Tatiana and Alexander

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Watching over you,” he replied.

  Tatiana brought the blanket out and covered him with it, and then lay down on the ground with her head in his lap. She closed her eyes and restlessly slept.

  When she awoke, her head was covered by the blanket. She moved it off her and found him staring at her in the near darkness and smoking. His body was as stiff as a springboard.

  “What’s wrong?” she whispered.

  “I didn’t want to drop ashes on your hair.”

  “No, I mean…what’s wrong?”

  Alexander looked away. “I don’t think we’re going to make it, Tatiana,” he whispered.

  She watched him for a moment and then closed her eyes, settling deeper into his lap. “Live as if you have faith,” she said, “and faith shall be given to you.”

  He said nothing.

  She took the rings off her neck. She fitted the small one onto her ring finger and took his hand—though it took some doing to get him to release the gun—and slipped the larger band onto his finger. He squeezed her hand, and then picked up the M1911 again.

  “Do you want to sleep? I’ll sit.”

  “No,” he said. “I can’t sleep.”

  She caressed his arm. “What can I do?” She nudged him. “Anything I can do?”

  “No.”

  “No?” With surprise.

  “No,” he repeated flatly. “Too much around us. I’m not losing the edge, not even for a moment. Look what nearly happened.”

  Tatiana slept. He shook her awake sometime when the trees turned blue with dawn. Silently they brushed their teeth, picked up their things. She went a few meters away into the woods and when she returned, his back was to her.

  “Are you hungry?” Tatiana asked, and before she was finished inflecting, Alexander whirled around, two cocked pistols pointing at her. A second went by before he lowered his arms and without a word turned back to what he was doing.

  She went to see what he was doing. He was going through every inch of her backpack.

  “What are you looking for?”

  “You have any more cigarettes?”

  “Of course. I brought six packs.”

  He paused. “Besides them.”

  She paused. “You smoked six packs of cigarettes last night?”

  He resumed looking through the backpack.

  “What about the pack you took from the Soviets?”

  “What about it?” said Alexander.

  Tatiana came to him, took the backpack out of his hands. She tried to take the weapons out of his belt but he wouldn’t let her. She hugged him with the pistols and the ammunition belt between them. “Shura,” she whispered. “Darling, husband, it’ll be—”

  “Let’s go,” he said, moving away. “Let’s get going.”

  They got going. This time they headed south. Gradually he stopped letting her get even a meter away. There was no swimming in streams, no fire, and they were out of Spam and crackers. They picked some blueberries while walking. They found another field of potatoes.

  At the end of the day, she asked if they could build a fire. After all, they hadn’t heard anything suspicious all day. He told her no. She was surprised they had gone only ten miles, they seemed to be moving so slowly. Tatiana wondered if he was for some reason afraid to get to Berlin. But why? “I think we’re very close. We seem close. Don’t you think?”

  “No. We’re—yes, we’re only about six miles away.”

  “We can do that by tomorrow.”

  “No. I think we should wait in the woods for a while,” he said.

  “Wait in the woods? But you insist on walking, you don’t want to stop.”

  “Let’s stop.”

  “When we stop, we can’t build a fire, can’t cook, can’t eat, can’t swim, or sleep, or…anything. What are we waiting in the woods for?”

  “They’ll be looking for us now. Don’t you hear it?”

  “Hear what?”

  “Them. Around the edges, in the distance, agonizing back and forth, don’t you hear it?”

  Tatiana didn’t. “Even so,” she allowed, “North Berlin is spread out. They’re not going to be looking for us everywhere.”

  “They are. We should stay here.”

  She put her hands on him. “Come on, Alexander,” she said. “Let’s go, let’s push on, push on until we’re done.”

  He moved away and said, “Fine, if that’s what you want. Let’s go.”

  The woods became sparse in the last stretch before Berlin. There was a sloping countryside, a flat countryside, some trees partitioning the fields. They were moving slowly, and once they sat in the bushes for two hours because, on the horizon, Alexander glimpsed a truck gliding by.

  There were no streams and nowhere to hide. He was getting more and more tense, holding his sub-machine-gun in front of him as he walked. Tatiana didn’t know how to help him. They were out of cigarettes.

  At nine in the evening, as he was letting her rest her feet, she said, “You don’t think the countryside is quiet?”

  “No,” he said. “The countryside is anything but quiet. On the periphery of the fields, in the echo of distance, I hear trucks constantly, I hear voices, I hear dogs barking.”

  “I don’t hear them,” she said.

  “Why would you?”

  “Why would you?”

  “Because that’s what I do. Come on, are you ready?”

  “No. Can you show me on the map where we are?”

  Sighing, he brought out the relief map. She followed his finger. “Shura, but that’s great! A few kilometers ahead of us is a hill, with not too big an elevation—six hundred meters is not too big? Six hundred meters up, six hundred meters down. When we get down on the other side, we’ll stop, and Berlin is just a few kilometers away. We’ll be in the American sector by noon tomorrow.”

  Alexander watched her. Without saying a word, he put the map away and began walking.

  The moon was out in the clear sky and it was possible to walk at night without shining a flashlight. When they got to the top of the hill, Tatiana thought she could almost see Berlin in the distance. “Come on,” she said. “We can run the last six hundred meters to the bottom.”

  He sank into the ground. “It’s obvious to me you were not paying attention to the war around Leningrad. Have you learned nothing from Pulkovo, from Sinyavino? We’re not moving from the top of the hill. It’s the only advantage we have, height. Perhaps a small element of surprise. At the bottom of the hill, we might as well wait for them with our hands up.”

  She remembered the Germans at Pulkovo and Sinyavino. She just felt too exposed here on the bare hilltop, with only a tree and a few bushes. But Alexander said they weren’t going. Therefore they weren’t going.

  He didn’t build a lean-to, telling her to take nothing out of the backpack except the blanket if she needed it, so they could be ready to run at any moment.

  “Run? Shura, look how quiet everything is, how peaceful.”

  Alexander wasn’t listening. He walked away and began doing something on the ground. Tatiana could just make out his silhouette. “What are you doing?” she asked, coming closer.

  “Digging. Can’t you see?”

  She watched him for a moment. “What are you digging?” she asked quietly. “A grave?”

  Without glancing up, he said, “No, a trench.”

  Tatiana didn’t understand him. She feared the lack of cigarettes and his acute anxiety were turning into a temporary (temporary, right?) madness. She wanted to tell him he was being paranoid, but she didn’t think that would be helpful, so she bent down and helped him dig with a knife and her bare hands until the pit was long enough for him to lie down in and be covered.

  He was finished around two in the morning.

  They sat under the linden tree, Alexander against the trunk, Tatiana in his lap. He refused to lie down or to put down his machine gun, but once she felt it fall on top of her only to scar
e her and make him jump up, knocking her to the ground.

  After they sat back down, she tried to sleep, but it was impossible to relax into sleep with his body so tense around her.

  She heard him say, “You shouldn’t have come back for me. You had a good life. You were taking care of our son. You were working, you had friends, the promise of new things, New York. We were over. You should have let it be.”

  What are you talking about? she wanted to cry out. He didn’t mean what he was saying, no matter how grim he sounded. “Well, why then did you give me Orbeli in my nightmare if you wanted me to let it be?” she asked. “Why did you give me a glimpse of your wasted life?”

  “I didn’t give you Orbeli for a nightmare,” he said. “I gave you Orbeli to have faith.”

  “No!” She jumped up and away from him.

  “Keep your voice down,” he said, without jumping up.

  She lowered her voice, remaining standing. “You gave me Orbeli to damn me!” Here came the deluge.

  “Ah, yes, because that’s what I was thinking during those last moments.” He twisted his boot into the ground.

  “You gave me Orbeli to torture me!” Tatiana cried.

  “I said keep your voice down!”

  “If you really wanted me to think you were dead, you would have said nothing. If you really wanted me to think you were dead, you would not have asked Sayers to put your damned medal into my bag. You knew, knew, that if I had any hint, a single word that you were alive, I would not be able to live my life. Orbeli was that word.”

  “You wanted a word, you got a fucking word. Can’t have it both ways, Tatiana.”

  “We were supposed to be all about truth, and you ended our life on the biggest lie imaginable. You put me on the rack every day. Your life, your death were my meathooks. I couldn’t twist my way out. And you knew it!”

  They stopped for a moment. Tatiana tried to compose her trembling body. “That horseman has chased me every day, every night of my life and you’re telling me I shouldn’t have come back for you?” Leaning down, she grabbed him and shook him. He didn’t protest, didn’t defend himself, but after a moment pushed her slightly away.

  “Take off my clothes,” he said. “Come to me, lie with me uncovered, lie naked with me and tear the raw flesh off my bones with your teeth, just like in your dream. As you have been doing, eat me alive piece by piece, Tatiana.”

  “Oh my God, Alexander.” Helplessly she sank to the ground.

  And so they sat, under the linden tree in June, his back to one side, hers to another. Covering her face, she lay down on the earth. He sat with all the guns around him.

  Hours passed. She heard his voice. “Tatiana,” he said very quietly, and he didn’t have to say anymore, because she heard them herself. They were coming. And this time, the sound of their engines and their shouting and their dogs wasn’t off on the distant horizon, this time, the insistent barking of the dogs was just a hillside away.

  She was about to jump up when his hand held her down. He didn’t say a word, just held her down. “What are you doing,” she whispered. “Why are you sitting? Let’s run! We’ll be down the hill in sixty seconds.”

  “And they will be at the top of the hill in sixty seconds. How many times do I have to tell you?”

  “Get up! We’ll run—”

  “Where? There are rolling hills and fields all around us. You think you can outrun German shepherds?”

  He was still holding her to the earth. She stopped hyperventilating. “Will those dogs sniff us out?”

  “No matter where we are, yes.”

  Tatiana looked down the hill. She couldn’t see them, but she heard their frantic noise, and the sound of men holding them, ordering them to be quiet, in Russian. But she knew the dogs were only barking because they were so close to their prey.

  “Go into the trench, Shura,” she said. “I’m going to climb this tree to hide.”

  “Better tie yourself to it. They’ll throw a smoke bomb, you won’t be able to hold on.”

  “Go. And give me the binoculars. I’ll tell you how many of them there are.” He let go of her and they jumped up. “You might as well give me my P-38.” She paused. “We have to kill the dogs. Without the dogs, they won’t know where we are.”

  And here Alexander smiled. “You don’t think two dogs lying dead at their feet will give them an inkling?”

  She didn’t smile back. “Give me the grenades, too. Maybe I can throw them.”

  “I’ll throw them. I don’t want you popping the pin too early. When you fire the pistol, watch for the recoil. It’s not bad with a P-38, but still it’ll give you a jolt back. And even if you have one round left in the clip, if you have a moment, reload. Better to have eight bullets than one.”

  She nodded.

  “Don’t let anyone get too close to the tree, the farther they are away, the easier it is for them to miss.” He gave her the gun, the rope, all the 9-millimeter clips in a canvas bag, and nudged her forward. “Go,” he said, “but don’t come down for anything.”

  “Don’t be silly,” she said. “I’m coming down if I’m needed down. If you need me down then that’s where I’ll be.”

  “No,” he said. “You will come down when I tell you to come down. I cannot be worrying about where you are and what you’re doing.”

  “Shura…”

  He loomed over her. “You will come down when I tell you to come down, do you understand?”

  “Yes,” she said in a small voice. She tucked the weapon into her slacks and raised her arms. The first branch of the tree was too high for her to reach. He lifted her up, she grabbed on and climbed. He ran to the trench and lined up all of his pistols and magazines, threaded the ammo belt into the light machine gun he set up on a bipod, wrapping the rest of the belt around himself and finally settling down behind the bipod. The Shpagin was by his side. The belt had 150 rounds in it.

  Tatiana climbed as high as she could go. It was hard to see: the linden tree, known for its shade, was leafy in the summer. She broke off some of the softer branches and perched herself astride a thick branch close to the trunk. From her height she could make out the sloping countryside even in the first haze of dawn. The shapes of the men were small and far down below. They were scattered, meters from each other, not a formation but a blot.

  “How many?” Alexander called out.

  She looked through her binoculars. “Maybe twenty.” Her heart was pulverizing her breastbone. At least twenty, she wanted to add, but didn’t. The dogs she couldn’t see. What she could see, however, was the men holding the dogs, because they were moving faster than the others and more jerkily, as if the dogs were yanking them forward.

  “How far now?”

  She couldn’t tell how far. They were down below, still small. Alexander would be able to tell how far, she thought, but he can’t do both, spot them and kill them. The Commando had a sight and was extremely accurate, maybe he could spot the dogs with it?

  “Shura, can you see the dogs?”

  She waited to hear from him. She saw him picking up the Commando, aiming it; there was a sound of two shots being fired and then the barking stopped.

  “Yes,” he replied.

  Tatiana looked through her binoculars. The commotion below was considerable. The band started dispersing. “They’re moving out!”

  But Alexander did not have to be told. He jumped up and opened machine-gun fire. For many seconds that’s all Tatiana heard, the bursts of popping. When he stopped there was a whistling sound, and a grenade exploded a hundred meters below them. The next one exploded fifty meters below them. The next one twenty-five.

  “Where, Tania?” he yelled out, machine gun rest still propped against his shoulder.

  She kept looking through her binoculars. Her eyes were playing tricks on her. The men now seemed to be crawling in their dark uniforms, crawling along the ground, moving closer. Were they crawling or writhing?

  A few got up. “There are two at one o’
clock, three at eleven,” she called out. Alexander opened fire again. But then he stopped suddenly and threw the machine gun off him. What happened? When Tatiana saw him picking up the Shpagin, she knew he must have run out of ammunition. But the Shpagin had only half a drum in it—maybe thirty-five rounds. They were gone in seconds. He picked up the Colt pistols, fired eight times, paused for two seconds, fired eight times, paused for two seconds. The rhythm of war, Tatiana thought, wanting to close her eyes. The three men at eleven o’clock suddenly became five at two o’clock, and four more at one. Alexander, crouching down, never stopped firing except for the two seconds it took him to reload.

  There was rapid fire from below. It was haphazard fire, but it was coming their way. She looked again. The men firing were giving off a flame charge every time their machine guns went off. It made them much easier to spot. Alexander spotted them. It occurred to Tatiana that his pistols were giving off a flame charge that made him also easier to see, and she yelled for him to get down. He was back on his stomach in the trench.

  One man was coming up the hill, only about a hundred meters below them, right in front of Tatiana’s tree.

  She saw him throw something, and it whistled through the air, landed very close to Alexander and exploded. The bushes and the grass in front of him burst into flames. Alexander popped the pins out of two grenades and threw them, but he threw them blindly, he couldn’t see where the men were.

  Tatiana could. She cocked her P-38, aimed it at the shape in front of her, and before she had a moment to reconsider, fired. The recoil was violent, it threw her shoulder back, but the deafening sound was worse, because now she could not hear. The bushes and the grass in front of Alexander’s trench were burning.

  Alexander? she thought she whispered, but could hear no sound coming out of her mouth. She looked through the binoculars. It was getting lighter, and the shapes on the ground were still. She fired again and again. There were no more mortar shells, but suddenly there was sporadic machine-gun fire from below, all aimed at Alexander’s small trench. Tatiana found them, lying behind the bushes, halfway up the hill. Because she couldn’t speak to Alexander, and could not hear his response to her, she aimed her weapon again, not sure if the bullets would carry two hundred meters, but fired anyway. She wished she could hear sounds from below, but she couldn’t. She reloaded six times.