The Story of a Life

85

A Cry in the Night

It must have been at that late hour when everything succumbs to silence and the miry darkness. Even the water in the rusty pipes ran dry in the middle of the night and stopped its rhythmic drip from the tap in the kitchen. It was one of those torpid nights that breed troubled dreams and leave a vague sense of disquiet.

Someone had been trying to rouse me for a long time, but I could not wake up. In fact, I didn’t want to wake up and kept trying to hold onto a vanishing glimmer of light in my befuddled mind. Then, in a sudden flash, the sound of crying broke through this tense struggle. I opened my eyes, quickly sat up and saw Mama. She was sitting at the foot of my bed. Grey, dishevelled hair fell over her face. Clutching the bed rail, she sobbed silently, her shoulders shaking.

‘What is it?’ I whispered. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘Quiet,’ Mama said, choking back her tears. ‘You’ll wake Galya.’

‘What’s happened? Tell me.’

‘I don’t know,’ Mama said in a confused voice. Her head was trembling. I thought she might be losing her mind. ‘I don’t know what’s happened, but clearly it’s something terrible. Get up and listen. Go to the balcony.’

I got up and slowly groped my way across the room. The balcony door was wide open. I went out, listened, and froze. From far off, in the direction of Vasilkovskaya Street, tumbling violently through the darkened city towards us, came a collective scream of terror and mass death. No one individual voice could be discerned amid the confused, horrified wail.

‘What is this?’ I said, speaking to the darkness.

‘It’s a pogrom,’ Amalia answered unexpectedly from behind me. Her teeth were chattering. I sensed she was at breaking point and on the verge of hysteria. I listened again. All I could hear were screams, nothing else. There was no shooting, no crashing of broken glass, no reddened sky from fires to suggest a pogrom. Things had been quiet for a time after the horrible Haidamak pogroms. And it had been quiet when Denikin’s troops first arrived. The Jews had been left in peace. Only rarely, and then in the empty back streets away from crowded parts of the city, did gangs of Cadets with cocaine eyes ride by on prancing horses, singing their favourite song:

Ride, Black Hussars!

Save Russia, beat the Yids!

Kill the Jew Commissars!

But after Soviet forces pushed Denikin’s army back from Orël and began to drive it farther to the south, the Whites’ mood changed. Pogroms erupted in towns and villages all over the countryside. The ring of pogroms closed around Kiev, until finally they reached Vasilkovskaya Street that night. The thugs had surrounded one of the large houses but failed to break in. Then, from the hidden darkness of the house, came a woman’s scream, full of terror and despair, that tore through the sinister quiet of the night. It was the only weapon she had with which to defend her children – just this endless, unbroken wail of fear and helplessness. The whole house, from the cellar to the attic, responded to the lonely cry of this woman with a mighty roar of its own, which so overwhelmed the murderous thugs that they turned and ran. But there was nowhere for them to run to – they were now surrounded by people crying from all the houses along Vasilkovskaya and the surrounding streets.

This cry spread like the wind from district to district. What was so especially terrifying was that the cry came from dark and what looked like empty houses and utterly deserted streets, absent of any signs of life other than a few flickering gas lamps that seemed to light its way. I learned of all this later. At the time, unsure what was happening, I hurriedly got dressed and prepared to go and find that place where the heart-rending cry was coming from. Mama also got dressed. She had decided to come with me.

I didn’t really know myself why I was going out. I couldn’t stay at home. I realised that I wouldn’t be able to calm down until I knew what was causing that cry. Not knowing was worse than the danger that everyone faced who dared to walk Kiev’s hellish streets at night. In the end, we didn’t have to leave the building. As we were still dressing, the cry reached the neighbouring Fundukleevskaya Street and then the three-storey building next door. Not a window in it was lit. I went back out to the balcony and saw several men racing down Fundukleevskaya, trying to escape the shrieking houses. They must have been some of the marauders.

I was jittery from nerves. Sitting on the floor, rocking from side to side with her head in her hands, Amalia moaned softly. Mama got her up, brought her back to her room, and gave her essence of valerian. I listened. They were screaming in Podol, in Nova Zabudova, in Bessarabka – the whole city was screaming. The cry must have been heard well outside Kiev. This cry for mercy and charity rose up, beat against the low, black sky, and then echoed back to earth.

The pogrom failed. Denikin’s commanders had never expected such a reaction. Surprised and embarrassed, they sent in armed detachments to restore order. All the street lamps were lit. Early in the morning, the military government posted a reassuring order around the city. That day, the Kievan published an article under the title ‘Torture by Terror’ by the famous conservative Vasily Shulginfn1 in which he uncharacteristically attacked Denikin’s High Command for abetting pogroms.

I had heard people scream from horror before, crowds too, but never an entire city. It was unbearable, beyond terrifying, because it robbed one of the habitual, and clearly naïve, assumption of a common human bond shared by all of us. It was a cry directed at the last remnants of human conscience. It can’t be denied that the path to justice, freedom and happiness has been truly terrifying at times. Nothing more than a profound faith in the victory of light and reason over barbarous stupidity has been able to save us from complete despair. Such is the power of the human conscience that it can never be written off for good.

Recently, a writer friend of mine told me something extraordinary. My friend grew up in Latvia and speaks the language fluently. Not long after the end of the war, he took a local commuter train from Riga to the coast. Opposite him sat a quiet, grim old Latvian man. They fell into conversation, and the man told my friend this story.

‘Listen, I live in a suburb of Riga. Before the war, a man moved into the house next to mine. He was a bad, dishonest man. I would even say he was a thoroughly wicked man. He was a black marketeer. You know what they’re like – no heart, no principles. Some people insist black marketeering is just another way to make money. But off what? I’d say less off human greed and more off human sorrow and children’s tears. He worked together with his wife. So, anyway, when the Germans occupied Riga, they drove all the Jews into the ghetto. They killed half of them straight away, the other half they let slowly starve to death. The ghetto was completely cordoned off. Not even a cat could get out. If you came within fifty paces of the sentries, they’d shoot you on the spot. Hundreds of Jews were dying in the ghetto every day. Most of them were children. It was then my neighbour hit on his bright idea – load a cart with potatoes and drive it into the ghetto. He’d have to bribe his way in by giving a few to the German sentry, but he could exchange the rest for the Jews’ gold and jewellery. Word was the Jews still had loads of valuables on them. And that’s just what he did. I saw him before he set out on his first trip. You won’t believe what he told me. “I’m only going to trade the potatoes with women who have children.” I asked him why. “Because for the sake of feeding their starving children, they’ll be willing to pay me double.” I said nothing to this, but it still cost me. Just look.’

The old Latvian removed his pipe and opened his mouth. Several of his teeth were missing.

‘I said nothing, but bit down so hard on my pipe I broke the stem and snapped two of my teeth in half. Talk about blood rushing to your head! Mine rushed this way and that – but mostly to my fists. They became so heavy all of a sudden that I thought they had turned to iron. And if he hadn’t left just then, I could very well have killed him with one punch. I think he sensed it. He jumped back from me and snarled like a hyena. But that’s beside the point. That night he loaded up his cart with bags of potatoes and drove off for the ghetto. The sentry stopped him, but as you can imagine, the two scoundrels understood each other right away. The sentry took his bribe and then said to the man: “You’re a fool. Go on ahead, but the only things they’ve got left are empty bellies. You’ll be driving back home with these same old rotten potatoes. Care to bet on it?”

‘Well, he drove his cart into the courtyard of a large house. Women and children came out and stood around the cart. One woman was holding a dead boy in one arm and stretched out to him a broken gold watch in the other. “Are you crazy?” the man screamed at her. “Why do you need potatoes if he’s already dead? Get out of the way!” He told me later himself he didn’t know what came over him next. He clenched his teeth, and then with all his might began tearing open the sacks and letting the potatoes spill onto the ground. “Hurry!” he yelled at the women. “Give me your children. I’ll sneak them out. Just tell them not to move a muscle and be as quiet as mice. Hurry now!” The mothers quickly hid their frightened children in the sacks and the man tied them up tight. Imagine, it all happened so fast the mothers didn’t even have time to kiss their children goodbye. And they knew they’d never see them again. The whole cart was loaded with children, except for a few sacks with potatoes that he had placed around the sides. The women kissed the cart’s dirty wheels as he drove off, looking straight ahead. He yelled loudly at the horses the whole time, fearful one of the children might make a sound and give them all away, but no one did.

‘The same sentry saw him coming and called to him: “Well? Didn’t I say you were a fool? Now get the hell out of here with your stinkin’ potatoes before the lieutenant shows up.” So, he drove out of the ghetto past the sentry, cursing the beggar Jews and their damned children with all his breath. He didn’t go home but headed off down some empty country lanes through the woods in the direction of Tukums. Our partisans had gathered there, and he gave the children to them to hide in a safe place. Back at home he told his wife that the Germans had taken all the potatoes and held him prisoner for two days. After the war, he divorced her and moved away from Riga.’

The old Latvian paused here. After a while, he smiled for the first time and said: ‘Now I’m thinking it’s a good thing I didn’t lose my temper and kill him with that mighty punch of my iron fist.’