Live, he’d said, and I’d agreed.
So with empty arms and a heart turned to stone, I leave my son there, all by himself, lying dead in a cot by the door, and once again I start to walk. I know that all I will ever have of my son now is a date on the calendar and the stuffed rabbit that is in my suitcase.
I will not tell you what I did to get a seat on the train going east. It doesn’t matter anyway. I am not really me. I am this wasted, white-haired body that cannot rest, although I long just to lie down and close my eyes and give up. The ache of loss is with me always, tempting me to close my eyes.
Anya.
Sasha.
These are the words I cling to, even though sometimes I forget of whom I am even dreaming. From my place on the train, I see the ruined countryside. Bodies in heaps. Scars on the land from falling bombs. Always there is the sound of aircraft and gunfire.
The train moves forward slowly, stopping in several small towns. At each stop, starving people fight to get on board, to be one of the glassy-eyed grimy crowd heading east. There is talk, whispered around me, of heavy fighting in front of us, but I don’t listen. Don’t care, really. I am too empty to care about much of anything.
And then, miraculously, we arrive at Vologda. When the train doors open, I realize that I did not expect to make it here.
I remember smiling.
Smiling.
I even tuck my hair into my kerchief more tightly so Sasha will not see how old I have become. I clutch the small valise that holds all of my belongings—our belongings—and fight through the crowd to get to the front.
Out in the cold, we disperse quickly; people going this way and that, probably looking for food or friends.
I stand there, feeling the others peel away from me. In the distance, I hear the drone of planes, and I know what it means. We all know what it means. The air-raid alarm sounds and my fellow passengers start to run for cover. I can see people flinging themselves into ditches.
But Sasha is there, not one hundred yards in front of me. I can see that he is holding Anya’s hand. Her bright red coat looks like a plump, healthy cardinal against the snow.
I am crying before I take my first step. My feet are swollen and covered with boils, but I don’t even notice. I just think, My family, and run. I want Sasha’s arms around me so badly that I don’t think.
Stupid.
I hear the bomb falling too late. Did I think it was my heart, that whistling sound, or my breathing?
Everything explodes at once: the train, the tree beside me, a truck off to the side of the road.
I see Sasha and Anya for a split second and then they are in the air, flying sideways with fire behind them. . . .
When I wake up, I am in a hospital tent. I lie there until my memory resurfaces and then I get up.
All around me is a sea of burned, broken bodies. People are crying and moaning.
It is a moment before I realize that I can see no colors. My hearing is muffled, as if there is cotton in my ears. The side of my face is scraped and cut and bleeding, but I hardly feel it.
The red-orange fire is the last color I will ever see.
“You should not be up,” a man says to me. He has the worn look of someone who has seen too much war. His tunic is torn in places.
“My husband,” I say, yelling to hear my own voice above the din. There is a ringing in my ears, too. “My daughter. A little girl in a red coat and a man. They were standing . . . the train was bombed . . . I have to find them. ”
“I’m sorry,” he says, and my heart is pounding so hard I can’t hear anything past, no survivors . . . just you . . . Here—
I push past him, stumbling from bed to bed, but all I find are strangers.
Outside, it is snowing hard and freezing cold. I do not recognize this place. It is an endless snowy field. The damage done by the blast is covered now in white, though I can see a heap that must be bodies.
Then I see it: a small, dark blot on the snow, lying folded up against the nearest tent.
I would like to say I ran toward it, but I only walk; I don’t even see that my feet are bare until the burning cold sets in.