7
Alexander got stronger every day. He could get up and stand near his bed. It still hurt him to be upright, but he was off morphine completely, and now his back throbbed from morning until night, reminding him of his mortality. He was carving constantly. He had just carved a cradle out of another piece of wood. Soon, soon, he kept saying to himself. He wanted to be moved over into the convalescent ward, but Tatiana talked him out of it. She said his location and care were too good to give up his place in critical.
“Remember,” Tatiana said to him one afternoon as they were both standing by his bed, his arm around her. “You have to get better so that no one thinks you’re getting better. Or before you know it, they’ll send you back to the front with your stupid mortar.” She smiled up at him.
Alexander removed his arm. He saw Dimitri walking toward them. “Courage, Tania,” he whispered.
“What?”
“Tatiana! Alexander!” Dimitri exclaimed. “No, how incredible is this? The three of us together again. If only Dasha were here.”
Alexander and Tatiana said nothing. They did not look at each other.
“Tania, how are the terminal cases coming along? I just got you some more white sheets.”
“Thanks, Dimitri.”
“Oh, sure. Alexander, here are some cigarettes for you. Don’t worry about paying me. I know you probably don’t have any money on you. I can get your money and bring it to you—”
“Don’t worry, Dimitri.”
“It’s not a problem.” He stood at the foot of Alexander’s bed, his eyes darting from Alexander to Tatiana. “So, Tania, what are you doing here in critical care? I thought you were in the terminal ward.”
“I am. But I see my crossover patients, too. Leo in bed number thirty used to be terminal. Now he is always asking for me.”
Dimitri smiled. “Tania, not just Leo. Everybody is asking for you.” Tatiana didn’t say anything. Neither did Alexander, who sat down on his bed. Dimitri continued to study them. “Listen, it was good to see you both. Alexander, I’ll come by and visit you tomorrow, all right? Tania, you want to walk me out?”
“No, I have to change Alexander’s dressing.”
“Oh. It’s just that Dr. Sayers was looking for you. ‘Where is my Tania?’ Dr. Sayers said.” Dimitri smiled warmly. “Those were his exact words. You’re getting to be quite friendly with him, aren’t you?” He raised his eyebrows to her. “You know what they say about those Americans.”
Tatiana did not nod, did not blink. She just turned to Alexander and said, “Come on, lie down.” Alexander did not move.
“Tania, did you hear me?” Dimitri asked.
“I heard you!” Tatiana said, not looking at Dimitri. “If you see Dr. Sayers, you can tell him I’ll be with him as soon as I can.”
After Dimitri left, Alexander and Tatiana looked at each other. “What are you thinking?” he asked her.
“That I need to change your dressing and go. Lie down.”
“Do you want to know what I’m thinking?”
“Absolutely not,” she replied.
Lying down on his stomach, Alexander said, “Tania, where is the rucksack with my things?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Why? What do you need it for?”
“It was on my back when I got hit . . .”
“It wasn’t on your back when we got to you. It’s probably lost, honey.”
“Yes . . .” he drew out. “But usually the rear units clean up once the battle is over. Pick up things like that. Can you ask around for it?”
“Of course,” she said, unwrapping his bandages. “I’ll ask Colonel Stepanov.” She paused, and Alexander heard her purr. “You know, Shura, the only thing I want to do when I see your back is play rail tracks, rail tracks.” She kissed his bare shoulder.
“The only thing I want to do when I see your back,” he said, closing his eyes, “is play rail tracks, rail tracks.”
Later that night when she was sitting by him, Alexander said to her, “Tatiana, you have to promise me — God help me — that if something happens to me, you will still go.” He held on to her when he said it.
“Don’t be ridiculous. What can happen to you?” She didn’t look at him when she said it.
“Are you trying to be brave?”
“Not at all,” she said. “As soon as you’re fit, we’re leaving. Dr. Sayers is ready to go anytime. In fact, he is itching to go. He is a big grumbler. Keeps complaining about everything. Doesn’t like the cold, doesn’t like the help, doesn’t like—” Tatiana stopped. “So what are you talking about? What can happen? I won’t let you go back to the front. And I won’t leave without you.”
“That’s what I’m talking about. Of course you will.”
“Of course I won’t.”
Alexander took her hand. “Now listen to me—”
Tatiana moved to get up from him, turning her head. “I don’t want to listen.” He wouldn’t let her hand go. “Alexander, please don’t scare me,” she said. “I’m trying to be so brave. Please,” Tatiana said calmly, her breath shallow.
“Tania, many things can go wrong.” He paused. “You know that there is always the danger I will be arrested.”
She nodded. “I know. But, if you’re taken by Mekhlis’s henchmen, I will wait.”
“Wait for what?” he exclaimed in frustration. Alexander had learned the hard way that the best he could hope for was that Tatiana would agree with him. If she had her own opinion, he didn’t have an icy hope of talking her out of it.
His emotion must have shown on his face, because she took both his dark war-beaten hands into her flawless white ones, pressed them to her lips and said, “Wait for you.” Then she tried to disentangle herself from him. He wasn’t having any of it. Pulling her off the chair, he brought her to sit next to him on the bed. “Wait for me where?” he asked.
“In Leningrad. In my apartment. Inga and Stan have left. I have two rooms. I will wait. And when you come back, I will be there with your baby.”
“The Soviet council will take the hallway and the room with the stove away.”
“Then I will wait in the room that’s left.”
“For how long?”
She looked over at the other sleeping patients, at the darkened windows. At anything but him. The hospital room was quiet, with no sound except for his breathing, except for hers. “I will wait as long as it takes,” she said.
“Oh, for God’s sake! You would rather be an old maid in a cold room without plumbing than make yourself a better life?”
“Yes,” she said. “There is no other life for me, so you can just forget it.”
Alexander whispered, “Tania, please . . .” He couldn’t continue. “And what about when Mekhlis comes for you? What are you going to do then?”
“I’ll go where they send me. I’ll go to Kolyma,” she said. “I’ll go to Taymir Peninsula. Eventually Communism will fall—”
“You sure about this?”
“Yes. Eventually there won’t be any more people left to reconstruct. And then they’ll let me out.”
“Dear sweet Jesus,” Alexander whispered. “It’s not just you anymore. You have to think about our baby!”
“What are you even talking about? Dr. Sayers is not going to take me without you. I have no right to — no claim on — America,” Tatiana said. “Alexander, I will go anywhere in the world with you. You want to go to America? I say yes. You want to go to Australia? Yes, I say. Mongolia? The Gobi Desert? Dagestan? Lake Baikal? Germany? The cold side of hell? I say, when are we leaving? Anywhere you go — I will go with you. But if you are staying, then I’m staying, too. I’m not leaving my baby’s father in the Soviet Union.”
Leaning over an overwhelmed Alexander, Tatiana pressed her breasts into his face, kissing his head. Then she sat back and kissed his shaking fingers. “What did you say to me in Leningrad? ‘What kind of a life can I build,’ you said, ‘knowing I have left you to die — or to rot — in the Soviet Union?’ I’m quoting you back to you. Those were your words.” She smiled. “And on this one point I will have to agree with you.” She nodded and said softly, “If I left you, no matter which road I would take, with ponderous clatter indeed, the Bronze Horseman would pursue me all through that long night into my own maddening dust.”
Alexander said with emotion, “Tatiana — it’s war. All around us is war.” He couldn’t look at her. “Men die in war.”
A tear escaped Tatiana’s eye, no matter how strong she tried to be. “Please don’t die,” she whispered. “I don’t think I can bury you. I already buried everyone else.”
“How can I die,” Alexander said, his voice breaking, “when you have poured your immortal blood into me?”
And then Dimitri came one cold morning, holding Alexander’s rucksack in his hands. He was limping badly on his right leg. The errand boy for the generals, the worthless lackey, constantly shuffling cigarettes and vodka and books between camps and tents in the rear, the runner who refused to bear arms, Dimitri hobbled forward, handing Alexander the rucksack. “Oh, so it was found,” Alexander said steadily. “What happened?”
“Wouldn’t you know it? Some stupidity at the embankment. Some guys . . . I don’t know, they were pissed off. Look at my face.”
Alexander saw the bruises.
“I was charging too much for smokes, they said. Take it, I said, take it all. They did. Beat the shit out of me anyway.” Dimitri smirked. “Well, they won’t be laughing for long.” He came and sat in the chair under the window. “Tatiana did a marvelous job on me. Fixed me right up.” Something in Dimitri’s voice twisted Alexander’s stomach. “She’s marvelous, isn’t she?”
“Yes,” said Alexander. “She is a good nurse.”
“Good nurse, good woman, good—” Dimitri broke off.
“That’s great,” said Alexander. “Thanks for my ruck.”
“Oh, sure.” Dimitri got up to go and then, almost as an afterthought, sat back down and said, “I wanted to make sure you had all you needed in your ruck: your books, your pen and paper. As it turned out, you didn’t have any pen or paper, so it was a good thing I checked, because I put some in for you. In case you wanted to write letters.” He smiled pleasantly. “I also added some cigarettes and a new lighter.”
Holding his rucksack, Alexander, with darkening eyes, said, “You looked through my things?” The twisting in his stomach intensified.
“Oh, just to be helpful.” Dimitri again made as if to go. “But you know . . .” He turned back. “I found something very interesting in it.”
Alexander turned his face away. Tatiana’s letters he had reluctantly burned. But there was one thing he could not burn. One beacon of hope for light that he continued to carry with him. “Dimitri,” Alexander said, throwing the rucksack by the side of his bed and crossing his arms in silent defiance, “what do you want?”
Picking up the rucksack, Dimitri, in a friendly, polite manner, unbuttoned the flap and pulled out Tatiana’s white dress with red roses.
“Look what I found at the very bottom.”
Alexander said, “So?” His voice was calm.
“So? Well, you’re so right. Why shouldn’t you be carrying around a dress owned by your dead fiancée’s sister?”
“What’s the surprise to you, Dimitri? That you found the dress? Can’t be that much of a surprise, can it?” Alexander said acidly. “You were going through my personal belongings looking for it.”
“Well, yes and no,” Dimitri said jovially. “I was a little surprised, I admit. A little taken aback.”
“Taken aback? By what?”
“Well, I thought, this is so interesting. A whole dress, and there is Tatiana here at the front, working side by side with a Red Cross doctor, and there is Alexander in the same hospital. I suspected it was not a coincidence. I always thought you had feelings for each other.” He glanced at Alexander. “Always, you know. From the beginning. So then I went to Colonel Stepanov, who remembered me from the old days and was very warm to me. I really like that man. I told him that I would be glad to bring you your pay so you could buy tobacco and papers and extra butter and some vodka, and he sent me to the CO adjutant, who gave me five hundred rubles, and when I expressed surprise that all you were getting was five hundred rubles being a major and all, do you know what the adjutant told me?”
With a grinding of his teeth to lessen the throbbing in his temples, Alexander said slowly, “What did he tell you?”
“That you were sending the rest of your money to a Tatiana Metanova on Fifth Soviet!”
“I am, yes.”
“Absolutely, why not? So I went back to Colonel Stepanov and said, ‘Colonel, isn’t it fantastic that our wanton Alexander has finally found himself a nice girl, like our Nurse Metanova,’ and the colonel said he had been surprised himself that you got married in Molotov on your summer furlough and told no one.”
Alexander said nothing.
“Yes!” exclaimed Dimitri in a frank and cheerful manner. “I said that was quite surprising because I was your best friend, and even I didn’t know, and the colonel agreed that you were indeed a very secretive fellow, and I said, ‘Oh, you have no idea, sir.’ ”
Alexander looked away from Dimitri, sitting in the chair, and looked at the other soldiers lying on the beds. He wondered if he could get up. Could he get up? Walk around? What could he do?
Dimitri got up. “Listen, it’s great! I just wanted to say congratulations. I’m going to go find Tania now and congratulate her.”
Tatiana came to Alexander later that afternoon. After she fed him, she went to get a pail of warm water and some soap. “Tania, don’t carry that,” he said. “It’s too heavy for you.”
“Stop it,” she said, smiling. “I’m carrying your baby. You think a backet is too heavy for me?”
They didn’t speak much. Tatiana washed Alexander and shaved him with a razor and then dried his face. He kept his eyes closed so she wouldn’t see through him. Every once in a while Alexander smelled her warm breath on him, and every once in a while her lips touched his eyebrows or his fingers. He felt her stroking his face and heard her sigh.
“Shura,” she said heavily, “I saw Dimitri today.”
“Yes.” It was not a question.
“Yes.” She paused. “He was . . . he told me you told him we got married. He said he was happy for us . . .” She sighed. “I guess it was inevitable he was going to find out sooner or later.”
“Yes, Tatiana,” said Alexander. “We did as well as we could hiding ourselves from Dimitri.”
“Listen, I may be wrong, but he didn’t seem to have as much of his usual nervous tension. As if he really didn’t care about you and me anymore. What do you think?” she asked hopefully.
You think maybe this war has made him into a human being? Alexander wanted to ask her. You think this war is a school for humanity, and Dimitri is now ready to graduate with honors? But then Alexander opened his eyes and saw Tatiana’s frightened expression. “I think you’re right,” he said quietly. “I don’t think he cares about you and me anymore.”
Tatiana cleared her throat and touched Alexander’s clean-shaven face. Leaning closer to him, she whispered, “Do you suppose you can get up soon? I don’t want to rush you. I saw you yesterday trying to get around. It’s painful for you to stand? Your back hurts? It’s healing, Shura. You’re doing great. As soon as you’re ready, we’ll go. And we’ll never have to see him again.”
Alexander looked at her for interminable minutes.
Before he opened his mouth, Tatiana said, “Shura, don’t worry. My eyes are open. I see Dimitri for what he is.”
“Do you?”
“Yes. Because like all of us, he, too, is the sum of his parts.”
“He cannot be redeemed, Tania. Not even by you.”
“You don’t think so?” She tried to smile.
Alexander squeezed her hand. “He is exactly what he wants to be. How can he be redeemed when he has constructed his life on what he believes is the only way to live it? Not your way, not my way, his way. He has built himself on lies and deceit, on manipulation and malice, on contempt for me and disrespect for you.”
“I know.”
“He has found himself a dark corner of the universe and wants us all there with him.”
“I know.”
“Be very careful with him, all right? And tell him nothing.”
“All right.”
“What would it take for you, Tatiana, to reject him, to turn your back on him? To say, I cannot take his hand because he does not want salvation. What?”
Her thoughts trickled out from her eyes. “Oh, he’ll want salvation, Shura. He’ll just have no hope of it.”
Walking with the help of a cane, Dimitri came to see Alexander the next day. This is becoming my life, Alexander thought. There is fighting across the river, there is healing in the next room, the generals are making plans, the trains are bringing food into Leningrad, the Germans are slaughtering us from Sinyavino Heights, Dr. Sayers is getting ready to leave the Soviet Union, Tatiana sits with the terminal soldiers, growing life inside her, and I lie here in my crib and get my bedding changed and watch the world rush by me. Watch my minutes rush by me. Alexander was so fed up that he pulled back his covers and got out of bed. He stood up and began unhooking his IV bag when Ina ran up and laid him back down, muttering that he’d better never try that again. “Or I’ll tell Tatiana,” she whispered, leaving Alexander alone with Dimitri, who sank down in the chair.
“Alexander, I need to talk to you. Are you strong enough to listen?”
“Yes, Dimitri, I’m strong enough to listen,” said Alexander, with a supreme effort turning his head in Dimitri’s direction. He could not meet his eyes.
“Listen, I really am sincerely happy that you and Tania got married. I’m past bad feeling. Honestly. But, Alexander, as you know, there is one thing that’s left unfinished with us.”
“Yes,” Alexander replied.
“Tania, she’s very good, she keeps her composure well. I think I’ve underestimated her. She is less of a pushover than I first thought.”
Dimitri had no idea.
“I know you two are planning something. I know it. I feel it in my heart. I tried to get her to talk to me. She kept saying she didn’t know what I was talking about. But I know!” Dimitri sounded excited. “I know you, Alexander Barrington, and so I’m asking you if perhaps there is room for little old me in your plans.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Alexander steadfastly, thinking, there was once a time I had no one else to trust but this man. I put my life in this man’s hands. “Dimitri, I have no plans.”
“Hmm. Yes. But you see, I understand so many things now,” Dimitri said with an unctuous smile. “Tatiana is the reason you’ve been dragging your feet on running.” He paused. “Wanted to work out a way to run with her? Or didn’t want to desert and leave her behind? Either way I don’t blame you.” He cleared his throat. “But now I say we all must go together.”
“We don’t have any plans,” said Alexander. “But if something changes, I will let you know.”
An hour later Dimitri limped back, but this time with Tatiana. He sat her down in the chair while he hunkered down close to them on his haunches. “Tania, I need you to talk some sense into your wounded husband,” Dimitri said. “Explain to him that all I want is for you two to get me out of the Soviet Union. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. To get out of the Soviet Union. I’m getting very jittery, very nervous, you see, because I can’t take the chance that you two will run off and leave me here. In the middle of war. You understand?”
Alexander and Tatiana said nothing.
Alexander looked at his blanket. Tatiana stared straight at Dimitri. And it was when he saw Tania looking unflinchingly at Dimitri that Alexander felt stronger and stared at Dimitri, too.
“Tania, I’m on your side,” Dimitri said, “I don’t want any harm to come either to you or to Alexander. Just the opposite.” He smiled. “I wish you the best of luck. It’s so hard for two people to find happiness. I know. I’ve tried. That you two somehow managed — I don’t know how — is a miracle. Now all I want is a chance for myself. I just want you to help me.”
“Self-preservation,” said Alexander, “as an inalienable right.”
“What?” said Dimitri.
“Nothing,” replied Alexander.
Tatiana said, “Dimitri, I really don’t know what this has to do with me.”
“Why, everything, dearest Tanechka, why, it’s got everything in the world to do with you. Unless, of course, it’s the smooth, healthy American doctor you’re planning to run away with and not your injured husband. You’ve been making plans to go with Sayers when he returns to Helsinki, haven’t you?”
No one spoke.
“I don’t have time for these games,” Dimitri snapped coldly, rising to his feet and leaning on his cane. “Tania, I’m talking to you. Either you take me with you or I’m afraid I’m going to have to keep Alexander here in the Soviet Union with me.”
Her hand still in Alexander’s, Tatiana sat stoically in her chair and then looked at Alexander and raised her shoulders to form a faint question.
Alexander squeezed her hand so hard that she emitted a tiny cry.
“There, there,” exclaimed Dimitri. “That’s the moment I want to see. She convinces you, miraculously seeing everything. Tatiana, how do you do that? How do you have such an uncanny ability to see everything? Your husband, who’s got less of that ability, struggles against you but in the end gives in because he knows it’s the only way.”
Alexander and Tatiana didn’t say a word. He relaxed his hold on her hand, which remained nested in his.
Dimitri folded his arms and waited. “I’m not leaving here until I hear an answer. Tania, what do you say? Alexander has been my friend for six years. I care for both of you. I don’t want any trouble.” Dimitri rolled his eyes. “Believe me — I hate trouble. All I want is to have a small portion of what you are planning for yourselves. That’s not too much to ask, is it? I want a tiny piece of it. Don’t you feel you’ll be selfish, Tania, if you don’t allow me a chance for a new life, too? Come on, now — you, who gave away your oatmeal to a starving Nina Iglenko last year, surely you aren’t going to deny me so little when” — and here he looked at her and Alexander — “you have so much?”
Pain and anger tripping over each other in their race to his already embattled heart, Alexander said, “Tania, don’t listen to him. Dimitri, leave her alone. This is between us. This has nothing to do with her.” Dimitri was quiet. Tatiana was quiet, her fingers rubbing the inside of Alexander’s palm, thoughtfully, intently, rhythmically. She opened her mouth to speak. “Don’t say a word, Tatiana,” said Alexander.
“Say the word, Tatiana,” Dimitri said. “It’s up to you. But please, let me hear your answer. Because I don’t have much time.”
Alexander watched Tatiana rise to her feet. “Dimitri,” Tatiana said without blinking, “woe to him who is alone when he falls, for he has not another to pick him up.”
Dimitri shrugged. “By that I take it to mean that you—” He broke off. “What? What are you saying? Is that a yes or a no?”
Her hand holding Alexander’s tightly, Tatiana said, barely audible, “My husband made you a promise. And he always keeps his word.”
“Yes!” Dimitri exclaimed, springing to her. Alexander watched Tatiana pull sharply away.
Tatiana spoke softly. “Every kindness is repaid by good people,” she said. “Dimitri, I will tell you of our plans later. But you need to be ready at a moment’s notice. Understand?”
“I’m ready this moment,” Dimitri said with excitement. “And I mean that. I want to leave as soon as possible.” He extended his left hand to Alexander, who turned his face away, still holding on to Tatiana. He had no intention of shaking hands with Dimitri.
It was a pale Tatiana who brought their hands together. “It’s all right,” she said, her voice quavering slightly. “It’ll be all right.”
Dimitri left.
“Shura, what could we do?” Tatiana said while feeding him. “It will have to work. It changes things a little bit. But not much. We’ll figure it out.”
Alexander turned his gaze to her.
She nodded. “He wants to survive more than anything else. You told me so yourself.”
But what did you tell me, Tatiana? thought Alexander. What did you tell me up on the roof of St. Isaac’s under the black Leningrad sky?
“We’ll take him. He’ll leave us alone. You’ll see. Just please get better soon.”
“Let’s go, Tania,” said Alexander. “Tell Dr. Sayers that whenever he’s ready to leave, I’ll make myself ready.”
Tatiana left.
A day passed.
Dimitri returned.
He sat down in the chair next to Alexander, who did not look his way. He was staring into the middle distance, into the long distance, into the short distance of his brown wool blanket, trying to recall the last name of the Moscow residence hotel he had lived in with his mother and father. The hotel kept regularly changing names. It had been a source of confusion and hilarity for Alexander, who was now deliberately focusing his mind away from Tatiana and away from the person sitting in the chair not a meter away from him. Oh, no, thought Alexander, with a stab of pain.
He remembered the last name of the hotel.
It was Kirov.
Dimitri cleared his throat. Alexander waited.
“Alexander, can we talk? This is very important.”
“It’s all important,” stated Alexander. “All I do is talk. What?”
“It’s about Tatiana.”
“What about her?” Alexander stared at his IV. How long would it take him to disconnect it? Would he bleed? He looked around the ward. It was just after lunch, and the other wounded were either sleeping or reading. The shift nurse was sitting by the door reading herself. Alexander wondered where Tatiana was. He didn’t need the IV. Tatiana kept it on him to force him to remain in the critical ward, to keep his bed. No. Don’t think about Tatiana. Pulling himself up, Alexander sat upright against the wall.
“Alexander, I know how you feel about her—”
“Do you?”
“Of course—”
“Somehow I doubt it. What about her?”
“She is sick.”
Alexander said nothing.
“Yes. Sick. You don’t know what I know. You don’t see what I see. She is a ghost walking around this hospital. She is fainting constantly. The other day she lay in a faint in the snow for I don’t know how long. A lieutenant had to get her up. We brought her to Dr. Sayers. She put on a brave face—”
“How do you know she was in the snow?”
“I heard the story. I hear everything. Also I see her in the terminal ward. She holds on to the wall when she walks. She told Dr. Sayers she was not getting enough food.”
“And you know this how?”
“Sayers told me.”
“You and Dr. Sayers are getting to be good friends, I see.”
“No. I just bring him bandages, iodine, medical supplies from across the lake. He never seems to have enough. We talk for a few minutes.”
“What’s your point?”
“Did you know she was not feeling well?”
Alexander was thoughtfully grim. He knew why Tatiana was not getting enough food, and he knew why she was fainting. But the last thing he was going to do was trust Dimitri with anything about Tatiana. Alexander kept customarily quiet for a moment and then said, “Dimitri, do you have a point?”
“Yes, I have a point.” Dimitri lowered his voice and pulled the chair closer to the bed. “What we’re planning . . . it’s dangerous. It requires physical strength, courage, fortitude.”
Alexander turned his head to Dimitri. “Yes?” he said, surprised that words like “fortitude” could have come from Dimitri’s mouth. “So?”
“How do you think Tatiana will manage through it all?”
“What are you talking about—”
“Alexander! Listen to me for a second. Wait, before you say more. Listen. She is weak, and we have a very hard road ahead of us. Even with Sayers’s help. Do you know there are six checkpoints between here and Lisiy Nos? Six. One syllable out of her at any of them and we’re all dead. Alexander . . .” Dimitri paused. “She can’t come.”
Keeping his voice low — it was the only way he could keep it — Alexander said, “I am not having this ludicrous conversation.”
“You are not listening.”
“You’re right, I’m not.”
“Stop being so obstinate. You know I am right—”
“I know no such thing!” Alexander exclaimed, his fists clenching. “I know that without her—” He broke off. What was he doing? Was he trying to convince Dimitri? To keep from shouting required an effort out of Alexander he just wasn’t prepared to make. “I’m growing tired,” he said loudly. “We’ll finish this another time.”
“There is no other time!” Dimitri hissed. “Keep your voice down. We’re supposed to be going in forty-eight hours. And I’m telling you I don’t want to hang because you can’t see clear through the day.”
“Crystal clear, Dimitri,” snapped Alexander. “She’ll be fine. And she will come with us.”
“She collapses here after a six-hour day.”
“Six-hour? Where have you been? She is here twenty-four hours a day. She doesn’t sit in a truck, she doesn’t sit and have cigarettes and vodka on her job. She sleeps on cardboard, and she eats what the soldiers don’t finish, and she washes her face in the snow. Don’t tell me about her day.”
“What if there is a border incident? What if, despite all of Sayers’s efforts, we’re stopped, interrogated? You and I will have to use our weapons. We’ll have to stand and fight.”
“We’ll do what we have to.” Alexander glared at Dimitri’s cane, at his bruised face, at his hunched body.
“Yes, but what will she do?”
“She’ll do what she has to.”
“She is going to faint! She is going to collapse in the snow, and you won’t know whether to kill the border troops or help her up.”
“I will do both.”
“She can’t run, she can’t shoot, she can’t fight. She’ll swoon at the first sign of trouble, and believe me, there is always trouble.”
“Can you run, Dimitri?” Alexander asked, unable to keep the hate out of his voice.
“Yes! I’m still a soldier.”
“What about the doctor? He can’t fight either.”
“He’s a man! And frankly, I’m less worried about him either way—”
“You’re worried about Tatiana? That’s good to hear.”
“I’m worried about what she will do.”
“Ah, that is a fine difference.”
“I’m worried that you will be so busy fretting about her, you will screw up, make stupid mistakes. She will slow you down, make you think twice about taking the kind of chances we might need to take. The Lisiy Nos forest checkpoint is poorly defended, not undefended.”
“You are right. We might have to fight for our freedom.”
“So you agree?”
“No.”
“Alexander, listen to me. This is our last chance. I know it. This is a perfect plan; it could work so well. But she will lead us to ruin. She is not up to it. Don’t be stupid now when we are so close. This is it.” Dimitri smiled. “This is what we’ve been waiting for! There are no more trial runs, there are no more tomorrows, no more next times. This is it.”
“Yes,” said Alexander. “This is it.” Closing his eyes briefly, he fought an impulse to keep them closed.
“So listen to me—”
“I will not listen.”
“You will listen!” exclaimed Dimitri. “You and I have been planning this a long time. Here is our chance! And I’m not saying leave Tania in the Soviet Union for good. Not at all. I’m saying let us, two men, do what we have to do to get out. Get out safely and, most importantly, alive! You’re no good to her dead, and I’m not going to enjoy America if I’m dead myself. Alive, Alexander. Plus, to hide in the swamps—”
“We’re driving to Helsinki in a truck. What swamps?”
“If we need to, I said. Three men and a frail girl, we’re a crowd. We’re not hiding out. We’re asking to be caught. If something were to happen to Sayers, if Sayers were to get killed—”
“Why would Sayers get killed? He’s a Red Cross doctor.” Alexander studied Dimitri intensely.
“I don’t know. But if we had to make it by ourselves across the Baltic — on ice, on foot, hiding out in convoy trucks — well, two men can do it, but three people? We will be too easily noticed. Too easily stopped. And she won’t make it.”
“She made it through the blockade. She made it through the Volga ice. She made it through Dasha. She will make it,” said Alexander, but his heart was burning with uncertainty. The dangers Dimitri was pointing out were so close to Alexander’s own anxieties for Tatiana, it was brutalizing his stomach. “All the things you say may be true,” he continued with great effort, “but you’re forgetting two very important things. What do you think will happen to her here once I’m reported missing?”
“To her? Nothing. Her name is still Tatiana Metanova.” Dimitri nodded slyly. “You have been very careful to keep your marriage hidden. That’ll help you now.”
“It won’t help her.” Alexander stopped.
“No one will know.”
“You’re wrong,” said Alexander. “I will know.” He gritted his teeth to keep the groan of pain from escaping his throat.
“Yes, but you’ll be in America. You’ll be back home.”
Alexander spoke in a flat voice. “She cannot remain behind.”
“She can. She’ll be fine. Alexander, she’s never known anything but this life—”
“Neither have you!”
Dimitri went on. “She’ll continue here as if she’d never met you—”
“How?”
Dimitri laughed. “I know you think a lot of yourself, but she will get over you. Others have. I know she probably cares for you very much — but with time she’ll meet someone else, and she’ll be fine.”
“Stop being an idiot!” Alexander said. “She’ll be arrested in three days. The wife of a deserter. Three days. And you know it. Stop talking horseshit.”
“No one will know who she is.”
“You found out!”
Ignoring Alexander, Dimitri continued calmly, “Tatiana Metanova will go back to Grechesky Hospital and will go on with her life in Leningrad. And if you still want her when you’re settled in America, after the war is over, you can send her a formal letter of invitation, asking her to come to Boston to visit a sick and dying distant aunt. She will come by proper methods, if she can, by train, by ship. Think of this as a temporary separation, until there is a better time for her. For all of us.”
Alexander rubbed the bridge of his nose with his left hand. Somebody come and rescue me from this hell, he thought. The short hairs on his neck stood on end. He breathed more erratically. “Dimitri!” said Alexander, staring straight at him. “You have a chance, for the second time in your life, to do something decent — take it. The first time was when you helped me to see my father. What do you care if she comes with us?”
“I have to think of myself, Alexander. I cannot spend all my time thinking about protecting your wife.”
“How much time have you spent thinking about that?” Alexander exclaimed. “You have always thought only of yourself—”
“Unlike, say, you?” Dimitri laughed.
“Unlike anyone else. Come with us. She extended her hand to you.”
“To protect you.”
“Yes. It doesn’t make her hand any less extended. Take it. She will get us out. We will all be free. You will have the one thing you care about the most — your free life away from war. You do care about that the most, don’t you?” Tania’s St. Isaac’s words swam by Alexander. He covets from you most what you want most. But Alexander would not be defeated. He will never take it all from you, Alexander, his Tatiana had said to him. He will never have that much power. “You will have your free life — because of her. We will not perish — because of her.”
“We’ll all be killed — because of her.”
“I guarantee — you will not perish. Take this chance, have your life. I’m not denying you what is rightfully yours. I said I would get you out, and I will. Tania is very strong, and she will not let us down. You’ll see. She will not falter; she will not fail. You have nothing to do but say yes. She and I will do the rest. You said yourself, this is our last chance. I agree. I feel that more now than ever.”
“I bet you do,” Dimitri said.
Trying to hide his desperate anger, Alexander said, “Let something else guide you! This war has brought you inside yourself, you have forgotten other people. Remember her. Once. You know that if she stays here, she will die. Save her, Dimitri.” Alexander almost said, please.
“If she comes with us, we will all die,” Dimitri said coldly. “I’m convinced of it.”
Alexander turned his body forward and faced the middle distance once again. His eyes glazed over, cleared, glazed over.
Darkness engulfed him.
Dimitri spoke. “Alexander — think of it as dying at the front. If you had died out on the ice, she would have had to find a way to continue living in the Soviet Union, wouldn’t she? Well, it’s the same thing.”
“It’s all the difference in the world.” Alexander looked into his stiffening hands. Because now there is light in front of her.
“It is no difference to her at all. One way or the other she is without you.”
“No.”
“She is a small price to pay for America!” Dimitri exclaimed.
Shuddering, Alexander made no reply, his heart pumping out of his chest. The Fontanka Bridge, the granite parapets, Tatiana on her knees.
“She will doom us all.”
“Dimitri, I already said no,” he said, steel in his voice.
Dimitri narrowed his eyes. “Are you deliberately not understanding me? She can’t come.”
I am just a means to an end, she had said. I am just ammunition.
Alexander laughed. “Finally! I was wondering how long it would take you to issue your useless threats. You say she can’t come?”
“No, she can’t.”
“That’s fine,” said Alexander with a short nod. “I’m not going either. The whole thing is off. It’s over. Dr. Sayers is leaving for Helsinki immediately. In three days I’m going back to the front. Tania will return to Leningrad.” Steadying his loathing stare on Dimitri, he said, “No one is going. You’re dismissed, Private. Our meeting is finished.”
Dimitri looked at Alexander with cold surprise. “Are you telling me you will not go without her?”
“Have you not been listening?”
“I see.” Dimitri paused, rubbing his hands. He leaned over, propping himself on Alexander’s bed as he spoke. “You underestimate me, Alexander. I can see you will not listen to reason. That’s too bad. Perhaps, then, what I should do is go and talk to Tania, explain the situation to her. She is much more reasonable. Once Tania sees that her husband is in grave danger, why, I am certain she herself will offer to stay behind—” Dimitri didn’t finish.
Alexander grabbed Dimitri’s arm. Dimitri yelped and threw his other hand up, but it was too late, Alexander had them both.
“Understand this,” said Alexander as his thumb and forefinger tightened in a twisting vise around Dimitri’s wrist. “I don’t give a f*ck if you talk to Tania, to Stepanov, to Mekhlis, or to the whole Soviet Union. Tell them anything! I am not leaving without her. If she stays, I stay.” And with a savage thrust, Alexander ruptured the ulnar bone in Dimitri’s forearm. Even through the red of his fury Alexander heard the snap. It sounded like the ax crashing against the pliant pine in Lazarevo. Dimitri screamed. Alexander did not let go. “You underestimate me, you f*cking bastard!” he said, jerking the wrist violently again and again until the broken bone tore out of Dimitri’s skin.
Dimitri continued to scream. Clenching his fist, Alexander punched Dimitri in the face, and the uppercut blow would have driven the fractured nasal bone into Dimitri’s frontal lobe had the impact not been weakened by an orderly who had grabbed Alexander’s arm, who literally threw himself on Alexander and yelled, “Stop it! What are you doing? Let go, let go!”
Panting, Alexander shoved Dimitri away, and Dimitri slumped to the floor. “Get off me,” Alexander said loudly to the stunned and grumbling orderly. As soon as the man got off him, Alexander started wiping his hands. He had yanked the IV right out of the vein, which was now dripping blood between his fingers. So it does bleed, he thought.
“What in the world happened here?” yelled the nurse, running up. “What kind of awful situation is this? The private comes for a visit, and what do you do?”
“Next time don’t let him through,” Alexander said, throwing off his blankets and getting out of bed.
“Get back into bed! My orders are that you don’t get out of bed under any circumstances. Wait till Ina comes back. I never work the critical ward. Why does something always happen on my shift?”
After a commotion that lasted a good half hour, a bleeding and unconscious Dimitri was removed from the floor, and the orderly cleaned up the mess, complaining that he already had plenty to do without the wounded making more wounded out of perfectly healthy men.
“You call him perfectly healthy?” said Alexander. “Did you see his limp? Did you see his pulverized face? Ask around. This isn’t the first time he’s been assaulted. And I guarantee it won’t be the last.”
But Alexander knew: he had not merely assaulted Dimitri. Had he not been stopped, Alexander would have killed Dimitri with his bare hands.
Alexander slept, woke up, looked around the ward.
It was early evening. Ina was at her station by the door, chatting to three civilian men. Alexander stared at the civilian men. That didn’t take long, he thought.
Motionless and alone, he remained with the rucksack on his lap, both of his hands inside, on the white dress with red roses. Alexander finally had the answer to his question.
He knew at what price Tatiana.
It was Colonel Stepanov who came to see him later that evening, eyes sunk deep into his ashen face. Alexander saluted his commander, who sat down heavily in the chair and said quietly, “Alexander, I almost don’t know how to say this to you. I should not be here. I’m here not as your commanding officer, understand, but as someone who—”
Alexander interrupted him gently. “Sir,” he said, “your very presence is a balm to my soul. More than you know. I know why you’re here.”
“You do?”
“Yes.”
“Then it’s true? General Govorov came to me tonight and said that Mekhlis” — Stepanov seemed to spit the word out — “approached him with a slew of information that you have previously escaped from prison as a foreign provocateur? As an American?” Stepanov laughed. “How can that be? I said it was ridiculous—”
Alexander said, “Sir, I have proudly served the Red Army for nearly six years.”
“You have been an exemplary soldier, Major,” said Stepanov. “I told them that. I told them it couldn’t possibly be true. But as you know—” Stepanov broke off. “The accusation is all. You remember Meretskov? He’s now commanding the Volkhov front, but nine months ago he was sitting in the NKVD cellars waiting for a wall to become available.”
“I know about Meretskov. How much time do you think I have?”
Stepanov was quiet. “They will come for you in the night,” he said at last. “I don’t know if you’re familiar with their operations—”
“Unfortunately, very familiar, sir,” replied Alexander, not looking at Stepanov. “It’s all about stealth and cover-up. I didn’t know they had the facilities here in Morozovo.”
“Primitive, but yes. They have them everywhere. You’re too high up, though. They’ll most likely send you across the lake to Volkhov.” He spoke in a whisper.
Across the lake. “Thank you, sir.” He managed to smile at his commanding officer. “Do you think they’ll promote me to lieutenant colonel first?”
Stepanov breathed out a choking gasp. “Of all my men I had hoped the most for you, Major.”
Alexander shook his head. “I had the least chance, sir. Please, do me a favor. If you yourself are questioned about me, understand” — he struggled for his words — “that despite your valor, there are some battles that are lost from the start.”
“Yes, Major.”
“As long as you understand that, you will not waste a second’s breath defending my honor or my army record. Distance yourself and retreat, sir.” Alexander let his gaze drop. “And take all your weapons with you.”
Stepanov stood.
The unspoken remained between them.
Alexander couldn’t think of himself, couldn’t think of Stepanov. He had to ask about the unspoken. “Do you know if there was any mention of my . . .” He couldn’t continue.
Stepanov understood regardless. “No,” he said quietly. “But it’s just a matter of time.”
Thank God. So Dimitri didn’t want them both. What he wanted was for them not to have each other, but he still wanted to save his own skin. He will never take all from you, Alexander. There was hope.
Alexander heard Stepanov say, “Can I do anything for her? Maybe arrange for a transfer back to a Leningrad hospital — or perhaps to a Molotov hospital? Away from here?”
After a spasm Alexander spoke, looking in the other direction. “Yes, sir, you actually could do something to help her . . .”
Alexander didn’t have time to think, and he didn’t have time to feel. He knew the time for that would swallow too soon what was left of him. But right now he had to act. As soon as Stepanov left, Alexander motioned for Ina and asked her to call Dr. Sayers.
“Major,” said Ina, “I don’t know if they’re allowing anyone near you after this afternoon.”
Alexander glanced at the plainclothed men. “It was a little accident, Ina, nothing to worry about. Do me a favor, though, don’t tell Nurse Metanova, all right? You know how she gets.”
“I know how she gets. You better be good from now on, or I’ll tell her.”
“I’ll be good, Ina.”
Sayers came a few minutes later, sat down cheerfully, and said, “What’s going on, Major? What’s this about some private’s arm? What happened?”
Shrugging, Alexander said, “He lost the arm wrestle.”
“I’ll say he lost. What about his broken nose? Did he lose the nose wrestle, too?”
“Dr. Sayers, listen to me. Forget him for a second.” Alexander summoned his remaining will to speak. What strength he once possessed had left his body and gone to a tiny girl with freckles.
“Doctor,” he said quietly, “when we first spoke about—”
“Don’t say it. I know.”
“You asked me what you could do to help, remember? And I said to you,” Alexander continued, “that you owed me nothing.” He paused, collecting himself. “It turns out I was wrong. I desperately need your help.”
Sayers smiled. “Major Belov, I’m already doing all I can for you. Your terminal nurse is quite a persuader.”
My terminal nurse.
Shrinking into himself, Alexander said, “No, listen carefully. I want you to do just one thing for me, and only one.”
“What is it? If I can do it, I will.”
With a halting voice, Alexander said, “Get my wife out of the Soviet Union.”
“I am, Major.”
“No, Doctor. I mean now. Take my wife, take—” He could not get the words out. “Take Chernenko, the prick with the broken arm,” he whispered, “and get them out.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Doctor, we have very little time. Any minute someone is going to call you away from me, and I won’t be able to finish.”
“You’re coming with us.”
“I am not.”
In agitation, Sayers exclaimed, “Major, what the hell are you talking about?” In English.
“Shh,” said Alexander. “You will need to leave tomorrow at the absolute latest.”
“What about you?”
“Forget about me,” Alexander said firmly. “Dr. Sayers, Tania needs your help. She is pregnant — did you know that?”
Sayers shook his head, dumbstruck.
“Well, she is. And she’s going to be very scared. She is going to need you to protect her. Please get her out of the Soviet Union. And protect her.” Alexander stared away from the doctor. His eyes filled with . . . the river Kama, with the soap on her body. They filled with . . . her hands going around his neck and her warm breath in his ear, whispering, potato pancakes, Shura, or eggs?
They filled with . . . her coming out of Grechesky Hospital in November, small, alone, wearing a big coat, her eyes at her feet; she couldn’t even lift her eyes as she walked past him to her Fifth Soviet life, alone to her Fifth Soviet life.
“Save my wife,” whispered Alexander.
In an emotional voice Dr. Sayers said, “I don’t understand anything.”
Shaking his head, Alexander said, “Do you see the casually dressed men you had to walk past on your way here? Those are NKVD men. Remember I told you about the NKVD, Doctor? What happened to my mother and father, and to me?”
Sayers paled.
“The NKVD enforces the law of this great land. And they are here for me — again. Tomorrow,” Alexander said, “I will be gone. Tania cannot stay here a minute after that. She is in grave danger. You must get her out.”
The doctor still didn’t understand. He protested, he shook his head. He became increasingly nervous. “Alexander, I will call the U.S. consulate personally. I’ll call them tomorrow on your behalf.”
Alexander became worried about the doctor. Could he even do what was needed? Could he keep his composure when he would need it the most? He didn’t seem composed in the least. “Doctor,” Alexander said, keeping his own composure, “I know you don’t understand, but I don’t have time to explain. Where is this U.S. consulate? In Sweden? In England? By the time you call them and they reach the U.S. State Department back home, the Mekhlis blue boys will have taken not only me but her, too. What does Tatiana have to do with America?”
“She is your wife.”
“I have only my Russian name, the name I married her under. By the time the United States gets together with the NKVD to clear up the confusion, it’ll be too late for her. Forget me, I said. Just take care of her.”
“No,” Sayers said. He bucked, he couldn’t sit. He walked around Alexander’s bed, adjusted his blankets.
“Doctor!” Alexander exclaimed. “You have no time to think this through, I know. But what do you think will happen to a Russian girl once it’s discovered she is married to a man suspected of being an American and infiltrating the Red Army’s high command? What use do you think the Commissariat of Internal Affairs will have for my pregnant Russian wife?”
Sayers was mute.
“I’ll tell you what use — they will use her as leverage against me when they interrogate us. Tell us everything, or your wife will be ‘strictly judged.’ Do you know what that means, Doctor? It means I will be forced to tell them everything. I won’t stand a chance. Or they will use me as leverage against her. Your husband will be safe, but only if you tell the truth. And she will. And afterward—”
Shaking his head, Sayers said, “No! We will put you in my ambulance right now and take you back to Leningrad, to Grechesky. Right now. Get up. And from there we will drive to Finland.”
“Fine,” said Alexander. “But those men” — he nodded in their direction — “will come with us. They will come with us every step of the way. You won’t get either of us out.”
Alexander could see that Dr. Sayers was grasping at what he could. Glancing toward the door, to Ina, to the shuffling, smoking men standing chatting with her, Alexander shook his head. Sayers was not getting it.
“What about him? Chernenko? I don’t know him or owe him anything.”
“You must take him,” whispered Alexander. “After this afternoon, he finally understood. He thought I would sacrifice her to save myself because he could not imagine any other way. Now he knows the truth. He also knows I will not sacrifice her to destroy him. I will not keep her from escaping to keep him from escaping. And he is right. So take him. It’ll help her, and I don’t give a shit about anything else.”
Dr. Sayers was at a loss for words.
“Doctor,” said Alexander gently, “stop fighting for me. She does that. I don’t want you to worry about me; my fate is sealed. But hers is wide open. Concern yourself only with her.”
Rubbing his face, Dr. Sayers said, still shaking his head, “Alexander, I’ve seen that girl—” His voice broke. “I’ve seen that girl drain her lifeblood into you. I’m fighting for you because I know what it will do to her—”
“Doctor!” Alexander was nearly at the end of his tether. “You’re not helping me. Don’t you think I know?” He closed his eyes. Everything she had she gave to me.
“Major, do you think she’ll even go without you?”
“Never,” said Alexander.
“God! So what can I possibly do?” Sayers exclaimed.
“She must never know I’ve been arrested. If she finds out, she will not go. She’ll stay — to find out what happened to me, to help me in some way, to see me one last time, and then it will be too late for her.”
Alexander told Dr. Sayers what they had to do.
“Major, I can’t do that!” Sayers exclaimed.
“Yes, you can. It’s just words from you, Doctor. Words and an impassive face.”
Sayers shook his head.
“Many things can go wrong. And they will,” said Alexander. “It’s not a perfect plan. It’s not a safe plan. It’s not a foolproof plan. But we have no choice. If we’re to succeed at all, we must use all the weapons at our disposal.” Alexander paused. “Even the ones with no ammunition.”
“Major, you’re out of your mind. She will never believe me,” said Sayers.
Alexander grabbed the doctor’s wrist. “Well, that will depend on you, Doctor! The only chance she has of living is if you get her out. If you waver, if you’re unconvincing, if when faced with her grief you weaken and she sees for a split second that you are not telling her the truth, she will not go. If she thinks I’m still alive, she will never go, remember that, and if she doesn’t go, know that she has days before they come for her.” Stricken, Alexander said, “When she sees my empty bed, she will break down in front of you, her fa?ade will crumble, and she will raise her tearful face to yours and say, ‘You’re lying, I know you’re lying. I can feel he’s still alive,’ and that’s when you will look at her and you’ll want to comfort her, because you’ve seen her comfort so many. Her grief will be too much for you to take. She will say to you, ‘Tell me the truth, and I will go with you anywhere.’ You will pause just for a second, you will blink, you will purse your lips, and in that instant know, Doctor, that you are condemning her and our baby to prison or death. She is very persuasive, and she is very hard to say no to, and she will keep on at you until you break down. Know — that when you comfort her with the truth, you will have killed her.” Alexander let go of Sayers’s wrist. “Now, go. Look her in the eye and lie. Lie with all your heart!” His voice nearly gone, Alexander whispered, “And if you save her, you will help me.”
There were tears in Sayers’s eyes as he stood up. “This f*cking country,” he said, “is too much for me.”
“Me, too,” said Alexander, extending his hand. “Now, can you get her for me? I need to see her one last time. But come with her. Come with her and stand by my side. She is shy with other people around. She will have to be distant.”
“Maybe alone for just a minute?”
“Doctor, remember what I told you about looking her in the eye? I can’t face her alone. Maybe you can hide, but I cannot.”
Alexander kept his eyes closed. In ten minutes he heard footsteps and her choral voice. “Doctor, I told you he’s sleeping. What made you think he was restless?”
“Major?” Dr. Sayers called.
“Yes,” said Tatiana. “Major? Can you wake up?” And Alexander felt her warm, familiar hands on his head. “He doesn’t feel hot. He feels fine.”
Reaching up, Alexander placed his hand on hers.
Here it is, Tatiana.
Here is my brave and indifferent face.
Alexander took a breath and opened his eyes. Tatiana was gazing down at him with a look of such unrelenting affection that he closed his eyes again and said, his lips carrying the cracked words mere centimeters from his mouth, “I’m just tired, Tatia. How are you? How are you feeling?”
“Open your eyes, soldier,” Tatiana said fondly, caressing his face. “Are you hungry?”
“I was hungry,” Alexander said. “But you fed me.” His body was shaking underneath his sheet.
“Why is your IV disconnected?” she said, taking hold of his hand. “And why is your hand all black and blue, like you ripped the IV out of the vein? What have you been doing here this afternoon while I was gone?”
“I don’t need the IV anymore. I’m almost all better.”
She felt his head again. “He does feel a bit cold, Doctor,” she said. “Maybe we can give him another blanket?”
Tatiana disappeared. Alexander opened his eyes and saw the doctor’s anguished face. “Stop it,” Alexander mouthed inaudibly.
Returning, she covered Alexander and studied him for a moment. “I’m fine, really,” he said to her. “I have a joke for you. What do you get when you cross a white bear with a black bear?”
She replied, “Two happy bears.”
They smiled at each other. Alexander did not look away.
“You’ll be all right?” she asked. “I’ll come back tomorrow morning to give you breakfast.”
Alexander shook his head. “No, not in the morning. You’ll never guess where they’re taking me tomorrow morning.” He grinned.
“Where?”
“Volkhov. Don’t be too proud of your husband, all right, but they’re finally making me lieutenant colonel.” Alexander glanced at Dr. Sayers, who stood by the foot of the bed with a pasty grimace.
“They are?” Tatiana beamed.
“Yes. To go with my Hero of the Soviet Union medal for helping our doctor. What do you think of that?”
Grinning, Tatiana leaned into him and said happily, “I think you’re going to become really insufferable. I’ll have to obey your every command, won’t I?”
“Tania, to get you to obey my every command, I’ll have to become a general,” Alexander replied.
She laughed. “When are you coming back?”
“The following morning.”
“Why then? Why not tomorrow afternoon?”
“They transport across the lake only in the very early mornings,” said Alexander. “It’s a little safer. There is less shelling.”
Sayers said in a weak voice, “Tania, we must go.”
Alexander shut his eyes. He heard Tatiana say, “Dr. Sayers, can I have a moment with Major Belov?”
No! Alexander thought, opening his eyes and staring at the doctor, who said, “Tatiana, we really have to be going. I have rounds to make in three wards.”
“It’ll take but a second,” she said. “And look, Leo in bed number thirty is gesturing for you.”
The doctor left. He can’t even say no to her when she is asking simple things, Alexander thought, shaking his head.
Coming close, Tatiana brought her freckled face to him. She glanced around, saw that Dr. Sayers was looking right at them, and said, “God, I won’t get a chance to kiss you, will I? I can’t wait until I can kiss you out in the open.” Her hands patted his chest. “Soon we’ll be out of the thick forest,” she whispered.
“Kiss me anyway,” Alexander said.
“Really?”
“Really.”
Tatiana bent, her serene hand remaining on his chest, and her honey lips softly kissed Alexander’s own lips. She pressed her cheek against his. “Shura, open your eyes.”
“No.”
“Open them.”
Alexander opened them.
Tatiana gazed at him, her eyes shining, and then she blinked three times quick.
Straightening up, she put on her serious face and raising her hand in a salute, said, “Sleep well, Major, and I’ll see you.”
“I’ll see you, Tania,” said Alexander.
She walked to the end of his bed. No! he wanted to cry out. No, Tania, please come back. What can I leave her with, what can I say, what one word can I leave with her, for her? What one word for my wife?
“Tatiasha,” Alexander called after her. God, what was the curator’s name . . . ?
She glanced back.
“Remember Orbeli—”
“Tania!” Dr. Sayers yelled across the ward. “Please come now!”
She made a frustrated face and said quickly, “Shura, darling, I’m sorry, I have to run. Tell me when I see you next, all right?”
He nodded.
Tatiana walked away from Alexander, past the cots, touching a convalescent’s leg and bringing a small smile to the man’s bandaged face. She said good night to Ina and stopped for a second to adjust someone’s blanket. At the door she said a few words to Dr. Sayers, laughed, and then turned to Alexander one last time, and in Tatiana’s eyes he saw her love, and then she was out the door and gone.
Alexander whispered after her, “Tatiana! Thou shall not be afraid for the terror by night . . . nor for the arrow that flieth by day . . . nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday. A thousand shall fall at your side and ten thousand at your right hand; but it shall not come near thee.”
Alexander crossed himself, folded his arms, and began to wait. He thought back to his father’s last words to him.
Dad, I have watched the things I gave my life to broken, but will I ever know if I have built them up with my worn-out tools?
Barefoot, Tania stood at attention in front of Alexander, in her yellow dress and with her golden braids peeking out from under his cap. Her face was ablaze with an exuberant smile. She saluted him.
“At ease, Tania,” he said, saluting her.
“Thank you, Captain,” she said, coming up and standing on tiptoe on top of his boot-clad feet. Lifting her face to him, she kissed his chin — it was as high up as she could reach without him bending his head to her. With one hand he held her to him.
She stepped a meter away and turned her back to Alexander. “All right, I’m falling. You better catch me. Ready?”
“I’ve been ready for five minutes. Fall already.”
Her chortling squeals chimed as she fell, and Alexander caught her, kissing her from above. “All right,” Tatiana said, straightening up, opening her arms, and laughing joyously. “Now your turn.”
Good-bye, my moonsong and my breath, my white nights and golden days, my fresh water and my fire. Good-bye, and may you find a better life, find comfort again and your breathless smile, and when your beloved face lights up once more at the Western sunrise, be sure what I felt for you was not in vain. Good-bye, and have faith, my Tatiana.