Winter Garden

Anya leads the way out of the truck. I am so focused on Leo that I hardly notice the bombing and gunfire going on around me. Somewhere nearby a truck explodes.

It is like being in the eye of a hurricane. All around us trucks are rolling past, horses are clopping forward pulling wagons, soldiers are running, and we poor, starved Leningraders are looking for rides.

At last I find the infirmary. It consists of flapping, dirty white tents spread out across a snowy field.

Inside, it is no hospital. It is a place for the dying and the dead. That is all. The smell is horrible. People are lying in their own freezing filth, moaning.

I dare not put Leo down for fear he’ll get worse. It seems like hours we wander around, looking for someone to help us.

Finally, I find an old man, hunched over a cane, staring at nothing. Only because he is wearing white do I approach him.

“Please,” I say, reaching for him. “My son is burning up. ”

The man turns to me. He looks as tired as I feel. His hands are trembling slightly as he reaches for Leo. I can see the boils on his fingers.

He touches Leo’s forehead and then looks at me.

It is a look I will never forget. Thank God there are no words with the look. “Get him to the hospital at Cherepovets. ” He shrugs. “Maybe. ”

I do not ask him to say more. In fact, I don’t want him to.

He hands me four white pills. “Two a day,” he says. “With clean water. When did he eat last?”

I shake my head. How can I say the words, tell the truth? It is impossible to get him to eat.

“Cherepovets,” is all he says, and then he turns and goes away. At every step, people are reaching for him, begging for help.

“Let’s go. ”

I take Anya’s hand and we make our slow, painful way through the infirmary and across the snowy field to the train station. Our papers are in order and we climb into a car, where we are again packed in too tightly. There is no seat for me or my children, so we sit on the cold floor. I hold my Leo on my lap and Anya at my side. When it gets dark, I take out my small bag of nuts. I give Anya as many as I dare and eat a few myself. I manage to get Leo to take one of the pills with a swallow of water I’ve brought.

It is a long and terrible night.

I keep leaning down to see if Leo is still breathing.

I remember stopping once. The train doors opened and someone yelled out, “Any dead? Dead? Give them to us. ”

Hands reach for Leo, try to pull him out of my arms.

I hang on to him, screaming, “He’s breathing, he’s breathing. ”

When the door closes and it is dark again, Anya moves closer to me. I can hear her crying.

It is no better in Cherepovets. We have one day to spend here. At first I think this is a blessing, that we will have time to save Leo before we board the next train, but he is getting weaker. I try not to see this truth, but it is lying in my arms. He coughs all the time. Now there is blood in it. He is burning hot and shivering. He will neither eat nor drink.

The hospital here is an abomination. Everyone has dysentery and scurvy. You cannot stand for more than a moment or two without seeing a new Leningrader hobble in, looking for help. Every hour, trucks loaded with corpses leave the hospital, only to return empty. People are dying where they stand.

It is good that I am weak and hungry; I don’t have the strength to run from place to place for help. Instead, I stand in the cold, bleak hallway, holding my son. When people pass, I whisper, “Help him. Please. ”

Anya is asleep on the cold floor, sucking her thumb, when a nurse stops.

“Help him,” I say, handing Leo to her.

She takes him gently. I try not to notice how his head lolls back.

“He’s dystrophic. Third stage. There is no fourth. ” At my blank look, she says, “Dying. But if we could get fluids into him . . . maybe. I could take him to the doctor. It would be a difficult few days, maybe, though. ”

She is so young, this nurse. As young as I was before the war began. I don’t know how to believe her, or how not to. “I have evacuation papers. We are supposed to be on the train to Vologda tomorrow. ”