Marina Cramer - Roads

Filip reached for the albums, pulled them closer. “My father gave me these when I was ten,” he said. “The red one for Russia and Europe, the blue for the rest of the world. When did I last open them? I haven’t had much to add.” He fingered the cracked covers, touched the corners worn through the faded leather to the cardboard beneath. “I can hardly believe they’ve come through the war with me.”

“Will you take them?” Galina repeated. “It’s getting late, and you leave early tomorrow.”

Filip sighed. “No. You may as well keep them for me. Musa said families are to follow us to the mining villages within a month or so.”

He opened the blue album, turned its glossy pages one by one, pausing to study the few stamps displayed among the gaps of missing exemplars. “So many places,” he said. “Galya, imagine going to all these places, seeing these buildings and monuments, these plants and animals, learning about these people.”

Galina shook her head and smiled. “You’re such a dreamer. I’ve seen enough places for now. Katya and I need a home.” Katya, on her cot next to the bed, slept.

Filip glanced at his wife, saw no sign of anger or irritation, and continued turning pages. Galina rose to hang freshly laundered diapers and shirts on the clothesline near the stove. “You could bring me a little coal before you go. But no, there won’t be time. I’ll go with Marfa after work.”

Filip wasn’t listening. “Galya, look. Look what I found.” He pushed his chair back from the table and faced her, a pencil box in his hand. “It was between the pages. I thought I had lost it.”

Galina stared at him, watched joy and sadness chase each other across his face in quick succession. He looked as if he might cry. “What?”

“My pencil box. The one Avram—you remember Avram, the grocer?—he gave it to me on my seventh birthday. Look, here’s the Gull’s Nest Sanatorium painted on the lid.” He passed the box from hand to hand, slid the lid back in its grooves to expose several smooth brown pencils, their points dulled by the friction of many months’ travel within the box.

They could have fallen overboard in the barge crossing, those pencils, and washed up somewhere on the rocky coast of the Black Sea. They could have burned in Dresden, their ashes mingled with the detritus of wanton destruction. They could have ended up in hostile hands, helping the enemy complete sordid nefarious projects. But here they were, scuffed and scarred, but intact. Ready.

Filip, unable to say any of that, looked at the floor. “It was my birthday. Mama baked me a cake.”

Galina left the laundry in its basin. She knelt in front of Filip, took the box from him, and laid it on the table. She held his hands in her cool ones, still damp from the washing. “Have you heard from them, your parents?”

“No. I send a postcard every week, but—no. Months ago I heard a rumor that they might have left Yalta. But I don’t know. They could be anywhere.”

“We’ll find them”

“It would be a miracle.” Filip raised his head and looked at her with troubled eyes.

“We found each other. The war is over. We’ll find them, too.”

She got to her feet and sat down in the other chair. For some minutes, neither spoke; they listened to Katya’s breathing rise and fall like water lapping gently against wet sand.

Filip picked up the pencil box and held it out to his wife. “I want Katya to have this.” He stood abruptly and paced the little room. “I want her to have everything. Books and dolls and puzzles and music lessons.” He covered the space between bed and table in three strides, waved his arms in the air, one hand barely missing the clothesline. “I want her to sing like you and dance and laugh, to learn poems and to always, always have hope.” He took a deep breath. “I want her to have enough.”

Galina smiled. “All in good time. Now go to bed, or you’ll miss the transport in the morning. I need to finish hanging the washing.”

“DO YOU LOVE ME?” Filip lay on his back, the pulsating glow of the cigarette cradled on his chest the only light in the room. Did she? He suddenly needed to know.

Had he imagined the expression of mournful understanding on her face the first time they had made love after their reunion? She had said nothing, neither questioning nor accusing. The Galina he knew, the spirited girl who looked at life’s realities with a spark of humor, might have teased him about his new confidence. Gone was the awkward innocence of their newlywed encounters and the desperate urgency of camp coupling. If she had noticed, or enjoyed, the smoother way he used his hands, his mouth, she gave no sign.

She had been silent, rising quickly to tend to her women’s business, showing that she, too, had learned something in the intervening months. This was no time to have another child.

She was silent now, too. Filip grew uneasy. It was not a question that required much reflection, to his mind, and her hesitation was surely a bad omen. Was she sleeping? He glanced in her direction, admiring again the smooth planes of her face, the tendrils of loose hair, which appeared white in the darkness, her open eyes directed at the ceiling. He coughed, put out the cigarette, and considered whether to risk asking again.

“I was walking with my mother the other day,” she said, her voice soft and low so as not to wake the baby sleeping in her cot alongside their bed. “You were out. I had finished my job early, and Mama’s shift did not begin for another hour or so. We were going to a farmhouse just out of town to buy eggs and milk.”

Filip was puzzled. What was the point of this storytelling? Why not just answer the question? No, he did not understand women, after all.

“On the way, at the side of the road, we saw a pair of gray geese. They were the common wild ones, the kind you see everywhere, flying in formation, or flocking at lakes and ponds: grayish-brown feathers, pink feet, speckled bellies. Nothing unusual.” She tugged at the blanket, pulling it up to her neck against the chill in the room. She angled her head slightly away from him, watching the sky fill with storm clouds, their menacing shapes rolling past the small square window like film scenes in a movie theater.

“Geese? You saw geese? And what?”

“I will tell you what. One of the geese was lying on the ground, its wing sticking up strangely, broken, the breeze ruffling the feathers into ragged tufts. It was dead, or dying. The other goose stood next to its partner, its neck stretched out full length, orange beak pointing to the sky, wings partly spread. It also was not moving. You know that geese stay together for life. I don’t believe that animals don’t suffer. It was heartbreaking.”

Filip turned to his wife, his annoyance arrested by the edge of sadness in her voice. She wiped a tear sliding down her cheek, using the edge of the blanket.

“My mother said, ‘I am this goose. In leaving me now, my Ilya has taken a piece of my soul.’”

“Is that why… the ring… she was going with him,” Filip said.

“Yes. I didn’t know what to say to her.”

“Because it was so personal?”

“Because I do not understand that kind of love. Not because I’m young; they married young, too, and lived through some terrifying years together.” She paused while the thought unwound in her head: My parents shared something wider and deeper, something eternal that I doubt I will ever know. I have seen love, and while I can’t say I know what it is, I know that it is not what I feel for you.

They lay together, not touching, listening to Katya’s quick, shallow breathing.

“So I’m not sure how to answer your question,” Galina went on after a while. Katya stirred, whimpered, but did not wake. “When we were apart, I was frightened and anxious. I missed you and wondered what was happening to you, how you were getting on. Of course, I suffered. But I did not lose a piece of my soul.”