City of Fate

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It was 23 August 1942, about four o’clock on a typical Sunday afternoon. Yuri Bogdanov was swimming in the River Volga with his friends Grigori and Anatoly. There were plenty of people around the water’s edge, kissing couples and noisy families – everyone relishing their freedom from lessons and chores.

The boys were celebrating. It was Yuri’s fourteenth birthday and, after their swim, they were going back to his house, where his mother had baked a cake in his honour. For now, Yuri was in no rush to leave the river, preferring to spin out the feeling of excitement, of expectation for as long as he could.

Underwater, he practised his gliding, focused and determined. This was where he was faster than anyone else. His left leg had never been straight, nor had it ever been quite as long as his right one, so he limped when he walked. No doubt the other two were calling him to grab someone’s legs as he swam past. One, two, three, four; he held his breath for twenty-five seconds before jutting his face out for a gulp of air, glancing at his friends splashing one another. Leaving them to it, he drew back beneath the water and started counting all over again. It was a green jungle down there, almost like a secret garden with knots of bushes, barely two inches high, and waving weeds. Out of the corner of his eye he spotted tiny flashes of silver fish that nibbled here and there before fleeing from his shadow.

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