The Silence of Trees (15 page)

When the guitarist was finished, he bowed his head and sat for a moment. After a long silence, he brushed his light brown hair from his eyes and looked over in my direction. After whispering something to his friend, the guitarist walked over and sat down at my table directly across from me. I hadn’t wiped away my tears. I had long since abandoned vanity.

We stared at one another. His gaze steady; his eyebrow raised in a question. He had the look of a man who just devoured a feast and was still hungry.

“Good evening.”

“Good evening,” I replied and looked down at my hands.

“Shared joy is double joy,” he said brushing a tear from my cheek, “and shared sorrow is half the sorrow.”

I looked into his eyes. I had always been good at reading people, and the war had been a great teacher, giving me daily lessons about the nightmares people carry in their eyes: pain and fear and hopelessness. Worst of all was the hopelessness, because it felt like razor blades inside my belly every time I looked into hopeless eyes. That was where madness crept in. I learned that it was better not to look, so I avoided people’s eyes in camp. Better to look down than to feel that loss, to touch that madness, to see myself reflected.

But I looked into his eyes, and they were guarded. So, the handsome guitarist had learned that walls keep you safe, that trust makes you vulnerable. I found myself wondering if I could ever earn that trust. I found myself wanting to earn it.

But his were also kind eyes, and I smiled despite myself.

“My name is Pavlo. Would you like to dance?” He stood up and stretched out his hand.

I didn’t hesitate. I wanted to touch him. I wanted to talk to him, to thank him for the music, to share with him my loneliness, to tell him about the past year of my life. All because of what he made me feel with his music.

And in the end, I told him nothing.

One hand pressed hard against my back, the other holding my own, we moved out onto the floor. Nina glared, her thick lips tight. Others nodded and smiled as we danced by them.

“You are beautiful,” he said.

I watched his face for signs of insincerity, of trickery. I saw none. Yet I recognized something in his face, in his eyes, and then it was gone. I tried to look deeper into that blue, but he kept his secrets buried so well.

The room seemed to spin around us, and all the time Pavlo whispered sweet words, his breath scented with cigarettes, whiskey, and coffee. “I think, I think we understand each other. I saw it in your eyes when I played. I think you are the only person in all the world who can understand me.”

And I thought I could.

We stopped for a drink, he smoked another cigarette, and then more dancing. Drinking, smoking, dancing—we whirled round and round in a room filled with lonely people, all trying to keep awake the feeling of hope.

“You are the loveliest women I have ever seen.” His words slightly slurring, his tongue loose, his cheeks rosy, “Someday, I am going to take you away from all this, to a place worthy of you and your beauty.”

I was not looking for this, not looking to be swept up into some stranger’s arms.

“You belong in Paris, where I can buy you a bright red beret for your hair, and we can drink wine on the river.”

For months I had been asleep, wanting only to work, to sort out the past, to find a way to deal with death and loneliness. Here was someone who touched me, who made me want something more.

“Hand in hand, we could walk along the boulevard, and all the men would stop and stare at my beautiful beloved.”

Such sweet words.

Such sweet music.

I should have remembered to look at his hands.

So much is revealed in the hands: future, present, past. All there. But I did not think of the vorozhka or Baba Lena or poor Miriam. I did not remember their words of caution, their wisdom. I should have paid attention to the way he gripped my right hand so tight that my littlest finger went numb. I should have noticed the way that he held my back, pressing me to him so there was no space between us, making a deep breath impossible. And as we strolled past the elders who watched from their benches, I should have heeded Mama Paraska’s frown and shaking head. I should have remembered: They are all lovers and poets before the first kiss.

But all I heard were his sweet words.

And although I could not admit it then, I was happy for the attention.

That night he walked me to the door of my barracks, a perfect gentleman, and for the first time since Stephan, I wanted to be kissed. But he only smiled, that one cocked eyebrow teasing me with mischievous unspoken promises. That night I slept soundly, my dreams filled with guitar music and dancing.

CHAPTER
EIGHT

There were more dances. Spring teased us with her warm nights, prompting us to find excuses to forget ourselves. So we did. I did, and each time I came to dance, Pavlo was there playing his beautiful music. As soon as I walked in the door, he would set his guitar down and approach me with his arms outstretched, looking to spin me around—much to the envy of the other young women.

One warm night, after weeks of dancing and hours of drinking, Pavlo took me to see the gardens he tended for the camp. He beamed with pride as he pointed out the different vegetables. He touched them so tenderly that I mistook him for gentle. I had not yet seen his temper, only his passion.

“This is a safe place. My place.” He slurred his whisper.

He lightly caressed the cucumber vine. “They are so fragile.” He looked to the ground.

I knew from the way he had leaned against me as we walked, that he had drunk too much.

“I-I am ashamed,” he said and sat down heavily on the ground, dropping his face into his hands.

“I don’t deserve this. I don’t . . .” He shook his head back and forth. I stood by, helpless.

“What? What’s wrong, Pavlo?”

I went to touch his shoulder, but he pulled away from me.

“Don’t touch me!” he whispered harshly, then louder: “Leave me alone.”

I stepped back, uncertain what to do or say.

“Pavlo?” I squatted down in front of him, speaking as softly as I could. “Pavlo, what’s the matter?”

He looked at me, full of fear and anger . . . and sadness. Such sadness.

I could feel it all coming off of him, so strong that it caught in my gut and I felt sick.

“I deserve to die. Just let me die. Let me die.”

I felt helpless, so I reached out again to touch him. “Pavlo, you can tell me.”

“Nooo,” he whispered, but he allowed me to rest my hand on his shoulders

“Please.”

He looked at me. Looked into me with wide eyes, and I was afraid of the words that were coming.

So quietly he whispered. “You’ll leave me if I tell you, Nadya. You’ll leave me, and I don’t want to lose you.”

“I won’t leave you, Pavlo,” I said.

He sat up and rushed over to the bushes, heaving. I could hear him throwing up, and then a howl that chilled me. I had heard that cry before. When the animals were trapped in the barn and burning alive. That was the cry to call Death. I ran to him.

He had crawled away from the bushes and lay curled in a ball on the ground.

“Please just sit near me,” he whispered.

I lay down beside him, resting my arm gently around his shoulders. He began to rant. He would not look at me. “You need to know . . . why they come for me . . . need to know why . . . so afraid . . . time keeps going back and I see it . . . again and again . . . I am alone with the dead . . . the train is full of corpses . . . .”

Then he looked up at me. “You wouldn’t believe what I’ve seen; what I’ve had to do to survive. My time as a prisoner in the camps was filled with nightmares I can never forget. The things they did, to men, to women. To children!”

For a few moments, nothing but silence. I think that neither of us took a breath, we just sat there curled together as he shook ever so slightly.

“Pavlo, I—“ I tried to find something to say. I had seen death, experienced loss, but not like the stories I had heard from the concentration camps. Those horrors went beyond war, they were pure evil. What could I say when I really didn’t understand?

He stopped me with more jumbled words: “Why am I alive? Everyone else was dead . . . the barbed wire . . . the train car . . . so many ghosts always around me . . . I am not worthy of you . . . I deserve only to die . . . to die alone . . . leave me alone . . . .”

I held him tightly as he tried to push me away again, and then he finally stopped pushing. I wanted to say something, but I said nothing, asked nothing.

After what seemed like hours, he pulled away and stared at me. “Never ask me about this,” he said.

I nodded.

“Never. Promise me.”

“I promise,” I said and watched him close his eyes. My chest felt so heavy, I wanted to do something: to scream, to break something, to run away. But I was afraid to move, afraid even to wipe away his tears, and yet it hurt me to just sit there, unable to comfort him. I looked up at the sky, full of the moon. Perhaps if I could remember the words, the old words.

That night was powerful, the moon completely full of the milk of heaven. It was that milk that could soothe dreamers. I closed my eyes, trying to remember and heard Baba’s whisper: “Moon Mother’s milk. Good to chase away nightmares. All you need to do is ask. What mother would deny her child peace?”

I stroked his forehead, tracing my fingers along his eyebrows, his cheeks, his jaw. Gently forming circles of pressure. I looked up at the moon until my eyes formed tears for not blinking. I stared until light was all I saw, all I breathed. I let it fill me up and gave it to him with each gentle touch. When I looked down, he had fallen asleep.

I lay there, keeping watch. Holding him and keeping Death away, for I knew Death would not answer Pavlo’s call if I stayed near and remained awake. I tried to understand his words, tried to make sense of his pain and anger, but I had so many questions that I could never ask him. Could I love such a man?

I watched the stars and moon and blackness. The same sky can look so different when you look with different eyes. I knew that to be with Pavlo would be to share his ghosts. Could I see him as he was, not as he saw himself or as others saw him?

Before the next full moon, Pavlo claimed me for his own and insisted that we stay together in the married couples’ barracks. He insisted that marriage itself was only a formality, and he would rather wait to have the ceremony in a real church, not in a camp courtyard. As I stood in Nebo, the girls’ barracks, and gathered Stephan’s overcoat, my shirt and skirt, shoes and journal, Mama Paraska begged me to stay with her, promising that Brother Taras would protect me until Andriy came to take us both back home. But fear and love kept me blind.

Pavlo didn’t trust Mama Paraska’s influence. He was jealous of any time I spent away from his careful gaze. He tried to forbid me to see her, but I refused. After a few slaps of warning, he finally commanded that I spend as little time with her as possible. I learned that with Pavlo, punctuation marks came in the form of shaking, slaps, and punches. The greater the emphasis, the harder the blow.

Mama Paraska and I still met in the evenings after work to talk, usually in Nebo under the protection of Brother Taras. At least there I knew I would be safe for an hour or two.

One night, many months after we sent the letter to Andriy, I sat on Mama Paraska’s bed waiting for her to join me. Normally she was on time, but that night she was fifteen minutes late. Suddenly I saw her, running up the stairs waving a letter, her face flushed with excitement, her cheeks even rosier.

“It came!” Mama Paraska shouted, her wide grin revealing the gap where the German soldiers had stolen her gold tooth.

“Andriyko got my letter. He’s coming. He’s coming!” She tossed the letter into my lap, lifted up her long skirts, and began to dance around, singing over and over again: “My son is coming, my son is coming.”

I looked down at the letter in my hand, quickly scanned a few lines. He was obviously well-educated by his vocabulary and style. But his handwriting said even more than his words. The writing was tiny and neat. Nothing ran together, neither word nor letter. Everything calculated, everything careful. He was a man in control of the image he put out into the world. Yet he wrote his letters close to the line, not open or tall. He was a man with secrets.

“My Beloved Mama,

I am so happy to hear that you are alive and well. I am also well; you need not worry about my health or well being. In fact, I will be coming to see you in a few weeks’ time. I have made important friends in the Army and have explained to them that you were captured by the Germans. They have granted me time to come and bring you back to Ukraine. I am to receive land as repayment for my time served. So you see, it will all be set right again—our family name, our legacy.”

Andriy went on to describe medals he had won in the Battle at Stalingrad, under General Volsky’s 4th Mechanized Corps. He wrote about his nickname among the soldiers—“Soldat Spivak,” the Singing Soldier—because of his beautiful voice. On rare nights when someone had a guitar or a bandura, his comrades would ask him to sing the old songs, and Andriy would bring them all to tears.