HELEN DUNMORE: The Siege Remember to support your ideas with details from the writing. Read this extract, and then answer the question that follows it: But the terrible thing about coming back to life is that you can’t be at peace any more. There are a thousand things to torment you. Before, I didn’t mind what happened. I could let it all slip away. I didn’t listen to the radio, even though Marina has it on all the time. But now I’m afraid, just like everyone else. When Marina takes the boy down to the air-raid shelter, I’m afraid that I’ll never see them again. I lie here: that’s all I can do. I listen to the anti-aircraft guns and sometimes I can hear planes. They aren’t our fighters. They drum above the roof and I find myself praying, even though I never pray. Always the same words: if it falls, let it be a bomb, not an incendiary. The sheets stick to me with sweat. I am not afraid of bombs. But if an incendiary took hold here, I wouldn’t be able to get away. I’m afraid of that. Last night I dreamed of Marina and the child. They were trying to wade towards me through a river which was full of fire instead of water. But he slipped and went down and then he floated away, slowly at first then faster and faster, with the fire lapping around his head. Marina kept on looking at me. I knew she wanted to tell me why she hadn’t rescued him. It was because it was too late for him. He would suffer too much if he was brought up into the air again. When I woke up I was wet with sweat and the guns were still crackling. They drop phosphorus bombs. Water can’t put out phosphorus: it burns and burns. Last night there was a terrible screaming that went on and on, and I think it was that which made me dream about Kolya, and the fire. Marina says they weren’t human screams. A bomb hit the zoo and the animals were wounded. Some of the cages were blown open and the animals were running up and down the streets. I suppose they had to be shot in the end. Marina says they’re not selling any food off the rations now. The restaurants are closed. She sits on my bed and tells me how many potatoes we’ve got left, how many onions, how many grammes of lard. She counts them over aloud, then counts them again. We both enjoy it. If she stops, I ask her more questions. ‘How many potatoes did you say exactly, Marina?’ Kolya loves peeping into the store-cupboard and seeing how many jars there are. He doesn’t try to touch anything. He stares solemnly for a while, and then he says, ‘We’ve got lots of food, haven’t we, Marina?’ She answers, ‘Yes, we’re very fortunate,’ and he nods, satisfied, and goes back to his game. There’s been further bombing of food stocks, but no one knows exactly where. Now we know that they don’t just want to defeat us. They want to destroy us. Nothing in Leningrad matters to them at all. Not a stone, or a child. Carthage must be destroyed. But there’s freedom in knowing it. We can’t make deals with them any more. For so much for our pact. We have no choice left. We have to resist. [from Chapter 15] How does Dunmore vividly convey Mikhail's thoughts and feelings to you at this moment in the novel?