City of Fate Read online

  The first man laughed pleasantly and discreetly gave Anton a lesson, ‘Ah, Gerry couldn’t possibly stay away from us; they would miss us too much. If you ask me, they’re waiting for tonight, when we’re sitting pretty in the middle of the Volga River.’

  Leo asked, ‘Is that “the crossing”?’

  Vlad expected the man to crow over their innocence and was relieved when he, instead, introduced himself as Leyosha and nodded, ‘Yes. Once we’re finished here, we’ve a bit of a walk to the banks of the Volga.’ He paused to wipe the sweat from his forehead before continuing, ‘Stalingrad is on the other side. The truth of it is, my friends, from that point on we will be taking our lives in our hands.’

  His friend groaned, ‘Ah, best not to think too far ahead, comrades.’ He opened up his box of precious cigarettes and generously offered them to the boys. All but Anton politely refused.

  Leyosha asked, ‘You seem to know one another well?’

  Vlad, eager for normal conversation, answered, ‘We were all in school together.’ And then he stopped, hoping that Leyosha wouldn’t question him further about this, believing that it was probably best not to talk about Mr Belov and the walk to the registrar’s office. Still schoolboys at heart, neither he nor his friends realised that school would be the last thing their army mates would want to know anything about. How would school hold any interest for a soldier?

  Leyosha exhaled a smoky circle and said, ‘It’s good to have your friends around you in times like this.’

  His mates nodded in agreement. Because they appeared to know what they were talking about, Vlad was prompted to ask, ‘Have you been in the army long?’

  Sending his cigarette butt into the mud beside him, Leyosha prepared to start digging again, gesturing to the boys that they’d better make a start, that the break was over. ‘Long enough. We were in Moscow for the last while.’

  Anton was delighted to be standing in front of real soldiers who had actually taken part in combat. ‘Hey! You’ve fought before. How was it?’

  From the look on Leo and Vlad’s faces, Anton’s question was one that they had been about to ask too, and were now hugely grateful, for once, that Anton had beaten them to it.

  Leyosha spat as he kept digging, saying out of the corner of his mouth, ‘Please, friend, don’t ask silly questions.’

  They worked steadily for the next two hours, with no visits from ‘Gerry’. The boys were very grateful on hearing it was time to eat. They put down their shovels and joined Leyosha and the others, as they took their places on the ground to eat the dinner of bread and boiled potatoes.

  Leyosha took the opportunity to introduce his friend Maksim, who seemed a lot older than him. After shaking their hands, he stretched himself out on the ground, supporting himself on his elbows. He chewed his bread and threw out a question: ‘Do you know what they say about the Volga?’

  Vlad shook his head.

  Maksim answered his own question, ‘They say it mirrors the Russian soul.’

  Having yet to see the Volga River, and feeling rather inadequate about life in general, Vlad could only smile politely at this. Still, he liked how it sounded.

  Leyosha said rather proudly, ‘Maksim is a poet’.

  Before the boys could react to this, Maksim put up one hand in protest. ‘Used to be. Used to be.’ He grinned. ‘Unfortunately, writing poetry doesn’t put food on the table so, now I’m a farmer.’

  Leyosha winked and leant forward to whisper loudly, ‘His wife insists, you know. She slapped the poetry out of him, good and proper.’

  Maksim laughed and put up his fist, pretending to be insulted, before explaining, ‘It’s his lovely sister I’m married to, for better or worse.’

  Misha thought for a moment and then put two and two together: ‘You’re brothers-in-law.’

  The two men beamed at him, Maksim saying, ‘Full marks to the red head!’

  Sergeant Batyuk passed by with the corporal, deep in conversation. Amidst all the laughter, eating and chatter from the different groups around the area, each soldier found himself glancing at the two men, wondering what they were talking about. Anton sat up a little straighter, perhaps hoping that he would stick out from the crowd, as a soldier with great potential.

  ‘So,’ said Leyosha, ‘this will be your first time to do battle?’

  Four heads nodded, though Anton’s nod wasn’t as obvious as the others. Vlad added, ‘To be honest, it will be our first time to see Stalingrad too. Have either of you been there before?’

  It was Leyosha’s turn to nod. ‘Yes, I was lucky enough to work for a time in one of the factories. I’m telling you, comrades, you’ve never seen the likes of it. Imagine the most elegant apartment blocks stretching high into the sky, all painted pure white. Everywhere you look there are trees; they line the widest streets in the world. I’ve stood behind visitors and heard them remark on the huge amount of trees, flowers and grass, an unexpected sight for a large industrial city. In the centre is the Park of Sculptures, where I used to sit on my favourite bench to eat my lunch and watch the pretty girls walk by.’ He stopped to remember more. ‘I saw the most beautiful buildings, the universities, the opera house, the libraries – I mean, I was never the bookish type yet there was something about the city that made you feel better about yourself.

  ‘But you know what I loved the most about Stalingrad? It was such a mixture of all sorts of people, from ordinary workers, like myself, to all these fancy students, who would take the best tables in the cafes and sit for hours over their coffee, books all over the table, debating some philosophical or mathematical question.’

  Maksim flicked bread crumbs off his trousers. ‘Sounds like the perfect place to be a poet.’

  ‘Well,’ sighed his friend. ‘You’ll find out soon enough, I suppose.’

  Leo spoke, ‘We heard about the Luftwaffe bombing the city for two weeks solid.’

  Leyosha swallowed the last piece of his bread. ‘I can’t picture an entire city in flames, and certainly not one as busy and modern as this one.’ He sniffed the air. ‘But that’s what we can smell as we sit here.’

  The boys looked puzzled.

  ‘The smell of burning in the air?’ shrugged Leyosha. ‘That’s Stalingrad.’

  TANYA LECTURES YURI

  Tanya’s mother was a little bit strange. When Tanya introduced her to the two boys, she burst into tears and flung her arms around Peter, who looked very uncomfortable in her grip. Neither Yuri nor Peter had any idea how to make her let him go. They waited for Tanya to do something, say something, but she was busy gathering together the little bits of food they had. Fortunately, though, even she could not ignore the whimpering sounds her mother was making. Eventually she looked over and groaned, ‘Oh, Mother, for goodness sake, you’re choking him!’

  Mrs Karmanova finished off the long hug with a great, smacking kiss on Peter’s left cheek, before finally freeing him to return quickly to Yuri’s side. Yuri was scared he was next, but all she did was stare at him for a few uncomfortable seconds and then turn to see what Tanya was doing.

  The place was bigger than Yuri expected. The way Tanya had described their basement ‘home’ made him think it was no bigger than the coal cellar. There used to be an apartment block on top of it, but that was gone now. They had to climb up and around lots of broken bricks and then step down into what looked like nothing, only to find an opening big enough for them to squeeze through, one at a time. When they got through that, there was a rickety staircase that led down into the basement. The room was full of odd bits of furniture, with lots of small chairs, a few tables and even a couple of wardrobes.

  ‘Unfortunately,’ Tanya said, as he and Peter gazed around them, ‘there are no beds. Mother and I just stretch out on the floor, but there are plenty of blankets.’

  Yuri was impressed. ‘It’s great, almost like a proper apartment.’

  Tanya tilted her head. ‘Well, except for the fact there’s no kitchen, bedroom or bathroom. Really, it’s just
one big living room.’

  Yuri shrugged his indifference for what was missing; for him this room of assorted chairs was enough. ‘How did you find it?’

  ‘We were on way back from the market when the planes came. One moment the street was full of people strolling in the sunshine and ten seconds later everyone was running as fast as they could. Do you remember, Mama?’

  Mrs Karmanova nodded, with a look of sadness on her face.

  Tanya continued, ‘Well, we ran too. All I could think about was getting indoors. I’m sure we looked like terrified mice to the Nazis, as we pushed one another out of the way.’ She shivered a little. ‘I saw an old woman fall and nobody stopped to help her up again. Mother and I had to fight to get to her; people were trampling all over her, in stupid panic. Somehow I pulled her to her feet, just as Mother saw that the front door to this building was open. Only I couldn’t get the woman to come with us. She kept shouting about her dog, or maybe it was her cat. It was impossible to hear her, what with the sound of the planes, the explosions and the screaming. So I just grabbed Mother’s hand and we made for the door.’

  Gesturing to the boys to choose a chair, she brought over a plate of dry bread, torn into small pieces and handed it to Yuri to share them out, while she curled herself up into a tatty old armchair. She was in the mood to talk. ‘The noise was ferocious; I thought I was going deaf. Actually, I thought I was going blind too, but I think that was just fear.’ She reached over for a piece of bread. ‘We’ve talked about this at work, you know, that fear is the strongest emotion. It’s more powerful than happiness, sadness or even anger. Do you agree? I believe it can make a heart stop beating.’

  Her question was aimed at Yuri, and all he knew was that ‘yes’ was the right answer, so he said it, wishing he was older and really understood what she meant. There was silence for a couple of minutes as Tanya chewed on her bread. ‘So Mother and I ran inside the building, thinking we were safe. Then, of course, there was a huge bang above, which shook the ground we stood on, and we knew the place had been hit. We could hear a lot of screaming and cries for help. God knows how many people were in their apartments, but I could only think about Mother and me. Just then, the door to this stairway blew open. I couldn’t believe it. Talk about perfect timing!’ She smiled at her mother, who returned her daughter’s smile with such a look of love that Yuri immediately wanted his mother so much, it made him gasp. ‘We both ran to it and kept running until we were down here, in the darkness, bumping into the furniture.’ Unaware of the emotion in the room, Tanya chuckled. ‘I sat down in this exact chair, sure that we were going to be flattened at any moment, but, here we are, still in one piece.’

  The shooting started up again, in the distance, but no one mentioned it since it was such a normal sound now, although it did remind Yuri of something new he had learned that day. ‘Have you heard about the sniper, Vasily Zaitsev?’

  Tanya’s eyes were closed but she was still awake. ‘The Russian Hare? That’s what they call him in the factory. How many has he killed now, two or three hundred? It’s all a bit silly, isn’t it, as if it’s some sort of game?’

  ‘Huh?’ Yuri was a little confused.

  She didn’t answer him for a couple of minutes, during which time he realised that both Peter and Mrs Karmanova were fast asleep, one snoring as loudly as the other.

  Tanya opened her eyes, threw them a half-smile while asking Yuri, ‘How old are you, anyway?’

  Not wanting to tell her he was only fourteen, he fibbed, ‘Almost sixteen.’ To his surprise, she appeared to believe him. He had been told many times before that he was small for his age.

  ‘And do you love your country very much? You know, like more than your family, more than yourself?’

  It took him a couple of seconds to realise that he did not know how to answer her question. He had just been about to say ‘Yes!’ to the first part, but found he couldn’t admit to loving Russia more than his mother and Anna.

  His hesitation made her grin. ‘Ha! It’s not that easy, is it?’ She rubbed her nose. ‘A lot of ordinary people have died in this city, Yuri, a whole lot more than was necessary.’

  ‘Because the Germans …?’ Yuri began.

  ‘No, you see … well, that’s it. Yes, they killed hundreds, maybe thousands, but why was that?’ She waited calmly to see if he knew but he didn’t. Nodding to let him know he shouldn’t worry, that it was only what she had expected of him, she explained, ‘Stalin wouldn’t allow his cherished city to be evacuated. Did you know that? He said the army would fight better if the city was full of people to defend … people like us, women, children and the elderly.’

  She sat forward now, her eyes blazing. ‘Do you understand what I’m saying? He wouldn’t allow his own citizens to leave a dying city and that’s how the Nazis were able to kill so many. In other words, Yuri, it is Stalin’s fault, it is him, not the Germans who killed all these Russians, and why? I’ll tell you why, he doesn’t care about ordinary folk like you and me, Mother and Peter. It’s all about money and power.’

  Yuri’s face was tingling. He had never heard anyone, especially a girl, talk like this before. Or was that true? Didn’t she remind him just a little bit of his mother? She sounded just as angry as his mother did that night she told Papa that somebody was after his job and that’s why he was being sent out of the way. Still, Yuri had questions: ‘But how do you know all this? And what do you mean “a dying city” – don’t you believe that we’ll win the war?’

  She giggled unpleasantly. ‘Which war are you talking about?’

  He stared at her, feeling terribly young and ignorant. ‘Er … this one?’

  ‘Don’t you think it would be a lot easier to defeat the Germans if Stalin stopped killing our own people? Do you know what I heard today?’

  He obviously didn’t, so she continued, ‘Our great leader is punishing anyone who is taken prisoner by the enemy and sent over to camps in Germany. He has disowned his own son for being arrested and held in a German Prisoner of War camp because he is convinced that anyone who breathes in non-Russian air instantly becomes a traitor. Isn’t that diabolical?’ She dared him to argue with her.

  The right answer was clearly ‘Yes’, but Yuri stayed silent, feeling a long way out of his depth. He was embarrassed at how little he knew or understood. In any case, she accepted his silence as the right answer and sank back into the chair. Ready to concentrate hard on whatever she was going to say next, he watched her open her mouth again, but all she did was yawn.

  His own eyes felt heavy, reminding him that he was exhausted. The chair wasn’t as comfortable as a bed but it was a hundred times better than the ground. As he felt himself floating off to sleep, he heard her mumble, ‘Don’t tell anyone what we’ve talked about, Yuri. It’s our secret.’

  When he woke up the next morning the other armchair was empty. Peter told him that she had gone to work. Mrs Karmanova was slowly sweeping her way around the room. Peter followed her closely, moving the furniture out of the way of her broom and then putting it back, when she was finished. Yuri’s stomach grumbled and he looked around for something to eat. Too shy to bother Mrs Karmanova, he asked Peter if he had had his breakfast.

  ‘No, there’s nothing’, was his glum reply.

  Mrs Karmanova interrupted her sweeping to say, ‘Tanya will bring us some bread tonight.’

  Yuri stayed where he was, wondering if he could go back to sleep. It occurred to him that he felt safe here, something he hadn’t felt in a long time. Here he was, sitting on a proper chair, in a proper room with the promise of food. It was almost normal living again.

  Tanya had told him that her mother hadn’t left the basement since they found it. She hadn’t felt any need to face the dangers outside and Yuri completely understood why. This place, with its strange collection of tired furniture, was home now. Why would anyone ever want to leave it while the war was still going on outside? Closing his eyes, he decided that he was happy to stay right where he was. How
ever, about two seconds after making his decision, there was a rush of hot air beside his ear, as if someone was breathing on him … and, sure enough, someone was.

  ‘Yuri, I’m hungry. I can’t wait for tonight’. Peter was whispering so that Mrs Karmanova wouldn’t hear him.

  Yuri pretended to be asleep.

  ‘The sergeant told me he’d give us more sausage. Do you remember, Yuri? He said that.’

  There was no way Peter was going to allow him to ignore him in search of more sleep. Yuri opened his eyes to roll them to the ceiling, a feat which achieved absolutely nothing.

  Suddenly Mrs Karmanova said, ‘You two could do with a good bath,’ and then pointed to a far corner. He looked over and saw, surrounded by cardboard boxes and empty bottles, an actual bath. Pushing himself up from the chair, he went over to it. A strange sight to behold; it was covered in dust, with spiders’ webs sprawling out from the two taps that looked like they hadn’t been turned on in years.

  Peter said quietly, in a worried voice, ‘I don’t want to have a bath.’

  Ignoring him, Yuri turned to Mrs Karmanova. ‘Is there hot water?’

  The woman snorted with laughter, as if he had just said the most stupid thing ever, ‘No, of course there isn’t. There’s no water at all!’

  ‘Oh,’ said Yuri, a little puzzled. ‘I thought you were telling us we needed a bath.’

  She put her hands on her hips and asked, ‘Well, am I wrong? You’re both filthy. You both need a bath. But, there’s no water.’

  ‘There’s just a bath?’ offered Peter, wanting to be clear about the situation.

  Mrs Karmanova nodded in triumph, pleased that someone understood what she meant.

  Both of them now stared at Yuri who said the only thing he could think of, ‘Right, I think I’ll just take Peter out for a walk.’