The End of Sorrow: A Novel of the Siege of Leningrad in WWII

by JV Love

  "Felix, no. Please, don't do that. He could have you arrested if he wanted to."

  "Arrested for what? For talking to him?"

  "I'm serious. Don't do it. I know him, and I know you. You're both pigheaded, and if the two of you go into a room, probably only one of you will come out."

  "Oh come now, Katya. You underestimate me. I'm not violent."

  "Just promise me you won't try to talk to him."

  "Promise you? First, promise me you'll marry me one day - with, or without, your father's approval."

  Katya stared at the ground for several minutes, wringing her hands from time-to-time, before finally answering. "Can't we talk about this some other time?" she asked with an air of resignation.

  Felix nodded yes and they walked the remaining three blocks to Katya's third floor apartment in silence. Her neighbor Petya was smoking a cigarette and leaning over the railing looking down on them as they walked up the stairs. "You certainly picked a beauteous day for your picnic, Katya. Any leftovers?"

  Felix and Katya looked above at Petya's portly figure - pot belly hanging over his belt, shoulders slouching forward over his chest, cigarette held limply in his right hand. He stood with his weight disproportionately on his left leg. "Hi Petya," Katya said, "I thought you usually took a nap about now, so you could write all night."

  "Who could sleep on a day like this?" He said it sarcastically, and Felix glared at him in response.

  After they reached the third floor, Felix set the picnic basket down and Katya started looking through it. She had some strange connection to Petya that Felix didn't understand. She said she considered him a friend, though Felix wondered if it was out of pity. Felix didn't much care for Petya. He thought him fat, lazy, and conceited, and hated it when he used big or unusual words. In particular, he didn't like the way the twenty-seven year old writer constantly stared at Katya. But Petya's disfigured right leg (it was shorter than his left and he walked with a limp) and Katya's assurances convinced Felix that he was harmless.

  "Sorry, Petya," Katya said as she closed the picnic basket, "there's nothing left over except a couple of boiled potatoes and a pickle."

  "That's fine. I'll take them."

  Katya dug them out and handed them over to him. "So did you go outside and enjoy this beauteous day, Petya?" Felix asked.

  "I went to the store and bought some paper this morning," he said, but instead of looking at Felix, he looked at Katya as if she had asked the question.

  The entrance to the building creaked open and then closed and footsteps echoed in the stairwell. Felix and Katya glanced over the railing, but you couldn't see who it was until the person reached the second floor.

  "It's Dmitry," Petya said.

  "How do you know?" Felix asked.

  "I know," he said confidently.

  As the person rounded the corner onto the second floor, Felix and Katya saw a familiar small head with short, dark hair and a cowlick and knew that Petya was right. It was Dmitry Shostakovich.

  "How do you do that?" Katya asked, her face full of amazement.

  Petya smiled for the first time and said in a mock humble voice, "It's but one of my innumerous talents."

  Shostakovich had likely come to visit his friend, the old painter, Alexander Guzman. Guzman lived next door to Petya and Katya and had a beautiful piano, but couldn't play a note. He admitted to keeping the piano only because Shostakovich loved it and frequently came over to practice or compose.

  "Good evening, Dmitry," Katya said.

  "Ahh, Katya. How's my favorite poet?"

  "Fine. I heard you playing something new yesterday. Have you started on your Seventh Symphony?"

  "Oh, those were just some random ideas," he said, wiping his round black-rimmed glasses on his shirt. He laughed nervously.

  "Did you know that it's Felix's birthday? He's eighteen today," Katya said.

  "Is that so? Happy Birthday, Felix. And to think, only last year I was twice your age. Say, why don't you go to the soccer game at Dynamo Stadium with me tomorrow. My treat. I got two tickets today, but I saw my friend just a minute ago and he said he can't make it."

  "I'd love to, except I promised my friend I'd help him move tomorrow."

  "Ok. How about you, Petya? You want to go?" Shostakovich asked.

  "No, that would make me too happy. I can't write when I'm happy."

  "Did you write today?" Shostakovich asked.

  "No."

  "Are you happy today?"

  "No."

  "I think you need a new hypothesis. If either of you change your mind, you know where to find me." Shostakovich walked down the hall to Guzman's apartment, knocked, then slipped inside. Katya kissed Felix on the cheek and wished him happy birthday once more, before she too disappeared into her apartment.

  On his way home, Felix enjoyed the cool night air and the sweet, salty fragrance from lilacs and the Neva river. Just as he reached his apartment, a bell chimed twelve times, signifying the end of June 21st and the beginning of June 22nd. For a reason he couldn't explain, he suddenly felt out of breath, and a strange shiver went up his spine.

  * * *

  Day 2: June 22, 1941

  Vanya Chetvernikov swayed ever so slightly from side to side as he listened to the music. Though it was already early Sunday morning in Leningrad, the band on the hotel's ballroom stage was still full of energy. Vanya had just finished his fourth shot of vodka, and was nothing if not a happy drunk. As he put his arm around Iosif Rosenberg, he exclaimed that of all the places in the world he could be right now, he would choose to be exactly where he was at and exactly who he was with.

  "What about Paris?" Iosif asked.

  "Paris? The Nazis have Paris!" Vanya yelled over the music.

  "True, but it's better in Paris than Siberia, which is where we're liable to be soon enough, ha-ha."

  "In Siberia with Russians is still better than in Paris with Frenchmen!" Vanya laughed heartily.

  "What about New York then?"

  "New York?! With the Capitalists and Profiteers? Never!"

  "That's the right answer my boy. You've learned well," Iosif jested. "To be perfectly honest Vanya, I'm glad you are where you are at this particular moment myself."

  "Comrade, that calls for a toast!"

  With their left hands they clinked their glasses of vodka, and with their right hands they saluted one another. "Nazdarovye!" - To your health! - they said in unison, and slammed back their drinks.

  The band started playing the now familiar chords of the hit song, 'We'll Meet Again in Lvov, My Love and I.' "I love this song!" exclaimed Vanya. "Let's go ask those girls over there to dance," he said to Iosif as he pointed to the other side of the dance floor. "I saw them earlier, they know the foxtrot."

  Vanya blazed a path straight through the dance floor to the girls. He knew he had to be quick or else the gregarious sailors would ask them to dance first. From the way the girls were giggling, smiling, and enjoying themselves, it was obvious that they were relatively new to the scene. Most girls who were veterans of the balls always did their best to look bored and unapproachable.

  "Good evening, ladies," Vanya said as he swooped in and kissed first the blonde's, and then the redhead's hand. "May we have the next dance?"

  The girls - no more than 17 years old, but who had done their best to look at least 19 - accepted the offer. Vanya gave his arm to the blonde, and couldn't resist a long glance at her as he escorted her to the dance floor. Though she had light skin to begin with, she had applied her makeup so that her face was just as pale as her ivory blouse. The effect was that her bright blue eyes and the scarlet-red lipstick she wore provided the only color to her face. Vanya thought it a stroke of genius.

  Out on the dance floor, Vanya and Iosif laughed and tried their best to outdo each other. Neither of them was very adept at the foxtrot, but they both kept the beat quite well. Iosif tried to mix in a few waltz steps he knew, but it only confused the girl. Still, she was laughing and having just
as good a time as Iosif. Vanya saw another couple do a promenade step and tried it himself, but they ended up on the right-hand side of the stage. With the limited footwork Vanya knew, he couldn't get them back out on the dance floor. Finally in desperation, laughing, he picked up his partner and carried her back out to the middle of the dance floor.

  As the last few notes of the song trailed off into the warm Leningrad night, Vanya invited the girls back to their table for a round of vodka and pickles. And no sooner had they arrived at their table when a high-ranking naval officer walked on to the stage and yelled for everyone's attention. When the crowd had quieted, he announced that a 'Number One Alert' had been sounded and that the ball was over. The Number One Alert meant that all sailors were to return to their ships, and all soldiers to their bases. The music must have prevented them from hearing the siren and the call over the city loudspeakers.

  "Beautiful woman, I don't even know your name," Vanya said to the blonde he'd just danced with.

  "My name is Anna," she replied.

  "Oh what a beautiful name! It's the same name as my mother. Anna, you must give me a kiss before we part," he implored. "You've stolen my heart, and if this is war, we may never see each other again!"

  Iosif laughed heartily at Vanya's audaciousness and nearly choked on the pickle he was eating. Vanya, knowing that Iosif knew his mother's name was really Alexandra, looked over and gave Iosif a quick wink. Anna giggled, pursed her scarlet lips, and closed her eyes. Vanya wrapped his arms tightly around her and did a dramatic dip while he kissed her long and hard. When he was through, he thought the four of them would never stop laughing. And when they finally did, he was sad for the first time that evening. He jokingly proposed a toast "to the defense of Leningrad!" The alert was just another practice, he reassured the girls. It was common knowledge that Germany wouldn't attack the Soviet Union.

  But Vanya wasn't so sure. An immense gloominess hung over him like a menacing storm cloud. He wanted nothing more than for it to go away and hoped that some more vodka would do the trick. He poured one last shot for everyone, saving the biggest for himself.

  The journey from the hotel back to their base was a long one, and Vanya's head had started spinning only a few minutes into it.

  "We were absolutely charming back there," Iosif said. "If it weren't for that damn alert, we might've had a truly enchanting evening with those two lovely maidens."

  Vanya put his arm around Iosif's shoulder, partly out of friendship and partly for physical support in his drunken state. "A minor setback, my friend. We'll be singing a different tune tomorrow," he said, slurring his words slightly.

  They walked through a park where the only sounds they could hear were from the hundreds of invisible crickets and the falling water of a nearby fountain.

  "It's such a beautiful night," Iosif said. "I wish every night could be like this."

  "If every night were like this, it'd be heaven," Vanya replied.

  "Heaven, huh," Iosif said, paused, then asked. "Do you really think there's a heaven? Someplace where there's eternal peace, where there's no hate - nothing but love? Could there really be a place like that?"

  For Vanya, the word heaven was irrevocably linked to religion and always set his mind racing. Instead of harps, clouds, bliss, and angels, he saw absurd, tortuous scenarios of impending war. He was shot by a sniper he couldn't see. He was stabbed in the back by a bayonet. A machine gun nearly cut him in half. A dozen scenes played in his mind in horrific detail, each of them having one thing in common - he always died.

  "Don't be stupid," Vanya said. "Of course there's no heaven. There's no heaven because there's no God. If there was a God, I would've gotten lucky tonight."

  The night air was sweet and fresh, and the darkness was a cushion that enveloped them. Off in the distance, they could hear someone strumming a guitar.

  "But can't you feel it on nights like tonight?" Iosif persisted. "I don't know, maybe it's the vodka, but every once in a while on nights like this, I feel like God is everywhere - all around us. In the trees, the grass, the water, that guitar, . . . even inside us."

  Vanya concentrated on the sound of the guitar in the distance. It really was quite charming. A perfectly played G chord could bring a tear to his eye. He loved music more than anything in the world. To him, it was a window to the soul and gave him peace and joy and the belief that there was something greater than the self - something that united all men, no matter their color or language. If there is a heaven, he thought, it's filled with beautiful music.

  "You definitely had too much to drink," Vanya said. "Tell you what though, why don't we do an experiment right now. We'll pray to God that this alert is just another drill and that there won't be a war. And if it comes true, I'll give God a second chance. How about it?"

  Iosif agreed, so they stopped next to a park bench, looked around to make sure no one was watching, then got down on their knees and folded their hands in front of them. Vanya prayed as intensely as he could, squeezing his eyes shut and clenching his teeth together tightly. "Please God," he said silently over and over, "I'm too young to die. My life just started."

  After they finished, they were quiet, and walked the rest of their journey in an uncomfortable lull. The possibility of war continued to haunt Vanya. To keep his mind off of it, he sang bits and pieces of songs he knew. In his head, he replayed some of his favorite melodies. Over and over, saxophone solos, balalaika melodies, and tambourine rhythms floated through his head. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't get them to replace the sadness and fear. Instead, they merged together, creating a sickening symphony that grated on his ears.

  * * *

  Misha Borisov cursed the devil under his breath as he shuffled wearily from the latrine to his barracks. His legs moved so slowly, it was as if they were already in bed and asleep. Each and every muscle felt numb with drunkenness, though he'd had nothing whatsoever to drink.

  These attacks inflicted him from time-to-time, and he'd never found a defense against them. It was more than being tired. It was a relaxation so intense that he could barely command his muscles to move, and the sensation could last for eight miserable hours.

  He felt somewhat fortunate this time, because the onset had occurred shortly after midnight and near the end of his duty guarding the planes. It was much harder to bear when it happened during the day and robbed him of what little time he had to himself.

  It was 2:15 in the morning now, and Misha looked forward to nothing more than deep, unrelenting sleep. His body demanded it. And so it was no surprise that after a mere four minutes of lying on his bed with this lava-like relaxation coursing through his veins, that Misha fell into the sleep of the dead. He did not move. He had no dreams. Time did not exist.

  Fifteen minutes later, he was awakened by a firm hand squeezing and shaking him by the shoulder. A gravelly voice calling him by his formal name demanded he wake up immediately.

  "Mikhail Borisov?" the voice asked impatiently.

  "Yes, he is," Misha replied, not sure if he was dreaming the whole thing.

  "What? I'm speaking to you, asshole. Are you Mikhail Borisov?"

  "Who? Oh. Yes, yes, that's me." The glare from the flashlight hurt his eyes and Misha used his hand to ward it off the best he could. Through his squinting eyes, a fat, square face came into focus. The man's forehead sloped heavily over his eyes so that they could hardly be seen. Below his head was a grapefruit-shaped body that had outgrown the uniform he wore.

  "Get dressed then. You're coming with me. You're under arrest."

  "No, there must be some mistake. Who are you looking for again?" Misha was confused and tried to will himself awake.

  "Mikhail Borisov! Is that you or not?"

  "Yes, that's me. But why would I be under arrest? I haven't done anything."

  "You have ninety seconds to get your clothes on. I suggest you get started now."

  "But it has to be a mistake! What are you talking about? What's the charge?"

&n
bsp; "You're only wasting your own time. You have less than sixty seconds now."

  "What?! You just said I had ninety seconds!" Misha jumped out of bed and frantically grabbed his uniform and boots from his locker. He saw that another soldier, skinny and pale, had accompanied the fat one.

  "What am I being charged with?" Misha asked as he put his shirt on.

  The fat one ignored him, but the skinny one began to answer, "Comrade, we don't know. We're just following orders, but it's most likely . . ."

  "Shut up!" the fat one shouted, and then turning to Misha added, "Just get your damn clothes on, Borisov, and stop wasting our time."

  Misha finished putting his uniform on without saying a word, but he couldn't locate his socks and was still barefoot. Socks were a luxury to soldiers in the Red Army, as the standard issue were portyanka - cheap, square rags that one wrapped around their feet. Misha's mother had given him socks only the month before, and he was especially protective of them. Anything of value left behind probably wouldn't be there when he came back. Frantically, he searched for his socks inside his locker and on his bunk.

  "Your sixty seconds is up," said the fat one. "Let's go."

  "But I can't find my socks!"

  "Too bad, let's go," he said and grabbed Misha by the arm.

  "Let him get his socks for goodness sake," the skinny one said. "Comrade, where do you usually put them?"

  "Next to my boots," Misha said. "I always put them next to my boots!"

  The skinny guard looked around and then pointed to a small lump of dark clothing in the corner between Misha's locker and the wall. "What's that over there by your locker?"

  "Ahh yes, that's them," Misha wriggled free from the fat soldier's grip and grabbed his socks.

  As he put his boots on, he snatched his last two cigarettes and a couple of matches from the bottom of his locker. If they were taking him to the cells, he knew he wouldn't be allowed to bring them, and so he tried to do it discreetly. The skinny soldier watched Misha stuff the cigarettes in his boots, but only looked away as if he hadn't seen it.