"The minute of farewell beings / You look into my eyes with anxiety. / I catch your dear breath, / And a storm is forming far away already. / The blue, misty air is trembling, / And anxiety touches my temples, / And Russia calls us for heroic deeds, / One can feel the wind of marching regiments. / Farewell, homeland, / remember us. / Farewell, familiar faces, / forgiving farewell, forgiving farewell / Farewell, homeland, / remember us. / Farewell, o dear gaze, / not all of us will come back. / Fly, fly the years / And trains disappear in the darkness, / And soldiers are in them, / And in the dark sky / Shines the soldier's star."
—Farewell of Slavianka,
Vladimir Lazarev (1984)
PRIMIS
3 AUGUST 1917
PETROGRAD, RUSSIAN REPUBLIC
"I'll see you soon," Sergeant Nikolai Konstantinovič Belinski of the Imperial Russian Army whispered in a kiss to his wife, Marusia Ľvovna. There they stood, together until the end, until he had to board the train that would ship him off to somewhere in Western Europe so he could fight in a war he wanted no part in for a wretched man he wished to see perish, even if that man wasn't even in power anymore. Proschaniye slavyanki, Farewell of Slavnianka—a popular patriotic melody at the time—played solemnly throughout the train station, echoing rather eerily in the large halls of the structure. Neither person wished to let the other go, though eventually, they would have to. Everyone they knew could attest to the fact that Sergeant Belinski and his bride went together like bacon and eggs, though they didn't have chickens on their pig farm. This being a quite literal statement, their pig farm houses zero chickens in total, the figurativeness is up to interpretation.
"Farewell," Marusia said loud enough just for him to hear in the loud, bustling commotion of the train station, her thumb caressing his face. She stared into her beloved husband's sky blue eyes, focusing on every little detail she was able to see, staring like her life depended on it. For, she can't be certain she'll ever see her Kolya, her Nikolai again. "Bury me, my love."
"I wouldn't think of it, moya lyubimaya—my beloved." Nikolai smiled and placed a kiss on her forehead.
A deafening whistle erupted from the train he was to board, followed by an, "All aboard!" in their native Russian by the train's conductor, prompting the little woman's heart to sink.
Nikolai brushed back her dark brown hair that escaped onto her face from her babuška—a headscarf usually worn by a married woman. "Mnye pora, I have to go, my Maryuška. I'll see you again soon, I promise. I love you with all of my heart, moya lyubimaya." He held her hand in his and gave her one last, long kiss before boarding the train that would lead him to his exile from his Motherland.
"Ya tože tebya lyublyu, my Kolya. I love you too," she choked out, smiling for him. The woman didn't want to cry in front of her husband for fear of worrying him more than he already was.
He returned the smile on the stairs of the locomotive and retreated farther into the vehicle. And, with that, the train pulled out of the station, en route to only God knows where. All Marusia could do was stand in place. She felt hopelessly trapped—trapped like she's gone through this moment hundreds of times, maybe even thousands, with no end. She felt like she'd been stuck in an endless loop for eons, just reliving and reliving this moment where she had to say goodbye to the only person she's ever loved.
After a few moments of staring at the place the train once lay on its track, she broke out of her stance and made her way to catch a ride on a carriage into their village to the northeast of Petrograd, not wanting her legs giving out by the time she'd made it home. She felt almost like a zombie in a trance.
SOMEWHERE IN RURAL NORTHWESTERN RUSSIA
Finally home to their little pig farm, Marusia collapsed onto her and Nikolai's shared bed in their modest one-room home, where, just a few hours prior, they shared for what would be the last time for a while. She was numb, rightfully so. Though her Kolya promised he'd make it home, promises in war never had a guarantee of being kept. One thing was certain, however; one day, they would reunite, be in life or in death. She hoped desperately it was the former.
Early in the morning after the day Nikolai left, Marusia sat and stared at the setting moon through the eastern window of their little house, not thinking of anything in particular. Just a few days ago, when he was preparing to leave, he told Marusia, "No matter how far apart in the world we may be, we'll always gaze upon the same sun and moon." While that was reassuring, it didn't help to reduce her fears of him, well, dying. He is going to war, after all. Around one million Russians had already died in the war at this point, and she didn't want him to be next… And this feeling she's been having like she's already gone through this millions of times, it didn't help at all.
For the next couple days, Marusia wouldn't do much of anything. It was not much of a problem for the farm, as her brother Yakov volunteered to help with the farm while Nikolai was gone. Nikolai despised Yakov, but with no one else being available to help out—Yakov sustained a shoulder injury as a child that exempted him from the draft—he had no choice in agreeing to let him. No matter, Marusia's behavior made herself worried; she's never acted like this about anything. She just couldn't shake that feeling like she's living this part of her life over and over and over and over again. Like she's experienced this all before many, many times. Déjà vécu, it was. Not déjà vu, but déjà vécu. It was hell, she thought. Grueling. Unrelentless.
One night, she had a dream—no, a nightmare that worried her. It was summer, she dreamt. Early summer. But something was off. There was a stillness in the air, like the calm before the storm sort of deal. It was early in the morning hours. She lie sound asleep in her husband's arms, though it didn't look like their house. The both of them, they looked a decade or two older. Nikolai's iconic beard had even been shaven off. Suddenly, a loud sound, a sound louder than Marusia's ever heard before, broke the peacefulness of the dream. The blue, misty summer air trembled, and anxiety touched her temples. The next thing she knew, she lie, what she thought to be, half dead, her Nikolai in tears above her. He opened his mouth to say something but was cut off by Marusia waking up from the nightmare.
Marusia woke up in a sweat, her brother shaking her small form, urging her to wake. "It was just a dream, Marusia," he consoled, holding her close in her dear brother's arms. Except, to Marusia, it felt much more than 'just a dream'. It felt as though it was real. It felt too real. And that terrified her. She wasn't one for having dreams, much less any vivid dreams at all, none that she can recall.
"I…" Marusia desperately wanted to explain to Yakov her feelings about the situation, but this is rural Russia and her and Yakov were raised very conservatively. They grew up in what the Whites call "Little Russia", born to a "Little Russian" Russian Orthodox priest father and a Russian church chorister mother of Arab descent. Yakov and the people in her village would think she was crazy if anything got out. So, she opted to try to go back to sleep. In the morning, she decided she'd get off her ass and work her mind off of things. No use moping about when you've got pigs to raise, even if you felt like you were losing your mind!
For a while, it proved to be a good way for her to cope with her situation. Feeling lonely? Hang with the pigs. Feeling sad? At least you can make the pigs happy. It's truly funny how a few months can just fly by in the blink of an eye when you're raising pigs. Oink. Sadly, however, now came the time to take three little pigs named Vanya, Nikita, and Pyotr respectively into the city to be sold to a hungry family for the winter. Okay, well, calling them "little" is a bit of an understatement; they were pretty big. Nikolai and Yakov always scolded her for naming their pigs, as it makes you grow more attached to them.
LATE OCTOBER 1917
PETROGRAD, RUSSIAN REPUBLIC
As Marusia arrived in the city, she noticed more people flying around red flags and other symbols of the Bolshevik party, whom she and Nikolai were proud members of. The last time she was in Petrograd, when Nikolai left, she was too zombie-like to notice much of anything. All of the red flags and such made her smile; the proletariat were finally rising up against the oppressive, greedy, uncaring bourgeoisie overlords. Nikolai… He would have been so happy to see all this, Marusia thought. She sighed and walked into the marketplace and set up shop in her usual place, next to a nice, old Orthodox Jewish woman named Estera selling beautiful handmade textiles. The two were close.
"Hello, Estera." Marusia smiled at the woman. "I haven't seen you in quite a long time. Kak vaši dyela? How are you?"
"I could be better, but that's quite all right," she replied, returning the smile. "And you?"
Marusia sighed yet again. "I could be better as well. I just miss my husband…" Though she did miss her husband very much, it wasn't the only thing that bothered her. And Estera noticed that. She always had an eagle eye. She was known for it.
"You look troubled, little Marusia," the old woman stated.
Marusia remained silent.
"You can tell me what's really wrong, you know."
Silence again.
"I won't judge nor tell another soul," Estera promised.
There's no way she's getting out of this. Marusia finally relented with a sigh, "Well… Ever since my husband left for the battlefields a few months ago, I've been feeling like everything that has happened since has happened a billion times already. I feel like a lunatic, like I'm losing my mind." She put her face in her hands in defeat. "I've had a terrifying dream that felt…almost…as though I was actually, physically there. It's scaring me, to be honest, Estera, and I have no one to go to," the woman finally vented after holding it all in for almost three months now. Estera was a wise old woman, but Marusia thought even she probably wouldn't have any advice to give her.
"Become a field nurse," is all Estera said, no explanation.
"Čto? What? Excuse me?" Marusia questioned, confused.
"Don't question me, just do it," Estera stated matter-of-factly.
"Počemu, why?"
"Trust me, little Marusia."
"Okay, whatever. I guess I'll sign up after my pigs here are sold." She gestured down to the fat pigs at her feet. Marusia had no real intention of doing what she said. She just wanted to drop the subject.
"No. I'll take them off your hands. How much do you want for them?" Estera insisted.
"They're 90₽ each; can you even afford that? No disrespect, it's just that most people can't afford to buy all of them—"
Estera pulled out the 270₽ needed from her bag filled with her personal items, handed it to Marusia, and took the pigs from her.
"Holy shit," is all Marusia could say. She quickly stashed the money away in her bag.
"Before you go," Estera started, taking out something else from her bag, "give me your left hand."
Marusia complied. No use in arguing.
Estera tied a red, wool string around Marusia's extended left hand and knotted it again six more times. Once completed, the old woman recited a prayer in what Marusia guessed as Hebrew. "There."
"What is this? Is it a Jewish thing? You know I'm not Jewish; I don't want to encroach—"
"This will protect you from bad luck brought about by the evil eye and bloodshed in war. It is a Jewish tradition, though you don't have to be Jewish to wear it," she reassured. "Never cut it off. Just let it fall off naturally. Sometimes, it falling off could be a blessing." Estera reached into her bag for another piece of the red wool string. "Here. For when that one falls off. Only someone dear to you should tie it on, making seven knots in total. Now, go, little Marusia!" the little old woman urged.
Marusia thanked Estera and followed her instructions, heading to the nearest place she could apply to become a nurse. She didn't quite know why she was following her instructions; she felt hopelessly compelled to follow them. The closest place to the market was City Hospital № 40, so that's where she went.
She entered the hospital bustling with activity and asked around for how she could apply to become a field nurse. Finally, she was directed to a man's office on the second floor. They said to just knock on the door and wait, so knock on the door and wait, Marusia did. The unnamed man called her in, asking what she wanted.
"I want to be a field nurse," Marusia stated simply and firmly.
The man, whose name is Jalo Puumalainen according to the nameplate on his desk, looked her up and down and pointed for her to sit down in front of his desk. He moved his typewriter in front of him, inserted a piece of paper, and started typing. "Full legal name, if you don't mind," he said, seemingly bored, after a few minutes of typing.
"Marusia Ľvovna Belinskaya."
"You're related to that exiled sergeant?" the man asked curiously.
"Yes, he's my husband."
"Huh. What even happened?"
Ah, yes, Nikolai's…incident. "He threatened the lives of the Tsar and members of the provisional government," is all she said. She didn't like talking about it.
"Oh," he dropped the subject. "Date and place of birth?" he asked awkwardly.
Mr. Puumalainen went through all of the required questions with Marusia. "Your training starts tomorrow at 7AM in the common room on the fourth storey. A uniform will be provided." He shook her hand firmly.
"I've been accepted already?" Marusia questioned, confused.
"Yes. All that…er, information is just for your file," he explained. "You are doing your country a great service."
4 JUNE 1918
NORTHERN FRANCE
The civil war in the Motherland had been going on for almost a year now. It started soon after she left Russia for the battlefields, with the storming of the Winter Palace in Petrograd. While she wishes she and Nikolai could fight with Lenin and their other Bolshevik brethren for a free Russia for all, she was currently stationed in northern France and Nikolai… Well, she had no idea where he was currently. While that worried her, she was certain, being his wife, that she would have been informed of his death, God forbid it ever had to come to that.
Despite all she's done since she left Russia, she still can't shake that feeling of déjà vécu. Nevertheless, her mind has been completely focused on saving lives since she first officially became a field nurse. She was tending to a half-dead French soldier's wounds in a trench when she got a bad feeling in her gut. Marusia heard gunshots in the distance—nothing out of the ordinary for the battlefields, but that was the thing. There was no fighting where she currently was. Just some Germans camping out in their trenches and the French and Italians in theirs, waiting for someone to make the first shot. The only reason she was even here, tending to this French soldier's wounds, was because one of the ridiculously heavy supports to keep the trench from not collapsing in on itself didn't do its job properly and ended up crushing this poor man's chest and shoulder. He looked in pretty rough shape for a trench soldier.
Marusia became even more worried than she already normally was here. Had someone planned to take someone else's trenches? What was going on? It all sounded like it was coming from the distance, from the Germans, not the Frenchmen and Italians here.
"What's going on?" she shouted to another soldier near her in French. He just shrugged in response. She tried to block out the noise, focussing on saving this soldier's life with the little supplies she had. They were far away from any Ally camp that could be of service to this young man. His breathing eventually drew to a close, and the man died there on the muddy trench ground. Marusia always hated losing someone, but this was war. It's inevitable. And though he didn't die by enemy hands like many of his comrades, his death was still in vain. Too many lives were taken in this war, this war started by stupid monarchs in a dick measuring contest, she thought. Her time as a field nurse really made her value life more. She was lucky to be alive when many others perished.
She prepared his body for when she and another nurse could haul his body off to the grave like everyone else's that died here. It was incredibly disrespectful, in her eyes, to just dump them all in one grave and call it a day, but, then again, this is war. War was never fair to the common people, swept up into the mess just because of where they happen to live.
That bad feeling in her gut had not yet subsided. Packing up her medical supplies with a sigh, she began to stand up when she heard a vicious, nasty snarl, coupled with an echoey scream. Peeking over the trench to the normal ground, she beheld a massive horde of rotting…people…? Running towards the trench.
"By God, I don't know what the hell those things are, but get off of your asses and shoot!" she yelled to the soldiers in the trench around her. They began shooting at the abominable creatures, some dropping dead, others persisting on. They got closer and closer to the trench, soon too close for comfort. She grabbed the gun—a sniper rifle of a model she didn't know—off the French soldier that just recently died and ran. She didn't care if she would've been punished for going AWOL. This was not normal. Right now, she only cared about herself. Self-preservation.
She ran and ran and ran, ran as fast as her little legs could take her. She didn't care where she was going, as long it was away from the things. She found herself in another trench, this time having no choice but to face the things, whatever they were, chasing her. There were two coming for her from the front; she shot them each and hit the one that came up behind her with the butt of her gun.
This trench was unsettlingly barren of other people, though she heard someone shooting intermittently in the distance. As weird as this experience was, she still feels like she's lived through this a thousand times. She ran towards an intersection in the trench, but she tripped on a loose plank on the ground.
"Oof!" She landed face first, cutting her forehead and ripped her nurse's skirt on the planks. Her sniper rifle fell in front of her. Reaching out to grab it with her left hand, she noticed she lost the red string bracelet Estera had given her the day she applied to become a field nurse. An audible gasp escaped her chapped lips. She looked around and spotted it in the middle of the intersection. The shooting grew louder and louder. Wiping herself off best she could, she stood up and quickly picked it up and put it in her pocket before treading onwards. She turned her body left but froze at the sight of another person. She dropped her gun, raising her hands in case they're a German.
The man aimed his gun at her suspiciously. She couldn't quite get a look at his face, but that facial hair…
"Nikolai?" she called out hesitantly.
The man lowered his gun, shocked, mouth agape and eyes wide.
"Marusia?"
Just like that, Marusia felt as though this has never happened before, for the first time in almost a year.
"This march did not recede / When the foe clouded the horizon / With it, our fathers, in clouded railcars / Were brought to the front by trains. / It preserved Moscow in '41, / In '45, it marched on Berlin / It followed the soldier to victory / Through the roads of tough years. / And if the country / Calls us to war / For our motherland / We all shall march to sacred war! / Wheat rustles in the fields / My Motherland marches, / To the heights of joy / Through all misfortunes / On the path of peace and labor."
—Farewell of Slavianka,
lyrics by Aleksandr Galič (1970)