A Violent End

IT WAS ALMOST FOUR years to the day of Christoph’s birthday and the young maids’ magical singing, when the old couple came home once more from church at night. They often went to prayer services in the evenings. Prayer was every village’s glue; prayer held everyone close in the community, prayer strengthened, purified and poured forgiveness over straying members.

The straying husband was lovingly reproved and led back to his needy family, the girl pregnant out of wedlock was prayed back into the community, the lazy and the drunks were prayed for, with admonitions for a change of life, and even the thieves and robbers, making the farmers’ lives miserable by stealing livestock, implements and everything not nailed down, were prayed for regularly.

Without God and prayer amid their community, life would have been too hard to endure. And so the old couple, slowly, deliberately holding on to one another, returned to their house.

Christoph, storm-light in hand, left the house to check his stock before retiring. He hung the storm-light out of harm’s way on a hook on the ceiling. His favorite horse, Brauner, yet another descendant of Martin’s famous studhorse, Jonah, always liked to drink again before the long night.

As Christoph walked wearily toward the horse’s stall, carrying the heavy bucket with difficulty, Brauner nickered excitedly to him.

“Schon gut, schon gut, Brauner, ich komme ja schon,” said Christoph, surprised, for the horse never called for water that he knew was sure to come. Again the horse whinnied, stamping his fore feet, as if irritated.

Christoph never saw the dark man with the pointy hat or felt the blow. Brauner whinnied high-pitched, more a cry than a whinny, as water splattered, spilling over the narrow walk, wetting the old man’s clothes as he fell to the ground.

The Kalmuck thief grimly looked upon the fallen man, “Old, stupid dedushka,” he muttered as he stepped over the crumpled form to get to the horse, “Why come to horse at night? Now I have to hit you. Stupid!”

He threw a rope around Brauner’s neck and pulled sharply. The horse balked. He whinnied loudly. Smelling the blood flowing from Christoph’s head, his whinny became a shrill scream. He stomped his hooves and, suddenly rearing back into the wall, caused a crashing commotion. The barn animals, peacefully chewing the hay and feed before them, stirred agitatedly, fearfully disturbed by the horse’s dismay.

Cows, sheep and pigs joined in a cacophony begun by chickens and geese. Outside the quiet neighborhood had come alive. The swarthy thief panicked. He heard the voices and lost control of the horse. Afraid, he dropped the rope and fled.

Meanwhile, men armed with crude weapons and women holding bright lanterns rushed to the Meininger’s stall. The young men, anticipating the thief’s route, had bypassed the barn and ran straight into the orchard where they caught the frightened Kalmuck.

“Ach du mein Gott!” They heard a woman scream, “Der Meininger, er rührt sich nicht.”

From these shouts the village learned that Christoph was severely hurt and might even be dead. Their anger rose amid the shouts. In the orchard, their ire high, they thrashed the thief until his body went limp. Only then did they haul him into the village center for justice to be meted.

Having dispatched the Kalmuck, the men were streaming into the barn where the neighbor women stood around Christoph’s lifeless, bleeding body. Too many times over the years had the villagers been victimized by murder and thievery. If the robber was not Kalmuck, then he would be a Russian criminal hiding out in the miserable caves in the hills; if he was not Russian, then a Tartar down on his luck – sometimes, a band of all three. Too often had they cried over bleeding bodies.

The Russian army had become much better over the years, protecting the villagers; however, single robbers and thieves were an everlasting plague.

Inside the house Karin felt as if her heart was plummeting. Hearing the uproar outside she felt so weak she held onto the table. She had heard such cries before, heard such commotion. She knew well what it meant.

“Father, I am Yours to do with as Thou wilt,” she intoned aloud. Strengthened thus, she walked through the Hinterpförtchen, the little back-door, into the garden. They were already coming toward her, neighbors, carrying a man, gently supported by many hands.

She knew instantly that he was gone. There would be no reviving him. Already he was with God. That she knew with certainty. When she spoke, her voice was strong.

“Bring him in. On his bed – yes, lay him here.”

The men, unable to turn in the narrow room, awkwardly, kindly, placed Christoph’s lifeless body atop the bed. There he remained, a dark form upon a beautiful, white lace spread. Sweetly, yet matter of factly, Karin walked to her husband and lifted the bashed, distorted head, placing a thick, folded towel beneath it. Even in death one had the duty to preserve a wonderful gift, an artwork to be left for the next generation. It would be a crime allowing it to be ruined. She looked at her neighbors, her eyes filled with pain but still dry, and said as she watched their hopeless ministrations, “You can’t help him anymore. He is gone. I feel it. He has left me here all alone.”

Yet they could not believe that Christoph, whom they had known all their lives, was no more. When their parents came to the Volga – he had been here already. So they felt his pulse, dabbed away the blood that by now flowed sparingly, and held a mirror to his lips, in waning hopes of catching a breath.

At last, sadden and discouraged, they ended their futile labor. “He is dead, indeed,” pronounced Peter, the Reverend Hergert’s son.

Kneeling down, he said prayers. One after the other, Karin’s neighbors knelt beside the bedside in prayer. Someone kindly sat Karin upon a kitchen chair, a simple piece of furniture her father had made a long time ago. She folded her hands in her lap and, bowing her head, she too began to pray.

Not long thereafter Kurt and Maria arrived. Word traveled fast in Norka. Peter Borchert, his face grim, told Karin’s children the daunting details. Peter’s words fell on Kurt like blows, but he never showed the anguish he felt. Ever since Paul’s marriage he had calmly, competently assumed his role. Looking so much like his father, he had become, bit by bit, his father’s staff to lean on, and a dependable rock for this community.

Helpless and crying, holding his hands, Maria stood beside her brother at the bedside of their father. Christoph’s beloved face was peaceful, beautiful even in its calm repose, beautiful, although a deep gash marred his forehead. The neighbors had dabbed all the blood away and he looked asleep.

Maria could not help herself. She reached for his hand, feeling for a pulse. But the hand was already cold.

Grief turned to anger in Kurt. Agitated, he questioned the neighbors about the thief. Satisfied that they had caught the culprit, he turned to his mother. Beside him, Maria dried her tears. Too many times innocent people had died violent and tragic deaths in the Volga villages. Actions ameliorated grief, and so the children stood by their mother, holding Karin’s hands as they prayed.

Hours passed, neighbors came and left. They brought small tokens of their love for the family; soup, cake, bread, sausage, and tea. One must eat to stay strong, strong to carry on, taking care of the business of life.

God meant for the living to go on living.

“Drink a little tea, Mother,” urged Maria, “it will do you good.” Yet Karin wanted nothing.

Suddenly she raised her hand to her forehead and murmured, “I feel faint. I will lay on the bed a while.”

“No, no, you cannot do this. It’s too morbid. Father is there. He is dead, Mother.”

“She forgot he is dead,” whispered Kurt to his sister.

“No, I know he is gone,” said Karin, her voice whispy, “I have slept beside him all these years, why should I stop now?”

“You cannot stay here, Mother,” Kurt said firmly, “You mustn’t be on your own. Please choose, Mother, my house or Maria’s.”

Karin decided to stay with Kurt. Foremost she based her decision on available space. Kurt’s house was larger by far than Maria’s, and he only raised three children, while Maria had six.

“My eldest, Gudrun, will gladly give you her room and sleep with the small ones,” Kurt proposed, and that settled the matter.

That night, after the village settled into sleepy reverie, a few restless souls heard with disbelief a wolf baying at the moon in the clear night, crying as if he mourned the world’s sadness.

Next day, as they met each other in the street or their gardens, people remarked with amazement on the lone wolf. For single wolves never came to the village, and even in packs they never showed themselves in summer when game was plenty.

In the months after Christoph’s funeral it seemed that Karin returned to her old appointed life, performing her tasks, tending to things as before. The children had taken the fields long ago and divided them among the male children and grandchildren at their coming of age.

This was done by a system called the mir by the Russians, but the Dusch by the Germans. The Germans named it thus because the Russians apportioned land to souls. A soul was defined as a man able to perform the necessary farm work, which furthermore entitled him to a part of all available resources in the form of wooded area, water and acreage held in common by the village. Women were deemed by the Russians not to possess a soul and therefore could not get a share of the resources. Woe the family producing six girls in a row, who now by pure chance, making seven with their unfortunate mother, all had to live on the Dusch allotment of one man – their father.

In the latter part of the eighteenth century this system had been impressed upon the settlers, at a time when the population had grown rapidly and available land had become scarce. Parcels were constantly re-apportioned according to the presence of male souls. In 1812 another burden had been added to the life of Karin and her children. The tax-free status of the early years had expired, and every village family had to pay the same taxes as the Russian peasantry.

The fields were gone. Now the children Paul, Maria and Kurt, arrived at Karin’s door and led away the livestock, except for her beloved chickens and geese. Katharina had refused to benefit from her parents’ estate. “I am much too blessed than to profit from my parents’ work. Nicholas provides more than we need, so please allow my siblings to have it all,” she told her mother. Nobody would ever be able to imagine Karin’s grateful joy in this daughter, one so beautiful and sweet, righteous and thoughtful.

It had been agreed upon among the siblings not to force Karin onto the Altenteil, meaning room and board at one of her children’s farms. Instead she should be allowed to live in her own house as long as she wished.

However, as she dwelled there alone, she cared less and less for her chicken flock, her ducks, her geese and even her flowers. She sometimes strung her loom with a pattern her granddaughters were to weave – but often she forgot even that.

She baked the rye bread she that had made her famous, but often did not take it to those intended to receive it. And then, one day in winter, she felt so tired as she looked out upon the empty, frozen, white realm through her window that she lay upon her bed, daydreaming. As she contemplated the hours since her nativity – the scale tipped to good.

She had had a good life. Compared to most villagers she had been spared countless hardships because her husband was industrious and clever. Oh, how often the village had suffered. The people had endured, been many times terribly hungry, sick and cold. They had lost their crops – if not to draught, then to prairie dogs – if not to huge flocks of Volga geese, then to Höhenrauch.

And yet, she had been blessed – more than any other woman she knew – for she had been allowed to hold a dream amid the drabness of the flat, rapacious soil, a dream that also had earned her money. Certainly, it had been only her art and notoriety that to this day enabled her to reside in her own house with her famous loom, instead of being forced out to make room for a younger, needier citizen.

And as she lay there, warm under a down quilt she had made for herself only a few years ago, she stared into the swirling whiteness outside, and she beheld a beautiful pattern: a weave of her children’s and grandchildren’s faces, of flowers, roses and sunflowers, of fruit and trees she had planted in the orchard, of quilts she had designed long ago and even of flocks of the robber geese, which she had silently admired, for they could leave when winter came; a quilt of burning houses, Höhenrauch and steppe green with spring. And as she saw all these things – her eyes fell shut – to open nevermore.