Sashenka

“Is she a fantasist? Maybe there’s no telegram?” his assistant asked when they’d left.

“Who knows?” Stepanian shrugged, dismissing them, and returned to his desk with a click of his tongue. He had an important job to do.

Outside the office, the bedraggled threesome walked slowly back to the platforms. Rostov-on-Don station boomed with the thunder of shunting carriages while the air sang with the whistle and puffing of locomotives. Even though the turmoil of collectivization and the Terror was over, the regional stations were still mangy bedlams of confused humanity. Families camped around their suitcases, some well-to-do, some in rags, some in city clothes, some in peasant boots and smocks. Trains were overbooked and never left on time; tickets were hard to buy; the militia checked and rechecked passes and passport stamps, removing those who lacked the correct papers or the energy to dodge their sudden descents.

It was lucky it was a warm summer because the platforms resembled an encampment, crowded with soldiers, workers, peasants and children, hungry ragged children, well-fed lost children, children sitting on handsome leather suitcases, urchins with the faces of old men, little girls with painted lips and short skirts smoking cigarettes and looking for customers.

The canteen in the station offered snacks for those with rubles. An old Tatar ran a kiosk selling newspapers and candies, and behind the Moscow platform was a rusty spigot where the station’s inhabitants lined up all day for water. The lavatories, down the steps under the station, were awash with a foamy stinking waste yet there were constant lines; children sobbed and wet themselves and adults fought to get to the front faster.

Carolina was more than worried now. She did not know what had happened to Sashenka and presumed the worst. She was a deeply practical woman but the stress of caring for two children in the station was eating at her. She prided herself on her cleanliness, but by now all three of them were dirty, the children’s clothes stained with food, grease and piss. She had a plentiful supply of rubles for food, but Snowy and Carlo, delicate eaters, were used to fine cooking and hated the watery vegetable soup, black bread and dumplings in thin tomato sauce that were the only things available in the canteen. They were already losing weight. During the day they played with other children but Carolina could never relax because some of these urchins had become feral tricksters who were capable of anything. She had to watch the suitcases too. At night they slept together, hugging one another, on their rolled-up mattress under a blanket and some coats. Snowy and Carlo cried in her arms and asked about Mummy and Daddy. When would they see them again? Where were they going?

The actual departure from Moscow had been easy enough: Vanya’s parents had reserved seats for Carolina and the children. The train had left on time; and although the journey had taken a day longer than scheduled, a kind Red Army soldier and his young wife, on their way to a new posting on the Turkish border, had taken pity on them and brought them ice creams and snacks from the stations where the train stopped. But the children knew something was terribly wrong. They wanted their mother. Carolina longed to comfort them but did not want to lie, or to encourage them to say dangerous things that might draw attention. It was agony. As they traveled away from their former life, from their parents, from Moscow, Snowy and Carlo clung to her.

“Will you be with us, Carolina? You’re staying with us, aren’t you? I miss Mama!”

After their visit to Comrade Stepanian, they went for their daily snack in the canteen. They sat at one of the greasy Formica tables. Carolina found that she was shaking. Weary and dispirited, she tried to fight off an attack of naked panic. The Palitsyns were gone. Perhaps Comrade Satinov had forgotten his plan? Perhaps he too had been destroyed? She counted her money in her mind: she had twenty-five rubles in her hand and the large sum of four hundred rubles in her brassiere, for emergencies. If there was no message soon, she would have to make a difficult decision. She had already decided there was no question of leaving Snowy and Carlo at an orphanage of any sort, especially not an NKVD one, but she had few connections in officialdom, and none that was independent of the Palitsyns. She would have to take the children home with her, to her German village not far from Rostov. This filled her with joy, for she loved Snowy and Carlo. They loved her too and she knew that in time she could heal the wounds of loss with her loving care. But she was too old to be their mother and how long would it be before the NKVD came to arrest the Palitsyns’ nanny—and where else would they search than in her own village?