She returned her attention to the sleeping dog. She wondered whether she could get up without waking him. She knew she couldn’t. And, perhaps more important, she didn’t want to. She could feel the warmth of his body radiating from his fur and through her coat. The warmth invited her to forget her fear of the wolf dog. She dared to take off her gloves and run her fingers through his soft winter coat. Duck didn’t growl or snap or bite. Instead, he murmured some sound from under his breath and rolled over onto his back. Karen smiled and rubbed the coarse fur that covered the dog’s belly.
“He likes you.” It was Petr, who had woken and was watching her from across the cabin.
Karen didn’t stop scratching the dog. “Only because I fed him.”
“I thought you wanted to eat him.”
“I did,” Karen replied. But it wasn’t the truth, and for some reason she felt compelled to admit it. “No, I didn’t. Not really. I was scared of him. I wanted to get rid of him.”
“Are you still scared of him?”
“I should be.” But she wasn’t. Not with him lying on his back like that, his neck curling around and his tongue lolling out of his mouth in ecstasy.
“Yes. Perhaps you should be. We’re all three of us killers.”
Karen laughed. She couldn’t help it. It was so absurd. She, a seventeen-year-old girl, a musician—a cellist, of all things—ninety pounds in wet clothes, described as a killer. And this dog, so soft, so furry, making that strange noise—what was that noise? Was he purring? It sounded like purring. How could this creature be a killer? And the boy soldier, not much older than she—filthy, soft-spoken, so trusting of the NKVD man and, she suddenly realized, so trusting of her. How could he be a killer? If she’d met either one of them under normal circumstances, she would never have been afraid; she would never have felt threatened. They seemed like such gentle souls. But these weren’t normal circumstances. They were dangerous circumstances. And, Karen knew, in dangerous times gentle souls died. Looks could be deceiving. This boy and this dog were no gentle souls. Like her, they were killers. They had to be because, like her, they had survived. And they were patriots. So they were dangerous.
“Why are you laughing?” Petr asked.
“You wouldn’t understand.”
Petr nodded. “Probably not.” He looked at her in silence. “You know what I’m thinking?”
“What?”
“I’m thinking there’s a reason there was so much macaroni.”
“And what reason is that?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if there were wild mushrooms, too, during the summer.”
“It isn’t the summer.”
“But there are deer.”
“You think?” Karen said.
“There would have to be, wouldn’t there? Why else would someone build this shack? It’s a hunting shack—a shack built for hunting.”
Karen peered at Petr, suspicious. “What are you planning?”
“How many bags of noodles are left?”
“About a half dozen.”
“If I could find a deer, we could cook it with meat.”
“How could you find a deer?”
“By hunting it.”
“You know how to hunt?”
“Yes.”
“In the winter?”
“Yes.”
“Then what are you waiting for?”
Petr smiled and climbed to his feet. “Come on, Duck.” The Alsatian wolf dog somersaulted to his feet and bounded for the door. Petr held it open, and the dog leaped outside. “Don’t start a fire. The Germans might see the smoke.”
“I’m not an idiot.”
“I’ll see you soon.”
“Good luck.”
Petr slammed the door behind him, and Karen continued to lie where she was, imagining the meat. It would be so good if Petr really did find a deer, if he really did manage to kill it. Karen wondered how much meat one deer could provide. A few days’ worth? A week’s worth? She had no idea. Even if it were only a few days, that would be a few days of heaven… a few days of not having to march, of not having to survive… a few days of just relaxing and eating and regaining her strength. It was so tempting. But she couldn’t afford to give in to that temptation. She had to stay strong.
Karen could hear Petr outside, trudging farther away from the shack. She sat still and silent until she couldn’t hear him anymore. And then she sat still and silent for ten more minutes. Finally, when she was sure that he was gone, she got up, carefully crossed the squeaking floor, and opened the door just a crack. No one was there. She opened it wider and stuck her head out so that she could look in every direction. The clearing was empty. She shut the door and moved back to the crates. She rifled through them and found the one with the macaroni. She grabbed two full bags and stuffed them in her pockets. She stuffed another bag in the hem of her skirt, and a fourth under her hat. She couldn’t carry any more, and four bags of dried noodles ought to last her long enough to reach Tikhvin, anyway. Besides, she still wanted to leave some for Petr. She didn’t dislike the boy soldier, and she didn’t wish him any ill will. She certainly didn’t want him to starve to death. She just wanted to leave him, to escape. So she took out her train tickets, unfolded the one she had extra, and left it in the crate for him secured between the two remaining bags of noodles. See? She wasn’t a killer, after all.
Karen then opened the door and stepped outside. She looked up at the sun to get her bearings, turned southwest, and plunged into the woods, alone.
CHAPTER 19
THE GOATHERD
Unteroffizier Oster kicked the trunk of a birch tree in an effort to knock the crusted ice from his jackboot. He resented having to leave the village to patrol the woods, even if the tiny cottages that his platoon used as their winter quarters were awful. They were cramped, filthy, and infested with vermin. Never would Oster have believed he could live in such squalor. He thought of his own home in Bavaria, and his wife. She was not a beautiful woman—not by any objective aesthetic standards. She was plump and ruddy and even a bit hairy. But she was his, and he was hers. That was the worst part of the army, being separated from the woman he loved. He’d been serving on the Eastern Front since before the invasion in June, and he was due some time off. He wasn’t just any Unteroffizier; he was a full sergeant and squad leader, after all. When spring came, he was sure, his unit would be rotated out of the line, and he would return home for two weeks’ leave—two blissful weeks of peace.
He was not a rich man. His home, a shepherd’s cottage, was not much bigger than the Russian building he lived in now. But it was much cleaner. He took pride in keeping his home whitewashed, replacing the shingles, and maintaining the grounds. His wife took pride in her cleaning. Not like these filthy Russian Bolsheviks. Thanks to them, he had lice. Thanks to them, he’d contracted parasites so that he could no longer have a meal without immediately having to defecate. Thanks to them, his uniform and beard and hair were filthy. No wonder the German leadership had declared them “undesirables.” They had no pride, not in themselves or in one another. They deserved to starve to death. Such was official German policy: Don’t feed the undesirables. Let them die out. This land would be better off under the stewardship of German, not Slavic, families.
But despite the squalor, the discomfort, and the humiliating filth, Oster had grown to love his Russian village. Because as dirty as the cottages were, they were warm. The woods, to the contrary, were freezing cold.
As Oster’s reconnaissance squad patrolled the woods, many of his men gathered too close around him, raising the Unteroffizier’s ire. “Don’t just laze about,” he commanded. “Spread out. Watch out for the enemy.”