Yannick Grannec - The Goddess of Small Victories

I was tormented by questions. Why were they letting us go? It had to be a mistake, and they would stop us at the border. How would we reach the Pacific Ocean, traveling on German visas through a Communist country? We would have to make our run while the German-Soviet nonaggression treaty kept the eastern route open. I didn’t understand how Stalin and Hitler could have signed this unholy pact. After all we’d read in Vienna about defending ourselves against the Red menace! Who would keep Hitler from attacking the Russian bear once he was done with Poland?

I took refuge in practical matters: How do you pack the most into a single trunk? How do you rebuild a life from so little?

Bigosovo

Dear Ones ,

This letter is probably the last you will receive from me for a long time. We are near the Russian border. The train to Moscow is a little late. The town is flooded with refugees, many of them Jews escaping to the Soviet Union. The train platforms are chockablock with suitcases, crying children, and terrified men and women. The cold is already very intense — thanks, Mum, for giving me your fur coat. I’ll make good use of it! I used our day here to buy a few last-minute things. Everyone had the same idea. There is not a single blanket or pair of socks left in this town. I had to buy wool at an embarrassingly high price. It will give me something to do during the long trip .

We met a family of Hungarian emigrants, the Mullers, who are trying to get to the United States too. They left with very little luggage. I suspect their papers of being false. The father is a doctor, which aroused Kurt’s curiosity until he learned that Muller’s specialty was psychoanalysis. The two found they had interests in common all the same. Muller knew about my husband’s work. Did you know that Dr. Freud died in London in September? The three children — two big boys and an adorable little girl — make an unbelievable amount of noise. Kurt finds it exhausting, but I’m delighted to fuss over little Suzanna, who is as cute as a button. She looks exactly like Liesl when she was a child! The children are very blond, like their mother, which will work in their favor as they’ll draw less attention to themselves. Kurt emptied the shelves of the last pharmacist who still had any stock. He has enough medical supplies in his bag to treat the entire Trans-Siberian train. The food is barely passable .

Kurt says hello .

A thousand big kisses from me. I miss you .

Adele

Making it through this moment and the next. Not panicking. Finding this other person inside me, the all-powerful one, and locking away the frightened little girl. All the while knowing that this little girl will yell so loudly that I’ll be forced to open the door for her eventually, only to find that she is inconsolable.

I was lost in uncharted territory with a man who took care of nothing. I had no choice. I had to break out the sails to outrace the ill wind, outstrip fear itself.

In the midst of these disheartened travelers, I gave help, gave advice. I insulted the railroad staff whenever the need or the desire arose. I pretended to forget that we were hunted animals. The hideous beast at our heels was not the same as the one pursuing the Mullers: the one that haunted my dreams had no SS uniform. It lurked within Kurt, biding its time, feeding on the anxiety generated by this unsettling trip. I straightened my spine. I ordered my stomach to be quiet. I wrote letters stuffed with lies. I bribed the conductor to find us some reasonable tea. I performed miracles to get extra blankets for us. I knitted for hours to keep my hands from trembling.

January 20, 1940

Moscow

Dear Ones ,

We are in Moscow for a few hours between trains. The cold is horrendous. I can’t leave the station to replenish our food. On the platform are a few vendors who will quietly sell us specialty goods at exorbitant prices. Mostly bad vodka. I am entrusting this letter to a Russian musician I met on the train. He has been to the Nachtfalter! I hope he’ll be honest enough not to spend the stamp money on drink. Despite the discomforts of the trip, the atmosphere is lively. People entertain themselves by making lots of music. Some of the carriages look like real drinking dens. Kurt is fine, working a bit when the noise and smoke don’t distract him too badly .

I think about you so much I can see you, right here on the station platform. Soon there will another platform where we will all be brought together .

All my love ,

Adele

Even as I wrote these lines I didn’t believe them. I had leaned over toward Kurt. “Do you want to add a word?”

He had refused. “Don’t worry about them so much!” He didn’t worry in the slightest about his own family. He was more concerned about what we would have for dinner.

I left the carriage to smoke away from the others. The perfumed Turkish cigarettes made me nauseous, but I liked the sight of their gold tips between my fingers. The trip was a long one and moments alone rare. Having no intimacy with Kurt was hard on me.

To pass the time, a group of musicians serenaded the indifferent crowd. I examined the passersby, seeing in them familiar figures: my mother, trotting hurriedly about her business; Liesl, always in the clouds; Elizabeth, bawling her out; my father, a cigarette forever between his lips, his Leica around his neck, looking at the world through its lens, hungry for details and never conscious of the whole. I wouldn’t ever see them again. The privations of the war years would take them from me, both my father and Elizabeth. My last image of him is as an old man, red faced and sweating, trying to keep up with a moving train that is carrying me away forever. He leans, old and spent, against a column to recover his breath. Beside him, three women who resemble me are making their handkerchiefs wet. My eyes are dry.

Now, surrounded by a crowd of strangers, I was finally crying, blaming the flood of emotion on the damned Yiddish music that was piercing my heart.

January 25, 1940

Somewhere between Krasnoyarsk and Irkutsk

Dear Ones ,

I am writing this letter from the middle of Siberia. I hope I’ll be able to mail it when we get to Vladivostok. My fingers are numb, I have the hardest time holding the pencil. This trip just won’t end. It’s like a long night of insomnia. I have never been so cold in my life. The temperature outside is reportedly minus 50 °Celsius. I didn’t think such a thing was possible. The toilets are frozen solid. For washing we use water from the samovars or else my eau de cologne. I’m almost out of it. What I crave is a hot bath, a bowl of vegetable broth, and a real night’s rest under a down comforter. The days and nights are indistinguishable — no light, as if the sun were avoiding this endless flat expanse .

We spend our days dozing, lulled by the motion of the train. We press against each other like animals. There is nothing to do. I’ve used up my store of wool and handed out a few pairs of socks to the Muller children. Suzanna is sick. She coughs a lot and refuses to eat. I rub her feet to warm her. She is like a tiny bird. No one has the heart to make music anymore. Everyone is quiet, dulled by the cold or by vodka. Even the two Muller boys have stopped running around. At meals we are fed a disgusting borscht whose ingredients I prefer not to know. Kurt won’t let anything pass his lips. My vision of the Trans-Siberian was of something more luxurious! The resupplying of the train is chaotic and we are forced to make many stops. At this rate, we’ll never arrive in time to catch the boat .