The look on Tatiana’s face stopped him. “Comrade—what’s your name?” he said more reasonably.
“Tatiana Metanova.”
“Comrade Metanova. Listen to me, you are too young to be here. How old are you, fifteen?”
“Seventeen.”
“Please. Return to Luga immediately. I think there are still military trains running from Luga Station back to Leningrad. Are you from Leningrad?”
“Yes.” She did not want to cry in front of a stranger. “All of Novgorod is in German hands?” she said faintly. “What about our volunteers there?”
“Will you just shut the hell up about Novgorod!” the corporal yelled. “Did you not hear me? There are no Soviets left in Novgorod. And soon there will be no Soviets left in Luga, you included. So do yourself a favor, get out of here. Let me see your passport.”
She showed him.
Handing it back to her, he said, “You have dispensation from Kirov. Go back to Kirov. Go home.”
How did she go home without Pasha? But Tatiana couldn’t tell the corporal that.
There were nine in Tatiana’s group. She was the smallest and the youngest. It took them the rest of the day to walk through the fields and the forests, twelve kilometers back to Luga. Tatiana said that they were getting to Luga just in time for the evening bombing. Her weary companions dismissed her. She felt as if she were back with her family.
The group got to Luga Station at six-thirty and waited for the train.
The train did not come, but at seven o’clock Tatiana heard the German planes. The volunteers were huddled inside the small station that had at first seemed so safe, the building made of brick and looking as if it could withstand a little shelling and gunfire.
But during the raid one of the women became so afraid that she screamed and ran outside, where she was instantly cut down. The other eight people watched in horror, but it soon became obvious that what the Germans wanted was to take out the very station that hid them. The Nazis were intent on knocking out the railroad. The planes weren’t leaving until the station was no longer standing. Tatiana sat on the floor with her knees to her chest and pulled the green helmet over her closed eyes. She thought that the helmet would muffle the sound of death.
The train station crumbled like wet paper. Tatiana crawled from the beams and the fire, but there was nowhere for her to go. Through the smoke she could feel bodies around her. Hot and faint, she felt for them with her hands. The gunfire came from right outside the door, but when the lattice beam fell from the ceiling, all sounds faded away, all faded away, and there was no more fear. Only regret was left. Regret for Alexander.
6
Alexander started to lose hope. In the distance across the river, the natural front boundary, he could see the Germans amassing their troops and tanks and battalions of gun-ready, aggressive, and impeccably trained soldiers who would stop at nothing, certainly not at the hundreds of shovel-bearing volunteers.
As far as his eye could see, there were only two Soviet tanks. On the other side of the river there were at least thirty Panzers. Alexander’s platoon of twenty men had been reduced to twelve, and fields of mines now lay between him and Leningrad. Three of his men died when a mine they were planting went off. They didn’t have experience with mines, only with rifles, but all of their rifles had been taken by the army, all but Alexander’s and his two sergeants’.
Turning away from the river, he didn’t know which way to look.
In the late evening the new colonel called Alexander into his command quarters. Alexander didn’t like him nearly as much as he had liked Pyadyshev.
“Lieutenant, how many men do you have left in your charge?”
“Just twelve, sir.”
“Plenty.”
“Plenty for what?”
“The Germans have just bombed the Luga train station,” the colonel said. “Now the trains from Leningrad carrying more men and ammunition can’t reach the front. We need you and your men to clear the debris scattered on the railroad tracks so the engineers can repair the railroad and we can resume service by tomorrow morning.”
“It’s getting dark, sir.”
“I know, Lieutenant. I wish I could give you daylight, but I can’t. The white nights are behind us, and this has to be done immediately.”
As Alexander was about to leave, the colonel said, almost as an aside, “Oh, and I heard there were volunteers hiding out in the station when the bombs destroyed it. You might want to remove them.”
At Luga Station, Alexander and his men used kerosene lamps to survey the damage. The once brick building lay broken on the ground, and the rail tracks were knocked out for fifty meters.
Alexander called out, “Is anybody under there? Speak up!”
No one answered.
Coming closer to the wreckage, he repeated, “Anybody in there?”
He thought he heard a moan.
“They’re all dead, Lieutenant,” said Kashnikov. “Look at it.”
“Yes, but listen—Anyone there?” He started moving the large pieces of stone himself. “Help me, will you?”
“We should get to the tracks first,” suggested Kashnikov. “So the engineers can restore electricity to the railroad.”
Straightening out and leveling his cool gaze on him, Alexander said, “Railroad tracks before people, Sergeant?”
“On orders from the colonel, Lieutenant,” Kashnikov mumbled.
“No, Sergeant! On orders from me. Now, move.” Alexander pushed away boulders and bits of window and doorframes. There was little light, and it was hard to see. Dust and debris settled on his hands, and he cut himself on the broken glass without even feeling it. He realized it when the blood dripped from one hand to the other.
Alexander definitely heard something besides crickets. “Did you hear that?” he said. It was a soft moan.
“No, sir,” said Kashnikov, looking at him with concern.
“Kashnikov, have your hands fallen off? Quicker, I tell you.”
They worked quicker.
Finally, underneath the brick and burned beams, they found one body. Then two. Then three. Then a pile of bodies lying one on top of another in a pyramid underneath the rubble. Alexander thought they were too neat. Random force could not have stacked them. They had been placed this way. They could not have stacked themselves. He strained to listen. There was that moan again. He moved one dead man, another dead woman, anxiously shoving the kerosene lamp into their faces. Another moan.
At the bottom, underneath the third body, Alexander found Tatiana.
Her back was to him, and on her head was an army helmet. He recognized neither the clothes on her body nor the helmet on her head, but even before he removed the helmet, he knew it was her by the shape of the soft, small frame he had watched so intently for many days.
“Tatia . . .” he said in a disbelieving voice.
Alexander threw off the rest of the bodies, cleared off the last of the beams, and pushed the hair back from her face. She was barely conscious, and in the bleak yellow light from the lamps she looked barely alive, but it was from her that the soft moans had come and were continuing every few seconds.
Her clothing, her hair, her shoes, her face were covered with dust and blood. “Tania, come on,” he said, rubbing her cheek, kneeling by her. “Come on.” Her cheek was warm. That was a good sign.
“Is this the Tania?” asked Kashnikov.
Alexander didn’t reply. He was thinking of how best to pick her up. He could not tell, covered in blood as she was, where she was injured.
“I think she’s dying,” said Kashnikov.
“Oh, you’re a fucking doctor now?” Alexander snapped. “She’s not dying. Now, stop talking. Stay here with the men to clear the area. They need your help. I’m putting you in charge, Sergeant. Afterward quickly make your way back to Leningrad. Do you hear me? Can you do that? We’ve given them our arms, and eight of our men, and we found her. We are finished here in Luga. So hurry.” Carefully he turn
ed Tatiana over and lifted her into his arms. She was limp and still moaning.
“What about the wounded, Lieutenant?”
“Do you hear any more noise? You didn’t even hear this one. Now suddenly you’re concerned. The rest are dead. Check them out yourself if you wish. I will get her to the medic.”
“Do you need me to come with you? She’ll need a stretcher,” Kashnikov said.
“No she won’t,” said Alexander. “I’ll carry her myself.”
It was eleven o’clock at night by the time Alexander had walked three kilometers back to the encampment with Tatiana in his arms and searched for the medic.
He did not find him, but he found the medic’s assistant, Mark, asleep in a tent.
“The medic is dead,” Mark said. “Fragment cut him in two.”
“Do we have another medic?”
“No,” said Mark. “I’ll have to do.”
“You’ll do.”
He took one look at Tatiana’s soaked body and said, “She’s bled out. Leave her outside.” He lay back down on his cot.
“She’s not bled out,” said Alexander. “I don’t think it’s her blood.” The assistant obviously wanted to be asleep again. Alexander wasn’t having any of it.
“It’s hard to tell with so little light,” Mark said. “If she lives till morning, I’ll look at her then.”
Alexander didn’t budge, holding Tatiana in his arms. “Corporal,” he said, “you will look at her now.”
Sitting up on his cot, Mark sighed. “Lieutenant, it’s very late.”
“Late for what? Do you have a sheet or another bed for her?”
“A bed? What is this, a resort? Let me get you a sheet.”
Mark laid the white sheet on the ground. Alexander first kneeled with Tatiana in his arms, then set her down. Examining her, Mark peered at her head, at her scalp, at her face and teeth. He looked at her neck and lifted her arms. When he lifted her leg, Tatiana moaned louder than before.
“Ah,” said Mark. “Do you have your knife?”
Alexander gave him his knife.
She was wearing long trousers. Mark cut open one trouser leg, then the other. Alexander saw that her right ankle and the shin above it were swollen and black. “Broken shinbone,” Mark said. “So much blood on her and just this so far. It’s badly broken, though, fractured in several places. Let’s see the rest.” Unbuttoning her shirt, he cut open her once white vest and examined her chest, ribs, and stomach.
Blood stained her fragile body.
Alexander wanted to look away.
Mark sighed. “I can’t tell what’s hers, what isn’t,” he said. “Nothing on the legs is oozing fresh blood.” He touched her stomach. “You were right. She doesn’t feel clammy or cold.”
Staying back, Alexander said nothing. His heart was heavy and relieved.
“See here? She’s got three broken ribs on the right side. Where did you find her?”
“Under the train station. Under brick and dead bodies.”
“Well, that explains it. She’s lucky to be alive. Charmed, I’d say.” Mark stood up. “I have no bed for her in our hospital tent. Get her there and leave her on the ground. In the morning someone will take care of her.”
“I’m not leaving her on the ground until morning.”
“What are you worried about? She is not as injured as some of the others.” Mark shook his head. “You should see them.”
“I’m an officer in the Red Army, Corporal,” said Alexander. “I’ve seen wounded men. You’re sure you don’t have a cot for her somewhere?”
Mark shrugged. “There’s no shrapnel in her eyes, no life-threatening wounds. I’m not kicking out someone with a stomach wound to make room for her.”
“Of course not,” said Alexander.
“I don’t know what we’re going to do with her tomorrow,” Mark said. “She needs a proper hospital. Her leg needs to be set and put in a cast immediately. We certainly can’t do it here.”
Alexander shook his head. The railroad was bombed out, and the army had taken his truck. “Don’t worry about her tomorrow,” he said. “Have you got some more towels and some bandages for tonight?” Bending down, Alexander covered Tatiana with the sheet she lay on and picked her up. “And another sheet.”
Mark reluctantly went to his medic’s bag.
“What about some morphine?”
“No, Lieutenant.” He laughed. “I have no morphine for her. No morphine for a girl with some broken bones. She’ll have to live through the pain.”
Mark placed three towels and some bandages on top of Tatiana, and Alexander carried her to his tent.
After laying her down on the sheet, he pulled closed her shirt and went to the stream to get some water in a pail. When he returned, he cut a towel into small pieces, dipped one of them in the cool water, and began washing her face and hair. He cleaned her forehead and her cheeks and her eyes and her mouth. “Tatia,” he whispered, “what kind of a crazy girl are you?” Alexander saw her open her eyes. Mutely they watched each other. “Tatia,” he whispered again.
Her hand reached up to his face. “Alexander?” she said weakly, with no surprise. “Am I dreaming?”
“No,” he said.
“I must be . . .” She trailed off. “I was just dreaming . . . of your face. What’s happened?”
“You’re in my tent. What were you doing at Luga Station? It’s been destroyed by the Germans.”
Tatiana took a moment to answer. “Going back to Leningrad, I think,” she replied. “What are you doing here?”
He could have lied; he thought once he would have wanted to, feeling so angry and betrayed at the way she had discarded him. But the truth was so plain. “Looking for you.”
Her eyes filled again. “What’s happened? Why am I so cold?”
“Nothing,” he said hastily. “The medic’s assistant, Mark, had to cut open your trousers and your—”
Tatiana lifted her hands and felt through her open clothes. Alexander looked away. He had managed to pretend so well with her at Kirov, to keep his distance, but he couldn’t pretend that finding her alive and covered with blood meant nothing, that saving her meant nothing, that she meant nothing.
She brought her hand to her face and stared at the blood. “Is it my blood?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Then what’s wrong with me? Why can’t I move?”
“Your ribs are broken—”
She groaned.
“And your leg.”
“My back,” she whispered. “Something is wrong with my back.”
Anxious and concerned, Alexander said, “What’s the matter?”
“I don’t know. It’s burning.”
“It’s probably the ribs,” he said. “I broke a rib in the Winter War last year. It feels like your back is on fire.”
“Oozing.”
Leaving the wet rag in the bucket of water, Alexander looked into her face. “Tania, can you hear me all right?”
“Hmm.”
“Can you sit up?”
Tatiana tried to sit up. “I can’t,” she whispered. Her hands were holding her ripped tunic and undershirt together.
Alexander’s whole heart was giving out. He lifted her to a sitting position. “Let me take the clothes off you. They’re no good to you anyway; they’re all blood-soaked. You can’t wear them.”
She shook her head.
“I have to take them off you,” he said. “I will look at your back, and then I’ll clean you. You don’t want to get an infection. You will if you have open wounds. I’ll clean you, I’ll wash the blood off your hair, and then I’ll bandage your ribs and leg. You’ll feel better right away once they’re bandaged.”
She shook her head, sitting against him.
“Don’t be scared, Tania,” Alexander said. He held her to him, and after a few moments, when she didn’t say anything, he carefully took off her tunic and then her vest. Small and hurt and weak, she pressed her naked body against him;
her blood-covered back was underneath his hands, and her skin felt warm. She needs me so much to take care of her, Alexander thought, gently feeling for any gashes. And I desperately need to take care of her. “Where does it hurt?”
“Where you’re touching me,” she whispered. “Right under your fingers.”
He leaned over her shoulder to take a look. Her back was grimy, but the blood was already thick. “I think you’ve probably been cut. I’ll wash your back in a minute, but I think you’re all right.” Alexander pressed her head against his chest. His lips pressed against her damp hair.
He lowered her onto the white sheet. Her hands covered her breasts, and she closed her eyes. “Tatiasha,” Alexander said, “I need to clean you.”
Her eyes remained closed. “Let me do it myself,” she whispered.
“All right,” he said, “but you can’t even sit up by yourself.”
She didn’t reply at first. “Give me a wet towel, and I’ll do it myself.”
“Tatia, let me take care of you.” He stopped and took a breath. “Please. Don’t be afraid. I will never hurt you.”
“I know that,” she muttered, unable or unwilling to open her eyes.
“I tell you what,” Alexander said. “Don’t worry. Stay like that. I’ll—wash around you.”
He washed her hair, her arms, her stomach, and the top of her chest, all under the glimmering light of a kerosene lamp in the corner of the tent. Tatiana groaned loudly when he touched her blackened rib cage.
As he cleaned her, Alexander soothingly whispered, “One of these days, just one, I’m not saying now, but soon, maybe you can explain to me what you were doing in a train station during bombing. All right? I want you to think about what you’re going to tell me. Look how lucky you are. Move your arms a bit. After I dry you, I’ll bandage your ribs. They’ll heal on their own in a few weeks. You’ll be as good as new.”
Her eyes remaining closed, Tatiana turned her face away, her hands on her breasts. Alexander removed her torn trousers, leaving her in her underwear, and washed her legs. She flinched and fainted when he touched her broken shin. He waited for her to come to.