The Bronze Horseman

by Paullina Simons

  When Tatiana looked up from her ice cream, she saw a soldier staring at her from across the street.

  “I know that moment,” whispered Tatiana.

  “Regret that I crossed the street for you?”

  “No, Shura,” she replied. “Before I met you, I could not imagine living a life different from my parents, my grandparents, Dasha, me, Pasha, our children. Could not have conceived of it.” She smiled. “I didn’t dream of someone like you even when I was a child in Luga. You showed me, in a glimpse, in our tremor, a beautiful life . . .” She peered into his eyes. “What did I ever show you?”

  “That there is a God,” whispered Alexander.

  “There is!” exclaimed Tatiana. “And I felt your need for me clear across the steppes. I’m here for you. And one way or another we will fix this.” She squeezed him. “You’ll see. You and I will fix this together.”

  “How? And now what?” came Alexander’s voice at her head.

  Taking a frigid breath, Tatiana spoke, trying to sound as cheerful as possible. “How, I don’t know. What now? Now we go blindly into the thick forest at the other side of which awaits the rest of our short but oh-so-blissful time on this earth. You go and fight me a nice war, Captain, and you stay alive, as promised, and keep Dimitri off your back—”

  “Tania, I could kill him. Don’t think I haven’t thought about it.”

  “In cold blood? I know you couldn’t. And if you could, how long do you think God would look after you then in war? And me in the Soviet Union?” She paused, trying to get hold of her departing senses. It wasn’t as if she herself hadn’t thought about it . . . but Tatiana had the feeling that it was not the Almighty who was keeping Dimitri alive.

  “And what about you?” asked Alexander. “What now for you? I don’t suppose you might consider going back to Lazarevo?”

  Smiling, Tatiana shook her head. “Don’t worry about me. You must know that having survived last winter’s Leningrad, I’m ready for the worst.” She traced her glove along Alexander’s cheeks, thinking, and the very best, too. “And though I do sometimes wonder,” she continued, “what’s ahead of me if I needed Leningrad to pave my way into it . . . it doesn’t matter. I’m here for the long haul, or the short haul. I’m here to stay. And I’m paved and ready for it all.” Her heart throbbing, Tatiana hugged him to her. “Regret crossing the street for me, soldier?”

  Taking her hand into both of his, Alexander said, “Tania, I was spellbound by you from the first moment I saw you. There I was, living my dissolute life, and war had just started. My entire base was in disarray, people were running around, closing accounts, taking money out, grabbing food out of stores, buying up the entire Gostiny Dvor, volunteering for the army, sending their kids to camp—” He broke off. “And in the middle of my chaos, there was you!” Alexander whispered passionately. “You were sitting alone on this bench, impossibly young, breathtakingly blonde and lovely, and you were eating ice cream with such abandon, such pleasure, such mystical delight that I could not believe my eyes. As if there were nothing else in the world on that summer Sunday. I give you this so that if you ever need strength in the future and I’m not there, you don’t have to look far. You, with your high-heeled red sandals, in your sublime dress, eating ice cream before war, before going who knows where to find who knows what, and yet never having any doubt that you would find it. That’s what I crossed the street for, Tatiana. Because I believed that you would find it. I believed in you.”

  Alexander wiped the tears from her eyes and, pulling off her glove, pressed his warm lips to her hand.

  “But I would’ve come back empty-handed that day if it weren’t for you.”

  He shook his head. “No. You didn’t start with me. I came to you because you already had yourself. You know what I bring you?”

  “What?”

  His voice choking with emotion, he said, “Offerings.”

  Alexander and Tatiana sat a long time with their wet, cold faces pressed against each other, his arms around her, her hands cradling his head, while the wind blew the last dead leaves off the trees, while the sky was a leaky November gray.

  A tram went by. Three people walked down the street at the end of which Smolny Monastery stood, concealed with scaffolding and camouflage. Down by the granite carapace the river was icy and still. And past the empty Summer Garden the Field of Mars lay flat under blackened snow.

  A WINDOW TO THE WEST

  AFTER Alexander left, Tatiana wrote to him every day until her ink ran out. When her ink ran out, she went across the street to Vania Rechnikov’s apartment. She had heard he had ink he lent sometimes. Vania was dead at his writing table. He had put his head down on the letter he had been writing and died. Tatiana couldn’t pry the pen from his stiff fingers.

  Tatiana went to the post office every day in hopes of hearing from Alexander. She couldn’t take the silence in between the letters. Alexander wrote her a stream, but the stream would come in a flood instead of a steady trickle. The damn mail.

  She stayed in her room when she was not working and practiced her En-glish. During air raids she read her mother’s cookbook. Tatiana started cooking dinner for Inga, who was sick and alone.

  One afternoon the postmaster wouldn’t give her any of Alexander’s letters, offering her not only his letters but a bag of potatoes, too, in return for something from her.

  She wrote to Alexander about it, afraid that none of his future letters would get through.

  Tania,

  Please go to the barracks and ask for Lieutenant Oleg Kashnikov. He is on base duty, I think from eight to six. He has three bullets lodged in his leg and can’t fight anymore. He is the one who helped me dig you out in Luga. Ask him for some food. I promise he won’t ask for anything in return. Oh, Tatia.

  Also, give him your letters, and he will bring them to me in a day. Please don’t go to the post office.

  What do you mean, Inga is alone? Where is Stan?

  Why are you still working such crazy hours? The winter is getting harsher.

  I wish you knew how much solace I have thinking of you not too far from me. I’m not going to tell you that you were right to come back to Leningrad, but . . . Did I mention that we were promised ten days off after we broke the blockade?

  Ten days, Tania!

  I wish until then there were a place you could be comforted. But you hang on until then.

  Don’t be worried about me, we’re not doing anything but bringing troops and munitions in for our assault on the Neva sometime very early in the new year.

  Wait till you hear this! I don’t even know what I did to deserve it, but I’ve received not only another medal but a promotion to go with it. Maybe Dimitri is right about me—somehow I manage to turn even a defeat into a victory, don’t know how.

  We’re testing the ice on the Neva. The ice doesn’t seem strong enough. It’ll hold up a man, a rifle, maybe a Katyusha, but will it hold a tank?

  We think yes. Then no. Then yes. Then one general engineer who had been designing the Leningrad subway gets the idea to put the tank on a wooden outrigger, flat wood boards on ice, sort of a wooden railroad, to distribute the pressure from the treads evenly. The tanks and all the armored vehicles would use this outrigger to cross. All right, we say.

  We build the outrigger.

  Who is going to drive the tank out on the water to test it?

  I step up and say, sir, I’ll be glad to do it.

  The next day my commander is not pleased at all when all five generals show up for our little demonstration. Including Dimitri’s new friend. Commander motions to me: don’t blow it.

  So here I go, I get into our best and heaviest, the KV-1—you remember them, Tatia? And I drive this monster out onto the ice with my commander walking beside the tank and the five generals right behind us, saying, well done, well done, well done.

  I went about 150 meters, and then the ice started to crack. I heard it and thought, oops. The generals from the back yelled at my command
er, run, run!

  So he ran, they ran, the tank broke a canyon in the ice and sank into it, like a, well, like a tank.

  Me with it.

  The turret was open, so I swam up.

  The commander pulled me out and gave me a swig of vodka to warm me up.

  One general said, give this man the order of the Red Star. I’ve also been made a major.

  Marazov says I have become really insufferable. He says I think everyone should listen only to me. You tell me—does that sound like me?

  Alexander

  Dearest MAJOR Belov!

  Yes, Major, it does sound like you.

  I’m very proud of you. You’ll be a general yet.

  Thank you for letting me give my letters to Oleg. He is a very nice, polite man and yesterday even gave me some dehydrated eggs, which I found amusing and didn’t know quite what to do with. I added water to them, they’re kind of—oh, I don’t know. I cooked them without oil on Slavin’s Primus. Ate them. They were rubbery.

  But Slavin liked them and said Tsar Nicholas would have enjoyed them in Sverdlovsk. Sometimes I don’t know about our crazy Slavin.

  Alexander—there is one place I’m comforted. I wake up there, and I go to sleep there; I am at peace there, and loved there: your subsuming arms.

  Tatiana

  2

  In December the International Red Cross came to Grechesky Hospital.

  There were too few doctors left in Leningrad. Out of the 3,500 that were there before the war, only 2,000 remained, and there was a quarter of a million people in various city hospitals.

  Tatiana met Dr. Matthew Sayers when she was washing out a throat wound on a young corporal.

  The doctor came in, and before he opened his mouth, Tatiana suspected he was an American. First of all he smelled clean. He was thin and small and dark blond, and his head was a little big for the rest of his body, but he radiated confidence that Tatiana had not seen in any man but Alexander and now this man, who entered the room, swung up the chart, looked at the patient, glanced at her, glanced back to the patient, clicked his tongue, shook his head, rolled his eyes, and said, in English, “Doesn’t look so good, does he?”

  Though Tatiana understood him, she remained mute, remembering Alexander’s warnings.

  In heavily accented Russian, the doctor repeated himself.

  Nodding, Tatiana said, “I think he’ll be all right. I’ve seen worse.”

  Emitting a good, non-Russian laugh, he said, “I bet you have, I just bet you have.” He came up to her and extended his hand. “I’m with the Red Cross. Dr. Matthew Sayers. Can you say Sayers?”

  “Sayers,” Tatiana said perfectly.

  “Very good! What’s Matthew in Russian?”

  “Matvei.”

  Letting go of her hand, he said, “Matvei. Do you like it?”

  “I like Matthew better,” she told him, turning back to the gurgling patient.

  Tatiana was right about the doctor, he was competent, friendly, and instantly improved the conditions in their dismal hospital, having brought miracles with him—penicillin, morphine, and plasma. Tatiana was also right about the patient. He lived.

  3

  Dear Tania,

  I haven’t heard from you. What are you doing? Is everything all right? Oleg told me he has not seen you in days. I cannot worry about you, too. I’ve got enough craziness on my hands.

  They’re getting better, by the way.

  Write to me immediately. I don’t care if your own hands have fallen off. I forgave you once for not writing to me. I don’t know if I can be so charitable again.

  As you know, it’s almost time. I need your advice—we’re sending out a reconnaissance force of 600 men. It’s actually more than a reconnaissance force, it’s a stealth attack with the rest of us waiting to see what kind of defense the Germans put up. If things go well, we will follow them.

  I have to decide which battalion goes.

  Any ideas?

  Alexander

  P.S. You haven’t told me what happened to Stan.

  Dear Shura,

  Don’t send your friend Marazov.

  Can you send any supply units? Ah, a bad joke.

  On that note, we must bear in mind that our own righteous Alexander Pushkin challenged Baron George d’Anthes to a duel and did not live to write a poem about it. So instead of seeking revenge, we will simply stay away from those who can hurt us, all right?

  I’m fine. I’m very busy at the hospital. I’m hardly ever home. I’m not needed there. Shura, dear, please don’t go insane worrying about me. I’m here, and I’m waiting—impatiently—until I can see you again. That’s all I do, Alexander—wait until I can see you again.

  It’s dark from morning until night with an hour off in the afternoon. Thinking of you is my sunshine, so my days are perpetually sunny. And hot.

  Tatiana

  P.S. The Soviet Union happened to Stan.

  Dear Tania,

  Pushkin never needed to write again after The Bronze Horseman—and never did, having died so young. But you’re right—the righteous do not always forge a path to glory. But often they do.

  I don’t care how busy you are, you need to write me more than a couple of lines a week.

  Alexander

  P.S. And you wanted to have what Inga and Stan have.

  Dearest Tatiasha,

  How was your New Year? I hope you had something delicious. Have you been to see Oleg?

  I’m not happy. My New Year was spent in the mess tent with a number of people, none of whom was you. I miss you. I dream sometimes of a life in which you and I can clink our glasses on New Year’s. We had a little vodka and many cigarettes. We hoped maybe 1943 would be better than 1942.

  I nodded, but thought about the summer of 1942.

  Alexander

  P.S. We lost all 600. I did not send Tolya. He said he will thank me after this war is over.

  P.S.S. Where are you, damn it? I haven’t heard from you in ten days. You haven’t gone back to Lazarevo, have you, now that I’ve finally grown accustomed to your strengthening spirit from only seventy kilometers away? Please send me a letter in the next few days. You know we’re going and we’re not coming back until the Leningrad front and the Volkhov front shake hands. I need to hear from you. I need one word. Don’t send me out on the ice without a single word from you, Tatiana.

  Darling Shura!

  I’m here, I’m here, can’t you feel me, soldier?

  I myself spent New Year at the hospital, and I just want you to know that I clink my glass against yours every day.

  I’ve been working I cannot tell you how many hours, how many nights I sleep in the hospital and don’t come home at all.

  Shura! As soon as you’re back, you must come and see me instantly. Other than for the obvious reasons, I’ve got the most amazing wonderful fantastic thing I desperately need to talk to you about—and soon. You wanted a word from me? I leave you with one—the word is HOPE.

  Yours,

  Tania

  IN STORIED BATTLES

  ALEXANDER looked at his watch. It was the early morning of January 12, 1943, and Operation Spark—the Battle for Leningrad—was about to begin. There was going to be no further attempt. This was it. On the orders of Comrade Stalin, they were going to break the German blockade, and they weren’t returning until they did.

  Alexander had spent the last three days and nights hidden in the wooden bunker on the banks of the Neva with Marazov and six corporals. The artillery encampment was right outside, hiding from view their two 120-millimeter breech-loading mortars, two portable 81-millimeter muzzle-loading mortars, one Zenith antiaircraft heavy machine gun, a Katyusha rocket launcher, and two portable 76-millimeter field guns. On the morning of the attack Alexander was not just ready to fight, he would have fought Marazov if it meant getting out of the confinement of the bunker. They played cards, they smoked, they talked about the war, they told jokes, they slept—he was done with it all after six hours, and
they had stayed in it for seventy-two. Alexander thought about Tatiana’s last letter. What the hell did she mean by “HOPE”? How was that going to help him? Obviously she couldn’t tell him in the letter, but he wished she wouldn’t go firing up his imagination when he didn’t know when he would be able to get to her.

  He needed to get to her.

  Wearing white camouflage, he peeked out of the encampment. The river was disguised like Alexander, the south shore barely visible in the gray light. He was on the northern bank of the Neva just west of Shlisselburg. Alexander’s artillery unit was covering the outermost flank of the river crossing and the most dangerous—the Germans were extremely well entrenched and defended in Shlisselburg. Alexander could see the fortress Oreshek a kilometer in the distance at the mouth of Lake Ladoga. A few hundred meters before Oreshek lay the bodies of 600 men, who had made a surprise attack six days ago and failed. Alexander wanted to know if they had failed gloriously or vainly. Bravely and without support, they went across the ice and were laid down one by bloody one. Will history remember them? wondered Alexander as he turned his gaze straight ahead.

  He was on air detail today. Marazov was launching Katyusha’s solid-fuel rockets. Alexander knew this was it. He felt it. They were going to break the blockade or die in the process. The 67th Army was forcing the river along an eight-kilometer stretch at whatever the cost. The strategy for the attack was to close ranks with Meretskov’s 2nd Army in Volkhov that was simultaneously attacking Manstein’s Army Group Nord from the rear. The plan was for the rifle guard divisions and some light tanks to cross the river, four guard divisions in all. Two hours later three more rifle divisions with heavy and medium tanks would follow, including six of the men under Alexander’s immediate command. He would remain behind the Zenith on the Neva. He would cross in the third wave, with another heavily armored platoon, commanding a T-34, a medium tank that had a chance of crossing the river without sinking.