The soldier straightened. “What? Who will eat him?”
“The soldiers manning the trenches. They will shoot your dog and eat him before they even let you into the city.”
“Why would they do something so barbaric?”
“Because dogs taste better than rats. And the rats have already been eaten.”
The soldier stared at Karen. He didn’t want to believe her, but Karen could tell that he did. “I don’t have a choice. There is nowhere else to go.”
“You’re from the army, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“So go back to your unit.”
“I don’t think my unit exists anymore.”
“Why? What happened to it?”
“It was overrun.”
“Where? When?”
“Out there, somewhere. Three days ago.”
“Then find another unit. The Second Shock Army is mounting an offensive soon.”
“I am the Second Shock Army.”
The feeling of despair that washed over Karen surprised her. She had grown so cynical about Soviet propaganda, so skeptical of everything the mayor ever said, that she was sure the Second Shock Army’s supposed offensive was only a myth. But what the soldier was telling her was much worse. The Second Shock Army wasn’t a myth; it was real, or at least it had been real up until three days ago. It was real, and it had failed. It had been decimated—an entire army overrun by the Germans. How could the Russians afford to take such losses and continue to fight? They couldn’t. No military could. They were going to lose this war. The Germans were invincible. Leningrad would never be saved. The ice road over Lake Ladoga would eventually be severed. Every man, woman, and child left inside that city would eventually starve.
“So you see,” the soldier added, “there is nowhere else to go.”
Karen shook her head in growing panic. “No, no, you can’t go back to Leningrad.” She had to stop him. She was finally free of that city, and she couldn’t allow him to drag her back there. “There is no food, no electricity.”
“But the army—”
“Even the soldiers are starving!”
“I have nowhere else to go.”
Karen stared at him, her mind turning, desperately grasping for any idea, any thought that might stop the soldier from forcing her back to Leningrad. “I have train tickets. Two. I’ll give you one.”
“Train tickets? What good are train tickets?”
“From Tikhvin to Moscow. On a troop train. If we can get to Tikhvin, we can get to Moscow.”
“How do you know this?”
“I paid for the information.”
“Money?”
“Food.”
The soldier looked across the fire at Karen. He clearly didn’t trust her. “Show me the ticket.”
Karen hesitated. If she showed him the ticket, he might shoot her and take it. But what choice did she have? She couldn’t escape, not with that dog watching her. She had to trust him. She took off her glove, reached into her coat, and pulled out one of the tickets. She held it before her. “See?”
The soldier peered and reached across the fire to take it, but Karen jerked her hand away. “No. I paid for it. I keep it.”
“It has a name on it.”
“It belonged to a wounded soldier. We will have to pretend.”
“You will pretend to be a soldier?”
“There are woman soldiers.” She was right. But that didn’t mean the plan would work.
“We will be caught,” the soldier said.
“How?”
“Your identity will be discovered.”
“No, it won’t.”
“How can you be sure?”
“I’m a good liar.”
The soldier paused, considering this. “Are you lying now?”
Karen nodded. “My name is Karen.”
“You said it was Inna.”
“I lied.”
“You lie about a lot of things, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Karen nodded. “Yes, I do.”
“But you’re not lying about Leningrad, are you?”
“No.”
“Then who is Inna?”
“My friend. The one killed in the potato field that I told you about.”
“You have her identification papers?”
“Yes.”
The boy pointed to her pocket where the train tickets were hidden. “And what about those soldiers? Do you have their identification?”
“No.”
“Then how do you intend to pass yourself off?”
“We were defenders of the Nevsky Bridgehead. Heroes of the Soviet Union. We were wounded, unconscious, lucky to be evacuated. We lost our identification tags, and our papers were burned during an artillery attack.”
The boy soldier blinked, impressed. The story was believable. He had seen bodies without ID tags often enough and had wondered what would happen to him if he were wounded without any identifying information.
Karen interrupted his thoughts. “I told you my real name. What is yours?”
“My name is Petr. He is Duck.” He motioned toward the big wolf dog.
“Duck?”
“I didn’t name him.”
“Where did he come from?”
“I’m not sure. A family in Moscow, I think. He was drafted. Just like me.”
Karen sat up. “If we reach Tikhvin, we can take a train to Moscow. Duck can be reunited with his family.”
Petr shook his head. “Even if we could bluff our way onto the train, we would never make it all the way to Tikhvin. It is more than a hundred miles away. We’ll freeze to death.”
“There is wood. We can find food in villages, in fields. Like the potatoes I told you about.”
“The Germans occupy the villages.” Petr shook his head again. “We will be intercepted long before we reach Tikhvin. Leningrad is our only hope.” He stood up and kicked snow on the fire to put it out.
“Then we have no hope at all.”
The soldier reached down, lifted his pack, and slid it over his shoulder. The wolf dog seemed to recognize the gesture and leaped up to stand at the soldier’s hip.
Karen remained sitting, her arms around her knees, looking up at the boy in despair.
“We have to leave,” he said.
“I can’t go back.”
“Eventually a German patrol will happen by.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
Petr lifted the gun and pointed it at Karen. “Perhaps you will, but I can’t.”
“You’re going to shoot me?”
“If you don’t come with me, yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you will tell the Germans where I am.”
“I told you, I am not a subversive.”
“And I don’t believe you. So get up.”
Karen looked into Petr’s eyes. She couldn’t tell whether he would really shoot her. She couldn’t take the risk. So reluctantly, she stood.
“You go first,” he commanded, waving with the gun.
Karen trudged forward, into the tree line. The boy soldier, the dog at his side, followed close behind, continuing to aim the gun at her back.
The woods were silent and beautiful. It was already March, but winter still held Russia in its freezing grip. Thick snow twinkled on the forest floor, and icicles glistened in the tree branches. Karen had been in the woods before, but always at night, and now she was practically blinded by the sun’s white glare. But then, suddenly, the forest changed. The picturesque winter scene drastically transformed into black, scorched earth, splintered wood, and deep craters. Beyond the scarred ground were Leningrad’s defensive trenches, bristling with machine guns, and beyond those loomed the still-burning spires of the city. Karen halted, not daring to take another step forward out of the cover of the trees and into the black despair of no-man’s-land.
Petr moved beside her in an instant. “What happened here?”
“The Germans shelled it.”
“Why?”