Marina Cramer - Roads

She leaned against Filip, one hand to her head as if to arrest the feelings spinning within. “What is it? Are you not well?” he inquired when he noticed her agitation.

“No. I mean, it’s nothing. The sun… Will your father mind terribly about the watch?”

“Yes. He is not so very influential; he can’t get things as easily as you might think. And I know he will not buy me another, even if he could.” And I mind about the watch , Filip thought petulantly. It was my birthday present.

“When this war is over and you are a famous architect, you will have many watches, one for every day and two for Sundays,” Galina said brightly, as though reading his mind. He, too, had lost something he valued. “Let’s have ice cream, to celebrate.”

They pooled their pocket change to buy one treat from the vender’s cart, passing the little paper cup back and forth between them, Galina licking the last sweet drops off the rim with undisguised childish pleasure. “I will know that hard times are behind us,” she pronounced, “when you always know what time it is, and there is ice cream every day.”

Walking slowly, side by side but not touching, they talked easily, laughing at nothing in particular, zigzagging through the midmorning downtown crowd in the general direction of Galina’s home.

“Look out!” someone shouted, and they turned to see the convoy return, slow down, then stop in the middle of the road. Several of the trucks now held, along with the guards, half a dozen or so civilians.

As soon as the trucks stopped, Galina felt Filip pull at her, moving deeper along the sidewalk, away from the curb. They stopped with their backs up against the buildings, with nowhere else to go. “Let go of me,” she protested. Annoyed at his new bossiness, she yanked her arm free of his grasp, then stared at him in amazement.

Filip had somehow managed to shrink, as if he had reversed several years’ growth and retreated into a younger version of himself. Shoulders hunched, face pale, he looked small, frail, childlike. Weak. This is my husband , she thought. My man. And he is afraid.

“ Achtung !” she heard, her attention snapping back to the scene on the street. “ Halt !”

She watched a young officer spring down from the passenger side of the first truck, barking orders at the soldiers, who blocked the street quickly and efficiently at both ends. Franz? she almost said out loud, clapping a hand to her mouth just in time to keep the word from slipping out. No need to reveal to everyone around her that she knew the enemy by name.

But this was a new Franz. This was not the homesick youth who liked carved toys and hummed romantic love songs. Gone was the gentle manner, the aesthetic sensitivity. This was a man in command—a little man, she saw—a martinet, strutting, issuing orders. “I need men for one or two days’ work,” he announced. “You will receive extra rations. You and you and you over there.” He scanned the silent throng, pointing, while the soldiers rounded up the chosen ones and pushed them onto the waiting trucks.

When his eyes found her, she stopped breathing but did not lower her gaze. She felt Filip shrink even more at her side, as if deflated by Franz’s piercing glance. “I will take women, also. Strong ones,” he said, lifting his chin and smiling a little. “They can help the men.”

This is it. We are finished. He will take his revenge. To her surprise, she felt not fear but a numbing, hopeless acceptance. She steeled herself for the inevitable mocking finger, resigned to the rough shove that would change her life, now, forever.

It did not come.

“We are finished,” Franz echoed, climbing into his seat while the soldiers hustled the last workers, including several women, into the trucks. “ Schnell , schnell ,” he shouted. “Move faster. We are wasting time.”

It was Galina’s turn to feel deflated, while Filip slowly regained his full stature and touched her hand. “That was close,” he said softly. “I thought he had me picked out for sure. Let’s go, Galya.” She walked with him, not trusting herself to speak. She felt—what did she feel? Relief, of course; they had both escaped who knew what unpleasant, perhaps dangerous outcome.

Betrayal. Not only Filip’s. She already knew he did not have the strength to defend himself, let alone anyone else. In his hapless self-absorption, he was not remotely aware of the threat that had brushed so close to her, and she would never tell him. She had naively expected Franz to simply accept her refusal and fade gracefully into the past, becoming a nostalgic anecdote she might share with a granddaughter, perhaps, in the unimaginable future. Visiting her in the toy shop, listening to her performances, he had been sweet, almost tender, boyish and attentive.

Now, she had seen him at work, carrying out the duties delegated by his superiors. Which was the real Franz? How could a person change so completely, living like a chameleon, blending in with this twig, that leaf? She understood that the overarching issue for everyone, at every level, was survival. But even a chameleon has an essential nature, a basic chameleon-ness that defines its true state. With Franz, she saw that she knew nothing of what that true state might be.

But how dare he? How dare he play with her like that? Flaunting his power, choosing not to choose her, holding the threat over her like a blade arrested in midair, taunting her with his discretionary authority. She let the rage wash over her, burning away the last vestiges of sentimentality.

“What did you say?” Ksenia faced her daughter, her wide hands continuing to work the ball of dough as if of their own accord.

“I said, guess what we did today.” Galina pulled Filip forward so they stood side by side. “We got married.”

“Really? Hand me that towel. No, the clean one, over there. Is this a joke?” Ksenia stopped kneading. “I have enough to worry about without your schemes and pranks, like how to make bread with only half the yeast it needs to rise properly.” She placed the dough gently into her favorite cracked bowl, covered it with the towel, and moved the bowl to the back of the stove.

“Mama,” Galina said, blushing deeply and releasing Filip’s hand. “We got married.”

Ksenia brushed a floury hand over her thin graying hair, sat down slowly at the kitchen table. “Ilya? Come here. I need you,” she called into the inner courtyard, from where they could hear the rhythmic sound of careful sawing.

“ Minutku . One moment,” he called back. After a few more whiny strokes, and the sharp ping of wood hitting the tabletop, he appeared at the door, brushing sawdust off his shirt before entering the room. “Galya, shto s toboi ? What’s wrong?” He stood behind Ksenia’s chair. “Hello, Filip,” he added, almost as an afterthought.

“Tell your father,” Ksenia commanded.

“We… Filip turns eighteen today. He could be sent away, to work in Germany. So…” Galina hesitated, overcome with sudden shyness in the face of this cold questioning.

Filip moved forward. She felt his hand on her waist. “We are married, Ilya Nikolaevich,” he said, looking at the older man directly, without fear.

Galina stiffened. She had been unprepared for that touch, that hand on her waist. It was so light she could barely feel it, but it was unmistakably intimate and proprietary. What have I done? How much have I given away, no, lost? She advanced into the room, moving out of the circle of Filip’s arm. “It’s just a formality, Papa,” she said. “Nothing will change. I will still live here, and Filip with his parents, right? We just wanted him to be safe.”