War, Taxes and Death

THESE WERE NORKA’S BEGINNINGS in the 1770s. The year before, Russia had begun a war with Turkey. Catherine the Great had long eyed lovingly the possessions of the Ottoman Empire, along the Danube, Azov and the Crimea. In 1770 Count Peter Rumiantsev presented these pearls to her, having killed one hundred fifty thousand Turks on the river Kagul.

The brother of the royal favorite, Alexei Orlov, vanquished the Turkish fleet in a terrible battle in the Bay of Chesme, the same year. These martial exploits not only captured Her Majesty’s attention but emptied her purse as well. Another grand diversion of Catherine’s concerned the construction of a statue for Peter the Great. For this she had a huge rock transported to St. Petersburg – its granite mass was estimated to weigh more than three million pounds. War, the building of edifices, statuary, and parks consumed the gross national income. Therefore scant mind was paid the tribulations of the new German colonies, or the established Russian villages. People were expected to cope, suffer and survive, or die.

In this time of turmoil and trouble, eight months after the birth of her first son, Karin found that she was to be a mother again. Christoph was delighted. As behooved his thoughtful nature, he began planning for the new life, as he did for his first-born. He worked tirelessly from the first rooster’s crow till long after dusk, adding new, fertile acres to his tillage. He had prepared untouched virgin acres of tall, dry steppe grass by burning them bit by bit on dry windless days last fall, and now worked them up for seeding.

He fed two new piglets, added more hens to his flock and purchased three lambs for extra meat. The rest of the family was excited by the prospect of a new family member, preparing for the event in their own fashion. Ute knitted new booties and hats in the evenings, Annelis crocheted blankets and wraps, and Martin repaired the crib.

The young mother felt well enough, but Karin worried secretly about a pregnancy that came too soon after weaning Paul. However, she kept her worries to herself. All along she had been working as hard as Christoph, feeding stock, tending her garden, cleaning, washing and cooking, while also taking care of Paul.

At night, after rocking her baby to sleep, she went to her bed, falling asleep the moment her head touched her soft pillow. Despite her worries all was well until winter’s end. The young couple suffered the usual deprivations of their larder, living on boiled potatoes, a tuber they had brought to the Volga from Hessen – a food the Russians disdained, believing potatoes to be a sinful crop. They lived on turnips and grains, admixed with a little milk, until the cow went dry. They were often cold – freezing when the merciless storms screamed over the land – but they survived unscathed.

Yet, when the first thaw left the land soggy with melt water and the people stood in small groups in the muddy road, basking in the first sunlight, a mysterious illness befell the village, an illness that claimed its victims without a discerning pattern. It struck the young and old alike; it put to bed the middle-aged women and men with the same frightening swiftness as the baby. It was impossible to find out how the dreaded curse spread from one to the other. In one household it might be the father developing symptoms, in another the grandmother succumbed, and in yet another family the baby was stricken.

Furthermore, the illness affected its victims in different ways. Besides inducing a weakened state, making the victim lethargic, it caused nausea, open sores, or dry, bleeding skin. People’s gums bled and their teeth loosened. During the next stage of their decline the patients lost their teeth, massive hemorrhages erupted in even their deepest muscle tissues and caused them unimaginable pain. Fainting, diarrhea and an inability to breathe often marked the last stage before their death. Their babies, having been fed on watery gruels, lay listless in their cribs, and then died quietly and suddenly.

The people in the new German colonies were frightened. They were dismayed and deeply troubled by their inability to save or cure the victims. They prayed. What unholy evil had befallen their villages? Their incessant prayers brought no change in their conditions and no answers. In the evenings they beseeched their Maker to heal their sick, to please remove the evil force from their villages; during the day, at work, they begged forgiveness for their trespasses and asked for grace.

However, their prayers remained unanswered and therefore they began to pray for strength, for the endurance to bear their crosses. Little did they know that their illness was well known to sailors on long voyages and was treated by the British Navy with lime juice – making for the smart nickname Limeys. Even if, however, they had known that their troubles stemmed from vitamin deficiency, they still would not have had access to the fresh fruits and vegetables or the limes with their curative powers.

Karin had always been ravenously hungry during the winter months. She had used every ounce of her formidable discipline, restraining herself from devouring parts of Christoph’s portions. Now, however, she felt sickish and wanted little food.

For weeks Christoph had watched his wife with helpless love, unable to prevent her slide into illness. Before his eyes she seemed to fade, become slimmer and slimmer, until he thought that only her clothes held her upright.

Her eyes had become enormous, sinking deep into their sockets. When she complained of stomach pains, he thought that hunger pangs were wracking her. But soon he learned the awful truth. Then, one morning, Karin did not rise from her bed.

“I hurt so bad,” said she. “Please look after Paul, for I am afraid I have no strength to hold him.”

“What can I do for you?” asked Christoph, trying to hide his anguish with false upbeat notes in his voice.

“Nothing, my dear,” said the stricken woman, “just let me rest. I hope it will do me good.”

As Christoph lifted the baby from his crib, a homemade affair lovingly fashioned by his father from birch branches and laid out with quilting and down bedding by his mother, he felt a tremor running through his body. Suddenly a fearsome dread crept into his soul, awakening the awful realization that he could lose Karin to the dreadful curse.

How could he live without her anymore? He could not imagine life without her by his side. And what would he do if left alone with Paul? How could he work and take care of the baby?

“No, no, no!” echoed his mind, “She must be saved! She must recover from this ailment. I will do whatever it takes to keep her here, safe with me.”

While he fed Paul the miserable gruel and a little cheese, cheese that they had saved just for the baby, he prayed. “My Lord in heaven! Your faithful servant asks for naught, and never will ask another favor again, but one thing and only one. Please spare the life of my wife. Do not take her to Your heaven yet, for I need her so.” Looking at the child in his arms, he marveled how healthy and thriving his son seemed to be. He was smiling, squirming strongly to be released after the feeding. His eyes were clear and his cheeks glowing. Therefore Christoph smiled at Paul and thanked God for the good things in his life.

That night Karin’s pain became unbearable. She cried out again and again. Christoph sat at her bedside, holding the baby. Finally he could not bear her agony anymore. He jumped out of his chair, put the baby into his crib under warm covers, and then he ran to his mother’s house as if pursued by furies.

Outside the terrible bone-chilling east wind whistled through the silent, frozen street. The straw wrapped around his felt boots crackled and swished on the ice with every step he took. He briefly thought of wolves lurking in the shadows, waiting for unwary game. Perhaps he should have carried a lit faggot? Yet he cared not, it did not matter.

He reached his parents’ house, finding it dark and silent. Despairing, he pulled the door handle with all his might, throwing open the door. To his relief he saw his family seated around the large dinner table; a candle, stuck to a plate, burned in its middle. It mildly, ineffectively dispensed light over the family’s Bible from which his mother read. By this time his father could not read at night anymore. His weakened eyes required more light than the puny candle provided.

Everyone looked up surprised and troubled when Christoph fell into their house, door in hand, without so much as a knock. Such unseemly haste always meant trouble.

“What is the matter, Christoph?” asked his mother alarmed.

“Mother, you must come with me, quickly. Right now! Karin is very ill! She has great pains and cries loudly, horribly. Please, Mother, you must save her! I don’t want her to die!”

Ute was a woman of few words in times of crisis. Instantly she got to her feet.

“Annelis, get me my bag with the medicines,” she ordered and continued, “Father, put on the biggest pot filled with water to boil.”

As she spoke, she pulled her warm wrap from a peg by the door and changed into rough, warm shoes to slog through the snow and ice on the road. Minutes later she bent over Karin’s bed.

“I am here, my girl, have no fear. I am going to help you. All will be well.” Yet none of the confidence displayed in her voice resided in her soul. To the contrary, she was saddened to her core as she beheld her son’s wife.

However, her encouraging words calmed the young woman and she relaxed, only to cry out again in agony just moments later. Ute turned to her son: “Go fetch the water, it must be boiling by now.” Having removed Christoph from the scene, she looked under the covers and saw what she had feared all along.

On the white sheet lay a crumpled, red-looking baby, cast from the mother’s body in a flood of water and blood. Of course the mite was dead, having arrived so many months too early in this cold world. It would have been Karin’s first baby girl, had it lived.

Moments later Christoph returned. In his hands he held the requested pot of hot water, and then he saw. He saw his wife, lying lifeless in her bed, her face drained of all color. She seemed to be dead. His mother cried silently as she deftly, as always, changed linens and covers. But on the floor, oh horror of horrors, on a small white cloth lay the tiniest human body. On the cold ground rested a little girl, fully formed, yet gnome-like and ancient looking, eyes tightly closed in eternal sleep.

For a moment nothing made sense to Christoph. Struck stupid with horror, he was unable to comprehend this tragic scene. His knees buckled, he fell to the floor, spilling hot water, burning himself, oblivious to the pain.

Groaning, he raised his hands, “Oh, Lord, what have I done to deserve such grief?” Suddenly, realizing the extent of the situation, he paused his lament in mid-cry. Turning to his mother he asked with breaking voice, “Is Karin alive?”

“She is alive, but barely,” replied Ute, sobbing. “She is resting now. I am praying she will be well again.”

Ute left her place by the bed where she had stoically labored despite her grief. Lifting the pot with the remaining water from the floor, she busied herself once more. In this way she did not intrude on her son’s agony.

What could she say at this moment to comfort him? Instead she wrapped the small body in the cloth upon which it rested, and gently carried it away.

When she returned she found Christoph kneeling beside the bed, his head buried in the quilt covering his wife. Ute went to him and touched his shoulder. After a while he acknowledged her touch by covering her hand with his. Rising dry-eyed, his face taut with pain, he whispered, “Why, Mother? Why?”

“Who can fathom the will of God? Whether we are faithful servants or guilty wretches, it is as the Bible says, ‘The sun shines on the good and the bad alike.’ Good fortune is enjoyed by as well as misfortune plagues both kinds of people. Why? We will never know – that knowledge shall remain a mystery forever.”

She had taken his hand and kindly led him to the corner of the room where a simple wooden cross hung on the wall, below which, on a small table, burned a tiny oil lamp.

“Kneel with me, Christoph,” she said, “let us pray. For prayer and God’s grace are all we have.”