Chapter 987 - 210: Ms. Natasha
Saint Petersburg, twelve hours earlier.
The cold February wind stirred the black smoke from the factory chimneys, turning the sky into a dirty rag.
The melting snow turned into muddy puddles, soaking into the poor people’s worn-out shoes.
In front of the bakery, the line waiting to receive the rationed bread already stretched to the end of the street.
The crowd wrapped in tattered cotton clothes moved their feet with difficulty, like penguins in the polar regions.
Miss Anna tightened the patchwork scarf around her, the paper bag made from newspapers to hold bread in her arms rustling in the cold wind.
She stood on tiptoe, looking at the endless line, silently praying that Hail Mary would bless her to receive her share of the bread, as there had been no food in the house for several days, her sister had a high fever, and her mother stuffed the last scraps of cloth into her ill-fitting boots so she could come out to get the bread.
The whole family was counting on her.
Suddenly, there was a slight commotion ahead, and Anna craned her neck to see a woman with long flaxen hair falling to the ground, her forehead buried in a puddle of accumulated water, the newspaper bag for holding bread soaked through.
"It’s Lugina!"
Anna remembered the woman, her mother always said she was a diligent and capable woman who went to the port every morning before dawn to pick up fish scraps, sometimes fiercely showing her disabled husband’s "George Medal" to the dock workers unwilling to help, proving her family’s loyalty to the Tsar.
Why had she fallen here?
Anna wanted to help but couldn’t bear to leave the line she had been in for so many hours.
The military police maintaining order nearby turned her over and saw the George Medal pinned to her chest, the support for her "fierceness," and couldn’t help but make a sign of the cross over her: "Poor soul."
The people in line also made the sign of the cross to pray for her; in difficult times, people were always stingy with their kindness.
The line continued to move forward.
Anna occasionally looked back at the poor woman lying by the wall, worried about her bleak future.
"Once I get the bread, I’ll come help you."
She was very close to the bakery emitting a rich smell of wheat, the aroma of food piercing her shrunken stomach like sharp needles.
Once she got the bread, she planned to mix it with dried moss in the empty stove to cook a large pot of porridge, as her sister needed some hot food, and luckily she borrowed a small bundle of firewood from a neighbor the day before.
Bam—
The bakery clerk began pounding the iron anvil hanging outside the store.
"Today’s rations are gone, please come again tomorrow."
The crowd immediately erupted in chaos.
Anna’s face, devoid of color, was filled with panic: "No, it can’t be like this!"
The military police maintaining order brandished batons: "Stay calm, there’s only so much quota every day, there will always be someone who doesn’t get bread, and who told you latecomers to come so late!"
"In this weather, do you expect us to stand here waiting all night?"
"How many frozen corpses do you clear away each morning?"
The citizens cursed angrily.
Bam—
An officer fired a shot into the air, frightening the mostly women and children crowd causing them to shiver: "Disperse, disperse, gather here again, and we’ll send you to Siberia by train!"
Anna left the line, her legs heavy and stiff from standing for so long; she didn’t know how she would face her mother and sister’s hopeful eyes when she got home, a pain that overshadowed the hunger in her stomach.
Clip-clop-clip-clop—
A Cossack officer in a bright uniform, riding a chestnut warhorse, passed in front of her.
Driven by a sudden courage, Anna grabbed the officer’s leg, softly pleading, "Please be merciful, sir. Without food, my whole family will starve to death."
Captain Tenishev, a Cossack with a George Medal pinned to his chest, coldly averted his gaze: "Please remove your hand, ma’am, I have military duties and cannot help you."
Mrs. Anna awkwardly withdrew her hand, her remaining dignity preventing her from begging for food like a beggar, but dignity couldn’t satisfy hunger or save her family in the end.
Anna bit her bloodless lip: "Please, just one bag of bread, I’m willing to stay with you for a night."
Tenishev hesitated for a moment, lifted her chin with his whip, and saw a beautiful face.
"I’m very pretty, and... clean."
Tenishev sighed softly, took out a stack of rubles from his pocket, and handed it to Anna, waving her off: "Go, go back, go find your family."
Anna’s eyes widened in surprise: "I will repay you, sir!"
"No repayment needed, just leave."
As a Cossack cavalry officer often raiding neighbors, Tenishev rarely showed compassion, but Anna reminded him of his wife in the Don River district, and he worried whether his wife and children would suffer such humiliation when he wasn’t home.
He quickened his pace, swinging his whip to fend off citizens who witnessed the scene and tried to follow suit.
Anna carefully tucked the stack of rubles away and hurried into the crowd, unable to care for Mrs. Lugina who had fallen by the roadside. She had to hold on with this money until the black market opened, then get food and return home.
The generous Cossack officer’s rubles, based on her last black market visit, were enough to buy a large loaf of black bread and some pickles or canned peas, perhaps even a small box of matches.
Just as Anna was about to leave, she suddenly found it difficult to escape.
She was carried by the crowd heading in the opposite direction to where she wanted to go.
A tall lady stood up in the center of the crowd, appearing to be lifted by others.
With beautiful chestnut hair and rosy cheeks, she shouted, "The bravest warriors died on the front lines, their wives and children starving, yet still bullied by thugs and crooks. Soldiers and brothers, are you not the sons of workers and peasants, but the children of the rich and powerful?"
The soldiers looked at each other; how could the children of the rich and powerful serve as ordinary foot soldiers?
The officer’s expression changed slightly, and he raised his pistol, firing twice: "What are you waiting for, disperse these mobs! Arrest that woman inciting them, I suspect she’s possessed by a Banshee, or simply a German spy."
The line outside the bakery turned into a furious tide of people, glass shattered being the first to fall, policemen wielded batons dispersing the crowd, amidst the sounds of hooves and cries. Martha squeezed through the crowd, seeing a mother holding a baby pushed to the ground, the child’s cries sharp as a knife cut.
"Bread! We want bread!" Someone shouted, and the roar of thousands instantly engulfed the whole street. People came from all directions, waving rags, wooden sticks, or just their frozen fists. Martha was pushed forward by the crowd, seeing the barricades overturned, while police gunfire sounded sporadically—it did not scare the crowd, but incited even more frantic shouts.
"They can’t kill everyone!" A worker with a face full of coal dust jumped onto the steps, shouting, "Brothers, sisters! Our husbands died on the front lines, our children starved in cradles, what more is there to lose? Let’s fight them!"
The snow began to fall again, mixed with dirt and blood. Martha saw soldiers with rifles forming ranks in the distance at the Winter Palace Square. Her heart was in her throat, expecting another massacre. But unexpectedly, the soldiers in the front row suddenly put down their rifles, a young soldier took off his hat and shouted to the crowd: "We are the sons of workers too! We won’t shoot our own people!"
The crowd erupted in thunderous cheers. More soldiers threw down their rifles and joined the march. Anya appeared from nowhere, grabbing Martha’s hand, and the sisters clung to each other tightly amidst the chaos. Far away, the factory whistles blared long and loud, like the sound of a horn tearing through the winter, and at the end of the street, the first batch of red flags slowly rose amid the snowstorm.