The Bronze Horseman (90 page)

“I
won’t
stop,” he whispered huskily, gazing at her.
That
made her open her eyes.

A moment. They stared at each other. Remembering. Blink.

Tatiana smiled. “In America can I please carry your name?” she whispered.

“In America I will insist on it.” Alexander was thoughtful.

“What’s the matter?”

“We don’t have passports,” he said.

“So? You’ll go to the U.S. consulate in Stockholm. We’ll be fine.”

“I know. We still have to get from Helsinki to Stockholm. We can’t stay in Helsinki for a second. It’s too dangerous. Crossing the Baltic Sea. It’s not going to be easy.”

Tatiana grinned. “What were you going to do with your limping demon? Same thing with me.” She paused. “
Eugene calls to the wherryman—and he, with daring unconcern is willing, to take him for a quarter-shilling, across that formidable sea
.” Smiling happily, she said, “Your mother, you, your ten thousand dollars will get us back to your America.” Both her tiny delicate hands were threaded through his.

Alexander was suffocating under the weight of his love.

“Shura,” Tatiana said, her voice tremulous, “remember the day you gave me your Pushkin book? When you fed me in the Summer Garden?”

“Like it was yesterday.” Alexander smiled. “It was the night
you
fell in love with
me
.”

Tatiana blushed and cleared her throat. “Were you… if I weren’t such a shy chicken… would you have—” She broke off, looking away momentarily.

“What? What?” He squeezed her hand. “Would I have kissed you?”

“Hmm.”

“Tania, you were so terrified of me.” Alexander shook his head at the memory, his body aching. “I was completely gone for you. Kissed you? I would have ravished you right on the bench by the child-eating Saturn if you had given me half a sign.”

Alexander got stronger every day. He could get up and stand near his bed. It still hurt him to be upright, but he was off morphine completely, and now his back throbbed from morning until night, reminding him of his mortality. He was carving constantly. He had just carved a cradle out of another piece of wood. Soon, soon, he kept saying to himself. He wanted to be moved over into the convalescent ward, but Tatiana talked him out of it. She said his location and care were too good to give up his place in critical.

“Remember,” Tatiana said to him one afternoon as they were both standing by his bed, his arm around her. “You have to get better so that no one thinks you’re getting better. Or before you know it, they’ll send you back to the front with your stupid mortar.” She smiled up at him.

Alexander removed his arm. He saw Dimitri walking toward them. “Courage, Tania,” he whispered.

“What?”

“Tatiana! Alexander!” Dimitri exclaimed. “No, how incredible is this? The three of us together again. If only Dasha were here.”

Alexander and Tatiana said nothing. They did not look at each other.

“Tania, how are the terminal cases coming along? I just got you some more white sheets.”

“Thanks, Dimitri.”

“Oh, sure. Alexander, here are some cigarettes for you. Don’t worry about paying me. I know you probably don’t have any money on you. I can get your money and bring it to you—”

“Don’t worry, Dimitri.”

“It’s not a problem.” He stood at the foot of Alexander’s bed, his eyes darting from Alexander to Tatiana. “So, Tania, what are you doing here in critical care? I thought you were in the terminal ward.”

“I am. But I see my crossover patients, too. Leo in bed number thirty used to be terminal. Now he is always asking for me.”

Dimitri smiled. “Tania, not just Leo.
Everybody
is asking for you.” Tatiana didn’t say anything. Neither did Alexander, who sat down on his bed. Dimitri continued to study them. “Listen, it was good to see you both. Alexander, I’ll come by and visit you tomorrow, all right? Tania, you want to walk me out?”

“No, I have to change Alexander’s dressing.”

“Oh. It’s just that Dr. Sayers was looking for you. ‘Where is
my
Tania?’ Dr. Sayers said.” Dimitri smiled warmly. “Those were his exact words. You’re getting to be quite friendly with him, aren’t you?” He raised his eyebrows to her. “You know what they say about those Americans.”

Tatiana did not nod, did not blink. She just turned to Alexander and said, “Come on, lie down.” Alexander did not move.

“Tania, did you hear me?” Dimitri asked.

“I heard you!” Tatiana said, not looking at Dimitri. “If you see Dr. Sayers, you can tell him I’ll be with him as soon as I can.”

After Dimitri left, Alexander and Tatiana looked at each other. “What are you thinking?” he asked her.

“That I need to change your dressing and go. Lie down.”

“Do you want to know what I’m thinking?”

“Absolutely not,” she replied.

Lying down on his stomach, Alexander said, “Tania, where is the rucksack with my things?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Why? What do you need it for?”

“It was on my back when I got hit…”

“It wasn’t on your back when we got to you. It’s probably lost, honey.”

“Yes…” he drew out. “But usually the rear units clean up once the battle is over. Pick up things like that. Can you ask around for it?”

“Of course,” she said, unwrapping his bandages. “I’ll ask Colonel Stepanov.” She paused, and Alexander heard her purr. “You know, Shura, the only thing I want to do when I see your back is play rail tracks, rail tracks.” She kissed his bare shoulder.

“The only thing
I
want to do when I see your back,” he said, closing his eyes, “is play rail tracks, rail tracks.”

Later that night when she was sitting by him, Alexander said to her, “Tatiana, you have to promise me—God help me—that if something happens to me, you will still go.” He held on to her when he said it.

“Don’t be ridiculous. What can happen to you?” She didn’t look at him when she said it.

“Are you trying to be brave?”

“Not at all,” she said. “As soon as you’re fit, we’re leaving. Dr. Sayers is ready to go anytime. In fact, he is itching to go. He is a big grumbler. Keeps complaining about everything. Doesn’t like the cold, doesn’t like the help, doesn’t like—” Tatiana stopped. “So what are you talking about? What can happen? I won’t let you go back to the front. And I won’t leave without you.”

“That’s what I’m talking about. Of course you will.”

“Of course I
won’t
.”

Alexander took her hand. “Now listen to me—”

Tatiana moved to get up from him, turning her head. “I don’t want to listen.” He wouldn’t let her hand go. “Alexander, please don’t scare me,” she said. “I’m trying to be so brave. Please,” Tatiana said calmly, her breath shallow.

“Tania, many things can go wrong.” He paused. “You know that there is always the danger I will be arrested.”

She nodded. “I know. But, if you’re taken by Mekhlis’s henchmen, I will wait.”

“Wait for
what
?” he exclaimed in frustration. Alexander had learned the hard way that the best he could hope for was that Tatiana would agree with him. If she had her own opinion, he didn’t have an icy hope of talking her out of it.

His emotion must have shown on his face, because she took both his dark war-beaten hands into her flawless white ones, pressed them to her lips and said, “Wait for you.” Then she tried to disentangle herself from him. He wasn’t having any of it. Pulling her off the chair, he brought her to sit next to him on the bed. “Wait for me
where
?” he asked.

“In Leningrad. In my apartment. Inga and Stan have left. I have two rooms. I will wait. And when you come back, I will be there with your baby.”

“The Soviet council will take the hallway and the room with the stove away.”

“Then I will wait in the room that’s left.”

“For how long?”

She looked over at the other sleeping patients, at the darkened windows. At anything but him. The hospital room was quiet, with no sound except for his breathing, except for hers. “I will wait as long as it takes,” she said.

“Oh, for God’s sake! You would rather be an old maid in a cold room without plumbing than make yourself a better life?”

“Yes,” she said. “There is no other life for me, so you can just forget it.”

Alexander whispered, “Tania, please…” He couldn’t continue. “And what about when Mekhlis comes for
you
? What are you going to do then?”

“I’ll go where they send me. I’ll go to Kolyma,” she said. “I’ll go to Taymir Peninsula. Eventually Communism will fall—”

“You sure about this?”

“Yes. Eventually there won’t be any more people left to reconstruct. And then they’ll let me out.”

“Dear sweet Jesus,” Alexander whispered. “It’s not just you anymore. You have to think about our baby!”

“What are you even talking about? Dr. Sayers is not going to take me without you. I have no right to—no claim on—America,” Tatiana said. “Alexander, I will go anywhere in the world with you. You want to go to America? I say yes. You want to go to Australia? Yes, I say. Mongolia? The Gobi Desert? Dagestan? Lake Baikal? Germany? The cold side of hell? I say, when are we leaving? Anywhere you go—I will go with
you
. But if you are staying, then I’m staying, too. I’m not leaving my baby’s father in the Soviet Union.”

Leaning over an overwhelmed Alexander, Tatiana pressed her breasts into his face, kissing his head. Then she sat back and kissed his shaking fingers. “What did you say to me in Leningrad? ‘What kind of a life can I build,’ you said, ‘knowing I have left you to die—or to rot—in the Soviet Union?’ I’m quoting
you
back to you. Those were
your
words.” She smiled. “And on this one point I will have to agree with you.” She nodded and said softly, “If I left you, no matter which road I would take, with ponderous clatter indeed, the Bronze Horseman would pursue me all through that long night into
my
own maddening dust.”

Alexander said with emotion, “Tatiana—it’s war. All around us is war.” He couldn’t look at her. “Men die in war.”

A tear escaped Tatiana’s eye, no matter how strong she tried to be. “Please don’t die,” she whispered. “I don’t think I can bury you. I already buried everyone else.”

“How can I die,” Alexander said, his voice breaking, “when you have poured your immortal blood into me?”

And then Dimitri came one cold morning, holding Alexander’s rucksack in his hands. He was limping badly on his right leg. The errand boy for the generals, the worthless lackey, constantly shuffling cigarettes and vodka and books between camps and tents in the rear, the runner who refused to bear arms, Dimitri hobbled forward, handing Alexander the rucksack. “Oh, so it
was
found,” Alexander said steadily. “What happened?”

“Wouldn’t you know it? Some stupidity at the embankment. Some guys… I don’t know, they were pissed off. Look at my face.”

Alexander saw the bruises.

“I was charging too much for smokes, they said. Take it, I said, take it all. They did. Beat the shit out of me anyway.” Dimitri smirked. “Well, they won’t be laughing for long.” He came and sat in the chair under the window. “Tatiana did a marvelous job on me. Fixed me right up.” Something in Di-mitri’s voice twisted Alexander’s stomach. “She’s marvelous, isn’t she?”

“Yes,” said Alexander. “She is a good nurse.”

“Good nurse, good woman, good—” Dimitri broke off.

“That’s great,” said Alexander. “Thanks for my ruck.”

“Oh, sure.” Dimitri got up to go and then, almost as an afterthought, sat back down and said, “I wanted to make sure you had all you needed in your ruck: your books, your pen and paper. As it turned out, you didn’t have any pen or paper, so it was a good thing I checked, because I put some in for you. In case you wanted to write letters.” He smiled pleasantly. “I also added some cigarettes and a new lighter.”

Holding his rucksack, Alexander, with darkening eyes, said, “You looked through my things?” The twisting in his stomach intensified.

“Oh, just to be helpful.” Dimitri again made as if to go. “But you know…” He turned back. “I found something very interesting in it.”

Alexander turned his face away. Tatiana’s letters he had reluctantly burned. But there was one thing he could not burn. One beacon of hope for light that he continued to carry with him. “Dimitri,” Alexander said, throwing the rucksack by the side of his bed and crossing his arms in silent defiance, “what do you want?”

Picking up the rucksack, Dimitri, in a friendly, polite manner, unbuttoned the flap and pulled out Tatiana’s white dress with red roses.

“Look what I found at the very bottom.”

Alexander said, “So?” His voice was calm.

“So? Well, you’re so right. Why shouldn’t you be carrying around a dress owned by your dead fiancée’s sister?”

“What’s the surprise to you, Dimitri? That you found the dress? Can’t be
that
much of a surprise, can it?” Alexander said acidly. “You
were
going through my personal belongings looking for it.”

“Well, yes and no,” Dimitri said jovially. “I was a little surprised, I admit. A little taken aback.”

“Taken aback? By what?”

“Well, I thought, this is so interesting. A whole dress, and there is Tatiana here at the front, working side by side with a Red Cross doctor, and there is Alexander in the same hospital. I suspected it was not a coincidence. I always thought you had feelings for each other.” He glanced at Alexander. “Always, you know. From the beginning. So then I went to Colonel Stepanov, who remembered me from the old days and was very warm to me. I really like that man. I told him that I would be glad to bring you your pay so you could buy tobacco and papers and extra butter and some vodka, and he sent me to the CO adjutant, who gave me five hundred rubles, and when I expressed surprise that all you were getting was five hundred rubles being a
major
and all, do you know what the adjutant told me?”

With a grinding of his teeth to lessen the throbbing in his temples, Alexander said slowly, “What did he tell you?”

“That you were sending the rest of your money to a Tatiana Metanova on Fifth Soviet!”