Tatiana and Alexander: A Novel

by Paullina Simons

  Alexander didn’t even take a breath or count or look back. He just sprang off from a crouching position and jumped, the bag of ammo on his back. He was down the slope and she couldn’t see him.

  Holding her breath and tensing her body, she crouched and jumped. She fell awkwardly and hard. But she fell onto the grassy slope, into bushes, and rolled down underbrush, not concrete. Because it had rained, the ground was soft and muddy. Clambering up to the side of the road, she saw that the truck had not stopped. It continued moving down the highway. Something hurt. She didn’t have time to think what it was or where. She began to run back, every once in a while stopping and whispering, “Alexander? Alexander?”

  It was 8:30. Karolich was nowhere to be found. The guard who reported this was unconcerned, and so was Brestov. He asked that Ouspensky be taken back to his barracks. “We’ll check this out tomorrow morning, Comrade Ouspensky.”

  “Couldn’t you just check Belov’s cell, Commandant? Just to make sure. It will take two minutes. We can check the jail as you’re walking me back to barracks.”

  Brestov shrugged. “Go ahead, Corporal, walk by the jail, if you want.”

  Ouspensky and the guard walked back to the gatehouse.

  “Have they seen Karolich?” asked Ouspensky, motioning to the sentries.

  “Yes, they said they saw him and a Red Cross nurse get into the jeep and head for the commandant’s house about forty-five minutes ago.”

  “But he’s not at the commandant’s house.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything.”

  The guard pushed open the door of the jail and walked inside the cell block corridor. Perdov was sprawled out on the floor, unconscious. He reeked of vodka. “Oh, just great,” muttered the guard. “Some fucking sentry you are, Perdov.” He grabbed the master key from him and unlocked cell number seven.

  Ouspensky and the guard stood in the doorway. The man on the straw was chained and was wearing a bloodied white shirt and dark slacks. His head was tilted back. He wasn’t moving.

  “Well?” said the guard. “Satisfied?”

  Ouspensky walked down to the prisoner and looked into his face. Then he turned around. “I’m satisfied,” he said. “Come look for yourself.”

  The guard stepped down. Dumbly he stared into the open eyes of Ivan Karolich.

  “Tania!” She heard his voice.

  “Where are you?”

  “Down here, come.”

  She ran down the slope to him. He was waiting for her by the trees. He had already found the weapons and her backpacks. In his hands he was holding the nurse’s bag. She wanted to come closer, but he was holding too many bags.

  “Will you be all right carrying the smaller bag with the ammo and your nurse’s bag?” he asked. “I’ll take the rest of the ammo, the weapons and the large backpack. What did you put in here, rocks?”

  “Food. Wait. I have clothes for you. Once you change into them, it’ll be lighter.”

  “I’ll wash first, then change.” Alexander led the way, carrying the flashlight.

  “What river is this?” he asked.

  “Havel.”

  “How far south does it run?”

  “To Berlin, but it runs along the highway nearly the whole way.”

  “Ah, too bad.” He undressed. “I’ll be happy to get out of the uniform of that motherfucking bastard. And just a lieutenant, too. Do you have any soap? Did you get hurt?”

  “No,” she said, her head slightly leaden. She handed him the soap.

  He walked naked into the water. Sitting down on the embankment she shined the light on him.

  “Turn it off,” he said. “You can see light for miles in the dark.”

  She wanted to look at him. But she turned it off and listened to him instead, splashing, lathering, diving under.

  She was facing his dark form in the river. He was facing her and the incline to the road. Suddenly he stopped moving. All she heard was his breath.

  “Tatiana,” he said.

  She didn’t have to be told anything. When she turned around and looked up, she already knew what she would be seeing. Bright lights, moving down the highway, engine noise getting closer, the sound of men shouting, and dogs barking.

  “How could they have found out so quickly?” she whispered.

  Quickly she handed him his clothes. He got dressed. He kept Karolich’s boots, because otherwise he would have been barefoot. (“I can’t think of everything,” she said.)

  “We have to lose our scent. The Alsatians will find us. The Soviets are really enjoying the fruits of Hitler’s superior military machine.”

  “But they passed us.”

  “Yes. Where do you think they’re going?” he asked.

  “To the truck.”

  “Are we in that truck?”

  Ah. “But where can we go?” she asked. “We’re stuck between the river and the road. They’ll smell us here for sure.”

  “Yes, the dogs will find us. It’s a windy night.”

  “Let’s cross the river and head west.”

  “Where’s the nearest river crossing?”

  “Forget about a crossing” she replied. “There may be one five miles down. Let’s just cross here. We’ll swim across and then move west, away from Berlin, before we turn south and return back east into the British sector.”

  “Where’s the American sector?”

  “All the way south. But all four zones in the city have open borders, so the sooner we leave Soviet-occupied territory the better.”

  “You think?” he said. “The river is not that deep, maybe eight feet.”

  She was already undressed down to her vest and underwear. “That’s fine. We’ll swim to the other side. Let’s go.”

  “We can’t swim,” he said. “If our weapons and ammo get wet, they’ll be no good to us until they dry.” They stood for a moment, their eyes on each other. “Get on top of my back,” Alexander said, quickly taking off the clothes he had just put on. “I’ll swim across and you hold all our things on your back.”

  Tatiana climbed onto Alexander. The feel of his naked back against her vest produced such a peculiar aching inside, such a sense of familiarity and loss—and not temporal but permanent loss—that she couldn’t help it, she groaned, and he misunderstood and said, “Hey,” and she, to keep from breaking down, bit down on the strap of the backpack.

  With the packs and the machine gun on her back, and her on his back, Alexander waded into the river and began to swim. The river was less than half the size of the Kama. Did he notice? She couldn’t say for sure, but she knew one thing for sure—he was having trouble. She could almost feel him sinking. He kept upright, but he wasn’t able to speak. All she heard was his bubbling breath, in from the air, out into the water. When they reached the other side, he lay for a minute on the ground, panting. She sat down next to him, pulling off the backpacks. “You did great,” she said. “Is it hard for you?”

  “Not hard, just…” He jumped up. “Six months in a cell will do that to you.”

  “Well, let’s rest. Lie back down.” She touched his leg, looking up at him.

  “Do you have a towel? Hurry.”

  She had one small towel. “Tania,” he said, drying off quickly. “You’re not thinking this through. What do you think that posse is going to do five miles down the road when they stop the Red Cross truck and when your friends open the back and find you not there? Do you think everybody will just go on as before? Your friends, being unprepared and not knowing they have anything to hide, will say, ‘Oh, but we just saw her right down the road.’ And they will lead the guards to the spot from where we just swam. They’ll get an armored vehicle across to here in forty seconds. Ten men, two dogs, ten machine guns, ten pistols. Now—can we go, please? Let’s put as much distance between us and them as possible. Do you have a compass, a map?”

  “Do you think they’ll get into trouble with the Soviet authorities?”

  He stood silent for a moment. “I don’t think so,
” he said at last. “They don’t like to bring their darkness out into the open. They’ll interrogate them for sure. But they’re not going to trifle with U.S. nationals. Let’s go.”

  They dried off as best they could, threw on their clothes, and ran to the woods.

  Meandering they walked through the night-time woods for what seemed to Tatiana tens of miles. He was ahead with the knife, clearing the way. She was doggedly behind him. Sometimes they ran if the woods were clear. Most of the time it took a grunting effort to get through the thick underbrush. He would shine the flashlight for three seconds to illuminate the way just ahead of them. He often stopped and listened for sound, and then continued forward. She wished they could stop moving. Her legs weren’t carrying her. He slowed down and said, “Are you tired?”

  “A little. Can we stop?”

  He stopped to look at the relief map. “I like where we are, we’re much more west than I think they would expect, and not nearly as far south. We’ve moved laterally very well.”

  “Yet we’re no closer to Berlin.”

  “No, not much closer. But we’re farther away from them, and that’s better for now.” He closed the map. “You don’t have a tent?”

  “I have a waterproof trench. We could make a lean-to.” She paused. “I’d rather find a barn, maybe? The ground is so wet.”

  “Fine, let’s find a barn. It will be warmer and dryer. There will be farms just the other side of the woods.”

  “So we have to walk some more?”

  Alexander pulled her up and, for a moment, held her close to him. “Yes,” he said. “We still have a way to go.”

  Onward and slowly, they moved through the woods.

  “Alexander, it’s midnight. How many miles west do you think we’ve gone in total?”

  “Three. In another mile there will be fields.”

  She didn’t want to tell him she was scared to be in the constantly creaking woods. He probably didn’t remember the story she had once told him about herself, about being lost in the woods when she was younger. He had been wounded and near death, and probably didn’t remember her telling him that being lost in the woods was the most terrifying experience of her life up to then.

  They came out onto a field. The night was clear; Tatiana could just make out the shape of a silo at the other end.

  “Let’s walk across,” she said.

  Alexander made her walk around. He didn’t trust fields anymore, he told her.

  The barn was a hundred yards away from the farmhouse. Popping open the latch, Alexander motioned her inside. A horse whinnied in surprise. Inside was warm and smelled of hay and manure and old cow’s milk. They were familiar smells to Tatiana, as familiar as Luga. Again a pronounced aching hit her. All the things America had nearly made her forget, she was remembering now with him.

  Alexander pulled up a ladder next to a hay loft above the cows and prodded her upward.

  In the loft, sitting in a heap on the hay, Tatiana found a flask of water, drank some, gave him some. He drank, and then said, “Got anything else in there?”

  Smiling, she rummaged and pulled out a pack of Marlboros.

  “Ah, American cigarettes,” he said, lighting up. He smoked three cigarettes without saying a word while she sat collapsed on the hay and watched him. Her eyes were closing.

  When she opened them, she found Alexander sitting mutely and staring at her with an expression of profound emotion. She crawled on her hands and knees to him and buried herself inside his fierce arms, and somewhere near her head, she heard his whisper, Shh, shh.

  They could not speak. To be in Alexander’s arms, to smell him, to hear his breathing, his voice again…

  Shh, shh, he was still whispering and holding her, pulling off her hat, her hairnet, her hairpins, letting her black hair fall down.

  His hands were in it. His eyes were closed. Perhaps he was imagining her hair was not black but blonde again.

  The way Alexander was touching her now, she could tell that he was blind and had not yet learned to see—he was holding her in that impossible choke that had to do not quite with love or passion, but somehow with both and with neither. The embrace wasn’t an alloy, it was a conflagration of anguish and bitter relief and fear.

  Tatiana could tell Alexander would like to have spoken more, but he couldn’t, and so he sat on the hay with his legs open, while she kneeled in front of him, folded into his arms, and every once in a while from his shuddering body would come a Shh, shh…

  Not for her. Not for Tatiana. For himself.

  Continuing to hold her, Alexander lowered her onto the straw. His trembling limbs surrounded her. Tatiana was barely breathing, her own body convulsing. To rage, to quell—

  They didn’t know what to do—to undress? To stay clothed? She couldn’t move, nor want to. His lips were on her neck, her clavicles, he was clawing at her, ripping open her tunic, baring her breasts to his desperate gasping mouth. She wanted to whisper his name, to moan maybe. Tears kept trickling down her temples.

  He removed from himself and her only what was necessary. He didn’t so much enter her as break her open. Her mouth remained in a mute screaming O, her hands clutched him, not close enough, and through the whisper of grief, through the cry of desire, Tatiana felt that Alexander, in his complete abandon, was making love to her as if he were being pulled from the cross to which he was still attached by nails.

  His gripping her, his ferocious, unremitting movement was so intense that Tatiana felt consciousness yield to—

  Oh my God, Shura, please…she mouthed inaudibly.

  But it could not be any other way.

  Violent release came for Alexander at the expense of Tatiana’s momentary lapse of reason, as she cried out, her pleas carrying through the barn, to the basin, to the river, to the sky.

  He remained on top of her without moving, without pulling away. His body was shaking. He couldn’t be any closer. She held him closer still…And then…

  Shh, shh.

  That wasn’t Alexander.

  That was Tatiana.

  They both fell asleep.

  Still they hadn’t spoken.

  She woke up to find him inside her again.

  And night, though lengthened by gods, wasn’t long enough.

  She spread the trench coat on the hay. He took the clothes off her. In the unmuted darkness, Tatiana cried and cried out, stretched out on the rack of his famine.

  Time and again she was imprisoned and released—barely, just for breath; time and again she burned for Alexander, in the hands of Alexander, and cried out again, Oh, Shura…endlessly, endlessly.

  During brief respite, he continued to lie with his limbs over her, and again she was crying.

  He whispered, “Tatia, what’s a man to think when every time he makes love to his wife, she cries?”

  “That he is his wife’s only family,” said Tatiana, crying. “That he is her whole life.”

  “As she is his,” he said. “You don’t see him crying.” Tatiana could not see his face—it was buried in her breasts.

  There was no night.

  There was only twilight; the sky turned blue then lavender, then pink again within minutes that weren’t long enough.

  The night was not long enough.

  Not long enough for the floor in Mathew Sayers’s office, for Lisiy Nos, for the swamps of Finland, not long enough for Stockholm.

  Not long enough for the punishment cell in Morozovo, for the ten grains of morphine in Slonko, for the drive across Europe with Nikolai Ouspensky.

  Not long enough for the river Vistula.

  And nothing was long enough for the forests and mountains of Holy Cross.

  “Don’t tell me another word.” Tatiana’s voice was defeated. “I don’t have the strength to hear it.”

  “I don’t have the strength to tell it.”

  After Tatiana heard about Pasha, she could not talk or look at Alexander, as she lay supine, her legs drawn up to her chest, while he lay behind her
whispering, “I’m sorry, Tania. I’m sorry.”

  Just a gasp from a bereft Tatiana.

  “I was dying in 1944 before I found him,” said Alexander. “You can’t imagine what stormed inside me as I pushed my penal battalion across every fucking river in Poland.”

  “Alexander, what I would have given for a penal battalion.”

  He kissed the soft flesh between her shoulder blades.

  She rolled into a tighter coil, seeking to return to the place she had once shared with her brother.

  Alexander didn’t even bother uncoiling her to return to the place he shared with her.

  Alexander was not so much sleeping as unconscious, while Tatiana was propped up on her elbow, tracing the scars on his body. She didn’t want to wake him but she couldn’t stop touching him. He had marks on his body that defied her understanding. How could a body bear all this yet live, thinner than before, less whole than before, raggedly tearing apart at the seams, yet live?

  Her hand cupped him softly, then ran down to his shins, and up again to his arms, where it stayed, caressing him, while Tatiana stared at his sleeping face.

  There is one moment, a moment in eternity. Before we find out the truth about one another. That simple moment is the one that propels us through life—what we felt like at the very edge of our future, standing over the abyss, before we knew for sure we loved. Before we knew for sure we loved forever. Before the dying Dasha, the dying Mama, the dying Leningrad. Before Luga. Before the divinity of Lazarevo, when the miracles you heaped upon me with your love and your body alloyed us for life. Before all that, you and I walked through the Summer Garden, and once in a while my bare arm touched your arm, and once in a while you spoke and that gave me an excuse to look up into your face, into your laughing eyes, to catch a glimpse of your mouth and I, who had never been touched, tried to imagine what it might be like to have your mouth touch me. Falling in love with you in the Summer Garden in the white nights of Leningrad is the moment that propels me through life.

  He woke up, saw her. “What are you doing?” he whispered.