A Portal To 1941

The streets constantly played the refrain of clinking bottles, children’s laughs, and the sound of hurried feet, but when his fingers touched the keys and her vocal cords warmed, the streets would adopt silence. People turned their ears like cats and they began to follow the song like it was the call of a siren.

The blue paned window would be opened for our neighbor Ms. Kalashnik who was always first to the show. She would bring her chair because she complained of her arthritic feet.

Then my father would let his fingers flow over the black and white keys. My mother would sit on a stool next to the brown piano with accents of gold and put on opera-worthy performances.

My ears grew up listening to these recitals of perfection that drew in crowds of men coming home from work, women coming home from the shops, and children from school or ball games in the streets. Birds came to dance. I was even given lessons on the piano so that one day I would join.

I never thought the music would stop. How could I imagine such a day? Not even my dreams could show me a date when my father’s fingers would not glide like an eagle over the piano and my mother’s voice would not project dazzling tunes.

So what can end magic? What makes the music stop? Boots. The unsettling drum beat of boots hitting the floor terminated the melody. The crinkling of a uniform was like a hissing snake. Pain, worry, and agony seeped through the body. Affliction was 1941.

Uncanny silence came to the land. Hate permeated the air and for the people of the little melodious town, war became a way of life. My mind had to leave behind the melodies. Music was now made of marching boots and firing guns. I learned the tang of repugnance.

In the siege on Moscow, I learned the notes to a new tune: death. It’s a low gurgle and a high-pitched hiss. The lyrics are begging or accepting. It’s a tune you can never forget.

We tried to elicit will from within us as we pushed the German forces back. We saw the destruction that the Germans had inflicted as our country had her back turned.

It was in these horrendous times that I missed the music the most. Yet it was also at this time that I could hear it the clearest.

The steady beat of boots carried past the capital and farther into the west of the country. Soldiers sang in harmony and death accompanied us, keeping the delicate beat.

I saw more of that country in those three years than I did the previous nineteen. I learned to pray in those three years. Blessings were thrown over bodies and benevolence over sleek sensual guns.

I learned what a kiss meant. What a kiss meant truly because a mother’s kiss before bedtime is much different than a soldier who kisses you because he is so petrified of taking one more step west. One more step away from home; his lips were jagged and trembling.

I also learned that there cannot be a caper in wartime. I learned this through the birds. They were the birds I saw dancing to our music back home. The birds created wonderful murals through murmuration. The birds danced on the last strands of love in the air that had evaporated from the breaths of soldiers and civilians alike, but only when the gunshots ceased.

When weapons were put down the birds soared on hope. They twisted and twirled like a disgruntled storm. They danced but only when they knew peace.

The time I wished for the rhythmic marching and the kiss of the terrified soldiers was when my feet crossed onto the screaming grounds under dirt brown arches of intimidating stature.

The terrified soldier walked with me as we crossed over into the camp. We crossed over into a different world.

Wretched, anguished, broken, crestfallen people, alive or dead stared at us. They observed us intently to see what our arrival meant.

I stood in a sea of devastation afloat on a raft of shock. These people, what could I offer them? I offered them music. I offered them songs that some had heard generations ago or that some had never heard before. I offered them sweet sounds along with liberation. I offered them all I could give.

The music was tucked in deep folds in my mind that I had to fight to find again. The music was buried under letters never received and years lost. The original composition of my father’s flowing hands and my mother’s trickling voice were buried under a rushing torrent of wartime memories.

The road taken home was much worse than the road away. The unknown was a hungry hole that opened up in the melting permafrost ground of Siberia and swallowed you whole.

I imagined myself standing over this threshold into the center of the Earth. This ravenous hole was cold but I could discern pockets of heat coming from within the buried core.

On this journey back the pain had seeped into my hips like I had been clasped onto a horse that should have gone lame miles ago. With me riding an imaginary stallion was the frightened soldier. We trotted along and I left him in his little town that ran off a different song than mine, but as he surveyed his home he mentioned to me that it was quieter than before. Then he left, walking on steady feet, but his hands trembled like never before.

As I returned on my imaginary high horse to my area of the massive country, I could not detect any melodious life in the streets. There was no music. There were no appetizing lines that called you into town.

When I re-entered my settlement the vexing squeal of the town sign was dominant in my ears. I could hear the small parts of life like a blowing wind that coerced old shutters to complain but there was no music.

I found my way home to the former source of the music, the fountain of youth, my home. I yearned to have a drink. Even if just a drop fell on my tongue I would be satisfied.

I went to the window first but it was shut tight. I went around to the door and I found a woman with a wicked posture sweeping the steps.

“Mom,” I whimpered so slightly that the woman didn’t hear me. She continued to sweep for a few more seconds before she felt my presence. She turned to me and I recognized the face not of someone related by blood but of someone I still held close. “Ms. Kalashnik.”

“Oh,” she said in a weathered voice, dropping her broom. She moved slowly toward me almost like the present had slowed a bit too and the past was racing to catch up.

She placed her hands on my forearms and grabbed them. I had been eating up calamity and was full of horrid death-filled ideas so when her face twisted in agony I was able to understand quickly. I was able to spare her the storytelling packed full of gruesome details and pure horror.

Instead, I entered the home alone leaving Ms. Kalashnik in the company of her broom. Inside was eerie. My home was not only without music but without life. There was no essence of existence or animation. Everything was the same as it had been in 1941. While there was no music, still there was the piano. Still were the weathered keys from my father’s fast fingers and still were my mother’s tear stains on the sides of the piano after an emotional musical retelling.

I lowered myself onto the bench in front of the piano. My bones could feel the wood through my little bit of body fat. My arms lifted but they would not extend themselves over the keys. Instead, they stayed retracted to my chest like a swaddled baby.

The world halted for a moment. Not even an insect made a buzz. I had gone through a portal to 1941. My father was next to me on the bench. His right arm was around me and his left hand floated over the piano, pointing out every key.

“Remember to let your fingers be like water,” my father said with a content smile. My mother rounds the corner and comes up and hugs me.

“We’ll miss you,” she sighs.

“Yes we will,” my father adds, “but defend Moscow with all your might.”

“Even if Moscow falls,” my mother sniffles, “always, always, remember the music.”

“I will,” I affirmed. They played a song for me and the next night I put on my uniform.

1941 lets me go. My muscles relax. My hands fell forward and an extended finger hit a single key. The note vibrates through the house. Then my hands bring themselves to the keys and I play. I drain all the memories through my fingers. I played away the pain. I play and I play and I play.

My fingers turn to water and I surge. From the side of my eye, I see the window open. Ms. Kalashnik opens up the window and sets up her chair. She sits and slowly swings from left to right, then I hear her gasp.

My fingers lightly touch the keys so that only a light refrain plays. I turn to Ms. Kalashnik. She is pointing to the sky.

“Semyon,” she sputters. “The birds- they’ve come back. They’re dancing in the sky! Oh.” She clutched her chest and pursed her lips as she began to cry. “Oh, the birds. They’re back. They’ve been gone for so long. They’ve been gone since 1941.”