“We will be away from here someday,” he promises. “We will go to Alaska, just like we talked about. It won’t always be like this. ”
“Alaska,” I say, remembering this dream of his, of ours. “Land of the Midnight Sun. Yes. . . . ”
But a dream like that—any dream—is far away now and it only makes my pain worse.
I look at him, and though he says something, I see his thoughts in his green eyes, or maybe it is my own thoughts reflected. Either way, we break apart and Sasha says to our slumped, red-eyed children, “Mama and I must go take care of Baba. ”
Leo, sitting on the kitchen floor, starts to cry, but it is a pale imitation of my son’s sadness, of his tears. I know. I have seen him burst into tears when he is healthy. Now he just . . . leaks water from his eyes and sits there, too hungry and exhausted to do more.
“We’ll stay here, Papa,” Anya says solemnly. “I’ll take care of Leo. ”
“My good children,” Sasha says. He keeps them busy while I wash Mama, and dress her in her best dress. I try not to notice how shrunken and thin she is . . . not really my mother at all, but . . .
It is true what they say. Children become adults who become children again. I cannot help thinking of this cycle as I gently wash my mother’s body and button her buttons and pin her hair. When I am done, she looks like she is sleeping and I bend down and kiss her cold, cold cheek and whisper my good-bye.
Then it is time.
Sasha and I dress for the cold. I put on everything I own—four pairs of socks, my mother’s oversized valenki, pants, dresses, sweaters. I can barely fit into my coat, and once I have wrapped a scarf around my head, my face looks like a child’s.
Out we go, into the cold, black day. Streetlamps are on in places, their light blurred by falling snow. We tie Mama to the little red sled that once was a family toy and now is perhaps our most important possession. Sasha is strong enough to drag it through the heavy snow, thank God.
I am weak. I try to hide it from my husband, but how can I? Every step through the knee-deep snow is a torture for me. My breath comes in great, burning gasps. I want to sit down but I know better.
In front of us, a man weaves drunkenly forward, clutches a streetlamp, and bends over, breathing hard.
We walk past him. This is what we do now, what we have become. When I look back, breathing hard myself, he has fallen in the snow. I know that when we go home we will see his blue, frozen body. . . .
“Don’t look,” Sasha says.
“I see anyway,” I say, and keep trudging forward. How can I not see? Rumors are that three thousand people a day are dying, mostly old men and young children. We women are stronger somehow.
Thankfully, Sasha is in the army, so we only have to stand in line a few hours for a death certificate. We will lose Mama’s food ration, but lying about her death is more dangerous than starving.
By the time we leave the warmth of standing in line, I am beyond exhausted. The hunger is gnawing at my belly and I feel so light-headed that sometimes I cry for no reason. The tears freeze on my cheeks instantly.
There are streetlamps on at the cemetery, although I wish it were dark. In the falling snow, the bodies are hidden, coated in white, but there is no mistaking them: corpses stacked like firewood at the cemetery gates.
The ground is too frozen for burial. I should have known this. I would have known it if my mind were working, but hunger has made me stupid and slow.
Sasha looks at me. The sadness in his eyes is unbearable. I want to give in then, just slump into the snow and stop caring.
“I can’t leave her here,” I say, unable to even count the bodies. Neither can I bring her home again. It is what too many neighbors have done, just set aside a place for the dead in their apartments, but I cannot do it.
Sasha nods and moves forward, dragging the sled around the snowy mounds and into the dark, quiet cemetery.
We hold hands. It is the only way we can know where the other is. We find an open space beneath a tree laced with snow and frost. I hope this tree will be the protector for her I was not.
Our voices echo through the falling snow as we tell each other this is the place. I will always know this tree, recognize it, and here I will find her again someday, or at least I will stand here and remember her. From now on, I will always remember her on the fourteenth of December, wherever I am. It is not much, but it is something.
I kneel in the snow; even with gloves on, my fingers are trembling with cold as I untie the ropes and release her frozen body.
“I am sorry, Mama,” I whisper, my teeth chattering. I touch her face in the darkness like a blind woman, trying to remember how she looks. “I’ll come back in the spring. ”
“Come on,” Sasha says, pulling me to my feet. I know better than to kneel, even for this, in the snow. Already my knees are colder. Soon I will not be able to feel my legs.
We leave her there. Alone.
“It is all we can do,” Sasha says later as we trudge for home, our breathing ragged.