‘According to Natasha, there’s a river down there; the Vaymuga.’ Lodzia cleared her throat and infused her voice with a firm note of optimism as if she hadn’t heard anything that man had said! ‘It’s where we’ll draw water when the snow melts; then we must drag it back to the shack.’
I thought – yes, no doubt that’ll be my job. I tried to blot out our future but it was too bleak. We had no future. I couldn’t cope with the very thought of it. Even though I had suspected the truth, this was worse; I didn’t want to believe it. It was as if I was defying fate to prove me wrong, but it was still a shock uttered from the lips of the man in charge. Now, somehow, I had to blot out our non-existence from my mind, or I would go mad just thinking about it. And what of poor little Ella, so young, so innocent? What was there for her to look forwards to; absolutely nothing? I took her hand, and said, ‘Shall we play a little game?’
‘What shall we play?’
‘I know, we’ll see who can breathe the deepest to get all the stinky stuff from the train out of our lungs, and then we’ll see who can hold it the longest without going giddy and falling over.’
‘Good, idea, sis,’ Karol said, ‘fall over and break your leg; that’s all we need.’
I abandoned the game. ‘Come on, we’ll go to the shop instead,’ I said to Ella.
‘Can I have chocolate?’
‘After what we’ve been through, you can have anything you like, my little angel.’
The crowds broke up, and we set off towards the river. The air was sharp, and it stabbed my lungs; the silence as pure and serene as the wintery blanket that covered the shacks on either side of us. Across the Vaymuga, gazing back at us, ancient forests stood brooding and motionless.
Then from out of nowhere came the muffled tones of a balalaika, and a beautiful voice singing, Kalinka. It was such a happy little song, and so unexpected that Karol started whistling. Before I knew it, I was singing along. However, I stopped when all those memories surged to the fore – those evenings we spent around the fire at home, Bookiet at my feet, his snout resting on his paws. Tatta would hold his well beaten up fiddle to his chest, plucking and caressing the strings with his bow. Beside him, Karol would sit with his accordion, and Gerhard with his guitar, stamping their feet, while Lodzia and I clapped to the escalating tempo and Mama sat knitting. Such sadness then enveloped me thinking of the loss of our perfect family life.
We followed the music to the community centre, where the words, KRASNY UGOLOK (Red Corner), on a banner outside invited us to partake in Sovetskij Soyuz (Soviet Union) on Saturday night. What sort of labour camp was this? It confused me. In one breath, the Kommendant was telling us this was a prison where we would spend the rest of our lives – next we came across this! How odd.
Indoors, beside a table on which sat an old gramophone playing a scratched record, a Ukrainian woman stood leaning on her broom handle, singing to an invisible audience. She stopped when we entered, and her lips parted into a half gummy smile. ‘Dobrey Utro.’
‘Good Morning,’ I said, and my family nodded.
‘Please, carry on,’ Mother insisted, ‘it was beautiful; you could have been an opera singer.’ But the woman stood and watched while we sauntered around, leaving the record hiccupping over the scratches.
Karol continued whistling and his fingers reached out to a piano keyboard that resembled a mouthful of rotting teeth. ‘Needs tuning,’ he said.
I noticed there was a makeshift stage here. Oh, so perhaps they put on theatrical performances like the one at Kobryn, to which my parents had once taken me. Odder and odder – things were looking up. Earlier I saw there was a school besides the admin shack, which meant the place wasn’t full of older people.
The cleaner gave another half-gummy smile when we left and carried on crooning and sweeping. Somehow I felt pleased that she had sung something cheerful instead of picking some mournful lament. Here were these forgotten people, living in this terrible place, yet somehow they had recreated fragments of their former lives for themselves. Odder still, the Soviets had allowed them to do it.
We stepped out into the snow and bumped straight into the Powiecki clan – all twelve of them – searching for the shop, as were the rest of the camp. They were in Shack 23.
Alongside the community centre was the bolnica – the surgery. It was empty and locked.
‘At least we have a doctor,’ Mother said.
‘They wouldn’t waste a doctor on a place like this,’ Lodzia said. ‘There’s a quack cum medical student, and one of our own nurses from Poland. Her name is Irena and she has already volunteered to help out.’
‘Is there anywhere for washing clothes,’ Mother asked, ‘or do we have to collect snow and heat water?’
‘No. There’s a banya over there,’ Lodzia pointed to another snow-covered shack. ‘It’s a communal area for doing laundry, and there’s a steam bath for personal hygiene. We went yesterday after we’d been to the cantina.’
We popped in to have a look while passing, and when I saw everyone scurrying around naked trying to hide their genitals, I thought, ‘you won’t catch me in here!’
Karol continued whistling, and I was getting fed up with trudging around after everyone. ‘Who cares about washing? Where’s this shop? I am starving.’
Ella tugged at Lodzia’s hand. ‘Ciocia (Auntie) Marisha said I could have chocolate. May I please?’
‘We’ll see.’
We found the shop backing onto the river; the bakery built on behind it. It was a dark, fetid place, lit by a solitary paraffin lamp rigged over the counter that illuminated only the empty, bug-infested shelves behind it. It wasn’t a place anyone would want to linger in or shop. I was hoping to step into a warm, welcoming place infused with the aroma of baking bread, but it was as cold inside as out. Neither could I see any sides of pork, kielbasa or other cured meats hanging from anywhere, no vats full of butter or baskets of eggs. There wasn’t anything, except a barrel with a lid on it standing beside the counter. I turned to Mother in alarm. ‘Mama, I told you we should have come here first. There’s nothing left!’
Comrade Szefczuk appeared from out the back and stood listening at the counter, on which stood two sets of ancient scales.
Ella placed her hands on the edge and pulled herself up to peer over the top. ‘I can have chocolate.’
Everyone ignored her.
‘Give Comrade Szefczuk a chance to refill the shelves, kohanie; I’m sure everyone’s been stocking up after so long without food.’ Mother readjusted Ella’s knitted hat as if the fact there was no food was normal. ‘We must have exhausted the poor man.’
‘What you see is what you get. There is no more,’ Szefczuk said.
‘Yes, but…’
‘I’ve got pearl barley, flour and fish, and you won’t often see fish in here, I can tell you.’ He brought out the pearl barley, and a small sack of flour from beneath the counter, then went through to the bakery and came back with three dark loaves, which he placed beside them. ‘We bake at two in the morning, so if you’re not here early, you’ll miss out.’
‘Have you any meat?’
‘Meat? No.’ He half laughed. ‘Well – we get a reindeer if the Nenet’s are passing this way, which isn’t often.’
Mother reached for her purse. ‘Right – I’ll take whatever you’ve got.’
‘One fish or two?’
‘May I have seven?’
Szefczuk lifted the lid from the barrel, and the stench hit us.
‘Phoar.’ I backed away. ‘I’m not eating those! They stink.’
‘Suit yourself. We’ve been waiting for three weeks for you to arrive.’
‘Are they salted or smoked?’ Mother asked.