The Impossible Journey (6 page)

It was nearly evening of our third day when we crossed the great bridge over the Ob River and reached the outskirts of Novosibirsk, where the
Glebovs were to leave us. I had tried to ready myself for our farewells. I was resolved not to cry, but inside I felt I could hardly bear to see them get off the train and leave us behind.

They had packed their bags and we were saying our farewells when I noticed Georgi had packed his own bag.

“No, Georgi,” I said. “We stay on the train.”

Georgi insisted, “I want to go with Yuri and Nikolai.”

Dr. Glebov was silent for a moment. He gave us a long look and then said, “Marya, you and Georgi are welcome to join us. I don't know what our accommodations will be, or what our future can bring, but surely coming with us will be better than making such a long journey by yourselves and not knowing whether at the end of the journey you will find your mother.”

But still I could not entirely trust Dr. Glebov, nor would I give up the idea of finding Mama. I shook my head.

When the doctor saw that I would not come with them, he sighed but said nothing more. At the moment for parting we threw our arms around one another, blessed one another, and then said good-bye.

Strangers crowded into our compartment to take the Glebovs' place and, seeing Georgi crying, gave me suspicious looks, as if I might have been beating him.

That night was very lonely. Georgi leaned against me, humming quietly to himself. Neither of us slept for more than a few minutes at a time.

The next morning we crossed the Yenisey River. I gave a little gasp. In my mind I had pictured the Yenisey River as a friendly stream that Georgi and I might walk along. There would be meadows with flowers and little houses with friendly people who might take us in and feed us and then send us again on our way. This river looked to be a mile wide. The brown water gushed under the railway bridge and hurried northward as if it were being chased. How could we become friends with such a flood? Were we
to travel a thousand miles beside that raging water?

My hand trembled as I gave Georgi his suitcase and took up my own. When we had begun our journey, the train was strange and unfamiliar, an iron monster. Now I longed to let it carry us wherever it wished—anything but to have to leave it for that great sweep of water. It was not a stream that would tag along like a friendly puppy but a torrent that would nip at our heels and chase us on our way like a snarling dog.

Georgi and I left the train at the Krasnoyarsk station and wandered into the busy city. I knew that I must make some preparations for our trip, but I didn't know where to start. I also knew that I must make our handful of rubles last for three months. As we wandered along, I saw that Georgi was struggling with his suitcase. We could not walk across Siberia carrying suitcases. When I found a secondhand store, I went inside and put our two cases on the counter.

“How much will you give me for these?” I asked the woman behind the counter. She was a short, plump woman nearly hidden by the counter's
jumble of plates and pots.

“Where did you steal those suitcases?” She looked suspiciously at the good leather cases, which Mama and Papa had managed to hang on to from the days long ago when their families were wealthy. When she opened the cases and saw our clothes, the package of fruit and bit of ham that was left, and our blankets, her expression changed from suspicion to curiosity.

“Why are you two running away?” she asked. “Have you done something bad?”

I shook my head. Before I could stop him, Georgi said, “We're looking for our mama. The policemen have taken her away.”

At once she guessed the truth. “Hush,” she said. Though the store was empty, she looked nervously about. “It is a terrible thing when parents are wrenched away from their children and sent off to Lord knows where.” She burrowed among the jumbles and drew out two knapsacks. “Put what you must carry in here,” she said. “Your suitcases are fine
leather. I'll have no trouble getting rid of them.” She handed me a little pile of rubles. There was a sad look on her face, as if she were made unhappy by the stories of all the abandoned wares piled up in her store. Now our own story would be an added burden.

I stuffed our belongings into the knapsacks, then put the lighter one on Georgi's back and the larger one on my own.

While the shopkeeper and I transacted our business, Georgi was looking longingly at a small glass globe enclosing a tiny cottage. When he shook the globe, a shower of snow covered the cottage. He watched me put the rubles in my pocket.

“Marya, remember at Christmas there were no presents? Couldn't I have the little cottage in the glass?”

I looked at the price marked on the globe. “It's too much money, Georgi. We need every kopeck.” We were nearly at the door when the shopkeeper called Georgi back.

“Here, young fellow, take it.” She handed Georgi the globe, and he danced out of the store. I thought that she would make a great deal more on the suitcases than she gave to us, so her giving the globe to Georgi was not terribly generous. Then I was angry with myself for being suspicious.

After peering in the windows of several food shops, I chose the one where the prices were the most reasonable and the flies the least numerous. The June day was warm, and I knew warmer days were ahead. Whatever I chose would have to withstand the heat. I bought dried fruit and dried meat, a large loaf of bread, and a big hunk of hard cheese. I also bought a knife and some matches, for I hoped to hunt small wild animals and cook them over a fire.

With our purchases made and the remaining rubles tied up in a handkerchief and tucked into my pocket, there was nothing to do but to find the river and begin our trip.

Taking Georgi's hand, I walked through the town,
using as our guide to find the river an immense bridge I could see in the distance. When we finally reached the river, I looked longingly at the landing where a steamship was tied up. A line of passengers was filing onto the ship. I saw that each passenger was handing a soldier a little booklet to be stamped. Passports. Even if we had had enough money for tickets, we had no passports and no Dr. Glebov to take us aboard the steamship with his family.

“Marya,” Georgi begged, “can't we sit down for a bit? I'm tired, and the straps from the knapsack hurt my back.”

I led him along the bank of the river to a grassy spot and was as glad as Georgi to settle down. I knew that we ought to begin our trip, but I didn't know how to take the first step. I tried to study the map I had torn out of my schoolbook, but I had trouble concentrating, for the late-morning sun was pleasant on my back, the grass soft under me, and the June breezes gentle.

The river was crowded with barges and fishing
boats. One of the fishing boats made its way onshore. An elderly man tied up the boat and, slinging a wriggling bag over his shoulder, stepped onto land. He looked about until he saw us.

“You, there,” he called. “Come here.” He was a wiry man, thin as a birch sapling, with long, wispy white hair. His tanned face was pleated with wrinkles. Though I could think of nothing wrong we had done, he was scowling at us.

Holding hands, we made our way slowly down the bank toward the river.

“Come along,” he called out. “I've no time to waste. I must sell these chickens and buy supplies so that I can be in my village by tomorrow night. Nothing is safe in this cursed city. If you two watch my boat for me, I'll give you some kopecks.”

He left us with the boat and began climbing up the bank.

“What is the name of your village?” I asked.

He called the name over his shoulder, adding,
“And a poor excuse for a village it is.” It seemed he did not like his village any more than the city. As soon as he was out of sight, I got out my map. His village was nearly a hundred miles downstream. A hundred miles was a week's walk. I made up my mind that we would go with him. How much better it would be to float along in a boat than to make our way by foot.

The boat was a long wooden affair, narrow at both ends so that it would skim through the water. I had seen such boats before. Papa and I had often watched the fishermen on the Neva pull into Leningrad to sell their catches. A fishing pole and a landing net were stowed on the bottom of the boat along with a pail, which must have held the bait. Georgi and I would easily fit into the boat.

“Georgi, listen to me. Remember when you were in the play in school and you took the part of the good factory worker who had made more steering wheels for automobiles than anyone else?”

“Yes, and Lev Markovich didn't meet his goal and
the teacher said that made Comrade Stalin very sad, but I made him happy.”

“Never mind how happy or sad Comrade Stalin was. You memorized lines for the play.”

The corners of Georgi's mouth turned down and his eyes were watery. “Mama helped me.”

“Georgi, you must learn some lines now, and I'll help you.”

“I don't want to.”

“They're very easy—only a few words—and Georgi, if you don't do it right, we will have to walk a hundred miles instead of riding in the boat.”

Georgi stood looking at the boat. I could see he was thinking a ride in such a boat would be pleasant.

In a half hour's time the man returned with an armful of supplies, which he began to stow in the boat. He handed each of us five miserly kopecks.

“You can be on your way now,” he ordered. “That's all you're going to get.”

I took a deep breath. “Please, sir, we are going to
the next village on the river from your own. I'll give you two rubles if you take us along in your boat.”

“What? Two children wandering about on their own? You, boy, tell me the truth. What are you doing here?”

Georgi, looking longingly at the boat, recited, “My papa died fighting for the revolution and my mama is sick, and we are to go to my grandmother, who will take care of us.”

I sighed with relief. Georgi had not missed a word.

“Two rubles are not enough,” the man said.

I had taken two rubles from the little store in my pocket and had them clutched in my hand. I opened my hand and showed them to the man. “It's all I have,” I said.

“What's in there?” He gave our knapsacks a greedy look.

“Only our clothes,” I answered. He looked at us as if we were two fish at the end of his line, fish he meant to reel in. I began to think we would be foolish
to go with him, but I could not find enough courage to begin our long walk.

“All right. Get in,” he ordered. “And no scrambling about. You must sit quietly.”

We climbed into the boat, Georgi eagerly; but I was still uncertain.

“Watch out there!” he shouted at Georgi. “Do you want to tip us over?”

In a moment we were afloat. The boat was small and the river wide and deep, so we were swept along like a leaf. I forgot my fear, thinking only that we had made a beginning, and when we came to the end of the river, we would find Mama.

When we were safely out into the middle of the river, he asked our names and told us his own.

“I am Yevgeny Vasilievich Savoff, but they call me Old Savoff, though that can be nothing to the two of you.”

After that he launched into one vexation after another, making me think he had taken us not for the
rubles but to have someone to hear his complaints. The current was strong, and the man did not have to work very hard at his oars, so he had plenty of time for the complaining.

“The streets of the city are filthy and the people are rude and push you about,” he said, “and the shopkeepers never lose a chance to cheat you.”

I thought of the shopkeeper who had given Georgi the globe, but I made no sound because I could see Old Savoff took pleasure in his grievances and would not be robbed of them. He soon started on us.

“Don't think you will have a long sleep in the morning,” he warned. “I must get back to see if that old woman, Fenya, who I was stupid enough to marry, and my useless stepson, Vadim, will have robbed me while I was gone. Every morning Vadim has a sour face when he sees that I am still among the living. He can't wait until he can get his hands on my property. I'll show him. One of these days I'll have my revenge. I'll kick him out of the house, and he will find what it
means to work for his bread.”

We left the city behind. Overhead the sky was a blue bowl, kingfishers flew among the trees, fishing boats and barges came and went. On the banks of the river were vast green meadows. I felt as if we had been placed in the middle of one of Igor's pretty paintings, yet Old Savoff had not a word to say about the beauty of the June day.

When a bright-blue dragonfly settled on the boat, he swiped angrily at it. When I pointed to a hawk sitting majestically on a pine tree, he growled, “If I had a gun, I would soon make an end of it. Those hawks get after my chickens.”

One of the fishing boats was unlike the others. It was large enough for only one person. The fisherman was also unlike the others. I knew from my schoolbooks of the Samoyeds, natives of Siberia who wandered through the Siberian countryside herding reindeer and living off the land. Comrade Tikonov had told us such people were enemies of Russia
because they would not obey the orders of the Communist Party to give up their herds of reindeer and live in villages.

The Samoyed in the boat had eyes that tilted down and a face as round and wrinkled as an old apple. His boat skimmed along over the water, and as it passed us, the man raised his paddle in greeting.

Old Savoff grunted. “Why should those people be above the government? They are an ignorant tribe who live in tents instead of houses like civilized people.”

“Do they live near here?” I asked.

“Only in the winter. This time of year they gather their herds of reindeer and take them north. I can tell you, when one of their reindeer wanders my way, you can be sure I make a meal of it.”

In the middle of the afternoon Old Savoff reached into one of his bags and took out a roll and a chicken leg. Georgi and I watched hungrily as he gnawed away. When he had cleaned the bone, he opened a
bottle of beer and drank it in two long drafts.

“No doubt you have your own food,” he said.

I took some bread and cheese from my knapsack and shared them with Georgi. We washed them down with handfuls of water from the river.

As the hours passed, I kept thinking Old Savoff would tire, but he kept on with the oars, grumbling all the while, so that I decided that his strength must come from his anger. As long as he kept up his angry complaining, he could keep rowing.

Since it was June and we were in the far north, the sky would remain light all night, but early in the pale light of the evening Old Savoff guided the boat to the shore. He quickly baited his line and cast it out onto the river. In a second the pole bent and he was pulling in a fish. While the fish roasted over a fire, he looked hungrily at our knapsacks.

“What have you got in there?” he asked.

“Just our clothes and a bit of food,” I said.

He poked about among my things. “Well, I have
provided the fish,” he said. “You can share your bread and cheese.”

As I watched him pare a large hunk off the cheese, I said, “I want to take some of that to my grandmother.”

He gave me a shrewd look. “I don't believe in your grandmother. What would a
malshyka
like you be doing on your own? It can only be mischief. You are running away. You are lucky I didn't turn you in. When we get to my village, you can make yourself useful around the house.”

For a moment I thought of telling him our story as I had told the Glebovs, but such a man was not to be trusted. Old Savoff—with his spite and his grudges, his growling and his talk of revenge—made me think that even a walk of a hundred miles would be better than another hour with such a man.

Old Savoff had rowed all day. Surely he would fall asleep soon. Then, I thought, Georgi and I might steal away in the long white night. By the time he awoke,
we would be miles away. We had only to follow the river so that we would not lose our way. While I was making my plans, Old Savoff was watching me.

“I'm turning in now,” he said. I was thinking with relief how we would soon be off, when he added with a sly smile, “I have no pillow, so I'll just take one of your knapsacks to ease my head. The other one will cushion my arm.” Before I could reach for them, he snatched the two knapsacks and lay down with his arm around Georgi's knapsack and his head on mine. In a moment he was asleep.