Gradually, the shooting had seemed to move away from them. Yuri had been relieved since there hadn’t been much in the way of shelter nearby. The wisest thing to do was always to keep moving so he’d stood up slowly, wiping down his messed-up trousers, and had pulled Peter into a standing position, making a silent fuss over the dirt on his trousers too. As he’d expected, the child had stared off moodily into the distance. Yuri’d smiled to himself, knowing he had the code to crack this particular instance of huffiness. ‘Hey, will we go see the statue?’
Peter had swung to face him, forgetting he had been feeling so bored and fed up, breathlessly asking, ‘Can we? Really?’
Yuri’d taken his hand. ‘Well, only if you promise to talk to me while we walk.’
Peter’d had to think about this, not wanting to give a wrong answer nor an untrue one. Finally, his decision made, he’d replied, ‘Okay, Yuri. I promise.’
MR BELOV’S BOYS LEAVE HOME
‘Cowards!’ announced Anton so definitely that nobody thought to contradict him.
Seventeen year old twins, Vladimir and Dmitry Chekhov, had not made it to school for the last day of lessons. But their names were on the list. Mr Belov sent a young pupil over to the Chekhov house to say that the twins should meet their class at 4pm, when they would be heading off for the register office in the nearby town.
The dutiful messenger returned with Mrs Chekhov’s words ringing in his ears, and delivered the message exactly as he had heard it, ‘VLADIMIR AND DMITRY ARE NOT GOING ANYWHERE BECAUSE THEY ARE VERY, VERY SICK!’
A shadow fell across Mr Belov’s features. ‘Do stop shouting at me, there’s a good lad.’
‘Yes, sir. Sorry, sir!’
He sent the excited boy back to class. For their last hours of schooling the teacher seemed unable to decide how to spend them. In one sentence he mentioned Alexander The Great (Was he really that great?), Adolf Hitler (What he might have thought about Alexander The Great?), and the importance of keeping one’s knife and fork clean when out at the front (Food poisoning is very dangerous for a soldier in battle).
It was hard to concentrate on anything much when the classroom door was besieged by mothers insisting on seeing their sons, ‘for just a few minutes’. Out of seven visits, only five pupils had faithfully returned to their desks.
Mr Belov was torn. On the one hand, he had complete sympathy for these terrified women, most of whom had no idea where their husbands were and, therefore, were extremely reluctant to release their sons to God knows what. On the other hand, he acknowledged a prickly chill around his heart as he wondered how the state police would respond to this disobedience.
Orders like his letter had come from Stalin himself. Protecting the Motherland was an immense privilege with absolutely no alternative. For one moment the teacher wished not to be Russian, a most shocking thought that could never be said aloud, even as a joke. Surely in other countries this did not happen. School children were not ordered to leave their lessons and join the army with neither proper training nor experience.
The one clear instruction from Stalin that they all knew – ‘There must be no turning back’ – did not sound like much, but, in fact, it meant something terrible.
Mr Belov had heard some of the stories whispered about the town about Russian generals shooting their own soldiers if they showed any hesitation or panic on the battlefield. A soldier was to keep stepping forward, no matter what. Who wants to die a coward, bringing disgrace on their family?
Only yesterday, his neighbour, Mrs Chuykov, had stopped him on the street to tell him that Konstantin, her beloved grandson, was dead. He’d reached out to take her hand and say, ‘Oh, Maria, I am so sorry for your loss. What happened to him? I hope it was swift.’
The old woman’s eyes had been filled with pain. ‘That’s the worst of it. We don’t know anything at all. The army never contacted us, just a friend of Konstantin’s, Daniel something or other, who wrote to tell us he was dead.’
Before he could say anything else, she’d lowered her voice, quickly declaring, ‘He was no coward, that boy. I don’t care what they try to tell us.’
Much to Mr Belov’s shame, they had both gazed nervously around, making sure that there was nobody listening to them. These days it was impossible to know who was listening to timid, hushed conversations like this. Wishing that he’d dared to say more, the teacher had looked his neighbour in the eye and had promised, ‘Of course he wasn’t a coward. No lad ever stood straighter. The day we watched him leave, I remember thinking to myself that if even half our men had half his courage that would be enough to see off any enemy.’
Mrs Chuykov had nodded in triumph, as if Mr Belov had said a great deal more than he did. ‘Thank you for your kind words. You’re a good man.’
Instead of being warmed by her faith in him, however, he had burned with shame as he’d continued on down to his front door and had let himself in. His wife, who’d been waiting for him, had rushed to help him, making him feel older and frailer than he actually was.
‘Really, Klara. I am quite capable of taking off my own jacket and hat.’
She had been about to smile at his sudden stab for independence until she’d noticed how pale and worried he’d looked.
They had been married for over forty years and had never once spent a night apart in all that time. What kept her young, she felt, was taking care of him. She would frequently declare to herself, with enormous pride, ‘He couldn’t even make a pot of tea for himself, since he neither knows where I keep the tea or the cups.’
Only recently, he had told her about an elderly couple who had died together on one of those big ocean liners. The ship had hit an iceberg – now, what was its name? – and the passengers had to be put off into lifeboats, only there weren’t enough for everyone on board. So, the women and children had to leave their men behind, but this wife refused to do that, saying, ‘We have been together for forty years. Where you go, I go.’
Mr Belov’s wife had nodded her head in solid support of the lady’s decision. Her husband had pretended to be surprised. ‘What, Klara? You would prefer death to separation?’
She had given him one of her looks then, and had said rather matter-of-factly, ‘In our case, wouldn’t separation and death amount to the very same thing?’
‘What’s wrong, my dear? Something has upset you?’
With his front door closed and his devoted wife as his only listener, Mr Belov had felt free to say what he wanted, as long as he spoke quietly, just in case, ‘Maria Chuykov’s grandson is dead.’
Mrs Belov had led him to his old armchair where his slippers had been waiting to be substituted for his shoes, and had murmured, ‘Yes, I know. I heard. Poor Maria.’
Her husband had watched her carefully as she’d fussed about. ‘Do you know what happened?’ he asked her.
At that, she’d turned away from him, saying, ‘How can I know when his family doesn’t? They received a brief note, in the post, from someone who didn’t even sign his full name.’
Mr Belov had kicked off his shoes. ‘You know what that means, don’t you?’
His wife had sat down heavily on the stool beside him. ‘It means that I’m glad we never had children’.
Mr Belov had shifted impatiently and stared at her until she’d given in, nodding her head sadly, and sighing, ‘Yes, alright. I know. It means that we’re killing our own.’
At ten minutes to four he gathered what was left of the class and they headed outside. Relatives stood around in anxious groups, their eyes following the teacher, making him feel that they blamed him for what was happening. At his insistence, his wife had stayed at home as he’d wanted to be free to concentrate on the boys. He’d promised to be back before tomorrow afternoon at the very latest.