6
Alexander started to lose hope. In the distance across the river, the natural front boundary, he could see the Germans amassing their troops and tanks and battalions of gun-ready, aggressive, and impeccably trained soldiers who would stop at nothing, certainly not at the hundreds of shovel-bearing volunteers.
As far as his eye could see, there were only two Soviet tanks. On the other side of the river there were at least thirty Panzers. Alexander’s platoon of twenty men had been reduced to twelve, and fields of mines now lay between him and Leningrad. Three of his men died when a mine they were planting went off. They didn’t have experience with mines, only with rifles, but all of their rifles had been taken by the army, all but Alexander’s and his two sergeants’.
Turning away from the river, he didn’t know which way to look.
In the late evening the new colonel called Alexander into his command quarters. Alexander didn’t like him nearly as much as he had liked Pyadyshev.
“Lieutenant, how many men do you have left in your charge?”
“Just twelve, sir.”
“Plenty.”
“Plenty for what?”
“The Germans have just bombed the Luga train station,” the colonel said. “Now the trains from Leningrad carrying more men and ammunition can’t reach the front. We need you and your men to clear the debris scattered on the railroad tracks so the engineers can repair the railroad and we can resume service by tomorrow morning.”
“It’s getting dark, sir.”
“I know, Lieutenant. I wish I could give you daylight, but I can’t. The white nights are behind us, and this has to be done immediately.”
As Alexander was about to leave, the colonel said, almost as an aside, “Oh, and I heard there were volunteers hiding out in the station when the bombs destroyed it. You might want to remove them.”
At Luga Station, Alexander and his men used kerosene lamps to survey the damage. The once brick building lay broken on the ground, and the rail tracks were knocked out for fifty meters.
Alexander called out, “Is anybody under there? Speak up!”
No one answered.
Coming closer to the wreckage, he repeated, “Anybody in there?”
He thought he heard a moan.
“They’re all dead, Lieutenant,” said Kashnikov. “Look at it.”
“Yes, but listen — Anyone there?” He started moving the large pieces of stone himself. “Help me, will you?”
“We should get to the tracks first,” suggested Kashnikov. “So the engineers can restore electricity to the railroad.”
Straightening out and leveling his cool gaze on him, Alexander said, “Railroad tracks before people, Sergeant?”
“On orders from the colonel, Lieutenant,” Kashnikov mumbled.
“No, Sergeant! On orders from me. Now, move.” Alexander pushed away boulders and bits of window and doorframes. There was little light, and it was hard to see. Dust and debris settled on his hands, and he cut himself on the broken glass without even feeling it. He realized it when the blood dripped from one hand to the other.
Alexander definitely heard something besides crickets. “Did you hear that?” he said. It was a soft moan.
“No, sir,” said Kashnikov, looking at him with concern.
“Kashnikov, have your hands fallen off? Quicker, I tell you.”
They worked quicker.
Finally, underneath the brick and burned beams, they found one body. Then two. Then three. Then a pile of bodies lying one on top of another in a pyramid underneath the rubble. Alexander thought they were too neat. Random force could not have stacked them. They had been placed this way. They could not have stacked themselves. He strained to listen. There was that moan again. He moved one dead man, another dead woman, anxiously shoving the kerosene lamp into their faces. Another moan.
At the bottom, underneath the third body, Alexander found Tatiana.
Her back was to him, and on her head was an army helmet. He recognized neither the clothes on her body nor the helmet on her head, but even before he removed the helmet, he knew it was her by the shape of the soft, small frame he had watched so intently for many days.
“Tatia . . .” he said in a disbelieving voice.
Alexander threw off the rest of the bodies, cleared off the last of the beams, and pushed the hair back from her face. She was barely conscious, and in the bleak yellow light from the lamps she looked barely alive, but it was from her that the soft moans had come and were continuing every few seconds.
Her clothing, her hair, her shoes, her face were covered with dust and blood. “Tania, come on,” he said, rubbing her cheek, kneeling by her. “Come on.” Her cheek was warm. That was a good sign.
“Is this the Tania?” asked Kashnikov.
Alexander didn’t reply. He was thinking of how best to pick her up. He could not tell, covered in blood as she was, where she was injured.
“I think she’s dying,” said Kashnikov.
“Oh, you’re a f*cking doctor now?” Alexander snapped. “She’s not dying. Now, stop talking. Stay here with the men to clear the area. They need your help. I’m putting you in charge, Sergeant. Afterward quickly make your way back to Leningrad. Do you hear me? Can you do that? We’ve given them our arms, and eight of our men, and we found her. We are finished here in Luga. So hurry.” Carefully he turned Tatiana over and lifted her into his arms. She was limp and still moaning.
“What about the wounded, Lieutenant?”
“Do you hear any more noise? You didn’t even hear this one. Now suddenly you’re concerned. The rest are dead. Check them out yourself if you wish. I will get her to the medic.”
“Do you need me to come with you? She’ll need a stretcher,” Kashnikov said.
“No she won’t,” said Alexander. “I’ll carry her myself.”
It was eleven o’clock at night by the time Alexander had walked three kilometers back to the encampment with Tatiana in his arms and searched for the medic.
He did not find him, but he found the medic’s assistant, Mark, asleep in a tent.
“The medic is dead,” Mark said. “Fragment cut him in two.”
“Do we have another medic?”
“No,” said Mark. “I’ll have to do.”
“You’ll do.”
He took one look at Tatiana’s soaked body and said, “She’s bled out. Leave her outside.” He lay back down on his cot.
“She’s not bled out,” said Alexander. “I don’t think it’s her blood.” The assistant obviously wanted to be asleep again. Alexander wasn’t having any of it.
“It’s hard to tell with so little light,” Mark said. “If she lives till morning, I’ll look at her then.”
Alexander didn’t budge, holding Tatiana in his arms. “Corporal,” he said, “you will look at her now.”
Sitting up on his cot, Mark sighed. “Lieutenant, it’s very late.”
“Late for what? Do you have a sheet or another bed for her?”
“A bed? What is this, a resort? Let me get you a sheet.”
Mark laid the white sheet on the ground. Alexander first kneeled with Tatiana in his arms, then set her down. Examining her, Mark peered at her head, at her scalp, at her face and teeth. He looked at her neck and lifted her arms. When he lifted her leg, Tatiana moaned louder than before.
“Ah,” said Mark. “Do you have your knife?”
Alexander gave him his knife.
She was wearing long trousers. Mark cut open one trouser leg, then the other. Alexander saw that her right ankle and the shin above it were swollen and black. “Broken shinbone,” Mark said. “So much blood on her and just this so far. It’s badly broken, though, fractured in several places. Let’s see the rest.” Unbuttoning her shirt, he cut open her once white vest and examined her chest, ribs, and stomach.
Blood stained her fragile body.
Alexander wanted to look away.
Mark sighed. “I can’t tell what’s hers, what isn’t,” he said. “Nothing on the legs is oozing fresh blood.” He touched her stomach. “You were right. She doesn’t feel clammy or cold.”
Staying back, Alexander said nothing. His heart was heavy and relieved.
“See here? She’s got three broken ribs on the right side. Where did you find her?”
“Under the train station. Under brick and dead bodies.”
“Well, that explains it. She’s lucky to be alive. Charmed, I’d say.” Mark stood up. “I have no bed for her in our hospital tent. Get her there and leave her on the ground. In the morning someone will take care of her.”
“I’m not leaving her on the ground until morning.”
“What are you worried about? She is not as injured as some of the others.” Mark shook his head. “You should see them.”
“I’m an officer in the Red Army, Corporal,” said Alexander. “I’ve seen wounded men. You’re sure you don’t have a cot for her somewhere?”
Mark shrugged. “There’s no shrapnel in her eyes, no life-threatening wounds. I’m not kicking out someone with a stomach wound to make room for her.”
“Of course not,” said Alexander.
“I don’t know what we’re going to do with her tomorrow,” Mark said. “She needs a proper hospital. Her leg needs to be set and put in a cast immediately. We certainly can’t do it here.”
Alexander shook his head. The railroad was bombed out, and the army had taken his truck. “Don’t worry about her tomorrow,” he said. “Have you got some more towels and some bandages for tonight?” Bending down, Alexander covered Tatiana with the sheet she lay on and picked her up. “And another sheet.”
Mark reluctantly went to his medic’s bag.
“What about some morphine?”
“No, Lieutenant.” He laughed. “I have no morphine for her. No morphine for a girl with some broken bones. She’ll have to live through the pain.”
Mark placed three towels and some bandages on top of Tatiana, and Alexander carried her to his tent.
After laying her down on the sheet, he pulled closed her shirt and went to the stream to get some water in a pail. When he returned, he cut a towel into small pieces, dipped one of them in the cool water, and began washing her face and hair. He cleaned her forehead and her cheeks and her eyes and her mouth. “Tatia,” he whispered, “what kind of a crazy girl are you?” Alexander saw her open her eyes. Mutely they watched each other. “Tatia,” he whispered again.
Her hand reached up to his face. “Alexander?” she said weakly, with no surprise. “Am I dreaming?”
“No,” he said.
“I must be . . .” She trailed off. “I was just dreaming . . . of your face. What’s happened?”
“You’re in my tent. What were you doing at Luga Station? It’s been destroyed by the Germans.”
Tatiana took a moment to answer. “Going back to Leningrad, I think,” she replied. “What are you doing here?”
He could have lied; he thought once he would have wanted to, feeling so angry and betrayed at the way she had discarded him. But the truth was so plain. “Looking for you.”
Her eyes filled again. “What’s happened? Why am I so cold?”
“Nothing,” he said hastily. “The medic’s assistant, Mark, had to cut open your trousers and your—”
Tatiana lifted her hands and felt through her open clothes. Alexander looked away. He had managed to pretend so well with her at Kirov, to keep his distance, but he couldn’t pretend that finding her alive and covered with blood meant nothing, that saving her meant nothing, that she meant nothing.
She brought her hand to her face and stared at the blood. “Is it my blood?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Then what’s wrong with me? Why can’t I move?”
“Your ribs are broken—”
She groaned.
“And your leg.”
“My back,” she whispered. “Something is wrong with my back.”
Anxious and concerned, Alexander said, “What’s the matter?”
“I don’t know. It’s burning.”
“It’s probably the ribs,” he said. “I broke a rib in the Winter War last year. It feels like your back is on fire.”
“Oozing.”
Leaving the wet rag in the bucket of water, Alexander looked into her face. “Tania, can you hear me all right?”
“Hmm.”
“Can you sit up?”
Tatiana tried to sit up. “I can’t,” she whispered. Her hands were holding her ripped tunic and undershirt together.
Alexander’s whole heart was giving out. He lifted her to a sitting position. “Let me take the clothes off you. They’re no good to you anyway; they’re all blood-soaked. You can’t wear them.”
She shook her head.
“I have to take them off you,” he said. “I will look at your back, and then I’ll clean you. You don’t want to get an infection. You will if you have open wounds. I’ll clean you, I’ll wash the blood off your hair, and then I’ll bandage your ribs and leg. You’ll feel better right away once they’re bandaged.”
She shook her head, sitting against him.
“Don’t be scared, Tania,” Alexander said. He held her to him, and after a few moments, when she didn’t say anything, he carefully took off her tunic and then her vest. Small and hurt and weak, she pressed her naked body against him; her blood-covered back was underneath his hands, and her skin felt warm. She needs me so much to take care of her, Alexander thought, gently feeling for any gashes. And I desperately need to take care of her. “Where does it hurt?”
“Where you’re touching me,” she whispered. “Right under your fingers.”
He leaned over her shoulder to take a look. Her back was grimy, but the blood was already thick. “I think you’ve probably been cut. I’ll wash your back in a minute, but I think you’re all right.” Alexander pressed her head against his chest. His lips pressed against her damp hair.
He lowered her onto the white sheet. Her hands covered her breasts, and she closed her eyes. “Tatiasha,” Alexander said, “I need to clean you.”
Her eyes remained closed. “Let me do it myself,” she whispered.
“All right,” he said, “but you can’t even sit up by yourself.”
She didn’t reply at first. “Give me a wet towel, and I’ll do it myself.”
“Tatia, let me take care of you.” He stopped and took a breath. “Please. Don’t be afraid. I will never hurt you.”
“I know that,” she muttered, unable or unwilling to open her eyes.
“I tell you what,” Alexander said. “Don’t worry. Stay like that. I’ll — wash around you.”
He washed her hair, her arms, her stomach, and the top of her chest, all under the glimmering light of a kerosene lamp in the corner of the tent. Tatiana groaned loudly when he touched her blackened rib cage.
As he cleaned her, Alexander soothingly whispered, “One of these days, just one, I’m not saying now, but soon, maybe you can explain to me what you were doing in a train station during bombing. All right? I want you to think about what you’re going to tell me. Look how lucky you are. Move your arms a bit. After I dry you, I’ll bandage your ribs. They’ll heal on their own in a few weeks. You’ll be as good as new.”
Her eyes remaining closed, Tatiana turned her face away, her hands on her breasts. Alexander removed her torn trousers, leaving her in her underwear, and washed her legs. She flinched and fainted when he touched her broken shin. He waited for her to come to.
“It hurts very much?”
“Like it’s about to be cut off,” muttered Tatiana. “Do you have anything for the pain?”
“Just vodka.”
“I’m not much for vodka.”
As he was drying her stomach with a towel, Tatiana, her eyes still closed, her hands still covering herself, whispered, “Please . . . don’t look at me.” Her voice broke.
His own voice breaking, Alexander said, “It’s all right, Tatiasha.” He bent down and kissed the top of her soft breast above her hand. “It’s all right.” He left his lips on her skin for a moment and then straightened up. “I have to turn you over, I have to clean the rest of you.”
“I can’t turn over by myself,” she said.
“I will turn you over.” And he did, cleaning her back with the same careful, tender meticulousness he had washed the rest of her. “Your back is all right. Many glass cuts. It’s the ribs that are burning you.”
Her face in the sheet, Tatiana muttered, “What am I going to wear? This was all I had.”
“Don’t worry. We’ll find you something tomorrow.” Turning her around, Alexander sat her up and patted her dry. He bandaged her from behind so his face wouldn’t be just centimeters from her breasts, which she continued to keep covered. He wrapped the bandage around her ribs, tying it carefully under her arms, wanting to kiss the top of her shoulder. He didn’t.
After laying Tatiana down, he covered her upper body with a blanket and then tightly bandaged her leg, using a wood splint for extra support. “How is that?” he asked, managing a smile. “Told you, good as new. Now, come here, hold on to me.” She could barely lift her arms to his neck.
Alexander moved her to his trench-coat bed on the ground, and when he set her down, Tatiana held on to him for a moment before she let go. He covered her with a woolen blanket.
Pulling the blanket to her neck, she said, “Why am I so cold? I’m not going to die, am I?”
“No,” Alexander said as he cleaned up the sheets and the towels. “You’re going to be fine.” He smiled. “We just have to get you back to the city.”
“I can’t walk. How are we going to do that?”
Patting her good leg lightly, Alexander said, “Tania, when you’re with me, don’t worry. I will take care of everything.”
“I’m not worried,” Tatiana replied, staring at him intensely in the dim light.
“Maybe the railroad will be repaired tomorrow. That’s only three kilometers from here. I wish I still had my truck, but the army took it. They need it more.” He paused. “We need to leave early tomorrow morning.” He moved a little closer to her. “Where were you before you decided to go under the German fire?”
“Downriver. Under the German fire.” Tatiana swallowed. “They’re on the other side.”
“I know. Tomorrow or the next day they’ll be on this side. We will need to leave at dawn. Now, stay here, and don’t go anywhere.” He smiled. “My Primus stove is right outside. I’m going to go and get some clean water from the stream, wash, and then I’ll make you some tea.” Out of his rucksack he took a bottle of vodka and brought it to her lips, lifting her head slightly.
“I don’t—”
“Please drink it. You’re going to be extremely sore. This will make it a bit better. Have you ever had anything broken before?”
“My arm, years ago,” Tatiana replied, and drank with a shudder.
“Why did you cut your hair?” Alexander asked, holding her head, looking down at her. He needed to shut his eyes for a moment not to continue to look at her so close to him.
“I didn’t want it to be in the way,” she said. “You hate it?” She looked up at him with her sweet, defenseless eyes.
“I don’t hate it,” Alexander said hoarsely. It took all his strength not to lean down and kiss her. He laid her on his coat and left the tent, needing to gather himself emotionally. Her helplessness and vulnerability had made his barely hidden feelings for her float to the surface, where they bobbed now, tantalizingly in reach, achingly out. He went to the stream and then made her some tea and went back inside. She was half awake and half conscious. He wished he had some morphine.
“I have some chocolate for you. Do you want a piece?”
Tatiana moved onto her good side and sucked on a small piece of chocolate as Alexander sat by her on the grass, his knees drawn up.
“Do you want the rest?”
He shook his head. “Why did you do this crazy thing, Tania?”
“To find my brother.” She glanced at him and looked away.
“Why didn’t you just come back to the barracks and ask me?”
“I had already gone once. I thought if you knew something, you’d come and see me.” She looked at him. “Did you—”
“I’m sorry,” said Alexander. He watched her round face pale. She was trying to be so brave. “Tania, I’m really sorry,” he said, “but Pasha was sent to Novgorod.”
With a choking whimper, Tatiana said, “Oh . . . no. Please, don’t say any more. Please.” She started to shiver and couldn’t stop. “I’m so cold,” she said, her hand coming up to rest on his boot. “Can you give me my tea before I fall asleep?”
He held her head up and the cup to her mouth as she drank.
“I’m tired,” she whispered, leaning back. Her eyes never left his face. Just like at Kirov.
Alexander started to move away before her voice sounded. “Where are you going?”
“Nowhere. Right here,” he replied. “I’ll sleep here, and early tomorrow we’ll set out for home.”
“You’ll be cold on the grass,” she whispered. “Come here.”
Alexander shook his head.
“Please, Shura,” said Tatiana in her dulcet voice, her hand stretching out to him. “Please come near me.”
He couldn’t say no even if he wanted to. Turning off the lamp, he removed his boots and his bloodied and soiled uniform, fumbled around his rucksack for a clean undershirt, and lay down on his trench coat next to Tatiana, covering them both with the woolen blanket.
It was pitch black in the tent. He lay on his back, and she lay on her left side, in the crook of his arm. Alexander heard the noise of the crickets. He heard her soft breath. He felt her warm breath on his shoulder and chest. He felt her naked body under his arm, pressing against his side. He couldn’t breathe.
“Tania?”
“Yes?” Her expectant voice quivering.
“Are you tired? Too tired to talk?”
“Not too tired to talk.” Less expectantly.
“Start at the beginning, and don’t stop until you get to Luga Station. What happened to you?”
After she told him everything, he waited a moment and then asked incredulously, “Did you cover yourself by crawling under a pile of bodies before the station collapsed?”
“Yes,” she replied.
Alexander was silent for a few moments. “Nice military maneuver, Tatia.”
“Thank you.”
They were quiet, and then he heard her crying. He held her closer. “I’m sorry about your brother.”
“Shura,” Tatiana said, speaking so softly he had to strain to hear, “remember I told you about how Pasha and I used to go to Lake Ilmen in Novgorod?”
“I remember, Tania.” He stroked her hair.
“My Aunt Rita and Uncle Boris and my cousin Marina—”
“The cousin Marina?”
“What do you mean?”
“The cousin Marina you were going to visit on the bus?” He smiled in the dark and felt her hand lightly pinch his stomach.
“Yes. They had a dacha and a rowboat on that lake, and Pasha and I used to take turns rowing. I’d row halfway across the lake and he’d row halfway. Well, one day we got into a stupid argument about where halfway actually was. He just didn’t want to let me row, so he kept arguing and arguing, and then yelling, and then screaming, and finally he said, ‘You want this oar? Well, here, you can have it,’ and he swung it at me and knocked me right out of the boat into the lake.” Tatiana shivered. Alexander heard her laugh a little. “I went into the water, and I was fine, but I didn’t want him to think I was fine, so I held my breath and went under the boat, and I heard him from above yelling for me, more and more panicked, more and more frantic, and suddenly he jumped into the water to rescue me, and I swam to the other side of the boat, climbed in, picked up one of the oars and whistled for him. As soon as he turned around, I whacked him on the head.” Tatiana wiped her face with the hand that had just been touching Alexander. “Well, with my luck, he of course lost consciousness. He had put on a life jacket—”
“Unlike you?”
“Unlike me. I saw him floating in the water facedown, and I thought he was just playing a trick on me, too. I wanted to see how long he could hold his breath. I was convinced he couldn’t hold it as long as me. So I let him float for a minute, then another minute. Finally I jumped in and pulled him to the boat. Don’t know how I got him in. And rowed all the way back to shore by myself while he lay there and moaned that I had hit him too hard. Oh, did I get it from my parents when they saw the bruise on Pasha’s head. And after I’d been thoroughly punished, then he told everybody that he was just faking and was conscious the whole time.” She started to cry again. “Do you know how I feel now? Like I’m waiting any minute for Pasha to come out of the water and tell me this was all just a big joke.”
His voice cracking, Alexander said, “Tatiasha, the f*cking Germans just hit him too hard with that oar.”
“I know,” she whispered. “I’m so sad he was alone without all of us.” She fell silent, and Alexander, too, as he lay and listened to her breath recover its rhythm. That he was alone without you, Tatiana, thought Alexander. He would have felt better had he been with you.
He listened to her paused breath, as if she were trying to ask him something. He continued to stroke her hair to give her strength. “What, Tatia?”
“Shura, are you asleep?”
“No.”
“I’ve missed you . . . coming to Kirov. Is that all right to say?”
“And I’ve missed you,” Alexander said, rubbing his lips against her gold-silk, down-feather hair. “And it’s all right to say.”
There was nothing else from her, except her hand, moving on his chest, gently, tenderly, up and down. He held her close. A groan of pain escaped her, and another, and another.
Minutes passed.
Minutes.
And then hours.
“Shura, are you asleep?”
“No.”
“I just wanted to say . . . thank you, soldier.”
Alexander’s eyes stared into the blackness, as he tried to envisage moments of his own life, of his childhood, of his mother and father, of Barrington. He saw nothing. Felt nothing but Tatiana lying on his fallen-asleep arm, caressing his chest. She stopped and placed her hand on his rapid heart. He felt her lips lightly press against his shirt, and then she slept. And finally he slept, too.
When Alexander first saw a tinge of blue-gray light from outside the tent, he said, “Tania?”
“I’m awake,” she said, her hand still on his chest.
He disentangled himself and went to wash by the stream in the woods, where it was still dark. There was no doing it on the banks of the Luga River. The Germans were only seventy-five meters across the water, their cannons and artillery pointed at the Soviet men who slept hugging their machine guns. Not Alexander — he had slept hugging Tatiana.
Coming back to the tent with clean water, he sat Tatiana up covered in the blanket, helped her wash, and then gave her some bread and some more tea.
“How are you feeling this morning?” he asked. “Spry?” He smiled.
“Yes,” she said weakly. “I think I can hop on my good leg.” He saw by her constricted face she was in terrible pain.
Alexander told her he would be right back and went to wake up the medic and ask for some clothes for her and some medication. Mark had no medication, but he found her a dress that belonged to one of the nurses who had died a few days ago. “Corporal, I need one lousy gram of morphine.”
“I don’t have it,” Mark snapped. “They shoot you for stealing morphine. I don’t have it for a broken leg. Bring her to me with intestinal damage and I won’t have it. You want her to have our precious morphine or a captain in the Red Army?”
Alexander did not answer that question.
After returning, he sat Tatiana up and slipped the dress over her head, taking care not to hurt her or to look at her bare and bandaged body.
“You’re a good man, Alexander,” she said, reaching up and laying her small palm onto his face.
“But a man first,” he said quietly, leaning into her hand. He paused briefly before continuing. “Your leg must hurt so much. Have some vodka again. It’ll dull the pain.”
“All right,” she said. “Anything you say.”
He let her have a few swigs. “Ready to go?”
“Leave me,” Tatiana said. “Go yourself, leave me. They’ll have room for me in the field tent eventually. People die, beds become free.”
“You think I came all the way to Luga to leave you waiting for a hospital bed?” He dismantled his tent and packed up his trench coat and blanket. She sat on the ground. “Let me help you up. Can you stand on one leg?”
“Yes,” she said, groaning. Tatiana stood in front of Alexander, barely coming up to the top of his chest. All he wanted to do was kiss her head. Please don’t look up at me, Alexander thought. She was very unsteady, holding on to his arms and swaying. “Put your rucksack on me,” she said. “It’ll be easier for you.”
He did. “Tania, I’m going to crouch in front of you, and you’re going to grab my neck. Just hold on tight, hear me?”
“I will. What about your rifle?”
“You on my back, rifle in my hands,” Alexander said. “Come on, we’ve got to go.”
She grabbed on to him, and he stood up with her on his back, taking hold of his weapon. “Ready?”
“Yes.”
Alexander heard her groaning. “It hurts?”
Her arms around his neck squeezed him. “It’s not bad.”
Alexander carried Tatiana on his back for three kilometers to Luga Station, which despite his hope was not repaired yet. “What now?” she asked anxiously when he stopped to rest.
He offered her a drink of water. “Now we walk through the woods to the next station.”
“How many kilometers is that?”
“Six,” he replied.
She shook her head. “Alexander, no. You can’t carry me for six more kilometers.”
“Do you have any other ideas?” he asked, crouching in front of her. “Let’s go.”
They were on a forest road making their way to the next train station north when they heard the planes just over the trees. Alexander himself would have continued walking, but he did not want to be walking with Tatiana on his back. If a bomb fell, she would be the first one to get hit.
He walked off the path, bringing her into the woods and setting her down by a fallen tree. “Lie down,” he told her, helping her lean back. He lay by her side, holding on to his rifle. “Turn onto your stomach,” he said. “And cover your head.” She didn’t move. “Don’t be afraid, Tania.”
“How can I be afraid now?” she said haltingly, lying on her back looking up at him. She wasn’t moving. She placed her hands on his chest.
“Go on,” he said, staring at her. “What? Do you need me to help? I should have taken your green helmet from the station.”
“Alexander—”
“Now that it’s morning, I’m suddenly Alexander again?”
Gazing up at him, Tatiana whispered, “Oh, Shura . . .” And Alexander could no longer bear it. He bent to her face and kissed her.
Her lips were as soft and young and full as he had imagined them to be. Tatiana’s whole body started to tremble as she kissed him back with such tenderness, such passion, such need that Alexander involuntarily emitted a small groan. He was bewildered by her hands pressing his head into hers and not letting go. “Oh, God . . .” he whispered into her parted mouth.
The crashing noise of the bombs overhead stopped them. Alexander felt that something had to stop him. The tip of the pine tree nearby caught fire, and bits of burning branches fell down into the damp forest very close to them. He turned her onto her stomach and lay next to her in the moss with his arm and half his body covering her. “Are you all right?” he whispered. “Bombs frighten you?”
“Bombs are the least of it,” she whispered back.
As soon as the shelling stopped, Alexander said, “Let’s go. We’ve got to get to the train. Let’s hurry.”
As she got up, she wouldn’t raise her eyes at him. Turning his back to her, he crouched, and she climbed on. He carried her, his arms under her knees, his hands holding his rifle.
“I’m heavy,” she said into his back.
“You’re no heavier than my ruck,” he said, panting. “Just hang on. We’ll be there soon.”
Every once in a while his rifle bumped her broken leg, and Alexander would feel her constrict in pain, but she didn’t moan, didn’t cry out. At one point he felt her put her head down on his back. He hoped she was all right.
Under a black smoky sky, amid burning woods, Alexander carried Tatiana on his back six kilometers to the next station. The nearby shelling had stopped, but the sound of explosions and artillery guns carried on all around.
At the station Alexander set her down on the ground and sank down next to her. She sidled closer to him and closer still.
“Tired?” she asked him gently.
He nodded.
They waited. The station was full of other people — women with little babies, with their elderly parents, with all their belongings. Grimy and shell-shocked, they waited for the train. Alexander took out a piece of his remaining bread and split it with Tatiana.
“No, you have it,” she said. “You need it more than I do.”
“Did you eat anything yesterday?” Alexander asked her. “No, of course you didn’t.”
“I had a raw potato, some blueberries in the forest. And the chocolate you gave me.” The length of her body and leg pressed against his side. She leaned her head on his arm and closed her eyes.
Alexander put his arm around her. “You’re going to be all right,” he said, kissing her forehead. “You’ll see. Just a little longer, and you’re going to be fine. I promise.”
The train came. It was a cattle train, with no room to sit. “Do you want to wait, maybe?” he asked. “For a passenger train?”
“No,” she replied weakly. “I’m not feeling well. Best get to Leningrad soon. Let’s get on. I’ll stand on one leg.”
Alexander lifted her onto the platform first and then jumped up himself. The carriage was crowded with dozens of other people. They stood near the edge, where they could see the countryside through the open doors. For several hours they stood compressed against each other, Tatiana leaning on him, her head on his chest, and Alexander supporting her as best he could by her arms. He couldn’t hold her tightly around her ribs or on her back. At one point he felt her body start to drift down. “No, stay up, stay up,” he said to her, keeping her upright.
And she stayed up, her arms going around him.
The doors to the carriage were left open in case people wanted to jump off. The train moved past fields and dirt roads that were filled with Soviet farmers dragging their cows and pigs and goats behind them and refugees pulling carts filled with their earthly possessions. Ambulances tried to get through the same roads past the crowds of people; motorcyclists, too. Alexander watched Tatiana’s somber face.
“What are you thinking, Tatia?”
“Why are those silly people carrying their whole lives on their backs? If I were leaving, I wouldn’t take anything. Just myself.”
He smiled. “What about all your things? You have things, don’t you?”
“Yes. But I wouldn’t take any of them.”
“Not even my Bronze Horseman book? You should take that.”
She looked up, attempting a smile. “Maybe that. But either I’m leaving to save myself or I’m saddling myself, slowing myself down, making it easier for the enemy. Don’t you think we should ask ourselves what our purpose is? Are we leaving our home? Are we starting a new life? Or are we planning to continue the old one elsewhere?”
“Those are all good questions.”
“Yes.” Pensively, she stared out at the fields.
Alexander bent and rubbed his cheek against Tatiana’s shorn head, his hand pressing her to him a little tighter. He had only one thing left over from his former life; otherwise America did not exist, except in his memory.
“I wish I could have found my brother,” he heard her whisper.
“I know,” said Alexander with emotion. “I wish I could have found him for you.”
After a pained breath, Tatiana remained silent.
The train arrived at Warsaw Station in the early evening. They sat quietly on the bench overlooking the Obvodnoy Canal and waited for the Number 16 tram to take them to Grechesky Hospital near Tatiana’s house. The tram came. Alexander said, “You want to get on?”
“No,” she replied.
They sat.
The second tram came.
“This one?”
“No,” she replied.
The third came.
“No,” Tatiana said before he even asked, and put her head on his arm.
Four trams came and went — and still they sat, close to each other, not speaking, looking out on the canal.
“In just one more breath,” Tatiana said finally, “on the next tram, you are going to take me back to my old life.”
Alexander said nothing.
Uttering a small cry, Tatiana whispered, “What are we going to do?”
He didn’t reply.
“At Kirov that day,” she asked, “when we fought, did you . . . have a plan?”
He did want to get her out of Leningrad. She wasn’t safe in the city. “Not really.”
“I didn’t think so,” she said, her head against his arm.
Another tram came and went.
“Shura, what do I tell my family about Pasha?”
Tightening his lips, he touched her face. “Tell them you’re sorry. Tell them you did your absolute best.”
“Maybe, like me, he’s alive somewhere?”
“You’re not somewhere,” said Alexander. “You’re with me.”
Tatiana swallowed before she continued. “Yes, but until yesterday, I wasn’t. I was somewhere, too.” She looked at him hopefully. “Maybe?”
Alexander shook his head. “Oh, Tania.”
Tatiana looked away. “Did you have trouble finding me?”
“Not much.” He didn’t want to tell her how he had searched every meter of Luga for her.
“But how did you know to look for me in Luga?”
“I looked for you in Tolmachevo, too.”
“But how did you know to look for me at all?” Tatiana asked.
Alexander saw her looking at him with an expression of want and hope he couldn’t endure. “Listen . . .” he said. “It was Dasha who asked me to find you.”
“Oh?” Tatiana’s face fell. “Oh.” She moved away from him until no part of her body was touching his.
“Tatia . . .”
“Look, our tram is here,” she said, trying to get herself up. “Let’s go.”
Alexander took her arm. “Let me help.”
“I’m fine,” she said, and hopped once while still holding on to him, groaning in pain.
The tram doors opened. “Stop,” Alexander urged. “Let me help you, I said.”
“And I said I’m fine.”
“Stop,” he said more firmly. “Or I’m going to let go of you.”
“Then let go.”
With exasperation he sighed and went around to stand in front of her. “Stop hopping. Do your ribs like that? Hold on to me,” he said, “and I’ll carry you inside.”
When they were sitting down and on their way, Alexander asked, “Why are you upset?”
“I’m not upset.”
After a moment he put his arm around her. Tatiana sat stolidly looking out the window.
In fifteen minutes of not talking they were at the hospital on Grechesky. Alexander carried her inside, where the nurses immediately found a bed for her, put her in a clean hospital gown, and instantly gave her something for the pain.
“Much better with the morphine?” He smiled. “The doctor will be here in just a minute. He’ll set your leg and put it in a cast; you’ll sleep. Meantime I’m going to go. I’ll tell your family you’re here, and then I’m going to go and retrieve my men.” He sighed. “I’m sure they’re still stuck in Luga.”
Tatiana leaned back against the pillows and said coolly, “Thank you for helping me.”
Alexander sat on the edge of the bed. Tatiana turned her head away. He placed two fingers under her chin and turned her face back to him. There were tears in her eyes. “Tatia?” he said. “Why are you upset? Had Dasha not come to me, I never would have gone and found you.” He shrugged. “I don’t know why, but this is how it’s supposed to be. You’re home, you’re all right.” He caressed her cheek. “You’re just going through too much right now, too much is broken . . .”
She sniffed, trying to turn her head away again, but he wouldn’t let her, feeling overwhelming, crushing tenderness. “Shh . . . come here,” he said, and hugged her gently. “Tania, whatever questions you have, the answer is yes to all of them,” he whispered, kissing her hair. He felt her attempting to move away.
“I have no questions,” she said evenly. “They’ve all been answered. You did this for Dasha. She will be so grateful.”
Shaking his head, Alexander laughed once with disbelief. Allowing Tatiana to slip down on the pillow, he said, “Did I kiss you for Dasha, too?”
She turned red.
“Tania,” he said quietly, “we cannot be having this conversation. Not after what we’ve just been through.”
“You’re right. We should not be talking at all.” She wouldn’t look at him.
“We should. Just not about this.”
“Go, Alexander. Go and tell my sister how you saved me for her.”
“I didn’t save you for her,” he said, standing up. “I saved you for me. And you’re not being very fair, Tania.”
“I know.” She nodded sadly, staring at the blanket. “There is nothing fair about any of this.”
Alexander took Tatiana’s hand, struggling with himself not to kiss her again, not to cause her further pain and himself further pain. In the end, with a hurting heart, he pressed his lips into the trembling palm of her hand and left.