The Blackbird Girls

by Anne Blankman

  The soft, golden feelings were too much. She didn’t know what to do with them. She shrugged and looked away.

  But Babulya seemed to understand, for she kissed the top of Oksana’s head and said, “Why don’t you girls do your schoolwork while I make supper? Valentina can show you what you missed in class today.”

  “I went because I wanted to see you,” Valentina said.

  Oksana smiled a litte. She would have to work quickly. In one hour, she had to sneak out and meet Comrade Orlov. But Babulya wasn’t going to throw her out. She cared about her; she wanted her here.

  And Mama loved her, too. Surely the only reason she hadn’t sent for Oksana yet was because she couldn’t afford a train ticket. She would be overjoyed when Oksana arrived in Minsk.

  Yes, she was doing the right thing by working for Comrade Orlov, Oksana decided as she and Valentina opened their knapsacks and got out their textbooks. She was clever, despite what Papa had said.

  Papa. Suddenly she couldn’t breathe. He had said she was stupid, and she was smart. He had said she was weak, and she was strong. He had said she was bad, and she was good.

  She hated him.

  There was a ball deep in her belly, burning. It was so hot she still couldn’t take a breath, and she heard herself let out a sharp cry. She felt Babulya’s arms come around her, and heard Babulya’s voice in her ear, saying, “You’re safe, Khusha. You’re with me.”

  “I hate him!” she cried.

  “Yes,” Babulya said, holding tightly to her. “You have every reason in the world to be angry.”

  She was. For what felt like the first time, she was. And the ball in her belly burned so hot all she could do was hold on to Babulya’s arms and let out sobs that had screams in them.

  26

  Valentina

  VALENTINA DIDN’T KNOW what to do. She had never seen anyone act like Oksana was—crying as though her heart had broken and clinging to Babulya as though she was afraid to let go.

  “You are safe,” Babulya said over and over. “You are good.”

  “I hate him,” Oksana sobbed.

  “Of course you do,” Babulya said. “But someday you must let him go. Even in death, he is controlling you. Telling you what to think and how to feel. But you should be in charge of yourself. Nobody else. You form your own opinions. You think for yourself. Not him. Do you hear me, Khusha?”

  Oksana lifted a tearstained face. “Yes,” she whispered.

  Valentina reached out and touched Oksana’s hand. “You are good,” she said fiercely, and she meant it.

  Oksana smiled a little. She wriggled out of Babulya’s arms and muttered something about washing her face and going for a walk. She slipped from the room.

  “Let her go,” Babulya said when Valentina tried to follow her. “She has just made some big discoveries. She needs to be alone.”

  “All right,” Valentina said, although she didn’t want Oksana to be on her own.

  Later, after Oksana had returned and they had gone to bed and Babulya’s soft breathing told her she was asleep, she squeezed Oksana’s hand. She had no idea what to say. She wished she had the perfect words to explain to Oksana that she was wonderful and her father had been a bully.

  Since she didn’t, she continued squeezing Oksana’s hand. Oksana squeezed back. They fell asleep holding hands.

  * * *

  - - -

  Days passed, and sometimes Valentina forgot her father was dead. When she woke in the morning and the final dregs of sleep hadn’t yet fled; when she was lost in her schoolwork; or when she, Oksana, and the other girls chased one another during recess, she felt as light as the birds flying overhead. Then something would remind her—she would receive a five on an exam or hear a joke and think, I must tell Papa—and she would remember she couldn’t tell him anything.

  Then she couldn’t breathe. She would have to look at the sky or the ceiling and count to ten, concentrating on filling her lungs and letting the air out. At first, she thought no one noticed, but one day she caught Oksana looking at her in the classroom when she was doing her breathing trick. Oksana smiled at her, and somehow Valentina was certain she understood, even though they never spoke of it.

  She had so many memories of him she couldn’t count them all. Papa had been clever and merry and interested in how everything worked. When they had lived in the secret city in Siberia, they had ridden many times in a reindeer-pulled sleigh across the snow. Bundled in furs, she had leaned against her father and listened as he pointed out the constellations in the sky.

  In Pripyat, they had gone hiking in the forests and filled their bags with cherries or wild roses. They had spent hours taking apart the toaster and putting it back together. During the past year, before he had left for his night shift, he had read Boris Zakhoder’s stories to her; their favorite had been “The Hermit and the Rose,” and he had read it to her again and again without tiring of it.

  And now he was gone, and there would be no more hikes in the Pripyat forests, or bedtime stories, or experiments on household appliances. There was only her mother, and the letters she sent to Valentina from Kiev. Finally she had gotten a job. The pay wasn’t much, she wrote to Valentina, and the position was a hospital orderly, hardly the teaching work she preferred. Even so, she had taken it. Eventually, she hoped to be assigned an apartment, so Valentina could come to Kiev and live with her. Besides, she wrote, it’s best if I begin working again soon. You understand why.

  Valentina did. Once a grown-up had spent more than three months without a job, the government would classify her as a parasite. Not elderly people, of course, or mothers with young children, although most of them worked. But if you were a healthy adult without a job, sooner or later the government would believe you were someone who lived off others’ work. They might begin a file on you. And the last thing you wanted, her parents had taught her, was to attract the government’s attention.

  Her mother’s letters were full of strange news about Kiev. Its streets were nearly empty of children. Parks stood deserted, and only handfuls of students played in schoolyards. It is like living among ghosts, to live in a city with so few children, her mother wrote.

  One weekend the lady with whom her mother stayed had gone to the countryside. There the chickens had black cockscombs, not red ones. Because of the weather, Valentina’s mother had written, and Valentina knew what she meant. The weather—her mother always wrote that, instead of radiation, no doubt afraid the secret police might read her mail. Her mother was saying that radiation had turned the chickens’ cockscombs from red to black. And her friend said farmers could no longer make cheese, and when milk spoiled it didn’t go sour but instead curdled into white powder.

  Valentina desperately hoped her mother would change her mind and move to Leningrad. She didn’t want to live in Kiev, where the air was poisoned and where few children remained.

  Plus, Kiev didn’t have Babulya. Or Oksana.

  And nowhere, anymore, had Papa.

  * * *

  - - -

  The last day of school came. Babulya woke the girls early so she could curl their hair. She had pressed their uniforms the night before. Yesterday, they had bought bouquets of flowers for their teacher. It was customary to give teachers flowers on the first and last days of school. Much to Valentina’s disappointment, Babulya had told the girls to use their pocket money to purchase the flowers.

  “But Yekaterina Federovna has been our teacher for only a few weeks,” she had protested. “Can’t we draw her a picture instead?”

  Babulya had been horrified. “Certainly not! She’s your teacher, no matter for how long, and therefore she should get flowers.”

  Now Babulya fussed with their hair bows. “You girls look beautiful. Oksana, be sure to curtsy and speak clearly when you present your teacher with the flowers. You have such a lovely voice, it’s a shame you tend to speak softly
.”

  “Yes, Tetya Rita.” Oksana smoothed her skirt over her knees. “Your stitches are always even. How did you learn to sew so well?”

  “My mother taught me. She was a seamstress.” Babulya handed each of the girls a bouquet. “Carry these carefully, girls. You’d better be off. It wouldn’t do to be late on your last day.”

  They rushed out of the apartment. As usual, the lobby was filled with children leaving for school and grown-ups hurrying to work. Valentina and Oksana fell in with a group of younger kids. At the schoolyard, their friends Yulia and Lyudmila waved them over.

  “Isn’t it marvelous?” Yulia was bubbling with excitement. “Sixth grade at last!”

  “And the summer holidays!” Lyudmila added. “My family’s going to Latvia next month.”

  “I went to Latvia when I was little,” Valentina said. “It was wonderful. There’s a big beach and lots of theaters.”

  Lyudmila beamed. “What are you two doing this summer? Are you going home?”

  Valentina and Oksana glanced at each other, then away. “I—I don’t know,” Valentina faltered. She and Oksana didn’t talk about the future. It was too frightening to think about. Someday, when the poison had finally leached from the air, Oksana would be sent away to Minsk and Valentina to Kiev. But would that be the end of the nuclear accident’s consequences? Or was the radiation still inside their bodies, eating them up from the inside? Would they die as their fathers had?

  Valentina felt as though she were about to be sick. She let her mind go blank and the other girls’ voices surround her. After a moment, she felt better.

  “I hope you stay here forever,” Yulia said.

  “Me, too,” Valentina said, and was surprised to realize she meant it. Maybe there was a way to convince Mama and Oksana’s mother to move to Leningrad. Babulya might be able to find them jobs.

  She told Oksana her idea when they lined up to go inside.

  “I won’t be allowed to stay,” Oksana whispered as they filed into the school. “My mother won’t want to move here just so I can stay friends with a . . .”

  She broke off, a flush creeping across her face. Valentina knew what she had been about to say: . . . so I can stay friends with a Jew.

  Deep down, she knew Oksana was right. Her plan wouldn’t work. When it was time for them to leave Leningrad, they would have to stop being friends.

  Fortunately, the summer holidays were too busy for Valentina to fret for long. Every morning, she and Oksana played in the park or ran alongside the sun-dappled canals. In the afternoons, they helped Babulya in the market. Sometimes, in the evenings, Oksana went for a walk and Valentina worked at her new “job.”

  She had become a freelancer, like Babulya. One night in the communal kitchen, she had fixed one of the dials on the stove. The other residents had been impressed with her handiwork, and she had begun fixing their broken appliances for a small fee, which she gave to Babulya to help with household expenses. Old toasters, electric coffeepots, lamps—Valentina fixed anything. Last week she had even rewired one of the switches in the hallway.

  On Friday nights, Babulya continued to send them to the communal parlor to watch television. Valentina wondered what precisely her grandmother did alone in the dark while they watched travel programs. She lit candles and drank wine, Valentina knew that much. But what else? And why did she risk her safety to do these things?

  “Because my soul needs it,” Babulya said when Valentina lingered in the room one Friday night after Oksana had gone downstairs. Valentina had told Oksana her belly ached and to go on without her.

  She’d been feeling sad ever since she’d helped Babulya put tomatoes into the produce baskets at the market that afternoon. Babulya had said tomatoes were one of Leningrad’s specialties, along with cucumbers in June, and blueberries and mushrooms in August. Tomatoes had been one of Valentina’s father’s favorite foods. Whenever she saw them, she thought of him—and thinking of him hurt.

  “Run along,” Babulya said. “You’ll miss the start of your program.”

  Valentina played with the fringe on the blanket hanging over the end of the sofa. The last thing she wanted to do now was go downstairs and have to smile and act ordinary in front of whoever happened to be watching television. If only she could stay here, where she didn’t have to put on a smile for anyone.

  “Why do you celebrate Shabbat anyway?” She frowned at the fringe.

  There was a pause. Then Babulya said, “Worshipping makes me feel close to my relatives who have died.”

  Valentina thought again of her father. Could going through the Shabbat rituals with Babulya help her feel nearer to him? “May I stay with you?” She saw the refusal in her grandmother’s expression and hastened to add, “It might make me feel like Papa is here.”

  Babulya’s face softened. “I can hardly refuse such a reason. Very well. You may join me tonight.”

  She took the box out of the wardrobe. Valentina watched as she removed the silver candlesticks and cup, setting them lovingly on the table.

  Babulya lit the candles. In the glow of the flames, her face looked younger. She covered her eyes, then made circling motions with her hands. She said some words in a language that Valentina didn’t know.

  Then she lowered her hands. “Repeat after me,” she said, and Valentina echoed the unfamiliar words, beginning with Baruch atah Adonai.

  When she was done, Babulya smiled at her. “You have just welcomed the start of Shabbat.”

  Valentina smiled back.

  They blessed and drank from the cup of wine (“Only a sip,” Babulya said) and blessed a loaf of bread. Babulya ripped off a piece and tossed it into the courtyard (“Because we must always give something to God,” she told Valentina). Then they pulled pieces from the loaf for themselves to eat.

  Babulya taught Valentina the words to one of the prayers. “It’s called Shema Yisrael. It’s the centerpiece of our morning and evening prayer services,” she explained. “It means that the Lord is our God and there is one God. My parents taught me to say it every night before I went to sleep. Many times when I feel sad or lonely or weak, I say the words to myself and I feel stronger.”

  Valentina decided to try it for herself. Once the rituals were done, she hurried downstairs to join Oksana in the parlor. Later, while they were watching a nature program with the Kozlov boys from down the hall, she thought of her father.

  As always, she felt as though she were drowning. She said the first few words of the Shema Yisrael in her mind. She couldn’t remember the rest.

  The words soothed her. She wasn’t sure if it was because they made her think of Babulya or because they reminded her that Papa’s soul was out there, somewhere.

  From that night on, Valentina joined her grandmother every Friday evening to welcome Shabbat. Oksana fixed plates of food in the communal kitchen while Valentina and Babulya lit candles in secret. Valentina loved saying the prayers with her grandmother. For the first time, she thought being Jewish wasn’t terrible. She even found the courage to say so to Babulya.

  “Terrible?” Babulya had stroked Valentina’s hair, looking thoughtful. “I’m not surprised you used to feel that way. But I’m so glad our religion doesn’t make you ashamed anymore.”

  “I’m not embarrassed.” Valentina traced the carvings on one of the candlesticks. “Not exactly. But I hate the way some of my teachers and classmates treat me. They think I’m not good enough for them to teach me or play with me.”

  For a moment, Babulya didn’t say anything. She continued stroking Valentina’s hair, her touch soft. “I wish I could take this pain away from you,” she said at last. “I wish I could tell you that someday when you become a grown-up, other people’s opinions magically stop mattering to you. But I can’t. What I can tell you is that none of this is your fault.”

  Valentina leaned against her grandmother. “I know,” she s
aid, as she had said to her parents many times in the past when they’d had the same talks. This time, though, she actually meant it.

  * * *

  - - -

  Oksana knew what they did: Valentina had told her after the first time. She knew she could trust Oksana, who had only smiled and said, “It sounds nice.”

  When she confessed to Babulya that she had told Oksana, Babulya gathered the girls in their room. “We mustn’t ever speak of it in public,” she warned them, and they promised they wouldn’t.

  The month of June melted into July, bringing with it long nights of sunshine. Once when the sun still blazed at two in the morning, Babulya woke the girls and took them to Nikolaevsky Bridge, where they stood with a crowd who had gathered to watch the many bridges of the city open and close, all of them at different times. It was like watching Leningrad come apart and knit itself back together again and again. From then on, Oksana wanted to walk the bridges every night, but Babulya said it had been a special occasion and they needed their rest more than they needed to traipse around the city.

  Valentina found it strange to sleep when the sun was shining. It didn’t set until two or three in the morning, appearing again only a couple of hours later. The sky darkened to gray, never black. It was as though the whole city was so happy it didn’t want to fall asleep, for fear of missing a single moment.

  Oksana loved the long days, too. Babulya said she had never looked better. One night in August, she asked the same doctor who had treated Oksana’s burned shoulder to come to their apartment. Many doctors made house calls, but not the kind who worked in hospitals, so Valentina had expected him to refuse. To her surprise, though, he stopped by one evening before his shift, when they were washing up from supper. He examined Oksana.

  “Wonderful,” he told Babulya. “You’d hardly know it’s the same child. The burn’s healed nicely. And if the scale in your bathroom is accurate, then she’s gained nearly five kilograms in three months. She’s at a healthy weight now. Has pink in her cheeks, too.” Smiling, he ruffled Oksana’s hair. “I wish all of my patients could recover as well as you have. I suppose your grandmother has told you the three things you must do to grow up to be a healthy adult?”