"Mummy," said Zoya, "I've made up my mind: I'm going to take a nursing course."
"And what about the plant?"
"They'll let me go. It's for the front, isn't it?"
Within two days she had obtained all the necessary papers. She was now lively, joyful, as she always was when she clearly saw her way before her. And meanwhile she and I kept sewing kit bags, mittens and helmets. During the air raids she continued to keep watch on the roof or in the attic, and envied Shura who had already put out several incendiary bombs at the plant.
The day before Zoya was to go to her course for the first time she left the house early, and did not come back till late in the evening. Shura and I had dinner without her.
My son was working on the night shift those days, and now as he got ready to leave he was telling me something, but I hardly listened. I could not free myself from the fearful anxiety which had suddenly taken hold of me.
"Mum, but you aren't listening!" said Shura reproachfully.
"I'm sorry, Shura. It's because I can't understand where Zoya has got to."
He left, I made sure that the windows were properly blacked out, sat down at the table and, unable to start doing anything, again began to wait.
Zoya came in excited, her cheeks burning. She came up and hugged me and said, looking me straight in the eyes, "Mama, it's a big secret. I am to go into the enemy's rear. Don't tell anyone, not even Shura. Say that I have gone away to see Grandad in the country."
I fought my tears in silence. But I had to say something. Zoya was looking into my face with shining, joyful, expectant eyes.
"But will you have the strength for that?" I said at last. "You aren't a boy, you know."
She stepped back to the bookstand, and from there continued to look at me with keen steady eyes.
"Why must it be you?" I burst out in spite of myself. "Now if they had called you up…"
Zoya came up to me again and took my hands in hers. "Listen, Mama, I'm certain that if you were well you would do the same as I. I cannot stay here. I can't!" she repeated. Then she added quietly, "You told me yourself that one must be honest and brave in life. What else could I do now when the enemy is so close! If they came here I could not live…You know me. There is no other way for me."
I was about to say something in reply, but she began speaking again, in a simple matter-of-fact way.
"I'm leaving in two days. Please, get me a Red Army map case and one of our kitbags. And also a change of linen, a towel, soap, toothbrush, pencil and paper. That's all. I can manage the rest myself."
Then she went to bed, and I was left sitting at the table, knowing that I could neither sleep nor read. She could not go back on it all now—I could see that. But what would come of it all? She was only a young girl.
I had never had to search for words when talking to my children, we had always understood each other at once. But now I felt as if I were up against a wall which I could not climb. Oh, if only Anatoly Petrovich were alive…
But no, anything I said would be in vain. And no one—neither I nor her father, had he been alive,—could keep Zoya back.
The next day, for the first time in a whole week, Shura worked on the morning shift. He came back tired and sad, and ate somehow without appetite.
"Has Zoya really made up her mind to go to Aspen Woods?" he asked.
"Yes," I answered shortly.
"Well," said Shura thoughtfully, "it's good she's going away. Moscow's no place for girls of her age now…
His voice sounded uncertain.
"Perhaps you will go, too," he added after a pause. "You will find it quieter there."
I shook my head silently. Shura sighed, got up from the table and suddenly said, "I think I'll go to bed. I'm rather tired today."
I covered the lamp with a sheet of newsprint. Shura lay for some time in silence, with his eyes open, and seemed to be thinking hard about something. Then he turned over to the wall and soon fell asleep.
Zoya came back late.
"I knew you would be awake," she said quietly, and added in a whisper, "I am leaving tomorrow." As if wishing to soften the force of the blow, she stroked my hand.
She lost no time in seeing to the things which she would have to take with her, and packed them away neatly in her kitbag. I helped her in silence. There was something so ordinary and simple about this packing, about the way one tried to put away each item so that it would take less room and seized upon a free space to push in a cake of soap or a spare pair of woollen socks. Yet these were our last minutes together. Were we parting for long? What dangers, what hardships, formidable even for a man, for a soldier, awaited my Zoya? I could not speak, I knew that I had no right to cry, but all the time there was a bitter lump growing in my throat.
"There we are," said Zoya. "That seems to be all."
Then she opened her drawer, took out her diary and wanted to put that into her kitbag too.
"I shouldn't," I said with an effort.
"I suppose you're right."
And before I could stop her Zoya had walked to the stove and thrown the notebook into the fire. Then she sat down there on the low bench and said in a small voice, like a child, "Come and sit with me."
I sat down beside her, and as in years gone by we sat staring at the merrily dancing flames. But then I had been telling some story, and Zoya and Shura, flushed with the heat, had been listening. Now, I was silent. I knew that I had not the strength to utter a word.
Zoya turned round, glanced over to where Shura was sleeping, then gently took my hands in hers and began so softly that I could hardly hear, "I will tell you how it happened…Only you mustn't tell anyone, not even Shura. I sent in an application to the District Committee of the Komsomol saying that I wanted to go to the front. Do you know how many such applications they received there? Thousands. When I called for the answer they told me, 'Go to the Moscow Committee of the Komsomol, to the Secretary.'
"I went there. As soon as I opened the door the Secretary looked at me very, very keenly. Then we talked, and he kept looking at my hands. At first I kept twisting a button, but then I put my hands on my knees and did not move them any more, so that he would not think I was nervous. At first he asked me about my biography: Where was I from? who were my parents? where had I travelled? what districts did I know? what languages? I said, 'German.' Then about my legs, heart, nerves. Then he began to ask me questions about topography. He asked me what an azimuth was, how to find your way with its help, how to take your bearings by the stars. I answered everything. Then, 'Do you know the rifle?' 'I do.' 'Have you had any target practice?' 'Yes.' 'Can you swim?' 'Yes.' 'And you aren't afraid of high diving?' 'No, I am not afraid.' 'And you are not afraid to jump from the parachute tower?' 'I am not.' 'And have you a strong will?' I answered that my nerves were strong and I was patient. 'Well,' he said, 'there's a war on, people are needed.
Suppose we send you to the front?' 'Please do!' 'But,' he said, 'it isn't the same as sitting in the office, talking. By the way, where do you stay during the air raids?' 'On the roof. I'm not afraid of the warnings. And I'm not afraid of the bombings. In fact, I'm not afraid of anything.' Then he said, 'All right, go into the corridor and sit there. I'll just have a talk with one more comrade, and then we'll go to Tushino to make some trial jumps from an airplane.'
"I went into the corridor. I walked about thinking about that jump—I must not funk it. Then he calls me in again, 'Ready?' 'Ready.' And then he began to frighten me." Zoya pressed my hand tighter. "He said that the conditions would be hard…And anything might happen…Then he said, 'Well, go and think it over. Come back in two days' time.' I realized then that he had mentioned parachute jumping just to test me.
"I came back in two days, and he said, 'We have decided not to take you.' I almost burst out crying, and suddenly began to shout, 'What do you mean, not take me? Why not?'
"Then he smiled and said, 'Sit down. You'll go into the rear of the enemy.' I realized that that had also been a test. You see, I'm sure that if he had noticed me give an involuntary sigh of relief or something like that, he would not have taken me for anything. And that was all. My first exam was over…"
The wood crackled cheerfully in the stove. The light of the flames glowed softly on Zoya's face. There was no other light in the room. We sat for a long time looking into the fire in silence.
"Pity Uncle Sergei is not in Moscow," said Zoya thoughtfully at length. "He would be a support to you at such a difficult time as this, if only with his advice…
Then Zoya closed the stove, made her bed and lay down. A little later I went to bed too, but I could not go to sleep. I thought of how long it would be after tonight before Zoya would sleep again at home, in her own bed. And was she asleep. . . ? I went up to her softly. She stirred at once.
"Why aren't you asleep?" she asked, and I could hear by her voice that she was smiling.
"I got up to look at the clock so as not to oversleep," I answered. "You go to sleep."
I lay down again, but sleep would not come. I wanted to go up to her again and ask if she had reconsidered. Perhaps it would be better if we were all evacuated, as had often been suggested to me. Something seemed to be suffocating me. I had to fight for breath…It was the last night. The last chance I should have of keeping her. Then it would be too late…And again I got up. In the dim light of early dawn I looked at Zoya as she slept, at her calm face, at her stubborn, tightly pressed lips— and with a sinking sense of finality I understood that she would never change her mind.
Shura rose early to go to the plant.
"Good-bye, Shura," said Zoya when he was already in his hat and coat.
He shook her hand.
"Give Grandad and Grandma my love," he said. "Good luck and a pleasant journey! We'll miss you, you know, but I'm glad for your sake, it will be quieter in Aspen Woods."
Zoya smiled and hugged her brother.
Then she and I drank some tea, and she began to dress. I gave her the warm green mittens with black edging, which I had knitted myself, and my own woollen jumper.
"No, no, I don't want them! How will you manage in the winter without something warm?" protested Zoya.
"Take them," I said quietly.
Zoya looked at me and made no further objection.
We went out together. It was a dull morning. The wind blew in our faces.
"Let me carry your bag," I said.
Zoya halted for a moment.
"Now, now! Look at me…You're crying! Don't see me off with tears. Look at me again."
I looked. Zoya's face was happy, laughing. I tried to smile back at her.
"That's better."
She hugged me tightly, kissed me and jumped onto the step of a tram, which was just leaving.
Next: The Notebook