Sapphire Skies

by Belinda Alexandra

  ‘To talk about our families and children is pointless,’ Radinka explained to me. ‘To do so only creates despair. We understand each other. We’re all in the same situation.’

  ‘Zina, perform something for us,’ said a woman named Olesya to me one evening. Zina was the diminutive of Zinaida, which everybody in the factory, including Ustinya, used to address me. ‘Do you sing?’ she asked.

  ‘I can sing,’ I said. ‘But it’s a long time since I have done so.’

  ‘Well, get rid of the rust,’ she said with a kind smile.

  The other women murmured their encouragement and so I cleared my throat and sang a song about the Dnieper River, which had been popular with my regiment. When I finished, the women clapped.

  ‘You should have gone to the Conservatory,’ another woman named Syuzanna said. ‘Your voice is beautiful.’

  That night I lay on my bunk and thought of all the things I might have done if Stalin hadn’t signed my father’s death warrant. I clenched my hands into fists, trying to contain my anger. At the same time, I knew that I could be as angry as I wanted but it wouldn’t change a thing. I had been given an opportunity to survive and I must make the most of it.

  Valentin’s face appeared before me. ‘Wait for me,’ I whispered as I fell asleep. ‘Wait for me and I’ll return.’

  Life in the sewing factory had a monotonous rhythm to it but for a prisoner with a sentence as long as mine it was better that way. I still wasn’t allowed to correspond with anybody, and I coped best when I emptied my mind and refused to reflect. For seven years I lived that way — rising, washing, working, eating, sleeping, like a mechanical doll.

  Then one day in the spring of 1953 a guard came to the factory and, with a grave expression on his face, handed Ustinya a piece of paper. I watched her eyes scan the note. Her cheeks paled.

  ‘Please stop the machines!’ she said and moved to the front of the workroom to address us.

  The whirring of the sewing machines came to a halt. Ustinya’s hands trembled as she read the statement: ‘Dear comrades and friends. The Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union announces with profound sorrow to the Party and all workers of the Soviet Union that on the fifth of March at 9.50 pm Moscow time, after a grave illness, the Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers and the Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin, died.’

  The announcement was met with silence. Everyone contained their response because of the guard. Yet the excitement was palpable. The monster was dead! Radinka rested her face on her arms and wept. It wasn’t grief for Stalin that made her cry. She was mourning her former life and the family she had lost. The rest of us began to weep too.

  When the guard left, satisfied that we had reacted appropriately, we were able to express our true feelings. Syuzanna danced across the room. The rest of us cheered and embraced each other.

  ‘You are going to be freed, I’m sure of it!’ Ustinya said as she moved among us and kissed our cheeks. ‘The nightmare is over!’

  Things changed dramatically in Kolyma in only a matter of weeks. Thousands of people were granted amnesty and released: the elderly; pregnant women; prisoners accused of economic crimes or with sentences of less than five years; and people under eighteen. Convoy after convoy passed by our camp on their way to the port.

  Over the next two years, the releases continued in fits and starts. When it was announced that amnesty would be given to all servicemen and women charged with treason and collaborating with the Germans, I allowed myself to be hopeful. Officials came to the camp and prisoners were released, but I was not called to appear before them. Ustinya wrote letters on my behalf to the authorities, citing my good behaviour and work ethic, but I suspected there were special reasons why I wasn’t being released.

  In 1956 Khrushchev denounced Stalin’s excesses and hundreds of thousands of political prisoners were released, yet I remained in Kolyma with a handful of other prisoners. Perhaps Khrushchev had been party to my arrest and releasing me might expose him. Then in 1960, as I was beginning to fear that I might be buried in Kolyma forever, the camp commandant summoned me to his office.

  ‘Congratulations,’ he said. ‘Your case has been reviewed. You are free to go if you sign these two documents.’

  After all these years of torturous waiting, I was free to go? I read the documents the commandant placed before me. One was my official release form. It had been signed and dated two years earlier. What had been the reason for the delay in summoning me? Perhaps nothing more than bureaucratic bungling had cost me two years of my life!

  I studied the other form. It was an agreement that I would never reveal anything that had happened to me from the time of my arrest in Odessa to the last day of my imprisonment. If I broke the condition, I would be re-arrested and returned to prison.

  I glanced at the camp commandant. Did he know I wasn’t Zinaida Rusakova? Whoever had worded the statement did. To sign the form meant that I would have to go on pretending to be someone else.

  I hesitated but then thought: what does it matter what people call me? I am being allowed to return to Moscow, and nowhere in the statement does it forbid me from seeing my relatives or former acquaintances.

  I was twenty-three years old when I came to Kolyma and I was now thirty-eight. I thought of my beloved Valentin and Mama. If pretending to be Zinaida meant I could go free, I would do it.

  After the boat trip back across the sea from Magadan, I waited at the station for the train that would take me to Moscow. The other passengers on the platform were mostly free workers, but some were prisoners from the labour camps of Kolyma too. They still wore their prison jackets, with the numbers removed, and foot rags, and their shorn heads and spindly limbs were a sure indication of where they had been. Ustinya had insisted that I sew a dress for myself before leaving the factory. It was grey cotton and nowhere near as lovely as the outfit I would have liked to return home wearing, but it was better than a prison uniform or rags. My shoes were the clumpy lace-ups that Doctor Polyakova had given me when I’d left the hospital. They had holes in the bottoms now, so I’d made cardboard insoles to stop the stones piercing my feet.

  Rain began to blow in from the sea and I, along with the other passengers, rushed into the waiting room to escape the weather. Inside there was a ceiling-to-floor-length mirror and the women gathered around it to fix their hair and straighten their clothes. I joined them and gave a start when I saw myself: a mousy-looking woman with frown lines on her forehead. I wanted to turn away but couldn’t. I wasn’t hideous. Frostbite hadn’t gouged out pieces of my face nor had scurvy deprived me of my teeth. Yet the lustre of my youth had vanished. I was like a tarnished wedding band. I wanted to cry. But then I remembered Mama and Valentin were waiting for me. It will be all right, I told myself. Love will restore you.

  It took me a month to reach Moscow and I was as hungry on the journey as I had been on the way to Kolyma. I’d been given a ration of bread and a small amount of money when I’d left the camp, but it was barely enough to buy eggs and tomatoes from the peasant women at stations along the way. If Ustinya hadn’t given me a parcel of nuts, pickled cucumbers and salted fish I might not have survived.

  I arrived at Moscow’s Yaroslavsky railway station in early June, worn out from the journey. When I emerged into Komsomolskaya Square, I was deafened by the onslaught of noise. The streets were full of cars and buses and the air was acrid with exhaust fumes. I found the congestion frightening, although the people around me seemed unaffected.

  A policeman who was directing traffic turned and stared at me. There was no reason to arrest me, my papers were in order, but I was afraid of such men now. I bent my head and tried to keep pace with the crowd, attempting to look like I belonged. But returning to Moscow after all these years was like arriving on a foreign planet. I was used to the silence and routine of the camp.

  The new trams rattled along too fast for me and I decid
ed to make my way to the Arbat on foot. There were no watchtowers in the streets or guards with guns and yet I felt afraid. Despite the heat, I hurried along as if I were being pursued by a pack of bloodthirsty hounds. The lack of posters bearing Stalin’s face was noticeable. Posters boasting of the Soviet Union’s achievements had taken their place. They showed farmers harvesting bumper crops; muscular athletes; smiling factory workers; housewives feeding their children delicious-looking food. One poster intrigued me: the picture was of a handsome square-jawed man gazing into space and cradling a rocket with two dogs inside. The way is open for man the caption read. What did it mean?

  I passed a café that played strange music that grated on me. Old men and women still wore the same drab clothes, but the young girls looked pretty with their bouffant hairstyles and headbands. I was admiring one girl’s pointed shoes when a young mother passed by pushing a pram. I sat down in a doorway, overcome by the realisation of all that I had missed out on — marrying Valentin, starting a family, wearing nice clothes, and having fun. Instead, I had spent my best years in prison camps.

  I reached the courtyard of Mama’s apartment building and looked up to her window to see the white lace curtains flapping in the slight breeze. I braced myself for the tears that would pour down our cheeks when she realised that I had come home. My legs trembled as I climbed the stairs. When I reached the door, I hesitated before ringing the bell, aware that I was about to re-enter the life I had left behind.

  I pushed the button. The sound of footsteps came from inside and the door swung open. The first objects I saw were Mama’s chair and the bureau under the window. But the woman who stood in the doorway with rollers in her hair wasn’t Mama. She looked me up and down. Her presence in my mother’s apartment was so unexpected that I didn’t know what to say. I had never seen her before.

  ‘Sofia Grigorievna,’ I said, struggling to breathe. ‘I’m looking for Sofia Grigorievna Azarova.’

  The woman’s eyes narrowed. ‘This is my apartment now!’ she said. ‘The government gave it to me. It’s legally mine!’

  She slammed the door in my face. I stood there in shock, my heart thumping in my chest. Where was Mama? Had she been arrested despite my false confession?

  My head became light and I sat down on the first step of the staircase, panting for breath. Doctor Polyakova had told me that my heart had been damaged when the brigadier jumped on my chest. I would have to be forever careful of it.

  A door on the floor below opened and an elderly woman came out and peered up the stairs at me. I stood up, afraid that she was about to scream at me too. Instead she gestured for me to come down to her apartment.

  ‘You’re looking for Sofia?’ she whispered. ‘You are …?’

  ‘A friend,’ I said.

  She seemed to be expecting a different answer but she welcomed me inside her apartment anyway. ‘It’s very hot today. Let me give you some juice,’ she said, helping me to a chair. ‘My name is Arina. I became friends with Sofia when I moved here three years ago.’

  ‘Where is she?’ I asked.

  Arina hesitated, her eyes full of sympathy. She stared at my face again as if she were trying to see something there. ‘Sofia is dead. She passed away six months ago.’

  For a few seconds I couldn’t move. My vision darkened as if I had fallen down a deep hole. I tried to stand but didn’t have the strength. Instead, I dropped my head into my hands.

  Arina touched my shoulder. ‘I’m sorry to be the one to tell you,’ she said. ‘You’ve come from the camps, haven’t you?’

  I nodded. She went to her kitchen and poured me a glass of orange juice. Orange juice! I hadn’t seen the stuff for years. She placed it next to me on a side table and sat down in a chair opposite.

  ‘My son was sent to the camps in 1937,’ she said. ‘He died there. Vorkuta. Where were you?’

  I couldn’t answer her; I’d gone numb from head to foot. Mama was dead! I wanted to cry, to release the grief that welled inside me, but I couldn’t. It sat in my stomach like a rock.

  ‘Sofia’s daughter was a famous pilot in the war,’ Arina continued, studying me carefully, ‘but she disappeared in enemy territory. Sofia’s husband was executed during the purges and her son died in an accident. All she had left in the world was her little dog. She doted on that dog, but when Dasha passed away Sofia no longer had any reason to go on living. Her health went from bad to worse after that.’

  I drank the juice but I couldn’t taste anything.

  ‘Do you have somewhere to stay?’ Arina asked me.

  The camp commandant had given me the address of a communal apartment, but I’d planned to stay with Mama. I shook my head.

  ‘Well, stay here,’ she said. ‘Until you get on your feet.’

  Our eyes met. ‘I signed a document agreeing never to talk about my experiences,’ I said. ‘I could be re-arrested if I do … along with anyone I’ve confided in.’

  Arina nodded. ‘I understand.’

  The truth stood unspoken between us. Arina had guessed that I was Sofia’s daughter. She also realised that it was a secret that must be kept at all costs.

  That night, after a warm bath, I lay on Arina’s couch and stared at the ceiling. Moscow was a strange city to me now. With Mama gone it had lost its charm. Yet I knew I must keep my promise to Valentin and find him. He was all I had left now.

  After a week with Arina, my strength began to return, although I was still startled by unfamiliar noises: footsteps in the hall outside; the radio; the hum of Arina’s stove exhaust when she cooked. I spent many hours staring at my face in the mirror, trying to find in my reflection the adventurous young woman I had once been. Age and the camps had changed me sufficiently so that I didn’t fear being easily recognised, even though my youthful picture had appeared in the popular newspapers. When Valentin and I were in the regiment, we’d said that if we became separated and weren’t able to contact each other through Mama’s address, we would go each Sunday afternoon to Sokolniki Park and search for each other there. But I couldn’t face Valentin looking so haggard and worn. I had to improve my appearance first.

  ‘What will you do for work?’ Arina asked me one day. ‘It’s difficult for you people to find anything. Even those who see through the propaganda are afraid that if they employ ex-prisoners and things change again, they might be arrested themselves.’

  I thought about it for a few moments. ‘I used to work in a factory. We built airplanes.’

  ‘Let me speak to my son-in-law,’ Arina said. ‘He works at the oil refinery. He might be able to help you.’

  Arina’s son-in-law found me a job as a laboratory assistant at his refinery, and I moved into a communal apartment. My room had cracks in the walls that had been patched with newspaper and it reeked of mildew and stale cooking oil. I didn’t care; it was still better than the camp. With the salary I earned I bought food and clothes.

  Every Sunday afternoon I caught the metro to Sokolniki Park. I never allowed for the possibility that Valentin might have been killed in the war. The park was over six hundred hectares in size and included woodlands, dancing pavilions, lakes, cafés and a swimming pool. In our ardour, we hadn’t thought to designate an exact meeting point.

  The previous year the park had hosted an American exhibition and some of the posters remained. I studied the American fashion models and dyed my hair butterscotch-blonde again. I wore black eyeliner and pale pink lipstick and arranged my hair into a half-upswept ponytail with curls spiralling around my ears. The style and colour were flattering and drew attention away from the grooves around my mouth and my jawline, which had thickened with age. Cosmetics became war paint for me again; a sign that Kolyma hadn’t destroyed me.

  ‘Ah, here comes Moscow Oil Refinery’s beauty,’ the foreman said one day when I arrived for work. His words reminded me of when Roman used to say the same thing at the aircraft factory before the war. Of course, I wasn’t a beauty any more. There were younger girls at the refinery who were pre
ttier and fresher looking than me, but the compliment put a spring in my step.

  One summer afternoon, I was walking around Sokolniki Park when the new shoes I wore began to pinch. I sat down on a bench and glanced at the issue of Pravda someone had left there. I hadn’t read a newspaper or listened to the radio since returning to Moscow. It was best to remain ignorant of politics. But the cover picture caught my eye. It was of two little dogs in jackets with collars around their necks. Belka and Strelka return safely! the caption read. I scanned the article and was amazed to discover that the Soviet government had sent dogs into space, along with a rabbit, mice, rats, flies and some plants and fungi.

  ‘They don’t tell you about all the dogs that have died, do they? Poor Dezik and Lisa, Bars and Lisichka, or little Laika, who they knew wouldn’t survive but they sent anyway.’

  I looked up to see a man in a well-cut suit speaking to me. His Russian was good but his accent was strange. Perhaps he was American. He was walking two boxer dogs whose coats had been brushed to a high shine.

  How did the man know about the dogs that had died? The Soviet Union wasn’t one for publicising its failures. I’d had no idea that the government was exploring space, and was as appalled as the man that innocent animals were being exploited like that. But I couldn’t afford to speak to a foreigner. I remembered the ballerina at Kolyma who was arrested for accepting flowers from an American admirer. I knew what the consequences would be if an NKVD agent saw me conversing with him, especially if we were heard to say anything critical of the government.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I said and hurried away.

  Even when summer came to an end, I continued to make my Sunday-afternoon trips to Sokolniki Park. The magnificent masses of gold and red foliage that adorned the grand maple and elm trees were beautiful. I walked the paths around the lakes, fallen leaves rustling at my feet. I will never give up hope, I told myself. Then, one afternoon when I was walking along an avenue of saffron-leafed birch trees, I saw Valentin sitting on a bench and gazing into the distance. He was older but no less handsome.