A Day in the Life of Martina Nikolaevna Karamzin

Martina is still running. She has been running and hiding all night. The running has kept her warm, but she can’t keep on. She is beaten down. She has a knife from her kitchen. She will kill herself with it before the Russians catch her. The artillery is over with. Rostov is in the distance now, but she can still easily hear the rifle fire of the house-to-house fighting. Last night, she heard big engines and the clattering of tanks. Her city has been taken, but she hasn’t. She will kill herself first.

In the frozen dawn, between the fields, she shoves herself into a thicket of Aspen; their freezing, smooth, white barks sting her skin. She looks down at the knife still in her hand. It is muddy now, but it is a good knife for slicing meat. The blade is about eight inches long and made of the finest steel – from Germany. She remembers the knife is part of a very expensive wedding set given her and her husband Sergei eleven years ago by Martina’s parents in Odessa. The knife holds an edge like no other. It is very sharp.

Two big, dark helicopters fly over very low and close to where Martina is hiding in the little coppice of trees, but the powerful aircraft are headed away toward Rostov. Rostov-on-Don. Martina will hide in the trees all day. The snowy fields are too big to cross in daylight.

Martina is wearing only a fairy costume. When Russia attacked in February, Martina began telling her children of the magic of America. Because Lyubya was about to lose a tooth, Martina told her youngest daughter instead of a rat taking away her lost tooth, the American Tooth Fairy would come. Martina’s costume is filthy now and one of its gossamer wings was torn off earlier when she forced herself under a destroyed tractor.

They were playing a game – she and her children – Lyubya, Wolodya and their eldest, Sergei – named for his Father – from whom there has been no word since he left for the front thirty-four days ago. Her children are dead. In their living room, Martina had set a nice evening fire blazing in their little fire place. Martina remembers how wonderful it felt from behind the sofa, hearing her childrens’ merriment. Martina felt so proud that her son Sergei was leading the game – just as her husband would have done if he were home. Sergei was clapping with pleasure at the game his family was playing - all about Lyubya’s first baby tooth falling out. Martina was dressed bare-shouldered as the American tooth fairy and she was hiding behind the big sofa on the floor, ready to appear magically.

That is why she wasn’t killed. She was lying behind the sofa on the floor when an artillery round came through their roof, then down through her and her husband Sergei’s bedroom upstairs, finally exploding successfully in their little cottage’s living room.

At first, she couldn’t find her son’s head. His head was missing. The wall between the kitchen and the living room was burning, but she couldn’t find little Sergei’s head. She had just given him a haircut the day before. She couldn’t understand what was happening. What had happened?

Then she heard the rifle fire, and not far, agonized screaming and orders yelled. She ran to the kitchen. The screaming suddenly stopped. She grabbed her German meat knife and she started running away through the dark from the rifle fire and the men’s voices.

She never found Sergei’s head. She kissed burnt Lyubya - and Wolodya, her little body crushed by bricks from the falling chimney, their merry little fire blown out by the artillery burst. She would have kissed little Sergei on the lips if she had found his head.

Now Martina has a good place to hide through another night. It was risky to get here.  She had to crawl across snow-covered crop-land. On top of a small hill, forlorn and isolated, she crouches in a tangled cemetery dating from the time of Catherine the Great. Her grand parents are buried here. Her feet are numb. She keeps dropping her knife. The wind has begun, but here, she will be able to see who is coming. She starts to whimper in the cold, but stifles herself. She can’t make a sound. As the darkness glooms down, through gaps in the headstones and broken old monuments, she can see big fires in Rostov. It is starting to snow again.

At Seattle, at the Bushwood Golf and Country Club, Britney sits alone at the bar in the clubhouse. She has dropped-out of University. There aren’t many golfers. She is grieving. Even though she has been warned several times that it is not compatible with the anti-depressants she is taking, she has swallowed her third Martini. For Britney, it is a sad, sad day. The nail polish is coming off her toes, and after a painful and protracted illness, her cat has died.