City of Fate Read online

  ‘Keep it down, for pity’s sake!’

  ‘Pity? What do you mean by “pity”? Why are we here, Daniel? Tell me. Please!’

  The first soldier spoke again, sounding fed up, ‘Oh, Ivan, give it a rest. You’re a fool when you drink too much.’

  Yuri heard a match being struck and glimpsed a tiny, yellow flame about ten feet away from them. Hopefully Peter would understand that the men were stopping for a cigarette and it was best if they simply stayed where they were. Any movement, especially at night in the middle of a thick fog, might frighten the already tense soldiers into shooting in their direction. This was war after all.

  ‘Konstantin panicked, that’s all. He just stopped for a second, but he wasn’t a coward. He would have started running again. They never gave him a chance to run again.’

  It sounded like a stone was being kicked or pebbles were scuffed back and forth by a sulky boot as the cigarette was passed between the two of them. The same soldier, Ivan, spoke again, ‘Not one step back! Not one bloody step back! But he didn’t take a step backwards, did he? He just stopped for a second.’

  The tiny glow dropped to the ground where it was immediately rubbed out.

  The other soldier’s voice came out of the darkness. ‘But that’s all it takes, Ivan. Our superiors have orders to shoot any of us who act cowardly, even for a second. Come on. Try and sober up. You have to forget about Konstantin, or you’ll get yourself into the same trouble he did. We’ll write to his family, but we have to be careful with our words. All our letters are being censored.’

  Peter stayed absolutely quiet for the entire conversation. Thank goodness, thought Yuri, who was never too sure of how much the five-year-old understood. Eventually the soldiers shuffled off into the distance, the first one still muttering under his breath about ‘Poor Konstantin’. Sure enough, as soon as they were gone, Peter put his hand back into Yuri’s and repeated his question from earlier, ‘Can we go for a walk now?’

  MR BELOV’S CLASSROOM

  Ninety-two miles north of Stalingrad, in a small village, Vlad Chevola sat at his desk, watching his teacher, Mr Belov, write on the blackboard:

  NAPOLEON BONAPARTE INVADED RUSSIA IN

  Some of the boys copied down the sentence while the rest of them stared in worried silence. It was a small room, just about big enough for the thirty boys and their mess of school bags and coats. The morning sun shone in through the window, and the light bounced off the only decoration, a large photograph of Russia’s leader, Josef Stalin, making it seem like a halo was glowing over the thick grey hair, bulging forehead and kindly eyes. The country’s leader would have approved of the effect.

  ‘Now, Misha, tell me, how big was Napoleon’s army?’

  Misha, a skinny sixteen-year-old, with scattered pimples, shot out of a daydream to find his teacher looking straight at him.

  ‘Sir?’

  Usually this would be enough to set Mr Belov off on one of his weary monologues about students needing to concentrate and listen in order to learn. Today was different, though. Today, the teacher merely shrugged and moved onto someone else, ‘Vlad, perhaps you can give me the answer to my simple question?’

  ‘Half a million men,’ said Vlad, without even trying, and then adding, before Mr Belov could ask, ‘and we beat them in under six months.’

  ‘We’ll do it again! We’ll beat Hitler’s armies, won’t we, sir?’ Misha wanted to make up for earlier.

  The teacher stopped for a moment and looked over his class. The letter from the NKVD, the special police, ordering him to bring the whole class to enrol for the army, sat on top of his desk. How many would he see again? Feeling themselves to be scrutinised, some of the boys retreated into their own thoughts. They suddenly seemed very young, too young for what was being asked – no, demanded, of them. Mr Belov shivered slightly, angry with himself for betraying his own fear. He shrugged helplessly and said, ‘Watch over one another, won’t you.’ That was all he could offer them now, useless advice.

  The classroom was deathly quiet, a very different sort of quiet from when they merely listened, or dozed, to their lessons.

  Vlad, for one, felt a dull panic somewhere inside of him, yet when Mr Belov gazed at him, he mustered up all the bluff he could find and managed a smile for a sort of reply. He worried that he might be a coward, but he couldn’t help it; he wished with all his heart that it was a normal day and that he could go home after school, help his father in his workshop and wonder what was for tea. ‘We have to go?’ The words were out before he realised.

  Anton Vasiliev, a greasy, black-haired boy, given to sneering a lot, was impatient to join his big brother in the thick of battle. ‘What do you mean? Are you daring to question our orders? Our country is being invaded by filth and you ask if we have to go?’

  When did you start using a word like “filth”? At least, that’s what Vlad wanted to say. Instead, he felt his insides crumble as he said quickly, ‘It wasn’t a question: we have to go!’

  It was unwise to question anything to do with the government in front of Anton. A rumour, which refused to go away, was that his father had a direct line to the NKVD and enjoyed passing on bits of dangerous gossip. In other words, he informed on his neighbours and, yes, even relatives. Surely that was why his family were living in a spacious apartment that once belonged to Anton’s Uncle Avgust, a somewhat successful lawyer who was arrested one night, never to be seen again. At least Avgust’s wife and children were allowed to reside in the garden shed. Never let it be said that the Vasiliev family did not help their own. The rest of Anton’s classmates shared small, humble homes with various relatives and even other families. That was the Russian way; the government decided how much you could have and, mostly, it was never really enough.

  Vlad glanced at his teacher, hoping that his feeble utterings had been enough to end this particular line of conversation.

  Anton, however, wished to continue, ‘The Nazis are butchering our people, burning homes, imprisoning women and children. If Hitler thinks he can add Russia to his empire, he’s a lunatic. He actually believes he can outwit Stalin, our generals and our soldiers. How dare he!’

  This last line was said rather loudly indeed. Anton, apparently considering whether to stand, to finish his speech, looked to his teacher for guidance. For Anton, there were no grey areas, absolutely none at all. The Germans had invaded Russia, on 22 June 1941, working their way through Leningrad, Moscow and the Ukraine, and now, unbelievably, they were in Stalingrad. In the beginning Hitler had simply wanted oil, which Russia had in abundance. His army was merely to pass through Stalingrad to reach the oil fields of the Caucasus. Oil equalled money and power, as well as the essential refuelling of German tanks and planes. But how could Hitler possibly resist the opportunity to rub Stalin’s big nose in it and go after his pet city, the one he had given his very name to. Thus the city had become a deadly tug-of-war between two pompous, ambitious tyrants. Anton was just one of thousands of Russians who were prepared to do all that was demanded of them.

  But it wasn’t as simple as that, not for the old teacher who had known the boys since they were children, and whose brother had died on a battlefield in the Crimea. That letter, on the special official paper, screamed at him about his part in all of this. No matter how he tried to ignore it, one dreadful thought was determined to be inspected, Am I to quietly lead them to their deaths?

  Sensing he was no longer the centre of his teacher’s attention, Anton said almost accusingly, ‘It was you who taught us about the Spartan women!’

  Vlad couldn’t help smiling at this sudden change in conversation; he even looked around to catch someone’s eye. Leo obliged and winked at him.

  Anton wasn’t known for his interest in lessons. He was the sporty type, excelling in running, football and boxing his own shadow. Although maybe his favourite past-times were intimidating small children, lone small dogs and trying to kiss girls, but only the timid ones that didn’t want to be kissed.

&nbs
p; Leo’s mother had a name for Anton, his big brother and their father, ‘Bullies, the lot of them! That poor woman, I don’t know how she puts up with them.’

  Mrs Valisov was a short, messy-looking woman who never looked happy. The women in the town had an explanation for her anxious expression and quivering voice, ‘It’s her nerves, of course. She’s a wreck from living with such mean-tempered men.’ Few dared to suggest that it might also be guilt about her hard-working brother and his bewildered family.

  Mr Belov seemed as surprised as anyone else to hear Anton talk about Spartan women.

  Anton grew impatient. ‘The Spartan mothers who told their sons that if they didn’t win the battle they weren’t to bother coming home?’

  Leo, a hardy soul, who wasn’t afraid of Anton and his little gang of desperados, coughed politely, a little ‘ahem’, before saying, ‘I think you mean that they told their sons to come back on their shields. They could come back if they were dead, that is, they could come home beaten as long as they were lying dead on their shield. So they could be victorious and alive, or beaten and dead, but they were allowed home.’

  ‘Yeah?’ scowled Anton, his face darkening. ‘That’s what I said!’ He swung around to find the source of barely heard titters. If he caught anyone laughing at him, he would have to punish them. His father had taught him that there was nothing worse than being laughed at. As a result, Anton had, not surprisingly, a rather poor sense of humour.

  Before there could be an eruption, particularly of the Anton-kind, Mr Belov weighed in, ‘Very good, Anton, but you will have to enlighten me on your reference to the Spartan mothers.’

  ‘Huh?’ Anton was distracted by some giggling that only he could hear.

  ‘What is your point, boy?’ Mr Belov was starting to tire of everything.

  ‘Well’, pouted the teenager, ‘in a way, you are … no, you should be like a Spartan mother.’

  Leo snorted, prompting the others to forget themselves and laugh aloud. They expected their teacher to laugh with them, or even smile broadly, and gave him his cue. Instead, he stood up straight and tense, his lips hardly moving to spit out the word, ‘Pardon?’

  Misinterpreting Mr Belov’s sudden sternness as disgust for his classmates’ treatment of him, Anton launched himself superbly, ‘What I mean, sir, is that you are our leader. We will take our leave of you at the registrar office, see? You will wave us off to battle, like those mothers, sending us off to become men. You have to tell us to be victorious or …’

  The laughter died a sudden death when their teacher’s expression of rage was duly noted by all the students.

  ‘You imbecile, Vasiliev! You stupid, stupid boy. You want me to tell you all to go and die?’

  Utterly confused, poor Anton opened his mouth to say something but had no idea what.

  TANYA

  It was Tanya who’d told Yuri that Peter was an orphan. Nobody claimed to know where his father was, including Peter, but his mother had died somewhere down by the Volga. She’d been shot dead as she filled buckets with water. The buckets were still there, one was yellow and one was blue. Her body was elsewhere, perhaps carried along by the current to some far-flung resting place.

  Tanya had lived in the flat next door to them, in a tall, white apartment block on Gogolya Street. It was long gone now, both the building and the street. For several days, Peter had tried to show Yuri where it used to stand but he hadn’t been able to make sense of the mountains of rubble.

  It was difficult to remember what the city used to be like before the Germans bombed it into concrete mush. A lot of places were just gone, Yuri’s house was gone, his entire street, the whole area was gone, including Mr Olga’s barber shop, where Yuri had sat impatiently through too many haircuts that always involved a lot more time and work than they should have. Yuri imagined that Mr Olga fancied himself as an artist who was forced to make do with cutting or shaping men’s hair, one strand at a time.

  Yuri had wondered where Mr Olga was now – just as he had wondered about his best friends, Grigori and Anatoly. But then he had decided to make himself stop thinking about them. He had closed off that part of his mind; he had tried to close off the pain.

  The boys had been out on one of their walks when Peter had spotted his neighbour. Gasping in utter delight, he’d run into her open arms, leaving Yuri staring at them both in amazement. No introductions had been forthcoming; Yuri had simply had to wait until the pretty girl and little boy had stopped hugging one another before she’d taken any notice of him. When she’d smiled at him, at long last, Yuri’d felt both out of his depth and out of breath, as if he’d just been sprinting hard and wasn’t sure about where the finish line was.

  Peter hadn’t known any better so he hadn’t bothered saying something like, this is Yuri, or this is Tanya.

  Sticking out her hand, Tanya had taken charge. ‘Hi, I’m Tanya!’

  Yuri’d never shaken a girl’s hand before and he’d stared away from her as he’d allowed her to shake his, barely remembering to follow this up with a stammering introduction of his own.

  Maybe to spare him further embarrassment – a girl like her was used to having admirers – she’d turned her full attention on Peter again, who’d been too ignorant to be bashful just because someone was pretty. ‘Where have you been, pet?’

  Peter had stared at her for a moment, as if he’d been asked the most unusual question ever, and then he’d given a shockingly perfunctory answer, ‘With Yuri!’

  Shrugging her shoulders, she’d laughed. ‘Well, that’s as good an answer as any, I suppose.’

  Yuri remembered grinning; at least that’s what he hoped his face had been doing.

  Tanya had persisted with Peter. ‘And where have you been with Yuri?’

  Delighted to have made her laugh before, the small boy had tried again, smiling brightly, sticking his tongue between his teeth and saying in a babyish voice, ‘Em … em … I forget!’

  Tanya had turned back to Yuri, glancing around them as she’d said, ‘I’m glad he found you.’

  It had been too dangerous to stand around talking for long; the three of them had huddled down behind what used to be a car.

  ‘No, I found him!’ Yuri had declared.

  There had been something about Tanya’s dark curly hair and green eyes that had made him want her to know exactly how active he had been in the matter. He’d guessed she was a bit older than he was though she wasn’t much taller.

  She’d told them she was on her way to work in the factory which was about the only place in Stalingrad that was still operating as normal. Peter had asked her what she did there and she’d replied, ‘I help to make the tanks that roll over the bodies of the stinking Germans.’

  Turning to Yuri suddenly, she’d giggled, ‘Imagine that! Me making tanks!’

  Yuri’d laughed, despite not understanding what the joke was; only knowing it was lovely to have her share it with him.

  They’d both watched Peter draw one unending circle in the gravel, his dirty index finger going around and around.

  ‘So,’ Tanya had whispered, ‘how did you two meet?’

  Yuri had described then how he’d found Peter trailing after some soldiers. ‘I was somewhere down the side of Red Square, near where the Univermag Department Store used to be. Do you know it?’

  She’d nodded.

  ‘Anyway, he was obviously lost and the soldiers kept trying to explain that he couldn’t follow them. They cursed at him, just to frighten him away, I think.’

  Tanya had looked upset and, running a hand through her hair, she’d blinked down the ruin of the street. ‘Poor little thing!’ she’d sighed.

  Yuri had watched the hair bounce back into place as he’d continued, ‘I told him that I’d help him find where he lived; only we never did. When he said he didn’t know where his mother was, well, I couldn’t just leave him.’

  At this, Tanya had smiled warmly at him, encouraging him to pronounce, ‘And we’ve been together ever since.�
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  Of course Yuri hadn’t told her everything. How could he describe how frightened he’d felt after three nights by himself in the cellar? He’d hardly slept at all, his heart galloping at every noise – real or imagined – outside. Even he’d been shocked at how much he’d missed his mother and sister, so much so that he’d actually found himself wishing he could turn time back to the bombing; at least the three of them were still together then. He’d forced himself out walking the day he’d met Peter, because he hadn’t been able to find any food in the rubbish nearby; also his loneliness had pushed him to find something better than the empty cellar. Really he should have been petrified that the Germans would find him but it occurred to him that if they did, they’d bring him to wherever they’d brought his mother and Anna. So perhaps that was why he’d marched out and away from the cellar, willing whatever was to happen to happen.

  Back then he still held out hope of bumping into Grigori, Anatoly or anyone else he knew. He’d kept a watchful eye for signs of life in and around the broken buildings. It had been a perplexing experience to walk about his own district, the streets he knew as well as his own bedroom, only to understand that everything he’d known was plain gone. Yes, this was where he had been born and grown up, but now it was a strange, obscene place he did not recognise. He and his mother had spent many hours wondering how many more people were hidden away just like them. Between the bombing and Anna’s wails it was hard to listen out for anyone else.

  The last thing he’d expected to find on his walk was a sobbing five-year-old. Yet, however glad Peter might have been to be found by the older boy, Yuri had been saved in finding a scared child who’d made him feel a whole lot older and braver than he actually was. Here was a reason to stay safe. Yuri had determined to keep them both out of German hands. Without realising it, meeting Peter had given him hope that things would start to get better and so they’d seemed to be, hunched down on the destroyed street beside a beautiful girl.