In the Shadow of the Storm

by Ella Zeiss

  When he got home in the evening, he almost fell over a tub of water standing in the middle of the hall. Carefully Harri opened the door to the main room and saw his mother combing out Emma’s long wet hair with a fine comb. On the other bed, Jakobine was giving one of her two sons the same treatment. Berta, one of the two little girls who also lived in the house with their mother, was standing beside them, watching with curiosity. Her hair was damp too.

  ‘You’re next,’ she called out merrily to Harri as soon as she saw him. ‘And they’ll do this to you,’ she said, flicking her nails. ‘It’s how to get rid of all the disgusting bugs!’ she explained earnestly, obviously proud of her newly acquired knowledge.

  Harri scratched the back of his head, but stopped at once when she gave him a knowing look.

  ‘Be so kind as to throw out the dirty water outside,’ Mutter said. ‘More hot water should nearly be warm enough by now.’ She pointed to a huge saucepan on the stove.

  Harri nodded and dragged the tub outside to tip out the contents, and then headed back indoors to pour clean warm water into it before pulling off his shirt and carefully soaping his head, neck and body.

  Over the next few weeks their small community developed an efficient routine. In the early morning everyone left for work or school, returning home exhausted in the evening. The mothers continued to check their heads for vermin, no matter how tired they all were. Harri hated the procedure – he had to sit crouched and bent down on the floor so his mother could remove any lice and nits by the dim light of the oil lamp – but he had to admit it was effective. After about three weeks, they were all free of any annoying creatures. Harri did everything he could to keep it that way. At work he tried to avoid getting too close to the other boys who were itching and scratching all the time.

  Mutter had sent a letter to Natalya in Baku as soon as possible and now they were all desperately waiting for news, torn between hope and fear about what she would write about Vater. It was over two months since they had last seen him. The knowledge that his fate must already have been sealed without them knowing was difficult to bear.

  A week earlier, Mutter had sent a second letter to Natalya, out of worry in case the first one had failed to arrive. It was wartime and the post wasn’t very reliable. Letters seemed to take forever to arrive at their destination. Harri hadn’t forgotten their tedious journey and wasn’t the least bit surprised that the post didn’t arrive on time.

  At work, he had got used to dealing with the horses by now, although he was still only allowed to take out fat Maya. At first he’d been annoyed about having to work with the slowest horse, but he’d got used to it. She was slow but strong and persevering and she never let him down. He was able to compensate for the extra hour she needed for the journey by working faster.

  This particular morning, Harri kept watching the sky in concern as he set out with the other boys. Winter was just around the corner now – the clouds already looked full of snow and the wind was freezing. They wouldn’t be able to continue these trips for very much longer, maybe just a few days more, but they needed every bale of hay they could get to make sure the animals would survive until spring.

  The boys had cut all the hay near the settlement weeks ago and had to travel farther and farther afield to fill up their carts.

  When at last they reached the designated place, they were stiff all over. Despite his thick woollen gloves, Harri could hardly feel his fingers. He had started holding the reins with one hand only while sitting on the other to keep it warm, but the cold had seeped painfully through his limbs. He took hold of his pitchfork, glad to be able to warm up with physical activity at least.

  His cart was about half-full when the first snowflakes started to fall.

  ‘Come on, hurry up,’ Vadim called. He was the oldest of them, had the fastest horse and his cart was nearly full already.

  Harri could hear the nervousness in his voice and doubled his efforts. He didn’t want to have to drive home in the snow.

  The wind increased, the white flakes of snow whirling more and more wildly through the air. They flew into his mouth when he breathed, and landed on his lashes so that he had to blink to be able to see.

  ‘That’ll have to do!’ Vadim shouted. ‘Let’s go!’ He sounded frightened. Harri looked around and realised that Vadim was already sitting in the driver’s seat and turning his cart. ‘Come on,’ he shouted at his horse.

  Harri didn’t know what to do. He hadn’t fulfilled his quota yet. If his cart wasn’t full when he got back they would reduce his pay, but the other boys were all frantically scrambling onto their carts and grabbing the reins.

  He didn’t yet have enough experience of the local weather to be able to judge the potential danger realistically and had never experienced a real blizzard before, so decided to trust the other boys’ instincts. They probably weren’t experiencing this for the first time.

  He threw his pitchfork into the cart, climbed onto the driver’s seat and brushed off the snow. The seat and reins were both freezing cold, but there was nothing Harri could do about that. He gave Maya the signal to set off and the cart slowly started to move. Harri was perturbed to see that a thick layer of snow was stuck to the wheels.

  ‘Come on, girl!’ he shouted to encourage the mare, and they drove in pursuit of the other horses and carts, which had fortunately left deep tracks in the snow for him to follow. Nonetheless he noticed in fright that the distance between him and the other boys was increasing all the time. Already he could only make them out as dark shadows far ahead. The world around him seemed to be made out of cotton wool and he could barely see beyond the head of his horse.

  ‘Come on!’ Harri called again desperately and clicked his tongue. The tracks in the snow were filling up with big flakes so rapidly that he could hardly see them any longer. He drove his horse as fast as he could, trying to catch up with the others, shouting and even swearing.

  Suddenly he realised with a sinking feeling that he was never going to catch up. They were gone and had abandoned him in the middle of this never-ending world of whiteness.

  Harri looked this way and that, frantically trying to recognise something somewhere. He must have reached the road by now, surely? It had to be somewhere around here, but he could find no clues and had lost all sense of distance travelled and time taken. The storm around him was growing stronger and his feet on the driver’s seat were buried in snow. Harri kicked the snow away wildly as if hoping that might make a difference. He could scarcely feel his hands or feet any more. His cheeks and nose felt on fire with the cold. He began to panic and the world around him started to spin. He had no idea where the settlement lay, which direction he should take.

  Desperately Harri tried to banish his fear and find a way out of the dark.

  Why was it even getting dark? It couldn’t be much past midday! But the sky was full of murky clouds that hardly let any sunlight through, and Harri was freezing. It really was terribly cold.

  He clicked his tongue again and gently tapped the reins on Maya’s back, not knowing if his mare could hear him or not with all the noise. She plodded on at her same slow pace – tired and aimless, it seemed. She was presumably at least as freezing and lost as he was.

  Somewhere a wolf howled.

  The sound sent a surge of shock through Harri’s body, and then he was overwhelmed with a feeling of total defeat. He was going to die out here, he suddenly realised with certainty. Either he would freeze or the wolves would get him. The reins slipped through his limp fingers and listlessly he watched as they dropped to one side and were dragged along behind Maya. She didn’t seem to notice any change but continued to plod slowly on, setting one foot in front of the other again and again. Maybe it was her way of staying warm.

  The howling started again. Was it nearer now? Harri couldn’t say.

  Acting on sudden inspiration he climbed into the back of the cart, felt the snow and hay give under his weight and dug himself down into the sweet-smelling grass. He r
olled himself into a ball, making a space in front of his face so that the stalks wouldn’t prick his skin and he had enough room to breathe, then closed his eyes and surrendered to the smells of sun and summer that lingered in the dry hay. He forgot what was actually going on outside, could pretend that everything was all right and he was lying in a flower-filled meadow, safe and warm.

  His last thoughts went to Mutter and Emma, waiting in vain for him to return, and to his father, who he wasn’t going to see again after all.

  A sudden jolt brought Harri back to his senses. Confused and sleepy, he opened his eyes, engulfed in complete and utter darkness, with something scratching and pricking every part of his body. It took a couple of heartbeats to remember where he was. His first instinct was to sit up at once, but then he forced himself to stay lying down. So long as he had no idea what was going on outside, it would be safer not to show any sign of life.

  The cart had stopped moving – that was the first thing Harri was able to register for sure. The sudden lack of movement was probably what had woken him up in the first place. Now all he needed to know was why. He listened carefully, terrified he would hear growling or howling wolves, but all was quiet. Even the wind was no longer whistling as wildly as before.

  The sound of Maya gently snorting reached his ears.

  So she was still there too, Harri realised with relief. She snorted again. By now he knew his mare well enough to hear her impatience in that sound. It was usually her way of telling him that he was doing something wrong or not fast enough.

  Harri shook himself. He couldn’t stay hiding in the hay forever anyway. Slowly he sat up and cautiously poked his head out.

  It was dark. There were still single snowflakes dancing around him but apart from that he could see virtually nothing. At least everything was quiet and he didn’t seem in imminent danger. Harri freed himself from the remaining hay and felt his way forward. Once he had found the back of the driver’s seat, he climbed carefully down. His foot hit something hard. He turned round and stretched out his arms – he’d bumped into a plank of wood. Harri quickly took off his gloves and again felt his way forward, his heart racing wildly with excitement. It was a wall – some kind of house or shed at least!

  He soon found a handle and opened the door and was immediately hit by the overwhelming odour of straw and horses. Laughing, Harri turned round and hugged fat Maya wildly. ‘You did it!’ he shouted happily. ‘You brought us home!’

  She snorted again and tried to snap at him. She was obviously running out of patience. Harri could feel that the cold surface of her back was damp from the melting snow and stroked her reassuringly. ‘It’s all right, old girl,’ he whispered kindly, ‘it’s all right. We’ll get you out of the cold and into the dry.’

  Harri knew there was a lantern in the stables right next to the door. He felt around the windowsill until he found the packet of matches they kept there. Shortly afterwards, warm yellow light illuminated the room and he hurried to light the lamp before the flame could burn his fingers. He placed it so it shone on Maya and the cart and set about taking the horse out of her harness and rubbing her down.

  As soon as he had done that, Harri brought her a fresh load of sweet-smelling hay. ‘You really deserve this, old girl,’ he whispered gratefully, and patted her on the neck. She had rescued him. Without her, he would never have found his way home.

  He hugged her again, then took the lantern and set off home. Although the thought of spending the night with Maya in the stables was very appealing, he knew how Mutter would be worrying about him and didn’t want to keep her waiting any longer.

  He had hardly opened the door when Mutter pulled him into her arms. She must have been waiting beside the door. He could see Emma behind her on the bed with red eyes, her cheeks wet with tears. The other inhabitants were all fast asleep already.

  ‘Are you all right? Are you hurt?’ Mutter asked without letting him out of her tight grasp.

  ‘I’m fine,’ he said, calming her. ‘Just a little cold. Can I . . . can I perhaps have a cup of tea? And a piece of bread?’ As he spoke, he realised just how hungry he was.

  Mutter made a sound that was half sobbing, half laughing, as far as he could tell. ‘Anything you want, my boy,’ she said.

  Carefully, so as not to tread on the people sleeping on the floor, Harri went over to the bed and sat down.

  ‘Are you really all right?’ Emma asked, hugging him too.

  ‘Yes, I’m fine. You can get some sleep now,’ he said softly.

  She nodded and yawned, moving over to the wall and lying down.

  ‘What happened?’ Mutter asked quietly, handing him a cup of hot black tea.

  Gratefully Harri closed his fingers around the mug and could feel the warmth slowly returning to his body. ‘A snowstorm caught us by surprise,’ he said at last. ‘You know how slow my horse is. I got left behind and lost the others when we all set off in a hurry. I had no idea where I was with all the snow, no idea which way I was supposed to go, so at some stage I crawled into the hay and just let the mare carry on walking by herself. I never thought she would take me home.’ He still couldn’t believe his luck. ‘But she did. She took me all the way back to the stables.’

  Mutter gently stroked his cheek. ‘You must have had a guardian angel sitting up there beside you on the driving seat.’ She went over to the stove and poured some soup into a bowl. ‘Here, I kept this warm for you.’

  ‘Thank you.’ He shovelled the warm broth into his mouth. ‘That tastes so good.’

  Mutter smiled. ‘We had another piece of good news today.’ Harri immediately thought of his father but before he could ask, Mutter continued: ‘The new houses are finished at last. We can move in next week.’

  ‘Really?’ Aside from a reprieve for his father, this was the best news he could think of. He liked the people they shared the little house with. They all got on fairly well, but the idea of having a small place to call their own, and not having to worry that they might tread on something or someone with every step, was the greatest joy.

  It was unbelievable how they had taken such things for granted in the past, and how quickly their desires had adapted to their newfound circumstances.

  The following morning Harri went to work as usual. As soon as he arrived he was surrounded by the other boys.

  ‘You made it!’

  ‘When did you get back?’ he was asked from all sides.

  ‘Maya saved me,’ he explained simply, looking over to the stables where the mare was busy eating her morning ration of hay.

  ‘You don’t say?’ Vadim asked in disbelief. ‘We thought we’d lost you,’ he said, obviously feeling guilty, ‘but when we realised you weren’t right behind us it was too late to turn back. We would never have found you.’

  You didn’t even try, Harri would have liked to say, but he simply shrugged his shoulders. They had been too busy saving their own skins. He couldn’t really blame them.

  ‘Did you . . . did you see Vanya? Did he come home with you?’ their foreman, Alexey Petrovich, now asked, pushing his way through the crowd of boys.

  ‘Vanya?’ Only now did Harri notice that one of the boys was missing.

  ‘Yes, we lost him on the way back too. It was impossible to see anything,’ Vadim explained, avoiding his eye.

  Harri nodded dejectedly. ‘No, I was on my own.’ He fell silent. ‘Should we . . . should we go and search for him?’

  ‘Yes,’ Alexey Petrovich answered firmly, ‘that’s what we’ll do now, but this time you all stay within sight of each other, understand?’

  ‘Of course.’ Harri hadn’t exactly chosen to fall behind the others yesterday.

  ‘Right then, let’s go. We’ll ride – you can ride, can’t you?’

  ‘I’ll manage,’ Harri muttered. He was sure Maya wouldn’t be too difficult to ride.

  ‘Then saddle your horses,’ the foreman ordered.

  It didn’t take long to find Vanya. The blizzard had passed and covered ever
ything in a knee-deep layer of powdery snow. After about an hour they spotted the dark silhouette of a cart. Vanya lay huddled up on the driver’s seat, frozen solid, his horse gone.

  While Harri stared at the boy’s body in shock, because it could so easily have been him, the others found the remains of the horse a short distance away. It had been attacked and torn apart by wolves. Presumably they had left Vanya alone because the horse had been enough, the bigger prey. It had made no difference for the poor boy in the end. Left on his own without any possibility of getting home, he had frozen to death in the night.

  Alexey Petrovich signalled for one of the boys to harness his horse to the cart and then the sad expedition turned back home.

  The whole time Harri couldn’t stop thinking about what his mother had said. He must have had a powerful guardian angel protecting him.

  The following week, Harri and his family really were allocated their own house. It was an unfinished stone building with a kitchen and two rooms. Behind the house was enough space to plant a vegetable garden next spring and build a shed. Harri immediately started to imagine how it was all going to look, with chickens running around the yard and a sheep or a goat if they could afford one.

  But before then the house had to be finished and made shipshape. From then on Harri spent his evenings whitewashing the walls and ceilings and painting the window frames while Mutter and Emma sewed curtains to brighten up the windows of their new home. One clear winter’s day he and Mutter were allowed to take a couple of hours off work, and they drove a horse-drawn sleigh to Timofehevka in order to buy some things they desperately needed: chairs, a table and even a carpet. When they finally arrived back home, cold but elated, Emma was jumping up and down impatiently, waiting for them. She was holding a white envelope in her hand. ‘It’s from Natalya!’ she called, waving it in the air.

  ‘Let me see!’ Breathlessly Mutter took the letter and opened it, gasped and clutched her heart.

  ‘What is it?’ Harri asked. He couldn’t tell if she was happy or sad.