“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.
IN THE MOONLIGHT’S PALLID GLAMOUR
LATE the next morning Tatiana came into the critical care ward at the field hospital, the wooden building that was once a school, and found someone else in Alexander’s bed. She had expected his bed to be empty. She did not expect to see a new patient in Alexander’s bed, a man with no arms or legs.
Staring at the man with incomprehension, she thought she had made a mistake. She had woken up late and rushed and then spent too many hours in the terminal ward. Seven soldiers had died that morning.
But no, it was the critical ward. Leo in bed number thirty was reading. The two beds next to Alexander had also been emptied and refilled by new patients. Nikolai Ouspensky, the lieutenant with one lung next to Alexander, was gone, and so was the corporal next to him.
Why would they have filled Alexander’s bed? Tatiana went to check with Ina, who knew nothing; she wasn’t even on shift duty yet. Ina told Tatiana that late last night Alexander had asked for his dress uniform, which she brought him and then left for the night. Past that she knew nothing. Ina said that maybe Alexander had been moved to the convalescent wing.
Tatiana went to check. He hadn’t been.
She came back to the critical ward and looked under the bed. His rucksack was gone. Alexander’s medal of valor was no longer hanging on the wooden chair that stood by the new patient, whose face was covered in gauze, oozing blood near his right ear. Absentmindedly Tatiana said that she would get a
doctor to take a look at him and groggily ambled away. She was feeling as well as she could for a woman four months pregnant. Her stomach was beginning to show, she knew. It was a good thing they were leaving, because she could not imagine explaining herself to the nurses and her patients. She was on her way to the mess to eat but found a nagging tick mowing through her insides. She became afraid that Alexander had been sent back to the front, that he had gone across the lake and been made to stay. She couldn’t eat a bite. She went to look for Dr. Sayers.
She couldn’t find him anywhere, but when she found Ina, who was getting ready to start her shift, Ina told her that Dr. Sayers had been looking for her.
“He couldn’t have been looking very hard,” said Tatiana. “I’ve been in terminal all morning.” Tatiana found Dr. Sayers in the terminal ward himself, with a patient who had lost most of his stomach. “Dr. Sayers,” she whispered, “what’s going on? Where is Major Belov?” She saw that the patient had mere minutes to live.
Sayers didn’t look up from the man’s wounds when he said, “Tatiana, I’m almost done here. Help me hold his sides together while I sew.”
“What’s going on, Doctor?” Tatiana repeated as she helped him.
“Let’s just finish with him first, all right?”
Tatiana looked at the doctor, looked at the patient, and put her gloved and bloodied hand on the patient’s forehead. For a few moments she kept her hand on him and then said, “He is dead, Doctor, you can stop suturing.”
The doctor stopped suturing.
Tatiana ripped off her gloves and walked outside. The doctor followed her. It was nearly the middle of March and unremittingly windy. “Listen, Tania,” Sayers said, taking hold of her hands and looking white. “I’m sorry. Something terrible has happened.” His voice half broke on happened. The circles under his eyes were so dark, it looked as if he had been beaten. Tatiana stared at him for a moment, another moment—
She pulled her hands away. “Doctor,” Tatiana said, paling and looking around for something to hold on to. “What’s happened?”
“Tania, wait, don’t shout—”
“I’m not shouting.”
“I’m very sorry to tell you this, very sorry, but Alexander—” He broke off. “Early this morning, when he was taken with two other soldiers to Volkhov . . .” Sayers couldn’t continue.
Tatiana listened motionlessly, her insides becoming anesthetized. She tried to say, “What?”
“Listen, they were going across the lake when enemy fire—”
“What enemy fire?” Tatiana whispered vehemently.
“They left to cross before the shelling started, but we’re fighting a war. You hear the bombing, the German shells flying from Sinyavino? A long-range rocket hit the ice in front of the truck and exploded.”
“Where is he?”
“I’m sorry. Five people in that truck . . . nobody survived.”
Tatiana turned her back to the doctor and shook so violently that she thought she would split open. Without looking back, she asked, “Doctor, how do you know this?”
“I was called to the scene. We tried to save the men, the truck. But the truck was too heavy. It sank.” His voice was below a whisper.
Tatiana gripped her stomach and was sick in the snow. Her pulse tearing through her body at over 200 beats a minute, she reached down, grabbed a handful of snow, and wiped her mouth. She took another handful and pressed it to her face. Her heart would not quieten. She could not stop retching. She felt the doctor’s hand on her back, heard his voice dimly calling for her, “Tania, Tania.”
She did not turn around. “Did you see him yourself?” she asked, panting.
“Yes. I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I got his cap—”
“Was he alive when you saw him?”
“I’m sorry, Tatiana. No.”
She couldn’t stand any more.
“No, please,” she heard Dr. Sayers’s voice and felt his arms holding her up. “Please.”
Straightening herself, willing herself to remain upright, Tatiana turned around and leveled her gaze at Dr. Sayers, who touched her face and said, very concerned, “You need to go and sit down immediately, you’re in a state of—”
“I know what I am in,” Tatiana said. “Give me his cap.”
“I’m sorry. It breaks my—”
“I’ll take his cap,” said Tatiana, but her hand was shaking so badly that she couldn’t grasp it for a moment, and when she did, it fell out of her hands and onto the snow.
She couldn’t hold the death certificate either. Dr. Sayers had to hold it up for her. She saw only his name and the place of death. Lake Ladoga.
The Ladoga ice.
“Where is he?” she said faintly. “Where is he now—” She could not finish.
“Oh, Tania . . . what could we do? We . . .”
Waving him off, she doubled over. “Don’t speak to me anymore. How could you not have woken me? How could you not have told me instantly?”
“Tania, look at me.” She felt herself being pulled upright. Sayers had tears in his eyes. “I did look for you after I returned. But I can barely stand in front of you now when you’ve come for me, when I’ve got no choice. If I could, I would have sent you a telegram.” He shivered. “Tania, let’s get out of here! You and I. Let’s be done with this place! I have to get out of here, I can’t do it anymore. I need to be back in Helsinki. Come on, we’ll get our things. I’ll call Leningrad, let them know.” He paused. “I have to leave tonight.” He glanced at her. “We have to leave tonight.”
Tatiana did not respond. Her mind was playing tricks on her. For some reason she couldn’t get past the death certificate. It wasn’t a Red Army certificate. It was a Red Cross death certificate.
“Tatiana,” said Sayers, “can you hear me?”
“Yes,” she said indistinctly.
“You will come with me.”
“I can’t think right now,” she managed to utter. “I need to think for a few minutes.”
“Will you . . .” Sayers let out. “Will you please come back to my office? You’re not—Come, sit in my chair. You’ll—”
Backing away from Sayers, Tatiana watched him with an intensity she knew was excruciating to him. She turned and walked as fast as she could to the main building. She had to find Colonel Stepanov. The colonel was busy and refused to see her at first.
She waited outside the front door until he came out.
“I’m headed for the mess tent. Walk with me?” Stepanov said to her, not catching her eye and hurrying forward.
“Sir,” Tatiana said into his back, not taking a step, “what happened to your officer—” She couldn’t say his name out loud.
Stepanov slowed down, stopped, and faced her. “I’m sorry about your husband,” he said gently.
Tatiana didn’t speak. Coming close to him, she took Colonel Stepanov’s hand. “Sir, you are a good man, and you were his commanding officer.” Wind was whipping her face. “Please tell me what happened to him.”
“I don’t know. I wasn’t there.”
Tatiana stood small before the uniformed colonel.
The colonel sighed. “All I know is that one of our armored trucks carrying your husband, Lieutenant Ouspensky, one corporal, and two drivers exploded this morning under what appeared to be enemy fire and eventually sank. I have no other information.”
“Armored? He told me he was going to Volkhov to get promoted this morning,” she said in a faint whisper.
“Nurse Metanova,” said Colonel Stepanov, pausing and blinking. “The truck sank. Everything else is moot.”
Tatiana never looked away from him for a moment.
Stepanov nodded. “I’m sorry. Your husband was—”
“I know what he was, sir,” Tatiana broke in, holding the cap and the certificate to her chest.
With a small shiver of his voice, staring at her with hurting blue eyes, Colonel Stepanov said, “Yes. We both do.”
Mutely they stood in front of each o
ther.
“Tatiana!” said Colonel Stepanov emotionally. “Go back with Dr. Sayers. As soon as you can. It’ll be easier and safer for you in Leningrad. Maybe Molotov? Go with him.”
Tatiana saw him button the top of his uniform. She didn’t take her eyes off him. “He brought your son back,” she whispered.
Stepanov lowered his eyes. “Yes.”
“But who is going to bring him back?”
The bitter wind whistled through her words.
How to move, how to move now, can I get on my hands and knees and crawl, no, I will walk, I will look at the ground, and I will walk away, and I won’t stumble.
I will stumble.
She fell on the snow, and the colonel came over and picked her up, patting her back, and she closed her coat around her and, without looking again at Stepanov, staggered down the road to the hospital, holding on to the walls of buildings.
To hide him her whole life, to hide him every step of the way, to hide him from Dasha, from Dimitri, to hide him from death, and now to hide him even from herself. Her weakness felt insuperable.
Finding Dr. Sayers in his small office, Tatiana said, “Doctor, look at me, look me in the eye and swear to me that he is dead.”
Sinking to her knees, she looked at him, her hands in a plea.
Dr. Sayers crouched down and took Tatiana’s hands. “I swear,” he said, “he is dead.” He did not look at her.
“I can’t,” she said in a guttural voice. “I can’t take it. I can’t take the thought of him dying in that lake without me. Do you understand? I can’t take it,” she whispered wrenchingly. “Tell me he’s been taken by the NKVD. Tell me he’s been arrested and he’ll be storming bridges next week, tell me he’s been sent to the Ukraine, to Sinyavino, to Siberia—tell me anything. But please tell me he did not die on the ice without me. I’ll bear anything but that. Tell me, and I will go with you anywhere, I promise, I will do exactly as you say, but I beg you, tell me the truth.”
“I’m sorry,” Dr. Sayers said, “I couldn’t save him. With my whole heart I’m sorry I couldn’t save him for you.”
The Bronze Horseman Page 75