The White Hotel (29 page)

He heard his mother coughing again, and it was clear that she was wide awake. Soon she would get up, light the fire, and make breakfast. Now he snuggled down and enjoyed the warmth of the bed. She stopped coughing, and there was silence again; as if she was making up her mind to get up. He waited for the familiar sounds: the squeak of the bed, the creaking floorboard, the sigh, the swish and rustle of her clothes being put on, the scrape of her shoes. But they didn’t come; only his mother’s occasional cough; and he drifted half asleep again, and dreamt his father was back and all three of them were riding in a sleigh, through snowy streets.

The old woman lay thinking of the many things she still had to do. Then she climbed out, shivering, for it was a chilly autumn morning, and still dark. Rising so early, they would be in time to get seats on the train. She listened for sounds of stirring upstairs, but the Shchadenkos were not up yet. She dressed slowly, and felt
a little warmer, though still she shivered. It was uncertainty and apprehension, she knew, more than the cold night; for she had saved up some warm clothes for just such an emergency, and had likewise put by some warm underwear for Kolya, which she had laid ready on his bedside chair. They would be travelling for one or even two nights on the train and it might get very cold indeed. She shuffled around in her stockinged feet, because she didn’t want to waken Kolya with the clump of her shoes. Let him sleep till the last minute. He would be tired enough after his travels.

She lit the candle which she had been saving for Christmas; then kindled a fire in the stove with the last of the wood shavings. By the glow of the fire and the candle you could see she was not such an old woman, in spite of her grey hair and stiff movements—probably no more than fifty. She only seemed old to Kolya and—most of the time—to herself. When the fire was well alight, she slipped into her shoes, pulled a coat round her shoulders, quietly lifted the door latch, and felt her way out into the yard. She pulled open the door of the privy. As she crouched over the hole, trying not to breathe in the foul smell, she heard a rustle behind her, and a long grey blurred form slid past her feet and flashed out through the door, which she had learned to leave ajar for just such an exit. Shuddering, feeling still the rat’s soft brush against her ankle, she tore off a piece of
Ukrainskoye Slovo
, wiped herself quickly, stood, and pulled down her dress. When she was in the yard again, she took a deep breath. It was still not fresh air, for the Podol breathed a perpetual scent of rancid fat and rotting matter from the rubbish heaps; but she had grown used to it and, compared with the privy, it was pure and sweet. Then she returned indoors.

Keeping as silent as possible, she took off her coat, unbuttoned
her dress, and poured some of the water from the bucket into the bowl, making sure there was enough left over. Water was precious: one of them had to go every day to the Dnieper to fetch it. Pulling her dress down over her shoulders, she gave herself a wash. Now she could hear the Shchadenkos moving around upstairs, a bustle of hurrying feet. It would be comforting to have Liuba’s company. She put the remains of the potato peelings in the saucepan. The pancakes would warm Kolya’s stomach for the journey. She relished the smell as the peelings started to sizzle.

It was time to wake her son. Not so long ago, she would have whispered in his ear, and tickled him awake. But lately he had grown modest and private, and she had put up an old curtain to divide the room and give him a chance to feel a little bit independent. So she merely stood at the curtain opening and called his name. When he groaned, she told him breakfast was almost ready. “We’ve got pancakes!” she said, tempting him. Though he groaned again and turned over, she knew it would not be long before he would be leaping out of bed. He was very excited about the journey.

While she was seeing to the breakfast he appeared, in his trousers and vest, took a good sniff of the delicious pancakes, and sat at the table. She told him he must wash first—but before that he must go to the toilet, because they were short of water and there wasn’t enough for him to wash twice. Living in such filthy conditions, she was sure they had only kept healthy during the last three years by being very careful about cleanliness. Grumbling that he didn’t need to go yet, he pulled his jacket on over his vest and banged open the door.

When they were sitting and eating the pancakes, he asked her again what she thought the place would be like, where they were going. She could only feed him scraps of her childhood lessons—the
fragrant orange groves, the cedars of Lebanon…Jesus walking on the water…“I am the rose of Sharon.…” Geography and Scripture were confused in her mind, and it was difficult to paint a convincing picture. She felt hopelessly ignorant. Geography had never been her strong point. It was beginning to get light, and she glanced out at the dreary yard with its rubbish heaps, and the backs of more slums. “It will be a paradise compared with this, Kolya,” she said. “You’ll see. We’ll be very happy there.”

But Kolya looked doubtful. He was very upset because two of his best friends, Shura and Bobik, were not Jewish and could not come. And she knew he was also bothered that his father would not be able to find them.

“Don’t worry,” she said, “he’ll find us. They’ll have lists of people who have emigrated. When he comes back to Kiev he’ll be able to find out exactly where we are, and will come straight over to join us.” She tried to make her voice and expression convincing, and briefly touched the crucifix at her throat. Never had it seemed the right time to tell him his father would not be coming back. She would tell him when they were settled somewhere safe, far away, where they could begin a new life.

When they had finished their meal, she washed the dishes in the last of the water, wiped them, and stowed them away in the battered suitcase. Though most of their possessions had been sold or pawned, in the effort to survive, there was still a lot to be squashed into one case. Kolya had to sit on it before she could snap the locks shut. She tied string around the case to make sure it did not burst open on the journey. Luckily it could withstand a lot of battering. It had been expensive when she had bought it, with some of the money her father had given her on her seventeenth birthday. Her mind went back to her departure from
Odessa, more than thirty years ago, and she had the same queasy feeling. Her breast felt both hollow and weighed down with lead.

Besides the case, there was a paper package tied up with string. It contained a bottle of water, and some onions and potatoes. Kolya had stolen the food a few days before, during the outbreak of looting. She felt frightened sick at the risk he had run; but had decided to keep the food. It would not be easy to prove that a few vegetables had been stolen; and it would have been almost as dangerous to take them back. She entrusted the parcel to Kolya, and told him to be sure to hold on to it and not let it fall.

They put on their coats, and stood facing each other uncertainly. She knew she must not show how frightened she was. “Say goodbye to the cockroaches!” she joked. Kolya looked close to tears, and it made her realize he was still only a child, for all his grown-up ways. She hugged him and said everything would be fine, and that she was glad she would have him to take care of her.

Dumping their baggage in the tiny hall, they climbed the stairs to see if the Shchadenkos were ready. But Liuba and the children were dashing about in complete disarray still. With three children and a mother-in-law—an old woman who needed tending hand and foot—Liuba looked tired out even before the long day had begun. There were clothes scattered over the floor, and she was struggling to dress Nadia, her youngest. Pavel and Olga were doing nothing to help, as always; the old woman was complaining in the corner; and now Nadia was howling because she had only just realized they would have to leave the cat, Vaska, behind. Her mother was trying to reassure her that Vaska would be fine, she would feed well off the scraps in the back yards. But Nadia was inconsolable. “Can I do anything?” said Lisa; but Liuba shook her head, and said they had better go on, and try to claim an
empty compartment; she and her brood would join them later. How she was going to get her mother-in-law to the station she didn’t know, but they’d manage somehow; they always did.

Lisa’s gaze fell on the cobbler’s tools lying by a wood box. She looked questioningly at Liuba, and her friend blushed and dropped her eyes. Lisa knew there was no point in saying anything; she
would
take her husband’s tools with her, though it was a million to one against Vanya finding his family again, even if he were released one day. Lisa felt guilty too, because there was almost nothing of Victor’s left. Everything had been sold to get food. But then, she had had her parcels and letters returned, which meant his almost certain death; whereas her friend’s husband was still alive somewhere, as far as she knew. He had been arrested and sentenced for grumbling to a customer about the shoddy materials he had to work with.

They could hear stirrings of life in the other tenements backing on to the yard. “You’d better go,” said Liuba. “With any luck there won’t be many about yet.” Kolya was edging towards the door impatiently, but Lisa hovered, doubtful. Yet it seemed the best plan, to go early and claim seats. The two grey-haired women embraced, and Liuba shed a few tears. She was very emotional. As she dabbed her eyes, Kolya produced from his pocket the old pack of cards, to show Pavel he had not forgotten them. Then his mother followed him down the stairs, they picked up the case and the package, and went out into the alleyway that led to the street. Dawn had broken, but the light was still weak.

When they came out on to the street they were stunned. The whole of the Podol was on the move. Instead of being able to walk along quite quickly, they had to push their way into a great slow-moving queue as wide as the street. It was like the huge crowd Lisa had once got caught up in, edging its way towards the
Kiev football stadium. But that mass had consisted of men, for the most part, and their arms had been free. This mass, surging slowly up the Glubochitsa, carried their houses on their backs, so to speak: old plywood cases, wicker baskets, carpenters’ boxes…. And in the absence of able-bodied men, who had retreated with the army, here were invalids, cripples, women and their crying children. The old and bed-ridden had taken up their beds and walked. Some of the old women carried strings of onions round their necks, like huge necklaces. In front of Lisa and her son, a sturdy lad was carrying a very old lady on his back. Other families had evidently banded together and hired a horse and cart to carry their old and their baggage. Only the poorest of the poor lived in the Podol district, but they all had more possessions than could be carried. The crowds up ahead were massed so thick that Lisa knew she would be lucky to get seats on the train for the two of them; to save a compartment for Liuba and her brood would be out of the question.

The suitcase was very heavy—too heavy for Kolya, when he pleased her by his politeness in offering to change burdens for a while—and she was quite glad at first that there were long pauses when the crowds ahead seemed to have come to a dead halt. She was able to rest the case on the road. It was so much better than all the cases being carried by others that she felt ashamed of it. Then, during one of the involuntary halts, a terrible thing happened: an old woman in a dirty headscarf darted out from a courtyard, snatched up the case and ran with it back into the yard. Screaming at her, Lisa and Kolya pushed their way to the yard gate; but two muscular men stepped out from behind the wall and barred the entrance. There was a whole pile of goods behind the men. Lisa pleaded, cried; but the men were unmoved. The crowd was moving onwards slowly, with eyes averted. There were no
police or soldiers around to whom Lisa could appeal. She turned away from the gate, tears streaming down her face. Kolya timidly put his hand in hers, and they were carried on in the crowd. She stopped crying, and dried her eyes; but felt overcome with hopelessness when she thought of the irreplaceable treasures—the clothes, letters, photograph album, the drawing by Leonid Pasternak and other precious items, so carefully packed last night.

Faces were pressed to the windows of houses, looking down on the dense mass of migrants. Some looked sorry for them, but others laughed and jeered. Soldiers lounged in gateways now, studying the passers keenly. One group of them called out, to a young woman in front of Kolya: “Komm waschen!” They pointed to the yard behind them, as if to say, “It needs cleaning out.” The girl turned her head in their direction, and in so doing saw Lisa but gave no sign of recognizing her. Lisa knew her at once: she was the daughter of the first cellist at the Kiev Opera. She spoke her name—Sonia—and the girl looked round again at the elderly woman, searching her memory. At last she remembered her, though she was much changed. Lisa was afraid she would reject her approach, and would not have blamed her had she done so. It was fairly clear that, to save his family, Victor had bartered the freedom, and even lives, of several of the musicians at the Opera—including the girl’s father. But Sonia seemed glad to fall in with someone she knew, however distantly, and she paused to let them draw abreast of her.

She asked Lisa if she knew what time the train was due to leave. She was worried they might be left behind. They had almost stopped moving again, and the young woman was standing on the toes of her high-heeled shoes to try and see over the crowd. It was impossible to see anything except a grey mass of heads and vehicles piled with junk. She sighed in exasperation.
Her suitcase was heavy and she was weary. “You’re wise to travel light,” she said, nodding at Kolya’s parcel.

Lisa poured out her woe over their stolen suitcase. They had nothing. “Well, try not to worry,” the young woman said. “I heard a rumour they’re going to send the luggage on separately and divide it up in equal shares when we reach Palestine.”

Rumours—there had been nothing but rumours since Kolya and Pavel had dashed in yesterday shouting that there was a notice up on the fence and crowds of people were gathered round it. Lisa and Liuba, who had been doing some sewing together, had run out and pushed their way through the excited crowd to read the notice. As usual it was on cheap grey wrapping paper, and printed in Russian, Ukrainian and German. The order said that all Yids living in the city of Kiev and its vicinity were to report by eight o’clock on the morning of Monday, 29 September 1941, at the corner of Melnikovsky and Dokhturov Streets (near the cemetery). They were to take with them documents, money, valuables, as well as warm clothes, underwear, etc. Any Yid not carrying out the instruction and who was found elsewhere would be shot.