Elvira Baryakina - The Prince of the Soviets

“I’m cold,” he told her. “I can’t seem to get warm.”

After the conversation with Ales, he was haunted by a sense of foreboding. Where had he ended up now? Who were these people? Could he trust them?

Fortunately, the old woman turned out to be good-natured and friendly. She even offered Elkin some bread.

Unlike Ales, she was more worried about the Poles than the “Russkies.” Sighing, she told him that when the Germans had come during the Great War, they hadn’t touched a thing, but with the Poles, it had been a different story. They stole animals, and any peasant who protested would be whipped with switches.

So, this is life on the border, thought Elkin. On the one hand, there’s no shortage of opportunities for trade, but on the other hand, everyone is out to get a piece of what was yours.

He soon felt drowsy from the food and the warmth and kept rubbing his eyes to keep himself awake.

“So, where’s Piatrus?” he asked at last.

There was a sound from the shelf above the stove, and the next minute, a great strong boy dressed in a faded soldier’s tunic without a belt jumped down to the ground. He stretched, yawned, and, turning to the icon in the corner of the hut, crossed himself.

“Have you got some money for me?” he asked Elkin.

Like Rygor, Piatrus was not prepared to bargain. He would settle for no less than three hundred rubles, and Elkin was forced to get the shortfall from the sum Nina had asked him to take across the border. He cut open the lining of his coat and took out a hundred-dollar note.

“So, you’re carrying American money?” Piatrus asked, looking at Elkin’s coat with a great interest. “Well, we can be on our way soon. We’ll be in Rakov by morning.”

7

Elkin had not expected the journey through the forest at night to be such a nightmare. But the memory of his wanderings after escaping the camp was still fresh in his mind, and every fiber of his being revolted.

I don’t suppose I’ll ever be able to walk in the forest again without being afraid, he thought desperately.

And yet, he had to keep moving, clambering over fallen logs, descending into shallow ravines, and skirting impenetrable thickets of spruce trees.

He had no idea how Piatrus managed to find his way in the pitch dark. The sky was cloudy, and Elkin could barely make out the dim silhouette of his guide up ahead. The bushes rustled, and now and then, some night birds gave a hollow cry. And all the while, heavy drops of water fell from branches onto his cap and his shoulders.

Several times, Elkin slipped and fell in the muddy slush underfoot. Piatrus would curse in a whisper. They had to try to get as far as possible before the changeover of the guards at the border post.

Back in Crimea, Elkin had been able to walk for hours in the mountains without stopping. Now, he already had a stitch in his side, his knee joints were cracking, and there was a dull roar in his ears.

What if I don’t make it? he thought. What if my strength gives out and I just collapse?

From time to time, he fingered the money hidden under the lining of his coat. Piatrus had told him that if the border guards caught someone with goods, he might be released in return for a bribe. The guards were badly fed and were always glad to get their hands on a smuggler. But if they caught anyone carrying weapons or money, it meant certain death because anyone doing so would be considered an anti-government rebel.

Elkin tripped over a root and fell sprawling to the ground. For some time, he lay there, overwhelmed by an agonizing pain in his arm. Had he broken a bone or just wounded himself on a sharp stump?

Getting up on all fours, Elkin listened. It was deadly quiet all around. Only the hundred-year-old pines rustled and murmured high above him.

“Piatrus?” he called out quietly. “Where are you?”

There was no answer.

Elkin panicked. Where could he go? Where was he? Was he still on the Soviet side of the border or already on the Polish side?

A moment later, he felt a heavy blow to his temple and fell to the ground.

1

The train from Moscow to Berlin only went as far as the border station of Negoreloye, where passengers had to change trains. Soviet and European railroads ran on tracks of different gauges. This had been a deliberate strategy of the Tsarist regime, intended to hamper enemy supplies in case of an attack from abroad.

Beyond the station lay terra incognita, unknown territory to the ordinary Soviet citizen. It was nothing short of a miracle even to be on board this train. Only a chosen, lucky few could sit in these clean railroad cars, full of excitement, making plans, hearts beating fast as they counted down the hours to the cherished border.

Nina’s baggage consisted of a single basket containing a change of linen and a clean bag of toiletries. Next to this bag stood a pot decorated with eyes and handles for ears and curls around the top. It was a present from Gloria, containing ashes from the Belovs’ stove. Nina was planning to tell the customs officers that these were her grandmother’s ashes, which she was taking to Germany to scatter there, according to the old woman’s wishes. Nina’s most valuable possession, Klim’s diary, was hidden inside the lid of the pot, which Nina had sculpted with her own hands.

All the way to Negoreloye, Nina’s heart was in her mouth. What if some sharp-eyed official noticed that the lid did not match the pot? Now, Nina was regretting the sentiment that had led her to expose herself to danger for the sake of a foolish notebook. But she could not bring herself to part with the “Book of the Dead.” It was the only tangible thread linking her to Klim.

When he had come out to Saltykovka for the last time, the two of them had sat together in Belov’s study for a long time, their arms around each other.

“I’ve decided how things are going to be,” Klim had said, kissing Nina on the side of her head. “If we save our Germans, our sins will be forgiven, and everything will be all right.”

There were times when Nina thought this impossible. People for whom “everything was all right” were not like them at all. She had had the opportunity to encounter several examples as she passed through the train: a Danish engineer on his way back from a work assignment, a young woman taking her children to see her husband who worked in the embassy in Berlin, and a noisy group of American tourists who had seen what the USSR had to offer and were now setting off to Czechoslovakia.

Nina shared a compartment with a group of artists who were on their way to an international exhibition of proletarian art. They downed one beer after another and talked about their trade.

“I’ve got a portrait of a woman in oils,” a young bearded artist said. “I wanted to sell it to the People’s Commissariat for Education, but they wouldn’t take it because it didn’t have an ideological title. It’s a nice picture, and I wouldn’t want it to go to waste. Breasts out to here!” he said, holding his hands out from his chest.

All speaking at once, his fellow artists began to suggest suitably ideological titles.

“You could call it ‘Proletarian Woman’ or ‘Worker’s Daughter.’”

“No, those won’t do. How about ‘The Flame of Communism Burns Inside Her Breast’?”

“But that’s just it—there’s no communism in the picture,” sighed the bearded artist.

“Well, you can’t see it, can you? It’s inside her breast!”

The artists all laughed.

These people have hopes and a future, thought Nina, looking at them from her upper berth.

The artists discussed how the famous painter, Isaac Brodsky, had received an order for sixty copies of his painting “The Execution of the Baku Commissars” for the government offices. Each of the artists dreamed of a similar stroke of unbelievably good fortune.

As for Nina, her own dreams were humbler and less realistic than that. She prayed only that she and Klim would avoid being arrested or killed.

2

For the entire eighteen-hour journey, Nina lay on the upper berth, watching the trunks of pine trees flash by the window like armies of giant yellow pencils. Patches of snow still lay in the gullies. Dark green forests, gray roofs, black kitchen gardens, and yet more forests.

At last, at five o’clock in the afternoon, the train arrived at Negoreloye. The passengers began to gather their belongings, but they had a long wait before their passports were checked by border control officers and they were allowed to leave the train and go to the station.

As the rules required, the passengers laid their baggage out on a horseshoe-shaped bench in the center of the waiting room, and grim-faced customs officers began the inspection.

They rummaged around in suitcases as if they were tossing salad. Every now and again, they pulled something out, yelling, “Contraband!”

This was the signal for a group of young men with scales and official ledgers to descend and begin weighing, measuring, and assessing the value of the contraband item. Then the dumbstruck passengers would be presented with a fine. They could choose to pay up or to jettison the dubious souvenir—to the delight of the customs officers. It was clear from their well-fed faces that nothing here went to waste.

Nina was trembling all over. Stop! she told herself. You’ll give yourself away! But in fact, all the other passengers were just as nervous as she was. Nobody was safe from the insolent, indiscriminate tyranny of the customs officers, and nobody breathed a word of complaint, not wishing to attract unwanted attention.

Anyone carrying foreign currency had to present a stamped form from an exchange bureau. Anyone taking cameras, typewriters, fur coats, watches, or other valuables across the border had to fill out a declaration.

A porter in a white apron wheeled in a trolley laden with neat packages and began calling out the names of the passengers, asking them to collect their property. In the packages were books, magazines, posters, and handwritten material that the censor had allowed to cross the border. A few weeks before their departure, passengers had handed all this over for the censors to read, rubber-stamp, and mail on to Negoreloye.

When the officers reached Nina’s basket, she was half-fainting with fear. The customs official, a great hulking lad, rummaged with distaste through her belongings and then pulled out the pot from the basket.

“What’s this?” he asked, peering inside.

“My grandmother’s ashes,” said Nina in a weak voice.

The lad put his hand into the pot and began fumbling about to check there was nothing hidden inside.

“Damn!” he swore suddenly. His great paw had become stuck inside the pot, and he was unable to pull it out.

Amused by the incident, passengers glanced meaningfully in his direction.

He ran to his colleagues. “Hey, men, help me get this thing off!”

Each officer, in turn, tried to pull the pot off his hand but without success. Meanwhile, the ashes of “Nina’s grandmother” were scattered in all directions.

The crowd did not know whether to laugh or to be indignant at the mess that was being made of their baggage.

“To hell with it!” the officer shouted. He brought the pot hard down onto the bench with a crash, smashing it into a hundred pieces.

Nina gasped.

“You’re free to go!” he barked. “Next time, use a bigger pot.”

Nina took the basket and the pot lid and went out to the platform where the Berlin train was waiting.

When I die, she thought, I think they should scatter my ashes around some waiting room too. It would be a perfect metaphor for my life.

3

Eastern Poland looked much the same as Belorussia: the same little towns, the same fields of black earth, and the same poor country roads with puddles of rainwater in the ruts.

There were few people about; only a couple of peasants waiting with their wagon at the level crossings for the train to pass.

Now and again, Nina saw rows of old trenches and forests of dead trees with peeling bark and twisted stumps for branches. These were areas in which chemical weapons had been used during the Great War.

The train arrived in Warsaw at night, and Nina slept the whole way through western Poland. And when they arrived in Germany, everything outside the train looked different.