AS WE RACED DOWN THREE FLIGHTS OF STAIRS, WE ALMOST RAN INTO MY MOTHER, WHO WAS ON HER WAY BACK UP TO OUR APARTMENT. “WHERE ARE YOU GOING?” SHE STEPPED toward the wall as if we might not be able to stop.

“The Badayev is on fire,” I answered breathlessly, continuing my run down to the ground floor.

“Ivan!” I stopped, not sure what I’d do if she forbade me from going. She’d taught me to be strong and independent after my father died by letting me take risks, but there were limits. “Do exactly what the men at the Badayev tell you to do. Help if you can. If they say to go home, come back immediately.”

“Will you tell Mrs. Bukova that Alik and Misha are with me?” I called from the bottom of the stairs, so grateful for her understanding.

“Of course. But don’t forget the curfew,” she warned, leaning over the stairwell as we reached the front door. “You can be arrested if you’re not home by ten. And be careful!”

“I promise,” I cried as the three of us stumbled to a halt only seconds after we were outside. Our street had been cratered in at least two places; the cement the impacts displaced was strewn in a thousand pieces over cars, trucks, and lampposts. A huge pile of rubble filled the sidewalk on our left. The street was full of people, all moving quickly as if their panic and fear propelled them.

“This is bad,” Alik murmured, glancing at me.

“Not as bad as the warehouses burning. Let’s go.” The three of us ran east. The rest of our street, Rizhsky Prospekt, looked even worse than our block. Fires burned in a half dozen store-fronts, rooftops, and apartments. Alik fell over a piece of concrete, and I slipped twice near a gushing water main. We had three long blocks to cover before we reached Moskovsky Prospekt, one of Leningrad’s main streets that runs north and south. A turn to the right there would bring us within a mile or so of the Badayev warehouses. The complex of wooden structures that stored our precious food supplies was spread over nine acres. It seemed unlikely that all of them had been hit by bombs or incendiaries, but fires spread quickly.

“What now?” Alik asked me when we reached Moskovsky Prospekt. I looked up and down the broad avenue; a streetcar lay on its side like a beast shot dead, air-raid sirens rang off and on. The column of smoke from the Badayev seemed even bigger than before. I was sure of only one thing — that I would not be deterred by the awful things we’d seen and that still surrounded us.

“Look!” I said. “What’s that?” I pointed to our left. A tall man with a gray beard stood up on his horse-drawn milk cart, reins in one hand, gesticulating with the other. He was yelling something, and a few men were lifting themselves into the open back of the wooden vehicle. His horse trotted toward us, and we finally understood what the man was saying.

“Brave men of Leningrad! Come now and save the Badayev! Come now or we will starve!” We needed no further encouragement and ran toward him. The men already inside the moving cart reached out their hands and helped lift us over the sides and into the back. Within minutes the cart was overflowing with men and a few other boys. The cart driver finally sat down and stopped yelling for volunteers once the cart was full and a dozen others ran alongside us. He urged his lean, sway-backed horse on. The horse seemed as intent as the rest of us on getting to our destination quickly, despite the heavy load.

The tower of flame and smoke was our beacon. Once we crossed the canal into the more industrialized part of the city, we were within blocks of the inferno. There were people everywhere, along with cars and fire trucks, all headed for the warehouses. I hated to admit it, but the smells coming from the Badayev were fantastic, a complex mix of burning wood, caramelizing sugar, roasting meat, and melting butter. But they were poisoned by intermittent infusions of acrid smoke and the fine black ash that was already raining down on us.

We rounded the corner that led to the front entrance of the Badayev. The huge gates were wide open; the driver pulled his panting horse to a halt. “Come on, boys!” he yelled as he jumped from the cart, tied the reins of his horse around a tree, and ran toward the entrance. We didn’t hesitate to follow him. There were already countless men there to fight the fires, men with hoses, buckets, and shovels, all of them in motion.

The wooden structures holding the food supplies were connected by narrow roads and alleyways. It looked like the worst fire, the one with the towering flames, was toward the rear of the complex. The driver rushed to the man who was directing the group of firefighters nearest to us. After a few seconds of conversation, the driver turned to us. “Anyone under sixteen, stay here and help this group. The rest of you, follow me.”

Alik, Misha, two other boys, and I stood ready, waiting for further instructions. The burly man in charge yelled to us above the chaos and sirens. “See that shed? Go get some shovels. Shovel as much dirt as you can on any cinder you see in this area.” He waved his arm to indicate the wide empty spaces in front of the two nearest buildings. Wiping soot and sweat off his face with his sleeve, he turned away and started calling out directions to another group.

There were only three shovels and two rakes left in the tin toolshed, the back of which was the security fence surrounding the complex. The older boys, who entered first, took two shovels, leaving us with one and two rakes.

“You’re the strongest,” Alik said, handing me the shovel. “These rakes will do the job, anyway. Let’s get out there.”

It became clear quickly that the cinders and bits of burning debris that fell were dangerous. Not to us, but to the buildings that surrounded us. They were like the incendiary bombs the Germans dropped, only very tiny, and they never stopped coming. The ground was composed of dry, half-dead grass and dirt. I pounded the smoldering cinders out with the back of my shovel or dumped dirt on them. Not once did any of the cinders that dropped into the area under our control fan into flames. After about an hour, I stopped for the first time to catch my breath; Alik and Misha noticed and did the same. An hour and a half later, now soot-covered, sweaty, and exhausted, I motioned to my friends to follow me. They did, and although I think we all felt a little guilty about it, we went into the toolshed to rest before continuing.

“I need water,” Misha said.

“We’ll get some before we leave,” I assured him.

“What time is it?” Alik asked, looking concerned. “We can’t forget the curfew.”

I heard the sound of angry voices outside and held my finger to my lips to indicate to Misha and Alik that none of us should speak. Being nearest the door I leaned as close as I could get to the small opening between it and the door frame.

“I don’t care what the boss says,” a man said loudly. “I’m not going back there.”

“There’s nothing left; why should you?” his friend agreed. “What does he expect you to do — walk into a wall of flames to save a sack of flour?”

“Yes!” the other man said. “But there is no flour. No sugar, no … nothing. It’s gone. All of it.”

“You can’t tell anyone,” his friend warned him.

“Why not? The entire city can see the warehouses are burning.”

“I know, but they probably think there’s more somewhere else. If they knew there was only enough food for one or two weeks, there would be riots.”

I glanced over my shoulder at Misha and Alik, wondering how much of the conversation they could hear. The look of worry on their faces told me they’d heard it all.

“Let them riot! Maybe then the idiots who thought it would be a good idea to store all of the food in the city in one place, in wooden buildings, will get what they deserve.”

“They never get what they deserve.”

The men were silent for a moment.

“Let’s get out of here.”

“We can’t just leave.”

“Why? This is useless. There isn’t one building that will be standing in the morning.”

“There’s hardly one building standing now.” The men sounded genuinely anguished. “But where will we work? How will we eat?”

“I saw the manager of warehouse seven loading sacks of something into a car just after the fires broke out.”

“Let’s go find him. Whatever he’s got will be worth its weight in gold soon.”

“I won’t let my children go hungry while he makes a fortune! Come on. I know where he lives.” That was the last thing we heard from them, and we didn’t wait more than thirty seconds before we left the shack. The heat had been building, and I could feel that all of us were getting nervous about it.

I saw the scene with new eyes as we emerged into the noise, chaos, and danger of the fires. “Look!” I cried, pointing to the roof of one of the buildings nearby. It had caught fire during our brief absence. I stood silently, staring, imprinting the moment forever in my memory. No matter how hard these men tried, their cause was lost. The complex was on fire; no one could put it out, and it would destroy everything. What the two men we’d overheard said was true. Our city was now in a struggle for its very life. And so were we.