City of Fate (17 page)

PAVLOV'S HOUSE

‘E
very seven seconds, a German dies in Stalingrad. Every seven seconds, a German dies in Stalingrad.'

The taped voice droned on and on, repeating the same sentence, in German, for hours at a time, through the
loudspeakers
which were tied to the back of a tank or sounding out from one of the buildings. This was the Russians' attempt to convince the German soldiers to stop fighting and
surrender
themselves to the nearest Russian officer.

The German method was to fly a plane over the city and drop hundreds of leaflets, written in Russian, down upon the burnt-out streets, suggesting to Stalin's soldiers that it was they who should give up and maybe even switch sides in the war, fighting for a more grateful Hitler instead.

‘I wonder if that really works,' muttered Vlad, who was
sitting in the corner, just inside the window, the glass of which was long gone.

Leo grunted something of a reply, which could have meant ‘yes' and could have meant ‘no'. He was concentrating on the letter he was writing to his mother, trying to make it as positive as possible; not that it mattered how many times he wrote that he was safe, she would still insist on worrying terribly about him.

‘How many weeks to Christmas?' Vlad was restless.

Without lifting his eyes from the scruffy sheet of paper, Leo muttered, ‘Five.'

Vlad already knew that, he just wanted Leo to talk to him. He, himself, sent home the odd letter; they were short and not very interesting. His parents seemed so far away that it felt like too much of an effort to bridge the huge distance within the page of a letter. Although maybe that was not exactly true. After all, Vlad usually loved to write, indeed he dreamt of being a writer or a journalist one day.

A while back he thought that perhaps he should start keeping a diary and then, on a dusty street in Stalingrad, he found a child's copybook. It belonged to a girl called Dina, who was aged eight and a half, and enjoyed writing about her black and white kitten, and Olga, who was her best friend. She obviously liked drawing too, as there was a colourful attempt at a self-portrait. Sometimes Vlad found himself worrying about little Dina, along with her pet and
best friend, hoping that the three of them made it to safety. In dark moments he believed that she might be the dead girl he had stumbled over when he first arrived in Stalingrad.

‘You're a dutiful son,' said Vlad as he watched Leo's pen churn out lines of cheerfulness:

Vlad, who had stepped up behind his friend to read over his shoulder, burst out laughing. ‘You make it sound like we are on a holiday, with no mention of fighting or Nazis. And where is this glorious soup that you smell, along with our obliging postman who visits us in our cosy hovel … or should I say hotel?'

Leo shrugged. ‘You know what she's like.'

‘Yes,' admitted Vlad, ‘but if my mother ever received a letter like that, she would know that I was leaving out stuff. Do you not think that your mother is going to question what you are not telling her? That whatever it is, it must be dreadful.'

Leo refused to smile. Instead, he said quietly, ‘Well it is, isn't it … dreadful?'

Vlad stopped laughing, his face crumpling. ‘Oh, come on. It's dangerous to think like that. We're still alive, aren't we?'

Too busy folding his letter over and over again, until it resembled a paper rowing boat – there were no envelopes so every letter was posted off in the same shape – his friend did not make a reply to this.

A burst of footsteps on the stairs put an end to their conversation. The two boys tensed and looked towards the open doorway, unwilling to be believe they were about to be attacked. Sure enough, Anton whistled his special
whistle
to identify himself, just before he appeared, along with three older companions and Sergeant Jakob Pavlov. He had taken over command when Lieutenant Afanaser was blinded a few days earlier and was brought off to one of the
makeshift
hospitals. They had to persuade the lieutenant to leave, despite the fact he could not see a blessed thing after
shrapnel
from a German grenade had sent splinters of brick into both of his eyes. He howled in pain and frustration at having to go. Sergeant Pavlov assured him that he would carry on with his good work.

Vlad had read plenty of war stories about soldiers having to go ‘to the front' to fight, and he had assumed that he would end up on a battlefield, that is, a proper field, with grass, that he would have to walk across in order to shoot at
the enemy. However, nothing in Stalingrad was like any of the books he had read.

The night that he, Leo and Anton had been picked up on the street, they had been brought to this shell of a
broken-down
building which they were told to guard with their lives. Vlad shyly asked was there something particularly
special
about the place? He reckoned that, even without its gaping war wounds, it was not much to look at, just a boring grey four-storey apartment block. Someone had written on the wall,
We'll die before we let the Germans pass us!

The sergeant, a short man with a thin face, whose
uniform
was faded and covered in dust, told him to take a quick glance out of the windows on the top floor as soon as it was light, adding, ‘But be careful, always remember there are German snipers everywhere!'

Vlad did as he was told. Very early the following morning, he crept up the torn staircase, with Leo and Anton, who had decided to tag along at the last moment. He did not want to miss out on anything Leo and Vlad did.

Once upstairs, the three boys looked out and, to their amazement, saw a large square of land, which must have been pretty once, but that wasn't what shocked them. They had mere seconds to admire the square before they realised what lined the edges of the square … lots and lots of German soldiers.

Shocked, the three of them quickly ducked beneath the
smashed window. Anton's face was flushed with excitement and streaked with the dirt he had slept on. ‘Can you imagine that? What a spot!'

Vlad ached for a second look, to try and convince himself that he had not seen that many soldiers, but he knew it was too risky. Remaining on their hunkers, the three boys stared at one another as they clearly heard Germans call out to one another, a shout of laughter here and there, and they could even smell the soldiers' morning coffee in the cold air.

A gentle tapping from below reminded them that they had to return downstairs. Sergeant Pavlov was waiting for them, a smile on his face. ‘Well, did you see how we are
sitting
pretty, overlooking the Ninth of January Square?'

The boys nodded. Taking the lead, his giggles long gone, Vlad said, ‘We're in their territory.'

Pavlov agreed, as he accepted a hunk of bread from one of the others, ‘Something like that. Look, lads, what you have to understand is, there is no battlefield and no front. We are fighting over buildings like this, one room at a time:
apartment
blocks, factories and shops, upstairs, downstairs and underground in the sewers. You know what the Nazis call this kind of battle?'

He paused, giving them a chance to answer, if they could, but they only looked blankly at him. With a great deal of pride, he explained, ‘They call it the “War of the Rats”. The poor buggers aren't used to fighting like this. There are no
rules and, more importantly, they don't know their way around the streets.'

He laughed. ‘Actually, it's their own fault. Thanks to their planes destroying the place, Stalingrad no longer looks like the city in the maps they have, so most of the time they haven't a clue where they are. Damned fools!'

He winked at the three friends, gesturing to what was left of the room they were standing in. ‘They used to be based right here until we threw a few grenades through those
windows
there and followed them up with some decent
fighting
. Of course, they keep trying to take it back from us. So, boys, whatever it takes. We don't have much ammo left, but there are plenty of rocks everywhere; help yourselves! And don't forget if your hands are empty, don't be shy, you can still punch and kick as hard as you can. They will do their rotten best to come in here, and it is our job to keep them out. Got it?'

‘Got it, sir!' said Anton loudly, raring to go and almost impatient for an immediate invasion of some kind.

Just when Vlad and Leo had begun to feel that Anton was turning into someone they could consider a friend, his delight at finding himself with a mission and army
comrades
had turned his head once more. He went back to being what he had always been, a show-off pretending to be a lot tougher than he actually was.

Over the last few days, as soon as Anton had realised that
the other men were wary of Vlad and Leo, he had quickly switched sides, doing his best to make it seem like he didn't know the boys as well as he did. His classmates had
accidentally
helped him with this, by only talking to him when it was absolutely necessary.

It wasn't that the other men didn't like the two boys, not really; they just found them a little different. In between trying to shoot Nazis, while doing their utmost not to be killed themselves, the men simply preferred to relax with ordinary fellows like themselves.

One of them, Breshov, had explained to Anton the kind of fellow solidiers they wanted by their side, ‘You know, the sort of bloke you could trust if you got into a tight spot.'

Now Anton could have stuck up for his classmates, but he'd chosen to do the opposite, nodding and murmuring, ‘I think I know what you mean.'

He had been huddled together with Breshov, keeping watch on the enemy and enjoying the chance to chat quietly.

‘Don't get me wrong,' the soldier had hurried on. ‘You seem like a decent bloke!'

Anton had been delighted to hear this. Praise like this from a fellow soldier was worth a bit of disloyalty.

Breshov had continued in a whisper, ‘It's just that we can't help noticing how much Leo likes listening to that German piano player?'

Anton had shrugged to show he was unwilling to argue
this point. Of course, he could have mentioned that Leo was simply a talented musician and, therefore, loved all sorts of music. But, he didn't.

‘And then, there's the other one. What's his name again, Vlad? Why does he always look so miserable, as if fighting for his country is the very last thing he wishes he was doing?'

Anton had taken the risk of merely repeating what he'd said before, ‘I think I know what you mean.' To his mind it had been better than saying anything definite either way.

This kind of talk was dangerous indeed. Gossip like this could result in a citizen – that is a neighbour, former friend or family member – being sentenced to a few years toiling in the freezing temperatures of a Siberian gulag. Plenty of
citizens
had been expelled to the work camps for less and, more often than not, following months of being worked beyond exhaustion, with too little food, they never made it back home again.