Tanya had no interest in politics. For her mother’s sake she had tried to do what was expected of her. On her fifteenth birthday she’d applied to join the Komsomol, the Communist Youth League, to camouflage her lack of interest in following the rules and orders of Russia’s Communist Party. She had expected it to be worse than school and knew she might be asked to do things like report on her neighbours if they showed any signs of loving something else more than their country, even if that something else was their family.
She had deliberately arrived late at the admission meeting which had annoyed the secretary of the Komsomol, a young man who looked like he never ever enjoyed himself. He had scolded her in front of everyone, saying, ‘Since you couldn’t bother to be here on time, you are clearly not mature enough to join the Komosol.’
Her application had been denied there and then. Tanya had done her best to look upset, at least until she’d left the hall. At home she’d told her mother what had happened, feeling free to laugh about it all.
Her mother, however, had been nervous. ‘Be careful, daughter. They will be watching you from now on.’
Tanya hadn’t been worried, even when some of her school friends had suddenly become too busy to spend time with her. She had always believed in the largeness of life and had often lamented to herself how such an immense country like Russia expected its citizens to lead such small and narrow lives.
The day before the Nazis had arrived she had been trying to decide what to do with her life, writing out her options in her diary:
- Go to college, and study what?
- Travel, where?
- Stay in Stalingrad and get a job, doing what?
- Get engaged to Boris?
How much easier it would have been if she could have tried out all four ideas, for a week or so, and then make a decision. How did everyone else work out what they wanted to do?
The only thing she’d known for certain was that her mother would want her to do number four. Boris had never failed to send her mother a present from wherever he’d been stationed. Sometimes she’d wondered if he should marry her mother instead.
Tanya’s father had died soon after she was born and his widow had been amazed not to have found another husband. Tanya had learned not to laugh out loud whenever her mother had gazed into the mirror and had said to no one in particular, ‘And I’m still so young looking!’
Tanya had been somewhat perplexed by her mother’s fondness for Boris. Yes, she’d realised that her mother wanted the best for her daughter … but was Boris really the best?
Boris was twenty-seven years old, ten years older than her, and held an important position in the army. In fact, he’d said it was so important he couldn’t possibly tell her about it. ‘Besides, my dear, the details would only bore a pretty girl like you.’
Whenever Tanya thought about herself and Boris, she was struck by the fact that they had little in common with one another.
‘Nonsense!’ her mother would say, ‘You’ll have plenty in common after you get married and have children.’
Meanwhile, Tanya hadn’t been sure if she even wanted to have children. Elena, her older sister, had four and though Tanya loved her nieces and nephews, she couldn’t help noticing how much work they created, and how tired Elena would look by early evening, and how often plans, like going to theatre, would have to be cancelled when one of the children got a fever.
During one visit she’d remarked, as gently as she could, to Elena, ‘Being a mother just seems so hard.’
Her sister, sounding a little hurt, had replied, ‘It isn’t hard at all. Whatever gave you that idea! Just wait until you have your own children, you’ll understand things better then.’
Boris had hinted to Mrs Karmanova that they should both expect a ring for Tanya’s eighteenth birthday.
The mother had been very glad to hear this while the daughter had counted up the days she’d had left to discover what she wanted to do. It had given her a headache. Her future, which had once seemed so open and mysterious, had begun to resemble the long, narrow street outside her house. She’d loved her street but had walked up and down it nearly every day of her life until she knew every little crack in the pavement and was left curious about the many other streets that she knew nothing about.
Whenever she’d spoken to Boris about wanting to see other parts of Russia, outside Stalingrad, he had described to her, in detail, the house she would share with him. When she’d spoken about a possible wish to study nursing, or history, or anything at all, he’d immediately talked about his career, his dreams and his ambitions. He hadn’t listened to her, not really. Nevertheless, he’d always told her she was pretty and had loved buying her treats. He’d even taken an interest in how she’d done her hair, and in the clothes she wore, which was unexpected.
Naturally her mother had appreciated such attention to details, such as the colour of a new dress and the length of a new skirt.
Tanya, however, had found it a little worrying. One time she’d deliberately ignored his suggestion to wear her hair up in a bun. When he’d collected her for their walk in the park and had seen her brown hair curling around her shoulders, he’d seemed quite put out, unwilling to make cheerful conversation until the walk was nearly done.
Weeks earlier, he had written to her, urging her to leave Stalingrad. He hadn’t told her outright that the city would be attacked, either he hadn’t known it at the time or he hadn’t been allowed to give out information. She was to go, he’d written, to his own mother’s house where he promised she would be well taken care off.
Her reaction hadn’t been one of gratitude: Hmphh! Did I ask to be taken care of? What about my own mother? Am I to stalk off and leave her alone here?
When she next had gone for a walk around the city, her city, it’d struck her that the tall, white buildings, the streets lined with trees, the green parks and the impressive universities were altogether far too precious to leave behind. No, she would not walk away from Stalingrad, or her mother, for Boris.
She realised now that just before she had heard those first engines, seconds before the first bomb had exploded, as she and her mother had been returning from the market, she had shortened her list to three options. Then it had been just the matter of working out how to escape his expectations for her future with him.
His long letters, with his plans for her, him, them, had been sitting on her desk as the roof of her home had fallen in, scorching and shredding them until they looked like burnt confetti. In the minutes that had followed, when it had seemed like the world was collapsing all around them, in the midst of terror and confusion, Tanya had felt that she had been miraculously freed of something. Her mind had been made up. She would not survive this in order to live by someone else’s rules.