by JV Love
"But I'd never shot anyone or anything from that distance. I'd never even used a scope before," Felix said.
"Yes, I know. But I knew you'd hit him. I remember you were a good shot when we trained together."
Felix yawned and stretched his arms. For the first time since the war started, he felt cautiously optimistic about his side's chances. They'd only won one small battle, but he'd seen in that battle a fury and a determination that had surprised him. The men hadn't prepared and fought so hard because they'd been ordered to. They did it because they wanted to. They wanted to win. They wanted to beat the Germans in their own way, to show them their resourcefulness and fierceness. Perhaps they were tired of being beaten time and again. Or perhaps it was sheer vengeance. Whatever the reason, Felix started to think their situation wasn't so hopeless after all. As Dima pointed out, they didn't necessarily need to turn the tide on the Germans. All they needed to do for now was stop them from advancing on Leningrad. That was their goal. That would be a victory.
Just before Felix fell asleep, he realized that his premonition about Fedushkin dying before the end of the day had come true. But he convinced himself that it was just coincidence - nothing more, nothing less. It was a chance event. That was all.
Shortly before the sun went down, the deep buzz of approaching planes could be heard, but no one paid it any attention. Not until the ground around them erupted like a volcano, and the warehouse burst into flames, did anyone think of the possibility of a German airstrike.
The warehouse became a flaming inferno in a matter of seconds. Those who weren't killed by exploding shrapnel were quickly consumed by smoke and flames. Felix and Dima struggled together toward the outside, but only Felix made it. When he realized Dima wasn't with him, he ran back into the warehouse. The last thing he remembered was tripping over Dima's motionless body and the suffocating smell of the thick, acrid smoke.
~
-- Chapter Six
Rats in a Whirlpool
____________________________
Hate drips from my ego,
that vertigo,
that somehow eludes me.
That which cannot be destroyed,
that which cannot be enjoyed.
This affliction,
this condition,
that confounds me,
surrounds me,
until early dawn
Of each and every day.
The harder I try,
the farther I fall.
The louder I scream,
the softer you call.
I see your lips move,
but hear nothing at all.
Katya turned in her chair to better see her coworker behind her. He was pacing back and forth once again, treading over the same well-worn area on the red and tan rug. She was fairly sure she'd heard him correctly but was so stunned by what he'd said that she wanted to be absolutely positive. "I'm sorry, Lev. What did you just say?" she asked.
"I called you an idiot," Lev repeated, his eyes looking like little black sunflower seeds behind his thick glasses. "You're stupid."
Katya tried to figure out why he would say something like that to her. She'd merely made a suggestion that they sweep out the warehouses and railroad cars to try to reclaim the flour left in the cracks and corners and such.
Lev stopped pacing and glared at her. "We can't waste our time on stupid ideas that lead nowhere."
Katya opened her mouth to say back to him that he was an asshole and that she wasn't going to take his verbal abuse. She didn't say that though because she'd recently learned a very useful trick from Petya. She'd noticed he often took a second before answering someone and had asked him about that peculiar trait. He'd told her that he developed the 'one-breath rule,' as he called it, when he lived in the orphanage. Before saying anything, he would make himself take one complete breath. He found that quite often after he took that breath, what he had planned on saying would change.
Katya took a long, slow breath in, closed her eyes, then exhaled. It was one thing to her to not be able to love her enemies (the Germans), it was quite another to have no compassion for her fellow countrymen. She pictured Jesus in her mind and tried to respond as she thought he might if he were in this situation.
"Lev, it's important to me that we treat one another with respect," she started. Her heart was beating rapidly. "If you don't like one of my ideas, then I would prefer you criticize the idea, and not me personally. I feel . . . annoyed when you do that." She hated confrontations.
"I don't care how you feel," he said. "I don't give a damn about your emotions. My job is to keep Leningrad from starvation, not pamper a spoiled little girl."
"I see," Katya said. She was hungry and tired but had already decided how she was going to react. She stubbornly refused to hear Lev's analysis of her. To respond with compassion, her grandmother had told her, you need to take yourself out of the equation. "Are you frustrated with the difficulties of your job and the demands on you and your time?" she guessed.
"Yes. This job is impossible. How do you feed a city when you have no food?" He gesticulated wildly with his hands. "What does the director expect from me? To wave a magic wand and create a million loaves of bread out of thin air?"
Katya breathed a little easier. She had guessed correctly what was bothering him. "Lev, you work very hard. I know, because I see you every day," she said. "You've been putting in long hours, and like everyone else, you're probably not getting enough to eat. You haven't seen your son since he left for the front and you're under an immense amount of stress every day. You're trying to do, as you said, the impossible - keep the people of Leningrad from starving. I imagine you're feeling overwhelmed." Lev sat down, and Katya could see his face soften. "Why don't we call it a day?" she said.
Lev took his glasses off and pressed the palms of his hands to his eyes. Then he yawned and squinted at the clock on the wall. "Where on earth does the time go?" he muttered under his breath. He put his glasses back on and peered at Katya over the top of them. "No, let's finish up," he said, a slight frown forming at the corners of his mouth. "I'm sorry about those comments I made. Please accept my apologies. You're right. I have been on edge lately, and it's not right for me to take it out on you. You work just as hard as I do, and I shouldn't attack you like that. You deserve to be treated better."
Katya felt pleased about how things had turned out. Despite what she had originally wanted to say, she'd been able to respond to Lev with compassion and empathy. She pictured Jesus in her mind once again and saw he was smiling.
"Apology accepted," she said. "I imagine you're embarrassed because you'd like to have talked to me more courteously."
"Yes. It's ridiculous the way I treat people these days," Lev said. "I hate it. But I have no patience. My anger erupts at the drop of a hat. I'm always hungry and the weather's turning colder . . .. But it's no excuse! I have to get control of myself!" He stood up and resumed his pacing, leaning forward and holding his hands behind his back. He mumbled something inaudible, then stopped abruptly and stood up straight. "All right, that's it," he said, looking at Katya. "I'm finished feeling sorry for myself. Leningrad needs me. She needs all of us to be strong. Now, let's get back to work. We'll implement your idea to sweep out the warehouses and railroad cars and hopefully reclaim some more flour. I doubt it will be very much, but every little bit helps." He grabbed his pencil from the table. "Let me add that to the list now before I forget."
Lev jotted down the idea in his notebook and Katya excused herself to refill her glass with water. That was the only way she made it through each day, by drinking cup after cup of water to trick her stomach into thinking it was full. Her hunger, and everyone else's, was only going to get worse though, and she was in a position to know it.
When she returned, she asked Lev if they were on track for the new rules and ration cards that were to take effect October 1st.
"Yes. We'll be ready," Lev answered. He went to the window and opened the drapes. It was p
itch black outside. All the street lights had been turned off - anything at all that would indicate there were still people living and working in the vast city had been concealed, lest the German bombers see something to aim for. "I can't believe next week will be October already," he said. "Before you know it, winter will be here."
Katya thought of Igor and wondered how he'd coped today. She was concerned about him because he was still a growing boy. For him to go with so little food was even more difficult than for an adult. "So nonworkers and children will be reduced to one-third of a loaf of bread a day, and a pound of meat for the month," she said. "Is that right?"
Lev sighed. "Yes, I'm afraid so," he said, still looking out the window. "The rules are draconian, but as the director says, we have to do it to even give the city a chance of survival. There'll be some cereals, macaroni, pastries, and butter for them too, but not much - hardly enough for an adolescent boy, that's for sure. How old did you say Igor is?"
"He's going on thirteen."
"Do you have any extra food on hand?"
"Yes, I do," Katya said. "My father made sure of that early on. But it's going rather quickly. Igor eats like a horse. I'm afraid I'll have to start locking the food up while I'm gone." Katya waited for Lev to turn away from the window. "Lev," she said, looking him in the eyes, "the director is a wonderful, energetic man, and he's doing a tremendous job."
"But?" Lev said.
"But I wish he'd realize that a twelve-year-old boy needs twice as much food as a five-year-old boy. He puts them on the same ration and it just doesn't make any sense to me. Could you have a talk with him? He respects your opinion. He'll listen to you."
Lev went to his notebook and started writing while he answered her, "I've already talked to him about it," he said. "He stresses that the food must go first to those making a direct contribution to the war effort. I can't see him changing his mind on any of the regulations." He tapped his pencil on the table and looked up at the ceiling. "Why don't you find Igor a job?" he asked. "Then his ration will be increased."
"I've tried," Katya said. "Every day I've been looking." She ran her fingers through her hair and stretched her neck to each side and then down toward her chest. "I guess I'll just have to keep trying." She looked up at the portrait of Lenin that hung next to the door and noticed what dark shadows the kerosene lamp was casting upon it.
"I just jotted down another idea," Lev said. "We should check the breweries. They've all been closed down and they might still have some grain left in storage."
"Good idea," Katya said. She took a drink of water and contemplated the dismal numbers she'd written down earlier. Leningrad had 2.9 million citizens and an additional 500,000 troops defending the city, so they needed to feed a total of 3.4 million people. They only had enough food on hand to adequately feed half that number. "Is there absolutely no way at all to get supplies from the outside?" Katya asked.
"For now, no," Lev answered. "The only open route to the mainland is across Lake Ladoga, and there's no ships, piers, highways, or warehouses that can handle the amount of food we need. If any ships make it across the lake without being sunk by the Germans, then that's a bonus. But we shouldn't count on much from this route." He started tapping his pencil on the table once more. "No," he said firmly, "we must make all calculations based only on what we currently have."
Katya suppressed a yawn and pinched herself to try to wake up. So many people's lives depended on the job she and Lev and the director did. It was a tremendous weight - oppressive at times - but Katya was determined like she'd never been before. She loved Leningrad with all her heart and soul and vowed to see to it that it survived. She couldn't allow it to perish from earth.
She and Lev worked late into the evening and Katya was beyond exhausted by the time she left. She wrapped a scarf tightly around her head and neck to combat the chilly wind that had started blowing from the north and set off on the long walk home. The sun was now setting before 8:00 p.m. each night, and the days would only get shorter and the weather only colder from here on out.
As she walked, she continued to think of strategies for finding more food and for making their existing supplies go further. She thought about the food situation both day and night. It haunted her dreams - people as thin and brittle as corn stalks in autumn, people dying by the hundreds each day in the bitter cold of winter. She couldn't let it happen, not here, not in Leningrad.
She said another prayer for the siege to be lifted, for the winter to be mild, and for Felix and her father to return home safe and sound. She didn't know if her prayers would ever be answered, but that wasn't the point. Prayer wasn't a means to an end for her. The point of praying was simply to reaffirm her own faith in the universe.
The wind picked up, blowing right through her light jacket, and she shivered with cold. She'd have to start wearing her fur coat soon if this kept up. The streets were all deserted, and she made the trip with nothing but the immense leafless trees and the howling autumn wind to keep her company. There was no shelling now, and the quiet felt strange. But she knew the Germans would begin again with Germanic precision at 7:00 a.m. the next morning. They always did. Katya hoped that would be their downfall - that the Germans' obsession with order and precision and rationality would doom them in this chaos that had become her home.
She thought of her friends at the hospital and considered stopping by, if not to help out, at least to say hi, but it was late and she still needed to make dinner and wash some clothes once she got home.
It was all very peculiar to her - how and why she'd been reassigned from her work at the hospital to assisting the city's food supply official. She was convinced that her father had something to do with it, despite the fact that she hadn't heard from him since he left for Moscow nearly a month ago. He had never liked her working at the hospital, even more so since the Germans starting targeting them.
At first, Katya was upset about the switch, but it didn't take her long to realize how important her new job was. She still went to the hospital almost every night, but it was on a volunteer basis now. She liked to keep busy, liked the fact that it kept her from thinking about things she had no control over - like where her father and Felix were and what had happened to them.
She walked past a massive streetcar lying on its side, a victim of one of the Luftwaffe's never-ending bombing runs. On the other side of the street, a mangy white horse pulled an overloaded wooden cart as two soldiers marched alongside lugging machine guns over their shoulders. The younger soldier reminded Katya of Felix, and she longed once again to feel the touch of his hand caressing her cheek. She closed her eyes, imagining him walking next to her, and smiled at the image.
As difficult as life was, she was not entirely unhappy. She surprised even herself with her disposition. There was death and destruction all around her; she had little to eat each day; she worked ten hours with Lev, then another three at the hospital; she came home every night to a cold apartment and her roommates' endless grievances. And yet through it all, she managed to find moments when she was grateful to be alive, thankful she had two legs to walk on, two arms to work with, and a pounding heart that kept fighting to remain open.
She very nearly passed her block because they'd recently whitewashed all the street signs. If the Nazis broke into the city, it was hoped they would get lost in a maze of nameless streets and avenues. Even the number of her apartment building had been whitewashed.
Inside her building, the stairwell was dark and she climbed up with extreme caution, testing each step before she shifted her weight to it. Under the conditions Leningrad survived in, she knew that the slightest injury could easily lead to one's demise. To break a leg or catch the flu these days meant almost certain death.
She heard a man pounding on a door above her and yelling, "Guzman! Guzman!" When she reached her floor, he called out to her, "Is that you, Guzman?" Katya recognized Shostakovich's voice.
"No," she said, "it's me. Katya." She knocked on her door and calle
d out Igor's name.
"Oh, thank goodness you're here, Katya," Shostakovich said. "Where's Guzman? Have you seen him? He's not in his apartment. I don't know where he could be . . ."
When Igor opened the door, light streamed into the hallway and Shostakovich's round face came into focus. "Calm down, Dmitry," Katya said. She could smell alcohol on his breath. "I'm sure he's fine. Igor, have you seen Guzman today? Do you know where he is?"
"I saw him a couple hours ago," Igor said. "He told me he was going to the market."
"The market? So late in the day? Why would he be going to the market?" Shostakovich peered at Igor over his black-rimmed glasses.
"Dmitry, would you like to come in and have a cup of tea?" Katya asked. "You seem rather agitated."
"Yes, actually, I wouldn't mind that." He walked in and sat down on a chair and began rubbing his glasses on his shirt. Katya put a kettle of water on the stove.
"Guzman said he was going to sell his fur cap," Igor said.
Shostakovich stood up. "What? His fur cap? He's going to need that for the winter. Has he lost his mind?"
"He said he had two of them," Igor said.
"Oh, he said that? He has two of them?" Shostakovich sat back down again. His eyes looked down at his lap and his facial expression softened, shifting rapidly from fervor to thoughtfulness.
Katya laid her hands on top of his. "What's wrong, Dmitry? Why are you so upset?"
Shostakovich fidgeted with the bottom button of his shirt. "It's just that winter is coming on," he said. "And who's going to look after an old Jew? He's such a dear old man. He doesn't realize the degree of anti-Semitism out there."
"Yes, he's just like Felix," Katya said. "Both of them choose not to see it."
"It would be good if Jews could live peacefully and happily in Russia, where they were born," Shostakovich said, slurring a few of the words. He took a deep breath, sat up straighter, and added, "We need to remind everyone that the dangers of anti-Semitism are real. The infection is still very much alive."
