So, yes, he would take anything for now, until he found the door leading to the future, where his tools would be a sharp pencil, a T square, India ink, and the imaginative capacity of his own mind.
Musa did not find any better prospects. He advised Filip to sign up for Belgium. “It’s dirty work, but steady,” he said. “And you’ll be safer there than in Germany. Once you and your family settle in, you can see what else turns up.”
Filip’s heart sank. Another derailment, his life’s course again controlled by others with only their own benefit in mind. He felt trapped; he might as well already be underground, struggling to breathe foul, thin air, his skin and clothes grimy with coal dust, with no relief from the ache in his muscles and bones. “What about America?” he asked, desperate for any alternative.
“Be patient, old man,” Musa sighed. “This war was bigger than any catastrophe we’ve ever known. So much chaos, so many impoverished displaced people. It will take time to return to any kind of normal life. I don’t know what you’ve heard, but so far the American relief effort is focused on food and clothing. Cornflakes and powdered milk. Go to Belgium. Take your wife and child—”
“And my mother-in-law,” Filip interrupted.
“Of course. The grandmother. She can be a big help. Don’t look at me like that. Just keep your ear to the ground.” He twisted a corner of his mouth in a rueful grin at Filip’s stricken expression. “Sorry. You know what I mean. You’re a smart boy.”
9
“WILL YOU TAKE THESE?” Galina rested her hand on the stamp albums lying on the table. Everything else—his shirts, pants, shaving brush, and other essentials—was already packed.
Filip reached for the albums, pulled them closer. “My father gave me these when I was ten,” he said. “The red one for Russia and Europe, the blue for the rest of the world. When did I last open them? I haven’t had much to add.” He fingered the cracked covers, touched the corners worn through the faded leather to the cardboard beneath. “I can hardly believe they’ve come through the war with me.”
“Will you take them?” Galina repeated. “It’s getting late, and you leave early tomorrow.”
Filip sighed. “No. You may as well keep them for me. Musa said families are to follow us to the mining villages within a month or so.”
He opened the blue album, turned its glossy pages one by one, pausing to study the few stamps displayed among the gaps of missing exemplars. “So many places,” he said. “Galya, imagine going to all these places, seeing these buildings and monuments, these plants and animals, learning about these people.”
Galina shook her head and smiled. “You’re such a dreamer. I’ve seen enough places for now. Katya and I need a home.” Katya, on her cot next to the bed, slept.
Filip glanced at his wife, saw no sign of anger or irritation, and continued turning pages. Galina rose to hang freshly laundered diapers and shirts on the clothesline near the stove. “You could bring me a little coal before you go. But no, there won’t be time. I’ll go with Marfa after work.”
Filip wasn’t listening. “Galya, look. Look what I found.” He pushed his chair back from the table and faced her, a pencil box in his hand. “It was between the pages. I thought I had lost it.”
Galina stared at him, watched joy and sadness chase each other across his face in quick succession. He looked as if he might cry. “What?”
“My pencil box. The one Avram—you remember Avram, the grocer?—he gave it to me on my seventh birthday. Look, here’s the Gull’s Nest Sanatorium painted on the lid.” He passed the box from hand to hand, slid the lid back in its grooves to expose several smooth brown pencils, their points dulled by the friction of many months’ travel within the box.
They could have fallen overboard in the barge crossing, those pencils, and washed up somewhere on the rocky coast of the Black Sea. They could have burned in Dresden, their ashes mingled with the detritus of wanton destruction. They could have ended up in hostile hands, helping the enemy complete sordid nefarious projects. But here they were, scuffed and scarred, but intact. Ready.
Filip, unable to say any of that, looked at the floor. “It was my birthday. Mama baked me a cake.”
Galina left the laundry in its basin. She knelt in front of Filip, took the box from him, and laid it on the table. She held his hands in her cool ones, still damp from the washing. “Have you heard from them, your parents?”
“No. I send a postcard every week, but—no. Months ago I heard a rumor that they might have left Yalta. But I don’t know. They could be anywhere.”
“We’ll find them”
“It would be a miracle.” Filip raised his head and looked at her with troubled eyes.
“We found each other. The war is over. We’ll find them, too.”
She got to her feet and sat down in the other chair. For some minutes, neither spoke; they listened to Katya’s breathing rise and fall like water lapping gently against wet sand.
Filip picked up the pencil box and held it out to his wife. “I want Katya to have this.” He stood abruptly and paced the little room. “I want her to have everything. Books and dolls and puzzles and music lessons.” He covered the space between bed and table in three strides, waved his arms in the air, one hand barely missing the clothesline. “I want her to sing like you and dance and laugh, to learn poems and to always, always have hope.” He took a deep breath. “I want her to have enough.”
Galina smiled. “All in good time. Now go to bed, or you’ll miss the transport in the morning. I need to finish hanging the washing.”
10
“DO YOU LOVE ME?” Filip lay on his back, the pulsating glow of the cigarette cradled on his chest the only light in the room. Did she? He suddenly needed to know.
Had he imagined the expression of mournful understanding on her face the first time they had made love after their reunion? She had said nothing, neither questioning nor accusing. The Galina he knew, the spirited girl who looked at life’s realities with a spark of humor, might have teased him about his new confidence. Gone was the awkward innocence of their newlywed encounters and the desperate urgency of camp coupling. If she had noticed, or enjoyed, the smoother way he used his hands, his mouth, she gave no sign.
She had been silent, rising quickly to tend to her women’s business, showing that she, too, had learned something in the intervening months. This was no time to have another child.
She was silent now, too. Filip grew uneasy. It was not a question that required much reflection, to his mind, and her hesitation was surely a bad omen. Was she sleeping? He glanced in her direction, admiring again the smooth planes of her face, the tendrils of loose hair, which appeared white in the darkness, her open eyes directed at the ceiling. He coughed, put out the cigarette, and considered whether to risk asking again.
“I was walking with my mother the other day,” she said, her voice soft and low so as not to wake the baby sleeping in her cot alongside their bed. “You were out. I had finished my job early, and Mama’s shift did not begin for another hour or so. We were going to a farmhouse just out of town to buy eggs and milk.”
Filip was puzzled. What was the point of this storytelling? Why not just answer the question? No, he did not understand women, after all.
“On the way, at the side of the road, we saw a pair of gray geese. They were the common wild ones, the kind you see everywhere, flying in formation, or flocking at lakes and ponds: grayish-brown feathers, pink feet, speckled bellies. Nothing unusual.” She tugged at the blanket, pulling it up to her neck against the chill in the room. She angled her head slightly away from him, watching the sky fill with storm clouds, their menacing shapes rolling past the small square window like film scenes in a movie theater.