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he had the code to crack this particular instance of huffiness. ‘Hey, will we go see the statue?’
    Peter had swung to face him, forgetting he had been feeling so bored and fed up, breathlessly asking, ‘Can we? Really?’
    Yuri’d taken his hand. ‘Well, only if you promise to talk to me while we walk.’
    Peter’d had to think about this, not wanting to give a wrong answer nor an untrue one. Finally, his decision made, he’d replied, ‘Okay, Yuri. I promise.’

MR BELOV’S BOYS LEAVE HOME
    â€˜C owards!’ announced Anton so definitely that nobody thought to contradict him.
    Seventeen year old twins, Vladimir and Dmitry Chekhov, had not made it to school for the last day of lessons. But their names were on the list. Mr Belov sent a young pupil over to the Chekhov house to say that the twins should meet their class at 4pm, when they would be heading off for the register office in the nearby town.
    The dutiful messenger returned with Mrs Chekhov’s words ringing in his ears, and delivered the message exactly as he had heard it, ‘VLADIMIR AND DMITRY ARE NOT GOING ANYWHERE BECAUSE THEYARE VERY, VERY SICK!’
    A shadow fell across Mr Belov’s features. ‘Do stop shouting at me, there’s a good lad.’
    â€˜Yes, sir. Sorry, sir!’
    He sent the excited boy back to class. For their last hours of schooling the teacher seemed unable to decide how to spend them. In one sentence he mentioned Alexander The Great (Was he really that great?), Adolf Hitler (What he might have thought about Alexander The Great?), and the importance of keeping one’s knife and fork clean when out at the front (Food poisoning is very dangerous for a soldier in battle).
    It was hard to concentrate on anything much when the classroom door was besieged by mothers insisting on seeing their sons, ‘for just a few minutes’. Out of seven visits, only five pupils had faithfully returned to their desks.
    Mr Belov was torn. On the one hand, he had complete sympathy for these terrified women, most of whom had no idea where their husbands were and, therefore, were extremely reluctant to release their sons to God knows what. On the other hand, he acknowledged a prickly chill around his heart as he wondered how the state police would respond to this disobedience.
    Orders like his letter had come from Stalin himself. Protecting the Motherland was an immense privilege with absolutely no alternative. For one moment the teacher wished not to be Russian, a most shocking thought that could never besaid aloud, even as a joke. Surely in other countries this did not happen. School children were not ordered to leave their lessons and join the army with neither proper training nor experience.
    The one clear instruction from Stalin that they all knew – ‘There must be no turning back’ – did not sound like much, but, in fact, it meant something terrible.
    Mr Belov had heard some of the stories whispered about the town about Russian generals shooting their own soldiers if they showed
any
hesitation or panic on the battlefield. A soldier was to keep stepping forward, no matter what. Who wants to die a coward, bringing disgrace on their family?
    Only yesterday, his neighbour, Mrs Chuykov, had stopped him on the street to tell him that Konstantin, her beloved grandson, was dead. He’d reached out to take her hand and say, ‘Oh, Maria, I am so sorry for your loss. What happened to him? I hope it was swift.’
    The old woman’s eyes had been filled with pain. ‘That’s the worst of it. We don’t know anything at all. The army never contacted us, just a friend of Konstantin’s, Daniel something or other, who wrote to tell us he was dead.’
    Before he could say anything else, she’d lowered her voice, quickly declaring, ‘He was no coward, that boy. I don’t care what they try to tell us.’
    Much to Mr Belov’s shame, they had both gazed nervously around,