I couldn’t help myself. ‘From the state of it, it’s a wonder it doesn’t sink?’
Natasha’s mother flashed me a withering glare. ‘Unlike you, we’ve almost served our sentences. They class you as enemies of the people.’ With that she turned on her heel and left.
Mother closed the door and leaned against it. ‘Poor Karol; he’ll be heartbroken. How are we going to tell him? I’d never have thought Natasha would have kept something like this to herself. I liked her.’
Lodzia said, ‘I don’t know how she finds time to see this betrothed. She’s always with Karol. Where is Vologda anyway?’
I reached for my atlas, although I already knew it was on the line from Moscow to Archangelsk. I had been exploring every possibility of returning to Poland since Stefan suggested escape, but we were so far from home that the task seemed insurmountable. There was still the problem with leaving my parents behind. Escaping was no glib stab at freedom because I knew that abandoning them would mean I would never see them again – and as much as I loved Stefan and wanted to be with him forever, I wished I didn’t have to choose.
‘Now what are you daydreaming about, Marishu, have you found this Vologda yet?’ Mother asked.
‘Yes, it’s south of Permilovo.’ I snapped shut the atlas and returned to my thoughts. What would I do if Stefan demanded I choose between him and my family?
Another month passed, and there was still no sign of my father.
Mother threw up her hands and paced about the room, ‘He must be ill. What other explanation can there be?’
For a while, no one spoke until Gerhard voiced the inconceivable, ‘Or dead.’
‘Someone would have let us know – wouldn’t they,’ Lodzia said? ‘I mean, what would they have done with his body?’
Images of Soviet guards throwing corpses off the cattle wagons on the way here, leaving them for the wolves to eat, loomed large. ‘If I knew how to get to Permilovo, I’d go to him. We need to know; it’s the not knowing…’
‘Marishu, forget it. You would never find your way through the forests and then we would have lost the pair of you. It is out of the question.’
Gerhard and Lodzia agreed with Mother. ‘Terrible idea.’
Stefan said nothing, but I could see the cogs turning behind his eyes; no doubt thinking of escape.
I felt as if they were all ganging up on me. ‘Yes, but if I asked Kommendant Ivanov for help first, perhaps he’d take pity on us.’
‘Pity? All Ivanov has to do is ensure he works everyone into the grave, and prevents them from escaping before they keel over,’ Lodzia said.
Gerhard agreed. ‘You heard his welcoming speech – dangerous animals, swamps, rivers. Natasha told us the same; the woods are teeming with them. Forget it, Marishu; I know you adore Tatta, we all do, but it’s a terrible idea.’
‘So, you’re suggesting we do nothing? He might just be hanging on there for one of us to reach him; he needs us. I know he does. I can feel it. At least let me ask Ivanov. He lets Alina Zadarnowska go to Kholmogorki – and nothing’s eaten her – so why not let me see what’s wrong with Tatta? You won’t let me work. I’ve got the time.’ I cast about the room. ‘Well?’
‘Alina goes on horseback – not on foot; you’re afraid of horses.’ Lodzia held my gaze, ‘Anyway, we haven’t got a horse.’
‘Karol could go,’ Gerhard said. ‘His camp’s full of horses.’
‘And how do we get to him?’ Lodzia replied. ‘He comes home only when his clothes are filthy enough to stand up on their own. I don’t know why Natasha’s mother doesn’t get the message; she doesn’t want to marry Valerik. She told me so. Why else would she keep hanging around here, hoping to see Karol?’
Nothing was resolved. My family wouldn’t allow me to even try; they refused to discuss it. My waking thoughts, and throughout the weeks that followed, were always of my father. How could I think of anything else when I knew he would have returned to us if he were able?
I sometimes recognised the shadow of those people who first boarded the cattle trucks with us at Zhabinka, so stout and robust, now yellow with scurvy, shuffling along – old before their time.
Gerhard told me that bouts of lethargy beset even the fittest in his team. Their eyes filled with pus, their legs burnt with intermittent pain until they had to stop working, and their limbs shook. There was no chance they could meet their norms, and it was affecting his entire team’s performance. It was a parlous state for anyone to find themselves and there was no telling who scurvy would next attack.
‘By the time the fat man slims, the thin one has long since died,’ had always been my father’s mantra. I was becoming obsessed each time someone mentioned illness, checking myself for symptoms of scurvy and looking for any signs of it in the rest of my family. Tatta might also be suffering. That scared me the most.
I had to go to him. I was sure if I could just explain to Kommendant Ivanov I needed to take my father a change of clothes, and we worried about his health, he couldn’t refuse. Everyone agreed Smirnov was a bastard, but Kommendant Ivanov a reasonable man. It was a two-day trip, but I would promise on my life to return. My one worry was Stefan might insist on coming with me, using it as an excuse to escape but I couldn’t keep this from him. I had to make him understand my family were my priority right now.
On Sunday we were picking berries in the woods along with the rest of the camp. Someone said it was illegal, but the lure of fresh fruit was irresistible and Smirnov and his other NKVD spies couldn’t be everywhere at once checking up on everyone. For me, it was a risk worth taking.
A cloud of mosquitos, flies and midges feasted on our flesh as we feasted on the berries, finding their way into our eyes, ears and noses. They teemed around the riverbanks and in the forests, around boggy areas where blueberries glistened in the summer heat.
Yet the yearning to savour fruit outweighed the nuisance, as I spotted a mass of cloudberries – those large, golden-yellow blackberry-like fruits, so juicy and so delicious.
The forest hummed with life, its dirt path illuminated by the sun, and I plunged deeper in. ‘Stefan! Over here – look, I’ve found some huge cloudberries.’ My basket was brimming already and I had eaten my fill, but couldn’t resist one last plump one. Reaching out for it, I disturbed another cloud of midges, sending them into a feeding frenzy on my skin.
Stefan picked a berry and popped it into my mouth. ‘Shall we take some of these to Vasily, Boris and Roza?’
The juice hit the back of my throat, making me cough as I spoke. ‘There won’t be enough for us. Can’t they pick their own?’
‘Ha-ha, Marishu. I’m not saying we give them all away. Come on; they’re not far.’
Our hosts were as cordial as ever, delighted with their gift, and it was good to return their kindness.
Stefan, flopped out in a chair, took a sip of tea. ‘We used to collect these in the forests in Poland; and mushrooms.’ Changing the subject, he said, ‘Tell me, is there a trail through the Kenga forest leading to the railway line?’
‘There is lad. It’s the old track some of us Ukrainians used to reach the sawmills at Permilovo,’ Boris said. ‘Probably overgrown by now. Why do you ask?’
Aha, I thought. That’s why he wanted to come here, but Stefan was so transparent.
‘Oh, one of my friends tried to escape on the strength of some rumour. He got lost. Lucky for him he found his way back. I told him, if there were such a track, wouldn’t Boris and Roza have escaped years ago?’
‘Ha, and go where?’ Roza said. ‘Stefan, it is easy being seduced by thoughts of freedom, but there’s nowhere you can go where the NKVD aren’t waiting for you. Never underestimate these ruthless people. Here,’ she cast about at the bleak poverty of it all, ‘here at least we can live. We have the Kolkhoz, and we’re mostly self-sufficient nowadays. We have the community centre. Life’s hard – but where isn’t it in Russia? Winters are crippling and the summers are short, but Vodopad is the only home we have.’