The Russlander

by Sandra Birdsell

  atya would remember that clouds driven by the wind had cast shadows on the shorn fields on either side of the road, making the fields appear incandescent as patches of earth brightened to a yellow-gold and faded to the usual monochromatic beige of autumn. All around her the land glowed and dimmed; it was a remarkable thing to see how a landscape shadowed with running clouds seemed to turn itself on and off, and she stood very still, her slate-grey eyes taking it in, wanting to remember the day her father went to serve in the war.

  She watched with Gerhard and Sara as the droschke taking her parents to Ekaterinoslav reached the vanishing point and disappeared, and then they returned to the gate posts where Oma Schroeder waited with baby Daniel clinging to her neck, Johann and Peter to her apron. Because the air was cool, she knew not to expect that her parents would be given back to them in an image projected above the road. She wouldn’t see the usual wobbling amoeba go floating across the land when, miles away, the carriage turned onto the Colony highway, went northeast to the pink- and peach-coloured city of Ekaterinoslav, where, her father had explained, hundreds of men would soon camp on the platform of a train station and wait to board a train for Moscow. Abram Sudermann had predicted that their father would likely be home from the war by Christmas. Most people thought the same, that the men wouldn’t be away for more than five months.

  Her mother had never been to Ekaterinoslav, a city named after the great empress. She went for the first time, wanting to shorten, by a few days at least, the separation from her husband, just as many other women had done. But their encounter with the Russian city, and life beyond their Mennonite oasis, would make them anxious about their husbands and sons. They didn’t fear the painted birds, the whores moving among the men at the station, their seduction garish and as plain to see as the day. Rather, they feared the fair and rosy-cheeked Russian nurses their men would work alongside in field hospitals, ships, and trains. Sisters of mercy, who, it was rumoured, could be entirely too merciful.

  Katya’s parents had been treated by Abram Sudermann to a stay at an ostentatious hotel in Ekaterinoslav, and the painted birds were even there, her mother told Oma when she returned. Abram was acquainted with the manager, whose quick movements and glibness made her mother suspect he was afraid his true self would be revealed if ever he slowed down. He offered her parents a key to a private steam bath, which they declined. What with the presence of the painted birds, her mother was reluctant to sit where they might have sat. But they did accept the man’s invitation to take supper in the hotel’s elegant dining room; they refrained from speaking German, and were treated to the music of a string ensemble of women musicians.

  The second night, they lodged in Isaac Sudermann’s factory quarters, a suite that was made available to out-of-town business acquaintances in a three-storey building across a courtyard from his tractor factory. The building where they stayed also housed several of Isaac Sudermann’s factory workers and their families, those workers who had shown industry and promise and proven themselves to be worthy of a higher education, which he provided for them in a classroom after work. Because of the impending war the students’ benches now stood empty. Isaac’s factory was running at half its productivity, he complained to them as he took them on a tour. He would need to hire women, he said. If the war went on longer than Christmas, it was likely he would be required to manufacture cannons and shell casings.

  We’re so rich, Mama, Katya’s mother said to Oma when she returned, meaning that Mennonites had become rich. The extent of some people’s wealth had been brought home to her. She wrung her hands and paced, made anxious by what she’d seen in the city, Isaac’s factory, his flour mill. The ornate and luxurious house Abram’s married sons lived in, the servants all in uniforms. She had seen a mansion owned by a Mennonite, a man whom people weren’t ashamed, to call Millionaire Toews, that occupied a full city block. There would be a price to pay for all of this, she predicted, and quoted a biblical list of what could be bought in the world marketplace, gold and silver, pearls, fine linen, silk, vessels of ivory, brass, ointments, wine, beasts, horses and chariots, and slaves, and the souls of men.

  Years later Katya would hear the stories, relive the scene through the eyes of people who had been there: the platform shaking as locomotives drew in and out beneath the vaulted ceiling of the station, steam, thick as wool in the chilly air, and obliterating the crowds that gathered across the tracks. Beyond the crowd was a broad tree-lined avenue where omnibuses and carriages and automobiles went to and fro. The avenue opened to a central square, a statue of Pushkin, and gilt-trimmed and pastel-coloured apartment buildings.

  She would remember the moment the droschke carrying her father and mother passed through the gates of Privol’noye, the clouds casting their shadows, the incandescent earth. The parlour clock ticked as usual, but its sound now became accentuated, became a counterpoint to the rhythm of her mother’s footsteps when she returned, moving through the house in the months that followed as though feeling her way in the dark. Greta’s departure for Arbusovka to keep house for Willy and Frieda Krahn, and their father’s departure for three months’ medical training in Moscow, had left an aching silence.

  She would read, years later, about that particular autumn when her father had gone away, about the crowds that had gathered in parks in Odessa to listen to military bands while enjoying ice cream on balmy summerlike evenings. People strolling in parks, wheeling baby carriages, their voices blending as they called for war. In Berlin, Paris, and London, there were similar parks, and choirs whose thundering recitative had all been the same.

  II

  IN THE PRESENCE OF ENEMIES

  Whence then cometh wisdom?

  and where is the place of understanding?

  – JOB 28:20

  ROSENTHAL June 16, 1915

  Dear Greta,

  You’ll be happy to know that village life suits us well. Within the first week our Sara won everyone over with her sunny disposition, judging from the fact that there’s hardly a day when she isn’t invited onto someone’s yard for a visit. I’m sure she knows the inside of almost every house here around. She’s also become such a Niescheaje-op, always wanting to know why this, why that. Our tongues are sore from answering her questions, which only bring more questions. Gerhard seems determined to grow up quickly and helps Opa and Uncle Bernhard every way he can. Once school begins, I’m sure he and Sara will fit right in.

  I’m glad we moved closer to Papa, but we had to get used to not being able to see him whenever we wanted. Even Mama would find a reason to go walking near the Seminary in hopes of having a short visit with him. When he comes home, it’s usually only for a day or two, and then Opa and Uncle Bernhard find something to keep him occupied in the barn and on the fields, which is good medicine, according to Mama. Papa is made for the outdoors, but he works hard at the Seminary to prove his loyalty.

  Mama says I’m to thank you for your long letter, which she will sit down and answer this coming Sunday. Arbusovka may be a small village but it sounds as though there are many interesting people, including Willy Krahn. We hope to surprise you one day with a Sunday visit.

  Lovingly,

  your sister Katherine

  ARBUSOVKA September 20, 1915

  Dear Katya,

  I’m sorry that this must be a short note, but Dietrich is waiting as I write. He has agreed to deliver this parcel to you. We were surprised and happy to see him, and welcomed his brief visit. Tell Sara to be careful with the buttons on the tunic, as there aren’t any spare ones. They are such special buttons, and should she lose one, then all of them would have to be replaced. Frieda Krahn has been good to show me how to use the machine, and as you can see, I’m making progress.

  I will write a longer letter at another time. Needless to say, I think of you all every day, and you are in my prayers.

  Margareta

  ROSENTHAL August 28, 1916

  Dear Greta,

  Another quiet Sunday, while across the st
reet, the Siemenses’ veranda and garden are overcome with visitors. Even though Opa and Oma have one of the largest houses in town, they don’t receive many Sunday callers, and I’m beginning to wonder if it’s because we’re living with them. In my walks about town, I’ve come to notice that fall farmers visit with other full farmers, just as the owners of half-farmers stick to their own, and so, even though Opa is a fall farmer, the other owners of full farms don’t often come to visit, and I’m thinking that perhaps it’s because they don’t want to be seen mixing with us, who have no land at all.

  Today in church the minister’s sermon was based on Scripture that says those who are last on earth will be first in heaven, and those who are first will be last. Therefore, people who live the farthest away from the centre of the village should one day occupy the centre of heaven, yes? Or are there other ways of being first and last that have nothing to do with the size or place of a person’s dwelling? If so, I would like to hear what those might be.

  This afternoon while Mama and the boys slept, I sat out with Opa and Oma on the steps and, when no one came calling, Nela invited us over. She has invited me several times now. She introduced me to an old lady, Tante Anna, who in spring came to board in their little house at the back of the orchard. For all her seventy-eight years, she’s as spry as can be, and full of good humour. Nela said that at first, their student boarders weren’t happy with the thought of sharing the little house, but they have grown quite fond of her. Nela has been good to come and help with the pickling. Did you know that if you pierce an overly large cucumber with a knitting needle, it won’t go hollow inside? Also, a layer of oak or grape leaves makes the cukes stay green longer. Horseradish keeps them firm. Nela sends her regards.

  You have likely already heard of our fires. The two barn-burnings in Chortitza. One barn was saved, and has almost been rebuilt. A straw pile standing too near to it caught fire and the fire spread. It’s being said that both fires were purposely set by jealous peasants. I can’t imagine a person being so wicked. We had to close all the windows and could smell the smoke for days.

  Sometimes I dream that we are all back at home, as I’m sure you do, too. Papa was home for three days recently and spent most of the time suffering with a headache, but he was happy to be with us, and by the time he left, he looked more like his old self.

  Lovingly,

  your sister Katherine

  he day had been long and hot, and a shortage of draft animals made the harvest slow. Her uncle Bernhard’s black disposition was on the verge of erupting when voluminous rain clouds appeared, rimming the edge of the valley. He was anxious for the herdsman to bring the cows home, as he wanted to go up the hill for an hour’s work before it began to rain. Katya waited at the barn gate with Gerhard watching for the cows and thought about her father.

  She imagined him tending the soldiers whose litters and cots filled the classrooms and the auditorium of the Teachers’ Seminary only minutes away in Chortitza. When she thought of the last days they’d had as a family at Privol’noye, she recalled their picnic beside Ox Lake, the walk in the forest the day of the gathering. Of the three men who’d gone walking, only her father had ended up nursing the wounded. Years later, she would read David Sudermann’s letters to her father, which were filled with accounts of street riots in Odessa, of the burning-out of Jewish shops, and mob killings. He served with the Red Cross as an executive secretary for medical personnel in a finance office. He had written to her father with his usual sideways humour, “As you can imagine, my position has created genuine friendship towards me, as it is my signature that is required on requisitions of the medical personnel before the cashiers will hand over the money.”

  She’d heard that Franz Pauls was a bookkeeper in a Red Cross administration office on train number 159, a train that went to the front to collect the severely wounded and bring them back to the interior. There were thirteen Mennonite Sanitäters assigned to number 159, most of them from the colony of Chortitza. Franz Pauls’s letters to his parents would one day be published in a Mennonite journal along with other men’s letters, memoirs, a record of their non-military service in the Great War. He would describe the administration coach where he worked, its desks bolted to the floor. A pharmacy coach separated the administration coach from the surgery, and so the fumes of ether and the sound of bones being sawed didn’t reach him, but the odour of blood did. It seemed to have permeated all the coaches on the Red Cross train, even where he slept. He received first-hand the accounts of the soldier’s wounds and their suffering. His being able to smell blood everywhere was his imagination playing tricks, they told him, as they, too, smelled blood, even when they were off the train and walking in the countryside.

  Her father, following three months in Moscow, had been sent to work in the town of Chortitza, in the Teachers’ Seminary, which had been turned into a Lazarett. In her family, as in most, it was taken for granted that the mothers cared for the ill; now her father was changing soiled diapers of Russian men and washing their stitched-together bodies. He spoon-fed them kasha and soup, comforted and prayed over them; he described the heat pouring from their lungs as though they were being consumed inside by fire.

  The many times she went to the post office and passed by the Lazarett, she’d see the open doors and imagine how the fresh air must lift the men’s spirits. She once saw her father sitting outside on a chair, looking up at trees on the slope of the valley where something seemed to have caught his attention, and it took her a moment to recognize him. That her father had a life separate from theirs made him seem a stranger, and the days when he was on leave there was an awkwardness until he shed his uniform and emerged from the summer room freshly bathed and wearing his farm clothes.

  A fog of yellow dust hung above the crest of the hill, and she knew the cows would soon appear. She saw Nela come out of the house across the street and onto the veranda. When she saw Katya, she hurried down a set of stone steps leading through the garden, and came over to her gate. The book circle was meeting tonight at Auguste Sudermann’s house in Chortitza, Nela called. Would she be able to come?

  I’ll see, Katya said, which was what she’d said both times Nela had invited her, declining, at the last moment, to go.

  “What is there to see?” Nela asked in a teasing voice.

  “I haven’t read the book,” she said.

  “Many don’t. Olga, for example. She comes for the gossip and the eats,” Nela said. “Auguste and Lydia said I should issue a special invitation.”

  “I’ll see,” Katya repeated.

  “When you see what there is to see, let me know if that means whether or not you’re able to come,” Nela said, and laughed.

  Within moments they heard the sound of the herder’s horn, and then, up and down the street, people opened their barn gates. The cows drew nearer, each one knowing which gate to enter. Gerhard rode their gate open, and the animals entered the barnyard, their bodies streaked with sweat and dust.

  When her uncle and grandfather brought the team and wagon through the gate, she and Gerhard went with them to help with the weed cutting, riding on the back of the wagon, their legs dangling. Dear Greta, Katya thought, composing a letter she would later write.

  Dear Greta,

  I have news. I believe that the stork is going to visit us again, judging by what’s behind Mama’s apron. Daniel won’t be happy to give up his place in her lap. For my mind, I hope this time the stork brings us a sister. Then we will be four and four.

  Dear Greta,

  Abram Sudermann came to see Papa when last time he was home. According to Mr. Sudermann, it would be a simple thing for Papa to obtain a three-month medical leave. David Sudermann has made a friend of a chief physician in Odessa who says arranging a leave for medical reasons wouldn’t be too difficult. Mr. Sudermann said it was highly unlikely that, once the leave was up, anyone would come looking for Papa to return.

  Of course, our dear Papa has refused.

  The rain would hold
off, don’t worry, her grandfather predicted. Wait and see. She heard a faint rumble of thunder as though the earth had been lifted and shaken. Her uncle Bernhard chewed on a piece of straw and, as usual, let her grandfather do most of the talking. Uncle Bernhard wore his cap low on his forehead, which made him look like an animal peering out from a burrow. When he did speak, he would noisily clear his throat before, and after. Her mother’s oldest brother had been born with one leg shorter than the other, which had made him exempt from military service.

  The road out of the village was lined with houses; they passed by the colony’s gardens and, beyond the gardens, the watermelon patch, at its centre a cone-shaped twig hut where an old man stayed the night to guard the melons whose syrup would be a valued source of sweetener if sugar proved costly or scarce. They crossed a bridge at Kanserovka Creek, the creek bed almost dry in autumn except for a narrow stream of wet trickling down the centre, colouring the stones a brighter grey.

  Then they were mounting a hill, and as the wagon reached its crest it seemed as though the town had disappeared. Always, the wind was different on the plateau, it held smells and sounds that didn’t reach town. The weather was different, too, warmer or colder, and up there, the land was hooked onto the edge of the world and the sky more generous.

  Today the rain clouds had gathered, but were not pressing against the earth as they appeared to be in town. Today the land rattled with clusters of black seed-pods that grew near the tops of weeds as tall as her uncle. Last year the field had raised emmer, but there was a shortage of draft animals, and so the field was one of several that had been given over to the weeds which, because of a scarcity of straw, they would burn in the stove for winter.