The sun was nearing its zenith when I reached the forest edge. I presumed this was the reindeer pasture Roza mentioned where Stalin murdered his priests, and the leaves of the birches are said to have soaked up their blood as testimony to his barbarity. There was no sign of the Moscow to Archangelsk railroad. Nor were there any reindeer.
My baskets were full, and my legs ached. I slumped down in the shade of the nearest tree, ate some berries, and guzzled an entire bottle of water, not realising how thirsty I was. Keep to the river, keep to the river, I kept telling myself. You’ll be alright. This is no time for wobbles.
I got to my feet and pressed on. At one point, I wondered if I had gone wrong somewhere. Where was this railroad? I needed to cross the Kenga otherwise I would never reach Permilovo.
And there it was; the river crossing. Today there were no raucous, metallic shrieks announcing a train’s thunderous approach. There was a deafening silence.
Water terrified me, but I swallowed my fear and walked along the tracks. The Kenga flowed beneath me and headed off in another direction. No more meandering river and forest with things to watch to keep me absorbed. I had another vista; a man-made gash through the taiga, kilometre after kilometre of unending sameness I had to conquer. I pressed on, heading south, the quietness growing deeper until I could hear the steady rhythm of my breath from within.
Roza said this point marked over a third of my journey. I kept walking, and walking in a straight line, my brain turning numb, my limbs aching, my baskets getting heavier. I reached that level of exhaustion that equates to lunacy. If only I could give my limbs and my mind a rest; but there was no choice but to keep going.
At last, there it was in the distance – the silhouette of my destination. If Tatta was still alive and frail, he would never have made it to the river crossing, let alone back to Vodopad.
Four NKVD were approaching. My breath quickened; my stomach tightened. My parents were there before dealing with Peaked Cap in Poland, but this time I had to face the bullies alone. I reached in my basket for my pass, lifted my chin and explained my mission, pretending to be much braver than I felt.
They checked my baskets and directed me to the railway spur which led to the sawmills at Permilovo and told me to follow the track.
Where was this sawmill? I thought it was just a brief journey from the settlement, instead my aching legs swallowed up the kilometres.
I arrived in the late afternoon, exhausted and hungry. They had electricity here, and the place thrummed with noise.
After asking several people if they knew where I could find Igancy Glenz, I panicked because no one had heard of him. After doing a full circle, I found the administrative office, and they pointed me to the far end of the yard where my father was working.
Everything was in motion as I headed off, unused to such noise. Polish girls about my age were retrieving logs from the river; others were stacking them. Nearby, men were cutting wood for building materials. At speed, other groups were loading them onto freight wagons.
My baskets felt even heavier now. I set them down and paused for a moment to regain my strength, watching the workers shovelling wood cubes into wheelbarrows. Others were moving to and from the generator, returning with empty ones to collect more fuel.
I picked up my baskets. After some searching, I found him, although it was a moment before I was sure it was my father. He was never a portly man, but oh his face! Emaciated and bearded, his sinewy arms grappled with some old component on an industrial-sized saw. When he coughed the phlegm in his lungs rattled and rasped.
‘Oh, Tatta, what’s happened to you?’ I rushed to him, stopping short to make sure it was him.
‘Marisha, you came.’ His eyes, now sunken, pooled with tears. ‘Oh, child, you have no idea how good it is to see you.’
I tilted my head, blinking back the tears. ‘How are you, Tatta? We’ve been waiting for you to come home. Mama is so worried.’
‘I can’t.’ Even his voice was weary, ‘I am so sorry, but I no longer have the strength. It’s too far. I’ve been so worried about you all because I haven’t been able to get money back to you. How are you managing?’
I threw myself into his arms and sobbed. ‘You mustn’t worry about us; we manage. Lodzia has been selling some of our things – she’s good at it. Oh, Tatta, they must let you come home; you’re not fit to work.’
He gave me a wry smile. ‘How can I? They say they’re short of mechanics and the chainsaws are always breaking down. Everything is so dilapidated. It’s a full-time job keeping it all going.’
‘I don’t care. You must see the doctor and let him see you’re unfit for work. You can’t go on like this. We’ll see him tomorrow,’ my voice gained speed, ‘we’ll see him together. I’ll explain – this is why I’m here.’
‘Marishu, there is no resident doctor in a place like this. Even if there were, there’s no time, I have to keep working.’
‘No doctor? But how do people manage?’
‘They either recover or they die.’
I could see it was where my darling father was heading. ‘I’ve brought you bread and these berries, and look, some tobacco,’ I took a loaf out of my basket, handed it to him and watched in alarm as he dropped the spanner and fell onto the food.
I stayed with him until he finished work and returned to the shack room he shared with three other men. It was a mirror image of the bug-infested one at Vodopad, except it was messy, smelled of dirty bodies and clothing and lacked a woman’s civilising influence.
We went to the soup kitchen together and he offered to share his rations. I refused, although I was ravenous. ‘You need all the food you can get, Tatta.’
He insisted, so I ate a little and shared some of his tea.
‘Is there a shop here?’
‘There is, but there is nothing left to buy when I get there.’
‘So, what do you eat?’
‘Soup. I’m allowed two plates full, but not having time to queue for bread, I’ve persuaded the counter staff to sell me an extra portion.’
‘Yes, but, Tatta, there’s no goodness in this stuff.’ I was livid. ‘They should never have sent you here on your own. I’ll go to the shop tomorrow. I’ll not give up. Do you have a ration card and some money?’
He nodded.
‘Then I will buy you food, and you will eat it. I am not leaving here until I know you’re better fed.’
‘But, kohanie, Mama will worry about you.’
‘Mama knows where I am.’
I spent the night at the camp, squashed up on my father’s bed, listening to the other three men coughing. It was no rest, and I awoke exhausted and hungry.
In the morning, he polished off the bread, changed into his clean clothing and removed his money from his pocket, ‘Marishu, go to the shop, get yourself something to eat, and take the rest home and give it to Mama. It’s my wages. I was beside myself worrying about how to get it back to you.’
‘No, Tatta, you need it for yourself.’
‘I’ll get by until Saturday. I have enough.’
Home? – Our one room in a shack crawling with bugs. But Tatta wasn’t talking about the quality of the furnishings, he meant the people he loved, and those who loved him; nothing else mattered. He left for work well before six, and I headed for the shop and bakery, before seeking the camp Kommendant.
I took the bread to my father where he was working, because a starving mouth would have gobbled up his loaf before he returned to his shack room at night.