Ice Trilogy (51 page)

A German was watching me. “
Willst du noch?
”

And I said, “
Ja, ja. Bitte!
”

And he gave me some more —
plop
! I sipped the second bowl more slowly. I looked around me: our people were chatting, there were Germans everywhere. Everything was different; a totally different life had begun.

I ate the second portion — and felt drunk. I rested next to the cauldron. It was warm and shiny. The German laughed. “
Also, noch einmal, Mädl?
”

I remembered what Otto said when he’d drunk enough milk. So I answered, “
Ich bin satt, ich markt kein Blatt
.”

The German roared with laughter, and asked me something. But I didn’t understand.

I went back to the barracks.

By evening, everyone on our train had been processed and fed. But for some reason they didn’t cut everyone’s hair. Me and three other girls from our barracks hadn’t had their hair cut. Tanya explained: “It’s because you don’t have lice.”

I said, “What do you mean? Just take a look!”

She parted my hair.

“You do have them! Well, then they forgot. Hide your hair under a head scarf, or else they’ll remember and lop it off till you’re bald.”

That’s what I did: I tied the scarf tighter, to hide my hair.

When it got dark, that same German lady with the crop came in and said, “Now you all go to sleep. In the morning you’ll be taken to your workplaces. You’ll live and work there.”

And they locked the barracks doors with a chain.

Some fell asleep right away, some didn’t. I settled down close to Tanya and Natasha from Briansk and we kept on talking about what would happen. They were older than me, they’d heard a lot about Europe, and about Germans.

Natashka told us that in Briansk the Germans had showed films for their people. And two times a German invited her and a girlfriend. And she saw a film of Hitler and a naked woman who sang and danced and laughed. There were Germans dressed in white wandering around the woman. They looked at her and smiled. Hitler, she said, looked like he was so nice, with his little mustache. He was cultured, you could tell right away. And he talked very loud.

I’d been to the movies six times in all. Our closest club was in Kirov, twenty-five versts away. My father took me two times on Boy. Then Stepan Sotnikov took me with their children. I saw
Chapaev
twice, then
Volga-Volga
,
We Are from Kronshtadt
,
Seven Brave Hearts
, and one other picture, I forgot what it was called. It was about Lenin, how a woman took a shot at him. And he ran away in his cap. Then he fell. But he didn’t die.

Down below on the bunks girls kept on trying to figure out who would win the war, us or the Germans.

Tanya and Natashka didn’t care who, as long as they didn’t bomb anything.

We’d been bombed three times. But all the bombs hit the orchards, not the village. But they did break the glass and slash the cows. One village woman stepped on a mine and it blew up. They brought her to the village. They brought her in on a mat, no leg, her guts spilling out. And she kept saying over and over, “Mamochka, my beloved, my sweet mama. My sweet mama. Mama, Mama, Mama.” Then she died.

Then I fell asleep.

When I woke up — everyone had already risen. The girls and I ran to piss. There was a big privy, nice and clean. We pissed, and some even took a shit. Then we went to eat, to those cauldrons. Again there was pea soup. But watery, not like yesterday. And they didn’t give seconds. I sipped the soup. I’d just finished licking the bowl when they shouted: “Line up!”

And we all went out to the big square.

They lined us up — fellows separate, us girls separate. The Germans stood around watching. They were silent. One kept looking at his watch. So, we stood there, the Germans not saying anything. We stood there for an hour, until our legs went numb. Natashka said, “They’re waiting for trucks, to take us.”

Suddenly we heard cars coming. And they drove straight into the camp. But not trucks, light passenger cars. Three cars. Shiny black, beautiful. They drove up and Germans got out of them. Just like the cars, all dressed in black. One of them, the most important — was very tall; he wore a black leather coat and gloves. All the other Germans saluted him.

He saluted too, walked over to us, crossed his arms on his stomach, and looked. He was handsome, fair-haired. He looked and said, “
Gut. Sehr gut
.”

Then he said something to the Germans. The lady who spoke Russian said, “Remove all headgear.”

I didn’t understand at first. I understood when the fellows took off their caps and hats and the girls started untying their scarves.

I thought: Here we go, now they’re going to shave my head. And sure enough, the German lady said, “Whoever has hair — step forward.”

There was nothing to be done — I took a step. Another fifteen or so people stepped forward: boys and girls. All of us they hadn’t shaved. The strange thing was that everyone was tow-headed, like me! It was even funny.

The German lady said, “Line up!”

So everyone stood side by side.

That German, the important one, walked over and looked at us. His look was sort of...I don’t know how to say it. Long and slow. And then he came up to each of us. He’d come close, lift our chins with two fingers, and stare. Then he’d move on. He didn’t speak.

He came up to me. He lifted my chin and stared at my eyes. He had a face that was...well, I’d never seen anything like it. Like Christ on an icon. Skinny, tow-headed, with blue blue eyes. Very clean, not a speck of dust or dirt. He wore a black peaked cap, and on the top of it — was a skull.

He looked at me, then at the rest. And he pointed to three of us.

“
Dieses, dieses, dieses
.”

Then he touched his nose with his glove, as if he was thinking. He pointed at me.

“
Und dieses
.”

He turned and went back to the cars.

And the German lady said, “Those who were chosen by his honor the Oberfürher — follow him immediately!”

So we went, the four of us.

The German went to the first car; the door was opened for him and he got in. Another German nodded for us to go to the second car. He opened the door. We walked over and climbed in. He closed the door and sat down in the front with the driver.

We took off.

I had never ridden in a passenger car. Only in trucks, when we transported the grain. And when we had the cattle plague in Koliubakino, they brought us calves in two cars for breeding. The Party
raikom
provided the cars. And Mamanya and I rode after those calves with the cattle worker Pyotr Abramych, all the way to Lompadi. I saw a passenger car in Kirov once. When we went to the movies. That car just stood there, because it had driven into the mud and gotten stuck. And everyone was standing around thinking how to get it out. The fat man who arrived in the car swore at the other one, from the
raikom
. The fat man yelled real loud: “Up your ass, Borisov, you have to go and drive in the ice.”

Borisov stood there, silent, staring at the car.

Well, then. I looked around the Germans’ car. It was all so beautiful! The driver sat in front with the German, we sat in the back. Everything was shiny and clean, the seats were made from leather, there were all sorts of handles. And it smelled like airplanes — the way it does in the city.

That car ran real easy. You didn’t feel it driving, it just rocked over the potholes, you coulda thought you’re in a cradle. That’s when I understood why they call those cars “light” passenger cars.

There were two other girls with me and one young fellow. We drove and drove. Who knows where.

We drove about two versts, then turned into the forest and stopped. The German jumped up, opened the door and said, “
Aussteigen!
”

We got out. We looked and saw the two other cars nearby. There was new forest all around.

The important German stepped out of his car. He said something to the other Germans. They tied our hands behind our backs. So quick and crafty that I didn’t understand what was happening, and —
poof
— they’d already got me! They pulled us along with a rope and led us over to four trees. They tied us to the trees.

The girls began to whimper. So did I. It was clear as day — we wouldn’t get out of this forest. We’re wailing, one girl started praying, and the boy, who was older than us, he shouted: “Sir, sir, I’m not a lousy Yid! Please, sir!”

But they just tied us up to the trees. And then they gagged us so we couldn’t shout. Then they waited. The important one looked at us — and pointed to the boy. Two of the Germans went to the car.

I realized that they were going to kill us here and now. For what — I didn’t know. Lord almighty, could it really be because we hadn’t had our heads shaved?! Was that really our fault? It was those horrible Germans who forgot to shave our heads, not me who refused! I didn’t care! Was I really going to end up underground because of my hair?! Mama, Mama mine. So this is how everything would end! I was going into the wet earth here, and no one would ever know where the grave of Varka Samsikova was!

I stood there thinking. Tears filled my eyes.

The Germans were getting something out of the car. They carried an iron trunk toward us. They set it down, opened it, and took out a sort of ax or sledgehammer — I couldn’t tell at first. So, they weren’t going to shoot us, just chop us to bits alive. Oh, how evil!

They went over to the young man. He struggled against his ropes, poor dear guy, like a little bird. The German pulled open the fellow’s coat —
whap
! Then his shirt —
rrrip
! He tore it open. His undershirt, too —
rip
! They bared his chest.

The important one nodded. “
Gut
.”

He reached out his gloved hand. The other German handed him the sledgehammer. I looked at it — it wasn’t exactly a sledgehammer, it wasn’t clear what it was. It looked as though it was made of ice. Or salt, like the kind they give cows to lick on the farm. No metal. The important German swung the sledgehammer back and hit the young fellow in the chest with all his might —
bam
! His whole body shuddered.

Another German put a kind of pipe to the fellow’s chest, like a doctor, and listened. The important one stood by with the sledgehammer. The German shook his head. “
Nichts
.”

Again, the important one swung back, and —
bam
! The other German listened again. Once again he said, “
Nichts
.”

The important one smashed the fellow’s chest again. They had beaten him to death. He just hung there on the rope. The Germans tossed the sledgehammer, took a new one from the box — and went over to the girl who was tied to a birch tree next to me. She sobbed wordlessly and trembled all over. They unbuttoned her plush jacket, slashed her sweater with a knife, and tore her undershirt. I looked — she had a little cross around her neck. My grandma put one on me, too, but the schoolteacher Nina Sergeevna took it off. “You are Pioneers,” she said, “and there’s no God. So we’re going to tear up religious prejudice by the roots.” She pulled the crosses off every student who had one and threw them into the weeds. Grandma said: “Unbelievers never die.” I think that’s the truth.

The important German again picked up the sledgehammer that wasn’t made of metal, swung back easily, and slammed the girl on the chest — crack! Her bones seemed to crunch. The fiend stood back, while the other one put the tube on her and listened. He listened to the girl dying. After the first blow, she just hung unconscious on the ropes, her head all floppy. Then the third German lifted her head and held it, so it wasn’t in the way. Again —
crack! crack! crack!
They beat her so hard that her blood splattered on my cheek.

The beasts.

Then they beat the other girl. She was only about fifteen, I think, like me. And the same height as me. But her breasts were already big, nothing like what I had. They beat her, beat her until blood spurted from her nose. She had a gag in her mouth.

I was the only one left.

When they’d finished beating the busty girl they threw down the sledgehammer. They took out cigarettes, stood in a circle, and lit up to take a break. They talked. The most important German wasn’t happy. He said nothing. Then he shook his head and said, “
Schon wieder taube Nuss...
”

The other Germans nodded.

I stood there, I could see them smoking. I was thinking: any minute now, any minute, these fiends will finish their smoke — and that’ll be it. I didn’t feel afraid or sad, deep down. It was more like everything was as clear as the blue sky when there aren’t any clouds. Like in a dream and I wasn’t alive at all. Like everything had been a dream: Mama, the village, and the war. And these Germans.

They finished smoking and tossed their butts. They crowded around me.

They unbuttoned my jacket and took a knife to my sweater, the one that Grandma knit out of goat’s wool. They pulled it back. I had my green dress on under my sweater. Father bought it for me at the county store in Lompadi. They slashed my dress with the knife, and then the German undershirt I’d been given at the camp. One German rolled the ripped edges of my dress and sweater back, sticking them under the rope, so that my chest was bared.

The important man stood with the sledgehammer and looked at me. He mumbled something, and handed the sledgehammer to another German. Then he took his cap off his head and gave it to the one behind him. He stood just to my right.

The other German hauled back, grunted like he was splitting firewood, and bashed me right in the chest! I saw sparks. It took my breath away.

The important man suddenly dropped to his knees in front of me and put his ear to my chest.

His ear was cold, but his cheek was warm. His head was very, very close, fair and smooth, like it had been rubbed with cooking oil. His hair laid straight and flat, and stank of perfume.