Читать книгу The Women of Janowka - Helmut Exner - Страница 18

– Chapter 11 –

Again, it was summer in Volhynia. It was a hot day in Janowka. The women brought lunch out to the fields to provide for their husbands, children as well as the farm workers. Serafine, Friedrich, her parents-in-law – Christine and Karl – as well as Aljoscha, the Ukrainian farm worker, and his son Michail were sitting in a circle under the shade of a tree spooning up their soup. Serafine had already fed her little daughters earlier on, and then put them to bed for an afternoon nap. Martha was working in the garden today and was supposed to check on them.

Suddenly, Karl’s eyes were unable to leave the main road. There was something going on. He got up and said: “Well, what does that mean?”

In the meantime, all the others had risen, too. A cloud of dust. After a while a carriage pulled by four horses could be made out accompanied by four riders both in front of and behind the carriage.

“Those are Russian soldiers,” said Friedrich and headed to the road. “I want to know what they want.”

Karl accompanied him and in a few minutes they reached the area in front of the parish hall where more than a hundred other villagers were already gathered. And more and more people came flocking. One of the soldiers nailed a sheet in Russian text on the door of the parish hall. Heading: General mobilization. Signatory: Tsar Nicolaus II.

Finally, the uniformed man from the carriage rose, signalled the crowd to be quiet, and spoke loudly in Russian: “His Majesty, Tsar Nicolaus II, declared war on the German Empire on the 30th of July, 1914.”

Looks beyond belief, naked fear, cries of horror, women moaning. The man in uniform continued reading. At the word mobilization many of the listeners, again, made sounds of disbelief.

“The following men must appear here at this place tomorrow morning at seven o’clock: Abel Maximilian, Brandt Heinrich....., Exner Friedrich, Exner Gottlieb....... Hinz Wilhelm...... Rattai......”

Of the approximately one hundred and sixty village men, fifty were called upon to enlist in the armed forces within twenty-four hours.

“Those who do not obey this order, will be sentenced to death by hanging!”

The villagers dropped everything. The work in the field rested. Some had gone home or to the neighbours to discuss what to do. But there was no alternative. One had to obey or one was dead. Serafine, her husband and her parents-in-law, Gottlieb and the neighbours, Emil and Caroline Gehrmann, were sitting together behind her house. Emil did not have to join the forces because he wasn’t so young any more. For the time being, the army was focused on recruiting men under thirty. Christine sat, like in a trance, on the garden bench. In the last hours, she had shed so many tears that she could not cry any more. Picturing both sons going to war was simply unbearable.

“Now it’s up to us, Karl,” said Emil Gehrmann. “When the boys are away, we must work twice as much. Thank God, my sons aren’t old enough yet. But for my daughter’s boyfriend it will get serious now, too. Being a German officer in the Russian army, they will put him at the very front, I suppose. Anyway, we must stick together now. Of course, I will help you bring in the harvest. Especially since we don’t know whether they’ll leave us the Ukrainian harvesters or whether the Tsar will take them away too.”

“Where will our men be sent?” asked Serafine.

“First, they’ll be stationed in a camp near Kostopol where they’ll be given their medicals. The lucky ones will be sent home again. Those who are healthy, however, will do training. Hopefully, everything will have calmed down by then. I don’t think the German emperor is going to send troops against Russia just because the Tsar has declared war on him. And the Austrian will keep still too, as he’s up to his neck with the Serbians, the Italians, the Hungarians and the Romanians. This whole nightmare will probably be gone in a few weeks and the ‘fine gentlemen’ will end up drinking with each other. We shouldn’t get ourselves in a crazy state now!”

Serafine heaved a sigh and said: “Please God, I hope you’re right. Oh, if we had only listened to Salomon. He told us over and over again: Go, and emigrate to Canada.”

“But who wants to leave his homeland?” Karl asked, thoughtfully.

Late that night Christine was still sitting alone in the kitchen. She simply could not sleep. The whole situation was very upsetting to Karl. He, who was always so quick-witted and full of energy, had gone to bed. I have hardly ever seen him so helpless, thought Christine. To him there’s more at stake than just the work which must now be done without the boys. He’s seriously worried about his sons. He is so proud of them. They’re so much like him. Even if Friedrich is a rather thoughtful type, rational and not as loud as Gottlieb and Karl, both boys, nevertheless, are cast in the same mould like their father. They complement each other in such a way that Karl is revealed. It had been a pleasure to see them growing up. Not for anything in the world would I want to miss the tricks they played on their father that would drive him insane. And this has remained so until today. They still engage in a lot of nonsense. Gottlieb even more than Friedrich. That’s just the way it is – that’s their father’s legacy. Karl himself wouldn’t want to miss an opportunity to fool around either. A little smile formed on the edges of Christine’s mouth. And how nicely they have looked after their little sisters. That, too, has remained until today. Christine drank from the milk she had just poured and took a deep breath. And now? Now Serafine is alone with her two little girls – and she’s expecting another child. It’s good we live so close to each other. I can help her, and Martha will be there, too. If only the boys come back safe and sound. The smile left her face and she shouted loudly:

“Damn it! Why must these cursed emperors and kings make war?! They should go and beat themselves up. Why should this concern us?”

It was rare for sensible Christine to vent her anger this way. But today was an exceptional day.

The next morning the whole village assembled in front of the parish hall. In addition, there were people from more distant farms as well as from Solomiak. Rudolf, Serafine’s brother, as well as Eduard, Katlika’s husband, were also targeted. Since both men lived in Solomiak, Serafine had just found out about it this morning – although she’d already had a sense of foreboding yesterday. Until now the Russians, occasionally, had refused to call up some men, in particular if they were needed on a farm. Sometimes money helped persuade the authorities to decide that way. But now it was war!

A Russian soldier read out the names of those who should step forward. Another one checked names off a list. When a name was called, the person concerned had to step forward and line up in a row opposite the villagers. The men carried bundles with their laundry and, above all, plenty of food, because it was known that ordinary soldiers were kept in short supply.

One person who was called was absent – Anton, a farmer the same age as Friedrich. He had a family with five children to support. His wife stepped forward on his behalf explaining that her husband was ill. The captain, who was mounted on his horse, immediately gave a harsh order to get the missing man. Four riders accompanied Anna, Anton’s wife, to her house. Anna could hardly keep pace, with the riders who forced her on. After a few minutes they came back. Anton’s hands were tied up as he hobbled along behind the horse of a soldier. The villagers were paralysed with horror. Finally, the rider stopped and shooed Anton before the captain. The captain raised his arm as high as he could and cracked his whip on Anton’s back. Some people wailed. Then, a soldier roared some instructions and the column started moving. At the head were six riders followed by more than fifty raw recruits on foot, trailed again by some riders with the captain in their middle. Serafine gazed after the column with tears in her eyes, while Christine held Anna in her arms trying to comfort her. But Anna was unable to calm down and refused to accept what was happening to her husband.

“I just don’t believe it,” she moaned continuously. “Yesterday everything was still all right, and now they’re taking our men away. How are we supposed to carry on? Who will get all the work done and how will I ensure my children have enough to eat?”

“Calm down, Anna,” said Christine while she softly stroked her hair. “We must stick together. You are not alone.”

“I wish I’d taken the whip from that bastard of a captain and cracked it on him for a change,” Karl said to Emil Gehrmann, as both sat together in the garden later on that evening.

“The customs in the Russian army are hard,” said Emil “and not only in the Russian one. Ordinary soldiers are mistreated everywhere. However, don’t you worry too much about your boys; they’ll get through it.”

“Let’s hope so, by goodness! The Tsar has already gotten into fights with so many. A skirmish here, an attack there. But it hasn’t affected us personally, so far. Who gives a horseshit if he makes war with the Japs who, by the way, gave him a bloody good hiding. However, we didn’t notice much of it, did we? But everything is different now that Germany and Austria are our opponents.”

Both men kept on discussing politics, until Christine came and said: “I think, this day was hard enough for all of us. And from tomorrow on we must work twice as much. So, you’d better get to bed.”