NIGHT SANK DOWN
EVEN during the warm months of the summer, the air in Leningrad carried a vague chill, as if the Arctic constantly reminded the northern city that winter and darkness were only a few hundred kilometers away. The wind carried ice in it, even in the pale nights of July. But now that October was here, now that the flat and forlorn city was shelled every day and stood barren and silent at night, the air wasn’t just cold, and the wind carried on its breath more than the Arctic. It carried a distinct sense of desperation, a harried hopelessness. Tatiana bundled herself into a gray coat and put Pasha’s old gray hat with earmuffs on her head and wrapped a ripped brown scarf around her neck and mouth, but she couldn’t protect her nose from breathing in the icy daggers.
The bread ration had been reduced again, to 300 grams each for Tatiana, Mama, and Dasha and 200 grams each for Babushka and Marina. Less than a kilo and a half for all of them.
Besides bread, the stores weren’t giving out or selling anything else. There were no eggs, no butter, no white bread, no cheese, no meat of any kind, no sugar, no oatmeal, no barley, no fruit, no vegetables. Once in early October, Tatiana bought three onions and made onion soup. It was fairly good. It would have been better with more salt, but Tatiana was very careful with her salt.
The family hung on to their supplies of food, but every night they had to open a can of ham, saying a short word of thanks to Deda. They had to stop cooking it outside in the kitchen because the smell from the ham would permeate the communal apartment, and frequently Sarkova and Slavin and the Petrovs would come to the kitchen, stand near the stove, and say to Tatiana, “You think maybe there’s a little for us?”
Slavin would emit cackling noises as Dasha sent them all back to their rooms, cackling noises simmering with unrepressed glee. “That’s right, eat the ham, girlie-burlie. Eat that ham. Because I just got the latest report, straight from the Führer himself. Herr Hitler plans to coincide his troop withdrawal from Leningrad with your last can of ham.” He laughed hysterically. “Or haven’t you heard?”
The Metanovs bought a small freestanding cast-iron stove called a bourzhuika, which had an exhaust flue that Tatiana stretched to a small framed opening in the windowpane. The flat iron surface of the bourzhuika served as the cooktop. Only a little wood was needed to fire up the stove; the problem was that it only warmed up a small section of the room.
Alexander was still away in Karelia. Dimitri was in Tikhvin. No one had heard from either of them.
In the second week of October, Anton finally got his wish. A fragmentation bomb split over Grechesky, and a piece of metal flew from the sky, hitting Anton and slicing his leg. Tatiana wasn’t on the roof. After Tatiana found out, she secretly brought a can of ham to Anton, and he ate the whole thing by himself in ravenous gulps. “Anton,” Tatiana said, “what about your Mama?”
“She eats at work,” he said. “She has soup. She has oatmeal.”
“What about Kirill?”
“What about him, Tania?” Anton snapped impatiently. “Did you bring it for Kirill or for me?”
Tatiana didn’t like the way Mariska was looking. Her curly hair started to fall out. Every day Tatiana secretly made Mariska oatmeal. But she knew she couldn’t continue to feed Mariska; Tatiana’s family was already unhappy with her. The oatmeal had a bit of salt and sugar, but it had no butter or milk. It wasn’t oatmeal, it was gruel. Mariska would eat it as if it were her last meal. Finally Tatiana took her to the children’s ward in Grechesky Hospital, carrying her for the last block.
When Tatiana was younger, she would sometimes forget to eat for half a day. And then suddenly remembering, she would say, “Oh, no, I’m STAR-ving.” An empty rumbling stomach, a salivating mouth. She would devour soup or pie or mashed potatoes, gorge herself, fall away from the table, and then she wouldn’t be STAR-ving anymore.
This feeling that Tatiana experienced, faintly at the end of September, more distinctly at the beginning of October, was similar in that she had the empty rumbling stomach, she had the salivating mouth. She would devour the clear soup, the black thick mud bread, the oats, and when she was done, she would fall away from the table and realize she was still STAR-ving. She would have some of the crackers she had toasted. But the cracker bag was diminishing in size by the hour. The nights were just too long after work. Dasha and Mama began to take some crackers with them in their coat pockets on the way to work. First a couple, then more and more. Babushka nibbled on crackers all day while she painted or read. Marina took some crackers to university and some for her dying mother.
After they bought the bourzhuika, Mama gave Tatiana the rest of her money — 500 rubles — one cold morning and told her to go to the commercial store and buy anything she could get her hands on. The commercial store near St. Nicholas’s Cathedral was far, and when Tatiana got there, she found a double irony. Not only was the store bombed out and abandoned, but there was a sign on the crushed window dated September 18 — NO FOOD LEFT.
Slowly she went home. September 18, four weeks ago, Papa still alive, Dasha planning to marry.
Marry Alexander.
At home Mama didn’t believe Tatiana about the store and went to hit her in frustration and stopped herself, which Tatiana found so miraculous that she went to her mother, hugged her and said, “Mamochka, don’t worry about anything. I will take care of you.” Tatiana gave Mama back her money, put the ration bread on the table, taking just a small piece for herself, and swallowed it ravenously while she walked slowly to the hospital, thinking about nothing but lunchtime, when she would get her soup and maybe some oatmeal, too. Tatiana thought about little else but food. The acute hunger she experienced from morning until night defeated most other feelings in her body. While walking to Fontanka she thought about her bread, and while she worked she thought about lunch, and in the afternoon she thought about dinner, and after dinner she thought about the piece of cracker she could have before she went to bed.
And in bed Tatiana thought about Alexander.
Once Marina offered to get the rations instead of Tatiana.
Puzzled, Tatiana gave her the ration cards. “Want my company?”
“No,” Marina said. “I’ll be glad to do it.”
Marina came back to her waiting family and put the bread on the table. There was maybe half a kilo.
“Marina,” said Tatiana, “where is the rest of the bread?”
“I’m sorry,” Marina said. “I ate it.”
“You ate a kilo of our bread?” Tatiana did not believe it.
“I’m sorry, I was very hungry.”
Tatiana looked at Marina in sharp surprise. For six weeks Tatiana had been going to get her family rations, and it had never even entered her head to eat the bread five people were waiting for.
And through it all Tatiana was STAR-ving.
And through it all she missed Alexander.