Tatiana and Alexander (63 page)

When the doors opened, they were on American soil.

“Everything will be all right, Shura,” she whispered before they got out. “You’ll see.”

But when the summoned John Ravenstock, wearing black tie, came out of the embassy doors into the paved courtyard where they were standing, he was neither smiling nor friendly. Either he was always a serious man wearing a tuxedo or else he did not want to make a single gesture that could be interpreted as warm.

“Mr. Ravenstock, Sam Gulotta in Washington told us to come see you,” said Tatiana.

“Oh, believe me, I’ve been hearing quite a lot from everybody these past three days, including Sam, yes.” He sighed deeply. “Nurse Barrington, come with me. Have your husband wait here. Does he need a doctor?”

“Later,” she said, taking hold of Alexander’s hand. “Right now he needs to come in with us. We will speak privately if you wish and he will wait outside, but he has to come in. Or we speak now in front of him.”

Ravenstock shook his head. “You know,” he said, “it’s six in the evening. My working day finishes at four. I have a reception to go to tonight. My wife is waiting.”

“My husband is waiting,” Tatiana said quietly.

“Yes, yes. Your husband, your husband. But the working day is over! Come in, but I’m telling you, I can’t deal with this properly at the moment. I’m going to be egregiously late.”

They walked through the embassy doors and up the wide stairs to the second floor, to Ravenstock’s wood-paneled office. He called a guard to come and stay by Alexander in the waiting room and led Tatiana inside.
Tatiana turned to glance at Alexander, not wanting to leave him, but they were inside the American embassy, and it was better than leaving him in Soviet-occupied Berlin in an abandoned building. Alexander was already taking out his light and asking the guard for cigarettes.

“Please don’t sit down, we don’t have that kind of time,” said Ravenstock, closing the door. He was a heavy, gray-haired man in his fifties; he had a long sloping gray mustache and gray eyebrows that grew over his eyes.

Tatiana remained standing.

“Do you have any idea what kind of trouble you have caused?” said Ravenstock hotly. “You don’t, do you? Nurse Barrington, you are in Berlin by privilege! To abuse your Red Cross uniform and to so incite our former allies is pure folly. But I don’t have time to get into it right now.”

“Sir, the consulate office in United States will authorize the issuing of a passport to my husband—”

“Passport! Yes, Sam Gulotta has been in touch with me about this. Forget about a passport. We have a very big problem on our hands, a very tough situation, you do realize that, or no?”

“I realize—”

“No, I don’t think you do. The Commander of the Berlin garrison, the Soviet military administration in Germany, heck, the National Security Department in Moscow, have been completely overwrought about this matter!”

“The Commander of the Berlin garrison?” Tatiana said with surprise. “General Stepanov has been overwrought?”

“No, not him, he was replaced two days ago, by a Moscow man, a veteran general, Rymakov or something.”

Tatiana paled.

“And they are all in unison, crying for your blood!” He paused. “For you both. Your husband apparently broke every military and civil law on their books. He is a Soviet citizen, they say, a
major
in their army. First they accused him of treason, of espionage, of desertion, of anti-Soviet agitation, and when we said that we did not have him in our custody, they accused him of being an American spy! We asked if he was both, a traitor to them and a spy for us? We asked them to pick. They refused and upped the ante on you, too. You’ve been on their class enemies list since 1943, did you know that? You didn’t just escape apparently, you deserted your Red Army post as a military nurse, and you killed five of their border troops, including a decorated lieutenant, in order to get out of Russia. They told
me your brother is a…” Ravenstock scratched his head. “I can’t remember the word they used. Apparently a traitor of the worst kind.”

“My brother is dead,” said Tatiana, holding on to the back of a chair.

“Bottom line is, Nurse Barrington, they want you both extradited into their hands here in Berlin. So when you ask about a passport, you have no idea what you’re talking about. Now I really have to run, look, it’s six fifteen!”

Tatiana sat down in the chair in front of Ravenstock’s desk.

“I asked you not to sit!”

“Mr. Ravenstock,” she said calmly. “We have a small son in United States. I am U.S. citizen now. My husband is a U.S. citizen, he came to Russia with his parents when he was a small boy, he could not help that he had to register for compulsory draft, he could not help that his parents were shot and killed by the NKVD. Do you want me to read you the regulations on citizenship?”

“No, thank you. I know them by heart.”

“He is an American citizen. He wants to come back home.”

“I understand that’s what he
wants
, but do you understand that he has been convicted by the Soviet authorities under the laws of their country for desertion and treason? And just to make matters more complicated, not only has he escaped, which is a crime in itself, escaping just punishment, or so they tell me—and you colluded to help him, which is also a crime—but you and he cut a swathe through sixty of their men! They are
screaming
for your blood!” He glanced at his watch, ripping off his bow tie in frustration. “Oh, no. Oh, no. I can’t tell you how late you are making me.”

“Sir,” said Tatiana. “We desperately need your help.”

“Of course you do. But you should have thought of what you were doing before you embarked on this lunatic mission.”

“I came back to Europe to find my husband. He never meant to be Soviet. Not like me. I was Soviet-born, and Soviet-raised.” She swallowed. “But it doesn’t matter. I don’t matter in this, the only one who matters is my husband. If you talk to him you will find out he served on the side of the Allies honorably, you will see he was a great soldier who deserves to go back home. The U.S. Army would be proud to commission a man like my husband.” Tatiana’s voice did not tremble. “I was Soviet citizen. I did not kill those men on the Finnish border, but I did escape, they are right about that. You have every right, to turn me over to the Soviet authorities. I will willingly go, as long as I know my husband returns home where he belongs.”

She realized even as she was saying it how absurd it was, how ridiculous! As if Alexander would allow any scenario in which Tatiana would be handed over to the Soviets while he moseyed off safely home. She lowered her head, but couldn’t let Ravenstock know of her bluff. She raised her eyes.

Ravenstock sat on the edge of his desk and watched her. His body stopped fidgeting for a short spell until it remembered again it needed to be someplace else. He started fumbling with his torn-off tie. “Look, we are not in the business of judging our allies.” He fell quiet. “But the Soviets are proving themselves to be a determined and vicious force in the occupation of Europe. It’s true they do not want to make any concessions to the Allies. But you both did break a number of their laws. This is not in dispute.”

Tatiana remained mute, her intense gaze on Ravenstock.

The consul tapped nervously at his watch. “Nurse Barrington, I would
love
to sit here with you and discuss the merits and demerits of the Soviet Union, but you are making me
impossibly
late. I have to, I simply must resolve this matter, but I have to resolve it tomorrow.”

“Please telegraph Sam Gulotta,” she said. “He will give you all information on Alexander Barrington you need.”

Ravenstock lifted a heavy file off his desk. “A copy of that information is already in my hands. Tomorrow morning at eight sharp we will speak to your husband.”

“Who is we?” she breathed out.

“Myself, the ambassador, the military governor, and the three inspector generals of the armed forces here in Berlin. After he is questioned by our military, we will decide what to do. Be aware, though, that the army is very strict on military matters, be they pertaining to soldiers of our own army or someone else’s. Desertion, treason, these are grave charges. There is nothing graver.”

“What about me? Are you going to question
me
?”

Ravenstock rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I don’t think that will be necessary, Nurse Barrington. I’ve spoken to you plenty. Now, will you please stand up from my chair and go tend to your husband?”

They opened the door to his office. Alexander was sitting in the reception area, smoking.

Ravenstock came up to Alexander. “You will be questioned tomorrow, um—what is your rank now, anyway?” he said in English.

“Captain,” Alexander replied in English.

Ravenstock shook his head. “You say captain, they told us major, your wife says they took away your rank. I understand nothing. To
morrow at eight, Captain Belov.” He looked him over. “You may eat in the embassy canteen, or…”

“Brought up to the room will be fine,” said Alexander.

“A military man indeed.” Ravenstock mulled Alexander’s shredded, muddied, bloodied clothes. “Do you have anything else to wear?”

“No.”

“Tomorrow at seven, I will have housekeeping bring you a spare captain’s uniform from headquarters. Please be ready to be escorted to the conference room at seven fifty-five.”

“I’ll be ready.”

“You’re sure you don’t need someone to take a look at your injuries?”

“Thank you, I have someone.”

Ravenstock nodded. “See you tomorrow. Guard, please take them to the sixth-floor residences. Have housekeeping make up a room for them and bring them some dinner. You two must be starving.”

Their room was large, with wood floors, area rugs, three large windows and high ceilings. The ornate crown molding ran around the perimeter of the walls. There were comfortable chairs and a table and even a private bathroom. Alexander dropped all their things on the floor and sat in an upholstered chair. Tatiana walked around the room for a few minutes, looking at the pictures, at the crown molding, at the area rugs, at anything but Alexander.

“So how apoplectic are the Soviets?” he asked from behind her.

“Oh, you know,” she said, not turning around.

“I can imagine.”

“They replaced Stepanov with someone else,” Tatiana said, turning to him.

Alexander’s hands twitched. “He told me when he came to see me in February that he was surprised he had lasted as long as he had. Things are getting particularly nasty for the generals in the post-war Soviet army. Too many campaigns gone wrong, too many men lost, too much blame to lay.” He lowered his head.

“How did he know you were there?”

“He saw my name in the Special Camp rolls.”

“They wouldn’t let
me
look through the rolls.”

“You are not the military commander of the Soviet garrison in Berlin.”

Tatiana collapsed onto the window ledge and put her face into her hands. “What’s happening?” she said. “I thought the hard part was behind us. I thought this was going to be the easy part.”

“You thought this was going to be the easy part!” Alexander exclaimed. “What about our life has ever been easy? Did you think you would step onto American soil and they would welcome us with a reception?”

“No, but I thought after I explained it to Ravenstock—”

“Perhaps Ravenstock is not familiar with
all
your powers of persuasion, Tatiana,” said Alexander. “He is a consul, a diplomat. He follows orders and he has to do what’s best for the relations between the two countries.”

“Sam told me to ask for his help. He wouldn’t have—”

“Sam, Sam, and who is this Sam, and why do you think the NKGB will listen to him?”

She wrung her hands. “I knew it,” she said. “We should have never come here! We should have run north where they wouldn’t be expecting us. We should’ve taken a cargo boat to Sweden. Sweden would’ve given us asylum.”

“That’s the first I’m hearing of
this
plan, Tania.”

“We didn’t have time to think. Berlin, Berlin! Why would I ever have taken you to Berlin if I thought for a second we wouldn’t find help here?”

There was a knock on the door. They looked at each other. Alexander got up to answer it, but Tatiana pointed to the bathroom and said, no, go there, don’t come out, just in case.

It was housekeeping, with dinner and fresh towels.

“Do you have any cigarettes?” Tatiana asked, her voice cracking on every word. “I’ll pay you if you have a pack—or two maybe?” The girl returned with three packs.

“Alexander? Are you all right?” It had been so quiet in the bathroom and Tatiana had been waiting for the girl to come back and didn’t go get him, and it suddenly occurred to her that he could have hurt himself in there, and she ran to the door and pushed it open with such force, screaming, “ALEXANDER!” that she nearly knocked him off his feet.

“What’s the matter with you?” he said. “Why are you screaming?”

“I don’t—I…you were very quiet, I didn’t—”

He took the cigarettes from her hands.

“Look, they brought you food,” she said, quieter, showing him the food trays. “They brought steak.” She tried to smile. “When was the last time you had steak, Shura?”

“What’s steak?” he said, and tried to smile, too.

They sat down at the table and moved the food around on their plates. Tatiana drank water. Alexander drank water and smoked.

“It’s good, right?”

“It’s good.”

They moved it around some more, not looking at each other, not speaking. It got dark. Tatiana went to turn on the light.

“No, don’t,” he said.

The only light in the room was the short fuse of his cigarette, one after another.

Nothing was said, but there was no silence. Tatiana was screaming inside and she knew Alexander was smoking to mute his own screaming. To drown out hers.

Finally he said, “You learned English well.”

And she said, “I once had a very good teacher,” and started to cry.

“Shh,” he said, looking not at her but past her to the open window. “Russian is somehow easier for us, more familiar.”