didn’t want to look Jewish. I wanted to look Aryan, blond haired and blue eyed, broad in the chest and strong jawed. I wanted to look like Kolya.
Kolya winked at Sonya and finished off his cup of tea. He sighed, staring at the dregs in the bottom of his cup.
“Do you know I haven’t had a shit in nine days?”
That night all of us slept in the sitting room except for Kolya and Sonya, who jointly stood on some unseen signal and disappeared into the bedroom. The rest of us shared the blankets. We lay close together for warmth, so even though the stove ran out of fuel sometime in the night, I wasn’t shivering too badly. The cold actually bothered me less than Sonya’s muffled little yelps. Her cries were impossibly happy, as if Kolya were fucking away all the misery of the last six months, fucking away the hunger and the cold and the bombs and the Germans. Sonya was lovely and kind, but her pleasure was awful to listen to— I wanted to be the one who could transport a pretty girl away from the siege with my cock. Instead I was lying on the floor of a stranger’s apartment next to a man I didn’t know, who twitched in his sleep and smelled like boiled cabbage.
I can’t imagine the sex lasted very long—who had the energy for it?—but it seemed to go on half the night, Sonya yelping, Kolya speaking in low tones that I couldn’t hear through the thin walls. He sounded very calm, as if he were reading to her from a newspaper article. I wondered what the hell he was telling her. What do you say to a girl you’re fucking? It seemed like an important thing to know. Maybe he was quoting that writer he was always raving about. Maybe he was telling her about fighting the cannibal and the cannibal’s wife, but that seemed unlikely. I lay in the darkness listening to them, as the wind shook the windows in their frames and the last embers popped in the stove. The loneliest sound in the world is other people making love.
8
The next morning we stood outside a building two blocks from the Narva Gate, staring up at a towering poster of Zhdanov. “This must be it,” said Kolya, stamping his feet to keep them warm—though it didn’t seem possible, it was colder than it had been the day before. Only a single fish skeleton of cloud interrupted the endless blue sky. We headed for the front door of the building. It was locked, of course. Kolya banged on it, but no one came. We stood there like idiots, slapping our gloved hands together, our chins buried beneath the folds of our scarves.
“So now what do we do?”
“Someone will go in or out, eventually. What’s wrong with you today? You seem a little grumpy.”
“Nothing’s wrong with me,” I said, but even I could hear the grumpiness in my tone. “Took us an hour to get here, we’re going to wait another hour to get inside, and there won’t be any old man with a coop full of chickens.”
“No, no, something is bothering you. You’re thinking about the Kirov?”
“Of course I’m thinking about the Kirov,” I snapped back, angry with him for asking because I had not been thinking about the Kirov.
“We had a lieutenant named Belak back in the fall. Army man to the bone, wore the uniform his whole life, fought against the Whites, all that. So one night he sees this kid Levin crying over a letter he just got. This was in a trench outside of Zelenogorsk, right before the Finns took it back. Levin couldn’t talk, he was bawling so hard. Someone was dead, killed by the Germans. I don’t remember if it was his mother, his father, maybe the whole family, I don’t know. Anyway, Belak took the letter, folded it very neatly, slipped it into Levin’s coat pocket, and said, ‘All right, get it out. But after this I don’t want to see you crying until Hitler’s hanging from a rope.’ ”
Kolya stared into the distance, contemplating the lieutenant’s words. He must have thought they were profound. To me they sounded manufactured, the kind of line my father
Kolya winked at Sonya and finished off his cup of tea. He sighed, staring at the dregs in the bottom of his cup.
“Do you know I haven’t had a shit in nine days?”
That night all of us slept in the sitting room except for Kolya and Sonya, who jointly stood on some unseen signal and disappeared into the bedroom. The rest of us shared the blankets. We lay close together for warmth, so even though the stove ran out of fuel sometime in the night, I wasn’t shivering too badly. The cold actually bothered me less than Sonya’s muffled little yelps. Her cries were impossibly happy, as if Kolya were fucking away all the misery of the last six months, fucking away the hunger and the cold and the bombs and the Germans. Sonya was lovely and kind, but her pleasure was awful to listen to— I wanted to be the one who could transport a pretty girl away from the siege with my cock. Instead I was lying on the floor of a stranger’s apartment next to a man I didn’t know, who twitched in his sleep and smelled like boiled cabbage.
I can’t imagine the sex lasted very long—who had the energy for it?—but it seemed to go on half the night, Sonya yelping, Kolya speaking in low tones that I couldn’t hear through the thin walls. He sounded very calm, as if he were reading to her from a newspaper article. I wondered what the hell he was telling her. What do you say to a girl you’re fucking? It seemed like an important thing to know. Maybe he was quoting that writer he was always raving about. Maybe he was telling her about fighting the cannibal and the cannibal’s wife, but that seemed unlikely. I lay in the darkness listening to them, as the wind shook the windows in their frames and the last embers popped in the stove. The loneliest sound in the world is other people making love.
8
The next morning we stood outside a building two blocks from the Narva Gate, staring up at a towering poster of Zhdanov. “This must be it,” said Kolya, stamping his feet to keep them warm—though it didn’t seem possible, it was colder than it had been the day before. Only a single fish skeleton of cloud interrupted the endless blue sky. We headed for the front door of the building. It was locked, of course. Kolya banged on it, but no one came. We stood there like idiots, slapping our gloved hands together, our chins buried beneath the folds of our scarves.
“So now what do we do?”
“Someone will go in or out, eventually. What’s wrong with you today? You seem a little grumpy.”
“Nothing’s wrong with me,” I said, but even I could hear the grumpiness in my tone. “Took us an hour to get here, we’re going to wait another hour to get inside, and there won’t be any old man with a coop full of chickens.”
“No, no, something is bothering you. You’re thinking about the Kirov?”
“Of course I’m thinking about the Kirov,” I snapped back, angry with him for asking because I had not been thinking about the Kirov.
“We had a lieutenant named Belak back in the fall. Army man to the bone, wore the uniform his whole life, fought against the Whites, all that. So one night he sees this kid Levin crying over a letter he just got. This was in a trench outside of Zelenogorsk, right before the Finns took it back. Levin couldn’t talk, he was bawling so hard. Someone was dead, killed by the Germans. I don’t remember if it was his mother, his father, maybe the whole family, I don’t know. Anyway, Belak took the letter, folded it very neatly, slipped it into Levin’s coat pocket, and said, ‘All right, get it out. But after this I don’t want to see you crying until Hitler’s hanging from a rope.’ ”
Kolya stared into the distance, contemplating the lieutenant’s words. He must have thought they were profound. To me they sounded manufactured, the kind of line my father
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