They ate well. During their fifth day of travel, they passed a herd of deer. The deer had obviously become accustomed to the trains, for they continued to graze unconcerned as the loud and smoky locomotive approached. Petr sat in the open door of a boxcar and waited patiently. Even when the car was only a hundred yards from the deer, the animals didn’t flinch. It wasn’t until he pulled the trigger and dropped one that the rest of the herd panicked and bounded away.
Petr jumped off, Karen and Duck close behind him. When they approached the deer, Petr was happy to see the shot had been a clean one, straight through the animal’s heart. It hadn’t suffered. But he was distressed to see that flies were already buzzing around the carcass. It would be only a matter of time before the meat was rotten with maggots.
Petr had to get to work fast, and he needed Karen’s help. He taught her how to skin and quarter the animal, breaking it into smaller pieces for easier cooking and transport.
But even that wasn’t enough. Until the meat was somehow preserved, it would continue to attract vermin. So he hung the large shanks of venison from the branches of a tree and built a large bonfire beneath them. It wasn’t nearly as efficient as a smokehouse, but it would have to do.
The whole operation took the better part of two days, but they ended up with enough meat to last five more.
Karen was impressed. Here was proof positive that her fantasy of living in the woods might become a reality, after all. She hadn’t eaten so well in almost a year, and it had cost them only a single bullet.
They began sleeping in each other’s arms. It began by sharing the worn copy of War and Peace between them. They sat in a corner of a boxcar, backs propped against the walls, reading aloud. When Karen’s voice grew hoarse, Petr would take over. And when Petr’s voice grew hoarse, they would continue to read in silence, shoulder to shoulder, turning each page only after a nod indicated that they were ready.
Duck grew jealous of their closeness, so he wiggled and pushed his way between them. The three of them snuggled together, enjoying the feel of Duck’s downy fur.
But eventually the dog got hot, that same fur trapping the excessive heat of three bodies. So he would get up and wander to a distant corner of the slowly rocking boxcar before flopping back down with a satisfied groan. That left Petr and Karen together. Neither one of them wanted to move. They just lay there quietly until they fell asleep.
Every night thereafter they did the same, without a word, without acknowledgment. Karen told herself it was innocent enough; they were still fully dressed, and they hadn’t even kissed again since the day of the dance. It wasn’t as if she was really being unfaithful to Bobby. She enjoyed lying in Petr’s arms, and not because it was comforting. In fact, it was distracting. The feel of his body was electric, even maddening. But she didn’t dare move, for fear of breaking the spell. Lying like that together, every night, prevented her from sleeping much, and it made the journey feel even longer.
Karen secretly looked forward to the sun going down so they could put down the book and once again lie together.
When they finally arrived in Moscow, Karen marveled at how different it looked from Leningrad. Both cities had been fortified with a series of deep trenches bristling with log bunkers, machine guns, and antiaircraft cannons. And it was clear that, like Leningrad, Moscow had been militarized.
What little traffic traveled the streets and sidewalks consisted of civilians hurrying to accomplish specific daily tasks. There was no one just lounging around, and few people smiling. Yet the streets and buildings remained in good repair. Rubble had been cleared, and she saw no piles of garbage or corpses or junk.
As their train crawled through the city’s back alleys, Karen could see into apartment-building windows. She observed well-fed civilians inside who, despite the threat from the German lines only miles away, seemed proud and confident. One young boy even looked up from a book he was reading and smiled and waved. Amazed, Karen waved back. There had been no friendly gestures in Leningrad. Even the smallest gesture required strength, and the starving population had to preserve that strength.
Petr was concerned about what might happen when they finally reached the end of the line. Undoubtedly there would be military officers at the train station who would recruit all three of them back into the Red Army.
Petr planned to rejoin the army. He wasn’t a deserter, really, but he did want to save Duck first. Karen had agreed to help him find Duck’s family, so they decided to jump off the train while it waited at a crossing.
They didn’t know where they were. Petr had been born in Moscow and had grown up near Lomonosov University, where his father worked. But Petr was only thirteen when he and his father were forcibly exiled, more than seven years ago. And with his father focused entirely on mathematics, young Petr had never traveled far from the university. He didn’t recognize where they were now and didn’t know whether it was because he didn’t remember or because he’d never been there. Nonetheless, he did remember that the campus was on Manege Square, and he assured Karen that if they could just find their way there, he’d be able to finally get his bearings.
It was surprisingly easy to find their way. Manege Square was famous, very near to Communist headquarters at Red Square, so asking directions was easy. It was a long walk, and they didn’t have money for a tram, but by now they were used to long walks.
The campus itself was locked up tight. Petr recalled a secret way inside through a window with a broken latch; when he was a kid, he’d used that entrance to sneak in and out. He suspected that the window hadn’t been repaired, and once again Communist inefficiency didn’t let him down. When he pushed on the window, sure enough, it swung open.
Karen, Petr, and Duck spent an hour wandering the long halls of the university buildings. They quietly searched every floor, finding the campus deserted. The entire school—the staff, the professors, and the students—had been evacuated the previous winter and transferred to a temporary campus in Ashgabat, near Iran.
Karen found the huge, empty buildings eerie. The only sounds were the echoes of their footsteps and Duck’s claws against the marble tiles. The electricity had been turned off, and the corridors were dim. Where it wasn’t dark, along windowed chambers, dust swirled like ghosts in the shafts of sunlight.
As she got used to the emptiness of the buildings, Karen began to enjoy the solitude. She began to play with Duck, running in and out of offices and classrooms, having him chase her. She would hide and wait for him to sniff her out. Petr joined the game, and the three of them had more fun than they’d had in a long time.
Then they found the commissary. Someone had forgotten to clear out the cupboard, and there were leftover bags of flour and cans of soups and vegetables. Out of curiosity, Petr tried the stove and was thrilled to discover that the gas still worked. Karen immediately started grabbing random cans, declaring that they should celebrate their arrival in Moscow with a feast.
They didn’t have a can opener, so they used Petr’s military spade as an ax to chop them open. The first time Petr tried it, he was sprayed with stewed tomatoes. Most of it got on his face and in his hair. Karen laughed so hard that Petr made her open the next can. She, too, was sprayed, this time by creamed corn. Soon they didn’t care. They just slammed open the cans, not worrying about the mess, pouring their growing concoction into a huge vat simmering over low heat.