Nicola Pierce: City of Fate

It was 23 August 1942, about four o’clock on a typical Sunday afternoon. Yuri Bogdanov was swimming in the River Volga with his friends Grigori and Anatoly. There were plenty of people around the water’s edge, kissing couples and noisy families – everyone relishing their freedom from lessons and chores.

The boys were celebrating. It was Yuri’s fourteenth birthday and, after their swim, they were going back to his house, where his mother had baked a cake in his honour. For now, Yuri was in no rush to leave the river, preferring to spin out the feeling of excitement, of expectation for as long as he could.

Underwater, he practised his gliding, focused and determined. This was where he was faster than anyone else. His left leg had never been straight, nor had it ever been quite as long as his right one, so he limped when he walked. No doubt the other two were calling him to grab someone’s legs as he swam past. One, two, three, four; he held his breath for twenty-five seconds before jutting his face out for a gulp of air, glancing at his friends splashing one another. Leaving them to it, he drew back beneath the water and started counting all over again. It was a green jungle down there, almost like a secret garden with knots of bushes, barely two inches high, and waving weeds. Out of the corner of his eye he spotted tiny flashes of silver fish that nibbled here and there before fleeing from his shadow.

On reaching twenty-six seconds, he nosed up once more for air, and that was when he heard the thunder; or at least that’s what he thought it was. He gazed at the cloudless sky, puzzled. Then he had another idea. Bees , he thought, and a heavy swarm from the sound of it. But where? He was approximately ten feet from the bank and all about him was wide open space. Bees don’t like water, so that didn’t make sense. How much time did he spend at this debate before noticing the heads of the picnickers and sunbathers snapping upwards? Water plunged in and out of his ears, and his teeth chattered in the blazing sunlight.

‘Planes!’ somebody shouted.

Yes , Yuri thought, that’s exactly what it sounds like; an awful lot of planes.

Then, there was a second of silence, or maybe two – allowing the nearest loud speaker to be heard calmly repeating the general alert: ATTENTION CITIZENS, AIR-RAID WARNING – a bitter pause when everyone understood. It was followed by the sound of Stalingrad’s anti-aircraft guns rallying to her defence. Boom! Boom!

An old woman stood up and quickly crossed herself; just as she finished there was an almighty crash somewhere in the city. That’s how her prayer was answered, and again and again and again.

Following months of half-hearted expectation, the Germans had finally arrived. In minutes, thousands of bombs pelted down from the Luftwaffe killer planes. Fire and smoke exploded into being in such volume that the most powerful light of all, God’s own sun, was blocked out. Day became night, while throughout the city huge clouds of dirt poured down a heavy rain of bricks and roof tiles that had previously been the guts of pristine buildings such as the Prizyv Cinema, universities, hospitals and the train station.

Almost accidentally, Yuri caught sight of Grigori who screamed at him, wild-eyed, ‘Get out of the water!’

Confused by his friend’s expression, Yuri made no reply. Who was this boy? Grigori’s normally relaxed features were scrunched up in terror. Not surprisingly, Yuri had never seen him like that before. After all, terror is not a common expression for a freckly-faced, plump thirteen-year-old. This was Yuri’s first thought. He waited, stunned a little, as the air shook around him, and then his next thought came and it propelled him towards the bank as fast as he could swim: Mama …

For the next two weeks Yuri lived in the coal cellar, at the end of his garden, with his mother and baby sister Anna. Every morning, before sunrise, his job was to climb out and scout around the smashed houses for food and water. But then Anna got sick. Mrs Bogdanov said that the noise of the bombs had made her too frightened to eat. The child cried all the time during the attacks, and when each one was over, she would tremble for hours in the fleeting silence.

The roar of the planes and the fierce, deafening booms, as all over the city bombs fell, were like nothing anyone could ever imagine. In between the explosions there was plenty of noise. For one thing, fire has a sound; it cackles and splutters as it consumes all around it. Then there were the howls and wails of animals that were wounded, lost or just very afraid. No one could have got used to that, not to mention the fear that at any moment something could fall on their cellar, blowing them all into tiny little fragments.

Yuri’s entire body ached with the strain; his withered leg itched with fright, while his heart could hardly bear the terror in his mother’s face.

One time he found himself wishing it would happen; he really did. The three of them were so scared and the bombing so brutal and constant; he couldn’t help it. He suddenly prayed for them to die together, not to feel a thing but just be gone in a puff of smoke. It was the only way he felt the noise would ever stop.

But, then, after fourteen long days, the bombing came to an end. As soon as it did, the Germans swarmed around with their loudspeakers, calling for any civilians to come out from wherever they were hiding.

Yuri saw no reason for any of them to move. Who would bother to look in a coal cellar? He told his mother as much, ‘We’re safe here; they’ll never find us.’

She said nothing to this. But the following day, when they heard the Germans again, she explained that she had to go, for Anna’s sake, ‘Or she’ll starve to death otherwise. You understand me, Yuri, don’t you?’

Yuri wasn’t sure that he did and proved it by asking, ‘Are we leaving now?’

Mrs Bogdanov licked the palm of her hand to flatten down a few stray wispy hairs on Anna’s head. On her face was a look her son had never seen before. ‘No, Yuri. I need you to stay free. Someone needs to be here when Papa returns, and then you can tell him where Anna and I have gone.’

It was confusing. She had never trusted him enough to leave him alone before. But he agreed with her, someone had to be here for his father. Nevertheless, he still heard himself say, ‘But maybe I should come with you and help take care of Anna?’

His mother had tears in her eyes, he was sure of it, though she did her best to hide them from him. ‘I can’t be here to mind Papa when he gets back. It has to be you.’

He vaguely suspected that something else was going on, and may have discovered it, had he really and truly wanted to know what it was. She removed Anna’s outdoor things and gently wiped her with a grubby towel. The rusty tap in the garden had stopped working days ago. As she rubbed Anna’s arms, legs and face, taking the time to clean in between every single finger and toe, she hummed a lullaby that she used to sing to Yuri.