1
February 23, 1917
Petrograd, Russia
The explosive powder slid into the grenade after a light, quick tap. I dipped the scoop back into the jar, leveled it, and filled the next one on the tray, wriggling my nose to get rid of an itch that had been hovering there for the past seven grenades. The TNT had dyed my fingers a bright canary yellow, and I didn’t want them anywhere near my face. I had to forget about my nose.
To distract myself, I mentally recited the characteristics of the grenades while I filled them. M1914 stick grenade. Weight: 580 grams. Length: 235 mm. Filling: 320 grams of TNT. Timing delay: 3.5-4 seconds. Effective range: 15 meters.
Tap, tap, and I filled the scoop with another 320 grams of TNT.
In comparison to the rest of my life, the constant filling of grenades was soothing and predictable, and I rather liked my job. I met my quotas, made sure everyone on my line was safe, and took home a decent paycheck for a seventeen-year-old girl who’d dropped out of university halfway through her first year. Most important, my grenades went to the front and helped Russia fight off the invaders—the Germans and Austrians.
“Pavlova,” hissed Darya, the girl to my left. She held her scoop poised over the canister of TNT, but her eyes were on me. “Did you hear about the march?”
I nodded, careful not to move my wrist and scatter the explosive on the table. Everyone in Petrograd had heard about the march. The Tsar had put out a ration on bread, and since the city was already strained by three years of war and a bitter winter, the women were taking to the streets. I didn’t blame them, given that the last loaf I’d bought had been gray, not white, and I’d had to wait in line for nearly an hour to get it.
Socialists would probably be there too, calling for rights for workers and the removal of the Tsar. The loudest group of socialists, the Bolsheviks, wanted a revolution. But every time someone tried that, they found themselves either in Siberia or on the end of a rope.
Just the other day, though, I’d found an issue of Pravda, the Bolsheviks’ illegal newspaper, in one of the bathroom stalls here. Even though I knew it was wrong, I couldn’t resist reading it. I’d gobbled each word like it was bitter chocolate.
“Some of us are going after our shift,” Darya said, keeping her voice low so as not to distract the other girls on the line.
“To protest the bread rations?” I asked.
She nodded. “My babushka spent all night stitching up a banner. Even she will be there.”
I wanted to laugh at the image of an old grandmother sewing letters onto a canvas banner, bickering about the Tsar by the light of a candle. If she was anything like my grandmother, she’d curse the Tsar in one breath and bless him in the next. But Babushka had been gone for six months now, so she’d missed her chance to march in the streets.
I shrugged off the ache her absence always brought. That was easier to do when I wasn’t at home, where her tears still streaked the pane of glass covering her favorite icon. Saint Georgi, of course. “It might be over before we’re done here,” I said to Darya, “but I’m sure your babushka will tell you all about it.”
“It will just be starting when our shift ends. Don’t you want to go?”
I hesitated. My father had always supported the Tsar. He had been at the front fighting in the Imperial Army since the war began. And somehow he still found time to write editorial letters to Petrograd’s conservative newspapers, defending the Tsar’s policies. Although I didn’t always agree with my father, I had never stood against him . . . or the Tsar.
“I don’t know,” I said, keenly aware that it was a coward’s answer.
Darya squeezed her scoop till her knuckles bled white. “Each week everything costs more and more but our wages stay the same. If we don’t do something about the rations, none of us will have anything to eat by the end of the month. All we can do is protest.”
I tapped my scoop hard against the grenade in front of me. I worked because I wanted to help with the war, not just because I needed the money, but I understood her frustration. “We can argue about bread and wages, but our soldiers are dying trying to protect us. We need to stay focused. Make our quotas.”
That shut her up.
For the rest of my shift, talk of the women’s march slithered along the grenade line, but we didn’t slow our pace. Despite the frizzling energy coming off the line, we met all our quotas.
—
After my shift ended, I went to the washroom, where Masha—my best friend for the past ten years—always waited for me. She would pretend to fix her hair while I scrubbed a layer of skin off my knuckles. The golden tint of the TNT never faded, no matter how much soap I used. It was becoming a routine I strangely appreciated. But today, instead of styling her hair, Masha was waving a rolled-up sheet of paper at me like a baton. The words Resist the Rations! blurred before my eyes.
“We have to march, Katya,” she said. Her thick, dark braid was pulled over a shoulder and tied with a remnant of war ribbon, frayed at the ends. Despite the worn-out ribbon, Masha glowed with the sort of health that had become increasingly rare as the war raged on. She stood half a head taller than me, as strong and golden-skinned as the fabled Amazons.
“I’m going home,” I said, batting the paper out of my face and switching on the faucet.
The water stung like an army of little bees in the cracks and folds of my skin. I grabbed a cake of soap and a yellowed brush and started scrubbing the poison and the cold off the backs of my hands.
Masha tapped the paper on the tip of my nose, right where it’d been itching all afternoon, and I flicked some water at her face. She laughed for a moment before straightening her mouth again.
“Come with me to Nevsky.” Nevsky Prospekt, Petrograd’s main street, was where everything important happened. If the rumors were true, it would be full of women today, packed in like herring in a tin. “Just for a few minutes, at least. If it’s only a handful of college students and a granny or two, we’ll pretend we were going shopping. But I want to see it for myself. I don’t want to wait for tomorrow’s newspapers.”
“Mmm.” I dried my hands on the sides of my skirt, always the cleanest spot. It was hard to tell if Masha was excited about the women’s march itself, or if she was only excited about having something different to talk about.
“Which side are you on?” I asked, taking off my hair kerchief.
“That’s not a fair question, and you know it. I’m on the side of not starving to death.”
“We’ll hardly starve,” I pointed out. Her family had enough tinned food to last until Masha had grandchildren. And because my father was an army colonel, my brother and I had access to food stores not publicly available. Besides, we were used to living simply. As children, we’d spent most of our holidays with our father’s regiment, mimicking how the soldiers marched, trained, and lived. We would survive this food shortage . . . provided I managed to pay off Maxim’s gambling debts soon.
Masha leaned against the sink basin, her gaze roaming across the bathroom to the other girls scrubbing and primping. She didn’t have to say anything for me to know she hadn’t meant us. She meant them.
“Idealist,” I sighed as I untied my factory apron.