Authors: Theodore Odrach
Sergei’s eyes filled with tears.
“I had to tell you about this; you had to know you’re in great danger. I can’t even begin to imagine what Sobakin would do if he found out we met here tonight. Be careful, Ivan, they’re out to get you.”
Kulik tried to sound optimistic. “There’s no need for alarm, my friend, not yet. They don’t have anything on us, at least nothing concrete. They’re trying to corner us—they’re getting closer, that’s true, but there’s still some time left.”
But Sergei sat staring vacantly at the wall. Then he pulled himself up and opened the door a crack to peer outside. There was nothing there. Fumbling into his overcoat, he said quietly, “Well, it appears it’s safe enough for me to go home now. Good night. And be careful.”
Kulik went into his office and sat down at his desk, closed his eyes and buried his head in his hands. The NKVD was obviously trying to pin something on him They couldn’t find anything, so they were inventing idiotic stories about his past. Then he tried to convince himself that since the NKVD had nothing on him, in the end he would be found innocent and be left alone. But then there came the inevitable question: why was the NKVD coming up with something, anything, no matter how outrageous? Why was he being targeted like this?
He had to admit the utter hopelessness of his situation. The wheels of Soviet justice had been set in motion; it was just a matter of time before he would be run down. He would be tortured physically and psychologically until he cooperated somehow and showed repentance. But repentance for what? Sabotage? Treason against the Soviet government? Propaganda? Agitation? He racked his brain for some logical explanation of all that was happening; he could hardly believe any of it could be true.
But the more he thought about it, the more frightened he became. The room was bathed in moonlight; long shadows fell across the walls and ceiling. The floor creaked. Suddenly Kulik felt he was not alone, that someone was in the room with him, watching. He was certain of it: he was being watched not only now but at all hours of the day—at night, during school hours, even in the early morning. But by whom? A neighbor, a pupil, a parent, Paraska, maybe even Sergei. But Sergei a spy? His entire being rebelled against the idea. “No, not Sergei. Never!” He must be slowly losing
his grip. There was no logic left anywhere; the real world did not exist any more.
Informers were everywhere: everyone was spying on someone; no one was above suspicion. Maybe Sergei was spying on him after all, by pretending not to be spying on him, and if so, someone had to be spying on Sergei. This confusion and hysteria were occurring even in the most backward villages. The sane were becoming insane, the insane, sane. Everything was in a jumble.
Suddenly Kulik thought about Paraska. If anyone was spying on him, it would be Paraska. His heart leapt and he caught his breath. Yes, of course, why hadn’t he thought of it before? Certainly she was spying on him and passing information to Kokoshin or Leyzarov. It all made perfect sense now! She never set limits on the things she said in front of him; she readily and openly attacked the state. And the way she went on about her cow Rohula. Wasn’t she trying to get him to reveal something? Feverishly, he racked his brain trying to remember if he had said anything incriminating to her. No, he hadn’t. He breathed easier for a minute, but before long he became tense again. What about Sergei? Was he an informer or not? The question was tearing Kulik apart. For a brief moment, he actually started to hope that Sergei
was
an informer—at least as an informer he stood a chance of surviving. His own life was coming to an end, he could feel it with all his heart, but for Sergei at least there would still be hope. He became determined that his good friend would not suffer the same ugly fate that awaited him, no matter what the cost.
Still in his clothes, Kulik sank into bed completely exhausted. Tired as he was, he couldn’t sleep. The room was cold and drafty; he lay shivering, staring into the darkness. The constant ticking of the clock on his nightstand grated on his nerves. The night was still, almost too still, and all at once he thought he heard something, a kind of shuffling noise outside in the hallway, then footsteps. He was certain someone was about to knock on his door and within seconds it would fly open: it was the NKVD coming to get him. They would drag him out of bed, throw him into the
back seat of some big black car and whisk him off to an unmarked prison somewhere. With no trial and no judge, like thousands upon hundreds of thousands of others, he would perish, unknown to family and friends.
His head pounding, Kulik got up and paced the room. He was still shivering. and suddenly he became convinced Paraska was there in the room with him, that she was hiding behind the chest of drawers, laughing at him, watching his every move, preparing notes to take to the secret police. He saw one of his pupils emerge, pointing his finger at him and shouting at the top of his voice, “Provocateur! Saboteur! Nationalist! Arrest him!” Excruciating pains shot across his chest. He could no longer separate illusion from reality.
He fell back into bed and pulled the covers up around him. Drenched in sweat, he tried desperately to shake himself free of his hallucinations. Finally, toward dawn, he fell into a fitful sleep.
A
round ten o’clock the next morning Kulik was sitting in his office when Cornelius entered, followed by a man and a woman. The man was tall, with graying hair and sharp features, and the woman, thin almost to the point of emaciation, was not much over twenty.
Cornelius handed Kulik several official documents, and announced, “Allow me to present our new teachers. They have just arrived from Pinsk.”
Kulik scanned the papers. They all had appropriate stamps and seals and officially introduced the new teachers: the man, Liavon Maximovich Ivashkevich and the woman, Haya Fifkina Sruleyevna. The two stood side by side, erect, waiting patiently. They did not speak.
Kulik took them on a tour of the school grounds. He told them that classes started at eight in the morning and ended at one o’clock Monday through Saturday; the children were to arrive at school with completed assignments; singing classes were conducted in the afternoon right before recess; and lunch was eaten at their desks at twelve-fifteen. He showed them the classrooms, first grade to eighth, the school supply room, the staff room, and the storage closet. When the tour was finished, he asked them if they had found suitable lodgings. They had, and he told them he would see them first thing in the morning.
Kulik watched them leave the building. For some reason he felt uncomfortable. There was something about the woman he found
unsettling, though he couldn’t quite pin it down. Ivashkevich seemed like a decent, straightforward sort and even well-educated, but Haya Fifkina was young, almost too young, and he wondered how much teaching experience she had had, if any at all. She worried him.
And sure enough, on the following day the moment she stepped into the grade two classroom there was trouble. The children decided almost instantly that they didn’t like her. They laughed and jeered at her and called her a scarecrow; she responded by calling them a bunch of backward
moujiks
, deaf and dumb, who would never amount to anything. She spoke a broken, barely coherent Russian, and this sent the children roaring, especially when she added stress to her ‘r’s’ in an attempt to roll them in the Muscovite fashion. This set her off and she went storming down the aisles in a fit of rage, shouting, “Antagonists! Underlings!”
One afternoon she stood before the blackboard holding a history book, intending to give a lesson on the October Revolution. She called out to the class, “
R-R-R-R-Rebiatushky
!” The children began to laugh at her immediately.
Ohrimko Suchok, sitting by the door, watched her closely. Rubbing his hands and glancing around, he appeared to be up to something. When Haya turned her back to write a sentence on the blackboard, he took a slingshot and a small stone out of his pocket, aimed the stone directly at her and struck her on the side of the head. Haya screamed, and rubbing her head, faced the class, determined to find out who had done it. When no one came forward, she threatened to go to the headmaster at once. But the children only roared and clapped, pinned to their seats. She stormed into the hall and made straight for Kulik’s office. Banging his door open, she cried loudly, “Hooligans! Delinquents!”
Kulik leapt to his feet. He was dismayed to find her so distressed. “Calm down, please. Collect yourself and tell me what happened.”
“Hooligans! Delinquents!” she repeated. “Those children are unruly and antagonistic. They belong in a zoo!”
“Please, try and settle down.” He tried to calm her by offering her a seat.
“They don’t listen to a word I say. They’re defiant and rude. And that Ohrimko Suchok is nothing more than a thug!”
Seeing how truly upset she was, Kulik tried to comfort her. “Don’t get discouraged. I know it’s difficult for you right now, but once the children get to know you, they’ll settle down. I’ll have a talk with Ohrimko right away. I’m sure things aren’t as bad as they seem. May I make a suggestion? Perhaps if you conducted your lessons in Belorussian, at least in part, things might become a bit easier. Though they don’t know either Belorussian or Russian, the children are more familiar with Belorussian, because it’s closer to Ukrainian. Russian, I’m afraid, is completely foreign to them.”
Haya’s face suddenly changed; she seemed stunned and confused by what he had just said. She sounded quarrelsome. “Teach them in Belorussian? That’s out of the question.” Before long she started hurling Soviet standards at him.
“In our great Soviet Empire no one differentiates between Russian and Belorussian. To us it’s all one and the same. In my hometown of Slutsk, for example, Belorussian is not taught in the schools anymore, only Russian, and we embrace it as our own. I suggest you stop maligning Russian policy and concentrate on educating your pupils in true Communist fashion. The Soviets have given us the ultimate brand of socialism, and as a result we’re able to enjoy a free and happy life. We have our great leader, Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin, the most wonderful and compassionate man alive, to thank for all of this.”
When Kulik showed no sign of agreeing with her, she left without looking back, and slammed the door behind her.
The next morning to everyone’s surprise, Haya appeared in class looking refreshed and energetic, even with a twinkle in her eye. She seemed to have forgotten everything that had happened yesterday, and her looks had improved. Her unruly hair was neatly pulled back into a bun and her thin lips had a pinkish hue. There was even a touch of red in her cheeks. She showed every sign of
wanting to set things straight. Smiling at the children, making a sincere effort to appeal to their better nature, she started the day with a lesson on the Russian language.
“Children! Children!” She clapped her hands. “Listen closely:
Cyenia. Cye
and
nia
make
Cyenia
. Now repeat after me,
Cye-nia
.”
But the children barely had a chance to open their mouths, when Ohrimko threw up his hand. He shouted out before being called upon, “Excuse me, Comrade Sruleyevna, but what does
Cyenia
mean?”
Haya, irritated, looked at him. “It’s the name of a
malchik
, of course.”
“And what’s a
malchik
?”
“Oh, you stupid little boy. Just pay attention and not another word out of you! Now sit down.”
When she turned her back to the class and began to write on the board, Ohrimko, to the amusement of his classmates, stuck out his tongue and shot a paper airplane across the room.
Without question, Haya’s biggest problem was little Ohrimko. He was a troublemaker, he was ignorant of the school rules and had no desire to behave himself. He not only quarreled with his classmates, but he beat them, often until they bled. He couldn’t leave even the girls in peace, and enjoyed pulling their braids and kicking them from behind. In the schoolyard he was feared more than Lucifer himself. Just a few days earlier, he had jumped on Philip Mak, a boy two years older than he, brought him to the ground, and punched him in the face until he was black and blue. The children worried about whom he might attack next.
One day when the bell rang and the children were let out from their classes, Ohrimko thought of another scheme involving Haya Fifkina. He really wanted to get her this time. Hiding behind the schoolyard fence, peering from between the palings, he waited for her to come out. He was holding a snowball, which he had packed so firmly it was as hard as a block of ice. When Haya at last opened the door and walked into the yard, the boy raised his arm over his head, and as hard as he could, hurled the snowball straight at her,
hitting her in the back. Haya shrieked, and losing her balance, fell into the snow. Ohrimko laughed and cheered. He sang out loud, “Haya rode on a goose high in the sky, until she came upon the Sabbath day, oy vey, oy vey, oy vey.”
Scrambling to her feet, red with rage, she ran after him. “You again!” she cried. “You little brat! Wait till I get my hands on you. What you need is a good thrashing.” She almost grabbed his collar, but like a bolt of lightning, the boy took to his heels and raced down the street.
When Haya appeared in school the following morning, prepared to discipline Ohrimko in the harshest way she could think of, to her dismay, she was met by complete chaos: the children were running around laughing and screaming; a few boys were wrestling on the floor kicking over desks and chairs; paper airplanes were flying across the room; and in the far corner several little girls were making a great fuss over something, jumping up and down, giggling and pointing to the floor. Haya had never seen such disorder. No one seemed to notice her standing in the doorway.
“Order!” she cried out. “Order in the classroom! Everyone sit down. Immediately!”
At the sound of her voice, the children fell silent and quickly scrambled to their seats. Haya looked for Ohrimko. He sat at his desk, bent slightly forward, wiping his nose with the cuff of his shirtsleeve. His chest heaved with suppressed laughter. It was instantly clear to her who had instigated this latest episode.