The Little Russian

by Susan Sherman

  When Berta had finished dressing, Froy Wohlgemuth helped her down the stairs and together they went out into the bright sunshine to see the peddler with the flapping shoes. They found him leaning up against the building watching two housewives argue in the street. He straightened when he saw them coming and studied Berta for a moment. Maybe he was trying to picture her as the grand lady from the Berezina.

  “You lived in the Berezina?”

  “Yes, but my name isn’t Debishonki.”

  “It’s Alshonsky, close enough. The names always change from one mouth to the next.” He studied her a moment longer. “You could be her. Fixed up a little, you could definitely be her.”

  Froy Wohlgemuth clapped her hands. “See? What did I tell you? This is very good news.”

  “He’s just guessing, Froy Wohlgemuth. He doesn’t know. They’re probably looking for someone else.”

  The peddler said, “I don’t think so. I’ve been looking for a long time and you’re the closest I’ve come.” He examined a callus on his thumb. “You know, there is one way to find out for sure.”

  “And how is that?”

  “Go to Poland.”

  She laughed without mirth. “I could just as easily go to the moon.”

  The peddler shrugged. “It’s not impossible. It can be done. If you go, then you go to Warsaw. To the American embassy. You give them your name and you give them this.” He handed her a grimy piece of paper. “It’s got my name on it and an address. It’s important, otherwise I don’t get paid.”

  Berta had stopped listening because she had spotted a young girl standing across the street with a baby in her arms. She was waiting for her mother to finish buying potatoes. The girl was only a child, all arms and legs, looking bored and impatient with her baby brother on her hip. Her mother ignored her and continued to take her time picking through the sack. When Berta became aware that the peddler was still going on about the best way to cross the border, she interrupted him and told him that she wasn’t the woman he was looking for, that she wasn’t going to Poland and, in fact, she wasn’t going anywhere. She thanked Froy Wohlgemuth, turned back to the stairs, and went back up to her room, where she lay down on the pallet and stayed there for the whole day and a few more weeks after that.

  BERTA OPENED her eyes and for a moment she had no idea where she was. Then it came to her that Sura was dead and she had spent the night on a bench in the Bogitslav train station. It had been a few months since Sura died and still she woke every morning to the shock of her daughter’s death. It always took her a while to steel herself against the coming day. But this morning was different. This time she bolted upright because she remembered her bundles and wanted to make sure that none of them had been stolen while she slept. They were all there, tucked under her arms and legs for safety, except for the one that she had been using for a pillow.

  To the casual observer her bundles looked like a jumble of old rags. In reality they were sacks of potatoes and beets hidden under lengths of fabric. In one were hidden three bottles of homemade vodka, the favorite currency in Cherkast. In another was a roast chicken wrapped up in newspaper; and in the third, a bag of kasha and a bag of dried white beans. She had spent most of yesterday trudging the muddy roads around Bogitslav, trading yard goods, soap, and tobacco for the contents of the bundles. It had been a long day, spent mostly with her skirt hiked up to her knees, trying to stay out of the sucking mud or else pulling her shoe out when she misjudged a step. Now that she had her vodka and food, she wasn’t about to lose them to thieves.

  She was only twenty versts outside of Cherkast, and yet it would take her three days to come out and go back again. The station had started to fill up sometime during the night and now most of the benches were taken. There were muzhiki playing cards and smoking makhorka, peddlers with their bundles of contraband, and a few soldiers on the bench in the corner playing cards or dozing. Among the waiting passengers were three women in long skirts and heavy plaid shawls who had become friendly during the night and had staked out a bench in the middle of the room by the stove. Now they were sitting in a row like crows on a wire, their bundles at their feet, drinking tea and discussing the merits of magic against pogroms. One of the women, younger than the rest, with a dark complexion, long nose, and large black eyes, was passing around an amulet.

  “I’m telling you, it saved my life,” she was saying to the others as she watched it pass from hand to hand. She tossed a glance in the soldiers’ direction and lowered her voice. “I was caught with a dead rabbit in my bundle. He was a Red and he said he was going to shoot me. You should’ve seen all the people they shot that day. I was doomed. I knew it. So I prayed and held on to the amulet. And I got down on my knees and begged for my life, but he wouldn’t hear any of it. He pointed his rifle at my head and pulled the trigger.” The amulet came back to her and she turned and handed it to Berta, to include her in their circle.

  “He pulled the trigger?” said another woman with a look of incredulity.

  “The rifle jammed.”

  “Jammed?”

  “A miracle. Just like Rabbi Rollenstein said. “A miracle from God.”

  “He didn’t try it again?”

  “Oh, he was about to, but then someone called him out. Apparently he was late for a meeting with his unit. He told me not to move. He would deal with me later.”

  “Did you stay?”

  “Are you joking? Of course I didn’t stay. How much can you expect from one amulet. No, I was gone in a minute and I’ve never been back.”

  For their midday meal the women decided to pool their food. Everyone put out a dish and they shared evenly. Someone put out kasha, someone else bread, someone had a bowl of pickled beets, and another boiled potatoes. Berta only had the chicken. She thought about it for a while before she put it out. But she figured by the time she got home it wouldn’t be fit to eat anyway and besides she always had the vodka to trade for another one closer to home. The women were overjoyed when they saw the chicken. Everyone agreed that she should have a larger share, but she said she would be satisfied with the same as everyone else.

  During lunch there was talk of relatives in America searching for loved ones. The shy one who smiled too much said she’d heard that a son was looking for his mother, who lived in Spasova. “Her name is Silverstein. She’s old. He lives in a big American city and wants to bring her over. Anyone heard of a Silverstein in Spasova?” she asked. She looked at her companions, but no one had. She thought for a moment. “Could be Selensky. Maybe it was Selensky.”

  The sharp-nosed woman spoke up next. “I heard they found that other woman. What’s her name?” Her mouth was full of beets and she had to swallow hard before continuing. “You know. The one from Frampol.”

  “Hannah Bokser.”

  “That’s her. I heard they found her in Bar.”

  “Bar?” said the woman with the raggedy scarf. “I was just in Bar. I was asking for Hannah Bokser and nobody heard of her.”

  “Apparently somebody did. A man named Helleck found her the other day. Big reward.”

  “Isn’t that just my luck,” she said, stabbing a boiled potato with the fork. “By rights I should’ve found her. I was there first. She should’ve been mine.”

  The young woman with the amulet now safely nestled between her breasts said, “I heard they’re looking for a woman in Cherkast.” At this, Berta looked up from her bowl and glanced over in her direction.

  “There are lots of women in Cherkast, my friend,” said the one with the raggedy scarf.

  “Yes, but this one is Jewish and lives in the Berezina,” said the young woman.

  “Then she shouldn’t be too hard to find,” offered the shy one.

  “That’s just what I was thinking.”

  After that the talk meandered on to their families and to their hopes for the future. Two of them had relatives in America and were hoping for passage if they could find a way to slip across the border. The third had a brother in the party
. She had been trying to reach him, but so far he hadn’t answered her letters.

  When the train finally came thundering into the station in a cloud of fire and smoke, the four travelers rushed outside like everyone else, squeezing through the door and fighting for a good place on the platform. It was a short train made up of third-class carriages without seat cushions and stuffed to suffocation with peasants, soldiers, refugees, and Jews and all their belongings. Boarding the train meant pushing and shoving, elbowing and kicking, anything to get a place, even if it meant a place on the floor or on the roof or on the steps outside. Berta was lucky. She was able to fight her way to the top of the steps. From there she could see the three women from the bench below her, jostling one another, their friendship all but forgotten as they fought for a seat on the train.

  ONE MORNING, not too long after Bogitslav, when she still had a bottle of vodka left to trade, she took it up the hill to the neighborhood just below Davidkovo Street. Most of the shops were closed for good, but there was still a brisk business going on in the alleyways and behind the buildings. People were trading all sorts of things for food. On any given stretch one could find embroidered towels, fine crystal, brass samovars: once the precious belongings of the well-to-do, now worthless, except if they could be traded for potatoes or cabbages or the rare piece of real meat, not dog or cat.

  It was hard finding the building on Sofiyevskaya. Many of the numbers were missing from the doors and she had to ask her way. When she found the building she walked up the wide stone steps only to find the door was locked, so she went around to the back, where she found one open. This had been a respectable place once with large, airy apartments and a doorman in a red caftan. Now the apartments had been divided up among three or four families and the foyer had been left to molder. The carpet was spongy and smelled of rot. She heard voices on the upper floors. A door slammed. A woman called to a child. There was an apartment to her left with a strong smell of Sterno coming from the open doorway. An old woman sat on the floor in front of a camp stove perched on an apple crate. She sat back on her heels, stirring a small pot of fish-head soup with a wooden ladle, while she watched Berta with tiny, suspicious eyes.

  “Do you know if Madame Gorbunova lives here?” Berta asked. The woman studied her for a moment and then nodded to the back of the apartment. “May I come through?” She shrugged and went back to her pot. So Berta walked through the old woman’s section that housed her few belongings. There was a sheet at the back that was draped over a rope and acted as a divider. Before parting it Berta called out, “Madame Gorbunova?”

  “Who is it?” came the reply from the other side.

  “It’s Berta Alshonsky.”

  “Who?”

  “You came to my house once for a—” she was about to say séance but corrected herself—“communion.”

  There was a pause and then a short laugh. “That must’ve been a long time ago.”

  Berta heard footsteps out in the hall and turned to see two men carrying out a young girl on a stretcher. The blanket fell from one of the girl’s arms, revealing a fiery rash. She had typhus and they were taking her away to the hospital to be quarantined. It occurred to Berta that the whole building would soon be quarantined.

  “May I come in?” she asked.

  “I suppose,” came the indifferent reply.

  She parted the sheet and saw a much-changed Madame Gorbunova sitting in an armchair by the window, covered in a blanket. She had been a stout woman when Berta had seen her last and, although she was still somewhat thick, she had lost a lot of weight. Now her flesh hung in meaty flaps from her chin and jowls. Her eyes flitted over Berta’s shabby clothes and she smiled wryly. “Madame Alshonsky . . . how you’ve changed.”

  “Everything has changed.”

  “Ah, but for the better, don’t you agree?” Madame Gorbunova looked pointedly at the sheets that divided her little corner from the rest of the apartment. They could hear coughing on the other side and a low conversation.

  “Oh yes, I quite agree,” Berta said for the benefit of the others. “It’s much better this way. So much was wasted before.”

  Madame Gorbunova’s little corner was packed with furniture and clothing that had once occupied the entire apartment. Everything was piled up in a jumbled testament to happier times. There were two tables shoved up against the wall, one on top of the other, legs sticking up in the air like the stiffening corpse of a dead horse. There were two armchairs standing on the tables with a pile of clothes thrown over them and on the very top was a brass floor lamp, stiff and weighty, crushing the dresses beneath it. On the other side was a rumpled bed, dirty plates, and a camp stove. In between, taking up every available space, was a set of gilt chairs piled up in twos, a dying fern on a stand, a pile of drapes, old newspapers, and a settee set up on its end.

  “I must apologize, Madame Alshonsky. I’m waiting for a delivery of wood. You’ll have to excuse the cold.”

  “That’s all right.”

  “And I can’t offer you anything. I seem to be out of Sterno. Why don’t you push those newspapers aside and take a seat and we’ll have a little chat.”

  Berta thanked her and sat down on the only other available chair. She saw Gorbunova eyeing the bottle she had brought. “So, why have you come?” she asked, shifting her gaze from the vodka to Berta.

  Berta paused to steady herself and then said evenly, “My daughter is dead and I wish to speak to her.”

  Madame Gorbunova nodded slowly and offered her condolences. Then she hesitated and smiled awkwardly as if she had just been presented with a bill she couldn’t pay. “I’m sorry. You haven’t heard.”

  “Heard what?”

  She took in a breath. “It seems my gift has left me and I am no longer able to contact the dead. The prince has abandoned me. Probably for another woman, if I had to guess.” She laughed at this, but it was forced and the smile quickly faded. “I was reduced to using tricks for a while, mirrors and such, but I wasn’t very good at it. I was caught on a number of occasions. Very unpleasant. Won’t do that again.”

  “Maybe if you try, your gift will come back.”

  “I’ve tried, believe me. It’s no use. It’s never coming back.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “I’m sorry, Madame Alshonsky. I cannot help you.”

  “Please, it’s very important to me. You have no idea. Look, I’ve brought you this.” She held up the bottle.

  Madame Gorbunova eyed it again. Then shook her head. “No, I can’t.”

  “Think of it as a down payment. I’ll get you another one as well.”

  “And what if nothing happens? You will blame me and be disappointed.”

  “I won’t. I promise.”

  “Oh yes, you say that now.”

  “All I ask is that you try.”

  Gorbunova thought for a moment and glanced out the grimy window. “Well, perhaps the prince will be merciful today. One never knows with him. He’s very capricious. Why don’t you open the bottle and pour me a little. They say it frees up the pathways.”

  Berta opened the bottle and looked around for a glass.

  “There should be one over there somewhere. Look under that pile.”

  She found a glass under a pile of old shoes. She wiped it out with the hem of her skirt and poured a little in the bottom. Gorbunova tossed it back. Coughing, she said, “It’s not bad. Where did you get it?”

  “Near Vjazovok.”

  “They know their vodka out there. Thank God for that, eh?” She reached for the bottle and helped herself to a little more. She drank it down and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Oh, how I wish I had a little caviar. You haven’t got any, I suppose?” Berta shook her head. “Pity. A little caviar on toast, wouldn’t that be lovely. Well, I suppose we must start. Do me a favor and close those curtains. It always works better in the dark.”

  When Madame Gorbunova was comfortable, she sat back in her chair and closed her eyes. After
a while her breathing slowed and she seemed to relax. Long minutes passed and nothing happened. Berta told herself not to worry. After all, it took a while on the night of the séance. She would have to be patient.

  More time passed and just when she was beginning to think that nothing was going to happen, Madame Gorbunova’s eyes began to move beneath her lids. Berta watched her closely. Gorbunova remained slumped in her seat, silent. Then her mouth opened slightly and she began to snore. Berta sat back trying to decide what to do. Then she reached out and shook her.

  “What happened?” Gorbunova asked, her voice sounding thick and sleepy.

  “You fell asleep.”

  She sat up and smoothed her hair. “Sorry, sometimes that happens. No word from the prince?’

  Berta shook her head.

  “Well, that’s it then,” she said and reached for the bottle.

  “Aren’t you going to try again?

  “Why? Won’t do any good.”

  “Please, just once more.”

  Gorbunova frowned at Berta. Then she sighed heavily and looked greatly put upon. “All right, but you have to be satisfied with whatever happens.”

  “Yes.”

  “I mean it. The last time.”

  “Yes, yes, I understand.”

  With an exaggerated effort she folded her arms over her stomach and closed her eyes. She didn’t seem to be concentrating this time, possibly just waiting it out until she could open them again and tell Berta to leave.

  Then something happened. Berta wasn’t sure what, except that in the next instant Madame Gorbunova’s eyes flew open and she sat up. “Someone is trying to reach you.”

  “Sura?”

  “I don’t know.” Madame Gorbunova closed her eyes again and waited. “I can’t see anything. It’s all black. Like down a well.”

  “Is she there?”

  “I don’t know. There’s no one here.”

  “Then she’s gone?”

  “I suppose. I can’t be sure. I’m not getting anything. Wait . . . no, I thought . . . oh no, it’s nothing.” She opened her eyes, her lips compressed into a line of frustration. “It’s no use. I’m sorry. It’s hopeless without the prince. I don’t know why I try, it only upsets me.”