Ten Words No. 4:
Petrov the Good
A Short Story
by Ceci Lumley
(See 10 Words Intro
for an explanation of the concept.)
The random words:
coveted, austere, extrapolates,
mainline, disturbs, microbial, acacia,
collided, L'vov, protection
coveted, austere, extrapolates, mainline, disturbs, microbial, acacia, collided, protection coveted, coveted,
coveted,
coveted,
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Of course we kept kosher through the decades, as the badly brought up, badly educated little Russian boys made ideas toys, and people’s lives hell. We had after all seen it all before, many times in L’vov: the Germans, the Austrians, the Poles, back and back and back. There were even those among the oldest of our people who told stories about how we had been farming the land along the Vistula and Dniester when that handsome sprout of a boy named Alexander was wandering all over the world. Ah but my mind wanders. You would think the accumulation of days and years that we call age might bring peace and serenity. But no. Each added day disturbs memory like some mischievous youngster who won’t stop poking at a wasp nest till he’s properly stung a good thousand times. Or more. I wanted to tell you the odd little story about how we managed to keep kosher not only through those terrible days and nights of Moscow rule and misrule but even in the darkest nights of the German terror. My eldest daughter was, in the official records of the Russian regime, named Acacia, because in our back garden we had three enormous trees of that kind. Oh, how they would burst forth every spring, like three yellow suns. I remember mornings when I would wake up and look out my window and feel like the whole world has bright, bright yellow. So lovely. Of course, all our family, all our community knew her real name was Rachel, but I believe it was never spoken aloud, not after her naming ceremony. As we never spoke any of our real names. So, out of habit, here I will continue to call her Acacia. When Acacia was just a little girl, I don’t remember the year, but it was before the Germans came, our Moscow masters decided Galicia, or Ukraine, as they elected to call it, needed a new railroad, the better to ship our hard won meager wealth back into their greedy, grubby hands. Next thing you know, here came whole armies of slave labor constructing a mainline railroad straight through the Carpathians right to the heart of the city of L’vov. A lot of good it did those young Russian fools. Their splendid new railroad just a year or two later would only make it easier for the conquering Germans to move their own kind of stupid war machines around. What could we do but watch them build it. Acacia was fascinated. She sat for hours in one of her namesake trees, watching the clearing work, the excavations, the roadbed building, the laying of the rails. And the day the first shiny new passenger train came rumbling past she came running into the kitchen: "Mama, Mama! Come see. It’s the god of thunder." Lord. Oh, Lord. I remember those words. She must have been younger than I said. Three? Four? The words of a very small child, aren’t they? See, the wasps are stinging. I had tried to make her older, because I guess it’s a tiny bit easier to accept what happened if she was not so completely the innocent small child. The new railroad was popular with our Moscow masters. Many trains disturbed our peace by day and our rest by night. Why? I still don’t know what a wretched little provincial town like ours had to offer them. Finally, as again the time for war approached, the trains brought soldiers. Thousands of Soviet soldiers were garrisoned in L’vov. There was at the time not even a ghetto in L’vov. In ancient backwaters, we were accepted, maybe because in such places even the gentiles felt closer to their original pagan beliefs and were willing to allow us the full, unhindered protection of our own very old rites. No ghetto and really no discrimination. That all came soon enough. When the Russian soldiers arrived, they were put up equally all over our small city. Two to a house. Petrov and Aleksi. We were lucky with our two. They weren’t the ill-mannered louts that the neighbors soon were complaining about at the tavern and on the sidewalks. Boys, only boys. Hardly 20 years old both of them. Petrov, blond and fair and thin, Aleksi dark with those high cheekbones that you knew carried genes from Genghis Khan. Both polite, they were always offering to help in the kitchen even after they had done whatever my husband might ask, bring in firewood, clear the snow, Good boys, I thought. Though we kept kosher, we never talked about it. We just did it. And Petrov and Aleksi never said a word. They fit smoothly and easily into our household, not least because our little Mlle. Acacia won their hearts completely. Every day when they came in from whatever terrible army practice they were doing, it was "May we please take Acacia sledding? May we take her to the river? May we take her to the candy shop?" This first "occupation," the Russian one, which we had so dreaded and feared, became for our little family, a time of some joy. We soon coveted our two boys, I think. They were so good, so kind. And then it ended. They came in one evening to announce that their battalion was leaving tomorrow, going west. We all shuddered and hid our fears. West meant Germans, we all knew that. We knew it was bad. Having only old stories to rely on, we didn’t at that time know how bad. Petrov and Aleksi left, breaking Acacia’s heart. War came and at first brought many more trains, which delighted Acacia. Even on cold days she would sit at one of her trees, watching, sure that one of these trains would bring her two friends back to her. Whatever the trains really brought, it was as if they when they left, they sucked the very life out of our town. Foodstuffs, apparently, were considered more important elsewhere, especially no doubt in Moscow, so they were hauled away by the trainload. Along with everything else needed for life. New clothing first became scarce, then nonexistent. Hard times brought hard, new words, and you heard people talking of austerity, a word no one previously would ever have used for our quietly prosperous little city. All parts of life that had been easy became difficult. Then the Germans arrived, on a wave of death, and life itself became impossible. Impossible. Another of those words to describe bad times in the old, old past. How foolish the young are, always unwilling to look clearly at the past and extrapolate ancient terrors to their happy future, and how foolish the old are to leave them to their folly. The Germans came and brought separation. All will be well, they assured our citizenry, as soon as we separate, isolate the poisonous Jewish microbial infection. They were of course happy to offer their services in achieving this purification, after which, they promised, life in L’vov would be an island of peace and enlightened behavior. In deep night, early in this second occupation, the German one, we were all awakened by a huge thundering. The very house shook. My husband made light. We looked at each other. Were the Germans shelling the town? Acacia came running in, terrified. It took a child to tell us what had happened. Two trains had collided. We went to the window and saw burning, sparks and smoke swirling upward, dark figures staggering, running, falling, screaming. My husband knew me, knew I was about to go out to try to help. Our eyes met again. We both understood now we must first think of ourselves and our daughter. We stood and watched as the trains burned, as ambulances began to come. Dawn revealed a small patch of hell like we would soon be seeing in photographs from the growing war: scorched earth, blackened, bare trees. And yes, the blast had even reached our garden. Our acacias were shorn of their leaves, covered with soot, as was the back of our house. We were lucky. Houses closer to the point of collision had caught fire. Around noon of that day, I saw Acacia standing by the fence at the back of our property. I thought she was watching the workers at the site of the disaster. She turned, and a blackened figure rose from beyond the fence and walked with her to the house. They came in the back door. Acacia was one big smile. I looked from her to the apparition with her. I looked and looked again, seeing beneath the soot and filth. "Petrov?" I said. "Yes, Mama. I have come back." . . . We never asked and he never told us how he came to be on one of the trains. My husband and I talked about it of course. What were we to do? Was Petrov really Russian? Was he Russian-German who had somehow switched sides? It was a mystery. But here he was, and, he told us, he wished to stay. Could we pass him off as a family member, perhaps a refugee, say, my husband's younger brother from Leningrad who had arrived unexpectedly? And so Acacia gained a long-lost uncle, whose dyed hair was now as black as her own, and we gained our savior who made possible our survival, our very kosher survival. As you will soon understand. Only days after the train disaster, the Germans started their purification. Which, in L’vov, was easy. The city records were complete and clear: this household was Christian, that, Muslim, and that, Jewish. Because, please believe, for centuries in little L’vov, we had lived together in peace. The Germans had only to go through papers in the town hall, and soon every Jewish house sported a large black painted Star of David. All stories, properly told, have their difficult parts. We now come to the difficult part of my story. The part you may condemn us for. It happened. And I will remember it. I will not forget. The afternoon after the Star of David was painted on our house, my husband marched to the town hall and spoke with a German officer, informing him that some mistake had been made. Perhaps the town records referred erroneously to a house which had once stood beside ours. We, he assured the new Berlin masters, were good Christians. The Germans were naturally more than suspicious. They ridiculed him. Laughed at him. Ran him off as if he were noisome vermin. Next day, he went back. Please, he said, ask our good Christian neighbors, ask the local priest. So sure was he of the good will of the people of L’vov. I think on it now, of that faith in people, and I think it was the bravest thing my husband ever did, to put our lives in the hands of our gentile neighbors. And Lord knows, our own kind would not hold the ploy we were trying against us. The audacity of my husband's request broke through the Germans’ arrogance. They did what he asked. They interviewed neighbors and priests. Everyone affirmed that we were good Christians. These responses only made the Germans more suspicious. One morning, a large Mercedes sedan stopped at our front gate. Two black-uniformed dogs from Hell, their silver decorations shining in the sun, got out. One was an officer, the other a doctor. Acacia and Petrov were in the front garden. I stood at an open window and listened. The officer demanded to see my husband. Petrov said he was at work, which was true, but could he be of assistance, as the brother of the head of the household. Neighbors across the way were watching. The officer and the army doctor conferred briefly. The doctor spoke in broken Russian to Petrov. I couldn’t hear his words. Petrov nodded, then knelt and said something to Acacia. He stood, and Acacia came running into the house. As Acacia darted through the front hall—thank the Lord she did not see what happened—the doctor reached out to Petrov and, in full daylight, with no shame, no hesitation, as if handling a farm animal, unzipped his pants, reached inside, and pulled out his organ. The officer looked down, and the doctor blushed. They then began speaking hastily, as Petrov restored his modesty. They were apologizing, then quickly disappeared in the quiet majesty of their satanic vehicle. Petrov came in the house, hugged Acacia, smiled at me. And that was how we came to keep kosher in Hell. The Germans never bothered us again. My husband and I never spoke of what happened. Petrov never explained. What did the doctor see? Why did he blush? Why did he and his army master go away and leave us in peace? Those are the mysteries of my life. Neither our kitchen nor our rites during those nightmare years were perfect. We were able to feed others and, at times, to hide still others, people who one way or another had avoided or escaped the pogrom. We survived. After the war, Petrov announced that he had to go home, to try to find his own family. He left, and we never heard from him again. END
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