Just as dawn was breaking, Tatiana put on the only pair of beige trousers she could find, packed some baking soda and peroxide for her teeth, her toothbrush—she never took trips without her toothbrush—retrieved Pasha’s sleeping bag from his old days at camp, left a one-sentence note for her family, and set out for Kirov on foot.
During her last morning at work Tatiana was assigned to the diesel engines. She screwed the glow plugs into the combustion chambers. The plugs warmed up the compressed air in the cylinders before ignition could take place. She was very good at that part of the assembly, having performed it many times before, so she did her job mindlessly, while all morning struggling with her nerve.
At lunchtime she went to see Krasenko, bringing a willing Zina along, and told him they both wanted to join the People’s Volunteer Army. Zina had talked about joining the volunteers for over a week.
Krasenko told her she was too young.
She persisted.
“Why are you doing this, Tania?” Krasenko asked with sympathy in his voice. “Luga is not for a girl like you.”
She told him she knew how hopeless things were there. The bulletin boards at work shouted, “At Luga—to the trenches!” She said she knew that boys and girls of fourteen and fifteen were working in the fields digging trenches. She and Zina wanted to do all they could to help the Red Army soldiers. Zina nodded mutely. Tatiana knew she needed special dispensation from Krasenko. “Please, Sergei Andreevich,” she said.
“No,” he said.
Tatiana persisted. She told Krasenko she would take leave that was due to her, starting tomorrow, and get down to Luga one way or another if she had to. She was leaving, with or without his help. Tatiana was not afraid of Krasenko. She knew he liked her. “Sergei Andreevich, you can’t keep me here. How would it look if you were keeping eager volunteers from helping their motherland, helping the Red Army?”
Zina stood nodding by Tatiana’s side.
Krasenko sighed heavily and wrote them both passes and permissions to leave Kirov and stamped their domestic passports. As they were about to leave, he got up and wished her luck. Tatiana wanted to tell him she was going to go and find her brother, but she didn’t want him to talk her out of it, so she said nothing except thank you.
The girls went to a dark, gymnasium-size room, where after a physical exam they were outfitted with pickaxes and shovels that Tatiana found much too heavy for her, and were then sent to Warsaw Station on the bus to catch the special military truck transportation destined for Luga.
Tatiana wondered if they were going to be armored trucks like the ones that transported paintings from the Hermitage or like the ones that Alexander said he sometimes drove to the south of Leningrad.
They weren’t. They were just regular trucks covered with khaki tarpaulin, the kind Tatiana saw constantly around Leningrad.
Tatiana and Zina climbed aboard. Forty more people piled in. Tatiana observed the soldiers loading crates onto the truck. They would have to sit on them. “What’s in them?” she asked one of the soldiers.
“Grenades,” he replied, grinning.
Tatiana stood.
The trucks left Warsaw Station in a convoy of seven and started down the highway, bound south for Luga.
In Gatchina everyone was told to get off and take a military train the rest of the way.
“Zina,” Tatiana said to her friend, “it’s good we’re taking the train. That way we can get off in Tolmachevo, all right?”
“What are you, crazy?” said Zina. “We’re all going to Luga.”
“I know. You and I will get off, and then we’ll get back on another train and go to Luga.”
“No.”
“Zina, yes. Please. I have to get off in Tolmachevo. I have to find my brother.”
Zina stared at Tatiana with incredulity. “Tania! When you told me Minsk had fallen, did I say to you, come with me because I have to find my sister?” she said, her small, dark eyes blinking, her mouth tight.
“No, Zina, but I don’t think Tolmachevo has fallen to the Germans yet. I still have hope.”
“I’m not getting off,” Zina said. “I’m going like everybody else to Luga, and I’m going to help our soldiers, like everybody else. I don’t want to get shot by the NKVD as a deserter.”
“Zina!” Tatiana exclaimed. “How can you be a deserter? You’re a volunteer. Please come with me.”
“I’m not getting off, and that’s it,” Zina said, turning her head away from Tatiana.
“Fine,” said Tatiana. “But I’m getting off.”
4
A corporal stuck his head into Alexander’s quarters and shouted that Colonel Stepanov wanted to see him.
Colonel Stepanov was writing in his journal. He looked more tired than he had three days ago. Alexander patiently waited. The colonel looked up, and Alexander saw black bags under his blue eyes and taut lines in his face effected by the exertion of his will upon unwilling subjects.
“Lieutenant, sorry it took me a while. I’m afraid I don’t have much good news for you.”
“I understand.”
The colonel looked down into his journal.
“The situation in Novgorod was desperate. When the Red Army realized the Germans were surrounding the nearby villages only kilometers away, they recruited the young men from several camps around Luga and Tolmachevo to help entrench the town. One of those camps was Dohotino. I don’t know specifically about a Pavel Metanov . . .” The colonel cleared his throat. “As you know the German advance was much faster than we anticipated.”
It was Soviet-speak. It was like listening to the radio. They said this, but they meant that.
“Colonel? What?”
“The Germans got past Novgorod.”
“What happened to the young boys from the camps?”
“Lieutenant, beyond what I already told you, I don’t know.” He paused. “How well did you know this boy?”
“I know his family well, sir.”
“A personal stake in this?”
Alexander blinked. “Yes, sir.”
Colonel Stepanov was very quiet, playing with his pen, looking at the pages in his journal, not looking at Alexander, even when he spoke at last. “I wish I had something better to tell you, Alexander. The Germans ran over Novgorod with their tanks. Remember Colonel Yanov? He perished. The Germans shot soldiers and civilians indiscriminately, they pillaged what they could, and then they burned the town.”
Not backing away from the table, not looking away from Colonel Stepanov’s face, Alexander said steadily, “Let me understand. The Red Army sent underage boys into battle?”
Stepanov stood up behind his desk. “Surely you’re not telling us how to run our war, Lieutenant?”
“I don’t mean to be disrespectful.” Alexander struck his heels together, saluted the colonel, but didn’t move. “But to use untrained boys along with battle-trained, command-experienced officers as fodder for the Nazis is sheer military madness.”
Colonel Stepanov did not come out from behind the desk. The two men were quiet, one young, the other already old at forty-four. Then the colonel spoke. “Tell the family their son died to save Mother Russia,” he said, his voice cracking. “He died in the service of our great leader, Comrade Stalin.”
Later that morning Alexander was called to the entry gate. He made his way downstairs, fearing it was Tatiana. He couldn’t face her just yet. He was going to meet her at Kirov in the evening. He saw Dasha standing with Petrenko. She looked shaken and tense.
“What’s the matter?” he asked her, leading her aside, hoping she, too, wouldn’t ask him about Tolmachevo and Pasha, but she stuck a piece of paper into his hand and said, “Look at this, just look what my crazy sister has done!”
He opened the note. It was the first time he was seeing Tatiana’s handwriting. It was round, small, and neat. Dear Mama and Papa, the note read. I’ve gone to join the People’s Volunteers to find Pasha and bring him back for you. Tania.
Making
every effort to control his facial expression, Alexander gave the note back to Dasha with careful fingers and said, “She left when?”
“Yesterday morning. We got up and she was gone.”
“Dasha, why didn’t you come to me right away? She’s been gone since yesterday?”
“We thought she was just kidding. That she would come back.”
“Did you hope,” Alexander enunciated slowly, “that she would come back with Pasha?”
“We don’t know! She gets these ideas into her head. I honestly don’t know what she is thinking. She can’t go to the store by herself, much less to the front. Mama and Papa are beside themselves. They were so worried about Pasha, and now this.”
“Are they worried, or are they angry?” asked Alexander.
“They’re frantic. They’re deathly afraid for her. She—” Dasha broke off. Tears were in her eyes. “Dearest,” Dasha said, coming close to him. She put her arms around him, but Alexander’s face remained as closed as a bank on a holiday. “Alexander,” she said, “I didn’t know who to turn to. Help us, please. Help us find my sister. We can’t lose my Tania . . .”
“I know,” he said.
“Please?” Dasha said. “Will you do this . . . for me?”
Patting her on the back, Alexander stepped away. “Let me see what I can do.”
Alexander bypassed his immediate commander, Major Orlov, and went straight to Colonel Stepanov. He got authorization to take twenty volunteers and two sergeants to drive an armored truck loaded with munitions south to the Luga line. Alexander knew that the line badly needed to be strengthened. He told Stepanov he would be back in a few days.
Before dismissing Alexander, Stepanov said, “Bring yourself back. Bring the men back, Lieutenant.” He paused. “As always.”
“I will do my best, sir,” said Alexander. He had not seen many volunteers come back to the garrison.
Before he left, he went to see Dimitri and offered him a spot on the squad. Dimitri refused. “Dima,” said Alexander, “you should come.”
“I’ll go where they send me,” said Dimitri, shaking his head, “but I’m not swimming voluntarily into the jaws of the shark. Have you heard about what’s happened to Novgorod?”
Alexander drove the armored truck himself. It was filled with men, thirty-five Nagant rifles, thirty-five brand-new Tokarev rifles, two boxes of hand grenades, three crates of field mines, seven boxes of ammunition, a stack of oval artillery shells, and a keg of gunpowder for the mortars. Alexander thought it was good that the truck was armored.
He wished he had one of the tanks Tatiana had made.
The three towns followed in order from Leningrad: Gatchina was first, then Tolmachevo, then Luga. By the time Alexander reached Gatchina, he could already hear the distant thunder of artillery. His fleet of men trembled behind him as he made his way down the unpaved road. He heard bombs exploding like fireworks, and as if in a dream his father’s face flashed before him, wanting to know what Alexander was doing near death’s door before it was his time. He said, “Dad, I’m going for her,” and Sergeant Oleg Kashnikov, a brawny young soldier, said, “What did you say, Lieutenant?”
“Nothing. Sometimes I do that. Talk to my father.”
“But, Lieutenant, that wasn’t Russian,” Kashnikov said. “It sounded like English, but what do I know?”
“Not English, just gibberish,” said Alexander.
When Alexander and his men got out at Luga, the noise of artillery fire was no longer distant. The land was flat, and in the horizon there was smoke and sound. It wasn’t a sound signifying nothing, thought Alexander. It was the thunder of anger and of death.
During the evening of one Fourth of July barbecue, the family had gone out sailing on the sea in Nantucket Sound and watched the fireworks from their boat. Seven-year-old Alexander lifted his head up to the sky, enchanted by the rainbow lights exploding loudly overhead. He couldn’t imagine anything more spectacular than these vibrant colors showering the sky with life.
Straight ahead was the approach to Luga River. To the left were fields, and to the right was a forest. Alexander spotted children who were maybe ten years old picking what remained of this year’s crops. On the perimeter of the fields, soldiers and older men and women were digging trenches. He knew that after the crops were picked, the fields would be mined.
Calmly, holding his rifle tightly, Alexander told his men to stay put while he went to find Colonel Pyadyshev, who was organizing the defense line for a twelve-kilometer stretch along the river. Pyadyshev was pleased about the extra arms and immediately had his soldiers unload them and prepare to divide them up. “Only seventy rifles, Lieutenant?” he said to Alexander.
“All we have, sir,” Alexander replied. “More are coming.”
Then Alexander took his twenty charges closer to the river bank, where they received shovels and dug for a few hours. With a pair of binoculars Alexander searched the forest on the other side of the river and determined that the Germans had already advanced to contact, though they had not yet brought themselves into full offensive position.
The men had a bite to eat out of the canned goods they had brought with them. They drank water from the river. Alexander then left his two sergeants, Kashnikov and Shapkov, in charge, and went to find the group of volunteers who had come with the Kirov Works over four days ago.
He didn’t find anyone that day. But the next day he found Zina. She was in the field, bent over with her shovel. She was digging out the potatoes and throwing them into the basket, dirt and all. Alexander suggested she clean the dirt off first, to make more room for actual potatoes. Zina glared at him, prepared to say something rude, but then looked at his red star and his rifle and said nothing. Alexander saw that she did not recognize him. Not everyone can have my memory for faces, he thought. “I’m looking for your friend,” he said to Zina. “Is she here with you? Young girl, Tatiana.”
Zina looked up at him, and fear flashed through her eyes.
“Haven’t seen her,” Zina said. “I think she must be over there.” She waved her arm.
What’s she afraid of? wondered Alexander, breathing a relieved sigh. “So she is here. Over where?”
“I don’t know. We got separated after we got off the train.”
“Separated where?”
“Don’t know.” She was plainly nervous. She missed her basket completely, and the potatoes fell on the ground. Not picking them up, she continued to dig.
Alexander banged the ground twice with his rifle. “Comrade Atapova! Stop. Straighten up. Stand up, stop moving.” Zina quickly did. “Do you remember me?”
She shook her head.
“Aren’t you wondering how I know your name?”
“You have a way of finding these things out,” mumbled Zina.
“I’m Alexander Belov,” he said. “I used to come to Kirov to meet Tatiana. That’s how I know your name. Now do you remember?”
Relief showed on Zina’s dirt-covered, unfriendly face.
“Tatiana’s family is very worried about her. Do you know where she is?”
Relief mixed with defensiveness. “Listen,” Zina barked, “she wanted me to get off with her, but I said I couldn’t. I’m not a deserter.”
“Get off with her where? And you can’t be a deserter,” said Alexander. “You’re in the volunteer army.”
Zina didn’t seem to or want to understand. “Well, in any case I haven’t seen her for days. She didn’t come to Luga with us. She jumped off the train at Tolmachevo.”
Alexander paled. “When you say jumped off the train . . .”
“I mean, the train slowed down a bit at an intersection, and she stepped down the rung and jumped. I saw her rolling down the hill.”
Steeling his face, he said, “Why did you let her jump off the train?”
Raising her voice, Zina said, “Let her? Who let her? I said, don’t do it. She wanted me to come with her.” She laughed. “She wanted me to jump off a train! Why should I go with
her? I’m not looking for my brother. I came to join the People’s Volunteer Army. For Mother Russia.”
As he stepped away from her, Alexander said, “So for Mother Russia you would jump off the train, comrade?”
Zina had no answer. She turned away from him and continued to dig the potatoes, mumbling, “I wasn’t jumping off any train. I wasn’t going to be a deserter.”
Alexander quickly went to find some of his men. He took Kashnikov and five volunteers and drove the truck, now emptied of munitions, north to Tolmachevo. The town itself was nearly deserted. They drove through the streets, finally finding a woman carrying a child and a satchel. The woman told them Dohotino was three kilometers west. “But you won’t find nobody there,” she said. “Nobody there at all.”
They drove there anyway. The woman was right. All the huts had been long abandoned and the village bombed. There had been a fire, which had burned a swath through half a dozen homes. Still Alexander called out for her. “Tania!” he called. “Tatiana!”
He looked inside every single hut, even the burned-down ones. His men called for her also. It sounded foreign to him, her name coming off strangers’ tongues. But Kashnikov was a good sergeant. He didn’t question Alexander. The men were glad to help, if only to get away from the monotony of trench digging.
“Tania! Tania!” Their voices echoed through the small farming village in the middle of fields and woods. They did not find a soul. They found bits and pieces on the ground, blankets, singed backpacks, toothbrushes.
On the outskirts of Dohotino there was a small sign with an arrow: Dohotino Boys Camp. The seven men walked two kilometers through a wooded path and came out at a small meadow where ten abandoned tents stood in a row near a large pond.