Burying the Sun Read Online Free PDF Page A

beauty of the city was gone. The bronze horses on the Anichkov Bridge were underground, and saddest of all, The Bronze Horseman , the impressive statue of Peter the Great, had been covered with sandbags. In school we had all learned Pushkin’s poem The Bronze Horseman and its terrible story of the Leningrad flood of 1824, with coffins from the graveyards floating in the streets. When I told Yelena thepoem scared me to death the first time I read it, she said, “A sign of a great poem.”
    With its buried statues, its camouflage nets and gray paint, and its ruined parks, I no longer recognized my city. As I always did when I was discouraged, I took my worry to Yelena. Somehow she always found a way to cheer me. “How,” I asked her, “will Leningrad ever to be the same again?”
    For an answer she wrote a poem.
    Seed the earth with people
    burrowing beneath the ground,
    in air-raid shelters,
    in trenches,
    with spring will come
    the resurrection.
    I guess she meant eventually everything would be all right, only it looked to me as if it might take a while.

CHAPTER FOUR
MARYA LEAVES
    July 1941
    Yelena’s patriotic work took place on the roof of the Winter Palace, where she worked for three hours each night as an air-raid warden. Though German Messerschmitts sometimes flew over the city, they flew at very high altitudes. As yet there were no bombs, but they could come at any time, and the city had to be prepared. I hated the idea of Yelena risking her life every night, but she was proud of her assignment.
    â€œYou are digging air-raid shelters, Georgi, and I will warn everyone when to go into them. You will protect the people, and I will protect the buildings.”
    â€œA building isn’t worth a life. Promise me you will get down and into the safety of a shelter if the planes come.”
    She wouldn’t promise. “There are thousands and thousands of girls like me in Leningrad,” she said, “but there is only one Winter Palace. Come and see for yourself, Georgi.”
    â€œThere are hundreds of palaces,” I argued. And to myself I said, But there is no one like you. Still, I agreed to join her one night after my digging was over. I was eager to see the palace where long ago my mama had lived with the empress and the tsar and their children. She had told Marya and me stories of ballrooms with golden ceilings and a room whose walls were made of precious stone.
    â€œMama,” I said, “I’m going with Yelena tonight to the Winter Palace. Would you like to come with us?”
    Mama smiled sadly. “I’d give a great deal to visit the Winter Palace I remember, but not today’s Winter Palace.” In a hushed voice she said, “There was agreat deal of injustice when the tsar lived there, Georgi, but it was spoiled for me when the Bolsheviks took it over. They planned the arrests and murders of thousands of people there. I have no wish to see it again.” After a moment Mama relented, for her anger never lasted long, burning and then cooling just as quickly. “Of course you must go with Yelena. She’s a brave girl, and whatever has happened in the palace, the building itself must not be blamed. It has always been one of the glories of St. Petersburg.”
    The roof of the palace stretched for acres, so Yelena was only one of many air-raid wardens assigned to the roof. To reach Yelena’s section, we went through door after door and climbed stairway after stairway. The part of the palace we traveled through was unoccupied. I gasped at what I saw: gilded walls, ceilings painted with cupids flying about in blue sky and pink clouds, marble columns, and floors so shiny you could see your reflection in them. Though the crystal chandeliers and all the valuablefurniture and paintings had been put away, I could still imagine them as Mama had described them.
    The great empty rooms of the palace were so eerie, to break the tension I let go of