by JV Love
Misha got up and grabbed his coat. "It'll be interesting to see how she blames that one on him since he wasn't even here," he said.
Felix crawled through the small opening of the hut to the outside and saw Olga standing there with pistol drawn. Two recently joined partisans flanked her and they grabbed Felix by the arms.
"Why aren't you at your post, comrade?" Olga asked, grinning as though someone had just given her a birthday present.
Felix saw her gold tooth gleam briefly in the pale winter light and wanted to knock it out of her mouth.
"I gave you direct orders to stand watch on the road a mile west of here until sundown," Olga continued. She looked at the faint sun on the horizon. "Clearly, you have disobeyed my order."
Yuri and Misha made their way out of the hut, and a few other partisans came over to see what was going on.
"That order was bullshit and you know it," Felix said. "Everyone in camp knows it. There hasn't been a vehicle down that road in a week, and the road is completely impassable now."
Olga raised her voice a notch. "This group will not survive if orders are not carried out as specified," she said. "Infractions must be dealt with swiftly and severely." A couple more partisans had gathered around, and Olga seemed to say this more for their benefit than Felix's. "This is not your first infraction," she said and took out a piece of paper. She began listing every instance - some real, some made up. "You were involved in a fight against your fellow comrades on October 16th. You reported six minutes late for guard duty on November 9th. You were again late on November 12th . . ."
Felix listened to the charges with a rising sense of fury. When Olga finished, nearly the entire camp had gathered round to watch.
"I think everyone will agree that I've been more than patient with you," Olga said. "You've been given numerous opportunities to improve your behavior and you've chosen every time not to do so. In the best interest of this group and this war, you are to be executed."
"My death will be in the best interest of no one except the enemy," Felix said.
"Shut up! Enough of your lies and provocations! We're all quite tired of them," Olga said.
"If I'm to be shot, then I'll speak my mind," Felix shouted back. "All we do is sit around this damn camp while the Germans march on Moscow and starve Leningrad to death. What have we done to fight the enemy lately? We cut one of their telegraph wires. That's it! How are we going to win the war that way?"
"Shut him up!" Olga yelled to the partisans holding Felix's arms.
"We don't answer to her," Felix said to the other partisans. "We answer to the Russian people! And right now, I couldn't look a single one of them in the eye and say that I'm doing all I can to defeat the enemy."
"Spare us the lecture!" Olga yelled. "You're not in charge here. I am."
"Leaders need to lead," Felix said, "and you've done everything but! The only thing you're good at is cursing and making threats. Nobody joined the partisans to escape the war." Felix looked around him and saw Yuri and others nodding in agreement. "We all know Tikhvin has fallen to the enemy and that the people of Leningrad will perish unless it's retaken. Why aren't we joining the battle there? Why aren't we fighting?"
"Take him out to the woods!" Olga ordered the two men holding Felix's arms.
"No!" Felix shouted. "If I die, it'll be at the hands of the enemy, not you!" He kicked his right leg out in front of him as far as he could and knocked the pistol from Olga's hand. It landed at Natasha's feet and she picked it up. But when Olga held her hand out for it, Natasha wouldn't give it to her. Instead she pointed the pistol at the men holding Felix. "Let him go," she said.
All color drained from Olga's face, and as the two men stepped away, Natasha tossed the pistol to Felix. No one tried to intervene as he pointed it at Olga.
She lifted her chin and held her arms out to the side. "So?" she said. "What are you waiting for, kike? Shoot me."
Felix lowered the pistol. "No, I'm not going to shoot you," he said.
"You better," Olga replied. "Because I'm sure as hell going to shoot you as soon as I get the chance."
Felix tucked the pistol inside his coat. "I think it's past time we go our separate ways."
"I'm not going anywhere," Olga said.
"Yes, but I am. I'm going to join the fight at Tikhvin," Felix said. "I'll leave camp in half an hour."
"Good riddance," Olga said. She walked away from the crowd and disappeared behind the door to her hut.
Felix looked at all the expressionless faces staring back at him and had no idea what any of them were thinking. He felt sad to be leaving them. He'd been through a lot with some of them: the incident where Misha helped rescue him and Dima from the Germans, the time he and Dmitry and Natasha rescued the two little girls from the house fire started by Nazi flamethrowers, and, of course, the close call with the landmine with Yuri.
He lifted his head toward the flat winter sky and saw the sun was beginning to set. On the opposite horizon, through the leafless branches of a birch tree, was a full moon.
"Are you really going to Tikhvin?" a voice shouted from the crowd.
Felix recognized Natasha's voice. "Yes," he replied.
"What difference is one man going to make there?" someone else shouted.
"A lot more than one man makes here," Felix replied.
He went back into his hut and started packing. He didn't want to answer any more questions. All this explaining and pondering was useless. He knew what he had to do.
After a few minutes, Yuri came in and started packing his things as well.
"What are you doing?" Felix asked.
"Going with you of course."
"You don't have to do that," Felix said.
"I know," Yuri said. "I want to."
Felix stopped packing. "It's not going to be easy," he said. "Tikhvin's a long ways from here. It'll be cold as hell. And the Nazis will be well dug in."
"Doesn't matter," Yuri said. "I want to fight. And if you'll lead the way, I'll follow."
Misha came in and saw the two of them packing their things. He sat down on his bed for a moment, then stood up, then sat back down again. "To the devil with you both!" he blurted out and pulled the blankets off his bed . "You think I'm going to stay here by myself? I'd be bored out of my mind." He began packing his things. "Not that you two are much fun anyway, mind you."
Felix was pleased that he wouldn't be making the journey alone. "With the three of us going, we'll surely tip the balance and send the Nazis running out of Tikhvin," he joked.
Both Yuri and Misha laughed, though Felix thought it sounded a bit forced. There was no doubt some apprehension about the decision they'd just made.
Felix didn't have much to pack. He had three blankets, two wool undershirts, a sewing kit, a canteen, five packages of canned fish, half a pound of dark chocolate, a loaf of bread, and a razor. He kept his spoon (as all Soviet soldiers did) inside his boot. He stuffed the remaining items in his pack, careful not to damage his most important possession - a letter from Katya, given to him the night before he left for the front.
Felix and Yuri took the stove apart and packed it away. Then they were done, and as is the Russian custom before leaving a place, they sat down and were quiet for a moment. Felix wanted to take out the letter from Katya and read it again, but the thought of her was too painful right now. He stood up and grabbed his pack. "Ready?" he asked.
"Da, davai," - yes, let's - Yuri said, and got down on his hands and knees to make his way out of the hut.
Felix went next, and as soon as he got outside and stood up, Yuri pushed him to the ground and fell on top of him as a gunshot sounded. There was a lot of commotion and shouting, and then four other loud cracks that echoed through the camp.
It had all happened very quickly and Felix saw none of it. When Yuri rolled off of him, Felix began piecing the events together. He saw Olga near the door of her hut sprawled out in the snow, breathing heavily and wheezing with each inhalation. She was still holding onto a rifle
with her right hand. Behind him, gathered around the campfire, was a large group of partisans - perhaps the entire camp - and half of them had their weapons pointed in Olga's direction.
Felix figured out that Olga must have tried to shoot him, missed because Yuri had thrown him to the ground, and then the other partisans shot Olga before she could take aim again.
He was puzzled why so many of his comrades were gathered around the campfire. He saw they all had their bags packed and their rifles around their shoulders.
Yuri was standing next to Felix and grinning. "Word travels fast around here, huh?" he said.
Olga was wheezing louder and it was darker and colder than it had been just a few minutes ago. Everyone was looking to Felix and it took a while for it all to sink in for him. The moon was full. The wind had died. He was the new leader of the partisans.
"Let's move out!" he shouted, and led the way.
"What about Olga?" someone asked.
Felix kept walking. He didn't look at their former leader nor did he hesitate in his answer. "Leave her there," he said.
* * *
It was late morning when Petya woke up and he was surprised to see that Katya hadn't left for work yet. He was even more surprised when she moved into the soft light of the sun shining through the window and he saw how attractive she still was. Despite her sunken cheeks and ever-expanding forehead, she retained that distinctive beauty Petya had always found so irresistible.
He watched her remove a pot of boiling water from the stove and strain it into another pot. When she finished that, she strained it a second time into its final container. Petya counted the containers and saw she'd finished three, but still had five more to go. It was a long, arduous process, but necessary to make the polluted river water drinkable.
All those things one took for granted before the blockade - food, running water, heat, electricity - were gone. Life was very simple now. You had only one goal when you got out of bed in the morning - to get enough to eat to make it to the next day. You didn't have to worry about deciding between tea or coffee, mashed potatoes or fried, or whether to buy chocolates or cake for your friend's birthday. Petya's biggest decision each day was how much of his bread ration to eat for breakfast and how much to save for dinner.
Katya went over to Igor, sat on the edge of his bed, and took his temperature. After that, Igor coughed long and hard, then blew a tremendous amount of phlegm into a handkerchief.
Petya had no sympathy for the boy. He got what he deserved. The familiar voice in Petya's head had convinced him that Igor was poisoning him somehow. Petya just couldn't figure out how. How was Igor able to poison Petya's food when he'd become so careful with it? He kept his bread ration in a special pocket he'd sown on the inside of his shirt and he ate it only in seclusion.
Katya took out three tea cups and poured some of the water she'd finished making drinkable into them. She gave one cup to herself, one to Igor, and one to Petya. Petya looked into the cup at the brown water. It smelled awful - like tea made with acorns and rotten eggs. He didn't want to drink it and pushed the cup away.
"Petya," Katya said, pushing the cup back toward him, "you need to drink water. The doctors say that if you bathe twice a week and drink three glasses of water each day that you can survive for a long time."
"That's how you're being poisoned!" a voice hissed in Petya's ear. "It's the water."
Petya shuddered at the realization. It wasn't Igor that was trying to kill him. It was Katya. She was poisoning both of them. That's why Igor was so sick.
She was standing over another pot of water she'd put on the stove, glancing impatiently at the front door every few minutes. Petya wondered if he'd vastly underestimated just how cunning and devious she was. Could it be that she was putting on an elaborate charade? Always pretending to be so kind and considerate? What a terrific way that was to hide the fact that you were trying to kill somebody.
"I told you she hates you and wants you dead," the voice whispered in Petya's head.
Petya watched Igor to see if he drank his water. He did. The fool.
Then he saw Katya drink her water and was surprised, but decided she must have somehow managed to just put the poison in his and Igor's water.
Katya got up and went to the kitchen and Petya used the opportunity to pour the water from her cup back into the pot of water on the stove, and then pour the water from his cup into Katya's. When she came back, he pretended to drink from his now empty cup.
"Good," Katya said. She came over and poured some more water into his cup.
Petya smiled to himself. He'd foiled her little plan. And wouldn't she be surprised when she was the one who got sick instead of him?
He heard footsteps coming from the hallway outside and watched Katya rush to the front door and wait. A few seconds later, someone knocked and Katya quickly opened the door.
"Comrade Doctor," he heard her say, "thank you so much for coming. I know you're terribly busy and I really appreciate you stopping by."
"Yes, well, I don't have much time," a gruff voice answered. "Where's the boy?"
A doctor. That was smart, Petya thought. A good way to make Igor's eventual death look like it was from natural causes. And to think, Petya used to believe Katya was such an admirable and innocent soul.
The doctor came in and started examining Igor. He took out an old-fashioned listening tube from his pocket and pressed it to Igor's chest. Then he pressed his fingers into Igor's belly, felt his pulse, looked at his tongue, and concluded authoritatively that the boy had bronchitis. "Make sure he drinks plenty of fluids and gets some rest," he said as he wrapped his scarf around his neck and buttoned up his coat to go back outside.
Katya thanked him profusely, then got bundled up herself and accompanied him out.
Petya listened to them make their way down the stairs, then crawled out of bed and went to the mirror to comb his hair. He hardly recognized the stranger staring back at him - the long narrow face, the scruffy neck and cheeks, the clear but hideously pale skin. He hadn't weighed this much - 146 pounds - since he was a teenager. He'd unwillingly dropped sixty pounds since the start of the blockade.
The comb wouldn't go through his hair, which was long and greasy and full of snarls. His last bath had been in September and his last haircut had been in August. He put the comb down and pulled a hat down tight over his head. Then he got his coat and boots on and went to get his daily rations.
The first line he waited in took him two hours. That was to get the allotted bread from his own ration card. Then he waited in the bitter cold again at a different distribution point to get the bread from Guzman's ration card.
As he neared the front of the line, he noticed that the normally ill-tempered lady was giving out rations with scarcely a rude word. She probably no longer had the energy to be explicitly offensive anymore, Petya guessed. It was difficult to muster the energy for a lot of things these days. Things one used to do with ease, without a second thought, were now a tremendous struggle. Lifting one's arm was done only as a last resort. One opened doors only far enough to squeeze through. Carrying things was out of the question, unless it was an absolute necessity. Going up stairs was the most arduous part of one's day, and something that had to undertaken with patience and concentration.
The middle-aged woman waiting in front of Petya was the opposite of those who grew deathly thin - she was puffy. Her arms and legs were like balloons, and her hands were so fat that she had trouble grabbing her bread ration. Her neck barely fit through the collar of her thick wool sweater and she was constantly sticking two fingers inside the collar to pull it away from her throat. If Petya didn't know better, he'd think she was obese. But it was all an illusion. She was just as deprived and ill as everyone else.
When Petya got his ration, he stepped away from the others and put it in the pocket on the inside of his shirt. He wouldn't eat it until he got home and could lock himself in the bathroom. He put Guzman's ration card in the pocket as well (he kept his
own ration card in his boot so he didn't confuse the two).
To get home, Petya had to walk halfway, then he could climb aboard one of the remaining streetcars still running and it would take him the rest of the way. The first street he walked down was wide and covered over with snow drifts. Petya seemed to be the only one on the street, but he knew better. There were muggers hiding in the alleys, ready to jump you for your ration and your ration card. He tried to keep a close eye on each alley he came to, but his attention was mostly on his ration. He couldn't wait to get home and eat it, no matter how coarse and bitter the bread was.
He thought back to two months ago when he was just beginning to feel the effects of the blockade. He vividly remembered the first time he went two days without food. The first twenty- four hours had been relatively easy, and he actually felt rather refreshed at one point - like he was somehow being renewed. But from twenty-four to thirty-six hours, his legs hurt and he got a terrible headache that wouldn't go away. It burned when he urinated, and he noticed in the mirror that his tongue was coated in a strange white film. He had terribly bad breath, as well as a nasty taste in his mouth, and that had puzzled him most of all. It had been his understanding that food caused bad breath. How could he have a terrible taste in his mouth and bad breath if he hadn't eaten in so long?
Once all the discomfort had passed, he'd just felt unbearably weak. If he got up too quickly from lying down, he'd get light headed. His hands and feet had tingled a lot. He was, of course, used to those sensations now.
He recalled the foods he used to have on a daily basis - buckwheat with butter, borscht soup, fried eggs. They were ordinary and mundane, but he recalled them with such sweet fondness now that one would think he'd eaten stuffed sturgeon with a thick slice of Napoleon cake for dessert.
Petya approached another alley and peered around the corner cautiously. Seeing nothing except an abandoned, snow-covered car, he started to walk by it when a dark figure jumped out from behind the car and start running at him. Petya tried to get away, but with his disfigured leg, he knew he wouldn't be able to outrun the man. Just before he was tackled to the ground, Petya saw someone walking on the other side of the street and tried to get their attention, "Pomogee mnye!" - help me - he shouted.