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PETER’S DARKENED CITY

THERE was no longer any denying that as happening to Leningrad was nothing like what they could have ever iined

Marina’scontinued The bo, and Tatiana knew this because there were fewer fires, and she knew this because as she walked to Fontanka, there were fewer places for her to stand and war her way to the store one Nove in the street On the way back two hours later there were seven They weren’t injured, and they weren’t wounded They were just dead She n of the cross as she walked past then of the cross on dead people? But I live in Con of the hammer and sickle as she sloalked on

There was no place for God in the Soviet Union In fact, God clearly went against the principles by which they all lived their lives: faith in work, in living together, in protecting the state against nonconformist individuals, in Comrade Stalin In school, in newspapers, on the radio, Tatiana heard that God was the great oppressor, the loathso his full potential for centuries Now, in post-Bolshevik Russia, God was just another roadblock in the way of the new Soviet iance to God because that wouldother than the state And nothing could come before the state Not only would the state provide for the Soviet people, but it also would feed theive them jobs and protect thearten, and through nine years of school and in the Young Pioneer classes she attended when she was nine She became a Pioneer because she had no choice, but when it was ti Komsomols in her last year of school, she refused Not because of God necessarily, but just because Soht she would not ood Communist She liked Mikhail Zoshchenko’s stories too ious woet their hands on her, to baptize her, to teach her, tobehind the lilac tree in the neighbors’ garden, and watch thee road, but not before they made airy crosses on her with benevolent s out to her, Tatia, Tatia

Tatiana n of the cross, this ti?

It’s as if I’m not alone

She went to sit inside the church across the street froet boet boh to destroy theto find the little church she was in? She felt safer

At the post office Tatiana had to step over a deadhas he been here?" she asked the postrinned "I’ll tell you for another cracker"

"I don’t want to know that badly," she replied, "but I’ll give you a cracker anyway"

In the dark no one could see as happening to their bodies No one could face as happening to their bodies either Dasha removed all the mirrors from their rooms and froli at one another No one wanted to catch even an accidental glimpse of someone they loved

To hide her own body from herself and everyone else, Tatiana wore a flannel undershirt, a flannel shirt, her oool sweater, Pasha’s wool sweater, a pair of heavy stockings, long trousers, a skirt over them, and her quilted winter coat She took off her coat to sleep

Dasha mentioned that she had lost her breasts, and Marina said, breasts? I don’t have aabout breasts? Wouldn’t you trade breasts for your ized, but in the kitchen she broke down crying and said, "I want ently rubbed Dasha’s back "Co too badly Look, we have some oatmeal left Go inside I’ll make you some"

After Aunt Rita died, Marina still went out every h, as she told Tatiana, the professors taught nothing, there were no books and no lectures But there was some heat, and Marina could sit in the library for a few hours until she could go to the canteen and get her clear soup

"I hate soup," Marina said "Hate it now It’s so less It’s hot water," said Tatiana, as she crouched beside her dwindling bag of sugar They still had some barley left "Don’t touch the barley," she said "It will be our dinner for the next !" Marina exclai you can’t eat it raw," Tatiana said But she rong The next day there was less barley in the bag