Those were days of acute grief for Shura and me. We no longer waited, we knew that there was nothing to wait for. Before our life had been full with the faith that we would again see and embrace our Zoya; when we went to the letter box we would look into it with hope: it might bring us news of Zoya. Now, we would pass it by without looking—we knew there was nothing for us there. Nothing which could bring us joy.
A very sad letter arrived from Aspen Woods from my father. He was overcome by Zoya's death. "I cannot understand how it can be. An old man like me living and Zoya gone," he wrote, and there was such distracted and inconsolable grief in these lines! The whole letter was stained with tears, and I could not make out some of the words.
"I am very sorry for the old people," said Shura quietly after reading his grandfather's letter.
Shura was my support now, all that was left to me in life. He tried to give me as much of his time as he could. He who before used to shy at any sign of "softness" was now a gentle and tender son. "Mummy darling," he would now say, although he had stopped calling me that since he was five. He began to see and notice things which had escaped his notice before. I started smoking, and he noticed that if I lighted a cigarette it meant that I was on the verge of tears. He would see me searching for my pack, take a look at my face and come up to me, "What's the matter? Now, now, chin up! Please, Mummy…
At night he would always know if sleep were eluding me. He would come up, sit on the edge of my bed and stroke my hand in silence. When he went away I felt deserted and helpless. Shura had become the head of the family now.
After lessons (school had started again) he used to come straight home, and when there was no air-raid warning he would sit down with a book. But even while reading he did not forget about me. Sometimes he would just call out softly, "Mummy!" "Yes, Shura…
And again he would return to his book. From time to time he would ask, "Are you asleep? Here, listen… And he would read aloud the lines which had appealed to him.
Once, when he was reading the artist Kramskoy's letters, he said, "How true this is, 'The most precious gift of an artist is his heart.' Well put, isn't it? This is how I understand it: you must be able not only to see—that is not enough. The main thing is to understand and feel… Ah, Mummy!" he exclaimed suddenly. "How I am going to study after the war, if you only knew!"
"Are you asleep?" he asked another time. "May I turn on the radio? I think there is some music on."
I nodded. And suddenly the strains of the waltz from Chaikovsky's Fifth Symphony floated into the room.
Every little thing was a test for us in those days, and this too was a test. Zoya had loved the Fifth Symphony best of all. We listened in silence, fearing even to sigh aloud, fearing that the siren would interrupt the music, and we would not be able to hear it all through…
And when the last notes of the finale died away Shura said with deep conviction, "I'm sure they'll play the finale of the Fifth Symphony on Victory Day. What do you think?"
The days went by. The enemy was thrown back from Moscow, but his resistance was stiff. The Germans had seized Byelorussia, most of the Ukraine, besieged Leningrad, and were pushing towards Stalingrad. They burnt and murdered on their way. They tortured, tormented, hanged, strangled, crucified. All former conceptions of bestiality, of cruelty, paled in comparison with what we learned during this war. The newspaper seared your hands and heart, the radio brought news that made you gasp and struggle for breath.
Listening to the dispatches of the Soviet Information Bureau Shura would grind his teeth, and then walk silently about the room for a long time, his brows drawn, his fists clenched.
Occasionally his comrades called on him: the slim Volodya Yuryev, the son of Lydia Nikolayevna who had taught Zoya and Shura in the fourth grade, Yura Braudo, whom I already knew, Volodya Titov, and another boy, whose first name I do not remember, but whose surname was Nedelko. Gradually they began to call more and, more often, but whenever I came upon them they would immediately fall silent and hasten to take their leave.
"Why do the boys go away as soon as I come in?"
"They don't want to bother you," said Shura evasively.
Next: From All Over the Country