by JV Love
Misha found himself in a tiny, damp room with an old man who stank. At one end of the room was a small, dingy window with black metal bars covering it. At the other end was the heavy oak door where Misha now paced back and forth (six small steps one way and six small steps the other).
"Be grateful you're not here in the winter," the old man said. "You get ten days here in the winter, it's a death sentence. You don't die in those ten days, you die soon enough because your health'll be destroyed."
"What are you here for?" Misha asked.
"Don't know. Been five days and they still won't tell me."
Misha lit one of his cigarettes and continued pacing. He could tell from the old man's accent that he was Estonian
"If you gotta piss, there's a bucket in the corner," the old man said, pointing to the floor left of the window.
Misha looked at the bucket and then at the old man, trying to decide which of the two was making the room stink.
"Can you read?" the old man asked.
"Can I read what? Estonian?"
"No, no, it's Russian. I got a bible my wife brung me, but I can't read. She's the one that usually reads to me, but I was hoping maybe you could. Not now, but maybe a little later."
"I'm not gonna be here for long. This is all a big mistake."
"Well, for your sake, I hope so. They don't treat you so nicely here."
"Look, I don't want to talk right now. I need to think."
"All right, I'll be quiet. It's time for me to say my prayers anyway. I can say one for you if you want me to."
Misha inhaled deeply on his cigarette, hoping it would decrease his suffering in some small way. He looked at his hands and saw they were trembling.
"Well?" the old man asked.
"Well what?" Misha yelled. The old man irritated him. And that god-awful smell! He couldn't get away from it.
"Do you want me to say a prayer for you or not?"
"No, I don't! If there was a God, I wouldn't be in this mess in the first place! Now leave me alone!"
Misha continued his pacing until the cigarette had burned down to his fingers. Then he stubbed it out and sat in the corner opposite the old man. He tried to figure out what exactly he was doing there. What could they possibly have arrested him for? Had his commanding officer ordered it? If he had, why did he wait? Why wouldn't he have had Misha arrested while he was on duty?
Of course Misha had heard of the stupefying number of officers arrested, but he was sure they had all been arrested for a good reason. His arrest had to be a mistake. It was only a matter of time before they came and apologized to him.
But after only a few more minutes, Misha started to cast doubt on his own view. Perhaps there had been no mistake in his arrest. He started to recall all those things he'd said to Stepanovich last night. And then the realization sunk in. He was just like the rest of them - just like the thousands of others who'd been arrested. Misha saw things clearly now. He was in this stinking cell because of his big mouth. If it wasn't Stepanovich, then it was one of the countless, faceless others. He put his face in his hands and started to weep like a child, without shame.
The old man stood now and put his arm around Misha. "There, there my boy. You won't suffer long. They'll be here soon and it'll all be over with."
"Who will be here soon?"
"What? I thought you could hear them. Isn't that why you're crying?"
Misha held his breath and tried his best to hear something out of the ordinary, but all he heard was a pair of soldiers chatting in the distance. "I don't hear anything."
The old man shuffled back to his corner. As he knelt down, his knees cracked loudly. He began making the sign of the cross in an unbroken pattern and reciting the Lord's Prayer aloud.
Misha was still straining to hear anything out of the ordinary. He heard some sort of buzzing and looked around the room to see if there wasn't a small bee trapped inside somewhere. But Misha quickly realized that this buzzing was coming from some distant place, and it was growing louder and starting to sound more like a deep hum.
"What on earth is that?" Misha asked of the eerie sound.
"It's the savior! I told my wife he wouldn't forsake us. All you Russians will pay now - he'll make you pay for your sins."
"Pay for what?" Misha asked incredulously. "I'm only nineteen I haven't done anything!"
Misha's grandmother had told him about the Apocalypse when he was young. It had both terrified and intrigued him then. Now, it only terrified him. Legions of angels with swords drawn descending from the sky filled his mind.
The low, distant hum began to be accompanied by far-off thunder and Misha ran to the window to look out. It was still dark and he couldn't see anything, but he realized now the only thing that could make that peculiar humming sound - dozens and dozens of incoming planes.
"It's the fucking Germans!" Misha yelled. "They're attacking us!"
The thunder was getting closer and the old man had started clapping. When Misha looked at him, he saw tears streaming down his face and a gratifying smile on his lips.
"The Germans have come! I knew Hitler would save us!" the old man yelled.
"You traitor!! I'll tell them what you said! They'll shoot you!" Misha strained to see out the tiny, dirty window. Three soldiers ran by in a complete panic, muttering obscenities.
"Why aren't our planes firing up? The pilots should've been in their planes five minutes ago. No, in the air five minutes ago!"
An entire wave of German planes flew high overhead, and not a single gun from the Soviet anti-aircraft artillery fired at them. Even when the bombs started falling on the airfield and the fighter planes swooped in low and the bullets rained down like hail; even then, Misha couldn't hear anyone firing back.
"Those idiots! They still won't let us shoot at the Germans!"
Explosions filled the air and shook the ground. Misha watched as the building across from him was flattened by an assembly of bombs. Figuring his building would probably be next, Misha ran to the other end of the room and pounded on the door.
"Let us out! Let us out!" he screamed.
"Old man! Help me break down this door! We've got to get out of here."
But no sooner had Misha said this when an explosion threw him against the wall. His ears were ringing, dust filled the air, and pieces of brick lay all around him. To see if anything was broken, he tried to move his hands and feet. His left leg was twisted awkwardly underneath him, his right arm was stretched high over his head.
The dust settled, and he could see that the wall with the window was no more. Relieved that everything seemed to work correctly, Misha got to his feet and looked for the old man. It took him a few seconds, but he finally saw a head sticking out of the rubble, blood running down its face.
"Help me," the old man mouthed, and more blood trickled from his lower lip.
Misha studied the situation for a second. He could help the man get free, but he was scared of another bomb dropping on the building and wanted to ensure his own safety above all else. "Go to hell, Judas," he said, then clambered over the remains of the wall to the outside.
Spotlights searched the night sky. Fires raged out of control in nearly every building. Smoke stung Misha's eyes and the continual explosions were so painfully loud, he was sure that if he lived, he'd be deaf. Everything around him seemed to move in slow motion. He'd never seen such tremendous fires before. The flames rose higher and higher, looking as though they wanted to escape the destruction. The big red brick building that housed the officers looked like it was about to collapse. An orange and white cat leapt off of its third floor balcony, and Misha watched as it landed awkwardly near a large unexploded bomb. The cat took a few steps, then fell over on its side, its legs clawing at some invisible foe.
Misha was mesmerized by the devastation and stared blankly at the fires consuming the buildings and the planes crisscrossing the sky unleashing their fury on the ground below. The entire area was lit in beautiful, wicked shades of red an
d orange. Another loud explosion and a terrifying scream shook Misha from his stupor.
A man ran out of the building next to his. A small fire was perched on his back, biting and clawing at the man. The burning man swatted at it, spun in circles, and ran in dizzying directions in an attempt to get it off. Someone should smother it, Misha thought. But there was no one else around. It was only him, the burning man, and two blood-smeared corpses near a bomb crater.
The burning man ran faster and screamed louder, but it only seemed to incense the fire's rage. It grew bigger, climbed up his back and onto his shoulders. Misha took a few steps toward the man and yelled for him to roll on the ground. From somewhere behind them, a giant blast went off, shaking the ground. The burning man ran in his frantic zig-zag toward Misha. Straining his voice above the thunder, Misha yelled at the man to roll on the ground. But the man didn't drop to the ground, he continued running toward Misha. Not wanting to catch on fire himself, Misha ran away from the man. Screams for help didn't slow him down, neither did the cluster of bombs that ripped apart the hangar on his left. The only thing that stopped him were his own clumsy feet. He tripped and tumbled into a large crater.
Bombs fell all around Misha. Dirt fell like rain. He tried to burrow into the ground to protect himself. He hoped that the bombs would, at the very least, put the poor burning man out of his misery.
Only when the bombing ended did Misha leave the security of his crater. As a fighter plane made its last run through the base, looking for anything left to shoot at, Misha finally heard some anti-aircraft guns firing. They missed their target, and the fighter plane quickly climbed to safety and joined the rest of the planes heading back to their bases to rearm and refuel.
The sun peeked above the horizon. Misha wiped the dirt from his face and hair. Ahead of him, in their same neat rows, were the Soviet planes. Each and every one of them was smashed to pieces and burning. There were ninety-three planes in all. Ninety-three planes still chained to the ground.
* * *
A scrawny pigeon with ruffled feathers and only one eye stood several feet away from the half dozen other pigeons feasting on the bread crumbs being tossed their way. Each time the one-eyed pigeon attempted to join the gathering, he was chased away. And so he paced back and forth underneath the shade of the park bench - forced to watch from a distance as the others ate.
The next breadcrumb unexpectedly landed a few inches from him, and he quickly snatched it with his beak and retreated before the others moved in. The next bread crumb again landed only a few inches from him, and again he was the first one to get to it. But the other pigeons closed in anyway, several viciously attacking him. The melee ended when bread crumbs were tossed in front of the next park bench over. The one-eyed pigeon limped out from under the bench and flew away to the safety of the Pushkin statue twenty feet away. He settled on top of the great Russian writer's head.
A light breeze rustled the young green leaves of the numerous trees in the park. A streetcar full of people passed by. In a small clearing off to the left of the Pushkin statue, three boys excitedly kicked a soccer ball back and forth. And leaning forward on a park bench, tearing crumbs from a loaf of bread, was Felix. It was almost 9:00 a.m. now and he had been sitting on that same park bench for the past three hours.
Just across the street in front of him was the yellow, two-story city government building where Katya's father worked. It was customary for Katya's father to work late and come home in the early morning hours, even on weekends. The trait had evolved from Stalin, but 9:00 a.m. was exceptionally late - even for night-owl party officials.
Felix had already decided that he would wait as long as he had to. He was supposed to help Dima move at noon, but Dima had others helping him so Felix could skip it if he really had to.
The episode with the ragged, one-eyed pigeon reminded Felix of his father and how he had been continually undermined and ultimately chased away from the university where he'd taught in Ukraine. Those were the darkest days Felix had ever known. His father had started drinking daily and almost anything would set his temper off. But things had changed so much for the better since then, and all due to the kindness of Ivan Petrovich Pavlov. The Nobel Prize winning scientist admired Felix's father's work in the field of physiology and took him under his wing - bringing him to Leningrad to assist Pavlov with his experiments. Felix's father had gained enough stature to become a leading scientist in the field of physiology, surviving even Pavlov's death in 1936.
At long last, a bear of a man wearing a wrinkled white dress shirt and black pants emerged from the building. He started walking quickly down the street and Felix had to run to catch up with him. "Might I have a word with you?" Felix asked.
A stern, arrogant man by nature, Katya's father looked strangely nervous. His shoulders were tensed up toward his ears and his lips were pursed and void of color. "I don't have time, Felix. I have to get home."
"Then I'll go with you."
Felix walked along beside him the rest of the block, trying to figure out how to broach the topic gracefully. After they crossed the next street, he gave up on that approach and decided to go straight to the heart of the matter. "I want to know why you won't let your daughter marry me," he said.
Katya's father cast a dubious sidelong glance. "Because she's too young, that's why."
"She's the same age as her mother - may she rest in peace - when you married her."
"That was different."
"How?"
"It just was. Besides, Felix, it's not a good time right now. Things are very tense in the world."
Katya's father was walking extremely fast and Felix found it difficult to keep up. Felix had always known him to be a fairly slow walker and found it odd that he was walking so quickly now.
"I think you're hiding something," Felix said. "You don't want to tell me the truth. We're both men - tell me the real reason."
Katya's father stopped walking for a second and looked Felix in the eyes, then resumed his frantic pace once again. "All right," he said, "I'll tell you. It's because you're a Jew."
"Aha," Felix said.
"You're a Jew and nothing in the world is going to change that. Do you think you'll ever be more than a second-class citizen here?"
"In Socialist societies, there are no classes, no distinctions between . . ."
"Don't give me that. You've got two eyes. You see what's going on around you. Tell me, in your heart, do you really believe that a few decades of Communism is enough to wipe out a thousand years of anti-Semitism? You think people will just conveniently forget who killed Christ?"
Felix looked away. He focused on the spot in the sky where he had seen the moon the night before. He tried to comprehend its vast distance from the Earth.
"Felix, I like you," Katya's father said and stopped walking. He rested his hand on Felix's shoulder. "I don't care that you're Jewish. But these other people do care. They may pretend that they don't, but I know them. I know what they say behind closed doors. Do you think it would be fair to Katya to be married to you? What kind of a life would she have? If you truly love her, then you'll put her interests above yours and do what's best for her."
Felix stared at Katya's father's brown shoes until he noticed them walking away. Felix went in the opposite direction. His thoughts strayed once more to the moon. He remembered reading that when meteorites and asteroids enter the Earth's atmosphere, they usually burn themselves into oblivion before ever reaching the surface. The moon, however, doesn't have the luxury of an atmosphere, and so is defenseless against such attacks. Its surface is barren and dotted with deep craters from the constant bombardment. Scientists speculated that life probably could not exist there; only the strongest and most resilient of life forms could possibly withstand such harsh conditions.
For over four hours, Felix roamed the streets of Leningrad. Though nothing in particular occupied his thoughts, a general melancholy filled him to the tip of his unmistakably Jewish nose. Lost in his own world, he
took long, slow strides along a particular canal for an hour, then followed the Neva river for another hour. He walked past the tall golden needle spire of the Admiralty, past the Winter Palace, past the elevated, imposing statue of Peter the Great. Under the hot summer sun, he walked and walked and walked through the expansive city until one image came to dominate his thoughts and he could think of nothing else. The image was of the sculpture of Saint Andrew the Apostle that flanked the huge bronze doors in front of the Kazansky Cathedral. The look of desperation and abandonment on the statue's face haunted Felix and he had to go to the statue, to see it with his own eyes, to sit next to it in silence and commiseration.
Like the dying elephant that travels to a designated graveyard it has never been to, so too Felix arrived, without particularly knowing how, at the Kazansky Cathedral. A crowd - much larger than usual for 1:10 in the afternoon on a Sunday - had gathered in front of the building. So many of the people seemed unreal to Felix, as if they were thoughts that had escaped from his mind. Everywhere he turned, he saw these people who looked so familiar, but who were in fact strangers to him. A big man with a beard yelled in anger as tears streamed down his face. School girls huddled around one another with looks of horror in their young eyes.
As he walked through the strange crowd toward the statue of Saint Andrew the Apostle, Felix heard bits and pieces of conversations that confirmed his belief that his thoughts were not his own, but open for public mocking and ridicule.
"What did you expect?" said a tall man with a gaunt face and hollow eyes. "I said all along they couldn't be trusted. They'll pretend like they're your friend, and then stab you in the back."
A young woman with a summer hat pulled low over head hissed, ". . . the whole thing was just one big lie. They've played us for the fool."
Felix hurried by, unable to look at them. Fear was alien to him and its presence now confused him.
