Wave of Terror (39 page)

“And what about my brother? You promised to bring my brother from Lvov. Where is he?”

Sobakin smiled and lit another cigarette. His voice became softer and more friendly. “I’ve been trying to help your brother for quite some time. As a matter of fact, he’s one of my top priorities. If only you knew what I’ve gone through on his behalf: I’ve conferred with my contacts in Lvov, I’ve made innumerable phone calls, I’ve even written letters.” He moved a little closer, and whispered to her, “Marusia, I have some surprising news. Brace yourself. Your brother is going to get married.”

“Married?” echoed the girl, astonished. She turned toward Sobakin, and stared at him. Was he telling the truth? She thought that if she could only see his eyes, they would tell her everything. But the sun was setting over the houses and it was growing dark.

Sobakin went on more soberly. “Unfortunately, it appears there’s a problem with your brother’s engagement. His fiancée, whose name is Oriska, is the daughter of a Ukrainian nationalist—in other words, a counterrevolutionary. Lonia has gone a bit too far by getting involved with this girl. From my end, I’m doing all that I possibly can to help him out of this mess.”

“Lonia, mixed in with counterrevolutionaries? I can’t believe it!” Marusia caught her breath, and burst out loudly, “Why are you doing this? Why are you making things up? You’re just stringing me along! For what purpose?”

Sobakin grimaced. “Maybe it’s better that you don’t believe me. After all, it’s not a pleasant thing to face up to. But soon you’ll see that I’m being truthful. Your brother is planning to come home for the summer holidays, and then he’ll tell you everything himself.”

Sobakin sounded so self-assured and so in control that Marusia became uncertain. What if there was a chance he was telling the truth? What if Lonia really was coming home? She was so desperate to see her brother again that she was willing to believe anything. Drawing a deep breath, she put all her suspicions aside, and
stealing a glance at him, made herself believe that he was telling her the truth.

But a second later, everything changed again. He was sliding closer to her, slipping his arm around her back, breathing heavily. When she caught a whiff of drink on his breath, she pushed at him, crying, “Get away from me and stay away from me! You make me sick! You’re a drunk and a liar! I hate you. And why don’t you ever clean your teeth?”

As he continued to grope her, Efrosinia came running out of the house, shouting, waving a broom. “Get away from my daughter right now or I’ll bash your head in!”

Sobakin, taken aback, jumped to his feet. “
Mamasha
.” He spread his arms in self-defense. “Marusia and I were simply having ourselves a little chat. You shouldn’t get so excited. It’s not good for your blood pressure.” Straightening his shirt collar, looking very perturbed, he flung himself around and hurried back to his yard.

Marusia burst into tears. “Oh, Mother, he touched me. I feel horrible, just horrible.”

“Calm down, dear child, calm down.” Efrosinia took her daughter in her arms and hugged her until her body stopped shaking. When Marusia finally regained herself, they went back into the house. In a corner of the living room, dim lamplight cast long, muted shadows over the walls, and from the window the pale moonlight struggled through the half-closed curtains.

Valentyn lay on the sofa in his pajamas, dozing. When he heard the women enter, he slipped his arm under his head and without looking up, gave a prolonged yawn. He crooned as if to himself, “Ah, here is my daughter, at last, my devoted daughter. And what has she gone and done? She’s rolled to the very edge. I could hear Sobakin and her cooing from outside the window, like a pair of doves.” Stressing every syllable, he went on as though she wasn’t there. “My daughter’s head has been turned by a lieutenant from the secret police. She’s completely lost her senses. And now we’ve got nothing but trouble.”

He stroked his beard, and looked directly at Marusia. “Didn’t I tell you Ivan Kulik would have been a better match? Didn’t I tell you? Ivan’s a decent, intelligent young man, and one of our own. Why couldn’t you just listen to me?”

Marusia shot back hotly, “Don’t talk to me about Kulik, Father. I told you a million times, I have no interest in him. Why don’t you just leave me alone once and for all? Why must you always attack me?”

Valentyn smiled ironically. “Don’t you have a few things confused, daughter? It’s Sobakin who’s always attacking you, not I. From what I see, he can’t seem to keep his hands off you.”

Efrosinia quickly jumped in. “Stop it, old man! Stop it right now! Leave Marusia alone. You’re only making her more miserable than she already is. And what good will it do? She’s learned her lesson all too well and now she has to find a way to deal with the consequences. We all do.”

She grabbed her daughter’s hands, and pressed them tightly to her breast. She whispered, “Is there any news of Lonia? Did Sobakin say anything to you?”

“Oh, Mother! He’s a liar; he’s been lying all along. Every word of his is nothing but a lie! He says that Lonia is getting married, but you can’t believe a thing he says.”

Efrosinia turned white. She buried her head in her hands and wept quietly, her small, thin frame shaking. “Lonia, Lonia, my poor baby, what has become of you? Are you healthy or are you ill? Are you alive or are you dead?”

She rocked back and forth, growing increasingly restless. Then she looked at her husband and it was clear something was beginning to set her off. “Did you hear, old man? Did you hear what your daughter just said? Were you even listening? Lonia is still in Lvov and he’s not coming home after all. Well, what have you got to say about that? And better yet, what do you plan to do about it?”

Valentyn scrambled to his feet, and as fast as his old legs could carry him, made for the kitchen door, calling out, “Don’t start on me again, old woman. I know exactly what you’re aiming for. Your nagging is going to be the death of me yet.”

Efrosinia caught his arm. “You’re not going to get away from me so easily this time, and you know perfectly well what I mean. You’ll go to get Lonia if it’s the last thing you do. First thing tomorrow you’ll go to the train station and buy yourself a ticket to Lvov. Then you’ll get on that train and bring Lonia home. If you don’t, I swear, I’ll set the house on fire, I’ll hang myself, but I’ll murder you first.”

Efrosinia’s excitement grew increasingly intense. She went on for several minutes more; suddenly her voice faltered and broke. She sank into an armchair opposite the sofa, and sat unmoving, her face buried in her hands. Finally she turned gloomily to her daughter. “Oh, Marusia, what’s happening to our family? Will we ever see Lonia again? My little boy, what’s become of you? My poor little boy.”

She shook her head and said to Marusia in bewilderment, “And you, what am I to do with you? Come here, let me take a good look at you. My, my, how you’ve grown. You’re not a child anymore, you’ve become a beautiful young woman, too beautiful for your own good. If I were even half as beautiful as you when I was young, do you think I would have ended up with your father? Not in a million years! Look at him, he’s become glued to that broken-down sofa of his. And that stupid beard he’s decided to grow—it makes him look like an old goat! My word, if things had been different, I would have found myself a handsome government official or maybe even an officer in the army. But in my day officers and officials were different, they were honorable and respectable, not like today. Today, oh, God, they’re nothing more than vultures, raping and stealing wherever they go. Bandits, all of them!”

Listening to her mother go on, the color drained from Marusia’s face as if something had just occurred to her. Her single thought was of her cousin, Sergei. She cried out: “Oh, no! Sergei! Good Lord, what did I do? What did I do? I made a mess of things. Mother, I accused Sobakin of beating Sergei in prison, and I accused him straight to his face! Now he’ll finish Sergei off for sure. I had to go and open my big mouth. When will it all end? When will it all end? May God help Sergei!”

Efrosinia rose; her cheeks were sunken and she looked like a dead woman. She murmured in a monotone, “Marusia, do you think it’s possible our Lonia might really be getting married?”

“No, Mother, no! Sobakin’s lying. How can you even think that? Lonia would have written to us. Sobakin’s just looking for another way to get to me. But it’ll never work. I’ll never submit to him. Never! Never!”

Efrosinia said quietly and dreamily, “Lonia is getting married, I can feel it in my heart. Soon we’ll have ourselves a wedding.”

Marusia was taken aback and rather frightened. Efrosinia went on, “I know Lonia is getting married because last night I had a dream. In my dream there was a church, much bigger than our cathedral, and in the belfry a bell rang, at first it tolled, then it rang out joyously. Then there was procession of young women dressed in long white gowns, they were carrying baskets of flower petals and throwing them everywhere along the path. They were followed by a young woman with long golden hair dressed like a bride with a wreath on her head. Next to the woman a young man was walking all in black, even his shirt and gloves were black. But his face didn’t look like a groom’s face. It was pale yellow and he looked wasted and miserable and his eyes were red and sunken. He looked old. It was Lonia! He and his bride followed the procession into the church and the doors banged shut behind them and the bells stopped ringing. The dream was so real, it was almost as if it wasn’t a dream at all. Then everything became clouded …” Her voice broke.

Marusia ran to her mother and flung her arms around her. She had never seen her like this. “Mother, get hold of yourself, please,” she cried. “Calm down, shhh … calm down. It was just a dream, a stupid dream! Stop crying. Everything will turn out all right, you’ll see. Lonia will be home before you know it.”

She tore away from her mother and ran upstairs to her room, slamming the door behind her. Falling onto her bed and burying her head in her pillow, she wept bitterly. The sound of her agonized sobs traveled into the hallway, down the stairs, and filled the entire house.

E
verything appeared to go well on this beautiful sunny June day. To begin with, early that morning, Sobakin, in his full NKVD uniform, carrying his overstuffed satchel, unexpectedly and hurriedly left for the Zovty Prison. In the Bohdanovich household, things had settled down considerably. Marusia woke around nine, made breakfast and went about her usual household chores. No one dared mention Sergei, and even Lonia’s name was not whispered. It was almost as if the normal flow of life had been restored, at least on the surface.

Just before the clock struck noon there came a knock on the front door. It was the postman with a telegram addressed to Marusia. She ran to tell her mother the good news. “Mother, Mother, it’s from the
Oblispolkom
about my application for a teaching position. I’m being called in for an appointment today at two.”

Efrosinia, knitting a shawl, put her needles down “Have you given this enough thought? Is this what you really want? To become a teacher?”

“Mother, it’s about time I did something with my life. Besides, we can certainly use the money. And with all these things happening around us, we still have to go on. And Father’s not …”

“Father!” Efrosinia cut her off. “Don’t start with your father again. Just look at him. As usual, he’s snoring away. Such a hypochondriac! You see how he got out of it again? You see? Didn’t I tell you he’d find a way? Mark my words, he’ll never make it to Lvov, he’ll never go for Lonia. He’s full of excuses, nothing but excuses. Now he claims he can’t buy a train ticket because in order to buy
a ticket he needs a special pass from the NKVD, but before he can get this pass, he says, he must apply to NKVD headquarters, and it could take weeks for them to process it.”

Turning on her husband who was stretched out on the sofa, “Get up, old man, I’ve just about reached my limit with you! Get up before I do something I might regret!” She was about to grab him by the arm, but clutching her head, she burst into tears. “Lonia, my poor Lonia, what a high price you have to pay for having such a father.”

“Oh, Mother!” Marusia stamped her foot. “Enough already! You’ve got to stop tormenting yourself like this. You’re driving us all crazy, and it’s not doing anyone any good.”

She took her mother’s arm, sat her down in an armchair and gave her a glass of water. Then she massaged her shoulders and back until she calmed down. When Efrosinia began to sink into drowsiness, Marusia slipped a pillow behind her mother’s head, lifted her legs onto a footstool and covered her with a blanket. Then she took her letter and rushed out to go to the
Oblispolkom
. It was almost two o’clock.

She felt today was the day she would achieve something. Having a job would be a way not only to help her parents financially, but also to escape the pressures in her life; namely, to get away from Simon Stepanovich. She felt confident about her prospects of getting work, because not only was she well-educated, but she spoke Russian, and fluently at that. She tried to clear everything from her mind that might affect her optimism.

The
Oblispolkom
was an imposing stone building covering a big chunk of the block, five stories high and surrounded by a narrow, empty courtyard. The large, rectangular windows on the lower level were protected by iron bars. There was a continual flow of people through the front gates; pigeons roosted under the eaves above the main entrance. Marusia was intimidated and even a little frightened by this impressive and important place. On the second floor, she stopped before a massive brown wooden door marked People’s Commissariat of Education. She knocked, turned the oversized brass knob, and entered timidly.

Yeliseyenko, Superintendent of the National Division of Education, sat at his desk, jotting something in a notebook. His flaxen hair was oiled and combed back from his pale, puffy face. He wore hornrimmed glasses. Marusia silently tiptoed to put her envelope on the corner of his desk and sat down in a chair opposite him. Yeliseyenko looked up unsmiling. “Well, Maria Valentynovna. We’ve looked over your application with great interest. So, you want to be a teacher? And you specified you wanted to teach in a village. Hmm … interesting. Well, your credentials certainly qualify you.” He took a folder from his desk drawer and scanning the papers, asked, “How is your Belorussian?”