4
Alexander and Dimitri returned during the night of September 12, the first night and day there was no bombing at all. They had come back from Dubrovka for just one evening — to pick up more men from the garrison and more artillery weapons.
Alexander turned up, much to the tearful relief of Dasha, who would not let go of him for a second, refusing to help with dinner. Dimitri hung on to Tatiana in much the same way Dasha hung on to Alexander, but while Alexander was able to hug Dasha back, Tatiana stood like a skinned goose and looked helplessly around the room. “All right, now, all right,” she said, trying very hard not to look at Alexander’s black hair and large body, and failing. To see his shape in front of her eyes would have to be comforting enough. She would have to do without his arms around her.
When Dimitri went to wash and Dasha ran to make tea, Marina said, “You know, Tania, you could show a little more interest in the man who is fighting for you at the front.”
I’m showing plenty of interest, thought Tatiana, barely able to glance away from Alexander.
“Your cousin is right, Tania,” said Alexander, grinning at her. “You can show at least as much interest as Zhanna Sarkova, who, as we walked by her slightly ajar door, was lying on her bed with a glass to your wall.”
“She was?”
Raising his voice, Alexander took his rifle, banged once very hard on the wall and said loudly, “Have you heard this joke? A man showed a friend his apartment. The guest asked, ‘What’s the big brass basin for?’ And the man replied, ‘Oh, that’s the talking clock,’ and gave a shattering pound with a hammer.” Alexander banged the wall hard again. “Suddenly a voice on the other side of the wall screamed, ‘It’s 2 A.M., you bastard!’ ”
Tatiana laughed so loudly that Alexander put down his rifle and patted her gently on the back. “Thank you, Tania,” he said, smiling. “I’m starved. What’s for dinner?”
As Tatiana turned to go to the kitchen, she had to walk past Marina’s eyes.
Tatiana fried two cans of ham with a bit of rice that Alexander had brought, and some clear broth, which once had chicken in it. While she was cooking, Alexander came out into the kitchen to wash. Tatiana held her breath. He came up to the stove and checked under all the lids. “Hmm, ham,” he said. “Rice. What’s this, water? Don’t give me any of that.”
“It’s not water, it’s soup,” said Tatiana quietly. His bent head was very close to her arm. If she moved three centimeters, she could touch him.
Still holding her breath, she moved three centimeters.
“I’m so hungry, Tania,” Alexander said, raising his eyes to her, but before he could say another word, Marina came out to the kitchen and said, “Alexander, Dasha wanted me to give you a towel. You forgot.”
“Thanks, Marina,” said Alexander, grabbing the towel and disappearing. Tatiana stared into her clear soup, perhaps for a reflection.
Marina came over to the stove, looked inside the pot, and said, “Anything interesting in there?”
“No, not at all.” Tatiana straightened up.
“Mmm,” said Marina, walking away. “Because there is plenty of interesting out here.”
Over dinner Dasha asked, “Is the fighting terrible?”
Eating hungrily and happily, Alexander replied, “You know, strangely, no. It was the first two days, right, Dima? He knows. He was in the trenches for two days. The Germans were obviously trying to see if we would buckle. When we didn’t, they stopped attacking, and our recon guys swore to us that it looked as if the Germans were building permanent trenches. Concrete trenches and bunkers.”
“Permanent? What does that mean?” asked Dasha.
Slowly Alexander said, “It means that they are probably not going to invade Leningrad.”
The family rejoiced at this — everyone except Papa, who was half asleep on the couch, and Tatiana, who saw an ominous hesitation in Alexander’s face, a reluctance to tell the truth.
Biting her lip, Tatiana carefully asked, “Are you happy about it?”
“Yes,” Dimitri replied instantly, as if she were talking to him.
“I’m not, no,” Alexander replied slowly. “I thought we would fight,” he stated. “Fight like men—”
“And die like men!” interrupted Dimitri, banging on the table.
“And die like men, if we had to.”
“Well, speak for yourself. I’d rather the Germans sit in their bunkers for two years and starve Leningrad to death than endure their fire.”
“Oh, come on!” Alexander said, putting down his knife and fork and staring at Dimitri. “This wasting away in the trenches, you don’t think it’s a bit unbecoming? It’s almost like cowardice.” He gave Dimitri one more cold glance, wiped his mouth, and reached for the vodka. Tatiana pushed the bottle toward him from the other side of the table.
“Not at all like cowardice,” Dimitri declared. “It’s smart. You sit and you wait. When the enemy weakens, you strike. It’s called strategy.”
Nervously picking at her ham, Mama said, “Dimochka, surely you don’t mean starve Leningrad to death? Not in the literal sense, right?”
“Right, right,” said Dimitri. “I meant figuratively.”
Tatiana studied Alexander, who remained silent.
“Is there any more vodka?” Dimitri asked, lifting the nearly empty bottle. “I feel like becoming senseless tonight.”
Everyone glanced at Papa and glanced away.
“Alexander,” Tatiana said in her cheerful voice. She liked being able to say his name out loud. “Nina Iglenko came by today asking us if we could spare some flour and some ham. We have plenty, so I gave her some. She said she wished she had been as forward-thinking as we were—”
“Tania,” Alexander interrupted, and she sat heavily back in her chair. Her feelings had been right. He knew too much. And he wasn’t telling. “Don’t give a gram of your food away, for any reason, do you understand? Not even if Nina Iglenko seems more hungry than you.”
“We’re not that hungry,” said Tatiana.
“Yes, Alexander,” said Dasha, “we’ve had rations before. Where were you during the Finnish campaign of last year?”
“Fighting the Finns,” he said grimly. Tatiana wondered why Dasha always had to euphemize war into a campaign or a conflict. Was she writing propaganda for the radio?
“Dasha, all of you, listen to me. Hang on to your food as if it’s the last thing between you and death, all right?” Alexander said.
“Why do you have to be so serious?” Dasha asked sulkily. “Where’s your famous sense of humor? We’re not going to starve. The Leningrad council will get food in somehow, right? We’re not completely surrounded by the Germans, are we?”
Alexander lit a cigarette. “Dasha, do me a favor, save your food.”
“All right, dearest. You have my word.” She kissed him.
Alexander turned to Tatiana. “You, too, Tania.”
“All right.” Dearest. “You have my word.” She didn’t kiss him.
“Alexander, how long was London bombed for in the summer of 1940?” asked Dasha.
“Forty days and nights.”
“Do you think it’s going to be as long here?”
There was the question Tatiana wanted. She didn’t even have to ask it herself.
“Longer,” said Alexander. “The bombing will continue until Leningrad either surrenders or falls, or we push the Germans away.”
“Are we going to surrender?” asked Dasha. “I’ll fight the Nazis on the streets of Leningrad if I have to.”
Tatiana thought that was brave talk from Dasha, the girl who sat in the bomb shelter every night.
Shaking his head, Alexander said, “You don’t want to fight them, Dasha. A street war is devastating, not only for the besieged but also for the attacker. The loss of life is enormous. And while our beloved great leader might not set much store by the lives of his own men, Hitler maintains a surprisingly healthy interest in the lives of the Aryan race. I don’t think he will risk his men for Leningrad.” He glanced at Tatiana. “I think Dima will get his wish after all,” Alexander finished, with barely concealed contempt.
Tatiana looked at Dimitri — splayed on the couch, either asleep or in a stupor, next to her father — and went to get the cups for tea.
“Is it going to be like London?” Dasha said, throwing back her curly hair, her eyes gleaming. “London was bombed, but the people still went on with their lives, and there were clubs, and young people went dancing. We saw pictures. It all looked so gay.” She smiled at Alexander, stroking his leg.
“Dasha, where are you living? London?” Alexander exclaimed, moving away from her. “London might as well be Mars as far as you’re concerned. We don’t have dance clubs in Leningrad now. Do you think they will build them just for the blockade?”
Dasha’s face soured. “Blockade?”
“Dasha! London was not blockaded. Do you understand the difference?”
“Are we blockaded?” asked Dasha.
Alexander did not reply.
Mama, Dasha, Marina, and Babushka were squeezed around the table, all devouring Alexander with their eyes, all except Tatiana, who was standing in the doorway, her hands full of cups and saucers.
She did not look at him when she said, “We are indeed blockaded. That’s why the Germans have entrenched. They’re not going to lose their own men. They are going to starve us to death. Right, Alexander?”
Alexander said, “I’ve had enough questions for one evening. Just don’t give your food away.”
Mama said with disbelief, “Alexander, I heard the Germans are at Peterhof Palace. Is that true?”
“Remember we went to Peterhof, darling?” Dasha murmured, holding his hand. “Oh, Alexander, it was the happiest day! It was the last young, carefree day we had. Do you remember?”
“I remember,” Alexander said, not glancing at Tatiana.
“Nothing’s been the same since that wonderful day,” Dasha said sadly.
Turning to Mama, Alexander said, “Irina Fedorovna, Peterhof is indeed in German hands. The Nazis have taken the carpets out of the palace and are lining their trenches with them.”
“Darling,” said Dasha, sipping her tea, “maybe Dimitri was right. There are three million people still left in Leningrad. That’s too many to sacrifice, don’t you think?” She paused. “Has the Leningrad command considered giving up?”
Alexander studied Dasha. Tatiana was trying to figure out what was in his eyes.
“I mean,” Dasha continued, “if we give up—”
“Give up and then what?” Alexander exclaimed. “Dasha, the Germans have no use for us. Certainly they will have no use for you.” He paused. “Have you read about what they have done to the Ukrainian countryside?”
“I’m trying not to,” said Dasha.
“But now I have,” said Tatiana quietly.
Alexander continued. “Dimitri for a while there thought it might be a good idea to become a prisoner in a German camp. Until he learned how the Nazis shot the prisoners, looted and burned the villages, slaughtered the cattle, razed the barns, killed all the Jews and then all the women and children, too.”
“Not before they raped all the women,” Tatiana said.
Dasha and Alexander stared at her, dumbstruck.
“Tania,” said Dasha, “pass me the blueberry jam, will you?”
“Yes, and stop reading so much, Tania,” said Alexander quietly. He stared into his teacup.
Spooning some blueberry jam into her mouth, Dasha asked, “Well, if we are blockaded, how is the food going to get into Leningrad?”
Mama said, “We have plenty. We’ve saved quite a lot.”
Dasha stated firmly, “I don’t know, Mama. I think I’m with Dimitri on this. I think we should hand over—”
Looking bleakly at Tatiana, Alexander shook his head. “No,” he said. “Right, Tania? . . . We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end . . . We shall fight on the seas and the oceans. . . . In the air, we shall defend our island whatever the cost may be.”
“We shall fight on the beaches,” continued Tatiana bravely, her eyes all over Alexander. “We shall fight in the fields and in the streets . . . We shall fight in the hills.” She swallowed a lump in her throat. “We shall never surrender,” she finished, realizing her hands were trembling. “Churchill.”
Dasha heaved herself up in frustration and said, “Can you just go and make us a little more tea, Churchill?”
Marina came out to the kitchen to help Tatiana clean up and whispered, “Tania, I have never in my life seen anybody more dense and dumb than your sister.”
“Don’t know what you mean,” Tatiana said, pale and still.
A few days later Tatiana and Dasha counted what was left of their provisions, most of which Tatiana had purchased with Alexander’s help on the first day of war.
Their ephemeral first day of war.
That day seemed so far away, as if it belonged in another life, in another time. Two months ago, and yet already so irretrievably in the past.
In the present the Metanovs had forty-three kilo cans of ham. They had nine cans of stewed tomatoes and seven bottles of vodka. Tatiana realized with a shock that they had had eleven bottles of vodka when the Badayev warehouses burned down eight days ago. Papa must be drinking more than they knew, she thought.
They had two kilos of coffee, four kilos of tea, and a ten-kilo bag of sugar divided into thirty plastic sacks. Tatiana also counted fifteen small cans of smoked sardines. They had a four-kilo bag of barley, six kilos of oats, and a ten-kilo bag of flour.
“Seems like plenty, doesn’t it?” said Dasha. “How long can the siege possibly last?”
“According to Alexander, until the end,” said Tatiana.
They had seven boxes of 250 matches each.
Mama said that they also had 900 rubles in cash, enough to buy food on the black market. “Let’s go and buy some, Mama,” said Tatiana. “Right now.”
The sisters went with their mother to a commercial store, which had opened in August in Oktabrski Rayon, near St. Nicholas’s Cathedral. It took them over an hour to walk there, and they stared with disbelief at the prices of the few products on the shelves. There were eggs and cheese and butter and ham and even caviar. But sugar cost seventeen rubles a kilo. Mama laughed, turning toward the door until Tatiana grabbed her arm, and said, “Mama, don’t be cheap. Buy the food.”
“Let go of me, idiot,” said Mama roughly. “What kind of fool do you think I am, buying sugar for seventeen rubles a kilo? Look at the cheese, ten rubles for a hundred grams. Are they joking?” She yelled to the store clerk, “Are you joking? That’s why you don’t have lines in this store, you know, unlike the regular Russian stores! Who will buy the food at these prices?”
The young store clerk smirked and shook his head. “Girls, girls. Buy or leave the store.”
“We’re leaving,” said Mama. “Let’s go.”
Tatiana didn’t move. “Mama, do you remember what Alexander told us?” She took out the rubles she had saved from her job at Kirov and the hospital. There wasn’t much. She received only twenty rubles a week, and ten of it went to her parents. But she had managed to save a hundred rubles, and with that money she bought a five-kilo bag of flour for an outrageous forty rubles (“What do we need more flour for?”), four packets of yeast for ten rubles, a bag of sugar for seventeen, and one kilo of canned ham for thirty. She had three rubles left and asked what she could get. The clerk said a box of matches, 500 grams of tea, or some old bread that she could toast and make into crackers. Tatiana thought carefully and opted for the bread.
She spent the rest of Saturday cutting the bread into small pieces and toasting it in the oven, while Mama and Papa, and even Dasha, laughed at her. “She spent three rubles on stale bread, and now she is toasting it. She thinks we’re going to eat it!” Tatiana ignored them all, thinking only of Alexander’s words in the Voentorg store. Buy the food as if you’re never going to see it again.
That evening Alexander listened to the story and then said, “Irina Fedorovna, you should’ve spent every last kopeck of your nine hundred rubles buying up that stale bread.” He paused. “Just like Tania.”
Thank you, Alexander, thought Tatiana. She was on the other side of the room, and the room was filled with people. She hadn’t touched him in days. She was trying so hard to stay away from him, as he had asked her to.
Mama waved him off. “I was not brought up to spend seventeen rubles on sugar. Right, Georgi?”
Georgi was already asleep on the couch. He’d had too much to drink again.
“Right, Mama?”
Babushka Maya was painting. “I guess, Irina,” she said. “But what if Alexander is the one who is right?”