“Yes, but now that he’s better, she’s gone to help.” Dr. Sayers smiled. “They’re calling it the railroad of victory. Too soon if you ask me, seeing the state of the men that are brought in here.”
“Can you bring the nurse in here when she returns from the railroad?” Alexander paused. He wanted to explain but felt shattered. He was shattered. “Where did you say I was hit?”
“Your back. Your right side got blown out. But the shell fragment cut open the body on top of you, so it’s a good thing you had him.” Dr. Sayers paused. “We worked very hard to save your kidney.” He leaned forward. “Didn’t want you to be taking on the Germans in the future with just one kidney, Major.”
“Thank you, Doctor. How did you do?” Alexander tried to think about what hurt. “My back doesn’t feel great.”
“No, Major, it wouldn’t. You’ve got a third-degree burn around the periphery of the wound. That’s why we kept you on your stomach for so long. We just started rolling you over on your back.” Sayers patted him on the shoulder. “Feel your head? You hit that truck quite hard. But, listen, you’re going to be as good as new, I figure, once the wound and the burn heal and we wean you off the morphine. Maybe in a month you’ll be out of here.” The doctor hesitated, studying Alexander, who did not want to be studied. “We’ll talk another time, all right?”
“Fine,” Alexander muttered.
Brightening, the doctor said, “But on the plus side, you’ve been given another medal.”
“As long as it wasn’t posthumously.”
“As soon as you can stand up, they’re going to promote you, I’ve been told,” Sayers said. “Oh, and some supply guy keeps coming around asking about you. Chernenko?”
“Bring the nurse to me, won’t you?” said Alexander, closing his eyes.
3
A night passed before he saw her again. Alexander woke up, and there she was, sitting by his side. They sat and stared at each other. Tatiana said, “Shura, now, don’t be upset with me.”
“Oh my God” was all Alexander could manage. “You are just relentless.”
Nodding, Tatiana quietly said, “Relentlessly married.”
“No. Just relentless.”
Leaning toward him, she whispered, “Relentlessly in love.” She added, “You needed me. I came.”
“I didn’t need you here,” Alexander said. “How many times do I have to tell you? I need you safe.”
“And who is going to keep you safe?” She took his hand and smiled. Looking around to make sure there were no nurses or doctors close by, she kissed his hand and then pressed it to her face. “You’re going to be all right, big man. You just hang on.”
“Tania, after I’m out of here, I’m getting a divorce.” He was not letting go of her face. For anything.
Shaking her head, she said, “Sorry. Can’t. You wanted a covenant with God? You got it.”
“Tatiasha . . .”
“Yes, darling, yes, Shura? I’m so happy to hear your voice, to hear you talking.”
“Tell me the truth. How bad was I hurt?”
“Not too bad,” she replied in a low voice, smiling at him, her face white.
“What was I thinking running out after Marazov like that? I should have let his men take care of him. They were stuck, though. They couldn’t move forward, they weren’t bringing him back.” He paused. “Poor Tolya.”
Her smile never leaving her mouth, Tatiana said, slightly glazed over with sadness, “I said a prayer for Tolya.”
“Did you say one for me, too?”
“No,” she said. “Because you weren’t dying. I said a prayer for me. I said, dear God, please help me heal him.” She held his hand. “But, Alexander, you could no more help running after Marazov than you could help yelling in English at the doctor, or jumping into the water after him, or pulling him behind you to safety. You could no more help that than you could help returning with Yuri Stepanov. Remember, Shura, we are all a sum of our parts. And what do your parts say about you?”
“That I’m a fucking lunatic. My back feels like it’s on fire.” He smiled, remembering Luga. “Is it just glass cuts, Tania?”
Hesitating for a moment, she said, “You got burned. But you’ll be fine.” She pressed her cheek harder into his hand. “Tell me the truth, tell me you’re not happy to see me.”
“I could say it, but I’d be lying.” He rubbed her freckles, gazing at her without blinking.
She took out a small vial of morphine from her pocket and attached it to the entry point in his IV drip.
“What are you doing?”
She whispered, “Giving you a small intravenous morphine push. So your back doesn’t feel like it’s on fire.” In seconds he felt better. She leaned her head back into his hand.
Alexander looked her over up and down. Tatiana exuded a porous, evanescent, yet everlasting warmth; her very presence, her satin face in his palm made his back hurt less. Her radiant eyes, her flushed cheeks, her slightly parted loving lips . . . Alexander stared at her, his eyes wide open, his soul wide open, his adoring heart hurting exquisitely. “You are an angel sent from heaven, aren’t you?”
An electric smile lit up her face. “And you don’t know the half of it,” she whispered. “You don’t know what your Tania has been cooking up here.” In her delight she nearly squealed.
“What have you been cooking up? No, don’t sit up. I want to feel your face.”
“Shura, I can’t. I’m practically on top of you. We need to be very careful.” The smile faded an octave. “Dimitri walks around here all the time. Walks in, out, checks on you, leaves, comes back. What’s he worried about? He was quite surprised to find me here.”
“He’s not the only one. How did you get here?”
“All part of my plan, Alexander.”
“What plan is this, Tatiana?”
She whispered, “To be with you when I die of old age.”
“Oh, that plan.”
“Shura, I have to talk to you. I need to talk to you when you’re lucid. I need you to hear me very carefully.”
“Tell me now.”
“I can’t now. I said lucid.” She smiled. “Besides, I have to go now. I was sitting for an hour waiting for you to wake up. I’ll come back tomorrow.” She looked around his bed. “See how I put you here in the corner, so that we can have a wall next to you and a little privacy.” She pointed to the window next to his bed. “I know it’s high, but you can see a bit of sky and two trees, northern pines, I think. Pines, Shura.”
“Pines, Tania.”
She got up. “The man next to you can’t hear or see. If he can speak, it’s a mystery how.” She smiled. “Plus, do you see the isolation tent around him so he can breathe clearer air? I put the tent around him, to help him, but it blocks you from half the ward. This is almost more private than Fifth Soviet.”
“How is Inga?”
Pausing, chewing her lip, Tatiana said, “Inga is not at Fifth Soviet anymore.”
“Oh, finally she moved?”
“Yes,” said Tatiana, “she’s been moved.”
They stared at each other and then slowly nodded. Alexander closed his eyes. He did not, could not let go of her. “Tania,” he whispered, “is it true you went out on the ice? In the middle of a ferocious battle for Leningrad, you crawled out onto the ice?”
Bending over him, she quickly kissed him and whispered, “Yes, the bravest soldier of my heart. For Leningrad.”
“Tatia,” said Alexander, his nerve endings aching, “tomorrow don’t wait an hour to wake me up.”
4
Alexander thought of nothing else but when he would see her again the following day. She came around lunchtime, bringing him his food. “I’ll feed him, Ina,” she said brightly to the regular nurse. Ina didn’t look too pleased, but Tatiana paid no attention.
“Nurse Metanova thinks she owns my patient,” Ina said, signing Alexander’s chart.
“She does own me, Ina,” said Alexander. “Isn’t she th
e one who brought me the plasma?”
“You don’t know the half of it,” mumbled Ina sulkily, glaring at Tatiana and walking away.
“What did she mean by that?” Alexander asked.
“Don’t know,” Tatiana replied. “Open your mouth.”
“Tania, I can feed myself.”
“You want to feed yourself?”
“No.”
“Let me take care of you,” she said tenderly. “Let me do what you know I ache to do for you. Let me do for you.”
“Tania, where is my wedding ring?” he asked. “It was hanging on a rope around my neck. Did I lose it?”
Smiling, she pulled the braided rope out of her uniform. Two rings hung next to each other. “I’ll keep it until we can wear them again.”
“Feed me,” he said, his voice deepening with emotion.
Before she could feed him, Colonel Stepanov came to see Alexander. “I heard you’d awakened,” he said, glancing at Tatiana. “Is this a bad time?”
Tatiana shook her head, put the spoon back on the tray, and stood up. “Are you Colonel Stepanov?” she asked, looking from Alexander to the colonel.
“Yes,” he replied, puzzled. “And you are—”
Tatiana took the colonel’s hand in both of hers and held it. “I’m Tatiana Metanova,” she said. “I just want to thank you, Colonel, for all you have done for Major Belov.” She did not let go of his hand, and he did not pull away. “Thank you, sir,” she repeated.
Alexander wanted to hug his wife. “Colonel,” he said, grinning, “my nurse knows that my commander has been good to me.”
“Nothing you don’t deserve, Major,” said Stepanov. He did not pull his hand away from Tatiana’s until she released him. “Have you seen your medal?”
The medal hung on the back of the chair by Alexander’s bed.
“Why didn’t they wait until I was conscious to give it to me?” Alexander asked.
Stepanov said, “We didn’t know if—”
“Not just a medal, Major,” interrupted Tatiana. “The highest medal of honor there is. A Hero of the Soviet Union medal!” she added breathlessly.
Stepanov looked from Tatiana to Alexander and back again and said, “Your nurse is very . . . proud of you, Major.”
“Yes, sir.” He was trying not to smile.
Stepanov said, “Tell you what, why don’t I come back another time, when you’re less busy?”
“Wait, sir,” Alexander said, looking away from Tatiana for a moment. “How are our troops doing?”
“They’re fine. They had their ten days off, and now they’re trying to push the Germans out of Sinyavino. Big problems there. But you know, little by little.” Stepanov paused. “Better news—von Paulus surrendered in Stalingrad last month.” Stepanov chuckled. “Hitler made von Paulus a field marshal two days before surrender. He said no German field marshal in history had ever surrendered.”
Alexander smiled. “Von Paulus obviously wanted to make history. That is great news. Stalingrad held. Leningrad broke the blockade. We may yet win this war.” He fell quiet. “It will be a Pyrrhic victory indeed.”
“Indeed.” Stepanov shook Alexander’s hand. “The kinds of losses we’re suffering, I don’t know who’ll be left to enjoy even a Pyrrhic victory.” He sighed. “Get better soon, Major. Another promotion is waiting for you. Whatever else happens, we’ll get you away from the front line.”
“Don’t want to be away from the action, sir.”
Tatiana shoved him in the shoulder.
“I mean, yes, thank you, sir.”
Again Stepanov stared at Alexander and Tatiana.
“It’s good to see you in better spirits, Major. I don’t remember the last time I saw you so . . . cheerful. Near-fatal injury agrees with you.”
Stepanov left.
“Well, you’ve completely flummoxed the colonel,” said Alexander, grinning at Tatiana. “What did he mean by near-fatal injury?”
“Hyperbole. But you were right. He is a nice man.” Tatiana looked at Alexander with teasing rebuke. “I can see you forgot to thank him for me, though.”
“Tania, we’re men. We don’t go around slapping each other on the shoulder.”
“Open your mouth.”
“What food did you bring me?”
She had brought cabbage soup with potatoes and white bread with butter.
“Where did you get all this butter from?” There was a quarter of a kilo.
“Wounded soldiers get extra butter,” she said. “And you get extra extra butter.”
“Like extra extra morphine?” he asked, smiling at her.
“Mmm. You need to get better quick.”
Every time the spoon moved to his mouth, bringing her fingers closer to him, Alexander breathed in deeply, trying to smell her hands behind the soup.
“Have you eaten?”
Tatiana shrugged. “Who’s got time to eat?” she said breezily. She pulled up her chair closer to his bed.
Alexander said, “Do you think the other patients will object if my nurse kisses me?”
“Yes,” she said, pulling away a bit. “They’re going to think I kiss everybody.”
Alexander looked around. There was a man across the room from them, dying, his legs gone. Nothing could be done for him. In the isolation tent next to Alexander’s bed, he heard a man struggling for his every breath. Like Marazov.
“What’s wrong with him?”
“Oh, Nikolai Ouspensky? He’s lost a lung,” Tatiana said. She cleared her throat. “He’ll be fine. He is a nice man. His wife lives in a village nearby, keeps sending him onions.”
“Onions?”
Tatiana shrugged. “Villagers, what can I tell you.”
“Tania,” he said quietly, “Ina told me I needed fluid replacement. How badly—”
Tatiana quickly said, “You’re going to be fine. You lost a little blood, that’s all.” She paused, then shook something off. “Listen,” she said, lowering her voice to a whisper, “listen carefully—”
“Why aren’t you here with me all the time? Why aren’t you my nurse?”
“Wait. Two days ago you told me to go away, and now you want me here all the time?”
“Yes.”
“Dearest,” she whispered, smiling, “he is here all the time. Did you not hear me? I’m trying to keep a professional distance. Ina is a good critical care nurse. Soon you’ll get better, and maybe we can move you to a convalescent bed if you want.”
“Is that where you are? I’ll get better in a week.”
“No, Shura. I’m not there.”
“Where are you?”
“Listen, I need to talk to you, and you keep interrupting.”
“I won’t interrupt,” said Alexander, “if you hold my hand under the blanket.”
Tatiana stuck her hand under the blanket and took hold of his hand, intertwining her little fingers through his. “If I were stronger, bigger, like you,” she said softly, “I would have picked you up and carried you off the ice myself.”
Squeezing her hand tight, he said, “Don’t make me upset, all right? I’m too happy to see your lovely face. Please kiss me.”
“No, Shura, will you listen—”
“Why do you look so fucking incredible? Why are you oozing happiness? I don’t think you’ve ever looked better.”
Tatiana leaned toward him, parting her lips and lowering her voice to a husky whisper. “Not even in Lazarevo?”
“Stop, you’re making a grown man cry. You’re just shining from the inside out.”
“You’re alive. I’m ecstatic.” She looked ecstatic.
“How did you get to the front?”
“If you would listen, I’d tell you.” She smiled. “When I left Lazarevo, I knew I wanted to become a critical care nurse. Then after you came to see me in November, I decided to enlist. I was going to the front where you were. If you were going into battle for Leningrad, so was I. I was going to go on the ice with the medics.”
“Tha
t was your plan?”
“Yes.”
He shook his head. “I’m glad you didn’t tell me then, and I certainly don’t have the strength for this now.”
“You’re going to need a lot more strength when you hear what I’m about to tell you.” She could barely contain her excitement. His heart pounded. “So when Dr. Sayers came to Grechesky,” Tatiana continued, “I immediately asked him if he needed an extra pair of hands. He came to Leningrad at the Red Army’s request to help with the anticipated flow of the wounded in this attack.” She lowered her voice. “I have to tell you, I think even the Soviets underestimated the number of wounded. There is simply no place to put anyone. Anyway, after Dr. Sayers told me he was going to the Leningrad front, I asked him if there was anything I could do to help . . .” Tatiana smiled. “I learned that question from you. As it turned out, he did need my help. The only nurse he had brought with him took ill. Not a surprise is it, in wintry Leningrad? Poor thing caught TB.” Tatiana shook her head. “Imagine. Now she’s better, but she remained in Grechesky. They need her there. Since I hadn’t enlisted yet, I came here with Dr. Sayers as his temporary assistant instead. Look,” Tatiana said proudly, showing Alexander her white armband with the Red Cross symbol on it. “Instead of a Red Army nurse, I’m a Red Cross nurse! Isn’t this great?” She beamed.
“I’m glad you’re enjoying being at the front, Tania,” Alexander said.
“Shura! Not at the front. Do you know where Dr. Sayers came from?”
“America?”
“I mean, where he drove his Red Cross jeep from to come to Leningrad?”
“I give up.”
In a thrilled whisper, she said, “Helsinki!”
“Helsinki.”
“Yes.”
“All right . . .” Alexander drew out.
“And do you know where he is going back to in a little while?”
“No, where?”
“Shura! Helsinki!”
Alexander didn’t say anything. Slowly he turned his head away and closed his eyes. He heard her calling him. He opened his eyes and turned back to her. Her eyes were dancing, and her fingers were tapping his arm, her warm face flushing red, her breathing rapid.
He laughed.
The Bronze Horseman Page 69