David Benioff - City of Thieves

“I haven’t had one since August. We’re always talking about the food we’re craving, and I couldn’t get the idea of fried eggs out of my head. The whole day, marching in the snow, that’s all I could think about.”

Abendroth tapped the tabletop with his fingertips. “So, let’s consider the situation. The three of you are confirmed liars. You come up with a dubious story that gets you a private audience—” Abendroth glanced at the troopers and shrugged. “A semiprivate audience with a senior officer of the despised Einsatzgruppe A. Obviously you have information you wish to trade.”

There was a moment’s silence before Kolya said, “I don’t understand.”

“I think you do. You know which of the prisoners are Bolsheviks, perhaps, or you have heard plans for Red Army troop movements. You cannot deliver this information in front of the other Russians so you arrange for this meeting. It happens very often, you know. Your countrymen seem eager to betray Comrade Stalin.”

“We’re not traitors,” said Kolya. “The boy happens to be very good at chess. I heard you’re a player. I saw an opportunity.”

“This is the answer I hoped for,” said Abendroth with a smile. He gulped down the rest of his tumbler of schnapps and poured out the final glass, holding it to the light to examine the liquor.

“My God, this is the stuff. Seven years in an oak cask…”

He took another small sip, patient now, not wanting to rush the last glass. After a moment to savor the schnapps, he spoke a few quiet words in German. One of the troopers leveled his MP40 at us while the other stepped closer and began patting me down.

The knife had seemed well hidden back in the sheep barn, but standing there while the soldier searched me, I could think of nothing but the hard leather sheath digging into the top of my foot. He searched the pockets of my father’s old greatcoat, checked beneath my armpits, under my belt, down my legs. He dug his fingers into my boots and my fear returned, a jolt of pure terror, mocking me for the numbness I had felt five minutes before. I tried to breathe normally, to keep a calm expression on my face. He prodded around my shins, found nothing, and moved on to Kolya.

I wonder how much he missed it by, how many millimeters separated his fingertips from the sheath. He was a boy, a year or two older than I was, his face constellated with small brown moles. His classmates had teased him about those moles, that was certain. He had stared at them in the mirror, sullen and ashamed, wondering if he could shave them off with his father’s razor. If he had gotten another fifteen minutes of sleep the night before, if he had swallowed another spoonful of soup, he might have had the energy to do his job properly and find the knife. But he did not, and his carelessness changed everything for both of us.

When he finished searching Kolya, he stepped over to Vika. His fellow ranger made a joke and chuckled at his own wit. Maybe he wanted to goad the boy into slapping Vika’s ass or pinching a nipple, but she watched him with her cold unblinking eyes and he seemed unnerved, inspecting her far less thoroughly than he had Kolya and me. I realized the boy must be a virgin; he was as nervous around a woman’s body as I was.

After he timidly patted down her legs, he stood, nodded to Abendroth, and backed away. The Sturmbannführer watched the boy for a moment, a slight smile curling his lips.

“I think he is afraid of you,” he told Vika. He waited a few seconds to see if she would respond and when she didn’t, he turned his attention to Kolya. “You are a soldier, I cannot release you or you will rejoin the Red Army, and if you kill a German, his parents would have me to blame.” He looked at me. “And you are a Jew; releasing you goes against my conscience. But if you win, I will let the girl go home. That is the best offer I can make.”

“I have your word you’ll let her go?” I asked him.

Abendroth rubbed the silver stubble on his chin with his knuckles. A gold wedding band on his ring finger caught the light from the bulb overhead.

“You like the girl. Interesting. And you, little redhead, do you like the Jew? Never mind, never mind, no need to be vulgar. So… you are in no position to make demands, but yes, you have my word. I have been looking for a good game since Leipzig. This country has the best chess players in the world and I have not seen anyone competent.”

“Maybe you shot them before you could find out,” said Kolya. I held my breath, quite certain this was a step too far, but Abendroth nodded.

“It is possible. Work comes before play. Come,” he said to me, “sit. If you are as good as your friend says, I might keep you around for the competition.”

“Wait,” said Kolya. “If he wins, you let her go and you give us the eggs.”

Abendroth’s patience with the back and forth began to fade. His nostrils flared as he leaned forward, though he did not raise his voice.

“What I have offered is more than generous. You wish to continue with this stupidity?”

“I believe in my friend. If he loses, put bullets in our heads. But if he wins, we’d like to fry up some eggs for supper.”

Abendroth spoke again in German and the older trooper jammed the muzzle of his gun against the base of Kolya’s skull.

“You like to negotiate?” asked Abendroth. “Good, we negotiate. You seem to think you have leverage. You have no leverage. I say two words and you become a corpse. Yes? Two words. Do you understand how fast it happens? You are a corpse, they drag your body outside, I play chess with your friend. Later on, maybe I take the little redhead back to my room, give her a bath, see what she looks like without all the dirt. Or maybe not, maybe no bath, maybe tonight I want to fuck an animal. When in Rome, yes? Now think, boy, think very carefully before you open your mouth. For your own sake, for your mother’s sake if the bitch still lives, think.”

Another man would have decided to leave it alone and shut up for good. Kolya did not hesitate for more than a second.

“Of course, you can kill me whenever you’d like. This is undeniable. But do you think my best friend here will have a decent game left in him after he sees my brains on the table? Do you want to play Leningrad’s best or a scared boy with piss running down his leg? If he can’t win our freedom, very well, I understand, this is war. But at least give him the chance to win the supper we’ve been dreaming about.”

Abendroth stared at Kolya, his fingertip slowly drumming the tabletop, the only sound in the room. Finally, he turned to the trooper with the moles and uttered a clipped command. After the young German saluted and left the room, the Sturmbannführer gestured for me to sit in the chair at the corner of the table beside him. He nodded to Kolya and Vika and pointed to the chairs at the far end of the table.

“Sit,” he ordered them. “You have been walking all day, yes? Sit, sit. Should we flip a coin?” he asked me. Without waiting for a response he pulled one from his pocket and showed me the swastika-clutching eagle on one side and the fifty Reichspfennig marking on the other. He flicked the coin in the air with his thumb, caught it, slapped it down on the back of his other hand, and looked up at me. “Bird or numbers?”

“Numbers.”

“You do not like our bird?” he asked with a slight smile. He removed his hand and showed me the Nazi eagle. “I’ll play white. And do not worry—you can keep your queen.”

He slid his queen’s pawn forward two spaces and nodded when I mirrored the move.

“One day I will choose a different opening.” He moved his c-pawn up two, offering the sacrifice. The Queen’s Gambit. At least half the games I played started with these moves. Weekend players and grand masters alike began with the combination; it was still too early to tell if the German knew what he was doing. I declined the Gambit and moved my king’s pawn forward a space.