October, 1942
Stalingrad
The plane carrying Rachel and Igor landed in Leninsk at mid-morning and they went from there to the east bank of the Volga by car. They had been the only civilians on the plane, but they were joined by a coterie of Soviet journalists for the car trip to Stalingrad. Even then Rachel was the only woman.
Aside from the endless lines of freight cars unloading military hardware and troops at Leninsk, they saw no signs of war during the drive to the Volga. They followed a narrow river that cut through the steppe; on both sides were barren plains offering nothing of interest to the eye or the pen. The journalists either slept or gossiped. Igor told them only what they already knew—that he and Rachel were doing a book together about Stalingrad. He had cautioned her before they left not to reveal any details of their project. The journalists, he warned, would reduce it to watered-down soup and throw it back in their faces. “They’re like piranha when it comes to anything new or different. It shows them how mundane their work is so they protect themselves by devouring it.”
They approached the east bank of the Volga on a line perpendicular to the river. Long before they saw the water they were swallowed up by the sprawling military compound that had arisen directly opposite from the city, a mile away on its west bank. They passed countless batteries of Katyusha mortars and artillery aimed to the west; tent cities occupied by fresh troops clung tenuously to the steppe.
They were taken to quarters in a barracks reserved for the press; there was no separate facility for women, but the men generously allowed Rachel her privacy before they relieved themselves.
All were impatient to get to the river. Now that she was there, Rachel’s curiosity was piqued. Led by a press aide, a young woman from Moscow named Katerina, they were driven to an observation post a few hundred yards from the river’s edge. Ensconced in concrete, they peered through slits at the river and the besieged city on the cliffs. Stalingrad was a jagged outline beneath a clear blue sky. Binoculars were passed from hand to hand as Katerina recited in bored tones the military situation to date.
On August 23, the city had been bombed, engulfing it in flames, killing over forty thousand civilians. After that, the enemy had flown three thousand sorties a day, bombing the city into blocks of ruins and rubble.
Rachel’s turn came and she pressed the binoculars to her eyes. The sudden visual leap made her dizzy, but she managed to focus on the northern half of the city. Behind her, she heard Katerina call their attention to the Tractor Plant to the north, and just south of it, the Barricades Plant and the Red October Plant third in the row. Southwest of the plants was Mamai Hill, the highest point of the city.
To Rachel, they all appeared to be skeletal remains of a modern Vesuvius. Only now the agent of destruction was no longer evident. A disconcerting calm prevailed over the scene, as though all of this had happened centuries ago and they were tourists viewing an archaeological site.
She gave up the binoculars and listened. The enemy’s first big offensive had come on September 13, resulting in the capture of Mamai Hill. But the next day, a division of shock troops led by Colonel Rodimstev had crossed the river and counter-attacked, recapturing the hill during two days of hand-to-hand combat. Nevertheless, by September 23, the enemy had split the 62nd Army in two, occupied the center of the city, and then turned north in an effort to overrun the three major factories.
Attacking north behind dive bombers and artillery strikes, the enemy had managed to gain three thousand yards and the top of Mamai Hill. Red Army reinforcements had counter-attacked again, but were only able to regain part of the hill. The fighting, which had centered on every house, workshop, wall, cellar and rubble heap, had resulted in massive casualties on both sides. Had it not been for the mortar and artillery batteries firing shells day and night over the Red Army positions into the enemy camp, the city would have been overrun, for the Red Army forces on the west bank numbered only twenty thousand men. In addition to the mortars, a flotilla of ships on the Volga relentlessly shelled the enemy’s rear positions.
Katerina’s voice ground to a halt. “As of today,” she added, “the Red Army’s bridgehead is less than two miles deep.” She paused, waiting for questions; there were none. “One thing you must be asking yourselves—why is there no fighting now? The answer is that the enemy is preparing for another offensive. We expect it any day now.”
Rachel looked at the journalists, expecting one of them to ask the obvious next question: why was the city being defended only by twenty thousand men? But no one asked and she kept her thoughts to herself.
They returned to the barracks before supper, which was to be hosted by General Yeremenko. Rachel was exhausted and lay down on her cot to rest; however, Igor wouldn’t let her alone.
“They’re going to let a group of us cross the river tonight. We’ll be able to spend all day tomorrow in the southern part of the city.”
She was too weary to try and stop him. “That’s nice.”
“Nice? Aren’t you excited?”
“Why should I be?”
Igor shook his head in exasperation. “Because we won’t have to spend another minute in that chicken coop of an observation post.”
“We? You’re not talking about me, I hope.”
“Rachel! We didn’t come here to look at Stalingrad from a mile away and listen to a press aide and a general who watched the war from the safety of their concrete bunkers.”
“I did.” He groaned in dismay and she weakened. “I mean I didn’t have anything particular in mind . . . except I did say I wouldn’t cross the river.” The last was said weakly, as if she was apologizing for the truth.
“That was before we got here and saw how worthless this is.” He made a sweeping gesture. “We have to experience that agonizing crossing in the middle of the night, hear the sound of the boat moving through the water, suffer the glare cast by the enemy’s flares, the cliffs, knowing they will soon be facing the enemy in hand-to-hand combat.”
You’re like a child with toy soldiers, she thought. But she didn’t want to argue with him. “You’re right, but Katerina said the attack might come any day now.”
“That doesn’t mean tomorrow!”
“It could.”
“The sky could fall too.”
It was quiet, she reflected. And the army would never allow journalists to cross if an attack were imminent. “Alright. But let me sleep for an hour.”
What seemed like five minutes later she awoke; Igor was gently shaking her and she recalled the times her grandfather had awakened her before dawn with a slight tug on her shoulder to go fishing on the lake.
“What time is it?”
“After midnight. You didn’t miss a thing. Yeremenko was so boring he made the battle for Stalingrad sound like a botanist describing how a tree grows.”
“I’m hungry.”
“I thought you would be.” He had laid several plates of food on his cot.
“They’re going to think you’re mad.”
He shook his head. “They were all too drunk to notice.” Igor glanced at his watch. “Eat. We’re going soon.”
She quickly ate the roast duck, potatoes, and bread. “It tastes like mud after Uzbek food.”
“Have some of this.” He poured vodka into a cup and handed it to her. She quaffed it. “It’s much colder outside than we’re used to, so don’t be shy.” He replenished her cup and drank it himself.
Before they had left Tashkent, Igor had an Uzbek seamstress make her a pair of wool pants and a wool shirt. Wearing those and a fleece lined sheepskin coat, she hadn’t expected to be cold, but when they stepped outside the drop in temperature shocked her lungs and she gasped.
“Try not to shiver. Everyone else here thinks its mild.”
“They’ve never lived in Uzbekistan.”
Of their original party only two others, a writer and a photographer, were going across. Accompanied by Katerina they were driven to the river. The sky above the water was brilliantly lit by flares, and innumerable soldiers were loading supplies onto boats that were launched every second into the already teeming water. The flares created a smoky haze that hung over the river; Rachel couldn’t see the opposite shore. Looking at the soldiers she wondered if Stephen was among them. No, she told herself, if he was I would sense it.
There was a muffled explosion, followed by several more. No one paid the slightest attention and Rachel stopped herself from asking what they were. Katerina led them down to the dock. The photographer, tall with a beard, took pictures as they walked. The other journalist moved quickly despite his obesity. After putting on helmets and life preserver vests, they took places in what looked like a large inner tube with a motor at the stern. There was room for at least ten or fifteen more people. “We can’t take soldiers with us,” Katerina explained. “It’s not fair to expose them to the public eye under such circumstances.” She glanced at the camera the photographer was holding.
Katerina started the motor and pushed the boat away from the dock. At first they moved in a loosely formed lane of traffic. Ahead of them was a boat with twenty or twenty-five soldiers; they passed it and Rachel caught a glimpse of their young, fearful faces. They know they’re being bled into the twenty thousand, she thought, like sacrificial lambs.
As they neared the midpoint of the river, Katerina veered sharply to the south for a few hundred yards before resuming their westward course. Now they were alone and she gunned the engine, lifting the bow. The wind cut into them. To the north, exploding mortars were audible above the protesting whirr of the engine. The air was thick with residue from the flares and smoke from the shore. The journalist coughed and wheezed. Rachel shivered and tried to duck the cold wind; she put her arm through Igor’s, but he didn’t appear to notice as he was scribbling into a wire-rimmed notebook.
She felt Katerina’s eyes on her. She met her gaze and they studied one another. Rachel guessed that Katerina was twenty or so and that she found her job shuttling journalists about boring. The cliffs suddenly loomed ahead and Katerina shut down the motor to a near idle. “Once we land,” she directed, “we will go single file up to the headquarters of the 13th Division.” She paused. “We have not yet lost anyone, but there’s always a first time. Keep your helmets on at all times and do not under any circumstances leave the bunker. General Rodimstev will speak to you tomorrow.”
“What about you?” the journalist asked. “Are you going to stay?”
“Of course.” Her voice was laced with scorn.
She hit the throttles and they started across the last thousand yards to the shore. As the ruins of the city rose above them, Rachel was struck by a mental picture of Stalingrad as it had looked from Rostow’s boat as they had passed below it on their way down river. The juxtaposition of the image and the stark reality now before them was a promising seed. Perhaps Igor was right about crossing the river after all, she observed.
They landed on the river bank and climbed out in ankle-deep water. Splashing ashore behind Katerina, they had no chance to observe the scene further up beneath the industrial part of the city. Katerina led the way through a maze of barbed wire to the base of the cliff then up a narrow footpath to what had been the residential and shopping district. She waited at the top for the slower moving journalist, giving the rest of them a chance to observe the ruins.
The shells of apartment buildings and stores stood thin and stark, reminding Rachel of the blackened remains of trees after a forest fire. Mammoth piles of rubble blocked what once were residential streets. Sporadic machine-gun fire clattered from a distance while overhead airplanes droned. She had seen photographs of the destruction in the newspaper, but they failed to convey the eerie sense of constant movement, like invisible insect life stirring beneath the bark of the dead trees.
“So close,” Igor remarked. He was facing north, leaning forward as though he was going to reach out to something and pull it in.
“What are you looking at?” Rachel asked.
“What I can’t see . . . yet.” The last was spoken in a bare whisper.
He smiled and gave her a reassuring hug. What did he mean by that? she asked herself.
Once they were all together at the summit they proceeded to a bunker only a few hundred yards west. It was crowded with soldiers from the 13th Division, but a few cots had been reserved for their use. Rachel started to tell Igor about her visual impression, but he stopped her with a wave of his hand. “It’s too soon for that.”
The men lay on their cots in their clothes and fell asleep. Katerina, who was indefatigable, invited Rachel to have some tea. The bunker was connected by covered trenches to the main divisional headquarters in the basement of what had been the Univermag Department Store.
Passing doorways to rooms jammed with communications equipment and operators, they entered one with several tables, all packed, and a kitchen in the back. Many of the soldiers greeted Katerina by name, asking who “the blond” was. Just another pen pusher, she told them. “Don’t let anyone know you’re an artist,” she advised out of the side of her mouth. “They’ll hound you to death.”
“Thanks.” Rachel felt fortunate to have the company of another woman. “Look at that!” she exclaimed, pointing to a large brass samovar on a brazier.
“General Rodimstev’s secret weapon.” Katerina filled a tin cup with steaming tea. “It’s a subtle reminder of the difference between us and them.”
They each took a stale biscuit from a tray and put a dollop of strawberry jam on it. They took seats on one of the tables and the soldiers pounced on Rachel, asking her a dozen questions. “At least give her a chance to take one bite,” Katerina complained. Between gulps Rachel freely invented an identity for herself, one she thought would amuse them. Her father was a circus rider while her mother had been a high-wire acrobat. She had spent her childhood traveling all over Russia and Europe, performing as a child clown. She took pains as she fashioned her tale to look at each of them and memorize their faces. She had no idea if they were officers or grunts, but they all had one thing in common: a desire to avoid talking about what they had been through.
She would have gone on all night except for the entry of a familiar figure. He was tall and thin with black hair. It was the captain from the Pskov station, Panofsky. Seeing her he cried, “Is that you?” Rachel nodded. “Damn!” He came over and seized her hand. “You know I still have that portrait you did—” he reached into his pocket and pulled out the tattered drawing. This caused a stir among the others. “Didn’t she tell you? She’s the best portrait artist you’ll ever meet even if you live to be a hundred.”
“She said she was a journalist.”
“And a circus clown.”
“The hell she is! Look at this if you don’t believe me.” Panofsky passed the drawing around. The soldiers whistled under their breaths. One of them ran out to find some paper and a pencil.
Katerina moaned. “Now I’ll never get to sleep.”
This provoked a chorus of innuendo and cheers that brought more soldiers in to find out what was going on. The room filled up as Panofsky recounted Rachel’s exploits at the train station.
“So let’s see what she can do! Where’d he go for the paper, Moscow?”
“Here he is.”
A short, thin man with curly hair came into the room and it grew very quiet. “What’s all the racket? It sounds like a victory celebration.”
No one answered. Then Katerina came forward. “Excuse me, General.” His expression changed and Rachel was certain she knew why. The guide went up to him and whispered into his ear. He smiled and looked at Rachel.
“Why didn’t one of you soldiers open your mouths. Don’t you have tongues?” He swaggered over to Rachel. “I’m General Rodimstev. Welcome to my outpost.”
Rachel stood. “Thank you, General. It’s an honor to meet you.”
He shook her hand, his grip firm, his eyes unforgiving. She liked him immediately.
“Katerina tells me you’re quite an artist.”
“Would you like to sit for a portrait?”
“Very much.”
The soldier who had gone for the paper returned with only a few scraps. He was dumbfounded by the General’s presence.
“Is that the best you could do, soldier? I’m going to send you over to the enemy. The war will be over in six months.” He winked at Rachel. “I’m supposed to be larger than life, you know.”
Rachel saw that Rodimstev would use up the rest of the night without a second thought for the others. “I really should do a few before yours, General. It’s been some time since I did portraits.”
“Fine with me. Meanwhile, someone in this division should be able to find a piece of paper worthy of my rank.”
Rachel went at the task at hand, sketching miniature portraits of the soldiers in a few quick strokes. What amazed her subjects was that she didn’t do caricatures; these were tiny mirrors that captured all the essential details of their faces. Rodimstev was so fascinated by her skill that even after a large sheet of paper had been found he opted to watch her work rather than have his own portrait drawn.
“Would a bit of music hinder you?” the General asked.
“No. I’d like some.”
“You heard her. Get the accordion player!” Rodimstev bellowed.
Before long a bald, stick-like figure with a tulip-bulb nose shuffled into the room. He was at least seventy and in his gnarled hands was an accordion that appeared at least that old. “I was having a beautiful dream,” he complained. “Don’t expect me to cook anything but kasha tomorrow.”
“You’ll have lots of sleep soon enough, Gramps,” the General remarked. “Get him a tonic to wake up his hands. Here, look at this girl. Her hands don’t mind it’s the middle of the night.”
“They would if they were as old as mine and crippled by arthritis.”
“Here, drink this and stop whining.” A soldier handed him a cup of vodka and he drank it in two long swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down on his long scrawny neck.
Rachel thought he looked like a chicken, but she tossed off a flattering sketch of him that made him cackle with pleasure. “That’s a lady with manners,” he remarked, “treats an old man with respect.”
His hands jerked to life and tugged the black box, and the room resounded with simple melodies. Many sang along and stomped their feet. Vodka or hot tea made the rounds and Rachel, no longer conscious of time, lost herself in the sheer joy of the moment. She discovered in herself a warmth for these strangers that went beyond mere respect or appreciation. She loved them for their indifference to their surroundings, for their willingness to sing of life’s pleasures when all around them death and destruction reigned.
She was finally interrupted by Panofsky. “The sun’s come up. You deserve a rest.”
“I had no idea.” She looked over the line of men still waiting.
“These are all newcomers. You finished the ones who were here first.”
Panofsky dispersed the line and brought her a cup of hot tea and a slice of thick black bread smeared with jam. She glanced about for Katerina, but both she and the general had gone. The accordion player had long since returned to his dream.
“Delicious,” she commented. “Thank you.”
“I shouldn’t have done this to you. But to these men, you’re a miracle of sorts.”
“I’m glad. You get used to closing your studio door and shutting out the real world. But I’ve never felt better about myself or my art than now.”
Panofsky took her back to the bunker. The others were awake and Igor gave her a baleful look, as if she had somehow betrayed him.
“No need to wake me up, I suppose,” he said bitterly.
“Nothing happened,” Panofsky interjected. “She just got caught up doing a lot of portraits. Let her get some sleep. I’ll show you around myself.”
They left with him and she had the bunker to herself. She fell asleep as soon as she lay down. When she awoke she was bathed in sweat and her mouth tasted of raw fear inspired by a dream she couldn’t remember. It was past noon. The bunker was empty. She went to the bathroom and made her way through the covered trenches to the headquarters area. The air was saturated with tension. She asked several soldiers if they had seen Katerina or the journalists; none had. She returned to the tea room and poured herself a cup. There wasn’t anything to be done except to sit and wait.
An hour passed, then a second; she resisted the temptation to go looking for them. The last thing anyone needed was a pest. Finally, at about three, she heard a female voice outside the door and she ran to it.
“There you are,” Katerina said. “You haven’t seen your friend anywhere have you?”
“Igor?”
“Who else?” Katerina was exasperated.
No. He couldn’t have, Rachel thought. “No. I woke up a little after twelve and came here. I’ve been sitting and waiting all this time.”
“Damn! There had to be one sooner or later. Some soldiers thought they saw someone heading north.”
“I can’t believe he did it.”
“You mean he told you!”
“Not in words. He was complaining before we crossed the river that he wasn’t seeing enough. Once he got over here, so close to the war . . . .”
Katerina exploded, cursing wildly. “He may as well have committed suicide. All hell is going to break loose tomorrow over here and with or without him we’re going back tonight. Understand me?” Rachel nodded. “I don’t have to lock you up do I? You’re not going out there looking for him?”
“No.”
“Good. Stay here. I’ll get back on the radio and see if anyone has picked him up.”
Rachel returned to her chair at the empty table. If only she hadn’t been so tired, she could have talked him out of it. No, she argued with herself, Igor had lost his common sense. He had been swallowed whole by his imagination, and he would have ignored whatever she had said. More likely, he would have attempted to talk her into going with him.
You, being the fool you are, would probably have gone. After all, for over a year she had allowed Igor to dominate her life. Not that he had given her orders. He acted through the power of suggestion, always dangling one enticement after another. Even now. She had realized the night of their arrival that her view of Stalingrad, a negative one based upon her feeling that it was wrong to defend the city with so few men, was one that Igor would never have permitted her to express in her illustrations. Yet she had crossed the river with him. Would you have also gone north? she asked herself, shuddering. Her insecurity had given him power over her, a complication she hadn’t foreseen. How fitting! she thought scornfully. You, the supposed idealist were possessed like a common whore—without the sex.
Still, her anger waned as the day passed without any word of Igor’s whereabouts. Though the lull in the fighting continued, the 13th Division headquarters grew more and more tense. The soldiers who came and went spoke in hushed tones and there was no hint of jocularity.
Panofsky came in to tell her that it now appeared definite that the Germans would renew their attack the next morning. “Get back across the river as early as you can tonight,” he advised. “They’re going to hit us so hard the cliffs might fall into the river.”
“You mean that literally, don’t you?”
Panofsky nodded. “Three infantry and two panzer divisions are going to pulverize what’s left of this city. The 62nd Army, or what’s left of it, will be hanging on by their fingernails.”
She didn’t want to bother him with her own petty concerns, but she had to ask about Igor, if only to prepare herself for the inevitable. “You heard about my friend.”
“Hear about him! The son of a bitch said he was going to the latrine. He never came back.” He saw that she was upset. “I’m sorry. But unless he finds General Chuikov’s bunker, he won’t survive. And it will be partly my fault.”
“You couldn’t have stopped him.”
Panofsky shrugged. “I’ve got to go. We probably won’t meet again.” He held out his hand; she took it and kissed his cheek. “Thank you,” he said.
“Thank you.”
She returned to her cot. She sat staring at the one he had slept on. Igor, dead. Dead Igor.
After the sunset Rachel, the journalist, and the photographer followed Katerina down to the water’s edge. Low tide had created a beach, and they dragged the boat across the sand to the river. Machine-gun fire and mortars ripped and pounded the shore below the northern half of the city, but the southern section was quiet.
The river was packed from shore to shore with boats moving men and material from the east bank. Rachel wondered how they would manage to find a channel through them; the increased river traffic had, in turn, brought more shelling and the cold night air reeked of sulfur, making it difficult for Rachel to breathe.
They waded into the choppy, freezing water and climbed into the boat, one at a time. Katerina pushed off with an oar and then started the motor. The boat lurched through the chop, buffeted by waves and the wind, now blowing from east to west.
“I’m going south to get away from the shelling!” Katerina shouted. “We’ll come back up along the other side.”
She gunned the engine and the boat skimmed across the water, aided now by the current. Within minutes the machine-gun fire and shelling were muffled by the wind. Behind them the cliffs rose up and receded into the night, the past. Rachel looked back at the northern part of the city. She pictured Igor clambering in the rubble. Was he frightened? She didn’t think so. He was like a crustacean scuttling across the ocean floor; only he was searching for images, not food. Every step took him closer to the seed bed where he would feast upon the random sniper attacks, the close combat for floors of a denuded house, the destruction of a panzer whose progress was blocked by a ten foot high pile of smashed bricks and splintered wood.
A wave splashed over the side, drenching her. She mopped the water from her face and shivered. How could she have been so foolish as to have followed him here? She had abrogated the primacy of her imagination in favor of actual observation. Her imagination could generate a thousand images while he was chasing after reality. And finding death. Poor Igor! If only you had believed in your vision enough to have trusted your imagination.
A half-mile down river, Katerina headed due east. They rapidly reached the opposite shore. She swung north and moved along the east bank. So crowded were the docks at the base that they had to wait an hour before they could go in.
“You were great,” the journalist complimented Katerina. “They ought to make you a general.”
The guide was sullen. “Thanks to her, I’ll be lucky to keep my job.” She glared at Rachel. She didn’t attempt to defend herself; after all, she’d had an inkling of what Igor was going to do. Her silence only served to goad Katerina further. “Cold blooded, aren’t you. Don’t you care about your friend? Or are you too busy planning your next painting, Miss Big Shot Artist!”
Rachel had heard enough. “What I feel . . . I’ve lost a very good friend today . . . I don’t want to listen to any more of your self-pitying crap.”
The journalist snickered; the photographer, busy snapping pictures of the action at the dock, ignored them. Katerina looked down and turned her back on Rachel.
Nothing more was said about Igor. They docked without incident and returned to their barracks. The two men left Rachel alone. She dropped her wet clothes over the foot of the cot and got into bed naked. She thought of Igor and she wept. Not for her own loss, but for his, the unfulfilled promise of his youth, the summer evenings in Leningrad.
She lay shivering, her eyes closed tight and the covers pulled up over her head. The chill was soon absorbed by the thick horsehair blanket and she loosened up and began to dream. Scenes of violence blew through her mind, pummeling her with silent bloody images. She didn’t awaken; rather, she fell further into the stormy pit. She reached the bottom and remained there, her mind pried open like an infant’s mouth.
Until something tried to wrench her back to the surface. She clung to the depths, but her body was flung into the air and she awoke on the floor, her eyes wide open, the walls and ceiling shaking like palm fronds in the wind, the floor buckling beneath her.
She crawled on her hands and knees to the bed and grabbed her clothes. She noticed as she struggled into her trousers that the journalist was on the floor, turtle like, unable to move and that the photographer lurched about after cameras and lenses that were being tossed here and there like juggler’s balls.
She pulled on her shirt and boots and ran out, shouting that she would get help. Outside, soldiers were scurrying to their stations and she shouted herself hoarse without anyone paying her any attention. She went back inside and found the journalist still on his back, groaning in pain.
“Help me get him outside before the building collapses!”
The photographer, looking reluctant to set aside his shattered lenses, gave in to her demand and together they pulled the journalist outside by his feet. The photographer then dashed back inside to get his equipment.
“It’s my back. I can’t move.”
“We can’t just leave you. We have to get underground.”
She realized that they were both shouting to be heard over the blasts that came in deafening succession. Buildings all around them were moving and the ground shook beneath Rachel’s feet. Yet there were no bombs exploding, and Rachel wondered if much of the shock and noise came from the firing of Russian rockets and artillery.
The photographer came back out and at Rachel’s behest lent his shoulder to the task. They lifted the injured man, ignoring his screams of pain, and one on each side, lugged him in the direction of what they hoped would be a bunker entrance.
“Where the hell is that damned bitch!” the photographer cried. “She should have prepared us for this.”
The sky overhead was clear and sunny, but dense with enemy bombers. Rachel couldn’t see the river, but a thick black funnel of smoke rose up in the west.
They propped the journalist against a wall and went into one building that turned out to be nothing more than a mess hall. “I can’t carry him another inch,” the photographer declared.
“Neither can I,” Rachel admitted.
Trucks and jeeps were now racing past on the main road.
“Where the hell is she?” the photographer said. “What are we supposed to do?”
“You stay here with him. I’ll go out on the road. Someone will stop.”
Without waiting for his response, she cut between the buildings and ran out to the road. She stood near the pavement and waved her arms at the passing traffic; a jeep pulled up beside her. She explained her situation to the driver, a young soldier of low rank.
“I’m on my way to pick up some radio equipment. I’ll send help for you and the others. Wait here.”
She thanked him, and as he drove off, she stepped back from the road to the shelter of a great oak tree. A blast wrenched her off her feet and she was flung against the thick trunk, scraping her face and arms. Panic gripped her, but she fought against it.
A medical truck came racing down the road and came to a halt as she stepped out to flag it down. Katerina jumped out of the passenger side. She was distraught, but she took on an expression of professional detachment when she saw Rachel’s face and arm. “Get in.” Rachel started for the rear of the truck.
“The others are over there by that building. I think it’s the mess hall.” Rachel pointed and Katerina, accompanied by two stretcher bearers, went in that direction.
Rachel climbed into the back and sat down. There was a bed that took up most of the space, but she left that for the journalist. It was fortunate, she thought, that she hadn’t eaten anything last night for she would have puked.
The stretcher-bearers returned and placed the journalist on the bed. Katerina and the photographer crowded into the passenger seat; the guide’s eyes were blurred with tears.
The drive to the hospital was accomplished in a matter of minutes. But as soon as Rachel observed the large number of seriously wounded soldiers that crowded every inch of the facility she was embarrassed to receive medical attention. A nurse treated her arms and face with an anti-bacterial agent and let her go.
Katerina was waiting for her when she finished. “The safest place for you will be the bunker near the river. It’s too risky to drive out to the airport.”
Rachel nodded.
“I’m sorry about what happened. Yesterday I lost my temper and I wasn’t thinking clearly.”
“I don’t blame you. I should never have come here.” Katerina was stunned. “Igor talked me into it. I was stupid and weak to have let him.”
Katerina hesitated, then hugged her; Rachel returned her gesture.
As the guide had predicted, the bunker was like a convent compared to the above-ground buildings. It connected to a larger chamber that was set further back in the cliffs. The photographer rushed to view the battle, but Rachel hung back.
“You ought to look now,” Katerina suggested. “In another hour you won’t be able to see anything but smoke.”
Reluctantly, Rachel went to the observation post. Like figures quavering in a mirage, the cliffs and the city above them were criss-crossed by bands of fiery light. The air itself appeared to have been ignited. The embankment below the Tractor Plant and Barricades Plant was crumbling like a piece of soft cake; the sun shone brightly down upon the scene as funnels of ash and smoke curled lazily upward from the ruins. Above, German bombers formed black clouds that rained bombs onto the two targeted plants. On the river, just north of the plants, the Russian flotilla fired long guns pointed west, over the Russian positions. Russian planes streaked below the enemy bombers and dove into the maelstrom, attacking the German troops as they moved towards their main objectives: the plants.
As she studied the spectacle, Rachel thought of Panofsky and the other soldiers whom she had drawn, of the young faces in the boat they had passed, and she became unnerved. She couldn’t believe anyone could survive the inferno she was witnessing. About Igor she wondered only if they would find his body.
She went back into the larger room; the Russians were unshaken by the enemy’s onslaught. On radio transmitters operating in side rooms she heard the voices of officers sending orders from their besieged dugouts; the orders were relayed to their intended recipients by the operators. Though they reported that their dugouts were shaking and collapsing like “a house of cards” and that casualties were mounting, the voices were bereft of panic.
By noon she heard that some two hundred German tanks had entered the grounds of the Tractor Plant. Spurred by that report she returned to the observation post. The west bank was now completely enshrouded in smoke. Even through binoculars she couldn’t discern the shapes of the devastated buildings.
She glanced to her right; the photographer was busy shooting with a telephoto lens. He was muttering to himself, his thumb like a cricket on the red button. She looked back across the river. All at once her mouth went dry and the sound of German Stukas roared in her mind. She was back on the Pskov highway, the cries of the wounded and dying in her ears, Lily laying on top of her. What if they break through? she thought. And come across tonight or tomorrow?
She turned and pressed her back to the wall. She recalled the contempt Katerina had demonstrated towards the journalist; suddenly, she couldn’t look at herself, or her art, without feeling the same contempt. The battle was real, as were the men who were fighting and dying in it; but she was merely an observer, encased in her precious talent like a captured butterfly. Is that what Igor felt? she asked herself.
She went back to the inner sanctum. She saw Katerina and approached her. “I’ll do anything,” she blurted out, “Get tea for the men . . . something.”
Katerina was amused. “Guilty conscience, eh? Sorry, you’ll just have to stew in it. There’s nothing you can do except stay put.”
She should have slept, for once night came some four thousand wounded men were brought back across the river and there was much for her to do. While ambulances struggled to deliver the worst cases to the hospital, a makeshift tent ward was created close to the river. They made Rachel a nurse’s aide and she was on her feet all night, unrolling and cutting bandages, sponging wounds, encouraging the wounded.
Her efforts earned a sarcastic jibe the next morning from Katerina. “Well, Florence Nightingale,” she said, handing her a cup of tea, “which do you prefer: drawing them or taping them up?”
“Why? Am I going to be decorated for one as opposed to the other?”
Katerina laughed. “What do you know? Miss Michelangelo may yet develop a sense of humor.”
Rachel had spotted a few of the soldiers she had drawn among the wounded, but neither Panofsky nor Igor was among them. “Is this all?” she asked Katerina, “or are there more wounded?”
“You’re wondering about Igor?”
“And Captain Panofsky.”
“These are all the wounded that survived yesterday,” Katerina said flatly. “The enemy took the Tractor Plant and cut us in two. We’re holding onto a piece of ground the size of a postage stamp north of the plant. Today will tell the tale.”
“What about the dead?”
“You mean will they be brought over here?” Rachel nodded. “No. They’re buried in the rubble. That’s all anyone has time for.”
Rachel felt as though she had been kicked in the abdomen, but she didn’t cry.
“Before you get too comfortable, there’s more bad news. It will be a few days, at best, before you can leave.”
“Now I will cry.”
“I wouldn’t blame you. I would too.”
She wasn’t able to leave until the Germans attack waned ten days later on October 24. According to Katerina’s sources, the Red Army contingents on the west bank had been decimated with over seventy five percent killed or wounded. Yet, the enemy hadn’t been able to take the Barricades Plant or the Red October Plant.
Among the dead, Rachel learned, was Captain Panofsky. Katerina also brought her definite word that Igor, too, had been killed. According to one of the few survivors of the battle for the Tractor Plant, he had reached the plant the night before the battle. The soldiers in Colonel Zholudev’s division had offered to escort him to safety of General Chuikov’s dugout, but he had refused. The afternoon of the 14th, at about 5 p.m., he had been killed along with all but a handful of Zholudev’s encircled and vastly outnumbered men as they fought to hold onto the plant.
“I’m sorry,” Katerina said. “I shouldn’t have talked about him the way I did. At the end he was very courageous.”
“Igor wasn’t an easy person to understand,” Rachel observed. “I don’t think I’ll ever know for certain why he did it.”
That night, as she lay thinking of Igor, her mind jumped back to a winter day she had spent in the mountains with Lily and Stephen. She had been sixteen. Stephen was a far better skier and challenged himself by taking on the most difficult trails. Lily refused to go with him, but Rachel had succumbed to his taunts.
They had gone up the lift together and she had followed him through the woods to the top of the dangerous slope. She could still recall the sharp, precipitous drop down through the trees, narrow and jagged, layered with difficult moguls. She had known that she couldn’t manage it and might be seriously injured; yet, she couldn’t resist when Stephen had said, “You first.”
There was no wind and the mountain shone in the bright silence, icy and foreboding. Her skis clicked as she started off and she surprised herself by negotiating smoothly the upper part, jumping the moguls and digging her edges in, reaching the plateau with ease.
Stephen had come racing after her, conquering the drop with a sibilant headlong rush, then flashed by her grinning and waving for her to follow his lead. Without thinking, confident after her initial success, she set out in his wake. He veered to the very edge of the trail, darting in and out of the trees. She kept on his heels, ignoring the bare inches that separated her from catastrophe.
At the final third, Stephen shot out into the center and aimed straight downhill, flying up over the moguls. Elated with her performance so far, she had completely forgotten and molded her body into his shape. When she flew high into the air she expected to come down as he had. So it was incredible to her that she sprung off the top of a mogul and discovered that she had no control at all when she landed.
The crash was abysmal. She knew she was hurt, but her mind clung to the joy she had felt, the intoxicating taste of freedom from herself. The onset of sharp excruciating pain severed her ties to that other being, her brother’s shadow, and punished her with the awful sound of her legs cracking against the unforgiving mountain as she cartwheeled over and over again.
The memory caused her heart to race. She got up and stood trembling. Was that what she had done with Igor, followed him down the primrose path to disaster? Plainly, Lily had thought so. And Mitya. Or was it that he had followed her? Inspired by her youth, her fresh creative drive, had he hurled himself down a cliff, hoping to survive but willing to die for that last taste of immortality?
Perhaps I have it backwards, Rachel reflected. He wasn’t my undoing; I was his.
Katerina rode with her to Leninsk and even boarded the plane to say goodbye. “Will you live in Moscow?” Rachel nodded. It was as good a fantasy as any she could think of just then. “Can I come visit you there?”
“Of course.”
They kissed and Katerina smiled through her tears. Rachel thought someday I’ll be able to live without lying to everyone.
Tashkent looked like a lost kingdom that she had come upon in a dream. She walked down the stairs to the runway and breathed joyously the warm fragrant air. She wanted so much to see Lily, to hold her and tell her that she loved her.
A friend of Igor’s from the writer’s union was waiting for her. Dmitri Ivanova was a short man whose florid face betrayed his alcoholism. He embraced her too tightly and went on about what a tragedy it was. A memorial service had been planned and then canceled pending her safe return. The national press had done a series of stories about Igor worthy of a fallen war hero. And the book, the great work he had planned to write as an incalculable loss to Soviet literature.
Katerina’s apology should have tipped me off, Rachel reflected, as they rode back into the city. Igor had succeeded in capping his career with a famous work, without having had to actually write it. What’s wrong with that? he would have asked. In Stalin’s Russia, the planning is everything, the execution an afterthought.
Dmitri invited her to come to his apartment to be with “close friends” on this, her first night back without Igor. She declined, taking care to sound like the grieving widow they would want her to be.
“Shall I come up?” he asked when the arrived at Igor’s apartment house.
“No thank you. I’ll be fine. I just need to rest.”
“I’ll call you in the morning.”
“I would like that.”
She felt Igor’s absence, though, as she entered the building. Without him, she had no business being there.
She unlocked the door and pushed it open. The coffee table was overturned and piles had been made of tattered drawings, Igor’s shredded scrapbook and his other mementoes. Rachel went into the bedroom she had shared with Lily. It too had been ripped apart. Her clothes were everywhere, sliced up or shredded.
She ran into the hall and down the stairs. Outside, she started running toward the studio. A block away she stopped and looked back. There was no use going to Mitya for help. She was the “widow” of a national hero. She had power of her own now. As long as she remained in her role. That meant going back and calling the authorities. Let them investigate this hideous act of vandalism. Zip Uk had meant to terrify her; but he couldn’t have predicted Igor’s heroic death. That had changed everything.
She turned back to the apartment house. Her first call should be to Dmitri, she decided. He would be truly shocked. He would demonstrate sincere outrage when he talked to the authorities, something she doubted she could do. After all, she was a painter and a sculptor, not an actress.