The Bronze Horseman

by Paullina Simons

  “You’re not thinking of me—” Tatiana wanted to continue, but the words got stuck in her throat.

  Her eyes opened; her heart opened.

  Truth flowed in, but not the truth she had known with Alexander. No. Truth illuminating terror. Truth lighting up those hideous corners of an ugly room, with the rotting wood and the broken plaster and the ratty furniture. Once Tatiana saw it, once she saw what was left—

  She came around and stood in front of Alexander, stopping him from walking. Too many things were making themselves clear on this desolate Leningrad Saturday. Alexander was thinking of her. He was thinking only of her.

  “Tell me . . .” Tatiana said faintly, “what do they do to wives of Red Army officers arrested on suspicion of high treason? Arrested for being foreign infiltrators? What do they do to wives of American men who jumped out of trains on the way to prison?’

  Alexander said nothing, closing his eyes.

  And suddenly—the flip side. His eyes were closed. Hers were open.

  “Oh, no, Shura . . .” she said. “What do they do to wives of deserters?”

  Alexander did not reply. He tried to go around her, but Tatiana stopped him, putting both her hands on his chest. “Don’t turn your face from me,” she said. “Tell me, what does the Commissariat of Internal Affairs do with wives of soldiers who desert, soldiers who run into the woods in marshy Finland, what do they do with the Soviet wives who remain behind?”

  Alexander didn’t answer her.

  “Shura!” she cried. “What is the NKVD going to do with me? The same thing they do to wives of MIAs? Or POWs? What did Stalin call it, protective custody? What is that a euphemism for?”

  Alexander was silent.

  “Shura!” Tatiana wasn’t letting him off the bombed-out bridge. “Is that a euphemism for being shot? Is it?” She was panting.

  Tatiana stared at Alexander in disbelief, inhaling the cold wet air, her nose hurting from the frost, and she thought back to the river Kama—the icy water every morning on her naked body as it touched him, thought back to all Alexander had tried to hide from her in the corners of his soul where he hoped she would not peek. But in Lazarevo, Tatiana’s eyes saw only the Kama sunrise. It was only here in dreary Leningrad that all was exposed, the darkness and the light, the day and the night. “Are you telling me,” she breathed out, “that whether you go or stay, I am done for?”

  Turning his agonized face away from her, Alexander said nothing.

  Tatiana’s scarf fell off her head. Numbly she picked it up and held it in her hands. “No wonder you couldn’t tell me. But how could I not have seen?” she whispered.

  “How? Because you never think of yourself,” Alexander said, grabbing his rifle, moving from foot to foot, not looking at her. “And that’s why,” he said, “I wanted you to stay in Lazarevo. I wanted you to stay as far away from here, as far away from me, as possible.”

  Tatiana shivered, putting her hands inside the pockets of her coat. “What did you think?” she said. “If you kept me in Lazarevo, you’d keep me safe?” She shook her head. “How long do you think it would take the village Soviet right next to the bathhouse to receive the order by that long Lend-Lease telegraph line to have me come in for a few questions?”

  “That’s why I liked Lazarevo so much,” he said, not looking at her. “The village Soviet didn’t have a telegraph line.”

  “Is that why you liked Lazarevo so much?”

  Alexander lowered his head to his chest, his warm eyes cooling off, his breath a vapor. His back to the stone wall, he said, “Now do you see? Now do you understand? Are your eyes opened?”

  “Now I see.” Everything. “Now I understand.” Everything. My eyes are opened.

  “Do you see there is only one way out before us?”

  Narrowing her eyes at him, Tatiana stopped talking, backing away from Alexander, tripping over her scarf, and falling on the bombed, deserted bridge under the liquid sky. Alexander went to help her up and then let go. He could not continue to touch her, Tatiana saw that. And for a moment she could not touch him. But it was just a moment. At first it was black, but the clearing inside her own head made her breathless. Suddenly, through the darkness, there was light, light! She saw it up ahead and she flew to it, knowing what it was, and before she opened her mouth to speak, she felt such relief as if her weight—and his—had been lifted.

  Tatiana looked at Alexander with her clearest eyes.

  Perplexed, he stared at her. She stretched out her arms to him and said quietly, “Shura, look, look here.”

  He looked at her.

  “All around you is darkness,” she said. “But in front of you I stand.”

  He looked at her.

  “Do you see me?” she said faintly.

  “Yes.” Just as faintly.

  She came closer to him, stepping over the broken granite. Alexander sank to the ground.

  Tatiana studied him for a few moments and then descended to her knees. Alexander put his face into his shaking hands.

  Tatiana said, “Darling, soldier, husband. Oh, God, Shura, don’t be afraid. Will you listen to me, please? Look at me.”

  Alexander would not.

  “Shura,” Tatiana said, clenching her fists to keep her composure. Stop. Breathe. Beg for strength. “You think your death is our only choice? Remember what I told you in Lazarevo? Do you not remember me in Lazarevo? I cannot bear the thought of you dying. And I will do everything in my pathetic, powerless life to keep that from happening. You have no chance here in the Soviet Union. No chance. The Germans or the Communists will kill you. That’s their sole objective. And if you die at war, your death will mean that for the rest of my life I will be eating poisoned mushrooms in the Soviet Union, alone and without you! And you know it. Your greatest sacrifice will be for my life in darkness.” Come on, Tania, be strong. “You wanted me to let you go? You wanted my faithful face to free you?” Her voice could not keep from breaking. “Well, here I am! Here is my face.” She wished he would look at her. “Go, Alexander. Go!” she said. “Run to America, and never look back.” Stop. Breathe. Breathe again. She couldn’t even wipe her eyes. All right, I cried, but I think I did well, Tatiana thought. And besides, he wasn’t looking at me.

  Taking his hands away from his face, Alexander glared at her for several moments before he spoke. “Tatiana, are you out of your mind? I need you right now,” he said slowly, “to stop being ridiculous. Can you do that for me?”

  “Shura,” Tatiana whispered, “I never imagined that I could love anyone like I love you. Do this for me. Go! Return home, and don’t think about me again.”

  “Tania, stop it, you don’t mean a word of that.”

  “What?” she exclaimed, still on her knees. “Which part don’t you think I mean? Have you be alive in America or dead in the Soviet Union? You think I don’t mean that? Shura, it’s the only way, and you know it.” She paused when he did not speak. “I know what I would do if I were you.”

  Alexander shook his head. “What would you do? You would leave me to die? Leave me in the Fifth Soviet apartment, living with Inga and Stan, orphaned and alone?”

  Frantically Tatiana chewed her lip. It was love or truth.

  Love won.

  Steeling herself, she said, “Yes,” in a fragment of a voice. “I would choose America over you.”

  Alexander broke down. “Come here, you lying wife,” he said, bringing her close, encompassing her.

  The ice on the Fontanka Canal was just forming where they were crumbled against the granite parapets.

  “Shura, listen to me,” Tatiana said into Alexander’s chest, “if no matter which way we twist in this world, we are faced with this impossible choice, if no matter what we do, I cannot be saved, then I beg of you, I beg of you—”

  “Tania! God, I will not listen to this anymore!” he shouted, pushing her away and jumping to his feet, holding the rifle in his hands.

  She stared at him pleadingly, still on the ice. “You can
be saved, Alexander Barrington. You. My husband. Your father’s only son. Your mother’s only son.” Tatiana extended her hands to him in supplication. “I am Parasha,” she whispered. “And I am the cost of the rest of your life. Please! There was once a time I saved myself for you. Look at me, I’m on my knees.” She was weeping. “Please, Shura, please. Save your one life for me.”

  “Tatiana!” Alexander pulled her up to him so hard, he lifted her off her feet. She clung to him, not letting go. “You are not going to be the cost of the rest of my life!” he said, setting her down. “Now, I need you to stop this.”

  She shook her head into his chest. “I won’t stop.”

  “Oh, yes, you will,” he said, squeezing her to him.

  “You’d rather we both perish?” she cried. “Is that what you would prefer? You’d prefer all the suffering, all the sacrifice, and no Leningrad at the end of it?” She shook him. “Are you out of your mind? You must go! You will go, and you will build yourself a new life.”

  Alexander pushed her away and walked a few strides from her. “If you don’t keep quiet,” he said, “I swear to God, I am going to leave you here and go”—he pointed down the street—”and I will never come back!”

  Tatiana nodded, pointing in the same direction. “That’s exactly what I want. Go. But far, Shura,” she whispered. “Far.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake!” Alexander yelled, slamming his rifle on the ice. “What kind of crazy world do you live in? What, you think you can come here, fly in on your little wings, and say, all right, Shura, you can go, and I just go? How do you think I can leave you? How do you think it’ll be possible for me to do that? I couldn’t leave a dying stranger in the woods. How do you think I can leave you?”

  “I don’t know,” Tatiana said, crossing her arms. “But you better find a way, big man.”

  They fell quiet. What to do? She watched him from a distance.

  “Do you see how impossible it is what you’re saying?” Alexander said. “Do you even see, or have you completely lost your senses?”

  She saw how impossible it was what she was saying. “I’ve completely lost my senses. But you must go.”

  “Tania, I’m not going anywhere without you,” he said, “except to the wall.”

  “Stop it. You must go.”

  He yelled, “If you don’t stop—”

  “Alexander!” Tatiana screamed. “If you don’t stop, I am going back to Fifth Soviet and I’m going to hang myself over the bathtub, so you can run to America free of me! I’m going to do it on Sunday, five seconds after you leave, do you understand?”

  They stared at each other for a mute, unspeakable moment.

  Tatiana stared at Alexander.

  Alexander stared at Tatiana.

  Then he opened his arms, and she ran into them; he lifted her off her feet, they hugged and did not let go. For many silent minutes they stood on the Fontanka Bridge, wrapped around each other.

  At last Alexander spoke into her neck. “Let’s make a deal, Tatiasha, all right? I will promise you that I’ll do my best to keep myself alive, if you promise me that you’ll stay away from bathtubs.”

  “You got yourself a deal.” Tatiana looked into his face. “Soldier,” she said clutching him, “I hate to point out the obvious at a time like this, but still . . . I need to point out that I was completely right. That’s all.”

  “No, you were completely wrong. That’s all,” Alexander said. “I said to you that some things were worth a great sacrifice. This is just not one of those things.”

  “No, Alexander. What you said to me—your exact words to me—was that all great things worth having required great sacrifices worth giving.”

  “Tania, what the hell are you going on about? I mean, just for a second, step away from the world in which you live and into mine, for a millisecond, all right, and tell me, what kind of life do you think I could build for myself in America knowing that I left you in the Soviet Union—to die—or to rot?” He shook his head. “The Bronze Horseman would indeed pursue me all through that long night into my maddening dust.”

  “Yes. And that would be your price for light instead of darkness.”

  “I’m not paying it.”

  “Either way, Alexander, my fate is sealed,” Tatiana said without acrimony or bitterness, “but you have a chance, right now, while you are still so young to kiss my hand and to go with God because you were meant for great things.” She took a breath. “You are the best of men.” Her arms were around his neck, and her feet were off the ground.

  “Oh, yes,” said Alexander, clamping her to him. “Running to America, abandoning my wife. I’m just fucking priceless.”

  “You’re just impossible.”

  “I’m impossible?” Alexander whispered, setting her down. “Come on, let’s walk a bit before we freeze.” She held on to him as they stepped slowly through the trampled snow down Fontanka to the Field of Mars. Silently they crossed the Moika Canal and walked into the Summer Garden.

  Tatiana opened her mouth to speak, but Alexander shook his head. “Don’t say a word. What are we even thinking, walking through here? Let’s go. Quick.”

  Their heads bent and his arm around her, they walked quickly down the path among the tall, bare trees, past the empty benches, past the statue of Saturn devouring his own child. Tatiana remembered that the last time they were here in the warmth, she had yearned for him to touch her, and now in the cold she was touching him and feeling that she did not deserve what she had been given—a life in which she was loved by a man like Alexander.

  “What did I tell you then?” he said. “I told you that was the best time. And I was right.”

  “You were wrong,” Tatiana said, unable to look at him. “The Summer Garden was not the best time.”

  She was sitting on his bare shoulders in the water, waiting for him to throw her over into the Kama. He wasn’t moving. “Shura,” she said, “what are you waiting for?” He wasn’t moving. “Shura!”

  “You’re not going anywhere,” he said. “What kind of man would throw off a girl sitting naked around his neck?”

  “A ticklish man!” she shouted.

  Exiting through the gilded iron gates on the Neva embankment, they headed mutely upriver. Weakening by minutes, Tatiana took Alexander’s arm and slowed him down. “Can’t walk our streets with you anymore,” she said hoarsely.

  From the embankment they turned to Tauride Park. They passed their bench on Ulitsa Saltykov-Schedrin, walked a little farther along the wrought-iron fence, stopped, stared at each other and turned around. They sat down in their coats. Tatiana sat for a minute next to Alexander, then got up and climbed into his lap. Pressing her head to his, she said, “That’s better.”

  “Yes,” he said. “That’s better.”

  Silently they sat together on their bench in the cold. Tatiana’s whole body struggled with heartbreak. “Why,” she whispered into his mouth, “why can’t we have even what Inga and Stan have? Yes, in the Soviet Union, but together twenty years, still together.”

  “Because Inga and Stan are Party spies,” replied Alexander. “Because Inga and Stan sold their souls for a two-bedroom apartment, and now they don’t have either.” He paused. “You and I want too much from this Soviet life.”

  “I want nothing from this life,” said Tatiana. “Just you.”

  “Me, and running hot water, and electricity, and a little house in the desert, and a state that doesn’t ask for your life in return for these small things.”

  “No,” Tatiana said, shaking her head. “Just you.”

  Moving her hair back under her scarf, Alexander studied her face. “And a state that doesn’t ask for your life in return for me.”

  “The state,” she said with a sigh, “has to ask for something. After all, it protects us from Hitler.”

  “Yes,” Alexander said. “But, Tania, who is going to protect you and me from the state?”

  Tatiana held him closer. One way or another she had to help Alexa
nder. But how? How to help him? How to save him?

  “Don’t you see? We live in a state of war. Communism is war on you and me,” Alexander said. “That’s why I wanted to keep you in Lazarevo. I was just trying to hide my artwork until the war was over.”

  “You’re hiding it in the wrong place,” said Tatiana. “You told me yourself there was no safe place in the Soviet Union.” She paused. “Besides, this war is going to be a long one. It’s going to take some time to reconstruct our souls.”

  Squeezing her, Alexander muttered, “I have to stop talking to you. Do you ever forget anything I tell you?”

  “Not a word,” she said. “Every day I’m afraid that’s all I’ll have left of you.”

  They sat.

  Tatiana brightened. “Alexander,” she said, “want to hear a joke?”

  “Dying to.”

  “When we get married, I’ll be there to share all your troubles and sorrows.”

  “What troubles? I don’t have any troubles,” said Alexander.

  “I said when we get married,” replied Tatiana, her tearful eyes twinkling. “You have to admit that you getting killed at the front so I can live in the Soviet Union, and me hanging myself over a bathtub so you can live in America is an ironic tale quite well told, don’t you think?”

  “Hmm. But since we are not leaving a scrap of family behind,” said Alexander, “there will be no one to tell it.”

  “There is that,” said Tatiana. “But still . . . how Greek of us, don’t you think?” She smiled and squished his face.

  Alexander shook his head. “How do you do that?” he asked. “Find comfort? Through anything. How?”

  “Because I’ve been comforted by the master,” she said, kissing his forehead.

  He tutted. “Some master I am. Couldn’t even get one tiny tadpole of a wife to stay in Lazarevo.”

  Tatiana watched him stare at her. “What, husband?” she said. “What are you thinking?”

  “Tania . . . you and I had only one moment . . .” said Alexander. “A single moment in time, in your time and mine . . . one instant, when another life could have still been possible.” He kissed her lips. “Do you know what I’m talking about?”