Мария Кузнецова - Something Unbelievable

“Where did you go, my sweetness?” my sister cried into the void, madly waving an old bread crust as bait. Just a hint of pink and purple bled through the dark sky.

The Orlovs’ car had arrived at last, followed by a car containing the Orlov family. I did not realize a Black Maria would be coming. This made our journey feel even more official and solemn. Still, my heart fluttered at the notion that Misha Orlov, the older son, was right there, waiting in the shadows.

I heard the pitter-patter of my sister’s faithful cat just as the cars’ headlights flooded our courtyard. Polina lurched toward her creature while Mama grabbed her by the scruff of her neck like she herself was a wayward kitten.

“Hurry up, silly girl! If we miss this train, there will be no other,” she said, but Polya gave Papa her irresistible look and he nodded and lifted a hand. My sister smiled weakly and crouched down toward the vile, stinky thing.

“Good boy,” Polya said, letting him lap the bread crust out of her hand as she stroked his fur. “You’ll always be my good boy, won’t you?”

“Unbelievable,” muttered Baba Tonya as she adjusted her boa. She was Polya’s ally about all things except Timofey—she, like me, did not care for animals. It might have been the only thing we agreed on.

“Really, Fedya,” Mama said, shaking her head at my father, but she did not chastise my sister again.

“You’ll have to be good without me now. Can you do that?” my sister told the creature.

“He can’t talk,” I snapped, but she ignored me. The engines of the Black Marias hummed loudly. Uncle Konstantin stepped out of the passenger seat and lifted a hand in our direction. Even his silhouette was formidable.

Papa opened his mouth to tell Polya it was time to go, but she got up on her own, turned around, and put on her best version of a brave face, like she was some big hero for leaving a stray behind. I could have put up an equal fuss over the shelf of books I was forced to leave, but did I let my lip tremble like a baby’s due to our family’s unknowable circumstances? Of course not, because I was grown.

We gave our bags to a stone-faced driver, and the women crammed in the back while Papa sat in the front. The Orlov car pulled away and ours followed suit. I could just make out the cat’s yellow eyes against the last vestiges of darkness and my sister put her hand to the other window. I could hardly breathe in the stuffy car, but I tried to carve out a sanctified space from which to gaze out and say goodbye to my beloved city. As the car pulled away, I looked up at our balcony one last time, a place where Papa and I would chat in the evenings, where I would read on warm summer days. It was impossible to believe that the one-room apartment attached to it would no longer be witness to our footsteps, complaints, and laughter.

There was no time for a proper farewell. Our car would not drive languidly along the banks of the Dnieper, passing the gold-domed Lavra and the beaches of my youth, the endless parks, chestnut trees, and green hills. We lived just two kilometers from the station. In fact, our apartment was only a few blocks from the tracks that ran up and down our city, and every hour we would hear the screech of the train and feel our apartment tremble as it roared by. The noise was a comfort, in a way. We drove through Zhilyansky Street, past rows of tan apartment buildings nearly identical to our own. Normally the street was not particularly crowded, but that morning it was packed, and we moved slowly.

“Don’t worry, dears,” said Mama. “The Institute will put us in a decent home and keep us fed. And you girls will still go to school,” she reminded us. This last part was a relief to me but made Polya choke a little bit.

“We shouldn’t be gone too long,” Papa added from the front seat. He did not turn around to look us in the eye to emphasize his point.

“We will return before you know it,” Mama said, but I knew she was bluffing. The night before, I saw her sneak our winter clothes into her suitcase and understood it would not be a quick jaunt.

“It will be far safer out there than here,” Mama said. “It is the best way. It is a privilege, to be able to leave.”

“It is our patriotic duty,” Papa added, but this didn’t take.

“But what about my friends?” Polya cried. “What will happen to my friends?”

“Your friends will forget all about you in no time,” I offered, which was my best effort to distract her.

“Easy for you to say—you don’t have any!” she said. I yanked her hair and watched her bottom lip tremble again. It was true. I had no friends to my name, but I had my books, my city, and my beloved literature teacher, Marina Igorevna, who was always sneaking me books the way Polina snuck scraps of food to old Timofey. While my sister loved caring for Timofey, she also thrived on the attention she received from her friends and the endless stream of slightly older boys who walked her to school, though Mama made sure they did nothing more.

My grandmother, who had withered considerably since moving in with us, was swaying back and forth, as if in a trance, hypnotized by Rasputin himself. “It’s just like the start of the Revolution,” she whispered. “Nobody knows what will happen next.”

Mama jolted upright, her hat hitting the roof of the car. She was morally opposed to chaos.

“Antonina Nikolaevna,” she said. “If I were you, I would put the boa and rubies away. We don’t know who will be at the station or—out there, and it is best to be careful.” Mama chose to berate her over something else entirely to avoid discussion of the unknown.

My grandmother snorted. “I can take care of myself,” she said, which was complete hogwash.

“Just be careful, Mama,” said Papa, and my grandmother sighed and looked out at the traffic congesting toward the station, as well as more and more families approaching on foot, weighed down by suitcases. A buzzing reached my ears as I saw the chaos up ahead. Papa had already warned us: the ride would be two weeks long, and it would not be pleasant. Our train was meant for cargo, nothing like the comfortable wagons we had taken to Yalta in the summers. We should be grateful to be allowed to leave at all, and so on. But as we arrived at the station, I was scared and angry, not grateful. What did we do to deserve this madness?

The Orlovs’ Black Maria stopped in front of ours and the members of its clan emerged with their luggage. Uncle Konstantin Orlov was a tall and competent man of few words who hardly seemed ruffled by the day’s, or the year’s, events. He wore a tan hat and light coat and was more imposing than Papa but not as handsome. He was one of the only grown men I knew who did not need glasses, yet another sign that he was above the drudgery of humanity. His wife, Aunt Tamara, walked beside him in a black frock and purple beret. She was a brittle, snobbish, and unattractive woman who ignored me and Polya whenever our families spent time together.

Their sons helped the fathers retrieve the luggage from the trunk. Even in the midst of this maddening scene, the world slowed down when I saw striking, dashing Misha, a handsome and square-jawed boy with neatly trimmed dark hair who was just one year my senior. He had consumed me ever since a family gathering where I saw him standing at his balcony window, hand pressed against the glass as he watched the snow falling outside for a full hour without moving, and decided I would give anything for the secret to his stillness. We did not speak much, and when we did, we discussed our studies in an exceedingly polite manner that Polya teased me for, but I believed there was an understanding between us, placid but knowing, like the underbelly of a lake.

Misha’s only flaw was being related to Bogdan, his smug and excitable younger brother, who even in this solemn situation was jerking his messy-haired head this way and that like a demented prairie dog, in search of any distraction from his family. He was nearly fourteen like yours truly but behaved like a schoolchild, wandering off and getting into trouble with the neighborhood boys when our families convened. The only thing I could say in his favor was that he bestowed his smug charm on me and Polina in equal measure, without preferring her for her beauty. He was not like our groundskeeper, Maxim, who once looked me and my sister over and told my mother, “Polina could be a film star!” while I waited for him to declare what I should be before I saw the conversation was over.