Silence in Katya

In the final chapters of Katya, there was one particular quote that struck me upon reading it. The quote is both a testament to Sandra Birdsell's writing skill and her attention to detail, but also telling of Katya's character and the way Birdsell writes about trauma and the silence that arises from trauma.

"She had been punished with a never-ending silence; with a void every time she asked for a voice; turned to a room expecting to find her mother at the table, a brother going out a door. She was punished with memories that came unbidden, such as a time spent sponging and ironing her brothers' trousers when they'd come back from Ox Lake, the heat and damp cloth releasing the mushroom scent of Gerhard; Johann, a wet-animal smell; Peter, the earth after a lightning storm; Daniel. Daniel still too young for wandering, and attached to the immediate yard, and his mother's skirts. All of them having the smell of motion, arms and legs churning through a day, the heat of ideas and plans. She was told she'd been fortunate to have been spared images that would stay with her forever, but her imagination was hers forever, and it gave her pictures that snatched away her breath" (337). 

I thought this quote was particularly salient in terms of explicitly stating the way trauma is functioning in Katya's life. Each time I read this quote, I am reminded of the immense breathlessness Katya must feel every time she is reminded of the tragedy, the loss of her family. Birdsell's use of imagery in this passage is an effective way of communicating that breathlessness and silence. Instead of merely telling the reading that she is at a loss for words, we see Katya turn the corner and encounter a sort of void, she finds loss in both physical and metaphysical ways, spiritual and fleshy. This quote also resonated with me because it reminded me of the poem of a close friend. In the poem, she writes, "when the world ends violent it is a silent film--/if you're lucky/if you aren't lucky,/you will remember the sound of ocean static,/and then silence,/and then dark" (Mullins). In this, we see that trauma is not as loud and fast as we are often led to believe, but rather that trauma is surrounded by silence, slowness and an unnameable heaviness.

I also thought this quote helped me connect and piece together Katya's memories of Greta. Throughout the final section, we see in several places that Katya is reminded of Greta or somehow connects Greta to what she is experiencing now, even if it isn't entirely relevant. For example, when speaking about the refugees who came to Willy Krahn's house, the narrator states, "The people in the room where Great had once stayed were refugees from the ransacked village near to Arbusovka, and not an apparition" (281). Here, we see that Katya is still grappling with the fact that Greta is gone, but not willing to quite name it yet. We also see that she is still stunned by her absence, and by the presence of the refugees in the place where Greta "had once stayed." In the passage that follows that quote, we see Katya's body carry with it the sort of heaviness she can't quite name. The narrator says, "Her limbs became liquid, and too long for her body, and for a time she walked crookedly, bumped into door jambs and tripped on stairs. The sound of laughter in a street brought tears, as did sunlight touching a snow-covered roof, sparks of frost cartwheeling around her when she went walking" (281).

Birdsell allows the reader to experience trauma through the body, to examine closely how Katya carries this silence with her and how she eventually comes to name it and speak back to that silence.

Mullins, Piper. "Untitled (for sam)." A Caesura Just Uses Less Space. N.p.: n.p., 2012. N. pag. Print.