The Summer Garden (63 page)

And so it began.

To feed the hungry in the industrialized cities, the
Soviet
councils—men and women armed with rifles and under orders to shoot to kill— came and requisitioned the food in the farms, without compensation. In Central Asia, there had been little protest. But in the Ukraine—ninety percent of Soviet agriculture—the farmers protested. They were shot, exacerbating the paucity of labor.

And so it continued.

The new collectivized farms could not produce enough; the workers were in the fields from sunup to sundown, and their entire harvest went on trucks to the cities, while the farmers remained with their families in the Ukraine—one of the most fertile regions in the world—without income and without food. To everyone’s surprise, the farmers, their wives gone, their children dying, their parents long dead, started working less. They were shot for idleness. The orphaned children were promptly sent off to the Siberian collectives, and those who survived the transit trains worked there.

Despite these minor setbacks, the Ukraine continued with the Five-Year Plan, into 1929, 1930, and 1931. While 1930 and 1931 were better harvest years, they were no better for the farmers, who had fallen so far behind the five-year grain requirement that all the produce from the farms continued to be forcibly removed by the Party apparatchiks.

The farmers did the only thing they could. They started stealing.

For this they were shot, further narrowing the human capital.

Those still alive during the famine of 1933—the last, and worst, year of the first Plan—had finally had their fill, and in an act of futile protest, slaughtered their cattle before they could be taken away and ate the remains on the village streets. They burned down their own collectives and their carriages and their huts; and then they scorched the fields they refused to harvest.

All across the Ukraine they were hanged on the streets, shot in public, burned with their cattle; all silage, seed stock, farm stock and grain was confiscated. All rail lines and roads were closed by the Red Army and the OGPU. Labor—the fixed capital—became unfixed at a rate of ten thousand executions a week, with hunger and disease swelling the numbers of the dead to several million in the Ukraine alone between 1932 and 1933.

Comrade Stalin vowed to do better in the next Five-Year Plan.

Doing Better in the Next Five-Year Plan

For the second Five-Year Plan from 1933–1938,
the Politburo set the production goals a little lower and the prices a little higher. Impatiently they waited out the drought in 1933 and the government-sponsored famine in 1933 and 1934, but in 1934, Stalin had had quite enough. When he received a letter from the Nobel prize-winning author Mikhail Sholokhov accusing him, the Great Leader and Teacher, of destroying the Ukrainian countryside and starving its people, his brisk reply was, “No, Comrade Sholokhov.
They
are starving
me
.”

Reconstruction and industrialization of the country was proceeding apace, but Stalin recognized that labor—the most expensive part of production—was going to be the hardest to come by in the next few years, for reasons, he felt, that were completely outside his control. Fortunately he had conceived a plan in the 1920s that he believed solved the fledgling state’s early problems. He expanded his solution in the 1930s.

An organized system of government work camps!

An organized system of government farms!

Against all reason, the Ukrainian farmers allowed themselves to be starved and hanged and shot! rather than give up their grain, their cattle, and their farms. The wealth of the country and therefore the future of the Soviet Union rested in the hands of the Ukrainian farmers.

Suddenly a firm believer in free will, Stalin changed policy. He gave the farmers in the Soviet Union a choice: Work on the collective farm or work in the Gulag.

This reorganization of social structure of a vast country required massive help at the lowest levels. The OGPU hired and paid regular folk to help them. Young men, women, and children who had the stomach, the disposition and the inclination for this kind of work, stood with rifles in the fields from dawn till night, making sure the farmers continued to choose to toil on the volunteer collectives and not steal.

These people were called weeders.

The Future

The next morning, when Deda and Babushka
went to the
Soviet
to return the bag of sugar, Tatiana and Pasha came with them. They sat on the bench outside the open window of a two-room wooden council house, where they could hear what was happening. Inside, councilman Viktor Rodinko, said, “Comrade Metanov, we’ve been expecting you. Where is the sugar?”

The councilman and his two assistants weighed the bag—three times. And then Rodinko stood in front of Deda and Babushka and asked them why it took so long to return it. “Why didn’t you return it immediately, comrade?”

“It was late in the day. We were about to have dinner. The
Soviet
was closing.”

“Look at it from our point of view. It’s almost as if you weren’t planning on returning the bag until Comrade Kantorov came to see you.”

Deda and Babushka were quiet. Deda said, “I do not need Comrade Kantorov to tell me to return what isn’t mine,” in a voice so neutral Comrade Kantorov had no place in it. “Will there be anything else?”

“There will be,” said Rodinko. “Have a seat.”

And so it began.

“The bag of sugar, Comrade Metanov, belongs to our soldiers, our factory workers, our proletarian farmers. As you very well know, we are fighting for our existence. We don’t have enough to feed our soldiers, our factory workers, our proletarian farmers…”

“That’s why we returned it.”

“When you take as much as a spoonful for yourself, you are stealing from the people who are building our country.”

“I understand.”

“We have many enemies who would like to see us fail. The fascists in Europe, the capitalists in America, they’re all waiting for our collapse. We import the sugar from China, but there is not enough for a hundred and fifty million people, of which you and your family are just seven.”

And so it continued.

What about the workers who build the tanks? The doctors who treat the wounded? The farmers who reap the grain? The Red Army soldier, who will lay down his life to protect you…“Get in line, Comrade Metanov.”

“I’ve been in line since 1917, Comrade Rodinko. I’m well aware of my place,” said Deda. “My intentions were always to return the bag.”

The councilman nodded. “But one hundred and twenty-five grams lighter, no?”

Deda and Babushka said nothing.

“Comrade Metanov, as a nation we need to trust our people. But we are also realistic. There are some people who will think of their families first. I’m not saying you are such a man, what I’m saying is that such men exist. Even during the noble French Revolution, despite fighting for liberty, fraternity and equality, men resorted to all kinds of criminal behavior to provide for their families.”

The councilman fell quiet. Tatiana and Pasha, listening outside the window, waited. Rodinko wanted something from Deda. After many minutes of silence, Deda spoke. “That is criminal, you’re right,” he said with resignation. “Placing your family before the survival of the state.”

Rodinko smiled. “Absolutely. I am
so
glad we understand each other. For taking the sugar, you and your wife are to spend two weeks without pay at a
kholhoz
in Pelkino, helping with the summer harvest. Let that be part of your rehabilitation and re-education. And from now on, there will be no more bags of sugar falling at the feet of your family, no matter how accidental, no matter how providential. Am I making myself clear?”

“Very clear.”

“Have a good day, Comrade Metanov. You and your wife leave for Pelkino tomorrow morning at eight. Come here first for your papers.”

Deda’s Burning Questions

That night after dinner, Tania was gently swinging
in the hammock with Deda, his arm around her. She knew Pasha was waiting for her, but she didn’t want to go just yet. Her heart was unusually heavy.

“What’s wrong, Tanechka?” Deda asked. “We got off easy. Just two weeks on a collective. Better than five years in Siberia. And I don’t mind doing my part to feed the people in the cities. After all, we are those people. The day may come when we need food, too.” He smiled at her.

But Tatiana wasn’t worried about Deda or Babushka, two weeks and they would be back; no, there was something more ominous that troubled her. She asked, “Deda, do you think Saika knows about her parents?”

“Probably not. Children blessedly know little about their parents. Why do you ask?”

Murak coming to their house because Saika told him about the bag of sugar. Wasn’t that reason enough? She didn’t want to tell her grandfather about Marina’s river “incident,” or the biking “incident.” Or Saika coming by with Stefan just when Dasha’s Mark was visiting. Or glimpsing the black malevolence inside Shavtala.

She chewed her lip.

“I’m going to tell you something about me, Tania,” Deda said. “Did you know I was asked to become a Party member? Yes, at the university. They offered to make me a full professor and to double my salary. They promised me that Pasha will be kept out of active combat when he reaches draft age. And some other benefits too.” He smiled. “Now see what I mean? Even
you
didn’t know that, did you?”

Tatiana was silent. Breathlessly she asked, “What kind of benefits?”

Deda laughed. “Vacation villas in Batumi on the Black Sea. Triple meat rations. Our very own five room apartment.”

“When did they offer you this?”

“Last year. I would also get a good pension, and that’s something I must think about since I’ll be retiring soon.”

Tatiana was still breathless. “Did you tell them no?”

Deda smiled. “Did you want me to tell them yes?”

That stumped her. “Do they ask you for things in return?”

“What do you think?”

She mulled. “Maybe they just ask you to wear a little hammer and sickle pin.”

“Yes, first. Then your son is expected to become a Party member. And your grandchildren are required to become Comsomols. And then they ask you why the son refused, and why the insubordinate, impossible youngest granddaughter refused, and why the people down the stairs have been meeting with foreigners in secret and I, as a diligent Party member, never said a word about it.”

“What people down the stairs?”

“Precisely. Everything comes at a price, Tatiana. Everything in your life. The question you have to ask yourself is, what price are you willing to pay?”

Tatiana felt a cold shiver. “I think it’s right to keep away if your heart tells you to keep away,” she said.

“Yes, you’re a great believer in that. Well, my heart told me to keep away.” Deda paused. “What is your heart telling you about the girl next door?”

“I think…” she drew out her words, “it’s telling me to keep away.”

Deda nodded. “Pasha certainly seems to think you should.”

“But really, Deda, I’m not sure of anything anymore. Everything seems so muddled this summer.” She heaved a sigh out of her shoulders.

Deda nodded again. “And what did I tell you to do to unmuddle? Whenever you’re unsure of yourself, whenever you’re in doubt, ask yourself three questions. What do you believe in? What do you hope for? But most important, ask yourself, what do you love?” His arm was around her. “And when you answer, Tania, you will know who you are. And more important—if you ask this question of the people around you, you will know who they are, too.” He paused. “Here, I’ll give you an example. I believe in my word. I don’t give it lightly, but when I give it, I keep it. I hope for my grandchildren. I hope you will grow up to have love. And I love your grandmother. That’s who I love most of all.” He smiled. “I think she’s listening to me just inside the porch.”

Tatiana, barely breathing, listened to her grandfather, looking up at him. “I love my family,” she said. “Since that’s all I know, that’s all I can answer.”

She didn’t want to lose this moment with her grandfather. He kissed her head and embracing her, whispered, “Tania, you’re making your grandfather want to cry. It’s the first time you’ve come and sat and wanted my advice. Please don’t tell me you’re growing up, my little baby.”

Tatiana had hoped that things would return to normal, but right after her grandparents left for Pelkino, poor Dasha for some mysterious, grown-up, tear-stained reason had to quickly return to Leningrad. She didn’t say how long she’d be gone, but because there was now no one to take care of Pasha and Tatiana, Dasha arranged for Pasha to be sent a week early to the boys camp in Tolmachevo, and for Tatiana to be sent fifty kilometers east to Novgorod to stay with Marina’s parents on their dacha on Lake Ilmen.

Though Tatiana loved going with Marina to Lake Ilmen, her joy was short-lived indeed when Marina said, “Tania, my mother said I could bring Saika, too! Isn’t that great?”

Everything was so fine in Luga once, but recently there had been nothing but unbounded chaos. What did Blanca Davidovna rasp to Marina, just before the girls left? “He will wile away, and he will chip away, and he will erode your goodwill and your strength, gram by gram, grain by grain, and the glass that was once round will become jagged with his ministrations. He will not rest until he has you in his clutches, because you are susceptible, because you can be swayed.” Marina said she didn’t know whose tea leaves Blanca was talking about, because while she was saying this to Marina, Blanca was gripping Tatiana’s hands. But Tatiana knew. And she knew because of only one thing. Tatiana knew that like Deda, she could not be swayed.

Swimming on a Summer Afternoon

Lake Ilmen is an immense twenty-seven-mile-long lake
, shaped like a dolphin and surrounded by flat shores and tall elms. The lake is shallow, thirty feet deep at most, its many low-lying areas silt and swamp. Because of this, the lake is warm to swim in. A hundred rivers and streams feed into Lake Ilmen, but only one flows out—the Volkhov River, which flows north to Lake Ladoga. On the shores of the Volkhov River and Lake Ilmen stands a nine-hundred-year-old city: Novgorod, or “New City,” the oldest city in Russia. Novgorod was ideally placed along the trade route from the East to the West, and flourished and grew in its wattle and daub splendor until Moscow overtook it in importance in the fifteenth century and St. Petersburg, the new capital of Russia, further diminished its glory from 1703 onward.