What a strange morning! Yuri thought to himself. He had gone to sleep a fourteen-year-old boy, neither a child nor old enough to do anything of real worth, but when he woke up – when Tanya woke him up – he suddenly felt very old. She shook him awake, saying something about Peter that he tried not to hear. He only opened his eyes to see her face again. Despite the gloominess of the basement, he could make out the delicate shine on her skin. He imagined how soft it would feel, how her hair might tickle his hands and then, just like that, he reached for her, pulled her to him and pressed his lips on hers.
Tanya allowed him to lean against her for no more than two seconds before shaking him off. She jumped to her feet, saying, ‘The Germans have taken Peter.’
Yuri properly woke up then, to the hell around them.
Looking him straight in the eye, Tanya added, ‘They say they’re going to hang him for being a spy.’
A howl stuck in Yuri’s throat, almost preventing him from asking, ‘Where is he?’
‘Over by January Square. He was laying wire or doing something with one of our soldiers.’ She was crying now.
Already fully-dressed, he grabbed her hand and dragged her outside. The snow was thick on the ground, the whiteness reminding them both of what Stalingrad used to look like before the planes arrived that Sunday afternoon. The air was coarse and thin; it hurt to breathe deeply, while the cold stung their eyes. Yuri marched forward, pulling Tanya alongside him. The snow even camouflaged his limp, the uneven surface making it appear that he was walking evenly.
Every sound has a ghostly echo when there is snow on the ground, even the sound of silence. Again, Yuri could swear he heard a church bell ringing somewhere, signalling an end to something, or maybe a beginning. He sent a silent prayer heavenwards for his mother and Anna as he crushed the soft snow beneath his numbed feet, hoping that his heart might freeze too. He knew in his heart that his mother and sister were dead. It occurred to him that his mother might be re-united with his real father. Maybe they were both watching him now, from wherever they were. He forced himself to empty his mind of painful thoughts. The funny thing was he welcomed the bitter cold, believing that if he was too busy feeling cold he might forget to feel afraid.
They heard Tanya’s mother before they saw anyone else, she was screaming at the Germans to shoot her, calling them names. Next, they heard a single gunshot. Tanya dropped his hand and ran on ahead, leaving him to follow as fast as he could. Coming around the corner, they saw Mrs Karmanova immediately; she was easy to spot because she was the only woman standing before a small crowd of German soldiers, very much alive and taunting whoever had fired his gun into the air.
Tanya called to her mother while Yuri was desperate to see Peter. Where was he? He shouted out for him and received a reply, a little voice from the middle of the gathering, calling Yuri’s name just once. The relief in the small voice was unmistakable. Peter knew his friend had come for him. Tanya flung herself on her mother and they embraced tightly for a few seconds before turning back to face the stern faces of the men. Yuri joined them, and the three of them stood there together.
Tanya began to address the Germans in their language; the alien words were harsh and heavy on Yuri’s ears. Peter was blindfolded and gagged, a shocking sight; Yuri managed to glimpse him before one of the men pulled him back out of view. His scarf, the very one that Yuri had wrapped around his neck was now wrapped around his mouth, though it had loosened and fallen slightly. Yuri’s arms reached instinctively for him, causing a soldier to point his rifle at them.
Tanya was alarmed, ‘Wait! Don’t do anything stupid!’
Yuri scowled at her, because the simple truth was he had not been about to do anything at all – because there was nothing he could do. He was just fourteen-year-old Yuri again. What did he know about situations like this?
Perhaps to prevent him from charging into the crowd, Mrs Karmanova took Yuri’s hand in hers.
He told her not to worry, that it would be okay, saying it loud enough for Peter to hear. Not understanding that his words were for Peter alone, the old woman gestured silently, with a subtle tip of her head, for Yuri to look to his right. Hardly wanting to take his eyes off the place he’d last seen Peter, Yuri turned impatiently to see what she meant. It was just a brief glance, that’s all.
There stood a clothes line swaying gently in the breeze, almost full with coats in different sizes, the snow sitting in tiny heaps on their shoulders, and the heads. In confusion Yuri looked again. Coats do not have heads. There was something terrible about this picture. What was it? He couldn’t understand what he was looking at, and it wasn’t his fault, because he could never have expected this sort of thing to happen. How could he have guessed that one day he would find himself in this awful place? Stalingrad was his home, where he had always felt safe. Not even the last few months had made him too frightened to be here. However, now as he stared at those coats, the Stalingrad of his childhood disappeared forever. No one was safe. All the rules were smashed.
He realised the coats were not mere laundry belonging to one army or the other. For one thing, they were much too small for any soldier and, for another, they were still being worn by their owners. None of them were as young as Peter, but all of them looked younger than Yuri. Their heads were bowed, as if in prayer, their skin whiter than the snow on their shoulders; legs and arms were stiff against the gentle breeze, only the ends of the coats flapped in response to Mother Nature, sounding like a bird in troubled flight. Not even the strands of their hair hinted at movement, at life. Finally, he had to accept that he was looking at a row of dead children hanging on a line, who must have been put there by these men who now held Peter.
Yuri felt weak and might have fallen on his knees had not that good woman, Mrs Karmanova, held him fast. When she tightened her grip on him, reminding him of her presence, rage soared inside him: This is her fault! She had taken Peter away from him and this is what happened. He wanted to punch her, to really hurt her, but he felt locked up inside himself. She was sobbing, probably understanding why he could no longer look at her. Nevertheless, he had to ask her one question, ‘Has Peter seen them?’
She shuddered. ‘Yes’, and dropped his hand so that she could cover her face with her own.
Tanya’s voice grew shrill. You didn’t need to be fluent in German to understand that she was losing the argument. Yuri’s teeth began to chatter, making him doubly miserable over how useless he felt.
Peter had something to tell him. ‘Yuri? Corporal Rodimtsev is dead; they shot him like they shot the rat.’
Ah, that’s why Peter had wanted to go out with Mrs Karmanova, so that he could go back to the soldiers for more sausage and bread. Tanya pointed to a bundle on the ground, a few feet away from them. Yuri hadn’t noticed it. He stared at the battered body of the sulky corporal that Peter had so wanted to impress. Swallowing out of sheer fear and nothing else, Yuri determined to ignore it, saying as cheerfully as he could, ‘I’m still here, Peter. Are you okay? Don’t be scared.’
‘I’m not scared. But, Yuri, are you angry with me? I just wanted to see the children.’
Yuri allowed himself a glance at the sniffling woman beside him.
Mrs Karmanova shrugged. ‘I think he thought those poor creatures were another statute, like the one you bring him to. As soon as he spotted them, he ran off on me and the corporal. I couldn’t catch him.’
So it was not her fault, not really. Peter should have known better than that. Yuri was always telling him how dangerous it was to run off by himself, but he’d never listened. Had he? Now Yuri knew where to direct his anger. The little fool! Forgetting himself, he shouted, ‘Did you run off on Mrs Karmanova, after I told you not to?’
Tanya looked at him as if she could not believe her ears.
Peter’s voice, when he answered, sounded tiny and guilty, ‘Yes. Sorry, Yuri. I didn’t mean to.’
Yuri couldn’t stop himself, he really couldn’t. ‘Of course you didn’t mean to. You never mean to, do you? Remember when you wandered off that day, when I was getting us apples. I told you to stay right where I left you but, oh no, you couldn’t do that. You couldn’t just stay still.’
‘Shut up, Yuri!’ Fury blazed across Tanya’s face, but Yuri didn’t care. He needed to upset somebody, to have an effect on somebody, or he would explode.
‘Peter, sweetheart, don’t mind Yuri. He’s just worried about you. He’s not angry with you, are you, Yuri?’ Tanya spat out her words between half-closed lips. ‘Tell him you’re not angry!’
Unable to bear her anger, Yuri glanced away from her, not expecting to find anything of interest to look at. The next few seconds, however, turned out to be very important indeed. For one thing, he saw a Russian soldier at the window of a nearby building, holding his two thumbs up to him and then making a rolling gesture with his hands before moving back into darkness. Yuri knew that the man meant for him to understand him immediately since there was no extra time allowed. He closed his eyes to think, as Tanya hurled more words at his head.
The Germans were wondering what on earth was going on; some were even laughing. All of these voices were swirling around Yuri, confusing him, along with the flapping sound of those dead coats, when he heard Mrs Karmanova whisper, ‘You’re to keep talking.’
He opened his eyes in surprise, wondering if he had heard her right. She completely ignored him, and, instead, turned on Tanya, relishing the opportunity to work off her nervousness, ‘And as for you, daughter of mine!’
Tanya shut up in bewilderment. Her mother threw up her arms and glared at her child. ‘Ha! Yes, you wandered off on me. Didn’t you? You couldn’t find the guts, the love, to say goodbye to me, your own mother!’
Tanya opened her mouth, her face red with shame and confusion. ‘Mama … I …’ She closed it again, unable to go on. She cast around for something and her eyes rested on Yuri once more. ‘You told her? I trusted you. You big baby!’
The Germans seemed in no rush to do anything. Who knew if any of them understood what the women were arguing about? Mrs Karmanova and Yuri, at least, understood that they were to keep the soldiers busy. Several of the gaping windows in the building, where Yuri had seen the Russian soldier, seemed to be framing movements that he could not allow himself to inspect or so much as glance at. It was important to keep breathing normally but mightily difficult to ignore the fact that they were waiting for something to happen with absolutely no idea what it would be.
A few of the Germans busied themselves with taking out cigarettes and lighting them for one another. As they shuffled about, in a pathetic effort to keep warm, Yuri saw Peter. Assuming that his burst of anger had upset him and needing him to know what was going on, Yuri called out, ‘Peter, why do you love that statue so much?’ Between the blindfold and the scarf he could just about make out a bit of a smile.
‘Because the children are playing and happy.’
The Germans were watching Yuri curiously as he answered Peter gruffly, ‘Well, that is what we are doing right now, me, Tanya and Mrs Karmanova. Alright?’ Yuri needed Peter to play his part in helping them to distract the Germans.
Peter nodded his head excitedly.
‘No, Peter, you have to be sad and maybe they’ll let you go. Can you do that?’
To everyone’s surprise, Peter started to sob at the top of his voice. There were no tears that Yuri could see. In other words Peter was playing along, as if his life depended on it, which it did.
Stifling a grin, Yuri thought, The soldiers must think I am a heartless brute. Then again, they want to hang him. Making him cry is nothing compared to that.
Mrs Karmanova was having another go at Tanya, over her wanting to leave her and Stalingrad behind. Yuri felt that Mrs Karmanova wasn’t just ‘playing’ along now. Her anger seemed all too real. Tears flowed down Tanya’s face, though she must have heard what he shouted at Peter – that they were all play-acting. Finding a few minutes to think, while the Germans watched Mrs Karmanova, Yuri worried that if the Russian soldiers at the window began firing at the crowd, surely they would hit Peter standing in the middle of it. Nevertheless, the young soldier, who had held up his thumbs to him, looked confident about whatever was going to happen and, at this point, Yuri had no choice but to trust him.
There followed a tense silence for several seconds before an explosion shattered it and the air around it. Yuri hadn’t noticed the tank in the background, had hardly noticed the scenery at all behind Peter. However, there it was: a great, big German tank and it was on fire. So, this was it, their only chance.
He ran for Peter, the little boy the only thing he concentrated on. As some of his captors rushed to save the tank, they knocked Peter over. He lay on his side, crying properly now. Grabbing the front of his coat, Yuri dragged him to his feet. He felt so light and cold. Yuri tore the blindfold away.
The shooting started in earnest. It was deafening and also blinding in the way that stray bullets sent puffs of snow into the air. Yuri crouched to the ground, holding Peter by the wrist. The small boy was babbling away, but Yuri couldn’t listen to him. Who was shooting at whom, it was hard to say. Peter yelped as a burly German soldier caught his other arm. Yuri held on, his teeth gritted in rage, and it became a horrible tug-of-war. The man bent Peter’s arm all the way back. Peter screamed, and Yuri was sure he’d hear the bone snap.
‘Let go of him!’ he roared, ready to let go himself if the German would only stop hurting Peter.
However, before Yuri could do anything else, the German collapsed to his knees, the side of his head gone. His helmet was now too big for the bit that was left. As he toppled forward, Yuri found himself staring at the man’s brain. He had seen pictures of brains before – his father had them in his study – and he had always thought that the brain looked a lot like a tortoise’s shell. For a few seconds he marvelled at the man’s gaping head – a real, live brain. Well, no, it wasn’t live anymore, was it? The soldier twitched. Yuri understood he was watching him die, whoever he was. Well, he was the one who’d hurt Peter the most so he got what was coming to him. He is lucky, Yuri thought, that I don’t have a gun or I’d shoot holes into the rest of him.
Peter.
Yuri reached for the boy, felt nothing and swung around to find he was alone with the dead German. Bullets whizzed over his head into the snow in front of him. It was impossible to know how to stay safe. Yuri called Peter’s name over and over again, twisting his body left and right. He couldn’t have gone far. He just couldn’t have. He heard someone else scream Peter’s name; it was Tanya. She was looking past him, her eyes wild, her face distorted in terror. Moving more slowly than he should, Yuri turned all the way around and saw Peter, a tiny, solitary figure walking in a straight line, through running men and clouds of snow stirred up by yet more bullets. Oblivious to his surroundings, he passed right in front of a large gun that was being manoeuvred by two Germans, to follow him as he continued to make his way to those children on the clothes line.
Yuri started to run, but his legs felt heavy and the snow seemed to swallow his feet, not wanting to give them back.
‘Peter! No!’
That gun loomed large, growing before his eyes as Peter grew smaller and smaller, with the distance he put between them.
‘No!’ Yuri knew what was happening, what was going to happen. But, no! ‘Stop!’ he yelled at the soldiers. He couldn’t see their faces, only their bowl-shaped helmets. ‘It’s too big, don’t you dare hurt him with that!’ Why wasn’t he getting any closer to Peter?
Something ripped into Yuri then. It was the oddest feeling. He never saw what hit him, but it was strong enough to knock him to the ground, strong enough to pierce his clothing, causing red blood to ooze out onto the white snow as he tried to get up again. Why weren’t his legs doing what they were meant to do? Nothing seemed to be working. It was growing dark inside him. Slowly, he shook his head to clear it, to fight the darkness that beckoned. The sky above him was shimmering and he could hear someone singing. He stopped fighting to listen.
Tanya and her mother screamed. Stunned, they permitted seconds to tick by before running towards Yuri, though Tanya continued to chant Peter’s name in desperation.
He didn’t hear her, and neither did he notice the big gun or the Germans behind it, bawling curses at him. He was just a scared five-year-old who wanted to talk to the other children. It baffled him that they didn’t look up to watch his approach. Why didn’t they smile to show him he was welcome, since he was one of them after all. Maybe they were playing a game too. Yes, that was it. Peter recognised it was just a game. Because, see how they were all looking at him now, their arms wide open, the smallest girl clapping her hands and singing, ‘Come on, Peter. Come play with us!’
The gun blasted forth, RAT-A-TAT-TAT.
Anton saw it happen and then saw the girl dash forward, howling like a she-wolf, intending to reach the little body just as it hit the ground. The gun swung towards her as if curious about her role in the proceedings. It seemed to Anton that all hell was breaking out. Making sure his pocket still held the grenade that Sergeant Pavlov had given him, Anton leapt from the building and ran towards the machine, daring the two soldiers to point it at him. Bearing his teeth in fury, he shrieked and roared in a successful effort to capture their attention. They did what he wanted them to do, shifting the gun from the girl to him. Just before reaching them, he made the most graceful jump, befitting of any dancer. Hearing Leo yell out in protest – ANTON, NO! – made him smile in gratitude, as he pulled out the pin of the grenade, blowing himself and the gun’s operators into a messy pile of bloodied parts.
Tanya reached Peter safely, though she had little understanding that lives had just been lost for their sake. Peter’s coat was splattered with blood while his scarf had fallen down from his neck, leaving it exposed to the cold. ‘Oh, now, Yuri won’t be pleased, will he? Here, let me fix it.’
Peter did not – could not – say a word as Tanya pulled the scarf up to its rightful place before wrapping it twice around him. ‘You have to keep warm, little one.’ Stopping to bite her lip, she accidentally gazed upon his face, before lifting up his two hands to hold them between her own. No, she thought, it’s not enough. So she leant over him to protect him with her body, from what she couldn’t have imagined. Not now. Nothing else could harm him now.