25
The snow had melted in the daylight and frozen again at night, making for a treacherous walk, a skin of frost cracking with every step we took. My finger hurt so much it was hard to think about anything else. We kept walking because we had to keep walking, because we had come too far to stop now, but I do not know where the energy for each footfall came from. There is a place beyond hunger, beyond fatigue, where time no longer seems to move and the body’s misery no longer seems fully your own.
None of this applied to Kolya. He had eaten as little as I had, though he had slept better the night before in the toolshed with the illiterates, as comfortable as if he lay on a feather bed in the Europa Hotel. While I slogged north with my head down, Kolya gazed around at the moonlit countryside like an artist on a stroll. We seemed to have all of Russia to ourselves. For hours we saw no sign of humanity aside from the abandoned farm fields.
Every few minutes he would reach inside his coat, making sure that his sweater remained tucked inside his belted pants and the box of eggs was secure.
“Have I told you the story of the courtyard hound?”
“Your novel?”
“Yes, but where the title comes from.”
“Probably.”
“No, I don’t think I have. The hero, Radchenko, lives in an old building on Vasilevsky Island. A house really, built for one of Alexander’s generals, but now it’s falling apart, eight different families living there and none of them like one another. One night, the middle of winter, an old dog walks into the courtyard, lies down by the gate, and makes the place his home. A big old beast, his muzzle gone gray, one of his ears chewed off in some fight ages ago. Radchenko wakes up late the next morning, looks out his window, and sees the dog lying there with his head between his paws. He feels sorry for the poor fucker; it’s cold and there’s nothing to eat. So he finds a bit of dry sausage and opens his window, just as the church bells start ringing for noontime.”
“What year is this?”
“What? I don’t know. 1883. Radchenko whistles and the dog looks up at him. He tosses down the sausage, dog gobbles it down, Radchenko smiles, closes the window, and gets back in bed. Now remember, at this point he hasn’t left his apartment in five years. The next day, Radchenko’s still sleeping when the church bells ring at noon. When the bells go quiet, he hears a bark outside. And then another one. Finally, he crawls out of bed, opens the window, looks down to the courtyard, and sees the hound staring up at him, tongue dangling from his mouth, waiting to be fed. So Radchenko finds something to toss the old boy, and from then on, every time the church bells ring at noon the dog waits beneath the window for his lunch.”
“Like Pavlov’s dog.”
“Yes,” said Kolya, a little annoyed. “Like Pavlov’s dog, except with poetry. Two years go by. The courtyard hound knows everyone in the building, he lets them pass without trouble, but if a stranger comes to the gates, the old boy’s a terror, growling and gnashing his teeth. The residents love him, he’s their guardian, they don’t even lock their doors anymore. Sometimes Radchenko wastes a whole afternoon, sitting in a chair by the window, watching the dog watching the people streaming past the gates. He never forgets the noontime ritual, always makes sure he has plenty of good meats to toss down. One morning Radchenko’s in bed, having a wonderful dream about a woman he admired when he was little, a close friend of his mother’s. The church bells ring and Radchenko wakes with a smile, stretches his arms, walks to the window, slides it open, and looks down to the courtyard. The hound’s lying on his side by the gate, very still, and right away Radchenko knows the beast is dead. Remember, Radchenko had never touched him, never scratched behind his ear or rubbed his belly or any of that, but still, he came to love the old mutt, considered him a loyal friend. For almost an hour Radchenko stares at the dead hound and finally he realizes no one’s going to bury him. He’s a stray; whose job is it? Radchenko hasn’t left the apartment in seven years; the thought of stepping outside makes him nauseous, but even worse is the thought of leaving the hound to rot in the sun. Do you understand how dramatic this is? He walks out of his apartment, down the stairs, out the front door of the building, steps into sunlight—first time in seven years!—picks up the big dog, and carries him out of the courtyard.”
“Where does he bury him?”
“I don’t know. In one of the university gardens, maybe.”
“They wouldn’t let him do that.”
“I haven’t figured that part out yet. You’re missing the point of the story—”
“And he needs a shovel.”
“Yes, he needs a shovel. You’ve got all the romance of a train station whore, you know that? Maybe I won’t even write the burial scene, how would that be? Leave it to your imagination.”
“Probably a good idea. Could be a little maudlin. Dead dogs, I don’t know.”
“But you like it?”
“I think so.”
“You think so? It’s a beautiful story.”
“It’s good, I like it.”
“And the title?
The Courtyard Hound
? Now you understand why it’s such a great title? All these women come over to Radchenko’s, constantly trying to get him to go outside with them, and he never does. It’s almost like a game for them; they all want to be the first one to lure him out the gates, but none of them can make him go. Only the dog, an old dumb dog with no master.”
“
The Courtyard Dog
wouldn’t be nearly as good.”
“No.”
“What’s the difference between a dog and a hound?”
“Hounds hunt.” Kolya grabbed my arm, his eyes gone wide, forcing me to stop walking. At first I thought he had heard something, a growling Panzer engine or the calls of distant soldiers, but whatever demanded his attention seemed internal. He held my arm very tight, his lips slightly parted, a look of intense concentration on his face, as if he needed to remember a girl’s name but he only had the first letter.
“What?” I asked. He held up his hand and I waited. Stopping for even ten seconds made me want to lie down in the snow and close my eyes, only for a few minutes, just long enough to take the weight off my feet and wriggle my toes back to life.
“It’s coming,” he said. “I can feel it.”
“What’s coming?”
“My shit! Oh, come on now, you bastard, come on!”
He hurried off behind a tree and I waited for him, swaying in the wind. I wanted to sit, but some irritating voice within my skull told me that sitting was dangerous, that if I sat I would never stand again.
By the time Kolya returned I was sleeping on my feet, a montage of incoherent dream images flashing through my mind. He grabbed my arm, startling me, and shined his Cossack grin.
“My friend, I am no longer an atheist. Come on, I want to show you.”
“Are you joking? I don’t want to see.”
“You have to look at this. It must be a record.”
He tugged on my arm, trying to get me to follow him, but I dug my boots into the snow and leaned my weight backward.
“No, no, let’s go; we don’t have time.”
“Are you afraid to see my record-breaking shit?”
“If we don’t get to the colonel by dawn—”
“This is something extraordinary! Something you’ll tell your children about.”
Kolya pulled with his superior strength and I could feel myself beginning to topple, when his gloved hands slipped off my coat sleeve and he fell onto the ice-skinned snow. His first reaction was to laugh, but he quit laughing when he remembered the eggs.
“Fuck,” he said, staring up at me. For the first time in our journey I saw something close to genuine fear in his eyes.
“Don’t tell me you broke them. Don’t tell me that.”
“
I
broke them? Why is it only me? Why didn’t you just come and look at the shit?”
“I didn’t want to look at your shit!” I shouted at him, no longer mindful of enemies that might be moving through these same woods. “Tell me if they’re broken!”
Sitting on the ground, he unbuttoned his coat, pulled out the box, and inspected it for damage, running his hand over the wood slats. He took a deep breath, pulled off his right glove, and gingerly felt inside the straw-stuffed box with his bare fingers.
“Well?”
“They’re good.”
After the box was warm and secure beneath Kolya’s sweater, we resumed our northward march. He didn’t mention the historic shit again, but I could tell that he was irritated I hadn’t gone with him to bear witness. Now when he told the story to his friends, he wouldn’t have any verification to back up his claims.
Every minute I’d look for the powerful searchlight roving through the sky. Sometimes we’d lose sight of it for a kilometer or two, our view blocked by trees or hills, but we always found it again. As we got closer to Piter we saw more of the searchlights, but the first one was the most powerful, strong enough that it seemed to brighten the moon when the light passed over those cold distant craters.
“I bet the colonel will be surprised to see us,” said Kolya. “He must think we’re dead by now. He’ll be so happy with the eggs, I’ll ask him for an invite to the daughter’s wedding. Why not? His wife’s going to love us. And maybe I’ll get a dance with the bride, show her a few steps, let her know I’m not averse to married women.”
“I don’t even know where I’m going to sleep tonight.”
“We’ll go to Sonya’s. Don’t even think about it. I’m sure the colonel will give us some food for our troubles, we’ll share it with her, try to get a little fire going. And tomorrow I’ll have to track down my battalion. Ha, the boys will be surprised to see me.”
“She doesn’t even know me, I can’t stay there.”
“Of course you can. We’re friends now, Lev, am I right? Sonya is my friend, you’re my friend; don’t worry, she has plenty of room. Though staying with her might not be so exciting now that you’ve met Vika, eh?”
“Vika scares me.”
“She scares me, too. But you like her quite a bit, admit it.”
I smiled, thinking about Vika’s eyes, her fat lower lip, the precise curve of her collarbone.
“She probably thinks I’m too young for her.”
“Maybe. But you saved her life back there. That bullet was heading straight for her head.”
“I saved your life, too.”
“No, I had that Fritz under control.”
“You did not, he had that gun—”
“The day some Bavarian goose-stepper beats me in a fight—”
The argument kept going, veering from an analysis of the chess game and my supposed mistakes to the likely guests at the colonel’s daughter’s wedding to the fate of the four girls we met at the farmhouse. The conversation kept me awake, kept my mind off my numb feet and my legs stiff as stilts beneath me. The sky brightened, shade by imperceptible shade, and we stumbled upon a paved road where the snow was tamped down and the walking was easier. Before the sun had risen to the east, we saw the outer ring of Piter’s fortifications: the trenches like dark gashes in the snow; the cement block dragon’s teeth; the thickets of rusted railroad irons sprouting from the cold ground; kilometer after kilometer of barbed wire wrapped around wood posts.
“I’ll tell you one thing,” said Kolya. “I want a slice of this fucking wedding cake. What we’ve gone through, it’s only fair.”
A moment later he said, “What are they doing?” and a moment after that I heard the gunshot. Kolya grabbed my coat and shoved me to the ground. Bullets twanged overhead. “They’re shooting at us,” he said, answering his own question. “Hey! Hey! We’re Russian! We’re Russian, don’t shoot!” More bullets ripped through the air above us. “We’re Russians, damn your mothers, listen to me! Do you hear my voice! Do you hear me! We have papers from Colonel Grechko! Colonel Grechko! Do you hear?”
The rifles went quiet, but we stayed on our bellies, our arms over our heads. Behind the fortifications we could hear an officer shouting to his men. Kolya lifted his head and peered toward the trenches, several hundred meters to the north.
“Haven’t they heard of warning shots?”
“Maybe those were warning shots.”
“No, they were aiming for our heads. They don’t know how to shoot, that’s all. Bunch of slobs from the Works, I bet. Probably got their rifles a week ago.” He cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled. “Hey! Can you hear me? You want to save your bullets for Fritz?”
“Put your hands in the air and walk slowly toward us!” came the hollered reply.
“You’re not going to shoot us if we stand up?”
“Not if we like the looks of you.”
“Your mother likes the looks of me,” Kolya muttered. “You ready, little lion?”
As we stood, Kolya grimaced and stumbled, nearly falling. I grabbed his arm to steady him. Frowning, he brushed the snow off the front of his greatcoat before twisting to examine his lower back. We both saw the bullet hole punched through the thick wool at hip height.
“Throw down your weapons!” the officer shouted from the distant trench. Kolya tossed aside his MP40.