Burying the Sun

by Gloria Whelan

  He looked and looked at Olga and Mama and me. “Ah, I did not think to ever see you again,” he cried. “The Germans have crossed the Luga River. Everything is lost. There were hundreds of thousands of us. We dug trenches until our arms could no longer lift a pick or a shovel, and then we crawled on the ground and dug with our hands. There was hardly any food, and no place to sleep but the fields. All the while, the Germans fired their artillery at us and dropped bombs on us from their planes. A woman who was working beside me was killed. One minute she was there and the next minute…” He put his hands over his eyes.

  “In the end none of our work mattered. The German tanks rolled over our earthworks as if they were cotton wool. Half our solders didn’t have guns, while the Germans were shooting with cannons. We turned and ran, everyone ran. The roads were so crowded, you could hardly move. And not just the volunteers. The soldiers were running as well. The people on the farms were running, driving their farm animals ahead of them. It was like a thousand Noah’s arks. And I’ll tell you something else. There were Estonians who joined up with the Germans to fight us. Now we must wait for the Germans to put an end to us.”

  Olga sobbed while Viktor talked, but Mama was busy. She put a glass of tea and a bowl of soup in front of Viktor, who began to throw the food down his throat.

  Mama laid a hand on his arm. “Gently, gently, Viktor. You will make yourself sick.”

  “The Germans will march into Leningrad and kill us all,” Olga wailed.

  “No,” Mama said. “They will think there is no need for that. They will surround us, hoping to starve us, and only then will they march into the city. That way they won’t have to sacrifice their soldiers.”

  “But they will bomb us.” Olga began to cry again.

  “It’s all over,” Viktor said. His soup bowl was empty, and some color was coming back to his face.

  I couldn’t stand such talk. “Why is everyone giving up?” I demanded. “We have bomb shelters now, and we are going to learn how to fight the Germans hand-to-hand if we have to.”

  “Georgi is right,” Mama said. “This is our city. Why should we let the Germans take it from us? You will see. When the time comes, we’ll know how to fight.”

  The next day the headline in the newspaper read, the enemy is at the gates. When I went to the food store for Mama to get flour, I found long lines of angry people. Word had gotten out that the German army had crossed the Luga. Everyone was thinking the same thing: The Germans will starve us.

  At once the government passed out ration cards. We were allowed a little over a pound of bread a day, and if you got to the store in time, there was sugar and fat and millet to make porridge. We even had bread left over for Mama to slice and dry into her rusks. Our rusk bag was bursting at the seams, but still Mama dried the bread.

  Large numbers of women and children were sent out of the city, but so many refugees flooded into Leningrad from the south to escape the Germans, the population of the city stayed at three million. Rumors flew. There was a story that German planes dropped leaflets on the outskirts of the city, telling the women to put on white dresses so that the bombers could see them and not drop bombs near them. Some women were foolish enough to do it, and instead of sparing the women, the German bombers used the white spots as targets.

  Leningrad was divided into sections, several blocks to a section. Each one of the city’s 150 sections was to be protected by an army of volunteers. Everyone was welcome. At last I was to be in an army, but such an army: women, children, and old men. Each section had its own store of ammunition. Heavy guns were put onto trucks. The trucks would be driven about to be used where they were needed. We collected bottles and were taught how to make bombs and throw them against tanks. We also practiced using rifles so that we could shoot down Germans parachuting into the city. There were not enough rifles for each of us to have one to practice with, just one rifle that was passed around within our section. I had never fired a gun before, and when my turn came to try the rifle, I nearly fell over from its recoil.

  To stop the German tanks from advancing into Leningrad, cement blocks were scattered throughout the city, making it look like a giant had spilled sugar cubes. Wooden posts were pounded into any open space—parks, squares, and even the cemeteries—to keep Germans from parachuting into the city. Everyone who could lift a shovel or a pick was put to work. Thousands of miles of ditches were plowed to stop the German tanks. The ditches hadn’t stopped the Germans at the Luga River, but that didn’t seem to matter.

  One day a burly soldier marched into our section and called for volunteers to demonstrate how to kill a German soldier if one happened to walk down one of Leningrad’s streets. Dmitry and I volunteered at once. The soldier started his lesson with me.

  “Go ahead and try to hit me,” the soldier ordered.

  I swung at his chin, and before my fist could connect, I was propelled into the air and landed on the sidewalk.

  Dmitry cheered. The soldier gave him a stony look and the same order. In a minute he was beside me on the ground while the others applauded.

  All morning we were instructed on how to dispose of German soldiers, and all afternoon Dmitry and I practiced on each other until we were black and blue. After that we were careful in patrolling our section, eager to come upon the enemy so that we could put our new skills into practice, but we saw no German soldiers.

  At the end of August Dmitry’s reporter brother, Vladimir, returned from the front with more bad news, so bad it could not be kept out of the newspaper. The headline read: VIRONA lost. The Virona had been one of the navy’s largest ships. Vladimir had been covering the war with the Russian navy in the Gulf of Finland. The ships were anchored near the city of Tallinn on the coast of Estonia, another country that Russia had conquered. I begged Dmitry to let me come and hear Vladimir’s story for myself.

  The Trushins’ apartment was a pleasure to visit. Mrs. Trushin always seemed to be covered with flour. No sooner did you poke your head inside their place than Mrs. Trushin would open the oven door and take out some piroshki or makivneki oozing raisins, which was probably why all the Trushins were a little on the chubby side. The minute I walked through the door of the apartment, I could smell fresh baking. There were no raisins to be had now, nor meat for piroshki, but still there was a wonderful fragrance.

  “Georgi, come and have some egg bread,” Mrs. Trushin said. “I baked it for poor Vladimir. What he has been through! Let me pour you some tea, and here are the sugar cubes. It’s a miracle I could still find some.”

  The Trushins drank their tea in the old-fashioned way, holding a cube of sugar in their mouths to sweeten the tea as it went down.

  I joined Dmitry, Vladimir, and Mr. Trushin, who worked in the warehouses of the freight docks. The warehouses were where food was stored. Whether Mr. Trushin was able to fill his pockets I never knew, but there were always plenty of ingredients for Mrs. Trushin’s baking.

  Mr. Trushin said, “Vladimir is telling us the sad story of the Russian navy. I’d like to know who was stupid enough to send our navy away from the safety of the Kronstadt naval base.” Kronstadt was on an island about thirty miles east of Leningrad.

  “The deed is done, Papa,” Vladimir said. “What good does it do to talk about who is to blame? If you had seen what I saw, none of that would matter to you.” Vladimir was unshaven, his hair long, his clothes a mixture of army and navy castoffs.

  “Vladimir was on the Virona,” Dmitry said proudly.

  “We never had a chance,” Vladimir said. “The Germans guns were only a few miles away, and their shells came one after another. Overhead, German Junkers were dropping bombs on us. There must have been nearly two hundred boats there, all of them sitting ducks. Before they sailed away, the ships were supposed to take on board all the Russians from Estonia who were trying to leave the country to escape the Germans. On the Virona we had the Russian navy families who had been stationed there.

  “It wasn’t just the the shelling and the
bombing,” Vladimir went on. “A terrible storm blew up, and once we were under way, we had to make our path through the German mines.”

  I knew all about mines. “They’re magnetic, aren’t they? They’re drawn to the metal in the ships.”

  “Everybody knows that,” Dmitry said.

  “Those mines made us inch along. Still, we sat down to dinner as if we were in Mama’s kitchen. Afterward I went up on deck to watch the shelling and the bombs. It was like a great fireworks display, the German shells and bombs and our own antiaircraft guns on the ship booming away at the planes. All at once the ship exploded under me. In one second I was in the air, and then I was in the cold bathtub. People were swimming all around me, calling out for help. I kicked off my shoes and treaded water until I spotted a plank from the ship. I hung on for dear life.”

  Mrs. Trushin was wiping tears from her eyes with one hand and making the sign of the cross with the other. She urged more egg bread and tea on Vladimir. “You must eat, my darling, to get your strength back.”

  “A cutter picked me and several others up, but many were drowned. Of the twenty-nine Russian transports that set sail, twenty-three were lost.”

  “The fleet should never have been cooped up there in reach of the Germans,” Mr. Trushin said. “What were the commanders thinking?”

  “In this country,” Vladimir said with a shrug, “if you think for yourself, they shoot you.”

  “Vladimir!” Mrs. Trushin said. “How can you say such a thing?”

  “I say it to you because I can say it to no one else.”

  “But what does it mean?” I wanted to know.

  “It means,” Vladimir said, “that the Germans are drawing the noose more tightly around Leningrad.”

  I had to hurry through the streets to reach home, for a ten-o’clock curfew was now in effect. There had been almost no bombing in Leningrad. Still, listening to Vladimir, I worried more than ever about Yelena sitting up on the roof of the palace. I needn’t have worried, for when I got home, I found Yelena and Olga looking out for me.

  “Wonderful news!” Olga greeted me from the top of the stairway. “They have put antiaircraft guns on the roof of the palace, and the soldiers are on guard there. Yelena was sent home.”

  “Georgi, come inside our apartment and listen,” Yelena said. “Anna Akhmatova is going to be on the radio. Your mother is already in our kitchen.”

  Viktor had recovered and was now on air-raid duty, so we were only four sitting around the table. Akhmatova was Leningrad’s most famous poet. One by one she had seen poets silenced. Her dearest friend, the great poet Osip Mandelstam, had been arrested right before her eyes. He had died in a prison camp. Akhmatova’s husband had been executed by the Bolsheviks. After that, her poetry was banned in the Soviet Union. Now here she was, reading her poems on the radio.

  I knew all about Akhmatova because she was Yelena’s hero. I had complained that poets were useless in a war, but Yelena had told me that it was as important to feed the spirit of the city as it was the city’s hunger. “Akhmatova’s words do that,” Yelena said. Yelena and some poet friends of hers at the library were printing poems and placing them around the city for people to read.

  In her strong voice Akhmatova greeted the citizens of the city. Leningrad had always been a part of her life, she said. “Leningrad gave my poetry its spirit.” Leningrad, she promised, would never be conquered by the Germans.

  Yelena and Olga were crying; even Mama had tears in her eyes. For once I was glad I wasn’t in the army. I was in Leningrad, and Leningrad was sure to be as dangerous a place as any battlefield.

  CHAPTER SIX

  SPIES

  September 1941

  Dmitry and I patrolled our section of Leningrad carefully, for rumors were flying about that there were German spies in the city. One evening after supper, as we were walking down the Nevsky Prospekt, we noticed a man taking pictures. He photographed the old Straganov Palace, the Kazan Cathedral, and a bookstore. Dmitry and I looked at each other and back at the man. He was dressed in an old overcoat, much too big for him. His long white hair straggled out from beneath a little peaked cap.

  “I’ve never seen such a cap,” I said. “It looks foreign.”

  “German,” Dmitry whispered.

  “He’s taking pictures so the Germans know what to bomb,” I said.

  We followed the man, keeping just behind him and pausing in the shelter of a storefront while he took a picture. He was photographing the Gostiny Dvor, a collection of stores and stalls.

  Dmitry whispered, “We should report him.”

  “By the time the police get here, he could be gone,” I said. “We should make a citizen’s arrest.”

  Dmitry didn’t look too happy. “What if he shoots us?”

  “There are two of us and only one of him. One of us can go for the camera and the other for his gun.”

  “I’ll get the camera,” Dmitry said.

  I was beginning to feel a little doubtful. “First we’ll ask him what he’s doing.”

  As he raised his camera to photograph the Anichkov Palace, I confronted him. “You are taking photographs for the bombing.”

  “Yes, yes, now get out of my way. You have already spoiled a perfect shot and film is scarce.”

  It was all the confirmation we needed. Dmitry and I struck. Dmitry grabbed the man’s camera and I wrapped my arms around him, getting a stranglehold so that he couldn’t reach for a gun.

  The man fought back, kicking at my shins and butting Dmitry with his head. At the top of his voice he screamed, “Thieves! Thieves!”

  A crowd began to gather. “Keep him from escaping!” I shouted. “He’s a German spy!”

  At the same time, he was yelling at the crowd, “Thieves! Get a policeman!”

  Much to my relief, a policeman appeared, but instead of taking the spy into custody, he grabbed me and Dmitry, who was holding the spy’s camera.

  “He’ll get away,” I said to the policeman.

  “These hoodlums have stolen my camera,” the man said.

  “But he admitted he was taking pictures of everything so the Germans would know what to bomb,” I insisted. “He said so.”

  “I said nothing of the kind. I am Josif Vasilyevich Vronsky of the Leningrad Historical Society. I have been commissioned by the society to photograph all of our famous landmarks in the event there is damage from bombs. We must know how to reconstruct the buildings.” He was fumbling in his pockets and now drew out a leather case, from which he extracted his identification papers.

  “Will you press charges?” the policeman asked Vronsky, handing back his camera.

  Vronsky looked at us. I think he must have seen in our faces our bewilderment and how embarrassed we were. He began to laugh. “Nichevo,” he said to the policeman. “It is just a misunderstanding. I have no time to waste in a police station.” He turned to us. “The next time you go spy hunting, use the sense God gave you, or all the citizens of the city will end up in jail.”

  Red-faced, we slunk away, trying not to hear the laughter of the crowd.

  The next day Dmitry reported that Vladimir had gone off on another assignment to the front. Dmitry didn’t know where, but he whispered that he thought it was north toward Finland. “The dirty Finns have joined up with the Germans. Vladimir says they are nearly to our northern border.”

  “If we hadn’t invaded their country, maybe they would have been with us instead of against us,” I said.

  At first Dmitry looked like he was going to start another fight, but then he only shrugged. After our spy mistake a lot of the fight had gone out of us.

  The Germans and the Finns were to the north, and to the west there was the Gulf of Finland with all the German navy. One day we were shocked to hear the sound of cannons firing into the city from the south. There was still Lake Ladoga on the northeast of the city, but our hopes were pinned to the southeast, where the railroad ran from Leningrad to Moscow. Our hope gave out, for on the very day w
e heard the cannons, the Germans parachuted into the city of Mga and cut off the railroad. My first thought was of Marya. How would she get back?

  “We are like rats in a trap,” I said to Dmitry. “The circle is complete.”

  Now that they had us encircled, the bombing grew worse. Leningrad’s famous roller coaster, the Amerikanskaya gora, went up like like a box of matches. The zoo was bombed, and we could hear the pitiful cries of the animals. Yelena and Olga were horrified and crouched inside with their hands over their ears. Marya and I had ridden on the roller coaster and spent afternoons in the zoo. All that was over.

  It was on the fourth of September, two days before my fifteenth birthday, when the great tragedy happened, changing the lives of everyone in the city. Mama and I were reading a letter from Marya. The postmark had been blacked out, and even though we knew she was somewhere in the city of Sverdlovsk, Marya was not allowed to send a return address. She said she was well and wished she could send food our way. “My children are safe,” she said, and we knew she meant the treasures from the Hermitage.

  As we were reading the letter, I happened to glance out the window. The whole sky was exploding in a firestorm. We ran out onto the balcony. The people on the prospekt were looking to the southwest side of the city, where flames were rising. Mama said what I had been too afraid to say aloud.

  “God help us. They have bombed the food warehouses.”

  It was true. The whole of the city’s supply of food was being destroyed—all the sugar, flour, butter, and meat. All gone. The faces of the people on the street below us were a frightening red from the reflection of the flames. We were all coughing, for the smoke had settled like a suffocating blanket over the city. That morning there had been enough food for the city. By the evening we were all facing starvation.