The preparation of their feast had turned into a food fight. Duck was having a grand old time, licking up the mess they left behind. Neither one of them knew how to cook, and the strange vegetable stew they were creating looked thin, so Karen tried to make dumplings. Instead, she made unappetizing clumps of grainy raw flour. So Petr tried to make rice, which bubbled right out of the pot all over the floor. Duck happily jumped all over it and started lapping it up.
In the end, the soup was thin, the rice was hard, the dumplings were inedible, and the commissary was a complete mess. So were Petr and Karen. Their clothes were soaked and stained with all manner of food and sauce. Petr knew that what they ought to do is strip down to their underwear and boil their uniforms clean. It’s what he would have done in the army. Living with soldiers had mostly cured him of modesty, though taking off his clothes in front of a fellow soldier, he now realized, was very different from stripping in front of Karen—a girl whom he undeniably found attractive. So the recommendation caught in his throat.
Karen also knew their clothes desperately needed washing. They’d worn them for weeks, and so the garments were filthy and stinking. But cleaning them required removing them, and she, too, was embarrassed to make the suggestion. They both mumbled and agreed that their clothes needed cleaning, but neither was willing to voice the obvious consequence: stripping. So instead they looked through closets and pantries for some miracle that would rescue them from their embarrassment.
Karen found that miracle in the form of janitors’ aprons. They could wear them over their underwear, she reasoned, and after all, it really wouldn’t be all that different from wearing a bathing suit, would it? That’s how she justified it to herself, and how she justified it to Petr when she proposed that course of action.
They boiled a huge pot of soapy water and then slipped into separate rooms, where they stripped off their wet and sticky clothes and wrapped the aprons around their bodies. It wasn’t quite like being in a bathing suit, after all, Karen realized with shame, since the apron didn’t cover her backside. So when she returned to the kitchen to throw her clothes in the pot, she self-consciously made sure she was always facing Petr. Petr, she noticed, was doing the same. That realization made her giggle, and her giggle helped break the tension.
“When I was little and had stage fright,” she said to Petr, “my father told me to imagine the audience in their underwear.”
Petr laughed. “I guess if I’m in the audience now, you don’t have to imagine.”
“Exactly!” Karen said with delight.
When they finished boiling their clothes, they laid them out on commissary tables to dry. Then they slept on one of the few tables that had remained clean.
It was a hard and cold bed. They didn’t sleep in each other’s arms as they had on the trains. They were too self-conscious in their state of half dress. Their discomfort prompted them to wake up before dawn, at which time they were dismayed to discover their clothes hadn’t yet dried. Teeth chattering, they opened the windows of a nearby classroom and hung their clothes out to dry.
As the sun rose, Petr tried his hand at making coffee, boiling water and dumping in grounds until it looked the right shade of black. Despite having a film with the same grainy consistency as Karen’s dumplings, the coffee both warmed them up and energized them. But when they returned to fetch their clothes, they discovered that the wind had blown them into the bushes below. Someone had to go outside and rummage around to find them.
Petr reluctantly volunteered. He had to be cautious. They weren’t supposed to be inside the university buildings and could technically be arrested. His state of undress only made him more timid. As bad as it would be to get arrested, it would be even worse to be arrested without any clothes on.
Karen served as the lookout in the window above. She was supposed to whistle if she saw anyone, warning Petr to duck down into the bushes. But she was having too much fun watching Petr’s undignified tromp through the hedges, and couldn’t help but giggle, which Petr heard. He hissed at her to be quiet, but then his apron got caught on a branch, and he found himself stripped to his underwear. Karen’s giggle turned into a loud guffaw as Petr stood up and grabbed his apron, cursing. It was fortunate that no one was nearby, because the two of them couldn’t have been making a louder racket.
An hour later they were finally dressed, wondering what to do next. Neither of them had any idea how to find Duck’s family. Petr knew nothing about them; he only knew they lived in Moscow and had told the army that Duck enjoyed chasing birds in the park. Remembering this finally gave Karen an idea. They should find parks with lots of birds. If the family had spent time in such a park before the war, it would stand to reason that they’d still spend time there. And they might recognize their dog. Petr shrugged. It was worth a try, and he certainly didn’t have any better ideas.
Petr and Karen spent three days visiting each of Moscow’s parks. Duck lived up to his name, chasing everything with either wings or a tail, from ducks to geese to squirrels. In the rare instances he had no wildlife to chase, Petr and Karen threw a stick for him. It was fun at first, but the fun didn’t last, especially since they didn’t seem to be making much progress. Every park seemed much like any other. They would have to be extraordinarily lucky to be in the right park the very moment that Duck’s family visited.
On the fourth day, frustrated and bored by the process, Karen and Petr decided to give up on the parks and do some sightseeing instead. Just up the street from the university was a memorial commemorating Russia’s victory over Napoleon. Inna had often cited that glorious moment in Russian history as proof that they would also defeat the invading Nazis. And, of course, Karen and Petr had been reading War and Peace, so they wanted to see the monument for themselves.
As they approached Alexander Gardens, in which the monument was housed, Duck started to get excited. He ran ahead, turned around, and raced back, leaping up to Petr’s chest and wagging his tail. When they reached the gate surrounding the gardens, Duck put his paws up on the wrought iron gate, beside himself with anticipation. And when Petr opened the gate, the dog raced inside and immediately rocketed after a flock of ducks, sending the squawking birds into flight.
“I think he’s been here before,” Petr commented with a smile.
Karen nodded. “Maybe we’ve finally found the right park.”
Nonetheless, no one came to Alexander Gardens whom Duck seemed to recognize. Petr and Karen had already been in Moscow for a week, and they seemed no closer to finding Duck’s family than they had been in Tikhvin. They had no better ideas, however, so they simply continued to come to the Alexander Gardens day after day. It was a fifteen-minute walk from the university, which made things easy.
On Saturday they arrived to find a gathering crowd. Karen’s heart filled with hope. Of course the family wouldn’t have come to the park during the week. The boy would have been in school, and the father would have been at work. A weekend made much more sense. And from the size of the crowd, it appeared that Alexander Gardens was a popular destination for weekend leisure. It turned out that the crowd wasn’t there for the gardens, but for a concert. An amateur youth orchestra was offering a free outdoor performance of The Rite of Spring. Karen knew the piece of music well. It had been a favorite of her father’s and was the music she’d played the night she’d met Bobby.
She was not impressed with the youth orchestra’s rendition, however. The conductor, a bespectacled woman with the severe appearance of a schoolmarm, proved strict and sincere in her approach to the piece. The amateur musicians simply couldn’t keep up with the demands of her baton. The lead cellist, a scrawny boy about Karen’s age with a gigantic Adam’s apple and a peach-fuzz mustache, fell hopelessly behind and led his entire section into unintended cacophony.