Tamara
by
Alex Domokos
The first two years of my Soviet captivity, from 1945 until 1947, were years of starvation. Right after the war the Soviet economy was at its lowest ebb and the citizens were just as hungry as we prisoners were. The only difference was that they were free to go around rummaging, while we, a thousand or so prisoners, were starving beasts surrounded by a fifteen-foot high brick wall crowned by barbed wire. We knew that if we were not fed, we would perish. We could do nothing about it. The feeling of helplessness was worse than hunger. Under such circumstances all our energy was concentrated on survival; our male ego was non-existent.
The middle years, from 1947 to 1949, showed some slow improvement. We were transferred to the Caucasus where the climate was more benign. Being totally isolated from the cities, we had no contact with the female population. Those few wenches, the Kolhoze laborers who were called "chorny hrobotchi" (black laborers) were so much below our standard of womanhood that they had not ignited any spark of desire in us.
The situation changed in 1950 when we were transported to the city of Voronyesh. In that urban surrounding, our lot improved dramatically. The inhabitants' living standards rose and we learned how to profit from the population's improved buying power. Soon all kinds of skills were developed to satisfy the people's hunger for refined goods which were ignored by the heavy industry of the State. Religious goods were carved, paintings were produced, custom jewelry was manufactured out of bronze pipes, and so on. One man set up a watch repair shop in the camp where the Russian soldiers turned in watches by the dozen. These souvenirs were collected during the European campaign. Even those of us who were working on the construction site found ways to sell our skills, which resulted in an improved diet. Naturally we soon discovered our masculine identity.
We noticed that the Russian doctor at the infirmary was a beautiful woman. We became aware of the radiant blond hair of the assistant nurse, and the fabulous figure of the typist at the "commandatura". We realized that there were many charming girls around us, even those with some slightly Mongol features. Starving for female attention, some of us reported the most insignificant injury just to feel the caress of those slender fingers. In the fifth year we were the selected officers, captured after two months of savage fighting in Budapest. We were detained as punishment for our stubborn resis ance; the majority of us were between our mid-twenties and mid-thirties. It was most natural that the attributes of those female beauties around us, but at an unreachable distance, were the subject of our conversations. Therefore all those women were like angels, subject to a Platonic admiration. One day two prisoners were arguing.
"She was smiling at me."
"That's nothing. She holds my hand much longer than necessary!"
"Her hair brushed my face as she was bandaging my broken thumb!"
"You just broke your thumb on purpose!"
"You are jealous."
"Of whom? You? You are a sickly dwarf!"
Soon we had to step in and hold the two apart whose minds were stimulated by the charm of the nurse at the infirmary. Those were sure signs of awakened masculinity.
There was among us a very young officer, Laci. He was barely twenty when he was commissioned and thrown immediately into the bedlam of the last months of a losing war. He had rosy cheeks and his thin mustache was like corn silk. But he was a linguistic genius. He was able to translate spontaneously from Russian into Hungarian or German and vice-versa. Because of his fantastic ability, the commander designated him as the official translator of the camp. His status allowed him to move freely around all construction sites wherever his services were needed.
At this time we were building a new apartment complex to replace a ruined section of the city. Here the prisoners were a mixed bunch of Hungarians and Germans, working under the guidance of Hungarian officers who could speak German and some rudimentary Russian. But to converse with the Russian architect, the services of our wizard, Laci, were essential.
To Laci's misfortune the chief architect of the construction was a young and really beautiful Russian girl named Tamara. She was a young lady in the best sense of the word. She was simply but tastefully dressed with modest make-up on her perfectly chiselled face. She was well aware of her feminine charm. Since Laci was twenty-five and bound to be near her all the time, it was inevitable that his innocent heart became inflamed. We common mortals adored her only from afar, like Goddess Diana, the Goddess of Chastity. But Laci, always in close contact with became enamored to the point of insanity.
"You can't imagine how irresistible is the smell of her hair. Her melodious voice is like a resonance of the harp. Her undulating walk drives me crazy."
One day Laci mustered his courage and greeted her with the forbidden words of the bourgeoisie custom. That kind of greeting meant good manners in Hungary's high society. The greeting was, "I kiss your hand!"
"Pocelui ruki!" Laci said, waiting for the effect.
Tamara went pale. She was looking around to see if there were anybody who could overhear that sacrilegious greeting. It was when Stalin's rule was at its peak and any middle class manner was considered a condemnable sin. She could be demoted from her position for it. Changing from pale to crimson, she whispered, begging Laci never again to repeat that dangerous greeting aloud. She was so fragile, so shy, so overwhelmingly feminine, that in Laci's imagination she was an out-of-this-world phenomenon, like the Goddess Diana, worthy of adoration.
On the construction site we were working with Russian workers with whom Tamara could converse without Laci's assistance. When she gave orders to the Russian foremen, Laci's presence was not required. One day, by accident, Laci was in the anteroom of Tamara's office when she was giving orders to the Russian foremen. To Laci's horror, he heard from those rose-petal lips such rude, dirty, lewd, foul, offensive curses in a high-pitched voice, that even a drunken Italian gondolier would have blushed. Laci covered his ears and was praying for the ground to open up and swallow him. He felt he could never look at her angelic face again.
When Tamara dismissed the foremen and stepped out of her office, she noticed the scandalized expression on Laci's face. He tried desperately to avoid her eyes. She realized that she had been overheard and broke into a friendly smile.
"Why are you so scandalized? Can't you understand that, being a woman, I must earn the respect of my construction crew. They understand only this kind of language. They respect me for being tough. You Westerners are so naive!"
With coquettish laugher she left the petrified Laci who heard, as the white marble statue of the Goddess of Chastity fell from the pedestal, the shattering sound like loud thunder.