Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets (16 page)

I will never forget the war…The Germans invaded our village…Young and cheerful. With so much noise! They arrived in huge vehicles and their three-wheeled motorcycles. I’d never even laid eyes on a motorcycle before. All we had at the collective farm were these one-and-a-half-ton trucks with wooden beds, these machines that were low to the ground. You should have seen those German trucks! They were as tall as houses! Their horses—not horses, but mountains. They painted a message on the wall of our schoolhouse: “The Red Army has abandoned you!” We started living under German rule…There were a lot of Jews in our village: Avram, Yankel, Morduch…They rounded them all up and took them out to the
shtetl
. They’d brought their pillows and blankets, but they were all killed right away. They rounded up every Jew in the district and shot them all in a single day. Tossed them into a pit…thousands of them…thousands…People said that for three days afterward, their blood kept rising to the top of the pit…like the ground was breathing…it was alive…Now there’s a park there. A place of recreation. You can’t hear anyone from beyond the grave. No one can scream…So, that’s what I think…[
She cries.
]

I don’t know…How did it happen? Did they come to her, or did she find them in the forest? Our neighbor hid two little Jewish boys in her barn—adorable kids. Real cherubs! Everyone was shot, but they hid. They managed to run away. One was eight, and the other one was ten. My mother would bring them milk…“Children, hush,” she told us. “Not a word of this to anyone.” In my neighbor’s family, there was an old, old grandfather, he remembered the other war with the Germans, the first one…He’d feed the boys and weep: “Oh, children, they’ll capture you and torture you. If I could stand to do it, you’d be better off if I killed you myself.” Those were his words…And the devil hears everything…[
She crosses herself.
] Three Germans showed up on a black motorcycle with their big black dog. Someone had informed on them…There are always people willing to do things like this, people whose souls are black. They’re alive, but it’s like they are soulless…Their hearts are just medical, not human hearts. They have no pity for anyone. The kids ran into the field, into the grain…The Germans sent their dog in after them…Afterward, their remains had to be gathered up shred by shred…There were nothing but rags left of them…nothing to bury, no one even knew their last names. Then the Germans tied our neighbor to their motorcycle and made her run until her heart burst…[
She no longer wipes her tears.
] In times of war, people fear one another. People they know and strangers alike. Say something during the day, and the birds will hear—speak at night, and the mice will. My mother taught us prayers. Without God, even a worm can swallow you.

On May 9…our holiday
^*2
…Sashka and I would each have a drink…and a cry. It gets hard to swallow your tears…So, well, what can you do…At the age of ten, he became the man of the house, taking the place of his father and brother. When the war ended, I turned sixteen. I went to work at a cement factory, I had to help my mother. We’d drag fifty-kilo sacks of cement; load sand, stone chips, and equipment onto big trucks. But I wanted to go to school…We hauled loads and plowed with the cow…The cow would wail from the burden…And what did we have to eat? What did we eat? We ground up acorns and gathered pinecones in the forest. Still, I held fast to my dreams. Throughout the entire war, I’d dreamed of finishing school and becoming a teacher…The last day of war was so nice, it was warm…Mama and I went out into the field. Suddenly, a policeman galloped by on a warhorse: “Victory! The Germans have signed the capitulation!” He was dashing through the fields shouting, “Victory! Victory!” People ran into the village. Yelling, crying, swearing. Most of all crying. But the very next day, we all began wondering, “What’s going to happen to us now?” Our houses stood empty, nothing but wind in our barns. Cups made of tin cans…cans left behind by the German soldiers…Candles in used cartridges. During the war, we had forgotten all about salt, our bones had gone soft. When the Germans were retreating, they took our pig and caught the last of our chickens. Before that, partisans had taken our cow away in the night…My mother hadn’t wanted to give it up, so one of the partisans shot up at the ceiling. They carried off Mama’s sewing machine and her dresses, too. Were they partisans or just burglars? They had guns…So, well, what can you do…? People always want to live, even during wartime. You’ll learn a lot from living through a war…There is no beast worse than man. It’s men who kill other men, not bullets. People kill people…Ah, my dear girl!

Mama called the fortune teller…The fortune teller told her, “Everything will turn out fine.” We had nothing to give her. My mother found two beets in the cellar and thought it was enough, and the fortune teller did, too. I went to apply to the teacher training college like I had dreamed. I had to go there and fill out an application. I answered all of the questions and then I got to the one that said, “Were you or any of your relatives prisoners of war or under occupation?” I answered that yes, of course we were. The director called me into his office: “Young lady, please take your documents and go.” He’d fought at the front and lost one of his arms. He had an empty sleeve. That’s how I learned that we…everyone who’d survived the occupation…were unreliable elements. We were now under suspicion. No one was calling us brothers and sisters anymore…It took forty years for them to remove that question from the application form. Forty years! By the time they took it out, my life was already over. “And who abandoned us to the Germans?” “Hush, my girl, quiet…” The director closed the door so that no one would hear. “Hush…hush…” What can you do to escape your fate? It’s like drawing blood from a stone…Sashka applied to the military academy. In his application, he wrote that his family had lived in occupied territory and that his father had gone missing in action. He was rejected outright…[
She is silent.
] Is it all right that I keep talking about myself, telling you my life story? All of our lives were the same. I just hope that they don’t put me away for telling you all this. Is the Soviet government still in power or is it entirely gone?

For all the grief, I forget the good…When we were young and in love. I had a great time at Sashka’s wedding…He loved his Lizka, he courted her for a long time. Worshiped the ground she walked on! He went all the way to Minsk to get her a real wedding veil. After the wedding, he lifted her up and carried her into the barracks…That’s one of our old traditions…the groom is supposed to carry the bride like a baby so that the
domovoi
^*3
doesn’t notice her. So he doesn’t get his eye on her. The
domovoi
doesn’t take to strangers, he always tries to get rid of them. He’s the true master of the house, you have to get on his good side. Oh…[
She gestures dismissively.
] Nobody believes in anything anymore. Not in the
domovoi
and not in communism. People live without any kind of faith! Maybe they still believe in love…“Bitter! Bitter!”
^*4
we cried at Sashka’s wedding table. How did people drink back then? There was a single bottle for the entire table, ten people—nowadays you need a bottle for every guest. You used to have to sell the cow to pay for a wedding feast for your child. He really loved his Lizka…but it’s impossible to make someone love you back. So, well, what can you do…She crept around like a cat. After their children grew up, she left him, and didn’t look back. I said to him, “Sashka, find yourself a good woman. You’ll take to drink.” “I’ll just have a few sips, watch some ice skating, and go to bed.” When you sleep alone, not even the blanket can warm you. Even heaven will make you sick if you’re alone. He drank, but he never overdid it. No…he never overdid it, not like other people do. Oh! One of our neighbors here…He’ll drink Gvozdika eau de cologne, aftershave, methylated spirits, cleaning fluid…Believe it or not, he’s still alive! A bottle of vodka costs as much as a coat used to. And something to snack on? Half a kilo of salami is half a month’s pension. Drink up that freedom! Eat it up! What a country they surrendered. An empire!! Without a single shot fired…The thing I don’t understand is, Why didn’t anyone ask us? I spent my life building a great nation. That’s what they told us. They promised.

I felled timber, dragged railway ties on my back…My husband and I even worked in Siberia, at a communist construction site. I remember the names of the rivers: the Yenisei, the Biryusa, the Mana…We worked on the Abakan-Taishet Railway. They shipped us there in freight cars: two levels of hammered-together bunks, no mattresses, no linens, and your fist for a pillow. A hole in the floor of the train car…and for more serious needs, there was a bucket screened off with a sheet. The train would stop in a field, we’d pile up whatever straw we found and that would be our beds. There was no light in the train cars. But the whole ride there, we sang Komsomol songs! Until we went hoarse! It was a seven-day journey, but we made it! The wild taiga, snow as high as a man. Soon, we all came down with scurvy, all our teeth went loose. Lice. And the production quotas—oh-ho! The men who hunted would go after bear. That was the only time we had meat, otherwise it was just kasha and more kasha. I still remember that you should only shoot a bear in the eye. We lived in barracks without showers or baths. In the summer, we’d go into town to wash ourselves in the fountain. [
She laughs.
] If you feel like listening, I’ll tell you more…

I forgot to tell you about how I got married…I was eighteen. I was already working at the brick factory. They’d closed down the cement factory, so I went over to the brick factory. I started out as a clay worker. Back then we would dig out the clay by hand, with shovels…Then we’d unload the trucks and spread the clay out in even layers to let it “ripen.” Half a year later, I was already pushing loaded carts from the brick press to the oven, bringing raw bricks in and baked, hot bricks out. We’d take the bricks out of the ovens ourselves—they were unbelievably hot! You’d handle four to six thousand bricks a shift, up to twenty tons. Only women worked there. And girls…There were men, too, but the men generally worked the machines. Were behind the wheel. One of them started courting me. He’d come up to me, laugh…Then he started putting his hand on my shoulder. One time he said to me, “Will you come with me?” And I said, “Yes,” without even asking him where we were going. That’s how we got recruited to go to Siberia. To build communism! [
She is silent.
] And today…ah…well…Turns out it was all in vain…All of our suffering was in vain…It’s terrible to admit it and even worse to live with it. All of our grueling labor! We built so much. Everything with our own hands. The times we lived through were so hard! When I was working at the brick factory…One morning, I overslept. After the war, if you were late to work…even ten minutes late, they could send you to prison. The foreman saved me: “Tell them I sent you down to the quarry…” If someone had informed on me, he would have been charged as well. After ’53, they stopped punishing lateness like that. After Stalin died, people started smiling again; before that, they lived carefully. Without smiles.

But…what’s the point of remembering all this? It’s as good as collecting the nails after a fire. Everything burned down to the ground! Our whole life…Everything that was once ours is now gone…We built and built…Sashka spent time in the Virgin Lands. That’s where he built communism! The bright future. He said that in winter they’d sleep in tents without any sleeping bags. In all their clothes. He almost froze his hands off…but he was still proud! “Down the winding roads, / Hello, virgin soil!” He had a Party membership card, a little red book with a picture of Lenin on it, and he treasured it. He was a deputy and a Stakhanovite, just like me. Our lives went by just like that, they simply flew by. Without leaving a trace, you won’t find any traces of us anywhere…Yesterday, I stood in line for three hours for milk and in the end, there wasn’t enough. They brought a package full of gifts from Germans to our building: grain, chocolate, soap…For the victors from the vanquished! I don’t need any care packages from Germans. No…I refused to take any of it. [
She crosses herself.
] The Germans and their dogs…the fur on their dogs glistening…When they came through the forest, we hid in the swamp. Up to our necks in water. Women, children. And the cows alongside the people. Silent. The cows were silent, just like the people. They understood everything. I don’t want any German cookies or candy! Where are my just deserts? The fruits of my labor? That’s what we believed! We believed that one day, we’d live to see the good life. Just wait and see, wait and suffer…Yes, wait and see…We spent our whole lives shuttling between bunkers, dormitories, and barracks.

What can you do? That’s how it is…You can live through anything except death. You won’t live through death…For thirty years, Sashka toiled away at the furniture factory. Backbreaking labor. A year ago, they had a retirement party for him, presented him with a watch. But he wasn’t left without work. People would come to him with odd jobs, one after the other. Yep…And still, he wasn’t happy. He was sick and tired. Stopped shaving. Thirty years of working at the same factory, that’s half a lifetime! It was like a second home to him. His coffin came from the factory, too. A rich man’s coffin! All polished and lined with velvet. These days, only gangsters and generals get buried in coffins that nice. Everyone wanted to touch it—a sight unseen! When they were carrying the coffin out of the barracks, we scattered grain across the threshold. We do that so that things will be easier on the living who are left behind. Our old customs…We put the coffin in the courtyard. One of his relatives said, “Kind people, forgive him.” “God will forgive him,” everyone replied. What’s there to forgive? We lived together so well, we were like family. If you don’t have something, I’ll give it to you, if I run out of something, you’ll bring it to me. We liked celebrating holidays together. We were building socialism, and now on the radio they say that socialism is over. But we’re…we’re still here…