‘Come on; let’s get more dead trees,’ Rysiek said. ‘We need to build a good wigwam of them.’
That took up most of the morning. I looked about in dismay; we had done so little. Only the bonfire was doing well.
Rysiek and Luiza began arguing over the length of the tree trunk he felled because he’d taken the simple route and started chopping it at knee height, rather than at the roots. Now Luiza was left with two proper lengths, and another ‘bit,’ which was too short for the ‘norm’ and of no use. They would pay us only for two bits instead of three.
I listened to the exchange before Rysiek got the hump and took himself off to a nearby poloska to see how to do it. Luiza and I made a start on chopping down another tree, while Helenka thawed herself out by the fire.
‘We have to expose the roots first,’ I shifted snow away from around the base with my boot. Once we had a clear run at the trunk, we began hacking at it with our choppers. Tatta never told me it was this hard.
Luiza straightened up, holding her back. ‘These axes are no good; they’re blunt. We need a crosscut two-man saw. We’ll never reach our ‘norms’ with these primitive things.’
‘Yes, yes, alright.’ I continued chopping. ‘We’ll ask for one tomorrow. Meanwhile, we’d better get on with it.’ I gave a mighty thwack; my axe jammed in the trunk and wouldn’t budge. Swearing under my breath, I straightened and ran the back of my hand across my forehead. ‘Where’s Rysiek? He’s supposed to be the feller. This is his job, not ours.’
Luiza was hacking away from the other side. The tree creaked, tearing and rasping as it leapt off its stump, twisting to one side. We watched it topple as it made its way to the ground, heading straight for the bonfire where Helenka watched transfixed.
‘Helenka, move! Get out of the way. It’ll hit you!’ Shouting, gesticulating, running sideways, we watched it thump onto the bonfire, sending up a flare-up of sparks, just missing her.
When Rysiek returned, all four of us spent the rest of the day removing fallen trees in readiness for a clear run tomorrow. That was the total of our day’s achievement: two felled trees, one sawed into three pieces – one too short and therefore useless, the other left smouldering on top of the bonfire and a chaotic jumble of uprooted trees crisscrossing the forest floor. It was a disaster.
It was already growing dark. No point starting on another tree today. Exhausted, I sat down beside the bonfire and waited for the Dziesiatnik to arrive to measure our day’s production. We had worked so hard and knowing we had made no inroads into our norms, I wanted to cry. Now I understood why my father and my brothers were so obsessed with achieving their norms. With a lurking dread, I realised this would be my life forevermore. I couldn’t bear it.
25
They disbanded our pathetic team and put me to work with an experienced brigade out Volosne way, near where Karol was working. Being a worker, they allowed me extra soup and bread rations, enabling me to share the bread with Mother. Sometimes I crossed paths with Karol and he would give me whatever money he had to take home to help.
The toil was relentless. By the start of November, I had developed leg ulcers on my left shin and calf, just as Sasha’s little boy had before he died. I knew the consequences, but kept quiet because I was now the primary food provider for my mother and myself and only cared about meeting my norms.
Karol refused to return to Vodopad because the memories were still too raw, but showed his face once a month to collect a change of clothes. I was acting like a conduit getting back money to the family, but now my visits to Permilovo had stopped, and without Tatta’s wages, we were struggling. My money was crucial to our survival. I could not afford to fall ill.
One morning, I was late for work. I had overslept and Mother, who worried about my declining health, had encouraged me to rest. Incensed, I leapt off my slats because my absence meant my brigade would not achieve their norms today let alone the punishment the overseer would mete out to me. The prospect of doing a week of solitary confinement in the Black Hole terrified me.
Ignoring Mother’s pleas, I hurried off into the forest, hoping to God that Mr Demczuk would still be there in his boat to ferry me across the river. There was a rickety bridge further upstream, but it took longer to reach, and I was late enough.
Reaching the river, I saw him on the opposite bank, tying the boat to a tree, about to leave. I put two fingers into my mouth and gave a piercing whistle.
The moment he arrived, I jumped in and he began taking me across. To my horror, it leaked. The faster Demczuk rowed, the heavier the boat became, and the slower it went until his oars were going around like windmills, and the only place we were going was down.
With the water now lapping fast around my ankles and fearing we would sink and I would drown, I jumped overboard and dropped to the bottom of the river.
I remembered coming up and thrashing about for air before I went under again. Then it all went black. The next thing I remembered was floating and feeling a firm grasp around my windpipe as Demczuk, himself a weak swimmer, dragged me out of the river and laid me on the bank. When I opened my eyes, he was nearby on all fours, coughing his heart out.
The minute I could walk, we staggered back to Vodopad, drenched and freezing, and fell through the door.
‘Jesús, Maria!’ My mother threw more logs onto the stove and it flared into life.
‘Your daughter, Mrs Glencova,’ Demczuk said with ill-concealed fury, ‘jumped overboard. She almost drowned and took me down with her.’
Mother thawed him out, lent him some dry clothes and that was the last I saw of him or his crummy boat.
It was when Mother stripped me of my soaked clothes and put me into something dry that she spotted my leg ulcers.
‘Jesús, Maria! How long have you had those?’
There was no time to answer. She disappeared out of the door, calling for Lodzia to come quickly and look.
Raising myself off the slats, I looked at my leg.
‘Come on, get near that stove and dry your hair. You have to go to the Bolnica. These are what Sasha’s Jan died from.’
‘Don’t tell her that,’ Lodzia said in alarm. ‘You’ll frighten her.’
‘How is your general health?’ the quack asked after he had inspected my leg. He didn’t look too concerned; perhaps he wasn’t.
Was he stupid or what? I looked away.
‘Answer the doctor, kohanie,’ Mother said. ‘He only wants to help you.’
Sucking in a lengthy breath, I said, ‘I feel listless all the time. I’m prone to bouts of exhaustion. My legs and my muscles ache, I am starving all the time and I look like a walking skeleton. Apart from that, I feel just tickety-boo.’
Mother said, ‘I am so sorry, that’s teenagers for you.’
He cleaned up my leg and applied warm candle wax to each sore. ‘Keep these dry. You won’t be able to work for at least two months, maybe longer. I recommend plenty of rest and some nourishing food.’ His gaze turned away as he recognised the absurdity of what he had just said.
‘How can I not work? I have to work! I am a breadwinner – apart from my brother – and he’s working away at Volosne. My other brother has to provide for his wife and child. They moved my father to the camp at Permilovo, and the last time I saw him, he was almost dead on his feet.’ I spoke faster and faster, then burst into tears.
‘What can I give you, child?’ Mother said as we walked back to the shack. ‘If only we could get you some berries, but it’s winter.’
‘Don’t worry, Mama. I shall soon be dead and then I won’t be a burden to anyone.’
‘Please don’t talk like that, kohanie, you are not a burden; I just feel so guilty that I can’t give you proper food.’