Dancing Under the Red Star (34 page)

I was headed for the house of my former teacher and wonderful friend, Tamara. She had invited me to share a room with her until I could find a place of my own. I was positively lightheaded as I walked alone through the frosty cold of Inta, with no guard breathing down my neck for the first time in more than nine years!

I finally made it to Tamara’s place, where both of us were deeply happy to see each other again. She had already set up a folding cot for me in her room. “The guards come by at about five in the morning,” she said, looking at me seriously. I paused in unpacking my bag. Only when Tammy erupted in laughter did I understand it was a joke.

A few weeks earlier Tamara had landed a job in the local theater, teaching ballet. She also possessed strong planning and leadership skills and had big hopes of organizing what she called “enough local talent” to stage a concert in the near future. I was happy to hear that I was included in her plans. She said, “I couldn’t wait for you to get here, Margaret! I want you to dance. I have some great parts for you.”

I joined Tamara’s classes with an energy and joy that had been missing in my life for a long time. I had missed her presence and enthusiasm during my final months in camp. She taught in the back room of an old storage facility, a warehouse in the inner city. It was great to be out of the camp, but the social atmosphere was not welcoming. As former politicals, we were looked down upon by the rest of the class. It didn’t matter much, because Tamara was the teacher. Still, it hurt. We tried to ignore the students’ stereotypes and false perceptions of us, but it wasn’t easy. All the same, we knew we had fulfilled our sentences; we had done our time. We were survivors. Facing prejudice was definitely the easy part.

While we were in the camp’s Cultural Brigade, I used to perform a solo snake dance. Now Tamara wanted to make it a duet, featuring me and a young man named Kostya, who had also just been released from prison. We performed well together on stage, and we danced as partners in quite a few different pieces. Kostya was from Czechoslovakia, the homeland of my old friend, Sanya Dubcek. Through the years since I first left Gorky, I wondered and thought about Sanya, and I felt kindly toward Kostya for that reason. And I felt even more kindly toward a friend of Kostya’s, whom I met soon after.

Günter Tobien was a young German who had been arrested when he was only fifteen, toward the end of the war, during the Russian occupation of Germany. He was originally sentenced to death, but when his captors discovered his qualifications as an expert mechanic, a decree soon commuted his sentence to ten years hard labor in Russia. They shipped him to the Far North, to Inta, to a men’s camp near ours, where he ultimately served his full term in the coal mines, maintaining the machinery. He had been there the entire time I had, just down the road in another camp. Günter had been released to the confines of Inta just prior to my release. He had no hope of returning to Germany or to the free West, where he had parents, a brother, and a sister. The sad truth was that he had not heard from them, nor had they heard from him, in more than twelve years. His family believed that he had been killed during the war, and he had no way to get word to them of his whereabouts.

Günter was like Papa in some ways: knowledgeable, strong, and hard working. And I delighted in speaking with him in the German language of my childhood.

I soon found new temporary living quarters. One of Tamara’s friends allowed me to use her apartment’s storage bin in the basement of her building. It was really just a big concrete box with a tiny ventilation hole near the ceiling and a small single bed and mattress. With Tamara’s and Günter’s help, I furnished my room with sheets, a small table, two stools, and a shelf, which stood on the table with my meager supply of dishes. This was the place I now called home. It was not Detroit, but it wasn’t labor-camp imprisonment either. And that was a blessing. A pail containing drinking water stood under the table. I filled it at another cellar apartment and then hauled it back. The only toilet was outdoors, a detestable little outhouse that was cleaned only during warm months.

Tamara made a pretty bedspread and pillowcases for me from some fabric Günter purchased in the city, along with a reindeer-skin throw rug for the floor. I kept warm with a hot plate, on which I also cooked my meals when I could buy enough food. I was thankful I didn’t have to pay rent or electricity bills. That would have made it impossible for me to survive.

After several weeks of looking for work, I found a job as a clerk and typist for the supply department of a local fabrication company. It was a modest income, even by current Soviet standards, but I was adjusting to somewhat normal life again and was relatively satisfied with my circumstances. I liked my job and the people I worked with. I was happy, and I was in love.

Günter and I didn’t want to lose any more time than we had already lost to our years in prison. We both wanted a family, so we married a short time after we met. By late April 1955 I was pregnant with our first child.

I continued to rehearse diligently, because my mother was planning to visit us from Gorky and I wanted very much to perform for her. Not yet showing, but feeling the fatigue of my first month of pregnancy, I managed to pull off that performance. What truly made it worthwhile was that Mama was watching me, smiling proudly. And this was a very special night, because I really needed her to be here for this one. As it turned out, Mama got to see me the very last time I ever danced or performed on stage—the very last ballet performance of my life.

Of course, Mama met Günter and learned of her coming grandchild. How wonderful it was to share my life with her again, if only for a short visit. A good friend of mine named Teresa, a former member of our brigade, let Mama stay with her for a few nights until it was once again time to say good-bye. We had become experts in good-byes and were no strangers to long separations, but they all hurt. I believed, however, Lord willing, that there wouldn’t be many more farewells in our future. Günter and I hoped we’d be permitted to move to Gorky in order to live near Mama. We believed that the many hurtful departures and all the painful good-byes would soon be things of the past.

I was expected to give birth in February 1956. Apparently nobody informed the new arrival of that fact, however, because on January 24 I began having an assortment of very strange pains. I tried to block them out of my mind, and Günter and I went out to the movies that evening anyway. After we returned home, these unfamiliar abdominal pains became more concentrated and unbearable, so Günter quickly fetched a doctor. The doctor, my friend Eleonora’s husband, examined me and immediately sent me to the hospital. This was not going to be a routine or normal childbirth.

After three days and nights of horrible pain, I was worn out. They finally gave me a pituitrine shot in the early afternoon of January 27, and about thirty minutes later, I gave birth to a beautiful five-pound baby boy. I underwent all this, including the scraping of the afterbirth, without any medical aids or anesthetic. It’s not that I refused medication; there were none available. More accurately, there were none for me, a former political prisoner—and an American.

Eventually the pain subsided, and I suddenly realized I was famished. Günter rounded up some food, which I ate heartily. Then I fell blissfully asleep. Some time later a nurse woke me up, presenting my healthy baby boy, Karl. I called him Karlie and received him as a blessing. At nearly thirty-five, I was considered quite old to be having children.

It was a strange time to start a new family. My mother was thousands of miles away. My father, in all likelihood, was dead. I felt it inside my heart. How I mourned that my father, Carl Werner, could not see his beautiful new grandson, Karl. I hoped that such a meeting would take place in the life to come, the one for all eternity, the life in which there will be no more pain.

In the present, however, things were very difficult for Günter and me. Work, food, housing—all were in short supply. We came from different cultures and were cut off from our families. And our years in the labor camps had not prepared either of us for living as man and wife. We struggled with each other over every problem that we faced. And they were many.

For months Günter and I had been trying to secure adequate living quarters through the city officials. Now there were three of us. So Günter formulated a plan: when my expected hospital discharge date came around (usually nine days after giving birth), I would refuse to leave the hospital premises. Günter thought this would force them to find us an apartment. Unfortunately, he was wrong. Though I had no place to go, after my discharge date, the hospital denied me food—for three weeks. Since I was a nursing mother requiring nourishment, I was forced to leave with Karl, who had been deliberately neglected by the hospital’s nursing staff. After all, I was a hated American, but their lack of regard for my innocent baby was utterly inhumane. Proper medical care was available for Karl but not given. Much of his little body was chafed raw. Babies born to Russian mothers were never treated like this.

During this awful time, encouragement came out of the blue. Several days before I went into the hospital, I had written an appeal to the Military Tribunal of the Moscow Military Region. Upon the personal recommendation of a friend, I candidly stated the circumstances of my case and respectfully requested a formal review. I didn’t seriously expect that the responsible parties would admit to any error, but there were some indications of change in official procedures. Still, I doubted if I would hear back, and if I did, it certainly would not be for months or perhaps years.

While I was still in the hospital’s maternity ward, however, I was handed an all-important document. I received an unconditional pardon, because proof of guilt could not be verified, and I was to be considered free of any criminal record. I was incredulous!
I would not be exiled in Inta for the next four years.
I had thought that writing my appeal had been an exercise in futility! Of course, this wasn’t justice—what had happened to the last ten years of my life?—but it was indeed good news.

I was stunned and happy on top of my indignation and resentment. However, I was more happy than indignant, more humble than vengeful. I wasn’t going to give my oppressors any more of my time. They had already stolen too many years from me. How horrible that any government could wipe out nearly ten years of an innocent person’s life.

One of the most important powers of that precious document was the restoration of my civil rights, primarily the freedom to travel, to choose a home in a different area of the country. More than anything I wanted to be reunited with my mother, and now I had the ticket to do so. No more years could be taken from us. In Gorky, the climate was less harsh, and little Karlie would undoubtedly have a better home and a better life in all respects. Naturally, my choice was to take my baby and return to Gorky and my mother.

Günter and I discussed this possibility in great detail. We really didn’t have other choices. Because of our political status, we would probably never get an apartment of our own in Inta. So where would we live? Where would our little Karlie live, and what would his new circumstances be like if we stayed here? As foreigners, we would never be treated well. Now that I was free to move, I couldn’t bear the thought of staying in Inta a moment longer than I had to. So I wrote a letter to Mama, informing her that little Karl and I would soon be coming home to her, but according to regulations, she first had to come to Inta to sign the necessary paperwork.

Günter was also allowed to leave Inta, but we agreed that he would remain behind to work and would send us money every month, until better conditions became available. Our considerations were economically motivated: necessity and financial practicality as well as housing conditions and availability. This decision was made in the best interest of my child, who was my primary focus at the time. But I was not thrilled with the idea of leaving Inta without my husband.

Of course, my mother wanted nothing more than to help us. In my mind, I imagined returning with my baby to a wonderful home that included my papa and mama and me with little Karl.

I was sure I would never return to Inta, so before I left, I was determined to find out what I could about my father’s fate. In going to the MVD, I knew I had to be very cautious, carefully calculating my approach. Attempting to gather sensitive and guarded information was a serious action on my part. It involved treading on sacred ground. If I said the wrong thing or made the wrong moves, I could quite possibly be imprisoned again or worse. Information was at a premium in Russia, and the sealing up of information was a source of power. The very root of this political system was secrecy I would have to bridle my tongue better than I had in the past.

When I found the building of the MVD, I stood a long time in different offices to inquire about my father. Eventually an impatient official told me curtly that Carl Werner had died, but the cause of his death, its date and location, were officially listed as unknown. I was furious. In the same degrading tone he used on me, I boldly replied to the officer, “Oh, that’s interesting. I see. Then perhaps you can tell me where he’s buried so I can put some flowers on his grave, okay? Or would that also be against the rules?”