Tatiana and Alexander (18 page)

Yefim died. Alexander did not. After spending six weeks in quarantine, he got better. The Soviet authorities, to prevent the outbreak of disease in the fall heat over the Caucasus region, burned the village of Belyi Gor and all the bodies and huts and barns and fields contained therein. Alexander, who remained alive but had no identity, got himself a new identity as Yefim’s third son Alexander Belov. When the Soviet council workers came with masks on their faces and clipboards to their chests and in muffled voices asked, “Your name?” Alexander without hesitation said, “Alexander Belov.” They checked against the birth records for Belyi Gor, against the available records for the Belov family and issued Alexander a new domestic passport that allowed him to travel in the Soviet Union without getting stopped and arrested for lack of documents. Alexander was put on a train and with written permission from the regional
Soviet
made his way back to Leningrad and went to live with Mira Belov, Yefim’s sister. Mira was taken aback to see him. Fortunately for Alexander, she had not seen the family and the real Alexander Belov in twelve years and though she pointed out with surprise Alexander’s black hair and dark eyes, the leanness and the height (“Sasha, I can’t get over it. You were so short and blond and chubby when you were five!”), she couldn’t remember well enough to become suspicious. Alexander stayed, sleeping on a cot in the hall, a cot that was half a meter too short for him. He ate dinner with Mira and her husband and her husband’s parents and tried to be in their apartment as little as possible. He had a plan. He needed to finish school and then he would join the army.

Alexander didn’t have time to remember, to think, to ache. He had only one mission—to see his parents again—and he had only one goal and one imperative—one way or another to leave the Soviet Union.

A New Best Friend, 1937

In the last six months of secondary school, Alexander met Dimitri Chernenko. Dimitri, nondescript and diminutive, kept sidling up to Alexander and asking questions, his curiosity pervasive, invasive and sometimes irritating. Dimitri was like the puppy Alexander never had. He seemed lonely and in need of friendship—and harmless. He was a scrawny kid
with shaggy hair and eyes that constantly darted from one face to the next, never staying for more than a few seconds on anyone or anything. Yet the way he looked up to Alexander, literally looked up to him, the way his mouth opened in fawning awe when Alexander spoke, amused Alexander. Dimitri was easy to tease; he laughed at himself for always coming last in a race, for always missing the goal at football, for falling out of trees.

Once or twice, however, Alexander saw Dimitri bullying the younger boys in the school yard, and the second time when Dimitri tried to get Alexander to join in on the taunting of a petrified kid, Alexander pulled Dimitri aside and said, “What are you doing?” And Dimitri apologized and didn’t do it again. Alexander attributed this lack of propriety ton ever being the popular one and over looked it, just as he overlooked his off-color remarks about girls (“Doesn’t she have a hot ass? Hey, you, hotass!”). Alexander would patiently point out the errors in tact and judgment and Dimitri was a willing student, reforming himself to the best of his abilities, though nothing Alexander could teach would make Dimitri kick the ball into the goal or finish first in a race, or listen to a girl talk about her hair with out a bored sneer around his mouth. But in other ways, Dimitri became better behaved. And he laughed at all of Alexander’s jokes, and that went a long way in friendship.

Dimitri was very interested in Alexander’s tinge of an accent, but Alexander brushed off the questions. He didn’t trust Dimitri, which said less about Dimitri than it said about Alexander who didn’t trust anybody. Other than talking to Dimitri about his American past, Alexander and Dimitri managed to cover many other topics: communist politics (in hushed, mocking terms), girls (Dimitri had less experience than Alexander, i.e. none), and parents.

And that’s when one afternoon while walking home, Dimitri let slip that his father was a guard at one of the city prisons, and not just any prison, but (in a glorious stage whisper) in
the House of Detention
, the most feared and hated of the Leningrad prisons. He said it, Alexander knew, because his father’s position of power made Dimitri seem more powerful in Alexander’s eyes. But it was at that moment that Alexander looked differently at Dimitri.

Suddenly he saw an opening in the porthole of destiny, a possibility of discovering what happened to his family, and that opportunity was enough for Alexander to swallow his hard-earned mistrust and confide
in Dimitri. Alexander told Dimitri the truth about his past and asked for Dimitri’s help in locating Harold and Jane Barrington. Dimitri, his eyes shining, said he would be glad to help Alexander, who in his gratefulness gave Dimitri a hug and said, “Dima, if you help me, God help me, I swear, I’ll be your friend for life. I’ll do anything for you.”

Patting Alexander on the back, Dimitri replied that no thanks were necessary, he would help Alexander gladly because they were best friends, weren’t they?

Alexander agreed that they were.

A few days later, Dimitri brought him the news about his mother. She had been “imprisoned without a right of correspondence.”

Alexander remembered the old babushka Tamara and her husband. He knew what that meant. He remained composed in front of Dimitri, but that night he cried for his mother.

With Dimitri’s father’s help, they managed to get into the House of Detention for five minutes under the auspices of visiting Dimitri’s father and doing a school report on the progress of the Soviet state against agitators and foreign traitors to the socialist cause.

Alexander saw his father for a few minutes one incongruously sunny and warm June afternoon. He had hoped for ten; maybe one or two alone. He got one or two, with Dimitri, Dimitri’s father, and another guard. No privacy for Harold and Alexander Barrington.

Alexander had gone over what he wanted to say to his father until the few words were cut into his memory that neither anxiety nor fear could obliterate.

Dad! he wanted to say. Once when I was barely seven, you, me and Mom went to Revere Beach, remember? I swam until my teeth chattered, and you and I dug a large sand hole and built a sand bar and waited for the rising tide to wash the ocean in. We got so burned those hours on the beach, and then we went on the awesome Cyclone—three times—and ate cotton candy and ice cream until my stomach hurt and you smelled of sand and salt water and the sun, and you held my hand and said I too smelled like the sea. It was the happiest day of my life, and you gave that day to me, and when I close my eyes that’s what I will remember. Don’t worry about me. I will be all right. Don’t worry about anything.

But he wasn’t alone with his father for a moment to say those words to him, in any language. Alexander became afraid that Harold’s emotion would alert the guard. Fortunately the apathetic sentry wasn’t looking for subterfuge.

His father was the only one who spoke, in English, with a little lead-in help from Alexander. “Could the prisoner say something to us in English?” Alexander had asked the guard, who grunted and said, “All right. But make it short. I don’t have time to waste.”

“I’ll say something short in English,” said Harold. His voice barely strong enough to get the words out, he grasped Alexander by the hands and whispered, holding him tight, his eyes spilling over, “Would that I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!”

Saying nothing, Alexander stepped away and blinked back his father. At the end of those few short minutes in a bare concrete cell, Alexander’s cost for keeping himself in control was a chipped tooth and a bit of his immortal soul.
I love you
, he mouthed silently, and then the door closed.

After that, Dimitri never left Alexander’s side, which was all right with Alexander: he needed a friend.

It didn’t take long for Dimitri to start formulating plans to get him and Alexander out of the Soviet Union. Since much of what Dimitri was saying echoed what Alexander already had been thinking and planning, Alexander saw no reason to stop him. And he saw no reason not to get Dimitri out with him. Two could fight better than one, could cover each other, could watch each other’s back. That’s what Alexander imagined. That Dimitri would be like a battle buddy. That Dimitri would watch his back.

But Alexander was patient, and Dimitri was not. Alexander knew the right time had to come, and would. They talked about taking trains down to Turkey, they talked about making their way to Siberia in the winter and walking across the Bering Strait ice. They talked about Finland and finally settled on it. It was the nearest and most accessible.

Alexander went every week to check on his
Bronze Horseman
book. What if someone checked it out? What if someone kept it? He couldn’t help but feel that his money was not safe.

Having graduated secondary school, Alexander and Dimitri decided to enroll in the three-month program at the Officer Candidate School of the Red Army. The OCS was Dimitri’s idea. He thought it would be a good way to impress girls. Alexander thought it would be an entry way into Finland if the Soviet Union and Finland went to war,
which seemed likely: Russia did not like having a foreign country, a historical enemy, only twenty kilometers from Leningrad, arguably Russia’s greatest city.

OCS was nothing like Alexander had imagined. The brutality of the instructors, the grueling schedule of the training, the constant humiliation by the sergeants in charge were all meant to break your spirit before war could. The humiliation was harder to bear than the running, the sweating in the cold, the rain. But worse than everything was being awoken after taps and told to stand for hours while some fucking cadet got taken to task for forgetting to shine his boots.

Alexander learned about imperfection in OCS, and about leadership, and about respect. He learned about keeping his mouth shut and about keeping his locker spotless and about being on time and about saying
yes, sir
when he wanted to say
fuck you
. He also learned that he was stronger and faster and quicker than other trainees, that he was neater, that he was more calm under pressure, and that he was less afraid.

He also learned that words spoken to him that were meant to rattle him actually did.

After experiencing the grunt duality of officer school—they wanted to make a man out of you by breaking your spirit until you had none left—Alexander was grateful only that he wasn’t an enlisted man: they must have had it even harder.

And then Dimitri flunked OCS.

“Can you believe it? What bastards they all are, after putting me through such hell, to not let me graduate! What kind of stupid bullshit is that? I’ve got a good mind to write the commander a letter—who is the commander of OCS, Alexander? Do you see this letter? They’re telling me I unloaded and loaded my weapon too slowly, and that I crawled on my belly like a fucking snake too slowly, and that in battle tests I didn’t keep quiet enough, or exhibit enough leadership quality to be considered for an officer rank. Look at this: they’re inviting me to join the enlisted ranks. Well, if I can’t load my weapon fast enough for them as an officer, what good am I going to be as a fucking grunt?”

“Perhaps the standards are different for officers and regular soldiers.”

“Sure they are! But they should be tougher for the frontoviks! After all, those are the guys who are first at the battle line. So they’re flunking me out of a program that would have kept me in the rear where I would
do the least damage, but instead offering me a position where I’m going to be thrown into the fucking war zone? No, thanks.” Dimitri looked up at Alexander. “Did you get your letter?”

He had gotten it, of course, and was informed of his impending graduation as a second lieutenant, but he didn’t think Dimitri was in any mood to hear that. To lie was impractical. Alexander told Dimitri the truth.

“Alexander, this is just idiotic. Our plans are completely fucked. What good are we to each other, with you an officer and me a private?” Dimitri hit himself on the head for emphasis. “I’ve got it! Great idea. Only one thing left to do—do you see it?”

“I don’t see it.”

“You’ve got to reject your second lieutenantship. Tell them you’re honored and grateful, but you’ve reconsidered. They’ll enlist you as a private in a few days, and then we’ll be together in one unit and able to run together when the opportunity arises.” He was gleefully smiling. “And for a moment I thought all was lost and our plans were as good as dead.”

“Hold on, hold on.” Alexander looked at Dimitri askance. “Dima, you want me to
what
?”

“Decline your officership.”

“Why would I do that?”

“So we can execute our plans.”

“Our plans haven’t changed. If I’m second lieutenant, then I’m commanding a unit that has a sergeant who’s in charge of your squad. We’ll go to Finland together no matter what.”

“Yes, but what good is it if we’re not in the same unit? Those were our plans, Alexander.”

“Our plans were to become officers together. We didn’t say anything about becoming privates.”

“All right, but our plans changed. We have to be flexible.”

“Yes. But if we’re both privates, we’ve got no power whatsoever.”

“Who said anything about power? Who wants power?” Dimitri narrowed his eyes. “You?”

“I don’t want power,” Alexander said. “I want to be in a position to help us. You’ve got to admit, one of us being an officer gives us more options, more opportunity to get to where we need to be. I mean, if it were reversed and I flunked and you became an officer, I’d definitely want you to stay an officer. You could do so much for us.”

“Yes,” Dimitri said slowly, “but I didn’t become an officer, did I?”

“Just dumb luck, Dima,” Alexander said. “I’d think no more about it.”

“I’m hardly going to be able to help thinking about it,” said Dimitri, “since I’m about to become everybody’s shitting pot.”