“No, no, you’ve been very helpful. I can’t tell you how helpful you’ve been.” She took Gorbunova’s hand, kissed it, and held it to her cheek. “This has meant everything to me. I’m very grateful.”
The old woman looked relieved and visibly lightened after that. Perhaps it felt like her previous life had returned to her. They chatted for a while and then took their time saying good-bye. Berta parted the sheet and left the way she came.
TH AT NIGHT, after Samuil went to sleep, she sat up at the little table, with Sura’s locket wrapped around her fingers. The street was deserted because of the curfew. A jagged edge of moonlight sliced through a section of the alley and illuminated the soggy rubbish that had recently been resurrected after the first melt. Berta closed her eyes and whispered: “Sura, it’s Mameh. Where are you?” The wind outside blew the papers about and scattered the clouds across the sky.
“Try, maideleh. Try to talk to me. It’s Mameh.”
Night creaks of an old building.
Are you there?
Scratching in the walls.
She sat for some time, listening for a response. When none came she concentrated very hard, closed her eyes, and imagined the words flying out the window on the wind. She saw them flying on the currents over the earth, over Little Russia and off to Europe. Now, they were riding a gale over the ocean, now on a wind rippling the sands of a desert. She saw them all jumbled up on a gust over the glassy surface of a lake and tumbling back into order over a swollen stream. Finally they came drifting in on a breath.
Are you there?
“Yes,” came the answer. Clear and strong.
But it wasn’t Sura who answered the question.
It was Hershel.
Chapter Nineteen
March 1920
BERTA SAT on the top step of the stoop, cleaning a chicken. It lay across her lap, its head drooping over her knees, her fingers straining with the breast feathers as she pulled them out and stuffed them into a sack. Lhaye would be grateful for them. There wouldn’t be many, but someday, if more chickens came her way, she would have enough for a pillow. Pavel was sitting a step below her watching the children playing war in the street. The battle consisted of lobbing small chunks of rubble at each other accompanied by the sounds of explosions, running, hiding, and dying dramatically.
Pavel had come over late in the afternoon to bring her the chicken along with a fresh loaf of hard-crusted bread and a box of sugar. She invited him for supper. She had no idea where he got these things and never asked. She figured he was a thief or maybe some big macher in the black market, although he certainly didn’t act like one. He didn’t brag or throw his money around, and he rarely talked about himself. Mostly they talked about Moscow in the old days. She was older by at least ten years, but they knew the same families, rode and skated in Petrovka Park, sledded down the same hills, and summered at neighboring estates. Once he told her he had been in a labor camp and was freed after the Kerenskii revolution. He never gave her any details, not even how he lost his finger, and she never asked, though she wanted to know.
As she worked to clean the bird she told him about the peddlers, about the woman they were looking for from the Berezina, and what Gorbunova had said about someone trying to communicate with her. She didn’t tell him about the answer she received the night before, because now, in the light of day, it seemed ridiculous. Like one of her mother’s stories.
“I want to go to Poland,” she said, struggling with a stubborn pin feather.
He looked up at her and then back at the children. “It’s dangerous. They’re shooting people at the border. How would you get across?”
“I thought maybe you’d know. I’ve heard there are people who take you for a fee.”
“Yes, and sometimes they take your money and dump your body in the middle of the river. There are always bodies washing up on shore drowned or shot in the head. And what about Samuil?”
“What is there for him here? What future would he have? I just buried one child, I won’t bury another.”
Pavel reached up and grabbed a feather that was floating away. The oldest boy in the street ordered his younger brother away. He didn’t want to go, so the bigger boy dragged him to the curb and told him to stay put, explaining in detail what would happen to him if he didn’t. Then the bigger boy returned to the battle, while the younger one watched from the curb. His coat was threadbare and one sleeve hung by a few threads. His nose was red and the cold had turned his knees purple.
“You’ll need some money,” Pavel said. “I can give you what you need.”
“I can’t promise to pay you back. I’ll try, but there’s no guarantee.”
He let the feather float away and then stuffed his hands in his pockets. “I won’t need it back. When do you want to leave?”
“As soon as possible.”
“I can get you a travel permit.”
“Will it look good?” She assumed it would be a forgery.
He laughed. “It won’t have to. It’ll be official.”
“And how will you do that?”
“I’ll do it.”
They sat there talking while she finished cleaning the bird. She didn’t want to think about what lay ahead so they talked about Moscow, about Kartsev’s chocolates in the Upper Trading Rows and about Elizaveta Fedorovna’s wedding, which they had both attended, she, as a guest of the bride, he, as a little boy. Their talk meandered to other families, to summers in the country, to picking mushrooms and making wild strawberry jam, and never once did they mention the revolution, the labor camps, the prisons, the mass shootings, the hunger, or pogroms, or the journey she was about to take.
LHAYE HAD been sitting at the little table for most of the morning watching Berta tack up the fabric to make it look like blouses and then stuffing it into bundles to disguise it as old clothes. Inside the lengths she hid soap, candles, matches, and pouches of tobacco. Lhaye had been arguing with her ever since she found out that Berta was going to Warsaw. No matter how many times Berta tried to explain it to her, she couldn’t understand such foolishness. They were shooting people for nothing. What made her think she could get across the border? Why would she risk Samuil’s life to go to Poland because of what some peddlers were saying? It was crazy. If she wanted to leave, she should have gone with Hershel in the first place. Now, it was too late.
“And even if you do manage to get across, you don’t speak Polish and you mustn’t speak Russian. They shoot Russians in Poland.” Her voice was brittle with anxiety and incipient tears. It was nearly time for Berta to leave.
Berta stopped what she was doing, came over, and took up Lhaye’s hands in her own. “We’ve been through all this. Please don’t worry. I know where to go. I have enough money. We’ll be all right.”
Lhaye could smell the kerosene that Berta had smeared on her neck, wrists, and ankles as a safeguard against lice. She walked over to the window and looked down into the street. Samuil was already there waiting with Pavel. “And what if you do manage to get there and you find out that Hershel’s not looking for you? What if he’s dead? What proof do you have that he’s even alive?”
“I’m not going to argue anymore.”
“Berta, think about it. You’ll be in Warsaw with no place to go. You won’t know anyone or even speak the language. You won’t have any money. Can’t you see how dangerous this is?”
“Come down with me. I want to say good-bye down there.”