Alexander moved a little closer. “The camp was abandoned, and then she moved on to Luga days before the Luga line fell to the Germans. She wanted to make her way to Novgorod to find you. She was told that’s where the Dohotino camp members were sent.”
“We were sent…” Pasha shook his head and laughed miserably. “God looks after Tania in mysterious ways. Always has. Had she gone to Novgorod, she would have died for sure, and I was never even close to Novgorod. The closest I got to Novgorod was passing Lake Ilmen in a train that the Germans blew up just south of the lake.”
“Lake Ilmen?”
Neither man could look at the other. “She told you about that lake?”
“She’s told me everything,” said Alexander.
Pasha smiled. “We spent our childhood on that lake. She was the queen of Lake Ilmen. So, she came looking for me? She was always something, my sister. If anyone could have found me, it would have been her.”
“Yes. But it turns out that I found you.”
“Yes, in fucking Poland! I wasn’t in Novgorod. The Nazis blew up our train and with dead bodies piled house-high, they set us on fire. Me and my friend Volodya were the only ones who survived. We scrambled our way out of the compost heap and tried to find our own troops but of course the entire countryside belonged to the Germans by then. Volodya had broken his leg in camp weeks before. We couldn’t get very far. We were taken prisoner in hours. The Germans had no use for Volodya. They shot him dead.” He shook his head. “I’m glad his mother didn’t know. Did you know his mother? Nina Iglenko?”
“I knew his mother. She wheedled food from Tania for the two sons that remained with her.”
“What happened to them?”
“Leningrad took them all.” Alexander lowered his head another notch. In a moment, his head was going to be in the mud he was sitting in.
Alexander wanted to talk to Pasha about the Vlasovites but couldn’t find the words. How to express that never before had a million soldiers turned away from their own army and joined the side of the hated enemy on their own soil against their own people. Spies yes, double spies, individual traitors, yes. But a million soldiers?
All Alexander could manage was, “Pasha, what were you thinking?”
“What was I thinking? About what? Have you not heard what happened in the Ukraine, how Stalin abandoned his own men to the Germans there?”
“I’ve heard it all,” Alexander said tiredly. “I have been fighting for the Red Army since 1937. I’ve heard everything. I know about everything. Every decree, every law, every edict.”
“Don’t you know that our great commander made being taken prisoner a crime against the Motherland?”
“Of course I know. And the POW’s family gets no bread.”
“That’s right. But know this: Stalin’s own son was taken prisoner by the Nazis.”
“Yes.”
“And when Stalin learned of this, and saw the potential ironic conflict, do you know what he did?”
“The lore is that he disowned his son,” said Alexander, drawing his helmet tighter over his ears.
“The lore is correct. I know because I heard from the German SS that he was sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp near Berlin, and there he died in the execution pit.”
“Yes.”
“His own son! What hope is there for me?”
“None for any of us,” said Alexander, “except this: Stalin doesn’t know who we are. That might help us. Save us.”
“He knows who I am.”
Alexander feared Stalin might know who he was, too. Foreign espionage in his officer ranks. His eyes bore into Pasha’s face. “All of this put together and heaped on top of all the dead Chinese in 1937 cannot equal fighting on the side of the enemy against your own people. I think the army calls it high treason. What do you think they will do to you when they catch you, Pasha?”
Pasha wanted to wave his hands with emotion; he struggled against the ropes and whirled his head from side to side. “The same thing they would do to me if I were returned to them a prisoner of war,” he said at last. “And don’t sit there and judge me. You don’t know me. You don’t know my life.”
“Tell me.” Alexander moved closer. They were huddled near the same tree, their backs to the silent line of battle.
“The Germans put me into a camp at Minsk for that first winter of 1941 to ’42. There were sixty thousand in our camp, and they couldn’t feed us, nor did they want to. They couldn’t cover us, or clothe us, or heal us. And our own leaders made sure that extra help wouldn’t be coming from the Red Cross. We certainly wouldn’t be receiving any parcels of food from home, or letters perhaps, or blankets. Nothing. When Stalin was asked by Hitler about reciprocity for the German prisoners, Stalin replied that he didn’t know what Hitler was talking about, because he was sure there were no Soviet prisoners, since no Soviet soldier would ever be so unpatriotic as to surrender to the fucking Germans, and then added that he certainly wasn’t interested in unilateral rights of parcel just for the Germans. And so Hitler said, right, that’s just fine with us. There were sixty thousand of us in that camp, I tell you, and at the end of that winter eleven thousand remained. Much more manageable, wouldn’t you agree?”
Alexander mutely nodded.
“In the spring I escaped and made my way on rivers down to the Ukraine, where I was promptly seized by the Germans again, and this time put not in a POW camp, but in a work camp. I thought that was illegal, to make prisoners work, but apparently it’s not illegal to do anything to Soviet soldiers or refugees. So the work camp was full of Ukrainian Jews, and then I noticed that they were disappearing en masse. I didn’t think they were all escaping to join the partisan movement. I found out for sure when they made us non Jews dig out massive holes in the summer of 1942, and then cover up the thousands of bodies with dirt. I knew I was not safe for long. I didn’t think the Germans had any special affinity for the Russian man. They hated Jews the most, but the Russians weren’t too far behind, and Red Army men seemed to breed a special kind of hostility. They didn’t just want to kill us, they wanted to destroy us, to break our bodies, first, then our spirits, then set us on fire. I had enough of it, and escaped that summer of 1942, and that’s when I, plundering through the countryside, hoping to make my way to Greece, was picked up by a band of men fighting for Voronov who fought for Andrei Vlasov of the ROA, the Russian Liberation Army. I knew my fate. I joined.”
“Oh, Pasha.” Alexander stood up.
“You think my sister would prefer that I die at the hands of Hitler or at the hands of Comrade Stalin? I went with Vlasov—the man who promised me life. Stalin said I would die. Hitler said I would die. Hitler, who treats dogs better than the Soviet POWs.”
“Hitler loves dogs. He prefers dogs to children.”
“Hitler, Stalin, they offered me the same thing. Only General Vlasov stood up for my life. And I wanted to give it to him.”
Slamming a magazine upward into his machine gun, Alexander said, “So where is this Vlasov when you need him? He thought he was helping the Nazis, except the Fascists and the Communists and the Americans all seem to have one thing in common. They all despise traitors.” Alexander took out his army knife from his boot and bent over Pasha, who flinched. Looking at him with surprise, Alexander shrugged and cut the ropes that tied Pasha’s hands. “Andrei Vlasov was captured by the Germans, spent time in their prison and was finally turned over to the Soviets. You’ve been fighting on the side of Vlasov who’s been a nonentity in this war for years. His glory days are over.”
Pasha stood up, groaned under his compressed and aching body being in one position for too long, and said, “My glory days are over, too.”
They stared at each other. Compact Pasha reminded Alexander of Georgi Vasilievich Metanov, Tatiana’s father. Pasha looked up and said, “We’re a fine pair. I command what’s left of Vlasov’s men, a nearly extinct breed. My battalion is first on the line of defense because the Germans want us all to be annihi
lated by our own people. And you are being sent in to kill me, commanding a penal battalion full of convicts who can’t fight, can’t shoot, and have no arms.” He smiled. “What are you going to tell my sister when you see her in heaven? That you killed her brother in the heat of battle?”
“Pasha Metanov,” said Alexander, motioning him to come, “whatever I was put on this earth to do, I’m almost sure it was not to kill you. Now come. We’ve got to put an end to this senselessness. You’re going to tell your men to lay down their arms.”
“Didn’t you hear what I told you? My men will never surrender to the NKGB. Besides, do you have any idea what’s ahead for you if you continue onward?”
“Yes. The Germans will get trounced. Maybe not by us on this fucking hill, but everywhere else. Have you heard about the second front? Have you heard about Patton? We’re going to meet the Americans on the Oder river near Berlin. That’s what’s ahead. If Hitler had any sense he would surrender and spare Germany an unconditional humiliation for the second time this century and maybe save a few million lives in the process.”
“Does Hitler seem like the kind of man who would unconditionally surrender? Or care about saving one life, or a million? If he’s going down, he’s going down dragging the whole world with him.”
“He’s certainly doing that,” said Alexander, and was about to whistle for Ouspensky when Pasha put his hand on Alexander to stop him.
“Wait,” Pasha said. “Let’s think this through for a minute, shall we?”
They sat down on a log and lit their cigarettes. “Alexander,” said Pasha, “you’ve really done it by not killing me.”
“I have, haven’t I?” Alexander smoked. “One way or another we need to figure it out immediately. Or you and I won’t have any men left to command.”
Pasha was quiet. “And then just you and me in the woods?” he asked.
Alexander glanced at him. What was he saying?
Leaning in, Pasha said, “I will have my men surrender if you will guarantee not to give them up to the NKGB.”
“What do you propose I do with them?”
“Absorb us into your unit. We have arms, we have shells, we have grenades, mortars, carbines.”
“I was going to take your weapons no matter what, Pasha. That’s what the vanquished do—they surrender their weapons. But your men? Are they going to switch and fight for the other side now?”
“They will do what I tell them to do.”
“How can they do it?”
“What do you suggest? Dispersing?”
“Dispersing? Disbanding? Do you know what that’s called? Desertion.”
Pasha was silent. “Alexander, there is no hope. There are five hundred thousand men over that hill.”
“Yes, and thirteen million men are coming over that hill to kill them.”
“Yes, but what about you and me?”
“I need your unit’s arms.”
“So you’ll have my arms. You’ve got nineteen men. What on earth are you thinking?”
Alexander lowered his voice to a whisper. “Don’t worry about what I’m thinking. Just…”
“Just what?”
“Pasha, I need to get inside Germany. I need to live long enough to do it.”
“Why?”
Because the Americans are coming to Berlin. Because the Americans are going to liberate Germany, and they’re going to liberate the POW camps, and eventually they’re going to liberate me. But Alexander didn’t say any of this.
“You’ve lost your mind,” said Pasha.
“Yes.”
Pasha stared at Alexander for a long time, in the crackling, wet, absorbing woods, standing miserably next to him, his cigarette burning bleakly to ash between his ravaged fingers. “Alexander, don’t you know about the Germans? Don’t you know anything?”
“I know everything, but I still have hope. Now more than ever.” He glanced at Pasha. “Why do you think I found you?”
“So you could torture a dying man?”
“No, Pasha. I’ll help you, too. Just—we’ve got to get out of here. You and I. You have medical kits?”
“Yes, plenty of bandages, plenty of sulfa, morphine, even some penicillin.”
“Good, we’ll need it all. What about food?”
“We’ve got canned everything. Dried milk even. Dried eggs. Sardines. Ham. Bread.”
“Canned bread?” Alexander nearly smiled.
“What have you been living on?”
“The flesh of my men,” replied Alexander. “Are most of your men Russian?”
“Most of them, yes. But I have ten Germans. What do you propose we do with them? Certainly they are not going to go on your side and fight their own army.”
“Of course not. That’s unimaginable, isn’t it?”
Pasha turned away.
“We’ll take them prisoner,” said Alexander.
“I thought the penal battalions had a no-prisoner policy?”
“I make my own policy here in the woods,” replied Alexander, “having been abandoned by my suppliers. Now, are you going to help us or not?”
Pasha took a last smoke, stubbed out his cigarette and wiped the wet off his face, a useless gesture, Alexander thought. “I will help you. But your lieutenant will not approve. He wants to kill me.”
“You let me worry about him,” said Alexander.
Ouspensky was not easy.
“Are you out of your mind?” he whispered hotly to Alexander, when Alexander outlined his plan for the absorption of Pasha’s unit.
“You have better ideas?”
“I thought you said Gronin was coming with supplies?”
“I lied. Get me my troops, please.”
“I say we kill the commander, and then lie in wait in the woods until we get arms and men.”
“I’m not killing the commander, and I’m not waiting for anything. They are not coming.”
“Captain, you are not acting according to the rules of engagement. We cannot take the Germans prisoner. We have to kill their commander.”
“Lieutenant, get me my men and stop this foolishness.”
“Captain—”
“Lieutenant! Now!”
Ouspensky, his face full of squinting suspicion, turned to Pasha, who stood by Alexander’s other side, untied. Ouspensky and Pasha glared at each other for a few moments. “Captain, you’ve untied him?” Ouspensky said in a low voice.
“Why don’t you worry about what you have to worry about, and let me worry about everything else. Go!”
Alexander, Ouspensky and Telikov had fourteen privates and two corporals under their command. With Pasha’s battalion, they would have over sixty men, not including the German prisoners of war. He motioned Pasha to come.
Pasha said, “My men need to know it’s me when I call to them.”
“Fine,” said Alexander. “I’ll stand by you, you yell. They’ll know.”
Ouspensky stood in Alexander’s way. “With all due respect, sir, you are not headed toward the firing line.”
“I am, Lieutenant,” Alexander said, moving Ouspensky out of the way with his machine gun.
“Captain,” Ouspensky said, “sir, have you ever played chess? Do you know that in chess you will often sacrifice your Queen to take the opponent’s Queen? His men will kill you and him both.”
Alexander nodded. “All right, but I’m not the Queen, Ouspensky. They will have to do better than kill me.”
“They kill you, they win the game. Let the bastard go by himself. He can stop the bullets with his teeth for all I care. But if something happens to you, we’ve got nobody else.”
“You’re wrong, Lieutenant. We’ve got you. Now look. We are under a direct order to plow through the woods.” He lowered his voice. “And I’ve finally figured out why. It’s because of them—the Vlasovites. Stalin wants his Soviet dregs—us—to kill his Soviet dregs—them.” Pasha was standing nearby. Alexander didn’t want him to hear. He led Ouspensky away. “We have only one directive
—to go forward—and only one responsibility—to save our men. We’re nearly all out. To save our men you’d save Metanov’s life, wouldn’t you?”
“No,” Ouspensky said. “I’m going to shoot the motherfucker myself.”
“Nikolai,” Alexander said quietly, “if you touch him, you’ll die. Just so you understand my position and won’t accidentally fly into patriotic fervor, I want you to know your life is at stake. Anything happens to him, anything at all, I will blame you.”
“Sir—”
“Do you understand?”
“No!”
“That man is the brother of my wife,” said Alexander.
Something appeared on Ouspensky’s face. Alexander couldn’t quite place it. Some clarity, some understanding, some completion, almost as if Ouspensky had been waiting for something like this. Alexander couldn’t tell, the expression in the eyes was too fleeting. Then Ouspensky said, “I did not know that.”
“Why would you?”
Alexander and Pasha began their mission. It was mid-afternoon. Quiet in the woods except for the sound of drizzle on the evergreens. Disturbing, unexplained quiet. A burning branch broke and fell to the ground. It burned reluctantly, dampened by November. Pasha Metanov stood ten meters away from Alexander and yelled, “This is Commander Kolonchak. Can you hear me? Bring me my Lieutenant Borov immediately.”
There was no sound from the woods. “Hold your fire! And bring me Borov,” he yelled.
A shot rang out. It narrowly missed Pasha. Alexander closed his eyes and thought, this is crazy. I’m not putting him in front of the firing squad before my own eyes. He called Pasha back, and sent for a corporal to shield Metanov next time he called out for his lieutenant. There was no more fire from the other side. Soon they heard a voice calling, “Commander Kolonchak?”
“Yes, Borov,” said Pasha.
“What is the password?”
Pasha glanced at Alexander. “If they asked you, would you know?”
“No.”
“Would you guess?”
“Don’t play games. This is for the lives of your men.”
“No, it’s for the lives of yours.”
“Give him the password, Pasha.”
Tatiana and Alexander: A Novel Page 35