The Knife Sharpener's Bell (18 page)

“Yes, Comrade Doctor!”

She smiles. “You have to forgive the military tone. But I don't want you sick.”

“Yes, Captain.”

I strip off the sodden, filthy clothes – so many layers I'm almost clean beneath them. Slip into the tub. The sand got inside my work gloves and the skin on my hands feels raw. My arms are tingling. They don't belong to me. I float them on the water. Somebody else's arms.

September faded. Moscow itself was fading, being beaten into the ground by the bombing, and by rain. As the Moscow River curved its wide grey road through the city, rain battered the last leaves from the trees. It was a season nothing like the crisp, dry autumns in Winnipeg, their spicy smell of fallen leaves – cinnamon, nutmeg – the smell of beginnings. In Moscow the days dissolved in freezing rain; rain bleached the city of colour, bleached it grey. I hadn't seen my parents in three months.

The streets of Moscow were full of foreigners, people who were once the enemy – British, Australians, Canadians. Some Americans as well, though America still hadn't entered the war. And not just military personnel: diplomats, officials, journalists, other undefined civilians, their faces both familiar and unfamiliar, their voices, clothes. English, the forbidden language, was spoken casually on the sidewalks, as if my old life had come back, translated, mine and not mine, just as these strangers were and were not the enemy. Every night we'd close the blackout curtains, locking out the night, locking in the light. Locking out the enemy, locking in the family, though it was hard for me, in those days, to tell one from the other.

Pavel and Raisa kept Vladimir close by them. Evenings, often as not, he'd be sitting on Pavel's lap in the armchair as Pavel read him a story, but the words sounded sluggish, exhausted, as though there were a shortage of language, oxygen, along with all the other shortages. Vladimir in turn kept close to me whenever I was home, seemed never to be more than a few feet away from me. Since early August Odessa also had been under siege, cut off, and Vladimir was always bringing me good news, the good news the papers insisted on printing. He'd point to a headline:
The Triumph
of Odessa
. Pavel had told him that we could hold Odessa indefinitely. We were still getting supplies through the Black Sea, and the wounded could be evacuated by ship. The shelling hadn't been that bad. Though we'd gotten two more letters from Joseph in Winnipeg, even a snapshot of Daisy and their son, we'd heard nothing more from Odessa, no letters since July. But Vladimir pored over the newspapers, eagerly reading us stories of Red Army soldiers, of Partisans behind the German lines. Fairy tales where the princess divided gold dust from flax seed, and the hero lived, or died a good death.

In Moscow, where we could see through the newspapers' fairy tales, death was everywhere. The bombs had begun falling again. Nights were the worst, the air raids almost continuous, the darkness broken by searchlights, filled with the noise of fire engines, the shuddering rumble of the big black bombers overhead, the air-raid sirens. Countering this was the comforting pattern of our own anti-aircraft guns – four staccato booms, then a pause, then another series of four deep booms. Every night buildings fell to the bombs that did make it through, and every day work crews cleared the rubble, trying to keep pace with the damage, to keep up appearances. Mostly I was numb, unbelieving, though my nights were torn by nightmares, new ones this time. It was the shelter of Pavel and Raisa's care, as much as the bomb shelters, that kept me from coming apart with fear.

But soon we didn't bother going into the Metro stations any more, though others would line up early in the evening, blankets and pillows under their arms, waiting quietly to settle in for the night. But after a bomb fell right into the mouth of one of the Metro escalators, Pavel said there wasn't much point in going out onto the street where
we had no protection at all. Our chances were just as good at home. It was only when I was at work on the women's brigades that I felt good about our chances. Three days a week I reached into the open truck, took the others' hands and was hauled up onto the wooden benches and driven to the outskirts where the trenches were expanding, growing deeper. Raisa didn't want me working that much, said I'd wear myself out, especially with food rationing becoming more and more stringent. But I wouldn't listen. I could feel myself growing stronger, felt my body changing because of the work, my clothes fitting differently, my arms, which had been like sticks, becoming rounder, muscled.

When I was with the others, I believed we couldn't be beaten, would never be beaten. But when the truck dropped me off in the city square, I was afraid again. Afraid for Odessa, though Odessa still held. And afraid for myself, for Moscow, as the Wehrmacht moved steadily towards us. And although in
Pravda
and
Izvestia
there was nothing but good news, though there was no shortage of proud headlines, no shortage of official broadcasts from the loudspeakers on every corner, the voices permanently cheerful, confident, no one could keep the rumours in check. Moscow seethed with them.

I lug my parcels up the stairs to the apartment. Raisa gave me the family's ration books to take to the Central Market. The caretaker's wife is on the landing, deep in conversation with Pavel.

“I'm sure it's nothing, Comrade Polankova.” Pavel's almost on tiptoe, poised to escape, but round little Comrade Polankova is leaning into him, willing him to stay. It would be comical if they didn't both look so wretched.

“That Olga Moiseyevna, from the fourth floor, she told
me they've taken Lenin's body on a special train all the way east to Tyumen! How could they?”

I've seen Olga Moiseyevna on the landing, deep in discussion with the other tenants. A solid, sturdy-looking woman, despite her bright red nail polish, her heavy earrings and elaborately tailored suits.

“They've taken Lenin's body east?” Pavel says. “Well, if it is true, it may be a necessary precaution . . .”

“It's nonsense! It's not true, it can't be! The sentries are still posted at the Mausoleum, just as they always are.”

“Well, then –

” “And then she says that Comrade Stalin has sent his daughter where it's safe. She says that Svetlana has been sent all the way east to Kuybyshev, while the people of Moscow are left dodging bombs!”

“Oh, I'd very much doubt that – ”

“They say even Comrade Stalin himself has left Moscow!”

“Now, I really can't believe –

” “Lies, all lies.” Her face is contorted with terror. “Comrade Stalin will never abandon Moscow.” The colour rises into her face.

Pavel pats her hand. “It's all right,” he says. “I'm sure it can't be true.”

There-there, I think. There-there.

When we finally get in the door, Raisa is sitting leaden at the table, her coat still on. “The water's boiling for tea,” she says.

“Raisa,” Pavel asks, “is something wrong?”

“I'm fine. I'm just tired, so I came home early.”

She's silent again, so Pavel makes the tea, sets a glass in front of her. “There was a woman at the clinic,” she says. “A Jewish woman, a refugee. I was treating her for shock. She
kept telling this far-fetched story over and over again. The same story in the same words in the same wooden fashion. She claimed she'd been living in a village that the Germans had occupied.” Raisa stops.

“And the story?” Pavel asks.

“The story? The story was that the entire Jewish population of the town had been rounded up and taken to the countryside, told to undress, lined up and shot – old women, children, babies. Her own two children had been shot in her arms, she said, but the bullets had somehow missed her. When night came she'd crawled naked out of the mound of bodies. She somehow made it to Moscow, babbling her story all the way.”

“What did you do?” I ask.

“What could I do? I sent her to the psychiatric ward.”

Though it's been another day of brilliantly blue sky, the room filled with sunlight, it's freezing, inside and out, and we're bundled in sweaters, Pavel and Vladimir in fingerless gloves. Pavel says he can't remember an October this cold. Till this freeze, the German trucks and tanks were mired in the mud from the endless rain. But the frost has made the roads easier for them, and the Germans are moving quickly. There are rumours that stray troops have been seen right at the outskirts of the city.

“But if it stays cold like this, the weather is on our side,” Vladimir is saying.
The Russian winter. Napoleon. The best ally of the Russian people
 – it's as if the loudspeaker were blaring inside Vladimir's head, inside mine. Rubbish. But Vladimir goes on, his childish voice vehement. “And Hitler was so sure they'd take Moscow in a few days that he only gave the troops their light summer uniforms – ”

“And I heard that the Tsar's ghost was seen in the
Kremlin,” I say, “but we mustn't pay any attention to this nonsense.”

“– and their hobnailed boots are freezing to the ice. So they're throwing them away and making shoes out of straw. And when we capture them, we're going to feed their shoes to the horses because they're so hungry! And we'll make the German soldiers walk barefoot!”

“Vladimir, stop it!”

“What?”

“It's cruel talking like that, even about the enemy.”

Vladimir just looks at me. Pavel doesn't say anything. He's at the table, his papers scattered over the polished surface. Though the university is closed, he's still working, making notes for the research paper he's been writing all fall.

My pencil traces Poppa's face over and over. I can't draw my mother, can never get her right. My head's aching – more bad dreams. Last night I dreamt we'd all gone down into the catacombs again, me and Ben and Poppa and my mother, Manya and Lev. Joseph and Daisy and their little Nathan were somehow there too, though Nathan looked like Vladimir, was and wasn't Vladimir. I'd felt the air clinging to the inside of my throat, the smell of dust and moths.

Someone's at the door. Pavel and I look up.

Another knock, heavier. Vladimir starts to get up, but I put my hand on his shoulder. I hear it, full bellied, swaying. Two beats. The sound again coming into me, tight. Right there on the other side of the door, what I've been of afraid of, what I've been waiting for. I can't. I can't look it in the face.

“Don't answer it.”

“What is it, Annette?” Pavel's still at the table.

I drop my voice to a whisper. “Pavel, they say German troops are within twenty miles of the city . . .”

“Annette.” Pavel is quiet at the table. “Annette, dear, we don't want to alarm Vladimir . . .”

“Should I open the door, Poppa?” Vladimir asks.

The knocking has become banging; whoever is at the door is frantic. It's a solid door, oak panelling. The brass doorknob is battered, but recently polished. Right here.

“Poppa?”

“It's all right, Vladimir.” Pavel gets up. “I'll get it.”

Pavel crosses the room and reaches for the knob, and Vladimir is suddenly at his side. Pavel gestures for him to step back, but Vladimir stands his ground, takes Pavel's free hand.

It's Olga Moiseyevna, our neighbour, leaning in the doorway, blood coursing down the side of her face.

“Olga Moiseyevna, come in. Let me help you . . .”

“I was so afraid you'd gone, Comrade Efron. So many families have been evacuated. I've knocked on six doors and no one answered.”

“You're bleeding . . . What happened? Annette, please get a wet washcloth from the kitchen.”

“Those hooligans! Cannibals! Fascists!”

Vladimir is beside me. He takes my hand. “It's all right, Annette. Don't be afraid.”

“Comrade Efron, they were taking everything, everything!” She looks around. “What's the boy doing here? Hasn't your son been sent east? Didn't they give him a ticket? They've organized special trains. Surely you know that?”

“My wife persuaded the authorities to let her keep the clinic open. And we want Vladimir to stay with us.”

“Good for her. Well, I wasn't leaving either. I'm sixty-two years old but I'm still strong and I know how to shoot a rifle!”

Vladimir squeezes my hand. I can't move, can't take my eyes off of Olga Moiseyevna who, despite the cut on her forehead, the blood, is standing upright as a little soldier in the middle of the room.

“What happened?” Pavel asks. “How were you hurt?”

“I'm telling you! I won't leave my home to be ransacked by those criminals! I'm gone for maybe an hour, and they think I've left with all the other dirty cowards. I come back and they have my phonograph in their grubby hands, every drawer in the apartment turned upside down . . .”

“Poppa, Poppa, I'd
heard
there was looting all over the city!”

“But surely not in our building . . . Where was Polankov?”

“Polankov? That mouse? Hiding in his apartment. I knocked on his door first. Those imbeciles, I shouted at them to stop and look what they did –”

“Please, sit down. Let me have a better look at your head.” Pavel puts his hands on her shoulders, leads her to the davenport.

I hand him the washcloth.

“Thank you, dear. Can you pour a small glass of brandy for Olga Moiseyevna? There's some at the back of the cupboard.”

I'm shivering all over; I can't move.

“I'll get it, Poppa.”

“No, it's all right, Vladimir,” I say. “I can reach it easier.”

“It's still bleeding,” Pavel says. “We'll have to go find Raisa. I'm sure this needs stitches. It's too bad Ben isn't here . . .”

“I can go, Pavel,” I say. “It's only fifteen minutes from here.” And before he can say anything, I've got my coat on, am out the door.