Authors: Theodore Odrach
Only to Iofe Nicel Leyzarov did the collapse of the bridge bring unhappiness and frustration. Since he was in Hlaby at the time, it meant that his pleasures and irrepressible passions were cut off. Because Morozovich was on the north shore, there was no way he could reach his love, Dounia Avdeevna. Kokoshin, on the other hand, happened to be in Morozovich during the collapse, and was now reaping the benefits. He was with Dounia; he possessed her totally and wholly. Undoubtedly the two were spending endless hours in her big, fluffy bed, rolling about, playing out scenes of sexual desire. Leyzarov seethed with anger and resentment.
Standing by the schoolyard fence, Kulik looked toward the Stryy. The narrow, fast-flowing river was roaring toward the Pinsk dyke, slamming repeatedly up against its dirt walls, already penetrating it in several places. The water swelled higher and higher and before long became a sea of foaming whitecaps: reeds were ripped from the banks, logs floated by, and small animals were swept away. Dark clouds collecting overhead promised more rain. It was just a matter of time before the village would be deluged with water.
Gazing over the marshland, Kulik, taking a deep breath, filled his lungs with the damp air with its smell of bog and waterfowl.
A breeze rose up from the low-lying fields and in the distance he could see nesting geese drowned in the flood of the blue-gray mist. As Kulik’s thoughts drifted, there came a familiar voice from over the fence. It was Sergei. “Hello, my friend. Are you ready to check out the snares with me?” Sergei wore a cap with a black visor; an empty sack was flung over his left shoulder, “Maybe we’ll get lucky today and find ourselves a duck or two. But we better hurry before the rain starts up again.”
“I’m ready, but why do you carry only one oar?”
“What do you want another oar for? Besides, this is all I could find.”
In a ditch close to a nearby shed, lay a broad wooden boat with peaked bow and stern. They lifted the boat onto their shoulders, carried it to the river and set it afloat. Kulik climbed in and settled on the crossboards, while Sergei, giving the boat a shove into deeper waters, jumped into the stern. The boat moved silently and easily, rippling the smooth, calm surface on either side. Kulik slipped his hand over the edge and watched the water curl up between his fingers.
The boat headed for a clump of thick bramble bushes. Sergei steered it through an opening between them. The branches on either side were closely entwined and the pale daylight struggled to pierce the tangled foliage. A gray-brown grebe with a dense, silky breast sang softly above them. Before long, the current started to run up against the sides of the boat. Sergei worked the oar harder, trying to fight the rushing water. The boat pitched and tossed on the waves. Paddling quickly, Sergei managed to set the boat on the river’s course, where it traveled with little effort. They passed thick clumps of willows, then swiftly moved to a spread of covering of last year’s grasses. In the distance wild ducks could be heard chattering and flapping their wings. As they moved farther downriver, the sound of ducks was closer.
“The snare I set is just beyond the riverbend.” Sergei pointed to a stand of willows. “Maybe there’s something waiting for us already.”
And sure enough, in a covering of reeds and cattails lay a plump male duck, with pale wings, which at a distance flashed a
silveryblue. It lay dead, strung by its neck. Paddling the boat closer, looking at Kulik, Sergei said sarcastically, “Hah! I’m just as good at catching ducks as the NKVD are at catching people.”
Quickly untying the snare, Sergei shoved the duck into his sack and put it in the helm of the boat. They traveled on toward a broad stretch of river, where another snare was hidden deep in a clump of bulrushes.
“It looks like we’re ahead of the game,” shouted Sergei. He opened his sack and stuffed another bird inside.
Pushing farther and farther downriver, they passed mighty walls of alders and willows that swayed gently in the breeze, creaking and singing their low, grave songs. The boughs of the trees were closely interwoven and the canopy of leaves was pierced here and there by slight shafts of daylight.
Sergei looked round uneasily, and said slowly, quietly, as if he were having trouble believing what he was about to say, “The heart of the marshland has no bounds. It’s completely hidden from the NKVD, even though they see everything and they never sleep. This is the only place where one can really feel safe.”
Kulik looked apprehensively at his friend and shook his head. “Maybe for the moment, but it’ll take a lot more than the thicket of these marshes to save the life of a hunted man.”
As Kulik spoke, he was struck with an idea. “Sergei, if only we could do something about this. Our people have got to organize and form a resistance movement of some kind, we’ve got to fight back.”
Sergei leaned toward Kulik. He was unusually serious. “It’s already happening. In Zeleny-Klin a resistance movement is forming. Young nationalists are setting traps for government infiltrators, and they’re setting those traps just as I set them for these ducks. They’re even getting guns. A week ago outside the village Koshirshchina, a secretary of the District Committee was shot dead. Of course the NKVD are wild with anger and they swear revenge. It’s possible Iofe or Kokoshin are next on the hit list— especially Kokoshin.”
“Kokoshin? Why him?”
“Because he heads the spy unit for our Village Soviet. And not only that, he makes lists of all the ‘undesirables’, the ‘enemies of the people’, and hands them over to the higher authorities in Pinsk. He authorizes all the arrests. He’s directly under Sobakin’s jurisdiction and he takes his orders from him.”
“How did you find this out?”
“He pulled me aside one evening, grabbed me by the collar, and reminded me that Sobakin has not forgotten about me, and that one day soon I would be recalled to Pinsk. He said that certain charges, quite serious charges, were being compiled against me.”
A spasm shot through Kulik and his voice trembled. “What are you going to do?”
“Run. Hide. But where? They’ll find me wherever I go. It’s just a matter of time …”
Sergei hid his head in his hands. Kulik did not utter a word.
They continued to float downriver. On the left bank a great blue heron came to feed on frogs and fishes, and near the river’s edge in the bulrushes and cattails, nests of deep-water ducks had gone afloat. It was not hard to imagine something dreadful lurking in the marsh, behind the dark, dense foliage, watching them.
Sergei looked about him. His face was grave. “It seems so quiet and serene here, as if no one can do us any harm. It’s almost the perfect place to calm strained nerves. But the serenity is deceptive, it’s even insidious. There are eyes all around, hidden, following our every move.” Glancing at the tips of the bulrushes, where he could see patches of sky, he whispered, “And Buhai—he’s an informer. Kovzalo, too. About Chikaniuk, I’m not sure. Kokoshin meets with them all on a regular basis. About Ivashkevich I’m not so sure either.”
“Ivashkevich?” Kulik echoed the name, barely audibly. This could confirm his worst suspicions.
“Yes. Let me tell you a few things about Ivashkevich, and then you tell me what you think. When you were in Pinsk the other day, I invited him over for a drink, to check him out, so to speak.
Well, he got quite drunk and started in on Ukrainians. ‘You were oppressed by the Poles,’ he said to me, ‘and now the Russians are sinking their teeth into your skins. But you’re like weeds in the
chernozem
, when you’re pulled out of the earth your roots spread and you take over the fields again. No one can kill your spirit.’
“Then he said, ‘In Hlaby you have a school Belorussian in form and Russian in content, and the children don’t know either language. They’re expected to know Belorussian, but they have to take their lessons in Russian. And the only language they know is Ukrainian. It’s just a big mess. The regime should be better informed about who really lives here in these marshes, that’s what I think.’ He said that maybe he’d go to Moscow himself and set things straight.
“When he got up, he lost his balance and fell. I dragged him upstairs to my bed, and within minutes he was out like a light. It’s a good thing he didn’t take his drunken babble out on the street; he would have been arrested in no time. It seems to me he was bona fide, but I’m not sure—an informer or not an informer? I can’t tell. If he really is an informer, Kokoshin will get little benefit from him because, as you can see, drink has a way of loosening his tongue, and if he’s not an informer, then, well, we’ll just have to wait and see.”
They made their way through the almost impenetrable thicket, amid the buzzing of insects and the soft swish of grasses. They breathed in the scent of moistened trees and swaying sedges, and watched long-legged birds wade in shallow water and poke their long beaks into the water to catch fish. They heard the sound of the wind and with a quavering in their hearts felt the earth rumble beneath them.
P
insk was drowned in sunlight, and the broad, ramose chestnut tree, lighted by magnificent cream-colored flowers, towered high above the roof of the trim and tidy Bohdanovich house. Marusia, looking through the open window of her living room, was happy to feel the warmth of spring on her face. Watching flocks of geese soaring high above the treetops and small red squirrels scrambling from tree limb to tree limb, she thought suddenly of Sobakin. His heavy face, with dark pouches under his eyes, haunted her night and day. And to add to her nightmares, he lived in the house next door. Although a wooden fence separated their two properties, from his upstairs window he had a full view of her garden. Marusia felt as if his eyes were always on her.
Her only consolation was in knowing that almost always, into the late hours of the night, he worked in the Zovty Prison. What exactly he did there she didn’t know, or rather, she didn’t want to know, but the one thing she knew for certain was that each time he passed her house he stared hard at her windows. There was no doubt in her mind that she aroused him and he wanted her at any cost. More than anything she regretted having gotten involved with him in the first place. Now she was paying the price. She knew that if their paths crossed again, she would not be so lucky as she had been when he took her to the Railway Hotel. His great drunken body would descend upon hers and crush it. The girl had seen him only once since that awful day. As she sat reading on her front porch, he had come up behind her, and tried to explain away his behavior.
“I acted like a drunken boor,” he said. “I was a pig. That’ll never happen again, I assure you. I even said to my chauffeur Pyelushkin, ‘With the most beautiful flower in all of Pinsk, I acted like a barbarian. Hit me, Pyelushkin, come on, punch me.’ But he refused. ‘I won’t punch you, Lieutenant,’ he told me, ‘my hand is heavy and I’ll only knock you out, and where will that get me?’ Marusia, I beg you, please, forgive me. It was the drink.”
Sobakin’s breathing was heavy and agitated. Dropping her book, she had rushed past him into the house before he could stop her, and slammed and locked the door. Remembering every lurid detail of his assault on her at the hotel, Marusia realized how far she had gone down a slippery slope. How could she ever have become involved with this monster, she asked herself again and again. Could it possibly be that she had actually been attracted to him in some way, or had she been tempted by his high-ranking position in the Party? Whatever the answer, her life was now one of misery and regret. Every time she saw a chauffeur-driven black government car drive by, the mere thought of Sobakin sitting in the back seat filled her with repugnance and despair. She had always loved taking long, leisurely walks along the avenues of Pinsk, looking into shop windows or meeting with friends, but now that luxury did not exist for her; she was no longer free to do as she pleased. Everything had changed. She was afraid to go outside her house, even into the garden, for fear she might meet him. Occasionally she would slip out for a walk at night, with a friend or her parents.
One evening, having seen Sobakin leave for the Zovty Prison and assuming he would be there the entire night, she mustered up the courage to go for a walk on her own, something she hadn’t done for several weeks. Unfortunately, what she didn’t realize was that for some reason he had returned to his quarters almost half an hour after leaving, and now sat at his desk buried in paperwork. Precisely at the moment that Marusia came out her front door, Sobakin raised his head and glanced out the window. What he saw was thrilling to him. Marusia was starting for the street, heading toward the city center, and alone! He couldn’t believe his good fortune.
Quickly putting on his boots and overcoat and throwing water on his face, he ran out the door. Walking swiftly along the sidewalk, he managed to catch up to her at the crossroads. Without being seen, he came up from behind and forcefully grabbed her arm. Marusia cried out and made a fruitless effort to break free. Clutching her in a fierce embrace, he began to drag her toward an alleyway, away from the city center. “Let me go, you drunkard!” she screamed at him, struggling. “Where are you taking me?”
Sobakin smiled. “To the Park of Culture and Recreation. We can take a stroll along the river. I know how you like to take your walks. And we’ll have all the privacy we need. The park has pretty well emptied by now. Don’t look so upset, I won’t hurt you. What’s wrong, don’t you like me any more?”
Sobakin pushed her through the park gates, down several pathways to the river. An ominous swirling of the current could be heard, and with dusk falling, the water near the banks looked black and bottomless. He shoved her toward a bench facing a clump of reeds at the water’s edge and pushed her down.
“Marusia,” he breathed and grunted savagely, “you drive me out of my mind.”
The girl sat stiff and motionless, made sick by the stale smell of his body. She shuddered as she felt his big hands crawl up her back, around her shoulders, onto her breasts. He pulled her to him and held her in a crushing embrace. As he forced her down on her back and climbed on top of her, she felt that her entire body was about to be destroyed. Gasping and writhing, trying to get away, she twisted herself forward, and bending her left arm, with all her strength somehow managed to jab her elbow into his jaw. Sobakin stifled a cry. Blood gushed from his mouth, and moaning, he loosened his grip and took a handkerchief out of his pocket to tend to his wound. Marusia broke free to make a run for the pathway, but he reached out and grabbed her by the neck.