On hearing the howling of a bomb, Maxim ran out from the yard and into the street.
The bomb seemed falling straight onto him: he knew that sensation after military exercises, when his father and he had sat in the tank and he had been receiving each coming bomb “onto his head”. Just in case, he took cover behind a column of the portal and saw a huge silvery bird with black crosses on its wings rushing into the narrow opening between the houses in the central street of Belostock, and cold silver fountainlets of machine-gun fire bursts sparkling on asphalt and blocks of pavement…
Belostock. 1941
Max squashed up against the cold stone of the column, he saw clearly and very close by the German pilot’s beastly grin. As if he had felt the intent look, the German slashed a burst from his machine gun over the sidewalks and the ground floor windows of the houses on the opposite side of the street where Maxim was hiding. A young Polish girl who was running past the gates started slipping down awkwardly with her right hand on the wall of the high house called by the kids “Pani Jablonska’s House”. The six storey giant building faced the central street with is massive front and hid a small wooden cottage among apple trees in the back inner yard from passing pedestrians. In that very cottage, Maxim’s parents, Maxim and his younger brother lived – a family of a Soviet officer.
Max’s Father was the head of reconnaissance of the division located by the very Soviet-Polish border line. On the 22nd of June, 1941, he, his wife and his sister in law who was staying with them came home late, it was about one a.m.
All officer personnel assembled at the division commander’s birthday party, there were also some people from division headquarters, people who had been serving together for many years. The party was a success…
Soon after one a.m., a motorcyclist came to pick Father up. The motorcyclist seemed to be a signal for packing things: belongings were packed frantically into bags and boxes, they were retrieved from a heavy chest, on which Maxim had slept lately – he had let his young cousin who came visiting with her mother to Belostock sleep in his bed.
They were packing very selectively, no smart clothes and stylish shoes got into suitcases, they took only essentials.
Maxim went out to the yard when the sky has just started to lighten; he watched the dawn washing away the rim of night. Suddenly he heard distant buzz breaking the pre-dawn quietness. The hollow rumble accompanied with some strange howling was getting louder and closer. Max’s flesh crept, he felt vague uneasiness growing. There came the first distant explosion, then another one, then more and more bursts…
Torn by a dreadful guess, Maxim rushed home: «Mom! Is that the war?»
«Yes, sonny. The fascists have attacked… but never mind, we’ll get them kicked…»
Minsk. 1941
The women were packing the belongings discussing the quick and inevitable end of the war, and Max went out quietly to the yard and on howling of a bomb darted out into the street practically hitting against the first coming Messerschmitt…
When Maxim saw the wounded Polish girl dragged inside by people who ran out into the street, he came to his senses.
Shocked, he came back home.
«Maxim! You’d better look after Oleg and Olya. Help them to get dressed and take them out to the garden…
Don’t forget to put the blanket onto the ground there at the fence, it’s still damp there.» Mother handed a checked woollen blanket to Maxim and he ran straight out to the garden. His footprints were visible on silvery grass covered with dew – from the cottage to a distant corner of the garden, to the lightest place by the apple-trees. When Oleg saw his elder brother he jumped up and cried happily: «We’re going for a walk! For a walk!»; Olya was asleep, and they decided not to wake her up.
In the garden, Maxim seated Olezhka onto the blanket and tried to amuse him somehow, but his brother’s mood changed suddenly, he kept showing to the rumbling in the sky with his little hand, mumbled, shifted uneasily and sobbed. All of a sudden Maxim heard wild roaring at a short distance behind his back. He turned around quickly and caught a glimpse of an aircraft darting straight at him; he instinctively grasped his brother as a bundle, made a somersault and rolled in the wet grass. By this time, he heard neither roar of the engine, nor machine gun burst, nor heavy thuds of earth hit with bullets, nor muffled groan of the trees receiving sharp pieces of metal into their trunks, that sent death everywhere.
Maxim has always imagined death as a skeleton with a scythe – it was like that in fairy tales he had read and heard from his mother; it was stupid and a bit funny old woman, no one of the fairy-tale characters was afraid of her, on the contrary, everybody despised her. Today, he has faced death twice, and remembered it for long: it was the fiery-red, mop-headed, freckled face of a German pilot, the one with eyes wide open and bared teeth. Maxim got up from the ground and rushed home; their mother ran from the door towards them crying something and waving with her hands. But Maxim did not hear a sound, he looked in surprise at his mother’s silent moving lips and then with a running jump buried himself in her armpit. When handing her his screaming brother he finally started to distinguish sounds. «Herods! Herods!», – mother shouted taking her boys home. «Lord! Oh good Lord!»
Here, the commanding officer’s wife Olga Trofimovna ran up to them: «Hurt?»
«They are safe, but to fire at kids… – herods, stinkers!» «Well, what can you expect from them?» - Olga Trofimovna soothed Clavdia as best as she could. «They have telephoned me from the headquarters, a lorry’s coming in an hour, so hurry up, Clava. They will take us to the railway terminal. And as soon we beat the Germans, we’ll immediately return to this place», - the commanding officer’s wife spoke quietly and with confidence. No one had any doubt that it would be exactly as she said.
From their husbands’ conversations, the women knew that the Germans’ decisive attack was aimed at Minsk–Smolensk. They clearly saw the necessity to escape quickly from the attacking hordes. The presence of women and children should not disturb the hearts of their valiant warriors; knowledge and experience of their husbands made them confident in their happy lot, made them confident it would not last for long. Commanders’ wives did not show inappropriate, unneeded and excessive agitation. Their calmness had a wholesome effect on those around them.
There was no crying, no fuss, everybody was getting ready to leave, some of women came running to Olga Trofimovna for a piece of advice: she remembered too well hardships of Finnish War time and was experienced in such matters. She persuaded them to take only the essentials…
Of course, Clavdia understood that she should take only the most valuable, but she could not resist the temptation. She wished so to pack «that crêpe de Chine dress, too» and «also those open-toe sandals with straps»… She was only twenty six, and it seemed that she has just started her happy family life, although she had married Matvey nine years ago… Every new day was a holiday for Clava and Matvey: they were happy of getting to know each other, they had a jolly time and they were upset sometimes; with their firstborn they learned the mystery of a child upbringing, and they learned more after Olezhka was born…
They are all those little big joys of the two faithful loved ones, it is happiness to be with one’s near and dear…
Packing the boys’ things Clava suddenly remembered how she had first met Matvey.
…Here she is, on the bank of the Desna river, in a grove, picking raspberries, and then she finds herself on a fairy-tale clearing all covered with pattern of forest flowers with birch-trees dancing around. A scythe sings with mellow chime that sounds like the call of the bells in Dormition cloister on high days…
Clava stands still in her steps forward longing for this fairy song, she presses the basket with berries to her breast, she can not suppress her ecstasy: «Oh Lord! What a beauty!» The mower, his shoulder raised and his scythe ready over the lush, fragrant, green grass, stops with this cry; in surprise, he looks with his calm green eyes at this girl who appeared out of nothing, a girl with freely spread sickles of her eyebrows, her black eyes sparkling with laughter and her bright raspberry pink lips…
For one moment they are looking into each other’s eyes. An imperceptible movement, and the girl in front of Matvey, disappears. Voices can be heard in the grove, in distant raspberry bushes. Matvey gives a deep sad sigh, he can’t keep thinking of the girl with a face from Arabian Nights, but in some minutes a wonderful song of mellow chime flows on…
Bomb explosions and aircraft rumble are everywhere. Rumbling is coming from the West getting louder. Against the background of the rumble, roaring of a motorcycle engine is definitely audible. Matvey sits in the sidecar with his head bandaged, his officer’s blouse torn to pieces on his left shoulder and brown spots showing through the fabric.
On the run, Matvey jumps out of the sidecar and catches up Maxim with his right arm, he tries to reassure the women:
- It’s all right, all right. Just a scratch, nothing to worry about…
In twenty minutes, a headquarters lorry is coming, you all go with it, don’t wait for anybody! Here are the documents. These are for Olga Trofimovna, these are yours. Don’t open now, you won’t need them before Briansk. Then do as the military commissar orders…
There’s a sea of fascists, great losses, but we’ll beat off…
Now, let me kiss you, all of you! See you soon! Take care of the boys, Clava… -
- Take care of yourself, don’t rush to catch a bullet for nothing! We’ll be waiting for you in Briansk… or where they will tell us to … -
Father pressed his sons’ heads to his face and whispered:
- Wait, boys, wait… Do what your Mom says… we’ll be together soon… -
Only after he had said good-by to all, Matvey turned to Clavdia, pressed her firmly to his bosom and stood like that for a while breathless…
Matvey got into the sidecar quickly, told something to the driver; the motorcycle started with a jerk and vanished from sight in a cloud of dust.
Women and children had scarcely dragged the things out into the yard, when a thirty-hundred-weight lorry with two Red Army soldiers in the body rolled out from “Pani Jablonska’s House” archway. All officers’ wives and children who lived nearby have been running already to the lorry.
First, they seated children into the body, then the women got up into it, and after that the things, that is the minimum of packages was loaded. Half of the suitcases were left on the pavement.
The sun was high in the sky, when the lorry dashed past the bridge next to the railway terminal. At that moment, it banged and whistled over the heads, and the bridge crashed hit directly with a bomb; the second one hit the square in front of the terminal. The lorry darted past the terminal, made a U-turn and stopped at storehouses, nearby there were several empty wagons on the track. The soldiers loaded all the packages into one of them, saluted and whirled away in the lorry back by a roundabout way for the direct road had been destroyed.
Everyone tried to get settled with comfort in the waggon, only Olga Trofimovna sat down quietly next to the exit and seated Clavdia and children by her side. The train was formed chaotically of coaches and wagons, soon it made off to the East.
The steam engine had been pulling the train for more than an hour when an airplane with black crosses on the wings flew over it. The plane made a number of circles and left; and in a quarter of an hour, а flock of steel birds flew over the train from the West. First, they bombed the engine and the head end, and when the train stopped, they attacked individual carriages; they did it stylishly aiming carefully. People jumped out of the carriages and wagons and ran to the little forest nearby to hide behind the trees. The Germans didn’t hit the wagon with officers’ families.
When at last the airplanes flew away, women and children got out of the wagon taking only what they could carry with them. They were walking along the track. Those from the train who survived formed a humane chain almost a kilometre long. In front, beyond the hills, they heard a roar. «Here come the tanks!» - determined the officers’ wives and passed the words back. All went down to a thorny undergrowth, lied low and kept quiet. Two older boys in short rushes ran to the hills.
They crawled to the top, and then jumped up and waved with their arms: «Russians! Russians!»
Olga Trofimovna waving with a white headscarf lead the group.
The vanguard tank stopped in front of her. An officer jumped out and for some moments was speaking to the woman. Then he beckoned to the column of tanks and started to show people how they should settle on the tanks. Olezhka and Olya were taken inside, while Maxim and his Mother covered with barrels sat behind the tower. Olga Trofimovna took Aunt along with her. They managed to get all the children settled, but there was not enough space for all. When the tanks ran their course, several dozens of people stayed by the road; with their eyes they followed the tanks.
In a quarter of an hour the Germans appeared on the side of the road. Submachine gun bursts banged against the tanks. Tank submachine guns answered, gun volleys thundered. Maxim and Mother sat clasping to the tank armour …
The tanks broke through the German lines and after an hour the vanguard tank halted across the railroad track. An approaching train slowed down and stopped within several metres.
The locomotive driver was shouting something while tankmen were throwing out bags and taking out women and children.
Women and children were helped into the carriages, and the tank column commander told that if it went without bombings they would be in Minsk in about two hours.
Soon after one o’clock, the train pulled into Minsk. In the terminal there were petrol cisterns on one side, and a troop train on the other. Soldiers sat in heated goods vans, guns and tanks stood on open goods trucks. Olga Trofimovna went out for a while and came back with bread and fat. The children fell on the food, and she told indignantly that they still didn’t understand it in Minsk that it was the war, on one believed her.
Soon after two o’clock, they started to bomb the terminal. A cistern with petrol caught fire on the one side, the troop train on the other side was off urgently.
Maxim jumped from the bench and pressed his face to the window: «Look, Mom, the cisterns will get exploded now!» At that very moment, some large splinters of a bomb burst a short way off pierced the floor and the bench where Maxim had just sat.
«Lord saved you, Son!» - exclaimed Mother and pulled a hot splinter out of the bench burning her fingers. Later, she kept it all her life till her dying day…
The train made for Moscow.
No one bombed it, and the children were able to fall asleep.
Maxim sat up for a long time, but all the same dozed off at daybreak.
On the 23d of June, 1941, at six a.m., Clava and the children stepped out of the train in Briansk…
December 2010, Moscow