The Bronze Horseman (72 page)

Tatiana silently stared at him in the dark, at his blazing bronze eyes, at his moist mouth. How could she say no to Alexander? She lifted her arms. Alexander slipped the dress over her head. She went to cover her breasts, and his hands stopped her. “Keep your hands down.”

He lay on his back and said, “Come, lie on top of me.”

“You don’t want to lie on top of
me
?” Tatiana asked softly.

He pulled her to him. “Not if you want me to stop.”

Groaning, Tatiana lay down carefully against his chest.

“Oh, Tania,” Alexander said intensely, his arms around her. “Do you feel that?”

“I do,” she whispered, her own heart ready to burst.

His hands ran over her back down to her hips, caressing her through her panties, pulling them down a little, caressing her bare bottom. Pushing her up from him, Alexander fondled her breasts. “I have been dreaming of your beautiful breasts for a year,” he said, smiling, breathing through his parted mouth. Tatiana wanted to tell him that she had been dreaming of his beautiful, unstoppable hands on her for a year but couldn’t speak. She wanted to tell him that she had been dreaming of his beautiful, unstoppable mouth on her nipples for a year but couldn’t speak. What she wanted to do was lean over him and put her nipple into his mouth. She was too shy to do that. All she could do was watch his face and pant.

Alexander closed his eyes. “Tatia,
please,
keep quiet. I can’t wait any longer.” He pulled at her nipples. She moaned so loudly that he stopped, but not for long. Pushing her off him, Alexander lay her down onto her back. “Look at you,” he whispered. He sucked her nipples for a moment. Tatiana’s hands were grasping at the sheet. One of Alexander’s hands went around her mouth, the other went on her thigh. “Tania,” he said, “you think I’m hungry?”

“Hmm…” she panted into his palm.

“I’m not hungry,” Alexander whispered. “I’m
famished.
Watch out for me. Now, don’t make a single sound,” he said, getting on top of her. “Tania, God… I’ll cover your mouth, just like this, and you hold on to my arms, just like this, and I’m going to—just like this—”

Tatiana cried out so loudly that Alexander stopped, fell back on the bed, put his arm over his face, and groaned.

They lay next to each other, only their legs touching, hers bare, his still in his trousers. His arm remained around his face.

Reluctantly Tatiana put her dress back on.

“I’m going to die,” he whispered to her. “
Die,
Tatiana.”

You’re
going to die? she thought, beginning to crawl to the edge to get down.

Alexander stopped her. “Where are you going? Sleep with me.”

“No, Shura.”

“What?” He smiled, still panting. “You don’t trust me?”

“Not for a second.” She smiled back.

“I promise I’ll be good.”

“No, they’ll come out, they’ll see.”

“See what? What are they going to do?” He wasn’t letting go of her arms. “Tatia, right here,” he whispered, tapping on his chest. “Just like you did in Luga. Remember? You called me over, you said, come near me. Well, now I’m telling you to come.”

Tatiana crawled to him and put her head into the crook of his arm. Alexander pulled the blankets over them and hugged her. She placed her hand on his smooth bare chest, feeling his rapid heart. “Shura, darling…”

“I’ll be all right,” he said, sounding as if he wouldn’t be.

“Just like in Luga.” She rubbed his chest gently.

“Maybe a little lower? Just kidding, just kidding,” he quickly said when Tatiana stopped. “Love your hair against me,” Alexander whispered, stroking her head, kissing her temple. “Love everything of yours against me.”

“Don’t, Shura, please,” Tatiana muttered, kissing his chest and closing her eyes. She felt infinite comfort lying in his arms. His fingers caressing her head were forcing her eyes shut. “That feels nice,” she murmured.

Minutes passed. Minutes or—

Maybe seconds.

Moments.

Blink.

“Tania,” Alexander said, “are you asleep?”

“No,” she said, and then they looked at each other and smiled. She parted her mouth to kiss him, and he shook his head and said, “No. Keep your lips away, if you want me away.”

Tatiana kissed his shoulder and stroked him while he stroked her. “Shura,” she whispered, “I’m so happy you came for me.”

“I know. Me, too.”

She rubbed her lips against his skin.

“Tania,” whispered Alexander, “want to talk?”

“Yes,” she replied.

“Tell me. Start at the beginning. Don’t stop until you finish.”

Tatiana started at the beginning but couldn’t get past the sled near the ice hole in the lake.

Neither could Alexander.

Then she was asleep and woke up when the rooster crowed.

“Oh, my,” she said, trying to extricate herself from him. “Let go. I have to go, quick.”

Alexander was profoundly asleep and not moving. She noticed that about him. He was a good sleeper. She managed to move out from under his arm and jump down from the side of the stove.

Tatiana put on a clean dress and ran to get the water from the well, and ran to milk the goat, and ran to exchange goat’s milk for some cow’s milk. When she came back to the house, Alexander was already up and shaving. “Good morning,” he said to her, smiling.

“Good morning,” she said, too embarrassed to look at him. “Here, let me help.” She sat in the chair in front of him, holding a small broken mirror to her chest as he shaved. He kept cutting himself every few seconds, as if the knife he was using weren’t sharp. “You’re going to kill yourself with that thing,” said Tatiana. “What do they issue you in the army? Maybe you should grow your beard back.”

“It’s not the knife,” he said. “The knife is very sharp.”

“What is it, then?”

“Nothing, nothing.”

She saw him staring at her breasts.

“Alexander…” she said, putting the mirror down.

“Oh, now that it’s daylight, I’m suddenly Alexander again?” he said.

Tatiana couldn’t look at him but couldn’t help smiling either. She felt so exhilarated this morning, she had practically skipped home carrying the two pails of milk.

Alexander made coffee. He poured her a cup, and they sat silently outside in the breathy morning and drank the hot liquid, their bodies lightly touching. “It’s a nice morning,” she said quietly.

“It’s a glorious morning,” he said, turning to her and beaming.

Naira called her, and Tatiana went to attend to her chores while Alexander collected his things. “What are you doing?” she asked with a twitch of anxiety when he came outside.

“We’re getting out of here,” he said. “Right now.”

“We are?” A smile lit up her face.

“Yes.”

“I can’t, I have to do laundry. I have to make breakfast.”

“Tania, that’s my point exactly. I have to come before laundry. I have to come before breakfast.” Alexander stared at her.

She backed away. “Look,” she said, “help me. I’ll be done so much faster if you help me.”

“And then you’ll come with me?”

“Yes,” she said, almost inaudibly. But Alexander smiled at her. She knew he had heard.

She made eggs and potatoes for everyone. Alexander gulped down his food and said, “Let’s go do the laundry.”

Quickly he carried the basket of clothes to the river. Tatiana carried the washboard and soap. She could hardly keep up.

“So since when do you make rude jokes in the presence of a whole group of young people?” Alexander asked.

Tatiana shook her head. “Shura, it was just a stupid joke. I didn’t realize it was going to upset you.”

“Yes you did. That’s why you didn’t want to tell it in front of me.”

She ran alongside him. “I didn’t want you to be upset.”

“Why would I be upset? Have I ever been upset by your other jokes?”

Tatiana kept quiet before she answered him because she wanted to figure out what it was that was obviously still niggling him. That the joke was inappropriate? That it was rude? That she told the joke to Vova? To strangers Alexander didn’t know? That it was out of her character? That it didn’t fit in with what he knew about her? Yes, Tatiana decided. It was the last. He brought it up now because he was worried about something. She said nothing until they got to the river. “I barely know what the joke means,” she said.

He glanced at her. “But you know just enough what it means?”

Aha, thought Tatiana. He
is
worried about me. She didn’t reply, stepping into the water and wetting the washboard and the soap.

Alexander watched her while he smoked. “So how do you keep your white dress from getting wet?”

“The bottom gets a little wet. What?” She blushed. “What are you looking at?”

“The whole dress doesn’t get wet?” He was grinning.

“Well, no. I don’t stand and wash clothes in water up to my neck.”

Stubbing out his cigarette and taking off his shirt and boots, Alexander said, “Here, let me. Just hand me the clothes, will you?”

There was something so endearing and incomprehensible about him, a captain in the Red Army standing knee deep in the Kama, shirtless, his big soapy arms immersed in women’s work, while Tatiana stood dry as gin and handed him dirty clothes. She found it so amusing, in fact, that when she saw him drop a pillowcase in the river and bend to pick it up, she tiptoed up to him and gave him a great shove. Alexander toppled over into the water.

When he came back up, Tatiana was laughing so hard it took her a few seconds to run up the riverbank away from him. Alexander caught her in three strides.

“Not very good balance, big man,” Tatiana said, laughing. “What if I were a Nazi?”

Saying nothing, he carried her to the river.

“No, instantly put me down,” she said, “I’m wearing a nice dress.”

“You are,” he said, flinging her into the water.

She came up soaked. “Now look what you’ve done,” she said, splashing him. “I have nothing to go back in.”

Alexander caught her in his arms and kissed her, lifting her into the air. Tatiana felt them both slipping back, back, back, and they fell in, and when they came up for air, all decorum gone, Tatiana jumped on him to dunk him, but she just didn’t weigh enough to push him down. He threw her off him and held her head for a few seconds underwater while she grabbed for his leg. “Do you give up?” he asked, pulling her head out.

“Never!” she yelped, and he pushed her back down.

“Do you give up?”

“Never!”

Alexander pushed her back down.

After the fourth time, all out of breath, she said, “Wait, the clothes, the clothes!”

The laundry—undergarments, pillowcases—was all floating cheerfully by.

Alexander went after them. Dripping and laughing, Tatiana went back on shore.

He walked out of the water, dropped the clothes on the ground, and came for her. “What?” she said, dizzied by his expression. “What?”

“
Look
at you,” he said hotly. “Look at your nipples, look at your body in that dress.”

He lifted her. “Wrap your legs around me.”

“What do you mean?” she said, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him.

“I mean, open your legs and wrap them around me.” Holding her with one hand under her bottom, he moved her leg around his waist with the other hand. “Like this.”

“Shura, I… put me down.”

“No.”

Their wet lips would not stop.

When they opened their eyes, Alexander
had
to put Tatiana down, because six women from the village were standing at the clearing, holding their clothes baskets, staring at them with a look of perplexed and frankly disapproving confusion.

“We were just leaving,” Tatiana muttered as Alexander draped something wet over her shoulders to cover her see-through dress. She never wore a bra, didn’t own one, and for the first time in her life she was aware of her nipples poking out and being seen through a sheer item of clothing. It was as if suddenly she saw herself with Alexander’s eyes.

“Well, that will be all over Lazarevo tomorrow,” she said. “Could it be any more humiliating?”

“I would say yes,” said Alexander, leaning into her. “They could have come three minutes later.”

Turning bright red, Tatiana didn’t respond. Laughing, he put his arm around her.

When they got to the house, Tatiana in a wet dress and Alexander in wet trousers and nothing else, the old ladies looked mortified. “The clothes floated away,” Tatiana explained—
un
satisfactorily, she felt. “We had to dive in and rescue them.”

“Well, I’ve never heard of such a thing happening,” mumbled Dusia, crossing herself. “In all my years of living.”

Alexander disappeared into the house, emerging five minutes later dressed in his khaki army trousers, black army boots, and the white ribbed sleeveless top Tatiana had sewn for him. She peered at him through the sheets she was haphazardly hanging. He was crouching as he rummaged through his rucksack. She watched Alexander in profile, his bare muscled arms, his soldier’s body, his spiky wet black hair, a cigarette in the corner of his lips—Tatiana’s breath was taken away from her, he looked so beautiful. He turned his head to her and smiled.

“I have a dry dress for you,” he said, and out of his rucksack he produced her white dress with red roses.

He told her how he had retrieved it from Fifth Soviet.

“I don’t think it’ll fit me anymore,” she said, very moved. “But maybe I’ll try it on another day?”

“Fine,” Alexander said, stuffing it back into his rucksack. “You can wear it for me another day.” He picked up his rifle and all his belongings. “You don’t need anything. You’re done here. Let’s go.”

“Where are we going?”

“Away from here,” he said, lowering his voice. “Where we can be uninterrupted and alone.”

They stared at each other.

“Bring money,” he said.

“I thought you said we didn’t need anything?”

“And bring your passport. We might go to Molotov.”

The immense excitement Tatiana felt vanquished all guilt as she told the four ladies she was leaving. Naira said, “Are you going to be back for dinner?”

Slinging his rifle on his back and taking Tatiana by the hand, Alexander said, “Probably not.”