The Russlander (30 page)
“Listen,” her father said. “Remember the chicks we saw at Ox Lake?” The hen had called a warning, and her chicks stayed under the water until the danger passed.
“Should there be trouble, here's where you come,” he said. He explained that he would make a slatted cover for the hole, glue straw and peat to it, loosely spread, the space between the slats allowing for air and some daylight to pass through. Once the table went back, no one would see it was there.
“What kind of trouble?” Greta asked.
Trouble such as they had met up with on the road today when the drunk men stopped them from travelling through the village, Katya thought, even before her father said so.
“Today, on the way to church, when those men stopped us, were you scared?” he asked Sara.
Sara nodded.
“Well then, if something should happen that makes you feel like that, if any one of you feels like that,” he said to Katya and Greta, “here's where you come. Wherever you are, don't stop to think, just come. Here.” He pointed to the hole. “You crawl under the table. You pull the lid to one side, and get into the hole. Then you slide the lid back in place, and stay quiet. Very still and quiet, until someone comes for you.”
“Papa, I'm returning to Arbusovka tomorrow,” Greta said. “I won't be here.”
“You won't be in Arbusovka forever,” their father said, and Katya remembered that was so. Greta would be across the compound, living in the Big House.
“And you're not to tell anyone. Anyone at all,” he said, his eyes latching onto Greta's with hidden meaning. She was not to tell Dietrich, Katya knew.
They returned to the house and gathered in the family room around the table with the others for hot cocoa and bread. Their mother sprinkled sugar and cinnamon on their bedtime snack, Gerhard's eyes lighting with appreciation, innocent of what had precipitated the treat, unaware of their mother's troubled silence. Katya felt uneasy and hadn't been able to look at her brothers directly until they were all seated at the table and waiting for their mother to bring their bedtime treat. Then they sang an evening hymn and listened to their father read the Twenty-third Psalm amid the loud ticking of the clock in the parlour, the hollow tick-tocking, the words of the psalm putting everything back into place.
Later, the rooms beneath Katya and her sister lay in stillness. The bells tinkled softly as the curtain stirred. Tomorrow Greta would return to Arbusovka, and Katya would again be the oldest,
and responsible for the care of her brothers and sisters. She would help her mother look after them. Her brothers could take for granted that she would see to their needs, her mother could assume she would do so, and, she thought, someone greater would be watching over them all.
My dearest, my Dietrich,
   I'm sure the news has already reached you that Frieda Krahn has died, and her unborn baby with her. It seems impossible that she's gone. The evening before she died, we sat at the table together, and I read to her from Bettex's
Nature and Law
. It's a book she had read many times, and was fond of, and she wanted me to enjoy it, too. That afternoon we had gone through a bag of fabric pieces, choosing those that would be suitable for a quilt we were going to put together during the winter months. The quilt was going to be for us. For our marriage bed. I have to explain that one night I was overcome by loneliness and I confided to her about you and me, and that we had promised to wait a year. She said the quilt would help the time pass. She was cutting and arranging the pieces on the table while I read to her. And by the next evening, she was no longer with us. I know that childbirth often takes both mother and baby, but when it happens to someone you've grown to love, it makes a person stay awake and wonder why.
This week I had a terrible scare. Little Erika has learned how to undo the latch on the gate and often goes wandering. I went to look for her, and when I got back there was a stranger in the kitchen. He was standing over the
miagrope
and drinking soup from the ladle. I didn't scream or run, I just hung onto Erika and shook. He was a dirty-looking person with awful sores on his face and hands. Just then Willy came into the house. When he saw the situation he invited the man to sit down and join him at dinner, and said I should serve them. The man smelled so bad, it was hard to go near him. When he left, I threw the leftover soup to the pigs and scalded the
miagrope
and dishes he'd touched. The outcome is that Willy has decided that
things have become too uncertain for me to stay here any longer. He's sent for a widowed sister to come and do for him and Erika, and I'm coming home.
I can hardly wait to see you, but I must wait until the middle of August when the Heinrichs Pauls Hildebrandt family from Arbusovka will go to Nikolaifeld and take me along. Willy will let Papa know the exact day we are leaving. Then Papa will send someone to come and get me at Nikolaifeld (you?), as more than likely he will be on the fields with harvest by then.
Our first kiss was pleasant. Our second, even more so. I'm looking forward to our walks in the forest, and our third kiss, my dear more-than-a-friend, Dietrich Abramovitch Sudermannchenko.
With love,
    your Margareta
My friend, my dearest Margareta,
   I leave this letter with your mother to give to you.
I wish with all my heart that I could be the one to fetch you from Nikolaifeld, as how wonderful it would be to be alone with you even for a short time. But unfortunately this is not to be. Harvest approaching or not, Father has decided it's time for me to put my commerce education into practice in Uncle Isaac's factory, and I will leave for Ekaterinoslav tomorrow. I know you'll be as down-hearted to discover that I'm not here as I am that I must go. Especially now that your kisses belong to me, my dear one. Privol'noye has not been the same without you, and now just as you're about to return, I must leave.
It's not likely that I'll be home for Christmas, according to Papa. You spoke of making a quilt in winter to help pass the time, and I suppose I must look on my training in Uncle Isaac's factory in the same light. It will help the time pass more quickly until, at last, we never need to be apart again.
My heart goes out to Mr. Krahn and his child, may God comfort both of them.
I will write again soon, and often,
    yours with love,
    Dietrich
My dear Peter Vogt,
   I have been wanting to write ever since I returned from Odessa. The recent news of the raids and burnings at Privol'noye compel me to do so now. I am growing concerned for the safety of your family. We, too, are beginning to experience the current unrest, and although you likely don't appreciate how I enjoy hearing myself going on and on, I'll begin with more than a little news, as you have come to expect from me. This writer never imagines that a dreary missive can induce voluminous snoring as readily as a long-winded sermon.
When I arrived home to Chortitza in September, the first thing I took it upon myself to do was break the seal and lock on the school door. As you can imagine, there was much speculation as to how soon I would be arrested. But fortunately that was not to be â or unfortunately, for those who predicted that would be the outcome. It's a puzzle how disappointed some people can be when their dire predictions don't come to pass. But it was just as I expected, the officious
schlorre-kap'tän
of a school inspector didn't show his face at my door. Nor the police, either; further proof that neither rule nor order is being kept these days. As you know, the jails and prisons have been emptied by amnesty, and we in Chortitza and Rosenthal are afforded the experience of rubbing shoulders in the streets with convicted thieves, rabble-rousers, and even murderers. So why would anyone bother to arrest a schoolteacher acting in the interests of pedagogy? The sooner all the schools reopen, the better for the children, as the routine gives them a sense of stability.
There were no noticeable changes here in Chortitza after the takeover by the Bolsheviks, not to the extent of what was taking place in the cities. Except for train travel, the revolution didn't
affect us directly, at first. But the chaos on the trains was shocking. Ruffians and returning soldiers demand civilians give up their seats, and if they're dimwitted enough to object, they are hastened from the train, sometimes through the windows and always when the train is travelling at optimum speed. During my journey home from Odessa I wore the red ribbon on my lapel â to assure my fellow passengers that I was in step with the times â and, wisely, my old worn boots from forestry camp. Many a man disembarked in sock feet, and minus a topcoat. Other than having to submit to numerous toasts to freedom and equality with the inevitable and vile-tasting
samogon
, I am happy and can report that my boots and greatcoat remained untouched.
However I'm afraid life in our sleepy villages is beginning to be affected by the winds of change. In Chortitza we have a commissar, a rather agreeable fellow, Chuev, a sailor from the Black Sea fleet. He was appointed to head a village soviet by a Revolutionary Committee in Alexandrovsk. His first task was to divide our belongings equally and fairly among the soldiers who, at the suggestion of the same committee, continue to move into our villages in large numbers. I suppose we should be grateful for Chuev, as I am told that in villages where there is no commissar, the soldiers forcefully and arbitrarily claim their promised rewards for having given up fighting the war. With the arrival of Chuev, I'm sad to say there went all but one of my cows, most of my chickens, and all of my horses. Camels, it appears, are not worth liberating. It's now necessary for me to ask Chuev, who has set up his headquarters in one of Koop's factory houses, for permission to borrow my own horses and wagon in order to fetch supplies. When Chuev decides for some reason that I may not, I travel on foot, as does everyone else except him, I might add.
But on to the reason that compelled me to write.
I am thinking about your girls. I am thinking about all of your children. You must read the same newspapers I do, and yet Marie's father tells me that you're reluctant to let the children out of your sight. Let me add my voice to your father-in-law's. Send Marie and the children back to Rosenthal. Auguste looks over my shoulder as I write this, and she says to tell you that she would welcome any number of your children into our home for as long as it's necessary for things to grow calm and stable, as I'm almost certain will be the case. We are in the early stages of great change, and many people are taking the opportunity of these uncertain times to settle old scores, and to indulge their base and lawless natures. The current unrest is something we must go through before everyday life will improve. In the meantime, why not send your family here?
I'm almost certain that you have already heard the news of the upcoming marriage of Dietrich to Jakob's Barbara. The world may be upside-down, but Abram's will prevails. While it looks as though his brothers may soon become workers in their own mills and factories, Abram still schemes to enlarge his holdings, and this time through matrimony. He refuses to read the writing on the wall.
My dear brother expects us to come home and give the newly-wedded couple a Sudermann family welcome, which I will do for the sake of family harmony, although knowing my nephew's heart, I do not approve of Abram's matchmaking. And so I will likely see you at Privol'noye before the snow flies.
Perhaps by the time I come you may have considered my proposal and agree to send your family back with us, and into our tender care.
With warm regards, as always,
    David Sudermann
My friend, David Sudermann,
   Greetings, my fellow worker and member of the proletariat, Comrade.
I address you in such a manner to demonstrate that I, too, am keeping in step with the times, which you related so interestingly and well in your previous letter.
However, time will not allow for me to write more than a hasty reply to your long and informative letter. Dietrich and Barbara are still here at Privol'noye, but tomorrow they will travel to Ekaterinoslav on the first leg of their journey, and Dietrich has promised to forward this letter to you.
The early and heavy snowfall that prevented your travel to Privol'noye is a blessing, for it has covered up the ruin. My heart could not bear the sight of such wanton destruction. The burning of grain and slaughtering of animals that are then left to rot is an evilness that will bear its own bitter fruit.
I am grateful for your concern over the well-being of my family, and for Auguste's offer for them to stay with you in Chortitza. It would have been a great relief for me if they had been able to go to Rosenthal, but that is not to be. For reasons you may or may not be aware of, Maria is of the mind that staying here will be less of a trial for Greta. I choose to believe that the reason for this is unknown to you, otherwise I would question why we, and Greta in particular, had to learn of Dietrich's engagement during the announcements in church, and not in a more direct way. There are fewer and kinder tongues at Privol'noye than in Rosenthal and Chortitza, which is why my children will remain here with me for the time being. That is all I wish to say about the matter. We wish the married couple God's richest blessings.
I continue to put my trust and hope in the Lord God Almighty, who knows the beginning, the middle, and the end.
Greetings to Auguste, and to Maria's father when you see him.
Until we meet again,
    Peter Vogt