Men of Winter

Chapter XXI

Tears, hot with brine, burst from the years of longing. — Odyssey 16

We arrived as the sun was setting, in that twilight time between the city's dayfolk disappearing indoors and the nightpeople taking over the streets. Only ghosts were out and they paid us no heed, counting us with their kind perhaps. It had taken more than three days. Two animals perished, the mule carrying the supplies and my horse. The deaths slowed our travel but added to our food supply. The carcasses may have also kept the trio of winter-thin wolves at bay that followed us at a distance until the city's skyline showed plainly on the white horizon. During the journey, Ulas Ulasovich and I were forced to replace two sets of shoes, both by firelight in the snow.

We passed the news bureau and I thought I saw a lamp inside. I considered stopping but only for a second. Division Street was not much farther and the pension there was our goal. Helena and her man were on one horse, Helena preventing him from falling off he had become so weak again. Nina and I were on the other horse, and the supplies had gone to the mule.

I was exhausted and saw things on the outskirts of my vision, indefinable shapes approaching me suddenly then vanishing. Only half alert, I imagined the shapes to be the spirits of the soldiers who fell at our hands, loitering among the living before reporting for duty in hell....

Hands were helping me down from my mount. I hoped vaguely they were friendly hands but was too tired to care much. I was inside and smelled fried food. Mrs. Strubel, in reality or hallucination, was propping up my head and making me sip tea. Then I slept. I had found a place of peace and I slept....

We recuperated in the pension. Helena and Nina were fit almost immediately and spent most of their time attending to Ulas Ulasovich and me. By the second day I was reasonably recovered. Helena's man was still bedridden but improving. I put on the clothes I had left at the pension, and gladly shed the uniform forever. Mrs. Strubel cut it up for patches. The captain's insignia went into the parlor's coal-burner. I shaved off my beard and trimmed my mustaches. I looked in the mirror and barely recognized my old face.

Yadnina instantly became the darling of the pension, as the Strubels and their guests showered her with attention, which she politely accepted. But most of the time she was quiet and withdrawn, and preferred the company of books to human beings. She behaved as shell-shocked soldiers do. Perhaps I suffered similarly: I still had told no one what I witnessed. It seemed there was too much to say – the events too immense – and I did not feel up to the task yet.

On the third day, Helena came to my room before breakfast. She brought me a cup of coffee.

"You are beginning to write it all down," she said, alluding to the papers on my table.

"Just making some notes – so I do not forget." I was holding a pen but set it next to the ink bottle in order to take the coffee.

"Mr. Polozkov says you are leaving this morning."

"It is time."

Helena nodded. She hesitated. "Do you think the fighting will come here?"

"I do not know. It seems likely."

"Yes, I agree." She smiled, but with a touch of sadness, and said, "'Ulas Ulasovich,' as you call him, has spent his life chasing trouble or being chased by it. I suppose now is no different." Then Helena became more serious. "If the fighting does come here, it will not be a good place for Yadnina."

"For any of you."

"True perhaps. But Mrs. Strubel will have her baby before summer's end. We will stay. Yadnina, however, should go home with you. You believe so too – I have come to know your mind."

I placed my coffeecup on the table. "I do not know how my wife will feel."

"Hektr Pastrovich, you have survived much. You can survive a discussion with your wife."

Helena was right of course, about everything. Tasha had not warmed to the idea of adoption but it was one thing to be cold in the abstract and quite another to deny a poor waif of a girl in person.

We all had a solemn breakfast of fried eggs and coffee, then Nina and I prepared to leave for the train station. We said our goodbyes. I even went upstairs and looked in on Ulas Ulasovich but he was sleeping, so I left him be. Helena borrowed a jacket from Mirska and accompanied Nina and me to the station. It was a short walk and the morning was quite lovely. In the sunlight Helena appeared to have aged, but was beautiful nevertheless. She had taught Yadnina to braid her hair and light bounced golden off the intricate pattern.

With the improved weather, the train was running more reliably. It was already on the southbound track taking on fuel and passengers. I handed Helena a slip of paper with my address and told her to come see us. She smiled and put the paper in her pocket. We knew she never would. She kissed and hugged Yadnina, calling her her "brave girl." I then took Helena in my arms and we kissed each other's cheek.

Nina and I found our seats on the train and waved at Helena a final time. The train was not moving yet, but Helena turned and walked away from us to return to Division Street. I thought good thoughts of her and knew she would be well.

The Prince of Ithaca once called himself "Nobody" but he was mistaken: he should have called himself "Everybody." He was lost and alone and searching for something – but on the verge of finding it too, the next day, or next week ... or next year. Yes, Everybody would have been a more fitting name.

A conductor, with a tobacco-stained beard and threadbare coat, came by and asked me for my ticket and my daughter's. Neither Yadnina nor I bothered to correct him; and the train began to move.