City of Fate

by Nicola Pierce

  Yuri had glowed with pride when Tanya had reached out to touch him briefly on the shoulder, as if knighting him for his kindness to her former neighbour, ‘Where are you both staying, do you have a place to sleep?’

  ‘In a big hole in the ground,’ Peter had re-joined the conversation.

  Yuri had explained, ‘It’s a bomb crater, I think. Some people dug out a couple of tunnels. We only go there at dusk, when the fighting gets really bad.’

  She’d nodded. ‘My mother and I are living in a basement about ten minutes from here’.

  Peter’s eyes had widened as an idea had popped into his head. ‘Can I come?’

  Yuri had blanched, frankly shocked that the boy would leave him so easily.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, no, pet. I’m afraid you can’t. But here,’ she’d dug her hand into her coat pocket and produced a hunk of bread, ‘and make sure you share it with Yuri. Okay?’

  Peter had looked upset; he’d stared hard at the ground, obviously preferring to be taken home with Tanya.

  Watching him, Tanya’s face had puckered slightly, and she’d muttered to Yuri, ‘It’s just that my mother isn’t well since the bombing. She mostly just cries all day.’

  Yuri had blushed, feeling a little embarrassed that she’d felt obliged to explain herself.

  Gunfire had started up behind them, bringing the conversation to an end.

  ‘Right, I better get going but we’ll meet again. Keep an eye out for me, won’t you, pet.’

  She’d leant down and had kissed Peter on the cheek, not that he’d seemed to notice. ‘Be good for Yuri, won’t you, dear?’

  Peter’d grunted. Yuri had moved nearer to him in the hope that she would kiss him too or even just shake his hand again but all he’d got was a hearty, ‘Take care now!’

  Tanya had inched around the car’s skeleton and had headed off in the direction of the factory.

  He’d been relieved she’d walked away first as it was much more preferable than her watching him limp away. He’d felt like something was fluttering inside his belly. ‘She’s nice, isn’t she?’

  Peter hadn’t answered. His mouth had been full of bread. Fortunately he’d managed to keep a piece for Yuri, a rather small piece, but it had been better than nothing.

  Yuri had been too distracted to complain as a sudden burst of gunfire had filled the air, prompting him to pull Peter closer to the ground. With his cheek pressed into the dirt, Yuri had tried to spy Tanya from beneath the car but she’d already gone. He’d sighed and blown some dust off the back of his hand, realising that they might as well stay where they were for the time being.

  They’d lain there, side by side, for a while, listening to the fighting. A couple of weeks earlier Peter would have been crying with fright but by then he was more or less able to ignore the screaming of the guns.

  ‘Do you not want to live with me anymore?’ Yuri hadn’t been able to help himself; the lack of gratitude hurt. A centipede stumbling over the stones had absorbed Peter’s attention while Yuri’d waited to be thanked for saving and minding him. At least Tanya had recognised his good – no – great deed. What was it she’d said, ‘I’m glad he found you’? That was definitely something to be grateful for.

  They’d both watched the centipede now since there wasn’t much else to do. When it had seemed it might leave, Peter had blocked its escape with a grubby hand.

  ‘You didn’t lose your gloves, did you?’ There’d been no answer. ‘Well, I hope you didn’t since you’ll need them tonight when it gets cold again.’ Still, nothing.

  Sometimes Peter could go a whole day without speaking. He would just stop talking, for absolutely no reason, thoroughly frustrating Yuri by ignoring anything he asked, causing him to wonder, was I like this when I was five? I’m sure I never treated my mother like this.

  Gradually, the shooting had seemed to move away from them. Yuri had been relieved since there hadn’t been much in the way of shelter nearby. The wisest thing to do was always to keep moving so he’d stood up slowly, wiping down his messed-up trousers, and had pulled Peter into a standing position, making a silent fuss over the dirt on his trousers too. As he’d expected, the child had stared off moodily into the distance. Yuri’d smiled to himself, knowing he had the code to crack this particular instance of huffiness. ‘Hey, will we go see the statue?’

  Peter had swung to face him, forgetting he had been feeling so bored and fed up, breathlessly asking, ‘Can we? Really?’

  Yuri’d taken his hand. ‘Well, only if you promise to talk to me while we walk.’

  Peter’d had to think about this, not wanting to give a wrong answer nor an untrue one. Finally, his decision made, he’d replied, ‘Okay, Yuri. I promise.’

  MR BELOV’S BOYS LEAVE HOME

  ‘Cowards!’ announced Anton so definitely that nobody thought to contradict him.

  Seventeen year old twins, Vladimir and Dmitry Chekhov, had not made it to school for the last day of lessons. But their names were on the list. Mr Belov sent a young pupil over to the Chekhov house to say that the twins should meet their class at 4pm, when they would be heading off for the register office in the nearby town.

  The dutiful messenger returned with Mrs Chekhov’s words ringing in his ears, and delivered the message exactly as he had heard it, ‘VLADIMIR AND DMITRY ARE NOT GOING ANYWHERE BECAUSE THEY ARE VERY, VERY SICK!’

  A shadow fell across Mr Belov’s features. ‘Do stop shouting at me, there’s a good lad.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Sorry, sir!’

  He sent the excited boy back to class. For their last hours of schooling the teacher seemed unable to decide how to spend them. In one sentence he mentioned Alexander The Great (Was he really that great?), Adolf Hitler (What he might have thought about Alexander The Great?), and the importance of keeping one’s knife and fork clean when out at the front (Food poisoning is very dangerous for a soldier in battle).

  It was hard to concentrate on anything much when the classroom door was besieged by mothers insisting on seeing their sons, ‘for just a few minutes’. Out of seven visits, only five pupils had faithfully returned to their desks.

  Mr Belov was torn. On the one hand, he had complete sympathy for these terrified women, most of whom had no idea where their husbands were and, therefore, were extremely reluctant to release their sons to God knows what. On the other hand, he acknowledged a prickly chill around his heart as he wondered how the state police would respond to this disobedience.

  Orders like his letter had come from Stalin himself. Protecting the Motherland was an immense privilege with absolutely no alternative. For one moment the teacher wished not to be Russian, a most shocking thought that could never be said aloud, even as a joke. Surely in other countries this did not happen. School children were not ordered to leave their lessons and join the army with neither proper training nor experience.

  The one clear instruction from Stalin that they all knew – ‘There must be no turning back’ – did not sound like much, but, in fact, it meant something terrible.

  Mr Belov had heard some of the stories whispered about the town about Russian generals shooting their own soldiers if they showed any hesitation or panic on the battlefield. A soldier was to keep stepping forward, no matter what. Who wants to die a coward, bringing disgrace on their family?

  Only yesterday, his neighbour, Mrs Chuykov, had stopped him on the street to tell him that Konstantin, her beloved grandson, was dead. He’d reached out to take her hand and say, ‘Oh, Maria, I am so sorry for your loss. What happened to him? I hope it was swift.’

  The old woman’s eyes had been filled with pain. ‘That’s the worst of it. We don’t know anything at all. The army never contacted us, just a friend of Konstantin’s, Daniel something or other, who wrote to tell us he was dead.’

  Before he could say anything else, she’d lowered her voice, quickly declaring, ‘He was no coward, that boy. I don’t care what they try to tell us.’

  Much to Mr Belov’s shame, they had both gazed
nervously around, making sure that there was nobody listening to them. These days it was impossible to know who was listening to timid, hushed conversations like this. Wishing that he’d dared to say more, the teacher had looked his neighbour in the eye and had promised, ‘Of course he wasn’t a coward. No lad ever stood straighter. The day we watched him leave, I remember thinking to myself that if even half our men had half his courage that would be enough to see off any enemy.’

  Mrs Chuykov had nodded in triumph, as if Mr Belov had said a great deal more than he did. ‘Thank you for your kind words. You’re a good man.’

  Instead of being warmed by her faith in him, however, he had burned with shame as he’d continued on down to his front door and had let himself in. His wife, who’d been waiting for him, had rushed to help him, making him feel older and frailer than he actually was.

  ‘Really, Klara. I am quite capable of taking off my own jacket and hat.’

  She had been about to smile at his sudden stab for independence until she’d noticed how pale and worried he’d looked.

  They had been married for over forty years and had never once spent a night apart in all that time. What kept her young, she felt, was taking care of him. She would frequently declare to herself, with enormous pride, ‘He couldn’t even make a pot of tea for himself, since he neither knows where I keep the tea or the cups.’

  Only recently, he had told her about an elderly couple who had died together on one of those big ocean liners. The ship had hit an iceberg – now, what was its name? – and the passengers had to be put off into lifeboats, only there weren’t enough for everyone on board. So, the women and children had to leave their men behind, but this wife refused to do that, saying, ‘We have been together for forty years. Where you go, I go.’

  Mr Belov’s wife had nodded her head in solid support of the lady’s decision. Her husband had pretended to be surprised. ‘What, Klara? You would prefer death to separation?’

  She had given him one of her looks then, and had said rather matter-of-factly, ‘In our case, wouldn’t separation and death amount to the very same thing?’

  ‘What’s wrong, my dear? Something has upset you?’

  With his front door closed and his devoted wife as his only listener, Mr Belov had felt free to say what he wanted, as long as he spoke quietly, just in case, ‘Maria Chuykov’s grandson is dead.’

  Mrs Belov had led him to his old armchair where his slippers had been waiting to be substituted for his shoes, and had murmured, ‘Yes, I know. I heard. Poor Maria.’

  Her husband had watched her carefully as she’d fussed about. ‘Do you know what happened?’ he asked her.

  At that, she’d turned away from him, saying, ‘How can I know when his family doesn’t? They received a brief note, in the post, from someone who didn’t even sign his full name.’

  Mr Belov had kicked off his shoes. ‘You know what that means, don’t you?’

  His wife had sat down heavily on the stool beside him. ‘It means that I’m glad we never had children’.

  Mr Belov had shifted impatiently and stared at her until she’d given in, nodding her head sadly, and sighing, ‘Yes, alright. I know. It means that we’re killing our own.’

  At ten minutes to four he gathered what was left of the class and they headed outside. Relatives stood around in anxious groups, their eyes following the teacher, making him feel that they blamed him for what was happening. At his insistence, his wife had stayed at home as he’d wanted to be free to concentrate on the boys. He’d promised to be back before tomorrow afternoon at the very latest.

  Vlad’s parents stood apart from the others. His father was ashamed that he’d been certified as being too old to help defend the Motherland. Vlad felt awkward. He knew his father felt useless, but it wasn’t something they could ever talk about. His mother handed him a paper bag containing two hardboiled eggs and four slices of her homemade bread.

  Both his mother and father knew their son had to go to war, since theirs was the only family in their street who had yet to contribute somebody to the war. Even Mrs Bychok, the widow, who had no sons to give to the army, saw her two daughters off to work as nurses in distant hospitals – a fact that she spoke about loudly and frequently.

  Fortunately Vlad did not see himself as some sort of family sacrifice. There was no choice, in any case. If the authorities had ever found it necessary to raise their eyebrows and question the Chevola family’s loyalty to their country, it would mean certain trouble, and not just for Vlad and his parents, but also for his grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins. Every single Chevola would be infected with the hint of suspected treason, and that was all that was needed – just the smallest, tiniest hint. These days, to be suspected of not loving the state more than yourself and family was as good as being guilty of something quite dreadful, and completely unforgiveable. Punishment meant exile to the gulag labour camps, where prisoners – traitors – worked hard with little food until the day they died. Meanwhile, their families would forever be known for having spawned an ‘Enemy of the State’ and would live under constant scrutiny with the ever present threat of being arrested themselves.

  Anton Vasiliev towered over his tearful mother, making sure to keep some distance from her, in case she tried to hug him in front of everyone. He had no problem seeing himself as a man and, accordingly, imitated his father’s roughness, ‘Will you stop crying, woman! You’re embarrassing me. People will think you’ve no faith in me as a soldier.’

  He caught Vlad looking at him and, over the rather impressive sound of his mother blowing her nose, rolled his eyes as if to say, man to man, ‘Do you see what I have to deal with!’

  Vlad smiled, in spite of himself, and even wished he could be like Anton. He was eager for his parents to go, but, at the same time, dreaded saying goodbye to them, because he might give himself away and show how scared he was. Peering at the younger children, the boys and girls who were too young for any army, he wished madly to be nine again. When he and his classmates walked away from here, those lucky kids could return to their game of football, or chasing, or whatever they normally did at four o’clock on a sunny Wednesday afternoon.

  He glanced over again at Anton and his mother; both were now engaged in a furious discussion over Anton’s refusal to take the small statue of her favourite saint, to keep him safe from all harm.

  ‘I can’t take that with me. Do you want to get me in trouble?’

  Mrs Vasiliev held the statue to her chest, too miserable to lower her voice. ‘But, my dear, it’s allowed now. Stalin has said we can pray again and go back to church.’

  Nevertheless Anton was adamant; he was simply not prepared to risk anything that might affect his otherwise blatant patriotism. In fact, his mother was right; Russia’s tempestuous leader had recently relaxed his rules forbidding his people from practising religion, recognising that happier citizens might, in the short term at least, make better soldiers. Then again, maybe Anton was, accidentally, the wiser one since Stalin was known to change his mind over things like this, tripping up people who couldn’t be expected to keep up with the hundreds of rules. What might be allowed one day would invariably be a crime the following day and there was no room for such reasonable explanations as: I didn’t realise, I’m so sorry, or it was a mistake.

  The roaring silence and awkwardness of his parents made Vlad desperate to say something, even something he had already said, ‘Of course, I’ll write whenever I can.’ His voice didn’t sound like his.

  ‘You mightn’t have much time for that’ was his mother’s unfeeling reply while her husband stared off into space. The casual observer might have recognised that the parents wished to say a lot more but just couldn’t, for fear of upsetting each other in front of their son.

  And then, finally, time had run out for anything more. Mr Belov was calling for his students to get in line behind him. They were going to do this properly, to march off smartly in pairs and, hopefully, make their relatives proud.

>   Feeling guilty and confused to discover he was relieved to be saying goodbye, Vlad gave his mother a quick, light hug and faced his father, trying to think of some decent words and then settling for stating the obvious fact, ‘I have to go now.’

  The tension in his father’s face was dreadful. Vlad had a sudden urge to giggle; he was tongue-tied, swearing that his tongue was exactly that, tied up in a knot of panic. So distracted was he, by his own nervousness, he could not see how distressed they were.

  ‘Look after yourself, Vlad.’ His father spoke at last, and, just as Vlad stepped away, he added, ‘I’m sorry I can’t go with you.’

  Having no idea what to say to this, Vlad pretended not to hear him.

  The noise was tremendous. Everyone started shouting at once, dogs barked furiously, as if calling out their own frantic goodbyes, and babies began to wail, no doubt picking up on the sadness and fear in the air about them. With so much going on, Vlad felt safe to turn and smile painfully at his parents, to show them he was perfectly alright.

  A couple of women were obliged to hold up Mrs Vasiliev, who sobbed louder than any baby. In one or two instances, Mr Belov had to gently tug a boy out of the arms of his mother and grandmother. The letter had stated that the class had to register at 8pm sharp, and that ‘tardiness will not be tolerated’ – whatever that meant.

  The teacher casually inspected the line of boys, counting twenty-five when there should have been thirty. ‘Is that everybody?’ he asked the onlookers, vaguely hoping that someone would say ‘No, wait a minute, here come the Chekhov twins’, or whoever else was missing. Instead, he was met with a sulky silence, the only answer he was going to get. For a moment, he wondered if he should say something, give a short speech about courage and patriotism, but then he reasoned to himself, how could he, when he felt neither the least bit brave nor the least bit patriotic?