Alexander smiled back. The soles of his boots were touching the soles of her feet. “I could swim a little bit.”
“Did you have anything on you?”
“Nothing.”
“Papers? Money?”
“Nothing.” Tatiana thought Alexander wanted to tell her something else, but he continued. “It was the summer of 1936. After I escaped, I made my way south on the Volga, on fishing boats, by foot, in the back of horse carriages. I fished, worked briefly on farms, and moved on south. From Kazan to Ulyanovsk, where Lenin was born—interesting city, like a shrine. Then to Saratov, downstream on the Volga, fishing, harvesting, moving on. Wound up in Krasnodar, near the Black Sea. I was headed down south into Georgia, and then Turkey. I hoped to cross the border somewhere in the Caucasus Mountains.”
“But you had no money.”
“None,” Alexander said. “But I made some along the way, and I did think that my English, once I got into Turkey, would help me. But in Krasnodar, fate intervened.” He glanced at her. “As always. It was a brutal winter, and the family I was staying with, the Belovs—”
“The Belovs?” exclaimed Tatiana.
Alexander nodded. “A nice farming family. Father, mother, four sons, one daughter.” He cleared his throat. “Me. We all got typhus. The entire village of Belyi Yar—360 people—got typhus. Eight-tenths of the village population perished, including the Belovs, the daughter first. The local council from Krasnodar, with the help of the police, came and burned down the village, for fear that the epidemic would spread to the nearby city. All my clothes were burned, and I was quarantined until I either died or got better. I got better. The local Soviet councilman came to issue me new papers. Without a moment’s hesitation I said I was Alexander Belov. Since they burned the village in its entire—” Alexander raised his eyebrows. “Only in the Soviet Union. Anyway, since they burned the village, the councilman could not confirm or deny my claim to be Alexander Belov, the youngest Belov boy.”
Tatiana closed her mouth.
“So I was issued a brand-new domestic passport and a brand-new identity. I was Alexander Nikolaevich Belov, born in Krasnodar, orphaned at seventeen.” He looked away.
“What was your full American name?” asked Tatiana faintly.
“Anthony Alexander Barrington.”
“Anthony!” she exclaimed.
Alexander shook his head. “Anthony was for my mother’s father. I myself was never anything but Alexander.” He pulled out a cigarette. “You don’t mind?”
Tatiana shook her head.
“Anyway,” he said, “I returned to Leningrad and went to stay with relatives of the Belovs. I needed to be back in Leningrad—” Alexander hesitated. “I’ll tell you why in a minute. I stayed with my ‘aunt,’ Mira Belov, and her family. They lived on the Vyborg side. They hadn’t seen their nephews in a decade; it was ideal. I was like a stranger to them.” He smiled. “But they let me stay. I finished school. And it was in this school that I met Dimitri.”
“Oh, Alexander,” said Tatiana. “I cannot believe what you lived through when you were so young.”
“I’m far from finished. Dimitri was one of the kids I played with at school. He was spindly, unpopular, and never much fun. When we played war at recess, he was always the one taken prisoner. Dimitri POW Chernenko we used to call him. We said that for him alone the Soviet Union should have signed the 1929 Geneva Convention, because he was getting himself wounded or taken prisoner or killed every time we played, managing to get himself caught somehow without help from anyone.”
“Please go on.”
“But then I found out that his father was a prison guard at Shpalerka.” Alexander stopped.
Tatiana stopped breathing. “Your parents were still alive?”
“I didn’t know,” Alexander said. “So I chose to become close to Dimitri. I hoped that maybe he could help me see my mother and father. I knew that if they were alive, they would be tortured by their worries about me. I wanted to let them know I was all right.” He paused. “My mother particularly,” he said, his voice controlled. “We had been very close once.”
Tatiana’s eyes filled with tears. “What about your father?”
With a shrug, Alexander said, “He was my father. We had some conflict in the last years. What can I say? He thought he knew everything. I thought I knew everything. So it went.”
Tatiana did not blink as she stared at Alexander, transfixed. “Shura, they must have loved you so much.” She swallowed hard.
“Yes,” Alexander said, taking a deep, pained drag of the cigarette. “They did once love me.”
Tatiana’s heart was breaking for Alexander.
“Little by little,” he continued, “I gained Dimitri’s confidence, and we became better and better friends. Dima really liked the fact that I picked him out of many to be my closest friend.”
“Oh, Shura,” said Tatiana. She understood. Crawling to him, Tatiana wrapped her arms around Alexander. “You had to trust Dimitri.”
With one arm he hugged her back. The other held his cigarette. “Yes. I had to tell him who I was. I had no choice but to trust him. Leave my parents to die, or trust him.”
“You trusted Dimitri,” Tatiana repeated incredulously, letting go of him and sitting close by his side.
“Yes.” Alexander looked down into his large hands, as if trying to find the answer to his life in them. “I didn’t want to trust him. My father, the good Communist that he was, taught me never to trust anyone, and though it wasn’t easy, I learned that lesson well. But it’s a hard way to live, and I wanted to trust just one person in my life. Just one. I really needed Dimitri’s help. Besides, I was his friend. I said to myself that if he did this for me and I got to see my mother and father, I would be his friend for life. And that’s exactly what I told him. ‘Dima,’ I said, ‘I will be your friend for life. I will help you in any way that I can.’ “ Alexander lit another cigarette. Tatiana waited, the aching in her chest increasing.
“Dimitri’s father found out that I was too late to see my mother.” Alexander’s voice cracked. “He told me what had happened to her. But my father was still alive, though apparently not for long. He’d already been in prison for nearly a year. Chernenko got Dimitri and me inside Shpalerka, and then we had five minutes with the foreign infiltrator, Harold Barrington. Me, my father, Dimitri, his father, and another guard. No privacy for me and my father.”
Tatiana took Alexander’s hand. “How was that?”
Alexander stared straight ahead. “Pretty much how you imagine it might be,” he said, keeping his voice even. “And bitterly brief.”
In the small gray concrete cell, Alexander looked at his father, and Harold Barrington looked at Alexander. Harold did not move from his bed.
Dimitri stood in the center of the small cell, Alexander to the side. The guard and Dimitri’s father were behind them. A single lightbulb hung from the ceiling.
In Russian, Dimitri said to Harold, “We are here for only a minute, comrade. You understand? Just for a minute.”
“All right,” replied Harold in Russian, blinking back tears. “Thank you for coming to see me. I’m happy to see two Soviet boys. Your name, son?” he asked Dimitri.
“Dimitri Chernenko.”
“And your name, son?” His body shaking, Harold looked at Alexander.
“Alexander Belov,” said Alexander.
Harold nodded.
The guard said, “All right, enough gawking at the prisoner. Let’s go.”
Dimitri said, “Wait! We just wanted the comrade to know that despite his crime against our proletarian society, he will not be forgotten.”
Alexander said nothing, his eyes on his father.
“It’s because of his crime against our society that he will not be forgotten,” said the guard.
Chewing his lips, Harold looked at Dimitri and Alexander, whose back was to the guard but whose face was to his father.
“Popov, can I shake their hands?” Harol
d asked the guard.
The guard shrugged, stepping forward. “I’m going to watch you do it. Make it quick.”
Alexander said, “I’ve never heard English before, Comrade Barrington. Can you say something for us in English?”
Harold came up to Dimitri and shook his hand. “Thank you,” he said in English.
Then he came up to Alexander and took his hand, holding it tightly between his. Alexander shook his head slightly, trying to will his father to stay calm.
In English, Harold whispered, “Would that I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!”
Alexander mouthed, Stop.
Letting go of Alexander’s hand, Harold stepped slightly away, struggling not to cry and failing. “I’ll tell you something in English,” he said in Russian. “A few corrupted lines from Kipling.”
“Enough,” said the guard. “I have no time—”
“If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken,” Harold said loudly in En-glish, “twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools . . .” Tears rolled down his face. “Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken . . .” He was down to a whisper. “Son!—stoop and build them up with worn-out tools.” Harold stepped back and made a small sign of the cross on Alexander.
“Let’s go!” yelled the guard.
Alexander mouthed to his father, in English, “I love you, Dad.”
Then they left.
Tatiana was crying. Alexander put his arm around her, and said, “Oh, Tania . . .” He wiped her face. “From the effort to remain composed,” he told her, “I cracked one of my side teeth. See?” He showed her an upper bicuspid. “Now you can stop asking me about it. So I did get to see my father once before he died, and I never would have been able to do it without Dimitri.” With a heavy breath, he took his arm away.
“Alexander,” said Tatiana, crouching beside him, “you did an unbelievable thing for your father.” Her lips trembled. “You gave him comfort before his death.” Feeling very shy, yet overwhelmed by her emotion, her throbbing heart overfilled with him, she took hold of Alexander’s hand, bent her head to it, and kissed it. Blushing and clearing her throat, she let go of him and raised her eyes.
“Tania,” he said with feeling, “who are you?”
She replied, “I am Tatiana.” And gave him her hand. They sat silently.
“There is more.”
She nodded. “The rest I know.” Tatiana took Alexander’s pack of cigarettes and pulled one out. She had needed just a little truth to see the whole. She knew the rest at the point Alexander told her that he gave Dimitri something Dimitri had never had before. It wasn’t friendship, and it wasn’t companionship, and it wasn’t brotherhood. Tatiana’s hands were shaking as she put the cigarette into Alexander’s mouth, and reached for his lighter. Flicking it on, she brought it to his face, and when he inhaled, she kissed his cheek and extinguished the light.
“Thank you,” Alexander said, smoking down half the cigarette before he continued. He kissed her. “You’re not crazy about smoker’s breath?”
“I’ll take your breath any way you give it to me, Shura,” said Tatiana, blushing again. Then she spoke. “Let me tell you the rest. You and Dimitri enrolled in university. You and Dimitri joined the army. You and Dimitri went to officers’ school together. And then Dimitri didn’t make it.” She lowered her head. “At first he was all right with it. You remained best friends. He knew you would do anything for him.” She paused. “And then,” Tatiana said, raising her eyes, “he started asking.”
“I see,” said Alexander. “So you do know everything.”
“What does he ask you for, Shura?”
“You name it.”
They didn’t look at each other.
“He asks you to transfer him here, to make exceptions for him there, he asks you for special privileges and for special treatment.”
“Yes.”
“Anything else?”
Alexander was mute for a few minutes. It was such a long time that Tatiana thought he had forgotten her question. She waited patiently. Finally Alexander said, his voice filled with something, “Very occasionally, girls. You’d think there was plenty for everyone, but every once in a while I would be with a girl Dimitri wanted to be with. He’d ask me, and I’d back off. I just went and found myself a new girl, and things went on as before.”
Tatiana stared ahead, her eyes the clearest sea green. “Alexander, tell me something. When Dimitri asked you for a girl, he only asked for one you actually liked, right?”
“What do you mean?”
“He didn’t want just any of your girls. He asked you for girls that he saw you liked. That’s when he asked. Right?”
Alexander was pensive. “I guess.”
Slowly Tatiana said, “So when he asked you for me, you just backed off.”
“Wrong. What I did was show him my indifferent face, hoping that if he thought you didn’t matter to me, he would leave you alone. Unfortunately, that has backfired.”
Tatiana nodded, then shook her head, then started to cry. “Yes, you’re not doing such a good job with your face, Shura. He won’t leave me alone.”
“Please.” Alexander brought her into his arms. “I told you this was a dire mess. I can back off you now as far as Japan for all he cares. Because now Dimitri has fallen for you and wants you for himself.” He stopped.
Tatiana studied Alexander for a few moments and then pressed herself into him. “Shura,” she said quietly, “I’m going to tell you something right now, all right? Are you listening?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t hold your breath like that.” She managed a smile. “What do you think I’m about to say?”
“I don’t know. I’m ill equipped to guess at the moment. Maybe you have a small child living with a distant aunt?”
Tatiana laughed lightly. “No.” She paused. “But are you ready?”
“Yes.”
Tatiana said, “Dimitri has not fallen for me.”
Alexander pulled away from her.
She shook her head. “No. Not at all. Not even remotely. Believe me when I tell you.”
“How do you know?”
“I know.”
“So what does he want with you then? Don’t even suggest—”
“Not with me. All Dimitri wants—listen carefully—all he craves, all he desires, all he covets is power. That’s the only thing that’s important to him. That’s the love of his life. Power.”
“Power over you?”
“No, Alexander! Power over you. I’m just a means to an end. I’m just ammunition.”
When he looked at her skeptically, she continued. “Dimitri doesn’t have any. You have it all. All he has is what he has over you. That’s his whole life.” She shook her head. “How sad for him.”
“Sad for him!” Alexander exclaimed. “Whose side are you on?”
Tatiana didn’t speak for a moment. “Shura, look at you. And look at him. Dimitri needs you, he is fed and sheltered and grown by you, and if you’re stronger, he becomes stronger, too. He knows that and depends on you blindly for so many things that you are glad to provide. And yet . . . the more you have, the more he hates you. Self-preservation may be his driving force, but all the same, every time you get a promotion, you go up in rank, you get a new medal, you get a new girl, every time you laugh with joy in the smoky corridor, it diminishes and lessens him. Which is why the more powerful you become, the more he wants from you.”
“Eventually,” said Alexander, glancing at Tatiana, “he is going to want from me something I can’t give. And then what?”
“Coveting from you the best of what you have will eventually lead him into hell.”
“Yes, but me into death.” Alexander shook his head. “Unspoken underneath all his pleas and requests is that one word from him about my American past to the NKVD general at the garrison, one vague accusation, and I instantly vanish into the maw of Soviet justice.”
Nodding sadly, Tatiana said, “I know
it. But maybe if he had more, he wouldn’t want so much.”
“You’re wrong, Tania. I have a bad feeling about Dimitri. I have a feeling he is going to want more and more from me. Until,” Alexander said, “he takes it all.”
“No, you’re wrong, Shura. Dimitri will never take all away from you. He will never have that much power.” He might want to. He just doesn’t know who he is dealing with, Tatiana thought, raising her venerating eyes to Alexander. “Besides, we all know what happens to the parasite when something happens to the host,” she whispered.
Alexander gazed down at her. “Yes. He finds himself a new host. Let me ask you,” he finally said, “what do you think Dimitri wants the most from me?”
“What you want most.”
“But, Tania,” said Alexander intensely, “it’s you that I want most.”
Tatiana looked into his face. “Yes, Shura,” she said. “And he knows it. As I said from the beginning—Dimitri has not fallen for me at all. All he wants is to hurt you.”
Alexander was quiet for a spate of eternity under the August sky.
So was Tatiana until she whispered, “Where is your brave and indifferent face? Put it on and he will back away and ask you to give him what you wanted most before me.”
Alexander did not move and did not speak.
“Before me.” Why was he so silent? “Shura?” She thought she felt him shudder.
“Tania, stop. I can’t talk to you about this anymore.”
She could not steady her hands. “All of this—all this between us, and my Dasha, too, now and forever, and still you come for me every chance you can.”
“I told you, I cannot stay away from you,” said Alexander.
Flinching with sadness, Tatiana said, “God, we need to forget each other, Shura. I can’t believe how not meant to be we are.”
“You don’t say?” Alexander smiled. “I will bet my rifle that your ending up on that bench two months ago was the most unlikely part of your day.”
He was right. Most of all, Tatiana remembered the bus she had decided not to take so she could buy herself an ice cream. “And you would know this how?”