The Russian Century: A Hundred Years of Russian Lives

6 January 1942. Dima doesn’t steal bread anymore. For days on end he lies in bed, his face to the wall, saying nothing. His face is covered with a thick layer of soot; even his fine, fair eyelashes have become thick and black [from the makeshift, un-vented wood stove]. I cannot imagine that he was once clean, well-groomed, and proper. And I, of course, am not much cleaner than he is. We are both tormented by lice. We sleep together—there’s only one bed in the room—but even through the cotton wadded overcoats we shun each other’s touch.

9 January 1942. We live in our room as in an ark, seeing nothing, encountering no one. We don’t even know the news from the front. We only get incidental bits of news while standing in the queues. Dima and I have become a

Elena I. Kochina, Blockade Diary

245

single organism. Illness, antipathy, the foul mood of one is immediately reflected in the other. At the same time we have never been as far apart as we are now. Each one silently struggles with his own suffering. In this we cannot help each other. After all, I only sense my own heart (only I hear its beating), . . . my own stomach (only I feel its gnawing emptiness), . . . am aware of my brain (only I bear all the weight of unexpressed thoughts). Only I can coerce them to endure. We have come to understand that a human being must know how to struggle with life and death alone.

10 January 1942. Lena has unlearned how to speak. She can no longer stand or even sit. Her skin hangs in folds as if she had been stuffed into a cloak much too big for her. She quietly sings to herself all the time; evidently, asking for food.

Today I bought her some toys: a matreshka nesting doll, a clown and a stuffed bear. They were seated on her bed waiting for her to awaken. Upon seeing them, Lena sobbed loudly and scattered them over the floor. Of course, it was a stupid idea.

I kissed her hungry wolf-cub eyes. Looking at her soot-covered face, I myself wanted to howl like a dying she-wolf. I could not lighten her suffering with anything but kisses.

24January 1942. It is 40 degrees below zero.

The camouflage curtain is frozen to the window. The room is in semi-

darkness. The walls, smeared with oil-base paint, are clammy. Slim streams

of water run down to the floor.

Setting off for bread, I wrapped myself in Lena’s flanelette blanket, leaving only a slit for my eyes.

Outside, I winced, so bright was the sky. Next to the entryway a tree covered with snow and frost glistened unbearably.

Under the tree lay two bodies, haphazardly wrapped in bed sheets. The bare feet of one of them protruded from under the sheet, the big toes at an odd angle.

25January 1942. The plumbing no longer works. We have to go to the Neva

River for water. Due to the lack of water, the central baking plant has stopped

working. Thousands of Leningraders who could still get about crawled out of

their burrows and, having formed a human chain from river to bakery, passed

buckets of water to each other with their frozen hands.

The bread was baked.

January 1942. The sewer system is not working. Everybody gets by as they can. Excrement is thrown from windows.

January 1942. Some days no bread is delivered. People stand in long lines. Some lose consciousness. Some die.

246

Chapter Twenty-Four

28 January 1942. There is, apparently, a limit to physical suffering beyond which a person becomes insensitive to everything except one’s own self. Heroism, self-sacrifice, a great feat can be accomplished only by someone who is well-fed or has suffered hunger briefly. But we know starvation which has debased, crushed, and turned us into animals. Those who will come after us and perchance read these lines: don’t judge us too harshly.

February 1942. We haven’t washed in three months. They say that there’s a working public bath somewhere. Men and women wash together there. But such a journey is beyond our strength.

February 1942. Excrement, like ossified geologic shapes, covers every courtyard.

10 February 1942. There are rumors that a road across Lake Ladoga has been cleared and that evacuation has begun anew. It would be so good to get out of Leningrad. Now, when the most difficult time seems behind us, it would be stupid to die.

12 February 1942. Some items are being distributed per ration cards. I got 250 grams of meat. We ate it raw.

14 February 1942. Today, per ration card, I got 75 grams of sunflower-seed oil. For a long time we sniffed it, as if perfume, and relished its golden-yellow color. Finally, after lengthy vacillation, we decided to fry up some bread. Having gotten a frying pan and some kindling, we joyfully fussed about the jerry-rigged stove, anticipating a sumptuous dinner.