by JV Love
She sat by the window reading a book of poems by Akhmatova. She did that every morning for inspiration and reassurance. The sun was shining through the window and she slowly turned the ring Felix gave her, watching the sunlight dance off the two small diamonds surrounding the ruby. She missed Felix more than words could say, and knew this as a fact because she'd tried writing several poems to express the depth of her longing and none of them were able to do it. Each night she went to bed, she was sure the next day would be the one where Felix finally came back. Despite everything, she hadn't lost her faith. She knew they'd be together again.
Her breakfast consisted of water and a slice of bread, and she liked to close her eyes and pretend it was summer and she was having a picnic at Tsarkoye Selo. Located in lush countryside just outside the city, Tsarkoye Selo was the summer home of the former Tsars and Tsarinas. Katya had visited there often as a little girl and fondly remembered how the whole area would come alive in June. Lilacs, birch trees, and flowering bushes of every sort would burst forth with blooms and everywhere one went, a fragrance, as sweet as the most expensive perfume, would follow.
She heard Igor stir and looked over at the bed he shared with Guzman. Neither of them were doing very well, but Guzman was definitely the worse of the two. The funny, self-effacing man she knew was long gone, replaced by an incoherent moaner who slept nearly all day and night. He was lying in the same position he was always in - on his back, head turned to the right, arms folded across his chest. Igor used to complain about Guzman's snoring and so they now slept head to toe next to one another. Though the two of them were over half a century apart in age, they both reacted similarly to the lack of food. Neither had been up in the past two days except to go to the toilet. Katya was gradually accepting the fact that Guzman was going to die, but she'd grown far too attached to Igor to let him go so easily. She needed to find a way to get him more food.
"Ahhh!"
Katya startled at Igor's bloody scream. He had pushed himself against the wall - as far away from Guzman as possible. "What is it?" she asked. "Did you have a nightmare?"
Igor kept screaming, holding his folded hands in front of his mouth, as if to protect himself from the air. "Ahh! Ahh!"
Petya and Oksana sat up in their beds, though Guzman didn't stir in the least.
"Igor, what's wrong?" Katya asked as she made her way toward him.
"He's cold," Igor said, looking at Guzman.
"We're all cold, sweetheart," Katya said. "We'll need to get the fire going again."
"No, it's not that," Igor said. "He asked me to wake him when I got up, so I tapped him on the leg, but he didn't wake up. Then I grabbed his foot and it was cold."
Katya shook Guzman and called his name but understood that he wasn't going to answer. He'd died in his sleep.
She was surprised that the first feeling to come over her was one of relief. Ever since Guzman had lost his ration card and couldn't get a replacement, Katya had been sharing her meager rations with him. She was only a few days away from using the last of the food her father had stockpiled before he left for Moscow, and then she would have nothing left except for whatever she received from her ration card.
"It's all right, sweetheart," Katya said to Igor and held the frightened boy in her arms. "It's nothing to be afraid of."
He buried his face between her neck and shoulder and cried. Katya was sure he was reliving memories of his parents dying and wondered if he'd ever really grieved for that loss. She kissed him lightly on the temple and noticed he was hot. "I think you might be running a fever," she said. She got up to get a thermometer, terrified to think that he might have the flu. In these days and times, that meant near certain death. And not only that, but with their weak immune systems and in their cramped quarters, everyone else would probably catch it too.
With trepidation, she watched the red line in the thermometer slowly rise to 98, then 99, then 100. It didn't stop until it reached 103.
She gave him some aspirin and considered staying home from work to look after him, but knew that she couldn't. Igor saw her look at the clock. "I know you need to leave," he said, squirming out of her arms. "You don't have to stay here with me."
"No, you're wrong," Katya said. "I do have to stay here with you." She put her arms around him again. "That's the only way we're going to make it through this."
She stayed with him for another twenty minutes until he fell back asleep, then finished getting ready herself. Oksana had already left, and so Petya was the only one available to look after Igor and take care of Guzman's body.
Katya was hesitant to ask him for favors. Her relationship with him had changed dramatically after the birthday dinner he'd given her last month. She didn't remember anything from that night, but knew that when she'd woken up she was lying on Petya's bed and her sweater was on the floor. She'd asked Petya what had happened, and he'd replied, "Nothing," but had said it with a peculiar grin on his face. Ever since then, Katya had decided to distance herself from him. She'd made a vow to be faithful to Felix and felt ashamed for what she might have done or allowed to happen.
"Petya," she said, "would you be willing to take care of Guzman's body today? I need to leave for work."
He didn't answer, but that didn't mean much. He often didn't answer her questions.
"Also," Katya continued, "Igor's running a fever. Could you keep an eye on him? Make sure he drinks some water and give him some more aspirin at noon."
Again, Petya didn't answer, but at least he didn't say no.
Katya felt a twinge of envy as she hurried out the door for work. A part of her wanted to stay in bed half the day like Petya, but her conscience wouldn't let her do that. Not while the threat of mass starvation still loomed so large.
She hoped it wouldn't be too windy today. She could handle the cold, but the wind always went right through her many layers of clothing and chilled her emaciated body to the core.
"You're late," Lev said, as Katya walked into the office.
"Yes, I know. I'm sorry. Igor is running a fever and one of my roommates died during the night."
Lev tilted his head forward and looked over his glasses. "Who was it?"
"Guzman."
He took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Everywhere one goes these days, you see people dying. I had to step over a corpse at the foot of my building's stairwell last night. And I cursed at it - the corpse. Can you believe it? The poor man had died and I was angry at him for dying where I might trip over his body and hurt myself. These are such strange times we live in."
Katya took her coat off and sat down at the table.
"So Igor's not doing so well?" Lev asked.
"He gets worse every day. He just lies in bed all the time or in a chair by the stove. He complains he's always cold and he chews on those horrid oil cakes. They're so coarse you can't even bite into them. They used to only be fed to cattle."
Lev got up and wandered over to the window.
"He hardly talks anymore," Katya continued. "He has these deep blue circles under his eyes and has no interest in anything. It was only two months ago that he was still putting on this act to try to impress me - pretending he was older and more mature than he is. But now, he doesn't say anything. He doesn't even throw his temper tantrums anymore. He's just dead to the world and I'm at my wit's end with him. He's still a kid, with his entire future ahead of him. It's just so unfair."
"And now he has a fever?" Lev asked.
"Yes," Katya said. "And it's quite high."
Lev looked out the window. "I hope it's not the flu."
"It's not," Katya said.
"How do you know?"
"I just know," she said. "It isn't the flu. It can't be."
Lev turned to face her. "You're quite fond of him, aren't you?"
She nodded, staring at the top of the table.
Air raid sirens started wailing, but neither Lev nor Katya had any reaction. They were a daily occurrence. They both looked at
one another as they always did to see if the other wanted to go to the shelter. Since it was nearly impossible to get any work done there, they both hated to go down there.
They reached a nonverbal agreement with a look that they would stay where they were. Wanting to change the subject, Katya asked Lev what he thought they should do about the rumors going around the marketplaces.
"You're going to have to be more specific than that," Lev replied, speaking loudly so he could be heard over the sirens. "There's more rumors going around than I can count these days."
"The rumors about the sausage being sold at the markets," Katya said, "that it's not entirely from animal sources."
"Ahh yes, that rumor," Lev said. "What do we do about it? Nothing. It's none of our concern. Let the police handle it. Personally, I think there's probably some truth to the rumors. That's what this proud city has been reduced to - cannibalism. You should keep an eye on Igor. I've heard that children are the ones to disappear first."
"Yes, I've heard."
Lev started pacing back and forth in front of the window and Katya knew that some bad news was forthcoming. "The director has ordered another ration reduction," he announced.
Katya felt a lump settle in her throat. "Oh no. Not again," she said. Every ration reduction meant the deaths of thousands more people. "How much?"
"Workers will be reduced from 400 grams of bread a day to 300. Everyone else will get 150 grams," Lev said over the sirens.
So many people were already dying. Katya shuddered to think of the effect this latest reduction would have. A working adult needed 2,000 calories a day, and the current ration of 400 grams of bread supplied only twenty-five percent of that - a measly 500 calories. She didn't even want to think about how many calories 300 grams would be.
She thought back to the prophecy Igor had told her when he saw all the mushrooms under the tree: 'Many mushrooms - many deaths.' It was clear that the prophecy was coming true. The only question was how many deaths.
"Must we?" Katya said.
Lev held his hand to his ear. "What?"
Katya raised her voice. "I said, must we?"
"We have no choice," Lev said. "Lake Ladoga is beginning to freeze and we won't be able to count on the supply boats making it across for very much longer. And now that Tikhvin has fallen, the supply port won't even have any supplies to deliver soon. We need to tighten our belts to buy some time."
Katya wondered how much further people could tighten their belts. They were already punching new holes in them to keep their trousers from falling down. "What are we going to do once the lake freezes?" she asked. "We don't have enough food in the city to last for more than a week or so."
"Once the lake freezes, we'll be able to drive trucks over the ice. We just need to know when it will be cold enough - when we'll have thick enough ice for the trucks. I don't think I need to tell you we have no margin of error left in calculating the situation. If we can expect the lake to freeze early enough, then we won't have to cut the rations any further."
"You said 'we.' You mean the director wants you and I to figure this out?"
"Yes."
"Why us? How on earth are we to do it?"
"He didn't say."
Katya thought she heard the sound of planes approaching, but she wasn't sure and tried not to let it distract her. "How long do we have?" she asked.
"He wants it by six o'clock this evening."
"What? With all their power and connections, they can't figure it out, and they expect the two of us to come up with the answer by tonight?"
"I know. I know," Lev said. "I had the same reaction when he told me, but he was in no mood to hear any argument. The situation is quite desperate. Every hour counts."
Katya was positive that she heard planes now. She wondered if they bothered Lev like they did her. It was excruciating to know that the enemy could kill you from so far away - without ever seeing your face, without ever knowing that you existed.
Lev was pacing in front of the window once again, leaning slightly forward, hands behind his back. Katya called out his name to ask him a question, but he didn't seem to hear her.
"Lev," she called out a little louder, "what if we can't retake Tikhvin?"
He stopped, took a deep breath, and held his chin up as he addressed her. "We need to be strong in the face of fear and diligent in the defense of the motherland," he said. Katya hated that answer. That was what he always said when he didn't want to respond to a question because the answer was too painful.
She understood now that if they couldn't retake Tikhvin - and soon - then it was the end. The entire city, all 2.5 million people, would die of mass starvation within a matter of weeks.
One problem at a time, she told herself. One problem at a time.
The room was cold and she grasped her arms with her hands in front of her. She noticed her arms had become so thin now that she could wrap her hands around her elbows and touch her pinky finger to her thumb.
"So how do we figure out this data for the lake freezing?" she asked. "Where do we begin?" She looked over at the portrait of Lenin, as if he could tell her.
Lev looked out the window and began to answer, but was cut short by a thunderous boom. The window exploded into a thousand shards of glass that crisscrossed the office. The floor shook, dust filled the air, and Katya crawled underneath the table in a state of panic and confusion.
Then all was eerily quiet. For a minute or two, Katya had no idea who she was, where she was, or what was happening. As the dust settled, she started to come to her senses and could see through the newly created hole in their wall that the building across the street had been leveled by a bomb.
She heard footsteps in the hallway, and then the door opened and a voice asked if anyone was there. Katya managed to let out a weak "yes," and two men ran into the room, looking around for the voice's owner. Katya recognized them. They were Civil Defense Corps workers from next door. They saw Lev laying by the window and went over to him.
Katya was uninjured - fortunate to have been looking away from the window at the portrait of Lenin next the door. Lev, on the other hand, had been struck by the flying glass and knocked to the floor by the force of the explosion. He wasn't moving and his eyes were closed. Katya feared he was dead. She climbed out from under the table to go to him. Her feet crunched the glass shards all over the floor. She saw bright red blood streaming down the side of his face from a dozen or so scratches. He was still breathing, though, and one of the men looked over his shoulder at her and said Lev had only superficial wounds and probably a minor concussion. He would be all right in a few days.
Katya held her hands out in front of her to see if she had any cuts. Finding none, she felt her face and was relieved to find it too had no scratches or blood. As they loaded Lev onto a stretcher, she shook her head to get some of the glass shards out of her hair. Then she helped them take Lev outside by holding doors open. They rushed him off to a hospital, and Katya turned her attention to the wreckage surrounding her. Pink dust covered everything and sunlight bounced off the millions of tiny shards of glass in the street. She could hear the cries for help of people trapped in the rubble and the shouts of the Civil Defense Corps workers as they tried to rescue them. Katya felt helpless. She was so weak from starvation she knew she couldn't help dig the survivors out. She watched two workers pull a man up from underneath a big slab of concrete. His arm was bloody and looked broken, and she realized she could help out by putting her nursing training to work tending to the wounded.
She had just finished dressing a hand wound and putting a woman's leg in a splint when her director appeared and pulled her aside. He wasted no time making it clear that he still wanted the ice data by six o'clock that evening. Katya tried to explain that Lev was incapacitated and that she didn't have the expertise to figure out something like that, but he cut her off. "I have every confidence that you will get the information to me," he said. "And if not, your commissar and I will have a little chat."
>
Katya appreciated that he was so open with his threat. At least she didn't have to guess what the consequences of failing to carry out the order would be. She went back to the office, where the workers were already cleaning up the glass and preparing to install plywood over the broken windows.
Whatever course of action she decided on, she knew she couldn't stay there. The demand weighing on her was bad enough, but now they were blocking out the sunlight and the outdoors. She needed the sun and the earth and the sky more than ever now. She needed to trust that God had not abandoned her, that an answer - if one existed - would be provided. Faith, she reminded herself. Faith.
She left the office and walked toward the library, hoping to find a chemistry textbook there with information on how ice forms. She had strong doubts that the idea would result in the data she needed, but it seemed like her best, if not only, option.
There was a loud explosion in the distance that startled her. She'd grown accustomed to hearing explosions, but was still on edge after having one strike so close. She said a short prayer for Lev, then sighed. Sometimes she just couldn't comprehend what was going on around her, how drastically things had changed since June. So often she thought she must be trapped in a nightmare - hers or someone else's. What had happened to the joy in life? The laughter? Where had they gone?
She tried to clear her mind. As she walked, she tried to simply breathe the air and notice the sights and sounds around her. It was easy enough to notice the cold. That was something that never left you. It was only November 12th, but it felt like mid-December. Winter had come early.
She'd seen the first snowflakes of the day early that morning. They had been scattered and casual and had drifted through the air aimlessly. But now they were no longer sparse and indifferent. Now, they fell with a purpose. Heavily. Hastily. They piled up on whatever they found - tanks, barricades, trees, steps, bushes.
