Debra Dean - The Madonnas Of Leningrad

Marina is surprised by the gesture. She has never heard her uncle so much as raise his voice with his children. But everyone is on edge these days, and unsuspected passions are flaring in the most unlikely of people. It has been a particularly trying day, and though Viktor continues to be the voice of reason, repeatedly reassuring Nadezhda that this is for the best, that the children will be safe, his case has not been helped by all this bedlam and hysteria.

The authorities have stepped up the evacuation of children, and every day now, thousands more are sent by bus and then train into the countryside and as far away as the Urals. Complicating matters, children who earlier were evacuated, stupidly, into the path of the enemy are now being returned to the city to be sorted out and reevacuated to the east. So, alongside the families who showed up this morning to see their children off are swarms of unaccompanied youths, a hundred to every adult, and mothers who troll the crowd, calling out names and pestering authorities, trying to locate the children they sent off to camps in the first days of the war.

Following the air raid, officials with megaphones attempt to restore order and to locate those whom they had already processed when the air raid sounded. They call out numbers and check names off their clipboards and urge the tide of people back into lines. Arguments blister into ugly scenes as people claim or dispute their places.

Viktor tried to persuade Nadezhda to stay home this morning, and even pulled his niece away from work to help him escort the children to the evacuation center, but Nadezhda wouldn’t hear of being left behind. She usually defers to her husband on everything, from the amount of onion to put in the soup to the cut and color of her own clothes, but the prospect of losing her children has made her defiant. Twice in the past weeks she has managed to forestall their departure, first by pretending that Mikhail had a fever and later by simply ignoring the official orders. Even now, as they find their place in a line stretching down the avenue, she is renewing her campaign, her worst fears fueled by a conversation she had in the shelter with another mother.

“She’s been here every day for a week now, but nothing. Her two girls were sent to Kingsiepp, Viktor,” Nadezhda adds in a whisper. Terrible rumors are circulating that a children’s camp was bombed by the Germans.

“You mustn’t believe everything you hear. You don’t know this woman, Nadezhda. For all you know, she might be a sympathizer.” The radio has warned citizens to be vigilant against those who would aid the Fascist cause by sowing fear. Since the Luga line was broken, a firestorm of rumors has spread through the city-German spies parachuting into the city at night, the slaughter of women and children at the front-but Viktor contends that it is all hysteria.

“A pilot who was shot down last week confessed that Germans are deserting the lines,” Viktor says. “The army will drive them back shortly, and when the Luga is secured again, they can bring the children home again. They’ll be home in two weeks at the most.”

“Then why not keep them here?”

Viktor throws her a warning look and glances around. In a muted voice, he continues. “It’s merely a precaution, Nadezhda. But look at what’s happened in London. We can’t discount that possibility here.”

“Bombs can fall anywhere.” She is on the verge of tears again.

“This is not a matter of choice, and there’s no point in discussing it further.” To emphasize his point, he takes Mikhail from Nadezhda’s arms and hands him off to Marina.

Aunt Nadezhda says something, but it is too soft for Marina to make out. It doesn’t matter. She will certainly not win-Viktor Alekseevich Krasnov is a renowned scientist, a man who believes that there is always a single truth, which can be arrived at by reason, and when one arrives, he will be there waiting. Still, Nadezhda is putting up more of a fight than Marina would have imagined she was capable.

Mikhail begins to whimper, in seeming sympathy with his mother.

“What is it?” Marina asks.

The boy pauses to consider the question, poised on the cusp of crying.

“Do you have to use the toilet?”

He shakes his head. “I wanted to bring Bubi, but Papa said I can’t. He says that cats don’t travel well.”

“Your papa is right. Bubi is better off staying at home.”

“But I don’t want him to get killed by a bomb.”

“He’s not going to get killed by a bomb. Bubi is a very smart cat. Besides, he has nine lives, so he will be fine.”

Mikhail seems to accept this explanation, but his older sister is eyeing Marina suspiciously. Tatiana is beginning to take after her father, adopting his serious expressions and constantly questioning, weighing the accuracy of the fairy tales Marina tells them at night and challenging every turn in the narrative. Why did the witch cast a spell on the children? Why did she go to sleep for seven years? Why were they happy forever after?

Marina looks around for something to distract them, and proposes a game. She will choose a letter and they must call out all the things they can see that start with that letter.

Tatiana calls out word after word while Mikhail can only look where she points and repeat her like an echo. Marina coaches him with whispers. What is that man wearing over his shirt? Sweater . Good. What’s that over there? Streetlight .

With each letter, other children in the line join in until they have gone through the entire alphabet. Then she starts repeating the letters.

It is nearing dusk when the first bus in a convoy splashed with dirty gray and green camouflage paint pulls away from the curb and rumbles down Nevsky. Nadezhda has opened the larger of two suitcases and unfurled a blanket, unpacked food meant for the trip. Mikhail has eaten and is now curled against her bosom, his face slack with sleep. An hour ago, Viktor left to find someone in charge and get an estimate of how much longer they will be here, but Nadezhda doesn’t care. She is content to take up residence on the sidewalk if it means she may stay with her children.

Tatiana and Marina eat sausage and crackers and watch the buses as they rumble past. Women trot alongside, frantically waving at the occupants, children whose faces are pressed against the glass in various expressions from grief to stunned oblivion. The buses’ headlights are glowing a dim blue. Blackout blue.

“Why are the headlights blue?” Tatiana asks.

“So the Germans can’t see them.”

“Why can’t the Germans see blue?”

“Because they have blue eyes.”

Tatiana considers this, decides it sounds reasonable, and nods solemnly.

Another bus rolls by, lifting a wash of leaflets in its wake.

“It looks like a parade with confetti, don’t you think?” Marina observes.

“People don’t cry at parades.”

“No, I guess not.”

“They don’t,” Tatiana says with authority.

Across from Helen, her mother is staring blankly out the window of the ferry. Her features are expressionless-who knows what she is thinking-but it doesn’t seem to bother her to sit here in silence. Underneath a flat, bright sky, the horizon of another island undulates slowly as they pass, a velvety yellow hill unrolling in the window like a slow-paced travelogue. Helen can feel a vague roiling in her gut. It might be seasickness or it might be a growing unease, a suspicion that something is wrong.

It’s not that her mother has ever been remarkably linear. Still, she just seems a little spacey. Like the business this morning with the coffee and then that remark about Helen’s family. Almost as though she were making conversation with a stranger. Or on the drive up, when out of nowhere she reminded them of a trip they took to Lake Chelan when Helen was eight and Andrei was in high school. There was nothing wrong with the story; it just came out of left field.