She would give them all the news she knew and in exchange they would buy her gold. They would haggle with her and she would pretend to lower the price, but it would be the one that she had been after all along. They needed the gold as much as she needed to sell it, so she was confident it would end well and all this anxiety, the uncertainty, the agonizing slog through the snow would be worth it.
She didn’t have far to go before she caught a glimpse of the house through the bare branches of the trees. It was the Kochubey house; the fancy blue shutters and wide porch were unmistakable. She pushed on with the expectation that soon she would be hearing the dogs bark and see smoke curling out of the chimney. So she was surprised when she reached the bottom of the drive and found the yard empty and the chimney cold, the barn door open and the house deserted and dark. Ihor Kochubey was a careful man and wouldn’t leave his barn door open on a day like this. There should have been children out in the yard, bundled up in felt boots and sheepskin jackets. There should have been women in the kitchen and chickens clucking in the coop. Nothing was right about Ihor Kochobey’s farmstead and for a moment she wanted to drop her bundles and run. Instead she stood in the snow and waited until the panic subsided. Then she told herself that there were no signs of violence. There were no bodies, no blood in the snow. The house was intact. It was only the quiet that was frightening her. She crossed the yard to the barn, sidestepping a mound of frozen horse manure, and stepped into the darkness of the gaping doorway.
“Kto-nibyd yest?” she called out.
The stalls were empty and the hooks were bare where the harnesses usually hung. Her heart sped up. She turned and walked back across the yard. The windows of the house were blank. She walked up the steps and peered in through one of them, but could see nothing but the edge of a curtain and the cold fireplace across the room. She called out again, even though it was considered rude to call out over the threshold.
She waited for a few moments and then tried the doorknob. It turned easily in her hand. She called out once again before stepping inside. It was freezing in the kitchen. It smelled of a dead fire and spilled kerosene. The chairs were pushed back from the table as if the occupants had shoved them out in a hurry. There were wooden bowls of kasha on the worn planks with spoons frozen in place. Next to the bowls sat mugs of frozen tea. A cupboard stood across the room, open and empty. Beneath the table was a glass jar of canned peaches that must have rolled under and then been forgotten. She hesitated before picking it up and then shoved it into one of her bundles.
She checked the other rooms: a bedroom with several unmade beds and another one with a wardrobe and a straw mattress covered in a blanket. She was about to turn and leave the house when she heard a rustling from the back room. This time she didn’t call out. She was sick with fear as she crept down the hall to the half-closed door. Behind it was a small room that smelled of mold. There were benches against one wall, a pair of felt boots in the corner, and a few goat hides tacked to the plaster walls, a feeble baton of light straying in through a tiny window. A chicken stood in the middle of the room plucking at something in the dirt. It was a clump of blond hair. This time it was unmistakable. Some of the strands ended in tiny points of blood as if it had been pulled out by the roots.
She turned and ran back down the hall and out into the kitchen. She grabbed her bundles and made for the door, stumbling down the steps and out into the yard. She blindly pushed her way through the snow, no longer thinking, no longer seeing her surroundings or where she was going, but lurching ahead, scrambling back up the drive until she realized that she had missed the track and was thoroughly turned around.
When she set out across the snowy expanse of corn rows she had no idea how to get back to Kamenka. The wind had picked up and now it was whipping across the fields, sending vapors of snow swirling up into the air. It sliced through her clothing, cutting her face; her eyes teared and her lungs ached. There was no cover in the fields. She was a dark figure in a blinding white expanse, easy to spot from horseback, a moving target against a sweeping counterpane.
When the field ended at the base of a craggy hill, Berta decided to climb it to get a better a view of her surroundings. It was a steep climb, over icy ground, and she kept sliding back down. She realized that if she threw her bundles up the slope and grabbed hold of a tree branch, she could drag herself up to the next handhold. In one steep place a bundle came sliding back down again. She tried to catch it, but it tumbled past her and came to rest in a tangle of ice-covered branches below her. She had to climb back down to retrieve it and then struggle back up again.
Finally she pulled herself up to the rocky summit and stood unsteadily in the howling wind. The view was disappointing. She turned first in one direction and then in the other, looking for a break in the fields, for any hint of a road beneath the snow. She was beginning to think that she would have to go back to the farmstead and start over again, when the clouds parted and for a brief moment a shaft of sunlight lit up the horizon. There she saw a spot of gold winking in the sunlight. She recognized it as the dome of the Church of St. Damian the First Called, a famous landmark in Kamenka. Now, as she half slid, half walked down the hill, at least she could comfort herself with the knowledge that she was heading in the right direction and with luck might make it back before nightfall.
It didn’t take her long to find the cart track and she followed it back to the main road. Fortunately, only a few passing sledges broke the solitude of the road. No one stopped to offer her a ride. It wasn’t safe to help strangers or to request help for that matter. Everyone knew you were on your own. No one expected kindness.
Not far from town Berta came to a large oak whose heavy branches hung over the road and were laden with snow and ice. The finer branches higher up were strung with icicles and etched a confused pattern against the colorless sky. When she got closer, she let out a yelp and sat down hard in the snow.
Hanging above her from a rope around their necks were three Orthodox Jews in belted caftans. They were stiff and blue, their blackened tongues hanging out of their mouths. Eyes open and glassy. Beards thick with snow. Two of them had been robbed of their hats and shoes, the third wore a visor cap and boots that weren’t worth stealing. For the moment she could do nothing but stare up at them, at the frozen agony on their faces, the straining rope, the bulging eyes, and the black hands and feet swaying in the wind.
That night when Berta came out through the doors of the Cherkast train station, she found a crowd outside in a tight circle fascinated by something in the street. It was dark and bitterly cold. She pushed her way through the crowd to see what was keeping them from their beds. In the center of the circle was a compulsory labor detail clearing out the snow and horse manure with shovels. Since the Bolsheviks had come to power, it wasn’t unusual to see details of ordinary citizens forced into labor. It was unusual, however, to see one like this, made up entirely of men and women in evening clothes. The men were wearing starched white shirts and cutaway coats. The women wore crushed velvet dresses, furs, and long gloves. Berta recognized one of them. She was a customer. She was a young woman and beautiful. Her evening slippers were soaked through, her hair hanging limp and wet beneath her once elaborate headdress. She was shoveling snow, but making a bad job of it. She tried to take too much with each shovelful and lost most of it on the way to the gutter. She glanced up at Berta and a light of recognition came into her eyes. For a moment Berta thought she was going to say something. But then a soldier, who had been trying to light a cigarette, looked up from his cupped hands and ordered her back to work.