And now the Germans, like it or not, had brought a certain sense of order, along with their tanks and troops. There was a clarity in dealing with them. You overstepped, you died. But still, there were some rules. Or so it seemed. What he didn’t know was whether their promises could be trusted, what, exactly, they meant by “better placement.”
“Mama, I don’t know what to do.”
Zoya sighed deeply. “Your in-laws have decided on this desperate plan because Ilya Nikolaevich is being watched. His travels, his dealings with the Germans, however innocent they may be, do not sit well with the police.” She picked up her crochet hook but did not resume her work. “And they are doing it for you. You are young, neither a student nor a worker; the Germans will surely take you for forced labor, if not this week or the next, then soon. By volunteering as a family, things may go better for you.” She paused and looked at him, her gaze strong and kind. “And you must stay with your wife, son. It is your obligation, as a Christian and as a decent man.”
“I may never see you and Papa again.” He didn’t need to add, If we go with the Germans, there’s no way back. They both knew that well enough.
She put the hook down, letting the work slide off her knees and onto the floor, and took both his hands in hers. “It will be as God wills,” she said. “I will pray for you every day.”
For once, he felt no irritation at words that would have struck him as sanctimonious at any other time. The coolness of her fingers tempered the heat in his own hands, calming his mind a little but doing nothing to dispel his sadness.
They stayed together until the evening shadows began to fill the corners of the room. Filip paced, then threw himself into a chair, only to rise and stare out the window at the street below. Zoya wept from time to time, making no effort to conceal her silent tears.
When Vadim’s key turned in the lock, neither one had heard his footsteps on the landing. “Why do you sit here in the dark?” He strode across the room, illuminating its familiar objects with lamplight: this polished table, that sofa with its brown plaid blanket laid across the back. The chair by the window, the black fringed flowered shawl draped carelessly over the armrest, the glass-globed lamp, the cups and plates in rows on shelves, the copper samovar, the sepia wedding portrait on the wall.
“Papa,” Filip said, rising. “Oh, Papa.”
2
HOW DO YOU PACK to leave your home?
Transport regulations allowed them one suitcase each and a small trunk for household items—cooking pots, dishes, bedding. Ksenia watched Galina fold her few dresses, underclothes, and nightshirt, tucking an extra pair of shoes in the corner and a light sweater on top.
“There,” Galina said. “And I still have room for all the family pictures.”There were not so very many, but each picture was a treasure. Ksenia as a small child, with a soup-bowl haircut and a lacy old-fashioned smock; Ilya with his mother and sister, whom Galina barely knew; Ksenia unsmiling, but with the sparkle of youth and optimism in her adolescent eyes. Ksenia and Ilya’s grave postrevolutionary wedding portrait, both gazing at the camera with a look of serious purpose.
And here was Maksim, first a sandy-haired toddler holding a bunch of droopy daisies, then a schoolboy, and finally, a university student, his open face a study of eagerness and hope. Galina remembered that session, Maksim impatient, his bags packed, ready to leave for the train station right from the photo studio, Ksenia trying to suppress her anxiety but letting the pride shine through tear-filled eyes while Galina and Ilya hovered in the background like the supporting players they were.
She packed the pictures of herself last, laying each one with care into the folio lined with tissue paper. Here, she is a baby, seated on a white cotton coverlet, wearing a knitted dress and a halo of fine wispy hair. This one, a school picture: dark dress, lace collar, holding a book. And her favorite: she a gawky nine-year-old standing next to her seated father. He is wearing his white summer trousers, his arm draped casually along the back of the bench, his head thrown back, a hint of a smile lighting up his face. She lingered over that one. Will I ever be so happy again? So sheltered, so contented, so loved?
“Stop crying,” Ksenia scolded. “Why take them if you ruin them with your tears?”
Galina dried her eyes. She added her own wedding portrait, the teenaged bride and groom side by side like children playing dress-up in borrowed clothes. That went on top, along with extra copies of everyone’s official passport picture. And that was all. She closed the cardboard folio, tied its brown silk ribbon, shut the suitcase.
“You have the travel permits, Ilya? The letters of introduction?” Ksenia asked.
“Right here,” he patted his breast pocket. “And my share of the money.”
“And I have mine,” she replied. “In case we get separated.”
Filip said nothing about the bills in his pocket, a parting contribution from his father. The photographs of his own family, which Zoya had given him, were tucked safely in his suitcase under his stamp albums.
“Nu, well then,” Ksenia’s glance swept the room. Was she taking stock, noting the contents of her home, its abandoned furnishings, its familiar floors and walls and windows, never to be seen again? Or was she simply checking for forgotten necessities, making sure nothing essential had been left behind? “Let’s sit.”
They all knew the ancient custom: when all the journey preparations were done, everything packed and waiting at the door, everyone sits down and, after a moment of silence, all rise in unison and leave. No last-minute farewells, no hesitation. Sit. Stand. Go.
Ksenia, Ilya, and Galina turned toward the east corner of the room, where until an hour ago the ikona of Saint Nicholas had hung, and crossed themselves. Filip stood behind, his hands at his sides; he refused to participate in the religious part of the ritual, but made sure no one noticed.
Galina stopped on the threshold for a last glance around the rooms, at the remaining furniture and rugs. “What will happen to our things?”
Her father laid a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “Someone will use them, or sell them. Don’t trouble yourself over a few objects. We’ve had the use of them; now someone else can benefit. Is that suitcase heavy for you?”
“No, Papa. It’s not heavy.”
That wasn’t what I meant, Galina wanted to say. She had no special attachment to these particular things, many of them already old before becoming part of her childhood home. Hers was a more specific curiosity: she wanted to know the people, to touch the coats they would hang on the hooks near the door, see them sleeping in the beds, feel the vibration of their footsteps across the front room carpet, hear their talk and laughter around the kitchen table, smell the food they cooked on the old iron stove. She felt unmoored, suspended between the yawning void that was their future and the unpeopled vacuum they were leaving behind. Maybe we all feel this way, she thought. We just don’t know how to talk about it.
They passed through the courtyard and into the still-sleeping streets, the sun just rising over the distant mountains to the east. If anyone saw them leave, they gave no sign. No one called out a final greeting; no hand moved behind the curtained windows.