The Russlander (38 page)

They were going to Arbusovka, Olga said. They would drive to the end of the village, where there had been a soap factory which had been shut down. Her father heard there were moulds stacked out on the yard. If there were any left, the boards and iron rods might prove to be useful.

As they went round a bend in the trail a broad street opened up, Main Street of Arbusovka, lined with the familiar red-brick houses with their arched attic windows and grey roof tiles. When they neared the centre of the village, Nela pointed out a buff-coloured stone house, a rambling low house partially covered in vines and trimmed dark green. That was Willy Krahn's place, where Greta stayed, she said. A wagon and sleigh were parked outside stone gate posts which flanked the entrance to a barnyard. As they approached the house, the door opened and Willy stepped out onto the platform. As though he'd been expecting them and watching, Katya thought as the man waved and called that they should come and stay a while. Olga's father pulled the horses back and as the sleigh slowed down, the dog jumped out and bounded over to the gate – deciding for them, Olga said, laughing.

The man's window curtains were plain white cotton, and not hand-painted with pictures,
a bright border of sunflowers; the next time he might surprise us with a geometric pattern, or vines
, Greta had written. Standing behind Willy in the doorway was David Sudermann, looking as hollow-eyed and worn-out as he had in church that morning. He pushed past the man and came down the stairs.

“There you are, Heinz Penner, a toad among the roses,” David called to Olga's father.

When he saw Katya, David's grin collapsed and he averted his eyes. Behind him came a greying stout woman – the widowed sister of Willy, Nela explained. Hanging onto her skirt was Frieda and Willy's child, a curly-haired girl with saucer eyes. Auguste and David's three daughters came skipping down the steps. They grabbed Olga by the hands and escorted her into the house, ignoring Nela, who looked on in bewilderment, her eyes pained.

When Katya went into the parlour, Auguste Sudermann rose to greet her with a dry peck against a cheek. There were several other women present. An elderly woman peered nearsightedly at a coat she was snipping apart at the seams, while others were mending and knitting. They nodded hello without missing a beat of their lively, intense conversation. Olga and Nela went from chair to chair, greeting each of the women in turn. They were putting together a box of clothing for refugees, Auguste explained. The circumstances were such that it was necessary they meet on a Sunday to do so. Across a hallway, the men had gathered in another room and as Olga's father and David Sudermann entered, the men's voices rose.

From the far reaches of the house came the muted sound of chirpings, what could be children's voices scratching against the walls, Katya thought as Auguste explained that a village near Arbusovka had been routed and women and children had come on foot across country, bringing only what they'd had on their backs. The women had arrived wet and shivering in their washday aprons and thin house dresses, their children without shoes and frostbitten. Several families whose houses were burned down or occupied had been taken into homes in Arbusovka until other arrangements could be made.

“Aren't you going to say who this girl is?” Willy's sister asked Auguste moments later.

“Katherine Vogt. From Privol'noye,” Auguste said, her cheeks flushing.

Katya felt the women's immediate stillness.

“Margareta's sister?” the woman asked, and when Auguste nodded, she set aside her handiwork and came across the room to engulf Katya in an embrace. Katya felt the heat of the woman's breasts and stomach, felt her own legs begin to shake, and she didn't want to let go of the woman for fear the others would see the tremble of her skirt. But the longer she allowed herself to be held, the worse the shaking became, until her entire body was caught in spasms of shivers.

“Would you like to see where your sister stayed while she was here?” the woman asked in a whisper.

She followed the woman out to the hall. The men looked up as she came past their door, their voices stopping in mid-sentence, smiles frozen, a brow becoming heavy, or, like David Sudermann, their eyes turning away as they became lost in a thought, a scene, a discomfort her presence aroused in them.

They went deeper into the house and she heard the clinking sound of glass being set down on glass, the tinkle of a spoon in a cup, a woman's voice, a child's reply coming from behind a wall. As they approached a closed door, Willy's sister stepped aside so Katya would be the first to enter the room. She turned the knob and pushed open the door. A woman sat at a table with children, their white faces turning to meet her. Her mother, sitting at the table, Gerhard, Johann, Peter, and Daniel with her. From somewhere far away she heard herself screaming, felt the floor hard against her back and her skull rocking against it. She heard the screams become cries, and then sobbing. Willy's sister knelt beside her, and then she felt the woman's weight against her body, her hands pressing against the sides of her head to keep it still, her arms holding and rocking her.

The people in the room where Greta had once stayed were refugees from the ransacked village near to Arbusovka, and not an apparition. Their presence had brought a release, and the feeling she'd had of being a stick of wood vanished. Her limbs became liquid, and too long for her body, and for a time she walked crookedly, bumped into door jambs and tripped on stairs. The sound of laughter in a street brought tears, as did sunlight touching a snow-covered roof, sparks of frost cartwheeling around her when she went walking.

In summer she would take her place among women hoeing in the community gardens, crouch to notice how weeds growing near to the carrots resembled carrots; potatoes, in the potato patch. She saw how vine weeds threatened to choke out the lentils, the grasp of their tendrils so strong she had to cut the vine rather than pull it and risk uprooting a bean. She stopped weeding to listen to the coo of a mourning dove in an evergreen tree, warblers singing in an oak grove on the slope of the valley. When summer arrived she was sixteen, and although she sometimes appeared to be far-away, it was because she chose to be. She had begun writing in her notebook once again.

If using fresh fruit, scald and remove skins and stones. Boil with water and sugar. Be patient when you add the starch mixed with cream, or there will be lumps. If you use red plums, it will turn out differently.

The primroses are blooming.

atya came up the stairs to the attic, and knew by the stillness that the silkworms had reached the end of their fourth period of feeding. The worms would be reared up, their glossy black heads fixed in a trance as they dreamed their new skins. One more week of feeding and their silk glands would be ready to produce. As she stepped up into the room, the sound of band music coming from the town of Chortitza grew stronger. The windows in the attic were open at either end of the room to clear the air, and had been ever since her grandfather had set the eggs to hatch on the feeding bed. However, the days had been too heavy with humidity to allow for a crossdraft to clear the odour, which was both sweet and sour. The smell had seeped into the rooms below the attic, prompting her grandmother to say that, had she remembered what a strong smell the worms gave off, she might have had second thoughts about revisiting such a venture. But thread was scarce; out of necessity, old skills were being revived.