The Four Winds of Heaven Read online

  Sonia did not know what to do. Common decency demanded a funeral, a Kaddish; but there was no time for this, not if she and her mother were to survive. She began to tremble. There was no choice. She said to the manager of the Hotel de l’Ancre d’Or, “You shall have to arrange for the burial. Can you do this?” And holding his shocked gaze with a look of pure defiance, she pressed some coins into his hand.

  “I am going to write a letter now,” she said, attempting to control her voice. But when she took the pen, her hand shook violently. She sat down near the front desk and cleared her mind for the impossible task of explaining Olga’s death to Nadezhda Igorovna. She wrote: “If I could make you understand how sick the world has become, your loss, and ours, would not be lessened. But at least you would have an idea of how unforeseen this tragedy was. I shall blame myself forever for not being with Olga every minute. She was alive one minute, gone the next. Perhaps when you receive this we too shall be no more.”

  “What did you tell her?” Johanna demanded, her breath hot upon Sonia’s neck.

  The young woman turned to her, her gray eyes narrowed to slits. “I told her that her daughter had been killed in a senseless accident. Period.” She moved away, toward the manager. “This letter is for her mother, Madame Pomerantz. She will probably drive through here in search of news. Try to make it a funeral with dignity. And summon a Rabbi, if you can find one. That would have been important to her—to Olga.”

  Tears flowed freely down her face now, but she spoke mechanically, as though the dead girl were merely another obstacle to cross. Her pain was intense and tearing, and she thought: I must not think, I must not think about who she was. We must leave, or we shall be killed by the invading Reds. Nothing matters but the reality of our survival. She thanked the hotel manager, and departed, taking Johanna’s arm and leading her toward the cafe and her mother.

  Saïd-Bekir had come to pick up his charges, and found Mathilde alone at the cafe. He was pressed for time, and was displeased that the other ladies were making him wait. But soon they saw Johanna and Sonia approaching, both obviously disturbed.

  When Mathilde asked, in bewilderment, where Olga was and what had happened, her daughter shook her head and bit her lower lip to keep from crying. Mathilde turned to Johanna de Mey, who avoided her eyes. Fear flowed into her as through a funnel, and she gripped her daughter’s arm, repeating, “What’s wrong?”

  Breathing in short, staccato gasps, Sonia said, staring straight ahead of her, “An accident occurred, Mama. Olga is dead.” Then, as Mathilde’s face slackened, and her mouth fell open, Sonia nearly pushed her mother into the lineika. She said, quite loudly and brutally, “But we’re alive, Mama. Let’s go, Saïd-Bekir.”

  Another military convoy was leaving Karasúbazar, and to avoid it the Tartar bootmaker took the old road out of the city. It was unpaved, unkempt, scarcely used any more. As they rode, Mathilde wept, her beautiful face distorted with grief, her thoughts incoherent. She did not understand. Gino and Olga—she wept, thinking of how she had hoped, how she had dreamed of happiness for them. But she was afraid to speak, afraid of her own daughter, Sonia, whose white, grim face gleamed hard beside her.

  Suddenly, after they had driven some fifteen miles, Saïd-Bekir announced that he had not noticed the proper turnoff that should have brought them back to the new road ahead of the convoy. They would not be able to reach Stary Krym by nightfall, as planned. But after several more miles they arrived at a large farmhouse in Yushun, and the manager opened his doors to them, fed the ladies an omelette, and gave them cots to sleep on in the large living room. Saïd-Bekir slept in the horses’ stable.

  Sonia ate the eggs, in spite of her nausea. A tremendous anger seethed within her, and she thought: We shall not be defeated, we shall survive. When sleep would not come, she willed her mind to draw a blank over the events of the day. Somehow, she and her mother had to endure this, as well as anything else that came their way.

  The next morning, Saïd-Bekir told them that his horses were exhausted and he would not be able to take the Gunzburgs and Johanna any farther. The horses had to rest at the farm. Before the women could argue, the farm manager kindly offered to have one of his workers drive them the remaining distance, which was another fifteen miles. Sonia paid him one hundred rubles on top of the three hundred that she had already paid Saïd-Bekir. She did not wait to be helped, but moved all their belongings into the small buggy. In a potato sack were the hard-boiled eggs, boiled potatoes, and meat pâté; in another was clothing; in a small suitcase was the household linen with the dry goods; in a basket was the china; the toiletries were disposed in a hat carton, and the three umbrellas were bound together with twill. Sonia did not stop to sentimentalize over Olga’s umbrella, over the hatbox that belonged to her. She quickly asked her mother to climb in, and thanked the farm manager and the Tartar bootmaker.

  It was drizzling when the driver reached the outskirts of the village of Stary Krym, more than two hours later. “There are soldiers here, who may requisition my horse,” he told them. “You’ll have to get out here, so they don’t see me.” Sonia helped her mother onto the wet pavement, and left her and Johanna with the baggage while she went to inquire about rooms to let. When she returned, she declared, “There is a widow, Aspasia Vassilievna Something—we’ll have to find her. But I’ve been told that she has a small house to let, for two people, and another room in a second house where she herself lives. Mama and I shall take the first house together, and you, Juanita, can board with the widow.”

  She saw, but chose to ignore, the look of unadulterated hatred that Johanna de Mey directed at her. Instead, Sonia put an arm about her mother’s shoulders, and whispered, “We’re alive! Keep remembering that, and don’t think about the rest. Do you understand me, Mama?”

  Mutely, like a trustful but frightened child, Mathilde nodded.

  Chapter 23

  The soldiers of the White column which Saïd-Bekir had bypassed were now strolling about the main thoroughfare of Stary Krym. Sonia and Mathilde found their way to the small house on the side of the road which belonged to the widow of the veterinarian, Aspasia Vassilievna, and found her inside, with fifteen officers who were eating in cramped positions on the floor of her living room. “Go with Juanita, Mama,” Sonia directed, and when her mother had returned outside to where Johanna was sullenly waiting, Sonia produced false papers which the Zevins had obtained for them in Simferopol. “We should like to rent your house,” she announced to the widow. “As you can see, my mother and I are Feodosians, and my father, who is deceased, was a schoolteacher there. We have a friend, who would like to take the spare room in the other house, with you. Our funds are low, but we are neat and clean.”

  The widow nodded. “Whatever you can offer me will help, I assure you,” she said. “I live in my brother’s house; he was murdered by some Red bandits passing through, before the armies were organized. Now it seems that people are safer, that even the communists, when they take over, establish a militia to prevent hooliganism...” She spoke in the dull voice of one who had endured, and who did not care whether the Whites in her house heard her comments or not. She added, “These men will leave at four this afternoon. They have been on their feet since Sunday and already it is Thursday. They are bound for Kerch, and then for the Caucasus. Tonight the bedroom will be free.”

  That afternoon Sonia and Mathilde moved their belongings into the inconspicuous little house, and Johanna went to the other end of the village, with Aspasia Vassilievna. Sonia said tersely to her mother, “We are to trust no one. Our names are Gunzburg, no ‘de,’ and we are bourgeois of a lower order, provincials. If you can, avoid speaking to anyone.”

  Stary Krym was not fortified, had neither station nor port, but lay on the main thoroughfare that stretched from the east of the Crimea to the west. Each retreating troop had to pass through it, and the villagers could only rely upon blind faith to keep themselves from fearing each new arrival. Sonia went to the mayor and obtained bread
ration cards, displaying her false identity papers to him. Then she fetched petrol for their lamp, but purchased a candle in order to avoid having to use the lamp for anything but reading and sewing. There was neither electricity nor running water in Stary Krym. She found some firewood and coal for the indispensable samovar. Then, biting her lip, she spared a few precious rubles to bribe a thin Jewish butcher to deliver milk to them each day. Two days a week, she was informed, there was an open market. Life could be managed, she asserted.

  She discovered that bread was the most difficult to obtain. The lines were interminable in front of the main bakery, and it would frequently close before everyone had received his supply. Then Sonia would be forced to go to a bakery across town, and wait in a second line. She would buy two days’ worth at a time, in order to simplify matters. The markets offered some dairy goods and vegetables, as well as pottery and shoes and caps, through which she had to wind her tired way.

  The village spread over a length of several miles on the lower part of a cliff. Above stood a thick forest going to the top of the embankment, traversed by five or six roads. Beautiful villas with magnificent gardens lined these hillside paths, and far below the village gushed a spring. Across from Stary Krym rose another hill, and toward the south one could see the steppe; on the horizon, the mountains of the Tchatyr-Dag which hid the view of the sea. It was by this Black Sea that the Crimean Riviera lay crowned by Yalta, once the site of aristocratic summers.

  All the woods around Stary Krym grew carpets of violets during the springtime. When the Gunzburgs arrived, the air itself was impregnated with their scent, and all had come abloom, violets, narcissi, hyacinths, and fruit trees. It was a glorious melting pot, populated by Russians, Greeks, Jews, Karaites, Armenians, Tartars, Germans, Turks, and Bulgarians. Only the Bulgarians dwelled in self-imposed segregation, weaving the bright cloth which they displayed on their lovely women, spinning their own pots. Actually, Stary Krym should have been termed a town, for it possessed both a city hall and a cathedral; but its roads were badly paved, and reminded Sonia of stories she had heard of Orsha, where her great-grandfather, the patriarch Ossip, had been born to the village clothmaker.

  Sonia spoke little to the local inhabitants, but listened well, and learned that during these days of troubles the people frequently took refuge in the hills at night. Keeping this in mind, every two days she boiled a quantity of eggs, wrapped some firm tomatoes, and put them aside so that she and her mother might leave on a moment’s notice. In the meantime, officers succeeded one another as unexpected guests in the houses of the townspeople, while most of the soldiers were sent to sleep in the barns.

  Simferopol had been seized on April 11, neatly and quickly. The Red general made his entrance at the head of his regiment, and no looting occurred. But they were not pursuing the White soldiers retreating toward the Caucasus. It was thought that they knew they were being followed by Denikin’s troops, and would want to prepare themselves for this essential battle. The White retreat took place quietly and in orderly fashion, but the officers appeared demoralized. Orders and counter orders, arriving at a dizzying speed, bewildered them and impeded their progress, and Sonia thought of Gino. She dared not think of Olga.

  The telegraph had been closed to civilians for a long time, but now it was not working at all, except toward Feodosia and Kerch, in the east. The army had no news of the west or the north, and knew what was occurring only by hearsay, as did the civilian population. Much of this news was wrong, and would be contradicted as quickly as it arrived. There were no newspapers at all.

  On Monday, April 14, Sonia and her mother celebrated the Seder, simply by thinking about it. They had neither matzo nor a Haggadah from which to read. Both women thought of David. If not for the sharp, keen memory of her husband, Mathilde would have forgotten Passover. The holiday itself held no meaning for her. But Sonia said, “The Jews experienced the same despair that pervades us here, did they not? We do not need a holy book to remember their exodus, their fear of the morrow.” But she grieved for the Seders of her childhood.

  There was no question now of attempting to lead an everyday existence, as they had in Simferopol. At first, when tragedy had struck around them, Sonia had tried to shield her mother from it. Mathilde had become like a child. During moments of crisis, someone—her husband, Johanna—had always taken care of her. But now Sonia found that too much fast thinking was demanded of her: her mother would simply have to cope for herself. She herself could see to the preservation of their lives, but that was her limit.

  On the morning of April 16, the women were awakened early by shattered glass. Sonia darted to the windows, in time to see four men running out of the house next door, carrying linens and silverware. “Mama,” she cried, “I cannot believe it! One of them stole some soap! Of all things— soap!” The four thieves mounted their horses and rode off into the hills. Sonia said, “Mama, please help me. We need to round up our supplies, in case we have to flee to save ourselves. There may not be time later.”

  The following day, a young neighbor ran in to announce that the Reds were entering the town. Sonia followed her outside, into the street. A crowd had gathered. Her mouth a taut, bloodless line, Sonia hung on the outskirts of the crowd, hearing the beat of her heart above the roar of the fifty Red soldiers who marched down the road. Men and women in peasant garb threw salt upon them in welcome, and handed them loaves of thick rye bread. Some women ran up with colored Easter eggs, and Sonia saw that a few youths had donned sympathetic Red armbands. She longed to cry out against this insanity, but no words came to her lips.

  How would her father have reacted? Sonia thought. Lately, her mind had frequently gone to him. His ideals had always loomed so high above the pettiness of life, and for him honor had reigned supreme among virtues. What would he have done in Sonia’s place? Would he have left Olga’s body with the hotel manager? Probably not; but then, he was dead and she was alive. This was no time for philosophy, nor even for goodness.

  Several days later, waiting in line for bread, Sonia heard excited cries from the inn down the road. She debated whether to remain in her place, or to check on the disturbance. But if there was danger, she should learn about it, to protect her mother and herself. She did not even think about Johanna. Since Olga’s death, Sonia had actually hoped that her mother’s friend would die. Johanna had killed Gino’s fiancée: somehow, Sonia was sure of it. There was no mercy for her now in Sonia’s heart.

  Lifting her thick skirt, Sonia ran in the direction of the commotion. Men and women blocked the doorway of the Omansky Inn but she slid between them, pushing her way through to the courtyard. Once there, her breathing stopped in a horrified gasp. The bodies of a man and a woman stretched down from the limbs of a tree, their limp necks tied to the branches by a heavy cord. Their faces were blue and very puffy. Sonia clenched her hands into fists, and swallowed back a spurt of bile. She had seen worse: she had seen Olga die.

  That night she said to her mother, “Give me the diamond crab, Mama. It is no longer safe under the mattress. It is our last bargaining piece, should our lives hang in the balance.” When Mathilde gave it to her, she pinned it unceremoniously to her bodice. Then she fetched a rusty axe: she had an idea.

  On Easter morning, April 20, Stary Krym wore its holiday attire. The pear and plum trees exhaled a marvelous perfume, and the fields stretched in multicolored expanses of flowers. The forest was filled with violets, and in the villagers’ gardens lilacs bloomed. The migratory birds had returned, and now cuckoos, hoopoes, bullfinches, skylarks, and nightingales added their hymns to the celebration of spring. Feodosia fell to the Reds the following day; and Mayor Slobodkin went there to fetch a commissar to prevent further outbreaks of murder in his little town. From a hillside promontory Sonia watched the billows of gray smoke in the harbor below: the long-awaited Allied ships were firing at last upon the Reds in Feodosia.

  News of the fighting filtered in as various contingents of soldiers passed through Stary Krym. Ge
neral Kolchak of the White Army had arrived at the Volga, his cohort Denikin now advanced on the Crimean peninsula, and the friendly Poles had taken Kiev. When the Reds learned that they were being crushed, Sonia thought, they would die like a struggling, wounded beast, wreaking bloody havoc. Communism would die like a bull in the ring. Life would resume, she and her mother would return to claim what was theirs in Petrograd... if they survived.

  Troops passed through the village and men stopped to drink tea at the small house off the road, telling Sonia that Sevastopol had been taken by the Whites after a tremendous battle, during which the Reds had lost fifteen hundred men. There had been no fighting in Simferopol. In Karagoz the most savage band of Reds from the Caucasus, the Tchechians, had committed dreadful atrocities; they were feared everywhere, and were surnamed “the terrible infantry.” Young women and wine, in particular, fed their inner fires. Sonia listened to the words, mulling them over as she went with her two buckets to the public fountain, to obtain water for brewing tea.

  That evening, she told her mother of her decision. To the best of her ability, she had examined the foundations of the house and thought that a small cavity existed beneath the floor where she and Mathilde might take refuge in case of extreme danger. When darkness fell, she pried loose the boards of the bedroom floor, preparing for an emergency. She said to her mother, “On no account must Juanita learn of this hideaway. Our safety may depend upon your silence.” But she did not elaborate and Mathilde had stared at her uncomprehendingly, with terror glazed upon her features.

  Mathilde knew only that something had gone awry with Johanna, whom she had loved with total commitment. She had sacrificed Anna to her, and certainly David. She did not regret her betrayal of her husband, because she had not chosen to be his wife. He had known her well when he married her, the daughter of his dissipated gambling uncle, a girl reared in agnosticism, reared as a Frenchwoman. And he had wanted her nevertheless. But Anna had not chosen to be born, had only wanted freedom. Riri stung Mathilde’s conscience as nothing else could. She had always felt most guilty about her lack of motherly love for her older daughter, whose appearance had displeased her maternal vanity. There had even been moments when she had blotted out Sonia’s distinct features with Johanna’s soothing comfort, willing herself to ignore the hurts piled upon her second daughter. Had there been other betrayals? Mathilde did not know. She knew only that Johanna had kindled her soft round body as no one ever had, that she had belonged to her body and soul, mind and will, from the start. Johanna had been salvation, a world beyond the world. But there had come a time for growing older and more thoughtful, perhaps less selfish. Mathilde had felt fewer moments of need for Johanna, and the result had been the destruction of their unity. An aging couple must grow old together, at the same pace, but she and Johanna had missed a step. They had met Nadia Pomerantz, and Johanna had treated her disgracefully and had never been the same since then. Mathilde lay down and wept, remembering the nights of soft kisses, the sweet-smelling golden hair. There were names for such as she and Johanna, and they were shameful names, but, Mathilde thought, those who name do not understand...