The Bronze Horseman (12 page)

It was true. Jane had gone to the U.S. embassy in Moscow two weeks before her arrest. She had taken the train with Alexander. She must have been followed. The reception she got at the embassy was chilly at best: the Americans had no interest in helping either her or her son.

“Was I followed?” she asked Slonko.

“What do
you
think?” he said. “You’ve shown that your fealty is a fickle thing. We were right to follow you. We were right not to trust you. Now you will be tried for treason under Article 58 of the Soviet Constitution. You know that, too. You know what’s ahead of you.”

“Yes,” she said. “I just wish it would come quicker.”

“What would be the point of that?” Slonko was a big, imposing man of advancing age, but he still looked strong and skilled. “You understand how you look to the Soviet government. You have broken with the country you were born in, then spat on the country that provided for you and your family. You were doing quite well in America, quite well—you, the Barringtons of Massachusetts—until you decided to change your life. You came here. Fine, we said. We were convinced you were all spies. We watched you because we were cautious, not vindictive. We watched you and then we wanted you to stand on your own two feet. We promised you we would take care of you, but for that we needed your undying loyalty. Comrade Stalin expects—no,
requires—
nothing less.

“You went to the embassy because you changed your mind about us the way you changed your mind about America. They said, sorry, but we don’t know you. We said, sorry, but we don’t want you. So what’s there for you to do? Where do you go? They won’t have you, we don’t want you. You have shown us you cannot be trusted. Now what?”

“Now death,” said Jane. “But I beg you, spare my only son.” She lowered her head. “He was just a young boy. He never surrendered his U.S. citizenship.”

“He surrendered it when he registered for the Red Army and became a Soviet citizen,” said Slonko.

“But the U.S. State Department doesn’t have a subversive file on him. He never joined the Communists there, he is not part of this. I beg you—”

“Why, comrade,” Slonko said,
“he
is the most dangerous of you all.”

Jane saw her husband once before appearing in front of a tribunal presided over by Slonko. After a speedy trial, she was put in front of the firing squad, turned blind to the wall.

Until his arrest Harold Barrington’s concern for Alexander did not outweigh his despair at being caught with his dreams around his ankles.

He had been in prison before; incarceration did not bother him. Being in prison for his beliefs was a badge of honor, and he had worn that badge proudly in America. “I have sat in some of the best jails in Massachusetts,” Harold used to say. “In New England no one compares to me in what I endure for my beliefs.”

The Soviet Union had turned out to be a land of soup kitchens. Communism wasn’t working as well in Russia as everyone hoped because it
was
Russia. It would work great in America, Harold thought.
That
was the place for Communism. Harold wanted to bring it back home.

Home.

He couldn’t believe he was still calling it home.

The Soviet Union was well and good, but it wasn’t his home, and the Soviet Communists knew it. They were done protecting him, no matter how much he had refused to believe it. Now he was the enemy of the people. He understood.

Harold derided America. He despised America with its shallowness and false morality, he hated the individualist ethic, and he thought the idea of democracy was embraced only by a special kind of idiot. But now that he was sitting in a Soviet concrete cell, Harold wanted to get his boy
back
to this America, at
any
cost, at
any
price.

The Soviet Union couldn’t save Alexander. Only America could do that.

What have I done to my son? Harold thought. What have I left behind for him? Harold couldn’t remember what Communism was anymore. All he saw was Alexander’s admiring face as Harold stood on a pulpit in Greenwich, Connecticut, screaming invective on a Saturday afternoon in 1927.

Who is the boy I call Alexander? If I don’t know, how will he? I found my way, but how will he find his in a country that does not want him?

All Harold wanted during his year of endless interrogations, denials, pleas, and confusion was to see Alexander once before he died. He called on Slonko’s humanity.

“Don’t call on my humanity,” Slonko said. “I have none. Also, humanity has nothing to do with Communism, with creating a higher social order. That, comrade, takes discipline, perseverance, and a certain
detached
attitude.”

“Not just detached,” said Harold, “but severed.”

“Your son will not be coming to visit you,” Slonko said. “Your son is dead.”

Speechless, Tatiana sat next to Alexander as both her hands caressed his arm up and down. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered, wanting desperately to touch his face but unable to bring herself to do so. “Alexander, you hear me? I’m so sorry.”

“I hear you. It’s all right, Tania,” he said, getting up. “My parents are gone, but I’m still here. That’s something.”

She could not move from the bench. “Alexander, wait, wait. How did you get from ‘Barrington’ to ‘Belov?’ And what happened to your father? Did you ever see your parents again?”

He looked at his watch. “What happens to time when I’m with you?” he muttered. “I have to run. We’ll save that for another day.” He gave her his hand to help her up. “A later day.”

Her heart swelled. There would be another day, then? Slowly they walked out of the park. “Have you told Dasha any of this?” Tatiana asked.

“No, Tatiana,” Alexander replied, not looking at her.

She was treading softly next to him. “I’m glad you told
me
,” she said at last.

“Yes, me, too,” said Alexander.

“Promise you’ll tell me the rest someday?”

“Someday I’ll make that promise.” He smiled.

“I can’t believe you’re from
America,
Alexander. That’s definitely a first for me.” She blushed when she said it.

He bent and kissed her gently on the cheek. His lips were warm and his stubble prickly. “Be careful walking home,” Alexander said after her. Her heart aching, Tatiana nodded, watching him walk away with a feeling that resembled despair.

What if he turned around and saw her? How silly she must look standing there staring at him. Before she could think another thought, Alexander turned around. Caught, she tried to move, her slow legs betraying her confusion. He saluted her. What must he think, seeing me gaping at him as he walks away. She wished she had more guile and made a vow to herself to get some. And then she raised her hand and saluted him back.

At home Dasha was on the roof. Each building had already designated their air-raid workers, first clearing debris from the attics, then taking shifts on the roofs, watching for German planes.

Dasha was sitting down on the tar roofing paper, smoking a cigarette and talking loudly with the two youngest Iglenko brothers, Anton and Kirill. Near them were buckets of water and heavy bags of sand. Tatiana wanted to sit next to her sister but couldn’t.

Dasha got up and said, “Listen, I’m off. Will you be all right here?”

“Of course, Dasha. Anton will protect me.” Anton was Tatiana’s closest friend.

Dasha touched her sister’s hair. “Don’t stay up here too long. Are you tired? You’re home so late. We knew Kirov would be too far for you. Why don’t you get a job with Papa? You’ll be home in fifteen minutes.”

“Don’t worry, Dash. I’m fine.” She smiled as if to prove it.

After Dasha left, Anton Iglenko tried to jolly Tatiana out of her mood, but she didn’t want to talk to anyone. She just wanted to think for a minute, for an hour, for a year. Tatiana needed to think herself
out
of what she was feeling.

Finally she relented and played the dizzy geography game. She put her hands over her eyes while Anton spun her around, stopping her suddenly, and she had to point in the direction of Finland. In the direction of Krasnodar. Which way the Urals? Which way
America
?

Then Tatiana spun Anton.

They named as many geographical locations as they could think of, and when they were done, they counted up their correct points. As the winner, Tatiana got to jump up and down.

Tonight Tatiana did not jump up and down. She sat down heavily on the roof. All she could think about was Alexander and America.

Anton, a scrawny blond boy, said, “Don’t look so glum. It’s all exciting.”

“Is it?” she said.

“Why, yes. In two years, I’ll be able to join. Petka left yesterday.”

“Left yesterday for where?”

“For the front.” He laughed. “In case you didn’t notice, Tania, there’s a war on.”

“I noticed, all right,” said Tatiana, shaking a little. “Have you heard from Volodya?” Volodya was with Pasha in Tolmachevo.

“No. Kirill and I wish we could have gone. Kirill can’t wait to turn seventeen. He says the army will take him at seventeen.”

“The army will take him at seventeen,” said Tatiana, getting up.

“Tania, will somebody take you at seventeen?” Anton smiled.

“I don’t think so, Anton,” she replied. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Tell your mother I have some chocolate for her if she wants. Tell her to come by tomorrow evening.”

Tatiana went downstairs. Her grandparents were reading quietly on the couch. The small lamp was on. She squeezed in snugly between them, almost on both their laps.

“What’s the matter, dear?” said her grandfather. “Don’t be afraid.”

“Deda, I’m not afraid,” said Tatiana. “I’m just very, very confused.” And I have no one to talk to, she thought.

“About the war?”

Tatiana considered. Telling them was out of the question. Instead, she asked, “Deda, you always said to me, ‘Tania, there is so much still ahead of you. Be patient with life.’ Do you still feel that way?”

Her grandfather didn’t reply at first, and she felt she had her answer. “Oh, Deda,” she mouthed plaintively.

“Oh, Tania,” he said, putting his protective arm around her while her grandmother patted her knee. “Things have changed overnight in this world.”

“It does seem that way,” said Tatiana.

“Maybe you should be
less
patient.”

“That’s what I thought.” She nodded. “I think patience is overrated as a virtue anyway.”

“But be no less moral,” said Deda. “No less righteous. Remember the three questions I told you to ask yourself to know who you are.”

She wished Deda wouldn’t remind her. She had no interest in asking herself those questions tonight. “Deda, in this family we leave the righteousness to you,” Tatiana said, smiling weakly. “There is nothing left for the rest of us.”

His head of thick gray hair shaking, her grandfather said, “Tania, that’s
all
that’s left.”

In her bed Tatiana lay quietly and thought about Alexander. She thought about him not just telling her about his life but
drowning
her in it, the way he himself was drowned in it. As she listened to him, Tatiana had stopped breathing, her mouth remaining slightly open, so that Alexander could breathe his sorrow—from his words, from his own breath—into her lungs. He needed someone to bear the weight of his life.

Needed
her.

Tatiana hoped she was ready.

She could not think about Dasha.

On the way to Kirov on Wednesday morning, Tatiana saw firemen building new water storage basins and installing what looked like fire hydrants. Was Leningrad expecting that many more fires? she wondered. Were the German bombs going to incinerate the city? She could not imagine it. It was as unimaginable as America.

In the distance the great Smolny Cathedral and Monastery was beginning to take on an unrecognizable shape and form. Camouflage nets were being draped over it by workers, who were dousing the nets in green, brown, and gray paint. What were the workers to do with the harder-to-cover—though also harder to spot from the air—spires of Peter and Paul’s Cathedral and the Admiralty? For the time being they remained in full luminescent view.

Before she left work, Tatiana scrubbed her hands and face until they glistened, then stood in front of the mirror next to her locker and thoroughly brushed out her hair, leaving it long and down. This morning she had put on a wraparound floral print skirt and a blue blouse with short sleeves and white buttons. As she checked herself in the mirror, she couldn’t decide—did she look twelve or thirteen? Whose kid sister was she? Oh, yes, Dasha’s. Please be waiting for me, she thought before rushing out.

She hurried to the bus stop, and there was Alexander, his cap in his hands, waiting for her.

“I like your hair, Tania,” he said, smiling.

“Thank you,” she muttered. “I wish I didn’t smell like I worked with petroleum all day. Petroleum and grease.”

“Oh,
no,
” he said, rolling his eyes. “You weren’t making
bombs
again?”

She laughed.

They looked at the sulky, overworked crowd waiting for the bus and then at each other and together said, “Tram?” and nodded, crossing the street.

“At least we’re still working,” Tatiana said lightly. “
Pravda
says things are not so good with
work
in your
America
these days. Full employment here in the Soviet Union, Alexander.”

“Yes,” Alexander said, leaning into her as they walked. “There is no unemployment in the Soviet Union or in the Dartmoor jail—and for the same reason.”

Smiling, Tatiana wanted to call him a subversive but didn’t.

While they waited for the tram, Alexander said, “I brought you something.” He handed her a package wrapped in brown paper. “I know Monday was your birthday. But I didn’t have a chance before today…”

“What is it?” Sincerely surprised, she took the package from him. A small lump came up in her throat.