Nastia

 
Baba Nastya.

Anastasia Panina imagined the German to be somewhere out there, far beyond the horizon.
The newspapers, radio and party bosses all insisted that the fascist invaders would soon be crushed; victory would be ours, with minimal bloodshed, and on foreign soil. But for almost three weeks now, Hitler’s insatiable Moloch of war, having stretched out over six thousand kilometres of the German-Soviet front, from the White Sea all the way to the Black, had been mercilessly swallowing up the lives of millions of human beings. That short, blunt, vivid, terrifying syllable, “War!” had come down from the pages of newspapers, periodicals and books, and entered the reality of quotidinal existence, bringing upheaval into the destinies of many generations of humans all over the entire planet.
At 3:30 in the morning, on Sunday, 22 June 1941, the peaceful life of citizens of the Soviet Union came to an end: Russia was suddenly attacked by five and a half million Huns. With amiable equanimity, the European West drove the steamroller of death towards the Russian East, seeking to expand its lebensraum, its room to live. For Europe had begun to struggle breathing, as it confronted the rapidly contracting plots of land left open to cultivation. Industry was booming in every which direction, leaving no space available to serve the mundane household needs of the population. Europe no longer fit into the strict boundaries of its national frontiers. The only direction in which it could expand was Eastward.
Over the course of all the centuries when Rus existed, the Europeans could never quite accept that the vast wealthy holdings of the Russian Czars had not instead fallen to them. And even though, through all those ages, Russia never wavered in seeking to absorb into itself the culture and mentality of Europe, over and over again the West would try to push her back, as far as possible, into Asia. The Western world lived in perpetual paranoia about a strong and self-sufficient Russia, striving always to contain, inhibit and prevent any manifestation of her imperialist prerogatives.
The successful social reforms of Alexander the Second, and the economic reorganization launched during the reign of his son, Alexander the Third, ushered in a shaky political equilibrium between Russia and Europe, by the dawn of the 20th century. Now, the collective consciousness of society searched for new philosophical ideas that might be used to bring about a complete, universal transformation of the whole world.
The spectre of Communism became reality.
The gist of the idea turned out to be starkly simplistic: “We must destroy everything, in order to successfully improve it.” In practical terms, the ideology of Karl Marx, with its serial, color-coded revolutions pitting class against class – and with its sequentially numbered World Wars – had arrived.
Czars and Emperors were replaced by Fuehrers and dictators. A new era of behind-the-scenes puppetmasters and manipulated tyrants began. A new, secret political force was born, uniquely adept at taking on any ideology whatsoever, for the higher cause of global economic dominion.
Naturally enough, the fascist scythe of Hitler clashed against the bolshevist rock of Stalin.
England – the world’s aging Empire – did everything it could, overtly and covertly, to ensure that Nazism and Communism became locked in suicidal combat. And yet, all the countries of Europe longed to live grandly. The English precept, Divide, and in conquest make certain you are democratic in how you suck the blood of nations – a concept used to ensnare nations in bitter local wars – had turned the whole world into one great meat-grinder of war, of war between Hitler and Stalin.
Certain of their own utter righteousness, the soldiers of Italy, Romania, Finland, Hungary, Slovakia, Croatia formed ranks under the banners of Hitler’s swastika. They were joined there, with great fanfare, by the divisions and regiments of Spain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Czechia, Serbia, Albania, Sweden, Poland, Luxembourg, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, under their own national standards. The nations of Europe made haste to bite off their own particular slices of the Russian pie at Hitler’s triumphal feast designed to carve up the riches of the lands of Russia.
Forward: Drang nach Osten! The push to the East!
Oceans of grief lay before them. Niagaras of tears. Everests of cadavers. Pompeiis of cities turned to ashen ruins. Wastelands of villages…And everywhere: corpses, corpses, corpses.
Shattered destinies and plans. Devastated hopes and dreams. Friendship, tenderness, affection, love trampled into bestial degradation…Just four steps to Death… Cowardice, treachery, cannibalism: ‘What’s the difference? There’s a war going on! Grab what you can from life, whatever you can take away this instant! For, tomorrow, that might be your corpse in the grave of the unknown soldier.’ The philosophy of war liberates personality from its conscience.
Formally, Europe began its crusade against Russia under the leadership of Germany, with the stated purpose: ‘To annihilate Russia as the keeper of Slavic Civilization, of Orthodox Christianity, of Russian culture and the Russian language. Whatever Russian population remained at the end of the campaign was to be Germanicized; the uncooperative ones to be driven back behind the Urals – into the Siberian taiga, so that the lands of ancient Russia might be populated by the Aryan nations of ‘civilized Europe’ and conditions might thereby facilitate the complete, irreversible extinction of the Slavic Civilization.

Thus, the Russian people found itself on the threshold of utter destruction.
The natural longing of any nation would simply be to survive, by any means possible, to make it out of that meat-grinder alive. And it had not been the first time that Europe had cornered Russia, forcing it to the brink of no return. In accordance with the German strategic plan code-named ‘Barbarossa’ (so named in honor of the bloodthirsty sovereign of the ‘Holy Roman Empire,’ Friederich the First Barbarossa, scion of the German Hohenstaufen dynasty, who had reigned in 1152-1190), it was the intention to take Russia off the map completely, both literally and figuratively, once and for all. The German language would replace Russian. A huge artificial lake would replace the capital city of Moscow. Even the right to live within their own ancestral homeland would be denied the present inhabitants. What was perceived to be a nation in name only would be easily brought to a state of moral degradation. Abolish medical institutions…
Such plans had been gestating for some time in certain parts of Europe.
One of the earliest full-blown attempts to subjugate Muscovy by annexing it to the European Empire was Napoleon’s. A second such attempt was launched by the Prussian Kaiser, Wilhelm the Second Hohenzollern. And now, the Fuehrer: Reichskanzler of the Third Reich, Adolf Hitler, an Austrian who was only granted German nationality in 1932… It was 1941 now, and he too had decided he must have Russian blood to drink.
The definitive date for attacking the USSR was determined by a prognosis of German economic analysts. Early in 1941, a report was placed on the desk of the Fuehrer. It summarized succinctly the conclusions of German scientists: “ The grain reserves of Germany shall be depleted by autumn. The next harvest will not be able to provide for the consumption needs of the winter of 1942-1943.”
Hitler had an attack of hysteria. “What is the meaning of this? That my German people, the master race, will go hungry? We shall get our bread from Ukraine! The Russian colossus on its clay feet shall fall into the dust before us this very year! Gott mit uns!”

2

On the 1st of May, 1941, the Fuehrer, Adolf Hitler, signed a secret decree:

“For the commanding staff only:
1. The Barbarossa timetable:
Barbarossa commences on 22 June.
2. The overall mission: The armed masses of the Russian army present in its western parts are to be annihilated in bold operations with deep thrusts of armoured divisions. It is imperative to prevent the retreat of any combat-capable units into the vast hinterlands of Russia. Then, by means of rapid advance, it is required to reach the line from beyond which Russian aviation will no longer be capable of launching attacks on German territory. The ultimate goal of the operation is to create a physical barrier between Asiatic Russia along the general line Arkhangelsk – Volga. Thereby, should it become necessary, it will be possible to paralyze by means of aviation the last industrialized sector left available to Russia, in the Urals. Ukraine shall be taken from Russia and shall be annexed to the German lands with the rights of a Protectorate. Before initiating a global frontal attack on England for the purpose of instituting a New World Order and the complete extermination of the world’s Jews, Germany obtains unimpeded and unlimited access to Russian oilfields, and is able to make use of the incalculable reserves of mineral resources available in Russia to advance the interests of German industry.

The entire upper echelon of Germany’s National Socialist Party was experiencing an intoxicating euphoria. And why not? Swift victory in the East boded great benefits for Germany. Adolf envisioned the future as radiantly happy, bright, opulently rich:
“Reason dictates that we move rapidly and forcefully Eastward, into Russia. Now we shall possess inexhaustible supplies of timber, limitless reserves of steel, the world’s biggest magnesium mines, Oil! Oil! Oil, the chief asset of the most advanced nations. But Russia is full of everything, in abundance! Without question, it is the wealthiest land on the planet. But, unlike the Germans, the Slavs have no knowledge of how to manage their riches. They are a lazy tribe of drunks. Only consider the iron ore deposits in Kerch! Most important of all the raw materials available in Russia, however, are the physical beings themselves! By their very nature, Russians are slaves. Today, as never before, for the good of the Reich, we require uncomplaining human automatons. The civilization of Europe shall benefit from the Germanization of the entire world. We have only three rivals to contend with: England, America and Russia. They will not themselves willingly raise the white flag of capitulation. Our plan for the conquest of these countries has two principal directions: The first is military pressure. The second: subversive activity by the fifth column, acting from within. I am certain: the rightness of the idea of National-Socialism shall triumph without delay! Our ideas bring us world supremacy and the universal flourishing of nations. Ukraine shall be the breadbasket of Europe. Whoever is the master of Ukraine shall never know hunger in his own land. The foundation of the glorious future of the Vaterland, and of all European nations, gathered together into a single united European body under the leadership of Germany, resides in the wealth of the lands of Russia. Without the riches hidden away in the depths of Siberia, Europe shall rapidly grow poor. We, the National-Socialists, cannot allow such a travesty! Russians are by their very nature swine. God did not create the earth just for them alone! Why did the Russians seize and possess those lands which by rights were intended for us as well? I am prepared to restore the balance of justice with an unsurpassed fortitude of will! I will embrace the most extreme of measures in order to transform Germany into the world’s wealthiest, most prosperous nation. We have everything we need to achieve the complete success of the ideas of National-Socialism! We have:

Excellent state organization
The finest industry and science in the world
Remarkable universities and academic institutions
An educated farmer
A united governing party
The precisely-functioning Gestapo network, protecting our people from the subversive campaigns of internal foes
The racial purity of the German nation
A work ethic, discipline, science, art, literature
A magnificent courageous army, armed by the very latest of scientific achievements
German resolve, willpower, fortitude, persistence in the achievement of stated goals.

I shall fulfil my historic mission: Russian raw materials shall supply a historically unprecedented surge in Saxon productivity and advancement. All for Germany! All in the name of Germany! Germany, Germany above all!
I know: the Russian will defend himself wherever he has been told to stand, until the bitter end, until the last man has fallen. Well, wonderful! Excellent! The German soldier is smarter, more athletic, better armed than Russia’s untrained, inadequate peasant. The fewer Russians there are, the more of us Germans there will be! Let the Russian die a heroic death under the tracks of our mighty tanks of General Guderian! Germany cannot be defeated!
Once we have tamed Russia, we will easily dispatch England. We shall strangle Britain, our eternal mortal enemy, with a blockade by sea. Our submarine fleet shall sink everything and everyone sailing towards that patch of land. They have forced us into a Second World Campaign. They shall pay dearly for their global games. America is far away. Once England has been defeated, the States will strive to appease us and seek our friendship. And we have many friends of like mind in America, besides. Soon, Nazism shall take power in its own right, in the USA! There, they understand all too well the evil of myths of racial equality. As in our own lands, racial segregation has been the law of the land for many years. The world confederacy of the Jews must be completely crushed! They are the source of evil. We shall deport the black-skinned ones back to Africa. The Russians shall forget their nation ever existed. We shall make Russia a land of sober, dutiful workers serving the interests of Germany, that the master Aryan race might flourish forever! And that will be when we begin preparing for the ultimate stage in our struggle: for the construction of an ideal German order in the whole world – a world in which we, the Germans, shall by rights assume our proper place as leaders of the perfect global civilization. We will bring paradise down upon earth! We shall purge the earth and purify it, cleansing it from the presence of inferior peoples. I sense myself as a Creator, a master gardener of a vast garden in bloom, that is this Earth. We shall establish Peace on Earth, definitively and irrevocably! The light of Aryan reason shall triumph across the entire planet! Victory shall be ours! Gott mit uns!”
The principal burden of a swift march on Moscow had been bestowed by the Fuehrer upon the rapid strike force that bore the code name Zentrum. The ancient lands of the Smolensk region found themselves on the razor’s edge of the aggressive, murderous penetrating line of attack. The Fuehrer was already daydreaming about the triumphal march of victorious SS forces across Moscow’s Red Square.
The Wehrmacht is executing his Directive No. 21 with precision and dedication.

On 4 July, the German forces had arrived at the upper reaches of the Dnieper River. By this time, they had already slain a third of a million Russian people, and taken another three hundred thousand Red Army soldiers prisoner. Three thousand operating Soviet tanks and two thousand heavy artillery pieces had been forced to turn their guns on their own city of Smolensk. The prisoners of war, young Komsomol as well as Communists, were being forced at gunpoint to repair bomb-damaged roads, and then to use them to bring battle ordnance and fuel supplies to their own captured armor, from the munitions depots that had been prepared within the forestland for the Red Army’s use. Soviet munitions were being used to butcher Soviet troops.

3

The thunder of cannon drew ever closer to Baba Nastya’s log house.
In the Smolensk region, in Davydkovo, a small village that stood at a distance from the main roads, the window panes were beginning to crack already from the constant cannonade of tank battles. At night, along the western sky, the red glow of fires flared alarmingly.
The night before, a travelling cinema show came to their collective farm, “Communism’s Shining Path.” The ran the newsreels showing the victorious Red Army:
“Soviet tanks charge across rivers at great speed, raising columns of water into the air, and breaching the enemy’s positions on the other side, mow down forests of mast-quality pines effortlessly; the artillery fires into the sky; handsome young daredevil pilots challenge enemy bombers in their fighter planes with the red stars; warriors in crisp new uniforms fearlessly race into battle, to attack the foe. The optimistic song, If war begins tomorrow… plays thunderously everywhere…”
They always loved it, in Davydovka, when the cinema rolled into town. But this time the women and kids sat in silence, hugging each other close. None of the pre-war men remained in the village: they had all gone to ‘the second world meat-grinder.’ They had feasted and drunk their fill on a Monday; that night they had given their lawful wives a final workout; and on Tuesday they were gone… And then began the lonely, drawn out nights of interminable solitude and heartache for the women…

“How are we to live here in the country without any men, good people?”
The people knew nothing of exemptions to service. Baba Nastya had heard about armoured tanks, but not about waivers or exemptions. And she had only seen the tanks at the picture show. A single solitary male remained in the village, the old Vas-Vasych: the head, the boss, the threat, the advocate, the member of the Communist Bolshevik Party – a great aficionado of strong drink and discourse on the subject of international affairs.
Baba Nastya’s one and only son had also left for the front.
Grigory was the village heartthrob and the bright young buck: he played the accordion, he drove the tractor. Girls could not tear their eyes away. His father had been killed, it seemed, just the day before, in the Finnish campaign – and all of good Nastya’s unspent love instantly transferred over onto her only son.
“Where is he now? How is he?”
Doubled over, Baba Nastya mechanically applied her sickle to the rye she was harvesting, her mind consumed with anxious thoughts about her Grishulka:
“Is he alive? Not a line, not a rumor, not a hint of any kind of news. Tankist! Tank personnel! God grant the tank might keep him safe…! The armour’s strong and our tanks are swift…” (The words of the song reassured her.)
What Nastya did not know was that the Red Army tanks quickly went through all their shells, and the fuel got burned before they had even reached the front. The German pilots didn’t even need to waste their bombs on the Russian fuel trucks: all it took was a single machine gun round at the truck, and several more Russian tanks would be forced to grind to a halt. That turned the tank personnel into infantry. And there wasn’t much they could do, in terms of waging war, with a single officer’s pistol for a weapon.
“But my Grishulya is with the tank forces! And why on earth, if we may ask, do the German hordes come climbing up on top of us again, for the second time in a century? What, are they tired of living? Looking to have a drink of our precious blood?”

4

Suddenly, she heard the hoarse voice of the chief of the Communist Party for their village, Vas-Vasych, behind her:
“Greetings, women! I’m calling a break! I’ll be conducting a political information briefing here for you!”
The women sat down in a semi-circle in front of the party boss they called ‘the Chatterbox.’ They spread tablecloths, made themselves comfortable, brought out their pitchers of milk; they set out oval slices of boiled potatoes, and boiled eggs; they cut thick slices of rye bread, served up fresh cucumbers and carrots, poured portions of salt onto the tablecloth, unsealed the pitchers of milk and prepared to listen to news from the front.
“You tell us the good news about the war, Vas, and we’ll save time and eat while we listen,” the women asked their ‘pedagogue.’
The Party boss stood proudly before them; smoothing his smock with two fingers as he adjusted his belt, he cleared his throat and began:
“All kinds of diversionary rumours are being spread around our village by spies, making wild claims that the German is right on top of us, and already here, even not far from these parts, taking up fortified positions in the next village over. On behalf of the Bolsheviks, I declare to you: these are all vile fabrications, lies completely without foundation, and nothing more than enemy propaganda! Yesterday I came back from Zagorye. At the District Committee meeting, they gave us all the latest details on the situation at the front: ‘Our valiant Red Army, under the leadership of the wise comrade Stalin, is ferociously and relentlessly whipping the goddamned German invaders on all fronts. We’re battering all of their divisions, you know, front, back and sideways! There! Comrade Stalin personally decreed that the enemy will be defeated and victory will be ours, brothers and sisters! Comrade Stalin wouldn’t lie to the people! So that’s how it is, women! So you can just take it from the horse’s mouth, and, you know, keep on doing your work, nice and steady and without panic. Don’t you go biting at any provocations! Don’t you go rumour-spreading any rumours! Or listening to ‘em! Everything for the front! Everything for the victory! The front needs bread! A soldier at the front can’t do without bread, any more than a man in peacetime can do without a woman! Understood?”
The womenfolk all burst out laughing:
“If our men didn’t drink more spirits than a horse does water, we’d have the enemy fleeing for their lives in no time! And we’d be having more babies, too, if it weren’t for that cursed moonshine. Then we’d really show the Germans our stuff! We should have our men putting away more bacon and less vodka! Then we’d all be knocked up, all the time. Who’s going to be knocking us up now? Who’s going to be making our babies with us? Neither Rus itself, nor we women, can survive without our menfolk…”
The Chatterbox raised his hand to impose order:
“Enough kidding around, women! Your men will be back soon, and they’ll bring victory home! They’ll be back before you know it, it’s a sure thing… Back with their beauties, and setting off earthquakes in the haylofts! For a fact! But now, seriously, here are the very latest news I have from the war front…”
The women munched away, acting as if they were paying close attention to the political information. Nastya had turned to the side and, distracted, watched the road which wound across the fields.
Her father had left along that road. In the Finnish war, her husband had left down that road in a wagon. And now her own son, Grisha, had been taken away down that road in a military truck. Her only child had gone off to war; gone beyond those woods was the love and the light of her life as a mother, as well as her secret hope for grandchildren. Ah, the last hope for the joy of old age, carried away into the storm:
“Will he come back? Yes, of course, my son will come back! Young men like Grigory – such good young men – can’t be killed! God wouldn’t allow such a sin and would never forgive anyone for it. Where are you, my darling son? Are you alive? Alive! He’ll be back, and then he’ll marry Maria Semyonova from Prechistoye! Hadn’t she given him good reason – even before the war – to go running across the fields to see her, barefoot, as far as five versts! And then they’d start making grandsons and granddaughters. How well we will live, how richly!”
Those were the thoughts of Baba Nastya, who was only half-listening to Vas-Vasych, as she scrutinized the perspective of her native highway with the heartache of a mother missing her reason for living.
Suddenly, she saw a group of motorcyclists race out of the woods. They were tearing along the road at great speed, raising clouds of dust behind them, disappearing and then reappearing on the highway; diving into the golden sea of the fields of grain, and then resurfacing again on the roadway that ran along the fields. Finally, they came flying out onto the straightaway and came bearing down at them – at the Russian women seated around their white tablecloth. Baba Nastya began to make out the unfamiliar military uniform.
“Is that a German? That’s right: a German! A real one. Ours don’t go that fast on motorcycles. Vas-Vasych! –” she interrupted the Party chairman in a calm voice – “You’re telling us the news just as sweetly as if you were telling fairy tales. Good! So that means…the German is still far away from us here, over beyond that horizon?”
“Don’t you doubt it, Nastya! The enemy won’t be coming here, curse him forever! We won’t be letting that viper into the USSR! The Party has spoken and that’s how it will be!”
“Then why don’t you have a look at that highway, Vasili? Look behind you, Comrade Chairman! Who’s that over there, kicking up clouds of dust – over there! – among our fields!? In our breadbasket! Open your eyes wide, Comrade Party Boss! Enough of your chatterboxing! Look carefully: who’s that over there behind your back, making all that noise with their motors?
The Chatterbox turned around, looked into the distance, and his mouth agape from amazement, all of a sudden toppled over onto the ground. He leapt up like a jackrabbit and dove into the rye fields that stood there, as thick as a wall; he zigzagged into the sea of grain, got down on all fours and disappeared. Only the quivering of the rye stalks marked the path of his flight.
Nobody ever saw or heard of him again, anywhere. War is a dark, murky business, choked with smoke: a man can vanish without a trace, and there won’t even be a grave left to mark the time and place of his passing.


5

The women did not budge from the spots they had made comfortable. They sat in silence, motionless.
The motorcyclists in steel helmets, with short automatic weapons slung around their necks, in their dusty uniforms with the sleeves rolled up to the elbow, in their enormous protective goggles that obscured most of the face – causing them to resemble some fantastic, unheard of fish – came racing up right to the spot where the women sat, fixed to the spot with wonder and disbelief. The cavalcade slowed up a bit as they approached the Russian Frauen in their white kerchiefs. The reconnaissance unit waved to the women in a friendly way and then turned their bikes in the direction of Davydkovo, their motors revving up to a shameless roar.
“Who would have thought? They even know all our roads, just as if they had just rolled back into their own hometowns.”
Baba Nastya covered her cheeks with her palms. Then, arms akimbo, with a certain quiet rage, she spoke:
“So, Comrade Stalin, is that how it is? ‘We’ll destroy our enemy on foreign soil?’ And here they are, right at Smolensk, all over us! Well, how do you do, then? Real moving pictures, real Germans! And where’s that Red Army of ours then? Where are our tanks, where are our gallant heroes, our falcons in the sky, our brave little soldier boys? Where’s my Grisha?”
From the unexpectedness of it all, the women hadn’t had time to be frightened. Some were still struggling to swallow the food that seemed to stick in their throats. Nastya was the first one to regain her bearings:
“Well, then, women! Eat up, drink up! Let’s finish the day’s work! We’ve got a situation here! The Party boss skipped out on us. Stalin’s sun has set – Hitler’s here.”
The women quickly cleared their tablecloth and ran pell-mell back towards their houses.

Peace and quiet was the order of the day in Davydkovo. The German motorcycle patrol roared through without stopping, at breakneck speed, past the unnaturally silent houses; the road took them straight onto the great Smolensk highway. This was the very same highway previously travelled by a certain Frenchman, also in a hurry to reach to Moscow, albeit on horseback. He was Napoleon, and some had also imputed greatness to his name.
In the houses, everything remained in its usual place and way: the children, the old folks, the food. The chickens and the geese carried on with their existence in the farmyards and kitchen gardens.
It had not yet sunk in that the Germans had already moved in.
On July 17, a funny-looking man with a beard and a distinctly ancien regime demeanor came rolling into Davydkovo. It was said that he had flown in straight from Berlin. During the Czar’s reign, he had been the overseer for a wealthy landowner. The landowner’s name was Andrei Vysatsky. The story went that he had been executed during the Revolution, and that the peasants had burnt down his estate. They thought they remembered him being either a Count, or a Prince of some kind.
The newcomer introduced himself as the former general manager of the estate, Nikodim Ivanovich Sosnovsky. He ordered everyone to assemble near the collective farm administration building. He clambered up onto a buggy and announced:
“By order of the German High Command, I have been appointed starosta (‘warden’) of your village. Yesterday, the valiant German army purged the city of Smolensk of its Jewish Bolshevik contagion. The remnants of Stalin’s army have been surrounded, driven into the lowlands and pushed back against the Sozh River. By the tens of thousands, Red Army soldiers are joining the German side. The war will be over by this autumn and all the peasants shall receive land for their own private use. But until that happens, we are not going to disband the collective farms, until total victory over Bolshevism has been achieved. Tomorrow, all the residents are to go out into the fields to work, as usual. Arbeit macht frei! Toil makes us free! The German army needs bread. Who is Anastasia Panina?
“Here I am!” Baba Nastya called out.
“You will lead the brigade, that means you are the Gruppenfuehrerin! We leave for the fields at five in the morning! Understood?”
“What’s to understand?” replied Nastya loudly, for all of them. “A change of government means a change of brooms.” But inside, she was thinking: “Horseradish is no sweeter than plain radishes! Stalin-Hitler! Hitler-Stalin! Two boots make a matched set! The only way to tell them apart is by the size of their whiskers.”
They toiled heroically (as it was called, meaning into utter prostration), just as they had under the Communists, all the way through July.
They brought in the rye, the wheat, the oats, the flax. It was an excellent harvest. Nikodim, the starosta, was given some kind of medal from the Germans.
His wife came from Germany to stay with him. She was an ordinary Russian country peasant, by the looks of it, but she put on airs and played the exotic foreign Frau to ridiculous effect. They began to repair the abandoned church; plans were made to rebuild the manor house in its former place.

7

In early August, the tank personnel from the SS division called “Death’s Head” arrived in Davydkovo, to for some rest in the quiet of the gorgeous Russian forest. These were young men, well-built, handsome to behold. The starosta instructed Nastya to prepare a proper Russian banya (steam-bath) for them:
“They’re getting ready for the victory parade in Red Square! Our liberators! You do your utmost, Nastya! Show these Germans our Russian hospitality! Do you remember our Prince Vysatsky?”
“And what if I do… I was a little child then…” Nastya fibbed. “But I’ll get the banya ready for our unexpected murderers.”
“You just keep that sharp little tongue of yours well behind your teeth!” the starosta recommended. “No one bothers to sort out the jokes in wartime.”
Baba Nastya said nothing, and just nodded.
She brought in the birch firewood, fetched the water from the pristine river, prepared the fanning switches to be used during the steaming ritual, heated the stones used to make the steam until they were as red as rocks can be, and then invited the Germans in to the bath-house, using hand gestures.
“They’re killers, not liberators,” whispered Anastasia through tightly clenched teeth. “See those black skulls and bones they’ve decked themselves out in? Part of their uniforms! They’re anti-Christs, that’s what they are! They’re the Devil’s spawn, being that they wear skulls in their buttonholes…May you all croak in that bath-house. My precious Grisha, he’s a tank officer, too; maybe you’ve already roasted him alive, and now they come here, they want to be all nice and clean, purified, trying to wash the blood of my son off their filthy souls.”
The soldiers were guffawing, babbling on in their own tongue, but were in no hurry to strip naked; they cast inquisitive sidelong glances at the Russian woman who was standing at the entry to the bath-house as if waiting for something.
The starosta leaped forward.
“What’s the matter, woman: haven’t you ever seen naked men before?”
“I’ve seen ‘em.”
“So skedaddle out of here. These are civilized lads, you know; they’re shy; they aren’t about to disrobe in the presence of an unknown woman. What’re you standing here for?”
“I’ve seen our kind of men, but have I ever seen Germans?”
“Oh, you backward country bumpkin! Go take a hike already! All men are the same; they’ve all got their sausages hanging exactly the same way between their legs. Or didn’t you know that?”
“And so what if I want to make sure?”
“Make sure of what? What is it you want to make sure of?”
“Well, what if they’ve got something else hanging there, something different from our kind? Maybe they have different equipment to make their killing kind with? Look at ‘em, they’ve got all those devil’s symbols screwed on all over their uniforms, all those skulls and bones! They’re devils, not men! People say the devils are all sex-less, that they’re ass-munchers…”
“You’re the village idiot, Nastya, you know that? How on earth have you ever heard of pederasts out here?”
“From old goats like yourself, who else? I want to see whatever it is those devils use to make themselves their devils’ offspring…”
Starosta Nikodim flew into a vicious rage:
“Lucky for you they don’t understand a word of Russian. You ought to be taken right up against the wall and shot for what you’ve just said, Anastasia! Get out of here, you stupid uneducated peasant!”
Nastya slammed the door with malicious force and went to tend to her cow – to give her a little extra hay. Nikodim called after her:
“After their bath, the boys would love some of that Russian milk to drink, and more of that fine butter from Vologoda, with white bread…”

7

The Germans’ mood changed on the 10th of September, 1941. That was when the soon-to-be famous Katyusha was first brought into battle, against the “Death’s Head” division. The Russians had new tanks to fight with, the TU-34. Divisions consisting of from Siberia were deployed to the front line, just east of Smolensk. Guerrillas organized in the rear. Bridges, railways, vehicles on the road began blowing up. The Germans began to know the oppressive fear of taking a bullet to the back of the head in the unlikeliest of environments: in an outhouse; by the well; in a seductive corner of the woods; by the banks of a beautiful, peaceful stream.
The land on which the Fritzes stood began to burn under their very feet.
The Wehrmacht’s frontline newspapers began featuring pieces filled with complaints to the effect that “the Russians are waging war in a manner that goes against all the rules of civilized conflict. These Scythians have gone as far as to reconnoitre the locations of our camp kitchens and field outhouses, serving soldiers and officers alike, and they are given to shooting at these types of peaceful facilities. Only a barbarian could be capable of killing people during these natural interludes in their civilized existence.”
The Russians were not reading the Germans’ newspapers, and continued their bombing of German outhouses, kitchens, canteens, field brothels and pleasure areas intended for the rest and relief of the war-worn Aryan warriors. Increasingly, the Russians were counterattacking. “For the Motherland! For Stalin!” rang the battle-cry of the Red Army forces as they leaped from their trenches. But once locked in hand-to-hand combat, face to face with their foe, they forgot about Stalin, they forgot about the Motherland. The battlefield would be engulfed in one great, terrifying din of men gone hoarse with rage, raining down foul curses, howling and roaring like the beasts they had become; the sickening muffled crunch of blows as rifle-butts met steel helmets; fountains of blood gushing and gurgling from severed jugulars, from arteries pierced by the field shovels of engineers. Teeth, jaws, hands, knives, bayonets were used to rend and maim the flesh of other men, whom they had never met before this day, with adamant ferocity; hands, belts, leg-bindings, straps were used to suffocate and strangle – and then they would themselves expire, atop the piled up bodies they had just helped slay. Bullets and shrapnel from grenades transformed the faces of men into a bloody, gory mess. Artillery shells could not distinguish between sides; they burst in the midst of clusters of fighting soldiers, taking some from both sides, so that the torn parts of soldiers’ bodies could be seen hanging indiscriminately even on the highest pine trees.
Hand-to-hand combat against Russian troops is more terrible than the worst hell of afterlife ever conceived of by a Western mind.
Over the wretched bundles of enemies physically interlaced in an agonizing struggle to the death, the piercing smells of blood and gunpowder and excrement and schnapps and vodka hung suspended, blended into one dense emanation.
The air was quivering from the thunder of shots fired at close range; eardrums burst; the cries, the shrieks of pain and supplications of the dying rose to the heavens.
And over all this vast, foul, reeking hell on earth, a single heart-rending vowel overruled every other sound, all by itself, in an ejaculation without end: Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!
The Germans could not endure the brutal bloodbath Russian hand-to-hand combat, up close and personal, with no holds barred; they pulled back to defensive positions. There, the justly celebrated rapid-fire Katysha drenched them in a deluge of flames.
The Blitzkrieg was not going according to plan. The invasion had hit a bottleneck.
Lost without a trace, the respectable, even stylish polish of the German troops. Hungry, filthy, infested with lice, exhausted, the troops of the front began taking their anger and frustration out on the village populace. Each country girl now seemed to them to be a guerrilla fighter. The boys were all spies and saboteurs. The so-called Germano-European civilization was beginning to reveal its true colors, increasingly taking on the features of a pack of wolves consumed with hatred for all human life.
Once, Baba Nastya, out searching for a missing nanny goat, wandered up closer to the German positions than they tolerated. A vigilant sentry deftly dealt her a blow to the head with the butt of his gun. It had not been a very strong blow, but Anastasia Panova [sic – Panina?] gave voice to all her pent-up rage:
‘ You can’t beat us, anyway. You won’t win. We’ll stick in your craw like a bone. Maybe one of these Fritzes has already killed my Grisha! Maybe some other Hans, or another Adolf, will shoot another ten of our Ivans dead, but still, my Grisha – or some other Ivan, Nikolai, Fyodor, some unknown soldier, whom God will spare from your German bullets, is bound to bury you, Adolf, in our Russian soil, like it or not. We never asked you here, you know: so don’t go tramping in other peoples’ gardens; stay back home, with your mamselle, your Frau in your nice rich German land; drink your beer; make yourself some Kinder in your eiderdown beds… But, no, you just had to come this way, you goddamned Fritz; you just had to try Russian on! You want it all, don’t you – and you want us to hand it over to you! Woman! Chicken! Milk! Suck! Bum! Gimme! Gimme! Come on! Well, who asked you here? Who makes you slam Russian women on the head with your gun? Stop raping our daughters! Stop killing our sons! You’ll never win; you’ll never conquer us! We’re Russian, we’re used to hardships and war. We’re survivors, and we have unimaginable endurance; we’ll outlast all of you. And you’ll never drive the faith out of us! And what about you, then? You’re weak, next to us. You can’t drink like we can. You can’t go out into the freezing Russian night to do your business – you need a heated outhouses, even in a war zone! You should try it sometime, German boy, urinating in the freezing air of Russia! Your manhood will fall right off, like an icicle in the springtime. Your rumps are so soft, so tender, you pricks! You’re used to your nice asphalt roads, and your racing motors – and here there’s no such thing as a straight road… You’ll sink in the Russian mud. You’ll fall asleep in a twisted heap in our snowdrifts. You’ll get lost in our forests. You’ll be knee-high in clay on the highways. And then, in the cities, you’ll be stranded in the middle of a raging firestorm! Oh, it’ll be warm then, but there’ll be no cover left to shelter in, once the winter comes… And then you’ll meet our Siberians! Fists the size of bricks! When one of them smacks you in the ear, the other ear lands in Berlin! Oh, you’ll have your fill here, you civilized European, of blood mixed with shit in equal parts! We’ll solve our own personal problems all by our own selves, thank you very much! Don’t you go teaching us how to live, when you don’t even speak our language! Don’t come telling us how to be! We’ve got our own ways here! Sit there quietly in your Europe! Don’t go riding around our Russia in your tanks! Our normal life here, that we’re used to, will be the death of you… You won’t make it back from our Russian fields! We’ve got enough birches to make crosses for all of you. Just you remember that, you goddamned Adolf!”