One man was coming up the hill, only about a hundred meters below them, right in front of Tatiana’s tree.
She saw him throw something, and it whistled through the air, landed very close to Alexander and exploded. The bushes and the grass in front of him burst into flames. Alexander popped the pins out of two grenades and threw them, but he threw them blindly, he couldn’t see where the men were.
Tatiana could. She cocked her P-38, aimed it at the shape in front of her, and before she had a moment to reconsider, fired. The recoil was violent, it threw her shoulder back, but the deafening sound was worse, because now she could not hear. The bushes and the grass in front of Alexander’s trench were burning.
Alexander? she thought she whispered, but could hear no sound coming out of her mouth. She looked through the binoculars. It was getting lighter, and the shapes on the ground were still. She fired again and again. There were no more mortar shells, but suddenly there was sporadic machine-gun fire from below, all aimed at Alexander’s small trench. Tatiana found them, lying behind the bushes, halfway up the hill. Because she couldn’t speak to Alexander, and could not hear his response to her, she aimed her weapon again, not sure if the bullets would carry two hundred meters, but fired anyway. She wished she could hear sounds from below, but she couldn’t. She reloaded six times.
Alexander continued to fire. The bushes may have gone up in flames from the explosives out of his own weapons. Tatiana couldn’t be sure of anything anymore. She pointed her gun down the hill, closed her eyes and fired and reloaded and fired until all the bullets were gone.
Then all was quiet. Maybe all wasn’t quiet.
She opened her eyes.
“Watch your back!” she screamed, and Alexander rolled out of the trench just as a soldier, coming up behind him, shot into the pit. Alexander kicked the rifle out of the man’s hands, kicked him again in the legs, pulled him down and they grappled with one another on the ground. The man grabbed a knife out of his boot. Tatiana, losing all sense of self, nearly fell out of the tree. She ripped off the rope around her, scrambled down and ran across the clearing to the two fighting men. Stop, stop, she shouted, raising her pistol, cocking it, knowing it didn’t have any bullets left. Stop, but she couldn’t hear herself so how could they hear her? The man was forcing his knife toward Alexander, who was barely stopping him.
Tatiana ran up close and, raising her empty-chambered pistol, brought it down hard on the soldier’s neck. He jumped from the blow but did not release Alexander—his fingers remained around the knife handle, Alexander’s remained around the man’s wrist, just stopping him from sinking that knife into his abdomen. Crying out, Tatiana hit the man again, but she couldn’t hit him hard enough. Alexander grabbed the man around the neck, twisted him fast and hard, and he went slack. Throwing the man off him, he sprang to his feet, all bloodied and wired. He said something, she didn’t hear. He motioned her back. Tatiana dropped her gun and backed away. Picking up her pistol, Alexander aimed at the soldier and pulled the trigger, but there was no sound.
The gun is empty, Tatiana wanted to say, but Alexander knew that. He picked up the Commando which still had bullets in the cylinder, aimed at the soldier, but didn’t fire. The man’s neck was broken. Dropping the gun, he came to her then and held her to him for a few moments to calm her down.
They were both panting hard. Alexander was covered with black as hand bleeding from his arm, his head, the top of his chest, his shoulder.
He said something and she said, what?
He bent to her ear. “Well done, Tania. But I thought I was clear: don’t move until I tell you to move.”
She looked up at him to see if he was joking. She couldn’t tell.
Squeezing her, he said, “We have to go. We have only revolver rounds left.”
Did you get them all? she mouthed.
“Stop shouting. I’m sure I didn’t, and in any case, they’ll be sending a hundred men next, with bigger bombs. Let’s run.”
“Wait, you’re injured—”
He put his hand over her mouth. “Stop shouting,” Alexander said to her. “You’ll get your hearing back in a little while, just keep quiet and follow me.”
Tatiana pointed at his bleeding chest. Shrugging, he crouched down. She ripped away the sleeve of his shirt. It was a shell grazing; she pulled the pieces of shrapnel out of his shoulder; one was deeply stuck in his deltoid and pectoral. Shura, look, she thought she said.
He leaned to her. “Just grab it with your fingers and pull it out.”
She yanked it out, nearly fainting at the pain she knew he must have felt. He winced but did not move. She washed out the wound with an antiseptic and bandaged it.
“What about your face?”
His scalp wound had reopened.
“Stop speaking. It’s fine. Later. Let’s just go.” Her face was stained with his blood from when he had pressed her to him. She didn’t wipe it off.
Leaving the empty machine gun, Alexander picked up his pistols, the sub-machine-gun, and the backpack; Tatiana grabbed her nurse’s bag and they ran as fast as they could down the hill.
Around the perimeters of the fields along tree walls and stone walls they ran and walked and crawled for the next two to three hours until the dwellings became progressively more residential and less farm-like, and finally there were streets and finally there was a white sign posted on the side of a three-story bombed-out building that said, “YOU ARE ENTERING THE BRITISH SECTOR OF THE CITY OF BERLIN.”
Tatiana could hear now. She grabbed his good arm, smiled and said, “Almost there.”
There was no reply from Alexander.
And in a few hundred feet she knew why. Berlin was not abandoned, and there were trucks and jeeps on the road, and though many of them belonged to the Royal armed forces, quite a few of them didn’t. They saw a truck up ahead barreling forward, honking, with the hammer and sickle on the crest, and Alexander yanked her into a doorway and said, “How far to the American sector?”
“I don’t know. I have a street map of Berlin.”
It turned out to be five kilometers. It took them all day. They would run from building to building and then stop in broken-down entrance-ways, hallways, doorways, and wait.
By the time they got to the American sector it was four in the afternoon.
They found the U.S. embassy on Clayallee at four thirty.
And they could not cross the street to it, because the hammer-and-sickle jeeps were parked four in a row across the entrance.
This time it was Tatiana who pulled him inside the doorway, under the stairs.
“They’re not necessarily here for us,” she said, trying to sound optimistic. “I think it’s standard procedure.”
“I’m sure it is. You don’t think they’ve been notified to be on the lookout for a man about my size and a woman, yours?”
“No, I don’t think so,” she said in a doubting voice.
“All right then, let’s go.” He began to get up.
She stopped him.
“Tatiana, what are you thinking?”
She thought about it. “I’m an American citizen. I have a right to ask to go into the embassy.”
“Yes, but you’ll be stopped before you get a chance to exercise that right.”
“Well, we have to do something.”
He was quiet. She kept thinking, looking him over. He wasn’t so tense as before. The fight seemed to have left his body. Reaching out, she touched his face. “Hey,” she said. “Rear up. We’re not done fighting, soldier.” She pulled on him. “Let’s go.”
“Where to now?”
“To the military governor’s house. It’s not too far from here, I think.”
When they got to the U.S. command headquarters, Tatiana hid inside a building across the boulevard, changed from olive drab into her grimy nurse’s uniform, and motioned Alexander to follow her to the armed, gated entrance. It was five in the evening. There were no Soviet vehicles nearby.
“I’ll
wait here, you go in by yourself and then come out for me,” he said.
She took hold of his hand. “Alexander,” she said, “I’m not leaving you behind. Let’s go. Just put your weapons away.”
“I’m not crossing the street without my weapon.”
“It’s empty! And you’re coming up to the military governor’s house. Who is going to let you in brandishing weapons? Put them away.”
They had to leave the machine gun—it was too big. With the other weapons in the backpack, they walked up to the gate and Tatiana, standing shoulder to shoulder with Alexander, asked the sentry if she could see Governor Mark Bishop. “Tell him Nurse Jane Barrington is calling for him,” she said.
Alexander was looking at her. “Not Tatiana Barrington?”
“Jane was the name on the original Red Cross documents,” she replied. “Besides, Tatiana sounds so Russian.”
They stared at each other. “It is so Russian,” he said quietly.
Mark Bishop came to the gate. He took one look at Tatiana, one look at Alexander and said, “Come through.” Before they got inside he said, “Nurse Barrington, what a ruckus you’ve been causing.”
“Governor, this is my husband, Alexander Barrington,” Tatiana said in English.
“Yes,” was all Bishop said, before falling completely silent. “Is he injured?”
“Yes.”
“Are you?”
“No. Governor, could one of your men please give us a ride to the embassy? We need to see the consul, John Ravenstock. He is waiting for us.”
“He is, is he?”
“Yes.”
“Is he waiting for your husband, too?”
“Yes. My husband is American citizen.”
“Where are his papers?”
Tatiana leveled a look at Bishop. “Governor,” she said. “Please. Let’s have the consulate take care of everything. No use getting you involved, too. I would really appreciate a”—special emphasis on the indefinite article—“ride.”
Bishop summoned two of his on-duty privates. “Would you like a jeep, Nurse Barrington, or…”
“A covered truck would be best, Governor.”
“But of course.”
She asked Bishop if Dr. Flanagan and Nurse Davenport had reached the American sector.
“Not without a fight, but we did get them back two days ago, yes.”
“I’m very sorry. I’m glad they’re back and safe.”
“Don’t apologize to me, Nurse Barrington. Apologize to them.”
Two privates drove Tatiana and Alexander to the embassy. They sat in the back on the floor, close together, not speaking. Tatiana tried to wipe the dried blood off his temple. He pulled his head away.
When the doors opened, they were on American soil.
“Everything will be all right, Shura,” she whispered before they got out. “You’ll see.”
But when the summoned John Ravenstock, wearing black tie, came out of the embassy doors into the paved courtyard where they were standing, he was neither smiling nor friendly. Either he was always a serious man wearing a tuxedo or else he did not want to make a single gesture that could be interpreted as warm.
“Mr. Ravenstock, Sam Gulotta in Washington told us to come see you,” said Tatiana.
“Oh, believe me, I’ve been hearing quite a lot from everybody these past three days, including Sam, yes.” He sighed deeply. “Nurse Barrington, come with me. Have your husband wait here. Does he need a doctor?”
“Later,” she said, taking hold of Alexander’s hand. “Right now he needs to come in with us. We will speak privately if you wish and he will wait outside, but he has to come in. Or we speak now in front of him.”
Ravenstock shook his head. “You know,” he said, “it’s six in the evening. My working day finishes at four. I have a reception to go to tonight. My wife is waiting.”
“My husband is waiting,” Tatiana said quietly.
“Yes, yes. Your husband, your husband. But the working day is over! Come in, but I’m telling you, I can’t deal with this properly at the moment. I’m going to be egregiously late.”
They walked through the embassy doors and up the wide stairs to the second floor, to Ravenstock’s wood-paneled office. He called a guard to come and stay by Alexander in the waiting room and led Tatiana inside. Tatiana turned to glance at Alexander, not wanting to leave him, but they were inside the American embassy, and it was better than leaving him in Soviet-occupied Berlin in an abandoned building. Alexander was already taking out his light and asking the guard for cigarettes.
“Please don’t sit down, we don’t have that kind of time,” said Ravenstock, closing the door. He was a heavy, gray-haired man in his fifties; he had a long sloping gray mustache and gray eyebrows that grew over his eyes.
Tatiana remained standing.
“Do you have any idea what kind of trouble you have caused?” said Ravenstock hotly. “You don’t, do you? Nurse Barrington, you are in Berlin by privilege! To abuse your Red Cross uniform and to so incite our former allies is pure folly. But I don’t have time to get into it right now.”
“Sir, the consulate office in United States will authorize the issuing of a passport to my husband—”
“Passport! Yes, Sam Gulotta has been in touch with me about this. Forget about a passport. We have a very big problem on our hands, a very tough situation, you do realize that, or no?”
“I realize—”
“No, I don’t think you do. The Commander of the Berlin garrison, the Soviet military administration in Germany, heck, the National Security Department in Moscow, have been completely overwrought about this matter!”
“The Commander of the Berlin garrison?” Tatiana said with surprise. “General Stepanov has been overwrought?”
“No, not him, he was replaced two days ago, by a Moscow man, a veteran general, Rymakov or something.”
Tatiana paled.
“And they are all in unison, crying for your blood!” He paused. “For you both. Your husband apparently broke every military and civil law on their books. He is a Soviet citizen, they say, a major in their army. First they accused him of treason, of espionage, of desertion, of anti-Soviet agitation, and when we said that we did not have him in our custody, they accused him of being an American spy! We asked if he was both, a traitor to them and a spy for us? We asked them to pick. They refused and upped the ante on you, too. You’ve been on their class enemies list since 1943, did you know that? You didn’t just escape apparently, you deserted your Red Army post as a military nurse, and you killed five of their border troops, including a decorated lieutenant, in order to get out of Russia. They told me your brother is a…” Ravenstock scratched his head. “I can’t remember the word they used. Apparently a traitor of the worst kind.”
“My brother is dead,” said Tatiana, holding on to the back of a chair.
“Bottom line is, Nurse Barrington, they want you both extradited into their hands here in Berlin. So when you ask about a passport, you have no idea what you’re talking about. Now I really have to run, look, it’s six fifteen!”
Tatiana sat down in the chair in front of Ravenstock’s desk.
“I asked you not to sit!”
“Mr. Ravenstock,” she said calmly. “We have a small son in United States. I am U.S. citizen now. My husband is a U.S. citizen, he came to Russia with his parents when he was a small boy, he could not help that he had to register for compulsory draft, he could not help that his parents were shot and killed by the NKVD. Do you want me to read you the regulations on citizenship?”
“No, thank you. I know them by heart.”
“He is an American citizen. He wants to come back home.”
“I understand that’s what he wants, but do you understand that he has been convicted by the Soviet authorities under the laws of their country for desertion and treason? And just to make matters more complicated, not only has he escaped, which is a crime in itself, escaping just punishment, or so they tell me—and you co
lluded to help him, which is also a crime—but you and he cut a swathe through sixty of their men! They are screaming for your blood!” He glanced at his watch, ripping off his bow tie in frustration. “Oh, no. Oh, no. I can’t tell you how late you are making me.”
“Sir,” said Tatiana. “We desperately need your help.”
“Of course you do. But you should have thought of what you were doing before you embarked on this lunatic mission.”
“I came back to Europe to find my husband. He never meant to be Soviet. Not like me. I was Soviet-born, and Soviet-raised.” She swallowed. “But it doesn’t matter. I don’t matter in this, the only one who matters is my husband. If you talk to him you will find out he served on the side of the Allies honorably, you will see he was a great soldier who deserves to go back home. The U.S. Army would be proud to commission a man like my husband.” Tatiana’s voice did not tremble. “I was Soviet citizen. I did not kill those men on the Finnish border, but I did escape, they are right about that. You have every right, to turn me over to the Soviet authorities. I will willingly go, as long as I know my husband returns home where he belongs.”
She realized even as she was saying it how absurd it was, how ridiculous! As if Alexander would allow any scenario in which Tatiana would be handed over to the Soviets while he moseyed off safely home. She lowered her head, but couldn’t let Ravenstock know of her bluff. She raised her eyes.
Ravenstock sat on the edge of his desk and watched her. His body stopped fidgeting for a short spell until it remembered again it needed to be someplace else. He started fumbling with his torn-off tie. “Look, we are not in the business of judging our allies.” He fell quiet. “But the Soviets are proving themselves to be a determined and vicious force in the occupation of Europe. It’s true they do not want to make any concessions to the Allies. But you both did break a number of their laws. This is not in dispute.”
Tatiana and Alexander: A Novel Page 61