The winter of 1941 was the coldest in a century. Leningrad was surrounded, its people starving, its buildings crumbling. But in a small apartment, behind blackout curtains, a piano sat untouched. Its owner, Anna, had not played in months. She was too hungry, too tired, too sad.
Then the soldiers came.
They were billeted in her building, young men with hollow eyes and frozen hands. One of them, a captain named Nikolai, noticed the piano.
"Do you play?" he asked.
She shook her head. "Not anymore."
He sat on the bench, lifted the lid, and played a few notes. The sound was strange