Dancing Under the Red Star (18 page)

Then Rudolph winked and continued, “And did I neglect to tell you that he is upstairs waiting for you right now?”

Everything stopped.

My heart skipped a few beats, and I thought,
Surely I’m dreaming. Did I hear him correctly, or am I imagining things?

Slowly, as if in a trance, I walked up the wide marble stairs, one step after the other, until, at the very top of the staircase, I saw a man in an air force officer’s uniform waiting for me. I stopped, holding the handrail, and stared up at him. Those wide blue eyes locked with mine. It
was
Nikolai! Only he looked so different. His hair was darker and his face paler than in our days on the water. The bones in his face were more prominent, and his shoulders were wider. He had become a man since our eyes last met.

Nik leaned down and took my hand. He drew me up the last few steps, never turning away his gaze. I saw in his face that I was different too. As if in a mirror, I saw my face flushed with dancing, my hair swept up for the party, my whole body alive. We wrapped our arms around each other and stood there, speechless, holding on tightly for what seemed like an eternity. Words were not necessary. Shock, amazement, joy, and hope passed through me like electric currents. I could feel his heart beating through the thick wool of the uniform.

Long moments passed, and when our bottled-up emotions began to subside, we managed to walk to the refreshment room. There we sat and talked, our arms around each other. We did dance together a bit, but we wanted to talk and look at each other and embrace.
Bei Mir Bist Du Schön.

We had so many things to learn! He told me about his family, his brothers and sister, and his own papa. His family had nearly been destroyed by the regime’s cruel, forced collectivization in the farmlands of Kiev, where his father had owned land. “They butchered our lives,” he said.

Nik also remembered my family. He asked, “Maidie, how is your mama? How is she doing? Is there any news about your father?”

“Everything is still the same, Nikolai. Mama’s fine,” I answered, “and we’ve heard nothing yet about Papa that has made any sense. Let’s just talk about us, okay?”

The hours passed like minutes. The dance ended. The musicians closed up their cases. Soon we were the only ones left in the building, paying no attention to the time, not even noticing the others depart. We were the last to leave. We didn’t want to separate—ever! Life felt complete, perfect, even if we had died there that night in each other’s arms.

Nik walked me all the way back to our building in the village at about three o’clock, both of us completely exhausted. I could hardly stand to let him go, to let go of this vision of happiness. We made plans for him to come back the next evening to meet my mother. I had already told him so much about her, and Mama had listened to me chatter enthusiastically about Nik for years. He said good-bye and kissed me softly once more.

The next day was Sunday, and time couldn’t pass quickly enough for me! I couldn’t eat a thing all day. I just sat and watched the door, waiting for
the knock,
as I recited to Mama all the details about the previous night with Nik. Mama was thrilled for me, as I knew she would be. She couldn’t wait to meet him. She even primped a little bit, more than I had seen since Papa’s days, putting on her best dress and asking, “How do I look, Maidie?”

“Oh, Mama, don’t worry. You look just fine,” I responded, never turning my eyes from the door.

When we finally heard Nikolai’s knock, I flung open the door and fell into his arms. He filled our tiny room with his gladness, strength, and energy. Mama was taken with him right away. She didn’t have to say a word. As Nikolai talked and laughed with her, her open smile of approval said it all.

“You were right, Maidie,” said Nikolai, smiling at Mama. “She’s even lovelier than I imagined!” That was the clincher. Mama was usually a tough sell, but Nik’s genuine, magnetic personality reeled her in. He was naturally generous and outgoing. It was an overwhelming thumbs-up approval from my mother; she loved Nikolai too. I knew she would!

Among the three of us there was an unspoken mutual affirmation. Future plans were made, formalized, and confirmed within minutes, and not a word had to be spoken; our hearts knew. We didn’t need a rehearsal for our unspoken exchange. I felt it was a divine appointment that Nik felt exactly as I did. When we looked at each other, we knew we were destined for one another. And our relationship was clear to all three hearts. As we began to talk together, I saw that Nik’s affection for me included Mama; he wanted to care for her too. Dazed and happy, I noticed I was thinking again in terms of three!

Nik and I sat on the couch with Mama and excitedly discussed our future: marriage, children, the United States, in no particular order but in complete agreement. How Mama smiled, how Nik laughed, with his arm around me, and how my heart soared on the wings of love and joy. This was another evening of absolute bliss, two marvelous days in a row.
Bei Mir Bist Du Schön.

Early the next morning Nikolai had to return to Leningrad, where he was stationed. There he would make arrangements with his unit commander for me to come see him the following weekend so we could finalize our wedding plans. I kissed him once more at the door, my heart full of joy. Now I had to tend to all the details and make as many advance preparations as I could. Just how and when could we finally get married? And where? Oh my, there was so much to do and so many things to consider, and all in the middle of a brutal war. I had no idea how we’d be able to pull it off.

I didn’t expect to hear from Nik for a few days, but no letter had come by the end of the week. Two weeks passed, and I hadn’t heard a word. I was frantic with worry and fear. The waiting became too much. I paced the floors for days. I paced our street. I paced the entire village, and still there was no word. I was ready to pull my hair out, because I needed my dear Nikolai, and I didn’t know why I hadn’t heard from him after all this time.

Finally I received a letter from Nikolai’s commanding officer. Nikolai had been flying an aid mission north of Moscow as air support for the weakened Soviet resistance. His plane had been shot down. In that moment my hope was severed, my dream killed, and my world destroyed. My Nikolai was gone, and so was my reason for living.

When I phoned and pleaded for more information, I was told that the wreckage of his plane had been found and his body identified. The part of my heart that was reserved for Nikolai was ripped out. He was shot down only two days after he had returned to Leningrad from Gorky, from being with me. Only four nights before he died, the two of us danced to our hearts’ content and dreamed the night away, as if we would live forever, as if Nik and I were already one, as if the world would never end.

After reading the letter, I crawled into a ball in the corner of the room and wept with an agony I’d never felt before and haven’t felt since. Mama sat on the floor and cried with me.
Devastated
doesn’t begin to describe the pain that consumed me for weeks afterward. When I lost Papa, I lost the security and joy of our family life, the past and the present. But when I lost Nikolai, I lost my future, the prospect of any happiness to come. And I have never felt love for a man the way I did for Nikolai.
Bei Mir Bist Du Schön.

I did not know how I could go on. Blindly, I went to work again, came home again, tried to stay alive, but a deep new sorrow settled in my heart that never completely left. How do you forge ahead when your heart has been shattered? For a very long time I could not enjoy any kind of leisure or recreation. Russia, along with this evil war, had killed my smile.

I had planned to join Nikolai in Leningrad. Later I heard what had happened to the people of that city, trapped there during the nine-hundred-day German blockade. Ten thousand people died there every day from starvation, disease, and cold. No city or area of the country suffered more. More than one million Leningraders died during the siege of their city. In fact, Leningrad became a symbol of the unbearable suffering all of Russia experienced during the war with Germany.

If I’d gone to Leningrad as planned, I would probably have died there. This drastic realization seemed like a sign, something that maybe God used to bring me back around again after my sudden and tragic loss of Nikolai.

I began working again in the automotive factory as a secretary. I did well in my job and got along with my boss, Andre, though others thought he was an ogre. I’d worked for him earlier in the tank department, and he asked me to begin teaching English to his nine-year-old son, Sasha. Once a week, before work, I was driven to Andre’s apartment to have a light breakfast with Sasha and his mother and to give him an English lesson. Then they would drive me back to work. Sasha was a delightful little boy, a joy to me in this joyless time. His bright face and eager ways raised my spirits; we’d even laugh over his jokes and English pronunciations. I’ve wondered for years whatever became of him. His smile could light up an entire room, and it put a spark in the darkness of my heart.

Mama and I finally moved out of that hateful little room, which was suitable only for a small family of cockroaches, into a larger room of another building, part of a three-room apartment with a communal kitchen, bathtub, and toilet. The two other rooms were occupied by the head doctor and gynecologist of the clinic where Mama worked. Now we at least had a kitchen, bathtub, and toilet, even though they were shared with the other two tenants. This was as close to privacy as we would ever come during these precarious times in Gorky.

We struggled on through the war years. Many men—actually just boys at the time—who had come over with us from Detroit and others from the village were killed, exiled, imprisoned, or disappeared mysteriously during the war. The population I had known changed drastically after I graduated from high school in 1939. I kept a class photograph, and within five years most of the handsome young men in the picture had been killed; only two of them returned, with nearly fatal wounds. My former gym teacher lost both legs. I was numb with grief for the lost men of my generation, but most of all I mourned for Nikolai. Though I was still alive, my future was gone.

Ten

ARRESTED

O
n May 7, 1945, we heard on the radio that the war was finally over. People spilled out of their apartments and danced in the streets, cheering wildly until they were hoarse. Russians celebrated their survival even as they mourned the millions—approximately twenty-seven million people, military and civilians—who had been killed in some of the most brutal and intense fighting the world has ever seen. But even at peace, Russia was still ruthlessly ruled by Stalin.

On a cold night in December 1945, I was visiting some friends only a few houses away from where I still lived with Mama. We chatted and relaxed after work. We were all wishing out loud for a few new clothes and some much-needed shoes, since nearly everything was still scarce after the war. About ten thirty I left my friends’ apartment to walk home. Approaching our building, I noticed a car parked outside. This was odd, because no one in our village owned a car. My mind immediately raced back to the only other time I had seen a car parked in front of our building. As I climbed the stairs to the second floor, I was trying hard to remain calm. When I opened the door to our room, I saw two strange, unfriendly-looking men standing near my mother. She was deathly pale, with dread in her eyes. That look is embedded forever in my mind.
What now?
I asked myself as I stepped woodenly inside.

These men had arrived about an hour earlier, claiming they were my co-workers. They said they’d come to get a key I had inadvertently taken home from work. Mama knew better, so she had tried to distract them, saying she thought I wouldn’t be home that night, that I was spending the night at a friend’s apartment. But they didn’t believe her and waited for me anyway. We had heard of their many stories, such as “the key,” invented by these people to mask their unlawful entry and secret agendas.