The Impossible Journey (11 page)

The man gave Tadibe an uncertain look but only said to Georgi and me, “Write down, ‘Stalin is our great father.'”

I saw that Georgi was about to say something. In a firm voice I ordered, “Write what the man says at once, Georgi.”

“‘Stalin is our great father who loves and protects his people.'”

Georgi glowered at me. Like Georgi, everything inside me wanted to shout that Stalin was a cruel and evil man who had taken away our parents and now wished to take away Tadibe and the other children.

“Write, Georgi,” I ordered. I began to write as well. If I could save Tadibe and the other children, I
didn't care that I was writing lies.

The man watched closely as we put the words down.

Georgi looked up. “We didn't have the word
protect
. It's not fair to give me that word.”

“Hush, Georgi,” I begged. “Sound it out.” I pronounced the word carefully.

Georgi bit his pencil and frowned. At last he wrote
pratect
, using an
a
instead of an
o
, but the man did not seem to care. He only looked puzzled at how quickly we wrote.

At last he turned to Edeiko. “Very well—tell your shaman the children may stay. But next year the state will put your people and their herd of reindeer into one of the collective farms. There will be no more wandering about. All people must work together for the common good. Then all your children will be sent to a proper school.”

Edeiko did not say a word.

“Tell him,” the government man ordered.

Dragging his feet, Edeiko approached the shaman. He said some words to the shaman, who reacted by jumping to his feet and shouting at the government man.

“What does he say?” the comrade asked.

I could see that Edeiko was reluctant to repeat the shaman's angry words. At last he mumbled that the shaman had said reindeer must never be penned up for long periods, that they had to graze on the tundra, and that hay would never take the place of the lichen and moss they needed.

The comrade dismissed the words. “We have agricultural experts. They need no advice from you. Mark my words, by next year the reindeer and all your people will be behind a fence.” With that he marched across the tundra toward the road, the soldiers trailing along behind him, rifles still drawn.

Tadibe rushed at me, throwing her arms around me and dancing about. “Marya!” she cried. “Good, good, good!” She added with a laugh, “Russian word.”

When several hours passed and the men had not returned, the children were led back. The women were hugging their children. Most of them had not understood what had happened. They only knew that after talking with me, Comrade Boris and his soldiers had left and would not take away their children.

Edeiko led Georgi and me to the shaman. “He wishes to speak with you,” Edeiko said. Edeiko's broad forehead was wrinkled. The corners of his mouth turned down. I wondered if something I had said had angered the shaman. Perhaps he was afraid we would escape after all and betray the children.

Instead, when we stood before him, the shaman solemnly handed Georgi his globe. “He says you are to keep it with you,” Edeiko said. “Because you have saved our children from being sent away, you may have your freedom, and the boy may keep the little cottage with the falling snow.”

Georgi looked from Edeiko to the shaman and back again. A wide smile crossed his face. Then, much
to everyone's horror—for it was a great taboo to touch the shaman—Georgi threw his arms about the old man. Before he could catch himself, a smile opened like a flower across the shaman's face. I thought how sad it would be to be a shaman and never be touched in a friendly or loving way.

A moment later the smile disappeared and the shaman was his usual stern self, untangling himself from Georgi's crushing hug.

As we had traveled, we had kept away from the towns and villages, and I could no longer find our location on the map. Now that we were free to go, I asked Edeiko, “How much farther to Dudinka?” I thought it would be a week or more, and we would ask if we could stay with the tribe a little longer.

Edeiko smiled. “It is only two days' journey. The tribe will camp at a distance from the town.”

I couldn't keep the excitement from my voice. “Will you go into the town, Edeiko?” I knew Edeiko was sent to do the bartering.

“Not this time. We have all we need, and the shaman is anxious to get to our summer camp.”

“Will you take us close to the town?”

Edeiko sighed. “If you wish. The shaman has said you are to be free to go where you like.”

“I think our mother is there, Edeiko.” At last I was giving away our secret.

His eyes grew very wide. Hastily he turned to the shaman and the others. He must have told them what I had said, for they appeared excited for us.

The first day passed quickly, but that night neither Georgi nor I slept. Georgi wandered away from the shaman's tent and crawled into my tent, settling beside me.

“Will we really find Mama, Marya?” he whispered.

I could not honestly tell him we would. Months had passed since Mama's letter. She might have given up hope of hearing from us and gone away. All I could say was “I hope so, Georgi.”

In the morning Edeiko came for us. Tadibe begged me not to leave. “Your people,” she repeated over and over, pointing to herself and the other members of the tribe.

I could only shake my head and wipe away my tears.

There were many farewells, the men patting our heads, the women giving us food to take. When I offered to give back our boots, there were loud protests.

All this time the shaman said no word. He sat very still, his face composed into his usual stern expression, but to my amazement as he watched Georgi get ready to leave, I saw two tears roll down his cheeks. Georgi saw them too. He turned and ran toward the shaman, pressed the globe into his hands, and ran to catch up with us. When I looked back, I saw the shaman was holding the globe, but there was no pleased smile on his face. I did not think the tears had been for the loss of the globe.

As we grew close to Dudinka, we were amazed to see the houses were all suspended on concrete posts so that they looked like houses on stilts. “You cannot build on the permafrost,” Edeiko explained. “The warmth from the house would melt the ice beneath it, and the house would sink.”

Edeiko said that he must leave us there at the outskirts of the city and return to the tribe. We clung to him. He patted our heads and seemed as sorry to leave us as we were to have him go. We stood watching until he was no more than a small figure moving across the tundra.

Georgi, who was humming to himself, clung so tightly to my hand, I had to ask him to be a little more gentle. Dudinka appeared larger than I had imagined. We walked down what seemed to be the city's main street. People hurried by us, pausing only long enough to take in our Samoyed clothes and boots. Still, this was reindeer country, and it must not have been unusual to see Samoyeds in the city bartering their reindeer for goods. As for my blond hair, that was tucked under my scarf again.

I had Mama's address from the letter. Several times I stopped women with friendly faces to show them the address. After they got over their surprise at our Russian words, no one seemed to know where the address was located. At last a woman nodded.

“Yes, yes. It is two squares this way and ten squares that way. You can't miss it.” The street was in a neighborhood of tiny shacks that tilted this way and that on their stilts. In the August heat the doors of the shacks were open.

There were no numbers on the huts, and I had to go from shack to shack, climbing ladders to get to the doors, where I would describe Mama. The people in the shacks looked at us suspiciously and shook their heads.

It was not until we came to the last shack that we found someone who recognized our description of Mama. A toothless man with a shiny bald head said, “This is the place, but the woman is long gone. I am cursed with the place now.” When I asked if he knew where she had moved to, he shook his head. “No. I have no idea where she is.” He stared at us. “What will you take for those boots?” He advanced toward us, a greedy look on his face. Pulling Georgi after me, I climbed down the ladder and ran away.

We had spent so long in coming to Dudinka, I did not see how Mama could not be there. Always in my mind she had been waiting for us, her arms out, a smile on her face, and now she had vanished. We were here and she was not. I hardly knew what to do next.

We had plenty of food from the tribe. When night came, we curled up near the river. The river in Dudinka was not the river we had followed—it was more a sea than a river. There were ships and barges everywhere, and overhead thousands of shrieking gulls.

We slept only a few hours. We had come more than a thousand miles, and it seemed we were as far from finding Mama as we had ever been. I had only the single ruble, and I knew the authorities would soon hear of two suspicious Samoyed children wandering about the city. They would surely arrest us. We could not even return to the tribe, for they were far away by now, in what direction I had no idea.

The next morning we waited what seemed to be forever for the stores to open. I took Georgi by the hand and, after once again getting up my courage, asked where the post office was. When we entered the post office, the postmistress stared at us, wondering no doubt why two Samoyed children not only spoke
Russian but were asking for a Russian woman as well.

Finally, after squinting for a long while at us through her small wire-framed glasses, she said, “A woman by that name comes here often asking for a letter. She was here only yesterday.”

I could hardly breathe. “Where does she live?” I asked.

“I have no idea, but it must not be nearby, for she always looks tired and hot.”

Mama was here after all! I wanted to throw my arms around the woman and dance her about the post office. Though I begged and begged, the woman could tell me nothing more.

I could hardly bear to think Mama might have been in the town with us only the day before. We might have passed close by her and never guessed. Waiting was impossible. We had to find her at once.

That night we looked for shelter. The ground by the river where we had slept the night before had been damp and cold from the icy layer that lay beneath it. At last we curled up in the entrance to the post office.
At least, I thought, we would be lying on ground over which Mama had walked.

In the morning I decided that each day we would walk in a different direction looking for Mama. West was the river, so we would explore the north, south, and east. We would begin with the east.

After a breakfast of dried cranberries and dried reindeer meat, we began to walk east toward the rising sun, following a narrow path that led through a scattering of wooden houses, some with chickens inside the house, and in one yard an unhappy reindeer. Georgi and I scraped up some moss and fed the poor beast until an angry man climbed down from his house, shouting at us.

The village huts became fewer until it seemed, with no trees and no houses, that Georgi and I were the only things sticking up on the earth.

Suddenly Georgi whispered, “Marya, Marya, look over there. The ground is moving.” He caught at my skirt and held on.

It was true! Just beyond us the earth was moving.
It wriggled and surged, broke apart and came together. I heard myself shriek. For as far as I could see, a river of yellow-tannish animals, no larger than the palm of my hand, was running across our path, heading north. I knew what they were—lemmings. We had read in school how they traveled to the sea, where they drowned.

Overhead the sky was filled with eagles and vultures swooping down to clutch the animals in their talons. At the edges of the furry mass I saw a fox pluck one of the small animals. In the distance there was a gray shadow that might have been a wolf.

Georgi and I stood silent, hypnotized by the sight of so many thousands of animals. The first ones were nearing a shallow lake cut out of the tundra, but the animals weren't turning away. On they came, and with them the birds, swooping and diving. The first of the lemmings slipped into the water as if it were merely a continuation of the path. Some struggled and drowned. The rest hurried over the backs of the first
wave. We stood by, not wanting to see but unable to look away.

When at last the lemmings had passed, there was nothing green to be seen anywhere. The animals had eaten every bit of moss and every blade of grass. We turned and made our way slowly back to Dudinka, so amazed by what we had seen, we could not find a word to say.

It was early afternoon. Georgi was looking hungrily into the window of a store. “Marya, you promised me cake.” I fingered the ruble I still had in my pocket.

The shopkeeper was putting a tray of
piroshki
in the window. “Mama used to make some just like that,” Georgi said. “Couldn't we have one?”

Recklessly I decided to spend a few kopecks to buy two. The
piroshki
would bring Mama closer. Cheese or bread would have lasted longer, but I could not help myself.

The shelves of the shop were nearly empty. There were a few jars of pickles, some hunks of hard cheese,
a vinegar barrel, and a few fish whose pale, sunken eyes and bad smell told me they were yesterday's catch. With so much ice beneath us, I did not see why there should not be ice in the case.

The shopkeeper was handing back a basket to a woman. I could not see the woman's face, but her stooped shoulders and straggling hair, her shabby dress and slow movements, were that of an old woman.

The shopkeeper turned toward us. “What can I do for you?”

I pointed hungrily at the little meat pies in the window. “How much are the
piroshki
?” I asked.

“Five kopecks, and you'll never get fresher. Here is the woman who makes them. She has just brought a tray.”

The woman turned to us for a moment, barely glancing at us. She gave us a sad smile, took up her basket, and was about to leave the store when the expression on our faces stopped her. She looked again.
Georgi and I could not move. We had come over a thousand miles but we could not take one step.

The woman who was Mama said in a cold voice, “I must be getting on.” She turned and quickly left the shop.

I was sure she had recognized us. Even in our strange clothes, how could she not? Was it possible that she didn't want us there? I grabbed Georgi's hand and ran from the shop while the shopkeeper called after us, “What about the
piroshki
?”

Desperately we looked around. There was no sign of Mama.

“Here, Marya, Georgi, here.”

Mama was motioning to us from the back of the store. We ran to her and were crushed in her arms. We could not hold her tightly enough or stop kissing her. Our faces were wet from her tears and ours. We would let one another go for a moment to get our breath, and then in seconds we were clinging to one another.

At last Mama released us, still holding tightly to
our hands as though we might disappear altogether if she let go.

“I dared not let the shopkeeper know about you. She is a suspicious woman, and I have seen her talking with the policemen in the town.

“Now, quickly, we'll go to Ludmilla's. Her little house is on the outskirts of the town. On the way you must tell me how it is that you are dressed like the Samoyeds and what miracle has brought you here.”

“Who is Ludmilla?” I asked.

“She is an angel,” Mama said. “When I first arrived in Dudinka, I had no place to live but a filthy hovel in the town, and even there I could not find enough money to put food in my mouth. One day I saw an elderly woman struggling with her baskets of groceries. I helped her carry them to her home. I have been with her ever since. I keep her house and I have made a vegetable garden for her. Baking and selling the
piroshki
gives me a little money to help with the expenses.”

“But will she let us stay there too?” I asked.

“Yes, yes, she knows all about the two of you. She will think you have dropped from heaven, as indeed you have. What miracle brought you to Dudinka?”

“We followed the river and then we rode a reindeer,” Georgi said. And so we began our story. But there was more to tell than even the long walk allowed for: By the time we reached Ludmilla's house, we had come only to the shaman and the globe.

“And can you find me another, Mama?” Georgi asked. “I gave mine to the shaman so he wouldn't be sad.”

“Yes, Georgi, if I have to travel all over Siberia.”

I saw that the small cottage stood, like all the houses in Dudinka, on stilts. At the door of the cottage was the figure of Ludmilla, her hand shading her eyes, watching us. As we drew closer, I could see she was very old, stooped and wrinkled, with long white hair that hung in wisps to her shoulders. She held a rabbit in each arm.

Mama said, “Ludmilla's husband died two years ago. He worked on the barges that go up and down
the river. You will see, she is kindness itself.”

Ludmilla hobbled down the ladder. “What is this? What have you found? Katya, can it be? Have our prayers been answered? Why are they dressed like that? Quickly, come into the house and let me give you some cool water. We have our own spring. You have never tasted such water, so cold it's like swallowing an icicle. And bread. I have just baked bread. And there is jam.” She turned to Georgi. “Your mama says you like jam.”

The little cottage was no more than two small rooms, but it was spotlessly clean, with flowered curtains at the windows and crocheted rugs on the wood floor. In one corner a candle burned in front of an icon of St. Vladimir. A basket of knitting lay next to a chair. There was a large stove for cooking and for heating the little cottage. Shelves ran along the stove. “Those shelves will be our beds in the winter,” Mama said. Beside the stove was a neat pile of kindling and a barrel of flour. Delicious smells came from the oven.
Even in my imagination I could not have invented so perfect a place.

Georgi said, “If there were only snow falling, Mama, this would be the cottage in my little globe.”

Mama laughed. “There will be snow soon enough, Georgi.”

Ludmilla put down the rabbits and opened the oven door. Using her apron as a potholder, she snatched out a loaf of bread, sliced it, and spread it thickly with jam. Mama poured water for us that was so cold that, hot as we were, we could hardly swallow it. All the while four rabbits ran about the house, crawling under beds and hopping from one room to the other.

“Now, now,” Ludmilla scolded them. “Settle down or we'll have one of you for dinner.”

We were not long with Ludmilla before I realized there was no one more tenderhearted. Though she raised the rabbits for food and threatened the rabbits daily to turn them into a stew, the rabbits were never
eaten, at least by her, for she made extra money by selling them in the town.

As soon as we had settled down at the table, we had to begin our story from the beginning and tell it all again. She listened with tears rolling down her cheeks, murmuring over and over, “A miracle, a miracle from St. Vladimir.”

“Never a day passed,” she said, “without your mother and me praying to him.”

“And we must pray to him still,” Mama said, “until Papa is with us.”

It was the first time she had spoken about Papa. I hurried to tell her, “We met a doctor who was going to the coal-mining camps in Vorkuta. He was a good man and he promised to look for Papa, but I couldn't tell him what camp Papa was in.” It was our only sad time that day, for the miracle of our finding one another made us believe that someday we would see Papa.