David Benioff - City of Thieves

Twenty minutes later we were trudging through the snow again, the warmth of the farmhouse already slipping from memory. Flanked by mighty pines, we walked in single file with nine paces between each man, on Korsakov’s explicit orders. I didn’t understand the tactical significance of the formation, but trusted that these men were masters of the ambush and knew what they were doing. Kolya walked in front of me and with my head hanging low I was aware only of the hem of his greatcoat and his black leather boots. The rest of the bodies in our little caravan were phantoms, unseen and unheard except for the occasional crack of a stepped-on twig or the rasp of a canteen cap unscrewed for a sip of still-hot tea.

I had never really believed that truism that soldiers learned how to sleep while they marched, but as we continued east, lulled by the rhythm of our boots rising and falling in the snow, I lurched in and out of wakefulness. Even the cold could not keep me alert. Novoye Koshkino was only a few kilometers from the farmhouse by road, but we were far from any road, circling around German encampments that Kolya and I would have stumbled into if we were unescorted. Korsakov had said the march would take four hours; before the first one was over I felt that someone had poured thick syrup into a hole in my skull. Everything I did I did slowly. If I wanted to rub my nose, I was aware of the brain’s command and the hand’s grudging obedience, the long journey the hand took on the way to the face, the search for the nose (usually an easy target), and the hand’s grateful return to its cozy little cave in the depths of my father’s navy coat.

The more tired I got the more doubtful the whole scenario seemed. How could this be real? We were a band of enchanted mice, marching beneath the chalked moon on the blackboard sky. A sorcerer lived in Novoye Koshkino, a man who knew the ancient words that could transform us back into the men we once were. But there would be perils on the way, giant black cats scrambling over the ice, lunging for us as we scurried for cover, our long tails twitching with fear.

My boot sank deep into a mound of soft snow and I nearly turned my ankle. Kolya stopped and looked back when he heard me stagger, but I managed to right myself, give him a quick nod, and keep walking without any help.

The girls who lived in the farmhouse had left at the same time we did. They did not have any overcoats or winter boots; the Germans had taken those items away after Zoya made her run. Without proper clothing the girls resorted to layering, throwing on every shirt they had, every sweater and pair of leggings, until they teetered beneath the weight, wobbling through the great room like drunk, obese peasants. Galina had brought up the idea of taking the Nazis’ overcoats, but she was quickly shushed—their chances were bad enough, if they were captured, but getting captured while wearing a dead officer’s coat was the end.

Kolya and I had kissed their cheeks at the doorway. They had decided not to go to Leningrad; a few of them had family there, but the uncles and cousins might have died already or fled to the east. More important, there was no food in Leningrad for the residents and certainly no food for four girls from the villages with no ration cards. Leningrad didn’t make sense, so they were heading south. They had brought whatever provisions were left after the partisans took what they wanted. Korsakov let them keep two of the Germans’ Lugers for protection. Their odds were not good, but they seemed in high spirits as they walked out the farmhouse door. They had been prisoners there for months, had suffered their own tortures night after night, and now they were free. I kissed all eight cheeks, waved good-bye, and never saw them again or heard anything about them.

Something jolted my shoulder, my eyes popped open, and I realized I’d been walking in a semiconscious trance. Kolya marched beside me now, his gloved hand gripping me through my coat.

“You still with us?” he asked quietly, watching me with real concern.

“I’m here.”

“I’ll walk with you. Keep you awake.”

“Korsakov told us to—”

“I don’t take orders from that motherless pig. You saw how he treated the girls.”

“You’re the one who was getting so chummy with him.”

“We need him right now. And his little friend… I saw you staring at her back there by the fireplace. You’d like to take a shot at the sniper, eh? Eh? Ha!”

I shook my head, too tired even to groan at his miserable joke.

“Have you ever been with a redhead? Oh wait, what am I saying, you’ve never been with anyone. The good news is they’re demons between the sheets. Two of the three best fucks of my life were redheads. Two of four, anyway. But the other side of the coin, they hate men. A lot of anger there, my friend. Beware.”

“All redheads hate men?”

“Makes a lot of sense when you think about it. Any redhead you meet out here, chances are she’s descended from some Viking who ran around hacking people’s arms off before raping her ancestral grandmother. She’s got the blood of the pillagers in her.”

“That’s a good theory. You should tell her about it.”

On every stride I tried to step into the boot prints of the partisan who walked eighteen strides ahead of us. Stepping into crushed snow took less energy than stepping into fresh powder, but the man in front had long legs, and I was having a hard time matching him.

“And just so I’m clear,” I began, panting a little and ducking beneath an out-flung branch laden with pine needles, “we’re marching to Novoye Koshkino to find the house where the Einsatzgruppe is headquartered because they might have some eggs there?”

“That’s what we’re doing for the colonel. But for us, and for Russia, we’re marching to Novoye Koshkino to kill the Einsatz because they need to be killed.”

I lowered my head so that most of my face was shielded from the wind by the upturned collar of my father’s greatcoat. What was the point of further discussion? Kolya considered himself a bit of a bohemian, a free thinker, but in his own way he was as much a true believer as any Young Pioneer. The worst part about it was that I didn’t think he was wrong. The Einsatzkommandos needed to be destroyed before they destroyed us. I just didn’t want to be the one responsible for destroying them. Was I supposed to sneak into their lair with only a knife for protection? Five days ago an account of this expedition would have seemed like the great adventure I’d been waiting for since the war began. But now, in the middle of it, I wished I’d left in September with my mother and sister.

“Do you remember the end of book one of The Courtyard Hound ? When Radchenko sees his old professor stumbling down the street, muttering at the pigeons?”

“Worst scene in the history of literature.”

“Oh, forgive me, you’ve never read the book.”

There was something oddly comforting in Kolya’s consistency, his willingness to make the same jokes—if you could call them jokes—over and over again. He was like a cheerful senile grandfather who sat at the dinner table with beet soup splattered on his collar, telling once more the story of his encounter with the emperor, though everyone in his family could recite it now from memory.

“One of the most beautiful passages in literature, you know. His professor had been a famous writer back in his day, but now he’s completely forgotten. Radchenko feels ashamed for the old man. He watches him through his bedroom window—Radchenko never leaves his apartment; remember, he hasn’t left in seven years—he watches the professor walk out of sight, kicking at the pigeons and cursing them.” Kolya cleared his throat and switched to his declamatory tone. “Talent must be a fanatical mistress. She’s beautiful; when you’re with her, people watch you, they notice. But she bangs on your door at odd hours, and she disappears for long stretches, and she has no patience for the rest of your existence: your wife, your children, your friends. She is the most thrilling evening of your week, but some day she will leave you for good. One night, after she’s been gone for years, you will see her on the arm of a younger man, and she will pretend not to recognize you.”