The Russlander (47 page)

She heard the sound of hammering from the adjacent house, and went outside. The gate hung askew on its hinges, and the yard was tall with weeds. She made Sara wait near the gate with Njuta. As she entered the house, the hammering stopped. She noticed that a room off the hall was completely bare of furniture; there were shards of glass scattered across the floor. An emaciated cat stopped prowling to
stare at her. She turned and looked into the room across from it. There was a dead woman in a nightdress lying on a tabletop set on two chairs. Just then a man came into the room carrying a hammer, a man whose overgrown beard and long uncombed hair made him look wild. He was wearing a woman's underslip. As their eyes met, his face caved in, and she thought he would weep. He looked down at himself, as though seeing himself through her eyes. He looked at his bare feet, the obvious fact that he was without underwear. “This is all the clothing I have,” he said.

The dead woman's lips were rimmed with black, her face sunken and yellow, mouth turned down as though in disappointment.

“Go away from here. There's sickness,” he said.

She heard moaning come from yet another room, and then a woman called out for a drink; she was hot. “Papa, come, the fire is burning up the wall,” she called.

It was the fever, the man said. He was the last one standing.

“Your grandparents likely know by now that you're here,” David Sudermann said. “The telephones aren't working, but the word gets through; even better, without having to go through Valentina. And without becoming everyone else's business in the process.”

“Don't talk so loud,” Auguste said sharply.

Katya had been surprised to come upon the telephone operator, Valentina, at the clothesline in the Sudermann's yard, just as the woman was surprised to see her. The town's former postmaster and his family lived in the front room of the Sudermann's house now, while another family occupied the remainder of it. She learned that, like many of the previously affluent in the towns of Chortitza and Rosenthal, David and Auguste were consigned to living in a single room in their own house.

As Auguste poured tea into glasses, Katya saw that her hand shook. In the room was a table, a sleeping couch, sleeping bench and two chairs. Also a cupboard whose doors were missing, its shelves holding dishes and cooking pots; also a pile of bedding on a sewing machine. Sara and Njuta had joined Auguste and David's three girls where they sat on the bench, leaning into the wall. Their girls seemed placid and withdrawn, Katya thought as she accepted the glass of tea from Auguste's trembling hand.

“Pretend it's cocoa,” David said with a short laugh. “It pays to have a good imagination during these times. Some people are actually putting on fat using their imaginations. They go to bed imagining they've eaten cheese, meat, bread, and in the morning their stomachs are full,” he said and patted his midriff. “They keep their shutters closed so others can't see them using their imaginations.
Ja, ja
. Just trust in God, He will satisfy your every need, even hunger. Those who wish to see us starve make us even more religious,” he said with a sardonic laugh.

Once again Auguste reminded him to be quiet, and their voices dropped to a whisper. Katya noticed how Auguste hovered near the perimeter of the room. When she had finished serving them she went to a chair in a corner and sat there, eyes cast down and arms folded against her chest as though she were suddenly chilled.

David fell into thought. He stared at his hands circling the glass of tea, into whatever darkness he was contemplating. Katya thought about her father then, and was almost grateful that he wasn't there. It would be a terrible thing to see him as wounded as David. She wondered if the reason his daughters were so watchful and silent was because their father seemed to be defeated.

David Sudermann had been among the men digging a trench on a factory yard, and when he saw her coming he'd straightened, and put aside his spade. He'd come towards them slowly, and she had
wondered, who was this old, stooped-shouldered man? And then when he was certain it was them, and broke into a run, she realized this was David. She thought he would embrace her, but he stopped short of doing so, expressing concern that Njuta was too heavy for her to carry, and taking her sister from her arms.

When he had told her that her grandparents no longer lived in their house, he spoke without looking directly at her, and she wondered if he ever would look directly at her. She wondered how long she would have to endure the certain looks, and avoidance. As if she needed to be reminded that her family had been murdered. David went on to tell her that her opa and oma Schroeder had moved across the street and were living in the little house at the back of the Siemenses' property. Her uncle Bernhard and aunt Susa and their family continued to live in their own house, however. Who was in the grandparents' house? You will see. You will be surprised to see, he said, without explaining why. As soon as they had something hot to drink and had rested, he would take them to their grandparents.

She didn't want to take the time to rest, she told him now as she sipped at her imaginary glass of cocoa. She was impatient to see her grandfather and grandmother. After being in the cluttered and noisy Krahn house, she was hungry for the dignity of their silences. Unlike Irma, they didn't have a need for self-examination, a need to find meaning behind every occurrence. And she would be free, too, to think about Kornelius without his presence interfering with her thoughts. David said he would accompany them to Rosenthal, of course.

As they neared the
Mädchenschule
, they heard the sound of children in the courtyard, and, except for the sounds of their play, Main Street of Rosenthal lay before her empty and silent. She noticed the absence of smoke in factory chimneys along the way, of the sound of iron striking iron; she noticed the deserted coalyards.

As they passed by the school she saw that its brick façade was pocked with bullet holes; the wrought-iron railing on top of the stone wall was twisted, and sections of it were missing. The Reds had declared that the school was for both boys and girls now, David informed her. And it was closed more often than not for lack of heating fuel. When the Makhnovites had left the town months earlier, David and others cleaned the school to prepare it for classes. They found mounds of discarded clothing that seemed to be alive. What moved were the lice, he said. The lice were ankle deep in all the rooms, and in whatever house or building the Makhnovites had stayed. The lice spread from house to house, columns of insects coming in under the doorsills and through cracks in the walls and floors. People resorted to burying their infested clothing, baking them, hammering the seams before retiring at night. “The two-headed offspring of anarchists. Lice and typhus,” David said, speaking more to himself than to her.

The burnt shell of a house pressed through the trees beyond the school. Many of the trees around the Teachers' Seminary had been cut down. There were tree stumps in the yards of houses along the street, and up the sides of the valley. Fences were pulled down for firewood, David explained, barn boards stolen during the night, furniture broken up for the sake of heat.

As they drew near to her grandparents' house, David let them go on ahead, and moments later when she turned to look, he was going back down the street. He'd been rather mysterious about the inhabitants of her grandparents' house, she thought.

There were gloxinia plants on the windowsills, and the curtains appeared to be freshly starched. She saw movement beyond the windows in the summer room; it had been her mother's room at the onset of the war, when her father served at the
Lazarett
. While she knew it was impossible, as she came near to her grandparents'
house she thought she could recall a time when her mother had been a child as young as Njuta. She imagined her mother in a white dress, squinting into the sun as she sat out on the platform on a hot summer afternoon, surrounded by aunts, uncles, cousins seated in rows on the steps and on chairs in the garden below. Her mother, a small girl, her hand rising to shield her eyes against a burning sun, watching her daughters coming down the street.

Whoever lived in the house now took good care of it, she thought, vaguely aware that a woman had come out onto the platform. She was followed by another woman, and then she recognized Dietrich Sudermann as he came from the house, holding a child in his arms. Although his hairline had receded, he looked much the same as when she'd last seen him.

“Katya, yes?” the woman said as she came down the steps. “I'm Barbara,” she said. Behind her was Justina, whose queenly demeanour was intact, as was her shiny blond hair twisted in its usual skein at the back of her head. But it was Lydia Katya wanted and waited for as Dietrich thrust his child into Barbara's arms and hauled Katya into an embrace. His arms tightened, and she felt the quick thud of his heartbeat.

“And here comes Lydia,” Dietrich said, and released her.

Katya turned to see Lydia hurrying along the sidewalk towards them, her hair darkened now, the colour of old straw. Katya realized that her knees were shaking.
Lydia, what have you been making of your life? Can you tell me, after your mother, who was next, and then who? Can you tell me how Njuta came to be in the house?

She felt Lydia's narrow body against her own, felt her shudder as they embraced. Then Lydia stepped quickly back. She'd been at the Seminary, helping care for the orphans, when she'd heard of their arrival, she explained as she tugged at the sleeves of her blouse, as though the cotton were chafing her skin.

“Lydia has psoriasis,” Justina said.

“Yes, I'm covered with it, from head to foot,” Lydia said with a sad small laugh, her eyes briefly meeting Katya's and then flickering away. “Sara, how big you are,” she said, and Sara drew her shoulders up to try to make herself look even taller, causing the women to laugh. Dietrich stood rooted, his eyes clouding as they rested on Sara.

“But I wouldn't have recognized Njuta,” Lydia said.

“Well, how could you? She was the age of this one when you last saw her,” Barbara said, indicating the child she held in her arms. She had spoken in an off-hand manner to fill an awkward silence, without realizing the tactlessness of referring to that day. Dietrich, his features strained and troubled, left them and went into the house.

Katya felt rough in their presence, made so by their appearance, the women's lawn skirts and crisp linen blouses, a string of amethyst beads at Justina's neck.

“How
are
you?” Lydia asked softly, the question meaning so much more than what it usually did. I am doing as well as expected, Katya thought. What about you? When their eyes met, Lydia looked as if she were in search of something.

“We're a little worn out from our walk,” Katya said.

“I know your grandparents are impatient to see you, otherwise I would invite you to come inside,” Justina said, and Katya felt that she was being told to go.

“I'll walk with you the rest of the way,” Lydia said.

They went across the street, Sara and Njuta between them, and Katya realized that she and Lydia were now the same height, both of them tall for young women, and like most everyone else, rather thin. Lydia would rub the sleeve of her blouse, touch a shoulder, move her body as if to ease the itch of psoriasis against the fabric of her clothing. Again their eyes met, and Lydia was the first to turn away, spots of colour rising in her cheeks. As they neared the gate to the Siemenses' house, Lydia took a step back, allowing for Sara and Njuta to enter first, and then she took Katya by the arm, indicating
that she should stay. Katya felt the sudden dry heat of Lydia's palm against her own, a slight pressure, as she squeezed. “It was horrible,” Lydia half-whispered, and closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, they were wet.

“They made you play the piano,” Katya said, her lips tingling suddenly, her face gone stiff.

“Yes,” Lydia said.

“And then the men came from the well.”

“Katya, do you know about me?” she asked, her pale eyes widening. “Do people know, did Kornelius Heinrichs say?”

“Kornelius only said that he found you, just as he found me, and Sara, too,” Katya said.

Katya saw Lydia with Greta, sitting together in the classroom, their heads joined, their eyes shining with concentration. Lydia's small hands washing creases in baby's legs, soaping its tiny head, threading its limbs through arm holes and leggings. She was still rescuing children, apparently, although larger and more needy ones.

Lydia looked at her sharply. “And were you and Sara. … Are you and Sara … Are you all right, then?” she asked, sounding like an older and caring sister.

Katya remembered Franz Pauls's question, Was Lydia laid on the ground, too? Had men done unspeakable things to Lydia while laying her out on the ground? Kornelius hadn't said any more than that he had come upon all of them struck down where they had stood, all except Lydia, who had been left for dead but was resurrected in Orlov's hayfield not knowing day from night, or who she was. “Yes, we're all right,” Katya said, and found herself being embraced, felt Lydia's breath on her neck, heard her say, “Oh, how I prayed that would be the case.” Then she smiled, her features softening for a brief moment.

“What about you?” Katya asked.

As they walked through the orchard at the back of the Siemenses' yard, Lydia linked her arm through Katya's, and they walked just as Greta and Lydia had once walked, Katya feeling the heat of Lydia's skin, a wiry strength. “Well, I have the orphans to care for. It's something that needs to be done,” Lydia said. Sara and Njuta were being joyfully received by their grandparents, judging from the noise. Lydia went on to explain that the Teachers' Seminary had now become an orphanage, a temporary place to house homeless children until people could be found who were willing to take them in. The orphans brought pieces of amber, she said, rings, silver they'd stolen at the thieves' bazaar in Alexandrovsk, copper pots. They came with their swollen stomachs, and stick-thin legs, wanting to exchange what they had stolen for food.