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The Russlander

Page 22

by Sandra Birdsell


  Now, as she waited in bed for Greta to come up the ladder to their attic room, she took out the notebook and recorded the circumstances of the day when she had written down the recipe. Years later, whenever she read the entry, she would be reminded of Greta’s baptism and would wish they had travelled together as a family to and from church on what had proved to be one of their last outings together.

  Today the pink hue of sunset was like a rose petal, soft and sympathetic, as if to ease our memories of what happened in Lubitskoye, an event that still reverberates in my mind.

  When we got home there was a big fuss when it was learned that two sacks of flour had mysteriously disappeared from the bake kitchen while we were away at church. And a ham from the storage cellar, even though the cellar door remained locked. Martha, whom Aganetha has put in charge of the female workers now that Helena has left, decided to do an inventory and discovered the missing food. Papa tried to persuade Abram not to whip Kolya, who had been appointed overseer while we were away, and was therefore responsible. But Abram, fired up over what happened on the way to church, Papa explained, wasn’t persuaded. He took his brothers with him to the barn in case Kolya decided not to take the beating. I heard the strap as many as six times, others say there were more. But no one heard a sound from Kolya. Not only is stealing ingrained in a Russian, but how to take a beating as well, which is how Dietrich put it.

  After church we again went overland to pass by Lubitskoye, and by then my cramps had started. I could hardly keep Daniel on my lap, and the bumpy ride didn’t make things any easier. Sara and I went for a walk to Ox Lake at sunset. Sunset was the remedy. All of nature is a remedy for any ailment. It captivates the mind, and the heart is overcome by its beauty. Nothing seems worth fuming about when the sky is lit with a glorious sunset.

  Later, she would reread what she had written and recall Greta, her dark hair like unravelled wool tumbling across a pillow; the warmth in their attic room being dispelled by chilly air that billowed the curtain, the brass bells she had pinned to it tinkling noisily. The sound of bells would always make her think of snow blanketing the compound, and banking up its walls. Snow wedged in the tongues of her boots, landing in clumps on the doormat as she loosened the laces. She would remember the feather quilt covering their bodies, a counterpane of white hovering in the shadows, the lamplight falling across Greta’s face when she told Katya that she and Dietrich were going to marry.

  Katya stood at the window, her sister’s news still fresh and startling as first snow. The sound of the bells was like that of harness bells, and she thought, and remembered: I am coming, I am here, I am going. Greta had broken the news, and Katya said, So you’re engaged, and got out of bed. She felt that she didn’t have the right to be so near to her sister, their legs touching.

  “Papa says we should wait, and of course, we agreed,” Greta said from across the room.

  “And the Sudermanns also?”

  “Dietrich hasn’t told them yet.”

  Katya saw her father coming across the compound, heard him enter the house. Greta and Dietrich, living in the Big House. Katya’s house connected to Greta’s house by a narrow path, a spoke leading to the hub. Greta, mistress of Privol’noye. A moment later her father came to the bottom of the ladder and called up to them. They were to dress and come down, he said, as he had something to show them.

  Their father walked behind them, the light of his lantern arcing on the path, lengthening and shortening their shadows as they went towards the greenhouse. To the greenhouse, what for? Sara asked, her boot laces undone and tripping her up. The light tilted suddenly as their father caught Sara before she fell and set her upright on the path. You’ll soon see, he said. Now go quietly.

  As they went through the potting shed and into the greenhouse, Katya smelled fresh damp earth even before her father lifted the lantern to reveal a mound of dirt where a potting table had once been.

  “This is what I want you to see,” he said. He stepped around the pile of earth, and they looked down into a large rectangular hole in the greenhouse floor. As he lowered the lantern to the surface of the hole she saw that the dark earth gave way to yellow clay, the marks of his spade, brown threads like hemp rope interwoven in the earth walls.

  The hole was to remain a secret, her father said, a secret only he, their mother, and now they, would know. He spoke to all of them, but his eyes turned to Sara. “A secret. Which means no one else should know, understand? You’re not to tell your brothers, either,” he said.

  Sara nodded, her eyes large and solemn. “But what’s it for?” she asked.

  “For you three girls. To go inside, if need be,” he said.

  “But I don’t want to go inside, what for, anyway?” Sara asked, her lips beginning to tremble.

  “Safety,” he said. “The hole is for safety.”

  Greta made a sound as though she’d sipped at air, which made Katya’s skin prickle. She hugged herself and looked at the lights shining in a window of their house. Safety for them and not for her brothers, why? she wondered. In a hole deep enough for them to sit in, chins on their knees, arms hugging their legs, heads only inches from the top. Smaller than a grave hole, but nevertheless it was a hole.

  “Listen,” her father said. “Remember the chicks we saw at Ox Lake?” The hen had called a warning, and her chicks stayed under the water until the danger passed.

  “Should there be trouble, here’s where you come,” he said. He explained that he would make a slatted cover for the hole, glue straw and peat to it, loosely spread, the space between the slats allowing for air and some daylight to pass through. Once the table went back, no one would see it was there.

  “What kind of trouble?” Greta asked.

  Trouble such as they had met up with on the road today when the drunk men stopped them from travelling through the village, Katya thought, even before her father said so.

  “Today, on the way to church, when those men stopped us, were you scared?” he asked Sara.

  Sara nodded.

  “Well then, if something should happen that makes you feel like that, if any one of you feels like that,” he said to Katya and Greta, “here’s where you come. Wherever you are, don’t stop to think, just come. Here.” He pointed to the hole. “You crawl under the table. You pull the lid to one side, and get into the hole. Then you slide the lid back in place, and stay quiet. Very still and quiet, until someone comes for you.”

  “Papa, I’m returning to Arbusovka tomorrow,” Greta said. “I won’t be here.”

  “You won’t be in Arbusovka forever,” their father said, and Katya remembered that was so. Greta would be across the compound, living in the Big House.

  “And you’re not to tell anyone. Anyone at all,” he said, his eyes latching onto Greta’s with hidden meaning. She was not to tell Dietrich, Katya knew.

  They returned to the house and gathered in the family room around the table with the others for hot cocoa and bread. Their mother sprinkled sugar and cinnamon on their bedtime snack, Gerhard’s eyes lighting with appreciation, innocent of what had precipitated the treat, unaware of their mother’s troubled silence. Katya felt uneasy and hadn’t been able to look at her brothers directly until they were all seated at the table and waiting for their mother to bring their bedtime treat. Then they sang an evening hymn and listened to their father read the Twenty-third Psalm amid the loud ticking of the clock in the parlour, the hollow tick-tocking, the words of the psalm putting everything back into place.

  Later, the rooms beneath Katya and her sister lay in stillness. The bells tinkled softly as the curtain stirred. Tomorrow Greta would return to Arbusovka, and Katya would again be the oldest, and responsible for the care of her brothers and sisters. She would help her mother look after them. Her brothers could take for granted that she would see to their needs, her mother could assume she would do so, and, she thought, someone greater would be watching over them all.

  ARBUSOVKA July 22, 1917

  My dearest, m
y Dietrich,

  I’m sure the news has already reached you that Frieda Krahn has died, and her unborn baby with her. It seems impossible that she’s gone. The evening before she died, we sat at the table together, and I read to her from Bettex’s Nature and Law. It’s a book she had read many times, and was fond of, and she wanted me to enjoy it, too. That afternoon we had gone through a bag of fabric pieces, choosing those that would be suitable for a quilt we were going to put together during the winter months. The quilt was going to be for us. For our marriage bed. I have to explain that one night I was overcome by loneliness and I confided to her about you and me, and that we had promised to wait a year. She said the quilt would help the time pass. She was cutting and arranging the pieces on the table while I read to her. And by the next evening, she was no longer with us. I know that childbirth often takes both mother and baby, but when it happens to someone you’ve grown to love, it makes a person stay awake and wonder why.

  This week I had a terrible scare. Little Erika has learned how to undo the latch on the gate and often goes wandering. I went to look for her, and when I got back there was a stranger in the kitchen. He was standing over the miagrope and drinking soup from the ladle. I didn’t scream or run, I just hung onto Erika and shook. He was a dirty-looking person with awful sores on his face and hands. Just then Willy came into the house. When he saw the situation he invited the man to sit down and join him at dinner, and said I should serve them. The man smelled so bad, it was hard to go near him. When he left, I threw the leftover soup to the pigs and scalded the miagrope and dishes he’d touched. The outcome is that Willy has decided that things have become too uncertain for me to stay here any longer. He’s sent for a widowed sister to come and do for him and Erika, and I’m coming home.

  I can hardly wait to see you, but I must wait until the middle of August when the Heinrichs Pauls Hildebrandt family from Arbusovka will go to Nikolaifeld and take me along. Willy will let Papa know the exact day we are leaving. Then Papa will send someone to come and get me at Nikolaifeld (you?), as more than likely he will be on the fields with harvest by then.

  Our first kiss was pleasant. Our second, even more so. I’m looking forward to our walks in the forest, and our third kiss, my dear more-than-a-friend, Dietrich Abramovitch Sudermannchenko.

  With love,

  your Margareta

  PRIVOL’NOYE July 30, 1917

  My friend, my dearest Margareta,

  I leave this letter with your mother to give to you.

  I wish with all my heart that I could be the one to fetch you from Nikolaifeld, as how wonderful it would be to be alone with you even for a short time. But unfortunately this is not to be. Harvest approaching or not, Father has decided it’s time for me to put my commerce education into practice in Uncle Isaac’s factory, and I will leave for Ekaterinoslav tomorrow. I know you’ll be as down-hearted to discover that I’m not here as I am that I must go. Especially now that your kisses belong to me, my dear one. Privol’noye has not been the same without you, and now just as you’re about to return, I must leave.

  It’s not likely that I’ll be home for Christmas, according to Papa. You spoke of making a quilt in winter to help pass the time, and I suppose I must look on my training in Uncle Isaac’s factory in the same light. It will help the time pass more quickly until, at last, we never need to be apart again.

  My heart goes out to Mr. Krahn and his child, may God comfort both of them.

  I will write again soon, and often,

  yours with love,

  Dietrich

  CHORTITZA November 5, 1917

  My dear Peter Vogt,

  I have been wanting to write ever since I returned from Odessa. The recent news of the raids and burnings at Privol’noye compel me to do so now. I am growing concerned for the safety of your family. We, too, are beginning to experience the current unrest, and although you likely don’t appreciate how I enjoy hearing myself going on and on, I’ll begin with more than a little news, as you have come to expect from me. This writer never imagines that a dreary missive can induce voluminous snoring as readily as a long-winded sermon.

  When I arrived home to Chortitza in September, the first thing I took it upon myself to do was break the seal and lock on the school door. As you can imagine, there was much speculation as to how soon I would be arrested. But fortunately that was not to be – or unfortunately, for those who predicted that would be the outcome. It’s a puzzle how disappointed some people can be when their dire predictions don’t come to pass. But it was just as I expected, the officious schlorre-kap’tän of a school inspector didn’t show his face at my door. Nor the police, either; further proof that neither rule nor order is being kept these days. As you know, the jails and prisons have been emptied by amnesty, and we in Chortitza and Rosenthal are afforded the experience of rubbing shoulders in the streets with convicted thieves, rabble-rousers, and even murderers. So why would anyone bother to arrest a schoolteacher acting in the interests of pedagogy? The sooner all the schools reopen, the better for the children, as the routine gives them a sense of stability.

  There were no noticeable changes here in Chortitza after the takeover by the Bolsheviks, not to the extent of what was taking place in the cities. Except for train travel, the revolution didn’t affect us directly, at first. But the chaos on the trains was shocking. Ruffians and returning soldiers demand civilians give up their seats, and if they’re dimwitted enough to object, they are hastened from the train, sometimes through the windows and always when the train is travelling at optimum speed. During my journey home from Odessa I wore the red ribbon on my lapel – to assure my fellow passengers that I was in step with the times – and, wisely, my old worn boots from forestry camp. Many a man disembarked in sock feet, and minus a topcoat. Other than having to submit to numerous toasts to freedom and equality with the inevitable and vile-tasting samogon, I am happy and can report that my boots and greatcoat remained untouched.

  However I’m afraid life in our sleepy villages is beginning to be affected by the winds of change. In Chortitza we have a commissar, a rather agreeable fellow, Chuev, a sailor from the Black Sea fleet. He was appointed to head a village soviet by a Revolutionary Committee in Alexandrovsk. His first task was to divide our belongings equally and fairly among the soldiers who, at the suggestion of the same committee, continue to move into our villages in large numbers. I suppose we should be grateful for Chuev, as I am told that in villages where there is no commissar, the soldiers forcefully and arbitrarily claim their promised rewards for having given up fighting the war. With the arrival of Chuev, I’m sad to say there went all but one of my cows, most of my chickens, and all of my horses. Camels, it appears, are not worth liberating. It’s now necessary for me to ask Chuev, who has set up his headquarters in one of Koop’s factory houses, for permission to borrow my own horses and wagon in order to fetch supplies. When Chuev decides for some reason that I may not, I travel on foot, as does everyone else except him, I might add.

  But on to the reason that compelled me to write.

  I am thinking about your girls. I am thinking about all of your children. You must read the same newspapers I do, and yet Marie’s father tells me that you’re reluctant to let the children out of your sight. Let me add my voice to your father-in-law’s. Send Marie and the children back to Rosenthal. Auguste looks over my shoulder as I write this, and she says to tell you that she would welcome any number of your children into our home for as long as it’s necessary for things to grow calm and stable, as I’m almost certain will be the case. We are in the early stages of great change, and many people are taking the opportunity of these uncertain times to settle old scores, and to indulge their base and lawless natures. The current unrest is something we must go through before everyday life will improve. In the meantime, why not send your family here?

  I’m almost certain that you have already heard the news of the upcoming marriage of Dietrich to Jakob’s Barbara. The world may be upside-down, but Ab
ram’s will prevails. While it looks as though his brothers may soon become workers in their own mills and factories, Abram still schemes to enlarge his holdings, and this time through matrimony. He refuses to read the writing on the wall.

  My dear brother expects us to come home and give the newly-wedded couple a Sudermann family welcome, which I will do for the sake of family harmony, although knowing my nephew’s heart, I do not approve of Abram’s matchmaking. And so I will likely see you at Privol’noye before the snow flies.

  Perhaps by the time I come you may have considered my proposal and agree to send your family back with us, and into our tender care.

  With warm regards, as always,

  David Sudermann

  PRIVOL’NOYE November 10, 1917

  My friend, David Sudermann,

  Greetings, my fellow worker and member of the proletariat, Comrade.

  I address you in such a manner to demonstrate that I, too, am keeping in step with the times, which you related so interestingly and well in your previous letter.

  However, time will not allow for me to write more than a hasty reply to your long and informative letter. Dietrich and Barbara are still here at Privol’noye, but tomorrow they will travel to Ekaterinoslav on the first leg of their journey, and Dietrich has promised to forward this letter to you.

  The early and heavy snowfall that prevented your travel to Privol’noye is a blessing, for it has covered up the ruin. My heart could not bear the sight of such wanton destruction. The burning of grain and slaughtering of animals that are then left to rot is an evilness that will bear its own bitter fruit.

 

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