Frozen

Ivan shut the thick, oak doors of the Hermitage.  He stepped outside, still under the awning, watching the sailors leave their footprints across the snow and ice covered plaza, back to their boat.  They had come to fix the heater for the museum curator, Orbeli, after they had hooked up a line from their ship, to give a few rooms light.  The artists were all thankful enough, but Ivan didn’t understand what anyone expected them to do with the light.  It was long since the temperature had gotten so cold that no one’s fingers could hold a paintbrush or a pen.  He had resorted to doing works of charcoal, works that looked like they were done by a kindergarten student.

He was glad to get out of the museum.  In the great halls of the Winter Palace, it had become colder than it was outside, and even in the outside the air bit into what was left uncovered by his face, and quickly froze the moisture coming from his mouth, leaving ice crystals on the outside of his mask.  A walk would warm him up, if he had the energy to walk.  The rations were so small these days.  The Nazis had long since stopped shelling the city, knowing that hunger would kill them all soon enough and empty the city of Leningraders.  Living Leningraders, at least.  Who knew what ghosts would remain to haunt the canals at night, hopefully exacting revenge upon their German besiegers.    

The wind was quiet.  The air was quiet.  Everything was quiet.  Ivan heard only his own heavy boots, crunching against the snow.  He walked towards the Summer Gardens, crossing a bridge over a frozen canal, stopping momentarily to light a cigarette.  It was midday, but clouds hung low across the entire sky, appearing as frozen and cold as the land before it.  When he came to an intersection, he saw two people talking.  One was a woman, her cheeks rosy, her eyes crystal blue.  She was dressed in a green greatcoat of an NKVD police officer, though it was a bit too big for her and the fur hat with the shining star kept slipping over her eyes. 

The NKVD woman was talking to an older woman, who was thin and frail.  The skin that Ivan could see barely hung on to her skull, her eyes so deep set that he wondered if he could see her brain through them.  Her lips were drawn in and her teeth were almost black.  But the rags she wore made her look thick and healthy – had he seen her from a distance.  “You have to find him,” she was telling the officer while holding onto her arm.  “That boy took my card.  My card.  Can’t you get me another card?”

“I can’t,” the officer said.  “They stopped giving replacements.  I can look for the boy.  What did he look like?”  She looked up as she saw Ivan approach, rolling her eyes towards Ivan and sighing heavily, a puff of steam coming out of her mouth. 

Ivan looked at her.  Looked at her face.  He knew her, but from where? 

The NKVD woman came up to him.  “Can I help you?”

“I’m sorry, excuse me?” 

“You’ve been staring at me for ten minutes now.”

“No, it couldn’t have been so long.  I must have dazed off,” Ivan said, his words trailing off along with his train of thought.  He wondered if she had anything to eat.  She looked so healthy. 

Her expression changed, from one that was as cold as the ice on top of the nearby canal to something much warmer, which seemed to give Ivan some heat.  “Vanya?” she said.  “Vanya?  Is that you?  Oh my God, look at you.”  She put her arm around him, rubbing his sides as though that would help warm him. 

“Do you have anything to eat?” Ivan asked.

“Vanya, don’t you recognize me?  It’s Vera.  I’m Vera.  I was your art student all last year.”

“Vera,” Ivan said, trying to trigger his own cognition by repeating her name.  “Vera, yes, I remember you.  But weren’t you a secretary?”

“They ran out of detectives, they sent them all to the front.  So they made me a detective.  It’s not bad, they feed us as much as the soldiers.  When I was just a secretary, I was getting a civilian ration.  Oh my god!”  She reached into her jacked and pulled out a piece of bread.  She held it up to Ivan. 

Ivan snatched the bread and shoved it into his mouth, pushing the crumbs into his cheeks as though he were a squirrel storing nuts.  Only then, when it was all in his mouth, did he begin to chew.  Vera wiped at her eyes as she watched Ivan, trying to keep them dry before any tears could freeze on her cheeks. 

When Ivan at last swallowed, he said, “They feed us, but it’s not much.  They want us to keep with our work.  They say our work inspires the Soviet people to keep on.  But what work we do!  How can we work when everything is so cold?  When we have no food?  I – instead of sketching, I ate the paper and the pencil.  It tasted like candy, sweet, sweet candy.” 

“Come, let’s walk,” Vera said, guiding him along.  They passed benches where people were sitting, huddled together.  Ivan could not see them very well, he kept his eyes down on his feet, pushing them one step at a time.  He didn’t want to see the people on the benches, to see that there was no breath coming from them.

They came upon a long line of people, waiting for their rations.  Each with their cards in their pockets, and their hands stuffed deep, protecting their cards.  They watched each other warily.  They all heard the stories, of people stabbing each other for cards, of stealing cards, of best friends turning on each other, killing each other, just to get a hold of a little red card.  The card meant food.  Not much food, but something.  Vera recognized someone in the line.  It was another woman her age, in her mid 20s.  Unlike Vera though, she wore a dirty, ragged coat and her eyes were as sunken as the old woman’s.  Ivan couldn’t tell what color her eyes were, they were so taken by shadows.  “Olya,” Vera called out to her.  “Olya, how are you?”  She put her hands on Olya’s arms, gently caressing them and she kissed Olya’s cheeks.  Olya tried to kiss back, but she moved too slowly. 

“Olya, tell me, where is your husband?  They said he hasn’t been coming to the factory.”

“He’s so sick, Vera.  I’m getting food for him now.  He’s so sick, he can’t come to the factory.” 

“But he has to, everyone has to work,” Vera said, her voice soft, her eyes just as soft.  “How can we hope to get the Germans if no one is reporting to their duties?”

“See for yourself, he’s too sick to come down.  All he can do is eat.  I bring him bread, and he eats it.  That’s how they all are.  Everyone in our apartment.  I bring all their food and all they do is eat it.  And Mitya, he even sometimes eats my food!  It’s just not enough.  He’s barely making it, I tell you.  And all night long he just talks about food.  He asks me if we can eat the table.  We’ve already eaten the wallpaper.” 

Vera pulled her towards herself, “Come along with me.  Let’s get your rations and then I’ll check up on Dmitri Ivanovich.” 

They went to the front of the line, Vera telling some of the citizens to stand aside and let Olya go along.  Olya showed all of her ration cards to the distributer and he gave her the proper share.  Olya said, “No, there should be more.  That’s just not enough.  There should be more.”  But she didn’t say it loud enough for the distributor.  The only person who could hear was Vera. 

“No, it’s the right amount.  Come on, let’s bring this back to Mitya.” 

Ivan shuffled along behind them, not having anything else to do.  Besides, he needed Vera to take him back to the Hermitage, he had already forgotten his way.  It was also better than just standing there, as he could feel his veins beginning to freeze when he didn’t move.  They walked several more blocks until they arrived at Olya’s apartment complex, an old baroque building that once was a palace but had long since been divided up into communal apartments, each floor housing five families.   She lived on the fourth floor. 

Vera pushed open the ice crusted doors.  They slowly slid open, ice and snow falling on their heads.  It was dark inside, the only light from the door and from frosted over windows in the stairwell above.  They climbed the steps, careful as not to trip.  Ivan, in his weakness, held on to the rail as he ascended, behind the two women.  “How old I feel,” Ivan said.  “Vera, how old am I?  Before the war I was only in my thirties, but now I’m in my sixties.  I just want to sit all the time, sit and rest and think.”

“Sometimes it’s best to keep moving,” Vera said.  “Especially in the darkness, and we are in Leningrad.  Now, Leningrad is the darkness.”

“It was good for a while, wasn’t it?  We had something.  Or am I just dreaming?”

They came to Olya’s door and pushed it open.  The apartment was quiet and still.  They stepped in.  “Mitya, we have visitors,” Olya called out.  “Oh, he’s right this way.  He’s always in the dining room, just waiting for me to feed him.  No, Mitya, I’m not talking about you.  He’s so sensitive you know.”   

As Olya continued talking to Mitya in the other room, Vera looked back at Ivan.  Ivan said to her, “There’s something wrong.”  Neither could hear Mitya responding to Olya, though she heard him fine.  Even inside, it was cold, their breath rising in clouds above them.   

“Okay, okay, I’ve got your bread, we’re coming.”  They walked down the corridor and pushed open the door into the communal dining room.  Olya moved across the room, swiftly now.  She walked behind the table to where Mitya sat and she kissed him on the cheek.  “Here’s your bread, sweetheart.” 

Ivan and Vera stopped at the door, Vera’s mouth dropped and her hand raised to cover it.  Mitya sat with three others at a long wood table, crusted over by ice.  Mitya and the three other men sitting around it were pale and white, frost caked over their hair and eyebrows.  They sat, leaning back, each balanced against the backs of the chairs, though one of the men had fallen forward, his forehead now attached to the table through a bridge of ice.  Each of them were nearly as thin as skeletons, the skin pulled back and tight across their bones.   Ivan whispered, “She thinks they’re alive.” 

Olya set the table, putting plates for each of the men.  For the one whose head was on the table, she put the table by his ear.  “Volya is always sleeping,” she said, patting his head.  Then she placed the daily ration on the table, an eighth of a loaf of bread. 

“But where does the food go?” Vera asked him. 

“Do we want to know the answer?” Ivan asked her.  “Look at their hands.”  They each only had half their fingers, most of them had been missing up to their palms.  “Something’s been eating their hands.”

“Rats,” Vera said.  “She has rats.”

“Rats,” Ivan repeated, but in a different tone.  His spirit was stirring again.  “You can eat rats.” 

“Olya,” Vera said as Ivan started peering around in the corners and behind the furniture.  “Let’s have a seat.”  She pulled her friend down to the bed in the corner.  “Listen, they’re not with us.” 

“Of course they’re with us, they’re right at the table.”

“No, I mean they’re not with us, anymore.”  As Vera tried to explain to Olya that her friends were dead, Ivan wandered into the kitchen.  He heard some shuffling inside a cupboard.  He grabbed a kitchen knife and lifted it up.  How hunger increases the senses, tones one’s ability!  Ivan felt like a tiger, stalking through the icy forests of Siberia, hunting a great deer. 

A few moments later, he came back to an Olya whose spirit was gone and a Vera who was quietly crying.  “I have lunch,” he said, as he bit into the back of the rat which was speared by his knife.  “Excuse my manners, would you like any?”  Though with his feverish eyes, he didn’t look like he was really prepared to share. 

Vera ran into the washroom.  Olya continued to stare at the wall, ignorant of Ivan’s presence.  When Ivan finished his meal, leaving a pile of blood and bones on the table, he sat next to Olya.  His preternatural senses were clearing away and he was returning to normal Ivan, with a full belly of food.  He looked at Olya.  He knew what he was watching; he was watching a woman dying.  This was the same look he’d seen on so many park benches in the past.  “Soon, you’ll be in a better place.  No one can remain in this hell forever.” 

                Ivan got up and walked into the corridor, just as Vera was coming out of the washroom.  Ivan shook his head.  “Don’t go back there.  She’s gone.”

                “I killed her,” Vera said.

                “You’re NKVD.  Isn’t that your job?” 

                “No, my job is to help.  To stop crime.  To stop fraud and theft.  Not to kill.  That’s not my job.”

                “She was committing fraud.  You can write a report on it,” Ivan said.

                “No!” she hit Ivan’s chest and fell into him.  He fell back, unable to hold her up, until he hit a wall.  She cried into his coat.  “I can’t take this anymore, Vanya.  I can’t.  How much longer can we go like this?  What did we do to the Germans?  I don’t understand.”

                “We have to survive,” Ivan said.  “We have to live long enough to kill them.  To kill their wives, their children, their spirits, as they have killed ours.  I don’t know how, but we must.  I buried my child with my wife, and I paid someone a loaf of bread to throw my wife into a ditch.  And I am so cold and so hungry – I barely feel human anymore.  I’m not human, I’m eating rats out of cupboards and shuffling around parks, and eating pencils – all I think about is food.  I used to have so many beautiful thoughts, about life and love.  But now just about food.  But the worst part is, is that I know what’s happening to myself.  I see myself as this vile and starved animal and I can do nothing about it.  We must go on, Vera, even if it’s just to spite the Germans.  The Communists told us there is no Hell, because there is no God, but this is it, this is Hell, and the Germans are demons sent by God.” 

                “You’re talking nonsense now, Vanya.  Come, let’s get you home.”

                “Yes, home.”  They walked down the stairs and out onto the streets, Vera holding Ivan’s arm, so that he wouldn’t fall.  As they walked, Ivan said, “You know Vera, I had always liked you.  You were the prettiest in class.  Before I used to think about you, about what it would be like to make love with you.” 

                Vera was quiet, but she squeezed his arm.

                “But now, I just wonder how you would taste.  What does that say?”

                Vera sighed and forced a smile.  “It says you’re hungry.  I’m hungry too.  We’re all hungry.  But you know, if you eat the snow, it keeps your belly full?  Before my promotion, I used to eat so much snow.  And you can mix it with things to change the taste.  With a little mud and dead leaves, it can spice it up.” 

                “Well then Vera,” Ivan said, trying to smile.  “I’ll hold off on eating you and I’ll eat some snow.  Thank you for the walk, but I see we are already back to the Hermitage.  I would like to see you again, Vera, but I know that one of us will be dead soon.” 

                “No, we’ve got to live, remember,” Vera said.  She hugged him and kissed his cheek.  “You said we have to live, to spite the Germans.”   

                “Yes, we must live.  To spite the Germans.”  Vera left him in the courtyard of the Hermitage.  The great column with the golden statue of the angel holding the cross was covered in white sheets, to disguise it from the German bombers.  He sat at the feet of the great stone Atlases which held up the balcony overhead.  “But really,” he said to himself.  “I just want to sleep.  I can smell shashliuk and the smell comes from my dreams.”