The Siege

by Helen Dunmore

  Now, there isn’t a flicker of movement. The streets are canyons of uncleared snow. The windows are masked with blackout. An entire house has been torn out by a shell. All around there’s heavy, dead silence, the silence of a mother whom even her own children’s crying can’t wake.

  ‘Here we are. Up these steps. We’re on the third floor.’

  The two women pass through a doorway which is fantastically looped and wreathed in ice from a burst pipe above. A stalactite stabs the side of Anna’s head. The stairway to the third floor is raw and damp.

  ‘This is us.’ Evgenia unlocks the door, and they go in.

  The room is warm. Smells of smoke, warm flesh, frowsty bedclothes, lamp-oil, fat and old boots wash around Anna. She’d almost forgotten it. This is what life smells like.

  ‘Sit down on here.’

  It’s a bed, covered with heaps of coats. Evgenia kneels down, pulls off Anna’s boots and begins to rub her feet.

  ‘How long’ve you been wandering about like that for? Your feet are like blocks of ice. Let’s have a look. No, you’re not too bad, you’re not frostbitten, but don’t go near the stove yet.’

  Her feet are hurting now. They didn’t hurt all that time when she was walking. Evgenia’s pulled off her gloves as well, and now she’s rubbing Anna’s hands between her own.

  ‘You shouldn’t be out after dark. I told you before, it’s dangerous. You don’t know who’s out there.’

  ‘I do know.’

  Evgenia looks up. ‘What happened?’

  ‘A man took my sledge and the wood I’d found.’

  ‘Yeah, I thought something must’ve happened. You didn’t look like yourself. Did he beat you up?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You were lucky then. We may have eaten all the real rats, but we’ve still got the human ones around. He could easily have knocked you over the head. That’s all it takes. One shove and you’re in the snow and you don’t get up.’

  ‘When I saw you, I thought it was him again.’

  ‘I thought you didn’t look too pleased to see me.’

  Evgenia’s voice is so different. Where it used to be full and deep, it’s hoarse, as if she’s been ill. She looks different too. Thinner, of course, though nowhere near as thin as lots of people. She’s not starving, and she’s not short of wood either. Just think of leaving a stove lit when you’re not even at home. She must have plenty of wood. Yes, there’s a pile at the foot of the bed. Good stuff, too. It looks like sawn-up planking from one of the old wooden houses they’re tearing down.

  ‘You’re still working?’

  Yeah, still working. Though now that the factory’s down to twenty per cent production, I do most of my work here.’ She points to a corner of the room which is curtained off by a sheet.

  ‘You bring them back here?’

  ‘Well, their balls would drop off if we did it in the street. Besides, they like their home comforts, samovar lit, stove burning and all that. They’re a bit more free with their money then.’

  Evgenia’s teeth show. ‘Funny, isn’t it, how the real dirty bastards are always the ones who are soft about home and their mothers? Not that they give a flying fuck about anybody else’s. I look at some of them and I’m thinking: Your soul’s been squeezed out. There’s nothing left in it any more. But I don’t ask them anything. I don’t want to know. I tell them Mum’s here when I bring them back, so that keeps them in order a bit.’

  Anna looks carefully around the room. ‘Your mum’s here – ?’

  ‘There.’ Evgenia points to the bed where Anna’s sitting. ‘Under those coats, up against the wall. She always creeps up close to that wall in her sleep. She sleeps most of the time now.’

  ‘Is she ill?’

  ‘No. She just wants to sleep.’ Evgenia is still holding both Anna’s hands. ‘Things’ve been hard for her, you see.’

  A flash of understanding passes between them. Anna moistens her lips. ‘Your little boy?’

  ‘Yes. He had enough to eat, it wasn’t that. It was his cough. It went down on his chest. I paid the doctor to come here, but he didn’t have anything to give him. Mum sat up holding him for three nights.’

  I had a kid, but my mum looks after him, and now he thinks my mum’s his mum, if you see what I mean. So I don’t interfere.

  ‘What was his name?’

  ‘Gorya. He had a proper burial, I made sure of that. I didn’t dump him at the cemetery gates. Mum couldn’t come because of her legs, so it was just him and me. I paid a bottle of vodka for them to dig the grave, and I stood over them and made sure they did it right. He was all wrapped up warm. I took him there on the sledge, but it was a long time to wait while they dug because the frost’d gone so deep into the ground. But I wasn’t going to go until I’d seen him safely buried. I picked him up and held him. It was just him and me then.’

  ‘When all this is over, you’ll set a gravestone for him.’

  ‘Yeah. You know, Anna, the worst bit is, I keep thinking that when all this is over it’ll go back to how it was. The dead aren’t really dead for ever, only for the duration, if you get what I mean. Like when a kid’s playing hide-and-seek and they hide for ages, dead still, until you shout, “It’s all right, you can come out now.” And they do come out. I think like that even though I saw him buried. And then I start going crazy and thinking maybe it wasn’t him. Maybe I only thought it was me standing there holding him. But I don’t feel it properly. I think, “Gorya’s dead,” and that seems normal but not true at the same time, if you see what I mean. And then I think, “What if I start feeling it?” You know, when things are different. When all this is over.’

  Anna turns Evgenia’s hands over and strokes the palms. ‘We can’t think about it.’

  ‘You’ve warmed up a bit, anyway.’

  ‘Yes. I must go soon. They’ll be frightened about me at home.’

  ‘It’s nice, though, just sitting here talking. I never have time. You sit here for a bit, while I make the tea.’

  The room swims in warmth. I’ll rest, just for a minute, while she makes the tea. Imagine, a stove with a pile of wood in the corner. And they’re eating, you can tell that.

  But snow has got into the room somehow. It dances in front of her, and out of it comes a figure, man or woman, walking towards her. The sledge squeaks…

  ‘Here. Don’t drop it.’

  Evgenia places the glass of hot tea in Anna’s hand. Its fragrance wreathes around her face. She sips. It’s real tea, hot and strong, and there’s sugar in it.

  ‘One of my clients gave me half a cup of sugar. Well, if someone gets so drunk he can’t see, then he’s going to lose stuff, isn’t he? I’ve still got Mum to look after.’

  There’s a note in her voice Anna’s never heard before. Harsh, defiant, but shamed.

  ‘It’s these times,’ says Anna. ‘There I was earlier on, crawling round on the floor of a burned-out apartment building, digging up half-burnt blocks of wood. This woman wanted to borrow my chisel, and I didn’t let her. But it’s not just that. I’d have stuck the chisel into her if she’d tried to grab it. You find yourself doing things you’d never have thought you could do.’

  ‘That’s it. You know you’re changing, but you still think you can find the way back to what you used to be. Then one day you know you can’t. You’ve gone through a drunk’s pockets and stolen his stuff, and then tipped him out of the door into the snow. And not cared if he froze to death. Well. So how are things with you?’

  ‘My father hasn’t got long now. With the rest of us it’s only hunger, the same as everyone.’

  ‘I can let you have some wood.’

  ‘But you need it yourself.’

  ‘I can get more. As long as I’ve got my clients, we’re better off than you are. And everyone knows me. Besides, they don’t want to come back here and get frostbite in their wedding-tackle, so I usually get to hear of it if there’s a wooden house being torn down.’

  ‘Wedding-tackle! Is that what they
call it? They don’t sound the marrying kind.’

  ‘It’s the same as the way they all have a thing about their mums: they like talking nice when they get a chance. Shut up about it now, Anna, Mum’s awake.’

  The coats stir as if an animal is digging itself out of hibernation. Two small, sharp eyes regard Anna.

  ‘Who’s this then, Genia?’

  ‘This is Anna, a friend of mine.’

  Evgenia’s mother pushes off the coverings and painfully edges her scrawny body off the bed.

  ‘I had such a sleep…’

  ‘I know you did, Mum. You’ve been asleep for hours.’

  ‘I kept hoping I’d dream, but I didn’t dream. Is it morning yet?’

  ‘It’s evening, Mum. It’s not late.’

  The old woman hobbles over to the far, shadowy side of the room. She lights a second candle, and Anna sees the embroidered cloth, the little lamp, the icon, the small photograph of a child.

  ‘When are you going to get oil for my lamp, Genia? My beautiful corner’s not right without it.’

  ‘When I can, Mum. You know there’s no oil in the market now, and we’ve got to keep what’s left for the big lamp. You’ve got your candle.’

  The old woman heaves herself to her knees in front of the icon, and crosses herself repeatedly.

  ‘She’s a believer, you can’t change that,’ says Evgenia quietly. ‘That last campaign against backwardness we had, they called us in one by one at the factory and asked if our children were baptized, and if there were any icons in the house. So what could I do? I had to lie. I didn’t baptize Gorya, but Mum crept off somewhere and got him done, just like I knew she would.’

  Slowly, tremblingly, the old woman leans forward until her lips touch the painted feet of the infant Christ in his mother’s arm.

  ‘I must go now.’

  ‘I’ll walk with you as far as the Cathedral. Then you’ll be all right.’ Evgenia bundles wood into a hemp bag.

  ‘Not as much as that, Evgenia.’

  ‘Kids can’t keep themselves warm like we can. Take the rest of this sugar for your Kolya.’

  Anna watches as Evgenia pours the remaining sugar carefully into a cone of newspaper, and twists the top. ‘Evgenia, what about your mother? She’ll want that.’

  ‘Look at her.’

  The old woman is still keeled forward, whispering.

  ‘You know what she’s saying?’

  ‘Evgenia, don’t, she’ll hear you.’

  ‘She won’t. She’s deaf. She’s giving them her instructions about Gorya. Mind he keeps his jacket buttoned up, and he doesn’t like parsnips, so please, merciful Virgin, give him carrots instead. Then at bedtime he has to have his cod-liver oil and he sometimes tries to spit it out, so, my dear one, make sure you watch him till he swallows it.

  ‘It’s as much as I can stand to listen to her sometimes. They’re a lot more real to her than I am. It’s them she wants to be with. I put good food in front of her and she just stares at it as if she doesn’t know what it is. Then she goes back to bed, and sleeps, like you saw. Because she doesn’t want to live any more. She wants to be with them. But I don’t, and I don’t know if that’s right or wrong. I do want to live. I don’t care how bad it is, I still want to live.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I knew as soon as I met you that you were like that too. You can tell straight away. Some people don’t have it in them, and they just fade away. I could have looked at you and Katya, out there, and known straightaway who that wall was going to fall on. It’s not even something we want, it’s the way we are. We just have to keep on. Often I think it would be easier to be like Mum now. Only I can’t be. So everything I do now, I’m going to have to live with for the rest of my life.’

  ‘I don’t see how you can be sure,’ says Anna, but even as she says it she knows that Evgenia is right. One look at Evgenia’s tough, strong-boned face, and death would back off to find an easier target. God knows there are plenty.

  ‘Mum says these are the latter days,’ says Evgenia.

  ‘What does she mean?’

  ‘She’s got a little book of prophecies. It says that in the latter days two giant serpents shall do battle until they devour the world with fire and thunder.’

  ‘I can’t think who those two serpents could be.’

  ‘Me neither, I keep telling her it’s a load of cobblers.’ But Evgenia’s sharp, ironic eyes are gleaming. ‘Still, it wouldn’t be a bad bargain if we got rid of two serpents for the price of one, would it?’

  ‘But they’d have already devoured the world.’

  ‘Yeah, there is that. But still… “In the latter days, in the time of blood,” Evgenia quotes. ‘That’s what her book says.’

  They go to the door.

  ‘She’ll be there for hours,’ whispers Evgenia, glancing back at her mother.

  ‘It’s hard for you.’

  ‘I wish she’d just talk to me.’

  ‘A doctor I know says it’s hunger that’s making everyone so strange. It’s nothing personal.’

  ‘She’s not hungry. I make sure of that. But what’s the point of me doing all this, if she won’t eat?’

  ‘Evgenia –’

  ‘It’s all right. I’m just being stupid.’

  They are in each other’s arms. They are rocking each other.

  ‘It’s all right, it’ll all be over soon, it’ll get better, have a good cry…’

  For a long time they cling. Five minutes, maybe ten. The minutes belong only to them. Then Evgenia draws away, wiping her cheeks.

  ‘We’d better get going. I’ll see you on your way.’

  ‘I’ll be fine.’

  ‘I know. As long as you don’t –’

  ‘– waste –’

  ‘– bloody –’

  ‘Was it bloody she said, or fucking?’

  ‘Bloody.’

  ‘Sausage,’ they say, both together, their faces only centimetres apart.

  In the latter days, in the time of blood … But here, there’s no blood. Snow lies congealed on the roofs, and blood congeals in the bodies that loll in frozen parks. Not a drop spills, all through the long night. This is Peter’s city, built on the marshes of the Baltic. Labourers brought soil to build it on, carrying soil in the hems of their cloaks. They laid down their bones and the city walked over them. They sank down. When there were enough of them, Peter had his foundations.

  Late in the morning a lilac-coloured dawn will come, with burning frost that glitters on branches, on spills of frozen water, on snow, cupolas and boarded-up statues. Nothing has ever been more beautiful than these broad avenues, the snow-coloured Neva, the parks and embankments. Only the people mar its perfection as they crawl out of their homes into the radiance of snow. Perhaps today is the day when they’ll fail to reach the bread queue. So they move on, flies caught between sheets of glass.

  27

  The December death-toll is mounting. The figures can’t be accurate, because not all the dead find their way to cemeteries or to common graves dynamited out of frozen earth. It’s impossible to count those who lie frozen in their homes, or covered in snow, on their way to a destination nobody remembers. Pavlov sees them, as everyone else sees them. A foot sticking out of a snowdrift here, a bundle face-down on the Neva ice. Those dead don’t go away. They aren’t buried, and they won’t decay. There will be a major public health crisis once spring comes, thinks Pavlov automatically, then he turns his mind away. That is not his problem.

  Pavlov’s problem is the next day, and the one after. His job is to inch Leningrad towards life. His job is life, although he understands that there must be death, and sometimes there is so much of it that it seems to come off on his hands, like newsprint.

  On available statistics the deaths for December look as if they’ll be four or five times November’s figures.

  ‘We’re coming up to forty thousand.’

  ‘Are you sure? Have those figures been checked and confirmed?’ raps out Pavlo
v. ‘I need an accurate picture.’

  He’s got to know how many ration cards will not be re-registered at the beginning of next month. Now that everyone has to appear in person to re-register his or her card each month, the dead can’t distort the system with their ‘ghost’ rations. It makes fraud more difficult, although still not difficult enough.

  Fraud, black market and theft are distorting his statistics. Pavlov rubs his eyes. The penalty for any misappropriation of food must be summary. That is no problem. That is already happening. Black-marketeers, thieves and ration-card forgers can expect no mercy. Those who manipulate the system from within are the worst, and must be punished most harshly and publicly, so that examples are made. The problem is that when so many are dying, the death penalty loses its edge.

  So much flour, so much sugar, so much fat. High-protein airlifts are coming in, but quantities are pitiful. Fifty or sixty tons of high-calorie food a day, against a target of two hundred tons. Sometimes the planes are grounded, and nothing arrives. But whatever the military airlift brings, it won’t fill those millions of mouths.

  The ice road over Lake Ladoga is what’s going to save the city, if anything will. But progress on that front is still slow. So many trucks have gone through the ice, or broken down, and those that are left take nearly three times the projected journey time. Blizzards often make it close to impossible for trucks to navigate from one station on the ice to the next, and when the sky’s clear, the German bombers come. It’s a heroic struggle, of course it is. Everything’s heroic. You can take that for granted, but it’s not the point. Pavlov’s pen rests on his paper. He looks up, calculating. His eyes are reddened with smoke and lack of sleep, but he’s a strong man, and he knows how far he can drive himself.

  The Kirov works have just had to stop production, although the workers are still there, heroically defending the factory, sleeping in shifts, staying at their posts even when they can’t stand up. But producing nothing.