Kataya

I submitted Slogans: Our Children, Our Future, to the 2016 Writers' Digest Self-Published Book Contest.  As you may guess, I didn't win but I got a really nice review from the judge. The comment I found most interesting concerned my character, Kataya.

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I was disconcerted that Kataya seems to have been much more fictionalized as a character than the other people in the book, since she’s one of the most vivid and “round” characters.  I’d have liked to have known in what way she was fictionalized.  Whatever prompted her to enter the Women’s Death Brigade at such a young age, for example?

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If Slogans was a motion picture, Kataya would have an Oscar for best supporting actress.  In my three novels, Kataya progressed from bratty little sister, to child soldier, a socialist activist and a combat medic, and finally the leader of a doomed village.

When I first met Kataya, she was staring out of our family portrait flanked by my young father and uncle.  Though I never really knew her name, I believe it may have been Tatianna.  Her fictional name came from a form of family equality.  My Kataya's physical features as she matured are based on my oldest sister, Donna, and her personality on my fiery baby sister, Jayne.  The honor of naming her went to my middle sister, Kathy.

Tatianna (Kataya) as she appears in the family portrait

The fictional Kataya lived through many emotional and historic events.  As a young girl she held a marauding band of deserters at bay, fought in the Woman's Death Battalion, defended the Winter Palace, and then served along side Doctor Zhivago.  She displayed an Oscar winning performance during her reunion with Doctor Farnsworth and again as she was assaulted by fellow soldiers.  But to me, her best was in the chapter where she displayed compassion for a little girl.

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The tiny figure on the roadside looked like a porcelain kukla, the kind of doll Kataya had so admired in the window of an expensive Petrograd shop.  But this was no child's toy.  She was real and she was dead.  The little girl lay face up on the snowy route leading from Kyshtym.  Her angelic face was waxen and her gray eyes clouded in a milky haze.  Her blue lips were slightly apart in a grim smile and revealed perfectly formed milk teeth.  A thick red babushka was wrapped around her head and a flowered scarf, knotted off to the side, draped her neck.  The girl's bare hands were knitted across her chest and pressed atop a wooden Orthodox cross.  The remnants of last night's dusting coated her clothing in white, but Kataya could make out the heavy wool skirt that ended just above the ankles.  The lack of snow on the girl’s leg wrappings told Kataya that earlier in the day someone had removed her shoes.

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The Russian girl in the story is real.  I know her only from a wartime photograph I discovered in the 1970's.  The black and white image of her still body haunted me.  There was something about her serene appearance: eyes opened, slightly parted lips and a coat with one button missing.  She could have been the girl in Schindler's List.

Photograph from the Russian front

I wanted this little girl to be remembered, if only in my novel.  It was not just her memory, but that of millions of other children who died and continue to suffer at the hand's of adult follies.

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Kataya bent down and touched the girl's hands and offered all the solace she could.  After a solemn moment, Kataya stood and resumed walking.  If she wanted to make the next village before nightfall, she would have to hurry.  She took three steps, then hesitated and went back.  Kataya looked at the cross and began to bless herself, then abruptly stopped.  What kind of a god would allow this?  Kataya spun on her heels, adjusted her pack and resumed her journey.

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This is the last photo of Tatianna (Kataya) while she still lived in Hutava.  Though she may not have experienced all the events my fictional Kataya did, the history of Russia during her time is etched deeply into her face.  To me she represents the eternal Russian Babushka.

Tatianna - 1984