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

“But don’t worry,” she assured Fedya, “they won’t stop us. We’re unarmed. We’re walking around in the open, no threat to them. And besides, we’re covered in shit, remember?”

“Oh. I keep forgetting that,” he said. “Wonderful. I think I’ll wear shit for the rest of the war. It’s the safest way to go, don’t you think? Like armor.”

They zigzagged through the ruins into the afternoon. A German squad passed them, the soldiers clopping and jingling in their heavy boots and packs. She cursed in a mad, high-pitched Byelorussian dialect while Fedya whooped like an idiot. Only one soldier in the patrol looked at them. He held his nose. The squad jogged into the shell of a building and disappeared up a stairwell.

Ahead, three hundred meters away across a desolate boulevard, was a railroad yard littered with the twisted steel curlicues of torn-up track and burned-out train cars. Just east of the tracks was a large building, five stories high and two blocks long. The windows had been blown out, and streaks of soot showed above each broken window frame, evidence of a gutting fire. Blackened German tanks cluttered the terrain. From where Tania and Fedya stood, the base of the ravaged building, across the open rail yard, was no less than eight hundred meters away.

Tania looked back at the building into which the Nazi patrol had run. Gun muzzles bristled from several windows, all facing west across the tracks.

This is the front line, she thought. No-man’s-land.

She looked up at the afternoon sun. It would be too dangerous to cross the tracks in daylight. They could easily be caught in a crossfire or mistaken for deserters or spies by either side. Across the boulevard sat a brick railman’s shed. Tania tugged on Fedya’s sleeve.

“We’ll wait in that shed. After dark we’ll crawl across the tracks.” She pointed to the five-story building across from them. “That’s where the Red Army is.”

Fedya looked over the rail yard. “How do you know?”

Tania walked toward the shed. She jerked her thumb over her shoulder at the enemy in the building behind her. She heard the clacking and scrambling as they set up their mortars and tripods in the windows.

“They know.”

Behind the shed’s wooden door, empty shelves held only dust and broken glass. Screws and greasy clamps littered the floorboards. The window was broken, but the roof was intact.

Along the wall crouched a spring bed frame and a cotton mattress. The bedding was covered with glass and dirt. Tania flipped the mattress to a cleaner side. It showed powder blue and gray pinstripes with russet stains. The air was close, reeking of oil and emptiness. Tania struck the mattress with the flat of her hand. She backed away from a billow of dust.

“Some curtains, some flowers in the window.” She turned to Fedya in the doorway. “I could plant us a garden for fresh vegetables.”

“Comfy.” He entered and sat on the bed. “A writer’s cottage by the tracks. Trains have always been a romantic topic for me.”

Tania stood in front of him. “Take off that miserable shirt. It stinks, and it makes me think of poor Yuri.”

She tugged on the crusted tunic. Fedya raised his arms. She slid the shirt off him and flung it out the window.

“Boots.” She pointed at his feet. “You can take those off yourself.”

Fedya untied the laces. Tania undid her jacket and kicked it into a corner. Her blouse was of a rough spun flax, the color of straw. Sweat stains darkened the armpits and collar. She reached for the top button.

Fedya looked up from his boots. She followed his eyes to the points of her breasts.

“Tania,” he said quietly. “I, um…” His eyes went to her hands poised at her neck. “Are you going to undo your shirt?”

“Yes, I am.” She unfastened the first button, then another. “We can’t go anywhere until after dark. I’m tired, and I’m sure you are, too. I thought we’d get some sleep.”

She sat beside him and bounced. The springs squeaked.

Fedya gazed out to the rail yard. “Is anyone going to bother us in here? Should we both sleep at the same time?”

“The only one who’s going to bother you in here,” she said, leaning down to untie her own laces, “is me.”

She sent the boots flying into the corner to land on her coat, then reached behind Fedya to run her palm over his broad back. He leaned forward, chin in hand, elbows on knees. She kneaded the muscles along his shoulder blades.

“Ah,” he whispered, closing his eyes, “that is magnificent. Really. After the day we’ve had.”

She dropped her hand from his back, and he opened his eyes. She saw the quizzical, bothered look on his face.

“Did I say something wrong?” he asked.

She shook her head slowly. “Today… today was nothing.”

She pulled back her hair so he could see her face, all of it. She didn’t know if he could see what was in her eyes. Did it come through? Could she ever show it to him, or even express it? The months of running, fighting, killing, and surviving. Surviving for what? To live more scarred years, to turn the pages on fifty more calendars, marking anniversaries of hatred without respite, stretching onward to her own death? Hatred without compassion, humanity, or morality; hatred stripped clean of all else, like bones in the sun? This was her dowry; this was what awaited her, even if she survived Stalingrad. She could never outrun or outlive it. It would follow her even if she carried it back to bright America someday. But could she show Fedya, anyone, ever? Or was it just hers, alone, to the grave?

She took his hand. “Today Yuri died. But he was already dead. He died last night when he came across that river. You died, too. I died a year ago in Minsk when the Nazis murdered my grandparents. I died of shame when my own parents would not come with me to save them. Do you understand?”

Fedya took her hand. The rims of his eyes reddened. He blinked. A tear welled in his eye.

“This is what the politrooks are telling us,” she continued. “The NKVD, Red Star, the Party—everywhere we turn, the message is the same. You are dead. You have no life. The Germans have taken it. They have trampled it.”

Tania reached to Fedya’s face, smearing the tear with her finger. “Fedushka, there’s nothing anymore for the individual. Not love. Not fear. Not family. We’re not alive. Nothing we do matters. We’re like ghosts who can’t touch anything. The only time we appear, the only time we’re real, is when we’re killing the Germans. When we’re not killing them, we do not exist.”

She pulled free from him to rub her hands along the sides of his face. She moved his face closer and kissed him.

Eyes shut, she listened to her own breath coming hard. She murmured under the strength of the kiss. Her senses felt along the length of her body, waiting for his caress, looking for it on her breasts, between her legs. She tasted salt from tears; whether they were her own or his, she did not know.

She moved the kiss upward and pulled his lip between her teeth. He sighed. She felt heat.

“We’re not alive, Fedya,” she whispered. “We’re not here in these bodies even though we feel them.”

Tania searched again for his touch on her body. She reached into his lap and moved one of his hands up to her chest. She squeezed her fingers around his, against her breast.

“Make love to me, Fedya.”

His hands were on her, one at her breast, the other on her stomach. She inhaled. A tightness in her loins came as if from outside, from above. She began to rise off the bed.

He pushed her away. “Tania. No.”

She opened her eyes, disoriented and swaying. She put her hands on his shoulders to push herself erect. Fedya lowered his arms while she gained control over her balance, away from him.