Carrying a basket of fish in one hand and a stack of ration tickets in the other, Anya hurried past the old beggars in the corner of the Leningrad fish market and trudged through the masses. She grimaced at the sight of the greasy, tired fisherwomen that bustled all around her; this was soon to be her fate as well.
In another two years, maybe even less, she'd be sent here by that old hag of a woman, Comrade Phlegmenkoff. She'd forever smell of seaweed and saltwater, and she'd probably scrounge by in a tenement or a shack like her friend Karina, who'd left the orphanage two years ago herself. Karina had recently married a rough man double her age who worked in the factories from six in the morning to nine at night. Karina was content; she'd never expected more.
Anya supposed that was her problem. She'd always wondered if there was more to life than the fish factory, something more for her than being a wife to some man hardened by labour, something more than becoming one of those weathered women whose lives were spent in earnest hours at a factory, working to supplement whatever meagre income their husbands could cadge.
Karine had once advised her to avoid that path if she so wished, by selling her necklace. It would earn her at least a hundred rubles, which was no small startup sum in theses hard times. She had even taken Anya to a broken toothed peddler in the annals of Leningrad, who specialized in fine jewelry and antiques. He offered to buy it for hundred and fifty rubles and offered twenty more if she did the dirty deed with him.
She tastefully refused both offers and had angrily stormed out, Karina in tow, but not before she heard him mutter that she was a picky girl. The nerve of these men! Karina said she knew others who would buy it, but Anya turned down the offers. Karina's urging only created a sense of defiance in her; she would not sell it.
Anya couldn't sell it. It would be like selling a part of herself. It was all that she had left to comfort herself with, the only clue she had as to where she came from, who she was. The only gift she'd ever received in the latter half of sixteen years. Above all, it was a sign that someone cared. That she had once known affection of some sort before she'd been brought to the vile people's orphanage in Ivangorod.
In fact, she often stroked the pendant as if it were a child; and would rotate it in her fingers as she fell asleep humming to the tune of some maddeningly familiar yet distant tune she would have sworn she'd once heard. She never took it off. To part with it was to lose any hope of a future.
Two years later, Anya was walking through the fisher's market again. It was her last time going as an affiliate of the orphanage. Tomorrow would be her first time as a fisherwoman who was going to gut and clean fish. It was a poor paying job, even less than she had expected at a mere stipend of sixty rubles per month.
Somehow, she still didn't see herself in the role. All her life, she'd played the role of Anya the dream-filled orphan, not very different from the other children harboring the secret hope someone would come for them. She had played the role of an errand runner for the orphanage Comrades. She'd played the role of an elder sister to some of the little children.
The one role she did not see herself playing, was a fish woman. And honestly, that kind of a life wasn't appealing in the least to her. It wasn't worth living like that. Dread of the prospect of being forced to actually live it had filled her for the last week.
It was not surprising then, that she got little sleep the night before she was leaving for the fish factory. It didn't help that her nightmares were full of mysteriously vanishing plumes of green smoke that would appear and then suddenly die as well as a recurring image of a demon-like man with shockingly long nails who cackled and cackled.
She awoke with a heavy heart and a fearful outlook the following morning, covered in her own sweat. She numbly headed to take a bath- pouring a bucket of cold water over herself. She didn't understand the point; the water was freezing, and she would smell horrible again in a few hours after handling the fish.
She dressed herself in one of her two alternating rags, slipped on her oversized coat and a pair of worn-out leggings with holes in the footing. She stashed her frayed purple scarf in the left pocket of her coat, and forced her feet into boots that were a bit small for her. Grabbing her coat and taking a last look at the room she'd shared with five other children, she exited the doors of the orphanage for the last time, greeted with the sound of children screaming solemn goodbyes from the upper floors. She waved and waved as Comrade Phlegmenkoff told her all about her wonderful new job.
"How is it you don't have a clue as to who you were before you came to us?" Phlegmenkoff asked her in a sinister tone, almost demanding an answer as they walked down the snow-covered cobblestone path to the front gates.
"I do have a clue-" She raised her necklace's pendant, and Comrade Phlegmenkoff scoffed. "Achh!" Some of her spit landed on Anya's upper button.
"So you want to go to Paris to find your family, huh?"
That's when it clicked.
Maybe…just maybe...
"Little Ms. Anya, it's time to take your place in life and in line. And be grateful too."
She pushed Anya out the gates, laughing that despicable laugh. The seeds had been sown.