“Shh. Maybe they’ll leave.” Alexander readied the machine gun, all three pistols and the Commando. She watched them out of the corner of the window. The farmer was opening his hands, shrugging his shoulders. The soldiers were coming up too close to him, pointing to the house, the fields, and finally the barn. The farmer moved out of their way, motioning with his hand in the direction of the barn.
“The revolver, is it double action, or single action?”
“What?”
“Never mind.”
“Double action, I think. I’m almost sure,” she said, trying to remember. “Does it recock by itself you mean? Yes.”
Alexander lay flat with two bales in front of him, the machine gun and pistols by his right side, the Commando in his hands pointed at the ladder. Tatiana, her shaking hands full of clips, sat against the barn wall behind him.
He turned around. “Not a single sound, Tania. Stop shaking.”
Mutely she nodded. Tried to stop shaking.
The barn door opened and the farmer came in with one of the officers. Tatiana’s heart was beating so loudly that she could barely hear. The officer spoke very poor German intermingled with Russian. The farmer must have told him that no one had been through these parts, because the officer yelled in Russian, “You’re sure of this, you’re sure?”
They went on in circles like this for a few seconds, and suddenly the officer stopped speaking and looked around. “Do you smoke?” he asked in Russian.
“Nein, nein,” said the farmer. “Ich rauche nei in der Scheune wegen Brandgefahr.”
“Well, fire or no fire, somebody has been smoking in your fucking barn!”
Tatiana put her hand over her mouth to stop herself from crying out.
The officer ran out of the barn. She looked out the window. He said something to the rest of the men. One of them turned off the engine and they all retrieved their machine guns.
“Shura,” Tatiana whispered.
“Shh. Don’t speak. Don’t even breathe.”
The farmer was still standing in the middle of his barn when the four Soviets walked in with their weapons.
“Get the fuck out of here,” one of them said to the farmer. He ran.
“Who’s here?” they called.
Tatiana held her breath.
“There’s no one here,” said one of them.
“We know you’re here, Belov,” said another. “Just come out and nobody will get hurt.”
Alexander said nothing.
“You have a wife you should think about. You want her to live, don’t you?”
Tatiana heard the quiet creaking of the ladder.
Alexander lay so still you could have walked by him and not known he was there. There was another creak.
One of the officers below said, “If you come out peacefully, your wife will get amnesty.”
Another said, “We are all heavily armed. You cannot escape. Let’s do this reasonably.”
Alexander barely even leaned over. He just tipped the Commando downward and fired a .357 bullet into the head of the man on the ladder. The man flew backward in a spasm, the other men crouched, raising their guns, but they couldn’t raise them fast enough, nor hide. Alexander aimed fired, aimed fired, aimed fired. The men didn’t have a chance to take cover, much less open fire.
He jumped up and turned to Tatiana. “Let’s go,” he said. “Can’t stay here another second. If the farmer has a telephone, he’s on it right now.”
“Maybe he doesn’t have a telephone,” Tatiana muttered.
“Can’t count on that, can we? Hurry.”
She quickly collected their things while Alexander reloaded the revolver.
“Nice weapon, Tania,” he said. “Some recoil on it, though. What’s the muzzle velocity, do you know?”
“The man who sold it to me told me it was four hundred and fifty meters per second.”
Alexander whistled. “Immense power. Almost like my Shpagin. Are you ready?”
They glanced out the window to make sure no one was coming, and then descended the ladder, stepped over the dead men at the door—though not before Alexander reached into their pockets and relieved them of their Soviet cigarettes—and were out. From their truck, Alexander took one light machine gun and one ammunition belt. Tatiana asked how he was going to carry another machine gun, this one with a bipod, plus a sub-machine-gun, three sidearms, and all the ammo.
“Don’t worry about my end,” he said, throwing the metal ammunition belt around his neck. “Just worry about yours.”
“We could take their truck,” Tatiana suggested.
“Yes, good idea, we’ll drive it to the next checkpoint.”
They ran through the fields, away from the farm, into the forest.
They walked until noon.
“Can we stop?” Tatiana pleaded. They were about to cross a stream. “You must be tired. We’ll wash up, maybe have a bite to eat. Where are we, anyway?”
“Nowhere,” he said, reluctantly stopping. “Barely four miles from the farm and the Soviet army.”
“Four miles south?” she said with hope. “That would mean that we’re only about—”
“West. We’re not heading south.”
She stared at him. “What do you mean, we’re not heading south? Berlin is south.”
“Hmm. That’s where they think we’ll be going.”
“But eventually we have to go south, no?”
“Eventually, yes.”
She didn’t want to say anymore. They washed their faces and brushed their teeth. “Just don’t give me any of that morphine toothpaste,” Alexander said.
She unpacked a few things to eat. She had Spam—with a smile. And he actually smiled back, and said, “I like it. But how do you plan to open it?”
“Ah, because it comes from America,” she said, “it has a little can opener built into the cap.”
She had some dried bread, dried apple chips. They ate, drinking water out of the stream.
“Okay, let’s go,” he said, springing up.
“Shura,” she said, glancing up at him. “I’d like to go in the water. Wash. All right? It won’t take long.”
He sighed.
After he had smoked two or three cigarettes, he undressed and went into the water after her.
They were sitting on a log next to the stream in the canopied and secluded woods. They were both astride the log, she in front of him, with her back to him. He was wearing his skivvies. She was wearing a white tank top and underwear. They weren’t speaking.
Presently Alexander leaned down to her and, kissing her neck under her ear, whispered, “I want to see those freckles.” Tatiana purred in a soft chime, and turned her head to him. They looked at each other a moment, and then they kissed. The brush fell from his hands as they went around her neck, touching the wedding bands.
He bent her head all the way back, as his hand moved down to her breasts, to her stomach, to between her thighs. She undressed and straddled him on the log, standing against him. He cupped her breasts, and pulled her to sit on top of him, bending to her nipples.
Her soft moans echoed through the woods.
Alexander carried her to their open trench blanket. She lay on the blanket in front of him, and he kneeled in front of her and put his fingers on her, but only for a short while, too short a while. She was too fevered. He climbed on top of her, and she began to cry out and cry—
Suddenly Tatiana stopped moving. Stopped making a single sound except the panting which she could not control. Clutching Alexander to herself, she whispered, “Shura, oh my God, there is a man watching us.”
He stopped moving, too. “Where?” he said into her ear, not turning his head.
“Over to my—”
“Clock, Tania. Tell me where he is on the clock. I’m in the middle.”
“He’s at four thirty.”
Alexander lay very still, as still as he had lain up in the barn that morning. Tatiana emitted a puppy whimper.
??
?Shh,” he said without a breath. The P-38 lay on the trench blanket by his left hand. He lifted himself slightly off Tatiana and in one fluid motion, cocked the lever, turned his left hand and fired three times. There was a cry from the woods and the sound of a body crashing into the bushes.
They both jumped up. Alexander threw on his shorts, Tatiana her underwear. He went to look, armed with his Commando and his Colt. She followed close behind, her hands on her breasts.
A man in a Soviet uniform lay spurting blood. Two of the shots hit him, one in the shoulder, one in the neck. Alexander took away the man’s loaded pistol and went back to the clearing. Tatiana kneeled down in front of the man and pressed her hand against his neck wound.
From behind she heard Alexander’s incredulous low voice. “Tatiana, what are you doing?”
“Nothing,” she said, loosening the man’s collar. “He can’t breathe.”
With a guttural growl, Alexander grabbed her, pulled her out of the way, pointed the Colt and shot the man twice, point-blank in the head. She screamed, fell down, and in her terror tried blindly to get away from Alexander who yanked her up off the ground, still holding the Colt in his hand. She shut her eyes, struggling so hard she was on the verge of becoming hysterical.
“Tatiana! What the fuck are you doing?”
“Let go of me!”
“He can’t breathe? I fucking hope not! Certainly not anymore. Are you trying to save him or us? This is not a fucking joke, your life and mine! You can’t be bending down, making his last moments better when we’re seconds away from death!”
“Stop it, stop it, let go!”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” Alexander threw down his weapons and squared off against her, who stood in front of him, her trembling hands palms out at her chest. “What do you want? Why did you come here? Was your goal to leave our son without his mother? Don’t you understand it’s either you and me, or it’s them? There is no middle ground. It’s fucking war, don’t you understand that?”
“Please—just—”
“No, I don’t think you do!” He grabbed her, squeezed her. “He was watching us, watching you, probably from the very beginning, he saw everything, heard everything, and you know what he was waiting for? For me to finish so he could kill me and then have you all to himself. And then he would have killed you. We don’t know who he is, he may be an army man, he may be a deserter, but one thing I know, his intentions were not to partake in our lunch!”
“Oh my God, what’s happened to you?”
He shoved her away. “What, are you of all people judging me?” He spat on the ground. “I’m a soldier, not a fucking saint.”
“I’m not judging you. Shura, please…” she whispered, opening her hands to him.
“Us or them, Tatiana.”
“You, Alexander, you.” She swayed. He took hold of her with one arm to steady her, but did not press her to him, did not comfort her.
“Don’t you understand anything? Go clean his blood off and get dressed. We have to move out.”
They left the clearing within ten minutes, and back in olive drab, they walked through the woods not speaking except to stop, have a drink, move on. Alexander smoked as he walked. He would stop to listen for the ambient noise of the countryside and then cautiously proceeded forward.
They avoided villages and paved roads, but the farms were also problematic. It was summer, planting season, crop season, harvest season. The combine harvesters, the simple threshers, the tractors, the field-hands were out everywhere. They had to walk around the perimeter of busy fields just to avoid the workers.
They walked through the meadows and woods for six hours, finally heading in a southerly direction. Tatiana wanted desperately to stop. But he wasn’t slowing his stride and so she wouldn’t slow hers.
They came to a potato field and she, very hungry, walked out in front of him. He immediately grabbed her and pulled her back. “Don’t walk in front of me, You don’t know anything about this field.”
“Oh, and you do.”
“Yes, because I’ve seen thousands like it.”
“I’ve seen a field before, Alexander.”
“A mined field?”
This gave her pause. “It’s a potato field. It’s not mined.”
“And you know this how? Did you look at it through your binoculars? Did you examine the ground? Did you crawl through it, your bayonet in front of you feeling for the mines? Or are you just thinking that when you were a little girl growing up in the Luga fields, they weren’t mined?”
“Stop it, okay?” she said quietly.
He took out the binoculars. He examined the earth. He said he thought it looked safe, but he wasn’t taking any chances. He pored over a relief map for a few minutes, and said, “Let’s go to the left. On the right there’s a highway. Too dangerous. But the woods on the other side are thick and cover about ten miles.”
He let her dig out five or six potatoes from the edge of the field.
The sun was setting by the time they got to the woods. When they stopped at a stream for a drink, Tatiana said, “Maybe we could catch a fish? If you build a fire, I can cook these potatoes and a fish. We’ll eat. Break camp, you know.” She wanted to smile at him but he looked so grim that she reconsidered.
“Fire? You’ve completely lost your mind, haven’t you? They smelled my cigarette in a barn. What do you think their dogs are trained to sniff out, if not the scent of cooking fish?”
“Oh, Alexander. They’re not looking for us anymore. They’re not here.”
“No, they’re there.” He waved in a nebulous direction. “By the time they’re here, it’ll be too late.”
“So we’re not going to eat?”
“We’ll eat the potatoes raw.”
“Great,” muttered Tatiana.
They ate the potatoes raw. They had their second to last can of Spam. Tatiana would have brought more, but who would have thought they weren’t going to be able to build a fire, to cook a fish, a potato? They washed again, he smoked again and said, “Ready?”
“Ready for what?”
“We have to go.”
“Oh, please no more, no more! It’s eight in the evening. We need to rest, we’ll walk tomorrow during the day.” She wanted to add that she was afraid to walk at night, but didn’t want him to see her weakness, so she said nothing, waiting for him to do the right thing.
He was silent.
She was silent.
“Let’s go until ten,” he said with a sigh. “Then we’ll stop.”
She stayed very close behind him. But she hated that there was no one behind her. She kept feeling that there was someone there, and would whirl around every time Alexander stopped to listen to the woods. Once, something fell, a rock rolled, or a branch hit something, and Tatiana cried out and grabbed for Alexander.
He put his hand on her. “What, Tatiasha?” he said softly.
“Nothing, nothing.”
Patting her, he said, “Let’s stop.”
She had to bite her lip to keep from begging him to find a barn, a shed, a ditch near a house, a mined field even, anything as long as they didn’t have to spend the night in the woods.
He built them a small lean-to with some sturdy branches and the trench blanket. He said he would be right along, but after fifteen minutes of not being right along, she climbed out and found him sitting against a nearby tree, smoking.
“Shura,” she whispered. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing. Go to sleep. We have a long day tomorrow.”
“Come in the lean-to.”
“It’s too small, I’m fine here.”
“It’s not too small. We’ll sleep side by side, come.” She pulled on his arm. He pulled it away.
Kneeling by him, she studied him and then her hands went on his face. “Shura…”
“Look,” he said, “you’ve got to stop fighting with me. I’m on your side. You have to let me do what I know we need to do. I can’t have it out with you every time we??
?re in danger.”
“I know,” she said. “I’m sorry. But you know I can’t help it. It’s my nature.”
“You have to help it. I know it’s hard, and I know you’re overwhelmed, but you have to win that battle inside yourself. One way or another, you have to make it right inside you. Or don’t you care if the Huns win?” His arms went around her.
She pressed her face into his throat. “I care if the Huns win. I will try, all right?” she whispered.
“You will do,” he said, holding her. “You will do as I say, and you will not heal those who mean to kill us, that’s what you will do.” He took her face into his hands. “Tania, last time in Morozovo, I let you go, but not this time. This time we live together or we die together.”
“Yes, Alexander,” she breathed out.
“I’ve put away everything in my nature except what I need to do to get us out of here, and you will put away everything in yours.”
“Yes, Alexander. Come in and sleep.”
He shook his head.
“Please,” she whispered. “I’m scared at night in the woods.”
He came inside and fit in behind her. She covered them up with her cashmere blanket. “I bought this for you,” she said. “My first Christmas in New York.”
“It’s light and warm,” he said. “Good blanket. Oh, God, make small the old, star-eaten blanket of the sky, that I may fold it round me, and in comfort lie.”
They lay fitted into each other, like two metal bowls.
“Tania,” he said, “tell me, I won’t be upset. I wanted you to be happy. Have you been with someone else?”
“I have not,” she said, pausing slightly, remorsefully, remembering how close she had come with Jeb, how close she had come with Edward. “Who is blessed like you, endowed like you with gifts from the gods?” Tatiana felt Alexander’s body tense. She wanted to ask him, but couldn’t.
“I haven’t.” He paused. “Though I would have liked to once, twice, to stave off death.”
She closed her eyes. “Yes, me too,” she said. “You want to finish the earlier…staving off?”
“No,” he said.
When she opened her eyes again, it was still dark and he was not behind her. He was sitting outside the lean-to by the trees, with a machine gun in his hands.