Kulik sat near Paraska in the kitchen while she filled up the stove and the logs snapped and crackled loudly. Firelight quivered on the opposite wall and before long the entire school was warmed up. Outside a blizzard raged, probably the worst of the season. The wind howled furiously, the windows rattled, and huge flakes of snow slammed up against the frosted panes. It was the end of January and the Christmas season had just ended. There had been very little celebration this year; in fact, Christmas Day had come and gone like any other. There had been no friendly gatherings or meals in village homes, and no festivity in the streets. No holly wreaths on the doors, no decorated Christmas trees in the front yards, no Nativity puppet shows in the village square, and no evening carollers. All religious celebration had been branded bourgeois, subversive and illegal. The church bells never rang because the village church had been gutted and boarded up, and there was talk it would soon be turned into lodgings for local officials and visiting NKVD men. News had spread from villages like Morozovich and Lopatina that churches had been set on fire and burnt to the ground.
Paraska filled a pot with water and set it on top of the stove to boil. She said to Kulik sullenly, “This is one Christmas I’ll never forget. On Christmas Eve my older boys got together with friends to sing carols in the streets. When they just barely entered the square, Cornelius chased them off with a stick. He hollered at them, ‘Another word out of any of you, and I’ll call in the NKVD! Siberia’s just waiting for the likes of you! Hoodlums!’”
She sat on a small footstool, and stared vacantly into space. “What’s this world coming to? Yesterday a bunch of peasants were picked up and shoved into a sealed truck. We heard they were headed for Arkhangelsk, far, far away in the north, on the White Sea. The sun hardly rises over the horizon there in the wintertime and it’s always cold. They say the people have to work sixteen-hour days, and all they have to eat are gruel and rotten fish. This is our future. And what crimes did we commit?”
Kulik did not speak. The names Arkhangelsk, Kolima, Vorbuta, said to be the sites of slave labor camps, filled him with indescribable despair.
Paraska threw another log on the fire. She stared at the pot of water that was just starting to boil, her eyes filled with tears. With difficulty, she said, “My poor Philip is dying. Our house is poor and full of sickness. Philip’s head throbs and he coughs all night. Cornelius and Leyzarov, those sons-of-bitches, still won’t give him a pass to travel to Pinsk to see a doctor. They keep saying he’s just being lazy and trying to get out of hauling logs for the new canal. I’ve pleaded and pleaded with them, but it’s no good. My poor husband is suffering a slow, agonizing death, and they don’t care …”
She wept bitterly. Then all at once, her expression changed and her eyes were on fire. She shouted in a voice that was not her own, “Murderers! Nothing but murderers, all of them!”
Kulik couldn’t think of anything to say that would make her feel better. “How goes it with your cow Rohula?”
“Rohula had a calf late in the fall. But it’s nothing to celebrate. I see you haven’t heard. The Village Soviet has ordered that every cow in our region must produce a quota of ten liters of milk a day, and those liters are to be handed over to the regime. Ten liters of milk a day! How in God’s name can Rohula come up with ten liters a day? Our forage is no good and all our cows are mangy, nothing but skin and bones. What does that leave our children? The villagers have begged Kokoshin for at least a cupful, but he just shakes his head and laughs, he blames the shortage of milk on poor farm management. He says that in Russia a cow produces up to fifteen liters a day, and with no problem! He says that we’re hostile and anti-Soviet; he says that under the Poles, we were happy to give up all our milk to the Polish masters. He keeps saying that all Ukrainians have bourgeois tendencies, that they’re dangerous to any socialist society. And all this for a cup of milk!”
Kulik looked gravely into her face. “And what happens to the milk you get from Rohula?”
“They let me keep one liter, but that one liter is assigned to the calf. My children are left with nothing.” Then hesitating a moment, brushing her hair away from her face, “The Poles were ruthless, but they never squeezed the last drop of milk out of our cows, and we were always able to find something for our children. Now there’s nothing. Every day we’re forced to drag our milk to the Clubhouse, where they put it on wagons and take it to Pinsk and from Pinsk, straight to Moscow. They’ve already begun to take rye out of our storage sheds, meat from our root cellars; they’re even confiscating hemp from the old women. Grandfather Cemen, may he rest in peace, was right. This is the beginning of the end.”
After Paraska left, Kulik continued to sit by the stove. After a while the kitchen door was pushed open and Sergei came in. In the dim light, he did not appear to be himself. His shoulders were hunched, and he moved with effort. At the teachers’ conference in Pinsk, Kulik had noticed something strange about him, especially toward the end. He had become withdrawn and uncommunicative, and had settled himself in a chair in the back, against the far wall. Something seemed wrong.
Kulik stiffened in shock when Sergei stepped into the light. There were bruises on his cheeks and around his eyes. His left ear was swollen; the lobe was caked with blood. It was obvious someone had given him a terrible beating. Feeling utterly helpless, Kulik tried to get him to sit him down on a chair by the stove and take some hot tea. Sergei resisted.
“Let me stay on my feet a little longer. If I could just start walking and walking … If only I could run … just run.”
Looking as if he were about to collapse, he made an obvious effort to pull himself together, and flicking his eyes about the room, asked, “What’s become of Paraska? Has she gone? Yes? Good, we’re alone. Are all your doors locked? Lock them now. Promise me you won’t say a word to anyone. Even if they pump air into your stomach or shove their fists down your throat — promise me.”
“Sergei, what happened to you?”
“Things are bad, very bad.”
Kulik waited.
“Do you remember when I didn’t show up for the lectures on Tuesday? Do you remember I left and never came back? Did you notice that the officials were not interested in my whereabouts? That’s because they knew where I was. They knew everything. Everything.”
“Sergei, what are you saying? Where were you?” Kulik was afraid to hear the answer. Then it came:
“I was at NKVD headquarters, in the Zovty Prison. Lieutenant Sobakin summoned me to his bureau. I was there exactly four hours. And believe me, the meeting wasn’t pleasant. You can see what they did with me….”
Kulik’s head spun. “This is how it starts,” he mumbled, hardly aware of what he was saying. “This is just the beginning. This is just the beginning.”
Sergei went on. “The spider has already started to weave its web, and it’s only a matter of time before I get trapped in it. When I first came into Sobakin’s office that Tuesday, he was friendly, very friendly. He said, ‘It’s very pleasant to see you.’ He patted me on the back, even offered me a cigarette, although he didn’t offer to shake hands. Then his eyes started to glisten and I knew instantly it was all leading up to something very serious. And sure enough it was. He sat at his desk and wrote down my name, then the names of my parents, my family. After that, he smiled and started asking a lot of questions. What was my political orientation? What did I do before the war? Where did I study? Who paid for my education? Did I ever belong to any organizations? Did I belong to the Ukrainian Nationalist movement? Did I serve in the Polish army? What do I think of Cornelius, the Village Chairman? How do I feel about Buhai and Chikaniuk? Do I have something to say about Hrisko Suchok. And then …”