Tatiana and Alexander (57 page)

Alexander stared at her incredulously and grimly. “Well, let me tell you, your Red Cross truck will be stopped after twenty minutes. You’ll be lucky to get out of Oranienburg before they’ll come for me, and for you, and for the rest of your gallant crew.” He shook his head. “I’m not doing it.”

“What are you talking about?” she gasped. “How will they know? They won’t know for at least a few hours. And by that time, we’ll be in Berlin.”

Alexander shook his head. “Tania, you have no idea.”

“Then we’ll get off earlier, if you want,” she said. “We’ll get off…wherever you want.”

“They’ll find me before we leave. The guards will inspect the truck.”

“They won’t. You’re going to walk out as Karolich, and drive out of the gate with me, and then you will hide in the crutch and litter compartment in the back. They don’t know there is a compartment in the back.”

“Where are the crutches and litters?”

“Back in Hamburg. We’ll get off, and Martin and Penny will drive on to Berlin, knowing nothing.”

Perdov stood outside the door, swaying. He held on to the door. “Nurse? That’s enough now.”

“I’m coming.” She stood up. Someone called for him, and Perdov staggered down the corridor.

They had a myriad details to go over, but there was no time. From her nurse’s bag she retrieved the Colt 1911 and two extra clips. “Much
much
more in the truck,” she said, hiding the gun underneath him in the straw. “When we’re on our way for a bit, I’ll knock twice, and you make a distraction for me to stop the truck.”

He said nothing. “And then?”

“Then? There is a hatch on the roof. We climb out onto the roof and jump.”

“While the truck is moving?”

“Yes.” She paused. “Or we can just do it my way and drive the truck into Berlin.”

He said nothing at first. “Not as good as your last plan, Tania,” he said. “And that one failed.”

“That’s the spirit. I’ll see you at seven. Be ready,” she said, and saluted him. “O Captain, my Captain.”

Tatiana pretended to eat dinner with Brestov and Karolich, to listen to banter between Penny and Martin, even to smile. How? She didn’t know. To save him.

She didn’t want to keep looking at her watch, but couldn’t keep herself from staring at Martin’s wrist until she realized she was making him twitch with her unexplained scrutiny. She excused herself and said she would go and pack. Penny excused herself and said since she was already packed she would go and check on barrack nineteen. Tatiana knew there was a man there Penny wanted to say goodbye to. It was 6:00 p.m. For fifteen minutes Tatiana agonized in her room, looking over the map of the area between Oranienburg and Berlin. She could not still her unquiet heart.

At 6:20 she carried her pack to the jeep and returned to the commandant’s kitchen to get another plate of food for Alexander. At 6:45 she filled a glass with vodka and secobarbital and, with her nurse’s bag on her shoulder, picked up the food tray and went to find Karolich.

At 6:55, Penny walked through the beds in barrack nineteen, moving past the bunk of Nikolai Ouspensky.

“Hey, nurse, where is the rest of your crew?” he called out in Russian. “Where is that other, hmm, little nurse?”

“It’s a good thing I don’t understand a word of what you’re saying,” Penny retorted in English with a smile, without stopping.

With a smile himself Ouspensky fell back on his bed. Penny brought back the image of the other nurse, the small, black-haired one. He had forgotten all about it, but something had niggled him about her. What was it about her that was so faintly familiar, and why for such a faint familiarity was that niggling so sharp?

“Lieutenant, could you come with me?” Tatiana smiled. “It’s getting late. I want to bring the plate of food for the prisoner in cell number seven, and I don’t want to go alone. And this way you and I could drive the jeep back to the commandant’s house to retrieve Miss Davenport and Dr. Flanagan.”

Karolich walked gladly through the forested path with her. He seemed flattered.

“You are a very good nurse,” he said. “You shouldn’t care so much about the prisoners, though. Take it from me. It makes it too hard to do your job.”

“Don’t I know it, Lieutenant,” she said, walking a little faster.

“You can call me Ivan if you wish.” He coughed.

“Let’s stick with lieutenant for now,” she said, walking faster still.

It was 7:00 when they walked into the jail corridor. All was quiet. Perdov stood up in a salute. Tatiana winked at him, glancing at the vodka glass. Perdov winked back. Karolich passed first, then Tatiana, who nodded and moved the tray over to Perdov who grabbed the full glass, downed it, and put it back on the tray. Karolich was opening cell seven. “Are you coming, Nurse?”

“Coming, Lieutenant.”

Alexander was lying on his side.

Karolich sank down onto the straw with a yawn. He was facing Alexander’s back and his machine gun was on his lap angled at Alexander.

“Feed him quickly, Nurse. I want to be done with my day. That’s the thing about this work. Begins early, ends late, feels like it’s never done.”

“I know what you mean.” Putting the tray on the ground, Tatiana pretended to examine Alexander. “He doesn’t look so good, does he?” she said. “I think he’s getting a terrible infection.”

Indifferently, Karolich shook his head. “He’d look worse dead, don’t you agree?” He lit a cigarette.

“Captain, would you like something for the pain?”

“Yes, thank you,” said Alexander.

“Before or after you eat?”

“After.”

He turned onto his back and she fed him. He ate quickly, and then groaned, rolling back on his side. “My head hurts. Maybe something for the pain now?”

“I’m going to give you a little morphine to help you.”

Alexander continued to lie on his side. He opened his eyes and glanced at Tatiana without blinking. His hands were in front of him, his back was to Karolich, and in his hands, he held the Model 1911.

“So, how long have you been working for the Red Army, Lieutenant?” Tatiana asked Karolich, opening her nurse’s bag and taking out three syrettes—small, toothpaste-type tubes each filled with a half-grain of morphine solution.

“Twelve years,” he said. “How long have you been a nurse?”

“Just a few,” she replied, fumbling with the needle and safety seal. Her hands were useless. Usually she could do this in her sleep. “I worked with German POWs in New York.” She needed to get all three syrettes ready, and she couldn’t even break the safety seal on one.

“Oh, yeah? Any escapees?”

“Not really. Oh, yes. One. Knocked out one of the doctors and took a ferry across the water.”

“What happened to him? Ever catch him?”

“Yes,” she said, walking between Alexander and Karolich and kneeling down. The three syrettes were in her right hand. “He was caught six months later living in New Jersey.” She laughed. Her laugh sounded fake. “He wanted to escape to New Jersey.”

“What is this New Jersey? And why are you using so many tubes on him? One is not enough?”

“He is too big a man,” she said. “He needs an extra dose.”

“Last thing we need around here is a morphine addict. Although, do you think it will make him pliant?”

At that moment, there was a loud thump from the corridor as if something heavy had fallen. Karolich turned his head toward the cell door and immediately reached for his machine gun.

“Now!” said Alexander.

Tatiana, without another breath, pushed the machine gun off Karolich’s lap with her left hand and plunged the three syringes into his thigh with her right, puncturing his pants and his skin, squeezing the morphine through all the needles. He opened his mouth in a gasp, and struck out, hitting Tatiana with his forearm square across the jaw, and with his other arm grabbing for his falling machine gun. But Alexander was already up behind Tatiana, pushing her aside. He kicked the machine gun against the wall and struck Karolich violently on the head with the butt of the Colt. Karolich’s head opened up like a dropped watermelon. It had all taken maybe four seconds.

“I’ll show you fucking pliant,” said Alexander, kicking a convulsing Karolich with his bare foot.

“Take his clothes, Shura, quick, before he bleeds all over them.”

Karolich was bleeding copiously.

Alexander ripped the lieutenant’s uniform off Karolich’s body and quickly undressed. Tatiana, a little wobbly from the blow, peered out of the doorway. Perdov had fallen off the chair and was unconscious on the floor.

Alexander threw his bloodied white shirt and brown slacks on Karolich and shackled the man’s wrists and ankles. Then he put on the lieutenant’s boots, his cap, took his Shpagin, and in Karolich’s uniform appeared in the corridor. “He is just the right size,” he said to Tatiana. “A little shorter and bigger, the fat fucking bastard.”

Walking over to Perdov, he lifted him and sat him back in the chair. Perdov kept falling. Finally they got him to sit straight, his head bent all the way forward.

“That did not take twenty minutes,” Alexander said.

“I know. I decided to give him a little, hmm, larger dose.”

“Good. How much morphine did you give Karolich?” Alexander asked.

“One and a half grains, but I think it’s going to be his open skull that will keep him quiet.”

Alexander hoisted the machine gun over his shoulder. The cocked Colt was in his hand. “Where is the truck?”

“Fifty yards in front of you, as you walk out the door. When we get to the truck, look up at the sentry on the gatehouse and salute them. That’s what he always does when we pass. He opens the gate himself with his master key. He’s left-handed, though. You might…”

Alexander switched the jangling key from his right hand to his left. “Okay. Better for me. I shoot with my right. Are you ready? Does he walk in front of you or behind you?”

“Next to me. And he doesn’t open any doors for me. He just salutes them and gets in the truck.”

“Who drives?”

“I do.”

Before she opened the door, he put the hand that held the pistol on her. “Listen,” he said very quietly. “Get in the truck as fast as you can and start the engine. If something goes wrong, I will shoot the guards but I need you to be ready to drive.”

She nodded.

“And Tania…”

“Yes?”

“I know you like to do as you please, but there can only be one person in charge—me. If we’re both in charge, we both die. Understood?”

“Understood. You’re in charge.”

He pulled open the door. They were outside. It was dark and cool. Alexander walked quickly in long strides across the illuminated courtyard; Tatiana could barely keep up. As the sentries looked down and
watched him, Alexander walked over to the gate, the one that said, “Work Makes You Free,” unlocked it, pushed it open and walked back to the truck. Tatiana was already inside with the ignition on. In fact, the truck lurched before Alexander had a chance to get in.

He looked up at the sentries, smiled, and saluted them. They saluted him back.

He got in, and Tatiana drove him out of Sachsenhausen, down the leafy forested road to the commandant’s house. In the dark of the trees, halfway between the gatehouse and the commandant’s house, she stopped the jeep. They got out, ran to the back doors. Tatiana opened them, climbed in and raised the hatch to the long compartment. Suddenly seeing Alexander next to her, she wondered if he would fit. She had forgotten how tall he was.

He himself seemed to wonder that, because he looked at the narrow space, looked at her and said, “It’s a good thing I haven’t eaten in six months.”

“Yes,” she breathed out, taking out the bags with the weapons. “Get in, quick. When we’re on the road a little while, I’ll give a knock and you do something.”

“Tania, I don’t forget. You don’t have to repeat it. Are those your two packs?”

She nodded. “Plus my backpack over there.”

“Weapons? Ammunition? Knife, rope?”

“Yes, yes.”

“A flashlight?”

“Below in the compartment.”

He grabbed it.

“In.”

He squeezed in sideways, and she slammed the hatch shut. “Can you hear me?”

“Yes,” came his muffled voice. He opened the hatch from inside. “But knock loudly so I can hear above the noise of the jeep. What time is it?”

“Seven forty.”

“Get them in as soon as possible and start driving.”

“Right now.”

Before she climbed into the jeep, Tatiana ran to the side of the path and threw up.

“I don’t know what the hurry is,” said Penny plaintively. “I’m tired, I had some wine, why can’t we just go to sleep and drive back tomorrow?”

“Because we have to be back here tomorrow,” said Tatiana, pushing her to the jeep. “Dr. Flanagan, are you coming?”

“Yes, I’m coming, I’m coming. I just want to make sure I haven’t forgotten anything.”

“We’ll be back tomorrow, even if you did.”

“That’s true. Should we say goodbye to the commandant?”

“I don’t think that’s necessary,” said Tatiana as casually as she could. She wanted to scream. “I already made our goodbyes to him. Besides, we’ll see him tomorrow.”

They walked outside, dropped their bags in the back.

“Where are
your
bags, Tania?” Penny asked.

She pointed to them.

“You have so many bags,” Martin said. “More and more, it seems like.”

“You’re never sure what you’re going to need on a trip like this. Would you like me to drive? My head is clear. I’ve had no wine.”

“Yes, why don’t you?” said Martin, sliding in past the wheel. “But do you know the way in the dark?”

“I mapped out our route earlier to make it easier for us. We go down to Oranienburg and make a left.”

“I guess.” Martin closed his eyes. “Let’s go.”

Tatiana drove away from the commandant’s house and made her way slowly in the darkness, and then faster and faster. It impressed on her that she wanted to be as far away as soon as possible from Special Camp Number 7.

At 7:55, Nikolai Ouspensky opened his eyes and screamed. He jumped out of bed and ran waving like a madman to the guard by the door of the barracks.