Berta grabbed his arm and pulled him down. “You’ll wait right here,” she said severely. He lowered his eyes and gave her a look of reproach. She had humiliated him in public. He was still too young to see the difference between humiliation and death at the hands of Hryhoriiv’s army.
While the student was gone, the passengers strained to hear what was going on outside. Someone said it was too quiet for Hryhoriiv’s army. Someone else said they may have hit a cow.
The student returned and struggled with the door until it swung open, bringing with it a rush of cold air. He was a particular young man and made sure the door was properly closed before he turned back to the anxious crowd.
“Well? What is it?” asked a woman sharply. Her face was stiff and pale with fear.
“The Reds. They’re clearing the train.”
“We have to get off?” asked the man across the aisle.
“Here?” asked a woman incredulously. She had two young children.
“But there’s nothing out there,” said Samuil looking out the window anxiously.
“Hush,” said Berta. “It’s still only a rumor.”
A line of passengers trudged past their window carrying baskets and bundles. Shortly after that, the carriage door opened and two soldiers and a Red Army officer walked in out of the cold. They were bundled up in greatcoats and wore caps with a red star on the visors. The officer had dark, closely cropped hair and a pockmarked face with round cheeks like a rodent. He stepped forward, looked around at the anxious faces, and said, “Comrades, this train has been requisitioned. You are all ordered off immediately. It is needed in the heroic struggle against the counterrevolutionary imperialist forces. Anyone who makes any trouble will be considered a counterrevolutionist and shot on the spot.” He stood there a moment longer as if to drive the point home, then turned and left with his fellow soldiers.
At first no one moved. Then a peddler in the back rose and started to gather up his bundles. A couple got up after that and then a few muzhiki and soon the entire carriage was on its feet getting ready to leave. There were so many questions: Where would they go, how far to the next town, where could they stay the night, how long before the next train? Everyone wanted to know the answers, but no one was willing to ask.
Berta and Samuil gathered up their bundles and followed the line of passengers out the carriage door and down the steps. Outside, the air was cold in the frayed half-light of dawn. Vaporous trails of mist swirled up from the rich black earth. They were standing in the middle of a large field surrounded by birch trees, their papery bark curling around their thick trunks, the undergrowth around them softened into a blur of muted colors by the morning fog. Up the track they could see the railroad workers uncoupling the locomotive. Ahead of that was an armored train stretched out on the tracks, silent and dark, an ancient monolith in the gathering light.
“What are they doing, Mameh?”
“Taking our engine.”
“Why?”
“They probably ruined theirs. Or maybe they ran out of wood.”
The passengers milled about on the track bed, talking in low voices, hands in pockets, looking lost. Nobody knew which way to go. Some were for finding a farmstead and asking the way. Others were for following the tracks. One man, a Jewish blacksmith holding a cloth bag containing his tools, told the others that he knew of a town about half a day’s walk.
“What kind of a town?” asked a muzhik, his eyes narrowing.
“A Jewish town.”
“A zhydy town?” What good is that?” He spat on the ground and walked away.
“What’s the name of this town?” asked a man in an expensive topcoat. He could have been a doctor or perhaps a lawyer.
“Lipovec,” said the blacksmith. He was a spare man with muscular arms. “It’s small, but it’s on another line. There’s a chance we could catch a train from there. Anyway, I’m going. Come or stay, it’s all the same to me.”
He picked up his tool bag and started off across the muddy field. Some of the passengers, Jews mostly, followed behind him. Berta and Samuil were among them. The others chose to wait for the Reds to leave. Then they planned on climbing back into the cold dead carriages and waiting, for what, they did not know.
It was difficult getting across the field. A fine mist had begun to fall, gentle but insistent, adding more water to the muddy troughs between the furrows. Soon the water had soaked through Berta’s shawl, droplets dripping down her back and onto her face. It was impossible to stay out of the mud. Only by stepping on clumping weeds or skirting the deeper quagmires between the furrows were they able to make any progress at all.
The going got easier once they reached a stand of birches that stood between the field and the road. There the path was solid as it wound under the chartreuse leaves fluttering in the ripening morning. Names were carved into the thick creamy trunks. Names like Mykola and Ostap spelled out in dark bark that had grown up through the knife marks.
Once on the road they avoided the mud by walking on the shoulder or along the middle where newly sprouted grass had just begun to grow. The going wasn’t difficult and they made good time, although it turned out that Lipovec was farther than the blacksmith had remembered. They entered the town square that afternoon, worn out, mud up to their shins, and looked around at the shops that were all closed. Something was wrong. Even with the new edict, something should have been open. The street was deserted and the houses were shuttered. There was a visor cap in the middle of the street and a laundry basket full of wet clothes near the pump. There was a wheelbarrow on its side by the grocery and rakes and hoes still out on display in front of the hardware store.
The passengers began to disperse, some going off down one lane or another looking for lodgings and something to eat. Berta and Samuil went down one cramped lane where the houses were all one story, peeling plaster over brick, with steep sloping roofs of rusty tin or crumbling shingles. The windows on all the houses were either shuttered or boarded up and many of the front doors had been reinforced with planks. They went from door to door, balancing on the boards that had been placed over the mud, calling out, but receiving no answer even though they could see smoke drifting out of the chimneys.
“Where is everybody, Mameh?”
“I don’t know.” She looked up at a ruined castle on a hill above the town and thought it might be Polish. She wondered if they would have to spend the night there without shelter from the rain or cold. Then she saw a woman in a checkered shawl running lightly over the boards a few houses up. She was small, half buried in her shawl, and she ran with a certain grace, keeping her skirts well up over her ankles and her boots relatively clean. She was carrying a loaf of bread under her arm and a sack of potatoes in her hand.
“Mother, is there a place we could stay tonight?” asked Berta coming over to her.
The woman looked annoyed. “I’m no one’s mother and no, there isn’t.”
“Our train’s been requisitioned and we have no place to stay.”
“Well, that’s not my problem,” she said, about to go on.
“All we need is a sofa, a rug, a place on the floor. I’ll pay.”
At this the little woman turned back. “How much?”
“Five rubles.”
“That’s not very much.”
“Imperial rubles.”
Her eyebrows flared and she considered the offer. The imperial ruble was the only money left in Russia beside the kerenki that had any value. “Just the two of you?”
Berta nodded.
She shifted the potatoes to her hip. “Well… I suppose I could use the company.” Berta started to thank her, but the woman held up her hand. “Just pay me in advance. That’s all I ask. The words you can keep.”