City of Fate Read online

  ‘Anton, I …,’ began the sergeant but, for now, his order would remain unsaid as a sudden bang from downstairs brought everyone to their feet.

  In the few seconds that it took the Germans to climb the broken staircase Vlad transported himself back to the desk in his bedroom. He sat himself down on the hard but familiar chair and gazed out the window, seeing, in his mind’s eye, next door’s dog peeing against the lamp post, while old Mrs Smidt shuffled up the road, looking as downcast as ever. The ordinariness of the scene overwhelmed him with its beauty. ‘I want to go home!’ Had he said that aloud? It didn’t matter since nobody heard him. He stood, transfixed by all the frenzied activity around him.

  To his right, Leo butted a burly soldier in the face with his head, before punching him in the throat. The German fell down, leaving Leo his gun to use as he wished.

  Sergeant Pavlov was trying to take a rifle from his attacker. In the twisting and turning the gun went off, shooting another German soldier in the leg. The man yelped in bewildered annoyance.

  Anton, whose passion for fighting was – unfortunately – not matched by his talent, was struggling to knock his man out. The German, sensing a clumsy, inexperienced oaf, who was growing more and more desperate, took his time to dodge the flailing punches, tipping Anton almost playfully in the nose with his weapon. Anton’s blood flowed, startling him with the intensity of its sweet smell. Anton was in trouble. And then, just like that, the German collapsed to the floor, blood running out of a hole that Vlad had made, in his temple, with nothing more than the little penknife he used to open the letters from home.

  Anton’s face was a mixture of embarrassment and relief. Nodding a curt thanks, he threw himself on top of the nearest German, determined not to need any help this time.

  Vlad barely had time to think about what he had done. He had killed a man. Could he tell his mother this? Would she and Father be proud? Spotting a bigger knife strapped to the dead soldier’s belt, Vlad leant over him to wrench it out, spinning around to see what he could do next.

  Two Germans came at him together, stumbling slightly when bullets spat too closely to them. Vlad steadied himself for the storm ahead. In that split second, when they checked they hadn’t been shot, he kicked the man on the left between his legs, causing him to roar out in shock and pain.

  The fallen man rolled from side to side on the ground, his hands clutching at the painful area as if trying to prevent the pain from travelling anywhere else. Had he opened his eyes, he could have watched Vlad plunge that fierce Nazi dagger deep into his friend’s throat and then yank it back out again, unwilling to let the choking man keep his new treasure. It was a horrible way to die, slow and agonising.

  Vlad knelt over the fallen man, who was now wide-eyed and horribly aware that lying flat on his back was the worst position to be in when your opponent is crouching over you, armed with a knife. Not that the German had given up yet. In fact, he did the most sensible thing in a situation like this, which was to grab Vlad’s wrist with his left hand while punching him in the face with the right. Such a cliché, but Vlad saw stars, millions of them, dashing in front of his eyes as the blood trickled from his stunned nose.

  The German kept his grip on Vlad’s wrist and brought his left leg up so that he might kick Vlad full in the face – proper payback, to be sure, for the cruel kick that caused him to be lying on the dirty ground. And he did just that, sending Vlad crashing into the wall behind him, dropping his new knife as he bounced off the bricks, his face a mosaic of different shades of red. The German dived for the fallen weapon, taking his eyes off Vlad for a second as his trembling hand grabbed the wrong end of the knife, the blade gashing his palm. He didn’t feel a thing, though he was dismayed, all the same, at the sight of his own blood. Vlad saw all of this, as if watching a film with no idea what was going to happen next and only one pure thought in his head: I must kill him or I am dead.

  As Vlad slammed into the wall, chunks of rock had spilled by his foot onto a dull shard of glass. There was barely time to snatch it from the ground. Meanwhile, the German held the knife before him, his blue eyes shining with relief. Taking aim, Vlad sent the glass skimming through the air to pierce the man’s neck. It was a direct hit. The screaming soldier raised his hands, to pull the glass shard out but then stopped, unsure how to do just that. After all, what does one do with a triangular piece of window hanging from one’s neck? His hand dangled stupidly in front of his face while he tried to think.

  As the man deliberated, Vlad’s entire being throbbed with the necessity to win this duel. There was only life or death; nothing in between. Three steps brought him in front of the German, who was watching Vlad’s every move. At the same time, Vlad refused to meet his opponent’s eye until the man somehow managed to whisper, ‘Nein!’ Now they both looked at one another. Vlad felt trapped: it’s not my fault we’re here! He reached for the glass, pleading silently with the German – I have to, you know I do. The stricken man shook his head, still hoping to change the boy’s mind. However, Vlad took hold of the glass spear and pushed it hard into the German’s neck. It was over.

  When Vlad looked up from the men he had killed, he saw that it was just him and his fellow soldiers again. The rest of the Germans had retreated back down the staircase, abandoning their dead colleagues to the winners of this particular battle.

  Sergeant Pavlov ordered them to pick up the bodies and drape them all the way down the stairs, where they could help the Russians by getting in the way of the next German attack.

  ‘Are you crying?’ Naturally, Anton did not say this quietly.

  Vlad stood frozen while the others sneaked brief glances at his face.

  Only Leo stared honestly at him, nodding quickly before grabbing the corpse nearest to him.

  ‘Get to work, Anton!’ Sergeant Pavlov’s tone was sharp, sending Anton, red-faced, to help Leo who allowed him to help, for Vlad’s sake.

  The sergeant approached Vlad and put his hand on the boy’s shoulder, saying, ‘You should be proud of yourself, soldier.’

  Vlad was pale and wide-eyed. ‘Should I?’ He looked down at the men he had murdered so cleverly, whispering, ‘I did that?’

  Sergeant Pavlov’s reply was instant, ‘You did your job, nothing more and nothing less. Just like the rest of us.’ He fished out a battered box of precious cigarette stubs, picking two of the bigger ones and handing one to Vlad who barely realised he had accepted it.

  His sergeant struck a match and offered Vlad the flame. ‘Just put it in your mouth, son. Don’t think about it.’

  This was easy enough to do, apart from having to ignore the dirtiness of the second-hand fag and its sour smell. Vlad needed not to have to think. Sergeant Pavlov smiled as he watched Vlad gingerly place the cigarette butt between his lips, ‘Is this your first one?’

  Vlad shook his head. He had smoked one or two cigarettes before but had not enjoyed them much. Nevertheless, he obediently sucked on the stub, doing his best to hide his shaking hands from the man who had already noticed them.

  The sergeant sighed, and leant against the wall, looking for all the world like he was standing on a street corner, on an ordinary day, leading an ordinary life. ‘You can’t think too much about this stuff, you know. For the time being this is all there is. Those soldiers are here to take our country away from us and the only ones who can stop them are us.’

  Vlad felt a sudden rush of dizziness and was tempted to close his eyes until it passed.

  Sergeant Pavlov continued, ‘It’s all we have, all any man has, our own country, our homes. It is something to fight for, the one thing worth fighting for … and killing for.’

  Vlad was grateful for the man’s comforting tone, even if he was slightly unsure about how much he agreed with his words. Fighting was one thing, but actual killing seemed a different thing altogether.

  ‘Look, if it helps, try to see it this way,’ said the sergeant, ‘Don’t think about how many you have to kill; instead think about how many Russ
ians you are going to save.’

  There was no doubting that it sounded a lot better when put like that. Something struck Vlad, the one truth about everything, from this moment on. ‘There is no turning back.’

  Sergeant Pavlov heard what he said but chose to pretend otherwise. There was no need to say anything else. In any case, Vlad had nothing further to add since he was too busy vomiting his guts up onto the floor, the ugly stub plopped into the middle of it.

  ‘Good lad!’ said the sergeant, as if Vlad had accomplished exactly what he had meant him to. ‘Go help the others when you’re done.’

  By the time that Vlad was ready to deal with the last soldier, Leo had appeared beside him to help. Neither boy so much as glanced at one another, but Leo felt his friend’s gratitude. Vlad took the feet as Leo placed his hands under the shoulders, taking care not to look at the glass in his neck. The German was heavier than he looked. As they lifted him off the floor, a sheet of paper fell out of his trouser pocket.

  Nervously, Vlad turned it over with his foot to find a drawing on the other side. It was clearly the work of a young child. The boy in the picture was holding a man’s hand, presumably the man whose feet were now in Vlad’s hands. Beneath the two figures were words written in different colour crayons: ‘Ich liebe dich, Papa’. Vlad knew what that meant: ‘I love you, Daddy’.

  Leo shrugged helplessly at his friend’s face, as if to say, what did you expect? Of course we have to kill fathers who have children back home in Germany, impatient to see them again. They’re human just like us. Realising he needed to say something, Leo murmured, ‘If he wasn’t lying here between us, I’d be sitting down to write a letter to your parents, describing how you died a hero’s death.’

  Working furiously to fight more tears, Vlad begged his friend, ‘Tell me this is all going to end soon and we can go back home.’

  ‘Nothing lasts forever.’ It was hard to know if Leo’s statement gave either of them any comfort, especially when Vlad muttered, without thinking, ‘Except guilt!’

  Anton heard the commotion first. He was still getting over his shock at annoying Sergeant Pavlov and the awful discovery that he was not the excellent fighter he had believed himself to be. Poor Anton. Even now, it did not occur to him that all those fights he had won were thanks to his gang of followers, who did his fighting for him. No, it would have taken a lot more than this for Anton to understand that. Yet, he did feel ready for a change.

  Hearing the screams of a woman, something he had not heard in ages, he carefully looked out the nearest window. He saw her immediately; it would have been hard not to. She looked quite mad, like a wild animal whose baby is being threatened, as she screamed at a group of German soldiers, ‘Leave him alone! He’s just a child!’ It was hard to see who she was screaming about, until a gap appeared in the crowd of soldiers and he saw, for a few seconds, the small figure of a boy. As far as Anton could make out, the boy was neither crying nor shouting, only standing perfectly still, hardly reaching the hips of the Germans beside him. Something flickered within Anton’s heart, something new. The child was so small and absolutely defenceless.

  A tank stood behind the group, watching the scene. It was chilling how it seemed to be waiting for the right moment to do something. Forgetting about snipers, Anton moved closer to the window, to get a better understanding of what he was looking at. He jumped a little when Leo hissed at him, ‘What are you doing? Get away from that window!’

  Anton hissed back, ‘They’ve got a little kid down there!’

  Leo and Vlad wasted no time in joining him, glancing outside to check that Anton wasn’t imagining things. They saw the child immediately and then moved back into the shadows again, Leo urging his friends, ‘Just listen and see what is going on.’

  The old Anton might have sneered that he had been about to do just that. For a second or two all they could hear was the sound of their own breathing. Then, someone ordered the woman to calm herself or she would be shot too.

  She shrieked, ‘Kill me then! You dirty cowards! You like killing old women and children. Well, go ahead!’

  A single shot was fired. Anton, unable to wait, leapt towards the window before the other two could stop him. All three of them sighed with relief when they heard the woman’s voice again, ‘Don’t think you can scare me away by shooting that stupid thing in the air. Are you hoping to kill a few birds too?’

  The German, who spoke before in Russian, addressed her again, ‘This is war! The boy was spying on us. We have no choice but to treat him as a threat to Germany.’

  The woman was sobbing now. ‘What are you saying? Just give him back to me, please. I beg you!’ The fight had left her; there were too many soldiers and only her and the boy who she couldn’t even see anymore. She called for him, ‘Peter? Peter?’ hoping somehow he would find his way back to her, through his captors.

  However, the small boy didn’t make a sound. Anton, who was still standing at the window, gasped in disbelief, ‘They’ve gagged him, and blind-folded him too.’ When the others made no reply to this, he added, ‘He’s no more than four or five years old!’

  ‘So, what happens now?’

  The three turned almost guiltily in Sergeant Pavlov’s direction. How long had he been standing there?

  ‘Sir?’ As usual, Anton was the first to respond.

  The man stared hard at the three young faces in front of him. ‘Well, what are you going to do?’

  Vlad, still trembling from the earlier violence and nausea, quietly offered, ‘Save him?’

  This was an opportunity to follow the sergeant’s advice: forget about the killing and focus instead on the saving. Anton and Leo exchanged a look of surprise, but then something occurred to Anton, ‘I stopped a tank with one shot and I’m pretty sure I can do it again.’

  He looked to Leo for guidance and, for once, Leo allowed him to boast, going so far as to remind him, ‘You were the one that led us into the city that night of the crossing.’

  Anton’s confidence soared. ‘We could distract them by firing at the tank and follow on from there?’

  Sergeant Pavlov nodded. ‘Okay, comrades. I can spare you one bullet in the anti-tank rifle and one grenade. What do you think?’

  Leo said, ‘We could do with a couple more Russians down there to even up our chances.’

  Just then, they heard another voice outside, ‘Mother, are you alright? It’s me, Tanya. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry!’

  Meanwhile, a boy shouted, ‘Peter, where are you?’

  And then, having worked his way round the gag over his mouth, the child called out his first word as far as Sergeant Pavlov’s group were concerned, ‘Yuri!’

  PETER WANTS TO PLAY

  What a strange morning! Yuri thought to himself. He had gone to sleep a fourteen-year-old boy, neither a child nor old enough to do anything of real worth, but when he woke up – when Tanya woke him up – he suddenly felt very old. She shook him awake, saying something about Peter that he tried not to hear. He only opened his eyes to see her face again. Despite the gloominess of the basement, he could make out the delicate shine on her skin. He imagined how soft it would feel, how her hair might tickle his hands and then, just like that, he reached for her, pulled her to him and pressed his lips on hers.

  Tanya allowed him to lean against her for no more than two seconds before shaking him off. She jumped to her feet, saying, ‘The Germans have taken Peter.’

  Yuri properly woke up then, to the hell around them.

  Looking him straight in the eye, Tanya added, ‘They say they’re going to hang him for being a spy.’

  A howl stuck in Yuri’s throat, almost preventing him from asking, ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Over by January Square. He was laying wire or doing something with one of our soldiers.’ She was crying now.

  Already fully-dressed, he grabbed her hand and dragged her outside. The snow was thick on the ground, the whiteness reminding them both of what Stalingrad used to look like before the planes
arrived that Sunday afternoon. The air was coarse and thin; it hurt to breathe deeply, while the cold stung their eyes. Yuri marched forward, pulling Tanya alongside him. The snow even camouflaged his limp, the uneven surface making it appear that he was walking evenly.

  Every sound has a ghostly echo when there is snow on the ground, even the sound of silence. Again, Yuri could swear he heard a church bell ringing somewhere, signalling an end to something, or maybe a beginning. He sent a silent prayer heavenwards for his mother and Anna as he crushed the soft snow beneath his numbed feet, hoping that his heart might freeze too. He knew in his heart that his mother and sister were dead. It occurred to him that his mother might be re-united with his real father. Maybe they were both watching him now, from wherever they were. He forced himself to empty his mind of painful thoughts. The funny thing was he welcomed the bitter cold, believing that if he was too busy feeling cold he might forget to feel afraid.

  They heard Tanya’s mother before they saw anyone else, she was screaming at the Germans to shoot her, calling them names. Next, they heard a single gunshot. Tanya dropped his hand and ran on ahead, leaving him to follow as fast as he could. Coming around the corner, they saw Mrs Karmanova immediately; she was easy to spot because she was the only woman standing before a small crowd of German soldiers, very much alive and taunting whoever had fired his gun into the air.

  Tanya called to her mother while Yuri was desperate to see Peter. Where was he? He shouted out for him and received a reply, a little voice from the middle of the gathering, calling Yuri’s name just once. The relief in the small voice was unmistakable. Peter knew his friend had come for him. Tanya flung herself on her mother and they embraced tightly for a few seconds before turning back to face the stern faces of the men. Yuri joined them, and the three of them stood there together.

  Tanya began to address the Germans in their language; the alien words were harsh and heavy on Yuri’s ears. Peter was blindfolded and gagged, a shocking sight; Yuri managed to glimpse him before one of the men pulled him back out of view. His scarf, the very one that Yuri had wrapped around his neck was now wrapped around his mouth, though it had loosened and fallen slightly. Yuri’s arms reached instinctively for him, causing a soldier to point his rifle at them.