The Bronze Horseman (50 page)

Believe me when I tell you I think of you every minute of every day.

Until I see you again, I remain distantly

Yours,

Alexander

Tatiana wore the helmet. She used the soap. She waited in the doorways. But for some reason all she could think about with a peculiar and prolonged aching, as she didn’t take off her felt boots, her felt hat, and her quilted coat, which Mama had made in the days when there was a sewing machine, was Alexander being wet all day and night in his uniform on the icy Ladoga.

THERE
was no longer any denying that what was happening to Leningrad was nothing like what they could have ever imagined.

Marina’s mother died.

Mariska died.

Anton died.

The shelling continued. The bombing continued. There were fewer incendiaries falling, and Tatiana knew this because there were fewer fires, and she knew this because as she walked to Fontanka, there were fewer places for her to stand and warm her hands.

As she was making her way to the store one November morning, Tatiana noticed two dead people lying in the street. On the way back two hours later there were seven. They weren’t injured, and they weren’t wounded. They were just dead. She made the sign of the cross as she walked past them, stopped and thought, what did I just do? Did I make the
sign of the cross
on dead people? But I live in Communist Russia. Why would I do that? She made the sign of the hammer and sickle as she slowly walked on.

There was no place for God in the Soviet Union. In fact, God clearly went against the principles by which they all lived their lives: faith in work, in living together, in protecting the state against nonconformist individuals, in Comrade Stalin. In school, in newspapers, on the radio, Tatiana heard that God was the great oppressor, the loathsome tyrant who had kept the Russian worker from realizing his full potential for centuries. Now, in post-Bolshevik Russia, God was just another roadblock in the way of the new Soviet man. The Communist man could not have an allegiance to God because that would mean his first allegiance was to something other than the state. And nothing could come before the state. Not only would the state provide for the Soviet people, but it also would feed them and it would give them jobs and protect them from the enemy. Tatiana had heard that in kindergarten, and through nine years of school and in the
Young Pioneer
classes she attended when she was nine. She became a Pioneer because she had no choice, but when it was time for her to join the
Young Komsomols
in her last year of school, she refused. Not because of God necessarily, but just because. Somewhere deep inside, Tatiana had always thought she would not make a very good Communist. She liked Mikhail Zoshchenko’s stories too much.

As a child in Luga, Tatiana had known some religious women who were always trying to get their hands on her, to baptize her, to teach her, to make her believe. She would run from them, hiding behind the lilac tree in the neighbors’ garden, and watch them shuffle down the village road, but not before they made airy crosses on her with benevolent smiles on their faces, every once in a while lovingly calling out to her,
Tatia, Tatia
.

Tatiana made another sign of the cross, this time on herself. Why was that so conspicuously comforting?

It’s as if I’m not alone
.

She went to sit inside the church across the street from her building. Do churches ever get bombed? she wondered. Did St. Paul’s in London get bombed? If the Germans couldn’t be smart enough to destroy the magnificently conspicuous St. Paul’s, how were they ever going to find the little church she was in? She felt safer.

At the post office Tatiana had to step over a dead man to get inside. He had died on the doorstep. “How long has he been here?” she asked the postmaster.

Toothlessly he grinned. “I’ll tell you for another cracker.”

“I don’t want to know that badly,” she replied, “but I’ll give you a cracker anyway.”

In the dark no one could see what was happening to their bodies. No one could
face
what was happening to their bodies either. Dasha removed all the mirrors from their rooms and from the kitchen. No one wanted to catch even an accidental glimpse of themselves. They stopped looking at one another. No one wanted to catch even an accidental glimpse of someone they loved.

To hide her own body from herself and everyone else, Tatiana wore a flannel undershirt, a flannel shirt, her own wool sweater, Pasha’s wool sweater, a pair of heavy stockings, long trousers, a skirt over them, and her quilted winter coat. She took off her coat to sleep.

Dasha mentioned that she had lost her breasts, and Marina said, breasts? I don’t have a mother anymore, and you’re talking about breasts? Wouldn’t you trade breasts for your mother? I would. And Dasha apologized, but in the kitchen she broke down crying and said, “I want my breasts back, Tanechka.”

Tatiana gently rubbed Dasha’s back. “Come on, now,” she said. “Courage, Dasha. We’re not doing too badly. Look, we have some oatmeal left. Go inside. I’ll make you some.”

After Aunt Rita died, Marina still went out every morning to university, even though, as she told Tatiana, the professors taught nothing, there were no books and no lectures. But there was some heat, and Marina could sit in the library for a few hours until she could go to the canteen and get her clear soup.

“I hate soup,” Marina said. “Hate it now. It’s so meaningless.”

“It’s not meaningless. It’s hot water,” said Tatiana, as she crouched beside her dwindling bag of sugar. They still had some barley left. “Don’t touch the barley,” she said. “It will be our dinner for the next month.”

“There is hardly a cupful in the bag!” Marina exclaimed in disbelief.

“It’s a good thing you can’t eat it raw,” Tatiana said. But she was wrong. The next day there was less barley in the bag.

The leaflets rained down as they had in Luga. First the leaflets, then the bombs. The difference was, there had been food then, and it was warm. The difference was, back then Tatiana had believed in many things. She had believed she would find Pasha. She had believed the war would soon be over. She had believed Comrade Stalin.

Nowadays she believed in only one faint but immutable thing.

In one immutable man.

Now the leaflets that rained down from the Luftwaffe planes proclaimed to her in Russian:
Women! Wear your white dresses. Wear your white dresses so when you walk along Suvorovsky to get your 250 grams of bread, we can see you from 200 meters in the sky, and not shoot you and not throw bombs your way.

Wear your white dress and live, Tatiana!
was what the leaflets shouted to her.

Tatiana saved one, a few days before the twenty-fourth celebration of the Russian Revolution on November 7. She brought it home and carelessly dropped it on the table. There it stayed until the next day, when Alexander returned, thinner than he had been two weeks earlier, his face more gaunt. Gone was the twinkling glance, gone was the perpetual smile, gone the charm and the liveliness. Gone.

What was left was a man who hugged Dasha and even Mama, who hugged him back and said, “Good to see you, dearest. Good to see you. We can’t bear to think about you in that wet and cold.”

“It’s drier, but not much warmer here,” said the man, who hugged Babushka standing against the wall in the hallway, because she could not stand unsupported anymore, and who pecked Marina on the cheek, and who, when he turned to Tatiana standing awkwardly by the door, holding on to the brass handle, could not bring himself to come over and
touch
her. Couldn’t, despite the fact that his dark eyes lingered on her. He waved to her. That was something. Waved, turned and walked inside the room, put down his rifle, took off his heavy coat, sat, and asked for his soap. The girls twittered around him. Dasha brought him a piece of bread, which he swallowed whole. Marina stared at the bread before he ate it.

“It’s Revolution Day tomorrow, Alexander. Will there be a little extra to celebrate with?” Dasha asked.

“I’ll get you some food when I go back to the barracks. I’ll bring some tomorrow, all right?”

“What about now? Do you have anything now?”

“I came straight from the front, Dasha. I have nothing today.”

Tatiana stepped forward. “Alexander, do you want a cup of tea? I’ll make you some.”

“Yes, please.”

“
I’ll
make it!” barked Dasha, and disappeared.

Taking out a cigarette, Alexander lit it and offered it to Tatiana. “Have a smoke,” he said quietly. “Go ahead.”

Shaking her head, Tatiana looked at him, puzzled. “You know I don’t smoke.”

“I know,” Alexander said. “But it’ll lessen your appetite.” He paused. “What? What are you looking at me like that for?” He smiled faintly. “Keep looking,” he whispered.

Staring at him with her clear, affectionate eyes, Tatiana couldn’t help herself. She placed her glove-clad hand on the back of his uniform and patted him softly. “Shura,” she whispered, “you’re still months behind us, aren’t you? I
have
no appetite.” She took her hand away. He put the cigarette into his own mouth.

Standing behind Alexander, Babushka and Marina watched them. Tatiana didn’t care. His face was to her. Marina said, coming up to them, “Alexander, offer me a cigarette, why don’t you? To lessen
my
appetite.”

Taking the cigarette out of his mouth, Alexander handed it to Marina, who took it and said to Tatiana, “Are you sure you don’t want a smoke? It’s just been in his mouth, Tania.”

Alexander looked from Marina to Tatiana with a tired, slightly bemused expression. “Marinka,” he said, “have the cigarette and leave Tania alone.”

Picking up the Nazi leaflet off the table, he said, “To celebrate the glorious revolution, Leningrad Party chief Zhdanov is trying to get a couple of tablespoons of sour cream for the children. There might be—”

He stopped talking. Reading the leaflet more carefully, he said, “What’s this?”

“Oh, nothing,” said Tatiana, stepping closer to the table. Marina had sat down. Babushka continued to stand against the wall. Tatiana opened her coat and showed Alexander the white dress with the red roses she was wearing underneath.

Alexander paled. “Is that
your
dress?” he asked, his voice breaking.

Only Tatiana stood in front of Alexander, and only Tatiana could see what his eyes were filled with. Stepping away from him, she shook her head at him imperceptibly, to say,
no, stop, this room is too small for us, stop
.

“Yes, that’s my dress,” Tatiana said, looking at the dress hanging off her. She closed her coat.

Dasha came through, shutting the door behind her with her foot. “Alex, here, have some tea. It’s weak, but tea is something we still have. Not much else, mind you, not much—” She broke off. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.” Alexander looked back down at the leaflet. “What’s this?”

Dasha looked at Marina quizzically, and Marina just shrugged as if to say,
I’ll be damned if I know.

Tatiana remained standing. “That’s why I’m wearing a white dress,” she said to Alexander. “To avoid being hit.”

Alexander shot up from his seat so fast that he spilled the hot tea all over himself. Holding the leaflet, he banged his fist hard on the table. “Are you crazy?” he yelled at Tatiana. “Have you lost your mind?”

Dasha grabbed him by the sleeve. “Alexander, are
you
crazy? What are you shouting at her for?”

“Tania!” he yelled again, taking a lunging step toward her. Tatiana did not back away; she blinked.

Dasha got between them, pushing Alexander away. “Sit down, what’s the matter with you? Why are you shouting?”

Alexander sat down, never taking his eyes off Tatiana, who reached behind the sofa, got an old rag, came to the table, and started wiping up the spilled tea.

“Tania,” Dasha said, “don’t come so close to him. Or in a minute he’ll—”

“In a minute I’ll
what,
Dasha?” Alexander said.

“Forget it, Dash,” Tatiana said quietly. Picking up the empty teacup, she started toward the door.

Alexander grabbed her arm. “Tania, put the cup down and go change your dress.” He didn’t let go of her arm, but added, “Please.”

Tatiana put the cup down.

“Tania,” said Alexander, his eyes boring into her. How she wished he would stop holding her arm and looking at her. “Tania, do you know what the Germans did in Luga? You were there, didn’t you see? They rained these leaflets down on the volunteer women and young girls, who were digging the trenches and potatoes. Wear your white dresses and white shawls, they said, and we’ll know you’re civilian women and we’ll avoid shooting at you. The women said, oh, all right, and happily went to change and put on their best whites, and the Germans, as they were flying overhead, saw their dresses from 300 meters in the sky and slaughtered them all right there in the trenches. It made targeting them so much easier.”

Tatiana pulled her arm from him.

“Now, go and change. Put on something brown. And warm.” Alexander got up. “I’ll make my own tea.” Looking at Dasha, he added coldly, “And, Dasha, do me a favor—don’t ever confuse me with anyone who has hurt your sister.”

“Can you stay?” Dasha asked.

He shook his head. “Have to report to the garrison by nine.”

They ate soup with a bit of cabbage leaf. Black bread as heavy as brick, a few tablespoons of buckwheat kernels, and some unsweetened tea. They gave Alexander a shot of their precious vodka. He went and found wood in the basement and made a nice fire. It got warm in the room. How remarkable, Tatiana thought.

Alexander was at the table, with Dasha on one side and Mama on the other and Marina standing behind him. Babushka remained on the couch. And Tatiana was in the farthest corner, looking into her beige tea. Everyone was around Alexander, except for her. She couldn’t even get close.