The Undaunted (Book 2 of The Undesirables)

Chapter 17: The Cellist

They found their way back out of the sewers shortly after dawn. A manhole was still operational, and it gave way to what had once been a park -- 9th of January Square – that only a few months ago had been a beautiful green space and a peaceful respite from the city's industry. It was overlooked by grand apartment buildings on the east, where they also provided views of a steep bluff dropping to the blue waters of the River Volga. It was one of Stalingrad's most desirable pieces of real estate, reserved for the senior officials of its most productive factories.

The Park was no longer green. Now it was black with soot and pink with the same brick dust that covered the entire city. Its trees had burned to their roots. Only a giant statue of Lenin survived in the center of the square, pointing his hand, Karen thought to herself, like he was hailing a cab.

And the Volga was no longer blue. Its deep current was choked with oil and industrial waste, spilled from broken factories and sunken ferries.

The surrounding apartments, even their chimneys, had collapsed into rubble...all but one. It rose over the burned-out park like a fortress into the smoky sky. Its four stories offered safety; it offered a place to hide.

Karen and her companions crawled toward it. They knew better than to walk. Everything but the apartment building had been burned to the ground. There was an unobstructed view of over a half mile in every direction. A walking soldier, with the sun rising behind him, would be as obvious as an elephant. So, they crawled.

Karen hoped there were no Germans nearby. They had arrived almost on the bank of the Volga – only a steep bluff and a few dozen yards separated them from the vast river. If the Germans were here, if they they'd managed to fight all the way to the Volga's banks, if they already occupied the four-story apartment building, they would have a commanding view of the river crossing.

It would mean only one thing: that Russia had lost.

Karen tried to push that depressing thought of defeat from her mind. She'd already seen so much death, so much sacrifice. She didn't want to think that sacrifice might have been in vain. So, she crawled forward in silence, trying desperately to keep her faith. But no matter how hard she tried, that faith slipped away. Her hands and legs resisted her will. A part of her mind told her to stop crawling, to return to the sewer. It told her the Germans were everywhere; that the Germans had won. It told her the only chance of survival was to hide underground like a rat.

But the frightened voice in her head wasn't the only voice that was speaking. "Don't worry," another voice said, out loud. "There are no Germans here. They couldn't have made it this far, not yet."

It was Petr's voice. He was speaking quietly, confidently, repetitively. He kept saying those words, over and over again, those reassuring words. Somehow, some way, he knew what Karen was thinking. He knew that Anton was thinking the same thing. There was only way he could have known.

Obviously, Petr was afraid, too.

But there was nothing in his voice that even hinted at that fear. His voice, his words, the same words repeatedly, sounded certain, sounded sure. Karen knew, logically, that he was lying. But her heart felt like it was the truth. And that truth made it easier to move; her arms and legs stopped resisting.

That same optimism that had made Karen love Petr during their escape from Leningrad had a vastly different effect here. That optimism that months ago had sometimes felt like naivete, but that had none the less served as a limitless fount of happiness, here, in battle, it provided even more than that. It provided confidence.

And confidence, Karen was beginning to understand, was the most important thing in battle. It was more important than guns and tanks. It was more important than the mathematics of gains and losses.