Dancing Under the Red Star (6 page)

I could not reconcile myself to the thought of leaving. I absolutely did not want to go. Not for any reason, not under any circumstances. My heart sank to new lows as I tried to consider what would become of my life in this strange new place I hadn’t even seen yet. And just what on earth were we doing, anyway? What was my father thinking? We already lived in America, capital of the free world. What else could a person ever want?

Although reluctant to accept the inevitable—this destined journey east—and trying my best to avoid it, I still had to face reality. With the help of many friends, my father collected, greased, and packed more than a ton of instruments, tools, and parts to take with us. I sat speechless as I watched friends carry off more and more of our furniture and personal things prior to our departure. Our couch, upon which Papa had spent hundreds of hours reading to me; the crib that I had slept in, with the pink and yellow ruffled lace trim Mama had made just for me; my toys and games—all were suddenly no more. These were more than just things to me. They were part of me, my life, and they were gone.

Reality was quickly sinking in, and there was no escaping it. We were leaving, and that was that. Papa couldn’t be persuaded otherwise. It was useless; his mind had long since been made up. We were leaving it all behind and venturing out into the wild unknown, my papa, Mama, and me.

Three

DESPERATE EYES

B
ound for Russia, our family of three left the United States in April 1932. We embarked on the ocean liner
Hamburg
from the port of New York, along with approximately four hundred other Americans—Ford employees and their families.

I had dreamed of taking a vacation on a huge ocean liner with my family, but this wasn’t the trip I had imagined. I pictured traveling to the Caribbean or the Bahamas, not Russia. I was now compelled to go on this voyage to the other side of creation—not on vacation, but, according to my father, “to make a better life.”

My mother was unusually reserved as we made our final preparations on the morning of our departure. She was unhappy about our move, but she was Papa’s wife, obligated to support him. My father’s disposition was the opposite; his spirits were noticeably high. I could see on his face that he had a vision and was energized by his plans and goals. He looked youthful, almost euphoric.

The three of us barely spoke that entire morning, preoccupied with our own opinions and feelings: my father anticipating a fantasyland, Mama adrift in uncertainty, and I already missing my friends, our home, and our neighborhood. We traveled together, but on three uniquely separate journeys.

Papa insisted that we take only “absolutely necessary” personal belongings. There was no room for things of mere sentimental value. We took only the bare bones of what we owned, not much more than we would have packed for a two-week vacation.

“Margaret, we barely have enough room to take you along,” he chuckled.

“That’s okay, Papa. I’ll just stay here, then. Maybe I’ll join the circus and come see you in Russia,” I half-jokingly replied.

With a wide smile, he tenderly patted my cheek and promised, “We’ll be just fine.”

I had my small diary, a personal journal I’d kept for about two years, and not much more of value other than my clothes. Oh, and I carried Maggie, one of my dolls. I spoke with Maggie a lot, especially this morning. She always seemed to understand me when no one else did.

I pleaded with her, “Oh, Maggie, where on earth are we going, and what will we do? What will become of us when we get there?”

I wanted her to say, “Don’t worry, Margaret. We are going to a new place—to Russia—where they have the best and most beautiful dancers in the whole world, just like we used to talk about. And I will be with you. We will have a grand time!” But today Maggie didn’t answer me.

Despite my objections, we boarded the
Hamburg
and headed to Russia, the great unknown. The Atlantic Ocean felt more like the sea of uncertainty to me, because I had no idea where we were going or what we would do when we got there. I wondered if Papa really knew either, although he acted as though he did. Only God knew what was truly in store, I supposed, but
he
wasn’t telling.

An announcement blared from the ship’s intercom shortly after we departed: “There’s a good chance we’ll encounter heavy winds and rough seas during our voyage. March is the season for Atlantic storms.” Though we didn’t encounter dangerous weather, the ship rolled and pitched a lot.

Each of my parents reacted differently to our time at sea. Papa wasn’t a sailor. He was miserably nauseated for the first half of our trip. When he wasn’t throwing up in our cabin, he was playing cards down below with the deckhands and some men he knew from the Ford factory. This nautical adventure may have sickened him physically, but he remained enthusiastic about his decision.

Mama was a better sailor, showing no signs of seasickness, but I could tell that her mind was somewhere else. She kept to herself, immersed in thought, or was it prayer? It was clear she wasn’t happy about the journey. I sided with my mama; I hated leaving America.

I was a pretty good sailor, just mildly seasick for the first couple of days. I spent some time on the upper deck, playing jacks and hopscotch with a boy about my age—Joey, from Long Island, who was headed for Germany with his parents. He was only going for a month-long vacation and then would return to the United States. I would live in Russia for at least a year—that’s what “they” said—and hopefully no longer.

The food on board was the best thing about the trip. After our stomachs adjusted to the state of buoyancy, Papa and I made the dining room our headquarters. We couldn’t get enough to eat. After the scarcities of the Depression, we were thrilled to dine on home-fried potatoes and hamburgers or steak and eggs—as much as we could pack away! Life was a joy again, however briefly. I stuffed myself with food, perhaps to fill the emptiness I felt about leaving home.

In our stuffy cabin, I pestered Mama with incessant questions: “What will we do in Russia, Mama? What language will we speak there? Will we have to speak Russian? What will my school be like? Mama, do you think I’ll be able to find any friends over there? And what about my sports? Will I still be able to swim and do gymnastics?”

She didn’t exactly answer my questions. Mama always said more to me with silence than others did with many words. As we sat talking on the bed, she gently held the sides of my face with her warm hands. Looking tenderly into my eyes, she said, “Maidie, I don’t know what tomorrow will bring, but one thing I promise you: we will be okay. God has a plan for us!” Her smile comforted me, and she spoke with such conviction that I believed her.

“And, Mama, will Papa finally be happy there?” I asked. She didn’t answer. She sat quietly beside me, staring at the wall, holding me tight as I drifted off to sleep.

Each day at sea started with a bugle call on the main deck, a melody that made me feel nauseated. Those notes woke me every morning with a huge knot of anxiety twisting inside my stomach. I was fully awake but immersed in a nagging dream, overwhelmed with uncertainty. What were we getting into? When we eventually docked in Hamburg, Germany, I hated to leave the ship. Perhaps intuition told me that life would never be this good again.

I noticed that the German children acted just like the kids I knew in America. They all seemed confident, quick witted, and high spirited. I was naively amazed at the ease with which the little children spoke German, which was my first language as well. I had learned the language at home because German was my parents’ language of choice. It wasn’t until I entered kindergarten in Detroit that I learned to speak English well. So I didn’t feel like a foreigner in Germany and would have been happy if Papa had decided to stop our journey right there. But that was not to be.

After staying a day and night, we left Hamburg by train and first passed through Poland before entering Russia and arriving in Moscow on a brutally cold winter day in April. Dirty snow, piled at least waist-high, lined the rutted streets. Horse-drawn sleighs and decrepit streetcars were the only visible means of public transportation.

“Why are there so few cars in a big city like Moscow?” I asked Papa.

“Most of the people don’t need cars, and not everyone can afford a car, sweetheart,” he explained. “If they must go somewhere, they take the streetcar. Automobiles are a luxury, not a necessity. And that’s why we’re here. We’re going to make more cars for them and make them more affordable.”

Something about that answer bothered me. I had trouble making sense of it. I thought that he was trying to avoid my question, that he didn’t want to give me a direct and honest answer. I said nothing else but thought,
Papa, didn’t we come here to improve
our
lives?

Poverty and hopelessness were apparent everywhere we looked. Almost every building in Moscow seemed in urgent need of reconstruction or demolition. The people were poorly dressed, wearing long sheepskin coats or homemade, padded cotton jackets. As they sat or stood on the ice-covered streets, their feet and legs were protected only by woven straw shoes and burlap leggings. They looked as if they were starving. Why were they all out on the streets? Where did these people live? It was like a hard slap in the face as I immediately realized that our life back in Detroit had been luxurious compared to this.

The children, many my age and younger, looked pitiful. Their clothing was too thin and ragged for this climate. As they stared at us, their eyes looked like empty canyons yearning to be filled. A terrible sadness enveloped me, and I began to cry. With their sad eyes, the children cried out for help. I saw no hope in their gray faces. I wanted to help them, but I had no idea how.

The elderly Russians seemed to carry an innate sense of resignation, as if they were waiting to die. Their faces, drawn tight by the severe cold, showed no emotion yet spoke volumes of their miserable life. We had barely arrived in this land, and in spite of my own pain, my heart broke for these innocent people.

“Papa, can we do something for them?” I asked.

He did not reply.

Over time I began to understand what had produced the ghastly conditions we saw in Moscow. In November 1927 Joseph Stalin had launched his “revolution from above” by setting two extraordinary goals for Soviet domestic policy: rapid industrialization and the collectivization of agriculture. He aimed to erase all traces of the capitalism that had entered under the former “New Economic Policy.” He planned to transform the Soviet Union as quickly as possible into an industrialized socialist state without regard for cost.

Stalin’s first Five-Year Plan, adopted by the party in 1928, put these goals into action. With an emphasis on heavy industry and productive agriculture, individual farms were absorbed into a system of large collective farms, or kolkhozes. The Communist regime believed that collectivization would build up large grain reserves to feed the growing urban labor force and pay for industrialization. Many peasants would become available for general labor and factory work in the cities, and the Stalinist regime would extend its political dominance over rural areas.