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 7-10Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 7 Summary
Lev and Kolya arrive at the home of Sonya, Kolya’s friend, who welcomes them warmly and sympathizes with Lev over the loss of his home and friends. After some flirtatious banter between Kolya and Sonya, they are invited into the sitting room where they meet six more of Sonya’s friends—doctors and nurses who have been trying to save bombing victims. They tell Lev that a few people survived the bombing of the Kirov.
Lev sleeps on the sitting room floor with the other visitors, while Kolya spends the night with Sonya in her bedroom. Lev is lonely and extremely envious of Kolya’s popularity with women.
Chapter 8 Summary
The next morning sees Lev and Kolya investigating the market vendor’s incredulous claim that an old man near the Narva Gate has chickens. After waiting outside the locked building, they are extremely surprised when two girls arrive and tell them that the chickens really do exist. As Kolya charms the girls into letting them into the building, Lev once again seethes with envy at Kolya’s seductive effect on women. At the same time, he is haunted with grief over the fate of his neighbors in the Kirov.
When Lev and Kolya reach the roof, they do indeed find a chicken coop, but inside is a haunting scene: the dead body of an old man, empty nesting boxes, and a young boy who is still alive but so malnourished and cold that he is only hours from death. He refuses food, but when they discover one remaining chicken alive inside the boy’s coat, he offers it for free. Lev and Kolya try to persuade the boy to come downstairs with them, but he refuses to move, so they take the chicken and reluctantly leave the boy to die.
Chapter 9 Summary
Back at Sonya’s apartment, the chicken is named Darling, kept warm, and offered food, which it refuses. They realize it is barely alive and unlikely to lay any eggs at all, let alone a dozen eggs by the deadline on Thursday.
While they ponder how to look after the chicken, the playwright Gerasimov is heard voicing political propaganda on the radio. When Lev angrily expresses his opinion of Gerasimov and his denunciation of other writers, Kolya correctly guesses that Lev’s father was Abraham Beniov: “He was a fine writer. Truly, Lev, I’m not saying this to be kind” (137).
Meanwhile, Timofei, one of Sonya’s doctor friends, arrives and informs them that the chicken is actually a rooster and therefore cannot lay eggs.
Chapter 10 Summary
The rooster is slaughtered for soup, and Lev, Kolya, Sonya, and Timofei enjoy their best meal since the previous summer. While Kolya and Sonya retire to her bedroom, Lev plays chess with Timofei, who realizes that Lev is a very talented player. When Kolya wakes Lev early the next morning, he looks at the chessboard and also expresses surprise at Lev’s mastery of chess.
Kolya announces that they are going to walk 50 kilometers to Mga, behind German lines, where Sonya’s uncle runs a poultry collective. Warm and well-fed after the previous night’s soup, Lev is reluctant to get up but realizes that it is difficult not to obey the persuasive Kolya, who has an air of natural authority. Kolya reassures Lev that he will not let him die.
Chapters 7-10 Analysis
While Lev continues to be grateful to Kolya for saving his life, and now admires him in a way he did not when they first met, he is also plagued by jealousy, for Kolya’s looks and charm have a seductive effect on every woman he meets. The inexperienced Lev suffers from an inferiority complex, which may explain why he is so eager to become a Russian hero, and why he is so hard on himself when he does not live up to this ideal:
This wasn’t the way I had imagined my adventures, but reality ignored my wishes from the get-go, giving me a body best suited for stacking books in the library, injecting so much fear into my veins that I could only cower in the stairwell when the violence came […] Still, if there wasn’t greatness in me, maybe I had the talent to recognize it in others, even in the most irritating others (147).
These chapters also develop the dynamic between Lev and Kolya. Lev’s jealousy and Kolya’s boasting indicate both boys’ youth and immaturity. However, Lev recognizes that Kolya has a natural authority, which positions Lev as a little brother figure and frames Kolya as an older brother who, despite all his charm and arrogance, prioritizes Lev’s safety and promises to ensure it. In this way Kolya becomes a mentor, inhabiting some of the roles left vacant after Lev’s father was taken by the NKVD.
