Рассказ "И это была любовь" на английском языке. Перевод Олега Шабанова.
Salavat Vakhitov
It appeared to be love
– It appeared to be love, but I didn’t recognize it. And how could I, the fourteen– year-old girl who survived the war, know that love can be like that.
***
The wheels rumbled. I was going home in the compartment of “Moscow-Ufa” deluxe train after the long business trip. Being in the compartment I felt the warmth of native land. I missed my cozy town where you don’t see any Moscow streets fuss and crush even in rush hours, where there was no any annoying noise of the underground with its intolerable draughts. I was happy to see my close friends and relatives.
My compartment passengers were lean and tiny active old man with Soviet butch haircut, neat black moustache and lanky clumsy lad and the postgraduate of Ufa Teachers’ training college, which with unusually wide, almost round face and long hair looked like hippie or like a leader of an American tribe. When the boarding fuss was settled and we slowly began taking out the food for the traditional tea drinking in the compartment we heard a knock at the door and our hostess having strictly examined the compartment asked if somebody would give up his place in the lower shelf to the old woman. This “somebody” certainly was me as the postgraduate had already made himself comfortable on the upper shelf and it wouldn’t be right to disturb the old man. So, I agreed. Here, I thought, it was even more comfortable to sleep, nobody would disturb you and when you sleep the time slips by faster.
– Please, – I said and threw my stuff to the upper shelf and then climbed there myself.
– Thank you, sonny, – the old woman thanked me. I smiled her back.
– Why have you climbed on there? – the old man with black moustache asked me and having cheerfully screwed his eyes pointed at the bottle carefully taken out from the traveling bag. – We are supposed to have a toast for our acquaintance. The round-faced student began smiling:
– I was wondering why they gave me so much snacks!
– No, lads, I and the old woman will have fun drinking tea. Green one – I answered and interrogatively looked at her.
The “fellows” were disappointed, and the old woman said with approval:
– Thank you, my grandkid, bring us some boiled water.
– Well, granny, I’m getting younger in front of your very eyes. Just a moment ago you called me a “sonny” and now I’m already a “grandkid”. Soon you’ll start calling me “my great grandson”.
– I will – she laughed, – I’m old enough.
I jumped off my shelf and having taken the mug went to get some tea. When I came back I noticed that the old man and the postgraduate made some kind of acquaintance and were talking mere twaddle.
Can you imagine they made all the country to sit in the eagle posture! – the old man got excited, pointing with his forefinger and shaking it. – in eagle posture! Can you imagine?!
The postgraduate was blushed from the vodka and looked more like the red-skinned leader. He giggled in response and the old woman rummaged in her package in silence without interfering in the conversation.
– What? – I interfered pouring the hot water into the mugs. – Who is sitting like an eagle?
– He is talking about the restrooms, – “the leader” told.
The old man looked at my side:
– You, tell me how the old man can do his doings in the train in such a bumpy air as he can’t keep his feet standing on the lavatory pan and madly turning his head in search of support? He looks like a two-headed eagle on the arms of our native land, but doesn’t feel any pride for his country. And what about the stink from the restroom u have to smell during your trip?
I remembered that when I bought the ticket the cashier suddenly said:
– We have only upper places in the middle. Do you like it?
– Do you think the middle compartments are safer? – I wondered.
– You didn’t understand. I don’t think you want to have a place near the restroom.
– No, I don’t, – I said having imagined the endless crack of steel door catches, so I bought the compartment ticket instead of the berth one.
In the meantime our young fellow traveler poured the bottle content in the mugs, said a traditional “for us” and began clinking the glasses. I clinked with my mug of tea for the company’s sake.
– For example, when our head of sub department gets drunk he doesn’t bother going to the restroom and pees right to the sink where he washes his hands and dishes after – said the postgraduate – It’s disgusting, isn’t it?
– It’s certainly is, – supported the old man. – Because we don’t have any culture! I, for example, don’t like the guests in my house. They surely will pee by the toilet sink. Even if they try to do it right.
– You, – the old man addressed me, – what do you think, for how long people of our country will pee by the toilet sink?
I heard a sneer in his voice, but I was serious.
– I don’t know, I got used to pee to the urinals.
Everybody kept silent. They drank in silence for some time. Some of them drank vodka, some – tea. I don’t like to keep up the conversation with the travelers ex comitate and in a forced fashion at all. Usually I just listen to them or think my own thoughts. That’s why there was nothing to talk about. Having refreshed the half-drunk part of our company went for a smoking. I and the old woman continued our slow tea drinking. And now she being silent before began to speak.
In Germany the restrooms are very clean. So clean that you don’t even know where to visit your necessity. You are afraid of making them dirty. You feel like going outside to do your need. But you are surprised to see the same cleanness there.
– But, gammer, how do you know how it is in Germany?
– I’m just coming from there.
– Did you visit your children? – I tried to guess.
– No, I was looking for my beloved.
– In Germany?
Yes, now I know it appeared to be love, but I didn’t recognized it. And how could I, the fourteen– year-old girl who survived the war, know that it can be like this.
***
The wheels rumbled. To its steady rumbling behind the window the scenes of the autumn were rushing by. It seemed that the pages of human life are being turned over.
– How silly I was! How silly!
The old woman became thoughtful, going through the memories rushed into her mind.
– In Chernikovka, the region of Ufa, after the war we had the camps with the captive Germans. They were building some facilities, the houses among them. The barracks the captives lived in were fenced in barbwire and were situated right on the half way to school where we, kids of the villages nearby, went on foot. There was a great number of postwar kids and we kept together.
The people surely didn’t like the Germans: almost all the families had the killed and missing. If we got to see the lost “Fritz” we showered him with the stones, which the boys as well as girls prepared in advance. In this way we tried to revenge. And it was German which was the most unloved subject. We hated our teacher of German and nobody studied it. The director’s moralizing conversation didn’t help. I’m still surprised at the tenacity of our German language teacher.
On day, having sneaked up to the barracks we saw two Germans, the old and young one, which were smoking and quietly talking the language we hated. Having jumped out from our shelter we began showering them with the stones. The boys slinged. The old man hid shouting, but the young man for some reason didn’t evade of our stones and slowly headed towards us. Lena, my friend and my neighbor screamed in terror and started running away. The others did the same. But I was so scared that I couldn’t even move, because he was heading right towards me, looking at my eyes and also his serious childishly freckled face reminded me of my elder brother lost during the war. He had the same manner to walk too. I imagined that he would come to me, tug my tresses and say: “Aha! I caught you!“ And satisfied he’ll start laughing himself and so contagiously that everybody who hears his laughter begins to smile too.
He stopped by the barrier and started talking to me. I tried to listen attentively, but surely I didn’t understand anything. I just remember that I was surprised it wasn’t the same harsh deep-throat language we used to listen during our classes and films about the war which sometimes we saw in our club. His speech was melodious and unusually beautiful as if I heard the quite wash of the waves of the sea I had never seen.
My torpor passed. Then I took out my breakfast package my mum made for me. I threw it over the fence and ran away. I thought about that freckled German all the night and hardly slept remembering his quite voice.
In the morning I lied to my friends that I overslept and went to school little later secretly hoping to see my new friend. Surprisingly he was at the same place and waved his hand as if he was waiting for me. I threw my breakfast again and ran away although he tried to call me. It continued for a long time, for about a month before I had guts to stay little bit by the fence behind which he stood. I didn’t understand him. He seemed to ask my name. I just remember the strong beating of my heart and my wish to flatter his hand with the elongated scar from his thumb. Stealthily I looked at his eyes and for some reason couldn’t understand of what color they were. When he turned away I saw two crowns on his head, the same my brother had. Silently I called him Jenya as my brother though I understood that his name was Heinz: he always called himself like this hoping that I would tell my name too, but I kept silent. I was so silly at that time!
My school life considerably changed. I showed good results in my studies. I studied well earlier as well but now I was obsessed by my studies. I was carried away by reading and even the mathematics which was very difficult for me to understand now was clear and simple as the words of some love song. And most of all, of course, I liked literature and German. I knew that I would learn it and be able to talk to Heinz.
And Heinz still tried to find out my name and was very persistent. I was scared to call it and told my friend’s name. I remember he was happy as a child.
Lena, my friend, reproached me of becoming reserved and reticent. We lived together and were inseparable. Our mothers were friends too and they noticed that Lena was trying to be like me: she wore the same clothes and braided her hair the same way I did. She went followed me trying to find out my secret. Once she succeeded. She watched me giving my breakfast to the captive enemy and now everybody knew about it at school and in the village. My school friends called me the traitor and little by little stop keeping company with me. I tried not to pay attention to it but after that the insults and followings began. Once when I was going home from school the town boys from the yards near our school started running after me. They drove me in the deep puddle and dragged in the mud. Lena saw all this and though took pity of me didn’t dare to help.
My parents felt the disapproval and neighbors’ scowling glances too. My mum couldn’t bear the continual ill-will and made a row. She usually always busy with housekeeping and that’s why silent suddenly sharply and with irritation came from the yard to the room at the moment I was studying German and started shouting that I was faming our family it was me who caused all the trouble. I had never seen her like that and in torpor I was watching her angry face and only when she raised her hand against me I cried out: “Mummy! He is the same as Jenya!” she burst out sobbing and dropped into a chair. I was crying too, hugging her, patted on the back and whispered: “Forgive me. I won’t do it anymore”.
I didn’t visit the German camp for a long time. I didn’t go the school either. Soon my dad started working in the railway workshop and we moved to Ufa. Before our departure I wanted to see Heinz again. I went to see him by stealth without any hope to see him as we usually met only in the mornings. But he was waiting for me. I told him we were moving and perhaps he understood as he was very upset. He replied me something on his melodious dialect too and at parting gave me a small package. I unfolded it at home. It was a golden brooch in the form of a small snake and my friend’s name was inscribed on it.
How silly I was! So silly! For sure I couldn’t show this gift at home and I told everything to my friend. I gave her the brooch as a gift and asked not throw the stones at him anymore.
***
The wheels rumbled shaking the compartment and drove us to our native land. The old woman took out from somewhere the shabby envelope from Soviet times and continued her narration.
– I didn’t have a chance to see Heinz anymore. Some weeks later his camp was disbanded and the captives were transferred to the other place. Only in fifteen years in Khrushchev times when it became possible I started looking for my Heinz without even knowing his surname. By that time I graduated the department of German language in the Institute, worked the supposed time at school and then suddenly I was offered to teach the party officials. There were the big men among my trainees which helped me to seek information in the archive. In the fifth camp captive list we found information about five people with Heinz name but only one could be him according to the age. Almost without any hope I wrote a letter to the German embassy asking to find out something about my loved person. I was so surprised when in several months they sent me the address and phone number of his father.
I succeeded in calling him. I remember how I was nervous and tried to introduce myself in a confused manner. His father was nervous too and said that he was glad to hear me and that his son told him about her. He thanked me a lot for having helped his son to survive in the captive and then told his address. By that time he had been married and lived together with his wife and two children in the collegiate town on the bank of the Baltic Sea.
I wrote him a letter. Even though I didn’t get any answer I lived for a long time secretly dreaming to see him. I got used to talk to him and every day I imagined myself talking to him. I told him about what was going on in my life, participated in joy and sorrow. It was crazy. From time to time I wrote the letters which I sent to the far country that killed my brother and separated me with my beloved. I often blamed myself that I didn’t seek for my brother but went mad about the alien to me person.
My life passed. I didn’t marry so I don’t have the children. Before retiring I worked at school again teaching the boys and girls from children’s home and adopted one smart boy. His name is Jenya. Now he is a soldier and works in Sakhalin.
I have recently got the letter I haven’t been expecting at all. It was written in Russian. Heinz’s children and wife wrote that their father and husband died one year ago. They invited me to come to visit them and his grieve. I’m being so silly darted off and went to Germany. Could I only imagine how this trip would shock me! I wanted to ask a lot of questions how the man I dreamt about all my life lived all these years.
In Berlin Heinz’s son the forty-year-old man with blue eyes met me. He spoke Russian with a just a light accent. It took us for about three hours to reach Greifswald and then the cottage by the Opel of silver color. On the porch of the house we saw a fat well-groomed German woman.
Having stepped out of the car I greeted her in German. She smiled and replied in Russian:
– How do you do, Valya
I was shocked; it was my friend from my far postwar childhood. Even though I was trained to control my feelings in the party school I couldn’t say even a word for a long time. Maybe because now everything became clear for me. Before having welcomed me to the house Lena told me everything hastily and haltingly.
In 1967 Heinz came to Ufa hoping to find the girl he loved so much and dreaming of so many years. He was looking for Lena who might have a golden snake brooch and everybody pointed at me. I didn’t know where you were and couldn’t explain everything as he did know Russian very good. I think he had some doubts that I wasn’t the girl he met when he was young but all the descriptions were right. Heinz said that he was married but his wife died early, having left him with two kids. Without hesitation he offered to go with him to Germany. I had nothing to lose. I was turning forty and didn’t have a family or children. So I agreed. I was happy till your letters started coming. I hid them telling that they were from my friends from Ufa. There was no point of showing them and explaining something. It was late to change something too as Heinz treated me kindly and his kids were attached to me so much that even learnt Russian as German was difficult for them.
– Forgive me, Valya, I didn’t expect everything would turn out like this. Only now I understood that my small lie led to the big disappointment. All my life I spent in the alien country, the alien house and children. I’d like to come back home and change everything but I have no place to go.
She began to cry and my heart was wrung with pain not for me but for my ex-friend:
– Let your soul be calm, Lena. The God forgive everybody.
– I need only your forgiveness to have a good conscience. There’s no any God, Valya as well as any soul. Can the fallen off leaves have a soul? Maybe only trees have it. We are just the worms eating the planet. The worm has just the present memory. That’s why he needs the forgiveness only while he is alive to spend the rest of his given time.
– But who gave it the God doesn’t exist? Will you welcome me to the house?
We entered the comfortable big hall with soft furniture and the walls in rich tapestry. He lived here, maybe he recollected me uneasily thinking about our future meeting. Maybe here he told his relatives his story in far Russia. It was strange that now he didn’t seem so dear and beloved. In the photo albums I saw an absolutely unfamiliar person with whitish almost clear eyes. He smiled as a successful person. He smiled from the alien inaccessible for me world.
Later we went to the well-groomed town cemetery with wide lime-tree avenues. On the graves there were the candles lit up, but Heinz had just a gravestone with inscription: Heinrich Valter (1926 — 2008).
There in the cemetery I felt the intolerable pity for myself and for my weird friend too. I surely forgave her. We hugged each other and cried together for a long time. The Heinz’s boys standing nearby respectfully kept silent. They didn’t know that we mourning over our broken lives, not his death.
Lena gave me all my letters back. Then I wanted my privacy. Then I went to the sea I had never seen before. For a long time I walked along the shore, re-read the lines of my letter, thought my own thoughts and the wash of the waves reminded me the melodious voice of my beloved person from my far postwar child.
***
The wheels rumbled like the clocks striking the passing seconds. We kept silent. When our passengers came my story was over and tea finished.
– How’s the restroom? – I asked.
– It’s still closed, – grumbled the old man and guiltily added: – we … there in the tambour.
– So, are you ready? – The red-faced leader of red-skinned asked opening a new bottle of vodka.
– I want some too, please, – the old woman suddenly said.
Our fellow travelers amazed looked at each other. Silently I moved my mug up to theirs too.
Перевод Олега Шабанова (21 ноября 2011)
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