The Bronze Horseman

by Paullina Simons

  “Nothing. Why?”

  “Tatiana Metanova! I know that something is seriously wrong.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Tania! I’ve known you for seventeen years, and you have never asked me how you looked.”

  “Maybe if your phone were working more often, I would. Are you going to answer me, or can we just go?”

  “Your hair is too short, your skirt is too long, your blouse is white and tight—what the hell is going on?”

  Finally Tatiana got Marina out the door. They walked slowly down Grechesky, to Insurrection Square, where they took a tram down Nevsky Prospekt to the Admiralty. Tatiana walked supported by Marina’s arm. She had a little trouble walking and talking at the same time. The walking took most of her energy.

  “Tania, tell me, why did you jump off a moving train? Is that how you broke your leg?”

  “It’s not how I broke my leg,” said Tatiana, “and I jumped off a moving train because that was what I had to do.”

  “Did a ton of bricks fall on you because they had to, too?” Marina asked with a chortle. “Is that how you broke your leg?”

  “Yes, and are you going to stop?”

  Marina laughed. “I’m sorry about Pasha, Tanechka,” she said, much more quietly. “He was the best boy.”

  “Yes,” said Tatiana. “I wish I had found him.”

  “I know.” Marina paused. “This has not been a great summer. I haven’t seen you since before the war started.”

  Tatiana nodded. “You almost saw me. I was very close to coming and visiting you the day the war started.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  Tatiana wished she could have told Marina everything—about her emotion and her conscience, about her fear and confusion. What Tatiana did instead was tell Marina about Dasha and Alexander, and herself and Dimitri, and herself and Luga, and Alexander’s search for her. What Tatiana didn’t tell Marina was the truth.

  Tatiana could barely trust herself not to slip in front of Dasha amid the ice of constant lies on which she skated. How could she trust Marina, who had nothing at stake? Tatiana didn’t tell her, sensing that truth forged a chasm between her and all the people she loved. How can that be? Tatiana thought, as they came to the Admiralty Gardens and sat on a bench. How can it be that deceit and treachery and secrecy bonded her to other human beings instead of truth and trust and openness? How could it be that she could not trust a member of her own family with a personal matter? This life just seems to breed contempt for other human beings.

  The Admiralty Gardens were laid out on the banks of the Neva, between the Palace Bridge and St. Isaac’s. Tatiana was not far from Alexander. If she strained, she might be able to hear him breathe. She smiled. Tall leafy elms branched out over the footpaths and the benches much the same as they did in the Summer Garden. The difference was, in the Summer Garden Tatiana had walked and sat with him.

  “Tania,” Marina said, “is there a reason we’re here?”

  “No, Marina,” said Tatiana. “We’re just sitting and talking.” She wished she had a watch. How late was it already?

  “I used to come to this park,” Marina said. “Once I even brought you. Remember?”

  Tatiana, suddenly blushing, said, “Yes . . . I do.”

  Marina said, “I’ve had some good times in my life. They don’t seem so far away. You think we’ll have them again?”

  “Sure, Marinka,” said Tatiana. “I’m counting on it. I haven’t had any good times yet.” She smiled at her cousin.

  Marina laughed. “Not even with Dima?”

  “Of course, not!” Tatiana said, and didn’t say anything else.

  Marina put her arm around Tatiana. “Don’t be sad, Tania. You’ll get out of this city somehow.”

  Tatiana shook her head. “No. There are no more trains, Marinka. Mga fell.”

  Marina was quiet. “We haven’t heard from Papa for three days,” she said. “He’s been fighting at Izhorsk. That’s near Mga, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Tatiana said faintly. “It is.”

  Marina held Tatiana closer. “I don’t think anyone is getting out of this city,” she said. “My mama is so sick. My papa is . . .”

  “I know,” said Tatiana, patting her cousin’s leg. “We’ll make it, Marina. We just have to be strong.”

  “Yes, especially you,” Marina said, with a shake of her head, shuddering away her unhappy thoughts. “Will you tell me why you brought me here?”

  “No.”

  “Tania . . .”

  “No. I have nothing to tell.”

  Marina tickled Tatiana’s arm. “Tania, tell me about Dimitri.”

  “There is nothing to tell.”

  Marina giggled. “I can’t believe you of all people are seeing a soldier!” She looked askance at Tatiana. “Oh, no—you’re not meeting him here later, are you?”

  “No!” Tatiana cried. “Dima and I are just friendly.”

  “Yes, sure. Soldiers have only one way of being friendly, Tania.”

  Now it was Tatiana’s turn to look askance at her cousin. “What are you talking about?”

  “Remember I went out with a soldier last year?” Marina made a derisive clicking sound with her tongue. “I glimpsed the life he lived and said forget it, I want no part of it. But this summer I was seeing someone nice, another student. He enlisted and went down to Fornosovo.” She stopped. “Haven’t heard from him since.”

  “What do you mean?” said Tatiana. “What did you want no part of with soldiers? War, you mean?”

  “Tania, not war. Women.”

  “Women?” she said weakly.

  “Women—good-time girls, pick-me-up girls, garrison hacks, harlots—all kinds of women come to the bars and the clubs and the barracks offering themselves to garrison soldiers, and the soldiers accept. All of them. It’s just what they do. Like having a smoke. Every time they’re off duty, every time they have time off at the weekend, every time they get furlough.” Marina shook her head. “I don’t know how you’re keeping Dimitri away. Easy women, difficult women, young girls like you, it’s all the same to soldiers—just one big conquest party to them.”

  In a small, horrified voice, Tatiana said, “Marinka, what are you talking about? Not in Leningrad. That’s only in the West. In America.”

  Marina burst out laughing. “Tania, I love you,” she said, putting an arm around her. “I really do. You are just—”

  “That’s not Alexander,” muttered a shaken Tatiana.

  “Who? Oh, Dasha’s guy. No? Ask Dasha.” Marina laughed. “How do you think he met her?”

  Dasha did meet Alexander in Sadko. “You’re not saying . . .”

  “Ask Dasha, Tania.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about!” Tatiana was sorry she’d ever called her.

  When Tatiana remained silent, Marina continued. “Look, the point I’m making is that you have to be careful with a soldier like Dimitri, especially you of all people. They expect certain things. And when they don’t get the things they expect, they take them anyway. Do you understand?”

  Tatiana kept quiet. How in the world had they started talking about this?

  “Are you still friendly with Anton Iglenko? He is a nice boy, and he really likes you.”

  “Marina!” Tatiana shook her head. “Anton is my friend.” She sat breathing heavily, keeping her hands steady on her lap. “He doesn’t like me.”

  Marina smiled, ruffling Tatiana’s hair. “You’re adorable, Tania. And blind as always. Remember Misha? Remember how stuck on you he was?”

  “Who?” Tatiana strained to remember. “Misha from Luga?”

  Marina nodded. “For three summers in a row. Pasha couldn’t keep him away from you.”

  “You’re crazy.” Tatiana and Misha used to hang upside down from trees together. She taught him how to do cartwheels. And Pasha, too.

  Marina asked, “Tania, have you ever talked to Dasha about these things?”

  “Go
d, no!” Tatiana exclaimed, trying to get up. She felt as if she were being stabbed repeatedly with a blunt kitchen utensil.

  Marina helped her stand. “Well, I suggest you do. She’s your older sister. She should help you. But be careful with Dimitri, Tania. You don’t want to be just another notch in some soldier’s belt.”

  Tatiana tried to think of Alexander as she knew him. She knew nothing about that part of him. A vision of his head appeared, softly kissing the top of her breast when she lay wounded in his tent. She shook her head. What Marina was describing, that was not her Alexander.

  Then Tatiana remembered Dimitri’s comment about Alexander’s extracurricular activities. She felt ill. “Let’s go home,” she said dejectedly, and slowly they walked back to the tram stop on Nevsky. Tatiana told Marina that she didn’t have to go all the way back home with her. “I’m going to be fine. I can walk home from Insurrection Square. Honestly. Look, your bus home will come any minute. Don’t worry for a second about me.”

  Marina said she could not leave Tatiana alone at night in the middle of the city. It hadn’t occurred to Tatiana that she should be afraid of anything. “Alexander told us that violent crime has fallen off dramatically since war began. It’s almost nonexistent.”

  “Oh, well, if Alexander told you . . .” Marina said, peering at Tatiana’s face. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m great. Go,” Tatiana said, and then she saw a sad reluctance in Marina that she had not seen at first, so wrapped up was she in her own upset haze. Focusing, she studied Marina for a moment. She couldn’t see. Reaching out, she touched Marina’s face. Marina blinked. Tatiana saw. “Who is home, Marina?” Tatiana asked quietly. “Who are you going home to?”

  “No one,” Marina replied, just as quietly. “Mama’s in the hospital. Papa’s gone. Down the hall, the Lublins—”

  “Marinka,” Tatiana said softly, “don’t stay by yourself. Come and live with us. We have room now. Deda and Babushka have left. You don’t want to be alone. Come on. You’ll sleep with Dasha and me.”

  “Really?” Marina said.

  Tatiana nodded. “Really.”

  “Tania, have you asked your parents about this?”

  “I don’t need to. Just pack your things and come. Your mother is my father’s sister. He will not say no. Come, all right?”

  Marina gave Tatiana a hug. “Thank you,” she whispered. “I’ve been feeling so alone in those rooms without Mama and Papa.”

  Tatiana patted Marina, and said, “I know— Look! Your bus!”

  Waving to Tatiana, Marina ran across Nevsky to catch her bus, and Tatiana sat on the bench and waited for her tram to go back home.

  She felt sick to her stomach.

  Her tram came; the doors opened. The conductor looked at her. Tatiana shook her head. The tram left.

  How could she not go to see him? She could not stay away from him.

  Getting up, Tatiana limped past the Admiralty Gardens to St. Isaac’s.

  Two soldiers were walking toward her. Stopping in front of Tatiana, they banged their rifles on the pavement and asked where she was headed. She told them.

  One soldier said St. Isaac’s was closed this time of night. She said yes, but she was looking for a Lieutenant Belov. They knew him, and their serious faces relaxed. One soldier said, “I told you, Viktor, that we should have enrolled in officers’ school, and you didn’t believe me.”

  “I thought it’d be more work, not more—” He glanced at Tatiana and broke off. “And who are you?”

  “His cousin from Krasnodar.”

  “Oh. Cousin,” said Viktor. “Well, come with us. We’ll take you to him. I don’t know how you’re going to get up to the observation arcade with that cast. It’s about two hundred steps up a spiral staircase.”

  “I’ll make it,” Tatiana said.

  St. Isaac’s had never seemed so far away from Nevsky, even though it was less than a kilometer. By the time they got to the cathedral, she was panting and her leg was throbbing. In front of the cathedral on the banks of the Neva, Tatiana saw the shape of the statue of Peter the Great on his steed—the Bronze Horseman—a faint silhouette covered with a wooden form filled with canvas and sand. The Bronze Horseman was built by Catherine the Great as a tribute to Peter the Great for building Leningrad. Tonight nothing could be seen of the black horse or the majestic rider or his outstretched hand; just sandbags to protect the statue from the Germans.

  Viktor said, “Tomorrow they’re going to impose a curfew on the whole city. No more evening excursions. So make this meeting with Lieutenant Belov count, cousin.”

  They brought her inside the cavernous granite hall. She heard the light beating of the pendulum the Communists had placed inside the cathedral to turn the place of worship into a science museum.

  The guard at the narrow opening to the staircase asked if Tatiana was clean.

  “Well, I think so. She’s not carrying any bombs.”

  “Did you search her?”

  “Let me,” said Viktor. He ran his hands over her ribs, making Tatiana grimace. She felt an increasing anxiety. Being alone with three soldiers in a dark, ominous building, with Alexander high up and unable to hear her, made her fear things she could not imagine. It was an irrational fear, she told herself, as Viktor’s hands moved down to her hips. He held her a little tighter, and suddenly her fear got the better of her. “Maybe one of you can just,” she said, trying to step away, “let him know I’m here.” She took another breath. “You know what? I’ll just be getting back. You can tell him I stopped by.”

  A voice coming down from the staircase said, “Let go of her.” It was Alexander, who appeared in the doorway with his rifle. Tatiana breathed immediate relief.

  Viktor quickly let go. “Nothing to it, Lieutenant. We were just checking her for weapons. She says she is your cousin from—”

  “Private!” Alexander came up close to Viktor, towering over him. “We have standards, Private, even in the Red Army. These standards do not allow us to menace young girls. Unless you want to face disciplinary action, I suggest you don’t let me catch you doing that again.” He put his hand on Tatiana’s back and said to his men, “You two, go back on the street where you belong. Corporal, you stay here until you’re relieved by Petrenko and Kapov.”

  “Yes, sir,” the three soldiers said in unison. The corporal took his post by the doorway.

  Alexander was trying not to smile. “It’s quite a hike up,” he said, his hand on her back, prodding her to the staircase. “Come on.” When they were around a column and not seen by anyone’s eyes, Alexander smiled broadly. “Tania . . .” he said, “I’m so happy you came to see me.”

  Sighing, melting, warming, Tatiana said softly, “Me, too.”

  “Did they scare you? They’re harmless,” he said, stroking her hair.

  “If they’re so harmless, why did you come down?”

  “I heard your voice and theirs. They’re harmless, but you sounded scared.” He was looking at her so . . .

  “What?” Tatiana said shyly.

  “Nothing.” Alexander crouched in front of her. “Go on. Grab my neck. Remember how to do this?”

  “You’re going to carry me up two hundred stairs?”

  “It’s the least I can do after you came all this way. Can you hold my weapon?”

  Holding on to the rails, he propelled himself up with her hands around his neck. Hoping he wouldn’t notice, Tatiana silently kissed the back of his military tunic.

  Alexander brought her into a glassed-in circular arcade with five columns that partially obstructed the view of the horizon and the sky. Setting her down, he took his rifle from her and propped it against the wall of the gold dome. “We have to go out on the balcony for a clearer view. Will you be all right?” He smiled. “We’re very high up. You’re not afraid of heights, are you?”

  “I’m not afraid of heights, no,” Tatiana said, looking up at him.

  They walked out onto a narrow outdoor balcony deck circling
the arcade above the rotunda. A short iron railing ran around the deck. The view from up here would have been quite striking, Tatiana thought, if only Leningrad weren’t prepared for war. All the lights were extinguished, and in the black of night she could not make out even the white airships floating silently in the dark sky. The air was cool and smelled of fresh water.

  “What do you think? Nice up here?” Alexander said, coming up to her. Tatiana couldn’t move if she wanted to. She was between him and the railing.

  “Mmm,” she said, peering into the night, afraid to look at him, afraid to let him see her heart. “What do you do here all by yourself, night in and night out?”

  “Nothing. Sit on the floor. Smoke. Think.”

  Alexander threaded his arms around her waist and closed his hands on her stomach, pressing her into him. She felt his lips at her neck whisper, “Oh, Tatia . . .”

  How instant it was, desire. It was like a bomb exploding, fragmenting and igniting all her nerve endings.

  Not desire.

  Burning desire for Alexander.

  Tatiana tried to move aside, but he held her too tightly. All she wanted was to sink to the ground. Why was that? Why, every time he touched her, did she want to lie down? “Shura, wait,” she said, not recognizing her own voice, which, thick with longing, said, Come here, come, come. Tatiana closed her eyes, muttering, “I don’t see any planes.”

  “Me neither.”

  “Are they coming?” She moaned softly.

  “Yes. The placards are finally right. The enemy is at the gates.” He continued to kiss her under the wisps of her hair.

  “Do you think there is any chance we could get out?”

  “Not a chance. You’re trapped in the city.” His hot breath and his moist lips on her neck were making her shiver.

  “How will it be?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “You said you wanted to talk to me . . .” Tatiana said hoarsely.

  “Talk?” Alexander said, holding her stomach tight against him.

  “Yes, talk . . . to me . . . about . . .” She couldn’t remember what. “Di-mitri?”

  He pulled her blouse away and kissed her shoulder blade. “I like your blouse,” he whispered, his mouth on her skin.