Absolutely haunting, and hilarious, novel about two men who find themselves searching for a dozen eggs during the Nazis’ siege of Leningrad.
Lev Beniov is on citizen patrol when he and his friends see a dead paratrooper drift to ground near their apartment. It’s after curfew but they are starving and are drawn to the treasures this man must have on him, like warm boots, chocolate, alcohol, cigarettes, weapons, anything.
Unfortunately the patrols catch the friends in the act and Lev is captured and thrown into the Crosses. The Crosses is where people are brought and shot. During the night Koyla, a soldier and apparently deserter, is thrown into the same cell as Lev. Koyla is full of confidence and swagger.
“So you think they’ll shoot us in the morning?”
“I doubt it. They’re not preserving us for the night just to shoot us tomorrow.” He sounded quite jaunty about it, as if we were discussing a sporting event, as if the outcome wasn’t particularly momentous no matter which way it went.
chapter 2
Where Koyla is full of drive, Lev is cowardly. The two—a thief and a deserter—are sent out to find a dozen eggs for a wedding cake. A top colonel’s daughter is getting married. The absurdity of war.
One moment they have minutes to live, the next a sniper is flirting with them, they have a lead on eggs, they are running from cannibals who are making sausages out of unsuspecting market goers, apartments collapse, soliders freeze, girls are kept warm and fed to be prostitutes to the Germans. It’s sad and funny and desperate all at the same time.
If you like Chekhov and adventure stories, this is a well-paced novel with all the joy and misery of war that you can imagine.