The Impossible Journey (5 page)

“There is no market in this city for something like this. People want food, not fancy jewelry.”

My heart dropped into my stomach. I was about to reach for the locket.

“However, they like these little baubles in Europe.” He began to lay rubles onto the counter.
There were enough for another railway ticket and for food to keep Georgi and me from starving. I snatched up the rubles and ran out of the shop before he could change his mind.

At the rail ticket office, much to the astonishment of the agent I counted out the money for two tickets. He looked hard at the money, as if there might be something wrong with it, but in the end he gave me the tickets. The tickets were very long, for they would take us on a long journey. I folded them carefully and tucked them well into my pocket. There was no money left for steamship tickets, but I was determined to start out. From the map I knew that once we reached the river, we had only to follow it. To cover more than a thousand miles to Dudinka in just three months' time, we would have to walk fifteen miles a day. What's more, we would have to leave at once if we meant to get to Dudinka by fall and the start of the Siberian winter.

That night Mrs. Zotov prepared a fine dinner. I
thought it was to celebrate Mr. Zotov's first day at his new job, but I was wrong.

“Come, Georgi, have another bit of ham. Marya, I made the potatoes with dill and sour cream, just as you like them.” For dessert there was a big bowl of stewed fruit, the apricots and prunes glistening in the syrup like jewels.

After dinner Mrs. Zotov waved us away from the sink. “No, no. Tonight I'll take care of the dishes. You pack your clothes.”

Georgi and I looked at each other. For a moment I thought she had found out I had been to the railroad office and that she could see right through my pocket to the tickets.

Making her voice cheerful, Mrs. Zotov said, “I have found the perfect children's home for you. There is even a little yard where you can play about. There are classes for Georgi, and for you, Marya, instruction on cooking and housecleaning. The home furnishes cleaning women for the office buildings in Leningrad,
so one day you will have a job.”

I could do nothing but stare at her. She bristled under my angry and silent look.

“They will teach you manners as well,” she added.

“I don't want to go to an orphanage,” Georgi said. “Mama gave you all our things to keep us.”

“And keep you we did,” Mr. Zotov said. “Haven't we been feeding you? The bits and pieces from your parents are worth nothing. They have only cluttered up our apartment.”

“Then why do you sit on our papa's chair every night?” Georgi demanded.

Mr. Zotov sprang out of the chair. His face was an angry red and his voice harsh. “We will have no more discussion. The two of you pack your things. You go to the children's home in the morning.”

Georgi kept looking at me, waiting for me to say we would not go. I saw his look of disappointment at my silence. I knew he felt I had let him down, but I said nothing because my mind was busy. We must
escape that night. If we delayed our departure until we were in the orphanage, it would be impossible to get away. Georgi and I might even be in separate buildings.

We would wait until the Zotovs were asleep, and then we would leave. If they heard us moving about, they would think we were going to the bathroom in the hallway. I looked at the remainder of the ham on the kitchen shelf. Beside it there was some cheese and a package of dried apricots and prunes.

I pushed Georgi into our tiny, closetlike room.

In an accusing voice he asked, “Marya, why didn't you say something?”

“Listen,” I whispered, “we are going to run away and find Mama.”

Georgi's eyes grew large, and he gave me a huge smile. “When?” he asked.

“Tonight,” I said. “But Georgi, it will be very hard. We have a long railway journey and not much money for food. And Georgi, we will have to walk a thousand miles.”

All Georgi heard was “railway journey.” His face lit up. “We are going on a train?”

“Yes. Now hush and pack your things in your suitcase. Take only what you need. And remember, appear unhappy when you are with the Zotovs.”

From time to time one of the Zotovs looked into our cubbyhole to see what we were doing. They were reassured as we packed the small suitcases that had belonged to Mama and Papa. As he said good night to us, Mr. Zotov handed a ruble each to Georgi and me.

“You are good children, after all,” he said.

Georgi and I gave him a very sad look. Some devil made me ask, “Will you come to see us?”

He was taken aback. I could see the idea had never entered his head, but he assured us, “Yes, yes. Yes, indeed. Very often, and we will bring you treats.”

I thought the Zotovs would never go to bed. They sat up late into the night. I had left our door open a bit and could hear them talking about Mr. Zotov's new job and what the extra money would mean to them.
Then there were only whispers, and I knew they were talking of us.

It was long after midnight when Georgi and I heard the Zotovs' familiar snoring. I stuffed a blanket into each of our suitcases. Georgi and I quietly slipped into our coats. Tiptoeing into the kitchen, I snatched the ham, the cheese, and the packages of fruit. My suitcase had a pleasant full feeling. We crept out of the apartment, down the stairway, and into the night.

But for a dark figure in a doorway or a shadow rounding a corner, the streets were deserted. We hurried down the Nevsky Prospekt and across the Anichkov Bridge with its great bronze horses to the Moscow Railway Station. The station clock said three in the morning, but already there were passengers awaiting the early trains. Every few minutes a voice announcing the departure or arrival of a train boomed out over the loudspeakers, startling Georgi, who was hanging on to me as if he were slipping over a cliff and I were the rock he was grasping.

Our train left for Moscow at six
A.M
. From
Moscow we would change to the Trans-Siberian Railroad. The journey seemed so mysterious and so difficult, I did not see how to take the first step. So strange were the clouds of steam that nearly hid the trains, so loud was their rumble as they came and went, and so sharp the odor of coal that filled the station, I was almost resolved to hurry back to the Zotovs' apartment, replace the food, and crawl into bed. How could the orphanage be worse than this trip into the unknown?

Across the waiting room I saw a woman leaning against a man. The man's arm was around the woman. Two boys were curled up asleep next to the couple. The boys were Georgi's age and looked like twins. The man was staring at us in a curious but friendly way, a smile on his lips. A friendly face in all that strangeness drew me. Pulling Georgi after me, I settled down on a bench next to the man and his family.

The man watched me for a moment and then
quietly asked, “What are the two of you doing here all alone?”

I was afraid of falling into a trap. I could not trust anyone. How could I tell him the truth? He might turn us over to the authorities. We would be arrested for running away and put not into an orphanage, but into a prison.

Hastily I said, “We are waiting for our parents. They will be here at any time.”

The man did not miss Georgi's amazed look at my lie. Still, the smile stayed on his lips. His wife had awakened and was looking curiously at us now. The couple were about the age of our parents. The man had a beard and little wrinkles about his eyes. He was as chubby as Russ. The woman wore her hair twisted around her head in an old-fashioned braid. Though she smiled at me, there was a sadness behind the smile. The twins looked as much like each other as a reflection in a mirror.

“My name is Dr. Glebov,” the man said, “and this
is my wife, Olga, and my boys, Nikolai and Yuri. What are your names?”

“I'm Marya, and my brother is Georgi.”

“Where are you going?”

Because I could think of no other answer, I said, “To the Yenisey River.”

His eyebrows shot up. “That's a long journey.” He looked at the tickets I clutched in my hand. “You must be taking the same trains we are, but our journey is not so far. We get off the train at the Ob River.”

Mrs. Glebov offered, “Can I give you some
makivnek
?”

“No thank you,” I said. “We have our own food.” I worried that I had been too quick to respond to their friendly gestures. How did I know that they were not some sort of government spies?

Georgi had been staring at the twins, paying no attention to what we were saying; but at the mention of
makivnek
he pricked up his ears. “I'll have some, please,” he said.

I frowned at him, but the woman only smiled and reached into a basket for two pieces of cake, which she handed us. I wanted to refuse, but it had been a long time since dinner, and the cake had almonds and raisins and a thick layer of frosting, so before I could stop myself, I was eating it.

With the cake safely in his stomach Georgi curled up next to me and fell asleep. I tried to keep awake, but my eyelids kept drooping. Dr. Glebov leaned across and said, “Sleep if you like—I'll wake you in plenty of time for the train.” He said nothing about our parents arriving.

Gratefully I closed my eyes, and in a moment, worn out by all my worry, I was asleep.

It seemed only a second later when Dr. Glebov shook me gently awake. “They have called our train,” he said. “Do you have your passports ready?”

I sat up, startled. “What do you mean?”

“You cannot go anywhere in this country without a passport. If you don't have one, they will never
let you on the train.”

Tears spilled out of my eyes. With no more thought of caution I poured out our story. “My parents have both been arrested and sent to Siberia. My papa has been sent to a coal mine, and my mama has been exiled to Dudinka.” I showed him the letter with her address. “We are going to her. If we stay here, they will put us in an orphanage.”

The Glebovs appeared amazed at our story. “It's a long way from where the railroad puts you off to the town of Dudinka,” the doctor said. “Do you have tickets for the steamship? And how will you take the steamship with no passport?”

“We're going to walk.”

“That's impossible!” Mrs. Glebov said.

“No,” I said. “We'll have three months. I know we can do it if we can just get on the train that will take us to the river.”

Dr. Glebov looked at us for a long moment. “Listen to me, both of you. I have a family passport
that includes my children but does not name them. Stay close to me and remember that for now your last name is Glebov.”

He awoke the twins, and the six of us pushed our way into the crowd that was headed for the train. Dr. Glebov held out his passport for the conductor, who looked at the twins and then at Georgi.

“You have three the same age?” he asked in a suspicious voice.

“Only two.” The doctor laughed. “This one”—he pointed to Georgi—“is a year younger, but he grows like a weed.”

Dr. Glebov's easy laughter seemed to assure the conductor, and he said no more.

As we climbed onto the train, I saw Dr. Glebov looking at some boxcars attached to the trains. Soldiers were loading chained prisoners onto the cars. On the roof of each boxcar was a soldier with a machine gun. The doctor looked quickly at me and urged us onto the train. The sight of the prisoners had
sent my heart into my shoes. I wanted to ask if Papa had been sent that way, but Dr. Glebov hurriedly guided us to a compartment. “Stay here with us and you'll be safe,” he said.

Georgi was still staring at the twins. At last he asked them, “How do you know which you are?”

They stared back at Georgi. One of them, who turned out to be Yuri, said, “We look in the mirror.” He was laughing.

“Our mama knows, and she tells us each morning,” Nikolai said. He was grinning at Georgi.

“Shame on you boys for teasing Georgi,” their mother said. She turned to Georgi. “They know the same way you know who you are. Boys, show Georgi the puzzle you got for Christmas.”

They brought out a puzzle board with a little figure to be propelled through a complicated maze. “Bet you can't guess how he should go,” Yuri challenged Georgi.

Together the three boys bent their heads over the
board. When the doctor saw that they were busy with the puzzle, he asked in a quiet voice, “Do you know the name of your father's camp?”

I shook my head.

“That's a pity. I was hoping against hope it might be the camp at Vorkuta. That's where I am being sent.”

“Have you been arrested?” I asked. “Are you being sent to exile?”

“No, no,” he replied. “I am being sent by the government to be the doctor at the camp there.”

A chill traveled up my spine. I had trusted a man who was working for the government. I remembered the terrible things Igor had said about the coal-mining camps. “They force the prisoners to mine coal in freezing weather with no shoes or gloves,” he had said. Now this man was going to be part of such a camp. I pulled away from him.

He watched me closely. “I know what you are thinking, Marya. You believe I am a part of the evil that is done in the camps.”

Mrs. Glebov reached over and laid her hand on his. “Anatoly,” she said. “We have gone over this a thousand times. Stop punishing yourself. What else could you do?”

“The government ordered me to go,” Dr. Glebov said. “If I had not obeyed, what would have become of my family? Even so, I might still have disobeyed them. I decided to go for another reason. I pray that I will be able to make a difference in the camp. I have thought it all through. I can insist the prisoners do not work when they are ill. I can demand that they are given enough food for the hard work they do. I will find ways to make things easier for the men.”

There was not much conviction in the doctor's voice, but there was much hope. The differences he would be able to make were very small and the camps very evil; still, I hoped that Papa would be at the doctor's camp.

I jumped as our compartment door was pushed open, but it was only an old
babushka
with a pot of tea.
The doctor bought cups for all of us. I opened my suitcase and started to offer the bread and ham to the Glebovs. The twins looked hungrily at the ham, but Dr. Glebov said, “No, no, you must save that. You have a long journey ahead of you. While you are with us, you will share our food.”

I began to think the prisoners at Dr. Glebov's camp would be lucky to have him.

Like Georgi, the twins had never been on a train. So fascinated were the three boys with the passing scenery that we had to hang on to them so they wouldn't fall out of the window. Though I tried to be more reserved than the boys, it was my first train trip as well. I, too, longed to hang out the window, for everything we passed was new and strange to me. I might have been running through a museum, seeing picture after picture over my shoulder.

While the train rushed along on its way to Moscow, I heard the Glebovs' story. The head of the Communist Party at the doctor's hospital had discovered that Dr. Glebov had an American medical journal
and, even worse, was trying a new treatment written up in the journal.

“It makes no difference to the Party if you can save lives,” the doctor said. His voice was bitter. “Stalin has declared America the enemy, and anything American bad. They dismissed me from the hospital and packed me off to Siberia.”

Then I told about Russ and the Zotovs. Mrs. Glebov shook her head sadly. “At least we are together with our children,” she said. “What must your parents be feeling?”

It was early evening by the time the train pulled into the station in Moscow. Georgi and I had been up almost all night and traveling all day, but the sights from the train window had kept us awake. Now, here we were in Russia's great city. “Will we get a glimpse of St. Basil's Cathedral and the Kremlin?”

Dr. Glebov frowned. “No, nor do I want to see the Kremlin.”

I knew what he meant. The Kremlin was home to Comrade Stalin. I shivered.

“The sooner we leave Moscow, the better,” Dr. Glebov said. He shepherded us the short distance between the Leningrad Station and the Yaroslavski Station, where the next morning we boarded the train that would take us to Siberia's Yenisey River. From there Georgi and I would begin the unknown part of our journey. Whenever the thought of what lay ahead became too frightening, I told myself that with each mile we would be closer to Mama.

We were furnished with rough blankets, and there was a washroom at the end of the car. It was very cozy, and I almost wished we could stay forever in the safety of the train with the Glebovs there to watch over us. It was only when I thought of Mama that I wished for the train journey to end so the next journey could begin.

Mrs. Glebov called out in excitement. From our window we could see the cathedral of Zagorsk, its blue-and-gold domes like sky and sun. As we traveled along, I saw that even the smallest village had its
domed church, but the churches appeared to be deserted, with a lonely look to them.

Dr. Glebov was making the trip into a lesson for the boys. He had stories for each town. When we got to Aleksandrov, the old capital of Russia, where Ivan the Terrible had once ruled, the doctor told us of Ivan's cruel dungeons and tortures.

“He set his hungry bears on anyone he didn't like.” Dr. Glebov sighed. “Nothing changes.” In a very quiet voice he added, “Now Ivan has come back to us, and this time he rules from Moscow.”

It was almost dark when we passed over the bridge across the Volga River. “Mother Volga flows for nearly four thousand miles, boys,” he said. “If you got into a little boat here and kept going, you would end up in the Caspian Sea.”

From the windows we watched green fields turned into forests and back into fields and meadows. There seemed to be no end to Russia. When I saw there was enough land for everyone in the country to become
lost in, I began to understand that there would be no sidewalk or perhaps even no path for Georgi and me along the Yenisey River. I guessed our journey would be a hard one, maybe an impossible one. I wondered if I had been wrong to take Georgi with me. As bad as an orphanage might be, Georgi would have been safe there. If I perished on the journey, Georgi would perish with me. Mama had told me to take care of Georgi. Instead, here we were on our way to great danger, all of my own doing.

Late in the day the train reached the foothills of the Ural Mountains. I knew from my geography books that on one side of the Urals, Russia is more European, and on the other side of the Urals, more Asian. Many people said it was the Asian side that was the real Russia. It was nearly midnight but still light when we reached the eastern side. Dr. Glebov had kept us up, and now he gathered us all at the windows.

“Keep a sharp lookout,” he ordered. “There! There! Do you see that white pillar? It is the obelisk
that marks where Europe ends and Asia begins. It is something to have seen that.”

When we awoke in the morning, we were traveling through the steppes, miles and miles of swamp and meadow dotted with ponds and rivulets. Every now and then a flight of thousands of ducks rose up at the sound of the train, to settle again farther on as if they were playing some game with the train. In the distance the white trunks of the birch trees slashed the blue horizon. While we traveled, we had passed from May to June. In spite of the bits of coal soot from the engine we opened the train windows, and fresh warm breezes blew away the stale air of our compartment. I stuck my head out of the window and felt the wind catch my hair and whip it against my face. We were in Siberia now, and the same wind was blowing over the land where Papa and Mama were.