War and Rozka

               


                Dedicated to my father



          When the war broke out, Rozka was in a summer camp somewhere on the Volga River. Rozka was a typical Jewish girl with big dark eyes and dark hair.  This made it completely impossible for her to remain during the German occupation. But in order to return  to Moscow, she needed  a special permit from the government, which Rozka of course did not have.   

          Her mother worked as a technician in a ball-bearing plant, and she could not get any documents for Rozka. But Rozka had a buddy named Vlad, whose father sent him a permit. And so Vlad and Rozka decided to trek into Moscow using one authorization for  both. But after a few days of wandering, Vlad succeeded in taking the fragile old ferry with his document, while Rozka was not allowed.

           Rozka roared at this injustice. Tears filled her eyes so she didn’t even see how a German bomb struck an old steamer and it went down. But a panic started on the pier, and Rozka managed to sneak onto the next barge that was leaving.

         She got into Moscow almost three months later, starving and full of lice, in one light summer dress, though it was already the end of September.  A neighbor fed her all of the bread that was issued on the ration coupons for the entire communal apartment, but it was a time when nobody was keeping tabs. Her mother came home from the plant at midnight during the nightly bombing -  and in the pitch black dark, as trams were not running, street lights were not lit, and the windows were blacked out. She fainted when she saw Rozka alive and unharmed, though with lice, and as it turned out later, also with typhus. They both fell ill with typhus, and Rozka’s luxurious black tresses had to be shaved off.

         Moscow was bombed every night, and every night they ran from their small street Maroseika to the subway station on Dzerzhinsky Square, and in the evenings, Rozka in huge mittens and a big quilted jacket, was on duty on the roof. A few months later, when she turned seventeen, it was arranged for her to attend some hasty nursing courses. She got working ration coupons and life became a little easier. However, many years later Rozka still remembered how badly during the whole war she desired white bread with butter and sausage and sweet tea, although before the war she had detested bread with butter and sausage and never drank tea with sugar.

         Sometimes they were visited by Volodya, the son of  Rozka’s mother’s faraway girlfriend. Volodya, who was already a senior lieutenant and went to military school somewhere in the forests under Nahabino, was preparing to be a secret service agent. His short visits were always welcomed as festive holidays. Volodya brought unbelievable delicacies such as chocolate or sausage, and sometimes he took Rozka to see a movie in the movie theater "Spartacus."

        While Rozka was lying in bed and fighting typhus, Volodya, a combat or field engineer by profession, faced a serious problem. He was responsible for destroying one of the biggest plants in Moscow, the "Hammer and Sickle," in the event that the Germans occupied Moscow. The older workers hissed behind his back that they would kill him if something happened to their plant. But, thank God or Zorge (the famous Russian spy in Japan), Moscow never surrendered, and the "Hammer and Sickle" remained in place, and Volodya remained alive.

       Nursing courses were already coming to an end and the Kursk- Orel arc battle was approaching, when Volodya came on his regular visit and did not catch Rozka at home. He found only her mother in tears. It turned out the entire class of nurses, nineteen girls, was getting ready to be sent to the front that day or the day after.  They were gathered now at the Kursk rail station, where they were sitting in the supply trucks awaiting departure.

        Volodya, apparently, was not a hopeless intelligence agent. He rushed to the Kursk Station and in a couple of hours was already sitting with the second lieutenant in the head freight car, drinking alcohol and feasting on the bacon that he brought. The second lieutenant, who was in charge of sending the girls to the front, looked with obvious respect at Volodya’s shoulder straps and the blue epaulettes of the KGB troops. After another couple of hours Volodya found that the girls were to be sent to the front tomorrow night, and after an additional couple of glasses of vodka he persuaded the second lieutenant to release Rozka home with him. The second lieutenant, of course, long resisted, but then suddenly, with a sly grin, he asked:

         - Hey, can you bring a certificate from a gynecologist that she is pregnant?

         - Damn, how did I not think of that myself!  - Volodya was utterly upset.

        Early the next morning Volodya, armed with the certificate and another bottle of alcohol, raced back to the Kursk station.  While letting Rozka go, the second lieutenant winked at Volodya:

         - But kidding aside, there should be a child in nine months.

        So nine months later I was born. My grandmother and my father did not really get along, but with a heavy sigh, my grandmother said every time:

        - Nothing can be done, he saved her life.

       And of those eighteen girls that were sent to the front, only one came back from the Kursk battle, and she was missing both legs.