by JV Love
"He's going to be very angry when he realizes he needed these documents," Katya said.
"You may leave the documents if you wish," he replied, "but you need to go or else I'll be forced to put you under arrest."
"Very well," she said. "Will you give me a moment to retie my scarf? It's terribly cold out there tonight." Before he could respond, she undid her long scarf from her head and neck. She didn't really need to retie it. She just needed to buy some time to think of another way into the meeting.
The guard tapped his foot impatiently as she slowly wrapped the scarf around herself. When she was only halfway finished after two minutes, he stood up and ordered one of the other guards to escort her out. Before he reached her, the door to the meeting room burst open and a pasty-faced, middle-aged man smoking a cigarette emerged. He looked worn down, but he wasn't a walking corpse like most of the people Katya saw these days. He still had some meat on his bones.
The guards quickly came to attention, and Katya knew it was he - Zhdanov - the boss of Leningrad. "Is there any paper in the toilets?" he asked in a hoarse voice.
One of the guards had been reading Leningradskaya Pravda and he handed the newspaper over to Zhdanov.
Katya went up to him before he got very far. "Forgive me, comrade," she said. "I know your time is precious, but this is very important. I'm wondering if you're completely aware of the all the implications of the latest ration reduction."
He seemed surprised and pulled the cigarette out of his mouth. "I'm quite familiar with the facts," he said. "We don't want to cut rations again, but we have little choice."
Katya spoke quickly, afraid she'd be thrown out before she could argue her point. "To cut civilian rations to the levels proposed is murder," she said. "I beg of you to revise it and have the troops shoulder some of the burden."
"We already reduced the troops' rations a week and half ago," Zhdanov said. "I don't remember the exact amount, but their levels need to be maintained for . . ."
"Yes, I know they were cut," Katya interrupted. "But they're currently receiving 600 grams of bread plus 125 grams of meat. Rear-unit troops are getting 400 grams of bread and 50 grams of meat. It's not much, I agree, but it's no comparison to civilians: right now factory workers only get 300 grams of bread and everyone else gets a miserable 150 grams. No civilians get any meat."
"How do you know this information?" he asked.
At that moment Katya's director emerged from the meeting room and saw her. "What are you doing here?" he said and promptly moved in on Zhdanov. "Guards, remove her immediately."
They grabbed her by the arms and started taking her to the exit.
"My apologies, comrade," Katya heard her director say. "I was unaware . . ."
"Does she work for you?" Zhdanov interrupted.
"She used to," he replied. "She was let go this morning for insubordination."
"She looks familiar," Zhdanov said. "I swear I've seen her before."
"She's Grigori Selenii's daughter."
"Katya?" Zhdanov said.
"Yes, that's her name."
"Oh my, she's all grown up. I remember when she was just a little girl. Comrade Selenaya," he called out. "Come back here."
The guards let go of her arms and she walked back to him.
"You probably don't even remember me," Zhdanov said. "I used to bounce you on my knee when you were just a little girl. My goodness how you've grown."
Katya didn't remember him, but believed his story. Her father knew many people and was constantly inviting them over to their apartment.
"I'm sorry about your father," Zhdanov said. "He was a good man."
Katya covered her mouth with her hands. "He's dead?"
Zhdanov nodded. "Forgive me," he said. "I assumed you knew. He suffered a heart attack in Moscow."
Katya wasn't completely surprised by the news, but it still shook her. She thought of Igor and how he was her only living relative left now. She wanted to cry, but had to hold it back. She had to be strong right now.
Zhdanov turned to Katya's director. "She was just telling me that front-line troops are still getting 600 grams of bread and 125 grams of meat," he said. "Is this true?"
"Yes, comrade, that's correct."
"For some reason, I was under the impression they were getting much less than that," Zhdanov said. "Your proposal to cut civilians' rations by so much without cutting the troops' by a single gram makes little sense to me."
"You've said before, comrade, that our number one priority in food distribution was to make sure that the troops were able to sustain their energy so they could protect the city."
"What point is there in protecting a city if all its people are dead?" Zhdanov said.
Katya's director opened his mouth to say something, but then seemed to think better of it.
"I think we need to reconsider this latest reduction," Zhdanov said. "Don't you agree?"
"Yes, comrade," came the reply.
Zhdanov took another drag from his cigarette then dropped it to the ground and snuffed it out with his boot. "If you can't make recommendations that are in the best interest of Leningrad, then perhaps I should get someone else." He looked at Katya. "Like Comrade Selenaya here," he added.
"That won't be necessary," Katya's director said. He cast a malicious glare in her direction. "I'll be more careful with my recommendations from now on."
* * *
Felix cursed under his breath at whichever partisan behind him had allowed himself to be spotted. It had complicated things but he couldn't worry about it now. He needed to get his rifle into position before the light of the moon returned. He sprawled out more in the thick snow so his arms were better supported, then took aim at the machine gun nest ninety feet away from him. The moon crept over the edge of the monstrous black cloud and Felix found his target - a dim figure with binoculars looking out from behind the sandbags.
Felix had found that many German positions along the Tikhvin front were vulnerable to attacks at night, especially when the wind howled or the snow fell like a midsummer's downpour. The Germans didn't seem to expect it - attacking at three in the morning in the bitter cold apparently wasn't in their 'rules of engagement' book. In fact, Felix found the more uncommon were the tactics he used, the more successful the attack was.
He clenched his jaw and felt his own sour blood fill his mouth. Whenever he tasted blood, he thought of Dima - poor, confused Dima who'd wanted to change the world and himself for the better. But the Nazis hadn't given him that chance. Now Felix was going to see to it that they got no more chances. He was going to do everything he could to eliminate the Nazi infestation of his homeland. That's what the Germans were to him now - pests. Pests that needed to be exterminated, just like the cockroaches that had invaded Katya's apartment one summer.
Felix squeezed the trigger and the bullet from his rifle went through the man's hand to his cheek, and first the binoculars, and then the man fell from sight.
One less cockroach.
The other German soldier quickly engaged the machine gun and bullets flew frantically in every direction. They struck all around Felix, but he remained still. Even when one of the bullets burned a hole straight through his left arm, he did not move.
As the tat-tat-tat of the machine gun wound down and more German soldiers arrived, Felix closed his eyes and thought of Katya. Was she still alive? Or had the lack of food or a German bomb taken her to the next world? Felix wanted nothing more than to marry her and live a quiet life. He wanted to make passionate love to her in the evening and wake each morning to see her lying next to him. He wanted to have children - a little boy who looked like him, and a little girl who looked like her. He wanted to take trips to the country to pick mushrooms and teach his son how to swim in the river. He wanted a normal, uneventful life with friends and family and pets and poetry.
His anger began to boil. Those fucking cockroaches wouldn't let him have that life. They were killing his friends and his family and everything insi
de of him that believed.
He felt blood rushing to his face and a warming sensation flowing through his freezing body. He opened his eyes and saw the snow by his arm turning red. Then he set his sights on the machine gun nest once more and found in his sights two cockroaches yelling and gesticulating to one another in their annoying, systematic insect way. Felix took aim at the head of the first one, but then adjusted downward for its throat. If he hit it just right, the bullet would go straight through its throat and strike the cockroach standing on the other side of it. Felix took in a breath and let it out slowly as he squeezed the trigger once more.
His shot hit the mark perfectly and two more cockroaches fell from sight.
The moon disappeared, and the Germans fired a flare into the sky. The machine gun barked to life once more and the soldiers outside the machine gun nest quickly ducked inside it. Felix stole a look behind him, saw no trace of the rest of his partisans, and wondered what the cockroaches were shooting at. He looked for more targets inside the nest, but they were all hidden now. He saw something that could be an arm, but he wasn't sure.
One thing he did know was that there would be more cockroaches coming. Where you saw one, you knew there were at least ten more.
He pushed on his loose tooth and tasted blood in his mouth once again. He pictured Dima in his mind - from the shy smile of his boyhood to the bloody, broken body he carried in his arms last month. Felix jumped to his feet and began charging at the machine gun nest. "Ahhh!" he screamed as he ran. Bullets whizzed by him, one grazing his cheek just below his right eye, but death was the only thing that was going to stop him now.
He gripped a grenade in his right hand and when he was close enough, threw it through one of the tiny openings in the nest. It exploded with a muffled thud and then the gunfire stopped and all was eerily quiet.
Felix quickly peeked his head around the sandbags of the entrance and saw six cockroaches lying on the floor. None of them seemed to be moving, so he stepped inside and began collecting their guns and grenades.
An officer in a Death's Head helmet suddenly stirred. The left side of the cockroach's body was bloody and mangled, but it was alive, and it looked Felix in the eyes and extended its right arm to him.
Felix didn't like seeing its face, didn't like the fact that it had two eyes, two ears, a mouth, and a nose. What bothered Felix most of all was the absence of emotion within himself. Even as he heard one of the few German words that he knew - help - Felix felt nothing.
He pointed his gun at the grotesque creature. "Back to the devil," he said, firing three shots into its exoskeleton.
He resumed gathering weapons from the corpses. Outside, a dozen and a half German troops approached the miniature front in the Tikhvin lines that had opened up. Felix took up a position behind some of the sandbags and started shooting. He saw a couple of cockroaches go down but couldn't tell if he'd hit them or if they'd dove for cover.
A great roar of yells and shouts built behind him. When Felix turned, he saw them springing from the snow like wolves from a dense thicket. His partisans charged forward, their battle cry rising like a wave. And for a change it wasn't the Russians who were in panic and falling back in disarray.
Felix savored the thick, salty taste of blood in his mouth as he took aim and shot two cockroaches in the back as they retreated. He wanted to shoot more, but they weren't in his line of fire. He leapt from the machine gun nest and sprinted to a different spot. Bullets whizzed by him again as he ran and another one grazed him on the arm.
He'd lost all fear of combat. The more cockroaches he encountered, the better.
He wanted to kill them all.
* * *
It had been a tremendous struggle for Petya to sever the arm at the elbow and he was now thoroughly exhausted. He rested as the fire in the stove came back to life, and when the coals were bright orange, he roasted the meat until it was well-done.
It had been snowing all day and he opened the window and gathered some of it into a large pot, then set it on the stove. When the snow had melted, he poured the water into a tea cup and sat down on his bed to eat. The meat was tough and hard to chew, but tasted good nonetheless. He thought it tasted a lot like chicken and was reminded of the time he had grilled snake a few summers back.
The voice of God in Petya's head had assured him it was not a sin to eat the flesh of another. In fact, the only thing that mattered to the voice was that Petya maintain his strength for his upcoming mission. When Petya questioned the voice about the mission, it answered only that it would be revealed in a way that Petya alone could figure out.
The lock on the front door made a clacking sound as someone opened it from the outside. The door creaked and groaned on its hinges and then Katya walked into the dimly lit apartment. Before she even took her coat off, she smelled the meat and asked Petya where he got it.
"From the market," he lied, and ate the last bite.
Katya scanned the room. "Where's Igor?"
Petya shrugged his shoulders. He was hesitant to say too much, because he knew the trees were eavesdropping.
"You don't know where he is?" Katya asked.
Petya shook his head.
"Have you seen him today?"
He nodded yes.
"Why can't you speak?"
Petya wanted to tell her that the trees recorded every word they overheard, but wasn't sure if he should. He thought about it some more, then pointed at the leafless trees that stood like petrified demons outside their window. "They're listening," he whispered to her.
Katya looked out the window. "Who's listening?"
Petya stood up and moved closer to the window. "They," he whispered, pointing his finger directly at the nearest tree.
Instead of coming closer to the window for a look, Katya took a step back.
"Don't be afraid, Katya. They can't hurt us as long as we have this." Petya showed her the shield he'd made with the tin can and piece of string. "I haven't figured out how to stop them from eavesdropping," he said, "but they definitely can't hurt us."
"She doesn't believe you," a voice hissed in his head. "You're a fraud! A ridiculous, disfigured fool! That contraption you made is ludicrous. It doesn't do anything."
"Silence!" the voice of God thundered in response. "Pay no attention to him," it advised Petya. "He is an apostle of the devil and that is why he says these shameful things. Listen only to me. I am the only one who cares for you, the only one who loves you. You have scared Katya and endangered the mission by telling her about the trees. Now apologize to her."
Petya walked toward Katya, but for every step closer he took, she took an equal step away from him. "Katya," he said, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have told you that. Just forget what I said. Okay?"
She nodded her head but continued stepping backwards. "Sure, Petya," she said. "I'll just forget it."
"You are such an idiot," a voice said to Petya. "She thinks you've gone completely mad."
"Katya," Petya said, "I'm not crazy. I know this looks strange and you don't understand it, but I can explain."
Katya had backed up to the wall and could go no further.
"You remember we talked about religion and God a while back?"
Katya nodded.
"Do you remember I asked you if God ever spoke to you directly? If he ever answered your prayers?"
"Yes, I remember." She held her arms up tight to her chest, hands clenched tightly just below her chin.
"Well, I hear him," Petya said excitedly. "He speaks to me."
Her lower jaw dropped an inch and she didn't respond at first. "What?" she finally said. "Who speaks to you?"
"God," Petya answered. "God speaks to me. He told me no one else can hear him. Only me."
"You . . . hear . . . God," she repeated slowly.
"Yes, and he's coming back."
"Who's coming back? Jesus?"
Petya nodded. "Look," he said, and pulled out the piece of paper he'd found in his old apartment's mailbox two days ago
.
Katya took it and read the crude handwriting aloud: "Only God can save Leningrad. Pray to Heaven. The Time of the Apocalypse has come. Christ is now in the peaks of the Caucasus."
"You see?" Petya said. "I'm not crazy."
"Petya, this is from the Old Believers and Molokans that were pushed into the city by the war. Everyone has been getting these notes. It's not just you. I got one myself."
Petya felt relieved that he wasn't the only one God was communicating with. "You got one too?" he said. "Let me see."
"I can't show it to you," she said. "I already used it to light a fire."
He could see she was lying, but he couldn't figure out why. She was a good Christian. He expected her to be excited and to support him.
"Well, regardless of that," Petya said, "I realize now I've been living a life of sin, and it's important we repent before it's too late." He wanted to tell her about his dishonesty, about his stealing the package meant for her and Guzman, but it was even more difficult than he thought. The words didn't want to come out. He felt dull and had trouble breathing. Admitting his deception meant admitting what a fraud - what a pariah to society - he really was.
"Katya, I . . .," he began.
"Shut up you fool!" a voice hissed in his ear. "You don't have to tell her a damn thing. She can't prove anything!"
Footsteps echoed in the hallway outside the apartment, then the door unlocked and Oksana walked in. Katya rushed over to her. "Hello, Oksana. How are you doing? How was work today? Here, let me help you with that bag."
Oksana seemed perplexed by the unusual attention and held fast to her bag.
"Would you like me to make you some of that herbal tea?" Katya asked, continuing her string of questions. "It was terribly cold out today, wasn't it? Did it affect your arthritis?"
Petya watched them both, feeling relieved that his confession had been postponed.
Oksana started taking her coat off. "The cold was awful today," she said to Katya, "just awful. My hip can barely move anymore. It feels like it's frozen."
"Oh, I can just imagine," Katya said, helping her with her coat. "It must be absolute torture for you to go up and down those stairs. Have you seen Igor today?"
