Ash

By Valery Petrochenkov

This novel provides a biosketch of the City of St. Petersburg in Russia, then Leningrad, during and shortly after World War II. During the Siege of Leningrad, at least one million people died of disease, starvation, and the effects of war. Soviet propaganda has consistently framed the Siege as heroic resistance to Fascism, which has encouraged most accounts to emphasize the strength and resilience of the Russian people, and not the accounts of their great suffering The truth regarding actual conditions in this City cannot be easily conveyed, but this novel. cuts through to the essence of the events. Survivors of the Siege, who have read the book in the original Russian, have expressed the opinion that is the best account of the Siege they have ever read.

The novel describes different aspects of survival and non-survival during the Siege. A child narrator, whose early vocabulary includes words such as bombyoshka (bombing), relates the events in several chapters. The childs frank appraisal allows the reader to penetrate to the very core of reality in a city where bombs are falling, dead bodies line the streets, and simple joys still exist in a narrow context. Each additional chapter reveals one more perspective.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 22, 2016
• ISBN: 9781514469255

Valery Petrochenkov

Valery Petrochenkov was born in Russia in 1940. The first year of his life was spent in a Soviet military base on the Hanko Peninsula in Finland. In August of 1941 all families of military personnel were evacuated to Leningrad, right before the beginning of the Siege of Leningrad. His father died during the defense of the military base on December 3, 1941. He graduated from the Department of Journalism of Leningrad State University in 1967 and after emigration to the United States in 1974, acquired his master’s degree from the University of Colorado and his Ph.D. from Indiana University. He taught at Georgetown University for 23 years and retired in 2005 as a Professor Emeritus. He is the author of more than 10 books of poetry, prose, and literary studies. His fictional account of the Siege of Leningrad was first published in Russia in 1998.

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Copyright © 2016 by Valery Petrochenkov.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016902929

ISBN: Hardcover 978-1-5144-6927-9

Softcover 978-1-5144-6926-2

eBook 978-1-5144-6925-5

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

© Mihail Chemiakin 2008. Cover Art by Mihail Chemiakin, In the postwar years I imagined, and saw, many terrifying things..., 2008, c-print, pastel, pencil, paper, 14 1/2 x 10 ins.

Rev. date: 03/21/2016

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Contents

Introduction

The Kindergarten

Nastya

Ksenya

The Artist

The Monsters

The Boy from the Dream

The Boss

The Priest

The Burden

Kanossa

The Incantation

Without Me

Without You

The Sonnets

Dedicated to my children:

Alina, Andrei, Katya, and Grisha

Introduction

Events separated from us in time are usually called history. These events are conveyed through documents and first-person accounts. In the common understanding, history relates to the past, even though everything we experience in the present transforms immediately into the past. The past, in its own turn, can be understood as a continuation of the present, a time span measurable in every separate life.

* * *

A person awakens in the middle of the night to the epicenter of an event that once shook him to the core. He tries to listen to the quiet of the night, not understanding where he is and what has happened to him. The nightmare through which he lived is once again real. This is not the secondary reality normally recounted by history, but the first and only one. Whatever a person lives through is collected bit by bit, captured by accident, merged with childhood recollection, and ultimately finds a place in the mosaic of memory. While limited by age, an individual’s memory is recorded more often through pictures, symbols, and sounds than through words. Feelings of hunger and abandonment can merge with the memory of those who have passed on, whose voices can no longer be heard. How can one then distinguish personal memory from the other’s memory, which has become one’s own, and which is no less painful to experience? Insight is acquired through vision, and memory through pre-memory. History, then, may be understood as a vision that envisions.

Perhaps there is no sense in arguing about the way an event occurred. In their essence, human beings are merciful and kind. They forget the moments when they lose their humanity. In order to survive, humans repress whatever would make life intolerable. They are weak. God helps them through forgetfulness and immersion in everyday banality. Nevertheless, the only present we have is made of our past. Only the light of memory can illuminate our path and show us who we are, from whence we come, and where we are going. Although our eyes may be blinded by this light, it transfigures the soul.

I know now that my life would have been very different if you had remained nearby. And you would likely say the same thing, word for word, if I no longer existed. One of us already has been gone for more than fifty years, half a century. One of us remembers the other as if our last meeting was yesterday. But does He remember? Does anyone remember there? Certainly, they remember. If they did not remember, we could not remember here.

To the sound of a single, quiet, insistent voice,

turn your eyes and slow your measured pace.

Whistling along the icy crust, the sharpened blades

slash the throat and stab at the ears.

Neither snow nor the rafters of buildings wedge

in the blue cracks of ice—no living water—

only eternity darkens; has it not smelted

continents, peoples, hearts, and cities!?

Look around, forget that your eyes are turning into glass,

eyelashes rimmed in hoarfrost, your heart flying

like a bird plunging to earth. There is naught to be done--

You cannot scream in the rarefied emptiness,

but trailing behind your memory, dimmer by the hour,

through forests and seas I swim and wander!

Sometimes it is easier to curse him than to love him—sometimes curses speak of love even more truly than the most ardent vows.

Dismembered in combat, defaced beyond recognition, the torn fragments of the Bogatyr are thrown on the wide, trampled field, tangled with the bodies of enemies and comrades. The snow has rusted red with blood. Flocks of shiny-black carrion efface the pale, winter sun. There is no wind; the heavy stench cannot overpower the frost. The ice-encased silence is complete in the aftermath of clashing metal and battle. The moon will not change its phase before the open eyes are pecked out, and the inanimate expanse is covered with a shroud of drifted snow. Slowly, in the timbre of a funeral march, the snow piles up evenly and silently; the heart softens and the soul whitens.

Earlier, shadows had slowly crawled into the clearing. Snow crunched beneath their feet. Balefully glaring, the carrion flew away, barely skimming the surface, heavy with blood. Bundled from head to foot in piebald trappings, people toted metal and wooden buckets in their hands or on sleds. Many were accompanied by children who also dragged teakettles and milk cans by their handles, and in each vessel pulsed black, dead water, icy and thick as blood, splashing over the edges. It was hard to walk—the water sloshed and burned even the dead fingers, but the people set to work. They stepped into the midst of the stench, bent over the scattered bodies, and using their sixth sense, chose fragments of their loved ones from among the hundreds of arms, legs, and heads. If lucky, they did not collapse from exhaustion in the bloody tangle of bodies. If their frozen fingers did not fail them and if their breaking hearts did not stop, they gathered together the dear body and sprinkled it with dead water, shielding it with their own bodies, so that the water would not congeal, so that each droplet fell on the torn wounds. For many, there was no time to haul, carry, or drag the Bogatyr’s body from the field. Many fell, and the water, acquired with such great labor, spilled out uselessly. Many froze in one night next to their loved ones, and thus, all memory of their line was effaced by the white page of snow, whose cleanliness was nevertheless beautiful.

But for those lucky enough to drag their loved ones home, there remained the ritual of burial, which was beyond their limited means. They had nothing with which to wash the dead, to dress them, or to lay them out. Everything had long ago been burned. The price of a grave was greater than the price of life. They died next to their loved ones, and all were taken away later and dumped into a pit.

However, there always remain some who remember the old ways—sprinkle the Bogatyr’s body with living water as in the Russian fairytale, and he will be resurrected to his former fame and strength. Many went in search of this water, and died on the path from mutilation and cold, from wild animals and people, from despair and pestilence. But if we are to believe the whispering in the wind, some have succeeded, and many others have set out behind them on the same journey.

* * *

No one in the City could remember such a severe frost. Their breath hovered before their faces like a column of mercury. Their joints bent with difficulty, and they tried to conserve their efforts as much as possible. In truth, people remembered famine as dimly as they remembered ancient times. Everything moral drowned in this morass. Whoever was still honest, was not hungry enough, or belonged to some other species. Anyone who was still good, either had something to eat or was not of this world. Whoever was compassionate and generous, most likely had some ulterior motive, and was best avoided.

Everything became simple. Food and warmth became the legal tender—all that is worthy and true. While life became sharply divided between night and day, the day became shorter and shorter, like life itself. Night, like the frost and famine, seized more and more unto itself, and soon nearly everything was transformed into night. The old saying He who dared, was he who devoured (Kto i smel, tot i s’el), proved its veracity.

The City strongmen surrounded themselves with fortresses, and their servants swiftly showed their audacity. The upper crust and the low life seemingly belonged to the same tribe—both had full bellies and were in collusion. Maraudering, which had long ago grown to gargantuan proportions, pulled the mask from its face. Never before had impudence and miserliness danced together so gaily arm in arm. Some were not really trying to grow fat; with luck, they hoped to survive. But others thrived and grew fatter and stronger from hour to hour. The worse it was for everyone else, the better it was for them. But they could not renounce fear. Those who had already been drained of all strength in the fight for existence had no capacity left for fear. But for the fortunate few, fear waxed to great dimensions, and they showed cruelty towards everyone, even their own kind.

Still, for the majority, life remained nearly the same as long as certain boundaries were not overstepped. Even more truly than before the war, they remained upright souls, but everything became simpler and all paths were cut short; the path from good to evil, as well as the path from good to good. Death mandated that such connections be made. For those who knew the secrets of this life—to the wise—death was easy, for they carried that independence within themselves. Their deaths were not despicable; they were able to bear the humiliation of hunger even better than the humiliation inflicted by people. In the final hours of life, their minds focused on the hereafter, and they were able to forgive everyone and purge themselves of disgust.

Still, how many were there, who oppressed for years by the government, had never broken, but who were crushed and turned into changelings by the famine? Not by chance is it said that to the world, even death is beautiful.

* * *

And so it was, in seclusion, in the endless, howling stretches of night, when in moments of silence, when he could hear the loud breathing of his wife and his small daughter, when hunger stuck like a lump in his throat and kept him from closing his eyes, he mused—how could he allow himself to die? There was no food in the house—none. But there was a secret store gathered bit by bit for his single, dearly beloved child. He and his wife had taken an oath that whatever happened, the child’s food would not be touched. If he waited but another week, perhaps he could send his wife and child into evacuation, and there, God would provide, and the war would wind down. Just hang on! But hunger watched in the City, trembling with explosions. With ease, the trickster summoned the starving body from beneath the heavy layer of blankets and led it along the cold planks of wooden floors into the hall, the pantries, the secret places. Hunger asked for only one more crust, well maybe two, but surely not more than three, but he lost count. And when the exhausted one returned, he met his wife leaning against the doorpost; in her hand she held a smoking candle end, and down her tormented face quietly flowed an endless stream of tears.

* * *

Those who had lived their whole lives in the City did not recognize it, though its wretchedness barely cast a shadow on its greatness. The traces of monstrous humanity barely stained it. It cleansed itself through fires, ruins, and banks of snow and ice. The torn walls with empty windows dusted over with soot or snow were in truth the grandiose set of a well-rehearsed play. At sunset the performance began. The sky exploded in holiday display. The orchestra pit sounded with the thunder of guns. The air whistled, exploded, gurgled, and buzzed. The lightning fluttered with explosions, while the banners lashed in the frozen air. Metal scraped. Ice flew like shattered glass, and the dark water momentarily turned into a pink froth, and splashed behind the parapet. Searchlights formed and reformed overlapping illuminated crosses over everyone.

A grand spectacle, yes, but few spectators. Those who still could drag their bodies, crawled away underground. The performance consumed them all; in the end, they had to collect the trash in the morning, touch up the scenery, and bury the extras. What did it matter who conducted the ball, when all were preoccupied with their own affairs, and when no room was left in their hearts for anything else?

Still, in the most merciless hours, some stirred, rose to the surface, and again returned to the underground. Their movements were rapid and orderly, and they traveled their own paths underground along disrupted heating systems, house to house, street to street. Steam rolled from them, for their work was not easy. They dragged and dragged their precious objects into their holes with passionate stubbornness. Anyone who got in their way, never rose again. If one of their fellows was wounded by a shell splinter, they would finish him off. Towards morning, after the air raid, the pale citizens crawled out from underground; some of those who had not died from hunger during the night became the victims of the midnight murderers. That very same day in the market, some lucky souls were able to exchange gems and gold for still warm, life-saving meatballs. But much as they tried to season the meat with anything they could find, they still could not overcome the sweet aftertaste of their own race’s blood.

Day came. The snow covered the world with down. Ice turned blue, like shattered sugar blocks. From side to side the pot-bellied sun traveled across the robin’s-egg blue sky. Steam rose like gin from a newly opened bottle. The ice crust squeaked under foot, the sled runners screeched, and tires skidded. People formed animated groups and went about their business. Lines formed. Smart-looking patrols passed.

On the river as well, life went on—people rode, walked, gathered at ice holes, and traded. From there, the sky seemed even higher, the City more wondrous. Were one fated to embrace false hope, it would be exactly here. Steam billowed as if from nowhere, and an enormous dray, graced with a wondrous frost-covered mane, danced from leg to leg and shook its reins, covered by shiny copper studs, while men dressed in outdated naval overcoats tightened by ropes, loaded bluish, jagged ice chunks on the carriage. The reflected light was blinding. A woman pulled her child on a sled. The child hugged a basket, and sullenly looked out from beneath the hat pulled tightly down on her head, and wrinkled her nose, apparently tickled by the scarf tied around her mouth. The mother’s face blushed slightly—she was evidently young and attractive. A herd of adolescents in pea coats thought up a game using an empty tin. They passed it around while whistling, snarled at passers-by, and accidentally brushed against one of them. Men responded to them in kind. Women hurried their steps, looked around, and chattered among themselves. Suddenly, a patrol materialized, one boy was led away, another ran away, and one might have been shot. They fired after the fleeing youth and pursued him. The groups on the ice thinned out. Soon there remained only a few figures passing from one bank to the other, who also faded into the blue of evening. The City still appeared in its splendor for a long time in the slowly glinting light and prepared for the nightly Saturnalia.

People in the City survived by their wits. They learned to eat the inedible, to prepare pickles from garbage. How little they had noticed the wealth of their former lives, and how mindlessly had they squandered their goods, how shortsightedly had they failed to store anything. They cursed all their leaders. They were disgusted with everyone, but most of all with themselves for their honesty, which was no longer needed by anyone, for their integrity, for their inertia or inability to take action, grasp at any possibility, and somehow survive. They projected their anger on their loved ones: Other husbands are real men, but what do I have? or Other wives are real homemakers, but I got you! But there were others who shoulder to shoulder braved the darkness, spoke little, forgot about themselves, if only to not see how their dear ones were fading away, if only to not meet their children’s imploring eyes.

Around this great human sorrow and this mean joy snatched from others, the City masked its face, for it had already survived more than one tragedy, flood and fire, but it rose each time from the ice and ruins even more inaccessible to the understanding, and even more incomprehensible to the imagination. Could one abandon it to sink into the algae of the bay or forget its mosquito-infested dampness, its icy-cellared darkness, and tubercular pallor, or simply escape into the greater world to build new homes and churches on dry, sandy hills?

This City by its very nature engendered somnambulists and false prophets, as well as geniuses. The influence of prophets and geniuses had affected each and every inhabitant—through prophecies uttered as drunken nonsense, women’s gossip in dark entrances, muttering at the madhouse on the river Pryashka, and the delirium of poets. The spirit of crippled genius wafted through the porticos of the buildings and the pretentiousness of bridges and spires, and lingered in the self-righteousness of the City-dwellers, who to this day are ready to explain everything and all, not in the least embarrassed by their mistakes and outright lies.

The City had its own unacknowledged Saints, who witnessed in vain from the pulpit or snow-covered squares, emaciated in priests’ robes, and sinewy in beggars’ garb—fat, slender, weak-minded, and crippled. Two Saints were recognized at the beginning and end of one century—a woman dressed in her husband’s clothes and a man in a halo of glory. The first served the City’s inhabitants along impoverished streets, half-basements, and attics among the peasantry of the City, and rebuked their false superiority to their humble village relatives. Ksenia of St. Petersburg provided edification to the ignorant and to the self-righteous world of petty bureaucrats, reminding them of their humanity, and of the forgiveness that could also be theirs. She also attracted the educated and the nobility who bore their own spiritual wounds and scars—people who might have been exalted in human society, but who were nevertheless crippled, lonely, and lost in the desert of this world. She received them all, and found for each the right words of intercession and prayer.

The second, St. John Kronstadt, who passed through the cordons of ranks and offices with almost supernatural ease straight into the quarters of the Czar, revealed himself to the whole Orthodox world as a compassionate intercessor, prophet, and judge, who intoned not through his own authority, nor through his own will. The tears of both have not dried on the wind of despair. Both are laid to rest by the water of two small rivers at the ruined church on the threshold of a cemetery in the basement of a dissolved monastery. Even in the harshest snow, the pathways have been beaten down and people have risked slipping, falling, and dying, as they carried their little children and cripples on sleds to be healed. All were moved by unstoppable faith.

Is your very existence, O City, redeemed through the intercession of these Saints and others who remain unnamed? What value is your pride, if those who have lived within your walls have perished? How can your rage and fury be noble? And have the words lost their meaning, in the same way that the beauty of your palaces has faded. Everything is bound by ice, as you are in silence. Accountable time flows on, drop by drop, into the ever-widening chasm of eternity.

And the Lord covered that City with the palm of His hand, and the City became invisible, according to the prayer and desire of those who appealed to God honestly and humbly.

The Kindergarten

Through forests and seas I swim and wander,

and the further I travel each night, the nearer I draw

to the start, first sobered, then again in delirium,

I freeze like a barge to empty moorings.

I easily pass through connected courtyards,

chafe my palms on the staircase handrail,

I see in the crowd of pale, bony children

the faces of small boys, the braids of the girls.

Today they are not in the mood to play.

Cold drizzle blocks pale memory.

Time has lost track and grinds on through inertia.

Mount the sled, the lap robe about you,

glide along the white plateau of the river!

Like the sky above me, fate is shattering . . .

At first, it is dark—dark, cold, and the hunger is unbearable. And it’s quiet, although no one is sleeping. Whenever I stop thinking about food and cold, I can hear the breathing of the others who also can’t sleep. When they really sleep, they breathe more loudly and slowly, but just now, they all lie there awake waiting for something, waiting for the same thing, although each describes it differently. No one knows exactly how long we will have to wait, but everyone is sure that someone else knows.

While you wait, it gets colder. And when it’s cold, the hunger streaks barefoot through your mind like a naked person. Nothing can distract you from such hunger, not even thoughts about the grade book, sewn from uneven rose-tinted scraps of paper, where the teachers record bad behavior. Everything in that notebook is shameful—you were rude, you got in a fight, you talked out of turn, you shoved. Everyone gets the same comments, even if some of the scraps of paper are in a different color. Notebooks are expensive. But however much they write, there is always more space. You can draw in them. The pink notebook goes with the daytime--people and animals run across it, houses are poised happily on all sides, but the blue notebook is something completely different. Morning only just begins, and then it fades away into the night, the cold, and the grumbling of stomachs. There is also some gray, fat, paper that is dirty and rough, from which they don’t make notebooks. Different kinds of thread stick out of it. This is embroidery paper. The pressed-on picture is easy to pierce with a blunt needle and the threads lie flat in the grooves without wrinkles. A few threads rest on top. Although they often pull loose from the picture, you can always guess what the picture is supposed to be. Underneath it’s a total mess, just like your head before dinner.

In the morning, the hunger is more bearable. You lie there, freeze, and listen to how the others lie there freezing. Where does the warmth go towards morning? In the evenings, you warm up, breath underneath the blanket, and if there is a pillow fight, it’s actually hot. The evening is great, though. You lie down, get quiet, even doze, and then, suddenly—rustle, rustle, rustle. Under each child’s pillow is a black, toasted, delicious crust of black bread. You start nibbling together with the others at the same time. Everyone also stops at the same time. After that comes the real sleep—it’s warm, your stomach is full, and the stuffy air doesn’t matter anymore. Together we fall asleep and together we wake up. In the morning someone is always missing who has been picked up by his mother in the evening. Sometimes even fathers come, but that would be an event, and we’d talk about that for a long time. These rare fathers are like tin soldiers—everything about them is sheer perfection! Their playful eyes beam from their shining faces. They take their children into their arms, and even the big kids aren’t embarrassed, because fathers are fathers, after all. The children who disappear at night are brought back in the morning. They have it worse than the rest of us, coming from the outside and the cold, no less hungry than the rest of us, even though they probably already ate something or other.

So I just lie there and let my mind wander. When I spend the night at home, I don’t think much about it or maybe I just don’t remember. By the time I get dressed and wrapped up in a scarf, led across endless yards in the dark, and then undressed in an icy apartment and again wound into a blanket, I am already fast asleep. Home is only at night, evening night and morning night. At night I don’t remember anything about myself or those next to me. My real home is connected to the daytime, where there are all sorts of events, faces, lots of everything, and no end to the new. My real home is in the kindergarten. Because of this, I don’t like to go home. I don’t think about whether it’s good or bad, just like I don’t think about myself.

They took you home yesterday, but I am still here. My mother doesn’t take me home very often, and I am just as happy. What will you bring back? What will you tell me? I have a present for you—a screw. It’s heavy, cold, and has absolutely no rust. I found it in the closet where the mattresses are stored. Every day after the nap, the nannies roll up the mattresses and carry them back into the closet. They bring them back in the evening when we stay for the night. We always find something in the closet—buttons, broken things, and pieces of metal. The darkness there is stifling. It smells like peed-on mattresses and we can hear mice scurry. Once we found a huge, dead, dried-up rat there. It was fantastic! The face was grinning like a Fritz in the pictures—huge claws, whiskers like rope, and best of all, a long tail. For a long time, we dragged it around by that tail until the teachers took it away because they said it was infectious.

We hide in the closet. We lie among the stinky mattresses and hold our noses until someone comes. Then we jump out and yell what the grownups yell when they curse, or clank together empty pots. Everyone keeps secret things in the closet, but we can’t hide food, because other children or the mice would steal it. Anyway, there isn’t really any leftover food. For punishment, the teachers put kids in the closet, but this is better than being in the corner where everyone can see. Even if it is dark, there is a light bulb on a string. Besides all that, there are so many interesting things to do there. Sometimes kids show it to each other—boys show girls, girls show boys. Once someone thought up licking it. It was nothing special—it just smelled like underwear. But someone told on us, and the teachers said they would sew our lips together if we did it again. That was nonsense, because we had already sewed our lips together before, and our fingers, and we poked the needle through our cheeks.

Our greatest treasure was a penknife with two blades that we found there, in the closet. I forget whether you or I found it. Whoever it was didn’t touch the knife, but just covered it up with something and then called the other. Together we figured out where it came from and how it got lost. Someone from the Navy brought us supplies, and towards evening he carried away the empty boxes, cans, and other things. During the day he went round and about, repairing, nailing, tightening, screwing-in, and cleaning. All the boys followed him around, hoping to carry off a nail or a screw. When the artillery started up, he stayed all day. He slept in the closet with the youngest nanny. We stood at the door and listened to how they panted and moaned, but soon we got bored. He must have been the one who dropped the knife. At first we wanted to return it to him, but he never came back. An old, silent officer started bringing our supplies. They must have gotten our sailor, so we kept the knife for ourselves. With the knife, our lives changed. We had something to use for cutting, opening, and scraping. We never parted with it, and took turns carrying it in our underwear in the elastic slit.

Today the night is quiet. We’ll have to sleep longer, freeze longer, and swallow the spit that collects in our mouths from hunger. But then sometimes we have bombings, which is better. We throw ourselves out of bed without having to make it, put on whatever we can find, and the nanny on duty pushes us toward the exit. Outside we pass the holiday dance of projectors in the sky, the squealing of sirens, sparks from nearby explosions, and the reflection of flames. In the bomb shelter, it’s cool, and sounds from the outside are muffled. We settle in as comfortably as possible for a long sitting and wait impatiently to see what we will get today. Once they gave us something we had never even dreamed of, either at home or in the kindergarten—compote. It’s sweet, with an aftertaste of slightly rotten fruit, the color of brown water. Nothing on earth is tastier. Along with the compote water we got a chunk of gray bread. And if a whole piece of fruit turned up in the compote, life was a holiday. You couldn’t eat the apricot pit you got in your cup, but after sucking on it, you spit it out on the palm of your hand and showed everyone that today was your lucky day. Sometimes I saved a berry for you. You accepted it graciously, as I did your uncounted gifts. To this day, I remember that seaman’s biscuit you gave me—I sucked on it all day. Each time I pulled it from the hiding place in my shirt, I started sucking on it from a different side in order to make it last longer. The moistened side dried and hardened just like new before I took it out of my shirt again.

But today there are no bombs; those damned Fritzes are sleeping, or our fighters have scared them off. True, there is booming in the distance, but that doesn’t count. And in my stomach the emptiness is growing. Of course it’s possible to get up and get a drink of water, but that is really a deceit; afterwards you get even colder, and an icy fire burns in your stomach. So I lie here, even though thoughts about water have made me want to pee something awful. But there are rules. In the middle of the night you can pee (in your sleep, of course). You dry yourself, and if you made