he army has been working for months to make a road across frozen Lake Ladoga. The road is here now, and everyone is calling it the road of life. Soon, they say, transports of food will rumble across the ice toward Leningrad. Up until now, those same trucks kept falling through into the freezing black water below. And, of course, the Germans bomb it constantly.

I check my children’s clothes. Everything is in place, just as it was when we left Leningrad. Leo and Anya are wrapped in newsprint and then in all the clothes they own. We wrap scarves around our heads and necks; I try to cover everything, even Leo’s small red nose.

Outside, it hurts when I take a breath. My lungs ache. Beside me, Leo starts to cough.

A full moon rises in the black sky, turning the snow blue. We stand around, all of us, matted together like cattle. Many people are coughing; somewhere a child is crying. It occurs to me to wish that it were Leo. His quiet scares me.

“What do we do, Mama?” Anya says.

“We find a truck. Here, take my hand.”

My eyes water and sting as I start forward. Leo is in my arms, and as thin as he is, he weighs me down so that I can hardly move. Every step takes concentration, willpower. I have to lean into the howling wind. The only real thing in this icy blue-and-black world is my daughter’s hand in mine. Somewhere far away, I hear an engine idling and then roaring. It is a convoy, I hope.

“Come,” I shout into the wind, or mean to. I am so cold my knees hurt. It hurts even to bend my fingers enough to hold Anya’s hand.

I walk

and walk

and walk

and there is nothing. Just ice and black sky and the distant popping of antiaircraft guns.

I think, I must hurry, and, My babies, and then Sasha is beside me. I can feel the warmth of his breath. He is whispering about love and the place we will build for ourselves in Alaska and he tells me it’s okay for me to rest.

“Just for a moment,” I say, falling to my knees before the words are even out of my mouth.

The world is totally quiet then. Somewhere, someone laughs and it sounds just like Olga. I will go find her as soon as I have a nap. This is the thought I have.

And I close my eyes.

“Mama.”

“Mama.”

“Mama.”

She is screaming in my face.

I open my eyes slowly and see Anya. My daughter has pulled off her scarf and wrapped it around my neck.

“You have to get up, Mama,” she says, tugging at me.

I look down. Leo is limp in my arms, his head lolled back. But I can feel his breathing.

I uncoil the scarf from around my neck and rewrap Anya’s face. “Never take your scarf off again. Do not give it to anyone. Not even me.”

“But I love you, Mama.”

And there is my strength. Gritting my teeth against the pain that will come, I stagger to my feet and start moving again.

One step at a time, until a lorry materializes in front of me.

A man dressed in baggy white camouflage is standing beside the door, smoking a cigarette. The smell of it makes me think of my mother.

“A ride across the ice?” I say, hearing how cracked and weak my voice is.

The man’s face is not drawn or gaunt. This means he is Somebody, or in the Party at least, and I feel my hope plummet.

He leans forward, looks at Leo. “Dead?”

I shake my head. “No. Just sleeping.

“Please,” I say, desperate now. All around me trucks are leaving and I know we will die tonight, here, if we do not find a ride soon. I pull out the cloisonné butterfly made by my grandfather. “Here.”

“No, Mama,” Anya says, reaching for it.

The man just frowns. “What good is a trinket?”

I pull off my glove and give him my wedding ring instead. “It is gold. Please....”

He looks me over as he takes one last drag of the cigarette and then drops it to the snow. “All right, Baba,” he says, pocketing my ring. “Get in. I will take you and your grandchildren.”

I am so grateful, I don’t even realize what he has said to me until later, when we are all packed into the cab of his truck.

Baba.

He thinks I am an old woman. I pull the scarf off and glance in the mirror above the windshield.

My hair is as white as my skin.

It is daylight when we get across the ice. Not much light, of course, but enough. I can really see where we are now.

Endless snow. Trucks lined up, filled with food for my poor Leningrad. Soldiers dressed in white. Not far from here—three hundred yards, maybe—is the train station that is our next destination.

The bombing starts almost immediately. Our driver stops and gets out.

Honestly, I do not want to get out of the truck, even though I know how dangerous it is to sit here. There is gasoline in the tank, and no camouflage on the truck. It is a clear target from the air. But we are warm and it has been so long.... Then I look down at my Leo and I forget all about the danger.

He is not breathing.

I shake him hard, ripping open his coat and pulling up the newspaper. His chest is really just a brace of bones and blue skin and boils. “Wake up, Leo. Breathe. Come on, my lion.” I put my mouth on his, breathing for him.

Finally, he shudders in my arms and I feel a sour little breath slip into my mouth.

He starts to cry.

I hold him to me, crying, too, and say, “Don’t you leave me, Leo. I couldn’t bear it.”

“His hands are so hot, Mama,” Anya says, and I see how scared she is by the suddenness of my yelling.

I touch Leo’s forehead.

He is burning up. My hands are shaking as I reposition the newspaper and button up his sweater and coat.

We are going out into the cold again.

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.”

“They won’t let your son on that train,” the young nurse says. “Not one so sick.”

“If we stay it will be impossible to get more tickets,” I say. “We’ll die here.”

The nurse says nothing to this. Lies are a waste of time.

“We could start helping Leo now, couldn’t we?” I say. “Maybe he’ll be better by tomorrow.”

The nurse cannot hide her pity for me. “Of course. Maybe he’ll be better.”

And he is.

Better.

After a night when Anya and I lay curled on the floor by Leo’s dirty cot, I wake feeling bruised and cold. But when I get to my knees and look down at Leo, he is awake. For the first time in a long time, his blue eyes are clear. “Hi, Mama,” he says in a scratchy, froglike voice that cuts right through my heart. “Where are we? Where’s Papa?”

I waken Anya, pull her up beside me. “We are right here, baby. We are on our way to your papa. He will be waiting for us in Vologda.”

I am smiling and crying as I look down at my son, my baby. Maybe it is the tears that blur my vision, or more likely it is hope. I am old enough to know better, but common sense is gone with the sound of his voice. I don’t see how blue his skin is, how the boils have burst on his chest and are seeping yellow; I don’t hear the thickness of his cough. I just see Leo. My lion. My baby with the bluest eyes and the purest laugh.

So when the nurse comes by to tell me that I should get on the train, I am confused.

“He’s getting better,” I say, looking down at him.

The silence stretches out between us, broken only by Leo’s coughing and the distant rat-a-ta-tat of gunfire. She looks pointedly at Anya.

For the first time I see how pale Anya is, how gray her chapped lips are, the angry boils on her throat. Her hair is falling out in clumps.

How did I miss all that?

“But...” I look around. “You said they won’t let my son on the train.”

“There are too many evacuees. They won’t transport the dying. You have papers for you and your daughter, yes?”

How is it that I don’t understand what she is saying to me until then? And how can I explain how it feels to finally understand? A knife in the heart would hurt less.

“You’re saying I should leave him here to die? Alone?”

“I’m saying he will die.” The nurse looks at Anya. “You can save her.” She touches my arm. “I’m sorry.”

I stand there, frozen, watching her walk away. I don’t know how long I stand there, but when I hear the train’s whistle, I look down at the daughter I love more than my own life, and the son of mine who is dying.

“Mama?” Anya says, frowning up at me.

I take Anya’s hand and walk her out of the hospital. At the train, I kneel in front of her.

She is so small, wrapped as she is in her bright red coat and wearing the valenki that are too big for her feet.

“Mama?”

“I can’t leave Leo here,” I say, hearing the break in my voice. He can’t die alone is what I want to say, but how can I say such a thing to my five-year-old? Does she know I am making a choice no mother should ever have to make? Will she someday hate me for this?

Her face scrunches in a frown so familiar it breaks my heart. For a second, I see her as she used to be. “But—”

“You are my strong one. You will be okay alone.”

She shakes her head, starts to cry. “No, Mama. I want to stay with you.”

I reach into my pocket and take out a piece of paper. It still smells of sausage and my stomach churns at the scent of it. I write her name on the paper and pin it to her lapel. “P-Papa will be waiting for you in Vologda. You find him. Tell him we’ll be there by Wednesday. You two can meet Leo and me.”

It feels like a lie. Tastes like one. But she trusts me.

I don’t let her hug me. I can see her reaching, reaching, and I push her back, into the crowd that is lining up around us.

A woman is standing close. Anya hits her and the woman stumbles sideways, cursing softly.

“Mama—”

I push my daughter at the stranger, who looks at me with glassy eyes.

“Take my daughter,” I say. “She has papers. Her father will be in Vologda. Aleksandr Ivanovich Marchenko.”

“No, Mama.” Anya is wailing, reaching for me.

I mean to push her away so hard she stumbles, but I can’t do it. At the last moment, I yank her into my arms and hold her tightly.

The train whistle blows. Someone yells, “Is she going?”

I unwrap Anya’s arm from around my neck. “You be strong, Anya. I love you, moya dusha.”

How can I call her my soul and then push her away? But I do. I do.

At the last minute, I hand her the butterfly. “Here. You hold this for me. I will come back for it. For you.”

“No, Mama—”

“I promise,” I say, lifting her up, putting her in a stranger’s arms.

She is still crying, screaming my name and struggling to get free, when the train doors slam shut.

I stand there for a long time, watching the train grow smaller and smaller, until it disappears altogether. The Germans are bombing again. I can hear the explosions all around, and people shouting, and debris thumping on metal roofs.

I hardly care.

As I turn toward the hospital, it feels as if something falls out of me, but I don’t look down, don’t want to see whatever I’ve lost. Instead, I walk through the raining dirt and snow toward my son.

Loss is a dull ache in my chest, a catch in my breathing, but I tell myself I have done the right thing.

I will keep Leo alive by the sheer force of my will, and Sasha will find Anya in Vologda and the four of us will meet up on Wednesday.

It is such a beautiful dream. I keep it alive one breath at a time, like a timid candle flame in the cup of my hands.

Back at the hospital, it is dark again. The smell of the place is unbearable. And it is cold. I can feel the wind prowling outside, testing every crack and crevice, looking for a way in.

In his narrow, sagging cot, Leo is sucking in his sleep, chewing food that isn’t there. He coughs almost constantly now, spasms that spew lacy blood designs across the woolen blankets.

When I can stand it no more, I crawl into the cot and pull him into my arms. He burrows against me like the baby he once was, murmuring my name in his sleep. His breathing is a terrible thing to listen to.

I stroke his hot, damp forehead. My hand is freezing, but it is worth it to touch him, to let him know I am here, beside him, all around him. I sing his favorite songs and tell him his favorite stories. Now and then he rouses, smiles sloppily at me, and asks for candy.

“No candy,” I say, kissing his sunken blue cheek. I cut my finger again, let him suck on it until the pain makes me draw back.

I am singing to him, barely able to remember the words, when I realize that he is not breathing anymore.

I kiss his cheek, so cold, and his lips, and I think I hear him say, “I love you, Mama,” but of course it is only my imagination. How will I ever forget how this was—how he died a little every day? How I let him. Maybe we should never have left Leningrad.

I think I will not be able to bear this pain, but I do. For all of that day and part of the next, I lie with him, holding him as he grows cold. In ordinary times perhaps this wouldn’t have been allowed, but these are far from ordinary times. Finally, I ease away from his little body and get up.

As much as I want to lie with him forever, to just slowly starve to death with him, I cannot do it. I made a promise to Sasha.

Live, he’d said, and I’d agreed.

So with empty arms and a heart turned to stone, I leave my son there, all by himself, lying dead in a cot by the door, and once again I start to walk. I know that all I will ever have of my son now is a date on the calendar and the stuffed rabbit that is in my suitcase.

I will not tell you what I did to get a seat on the train going east. It doesn’t matter anyway. I am not really me. I am this wasted, white-haired body that cannot rest, although I long just to lie down and close my eyes and give up. The ache of loss is with me always, tempting me to close my eyes.

Anya.

Sasha.

These are the words I cling to, even though sometimes I forget of whom I am even dreaming. From my place on the train, I see the ruined countryside. Bodies in heaps. Scars on the land from falling bombs. Always there is the sound of aircraft and gunfire.

The train moves forward slowly, stopping in several small towns. At each stop, starving people fight to get on board, to be one of the glassy-eyed grimy crowd heading east. There is talk, whispered around me, of heavy fighting in front of us, but I don’t listen. Don’t care, really. I am too empty to care about much of anything.

And then, miraculously, we arrive at Vologda. When the train doors open, I realize that I did not expect to make it here.

I remember smiling.

Smiling.

I even tuck my hair into my kerchief more tightly so Sasha will not see how old I have become. I clutch the small valise that holds all of my belongings—our belongings—and fight through the crowd to get to the front.

Out in the cold, we disperse quickly; people going this way and that, probably looking for food or friends.

I stand there, feeling the others peel away from me. In the distance, I hear the drone of planes, and I know what it means. We all know what it means. The air-raid alarm sounds and my fellow passengers start to run for cover. I can see people flinging themselves into ditches.

But Sasha is there, not one hundred yards in front of me. I can see that he is holding Anya’s hand. Her bright red coat looks like a plump, healthy cardinal against the snow.

I am crying before I take my first step. My feet are swollen and covered with boils, but I don’t even notice. I just think, My family, and run. I want Sasha’s arms around me so badly that I don’t think.

Stupid.

I hear the bomb falling too late. Did I think it was my heart, that whistling sound, or my breathing?

Everything explodes at once: the train, the tree beside me, a truck off to the side of the road.

I see Sasha and Anya for a split second and then they are in the air, flying sideways with fire behind them....

When I wake up, I am in a hospital tent. I lie there until my memory resurfaces and then I get up.

All around me is a sea of burned, broken bodies. People are crying and moaning.

It is a moment before I realize that I can see no colors. My hearing is muffled, as if there is cotton in my ears. The side of my face is scraped and cut and bleeding, but I hardly feel it.

The red-orange fire is the last color I will ever see.

“You should not be up,” a man says to me. He has the worn look of someone who has seen too much war. His tunic is torn in places.

“My husband,” I say, yelling to hear my own voice above the din. There is a ringing in my ears, too. “My daughter. A little girl in a red coat and a man. They were standing... the train was bombed... I have to find them.”

“I’m sorry,” he says, and my heart is pounding so hard I can’t hear anything past, no survivors... just you... Here—

I push past him, stumbling from bed to bed, but all I find are strangers.

Outside, it is snowing hard and freezing cold. I do not recognize this place. It is an endless snowy field. The damage done by the blast is covered now in white, though I can see a heap that must be bodies.

Then I see it: a small, dark blot on the snow, lying folded up against the nearest tent.

I would like to say I ran toward it, but I only walk; I don’t even see that my feet are bare until the burning cold sets in.

It is her coat. My Anya’s coat. Or what is left of it. I cannot see the bright red anymore, but there is her name, written in my own hand, on a scrap of paper pinned to the lapel. The paper is wet and the ink blurred, but it is there. Half of the coat is missing—I do not want to imagine how that happened—one side is simply torn away.

I can see black bloodstains on the pale lining, too.

I hold it to my nose, breathing deeply. I can smell her in the fabric.

Inside the pocket, I find the photograph of her and Leo that I’d sewn into the lining. See?I’d said to her on the day we’d hidden it—that was back when they were first evacuating the children, it feels like decades ago—Now your brother will always be with you.

I take the tiny scrap of paper with her name on it and hold it in my hand. How long do I sit there in the snow, stroking my baby’s coat, remembering her smile?

Forever.

No one will give me a gun. Every man I ask tells me to calm down, that I will feel better tomorrow.

I should have asked a woman, another mother who had killed one child by moving him and another by letting her go.

Or maybe I am the only one who...

Anyway, the pain is unendurable. And I do not want to get better. I deserve to be as unhappy as I am. So I return to my bed, get my boots and coat, and I start walking.

I move like a ghost through the snowy countryside. There are so many other walking dead on the road that no one tries to stop me. When I hear gunfire or bombing, I turn toward it. If my feet hurt less, I would have run.

I find what I am looking for on the eighth day.

It is the front line.

I walk past the Russians, my countrymen, who call out for me and try to stop me.

I pull away, wrenching if I need to, hitting, kicking, and I keep going.

I walk up to the Germans and stand in front of their guns.

“Shoot me,” I say, and I close my eyes. I know what they see, what I look like: a crazy, half-dead old woman holding a banged-up valise and a dirty gray stuffed rabbit.