was becoming more and more austere day by day. Every day Levitan’s65 voice gave the Moscovites more and more alarming reports on the radio: “After stubborn and fierce fighting in the course of which…” The
I am slowly riding a frequently-stopping bus and, pressing my face to the window-glass, look at a girl in military uniform standing at an intersection with an energetically raised red signal flag. She’s a traffic controller letting a troop column through. It was an ordinary tense day of war… I get to the building I need, a Colonel has a brief glance at the document I hold out to him and says in a hoarse and tired voice: “Egorova? And what do you, Egorova, want from me? What has happened back at your Kalinin? No petrol? Not enough planes? Please report quickly. You can see how many people are waiting.”
Indeed the room, stained black with tobacco smoke, was crammed with airmen: old and young, in civilian clothes and in field uniform. All of them were talking, exchanging the latest news, awaiting here — in one of the offices of the Central Aeroclub — resolution of their issues and their fate. I had no intention of wasting their time.
“Actually, I have only one question. A personal one”, I said loudly trying to talk over the noise.
The Colonel threw out his arms, “Is this the time to deal with personal issues?”
“Sorry, I’ve didn’t express myself properly”, I was embarrassed. “I’m only asking you to send me to the front.”
“Oh, come on, ‘only’”! The owner of the office unbuttoned the collar of his blouse. “You all repeat over and over again — to the front, to the front. If I do it your way OSOAVIAHIM’s work will have to be wound down completely. And who, I ask you…”, by the way the Colonel angrily looked around the whole office one could guess he was responding not only to me. “Who, I ask you, will train personnel for the front? No, sweetheart, go back to Kalinin and do what you’re supposed to do! Who’s next?”
But I was not going to back off. On the contrary I moved even closer to the desk.
“Our aeroclub is to be evacuated to the rear. I’m not going to the rear. I request a transfer to the front. You have to understand, I have a lot of flying experience. At the moment it is more important up there, over the battlefields…”
“You know what, Egorova? Allow us to be the judge of what and where is more important now…” The Colonel growled. However, he obviously understood it wouldn’t be that easy to get rid of me. Becoming thoughtful for a minute, he turned over some piece of paper in his hands and, looking at me askance, said “Alright, whatever, we’ll send you a bit closer to the fire, to the Stalino aeroclub” — that was the name of Donetsk back then.
“What, to Stalino? in 1938 that’s where my brother…” I gulped but managed to say firmly: “Write the order!”
On the way to the train station I dropped in to my kinfolk’s place on the Arbat. Katya was somewhere on defensive works, and the sixth-grader Yurka, having come home from school, was happy to see me and fussed about wanting to treat me to something. But in the sideboard there was nothing left but bread and a lump of sugar. He began to tell me that in his school the geography teacher had volunteered for the front but the director couldn’t get permission to go.
“If I were him I would have run away to hit the Fascists long ago but he’s still waiting for permission, a strange man…”
“Have you heard anything from your dad?” I interrupted my nephew.
He drooped a bit straightaway, then stood up, took some sheets of paper from a desk and handed them to me.
“Read this. Yesterday a Colonel came and said that he’d worked recently with dad somewhere far away in the North. It’s night all day long up there in winter and in summer the sun doesn’t set. Dad is building a beautiful city up there, like Leningrad, and a big mining and processing operation”, Yurka said without pausing for breath. “The Colonel and many other former military men had been sent to the front. He’d managed to drop in to his home and also to our place and was very sorry not to find mum in.”
I was reading the sheets of paper covered with my brother’s writing. On one of them there was a letter to his wife and son, on another — his request to be sent to the front to defend his motherland from the Fascist invaders.
“Soon dad will go to the front”, Yurka said confidently. — And I will ask to join him. If he doesn’t take me I will go on my own. After all Vit’ka Timokhin and I decided long ago to go to the front. Vit’ka is not tall enough but they will let me do that for sure because I’m the tallest in my class! It’s a pity you, Aunty Anya, aren’t going to the front, otherwise I would be heading off there with you. It is never too late to study. Once we smash the Fascists you can study as much as you want…”
That night there was an air-raid warning in the city but we decided not to go to an air raid shelter — so we talked all night long. In the morning, sending Yurka to school and getting ready to go to the train station myself, I asked him to pledge his word not to make a step towards the front without my knowledge. Yurka promised but on one condition: if I managed to get to the front I would not fail to make arrangements for him to join me but in the meantime he would be studying at school and would do his best to master the rifle and the machine-gun. With that we parted.
Yuri waited in vain for my call to the front and his father’s visit. He would see his father many years after the war when my brother received banishment after ten years of imprisonment. Vasya as well as many other ‘political’ prisoners survived thanks to the kindness of Zavenyagin, the director of construction and then director of the Norilsk mining and processing operation. To provide the construction works with high-level professionals, he recruited specialists from amongst the political prisoners, softening their regime. My brother was brought to Moscow under escort by plane more than once to get some plans approved. Of course, he wasn’t allowed to visit his family on the Arbat or even ring them. He would stay in a NKVD hotel in the Mayakovskiy Square… I often called Katya, my brother’s wife, a
11. Closer to the front
It was extremely sultry in the carriage. People sat pressed against each other. You don’t stay silent long in such ‘close unity’ and I got into talking with my middle-aged neighbour, a military cadre all over. Of course, the conversation was about what was going on at the front — there was no other topic then. I was mostly asking questions — I was keen to find out everything from someone in the know — and the officer was answering. He asked only one question: “What are you, young lady, riding towards the front line for?” I showed him my orders.
“Strange people”, the commander marveled, “what aeroclub could there be in Stalino now? The city’s been evacuated…”
“It can’t be!” I exclaimed.
My neighbour sighed heavily, “Nevertheless it can, my girl…”
Indeed, I found no one at the aeroclub: everyone had been evacuated. The officer was right. The wilful air of the steppe played through the empty premises of the aeroclub, resonantly banging the doors and windows. I was taken aback: what should I do, who should I turn to? I didn’t have the fare back, or travel documents, or anything! I went outside, got my bearings and rushed downtown hoping to find there some office that would be useful, or simply to meet people capable of giving me sensible advice.
I didn’t have the road to myself long. I hadn’t walked even a block when someone grabbed me by a sleeve of my blouse. “What a fast walker you are!” A young sprightly voice said above my ear. “I barely managed to catch up with you…”
