It was Tanya who’d told Yuri that Peter was an orphan. Nobody claimed to know where his father was, including Peter, but his mother had died somewhere down by the Volga. She’d been shot dead as she filled buckets with water. The buckets were still there, one was yellow and one was blue. Her body was elsewhere, perhaps carried along by the current to some far-flung resting place.
Tanya had lived in the flat next door to them, in a tall, white apartment block on Gogolya Street. It was long gone now, both the building and the street. For several days, Peter had tried to show Yuri where it used to stand but he hadn’t been able to make sense of the mountains of rubble.
It was difficult to remember what the city used to be like before the Germans bombed it into concrete mush. A lot of places were just gone, Yuri’s house was gone, his entire street, the whole area was gone, including Mr Olga’s barber shop, where Yuri had sat impatiently through too many haircuts that always involved a lot more time and work than they should have. Yuri imagined that Mr Olga fancied himself as an artist who was forced to make do with cutting or shaping men’s hair, one strand at a time.
Yuri had wondered where Mr Olga was now – just as he had wondered about his best friends, Grigori and Anatoly. But then he had decided to make himself stop thinking about them. He had closed off that part of his mind; he had tried to close off the pain.
The boys had been out on one of their walks when Peter had spotted his neighbour. Gasping in utter delight, he’d run into her open arms, leaving Yuri staring at them both in amazement. No introductions had been forthcoming; Yuri had simply had to wait until the pretty girl and little boy had stopped hugging one another before she’d taken any notice of him. When she’d smiled at him, at long last, Yuri’d felt both out of his depth and out of breath, as if he’d just been sprinting hard and wasn’t sure about where the finish line was.
Peter hadn’t known any better so he hadn’t bothered saying something like, this is Yuri, or this is Tanya.
Sticking out her hand, Tanya had taken charge. ‘Hi, I’m Tanya!’
Yuri’d never shaken a girl’s hand before and he’d stared away from her as he’d allowed her to shake his, barely remembering to follow this up with a stammering introduction of his own.
Maybe to spare him further embarrassment – a girl like her was used to having admirers – she’d turned her full attention on Peter again, who’d been too ignorant to be bashful just because someone was pretty. ‘Where have you been, pet?’
Peter had stared at her for a moment, as if he’d been asked the most unusual question ever, and then he’d given a shockingly perfunctory answer, ‘With Yuri!’
Shrugging her shoulders, she’d laughed. ‘Well, that’s as good an answer as any, I suppose.’
Yuri remembered grinning; at least that’s what he hoped his face had been doing.
Tanya had persisted with Peter. ‘And where have you been with Yuri?’
Delighted to have made her laugh before, the small boy had tried again, smiling brightly, sticking his tongue between his teeth and saying in a babyish voice, ‘Em … em … I forget!’
Tanya had turned back to Yuri, glancing around them as she’d said, ‘I’m glad he found you.’
It had been too dangerous to stand around talking for long; the three of them had huddled down behind what used to be a car.
‘No, I found him!’ Yuri had declared.
There had been something about Tanya’s dark curly hair and green eyes that had made him want her to know exactly how active he had been in the matter. He’d guessed she was a bit older than he was though she wasn’t much taller.
She’d told them she was on her way to work in the factory which was about the only place in Stalingrad that was still operating as normal. Peter had asked her what she did there and she’d replied, ‘I help to make the tanks that roll over the bodies of the stinking Germans.’
Turning to Yuri suddenly, she’d giggled, ‘Imagine that! Me making tanks!’
Yuri’d laughed, despite not understanding what the joke was; only knowing it was lovely to have her share it with him.
They’d both watched Peter draw one unending circle in the gravel, his dirty index finger going around and around.
‘So,’ Tanya had whispered, ‘how did you two meet?’
Yuri had described then how he’d found Peter trailing after some soldiers. ‘I was somewhere down the side of Red Square, near where the Univermag Department Store used to be. Do you know it?’
She’d nodded.
‘Anyway, he was obviously lost and the soldiers kept trying to explain that he couldn’t follow them. They cursed at him, just to frighten him away, I think.’
Tanya had looked upset and, running a hand through her hair, she’d blinked down the ruin of the street. ‘Poor little thing!’ she’d sighed.
Yuri had watched the hair bounce back into place as he’d continued, ‘I told him that I’d help him find where he lived; only we never did. When he said he didn’t know where his mother was, well, I couldn’t just leave him.’
At this, Tanya had smiled warmly at him, encouraging him to pronounce, ‘And we’ve been together ever since.’
Of course Yuri hadn’t told her everything. How could he describe how frightened he’d felt after three nights by himself in the cellar? He’d hardly slept at all, his heart galloping at every noise – real or imagined – outside. Even he’d been shocked at how much he’d missed his mother and sister, so much so that he’d actually found himself wishing he could turn time back to the bombing; at least the three of them were still together then. He’d forced himself out walking the day he’d met Peter, because he hadn’t been able to find any food in the rubbish nearby; also his loneliness had pushed him to find something better than the empty cellar. Really he should have been petrified that the Germans would find him but it occurred to him that if they did, they’d bring him to wherever they’d brought his mother and Anna. So perhaps that was why he’d marched out and away from the cellar, willing whatever was to happen to happen.
Back then he still held out hope of bumping into Grigori, Anatoly or anyone else he knew. He’d kept a watchful eye for signs of life in and around the broken buildings. It had been a perplexing experience to walk about his own district, the streets he knew as well as his own bedroom, only to understand that everything he’d known was plain gone. Yes, this was where he had been born and grown up, but now it was a strange, obscene place he did not recognise. He and his mother had spent many hours wondering how many more people were hidden away just like them. Between the bombing and Anna’s wails it was hard to listen out for anyone else.
The last thing he’d expected to find on his walk was a sobbing five-year-old. Yet, however glad Peter might have been to be found by the older boy, Yuri had been saved in finding a scared child who’d made him feel a whole lot older and braver than he actually was. Here was a reason to stay safe. Yuri had determined to keep them both out of German hands. Without realising it, meeting Peter had given him hope that things would start to get better and so they’d seemed to be, hunched down on the destroyed street beside a beautiful girl.
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.’