David Robbins - War of the Rats - A Novel of Stalingrad

“Do you read, old farmer?” “Yes, of course.”

“What do you read about America?”

“That it is a country of decadence. Bright lights, whores, businessmen squeezing money from the poor. Gangsters. Riches.”

“Do you believe it?”

“Only the parts about the riches and the whores. The good stuff.”

This made Tania laugh, and she closed her mouth to stop from telling Yuri he was wrong, that he had left out so much more, good and bad stuff. America was a giant land of peace and opportunity and, yes, decadence. That it was America the beautiful, especially for those who were white and male with English surnames. That America was a bully. That America was afraid of this war with the Germans, just like her parents. And that she was Russian; she would fight for Russia and she would hate the Nazis if America would not.

Tania wanted to divert the attention from herself. “Fedya,” she said, echoing over their sloshing footsteps, “tell us one of your poems.”

“Yes, good.” Yuri picked this up. “Tell us a favorite.”

“Here? Now?” Fedya sounded shocked. “I mean… you want me to tell you a poem? I can barely breathe in here.”

“Oh, come on. When will you have better acoustics?”

Good, Tania thought, Yuri is distracting the frightened boy from Moscow.

“My God,” Fedya answered. “All right, but I never said I was good.”

He stopped walking. Tania and Yuri halted also. The rippling echoes died.

“It’s called ‘The Washing River.’ It’s one I seem to recall quite clearly at the moment. I don’t know why. I’m in a goddammed sewer and I’m scared out of my wits. But here it is.”

He began in a whisper, in a voice oddly reverent for the surroundings.

Fedya cleared his throat. “Well, there you are.”

Tania was stricken by the poem; she felt his voice woven directly into her. The poem, singular in the sewer’s darkness, had become for its few moments the lone reality of her senses. She’d been isolated with the words. Now, with the poem finished, it echoed inside her, slapping against her memories, the rocks in her heart.

Yuri sloshed to Fedya and clapped him on the back. “Why do you poets always hate your own work? That was beautiful. It made me miss my own mother.”

“I don’t hate it. Why do you say I hate it?”

“I had to twist your arm to tell it to me.”

“Yuri, for God’s sake. We’re in a sewer!”

“That’s our poet,” Yuri laughed. “Misses nothing.”

Yuri moved closer to Tania. He found her with his hand. “General Tania. I can drag my hand along this nasty wall almost as well as you. With your leave, I’ll take the lead for a while.”

She smiled, though Yuri could not see it. “Yes, of course. Thank you.”

She listened to the farmer’s footsteps splashing away. Fedya’s feet slogged behind her. Tania waited for him to approach. The big lad’s hand touched her, nudging her forward. She held steady against his fingers and let the touch sink into her ribs. She closed her eyes and felt the hand with her woman’s senses, almost forgotten. Something inside her, a twinge, a twist, pushed back against Fedya. She caught it, held it, and breathed once for it. Then she hid it.

They walked in unrelenting blackness for another hour. The watery echoes of their steps hurtled into the dark, scraping along the walls. Tania began to feel she was falling into an endless shaft. The stench seared her nostrils. She was light-headed; a gagging nausea choked her.

Once, her balance reeled. She reached into the dark to cross Fedya’s path. Her fingers brushed his chest.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Yes. Just exhausted. Every breath, it’s like sucking in a garbage heap.”

“Why haven’t we seen any manholes? I’m sure it’s dawn by now.” Perhaps he believed she knew the answer.

She exhaled, looking into a darkness so total it seemed eternal in expanse instead of half a meter above their heads.

“They’re probably covered up with debris from the bombings,” she said. “Come on. We’ll find one ahead.”

Tania took another wretched step. “Fedya,” she called out, “you go in front. I feel like following for a while. All right?”

Fedya squeezed her arm. Tania pulled herself forward.

Minutes passed. Suddenly, Fedya’s voice shot out.

“Yuri!”

Tania slid a hand against the muck of the wall to keep her balance; she held the other hand outstretched to find Fedya and Yuri. She came upon Fedya struggling in the mire. She laid both hands on his wet back. He was trying to lift Yuri from the sewer floor.

“Yuri!” he cried, his voice frantic, “Yuri, get up! Tania, he’s fainted! What do we do?”

“Quick, lift him up!” Tania helped Fedya haul Yuri out of the filth. The old man’s shirt and hair were soaked in water and excreta. Holding him close to lift him, Tania wrestled down her revulsion while her own clothes became caked.

“He’s passed out from the fumes,” Tania panted. They propped Yuri against the wall. “Damn it, he seemed fine.”

“He was,” Fedya insisted. “He is fine. He’ll be all right. He just needs a moment to wake up.”

Tania put her hand against Yuri’s wet chest. His breathing was shallow. “Hold him.” She stepped away from Yuri, measured the distance with her outstretched hand in the dark, and slapped him across his slumped face. Nothing. She slapped him again. Dampness sprayed from his cheek, sprinkling her eyes. Yuri made no sound.

“You’ll have to carry him,” Tania said. “Can you do that?”

“Yes. Of course.”

Tania thought of Fedya laboring in this sewer, with Yuri a yoke across his shoulders. It would be only a short time before he, too, would succumb to the treacherous air.

“No, wait. Let’s drag him. Put his arm around your neck.”

Fedya and Tania hoisted Yuri’s arms over their shoulders. They staggered on with Yuri’s legs limp. Tania listened for any sign of consciousness from the old farmer’s mouth.

After ten minutes of exertion and rising fear, she’d heard nothing from Yuri. She jabbed him in the ribs with her elbow. His breath jumped in an unconscious wheeze.

Tania asked Fedya, “How do you feel?”

“I can go on.

Tania walked on and thought, I can’t. I’m exhausted and I want to throw up. Another few minutes of this and I’ll be on my knees, if not my face, in the shit. I’m sorry, Yuri.

She pivoted Yuri to the wall and took Fedya’s hands off him to let him slide to a sitting position. She held Yuri’s head up.

“Take off his shirt,” she said.

“Why? So he can breathe better? That doesn’t make sense.”

“No. Under his tunic he’s wearing a farmer’s longjohn. Take off your army shirt and put it on.”

Fedya snapped back. “We’re leaving him here? To die in a sewer? No! No! I can carry him! You’re not leaving him!”