Tatiana and Alexander: A Novel

by Paullina Simons

  “Don’t think twice about it,” said Alexander. “It’s a Soviet thing.”

  “Even stronger in Ouspensky,” Pasha muttered, but Alexander sprung up and shook Ouspensky. It was near midnight. It was time.

  Alexander opened the window. It was a rainy and stormy night, and it was hard to see. He thought that might play to their advantage. The guards wouldn’t willingly be looking up at the rain.

  With the ends of the ropes tied around their waists, the slack rolled up in their hands, their belongings tied around their backs, the wire cutters in Alexander’s boot, they stood and waited for the signal from Constantine. The guards on the terrace had already left for the night. Constantine would wave as soon as the guards were gone from the garden, and then Alexander would jump first, then Pasha, then Ouspensky.

  Finally, a few minutes after midnight, Constantine waved and moved out of the way. Alexander flung himself out of the small window. The rope had four meters of slack. He bounced hard—too hard—against the wet stone wall, and then quickly released the roll of rope bit by bit as he ran down the wall to the ground. Pasha and Ouspensky were right behind him, but a little slower. He ran across the terrace and jumped over the parapet, releasing the rope bit by bit in a great hurry. The rope was too short, fuck, it yanked him up two meters above the grass, but it was all right, because he let go, fell into the sloshing, icy wet grass, rolled, jumped up and ran to the barbed wire, his cutters already out of his boot. Pasha was behind him, Ouspensky, breathing heavily, was behind Pasha. By the time they got to him, seconds later, the barbed wire was already cut. They squeezed through the hole and hid in the trees over the precipice. The floodlights came on. The guards took longer tonight to come out. It was windy and raining hard. Alexander glanced at the floodlit castle to see if the rope had been pulled up by Constantine. It could have been, it was hard to see through the rain. The guards were still not out and Alexander had extra time to attach one rope fifteen meters long to the branches of the three-hundred-year-old oak. This time he let Ouspensky and Pasha go first. The three of them slowly edged down the slippery wall, suspending themselves over the precipice. It was dark, and a good thing too because Ouspensky called out, “Captain, did I ever tell you I’m afraid of heights?”

  “No, and now is not the fucking time.”

  “I was thinking now is a very good time.”

  “It’s pitch black. There is no height. Just come on! Move a little faster.”

  Alexander was soaked to the skin. German trench coats were made of thick canvas, but weren’t waterproof. What good were they?

  They all released the rope and jumped to the ground a minute later. Alexander cut through the barbed wire fence surrounding Colditz at the bottom of the hill and they were out.

  Now he wished the weather would quieten. Who wanted to run at night in this weather?

  “Everybody good?” Alexander said. “We did great.”

  “I’m good,” said Ouspensky, panting.

  “I’m good, too,” said Pasha. “I scraped myself on something when I landed. Scraped my leg.”

  Alexander got out a flashlight. Pasha’s trousers were slightly ripped at the thigh, but he was barely bleeding. “Must have been the barbed wire. Just a scratch. Let’s go.”

  They were running, running all day and night, or maybe they slept in barns at night, but they dreamed of running, and when they opened their eyes, they were exhausted. Alexander ran slowly, Pasha ran slower, and Ouspensky barely moved. In the fields, in the rivers, in the woods. A day went by, then another, how far had they gotten from Colditz? Maybe thirty kilometers. Three grown men, five healthy lungs between them, and thirty kilometers. They weren’t even past Chemnitz, just south-west. There were no trains, and they did their best to avoid paved roads. How were they going to get to Lake Constance on the border of Switzerland at this rate?

  Pasha slowed down even more on the third day. He stopped chatting in between breaths, and stopped eating on the third night. Alexander noticed because when he said, Pasha, eat some fish, Pasha replied that he wasn’t hungry. Ouspensky made a joke, something like, I’ll eat everything, don’t have to ask me twice, and Alexander gave him the fish without a second glance, but he stared at Pasha. He took a look at Pasha’s thigh. It was raw and red and oozing yellow liquid. Alexander poured diluted iodine on it, sprinkled some sulfa powder on it and bandaged it. Pasha said he was feeling cold. Alexander touched him. He felt warm.

  They made a lean-to with their sheets for all three of them, and they crawled in and kept barely warm, and in the middle of the night, Alexander woke up because he was sweating. He thought there was a fire in the lean-to, he jumped up with a start. But it wasn’t a fire. It was just a burning Pasha.

  What’s wrong with you, Alexander whispered.

  Don’t feel so good, Pasha mouthed inaudibly.

  Everything was silent and mute. Alexander used the last of their water, placing rags on Pasha’s head. It helped a little. The water was gone, and the rags were hot from Pasha’s forehead, and Pasha was burning. Alexander went out in the cold rain and got more water.

  Don’t feel so good, Pasha’s mouth moved. By morning his mouth was cracked and bleeding. Alexander unbandaged his leg. It looked the same as yesterday. More green than yellow. He disinfected it, and poured sulfa powder on it, and then he diluted the sulfa in some rain-water and made Pasha drink it, and Pasha did, and then threw up and Alexander cursed and yelled, and Pasha mouthed, I been wet too long, Alexander. I think I was cold and wet too long.

  It was just above freezing. The rain was turning to sleet. Alexander wrapped Pasha in his trench coat. Pasha was burning. Alexander took his trench coat off Pasha.

  When it stopped raining, he built another fire and dried all of Pasha’s clothes and gave him a smoke and a small drink of whisky out of their flask. Shaking, Pasha drank the whisky.

  “What are we going to do?” asked Ouspensky.

  “Why do you have to talk so much?” snapped Alexander.

  They decided to walk on.

  Pasha tried, he tried to put one foot in front of the other, he tried to move his arms across his body to help propel him forward, but his shaking knees kept buckling. I’m going to rest a bit, mouthed Pasha, and then he said, I’ll be all right. He sat down on the ground. Alexander held him up, stood him up, raised him up, then lifted him and threw him on his back.

  “Captain—”

  “One more word, Ouspensky, and with my bare hands—”

  “Understood.”

  They walked, Alexander carrying Pasha all the gray morning. Alexander lowered him, gave him a drink of rain, raised him, carried him all the gray afternoon. Lowered him, gave him a drink of whisky, stuffed a piece of bread into his mouth, raised him, carried him.

  Somewhere on a dirt road in south-east Saxony, Pasha felt heavier and heavier. Alexander thought he was getting tired. It was the end of the day. They broke camp, sat by the fire. Alexander went ice fishing in the pond by the woods. Caught one perch, cooked it in water. He made Pasha drink the fish broth with some diluted sulfa powder, and then he and Ouspensky divided the fish and ate it, head and all.

  Ouspensky slept. Alexander smoked. And sat holding the ice rag against Pasha’s burning head. Then Pasha was cold, and Alexander covered him up with two trench coats, and took the coat from Ouspensky for Pasha.

  No one spoke anymore, not even to mouth the words.

  Next morning, Pasha, his eyes swollen with fever, shook his head, as if to say, leave me. And Alexander shook his, and lifted Pasha and carried him. There was no sun, it was February in central Germany. The slate sky was meters above their heads. Alexander knew they couldn’t stop and ask for help—they spoke no German without Pasha. He also knew that the Saxony police had no doubt been notified about three escapees and was looking for precisely three men, masquerading as Germans yet not speaking a word of German.

  They couldn’t get too far with a sick Pasha. He had to get better. They found a small barn and waited ou
t the cold morning covered by hay. Sitting, listening to Pasha’s breaking-up breathing, watching Pasha’s struggle and his inflamed face was too much for Alexander. He got up. “We have to go. We have to keep moving.”

  “Can I have a word with you?” Ouspensky said.

  “Absolutely not,” said Alexander.

  “Outside the barn, for a moment.”

  “I said no.”

  Ouspensky glanced at Pasha, whose eyes were closed. He seemed unconscious.

  “Captain, he is getting worse.”

  “All right, Dr. Ouspensky, thank you, that will be all.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  “We’re going to continue. We just need to find a Red Cross convoy.”

  “There weren’t any Red Cross personnel in Colditz or Catowice. What makes you think there will be some here?”

  “Maybe Red Cross. Maybe Americans.”

  “Have the Americans gotten this far?”

  “Ouspensky, like you, I’ve been in prison these last four months. How the fuck should I know how far the Americans have gotten? I think probably yes, they’re here somewhere. Didn’t you hear war planes headed to Dresden?”

  “Captain—”

  “Not another word about this, Lieutenant. Let’s go.”

  “Go where? He needs help.”

  “And we have to get him help. Help isn’t going to come to us in a barn.”

  He picked up Pasha and flung him on his back. Pasha could not hold on.

  Alexander barely saw the road in front of him. It took all his effort to continue walking. Every hour he stopped and gave Pasha a drink, and pressed a cold rag against Pasha’s head, and wrapped him tighter in two coats, and walked on again, without his own coat.

  Ouspensky walked by his side.

  Alexander heard Ouspensky’s voice. “Captain,” he called. “Captain.”

  “What?” He did not look sideways, as if he could. He continued walking. Ouspensky came up in front, crossed Alexander’s path, made him stop. “What, Lieutenant?”

  Ouspensky placed his hand on Alexander. “Captain. I’m sorry. He is dead.”

  Alexander moved him aside with his hand. “Get out of my way.”

  “He is dead, Captain. Please, let’s not do this any longer.”

  “Ouspensky!” He took a deep breath and lowered his voice. “He is not dead. He is unconscious. Now, we have only a few hours of daylight left. Let’s not waste it by standing in the middle of the road.”

  “He is dead, Captain,” whispered Ouspensky. “Look for yourself.”

  “No,” said Alexander. “He cannot die. It’s impossible. Leave me alone. Either walk with me, or walk the other way, but leave me alone.”

  And he continued to walk with Pasha limp on his back, for another half-hour, another hour, and then Alexander slowed down on the unpaved empty road, stopped by a lone bare tree, and lowered Pasha to the ground. Pasha was no longer hot, and he was no longer struggling for breath. He was white and cold and his eyes were open.

  “No, Pasha,” whispered Alexander. “No.” He felt Pasha’s head. He closed Pasha’s eyes. For a few moments he stood over Pasha, and then he sank to the ground. Wrapping him tightly with the trench coat, Alexander took Pasha’s body into his arms and, cradling him from the cold, closed his own eyes.

  For the rest of the night Alexander sat on an empty road, his back against the tree, not moving, not opening his eyes, not speaking, holding Tatiana’s brother in his arms.

  If Ouspensky spoke to him, he did not hear. If he slept, he did not feel it, not the cold air, nor the hard ground, nor the rough bark of the tree against his back, against his head.

  When morning broke, and gray close light rose over Saxony, Alexander opened his eyes. Ouspensky was sleeping on his side, wrapped in his trench coat next to them. Pasha’s body was rigid, very cold.

  Alexander got up from under Pasha, washed his own face with whisky, rinsed out his mouth with whisky, and then got his titanium trench tool and started to carve a hole in the ground. Ouspensky woke up, helped him. It took them three hours of scraping at the earth, to make a hole a meter deep. Not deep enough, but it would have to do. Alexander covered Pasha’s face with the trench coat so the earth wouldn’t fall on it. With two small branches and a piece of string, Alexander made a cross and laid it on top of Pasha’s chest, and then they lifted him and lowered him into the hole, and Alexander, his teeth grit the entire time, filled the shallow grave with fresh dirt. On a wide thick branch, he carved out the name PASHA METANOV, and the date, Feb 25, 1945, and tying it to another longer branch made another cross and staked it into the ground.

  Alexander and Ouspensky stood still. Alexander saluted the grave. “The Lord is my shepherd,” he mouthed inaudibly to himself. “I shall not want. He maketh me lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me to high waters, to the valley of death…” Alexander broke off. Sinking down near his tree by the road, he lit a cigarette.

  Ouspensky asked if they were going to get going.

  “No,” Alexander said. “I’m going to sit here a while.”

  Hours went by.

  Ouspensky asked again.

  “Lieutenant,” said Alexander, in a voice that was so defeated he did not recognize it as his own, “I am not walking away from him.”

  “Captain!” Ouspensky exclaimed. “What about those winds of fate you said were blowing at you?”

  “You must have misunderstood, Nikolai,” said Alexander, not looking up. “I said they were blowing by me.”

  The next day the German police picked them up, loaded them onto an armored truck and took them back to Colditz.

  Alexander was badly beaten by the German guards and taken to solitary, where he spent so long he lost track of time.

  With Pasha’s death came the death of faith.

  Release me, Tatiana, release me, forgive me, forget me, let me forget you. I want to be free of you, free of your face, free of your freedom, free of your fire, free, free, free.

  The flight across the ocean was over, and with it all the warmth of his imagination. A numbness encroached on him, freezing him from the heart out, the anesthetic of despair creeping its tentacles over his ten-dons and his arteries, over his nerves and his veins until he was stiff inside and bereft of hope and bereft of Tatiana. Finally.

  But not quite.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  New York, April 1945

  IN APRIL THE AMERICANS and Russians swarmed over Germany, and in the first week of May, Germany unconditionally surrendered. The European war was over. In the Pacific theater, the Americans continued to suffer bloodletting even as they beat back the Japanese from every beach head, from every island.

  June 23 quietly came and went. Tatiana turned twenty-one. How long did they say you would mourn before the years dulled your pain? How long before the hand of time, tick, tick, tick, relentless days and nights and months and years chipped away at the stone of sorrow inside your throat until it was no more than a pebble with smooth sides? Every time you think his name, the air can’t get past it, every time you look at his son, the air can’t get past it. Every time it’s Christmas, your birthday, his birthday, March 13, you can’t breathe for a day, another day, another year. They fly by, the years, and yet the grief remains lodged in your throat, through which everything else in your life has to pass. Everything else: happiness for yourself, affection for other people, joy at living, at comfort, at convenience, laughter at your child, food on your plate, drink at your table, every prayer, every clasping of the hands, past it, past it, past it.

  In the summer of 1945, Vikki agreed to go to Arizona by train with Tatiana and Anthony. Tatiana wanted to take a vacation to celebrate her becoming a U.S. citizen.

  On the way, Tatiana told Vikki they needed to make a short stop in Washington DC.

  She did not go inside the State Department building this time but sat patiently on the bench on C Street under the trees while Vikki smoked and Anthony played on the grass, and Vikki finally
said, “This is your idea of a short stop? We took only two weeks off.”

  Tatiana watched the workers saunter out for lunch. She watched Sam Gulotta come out and walk past her bench. Tatiana did not acknowledge him. He walked another ten yards, slowed down, then stopped. Turning around, he stared at her for a few moments, and slowly came back.

  Raising her eyes to him, Tatiana said, “Hello. I don’t want to bother you.” She introduced him to Vikki.

  Gulotta smiled and sat down next to her. “You’re not bothering me. It’s nice to see you. I have nothing new to tell you.”

  “Nothing at all?”

  “No. Europe is becoming an awful mess.” He paused. “I know I told you that when things relaxed a bit, I could perhaps make inquiries…but I was wrong about things becoming easier. They’ve become worse than ever. Us, France, Britain, the Soviets, all in Germany, and worse—all in Berlin. One diplomatic faux pas and we’re in another world war next week.”

  “I know.” She stood up. “Well, thank you.”

  “Have you become an American citizen yet?”

  “Yes, just.”

  Gulotta said, “Do you want to go have a bite to eat? It’s lunch, we can get a sandwich.”

  “I’d like to, maybe another time. But I brought you something. I made them this morning.” Tatiana took out a bag full of meat pirozhki. “Last time you said you liked them…”

  “Very much, thank you.” He took the bag from her. “I would have liked lunch, too.”

  Tatiana and Sam said goodbye.

  Vikki pinched Tatiana very hard after Sam was out of sight. “Tania, you vixen! You strumpet! You libertine! All this time you’ve been up to this!”

  “Vikki, up to nothing,” Tatiana said calmly.

  “Oh yes? Is he married?”

  “He was, yes.” Tatiana paused, wondering if she should tell Vikki about Sam. She decided to tell. “His wife died three years ago in plane crash carrying medical supplies to our troops in Okinawa. He is raising his two boys by himself.”

  “Tatiana!”

  “Vikki, I don’t have time to explain to you.”