Yuri felt embarrassed for all of them sitting there playing with fresh air. Her eyes were strange. She was staring at them, yet Yuri couldn’t shake the feeling that she wasn’t really seeing them.
‘Chew your food, Aleksia, or you’ll get indigestion.’
Something stopped him from telling her that his name wasn’t Aleksia. Her mouth twisted into what she must have thought was a smile. The silence was so dreadful, Yuri had to break it. ‘This is lovely. Thank you.’
If he expected to be complimented on his table manners, he was very much mistaken.
‘NO, NO! This won’t do at all. We don’t talk with food in our mouths.’
In shock, Yuri pretended to chew as vigorously as he could, making a big gulping sound as he swallowed, before saying, ‘I’m sorry!’
She was really angry. ‘Now, look what you’ve done! You’ve woken the baby, you selfish little boy.’
Yuri was completely confused now. This game of pretence was no longer just a game, and she was the only one who seemed to know what was going on.
Peter tugged on his sleeve, ‘Yuri’. It was just a whisper, Yuri heard him alright but he was too busy trying to work out what to do next. Was he to keep ‘eating’? Was he to leave the ‘table’ in disgrace?
The woman swooped down and carefully gathered up the baby in its blankets. How many seconds passed before Yuri realised that it wasn’t crying at all?
‘Yuri?’
Peter was getting on Yuri’s nerves; did he not understand that Yuri was trying to think? Yuri hissed back at him, ‘Just eat your bloody potatoes!’ Yuri knew he was being mean, but he couldn’t help it; it was Peter’s fault that they were sitting there in the first place.
Another explosion shook the ground, this time sounding a little nearer to them, and it was followed by a long burst of gun fire that didn’t frighten Yuri as much as the woman did. Feeling that perhaps he should take charge of whatever was going on, he stood up slowly and said, ‘Excuse me, but perhaps you and the baby should try and hide from the fighting?’
The woman simply closed her eyes, pressed the baby closer to her, and began to sing the same song again.
Peter stood up beside him and took his hand. Yuri heard his name being called, but he couldn’t move. It was as if another explosion had sounded but this time it was inside his head. Whatever way the woman was cradling the baby, one of the blankets had got caught in her sleeve, exposing where Yuri’d expected to see the child’s feet – and there was one alright, pudgy just like Anna’s, but that was all, just the one. The right leg had apparently lost its foot; there was nothing below the ankle bone, which Yuri was sure he could see. And not a sound did that baby make. It never stirred.
‘Yuri?’ Peter spoke louder to get his attention. ‘The baby is dead.’
Yuri shrugged him off. ‘No! It just has a sore leg.’
He knew that Peter was right but was prepared to put off accepting the truth for as long as he could, willing himself to see the baby breathe, just as he had willed himself to see food where there was none. Thoughts raced in his head: babies are too small to die in war. They haven’t done anything bad or wrong. How can something die when it has only been born?
He realised he was wasting precious time; the guns were getting closer. He asked the mother, ‘Is it a girl or a boy?’
Only Peter answered him, ‘It doesn’t matter.’
Yuri gazed at him, shocked by his words. ‘What?’
The boy stared at the ground, mumbling, ‘Nothing. Can we go now?’
Of course Peter was right. Why were they still standing here with this mad woman when they could plainly hear German voices and Russian insults? It was far too dangerous to remain here any longer. However, Yuri had to try one more time, ‘Why won’t you look for shelter? The soldiers are coming. Don’t you hear them?’
The woman stopped singing and opened her eyes, which were shining with tears that she couldn’t seem to release, ‘You run along now, boys. Baby is tired and needs to sleep.’ Her voice cracked and for no more than two seconds, she showed them her crushing sadness. Three seconds later, she closed her eyes again and continued with the song.
The wind picked up, as if the soldiers were bringing it with them, or even creating it with their bullets. A man screamed out in pain, and Peter pulled on Yuri’s arm; it was time to leave.
They raced to the wall. Yuri dragged Peter over it, never once letting go of his hand and never once looking back. He had no idea where to go, only that they needed to escape the deadly bullets. Somehow, without his realising it, Peter took over and led the way, not stopping until they had reached the statue of the laughing children again.
‘See, Yuri, they’re still playing!’
TANYA
Tanya had no interest in politics. For her mother’s sake she had tried to do what was expected of her. On her fifteenth birthday she’d applied to join the Komsomol, the Communist Youth League, to camouflage her lack of interest in following the rules and orders of Russia’s Communist Party. She had expected it to be worse than school and knew she might be asked to do things like report on her neighbours if they showed any signs of loving something else more than their country, even if that something else was their family.
She had deliberately arrived late at the admission meeting which had annoyed the secretary of the Komsomol, a young man who looked like he never ever enjoyed himself. He had scolded her in front of everyone, saying, ‘Since you couldn’t bother to be here on time, you are clearly not mature enough to join the Komosol.’
Her application had been denied there and then. Tanya had done her best to look upset, at least until she’d left the hall. At home she’d told her mother what had happened, feeling free to laugh about it all.
Her mother, however, had been nervous. ‘Be careful, daughter. They will be watching you from now on.’
Tanya hadn’t been worried, even when some of her school friends had suddenly become too busy to spend time with her. She had always believed in the largeness of life and had often lamented to herself how such an immense country like Russia expected its citizens to lead such small and narrow lives.
The day before the Nazis had arrived she had been trying to decide what to do with her life, writing out her options in her diary:
Go to college, and study what?
Travel, where?
Stay in Stalingrad and get a job, doing what?
Get engaged to Boris?
How much easier it would have been if she could have tried out all four ideas, for a week or so, and then make a decision. How did everyone else work out what they wanted to do?
The only thing she’d known for certain was that her mother would want her to do number four. Boris had never failed to send her mother a present from wherever he’d been stationed. Sometimes she’d wondered if he should marry her mother instead.
Tanya’s father had died soon after she was born and his widow had been amazed not to have found another husband. Tanya had learned not to laugh out loud whenever her mother had gazed into the mirror and had said to no one in particular, ‘And I’m still so young looking!’
Tanya had been somewhat perplexed by her mother’s fondness for Boris. Yes, she’d realised that her mother wanted the best for her daughter … but was Boris really the best?
Boris was twenty-seven years old, ten years older than her, and held an important position in the army. In fact, he’d said it was so important he couldn’t possibly tell her about it. ‘Besides, my dear, the details would only bore a pretty girl like you.’
Whenever Tanya thought about herself and Boris, she was struck by the fact that they had little in common with one another.
‘Nonsense!’ her mother would say, ‘You’ll have plenty in common after you get married and have children.’
Meanwhile, Tanya hadn’t been sure if she even wanted to have children. Elena, her older sister, had four and though Tanya loved her nieces and nephews, she couldn’t help noticing how much work they creat
ed, and how tired Elena would look by early evening, and how often plans, like going to theatre, would have to be cancelled when one of the children got a fever.
During one visit she’d remarked, as gently as she could, to Elena, ‘Being a mother just seems so hard.’
Her sister, sounding a little hurt, had replied, ‘It isn’t hard at all. Whatever gave you that idea! Just wait until you have your own children, you’ll understand things better then.’
Boris had hinted to Mrs Karmanova that they should both expect a ring for Tanya’s eighteenth birthday.
The mother had been very glad to hear this while the daughter had counted up the days she’d had left to discover what she wanted to do. It had given her a headache. Her future, which had once seemed so open and mysterious, had begun to resemble the long, narrow street outside her house. She’d loved her street but had walked up and down it nearly every day of her life until she knew every little crack in the pavement and was left curious about the many other streets that she knew nothing about.
Whenever she’d spoken to Boris about wanting to see other parts of Russia, outside Stalingrad, he had described to her, in detail, the house she would share with him. When she’d spoken about a possible wish to study nursing, or history, or anything at all, he’d immediately talked about his career, his dreams and his ambitions. He hadn’t listened to her, not really. Nevertheless, he’d always told her she was pretty and had loved buying her treats. He’d even taken an interest in how she’d done her hair, and in the clothes she wore, which was unexpected.
Naturally her mother had appreciated such attention to details, such as the colour of a new dress and the length of a new skirt.
Tanya, however, had found it a little worrying. One time she’d deliberately ignored his suggestion to wear her hair up in a bun. When he’d collected her for their walk in the park and had seen her brown hair curling around her shoulders, he’d seemed quite put out, unwilling to make cheerful conversation until the walk was nearly done.
Weeks earlier, he had written to her, urging her to leave Stalingrad. He hadn’t told her outright that the city would be attacked, either he hadn’t known it at the time or he hadn’t been allowed to give out information. She was to go, he’d written, to his own mother’s house where he promised she would be well taken care off.
Her reaction hadn’t been one of gratitude: Hmphh! Did I ask to be taken care of? What about my own mother? Am I to stalk off and leave her alone here?
When she next had gone for a walk around the city, her city, it’d struck her that the tall, white buildings, the streets lined with trees, the green parks and the impressive universities were altogether far too precious to leave behind. No, she would not walk away from Stalingrad, or her mother, for Boris.
She realised now that just before she had heard those first engines, seconds before the first bomb had exploded, as she and her mother had been returning from the market, she had shortened her list to three options. Then it had been just the matter of working out how to escape his expectations for her future with him.
His long letters, with his plans for her, him, them, had been sitting on her desk as the roof of her home had fallen in, scorching and shredding them until they looked like burnt confetti. In the minutes that had followed, when it had seemed like the world was collapsing all around them, in the midst of terror and confusion, Tanya had felt that she had been miraculously freed of something. Her mind had been made up. She would not survive this in order to live by someone else’s rules.
FAREWELL TO MR BELOV
Not for the first time, Vlad found himself admiring the plain cheek of his classmate, Anton Vasiliev. Leo echoed his thoughts. ‘It’s as if he has been a soldier for years.’
They were on their way, by train, to Stalingrad, following a few days of training. Their carriage was packed solid with soldiers, with just a handful of foolhardy citizens throughout the crowd of uniformed boys and men. Vlad, Leo and Misha were standing together, slightly over-awed by what lay ahead of them, while Anton had squeezed himself onto a narrow seat. Spreading himself out, he lit a cigarette, lazily blowing smoke into the face of the old man who was sitting next to him until the man gave in and shifted a few inches away from him, allowing Anton to spread himself out even further. Raising his eyebrows at Vlad, Anton offered what little space there was left to sit on, but Vlad shook his head, preferring the company of his two friends. Anton shrugged and unfolded a crumpled newspaper he’d found in the carriage.
Leo smirked. ‘When did he start reading the newspaper?’
Misha, however, was surprised for another reason. ‘When did he start smoking?’
The old man smiled at Vlad, Leo and Misha, seeming to guess that they were different from the rude young man taking up over half his seat. ‘Are you boys off to do battle in Stalingrad?’ he asked.
Leo answered him as the other two nodded agreeably, ‘Yes, sir!’
The man cocked his head to one side and said, ‘I thought as much.’
Anton yawned noisily, forcing the man to wait it out before he could continue, ‘You’ll have quite an adventure, I dare say. If I wasn’t so old I would love to be going with you.’
The others shrugged politely by way of reply. There followed a silence and it seemed like the elderly gentleman forgot he was in conversation. He looked out the window and confided in his reflection, ‘I tell you, it’s no fun getting old. No fun at all.’
After a brief exchange of glances, the three boys made the unanimous decision to leave the man to his own thoughts. Anton rolled his eyes, but nobody responded to him.
Out of the three of them Misha seemed the most unsure of himself. His uniform hung pathetically from his skinny frame and when he remembered to unclench his hands, you could see that his fingernails were bitten right down to almost nothing. He took his cue from Vlad and Leo, never taking a single step unless they were leading the way. If the two boys had been older or wiser, they might have worried how Misha would cope once they reached Stalingrad. Instead they were barely aware of the fact that Misha’s constant nervousness and obvious need to always have one or either of them beside him made them feel a little braver.
Misha asked his friends, ‘Do you think that Mr Belov has been allowed home by now?’
Leo and Vlad exchanged an anxious look, Vlad leaving Leo to say quietly, ‘I hope so.’
However, Misha needed something more definite than that. ‘But how could he be blamed for what happened? It wasn’t his fault.’
Vlad nudged him, not unkindly. ‘Keep your voice down.’
Not one of them had the slightest idea what had happened after they’d signed the papers that declared them to be proper soldiers of Stalin; and maybe that was just as well. It certainly would not have done the three boys any good to know that their favourite teacher would never go home again.
The officials at the registrar office were frighteningly business-like. Mr Belov presented his boys, adding that a couple of them had been too ill to make the journey. His explanation was ignored. The class was counted, names taken and directions issued as to where to go next. Their teacher was led off to an empty office where he was left to think about himself for more than a few hours.
His eventual interview, with a different man, took far longer than he could ever have imagined. After maybe an hour or so of chat, where Mr Belov was invited to discuss his upbringing, his family and his wife, Mr Petrov slid into the real business of the day.
‘Comrade Belov, you do know why you’re here, don’t you?’ The interviewer spoke in a friendly tone, with a limp smile that failed to hide the seriousness of the turn in conversation.
Mr Belov hesitated in his answer; he already felt drained from the long hours sitting on a hard chair in this drab, grey room that was barely lit by a dingy light bulb.
‘Are you refusing to answer my question, comrade?’ It was the way the man’s thin lips curled, ever so slightly, around the word ‘comrade’ that made Mr Belov’s spine shiver momentaril
y.
‘No, please forgive me. I’m an old man and my mind wanders. Could I could trouble you for some water?’
Mr Petrov nodded in pretence. ‘Yes, yes. There will be plenty of time for that later.’
This most casual refusal confirmed for the teacher what had been the vaguest of fears up until now.
‘Yes, sir, I think I know why I’m here.’
The interviewer displayed his crooked teeth, before summarising the facts of Mr Belov’s situation. ‘You were ordered to bring your entire class here to be signed up to defend the Motherland. Is that not so?’
‘Yes, sir.’
A look of exaggerated confusion passed from one side of Mr Petrov’s face to the other. ‘Hmmm. And how many boys are in your entire class?’
There was no point in hiding; indeed there was nowhere to hide. Mr Belov knew that.
‘A total of thirty boys.’
Mr Petrov, in order to appear to be helpful, held up a sheet of paper containing a list. ‘Ah, yes. We have the names here, all thirty of them. You have known the boys for a long time, I’m sure?’
‘Yes, sir. They are like sons to me.’ The teacher felt like he was pleading for something, he just wasn’t quite sure what it was yet.
‘I have two boys myself, Mr Belov, so I know what children can be like.’ Here Mr Petrov paused to see if the teacher wished to agree with him. After a moment’s silence, he continued, ‘Children. They are so precious, are they not? Of course, they are the future. Our country’s fate will be their responsibility one day, which is why discipline is so, so important. When you think about it, comrade, your generation and my generation, we are all teachers. It is up to us to lead the young people on the right path, and insist that they do all that is required of them.’ He paused again, pressing his hands together beneath his chin.
Without meaning to, Mr Belov pictured those hands around his neck, imagining that they might feel damp and cold.
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