept at it for three or four hours.
The whole haul fitted into our pockets, but Father congratulated us on our frontier spirit and told us that we were the stuff that empires were made of. Mother agreed, but suggested that the potatoes had better be cooked and eaten whole or there would be nothing left of them. She was quite right. Under the best of circumstances, peeling potatoes in Siberia was a finicking business; one dared not waste one precious bit of it. As for these poor little sickly things, one slice of the knife and they would have disappeared. Peelin
g potatoes carelessly, cutting thick peels, became one of my daydreams of the high life.
Hunger also had its fringe benefits: another trip to the baracholka. This time the whole family went to sell another slip of Mother’s. Grandmother and I were greeted on all sides and, being old hands, showed Mother and Father the ropes. Once again I had a marvellous time and on this trip we came back with some flour, bread, and a herring. As we had done at the mine, we took our turn at the stove. Here, in addition to the outdoor stove, a primitive tin affair with four holes on top for pots, there was an equally primitive indoor stove. Optimistically, we had brought two pots, four knives, four forks, and four spoons from home, when more times than not all that were needed were our fingers.
My parents found out that we would be permitted to live in the village if we could find living quarters, and one day towards the end of September, after I had nagged and nagged, they decided to start looking. Mother would be nearer the bakery, Father farther away from the construction job, and I would be able to go to school. Mrs Kaftal, hearing about this, looked more than ever like a little girl lost and Father suggested that she, Anya, and Karl join forces with us.
‘What about Boris?’ I asked.
Father, the most angelic of men, gave me a look that suggested I was not his little lalinka for asking such a troublesome question. Father had a weakness for saying yes to the first person who came along; he did not like to be reminded of this.
‘We will look for a place for Boris and Mrs Marshak when the time comes,’ he said. ‘We haven’t found a place yet, have we? Maybe we won’t.’
I refused to consider the possibility of such a calamity.
The next Sunday, Sundays being free days, we all put on our best clothes – by which we meant our least dirty and rumpled – and went hut hunting in the village. Obviously, since all huts were occupied we would have to move in with another family.
Mother and Father, both of whom spoke excellent Russian, took turns knocking on doors, only to be told that the places were too small to take us in, even if we separated. Being grown-ups, they found this discouraging and trying, but hungry for any excitement and nosy to boot, I enjoyed peering into the huts, eyeing the children and being eyed by them.
Finally, we came to a small log hut with a barn at the back and chickens scratching at the front door. This time the woman, a sturdy Russian peasant in her late twenties, gave us a quick, shrewd once-over, then smiled in a friendly way and told us to come in and look around.
We filed in, the seven of us, jamming the one room. But look? Who could look when one’s nose was being assaulted? Yes, assaulted, the hurt travelling rapidly down to the stomach where it became one great big hunger pain. For bubbling away on the stove, sending up a heavenly smell that drowned out all unheavenly smells, was a peasant soup: the real thing – potatoes and carrots and cabbage and onions and salt and pepper and meat. My nose picked out the ingredients, one by one.
When I managed to tear my eyes from the soup pot – everyone else was similarly affected and Mrs Kaftal appeared to be on the verge of fainting or weeping – I thought that the room was really quite pretty. A flowered cretonne curtain hung across one wall half-concealing the high-heaped featherbed on which lay huge, plump pillows. A scrubbed deal table and two chairs were set between two tiny windows, and the black iron stove not only brewed magic but made the place cosy.
The woman pointed to the bare wall opposite the bed and said that they hoped that one day soon it would be occupied by a baby, but until that time it might just as well be used by – she counted us off – seven people. ‘How much money can you pay?’ she asked. Father told her that his and Mother’s wages together came to ninety or one hundred roubles and the Kaftals’ somewhat less. Would twenty-five roubles for us and twenty for the Kaftals do? She would fetch her husband from the barn; he would decide.
Left alone in the room, we were silent.
‘Stop breathing so hard,’ Father said. ‘After all, it’s not Mama’s roast duck.’
‘Or cutlets Kiev …’ Mrs Kaftal whimpered.
‘Will we be able to stand it if we live here?’ Mother asked.
‘We have endured worse,’ Father said. ‘Courage, everyone …’
‘Maybe … maybe … they will share,’ I suggested.
They looked at me as if I were crazy.
‘Sometimes …’ I persisted.
The woman came back with her husband, who could have been her brother so alike were they except for his eyes, which were squinting and oozing matter. (Inadvertently, Mother pulled me closer to her.) Yes, yes, he shouted cheerfully, it was a deal. We could make two beds for ourselves along the wall and he and Father should have a drink on it. He brought out a bottle of real vodka, not cologne, and one glass. Mother looked worried, but Father looked delighted. The man introduced himself: his name was Nikita Alexandrovich and his wife was Nina Ivanovna, but we were to call them Nina and Nikita. Father hesitated. I could see that he was uncertain about the etiquette of the situation; in our world, first names were reserved for the family and only the very closest friends. In spite of being practically bedfellows, Mrs Kaftal and Mrs Marshak were never addressed by their first names, nor were my parents and grandmother thus addressed by them. With his most ingratiating smile and a little bow, Father introduced us as the Rudomins and the Kaftals. Nina and Nikita returned the bows. Nikita poured a full glass of vodka and handed it to Father.
‘Samuel – not on an empty stomach,’ Mother whispered.
Father smiled blandly and took a draught. ‘I cannot return the hospitality, therefore I beg of you …’ Father bowed again and handed the rest of the vodka back to Nikita.
Nikita did not press the point and finished off that glass and a second one, wiping his mouth with one great sweep. His eyes disappeared completely as he gave us and the rest of the world an indulgent grin.
Nikita said he would borrow a horse and buggy from the mill where he worked and he would fetch us the next evening.
I felt almost ill with excitement and joy. Now I would be in the village, I would go to school, and …
‘You see,’ I said, the minute we were out of earshot, ‘Nikita does share –’
‘Share? That’s just what I’m afraid of. Samuel, doesn’t he have trachoma?’ Mother asked. ‘When he brought out that one glass – Honestly, Samuel, I think you would drink poison if it was offered to you, before you would hurt someone’s feelings.’
Father, warmed by the vodka, imitated Nikita’s grin.
‘Don’t worry, if I am a judge of Nikita, fine fellow though he is, he will not offer me any more vodka. He assumes that his need is greater than mine. And as for the trachoma – we will all be very careful. Nina doesn’t have it, does she? So let us stop all this worrying and let us be grateful that we are to move from the barracks.’
Mother promised to be grateful, but she gave me a long lecture on how I was not to use anything belonging to Nikita – no towel, no soap if there was any – nothing, nothing, did I hear her? With a child’s ears, I had gone deaf after the first sentence or two, but I said yes, yes, yes, that I had heard her.
‘And no vodka either, lalinka,’ Father said, putting his arm around me. ‘Lalinka …’
The next evening, when everyone had come back from work, we waited for Nikita, the seven of us, with our bags and bundles once again the symbol of our exile. There was no moon that night and we found a place close to the faint light from the barracks. How else would Nikita find us? Mother worried. We will find him, Father reassured her rather testily. How many carts would appear out of the night? he wanted to know. Mrs Kaftal, listening to them quibbling as husbands and wives seem always to do on the eve of a trip, even on the steppes of Siberia, was overcome with loneliness for her Alfred: she too wanted a husband to quibble with. They had been separated in the same insane way that Grandmother and Mrs Marshak had been separated from their husbands. ‘What bliss it would be,’ she said, ‘to have a rousing good fight with Alfred.’ As
we all laughed, I thought it was going to be jolly living together with the Kaftals.
Soon we heard the clop of horse’s hoofs and in the darkness we could see the outline of a wagon. Then a match flared; Nikita had lit a lantern. We piled into the low-slung, long, narrow cart with its slanting sides and snuggled under our blankets for the short but very cold ride in the dark. Cold or no cold, I loved every minute of it; after all, it was a ride in a horse and wagon and I was sorry when it was over.
Nina greeted us warmly and told us that since we didn’t have nari yet, she would put some straw on the floor for us. Later, she would help us to make some straw mattresses for our nari. She also warned us that we were to use the kerosene lamp as little and as carefully as possible since not only was oil scarce, but so were wicks.
We made some dough out of flour, water, and salt and rolled it out on Nina’s scrubbed table – her hut was clean by any standards and remarkably clean for Siberia – formed it into the usual cakes, and baked them on the stove. That night they didn’t have the usual flat taste, that night they were delicious; one could not have had a better cake at Stral’s, the finest café in Vilna. Nina brought me a glass of milk and I shot Mother a look that said, See? I told you so. Even though the milk was slightly bitter from the Siberian grass, it was milk and I drank it. However, I did pour some of it into the hot water the rest were going to have, making their drink at least resemble tea with milk.
We were content. It was even good to hear the wind howling outside, enhancing the cosiness inside.
We dressed the straw with sheets and blankets and called out goodnight to each other as if there were nothing in the least remarkable about seven people sharing a room with two strangers. But Nina and Nikita must have found much to discuss about our presence, because I could hear them whispering long into the night.
CHAPTER SEVEN
When I woke up the next morning, Mother had already left for the bakery and Nina and Nikita were about to breakfast on their thick peasant gruel. They greeted me with perfect friendliness, but without any embarrassment whatsoever they ate their good thick peasant gruel, dunked their bread into milk, and watched me eat my piece of dry black bread. This was the way it was to be: there was a time for sharing and a time for not sharing, and no sentimental nonsense about it.
The Endless Steppe Page 7
