by JV Love
Dima was the first to break the uncomfortable silence. He grabbed Felix by the arm and came to a stop on the sidewalk. "Felix, let me give you a word of advice," he said, narrowing his eyes. "You better decide who's side you're on, and you better decide damn soon."
Felix yanked his arm out of Dima's grip. "I know what side I'm on," he said. "I'm on my side. The side that knows right from wrong."
"That's your problem," Dima said. "You think that you're somehow qualified to decide. But it's Moscow that determines what's right and what's wrong. The Party is the one with the knowledge of history. The Party is the collective wisdom of the Proletariat. Who are you to think you know better?"
Felix took a deep breath, looked at Katya, then back at Dima. "You know we've been best friends ever since we were kids, so let me say as a friend . . ."
"We are not friends," Dima interrupted. He held his hand in front of him, pointing his finger in Felix's face. "There's no room in these times for quaint things like friendship. We are comrades - nothing more, nothing less."
Felix stared back, a tight frown on his lips. "I see. Then there's nothing more to say, is there?"
"No," Dima said, "there isn't." He was about to walk away when he added, "Let me give you one last piece of advice. You have this habit of crossing lines that shouldn't be crossed, and one of these days you're going to be very sorry. One of these days, you're going to cross the last line." He turned his back to Felix and walked to the other side of the street. Felix watched him leave, wondering if he would look back and say goodbye. He didn't.
Dima had always been Felix's closest friend, and Felix recalled their times together now with a great sadness. As kids, they'd shared dreams of becoming pilots, explorers, and Olympic athletes. When they were nine, Felix had saved him from drowning after Dima had broken his leg on a sharp rock. In those simpler days, Dima had made a blood vow to return the favor one day. In those simpler days, they could forgive and forget so easily.
Felix was sick of this war. It was insatiable. It took and took and never gave anything back. And now it had taken his best friend.
* * *
Katya cursed out loud after she tripped on the uneven sidewalk. She managed to keep her balance and not fall, but she certainly startled both herself and Igor with the profanity. Only with tremendous effort had she been able to make it this far. Her feet felt like lead and each step was torture. She didn't want to leave her beloved Leningrad. She didn't want to leave Felix. She didn't want to go to Moscow. Yet here she was, heading to the train station, suitcase in hand.
That morning, she and Felix had gone to the bureau to get a marriage license. A smiling, happy couple had just been leaving when they arrived. With nobody else in line, Felix and Katya stepped up to the counter to announce their intention. They hadn't gotten far before the clerk informed them they needed two witnesses in order to get married. They were dejected and about to leave when Felix asked the clerk if they had to know the witnesses. The clerk said no, and Felix went outside and persuaded two strangers to take a few minutes out of their day. Next, the clerk reviewed their papers, disappeared into another room for a few minutes, then reappeared and told them the office had run out of forms. They'd have to wait until a new supply came in. Felix was furious and demanded to know why, if that was the case, the clerk hadn't told them in the first place. Why had he made them get witnesses? Why had he checked their papers first? The clerk's ambiguous answers incensed Felix even more, and they'd left the office seething.
Katya felt suspicious about the whole situation, but what could she do? Nothing made sense anymore. She was convinced the entire world had gone mad. They were both heartbroken about not being able to get married but decided as they walked not to let it alter their plans for Katya to evacuate the city.
Igor walked a pace or two ahead of her now, trying his best to impress her by carrying three of their bags, including both heavy ones. He was infatuated with her, and she knew it. Katya normally thought it cute when he tried to act twice his age around her - how he would be so serious and try to come off as brave and knowledgeable. But she was too preoccupied now with her thoughts to pay him any attention.
"I bet Felix couldn't carry all three of these bags," Igor said.
Felix was on duty, but he had a lunch break in fifteen minutes and would be meeting them at the train station to say goodbye.
When she didn't respond, Igor repeated himself a little louder.
"We'll test him later," she said curtly. "He'll be at the station to see us off."
Ahead of them, a long military column moved slowly through an intersection. They shuffled along haphazardly, in no hurry to get where they were going. It was nothing like the boisterous mood most of the troops had been in when they'd initially set off for the front. Felix had told Katya that most of the men you saw moving through the city like this were the remnants of forces that had survived some battle and had been hastily regrouped for redeployment to the latest "hotspot." They were constantly moving troops around trying to plug holes in the tenuous line protecting the city from the Nazi assault.
"Those men aren't in formation," Igor said. "They should be marching in step in close ranks."
A few of the soldiers glanced in Igor and Katya's direction but seemed to look right through them. They neither smiled, nor frowned, nor even talked to one another.
"What do you think is wrong with them?" Igor asked. "They look so sad."
"How should I know?" Katya said. She watched a shirtless soldier walk by, wiping his bandaged forearm across his sweaty forehead. "I don't think fighting a war is exactly fun," she added.
The sun was bright and high overhead, and the scuffing of the soldiers' boots on the pavement reminded her of a funeral procession.
Once they were well clear of the soldiers, Igor turned to her and said, "They should be happy to kill Nazis."
Katya shook her head. "Well, so far, the Nazis seem to be doing a better job of killing us, than we of them," she said.
Igor spit over his right shoulder. "If I were on the front," he said, "I'd kill a thousand Nazis."
As they rounded the next corner, a new mass of people blocked their way - this time women, children, and old men standing in a queue. Katya looked for the front of the line to see what they were waiting for, but it snaked all the way around the corner of the next block.
"What are you in line for?" Igor asked an elderly man standing at the end.
"I don't know," he said. "Hopefully something good." A young woman in line four spots ahead overheard, and said, "I heard they're selling sugar."
Katya squeezed by the people in line and Igor followed. She was in a hurry, and after they crossed the next street, she turned left to take a shortcut through the park. Like all the other parks, it was filled with trenches, but at least this one you could still walk through with ease. The leaves on the trees were a jumble of red, gold, and green, and a pair of squirrels chased one another into the empty trenches and then back out again.
"There's a few benches over there in the shade," Igor said. "Do you want to take a break from the sun for a minute?"
Katya shook her head no. She was caught in her thoughts again. She tried to figure out how exactly she had come to be in the situation she was in. She'd told herself numerous times to never get so wrapped up in a man as to think she couldn't live without him. But that was exactly what she found herself thinking now. How could she possibly live her life without Felix?
"You must be getting a little tired by now," Igor said. He set the bags down and panted for a few seconds. "Would you like me to stop so you can rest?"
"No, I'm fine," Katya replied and kept walking.
Never in her life had she met anyone quite like Felix, someone who was so comfortable with who he was, who never felt a need to hide anything or pretend he was something he wasn't. Since he didn't seek the approval of others to validate his self worth, he didn't have lofty goals. He wasn't anything like Dima, who wanted to be Party Secretary one da
y. What Katya appreciated most of all about Felix was how much he enjoyed life, how he was genuinely grateful that he'd been born. That separated Felix from Petya more than anything, she thought. Petya cursed the fact that he'd been born while Felix reveled in being alive.
"Are you sure you're not tired?" Igor persisted, dropping the bags once again. "It's no problem for me to wait a minute if you want to rest."
Katya wanted to get to the station quickly so she could spend as much time with Felix as possible. "No," she said. "I already told you, I'm fine."
She started walking again, but Igor called her back.
"Come here," he said. "You've got to see this." He was leaning over, hands on knees, breathing heavily.
She went back to where he was. "What is it? Is everything okay?"
"Look at that," he said, pointing off to his left at an old tree. Its crimson leaves glimmered in the afternoon sun, and under its thick, knotty branches was a carpet of mushrooms - more than Katya had ever seen under one tree.
"Igor, we don't have time to pick mushrooms now," she said.
"No, it's not that . . .. Those aren't edible anyway."
"Then what?"
"It's a very bad omen," Igor said.
"What is?"
"The babushkas in my village had a saying: 'Many mushrooms - many deaths.' They said it's a warning about the coming winter, that it will be hard."
Katya studied Igor's face, hoping he was joking, but saw that he was not. "There's lots of old sayings," she said. "That doesn't mean there's any truth to them." But her own words didn't provide her with much reassurance. She wasn't superstitious, but she did have a great respect for folk wisdom. She'd always been amazed how some of the old timers from the villages could predict the weather, how well the crops would do that year, or what gender a baby would be. Their predictions had no scientific basis, but more often than not turned out to be true.
But Katya had no time now to dwell on fate. She picked up her suitcase and one of the bags Igor was carrying and started toward the train station again. Igor protested that the bag she took from him was too heavy for her, but when she offered to give it back, he complained that his shoulder was hurting him - an old injury from taming a wild horse, he said - and that he wasn't sure he could continue carrying it.
When they arrived at the train station, they found it overflowing with evacuees. Two young girls pushed bags off the back of a truck to their mother who then swung the bags down to the ground. Mounds of boxes and bags covered the walkways, with anxious mothers and uneasy children standing between and around them. Katya and Igor wove their way through the crowds and eventually found their train's platform.
The train had not yet arrived but would soon. Katya set her bags down and looked around for Felix. Since she didn't know the train platform ahead of time, they couldn't pick a specific spot to meet. Instead, they decided they'd each find the right platform and then meet at the sixth train car from the front.
Katya hoped that Felix would already be there, but it was still early. She was five minutes ahead of the schedule she'd set for herself.
While they waited, Igor paced back and forth behind their bags. There was a scraggly bush with sharp brown leaves growing there, and a sheet of white paper was caught in its branches. Igor picked it out and started reading the text aloud to Katya.
"Beat . . . the . . . Jews." He read haltingly, unsure of each word he pronounced. "Beat . . . the . . .." He held the leaflet in front of Katya. "What's this word?" he asked.
"Commissars," she answered.
"Beat . . . the . . . Commissars," he continued. "Their mugs beg to be bashed in. Wait for the full moon. Bayonets in the Earth! Surrender!"
Igor, mouth agape, curled his thick furry eyebrows down toward his pug nose. "What does this mean? Are we giving up?"
"No, we're not giving up," Katya said. "The Germans dropped those leaflets from a plane. They're trying to scare us."
Igor wadded the paper up and threw it back in the bush. "I'm not scared," he said, his voice sounding more nasal than usual. "I was just worried about you, that's all."
Katya thought to smile and say that she appreciated it, but she was too anxious about Felix's arrival. The train was now making its way to their platform and would be boarding people in another five minutes. It was a long train and was backing in slowly. The passenger cars were all dark green and nearly every window was open.
"I thought Felix was meeting us here," Igor said.
"Yes, he's supposed to." Katya continued scanning the crowds for him, wondering if he had to work late or if he couldn't find the right platform.
"Is he a Jew?" Igor asked.
"Who? Felix?"
"Yes. My father always told me to stay away from people with names like Iosif or Felix. He said people with those names were always Jews."
"And what did you father tell you about Jews?"
"He told me you should always hate them and should never confuse a Russian with a Jew. He said you could tell a Jew by his big nose and beady eyes. He said Jews were bad people - that they made human sacrifices to the devil and only cared about money."
"Well, you've known Felix for a while. What do you think? Is he a Jew?"
Igor wrinkled his forehead in thought. "I'm not sure," he said. "That's why I asked you. He seems like a Russian . . . and he's always nice to me. He even bought me an Eskimo pie one time." He crossed his arms in front of his chest, then added. "But his nose is kind of big."
"If I told you he was Jewish, would you hate him?"
He shrugged his shoulders. "Does he make human sacrifices to the devil?"
Katya took Igor by the hand and looked him in the eyes. It saddened her that Igor had never known their grandmother and thus none of her wonderful teachings on peace and tolerance. She decided she'd be the one to pass them on to him. He was still young and impressionable, so there was still hope. "Igor, I bet your father was a very wise and knowledgeable man. He probably taught you a lot of things, right?"
He nodded.
"But I think your father might have had a bad experience with someone who happened to be Jewish, and then he probably thought that all Jews were like that. Jews are no different than you or I. We all experience joy, and we all experience sadness. We all make mistakes. We all get mad sometimes, and do or say things we regret. We're all humans."
Igor looked at her intently, then asked, "Why do the Nazis hate the Jews so much?"
"I don't know for sure," she said, "but I think most of them have been taught by Hitler to hate Jews. He wants to use them as a scapegoat - someone to blame all their problems on."
"I hate Hitler," Igor said. "I'd kill him if I could."
People had now started boarding the train. Katya guessed it would take them at least fifteen more minutes to get everybody boarded. They had to check everyone's papers, and then check them again, and then argue for a minute, and check them one last time. Felix definitely should have been there by now.
"Igor, could you go walk around quickly and see if you can find Felix? Don't take too long though."
Igor walked down the platform and disappeared into the crowd. Katya watched a fat, dark gray pigeon walk up to her bags, pick up a small stone with its beak, then drop it and keep walking. There was a large clock behind her and she saw that the train was scheduled to leave in nine minutes.
There was a man on the other side of the platform with his back toward her. He had the same build as Felix and was walking in the opposite direction Igor had gone just a minute ago. She could see curly dark hair sticking out from under his hat. She wrung her hands and took a step toward him. "Felix!" she shouted, but he kept walking. "Felix!" she shouted even louder. He stopped and looked back and she saw a forty-year-old man with sunken cheeks and a thin black mustache.
The intensity of her disappointment startled her. She wondered how it was that Felix had become so integral to her life. She had always thought of love as something that opened one's eyes, but now wondered if love d
idn't also blind one. There were so many people and things in the world to love. How had she become so wrapped up in loving this one person so much?
The line to get on the train was empty now. Katya looked around and saw that the only people left on the platform were those who had come to say goodbye or those waiting for the next train. A grey bearded man with a brown cap and a nervous smile came up to Katya and asked if she needed help with her bags. Katya shook her head no, and the man shuffled down the platform to the next person.
She was on the verge of crying and felt angry that she and all these other people had to leave, angry at the Germans for starting the whole bloody mess in the first place. She imagined that her grandmother never got angry or hated anyone - no matter what they did - but Katya found herself on the edge of hate so often now. All she had to do was open the newspaper or listen to the radio and she'd be confronted with the latest Nazi atrocity and would feel her chest tighten. She used to be so sure that she understood her grandmother's Mennonite teachings, but not anymore. Perhaps she had understood them theoretically, but living those teachings was a different matter altogether.
She closed her eyes and saw her grandmother in her little garden with its cucumbers and tomatoes and carrots and dill. There was a particular scene in the garden that Katya had always remembered. It was a beautiful summer day and Katya was picking and eating green grapes from a vine that ran up the side of the house. Her grandmother, in her big pink sun hat, was tending to her precious roses and singing one of her favorite Bible verses over and over, " And I will grant peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and no one shall make you afraid."
Katya opened her eyes now and thought how strong and full of faith her grandmother had been. That was how Katya wanted to be too.
When Igor came back without Felix, Katya knew what she had to do.
"Igor, help me with the bags, please," she said. "The train's about to leave."
