Tatiana and Alexander (26 page)

The men had no hair anywhere on their bodies. Under Alexander’s directive, they shaved themselves daily to prevent the spread of lice. After heavy fighting, they would spend a day in the river shaving.

Alexander was often unable to tell his men apart from one another. Some were slightly taller than average, some were slightly smaller, some had birthmarks, others were clean, some were dark-skinned, most were white and sunburned. Only a few were freckled. Some had green eyes, some brown, and one Corporal Yermenko had one green eye, one brown.

In civil life, hair defined men. Head hair, body hair, but now the men were defined by war and their scars. The scars were the most distinguishing features. Scars from battle, from knife wounds, from bul
lets, from compound fractures, from shell grazings, from gunpowder burns. On the arms, maybe on the upper shoulders, perhaps on the lower legs. There were not too many living with scars on their chests, abdomens, or scalps.

Alexander knew his Lieutenant Ouspensky by the wheezing noise he made when he breathed, and by the scar over his right lung, and he knew his Sergeant Telikov by his white, wiry, long body, and Sergeant Verenkov by his squat body that must have been once nearly completely covered with black hair and was now nearly completely covered with black stubble.

Alexander preferred them to have fewer distinguishing features. It made losing the men easier. One loss, one replacement with another shaved, bald, smooth, scarred man.

Alexander’s battalion started up in northern Russia and moved down to Lithuania and Latvia. By the time they got to Byelorussia, he had been ordered to switch fronts and go from Rokossovsky’s Army Group North, to Zhukov’s Army Group Center. In flat and largely woodless Byelorussia there was a rousting of the Germans such as Alexander had never seen; to do it the Red Army lost over 125,000 men and twenty-five divisions in Byelorussia alone, while Alexander’s battalion pushed forward and south, forward and south, finally connecting with Konev’s northern divisions of southernmost Army Group Ukraine.

After June 1944, when news came that the American and British forces landed in Normandy, Alexander’s battalion covered a hundred kilometers in ten days, knocking out four German companies of 500 men each. The Soviet trucks rallied behind with supplies and food, and more men to replace the losses. Alexander was unstoppable. Like Comrade Stalin, he needed to get into Germany. Stalin may have wanted retribution, but Alexander felt his deliverance lay there.

The Black Horseman of the Apocalypse, 1941

Fed up and frustrated, Alexander volunteered himself to fight the Finns in Karelia to get as far away from the Metanovs as possible.

He asked Dimitri to come with him, mentioning valor, medals, promotions, but thinking shootings, stabbings, casualties.

True to form, Dimitri refused to go to Karelia to fight, and then was promptly sent to the slaughterhouse of Tikhvin where he was outmanned and outarmed by the Germans.

Alexander was sent with a thousand troops to push the Finns back from the supply line to Leningrad. Weeks went by of savage fighting, of gaining territory meter by hard won bloody meter. Finally, after a day of gunfire that left three hundred Red Army soldiers dead, Alexander, surveying the damage in the near dark, found himself one icy late September evening alone in a field with dead Soviet men around him and with dead Finnish men in front of him. All quiet on the Karelian front and the NKVD were half a kilometer back in the bushes, away from the front line. The fires from the shells still burning, branches broken from trees crackling, snow black from the blood of man, smell acrid of singed human flesh, a few isolated groans, and Alexander alone.

All was quiet, except the roaring in Alexander’s chest. He looked back; there was no movement behind him. The machine gun was in his hands. He took a step, then another, then another. He had his Shpagin, his rifle, his pistol, his uniform. He was now walking amid the dead Finns close to the woods. In one and a half minutes he could be wearing a Finnish uniform, stripped from the body of a dead officer and holding a Finnish machine gun.

Dark. Quiet. He glanced back again. The NKVD weren’t coming any closer.

Mere months with her. Months. In the vast landscape of his life, the weeks, the stolen moments, the Luga night, the hospital minutes, the moment on the bus, the white dress, the green eyes, all of it just a burst of color on the periphery, a red splash in the corner of the canvas of his life. He took another step. He could not help her. Not her, not Dasha, not Dimitri. Leningrad was going to swallow them all and Alexander would be damned if he stayed and watched. Another step. Dead on the icy blown-apart streets of a starved Leningrad.

No one moving on the flat terrain, no trucks, no roads, no men, just trenches, and downed bodies, and Alexander, another step in the right direction and another. And another. He was deep amid the Finns now. Bend down, find a tall body, take its uniform, pick up his machine gun, drop yours, drop the life you hate, one more step and go. Go, Alexander. You cannot save her. Go.

For many minutes he stood on Finnish soil amid the fallen enemy.

The life he hated had in it one thing he could not leave behind.

He turned around and slowly walked back to his platoon, his only light the flares of flashlights and the failing fires…glancing back once at the forest that was Finland.

If only he could have found a way out of Russia that cold dark Sep
tember night in Finland, he would not be so heavy-hearted now. Empty-hearted, yes, but not fear-hearted, leaden-hearted like now.

Stalin gave up Leningrad to Hitler, fighting for his life in Moscow. Hitler in turn said he wouldn’t waste a bullet on Leningrad preferring instead to starve it out, and in a matter of months the city became lined with unburied corpses. The bodies lying in the white streets covered in white sheets were pristine. The barely living called them “dolls.”

The less Tatiana and her family had—as their supplies of flour and oatmeal evaporated—the more their faces crowded around Alexander, longingly asking him if he had more for them, more food, more rations, more, more, the more Tatiana withdrew and stood near the door, away from him, the more feeling he began to have for her. In the middle of war, in the middle of raging fighting, of unburied dead, of being cold and wet, in famine, Alexander’s feelings for Tatiana grew as if they were a well-watered, well-nourished plant.

What Leningrad gave them, 250 grams of cardboard bread, what Alexander stole for them, soy beans and linseed oil, was not enough, but the sawdust and cottonseed black cake he was eating was enough for his heart.

She had to be evacuated. One way or another she simply had to be.

November died into December. The white and bombed out streets of Leningrad remained littered with corpses no one could either move or bury. All the movers and buriers were dead. The electricity wasn’t working. Neither was water. There was no kerosene to fire up the kilns to bake the bread, which was just as well because there was no flour.

“Alexander, tell me, how long have you loved my sister?” asked the dying Dasha.

“Tell me, how long have you loved my sister?”

“How long—have you—loved my sister?”

Alexander should have replied, Dasha, if you had seen me standing mute, hearing the day fly, the May fly, an ephemera on a Sunday street singing, “Someday We’ll Meet in Lvov, My Love and I,” you would have your answer.

Lazarevo, 1942

L
AZAREVO—EVEN THE NAME
itself was reminiscent of myth, of legend, of revelation. Lazarus, the brother of Mary and Martha, raised from four days dead by Jesus. A miracle given by God to reaffirm man’s faith that so angered His enemies they started plotting to kill both the mortal and the divine.

Lazarevo—a small fishing village on the needle banks of the mighty Kama, the river that for ten million years flowed a thousand miles south into the world’s largest sea.

Alexander went to Lazarevo on faith.

He had heard nothing from her. Nothing for six months. All he had to say was, I do not believe she could have survived because I have seen with my own eyes thousands stronger than her, healthier than her that had not survived. They got sick, and she was sick. They had no food, they were starved and she was starved. They had no defences and she had none. They were alone, and she was also. She was small and she was weak and she didn’t make it.

That would have required nothing of Alexander. He could have said, it must be so. All he had to do was nothing. How easy!

But Alexander learned by now: there was no easy step in his life, no easy day, no easy choice, no easy way.

He had his one life. In June 1942 he went to Lazarevo holding it in his hands.

By the shores of the Kama, he found her gorgeous and restored, and not just restored to her original shining brilliance but enlarged and clarified. Light reflected off her, no matter which way she turned.

They ran down to the almighty river. She never even looked back.

She would never know what it meant to him, an unremitting sinner, after all the unsacred things he had seen and done, to have her innocence. He held her to him. He had dreamed of it too long, touching her. Dreamed of seeing her naked too long, beautiful, bare, ready for him.
He was afraid to hurt her. He had never been with an untouched girl before; he wasn’t sure if he was supposed to do something first.

In the end, he did nothing first, but she baptized him with her body. There was no Alexander anymore; the man he knew had died and was reborn inside a perfect heart, given to him straight from God, to him and for him.

He had lived the last five years of his life being with women whose names he could not remember, whose faces he could not recall, women to whom he meant nothing but a well spent moment on a Saturday night. The connections he had made with those women were transient links, gone as soon as the moment was gone. Nothing lasted in the Red Army. Nothing lasted in the Soviet Union. Nothing lasted inside Alexander.

He had lived the last five years of his life amid young men who could die instantly as he was covering them, as he was saving them, as he was carrying them back to base. His connections to them were real but impermanent. He knew better than anyone the fragility of life during Soviet war.

Yet Tatiana had lived through the hunger, made her blind way through the snow on the Volga, made her way inside his tent to show Alexander that in his life there was one permanence. In Alexander’s life there was one thread that could not be broken by death, by distance, by time, by war. Could not be broken. As long as I am in the world, she said with her breath and her body, as long as
I
am, you are permanent, soldier.

And he believed.

And before God they were married.

Alexander was sitting on a blanket, his back against the tree, and she was on top of him, straddling him, kissing him so deeply he couldn’t get his breath. “Tania…” he whispered. “…Hang on…”

It was their third morning as husband and wife. They got up, washed, drank and were now deeply ensconced under the birch.

“Shura, darling, I can’t believe you’re my husband. My
husband.
”

“Mmm.”

“Shura, my husband for
life.
”

“Mmm.” His hands were caressing her thighs.

“Do you know what that means? You’ve sworn to make love only to me for life.”

“I’ll
take
that job.”

“Do you know I read that in some African cultures I get to have your liver as a sign of your love for me.” She giggled.

“You can take my liver, Tatia, but I won’t be much good to you afterward. Maybe you should make love to me first.”

“Shura, wait.”

“No. Take your dress off. Take it all off.”

She obliged.

“Now sit on top of me.”

“But you’re completely dressed!”

“Just sit on top of me.” He gazed at her hungrily. Tatiana had a beautiful body. And Alexander had seen them all. Lithe, smooth, crème, from her clavicles to her carpals, Tatiana was formed to fit Alexander’s desire. Everything he liked in a woman’s body, his tiny maiden wife unsparingly had. She had a small waist and rounded hips, she had soft thighs and lush breasts. She had the gift of silk and velvet from her golden hair to the soles of her feet and all within her. Alexander’s breath was short. He opened his arms.

Tatiana straddled him. “Like this?”

“This is good,” he said, his hands over her, groaning at the feel of her. Tatiana lifted herself up to let him kiss her warm breasts. His hands grasped her hips. He closed his eyes. “Tania, do you know that in Ethiopia a woman, to make herself more attractive to her new husband, makes a series of cuts on her torso and then rubs ash into them to raise them into scars?”

Sitting back down on him, Tatiana stared at him. “You would find this attractive?”

“Not particularly.” Alexander smiled. “It’s the
sacrifice
that appeals to me.”

“I’ll show you, sacrifice. I think it’s in the same Ethiopia,” she said, “that the women get shaved from the neck down.”

“Mmm.”

“Does
that
appeal to you?”

He was pressing her body into himself and licking her lips. “Let’s just say it doesn’t not appeal to me.”

“Shura!”

“What? You know in some African cultures the women are not allowed to speak to their husbands unless they’re spoken to first?”

“Yes, and in others, they can flirt with both the husband and his cousin and both men can share the marriage bed if the woman so desires. How does
that
strike you?” She went on without letting him
respond. “And in some, I keep myself completely covered in a, in a—what is that thing called…”

“A black box,” Alexander said, smiling.

“No, the real name.”

“A burka.”

“Yes! A burka. I keep myself covered with a burka from head to toe my entire life, but at the beginning of the marriage you have to lift the burka off my face and I have to reach up and help you, and the one whose hand is on top gets to be the boss in the marriage.” She laughed infectiously. “Which one of those appeals to you, husband?”

He couldn’t speak for a moment as she continued to kiss him to end all wars. “Well, first of all,” he said hoarsely, “my father’s sister had no children, so the cousin thing is out. And yes, I would like for you to wear a black box so no one else can lay their eyes on you. And to address your third point, I find it hard to imagine a tadpole like you being the boss of anything.”

“Imagine away, soldier,” Tatiana said bravely. Her fire lips consumed him.

It was time for him to get undressed. But he couldn’t move. Her knees were against his ribs, her arms were holding his head, and her lips were ravishing his mouth.

Alexander groaned. “In Barrington, do you know what we did? It wasn’t Africa, but we cut our palms and pressed our blood together to say we were going to be friends for life.”

“If you
want
we can press our palms together, but in Russia, when we want to reaffirm marriage, we just have a baby.” She bit his neck.

“I tell you what,” said Alexander. “Let me up, and we’ll see what we can do to reaffirm our marriage.” Not only did she not move off him, but she held him tighter. “Tania…” he said. Nothing from her except her lips. He was feeling weaker by degrees.

“A minute ago, I was a tadpole,” she whispered. “Now suddenly you can’t move me off you.”

He didn’t just move her off him. Holding her with one hand, he jumped up off the ground into a standing position while continuing to hold her. “You, my dear,” Alexander said, “are lighter than all of my gear and my weapons and the mortar that I carry.” With his free hand he unzipped his trousers.

“Where is that mortar that you carry,” Tatiana said huskily, her lips at his neck.

Time, time, time.

They were walking back to the cabin. Alexander’s blueberry bucket was half full. Tania’s was flowing over. “I don’t know how you’re going to survive in the wilderness,” she said.

“By not picking blueberries, that’s for sure.” He took her hand. “Want me to carry that?”

“I’m fine.”

“Say something in English.”

“
I’m hungry
,” she complied in English.

“Something else.” He smiled.

She tutted.

“Something else,” he repeated, squeezing her hand emphatically.

In English, she asked, “Do you ever went to
doghouse
?”

Alexander didn’t understand. “A doghouse—”

He understood. “Tania…” He laughed. “It’s the
cathouse
.”

“Oh.” She blushed. Alexander pulled her to him.

“Careful with the blueberries,” she said in English. “Don’t spill my full backet.”

“Okay.” Alexander shook his head. “And it’s
bucket
.” Balling up her hand into a fist, he brought it to his lips.

At the cabin, Tania immediately perched down to pick through the blueberries while Alexander went for a swim. Drying off, Alexander stood in front of Tatiana, buckets between her parted legs. She looked up at him expectantly. He extended his hand.

After they had finished making sweet slow afternoon love, and she was cradled in his arms, he said, “Yes, I’ve been to a cathouse. A long time ago.”

She shuddered briefly, not looking at him. “Often?”

“No, not often.”

“Didn’t you ever—all those skanks have been with so many men. Do they even wash in between?”

Alexander smiled at her innocence, at her blinding blondeness. “Not all women can be untrampled snow like you,” he said. He paused, slightly shuddering himself. “I’ll never go again, all right?”

She looked at him, puzzled. “Why would you?” she asked, her expression full of love, full of faith. “You’re married now. To me.”

“I know who I’m married to.” He thought a moment. “Besides,” he added slowly, “I was very careful. I always wore a safety sheath.”

“A what?”

Oh, dear God. “A false scabbard,” he said. She was heartbreaking. “Over the sword.”

Tatiana was thoughtful. “When you say
always
…”

“Always.”

“Not
always
, right?”

“Always, Tania. How can you not believe me? A second ago you didn’t even know what—”

“Shura.”

“What?”

“Not always,” she said firmly, propping herself up on her arm. “You don’t wear one with me.”

Alexander smiled. “Why would I?” He took her in his arms. “Why should I?” he whispered.

“Wait, wait!” She disentangled herself. “Are you telling me that you were never uncovered…”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

“
Never
?”

“Never.”

“I don’t believe you.”

Alexander laughed. “The truth is not dependent on your belief, Tania.”

“All those women, all those good-time girls, all those garrison hacks, not a single one?”

“Particularly not them.”

“But Shura, you—” She paused. “You must have needed quite a lot of them.” She smiled. “Scabbards, not girls.”

He smiled back.

“What did you do when you ran out?”

“I stayed away until I got some more.”

Tatiana was very quiet. “What about Dasha?”

“What about her?”

“With her, too?”

“Tania, with everyone.”

“Shura…” Tatiana jumped on him, hugging him to kill the alive. She was shaking him. When she lifted her face from his neck, tears were in her eyes. “You’re such a beast. How could you have not told me this for five whole days? And after I told you all about me in the first five minutes.”

He grinned, his hands running up and down her bare back. “You never asked.”

She shook him again. He stroked her arms, her neck, her lips. Caressing her, he watched her face, her closed eyes, her slightly parted mouth. “Say something in English.”

“No,” she said. “But now I am going to go and make you blueberry jam.”

“Great,” Alexander muttered, watching her hop down. “Can’t wait. Much better than a
bit of fresh
.”

Tatiana turned to him and smiled. “Shura,” she said in halting English, “show me your
marriage bait
.”

Alexander laughed. “Tania, come here. Please. Forget the blueberries.”

“What did I say now?” she said, coming back, kneeling in front of him and smiling.

“It’s not
marriage bait
, it’s the
wedding tackle
. And here it is.” He smiled. “But stop using your English as a source of comedy on our marriage rack. Touch me.”

Fondling him and grinning, she said in English, “All right, you well drawn soldier.”

“Tania…oh, no.” His stomach was beginning to hurt. “Stop, I said. You’re killing me.”

“Come, give me
a slice of tail
.”

“Tania!”

“What?” she said, her eyes twinkling.

“I don’t give
you
a slice of tail!”

“Well, all right then.” She lay down next to him.

“You’re playing with me? Stop. I’ll be no good to you in a minute.”

“Then who has the
sugarstick
?”

He grabbed her, pulling her to him. “That would be me.”

“Well, give me some.”

“All right, then.” She
was
teasing him.

“
Come, come, come
.” She smiled. “How is my English tongue?”

“Perfect,” Alexander said. “And it’s the English
language
. But you’ve reduced a formerly whole man to his frazzled parts.”

“What will make you whole again?” asked Tania. “A little trip to the cathouse?”