But newsreels weren’t news. They were propaganda. And this newsreel was Soviet propaganda. In his commanding baritone voice, the narrator described Russia’s heroic efforts to defy the German siege and feed the soldiers and citizens defending Leningrad. Russian truck drivers waved as they ran supplies through the snow. Army engineers laying railroad track to the edge of Lake Ladoga paused in their work long enough to smile at the camera.
Then the background music assumed a more ominous tone. Red Army soldiers manned their trenches—grim, resolved, and alert. One pointed to the sky, shouting, “Over there!”
German dive-bombers roared in formation through the sky. They were trying to cut the supply lines! But the Russian antiaircraft gunners put a stop to that. Blasts of flak burst like dark clouds in the sky. A German plane swooped with a roar, but it wasn’t diving, it was dying. Smoke plumed from its rear. The Soviet gunners cheered. And the newsreel was over.
Bobby felt something like relief. This was why Karen had stopped answering his letters. It wasn’t that she’d stopped loving him. Leningrad was surrounded, and no mail was getting in or out.
Bobby paid no attention to the feature film. His mind raced.
Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor only the day before. Everyone was rushing to enlist. He had originally planned to join up right after graduation. But now he worried that that would be too late. Russia was struggling for its life against the Nazi menace. Karen and her father were heroically defending themselves against German aggression. Bobby had to do something, anything—now.
Bobby left his teammates right after the movie. He didn’t return to his college dormitory. Instead, he went straight to the Army Air Forces recruitment center.
The papers they put before him demanded his signature. And yet he hesitated, keeping the pen in his fist. His parents would want him to come home first. They would want him to graduate from Columbia. If he signed on the dotted line now, he would miss going back to Minneapolis, miss his graduation ceremony—all of it. His parents would be furious, and so disappointed. He squeezed the pen with indecision.
“Do you think your grandfather made his own parents proud?” Bobby suddenly remembered Karen asking him.
He uncapped the pen and scrawled his name.
CHAPTER 7
THE CELLIST
One month later, in January of 1942, Karen found herself facedown in a frozen potato field a dozen miles outside of Leningrad in the pitch-darkness. The icy ground sucked the heat from Karen’s legs, arms, and chest. Her thick coat and layered wool sweaters had protected her for a few minutes, but now the cold penetrated her clothing and was slowly spreading through her body. In her mind’s eye she saw her skin turn black, like her dead father’s fingers, but she knew that was only her imagination. A voice in the back of her head screamed at her to get up off the icy ground, but she closed her eyes and ignored that voice. She knew that as bad as the cold was, the German soldiers only a few yards away were even worse. Her gloved fingers closed more tightly around the shovel in her right hand and the sack of frozen potatoes in her left.
The farmers had abandoned this potato field the previous summer when they were forced to evacuate their collective farm. The German advance had been so fast, the resistance of the Red Army so futile, that the agricultural workers barely had enough time to collect a few meager belongings, let alone harvest their fields. So the collective farm had fallen under the snow of an early winter, and the potato field had fallen under the tread of German marching boots. The unharvested potatoes were left to rot.
But the early frost saved the potatoes. Hidden beneath the snow, they were forgotten by the Germans. And the subterranean spuds could still be a source of carbohydrates and calories for the man or woman brave enough to dig them up.
Inna and her friends were plenty brave, Karen had discovered. She had been sticking closer to Inna since the death of her father. It was how she survived, though it wasn’t getting her much closer to what she needed to do to escape Leningrad. Just staying alive used up all her time, energy, and ingenuity. Karen liked Inna—she always had—even though their first meeting a year and a half ago hadn’t been particularly pleasant.
It was late-summer 1940, and the weather was brilliant. White puffy clouds had spotted a bright-blue sky, and yellow sunlight glinted off the white granite facades and open windows of city buildings. Karen was fresh off the boat from New York, and she was walking to her first class at the Leningrad Conservatory. She had worn a fine silk dress for the occasion, the most expensive garment she owned, which she had carefully packed in her father’s trunk. She loved that outfit, all the more because she had worn it the previous winter when she’d first attracted Bobby’s attention. She wanted to make an impression at the Conservatory, too.
She noticed people staring at her as she walked, and she became conscious of the fact that her dress was finer than the clothes worn by anyone she passed. Their garments were simple blouses, shirts, skirts, or tunics, dyed in practical, earthy colors that helped hide stains and dirt. Karen’s dress, on the other hand, was a shiny cream color, the hem of which she had to lift to prevent it from getting soiled as she walked. The fabric clung to her porcelain skin and outlined the shape of her legs with every summer breeze. The women stared at her, envious, and the men seemed to undress her with hungry eyes, which worried her. Her self-consciousness grew until she stopped glancing around her and only looked down, watching her feet step one in front of the other.
But she couldn’t ignore the girl who brazenly crossed the street to block her path on the sidewalk. The girl looked like a street urchin. Unlike most Russians’ simple but clean and dignified garments, this girl’s clothes were filthy. Her hair was cropped short like a boy’s, yet red tufts stuck out in every direction. The girl stood sideways like a traffic officer and held up one hand, signaling Karen to stop. She sneered at Karen over her raised shoulder, then yelled a series of angry Russian words. Karen didn’t know what to make of the girl, who appeared to be her own age. Karen tried to move past her, but the girl adjusted her stance to block Karen, never pausing in her angry diatribe of insults.
The girl was shorter than Karen, but stockier, and despite her filthy appearance she held herself with a confident, almost military bearing. Nonetheless, Karen refused to be intimidated. Late for class, she forced her way passed the girl, almost knocking her down. The girl threw a handful of mud square at Karen’s back.
This filthy girl had ruined her best dress! Karen was the furious one now. Momentarily forgetting her Russian, Karen let loose a stream of unladylike English obscenities. The girl’s eyes widened at the sound of them. But for Karen that wasn’t enough. Along the street, a horse pulling a grocer’s cart had left a pile of steaming dung. Karen picked up the dung and pitched it at the girl, scoring a hit right in the girl’s chest. A moment passed. Karen was prepared to fight. She was certain the angry girl would leap at her at any moment.
Instead, the girl laughed. She wiped the dung off her chest and apologized to Karen. “I didn’t realize you’re an American tourist,” she explained. “Tourists usually have Communist Party guides with them.” She offered to shake Karen’s hand. “My name is Inna.”
Karen learned that Inna had mistaken her for a bourgeois hooligan. Bolsheviks hated the bourgeoisie, who adorned themselves in expensive fashion and jewelry for the sole purpose, Inna believed, of stealing husbands or boyfriends. This time it was Karen’s turn to laugh. She explained that Inna had nothing to fear from her. She already had a boyfriend, she said, and she didn’t need another.