David Benioff - City of Thieves

“You got another one from Stalin, authorizing you to wipe your ass?”

“He’ll have to authorize me to shit first.”

I didn’t stay long enough to learn how the conversation ended. If Kolya wanted to tramp all over the city looking for the fabled chickens, that was his business, but nightfall was coming and I wanted to go home. I hadn’t slept in thirty-some hours. I turned and walked toward the Kirov, trying to remember how much bread I had stashed under the loose tile in the kitchen. Maybe Vera had something for me. She owed me after the way she ran, never looking back even though I’d rescued her. It occurred to me that Vera and the others must have thought I was dead. I wondered how she had reacted, whether she had cried, hiding her face in Grisha’s chest as he comforted her, or maybe pushing him away, angry, because Grisha had fled, abandoned her, while I stayed behind and saved her from certain execution. And Grisha would say, “I know, I know, I’m a coward, forgive me,” and she would forgive him, because Vera forgave Grisha everything, and he would wipe away her tears, and tell her they would never forget me, my sacrifice. But of course they would—within a year they wouldn’t be able to picture my face anymore.

“You there. You the one looking for eggs?”

Obsessed with my pitiful fantasy, it took me a moment to realize the question was meant for me. I turned and saw a bearded giant staring back at me, arms folded across his chest, rocking back and forth on his boot heels. He was the biggest man I’d ever seen, far taller than Kolya and broader in the chest. His bare hands looked big enough to crack my skull like a walnut shell. His beard was thick and black and shined as if oiled. I wondered how much food a man that big needed to eat every day, how he could possibly keep the meat on his titanic frame.

“You have eggs?” I asked, blinking up at him.

“What do you have for me?”

“Money. We have money. Wait, let me get my friend.”

I ran back through the Haymarket. For the first time since I’d met him, I was happy to see Kolya’s blond head. He was still joking with the curly-haired boy, probably describing his dream of a glorious shit.

“Hello, there he is!” he shouted when he saw me. “I thought you’d run off without me.”

“There’s a man who says he has eggs.”

“Excellent!” Kolya turned to the boy. “Son, it has been a great pleasure.”

We walked back the way I’d come, passing the stalls now shutting for the night. Kolya handed me a wrapped library candy.

“Here you are, my friend. Tonight we feast.”

“The kid gave it to you?”

“Gave it to me? He sold it to me.”

“How much?”

“One hundred for two.”

“One hundred!” I glared up at Kolya as he unwrapped his bar and took a bite, grimacing at the flavor. “So we have three hundred left?”

“Correct. Impressive arithmetic.”

“That money is for the eggs.”

“Well, we can’t go egg hunting without a little something to keep us going.”

The bearded man waited for us at the edge of the Haymarket, arms still folded. He appraised Kolya as we came nearer, sizing him up the way a boxer takes the measure of his opponent.

“It’s just the two of you?”

“How many of us do you need?” asked Kolya in return, smiling at the giant. “I hear you sell eggs.”

“I sell everything. What do you have for me?”

“We have money,” I said, fairly sure we had already gone over this.

“How much?”

“Enough,” said Kolya. “We need a dozen eggs.”

The bearded man whistled. “You’re in luck. That’s all I have.”

“You see that?” said Kolya, gripping my shoulder. “This wasn’t so hard.”

“Follow me,” said the giant, crossing the street.

“Where are we going?” I asked as we followed.

“I keep everything inside. It isn’t safe out here. Soldiers come down every few days, steal everything they want, anyone says anything, they shoot him.”

“Well, the soldiers are out there defending the city,” said Kolya. “They can’t fight if they’re starving.”

The giant glanced at Kolya’s army coat, his regulation boots.

“Why aren’t you defending the city?”

“I’m on a mission for a certain colonel. Nothing you need to worry about.”

“This colonel sent you and the boy on a mission for some eggs, is that it?” The giant grinned down at us. His teeth gleamed like unmarked dice within his black beard. He didn’t believe Kolya, of course. Who would?

We walked alongside the frozen Fontanka Canal, the ice littered with abandoned corpses, some covered with shrouds weighted down with stones, others stripped for their warm clothes, their white faces staring up at the darkening sky. The wind was beginning to wake for the night and I watched a dead woman’s long blond hair blow across her face. She had taken pride in that hair once, washed it twice a week, brushed it out for twenty minutes before going to bed. Now it was trying to protect her, to shield her decay from the eyes of strangers.

The giant led us to a five-story brick building, all the windows boarded over with plywood. A massive poster, two stories high, portrayed a young mother carrying her dead child from a burning building. DEATH TO THE BABY KILLERS! read the text. After fishing in his coat pocket for his key, the giant unlocked the front door and held it open for us. I grabbed Kolya’s sleeve before he could enter.

“Why don’t you bring the eggs down here?” I asked the giant.

“I’m still alive because I know how to run my business. And I don’t do business on the street.”

I could feel my scrotum tightening, my timid balls creeping closer to my body. But I was born and raised in Piter, I wasn’t a fool, and I tried to keep my voice steady as I spoke.

“I don’t do business in strangers’ apartments.”

“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” said Kolya, smiling broadly. “No need for all the suspicion. A dozen eggs. Name your price.”

“A thousand.”

“A thousand rubles? For a dozen eggs?” I laughed. “Are they Fabergé?”

The black-bearded giant, still holding the door open, glowered down at me. I stopped laughing.

“They’re selling glasses of dirt back there for a hundred rubles,” he told me. “Which is better, an egg or a glass of dirt?”

“Listen,” said Kolya, “you can stand here all day haggling with my little Jewish friend, or we can talk like honest men. We have three hundred. That’s all we have. Is it a deal?”

The giant continued to stare at me. He hadn’t liked me from the start; now that he knew I was a Jew I could tell he wanted to peel the skin from my face. He held out his massive palm to Kolya, beckoning for the cash.

“Ah, no, at this point I must side with my companion,” Kolya said, shaking his head. “First the eggs, then the money.”

“I’m not bringing them out here. Everyone’s starving and everyone’s got a gun.”

“You’re an awfully big man to be so afraid,” teased Kolya.

The giant eyed Kolya with something like curiosity, as if he couldn’t quite believe he was hearing the insult. Finally, he smiled, flashing those dice-white teeth.

“There’s a man facedown out there,” he said, gesturing with his chin to the Fontanka Canal. “Wasn’t hunger that got him, wasn’t the cold. His skull got smashed in with a brick. You want to ask me how I know?”

“I take your point,” said Kolya, quite agreeable. He peered into the darkness of the building’s vestibule. “Well, for what it’s worth, a brick is quicker.”

Kolya patted me on the back and stepped inside.

Everything I knew told me to run. This man was leading us into a trap. He had practically just confessed to being a murderer. Kolya had stupidly admitted exactly how much money we had on us. It wasn’t much, but three hundred rubles and two ration cards— which the giant must have assumed we still had—were easily enough to get killed over these days.