L. Kosmodemyanskaya

The Story of Zoya and Shura


Tanya

The writing of this book has given me both joy and sadness. I wrote-and it seemed to me as if I were again rocking little Zoya's cradle, again holding three-year-old Shura in my arms, seeing the two of them together, alive and full of hope. But the less there remains to be said, the closer the inevitable end, the more difficult it is for me to find the necessary words.

I remember the days after Zoya's departure clearly, to the finest detail.

She left—and our life became one long period of waiting. Before, when Shura came home and found his sister out, he had always asked, "Where is Zoya?" Now his first words were, "Any news?" Of late he stopped asking, but I could always read the question in his eyes.

One day he rushed into the room, excited and happy, and did something he had never done before—embraced me tightly.

"A letter!" I guessed immediately.

"And what a letter!" exclaimed Shura. "Listen, 'Dear Mama, how are you, how is your health, are you well? Mummy, if you can, just write me a few lines. When I come back from my mission I, will come home to see you. Your Zoya."

"What's the date?" I asked.

"The seventeenth of November. That means we can expect Zoya home soon!"

And once again we started waiting, not so worriedly now, but with joy and hope. Waiting every minute of the day and night, always ready to jump up at the sound of the door opening, expecting her to arrive at any moment.

But November went by, and December, and the end of January drew near…There were no letters, no news of any kind.

Shura and I both worked. He took all the domestic duties on himself, and I saw that he was trying to be for rue all that Zoya had been. If he came home first he hurried to warm up the meal in time for my return. At night I would hear him get up to cover me with something warm. We were short of firewood and tried to save as much of it as we could.

One day, late in January, 1 was returning home late. As often happens when one is very tired I listened mechanically to odd snatches of conversation. That evening I kept hearing in the street, "Did you read Pravda today?" "Have you read Lidov's article?"

And in the tram a young huge-eyed haggard woman said to her companion, "What a stunning article! What a girl!"

I realized that there must be something unusual in the paper today.

"Shura," I said when I got in, "did you read Pravda today? They say there is a very interesting article there."

"There is," said Shura in a flat voice, his eyes averted.

"What is it about?"

"About a young partisan girl called Tanya. She was hanged by the Germans."

It was cold in the room. We had grown used to that.

But at Shura's words everything inside me seemed u coil up into a tight icy knot. "Some mother's child, too," I thought. "Her mother too waited for her at home, worried about her .. . ."

Later I switched on the radio. Dispatches about the fighting, news from the labour front. And suddenly the loud-speaker said, "We are now broadcasting the article 'Tanya,' by Lidov, published in Pravda today, the 27th of January."

A voice full of wrath and sorrow began the story of how in the first days of December in the village of Petrishchevo the Germans had executed a young partisan girl called Tanya.

"Mummy," said Shura suddenly, "may I turn it off? I must be up early tomorrow."

This was surprising. Shura was a sound sleeper, he was not usually troubled by loud conversation or by the radio. Unwillingly I switched it off.

The next day I went to the Komsomol District Committee, hoping that perhaps they knew something about Zoya.

"The mission is a secret one. It may be a long time before any letters come," the Secretary told me.

A few more days of fearful anxiety dragged by, and on the 7th of February—I shall always remember that day—I came home and found a note on the table. "Mummy dear, they want to see you at the District Committee of the Komsomol."

"At last!" I thought, overjoyed. "It must be news of Zoya. A letter perhaps!"

I flew to the District Committee as if on wings. It was a dark windy evening. I could not wait for the tram to come. I stumbled, slipped and ran on again. Not a single ominous thought entered my head. I did not expect bad news, I was only waiting to find out when I should see Zoya. Would she be back soon?

"Go back home, people from the Moscow Committee of the Komsomol have just gone to see you at your flat"— I was told at the District Committee.

"Quick, quick, I must know when Zoya will be coming!" And again I did not walk, I ran home.

I threw open the door and stopped on the threshold. Two men sitting at the table stood up to meet me: the head of Timkiryazev District Department of People Education and a stranger, a young man with a grave, rather tense face. I could see the breath coming from his mouth. It was cold in the room, neither of them had taken off their coats.

Shura was standing motionless at the window. I looked at his face, our eyes met-and suddenly I understood… He rushed towards me, knocking something over on the way, but I could not move, my feet seemed to be rooted to the floor.

"Lyubov Timofeyevna…the girl Tanya in Pravda…" somebody said. "That was your Zoya… We shall go to the village of Petrishchevo in a day or two."

I sat down on a chair someone had pulled up for me. There were no tears. And no air in the room. I yearned to be left alone. The word was beating in my ears: "Dead…dead…dead…

* * *

Shura put me to bed and sat up with me all night. He did not cry. He looked in front of him with dry eyes and pressed my hand hard in his.

"Shura…what shall we do now?" I said at last. And at that Shura, in spite of his self-control, flung himself down on the bed and sobbed loudly and despairingly.

"I knew it all the time…everything," he repeated hoarsely, brokenly. "There was a photograph in Pravda, with the rope round her neck…The name was different but I realized it was she…I did not want to tell you, I hoped I had made a mistake…Tried to persuade myself I was mistaken…I could not believe it. But I knew, I knew.. .

"Show it to me," I said.

"No!" he answered through his tears.

"Shura," I said, "I have much to face yet, I have still to see her. I ask you…

Shura pulled his notebook out of the inside pocket of his jacket. A newspaper cutting was stuck to a clean page. I recognized the bruised and battered face of my daughter.

Shura was saying something to me. As if from afar the words reached me, "Do you know why she called herself Tanya? Do you remember Tanya Solomakha?"

I did remember and it all came clear to me. Yes, of course, it was of that girl, killed long ago, that she had been thinking when she called herself Tanya…

 


Next: In Petrishchevo