The Blackbird Girls
Page 9
“What are all these children doing here?” Valentina didn’t understand. Today was a Tuesday, and the children should have been in school.
Her mother shook her head; she didn’t know, either. She went to one of the ticket counters, where a kindly looking gray-haired gentleman stood. Valentina and Oksana kept close to her heels.
“I beg your pardon,” her mother said to the man. “Why are so many children here?”
“Same reason as you are, I expect,” he said, blinking owlishly at them through his spectacles. “Evacuation.”
Evacuation! Did that mean the government had finally announced news of the accident? Valentina thought of the illegal radio station they had listened to last night. Or had all these people here in the train station listened to foreign broadcasts, too?
The man tapped the side of his nose, the signal they were to keep quiet. “You’re lucky you’re leaving today. Once the official news gets out—or I should say, if it does—the train and bus stations and airports will be flooded with people desperate to get away from here. Tickets will be hard to come by, if not impossible.”
So the government hadn’t yet told the public about the accident. Valentina’s heart sank. That meant she and her mother were still on their own.
“Where are you traveling to today?” the man asked.
“Leningrad,” her mother said.
The man busied himself with the papers at the counter. “Leningrad, is it? You’ll have to take the eight a.m. to Moscow. At Moscow, you’ll board the midnight train to Leningrad, which should get you there by tomorrow morning.”
He handed over two tickets.
“I think you’ve made a mistake,” Valentina’s mother said. “We need three.”
“Two is all I have left.”
“You don’t understand.” Valentina’s mother put a hand on each girl’s shoulder. “The three of us are traveling together.”
“Two is all I have, and two is all you’ll get.” The man drummed his fingers impatiently on his desk. “We can’t have a panic.”
A knot in Valentina’s stomach loosened. Only two tickets! So Mama would find a safe place for Oksana to stay, and then she and Valentina could go on to Leningrad. It was better than Valentina could have hoped.
Her mother handed the man several bills, then ushered the girls away from the ticket counter. Her hand on Valentina’s shoulder was shaking. “I’m sorry, girls. You’ll have to go on without me. I’ll follow on a later train.”
Valentina went cold. “Mama, you can’t!”
“Hush,” her mother said. “You mustn’t make a scene. I’ll meet you in Leningrad. It will be fine. You’ll see.”
Valentina looked around the crowded station. All these people milling about couldn’t be getting on the same train. Surely there were extra seats on the eight a.m. to Moscow.
“I know what you’re thinking,” her mother said. “There might be room on the train for me. But the man at the ticket counter was trying to tell us that he’s only permitted to sell a certain number of tickets. The government wants to prevent a mass panic, so they’re creating a ticket shortage. That will force most people to remain in their home cities.”
Valentina stared at Oksana, silently willing her to offer to go on a different train. Or better yet, to go to her mother in Minsk.
But Oksana didn’t. She didn’t say anything at all. She stood with her arms wrapped around her chest, hugging herself. Her face was pale and anxious.
“Come, girls.” Her shoes clicking on the tiled floor, Valentina’s mother strode across the lobby. Valentina followed her to the third platform, her thoughts spinning. This couldn’t be happening. Mama couldn’t be about to send her away with Oksana. There must be something she could do to change her mother’s mind—
“Do you have your papers?” her mother asked.
“Yes, Galina Yurievna,” Oksana said.
Oksana held up her passport for Valentina’s mother to see. It was an internal passport, to be used for traveling within the Soviet Union. Ordinary citizens weren’t permitted to travel outside the country; Valentina had never seen an external passport, although she had heard they existed.
On Oksana’s papers, under the heading marked NATIONALITY, the word Ukrainian was typed. Valentina’s face warmed. Although she had been born in Siberia, her papers didn’t identify her as Russian. Instead, under NATIONALITY was typed the word Jew.
“Valyushka?” her mother prompted. “Do you have your papers?”
Valentina held up her passport, keeping her thumb over the section about her background. She could imagine how Oksana would snicker if she saw it.
“Mama,” she said desperately, “can’t Oksana go on a different train? She doesn’t even want to come with us! She should—”
“Hold your tongue,” her mother interrupted. She bent down so they were face-to-face. “I know this is hard, but you and Oksana must go. You are children; you can’t take care of yourselves. And you both deserve to get as far away from the radiation as quickly as possible.”
“So do you.” Tears burned Valentina’s eyes. Angrily, she rubbed them away with the back of her hand.
“I promise, I’ll be fine,” her mother said firmly, then turned to Oksana. “I’ll write to your mother’s hospital in Minsk,” she said. “That way, she’ll know where you’re going. As soon as she’s well, I’m sure she’ll fetch you.”
Oksana nodded, her head bowed so her hair fell forward, curtaining her face. Valentina wondered if she was trying to hide her tears. She knew she would cry if one of her parents was dead and the other ill, and she were sent to live with a stranger.
Not that she felt sorry for Oksana. Not that she would ever feel kindness toward her.
The shrill whistle of an incoming train sounded. Valentina shoved her passport into her suitcase.
Her mother pulled her close. “I wish I had more time,” she said. “There’s so much I want to tell you about your grandmother.”
“Why is she dangerous? Why haven’t I ever met her?”
“There isn’t much I can tell you here in the open,” her mother replied. “When I was pregnant with you, I decided we would no longer see her. I had your safety to consider, too, you see. I was afraid if we continued to see her, we might get in trouble with the authorities.”
She gave Valentina a quick hug. “Stay close to Oksana. Once you reach Moscow, make sure you get on the proper train to Leningrad. If you need help, ask a conductor.”
Before Valentina could ask her mother another question, the train pulled into the station, coasting to a stop alongside their platform. Parents and children pushed toward it, jostling Valentina and her mother. Valentina had to grab her mother’s hand so they wouldn’t be pulled apart.
“I’ll send her a telegram so she knows to meet you at the station.” Her mother shouted to be heard above the din. “Wait for her at the statue of Lenin.”
She pushed Valentina forward into the crush of passengers boarding the train. “Hurry! You don’t want to be left behind!”
Valentina tried to turn around, to look for her mother, but the passengers were packed so tightly together that she couldn’t. The wave of people carried her toward the train doors. She looked from side to side, searching for Oksana. To her right, she glimpsed the other girl’s blond hair. She was only a few feet away.
Most of the passengers were children. The littlest ones had papers pinned to their coats, with names and addresses written on them. Their destinations, Valentina guessed. Those children must be too small to be able to tell the conductors where they were supposed to go. Many of them were crying. Valentina climbed the train’s steps, her suitcase knocking into her knees. Inside, a couple of harried-looking women led a group of toddlers down the train corridor; the children held hands, forming a chain.
Someone poked her in the back. “There are too many peo
ple here.” It was Oksana’s voice. “There can’t be enough room for everyone. We need to find seats. They won’t make us leave if we have a place to sit.”
Valentina nodded. Together they hurried down the train corridor until they found two empty seats. They dropped down onto them, not bothering to stow their suitcases on the rack over their heads, but holding them on their laps instead.
Through the window, Valentina saw a handful of grown-ups pacing up and down the platform. Her mother walked among them, her arms crossed over her chest as if she were holding herself together. Miserable. Valentina could see it in the tightness of her face. She was scanning the windows. When her eyes met Valentina’s, she smiled and blew a kiss.
A lump lodged in Valentina’s throat. She blew a kiss back.
The train lurched forward, picking up speed until her mother was only a blur of red and black. Then it rounded a curve, and she was gone.
* * *
- - -
At the next station, Valentina opened the window in their train compartment and poked her head out. This place was crowded, too, with lots of children and parents. She watched as a group of boys and girls tried to board her train. A conductor barred the way.
“Please, we have money!” the parents begged. “We can pay for tickets, no matter the cost!”
Valentina leaned out farther. The conductor stood on the train steps with his arms crossed, stone-faced. “There are no more tickets,” he said. “The train is full.”
He was lying! Only half of the seats were occupied; she had seen when she had gone down the corridor earlier to use the lavatory. They must not have let many of the passengers at the station in Kiev board the train.
Quickly, she wriggled back into the compartment and shut the window. Oksana sent her a questioning look.
Valentina studied the people sitting around her. Other children, reading books or sucking on sweets; a young, tired-looking mother with two little boys; a couple of men in business suits. No one was paying attention to her, but still . . . she’d better be cautious. She mustn’t sound as though she were saying anything bad about the government.
She put her mouth next to Oksana’s ear and whispered, “The conductor isn’t letting anyone on. He’s saying there aren’t any seats left.”
Oksana looked as scared as Valentina felt. Everything was wrong. Grown-ups were lying to children. The government wasn’t permitting people to escape from the radiation. The government was deliberately letting its citizens get sick.
They didn’t say anything else to each other for a long time. Valentina pressed her nose to the window, watching the landscape change. At first, the sights were familiar. Scattered clusters of oaks, pines, and hornbeams flashed past. Sometimes, Valentina saw hawks and eagles in the sky. At least these birds were alive. Maybe the contamination hadn’t spread this far. Yet.
In the late afternoon, an old lady rolled a tea cart into their car. Valentina and Oksana bought tea and rolls for a few kopecks. While they ate, Valentina returned to looking out the window. The flat steppe had changed into rolling hills. The sky had turned to lead. Fir and spruce trees grew along the horizon. They must have reached Russia.
By the time the sky turned black, Valentina’s eyes ached from exhaustion. Fields had given way to a city: dilapidated factories, blocks of apartment towers, and trash-strewn streets. They must be on the outskirts of Moscow—where Papa was.
Did she dare leave the train to search for the hospital where her father had been taken? The doctor in Pripyat had said the men had been flown to a special hospital, but not which one. Maybe she could go . . .
But when they pulled into the Moscow station, she saw it was already ten o’clock. The train to Leningrad left at midnight. If she tried to find her father’s hospital, there was no guarantee she would locate the right one, nor that she would get back in time to board the train. She had to keep going—Mama wanted her to get as far away from Pripyat as possible.
Her throat felt tight with tears. She had to go on. I’m sorry, Papa, she thought, looking around the crowded train station. She was afraid she would burst into tears, so she ran her fingers over the watch fastened around her wrist. The worn leather strap and glass face were comforting. They reminded her of home.
The tears were a ball inside her chest now, but at least she thought she could talk without crying. She asked a conductor for help—Oksana seemed afraid to talk to anyone, so she was useless—and he gave them directions to the proper platform.
On the train, they had to share a sleeping compartment with two teenage girls whose parents had evacuated them from Minsk.
Minsk! That was where Oksana’s mother was recovering. Valentina waited for Oksana to ask the girls how bad it had gotten in Minsk. But she didn’t. Fully clothed, she climbed onto the top bunk. Valentina guessed she didn’t want to change and have the teenage girls see her bruised back.
Valentina washed in the bathroom at the end of the corridor. She wished she could change into a nightdress, but all she had were the blouse and skirt Masha Petrovna had given her. Everything she owned in the world was in her suitcase, and she wasn’t certain if she should throw it away, too. Were the rest of her things poisoned, like her clothes?
She set the case on the bathroom floor and carefully went through it. Her school textbooks. The sketch pad where she had drawn ideas for inventions. An envelope of photographs.
Opening the envelope, she riffled through the snapshots. She and Mama laughing in the kitchen, Mama’s arms around her waist, a plum cake on the counter beside them. That had been taken two years ago, on her ninth birthday. Her and Papa on a sleigh beneath a starry Siberian sky, bundled in furs. And here were her parents on their wedding day, smiling, standing in front of a taxi whose grille was bedecked with ribbons. Mama held a bridal doll and a teddy bear, the symbols that she and Papa wished to have children someday.
Valentina’s chest tightened. She couldn’t throw these out. Never, she thought, touching the wedding day picture. She loved these things too much to let them go.
16
KIEV, UKRAINE, SOVIET UNION
AUGUST 1941
Rifka
“DO YOU HAVE everything?” Rifka’s mother asked.
Rifka checked her supplies again. Her knapsack contained a woolen shawl, a loaf of bread, two apples, and a chunk of cheese wrapped in a kerchief. She had wanted to pack her winter coat as well, but it was too big to fit in her knapsack so she was wearing it. She was already sweating.
“Yes, Mama,” she said.
Her mother stood in the parlor, holding the new baby in her arms. Rifka’s two little brothers Saul and Isaac were supposed to be asleep, but they stood in the doorway, watching Rifka with wide eyes.
Everyone in the apartment was dressed in their nightclothes. Except for her. Because she was going away.
Tears gathered in her eyes. “Mama, please don’t make me leave—”
“Stop,” her mother said in a choked voice. “We’ve been over this. You have to escape Kiev.”
A knock sounded on the door. Her mother opened it, revealing Rifka’s cousin Nathan standing in the corridor. “Come in,” she said quietly. “Rifka is ready.”
Nathan trudged into the parlor. Rifka tried not to make a face. Nathan was fifteen—only three years older than her—but he always acted so superior, as though she were just a small child. It didn’t help matters that she was short and he towered over her at six feet and had enormous hands and feet to match.
He carried a knapsack, too, and wore a dark woolen coat. Lines of perspiration slid down his face. “It’s time to go,” he said. “We want to leave when it’s dark.”
Her mother set baby Avrum on a blanket on the floor. Then she and Rifka hugged. Rifka breathed in her mother’s familiar scent of soap and yeast.
“Have courage,” her mother said in her ear. “And know that God is with you.”
Rifka wanted to say goodbye, but her throat felt stuck. She went to the door with Nathan, then turned for one last look.
Saul and Isaac were still crying and tugging at their mother’s nightdress, begging to be picked up. On the floor, Avrum had begun to wail. How could she possibly leave her mother alone to care for all three of them?
“I’ll be fine,” her mother said, as if sensing the reason for Rifka’s hesitation. “Go, Rifka. You have a chance to escape. You must take it.”
Rifka nodded. “Goodbye,” she managed to whisper. Nathan echoed her farewell.
Then Nathan was tugging her out of the apartment and into the corridor, and then down the stairs. “Come,” he said impatiently, pulling harder on her wrist. “We need to be far out of the city before dawn. We don’t want anyone to see us.”
“I know!” She yanked her arm free.
“Good,” he said. “Then since you’re so smart, you know to keep your mouth shut and follow me.”
Without another word, he slipped out the front door. Glaring at his back, Rifka hurried after him.
Dorohozhytska Street was dark. The stars overhead did little to break apart the blackness. Despite the lack of light, Nathan moved quickly. Rifka had to break into a light jog to stay at his side.
“You’re going too fast,” she panted.
“If you can’t keep up, I’ll leave you behind.” By his grim tone, she knew he was serious.
From then on, they didn’t talk. Her eyes adjusted to the darkness, and the buildings and shops took shape, becoming black masses. The streets widened; the houses grew bigger. They had left the Jewish quarter.
Rifka concentrated on the next step, and then the next, and then the one after that. Tears stuck fast in her throat. She mustn’t cry. She had to be brave. She had to think of something that would make her feel stronger.