Sword and Plowshare

By Arthur Grenke

My general impression is best expressed by stating how I was struck by the intensity of this report on the most difficult years in the history of mankind. Stories I heard of and I knew of all my childhood, which I seemed to have forgotten or which were pushed away in my memory, came to life once again.

There are magnificent descriptions of nature and discreet observations of human feelings The colorful language does a lot to make the horrors which have to be reported bearable.

Renata Kartsaklis,
Ph.D., Librarian, Dalhousie University

Depicting the tragic Russian era from the First World War and the Bolshevik Revolution, through to the man-made Ukrainian famine of the thirties and World War Two, Sword and Plowshare is a powerful historical novel that dramatically portrays the emotional intensity of its victimized German-Russian characters. The realism of the story combines a command of authentic details and a profusion of metaphorical style not always found in historical novels. The war scenes are gripping and the lengthy section on the horrendous famine is shocking in its realistic portrayal. The novels narrative tension never wavers, but the bleak historical events are not allowed to overpower or to make irrelevant the all-too-human feelings of fear, despair, hatred, hope and love expressed by these German-Russian victims who finally flee to war-torn Germany, only to face further threats to their lives. This is a novel that will relentlessly grip the reader.

Al Reimer
Professor Emeritus, Dept. of English, University of Winnipeg

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Nov 19, 2014
• ISBN: 9781490740003

Arthur Grenke

Arthur Grenke has his PhD in History and Sociology. As historian and archivist with the Multicultural Section, Library and Archives Canada, he spent years working in German Canadian and minority group studies. His publications include God, Greed and Genocide: the Holocaust through the Centuries, which was translated into German under the title Vlkermord, and can be found at major university libraries such as the Library of the University of Toronto and Harvard University Library. His Genocide from Antiquity to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century and Genocide from the Advent of Communism to the End of the Twentieth Century can each be found in over 1000 university libraries world-wide.

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© Copyright 2014 Arthur Grenke.

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CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

BOOK I

WAR AND REVOLUTION

Part 1 At Home In Neuland

Part 2 War And Expulsion

Part 3 Revolution Along The Black Sea

BOOK II

COMMUNIST UTOPIA

Part 1 Return Home

Part 2 The Man-Made Famine

Part 3,Transformation And Destruction

BOOK III

ILLUSIONS OF SAFETY

Part 1 The Coming Of The Germans

Part 2 Flight

Part 3 Dresden

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Used by permission of the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia.

INTRODUCTION

FEW PERIODS OF EUROPEAN history have witnessed greater violence than the years between 1914 and 1945. Emperors and dictators sought to build empires or create new societies through sword and famine. Millions of people were wiped out in the process, millions who had little more control over the maelstrom sweeping them along than a word has control over the eraser wiping it out. This is the story of some of these people. While the characters are fictitious, the events they experience are based on fact. This is the story of Robert Sprenger who tried to cope with an insane world as best he could. Ruth and Helga, the women in his life, as well as their children, sought to find love and happiness in a world with little of either.

The story begins in Neuland, a fictitious name for a small German-Russian village in Volhynia. German immigrants in search of land started settling in Russia at the time of Catherine the Great, in the 1700s. Lutherans came, and Mennonites, as well as Catholics. With the encouragement of Russian rulers, several major concentrations of Germans arose in the Black Sea area and along the Volga. In the early 1800s smaller German settlements also took root in Volhynia, where local landowners sought to attract German immigrants to drain swamp land which the native population had often neither the skill nor the inclination to make arable.

By 1914, over two million Germans lived in the Russian Empire, most of them in the southern Ukraine. In the western Ukraine, Germans were concentrated west of Zhitomir. The immigrants had cut the forests and drained the swamps. Small villages and rolling fields stood where once had been wilderness.

World War I broke out and the Russian government expelled the German speaking population of Volhynia. During the forced evacuation, thousands of the exiles died. Those who returned to Ukrainian Volhynia found a changed world. During the late 1920s came the forced collectivization. Then came the man-made famine during which, it is estimated, some five million people starved to death in the Ukraine and a further two million succumbed in the North Caucasus and elsewhere. In Neuland many of the villagers died. The famine had no sooner ended when the expulsions started again, during which some German villages of Volhynia lost almost all their males, with the exception of boys and old men. During this time, many of the men of Neuland were hauled away by the black crows which claimed their victims in the dead of night. Then came the invasion of the German Wehrmacht. Inhabitants of Neuland who did not wish to fall again under communism fled in front of the retreating German armies, ever in search of a safe refuge. This search ended in the inferno of Dresden.

BOOK I

WAR AND

REVOLUTION

PART 1

AT HOME IN NEULAND

OUR FATHER USED TO say: The farmer is the happiest man in the world; he is king in his own yard. Translation from the German. Friedrich Rink, Wie liegt so weit, was mein einst war," Heimatbuch (1962), p. 23.

The brother of the mother… had left for Volhynia years ago. He wrote again and again how well he was doing there, suggesting that they also come, because land was cheap and one could therefore really farm. To really farm, that was what his father, who was merely a shepherd, yearned to do. Translation from the German. H. Karasek-Strzygowski, Wolhynisches Tagebuch, N.G. Elwert Verlag, 1979. p. 83.

1

THE LADDER WAGON, LOADED high with hay, swayed like a boat on choppy water. The draft horses steamed with sweat. Behind their plodding hoofs, dust spurted up, hanging suspended like the pollen of burst puffballs. Ambling alongside the wagon, Robert casually watched the dirt disintegrate and lose itself in the tug and flow of muscles in the rumps of the animals. His gaze shifted to the pasture alongside the roadway, where horses and cattle were quietly grazing. Two colts reared and galloped across the field. A stork, one leg tucked under its wing, stood watching them until they were nearly upon it, when languidly it spread its wings and took flight.

Up, up it rose, its wings undulating like a strip of algae torn loose in a grey expanse of water. Robert imagined himself up there, looking down on Neuland, with its dirt roads bordered by farmyards. Some of the houses were made of stone, with tile or wood shingle roofs. Most of them, built from logs, had whitewashed walls and straw roofs. Small orchards or a few fruit trees stood near the houses, fronted by flower or vegetable gardens. The fields lay behind the farmyards, as did the woods, which had been left standing in particular along the banks of the Mlynok, a small stream which siphoned the water from the network of drainage ditches cutting across the fields, dug when the first settlers established Neuland.

As Robert watched the stork disappear behind a cluster of trees, his fingers moved along the fork handle flung back against his shoulder, one moment gripping the wood and the next flowing over it, tenderly, as if in memory of caressing a girl’s face. Reminded of something unpleasant, he spat. His neck began to itch from sweat, and he scratched at the irritation. Warily he eyed the clouds which became entangled in the hay on the wagon before sweeping on again in the darkening sky.

Axles creaked as the load swung toward a low straw-thatched hut, its whitewash flaking and small windows staring wistfully. Clover and alfalfa tufts, cut through by wagon ruts, marked the driveway along which the load lurched from side to side like a large boat meeting waves as it moved past the house and the well beam angled into the air, past the smithy with its weathered tin roof and sooty windows, and across the yard cluttered with broken wagon wheels, rusted plowshares, harrows on end, and piles of cinder and ashes.

Pigeons flew up from the straw roof of the barn across from the smithy, their wings flashing against the grey sky. The wagon came to a stop by the haystack behind the barn, sweeping with it tatters of hay as it wedged up alongside. A round-faced, plump girl appeared at the top of the load. Robert helped her down. As she hurried towards the ladder leaning against the haystack, he clambered onto the wagon and started to unload, handing her forkful after forkful.

They had no sooner unloaded the hay when the sky turned widow-spider black. Swelling and pulsating, it coiled into itself. Lightning tore the heaven apart as if it were an eggshell. Robert hurriedly scraped together the last bits of hay which had slipped from the wagon during unloading and heaped them alongside the pile. Rain streamed in sheets by the time he slapped the reins at the snorting horses restlessly pawing the ground. The creaking, empty wagon jerked forward, tugging with it patches of hay which fell in large swaths.

Thunder rumbled along grey, billowing waves of cloud. The wind shrieked in a nearby pine, its tattered peak tossing from side to side above the barn. For a moment the farmyard became a grey haze in which the farm buildings were mere silhouettes. The silver-green leaves of poplar shrubbery near the house clattered like kettle drums as the wind lashed through them and past the pig pen beside the barn, where a grunting sow angrily shook her ears at the wind and at hay which had been swept across the yard to become hung up on the pen fence.

Flapping chickens were carried along by a gust that tore apart the downpour. Geese fussed at tidbits of clover by the smithy’s doorway. Nearby, the clothesline rattled as the wind drummed at the clothes which a woman, her dress billowing, snatched from the line and threw dripping wet into a hand-woven basket.

2

IN THE FORGE, THE coals, and the plowshare half buried under them, began to glow crimson-white as Robert worked the arm of the ballast. Air rumbled and roared. Smoke spun around the forge to be slowly sucked into the chimney, then spit out again, swelling through the smithy in a stinging haze, again to be pushed towards the ceiling where sparks flashed and quivered as the rain hammered at the tin roof. Gripping the glowing plowshare with his tongs, Robert swung towards the anvil. His short-sleeved shirt showed stringy muscles which bunched up each time he raised his arm, as if each tendon in his arm was winding tight, as his body unfurled like a tightly wound spring, and again and again he brought his hammer down on the steel. Every so often he leaned over the anvil to examine the plowshare, or pushed it back into the glowing coals and in a few moments brought it out, to again shape it with his hammer.

He felt good working, sensing his muscles, his whole being moving in harmony with what seemed to be happening to the plow as he prepared it to dig deep, to turn the earth gently and make it receptive to the seeds which would be planted - the process made him think of love, of a man’s relationship to his woman, made him think with hurt and longing of Ruth.

Outside the open smithy doorway, the storm was settling, and the sky began to shimmer a bleached bone white. The rain eased to a patter and only a hesitant wind rustled in the shrubbery outside the smithy’s window. He tried to see a resemblance, but couldn’t see Ruth in the heavy-set man who pushed through the doorway, yanked off his cap and slapped it against his knee.

Robert continued working, heating and reheating the metal. The plowshare at last finished, he swung towards the new arrival, forcing cheerfulness: Well, Bauer, he grinned. Got caught in the rain a bit, I notice.

Impatiently the other brushed his hand across a broad forehead, as if brushing off sweat. What’s a little water, eh! He squinted as with stubby fingers he pulled a tobacco pouch from his shirt pocket, to take out a few shreds of tobacco and roll a cigarette.

Me and Pauline, we just got in the last of our hay, and it’s only now I’ve had the chance to start work here, Robert continued, as he searched the other’s face, but saw nothing which might tell him whether he was approved or disapproved of as a possible son-in-law.

Hah. Haying! Bauer snorted, scratching at a tuft of hair on his balding head. My boy, I would give my right arm, if I could get that out of the way. It’s all getting to be a pain, believe me.

Robert nodded, relieved the other’s dismissing and yet angry glare wasn’t meant for him. Frowning, the man continued, If it isn’t rain, my God, it’s the hired hands staying home, too lazy to work, those good for nothings! It’s a damnable thing, I tell you. Saying that, I’m not one to make mountains out of mole hills, believe me. And on top of all that, the Austrian crown prince has to get himself killed in Sarajevo. He gnawed worriedly at his cigarette as he shook his head. Nineteen hundred and five, my boy, will be like the fart of a firecracker compared to what we’ll see in our Russia, if this Sarajevo mess leads to war.

Robert flicked a sunflower seed into his mouth and gnawed at it absentmindedly. Sarajevo and crown princes were worlds away for him as he spat a shell at the rusted hub of a wagon wheel. So, well, what can I do for you? I thought your Lotte would be needing new shoes soon, when you were last here. He wondered if the other had Ruth along. Was she outside? What about the rumours that she was about to be married?

A wheel today. Yah, that’s all. With a weary sigh, the man turned to shuffle towards the door.

Gripping the finished plowshare with his tongs, Robert lowered it into the tub of water near the anvil. Turbulent as his feelings, the water hissed and bubbled, as he turned to follow the other outside.

"Your Opa, he was saying the other day at the village council meeting, you might be able to take a day off to help us with the haying, maybe." Bauer glanced towards him.

"Opa should know we have lots of work here."

I’d sure appreciate it, the other replied, and so would Ruth.

Robert’s heart fluttered at the mention of the girl’s name. He had but stepped outside when he became aware of her beside the Bauer wagon, which wasn’t quite wagon or quite chaise. It had the narrow wheels and thin spokes of a chaise, with a cover for the people in front. But then it also had an addition at the back in which lay a wagon wheel with a broken spoke. He couldn’t help but notice her eyes touching him as butterfly feelers might touch a threatening object. Was everything over, whatever had been between them? He couldn’t believe that, even though he saw it in her dark, nervous eyes, and in the smile which alighted on him as a scared bird in a barnyard, ready any moment to take flight.

Noticing this, he recalled how he had felt when his father had died years ago. His father had taken to bed with whooping cough. A week later he was gone, leaving the rest of them with a sense of loss as vast as the world itself. He had this sense of loss now, even though she hadn’t said anything.

Ah, women, women, the heavy-set man guffawed, especially now, in our modern day, eh, they’re getting too befuddled to know what’s good for them. At least in my time, my boy, people were sensible and knew a handsome face doesn’t bring in the harvest, but now…

In reply, Robert took a sunflower seed from his pocket and gnawed on it. He felt frozen and at the same time drained of energy. No doubt, this fat man was encouraging her to take up with Hahn. Still, what she did with her life was finally up to her, and not for her father or mother to decide.

Filling their heads with all sorts of ridiculous ideas, these girls, the fat man continued. She’s even started keeping a diary! Can you believe it! As if milking cows is anything to put a pencil to paper about! It’s work she needs, real work, like milking cows and hoeing out in the field. I tell my Emma that she’s spoiled the child. Work, keeping the girl busy, will bring her to her senses.

Behind the fat man, the earth steamed. A low mist hung above the narrow patch of potatoes behind the house, from which a puppy darted in pursuit of a squawking chicken that flapped across the barnyard. A rooster set upon the mutt which, yelping, scampered towards the nearby well. It reappeared from around the weathered board siding, to peek hesitantly towards the cock strutting back and forth in front of a puddle in which sparrows were bathing. The floppy-eared mutt was about to pounce forward again, but after a hesitant leap, ran toward the house where another of his kind had appeared.

Robert became aware of Ruth smiling at him, hesitantly, and then noticed his grandfather, hobbling on a cane towards them.

How are you, Robert, the girl ventured self-consciously.

Leaning towards his cane as irritably he shook his head, the old man erupted before Robert could reply, Now, now, don’t just stand there, boy, as if a chicken stole your bread! Or does it take all day for you young roosters nowadays to lift a wheel off a wagon?

Robert forced himself toward the broken wheel at the back of the low chaise.

In your day, eh, tata, the fat farmer turned to grandfather, in your day the folks welded together a couple and there was no back talk, eh, and the marriage could go through the world like any plow worth its name goes through the earth, to make it fruitful, but these young ones nowadays, mere calves not yet dry behind the ears, they think years of experience isn’t worth listening to.

It takes the young scoundrel longer to take a wheel from a wagon, than it took me and my father, God rest his soul, to dig a drainage ditch from our land to the Mlynok, the old man grumbled, jabbing his cane towards a narrow canal which cut through the pasture land behind them. And even his father, God bless his soul, at least he worked while he was still with us. This boy, he takes all day to do a little thing, while his mother, too, she’s waiting with dinner for him, the young scoundrel.

3

ROBERT HAD NO SOONER entered the house when his grandfather followed, angrily thumping his cane on the worn board floor. Ah, there he is, he grumbled, shaking his prune face, his jaws quivering with agitation. It’s about time you’re in. Instead of spending your time out there, gawking at that girl! Bauer is here to get his wagon wheel fixed, not to bring his daughter to market.

Robert ignored the remark as he splashed water onto his face from a chipped clay basin beside the stove where his mother was stirring soup.

With a sigh, which permitted all nature to flourish, she censured, Now, now grandfather, leave the boy alone, already. He’s got enough problems without you being after him.

The old man twisted at his cat whiskers, and, shaking his head, rocked back and forth over his cane. Hah! God! How you raise children! Just look at him. A man must tame himself before he becomes useful. It’s work the boy needs. Work. In my days we Sprengers, we didn’t have people gossiping about our folk. And Bauer’s girl, thin as if about to catch fire, taunting him out there like some Philistine Delilah, so he doesn’t know where to stick his head. When she’s about to tie the knot, too, I hear, the hussy. The boy’s a fool, I tell you, running after the wind like a silly puppy. It’s too bad his father isn’t alive. He’d beat some sense into him. And I would too, by God, if I didn’t have enough trouble keeping myself upright on the good Lord’s earth.

Robert can have Monica Gans anytime. Pauline, who was setting the table, intruded with spirit. But Robert thinks he’s too good for her. She brushed a pudgy hand across her cheek, as if to flick away a bothersome itch, and then, in exasperation, stuck out her tongue at him.

Where’s Peter and Anna? Robert asked, ignoring the remark.

Oh, they’re still out herding the cows near Maser’s place. Mother glanced up before gripping the pot to set it on the table. Yesterday, they spent their time playing instead of watching cows and our Betsy, that real wild one, she got into Maser’s turnip patch. I don’t know yet what damage she did. But old Maser, he’s angrier than a swatted wasp. You’ll have to go and see. Maybe you can do something for the Masers, repay them.

It’s too bad our Hermann isn’t here, grandfather spoke up, hooking the hand grip of his cane over the back of his chair before sinking down onto the seat with a groan. That’s certain, it’s discipline they need. In my time, I would have had my ears boxed if I didn’t watch the cows. I was just five then, too, not even coming up to the cow’s hind quarters. But I had a switch and I let the beast have it if they went where I didn’t want them to go. They certainly knew who was boss.

Did Bauer have any more news about Sarajevo and the Austrian crown prince getting shot? Mother turned anxiously to him as she set the pot down on the table.

Oh, that’s all nonsense, nothing for people to be worried about, grandfather spoke up. This can’t lead to war. People have too much sense to let it. There’s never been a war between Germany and Russia and there won’t be now.

I certainly hope not, mother breathed, glancing anxiously at him.

Anyway, that’s what people at the town council meeting at old Bauer’s place were saying last night, grandfather continued, his fists braced against the side of the table. Fat Bauer himself said so. Rather than worrying about war, we Germans in Russia should be worrying about raising upright, good citizens. Not like that Steinke boy: not yet dry behind the ears, and out stealing horses, he was. Raising children like that is more likely to get us into trouble with our Russian neighbours than is any war. Jabbing his head up and down to reinforce his words, he turned to his borscht soup.

And his sister, that Helga Steinke, Pauline breathed. I don’t know. I can’t believe it. But people say… She stopped, blushing, unable to continue.

That’s because old Steinke never had any order in his home, grandfather growled, glaring at them from under his eyebrows. Now, time to pray. Closing his eyes, he folded his hands, with everybody following suit before he launched into a staccato, "Segne Vater diese Speise, uns zur Kraft und Dir zum Preise, Amen."

How can poor Steinke keep things in order, mother replied as soon as grandfather had finished praying, when he’s out all day, working in the woods, the poor man. I hear he must get up before sunrise every morning to get to the woods near Goroschki. Anyway, it’s all likely hearsay, she turned to Pauline.

I don’t know. Pauline’s shoulders rose and sank. This Maser girl, she found a fine necklace under Helga’s pillow, people say. So, something has to be going on.

Some of you girls are just jealous of Helga, Robert spoke up, because she’s such a fine figure of a woman.

Oh, so you do have eyes for others than just Ruth, his sister taunted.

Ruth is nice, Robert responded flatly.

Especially as she’ll inherit fifty hectares of land, Pauline continued cynically, to add, Monica will inherit twelve, you know. She told me so herself. And she isn’t about to be engaged to any Hahn either.

Ha! Robert scoffed.

Now, now, Paulinchen, mother tossed in. Don’t any of you worry about our Robert. He’s a sensible boy. Deep down he knows better than any of us, that a sensible, hard-working girl like our Monica is just right for him. The grey bun on the top of her head tilted forward as, nodding, she gave Robert a meaningful look.

He pretended not to notice as he yanked up the spoon beside his plate and dug into his soup.

4

THE DESIRE TO FEEL land that he could call his own under his feet had driven Robert’s great grandfather, a tenant farmer, from his native Pomerania. All his worldly goods loaded onto a wagon, his pregnant wife on the seat beside him, he set off for Russia. Fighting wind and rain, the family pressed eastward to find the unpeopled hectares of rolling wheat land Russian immigrant recruiters had praised to high heaven. They crossed the far stretching Vistula, with its shores of bog and swamp, and pushed across the marshes of Polanisia. His wife died in childbirth – after being pulled from the wagon, as they fled robbers who infested the jungle-like woodlands bordering dirt roads.

He arrived in Volhynia alone except for the infant son who had torn himself from a dying mother’s womb. Land, which the agents had praised as an awaiting paradise of bread, milk and honey, turned out to be endless swamp that the native Ukrainians had neither the skill nor the desire to drain and turn into farmland. Where there was no swamp, poplar, oak, maple and fir trees clung to sandy or rocky hillocks.

It was late summer and he began digging a shelter from the side of a hill, covering it with branches, moss and sod. Knee deep in water, he and the other new arrivals dug ditches to drain the swamps. They cleared the trees, their axes echoing through forests old as time itself.

Children and adults were swept away by malaria spread by mosquitos that infested the swamps. Even young men became hunchbacked from overwork and rheumatic arthritis. Eventually each farm had its drainage ditch down to the Mlynok, and what had been swamp became farmland. Dugouts became root cellars, to be replaced by neat, whitewashed log houses, their straw or reed roofs shimmering in the dawn light. More wealthy settlers built stone houses, with tile or wood shingle instead of straw roofs. Where once had stood firs, oaks, poplars and willows, fields of wheat and barley glistened in the morning sun. What had been swamp and woodland became a small village community, affectionately called Neuland by its inhabitants, with its poor and rich, its boundaries marked by dirt roads which connected farm to farm, and the settlement to the dirt or gravel highways which led on to Goroschki or Tschernjachow, to Zhitomir, the provincial capital, then on to the wider world.

5

IN THIS WORLD, SUN, earth, and sky rocked in the cradle of a droplet of dew on a blade of grass, to burst in an explosion of liquid gold. Tassels of grass undulated in a soft breeze redolent with pollen and the sweet sourness of hay. With a soft caress it brushed the settling heat of oncoming noon from the shoulders of the harvesters. Among the shorn grasses spikes of new growth were beginning to reappear. A cricket chirped. Harnesses rustled. A ladder wagon loaded high with hay creaked up to the next stook. Like cairns commemorating immemorial customs, these dotted the hayfield, bordered by swamp, woodland, or wheat fields.

Robert watched a kingfisher zig-zag after a crow, spurting away every time the big bird swerved sideways, only to dart forward the next moment, as the crow tottered from side to side, at last diving to safety behind a cluster of trees. He hadn’t intended to help Bauer with his harvesting, especially not after Grandfather had offered his help without even asking him. But still he had come. He couldn’t really explain why as he pushed his fork into a stook and swung a forkful onto the wagon, the musty hay tickling his nostrils as, from above him, a woman’s scream erupted, You dummy! You dummy! Her eyes flashed. Can’t you see, that I have to have time to spread the hay. Don’t they drive any sense into your wooden head at the smithy, or d’you want to tip the wagon?

Robert blushed, taken aback by the outburst, but then, spreading his arms, teased with a forced laugh, Come, come, Helga, my little pigeon. Let’s tip the wagon. I’m ready for you down here.

Her eyes scorched him, but then, with a laugh, she taunted, Are you sure I mightn’t be too much for you?

He couldn’t help recalling what Pauline had said and again found himself blushing. A lark swung by above her, to dissolve in the glistening air, its song casting light and shadow which were snapped up by a crow cawing in jagged dead branches of a tree. He stood tongue-tied by her eyes, her tanned, glowing cheeks, her rounded oval face, her parted lips, her bosom heaving. Sweat shimmered on her neck where a button of her dress had come undone. He half suspected she was serious, but nevertheless teased, I’d gobble you up with one bite.

Her laugh taunted him. Although embarrassed, he began to laugh as well. The saucy, rounded lips hinted of a smile which reminded him of sunlight on dew. She wasn’t pretty, he felt, no, just as a rose isn’t pretty. Lilies and butterflies are pretty, but roses, open in their full richness, are beautiful, a realization which came with an upsurge of guilt, for he was convinced he had no right to think of Helga in that way, when he felt as he did about Ruth.

6

KEROSENE LAMPS FLICKERED ABOVE long rows of tables on which stood pots of steaming potatoes and sauerkraut. Shouting and laughing, the harvesters stacked their plates high and filled their beer mugs. There was a constant din and chatter as furtive glances sought out furtive glances and the day’s work was forgotten. A dog barked somewhere. An owl hooted and then fell silent. In the leaves of oaks above the tables the wind shifted restlessly, rocking the moon slumbering in the branches.

As usual during haying season, on Saturday nights, before the day of rest, the village’s young people would meet at one of the farm homes for socializing. For reasons no one sought to explain this tended to be at the Bauer home of late. Here, the meal was no sooner over when the dancing started. Accordion music skipped across the yard, drawing to it young people from all over Neuland. Robert sat on needles, clutching the edge of his bench as he watched the dancing couples. His sister Pauline, her round good-humoured face beaming, was swaying on the arm of her short, pugnacious Emil Zwar, a blacksmith and wagon maker from nearby Neuborn. Even Helga’s brother Johann was there; he had seldom been seen in public, since being caught stealing horses. But now, sitting by himself toward the end of one of the tables, he was sipping a glass of beer. And there was the broad-bottomed Marta Himmel, her long dark locks skipping, bobbing about on Taubert’s arm like a cork adrift on choppy water. Tall and lanky, the man threw her a smile which had forgotten the day’s harvesting and spoke only of tenderness. Sara Glesmann, a wisp of a girl, was slowly shuffling along on the arm of Willi, a small, irascible rooster of a man. Nearby, he noticed Monica Gans, who, whispering something to a girlfriend, glanced shyly towards him. Robert shifted uncomfortably in his seat as he recalled what his mother had said. Still, he pushed himself to his feet.

She responded with a shy smile as he leaned towards her to ask for a dance. Small, bottom heavy, with big, innocent eyes, she’d had a crush on him ever since he sat behind her in school, ages ago, spending his time thinking of ways to tie her pigtails to her chair rather than concentrating on his work.

They had German half the day, when they studied religion and things like that; and in the afternoon they had Russian; the Russian language, the history and geography of Russia. That is, when he went to school, which was only during the winter months. Even then, father often had him helping out in the smithy, working the ballast to heat the iron in the forge. Other times, he would sharpen knives or axes. He liked school well enough, even though things passed him by at times. Things didn’t seem to pass by Monica, who was almost as clever as Helga Steinke, who seemed able to remember everything even though she had heard it only once. And it was said that her brother Johann had been more clever than she. The difference between Monika and the Steinkes was that Monika was always at school, at least whenever he was. Most of the time the Steinkes were needed at home, to help out with chores or do work for other people to add to the family income. Yet they still tended to be better at letters than most people their age. Ruth was the dreamy one. When the teacher spoke to her she seemed off in her own space somewhere. Maybe that was what attracted him to her. She liked reading poetry and things like that. She kept a diary. He sort of liked these things, but got the feeling they were too sissy for a man to like, especially for a blacksmith, someone who has the plowshare in his grip with one hand and the hammer in the other. Which may be why, as long as he could remember, he’d always been too caught up in Ruth.

Even now, as he put his arm around Monika’s waist and they moved into the dance in awkward silence, he found himself thinking of Ruth, as he took in ripe apple cheeks, a small, slightly upturned nose, a rounded bosom. Unlike Ruth’s light, wispy thinness, Ruth’s airiness, Ruth with her diary, this girl seemed somehow planted in the earth, flesh and blood, which both intimidated and annoyed him, that she couldn’t be up in the air and somehow fragile like Ruth.

Monica glanced at him, hesitantly. He could smell the fresh scent of her hair and the warmth of her body and fought the urge to throw his arms around her, suspecting he had been remiss somewhere.

Ah, isn’t it a nice night? Although uneasy with uttering the obvious, he felt it his duty to say something, be nice to this girl.

Yesterday, father, he was so afraid it might rain, she replied, not looking at him. I so much hope it’ll stay nice long enough for us to get our hay in.

Her shyness made him wish he had more to say. However, the only thing that came to him was some rumour about her father, who was known to hold tighter to a penny than a drowning man might clasp at a floating reed, having set his dog on Helga’s grandfather when he came begging at the Gans farm.

He was relieved when the dance ended and he could bring her back to her seat. He longed to ask Ruth for a dance. He hesitated, as his gaze settled on the swarthy, heavy set man beside her. Philip Hahn wasn’t even a farmer, but a spoiled dandy of sorts, whose older brother looked after the family farm while Philip lazed around doing nothing. How could she marry a man like that?

The thought began to fester as might a horsefly bite, throbbing painfully in his thoughts. To escape it, he pushed himself up from his seat and with forced casualness ambled toward where Johann Steinke was sitting nursing his beer, casually watching the dancers. Not knowing what to say, Robert nodded as he approached. Mind if I sit down?

Oh, sure, sure. The eyes froze in his, just like the eyes of a hare might freeze on possible threats as it peers from its hole. The narrow shoulders rose and sank.

Nice evening, Robert continued, sinking down and pulling his seat closer to the table.

Pleasant enough. Clutching his beer, the man raised the mug to his mouth, watchful eyes fixing on him.

He was small, thin. Unlike his sister who reminded him of the fullness of a rose blossom, this man seemed almost frail. In fact, one might almost say sickly, confirmed by the receding hairline, the sallow pallor of his skin, made still more sallow by the dim lantern light. Still, the eyes were quick, feverishly alive, watchful, making Robert ill at ease as he burst out, It seems ages since I last saw you!

Oh, I’m in Goroschki now.

Goroschki! Robert erupted, finding it incomprehensible anyone should leave Neuland.

Learning to be a shoemaker. The head jerked back and forward nervously.

No! Robert couldn’t help but be astonished that anyone should want to exchange farm work for sitting all day making or repairing shoes, but then replied, "Yah, I guess living here in our little German village a man gets the feeling sometimes like he’s living in a droplet of water, it’s so small.

All it’d take is for a guy, or a little child even, to take a little straw, prick it and the whole thing would be gone.

What a strange thing to say! Robert’s first impulse was to jump up and leave. At the same time, he found the muscles in his right arm twitching. But then another dance started. Excusing himself, he jumped up from his chair. "Oh du lieber Augustin, Augustin." It was going to be now or never.

Large, dark eyes both embraced and dismissed him as her hand reached out to his and she came towards him. Her fingers felt smooth, warm, welcoming. He put his hand around her waist and pulled her close.

For a few moments they were adrift. Nothing else mattered except the throb of the music and the smile in her eyes, if only the smile wouldn’t make him think she was unhappy with what was on the tip of her tongue, as she moved away from him along his arm, even as the music again carried her into his embrace. "Oh, du lieber Augustin, Augustin."

We have to talk, Robert.

For a moment her eyes became dark pools in which he was helplessly treading water. She turned, and silently he followed her into the shadows, away from the dancing couples.

His hand brushed hers but she didn’t respond, which annoyed him, as behind a patchwork of branches the moon dipped into a cloud. He knew what she was going to say, and belligerently refused to help her. The tension became too much, however, and he blurted out, You’ve decided.

I’m sorry, Robert.

But what about us! I love you, Ruth. And you said you loved me. What about… Discerning the consternation in her eyes, he stopped.

I’m sorry, Robert. She thrust out her chin as if to brace herself. He could see she wasn’t following her own inclinations, but was driven by her parents’ wishes; which didn’t make him resent her any less, as resolutely she added, Whatever was between us has to be over, Robert. It has to be. I’m sorry.

He turned away. There was nothing more he wanted to say. Hadn’t he told her hundreds of times how he felt?

Robert. Please understand, Robert. You have to… He heard her, but didn’t stop. Stopping would mean pleading with her and he wouldn’t humiliate himself for anyone. Not for her, not even for his feelings. To the devil with feelings. He didn’t want to be in love. Spit on love, if it meant getting himself trod, spit on.

He punched at the darkness in front of him and started to run. To get away - from Ruth, from the nauseating sensations coming up from his stomach. Hadn’t he loved her ever since childhood, her with her aloofness, her diaries. What a silly thing to do, keep a diary. He agreed with her father, of course, but had never told her that, for this difference about her fascinated him.

Her eyes appeared in front of him, sad eyes. He wanted to reach out and be embraced by them, and began to yearn for her, but the yearning turned to anger at the thought that she wasn’t going to be his, his to hold, caress, be one with.

7

RUTH’S FINGER PAUSED THOUGHTFULLY at her chin. A flower-patterned curtain billowed into the window behind her, its reflection wavering in the mirror in which her gaze traced the outline of her face: the slightly protruding cheek bones, the oval chin, chapped lips, her nose somewhat too prominent. Her finger flicked along the bump in the centre of her nose as if to brush it away, as her glance shifted hesitantly to her bosom. At one time she had hoped that the premature swellings there, setting her off from other girls, would disappear. But when others her age filled out and her breasts remained no bigger than two cherries behind her blouse, she couldn’t help fear that she would always remain just a girl.

As she leaned over the edge of her bed towards the dresser mirror, a wistful smile played at her lips. Her eyes settled on the brush on the dresser, with its interwoven patterns of gold and mahogany, beside it gold-speckled hair combs and the brooch she had received as a girl from her mother. A fly buzzed noisily along the window pane. She loosened her bun and let down her hair. Slowly she pulled a brush through it, pausing to wipe away the tears shimmering in her eyes. It had been done. She had thought she’d never be able to do it, but she had gotten the words off her tongue, wedged onto it though they’d seemed. She had done it, even though it made her feel miserable. As she slapped at another tear, her glance fell on the open diary in front of her. She traced its gold tinted edges. I love you, love you, Robert. The words struck her as hauntingly strange, coming to her like the echoes of a long forgotten dream. I love you, Robert. She read them, only to become confused. What was love? It was a strange big word, too big for her to understand, she assured herself. The Bible spoke of the love of God, love of the Word. The pastor at church had spoken of love during last Sunday’s sermon, of love of God for man. That’s why He had sent His only begotten Son into the world. The Christmas story was a vivid description of this sort of love. She’d always found the story wonderful, even as a child, when she used to stand at the front of the congregation with the other children and recite it. It made her feel warm all over, the thought of God’s love for man.

It wasn’t that sort of love she felt for Robert, though. All she knew was that her heart leapt with excitement just at the thought of him. When not with him she found herself longing for him. Which was all wrong. She was sure of it. How could she do what her parents expected of her when she had feelings like this? Yet the more she tried to suppress these feelings, the more she became aware of him. He was so real to her she could see him before her eyes. There was a strength in his face, smooth, soft, almost like a girl’s in its delicacy, yet it had determination in the rigidly set mouth and chin. His blond hair fell over his forehead in curls. His lips were neither small nor large, but made her think of wind, rain, flowers and fields, of new life coming forth. His thick linen shirt didn’t hide the muscles in his arms and shoulders, yet his strength didn’t lessen the gentleness of his touch, the gentleness in his eyes, large, blue, seeming to embrace her whenever he looked at her. Recalling the love in them filled her with guilt, as she told herself that all was over between them, had to be over.

She concentrated on his name in front of her, the R with its Gothic swirls. She crossed out the name and put above it Philip Hahn, only to find herself fighting back tears. The man with the hard, unkind eyes. At times she felt she was nothing more than a colt or heifer he was about to buy, this man, this stranger. She found herself wishing she were a girl again - running through the fields picking buttercups and winding them into garlands to put in her hair. The world had been so uncomplicated then. No decisions had to be made, decisions which were binding and final, as death somehow.

Trembling, her finger flowed along the smooth leather binding of her diary. Love, love, love, erupted from her in a low undertone. She didn’t want to think of love, as she read: It was a beautiful Sunday, a wonderful Sunday. Robert and I had gone for a walk. As he held my hand and looked into my eyes, I felt as if we were sinning, when what he did made us no more wicked than are daisies adrift in the wind. I love you! I love you! I couldn’t restrain myself. As I spoke my heart flew up, yes it did, like a meadowlark it flew, into a world pure and free as the sky.

As she read, she began to feel more and more fettered, like a prisoner, but then it dawned on her that all her feelings were selfish. Wasn’t her father always saying that? He was even critical of her because she liked to put things down on paper. As if there was something sinful in that! Perhaps he was right. After all, maybe that was why she was still clinging to Robert, when she should be letting him go and thinking only of Philip Hahn, with his hanging jowls, his hectares and hectares of land, his hard eyes, a deep wrinkle along his cheek, which, when he laughed, made her think of a worm wriggling.

The rattling of wheels disrupted her thoughts and her eyes darted from the page she was looking at but not seeing. She jumped up from the edge of her bed, her heart throbbing so loud it deafened her. Outside her window, chickens were pecking at grains in the yard. Sparrows hopped among them, off and on to spurt away into the hedge by the barn. A grey emptiness brooded everywhere as Philip Hahn’s carriage came into view around a bend of the driveway lined with apple and pear trees. They had stopped blooming long ago, but the memory of their honeyed fragrance glistening with sunlight still filled the air. She didn’t notice this, however. The memory was blotted out by the men in the carriage, by the dread with which their appearance filled her.

8

THE BAUER KITCHEN WAS large, with painted floorboards. Varnished oak cupboards stood along its walls, showing pale blue flower patterns on the china behind glass doors. A bronzed, chandelier-like gas lamp, with lozenge-shaped glass crystals, shimmered above a large oak table. Everything exuded an aura of scrubbed, frozen cleanliness, including Frau Bauer at the kitchen window. In a black skirt down to the floor and a matching white blouse, she stood still as a manikin one might see in a museum. But then a smile curved the lips of the pale, waxen face. Her breath rasping asthmatically, she stepped away from the window. Darling Ruth, my darling Ruth. Her eyes clouding with concern, she glanced at her daughter, who had just entered the room. Are you, are you sure, my child… that you don’t want to wear your blue dress? She took a deep breath as she wiped her arm across her forehead. Herr Hahn, the last time he was here, darling… he mentioned he likes blue. And this… it’s a special time, my child, a special time… for you.

Bauer, who was down on his knees rummaging through a cupboard drawer, looking for something, squinted up at his wife. If she could, he grumbled, the sickly old bone would marry the man herself.

Oh, come… no such nonsense… now. Frau Bauer gasped to catch her breath and then burst into a fit of coughs. One would think… again she coughed; then, interspersed with gasps, you were a half nobleman yourself… you, and it’s every day, it is… a rich Hahn comes… comes courting… the daughter of a dolt… like you. Exhausted from her effort, she sank into a chair by the kitchen table.

I’ll hold my head up to any womanizer, he retorted belligerently.

But then why would you want me to marry him, father! Ruth turned to him, exasperated. If you think he’s a run-around. Don’t you want me to be happy?

Child, sometimes these fellows make the best husbands. At least they’ve got the oats out of their system, he added as, with a groan, he pushed himself up from his knees to shuffle towards the kitchen window, where partially opened lace curtains revealed two men approaching the house.

Please, please, Ruth begged, her eyes shifting helplessly back and forth between her mother and father. Her shoulders sank. She had always tried so hard to please and yet… She wasn’t happy. Her family was among the most prosperous of Neuland, owning some fifty hectares of arable land, a strip of forest, apiaries, four teams of horses, ten milking cows, pigs, geese and poultry. Their farm buildings, on a slight hillock, had near them a large orchard. Their six-room stone house overlooked a garden of irises and marigolds. All would be hers one day.

Still, it seemed this wasn’t enough. She had to marry Philip Hahn to provide for her children’s future and that of her grandchildren. Just as mother had married father to bring the land she had inherited together with his holdings. It didn’t matter that mother was sickly and had been sickly all her life. What mattered was that she brought thirty hectares of land into the marriage. And the daughter had to continue the tradition. She had to repay her parents for this gift, she had to be dutiful, she thought miserably as, through a window, her glance followed a narrow path leading from the house, through the flower garden fronting it, to the barnyard where a windmill creaked, sending spurts of water into a lichen-covered trough at which a calf nuzzled its nose. She stared at the calf, feeling lost at the thought that by year’s end it would probably be slaughtered.

A knock erupted at the door.

The door opened and Philip Hahn stood in front of her, smiling. He was smiling, when her heart was like a bird, thrashing against the cage of her chest. One moment she was sweating and the next shivering. She was so unsure, so unsure. The corners of his mustache were curled up. Such a silly thing to notice, and it struck her again that he had jowls, yes. He was in his Sunday best, wearing a vest and jacket, in contrast to her father’s black trousers and white linen shirt. This man was near to being a nobleman, and dressed up like one no doubt, but all she could notice was that he had jowls, a long jaw, and that his hair was no thicker than grain in a field during a drought.

Hahn, well Hahn, her father boomed in on her with a boisterous laugh, Come on in. Come on in. Don’t just stand by the door like a chicken stole your bread.

Ach, Emil… such talk! her mother fussed, a nervous laugh escaping as she pushed herself up from her chair.

Nearby, Ruth noticed a large, black fly thrash the empty air, as it tried to free itself from the strip of glued paper suspended from the gas lamp. As it continued struggling, its free wing got stuck, and then only its legs quivered agitatedly, trying to grab at something which would help it free itself.

She heard her name mentioned, and then noticed Hahn grin, as did the midget-like man who was raising a bottle of vodka as he shook her father’s hand. Well, Bauer, well, well, he joked. There comes that time, eh, that season for every little heifer, eh, eh!

Ruth shuddered. It was all happening so fast. It seemed that by agreeing to see Hahn she had removed a small pebble which had braced up a larger stone holding up a large pile of…she didn’t know what, and now this was all pouring toward her, overwhelming, threatening to bury her.

She had said yes when he had asked whether he might send his Werbsmann, even though it should have been as clear as daylight to her that the only reason for a Werbsmann was for him to undertake the negotiations with her father in preparation for the marriage. She had said yes just because at that moment she had only wanted to be the dutiful daughter. It had been so easy to be a dutiful daughter when this whole thing was merely something that could hardly be imagined. She had said yes because the whole thing had struck her as unreal. She had said yes even as she told herself this whole thing wasn’t happening, couldn’t be happening. And now it was happening and Hahn and his Werbsmann were here in the flesh and blood.

9

LATER, RUTH WROTE IN her diary: It’s my fault. If only I hadn’t encouraged him…. She felt tears swell up in her eyes; they broke and dropped onto the paper beneath her, where they spread out, dissolving the ink and blurring the words to a faint, hazy blue.

"We were walking in the garden, I and Philip. I could hear father’s voice come to us from an open window. ‘She’s my only child, my only child,’ he was saying to the Werbsmann, ‘and you know, my good man, as I do, we know as sure as night follows day that she won’t be coming into the marriage bed with only her mother part.’

‘Hush, hush,’ I heard mother’s annoyed reply. ‘Such talk!’

Herr Hahn turned to me. I became aware of the lines of age at his mouth, of his receding hairline, of the deep, sunken hard eyes, and all I could think of was Robert.

‘We’ve come because you said it would be all right, my dear Ruth,’ he began.

Noticing how uneasy he looked, I felt sorry for him. Still, I couldn’t help myself as I fought back tears. ‘It’s all too sudden for me,’ I cried, to keep from running away."

She felt like she was caught up in a flooding river current, unable to stop its flow. It was happening too fast. It had an air of unreality about it, and made her wonder whether she was dreaming. One morning she’d awaken and find out it had all been an illusion. Or something would happen to put an end to it all. She was convinced of this, as she sat beside him in his carriage, off to visit his mother, just as Philip had asked her to. It struck her as very strange. Maybe things were predestined to happen in a certain way and she could do nothing about it, as if things happen the way they did when she first stepped on the tread of a spinning wheel. She wasn’t even aware of how she had set the wheel in motion, when it took on a volition all its own and all her work of twisting and thinning the wool thread was a mere response to the demands of the wheel. It confused her as numbly she watched the rumps of the horses rise and fall. Dispassionately, her glance roved over the fields at either side of the carriage - grain fields and pastureland sweeping into the horizon. Lashing the reins down on the rump of his horses, Philip turned to her. Sometimes, I have the impression, my dear, I’m sorry, but I can’t help suspect that your mother, the darling woman, that she’s more interested in me than you are.

Ruth was too annoyed to reply. She couldn’t help her feelings, but no one could criticize her behaviour, which was more than could be said for him. After all, what of the rumours that he was carrying on with Helga Steinke. She didn’t want to give credence to gossip. She had heard silly gossip often enough as far as she and Robert were concerned. Yet her own experience led her to believe that where there was smoke there was fire. Perhaps not a huge bonfire, but still fire, which made her uneasy.

Hya, hya, he called to the horses, lashing the reins at them as they rounded a curve.

And yet she had agreed to marry him. She swallowed the lump in her throat. Can one stop the wheels of a wagon driven from generation to generation? She told herself that feelings didn’t matter. Wasn’t that what her mother and father had told her ever since childhood? Feelings were of the flesh, of Satan. A girl married for practical reasons, for land, for property. Her eyes roved over far-stretching lawns, here and there clusters of maple, flower beds with marigolds and asters in bloom. The grey limestone walls of the house they were approaching were fronted by massive Roman columns which supported a high overhang jutting out across the front patio. Vines luxuriated in a wild tangle along the columns and along the walls, almost hiding the small, prison-like windows peering out at her. Robert crossed her mind, despite all effort to suppress his smile, which challenged and invited her. He wasn’t for her. She was being auctioned off, like a heifer at market, to the highest bidder. And she was going along with it. She didn’t want to, yet couldn’t help it.

Restlessly treading the earth to send up spurts of dust, the snorting trotters came to a stop. A houseboy in red hurried down high steps leading to an arched doorway to take the team. Philip was already waiting for her when she reached the ground, to take her hand.

It all seemed strange.