Winter Garden

“Come, Zoya,” her grandmother says in a harsh voice. “It does not look good to be late. ”

Vera can see that her mother’s lip is bleeding from where she has bitten it. She goes to her grandchildren and kneels down, taking them in her arms and holding them.

“Don’t cry, Baba,” Leo says. “You can walk with us tomorrow. ”

Across the room, Olga bursts into tears and tries immediately to control herself. “I am going now, Mama. ”

Mama lets go slowly and gets back to her feet. “Be good,” is the last thing she says to her grandchildren. She hands Vera one hundred rubles. “It is all we have left. I’m sorry. . . . ”

Vera nods and hugs her mother one last time. Then she straightens. “Let’s go, children. ”

It is a beautiful sunny day. The six of them walk together for as long as they can; Mama and Baba leave first, turning toward the Badayev food warehouses where they both work; Olga leaves next. She hugs her niece and nephew fiercely and tries to hide her tears and she runs toward her trolley stop.

Now it is just Vera and her children, walking down the busy street. All around her, trenches are being dug, shelters are being built. They stop in the Summer Garden, but the swans are gone from the pond and the statues are sandbagged. There are no children playing here today, no bicycle rings bleating out.

Smiling too brightly, Vera takes her children by the hands and leads them to a part of the city where they have never been.

Inside the building that they enter there is pandemonium. Queues snake through the hall in every direction, flowing away from desks overrun with paperwork, manned by Party members in drab clothing with dour, disappointed faces.

Vera knows they should go directly into the first processing queue and wait their turn, but suddenly she is not as strong as she needs to be. Taking a deep breath, she takes her children to a corner. It is not quiet here—the sounds of people are everywhere—footsteps, crying, sneezing, begging. The whole place smells of body odor and onions and cured meat.

Vera kneels down.

Anya is frowning. “It smells in here, Mama. ”

“Comrade Floppy doesn’t like this place,” Leo says, hugging his bunny.

“Do you remember, when Papa went off to join the Peoples’ Volunteer Army, he told us we would all have to be strong?”

“I’m strong,” Leo says, showing off a pudgy pink fist.

“Yes,” Anya says. She is suspicious now. Vera sees that her daughter is looking at the coats in Vera’s arms and the suitcase she has brought from home.

Vera takes the heavy red woolen coat and puts it on Anya, buttoning it up to her throat. “It is too hot for this, Mama,” Anya whines, wiggling.

“You’re going on a trip,” Vera says evenly. “Not for long. Just a week or two. And you might need your coat. And here . . . here in this suitcase I have packed a few more clothes and some food. Just in case. ”

“You are not wearing a coat,” Anya says, frowning.

“I . . . uh . . . I have to work and stay at home, but you will be home before you know it and I’ll be waiting for you. When you get back—”

“No,” Anya says firmly. “I don’t want to go without you. ”

“I don’t want to,” Leo wails.

“We have no choice. You understand what this means? War is coming, and our great Comrade Stalin wants you children to be safe. You’re going to take a short train ride south until our Red Army triumphs. Then you will come home to Papa and me. ”

Leo is crying now.

“You want us to go?” Anya asks, her blue eyes filling with tears.

No, Vera thinks, even as she nods. “I need you to take care of your brother,” she says. “You are so strong and smart. You will stay with him always, and never wander off. Okay? Can you be strong for me?”

“Yes, Mama,” Anya says.

For the next five hours, they stand in one queue after another. The children are processed and sorted and sent to other lines. By the end of the afternoon, the evacuation center is literally overrun with children and their mothers but the place is strangely quiet. The children sit as they are told, their faces shiny with sweat in the coats they shouldn’t need, their legs swinging in front of them. None of the mothers look at each other; it hurts too much to see your own pain reflected in another woman’s eyes.

And finally the train arrives. Metal wheels scream; smoke billows into the air. At first the crowd just sits there—no one wants to move—but when the whistle pierces the silence, they run like a herd, mothers bustling past each other, elbowing hard, trying to get their babies seats on the train that will save them.