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

Zaitsev put his palm on the corpse’s cool forehead. The man had been older than he, a peasant, judging from the rough skin and thick fingers. Zaitsev reached beneath his own coat to the pocket of his tunic. He removed the medallion given to him by Chuikov, the Order of Lenin, and pinned it on the silent breast.

IN THE SMALL RECOVERY WARD, ORDERLIES IN WHITE smocks slipped in quietly almost every hour to lift the wounded from the room’s four beds onto stretchers, to carry them out for evacuation. Zaitsev heard a few of the soldiers whimper when they were moved. Others, the ones resting after surgery, he watched wake groggily to discover parts of their bodies lopped off or bandaged and searing. Tania was left alone. He sat beside her—he had not released her hand since she was laid in the bed.

The doctor visited Tania’s bedside the morning after she left his surgery table. He pulled back her blanket. He reached his hand up between her naked legs to feel the bedsheets there, her pubis and her thighs. They were dry. He looked beneath her eyelids and took her pulse and temperature.

The doctor looked down at Zaitsev.

“Has she moved at all? Spoken?”

“No.”

“Have you eaten?”

“No.”

The old man patted Zaitsev’s shoulder. Again, the touch was light, almost fragile.

“You won’t be any help to her if you pass out from hunger, Sergeant. I’ll send you some bread and cheese. Please eat.”

Zaitsev accepted the food from an orderly, though he ate with only his free hand. Tania lay motionless beside him. Her shallow breathing and her hand, which several times trembled, were the only clues to her clinging life.

He searched for ways to send messages to her. He laid his head down and spoke softly in her ear to tell her stories: of hunts they’d shared, the first time he’d laid eyes on her in the Lazur and how beautiful she’d looked, the icehouse they’d blown up, the first time they’d made love. That he wished she’d been beside him when he’d dueled Thorvald, that it probably would have been the partisan and not the Hare who killed the Headmaster. .

With his finger he drew pictures on her palm of deer and wolves; he sketched bull’s-eyes and faces and the rising sun of Florida, America. He squeezed her hand in rhythms. He held her hand to his cheek and his lips. He wiped away his tears with her thumb.

Every few hours, Zaitsev felt under the blanket for moisture, the way the doctor had done. Each time, when he found her dry, he felt parched himself. It’s such a simple thing, Tanyushka, he thought. Just make water and save your life.

The first time he held up the blanket, he touched her bandages. He remembered the pink and red turmoil he’d seen beneath them, the bits of her sliced away and tossed into a bucket. He lowered the blanket and wept.

Tania’s coma crossed into a second night. Zaitsev rested his head on the bed. Once, an orderly jiggled his arm to wake him, then lifted a half-full urinal left beside Zaitsev’s chair. The orderly smiled hopefully, but Zaitsev shook his head. The urine was his, not Tania’s.

Zaitsev was dozing when her hand twitched. Without lifting his head, he pressed back. When her fingers imitated the squeeze, he raised his face to see her looking at him.

“Hello, Vashinka.”

He had no words ready.

“Tania, I…” He stared in wonder. Pink had chased some of the pallor from her face. “How long have you been awake?”

“Not long.”

He held her hand in both of his. “I stayed here, Tania. I never left.”

She tried to bring her other hand around to cover his, but something stopped her. The effort made her wince, but she said through it,

“I know.”

Tania opened one of his palms. She dragged her finger around it in two circles and dotted the center for a bull’s-eye.

Zaitsev brought his lips over hers. Her lips were dry.

She whispered into his cheek. “I’m in a lot of pain, Vasha. Am I dying?”

Zaitsev buried his eyes in her hair. He nuzzled her. If she’s dying, the doctor said, it cannot be stopped.

“I don’t know, Tania.” He wasn’t sure what to tell her. “You lost a lot of blood. They took out one of your kidneys.”

Tania looked at the ceiling. She nodded as if she knew what he would say next. He remembered she was a doctor’s granddaughter.

“We’ve been waiting for the other kidney to start working.”

Two orderlies entered the ward bearing a wounded captain to the bed farthest from Tania. His neck and shoulder were wrapped in fresh white gauze. The man was conscious.

“Careful,” he said to the orderlies lowering his stretcher. The officer propped himself up on his good arm to help the orderlies shift him from the stretcher to the bed.

“Damn,” the man said through gritted teeth. He sucked air.

“Vasha…” Tania licked her lips. “I’m thirsty.”

Zaitsev stood to get an orderly’s attention. His hand left hers. She grabbed for him, grunting in pain.

“Vasha. Don’t…”

He looked into her wracked face. He wrapped his fingers around hers and felt her rising strength.

“Tania?”

She smoothed the ache in her eyes. “Don’t… let go.”

Zaitsev smiled and sat. Time and the fates, he thought. I want to stay. To never let her go. How long will the fates let me stay? Do they care what I want?

“Orderly. Some water here.”

One of the orderlies beside the wounded captain left to fetch the water. The other one folded the officer’s stretcher.

The captain lurched to his good shoulder to lie so that he could look at Zaitsev and Tania. His big head was shaved slick, and light reflected off his pate. The man had a large jaw like a horse.

“Damned unlucky,” he said. “She going to be all right?”

“Yes, sir,” Zaitsev answered.

“Me, too. Bullet went clean through.” The captain looked around the ward. “Glad just to keep my arm in this place.” The man grimaced and lay on his back. He kept talking. “Took twenty thousand prisoners yesterday. Germans were damned surprised when we jumped up behind them.”

The orderly came with a cup of water. Zaitsev held Tania’s head up to drink. Water dribbled down her chin when she swallowed. He dried her gently with his sleeve.

Tania laid her head on the pillow. Her eyes were closed.

“We’re winning,” the captain said, then fell silent.

“EVERY SEVEN SECONDS A GERMAN SOLDIER DIES IN Stalingrad. One… two… three… four… five… six… seven. Every seven seconds a German soldier dies in Stalingrad. One… two… three…”

The man beside Nikki got to his feet. He walked to the radio, which sat on a workbench. He tuned in the other military station.

None of the dozen soldiers on the factory floor moved. They sat, each man huddled into himself. The station came in.

“…five… six… seven. Every seven seconds…”

The soldier shouted, “God in heaven! What happened to Lale Anderson’s show?”

Another soldier lifted his eyes. “The Reds jam the broadcasts. It comes and goes. She’ll be back on in a little while. Just sit down.”

“God in heaven,” the standing one mumbled again. He walked out the door into the neighboring shop room.

Nikki looked about him. Only that morning, Christmas Eve of 1942, he’d linked up with this motley squad in the depths of the Barricades factory. With these men, Nikki had spent the day improvising Christmas decorations. A small tree was fashioned out of metal rods wrapped together with wire. Cotton balls from medical kits served as bulbs. Stars cut out of colored paper hung from the iron boughs, and cups of oil and water with a wick of twisted threads served for candles beneath the tree.