‘They let you do that?’ I asked.
‘I suppose it all depends on his connections. Kommendant Ivanov is more compassionate than the last. He’s prepared to listen. Not that anyone’s done it yet; who are we going to meet from out there?’
Mother said, ‘Szefczuk told us there was a kolkhoz here. Tell me about it.’
‘We Ukrainians created it, like everything else. Never expect the Soviets to take the initiative.’ Looking as if she was more able to face us, Natasha took a lengthy breath, raised her brows, and stared at the floor.
‘When we realised this would be our permanent home, we started pushing him with our demands. We put forward the logic of raised production figures if he agreed, so he went along with the experiment. He even produced a clapped-out record player and some scratched records from somewhere. Later, an ancient piano arrived. They’re in the Community Centre.’
‘We’ve seen them,’ I said.
‘Things got a little easier when we started the kolkhoz, and we no longer had to rely so much on the boat coming upriver from the Magazine at Permilovo. Winter is the worst because, as you saw, the Vaymuga freezes for months and the shop is almost empty. We persuaded him we needed a cow and a bull we could breed with, some chickens, and some seed potatoes. So now we have milk, eggs and vegetables – and six cows and a bull!’
‘Wow,’ Lodzia said. ‘There is hope here, then.’
‘Oh yes. Ivanov didn’t provide ordinary cows that would have frozen to death. He did his research and got us Kholmogory Cattle that were bred in this region. There is nothing like this at the gulag at Permilovo; that one’s a proper penal colony. I pity them.’
‘Natasha, tell us about your family,’ Mother said.
Her question unleashed another torrent of emotion, and she sobbed. ‘Forgive me. I am so sorry.’ She brushed away her tears with the heel of her hand and sniffed back her dripping nose. ‘Tatta, my twin brothers and my little sister perished within a year of arriving here.’ She looked on wistfully. ‘We were such a handsome family, but the Soviets destroyed us; they just – destroyed us. That’s Communism for you.
‘One day our world turned upside down. Our government, whom we trusted to give us a better life, took everything we’d worked for – complain – and they shoot you.’
‘It sounds much like our situation,’ Father said. ‘What horrendous crimes did your family commit?’
‘None. We were in the way. They called us kulaks. Stalin despised farmers like us who believed in private ownership – rather than Communism. He believed in collectivisation. He wanted us to hand over all our food to the government, and he wanted our land, but didn’t want to pay us for it. Long story short, there were massive famines in Russia in the 1930s. Millions starved. Those with land like us, who rebelled, they banished to gulags. This is how Russia treats its people; our country has degenerated into this. They shot the Tzar and the Bolsheviks took over, and now we have Stalin and his henchmen. These people have total control over our lives.’ Once Natasha had finished her diatribe, she fell silent, leaving us deep in thought.
Father looked pensive as he built up the stove for the night. Having talked well into the evening, he said, ‘I think we’d better turn in; it’s an early start for us in the morning.’
Natasha stood up. ‘Thank you for the coffee and for listening to my woes. You are the only people from the outside world I’ve been able to tell. It’s been therapeutic.’ She glanced first at Karol, then at the rest of us. ‘Please don’t think badly of me. I’m not an evil person.’
Karol reached for her hand. ‘Come on; I’ll take you home.’
‘Well,’ said father, after they’d left, ‘that was grim. In which respect, I suppose we really should consider ourselves the lucky ones.’
12
What was that? I opened my eyes and listened. The embers flickered and glowed.
Someone was in the hallway outside our door.
‘Davay podvigaysya! Get moving! Make your way to the Artel in half an hour.’ Someone was rounding up the workers. At home, this was Szatan’s job – except he had the brains to let rip just before dawn, and there was no sign of that beyond the window.
I felt Karol’s feet move near my head as he shifted position and tried to get comfortable on his slats, but he didn’t wake; he never did. I must have fallen asleep before he returned last night from seeing Natasha home. Hungry beasts hadn’t mauled him after all then. All this scaremongering about the forests teeming with voracious animals was just a ruse to dissuade us from escaping.
Father roused himself, lit the lamp, and started banking the stove. Just as quickly, Mother threw on a shawl, turned up the lamp and reached for the bag of flour and a bowl.
I propped myself onto my elbows. ‘What are you making, Mama?’
‘Pancakes – of sorts. Fetch some snow and then tell Gerhard and Lodzia to come here for their breakfasts.’ She went over to shake Karol. ‘Come on; it’s time for work. Wake up, or they’ll throw you in the Black Hole?’
Karol murmured something and turned over.
‘Get up then.’
Still half asleep, I stuffed my feet into my valenki, pulled my coat tighter, and stepped out of the shack onto the freezing porch. Damn, all the clean, untrammelled snow now lay beyond the steps. Trust it to be down there. The wind seized my plait and whipped tendrils of hair about my face. Dragging the hood of my coat over my head, I hurried down the steps and scooped a pail full of it.
One by one, lights in adjoining shacks began reflecting against the snow as the Ukrainian did his rounds. I stood and paused for a moment, gazing at the night sky. I missed Jusio and Wanda so much. Where were they now? Tatta said he thought they were still in Szpitali. Unlike our family, they rented their farm. It was the land that Stalin was after.
The icy wind stunned me awake, and I scurried indoors, banging on Gerhard and Lodzia’s door as I passed. But they were already up, adding more layers of clothes over those in which they slept. I left the pail on the floor by the table and dropped onto my slats to examine my latest batch of bites. After the nightmare journey here, I hoped I might get some sleep, but the NKVD made sure the entire camp was awake.
Mother scooped the last of the damson plum butter out of the pot which she had brought with us and spread the pancakes with the most gossamer of films. Lacking milk and an egg, they were nowhere near as delicious as those at home, but it was food. If only there were more. The saucepan with the cold fish soup waited on the table, yet still no one dared eat it. Lodzia lifted the lid and sniffed. ‘What are we going to do with this?’
‘Eat it, I suppose,’ Father said. ‘It is food after all, and if Natasha can eat dead bodies, then I’m sure a bit of smelly fish won’t kill us. Besides, I’m still hungry.’
‘Oh Ignacy, what a thing to say.’ Mother prodded the soup, took a sip and pronounced it edible. ‘It doesn’t stink so much when it’s cold. You could leave the fish and eat the pearl barley. It’s a shame to waste it.’
‘For goodness sakes!’ Gerhard picked up the ladle, slopped it into a bowl and ate it cold.
Father and Karol finished it off, and all three then headed for their first day in the forest.
‘I hope it doesn’t make them ill,’ Mother peered through the window after them. ‘How will they find their way home at night? It’s so dark in the forest, and there are no roads.’
With the men gone, the day yawned ahead of us. Wearing two jumpers and a cardigan, I threw another log onto the stove and set to work on the valenki while I listened to Lodzia reading a fairy tale to Ella.