by JV Love
Felix tried to cover every detail of the story, both to keep it interesting and to stretch it out as long as possible. As soon as he finished telling it, he started on another story.
The wind had stopped gusting. It blew hard non-stop now. The snow came down heavier than ever and hard little snowflakes found their way past Felix's scarf and down his back. The storm had become a full-fledged blizzard, and the blinding snow and lack of light made it nearly impossible to see. If it weren't for the large snowbanks on each side of the road that Felix bumped into repeatedly, he probably would have lost his way.
The physical toll of the trip continued to mount. He'd been walking, running, trudging through deep snow, and stepping carefully on slippery surfaces for over seven hours straight. Miniature icicles hung from where his breath warmed his scarf. He stumbled a few times and wanted badly to rest for a couple of minutes but wouldn't allow it. He knew he didn't have a minute to spare in getting Katya medical attention.
After telling several stories in succession, he was starting to have difficulty thinking of new ones.
"Oh, I know," he said after a brief pause. "How could I forget this one? Remember that time you stole your father's bottle of brandy, and Dima picked the lock on the door to the roof of his apartment building? The three of us sat up there all night long talking and staring at the stars. We ended up falling asleep up there and you had an exam the next morning and you ran into class twenty minutes late. You told me later you still got an A on it. Do you remember that, Katya?" Felix put his ear close to her mouth to hear if she responded. He thought he heard something like a "yes" or a small laugh, so he continued on.
An hour later - just as Felix's endurance was breaking down and he was running out of stories - he saw the snow-covered truck tipped over on its side that told him the ice huts were only another ten to fifteen minutes further.
"We're almost there, my love," he said. "Just hang in there a few more minutes. Then everything will be all right." He didn't hear a response from her, but then he hadn't heard one for at least half an hour.
The ice huts came into view and Felix saw someone exiting one of them. "Is there a medical station here? A doctor? Or nurse?" he yelled to them.
"Yes," the man replied. "In that next hut there. Here, follow me."
The man led Felix to the medical station and helped him pull Katya through the waist-high entrance. Then they laid Katya down on one of the small, hard beds as two nurses came over and began tending to her.
Felix collapsed down onto the floor of the hut from sheer exhaustion. He watched one of the nurses put another blanket over Katya while the other checked her pulse and listened to her chest with a stethoscope.
"Should I go get the doctor?" the first nurse asked.
The other nurse pulled the stethoscope away from Katya's chest and shook her head. Then she pulled the blanket up so that it covered Katya's face.
Felix made it back to his feet. "What are you doing?" he asked.
"I'm sorry, comrade," the nurse with the stethoscope said.
"What do you mean, you're sorry? I brought her here so you could help her. Give her a transfusion or something."
"Comrade, she's dead. There's nothing we can do."
"No!" Felix shouted. "She can't be dead! You've got to do something." He went over and pulled the blanket down from Katya's face. He put his fingers on her neck to find a pulse. His own heart was racing, pounding, aching. When he couldn't find a pulse, he put his ear next to her nose to listen for her breathing. Nothing.
"Comrade, it's no use," the nurse said and tried to pull him away by the arm.
Felix shook his arm free and pushed her away. "There has to be something we can do," he said.
"There's nothing," the nurse said. "She's in God's hands now."
The finality of the words stopped him. In God's hand now. A tear slid down the side of his nose and caught in his beard. He wiped his watering eyes with the back of his hands and bent toward Katya's pale face. He pressed his lips to hers and for the first time ever, there was no response. Her lips were thin and cold. Her entire face felt so very cold, and he knew then that it was over. She was gone.
He took her mittens off, wrapped his hands around hers, and rested his head on top of her. Through his tears he sang that silly nursery rhyme she was so fond of: Silly as a duck, what dumb luck, we're meant to be together, meant to be to-ge-ther . . ..
When he finished, he felt crazed - mad with bitterness - and had to get away. He went outside and thought to scream. But who at? What would he say? He kept thinking it can't end like this. It just can't!
What good were the trees? The sky? The air he breathed? What good was any of it when life at its core was hollow?
He had to do something. He had to let it out, to throw back at life all the ugliness that had penetrated him, poisoned him. He opened his mouth to cry out, but no sound came. There was nothing he could do or say that was going to change anything. There was only that infuriating feeling that he was trapped. There was no escape from this pain. No escape from death. No escape from sorrow.
He spread his arms wide and fell straight back into the thick snow. Everything he held dear in his life had been taken from him: his hopes and dreams; his beloved city; his best friend, Dima; and now the love of his life, Katya. It was as if the universe - knowing he wouldn't take that pilgrimage into darkness willingly - had thrown him headfirst into the abyss. He was in freefall on that most frightening of human journeys, the Descent.
The snow continued to fall, slowly knitting a blanket of white over him. Felix felt the earth trying to reclaim him in some way, and he didn't resist. He welcomed it.
~
-- Chapter Ten
Those Who Would Not be Defeated
____________________________
A Blue Jay chirps outside my window
as I contemplate why the door to my room
is always open.
I'm expecting no one.
I didn't even expect the Blue Jay.
I think I should shut the door.
No sense in leaving it open.
And then I hear it . . .
Laughter.
It bounces off the walls,
up the stairs,
and into my uncomprehending ears.
I ask it what it's doing here.
But laughter only laughs. It doesn't understand.
"Don't leave me," I say.
And it doesn't.
And we sit together for a while,
remembering those endless summer nights,
those endless summer dreams,
with our youth, and our convictions,
that our endless lives would always be just that.
I look away - only for a moment -
and laughter slips away.
I am bitter,
but leave the door open anyway.
The dentist put his flashlight and tool down in exasperation. "You're going to have to hold still for me to be able to do this," he said in his thick Lithuanian accent.
Felix took a deep breath and tried to relax all his facial muscles. He'd developed a blinding toothache that morning that blurred part of his vision. He was on leave from the front to have a dentist look at it. The tooth Dima knocked loose so long ago had never really healed. Nor had Felix wanted it to. He liked the pain. It served as a distraction and blocked other pain - emotional or other - out of his mind. It was also a constant reminder of the cruelty and confusion that defined the times in which he was living.
He'd been wandering aimlessly in the depths of sorrow for weeks on end but was hesitant, even now, to get rid of the tooth. It was like a comfortable old companion to him, someone he'd grown to trust. But a part of him knew it was time to move on. He was ready. Ready to feel again.
The dentist poked at his teeth and gums with a sharp metal object. "Ah yes, I see the problem," he said. He set the tool down and picked up a different one that looked like a pair of pliers. "Are you sure you don't wan
t a little alcohol to numb the pain? This is going to hurt."
Besides some strong alcohol that you could swish around in your mouth and then swallow, the dentist had no anesthesia. Even if he did have anesthesia, Felix wouldn't have accepted it. He wanted to feel every ounce of the pain when the tooth was removed. That was important to him.
The dentist stuck the plier-like tool in Felix's mouth and clamped down on the tooth. "Ready?" he asked.
Felix heard the dentist, but didn't reply because he was busy creating a different world in his mind. A world in which there was no hate, no shame, no arrogance. A world where poetry and legends were more important than money and philosophy.
After the dentist yanked the tooth from his jaw, Felix thought he would die from the pain.
The dentist put a small piece of cloth in Felix's mouth when he was done. "Bite down on that," he said, "but not too hard. It'll help stop the bleeding."
Felix was glad it was over but also filled with a great sadness. It was goodbye. Goodbye to a way of life that he'd grown accustomed to.
"Well, my son," the dentist said, "you're just about all grown up now. A 'mature adult' as they say."
Felix wanted to spit some of the blood out of his mouth, but the dentist had already told him not to do that as it would slow the clotting process. "What do you mean?" he struggled to say while still biting down on the piece of cloth.
The dentist was washing his hands over a bucket of water. "Your wisdom teeth are coming in," he answered.
It was March and the great cleanup of the city had begun. Felix passed by thousands of Leningraders busily clearing away snow and slop and corpses from the thawing streets. The workers were weak and thin and nearly all women. They used crowbars and hammers to chop the ice, snow, and debris from the sidewalks, then carried it on flat sheets of plywood to the river. Felix didn't want to think about how filthy the river would be when its ice finally melted and all that stuff sunk to the bottom. That was a problem for another day.
The ration situation had finally stabilized. Bread was plentiful. One could even get sugar, butter, and meat. The devastating months of January and February were behind them now, and Leningraders were daring to hope again. Hoping they'd already endured the worst. Hoping the blockade would be broken soon.
Felix passed by a bulletin board where a woman was putting up the latest issue of Leningradskaya Pravda. In his former existence, he would have stopped and read every article. But he'd stopped reading newspapers altogether now. He'd been concerned that they distorted his view of the world, so he'd went a week without reading any. He liked it so much that he stopped listening to the news on the radio too. He found that his whole demeanor changed. He felt lighter and more understanding of what it was that he was supposed to do with his life. Never again would he read a story or article that would anger him. Instead, he would spend his time talking to the trees and the animals and the snowflakes. He didn't always understand what they were saying, but it was immensely gratifying trying to figure it out.
There was a long line of people standing at the front door of a school. They were waiting to get inoculations, Felix knew. With spring fast approaching, it was feared that epidemics would break out and kill the remaining Leningraders who had somehow made it through the winter. Vaccines for typhus, cholera, plague, smallpox, and others were flown in from Moscow. Every hospital and school served as an inoculation station. Those too weak to make it there would get their shots at their home by visiting nurses.
A gust of wind picked up and it started to snow - big, wet, milky-white snowflakes filling the sky. As one passed by his ear, he heard a whisper. He didn't look around for another person. He knew who it was.
Everywhere he looked now, he saw Katya. She was in the monuments, the bridges, the canals, the Neva river. Her voice floated on the wind. Her eyes looked back at him from everyone he met. She was everywhere - inseparable from the city and people she loved so dearly. Everything she believed in was still here, and Felix awoke each morning knowing she was in his heart, her spirit guiding him with every step he took.
He was approaching the Kazansky Cathedral now and saw a small group of people gathered there. A beautiful, haunting piece of symphonic music was coming from the outside loudspeakers, and he stopped to listen. He was enchanted by the unfettered confidence of the piece. It was clear the composer had mastered his craft. It was also clear that he'd been very inspired when he wrote it. New ideas washed ashore in the music like giant waves, the tone changing seamlessly from vibrant to fearsome to dread and back again. The brass and percussion thundered in, then faded away, only to return in a more sinister form later on.
Felix didn't try to find any meaning or symbolism in the music. He was tired of philosophy and contemplation, always wanting to know things for certain. He was tired of thinking each new epiphany would be the one that changed his life forever. He'd had dozens of insights in his life and each time believed he'd found 'the answer.' He now understood that there actually was no answer and he should stop expecting one.
The music moved him. He found himself thinking of the proud and courageous people of Leningrad. How they refused to give up. He recalled the time at the end of January when the power stations had run out of fuel - halting the city's last remaining water-pumping station. Without water, the bread bakeries couldn't operate. A call went out for help, and two thousand Young Communists answered it. They formed a chain, passing buckets of water from the frozen Neva to the nearest bakery. They kept up the strenuous work in the bitter cold for hours on end, saving countless thousands of lives.
Then Felix thought of the truck drivers who tirelessly brought food into the city, risking their lives every minute they were on the ice, driving until fingers and toes had to be amputated. He thought of the starving workers who continued to produce shells and bullets in the freezing-cold factories, of the soldiers on the front lines who fought against the Germans and the cold and hunger day after day. All in order to save Leningrad. There were so many who had sacrificed everything - even their lives - for the sake of their country. Felix was filled with gratitude and awe at their bravery and selflessness.
Bits and pieces of the music sounded familiar. Felix asked a fellow soldier standing next to him what it was. "Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony," the man replied. "It's being performed in Moscow."
It was then Felix knew Russia would ultimately prevail over the Germans. Shostakovich composed that symphony while living in Leningrad under siege. Now it was being performed for the whole world to hear. A testament to the fact that they'd absorbed the deadliest blow any army had ever inflicted on another, and they were still standing.
He walked on. The pain from his tooth was fading, gradually being replaced by a tingling sensation in his stomach. He'd felt it for most of his life, but always thought it signified a weakness. The night Katya died, he learned otherwise. Her death had triggered something in him. A part of him he hadn't known existed came to life. It was a fierceness, centered in his belly, that gave him profound strength to keep his heart open to the world no matter the circumstances. He could speak of his grief and his sorrow and his joy. He could listen to others express their feelings. It was all part of a greater conversation to him, one he had daily with things both living and non-living.
As he'd laid there on the earth that night, being covered over with falling snow, he'd had the awful sensation that this life he was living was not really his. Awful, because he knew for certain that things would never be the same and he'd have to let go of the way he used to exist in the world. His life did not belong to him. It belonged to something larger, something he didn't completely comprehend yet. He'd struggled to find the words, ultimately settling on Divine Mother Nature. She was the one who had given birth to him, and he was filled with awe at his unity with such largeness. The price of that precious birth was steep. The price was that everything and everyone he held dear belonged to Her, and She would reclaim them all - sometimes one by one, sometimes a thousand at a time
.
He understood after that night he was always meant to be in complete servitude to Her. He'd known that as a small child, but had somehow forgot it as he got older. It took him nearly fifteen years to come full circle, to regain that knowledge of who he was and was always meant to be. That one night of unbearable angst and sorrow had accomplished what would have otherwise taken him decades to understand. Because of that great and awful secret that had been whispered to him when he reached the bottom of the pit of despair, he could no longer look at anything or anyone the same as before. His thoughts coagulated into slow, black sludge at one point on that night. Each thought the same - a tiny speck of black that combined to form an infinity of darkness. He struggled to comprehend it: the lack of colors, the void of emotion, the silence complete. He struggled and finally understood the futility of it. It was beyond his comprehension. It always had been.
He no longer cared about satisfying his petty desires. He no longer wanted to be understood. He was finished looking for answers. The only thing that mattered to him now was the mystery. The mystery of life.
It was going to take a lifetime of vigilance for it to sink into his being completely. All he knew right now was that he accepted the world exactly as it was and it gave him a sense of peace like he'd never known before. Peace so great, it burned through the darkness around him.
~
Epilogue
It was a warm sunny day in May and the five university students sat at a table next to an open window. Greenfinches sang from the treetops and pigeons strutted along the sidewalk looking for crumbs. Kyra, one of the students, had a big bag of puffed corn and threw a handful of it out the window for the pigeons to eat.
"So everyone knows their role for the presentation, right?" Igor asked.
