City of Fate

by Nicola Pierce

  Peter’s downcast expression immediately upturned itself into a blazing smile as he said, ‘Oh, well, that’s alright then.’ Having no more to say on the subject, he turned his attention back to his meal, leaving a thoroughly mortified Yuri to squirm in his seat; please let him keep his mouth shut until we leave.

  Peter did stay quiet for the next few minutes, as did everyone else, which was how they eventually heard the voices in the distance. They weren’t that far away since the women and the boys could hear what they were saying – and it wasn’t Russian.

  Isabella put her fingers to her lips. Yuri stopped chewing, his hand holding onto his last bite of bread. Peter, however, greedily pushed the rest of his slice into his mouth, determined to let nothing get in the way of his finishing it. He eyed up Yuri’s last piece, clearly hoping Yuri’d hand it over to him, but he didn’t.

  The women continued doing what they were doing, though Yuri noticed Isabella’s hands tremble a little, causing her to drop her ball of wool on the floor. Peter made a move to retrieve it. Yuri expected one of the sisters to tell him to stay put, but they didn’t. The ball of dark green wool unravelled to the other side of the room. Peter followed it, bent down to pick it up and, with Isabella’s nod of permission, began to slowly wind the loose strand around the remaining little bundle. So absorbed was he in this task, he didn’t seem too interested in the sound of approaching footsteps. In a desperate effort to stop whatever was going to happen, Yuri closed his eyes and counted to ten. When he opened them again, three German soldiers were standing in the doorway. Peter hardly glanced at them, and of course didn’t recognise their uniform, so enthralled was he in making that ball of wool as perfectly round as he could. Yuri, on the other hand, quickly scanned his surroundings for another way out, should they have to make a run for it. Unfortunately, the Germans were blocking the only point of exit. Yuri tried his best to ignore the urge to shout, We’re trapped!

  Isabella spoke first, ‘Good afternoon, gentlemen.’

  Yuri was amazed by the ordinariness of her sentence. What’s she thinking, wishing these men a good afternoon? They were the enemy, killers and monsters who had invaded their country and burnt down their city, not to mention shooting her sister dead, along with Peter’s mother.

  One of the men replied, ‘Good afternoon, Madam.’ His pronunciation was perfect, but it seemed that he was the only one who could speak Russian. Following a gesture from one of his friends, he then had the nerve to say, ‘We smelled bread. Yes?’ The three faces were full of hope.

  ‘Don’t give them any!’ Yuri muttered to Sarah.

  She smiled at him in such a way that he felt like a child who didn’t want to share his toys, and said, ‘Now, Yuri.’ Her response prompted him to look at the soldiers again, and try to see them as she did.

  They were not that old, nor that clean. Their uniforms were covered in a multitude of faded stains and they looked extremely tired and pale beneath the dirt on their faces. One of them, the shortest of the three, was wounded; he had an old cut above his right eye which had spawned a dried patch of blood on his cheek. The upper lid was swollen while his eye looked grey instead of white. The third one had his left hand wrapped in a filthy bandage. He was the only one who carried a gun. In fact, he was also carrying a sack. Maybe this was why his bandage was in such a bad state; he obviously liked carrying the important stuff despite his sore hand. In any case, he couldn’t speak Russian so he passed the bag to the first man who said, ‘We have meat. Horse.’

  Isabella bowed her head slightly, encouraging him to speak again. He obliged, ‘If you could give us some bread, we would give you some meat? Would that be alright?’

  Yuri was suspicious. Why wouldn’t they just point the gun at them and take whatever they wanted? The women, however, acted as if this was all perfectly normal. Anxious to prepare them for the worst, Yuri whispered to Isabella, ‘We can’t trust them, they are Nazis.’ To his shame the first soldier not only heard his warning, he also understood it.

  ‘No,’ he said, glancing from Yuri to the women. ‘We are not Nazis, we are Germans.’ He babbled some words to his friends, who both nodded hurriedly, to let the boys and the sisters know that they completely agreed with what he had told them.

  Sarah, noting the confusion on Yuri’s face, said quietly, ‘There is a difference, Yuri. These men are telling us that they are merely doing a job because they do not have a choice. They would much rather be back home in their own country, with their families.’

  The man was much relieved to be understood, nodding his head and holding out his hands to show he was no threat to them, ‘Yes, we only wish to go home, that is correct.’

  Peter had finished winding the wool and was deep in thought. It was possible that the soldiers were unaware of him; he had hardly moved since they arrived.

  Isabella calmly stated, ‘We can give you the best part of one loaf.’

  Yuri admired her courage. She didn’t ask them if that was alright or apologise for not offering more, which made him smirk until he caught Sarah’s eye and stopped smirking immediately.

  And then everything went very strange indeed.

  Peter, the ball of wool in his hand, walked right up to the soldiers and gazed at each of them in turn. The men, feeling themselves to be under inspection, shifted nervously – or, perhaps ‘guiltily’ is the better word. Peter looked so small, standing directly in front of them. Yuri was sure that Isabella or Sarah would call him back to the table but they didn’t. Instead, they watched him as intently as he watched the Germans.

  Quite unexpectedly, the smaller man began to cry. Yuri was astonished at the sight of this tough burly man crying as if his heart was broken.

  ‘Peter!’

  Peter flipped his head around, declaring as fast as he could. ‘I didn’t do anything!’

  The man did his best to stop crying, wiping away his tears and, in doing so, dragging grimy streaks across his face. He peered in wonder at the wetness on his palm and then stretched out his hand, as if offering his tears to Peter. Yuri started to move, but Sarah nudged him to remain seated, to let whatever was happening continue. Peter did the only thing he knew how to do to make someone feel better, he smiled brightly but was too shy to take the man’s dirty hand. Instead, he sort of nodded as if to say ‘Yes!’

  It was Sarah who spoke first, ‘Is he a father? Perhaps the child reminds him of his son?’

  The first man, the sergeant in the group, grew agitated, looking from his audience to his friends, muttering in German. A half-hearted debate took place between the three of them; the man who cried shook his head and said, ‘Nein!’ When he focused on Peter again, his face twitched and tears ran once more. Yuri was bewildered; he had never seen grown men behave like this. The other two soldiers stared at the ground, out of respect for their friend’s misery, their arms hanging loosely by their sides.

  Silence returned when the soldier was cried out. Peter informed him, in his most cheerful voice, ‘Crying makes me feel better too.’

  The sergeant translated what he had said, and the soldier couldn’t help himself. He startled everyone by taking one step towards the boy and hugging him tightly. As soon as he could, Peter escaped the man to return to Yuri, pushing himself into his lap. Both boys were confused and a little scared.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ apologised the sergeant. ‘My cousin didn’t mean to frighten him.’ The women accepted his apology without a word. ‘It’s just that he hasn’t slept in days. Every time he tries to sleep he hears children sobbing.’ Still, the women said nothing while the man wanted to say more. ‘There is a hospital for our soldiers beneath the opera house. I was going to leave him there but he refused to stay.’ Perhaps unwisely, he explained to his Russian listeners, ‘There were just two or three doctors for hundreds of men.’

  His cousin started to babble again and point at Peter who leant into Yuri. The soldier tried to ignore him, but Sarah asked, ‘What’s wrong with him? What children keep him from sleeping?’


  The sergeant stared at her, urging her with his eyes not to ask dangerous questions.

  Sarah’s gaze was neither unkind nor kind. Not one of the women had offered a chair to the men who looked like they badly needed to sit down.

  The man shook his head, arguing with himself. It seemed he reached a decision and said, ‘My cousin says he is being haunted by some children we met a while ago.’

  Yuri couldn’t help himself, ‘You mean ghosts?’

  The sergeant smiled thinly. ‘No, not exactly, or maybe it is that exactly. Maybe we are surrounded by the ghosts of what we have done, or didn’t do.’ His voice tapered off to a whisper.

  Isabella was blunt. ‘What did you do?’ Her tone did not encourage him to waste any more time.

  And so he began to explain, ‘A couple of weeks ago we marched into a small Jewish village with instructions to kill everyone there. The houses were wooden shacks and each one contained a family. We had expected to be confronted with rebels, people who threatened us, but all we found were families. So I asked my lieutenant, a man I respected, who exactly we were to kill and he just repeated, “Everyone”, ordering me to bring the adults into the forest and line them up, side by side. “But, sir,” I asked, “what about the children?” There were ninety of them, mostly babies and toddlers, the eldest ones were about seven years old. The lieutenant gave me a look of impatience and snapped, “They’re only Jews!” before walking away from me.’

  The soldier moved his hand down to hold his forehead, as if he had a bad headache. ‘We had no choice. Certain death is the penalty for disobeying orders. Our own friends would be forced to shoot us. I believe they practise this in your army too, ruling men with fear, killing their own soldiers for suspected cowardice?’

  If it was a proper question, nobody answered it. He took a deep breath and continued, ‘The mothers were forced to hand the babies over to brothers and sisters, or else, if it was an only child, they laid them gently on the ground. The husbands had the tough job of dragging their wives away from the children, telling them it would be okay, that they would be back soon.’

  Tears formed, but he rubbed them away, not allowing himself to show any weakness in exchange for pity. ‘Some of the littlest ones who could walk were maybe three years old and naturally they began to follow us. We were told to ignore them and keep the enemy – the parents – in front of us as we herded them deep into the woods.’

  He stopped for a few seconds, remembering a detail he had forgotten up to now. ‘It was the most beautiful day. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, just that perfect blue, the kind you can’t find in paintings. Bird song surrounded us until silenced by the few minutes of gunfire. That’s how long it took, before all the men and women were lying on the forest floor.’

  Sarah bowed her head while the sergeant kept talking. ‘Everything changed in that moment. From then on I couldn’t – I can’t remember why I was so excited and proud to join the army and be sent out of Germany to try to conquer the world.’ Gesturing at his friends, he confessed, ‘They don’t know this but when we were ordered to shoot the parents, I fired over their heads.’ He waited for a reaction to this.

  Isabella smiled sadly so he asked her, ‘I should have done something more?’

  She answered him with a question that might never go away, ‘Could you have done something more?’

  He shook his head, ‘No … no. At least I don’t think so.’

  Taking another deep breath, he said, ‘When the adults were dead, the children began to wail. The gunfire had frightened them. They were all so young. Most of them were just toddlers and couldn’t understand why their parents wouldn’t stand up or talk to them.

  Nearby, there was an empty building, old and rundown. Someone told me it used to be an orphanage, but I thought they were just pulling my leg. It was too much of a coincidence that we had created all these little orphans and that an actual orphanage, without any staff, mind, was sitting there waiting to house them. Anyway, we were told to lock the children in there. Then we set up camp for the night in and around those wooden shacks that were now empty – of people, at least. Some of the others checked them for food, and whatever else they could find. Most of us didn’t wish to talk about what we had done, but pretty quickly we discovered that if we didn’t talk or make noise, we would be forced to listen to those babies and children crying, over and over again for their Mamas.’

  His cousin took up their cry, his voice cracking over the word, ‘Mama, Mama …’

  The sergeant put a finger to his lips and when his cousin fell silent, he continued, ‘Rumours began to fly around that we would have to shoot the children, but I refused to believe them. After all, we were Germans, a proud and glorious nation, and what kind of nation needs to kill infants?’

  Yuri stole a glance at Sarah and was suddenly terrified when he saw her eyes were closed.

  ‘I sought out my lieutenant again and told him about the ridiculous rumours, waiting for him to scoff at them, but he didn’t. Instead, he confided in me that his superior, a mad man, thought the easiest solution was to kill them. However, he disagreed and contacted Head Quarters in Berlin, explaining the situation, saying that he couldn’t ask his men to massacre children. I thanked him for telling me this and for sparing us from such a horrible act.

  When I went to sleep, all I could see was the terrified faces of those children I had led into that dark, cold building. I dreamt about them all night. Some of us had to carry the babies inside because there was nobody else to. I carried a boy, he was just eight or nine months old, but old enough to tremble with fear in my arms. I think he was scared of the dark too; his little fingers gripped me when I set him down on the stone floor, I had to peel them off me, one by one. Who knows if any of the children slept; more than likely they were awake all night afraid.

  ‘Early the next morning we packed up and prepared to march on. We shouted greetings at one another as we worked, trying to block out the crying that hadn’t stopped. I couldn’t wait to leave the village behind, none of us could. It was going to be another gorgeous day, a chance to start over again, and I convinced myself that the children were going to be looked after.’

  Shrugging at us, he said, ‘I don’t know who I thought would do the looking after. Maybe I believed that they would be sent to another village, or there would be nurses brought in … or something like that. I couldn’t find my lieutenant, but I received an order to get the men together and move out. Fortunately our path was on the other side of the village, away from the orphanage. I had been dreading having to pass it. I called my men, gave the order and we began to march.’

  Staring at the ground, he admitted, ‘A couple of days ago we heard that Berlin agreed with killing the children, but because they knew we might refuse, they brought in different soldiers from the Ukraine to do the job.’

  Looking utterly wretched, he added, ‘I don’t know what else to say. I really don’t.’

  Isabella inhaled sharply, startling the two boys beside her, ‘Why did you tell us this?’

  The sergeant was confused. ‘What? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry.’

  The old woman showed no mercy or interest in his apology, ‘You stupid, ignorant people!’

  Silence followed this statement, during which she stood up abruptly and strode over to cut the remains of the loaf in half. Wrapping it quickly in a paper bag, and not bothering to wipe the tears from her face, she handed it to the sergeant while grabbing the bag of meat from him. Her expression was one of perfect fury. ‘Your soldiers killed my seventy-eight year old sister and now you stand here and talk about shooting babies?’

  The soldier concentrated on the bag in his hand.

  Isabella appeared to swell in size as she spoke, ‘You wear the uniform of a killer of children and old women. It was you, your friends, your family, who voted for Hitler. You waved flags at him, cheered his speeches of hate and then went out to kill in his name.’

  She looked like she might g
o on, but Sarah pleaded with her, ‘Hush now, Isabella. You have said enough.’

  Sarah turned to the men and advised them to be on their way, ‘You got what you came for.’

  The soldier nodded heavily. ‘Thank you for the bread.’ Unwilling to leave it there, he tried again with Isabella, ‘We just want to go home, forget about this war and go back to our normal lives.’

  Isabella sniffed loudly, ‘Oh, don’t be so silly!’

  Nobody said a word so she added, ‘Do you really believe that you’ll be able to forget about all this?’

  IN STALINGRAD AT LAST

  Anton was giving orders again or, at least, he was trying to. Leo kept butting in and asking questions like, ‘Why?’, ‘How do you know?’ and ‘Who put you in charge?’ To his credit, Anton did not lose his temper. Instead, he spoke calmly, as if to a stubborn child, ‘We should do this for Misha’s sake, so he won’t have died for nothing.’

  However, if Anton didn’t lose his temper, Leo certainly did. ‘What? You know what, I am sick of the sound of your voice and, by the way, Anton, you were no friend of Misha’s. Friends don’t bully one another. Remember when you had your mates slap him because of the colour of his hair. Remember when you ….’

  Vlad laid his hand lightly on Leo’s shoulder, causing him to fall silent.

  Anton sniffed loudly and said, ‘We need to find our regiment!’

  They had achieved something rather amazing. In a city where there were thousands of soldiers, the three boys had managed to end up in the ruins of a deserted house all by themselves.

  Vlad knew that what Anton said made sense. However, he much preferred staying where they were. As far as he was concerned, it was better to spend the rest of the night in the house. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘it’s late. Don’t you think it’s best to wait until tomorrow morning? We don’t know where we are or where we’re supposed to go. The shooting has stopped, so maybe everyone just sleeps at night. It might be a rule, or something?’