82 pages • 2 hours read
David BenioffCity of Thieves
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2008A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 25-27Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 25 Summary
After Lev’s painful goodbye to Vika, he and Kolya trudge on through the snow. Lev is so exhausted he can barely put one foot in front of the other, but Kolya tries to keep his spirits up with his usual banter. A moment of panic ensues when Kolya falls over and they fear that the eggs—which are being carried inside his sweater—have broken, but all 12 have survived.
As Lev worries about where he will live when they are back in Leningrad, they are suddenly startled by the sound of gunshots—Russian soldiers have mistaken them for Germans. It is only as they follow orders to drop their weapons and walk toward the soldiers that Kolya realizes he has been shot in the backside and cannot walk.
They prove their innocence by showing the colonel’s letter, but Kolya is already bleeding profusely and in need of help. A lieutenant in an armored car takes them to a nearby hospital, but Kolya has already lost a lot of blood. When he turns blue and struggles to breathe, Lev knows that his friend is not going to make it. They are less than 100 meters from the hospital when Kolya loses his fight for life.
Chapter 26 Summary
Lev arrives at his destination alone. At the colonel’s headquarters, he is shocked to see mountains of luxurious food stockpiled for the wedding, particularly when he realizes that his box of eggs is not the first: “Another dozen eggs […] That’s four dozen now” (381). Nonetheless, the colonel is friendly and sympathetic over Kolya’s death. He is also extremely generous, giving Lev two Grade One ration cards, which entitle him to an officer’s rations.
Chapter 27 Summary
The final chapter moves forward in time: The siege ends in January 1944, and Lev celebrates with Sonya and her friends. He is now in the army, working as a journalist for the Red Star, the army’s newspaper.
The following year, as the war winds down, Lev is living in an apartment with two fellow journalists when he is interrupted by a knock on the door. In the hallway stands an attractive woman with long red hair, carrying a box of eggs: Vika has found him, just as she promised when they said goodbye in the woods. When Lev suggests making an omelet and she promptly responds that she does not cook, we recognize her from the beginning of the novel, when we first met Lev as an elderly grandfather accompanied by his wife who does not cook.
Chapters 25-27 Analysis
The sadness of Vika’s parting is followed by a brief interlude in which Kolya chatters away, distracting Lev from his pain with his two favorite topics of conversation: his novel and his next sexual conquest. The scene appears relatively relaxed, in contrast to the violent tension of the Abendroth episode, and the reader is lulled into thinking that Lev and Kolya are now safely on the final leg of their journey.
Kolya’s sudden and unexpected death is therefore all the more dramatic and shocking, though his wound does not initially seem life threatening. For both Lev and the reader, the realization that Kolya is going to die seeps in gradually. There is also something tragically pathetic about the nature of his death: Having survived starvation, cannibals, and Nazis, Kolya is shot and killed by his own side. The irony of the situation does not escape him, as he continues to make jokes right to the end: “Can you believe it? Shot in the ass by my own people” (378). It is Lev, as always, who articulates the seriousness of the situation, as he realizes how much he loves his friend:
I should have said something, I wish that I had, even though I still can’t think of the right words. If I told him that I loved him, would he have winked and said, ‘No wonder your hand’s on my ass’? (378).
The absence of any narrative comment on the aftermath of Kolya’s death increases its impact on the reader. Even Lev, usually so burdened by thoughts, cannot put his devastating loss into words. Instead we simply witness the solitary figure completing the final leg of the journey on his own. The colonel’s friendly manner, generosity, and genuine concern over Kolya’s death builds on the glimmer of sympathy we may have felt for him at the beginning of the novel, when Lev guesses that this powerful man may also be a victim of torture and oppression. Though Lev is shocked by the lavish display of food and the other boxes of eggs, the colonel’s comment suggests that he is simply doing his best to survive, and keep his family happy, in horrifying circumstances:
‘Those words you want to say right now? Don’t say them.’
He smiled and cuffed my cheek with something close to real affection.
‘And that, my friend, is the secret to living a long life’ (382).
In the final chapter, when Lev and Vika reunite at the end of the war, the poignancy of the scene and the overwhelming emotions experienced by Lev are again emphasized by the author’s skillful use of understatement. Lev, as always, berates himself for his lack of verbal dexterity:
For three and a half years I had dreamed of her—literally, she had marched in her oversize coveralls through half the dreams I remembered—and all I could think to say when she finally arrived was, ‘You have hair?’ (387).
Still, even as some character traits remain the same, this final chapter reveals that Lev has fully come of age. This is explicitly suggested by his new position in the army, as he was too young to enlist at the start of the novel. But it is also suggested by his levity and clarity of emotion, which contrasts with Kolya’s humor even as he lays dying. That Lev works as a journalist is another demonstration of his maturity. Lev battled with his thoughts throughout the mission, but in the end he comes to wield his worldview and his words professionally, not just to support himself but also to serve the city he holds so dear.
