The Russlander (25 page)
Dear Margareta,
   I'm sorry it's taken so long to write. Every day there seems to be something that needs attending. Now it's the steam generator. We're without power. Michael has promised to come and take a look at it. Between the two of us we may one day discover where the problem lies. The bigger challenge will be to find someone to machine a part for it, if it should come down to that.
Nicholas and Alexandra are now twice the size as when I got them. They're proving to be quite intelligent dogs, and ferocious, too. If we'd had them the night the marauders came and destroyed the Baptists' tent, it's likely nothing would have happened, as the men were cowards. They wore their caps low so we couldn't see their faces, and some even went to the trouble of wearing sacks with eye holes cut in them. We recognized several voices, among them that of a man who used to work for the Koops in Rosenthal. But what he would be doing so far from home and with a gang of Lubitskoye hoodlums is beyond my reasoning. I'm certain it was Zhinka's brother, brother of the girl who works for your uncle Bernhard.
We heard recently that the Baptists managed to find another tent in Moscow, and that they have set it up near to the village of Eichenfeld. They have invited Tante Helena to join them when they conduct Easter services. Yashka, the old Jew, delivered a crate of Bibles on behalf of the bookstore in Nikolaifeld to Tante Helena, and so it appears as though she's considering their invitation. It seems that books, Bibles in particular, are about the only item not in short supply these days. I wonder what that means? Although Papa is quiet when the topic of Tante Helena joining the evangelists comes up, I hardly think he would remain quiet if she should decide to go.
It's occurred to me that you likely don't know what happened to the Baptists. Another reason I haven't written sooner is because I thought I would see you soon, and could tell you in person all about our midnight adventure. Yashka said he would come back when he finished his rounds of the area, and I could go with him as far as Chortitza. But that was not to be. Old Yashka became sick at the Zachariases' and remained there until he recuperated. By then, it was time to go out with the men on the fields. The Baptists' tent was cut to shreds by men who came across country during the night. Papa's Cossacks kept them from harming the preachers. There's no reason for you to worry as I'm sure you especially will now that your family is returning.
Now, what you said about Adam and Eve, friendship and innocence. Well, I suppose God might have kept on making sets of grown people out of clay and rib bones. Eventually he may have got around to making you and me, and we could have been best friends for an eternity. But likely not. The garden may not have been large enough for more than one happy couple. I can't help but wonder why God let the serpent into paradise in the first place. Why did he put the tree there? It seems to me that, from the start, the underlying plan may have been that men and women were supposed to be more than friends (or less than friends, if we go by your argument).
Why do I keep on asking for a kiss? If you would give me just one kiss, then I would know that you feel the same way about me as I do for you. I would be free to speak to Papa and to your father. Time changes things. People change. In any case, when it comes to my parents, I think you're imagining more than you should. If not a kiss, then give me a word. I would, of course, prefer the kiss. (I can imagine your face turning red as you read this.)
At Pentecost we'll both be baptised. We're ready to talk about this. I only wish that you would come to your home church to be baptised. Won't the Krahns find a way for you to come? There are near to twenty girls who will take their place among the membership on Pentecost. I wish I would see your face among them.
This extra-long letter should make up for not having written sooner.
With love,
your dearest friend, Deet
n April they returned to Privol'noye, Katya a changed person. She had written to Greta, “Easter is coming. For the first time I feel joyful when I say the words âChristos voskres, voistenyu voskres.'Â ” The carriage taking them back to Privol'noye travelled through the countryside, and she drank in the familiar sight of the dun fields patched with the brightness of spring flowers. She had seen cranes, watched their flight across the western sky, their elongated bodies and outstretched necks arrows heading towards a mark. Towards their nesting grounds, the end of their migration from Africa.
The sight of the cranes told her that Privol'noye and Ox Lake couldn't be far away and when she at last came near to the estate she noticed that her father's meadow had been ploughed. Black furrows ran from the road up to that ridge of trees she once called a forest. She was old enough now to see the grove of trees for what it was, nothing more than a weedy leftover park that once belonged to the Orlov family. She would, in a distant time, come across their name in a book of photographs intended to expose the decadence which
had precipitated a people's revolt. The Orlovs' lands had been sold to pay off mortgages, the sons' debts, and to keep their houses and apartments in the cities; this was to become a common story.
The elder Orlov and his oldest sons, all officers in the service of the tsar, had gone to Petrograd at the beginning of the war, wrote David Sudermann in a letter to her father. One letter among the many she would take with her to a new country in a small oak box. “I am told that the oldest of Orlov's sons was struck down by a mutinous Volynsky guardsman during the uprisings in Petrograd in February. And another son, instead of responding to the call to help keep order in that city, shed his uniform and went to Odessa. I saw him in a shipyard office, trying to arrange passage for his family, should the need arrive. The rats smell a sinking ship.”
When at last the estate came into sight, it was as though her grandfather had read her mind, as he stopped the horses and said she and the children should get down and enjoy a moment. Gerhard and Johann immediately went in search of frogs and snakes in the damp ditches, while Sara went running down the road, the wind catching at her skirts and carrying her along. Running for the sake of running. To stretch her wiry limbs, which, she complained during their journey, ached with growing pains.
There were circumstances of travellers being robbed by bandits and so they had accompanied three other families in a convoy of carriages and a wagon. They left the convoy at the junction of the Colony and Chortitza roads to embark on the two-hour trip to Privol'noye on their own. She would write to her sister,
Opa and Uncle Bernhard had a moment of prayer for our safety. I said a prayer of thanks, because I knew we would be safe
.
She looked down the road towards Privol'noye, hoping to see the orchard in flower, to see what always looked like a pink fog, but it was still too early for the blooming of Sheep's Nose and Snow Whites, damsons and morellos. How sad, she thought, that Tante
Anna wasn't here to see the waves of wild poppies, crimson and shining as her satin bed-curtains had been. She supposed that Tante Anna, in all her seventy-nine years, hadn't witnessed spring on the steppe. The spinster's dream about Katya's father had come true. Her father had obtained his release and returned home. He, her mother, Peter, and the new baby, Ann, were already at Privol'noye, and no doubt watching for them. The woman had left an impression on Katya's skin which she would feel now and then. It was the feeling of a house cat that had gone missing, but whose presence remained an imperceptible settling at the foot of a bed, paws kneading a lap. The poor dear Tante Anna, whose travels had only taken her as far as one house to another, to care for other people's children, until she became too feeble to even care for herself. A woman alone, whose cherished keepsake was an empty ring box. Oh, if only Tante Anna could see this, she thought, with the arrogance the living possessed when they assumed the departed were somehow deprived because they were unable to experience what had just given them pleasure. Assumed that the dead might be longing for another glimpse of the tricks nature played with colours and light; a bead of rain magnifying pores on a sister's wrist, veins on a leaf.
My dear friend Peter Vogt,
I was overjoyed to learn that your medical leave was granted and that Privol'noye is once again in your care. I hope you didn't find the two weeks' bed rest in Kiev too onerous. Being confined to bed and being poked and prodded seems a small price to pay for freedom. I'm hoping when it's my turn, everything will proceed as smoothly. I cannot, however, claim to have a specific ailment such as headaches, but rather a general malaise. Welcome home. I'm certain my dear brother is grateful for your return.
The following is yet another instalment of a Mennonite Teacher's Adventures in the big, wide world.
Lately there hasn't been much for us to do in the office, and so I often go walking on Ekateriniskaia Ploshchad' and say hello to Catherine as I go by, and then down all one hundred and ninety-eight steps of the Richelieu Esplanades to the harbour. Often there are sailors marching off into the city in their formations.
The last time I went down to the harbour, several naval ships were coming in. They were signalling the news of the tsar's abdication to one another with their flags. Within moments the news reached the streets, and people began singing the “Marseillaise,” or the “Marsiliuza,” as some pronounce it. You hear it being sung everywhere now. The words depend on who's doing the singing, soldiers or workers. I hear that where you are, they're singing, “Who formerly was a nobody shall become the most important.” Paradise on earth, yet. Oh well, let them dream. It may come to something. In any case, people need to dream, don't you think? The exuberance and joy in the faces
of the people reminds me of the early days of the war. Life has become one long and exhausting party. Neverending band music, speeches of the kind that are so familiar these days, and which I'm sure you get your fill of, even there.
Da zdravst'vooiet svoboda
, long live this and that. Up with and down with about everything under the sun.
Everyone is anxious to learn all they can about the French revolution. The bookstores and stalls are crowded with people hungry to read about the French. You hear the language being spoken on the street, and in the cafés.
Because of a lack of spit and polish in our office, tea time has become almost like
faspa
at home. My co-religionists are very popular with the Russians during tea time, as often one or two of them will have a special tin of goodies from home, and how quickly are they relieved of their contents. There is no place to hide a tin of homemade sausages that a nose won't eventually sniff out. Auguste continues to send me generous amounts of halvah, which unfortunately isn't in demand and can't be bartered with the Russians for an eclair, or even a lowly raisin tart. And all because I made such a fuss when she served halvah when I was courting her, when really, I don't care for halvah all that much. Heat makes a fool of a man sometimes.
Tea time may soon change, however. We have received word from a Revolutionary Committee that we're to elect representatives to a staff soviet who will then collectively determine office procedures, duties, and disciplinary measures when the need for them arises. Ah, democracy rears its head, and will soon touch all of our lives. My own life has already been touched by certain aspects of freedom and equality. I'm frequently being relieved of the burden of my personal belongings. My room has been rifled through, and in the spirit of the day, items such as
hair-, shoe- and clothing-brushes are being liberated. Such is the notion of democracy in action. I'm sure this is bound to get worse before it gets better.
Pray that my medical discharge will go smoothly. A fellow co-worker recently appeared before a medical board which consisted of three excellent doctors, and representatives from the Revolutionary Committee, a sailor, and a nineteen-year-old store clerk. Everyone but the clerk agreed that he should be given a discharge, and so it was not granted.
Recently there have been many articles in the newspapers praising the stalwart service of Mennonites on the hospital ships and trains, young men I suspect, unmarried, wanting to prove a Mennonite's worth. Which, I also suspect, will quickly be forgotten by whoever winds up being in power.
I must confess, I felt much admiration and pride for them, when I read the glowing reports.
Until we meet again, your friend as always,
     David Sudermann