Marina Cramer - Roads

He raised his eyes. Ksenia moved to the other side of the narrow bed, wiped his face gently with the back of her hand. He smiled. “My family. I was afraid I would not see you again. I was afraid for you. But you have come? This is not a dream?” He tried to raise himself on one elbow but fell back heavily, his breath catching in his throat.

When the coughing began, Ksenia reached instinctively for the basin on the floor next to the bedside table, raising Ilya to a sitting position. She supported his back with one arm while he surrendered to wave after wave of spasmodic hacking, spitting bloody mucus into the waiting receptacle. Galina stepped back to stand near the window with Filip, her hand to her mouth in horror. Filip stood awkwardly, one arm around his wife’s waist, his eyes fixed distractedly on a line of geese moving across the sky in precise geometric formation.

The nun came in with fresh water, bathed the patient’s face and hands when the episode subsided and he lay exhausted, eyes closed, his breathing rapid and shallow. “ Schwester ,” Ksenia began, her German hesitant, “sister… Tell her, Filip. I brought a clean shirt and some shaving soap. Also bread and fruit. Plums. I cannot pay. Tell her.”

“God will provide. We are grateful for your kindness,” the nun replied, accepting the bundle with her free hand. “The soap, yes. We will shave him. But I don’t know what your husband can eat.”

“Give it to someone else, then, or use it yourselves. I will try to bring more tomorrow.”

“Papa.” Galina sat on the edge of the bedside chair, her knees touching the mattress. “Can you hear me?”

Ilya made a throaty sound, but did not speak.

“I heard a new song, just yesterday, in the beer hall where Mama and I work.”

“What song?” Ksenia cut in. “I heard no song.”

“You were in the kitchen. It was a busy night, remember? I was helping at the bar.” Galina frowned, annoyed at the interruption. “Anyway. A young Russian soldier was singing. He was so young! Really just a boy, with a beautiful tenor voice that made me want to cry.”

“Your father is tired, Galya. He needs to rest,” Ksenia said softly.

Galina raised a protesting hand. If I keep talking to him, he will not die , she thought, and fervently believed. “It’s a war song, but not about glory or pride. It’s about men, people far from home; about danger and loss. About not knowing what will happen next, where the road leads.”

“Like us,” Filip said unexpectedly, moving from the window to stand at her back.

Ilya looked at his daughter with clouded eyes, the lids coming down as if of their own leaden weight. “The song?” he whispered.

“I don’t know all the verses, but I have the tune and the refrain. Shall I sing it for you?” She took his hand, warming it between her palms.

Ilya nodded.

“ Ekh, dorogi… pyl’ da tuman ,” she began, her voice wavering a little. “Oh, roads… dust and fog,” she sang, gaining confidence, filling the room with images of snow and wind, of flame and battle and brotherhood. She sang of homesickness and longing for loved ones, and of remembrance.

The echo of the melancholy melody lingered when she was done, each person in the room alone with their thoughts and feelings, beyond the reach of speech.

They started toward the door. Ilya’s breathing had evened out to a sleeper’s rhythm. When first his daughter, then his wife, kissed his forehead, he stirred but did not open his eyes. In the hall, with the door nearly closed, they heard him call out weakly, “Filip.”

“Thank you for finding my family.” Ilya’s voice was a hoarse whisper, his pale face once more painted with fever on both cheeks.

“I did nothing. It just happened,” Filip replied, ashamed at the truth of it, uneasy with the undeserved gratitude. But the old man was asleep, and did not hear him.

“WE PRAYED FOR HIM,” the young nun said solemnly. “But the Lord in his wisdom chose to end his suffering.”

“No.” Galina was firm. “Look, I have brought his granddaughter for him to see, if only through the window. He must see her. He must,” she insisted, ignoring Ksenia’s sharp glance. “I made a bookmark for his birthday. It was last month, but we were separated then.” She took a narrow strip of cloth from her sweater pocket, thrust it at the implacable sister. The faded scrap of shiny fabric, which Galina had embroidered with leaves and flowers using threads she had pulled from her own clothing, trembled in her hand.

“He sees us all, child.” The nun placed a cool hand on Galina’s arm. “Hold your father in your heart, and teach your daughter to know and love him.”

Galina turned away, repelled by the sanctimonious words and the woman’s air of meek superiority. What did she know? She had most likely lived out the war in hushed seclusion, protected from its daily horrors by her usefulness to all sides.

Galina spun around when Filip approached her and cupped her elbow with his hand. “Why is everyone touching me?” she demanded. “And you—were you not with him? Did you not see he needed help? After we opened our home to you—” She broke off, swiping angrily at her eyes with her free hand.

“I tried! The apothecary was closed.” His own anger rose to mirror hers. He could never admit to what had really happened, how he had abandoned his search and gone dancing. But he had paid for that with the guilt that gnawed at his remaining confidence, burdened by the knowledge of his own inadequacy.

Still, hadn’t all those unfortunate events led him here, where help was available even if it came too late? Where he had found the people Ilya loved and given them all at least a little time together, no matter how brief? No, he was not to blame for everything. “He wanted to just rest awhile, until he felt better. He did not want a doctor.”

“And you believed him! Here,” she said, thrusting Katya into his arms. “Meet your daughter.” Galina turned and followed her mother into the sparsely furnished room that served as the convent’s office.

Filip held the child gingerly, her head cradled in the crook of his elbow, as he imagined babies were to be held. When she squirmed in protest, he tightened his grip, afraid both of hurting her and of letting her fall. Somehow, he managed to raise her to a sitting position, perched on his arm, his free hand supporting her back. He held her away and looked at her.

Katya was thinner than he thought a baby should be, but not emaciated. Her perfectly round head was covered with a dark corona of impossibly fine hair that slipped between his fingers like dandelion fluff. She studied him, her large brown eyes—his mother’s eyes, he saw—reflected an unnerving calm, shining with life.

Talking with Galina the day before, he had learned something of their ordeal since the forced separation seven months ago. Something, but not much. Too much had happened in that short time to tell in a single emotional afternoon; it would take years to recount the stories of camp life, of the Danube crossing, of the weeks of tramping, which, though not unlike his own, held additional dangers when the refugees were women.

Filip and Katya regarded each other. For a moment, it looked as if she might cry but decided not to, the quivering of her plump lower lip subsiding into a cryptic bemused expression. “ Shto ?” he finally said. “What do you want from me?” He moved his arm in closer to his body, uncomfortable with the child’s steady stare. She let out a shuddering sigh and laid her head against his shoulder.

What, indeed? Until this meeting, his child had been an abstraction, linked to him, but only as an idea, a principle. Now here she was, breathing peaceably in his arms; he could feel the warmth of her head pulsing against his neck.