At that moment Sergei hurried to the table with a message. “Uh, excuse me, Lieutenant, sir, but Paraska it appears had to go and feed her children. She apologizes and promises to be back as soon as she puts her youngest to bed. In the meantime, however, she asks if you might consider doing her a little favor….”
“A favor? For Paraska?” The lieutenant could now barely sit up. His face was flushed and his eyes rolled. “Tell me. For Paraska, anything. Just name it and it’s as good as done.”
“Well, comrade, see that pile of clothing over there? She asks that you distribute it among the villagers before they take to the road.”
“What?” Sobakin’s head swam and he seemed to have trouble understanding what Sergei was saying. He shouted nonetheless, “For Paraska, it’s as good as done. Whatever she wants. Damn that woman!”
Kulik and Sergei hurried to gather up the clothes, and followed the NKVD men into the grade one classroom. The lieutenant somehow managed to stumble to the teacher’s desk, and teetering before the crowd, shouted out to them, “Counterrevolutionaries, renegades, all of you. Listen to what I have to say! The great Soviet regime never makes mistakes. A Bolshevik can spot an enemy of the people even with his eyes closed. I’m not the swine you think I am. I’m a man of honor and great conscience. I’m passing on to you this pile of clothing. Take them, use them as you see fit.”
The people looked on in bewilderment. Those most scantily dressed were the first to bundle up, followed by the children and the elderly. When the pile finally disappeared, the doors were opened wide and everyone was herded outside where the sleighs awaited them. They now understood what was going on. They were being taken away, first to Pinsk, to the train station; from there they would be packed into boxcars and sent straight north to Arkhangelsk. Women and children were loaded up first, followed by the men. They all knew that what was happening to them was terrible and irreversible.
On one of the sleighs sat Timushka with her family. Between her feet were two small bundles containing some personal items she had managed to snatch up before being forced out of her house, including a down pillow and a small embroidered cloth, both of which she had set aside for her daughter’s dowry. Timushka’s husband sat on her left and waved his cap to the small group of onlookers who had come to bid farewell. He called out to them, “Merry Christmas to you all! Remember us in a good way!”
A whistle hooted. The sleds inched forward and the bells jangled. The teams of horses labored through the deep snow, neighing as if protesting the heavy loads, slowly moving into the distance past the outlying houses, with the falling snow thickening. A dead silence hung in the air, broken only by the sound of the wind. Almost half the village was gone.
Paraska stood with her husband Philip and watched the sleds. Philip’s face was pale and thin and a thick white bandage was wrapped around his head. Supported by his wife, he panted and coughed, and every few minutes spat out a thick mucus. He stared fixedly at the road and said nothing.
Grandfather Cemen paced to and fro, rubbing his hands and breathing heavily. No matter how much he moved, he could not get warm. His heart was torn with anguish. All at once he spoke loudly and clearly. Everyone, including Sobakin, turned to listen.
“At one time the sinners sent Christ to Golgotha where they crucified him. Your road, my children, is a road to Golgotha. Go with God. Let your hearts be at peace, because one day soon Satan will perish and Christ will triumph once again. Angels will sing Hosanna, and when they do, these warmongers, these Satanists, will drop like flies and the ravenous crows overhead will peck at their rotting flesh.”
As the old man spoke, Sobakin’s face crimsoned and he flew into a rage. “Why, you senile old bastard!”
He pulled out his revolver, and said derisively, “Well, well, it looks like I’ve found myself another subversive!”
Everyone in the crowd froze and waited for the sound of gunfire. But there was no gunfire. Instead, Sobakin, with as much strength as he could muster, slammed the butt end of his revolver into the old man’s head. Blood trickled out of his skull in a thin stream. He fell to the ground without so much as a twitch.
“He’s dead!” someone cried out. “Grandfather Cemen is dead!”
Sobakin turned on the crowd. “Get out of here, all of you!”
Slipping his revolver back into its holster and rubbing his hands together as if to wash them clean, he turned and trudged back into the school. The minute he disappeared, several young men jumped over the fence and ran to the old man. Covering him with a blanket, they carried him into his house and laid him on a small cot in the kitchen. A few villagers followed to the door. Philip knelt and wept at his father’s side, saying the Lord’s Prayer. Paraska, also kneeling and weeping, kissed the old man’s hands and wailed, “They murdered you, they murdered you in cold blood! Dear God, dear God!”
Kulik headed back to the school and walked into the kitchen. It was hot and stuffy and stank of makhorka cigarettes and stale liquor. A shudder passed over him as he replayed the day’s events in his mind: the armed NKVD men, the pile of clothing on the kitchen floor, the looks of hopelessness and despair on the faces of the peasants. Fear had so rapidly swept over the region and death was everywhere.
He felt such bitter hatred and anger that he lost control. Clenching both fists, he banged the wall. Catching sight of the table where the emptied plates and trays with leftover food were piled up, his stomach turned as he thought of the NKVD men laughing, drinking and stuffing their mouths. The room became hotter and more unbearable. He tried to calm himself, but the more he tried, the more he felt himself falling apart. Then all at once he seized a broom from behind the tile stove, and raising it in the air, struck the top of the table and sent everything crashing to the floor. Plates went flying, glasses, cups, bowls, everything, smashed to pieces. Then flinging himself around, he aimed the broom at the lamp hanging over his head. He wanted to destroy the windows, the chairs, the walls, he wanted to destroy everything in sight. But instead he dropped to his knees and wept feverishly, like a child. What happened today was a sign of things to come. The people in this small, out-of-the-way place were falling victim to a huge, complex organization they couldn’t even begin to understand. They knew only that something terrible was happening to them. If this was the beginning, what would life be like tomorrow, after tomorrow?
After several minutes, he wandered into his bedroom, unaware that he was still holding the broom. Dull lamplight burned on his night table, casting huge eerie shadows on the wall. Looking up, he saw the grayish-black smudge in the corner of the ceiling.
He cursed aloud. Then raising the broom over his head, with one heavy stroke he knocked the spider to the floor and crushed it with his foot.
CHAPTER 6
The teachers’ conference in Pinsk was held at the former Holzman Theater. The teachers who had arrived early sat in the front rows, while those arriving later, among whom were Kulik and Sergei, had to find seating at the back, beneath the gallery. On stage, where only last summer there had been performances of Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler and Molière’s The School for Husbands, sat a presidium of high-ranking officials, carefully selected by Moscow. The head of the conference was Yeliseyenko, chief of the People’s Commissariat of Education. He was about forty-five years old, short and thickset, with a broad nose and wide face. Dressed in a gray wool suit of fair quality and black patent leather shoes that looked imported, he flipped through a stack of papers, occasionally looking up through horn-rimmed glasses. To his right sat a delegate from the National Committee from Minsk by the name of Melnik, with very small features, pencil-thin brows and a receding hairline. Next to him was Litovsky, secretary of the regional committee of the Party and behind him, almost in the corner, was Iofe Nicel Leyzarov.