The Bronze Horseman (38 page)

In the small gray concrete cell, Alexander looked at his father, and Harold Barrington looked at Alexander. Harold did not move from his bed.

Dimitri stood in the center of the small cell, Alexander to the side. The guard and Dimitri’s father were behind them. A single lightbulb hung from the ceiling.

In Russian, Dimitri said to Harold, “We are here for only a minute, comrade. You understand? Just for a minute.”

“All right,” replied Harold in Russian, blinking back tears. “Thank you for coming to see me. I’m happy to see two Soviet boys. Your name, son?” he asked Dimitri.

“Dimitri Chernenko.”

“And your name, son?” His body shaking, Harold looked at Alexander.

“Alexander Belov,” said Alexander.

Harold nodded.

The guard said, “All right, enough gawking at the prisoner. Let’s go.”

Dimitri said, “Wait! We just wanted the comrade to know that despite his crime against our proletarian society, he will not be forgotten.”

Alexander said nothing, his eyes on his father.

“It’s
because
of his crime against our society that he will not be forgotten,” said the guard.

Chewing his lips, Harold looked at Dimitri and Alexander, whose back was to the guard but whose face was to his father.

“Popov, can I shake their hands?” Harold asked the guard.

The guard shrugged, stepping forward. “I’m going to watch you do it. Make it quick.”

Alexander said, “I’ve never heard English before, Comrade Barrington. Can you say something for us in English?”

Harold came up to Dimitri and shook his hand.
“Thank you,”
he said in English.

Then he came up to Alexander and took his hand, holding it tightly between his. Alexander shook his head slightly, trying to will his father to stay calm.

In English, Harold whispered,
“Would that I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!”

Alexander mouthed,
Stop.

Letting go of Alexander’s hand, Harold stepped slightly away, struggling not to cry and failing. “I’ll tell you something in English,” he said in Russian. “A few corrupted lines from Kipling.”

“Enough,” said the guard. “I have no time—”

“If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken,”
Harold said loudly in En-glish,
“twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools…”
Tears rolled down his face.
“Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken…”
He was down to a whisper.
“Son!—stoop and build them up with worn-out tools.”
Harold stepped back and made a small sign of the cross on Alexander.

“Let’s go!” yelled the guard.

Alexander mouthed to his father, in English,
“I love you, Dad.”

Then they left.

Tatiana was crying. Alexander put his arm around her, and said, “Oh, Tania…” He wiped her face. “From the effort to remain composed,” he told her, “I cracked one of my side teeth. See?” He showed her an upper bicuspid. “Now you can stop asking me about it. So I did get to see my father once before he died, and I never would have been able to do it without Dimitri.” With a heavy breath, he took his arm away.

“Alexander,” said Tatiana, crouching beside him, “you did an unbelievable thing for your father.” Her lips trembled. “You gave him comfort before his death.” Feeling very shy, yet overwhelmed by her emotion, her throbbing heart overfilled with him, she took hold of Alexander’s hand, bent her head to it, and kissed it. Blushing and clearing her throat, she let go of him and raised her eyes.

“Tania,” he said with feeling, “who
are
you?”

She replied, “I am Tatiana.” And gave him her hand. They sat silently.

“There is more.”

She nodded. “The rest I know.” Tatiana took Alexander’s pack of cigarettes and pulled one out. She had needed just a little truth to see the whole. She knew the rest at the point Alexander told her that he gave Dimitri something Dimitri had never had before. It wasn’t friendship, and it wasn’t companionship, and it wasn’t brotherhood. Tatiana’s hands were shaking as she put the cigarette into Alexander’s mouth, and reached for his lighter. Flicking it on, she brought it to his face, and when he inhaled, she kissed his cheek and extinguished the light.

“Thank you,” Alexander said, smoking down half the cigarette before he continued. He kissed her. “You’re not crazy about smoker’s breath?”

“I’ll take your breath any way you give it to me, Shura,” said Tatiana, blushing again. Then she spoke. “Let me tell you the rest. You and Dimitri enrolled in university. You and Dimitri joined the army. You and Dimitri went to officers’ school together. And then Dimitri didn’t make it.” She lowered her head. “At first he was all right with it. You remained best friends. He knew you would do anything for him.” She paused. “And then,” Tatiana said, raising her eyes, “he started asking.”

“I see,” said Alexander. “So you do know everything.”

“What does he ask you for, Shura?”

“You name it.”

They didn’t look at each other.

“He asks you to transfer him here, to make exceptions for him there, he asks you for special privileges and for special treatment.”

“Yes.”

“Anything else?”

Alexander was mute for a few minutes. It was such a long time that Tatiana thought he had forgotten her question. She waited patiently. Finally Alexander said, his voice filled with
something,
“Very occasionally, girls. You’d think there was plenty for everyone, but every once in a while I would be with a girl Dimitri wanted to be with. He’d ask me, and I’d back off. I just went and found myself a new girl, and things went on as before.”

Tatiana stared ahead, her eyes the clearest sea green. “Alexander, tell me something. When Dimitri asked you for a girl, he only asked for one you actually liked, right?”

“What do you mean?”

“He didn’t want just any of your girls. He asked you for girls that he saw you liked. That’s when he asked. Right?”

Alexander was pensive. “I guess.”

Slowly Tatiana said, “So when he asked you for me, you just backed off.”

“Wrong. What I did was show him my indifferent face, hoping that if he thought you didn’t matter to me, he would leave you alone. Unfortunately, that has backfired.”

Tatiana nodded, then shook her head, then started to cry. “Yes, you’re not doing such a good job with your face, Shura. He won’t leave me alone.”

“Please.” Alexander brought her into his arms. “I told you this was a dire mess. I can back off you now as far as Japan for all he cares. Because now Dimitri has fallen for you and wants you for himself.” He stopped.

Tatiana studied Alexander for a few moments and then pressed herself into him. “Shura,” she said quietly, “I’m going to tell you something right now, all right? Are you listening?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t hold your breath like that.” She managed a smile. “What do you think I’m about to say?”

“I don’t know. I’m ill equipped to guess at the moment. Maybe you have a small child living with a distant aunt?”

Tatiana laughed lightly. “No.” She paused. “But are you ready?”

“Yes.”

Tatiana said, “Dimitri has not fallen for me.”

Alexander pulled away from her.

She shook her head. “No. Not at all. Not even remotely. Believe me when I tell you.”

“How do you know?”

“I
know.
”

“So what does he want with you then? Don’t even suggest—”

“Not with me. All Dimitri wants—listen carefully—all he craves, all he desires, all he
covets
is power. That’s the only thing that’s important to him. That’s the love of his life. Power.”

“Power over you?”

“No, Alexander! Power over
you.
I’m just a means to an end. I’m just ammunition.”

When he looked at her skeptically, she continued. “Dimitri doesn’t have any. You have it all. All he has is what he has over you. That’s his whole life.” She shook her head. “How sad for him.”

“Sad for him!” Alexander exclaimed. “Whose side are you on?”

Tatiana didn’t speak for a moment. “Shura, look at
you.
And look at
him.
Dimitri needs you, he is fed and sheltered and grown by you, and if you’re stronger, he becomes stronger, too. He knows that and depends on you blindly for so many things that you are glad to provide. And yet… the more
you
have, the more he hates you. Self-preservation may be his driving force, but all the same, every time you get a promotion, you go up in rank, you get a new medal, you get a new girl, every time you laugh with joy in the smoky corridor, it diminishes and lessens
him
. Which is why the more powerful you become, the more he wants from you.”

“Eventually,” said Alexander, glancing at Tatiana, “he is going to want from me something I can’t give. And then what?”

“Coveting from you the best of what you have will eventually lead him into hell.”

“Yes, but me into death.” Alexander shook his head. “Unspoken underneath all his pleas and requests is that one word from him about my American past to the
NKVD
general at the garrison, one vague accusation, and I instantly vanish into the maw of Soviet justice.”

Nodding sadly, Tatiana said, “I know it. But maybe if he
had
more, he wouldn’t
want
so much.”

“You’re wrong, Tania. I have a bad feeling about Dimitri. I have a feeling he is going to want more and more from me. Until,” Alexander said, “he takes it all.”

“No,
you’re
wrong, Shura. Dimitri will never take
all
away from you. He will never have that much power.” He might want to. He just doesn’t know who he is dealing with, Tatiana thought, raising her venerating eyes to Alexander. “Besides, we all know what happens to the parasite when something happens to the host,” she whispered.

Alexander gazed down at her. “Yes. He finds himself a new host. Let me ask you,” he finally said, “what do you think Dimitri wants the most from me?”

“What you want most.”

“But, Tania,” said Alexander intensely, “it’s you that I want most.”

Tatiana looked into his face. “Yes, Shura,” she said. “And he knows it. As I said from the beginning—Dimitri has not fallen for me at all. All he wants is to hurt
you.
”

Alexander was quiet for a spate of eternity under the August sky.

So was Tatiana until she whispered, “Where is your brave and indifferent face? Put it on and he will back away and ask you to give him what you wanted most before me.”

Alexander did not move and did not speak.

“Before me.” Why was he so silent? “Shura?” She thought she felt him shudder.

“Tania, stop. I can’t talk to you about this anymore.”

She could not steady her hands. “All of this—all this between us, and my Dasha, too, now and forever, and still you come for me every chance you can.”

“I told you, I cannot stay away from you,” said Alexander.

Flinching with sadness, Tatiana said, “God, we need to forget each other, Shura. I can’t believe how not meant to be we are.”

“You don’t say?” Alexander smiled. “I will bet my rifle that your ending up on that bench two months ago was the most
unlikely
part of your day.”

He was right. Most of all, Tatiana remembered the bus she had
decided
not to take so she could buy herself an ice cream. “And you would know this how?”

“Because,” said Alexander, “my walking by that bench was the most unlikely part of mine.” He nodded. “All this wedged between us—and when we do our best, and grit our teeth, and move away from one another, struggling to reconstruct ourselves, fate intervenes again, and bricks fall from the sky that I remove from your alive and broken body. Was that also not meant to be, perhaps?”

Tatiana inhaled a sob. “That’s right,” she said softly. “We can’t forget that I owe you my life.” She gazed at him. “We can’t forget that I belong to you.”

“I like the sound of that,” Alexander said, hugging her tighter.

“Retreat, Shura,” Tatiana whispered. “Retreat and take your weapons with you. Spare me from him.” She paused. “He just needs to believe you don’t care for me, and then he will lose all interest. You’ll see. He’ll go away, he’ll go to the front. We all have to get through the war before we get to what’s on the other side. So will you do that?”

“I’ll do my best.”

“Are you going to stop coming around?” she asked tremulously.

“No,” said Alexander. “I can’t retreat that far. Just stay away from me.”

“All right.” Her heart skipped. She clutched him.

“And forgive me in advance for my cold face. Can I trust you to do that?”

Nodding, Tatiana rubbed her cheek against his arm, pressing her head to him. “Trust me,” she whispered. “Trust
in
me. Alexander Barrington, I will never betray you.”

“Yes, but will you ever
deny
me?” he asked tenderly.

“Only in front of my Dasha,” she replied. “And your Dimitri.”

Lifting her face to him, with an ironic smile Alexander said, “Aren’t you glad
now
that God stopped us at the hospital?”

Tatiana smiled lightly back. “No.” She sat wrapped in his arms. They stared at each other. She put her palm out to him. He put his palm against hers. “Look,” she said quietly. “My fingertips barely come up to your second knuckle.”

“I’m looking,” he whispered, threading his fingers through hers and squeezing her hand so hard that Tatiana groaned and then blushed.

Bringing his face to hers, Alexander kissed the skin near her nose. “Have I ever told you I adore your freckles?” he murmured. “They are very enticing.”

She purred back. Their fingers remained entwined as they kissed.

“Tatiasha…” Alexander whispered, “you have amazing lips…” He paused and pulled away. “You are”—reluctantly she opened her eyes to meet his gaze—”you are oblivious to yourself. It’s one of your most endearing, most infuriating qualities…”