Death of a Nightingale

UKRAINE, 1934

“You’re to keep your mouth shut. Understand? What I do in my own house is none of your business or anyone else’s.”

Grandfather pounded the table so hard that the warm tea in his mug sloshed over the rim and soaked into the rough grain of the wood. Oxana started, but she didn’t lower her eyes. On the contrary, she raised her chin in defiance, giving him a small, stubborn smile of the kind she normally offered Olga when she thought Olga had done something particularly childish.

But Grandfather wasn’t a child. How did she dare? True, he was little and bent and moved with difficulty, but when he hit, he hit hard, fists to the face. He had gotten up, swaying and threatening, planting both his broad, lumpy hands on the table for support while he glared at Oxana. The smells of rank body and goatskin and vodka billowed in the air around him.

“But Russian vodka is the people’s enemy,” said Oxana. “We have to fight drunkenness, crime and religious sloth.”

“Shut up.”

Oxana collected herself. “But Grandfather,” she said. She wasn’t completely unaffected, because her voice had gotten a little bit shrill now. “You yourself have seen what vodka does to people. When men drink, they can’t work. They fight and kill each other. It’s the capitalists’ weapon to anesthetize the masses.”

Grandfather’s eyes were half closed and swimming now. “Kapitalistki, sotsialitski, kommunitski,” he growled. He shoved the table so hard that all the mugs teetered, and one fell down and shattered on the floor. “That crazy teacher of yours means trouble. Stay away from her. You’re smart, they say. It shouldn’t be so hard to understand.”

He stumbled around the table and fell toward Oxana, who had positioned herself by the brick oven, Grandfather’s vodka bottle in one hand. She was furious. A bottle of vodka was not only hard to come by, it was also expensive, and the money could have served a more useful purpose. The standard bread rations from the kolkhoz were only enough for bare survival, and bread and butter were expensive in the open market. Kolja needed the extra nourishment, as did Mother.

Grandfather raised his fist, and Olga instinctively ducked in her seat by the chimney. She expected any moment to hear the sound of Oxana’s skull being split open by Grandfather’s fists, but instead it was Mother’s icy voice that broke the silence.

“Leave her alone.”

Olga opened her eyes again and saw Mother standing in the doorway. The draft made her heavy skirt flutter faintly. It was cold outside now, with frost at night, and Mother’s face and hands were red from the chill. Grandfather backed away from Oxana. He had wrenched the dirty vodka bottle out of her hand and was staring meanly from Mother to Oxana before he finally ambled out of the living room. He slammed the door hard behind him. Olga caught a glimpse of him through the dirty window. He looked like an angry wounded bear, thought Olga, crossing the little courtyard with short, lurching steps before he disappeared down the road toward the village.

Mother signed deeply and sat down with little Kolja on her lap. The clay bowl that she had brought in from the barn was almost empty again today. Zorya’s milk barely covered the bottom. The calf from the spring was long gone, and the cow was not a miracle machine that could produce milk from potato peels and straw. No matter how much you boxed her sunken udders, it was usually only possible to extract a few drops at a time. Now Mother brought the bowl up to Kolja’s mouth.

“Drink, my boy,” she hummed. “Milk from Zorya for you.”

Kolja squirmed, wrinkled his little face and turned his head away.

“Drink, Kolja.” Mother’s voice was sharp now, and she pressed the bowl against Kolja’s lips until he reluctantly emptied it in one swallow. Then he placed his face against Mother’s throat and closed his eyes.

“Why doesn’t he help us?” Oxana’s voice flicked like a whip through the living room. “I’ve heard the widow doesn’t lack for anything, and we are his children. You are his wife.”

Mother didn’t answer, just sat with half-closed eyes and stared straight into space. Olga didn’t like it. Mother’s neck, which used to be smooth and brown and smelled of herbs from the garden, had gotten wrinkled and stringy. Dirt caked her chest and breastbone darkly, and in a few places it had cracked and fallen off, the skin beneath showing a transparent pink. Olga knew that it had something to do with Father, even though she didn’t completely understand why Mother had stopped washing from one day to the next. Just as it was clearly also Father’s fault that they were living here instead of in the house in the village next to Jana.

It was Oxana who took care of bathing Kolja now, and Oxana who woke up Mother so that she made it to work in the morning, but the caked dirt on Mother’s neck they couldn’t do anything about, just as they couldn’t get Father to love Mother again and ask them to move back into the house.

Oxana cursed quietly. “He’s a shit,” she hissed. “A no-good piece of shit.” She spun around and began to put on her heavy coat.

Mother didn’t move. In fact, it didn’t even look as if she had noticed.

“Where are you going?” asked Olga.

“I’m meeting Comrade Semienova down at the school.”

“But we just got home.”

“Yes.” Oxana smiled faintly. “But we are so busy, and Comrade Semienova has said that I, Leda and Jegor may sleep in the schoolroom when we’ve finished writing our article. We’re going to have potatoes and salt pork and real tea that Comrade Semienova has had sent from Leningrad.”

“But what if Grandfather—”

“Grandfather is an old drunk. He doesn’t understand that these are new times.”

Olga looked over at Mother and Kolja, who sat still as pillars of salt at the table. It was already getting dark, and when Grandfather came home, he would have emptied the rest of his vodka bottle and be tired and hungry and mean. “Can I come?”

Oxana looked at her in surprise over her shoulder. Then she laughed. “That wouldn’t do, Olga. Remember that both Leda and Jegor are fourteen. You’re only eight.”

“So what?” protested Olga. “You’re only ten.”

“That’s different,” said Oxana, holding her head high. “Comrade Semienova says I have a very early understanding of the issues.”

Olga felt an odd desperation creep up on her. A night without Oxana. She had never tried that before. Never. And especially now, when Grandfather would be angry and crazy, and Mother just sat there staring into empty space. “But did Mother say you could go?”

Oxana glanced quickly at the two unmoving shadows at the table. “Honestly, Olga,” she said, lowering her voice, “Mother can’t even take care of herself right now. I need to be the strong one. Do you understand what I mean?”

Olga didn’t, but Oxana clearly wasn’t planning to explain any further. She just tied her scarf under her chin and looked at Olga with a steady gaze. “Make sure to keep the fire in the oven lit, but don’t light the lamp before it’s necessary. We’re almost out of petroleum, and what we have is rubbish anyway. It’s better used on the lice.”

Her hand touched Olga’s shoulder lightly. “Trust me, Olga.”

She opened the door and stepped out into the fall dusk. Olga looked after her as she tramped through the mud in the same direction that Grandfather had disappeared. Then Olga bent down and began picking up the shards.