The Bronze Horseman (51 page)

“Alexander?” Mama asked. “Dear, it must be so hard for you at the front thinking about food all the time, like us.”

“Irina Fedorovna,” said Alexander, “I’ll tell you a little secret.” He bent his head to her. “When I’m at the front, I don’t think about food at all.”

Rubbing his arm, Mama spoke again. “Is there any way you can get my girls out of Leningrad? We’re almost out of food.”

Shaking his head and trying to disentangle himself from the women, Alexander said, “It’s impossible. Anyway, you know that I’m not on the Ladoga command. I’m below on the Neva, bombing the German positions across the river in Shlisselburg.” He shuddered. “They’re just relentless. But besides, the lake is not frozen over yet, and the barges—There are over two million civilians in Leningrad, and only a few thousand have been evacuated by barge out of the city, all of them children with their mothers.”

“We are also children with our mothers,” said Dasha.

“
Small
children with their mothers,” Alexander corrected himself. “All of you work—who is going to let you go? You and Dasha are making uniforms for the army,” he said to Mama, patting her. “Tania works in the hospital. How are you doing there, Tania?” His eyes were on her. She had moved near the window, away from the dining table.

Tatiana shrugged. “Today I sewed forty-two sacks. Still wasn’t enough—seventy-eight people died. Mama, I wish I could bring a sewing machine home for you.”

Mama turned around and glared at Babushka on the couch, who said in a defeated voice, “You used to like the potatoes I brought, daughter. Now I have nothing to give you.”

“Tomorrow,” said Alexander, “I will bring potatoes from the army store. I’ll bring you a little white flour. I’ll bring you everything I can. But I can’t get you out. Did you hear about the gunboat
Konstructor
? It was crossing Ladoga with women and children on board, headed around the Ladoga horn to Novaya Ladoga, and it was hit. The captain avoided one bomb. The second one sank his ship, drowning all 250 people.”

Dasha declared, “I would rather take my chances here in Leningrad than die in the cold sea like that.”

“How have you all been holding up?” Alexander said. “Marina, are you hanging in there?”

“Barely,” Marina said. “Look at us all.”

“You’ve looked better,” Alexander agreed, glancing at Tatiana, who said emptily, without glancing at him, “Anton died. Last week.”

“Yes,” said Dasha. “Maybe now Nina will stop coming around asking you for food for him.”

“I’m sorry Anton died, Tania,” Alexander said. “You’re not giving away your food, are you?”

Tatiana didn’t reply. “Have you heard from Dimitri?” she asked, changing the subject. “We haven’t heard a word.”

Lighting a cigarette and shaking his head, Alexander said, “Dimitri is in the Volkhov Hospital fighting for his life. I’m sure he doesn’t have the energy to write.” He and Tatiana glanced at each other.

The air-raid siren sounded. Alexander looked around the table. No one moved. “Does anyone go down to the shelter anymore, or has Tania corrupted each and every one of you?” he asked over the shrill wailing sound.

Wrapping her cardigan tighter around herself, Dasha replied, “Marina and I still go every once—”

“Tania, when was the last time you went to the shelter?” interrupted Alexander.

Tatiana shrugged. “I went just last week,” she said. “I sat next to a woman who wasn’t speaking to me. I struck up a conversation three times until I realized she was dead. And not
recently
dead either.” Tatiana raised her eyebrows.

“Tania, tell the truth,” said Dasha. “You were there for five seconds, and the bombing went on that night for three hours. And when was the time before that?”

“September,” said Mama casually, getting up and going to get her sewing.

“Mama, you know what? You’re a fine one to talk,” exclaimed Dasha. “You haven’t been there since September either.”

“I have work to do. I’m trying to make extra money. You should do the same.”

“I do, Mama! I just take my sewing to the bomb shelter.”

“Yes, and I saw what you did to that uniform—attaching the arm upside down. Can’t sew in the near-dark, Dasha.”

While they were bickering, Tatiana watched Alexander, and he watched Tatiana.

“Tania,” he asked, “you haven’t taken off your gloves all night. Why? It’s so warm in the room. Stop standing by the window where it’s cold. Come and sit down with us.”

“Oh, Alexander!” Marina exclaimed, putting her arm around him. “You’re not going to believe what your Tanechka did last week.”

“What did she do?” he asked, turning to Marina.

Dasha stepped in with, “
Your
Tanechka? No, Alexander, we mean, you
really
won’t believe it.”

“
I
want to tell it.” Marina was petulant.

“
Somebody
tell it,” said Alexander.

Tatiana groaned. “Do I
have
to stay for this?” she said, walking over to the table and collecting the cups. “Maybe Alexander can throw some more wood on the fire.”

He immediately rose and went to the stove, saying, “I can throw wood on the fire
and
listen.”

Dasha continued for Marina. “Last Saturday, Marinka and I were coming back from the public canteen on Suvorovsky. We had left Tania in the room,
we
thought peacefully sleeping, but as we’re coming back, Kostia from the second floor is running toward us on the street, yelling, ‘Hurry, your sister is on fire! Your sister is on fire!’ ”

Alexander came back to the table and sat down. His eyes were still on her, but Tatiana had noticed they had become considerably less warm.

“Tania, dear, why don’t you tell Alexander the rest?” Dasha said. “I think it would be more fun coming from you. Tell him what happened.”

Tatiana, her hair short, her eyes sunken, her frame withered away, her arms full of her family’s dishes, said, “Nothing happened.”

“Why don’t you tell me, Tatiana?” said Alexander, glaring at her.

She tutted and stared at Marina with disapproval. “Kostia is too small to be on the roof by himself. I went up to help him. A very small incendiary exploded, and he couldn’t put the fire out by himself. I helped him, that’s all.”

“You went out onto the roof?” Alexander said quietly.

“Just for an hour,” she said, trying to be jovial, shrugging a little, managing a smile. “It was really nothing. There was a small fire. I used the sand, and in five minutes put it out. Kostia is a hysteric.” She glared at Marina. “And he’s not the only one.”

“Really, Tania?” Dasha exclaimed. “Don’t keep giving Marina the evil eye. A hysteric? Why don’t you take off your gloves and show Alexander your hands.”

Alexander was mute.

Tatiana moved toward the door with her load. “Like he wants to see my hands.”

“You know what?” Alexander said, standing up. “I don’t want to see anything. I’m leaving. I’m late.”

He grabbed his rifle, his coat, his rucksack and was out the door without even brushing past Tatiana.

After he left, Dasha looked at Tatiana, at Marina, at Mama, at Babushka. “What was wrong with
him
?” she asked wearily.

No one spoke for a moment.

From the couch Babushka said, “Much, much fear.”

“Marinka,” said Tatiana, “why? You know he worries about all of us endlessly. Why worry him further with nonsense? I’m fine on that roof, and my hands will be fine, too.”

“Tania is right! And what did you mean by
‘your’
Tanechka anyway?” Dasha demanded, whirling round to Marina.

“Yes, Marina, what
did
you mean?” asked Tatiana, looking angrily at her cousin, who replied that it was just a figure of speech.

“Yes, a stupid figure of speech,” said Dasha.

That night Tatiana dreamed that she did not sleep, that the night lasted all year, and that in the dark his fingers found her.

In the early morning there was a knock on the door as she was getting up. It was Alexander. He had brought them two kilos of black bread and a cupful of buckwheat kernels. Everyone besides Tatiana was still in bed. He waited for her in the kitchen with his arms crossed and his eyes cold while she brushed her teeth over the kitchen sink. He mentioned that the toilet smelled worse than ever. Tatiana was beyond noticing.

She was already dressed. She slept dressed.

“Shura,” Tatiana said, “don’t go out now. It’s so cold. I can carry a kilo of bread. I think I can still do that. Give me your ration card, I’ll get yours, too.”

“Oh, Tatiana,” Alexander said, “the day has not come when you’ll be getting my rations.”

“Really?” she snapped, moving toward him so quickly that he actually backed away a step. “If you can go to the front, Alexander—”

“Like I have any choice—”

“Like
I
have any choice. I can get your rations for you. Now, give me your card.”

“No,” he said. “Let me get your coat. How are your hands?”

“They’re fine,” she said, showing them. She wanted him to take hold of them, to touch them, but he didn’t. He just stared at her with the same cold eyes.

They went out into the bitterness together. It was minus ten degrees. At seven o’clock the skies were still dark, and there was a shrieking wind that got underneath Tatiana’s coat and into her ears, whistling its Arctic lament for ten blocks to the store. Inside the store was better, and there were only thirty people ahead of them. It might take only forty minutes this time, Tatiana thought.

“Amazing, isn’t it?” Alexander said, his voice tinged with barely suppressed anger. “That here it is
November
, and you’re still doing this by yourself.”

Tatiana didn’t reply. She was too sleepy to reply. She shrugged, pulling her scarf tighter around her head.

Alexander said, “Why do you do this? Dasha is perfectly capable of going. At the very least she can come with you. Marina, too. Why do you continue to go alone?”

Tatiana didn’t know what to say. First she was too cold, and her teeth were chattering. After a few minutes she warmed up, but her teeth were still chattering, and she thought, why
do
I go on my own, during air raids, and cold, and dark? Why don’t we ever switch? “Because if Marina goes, she eats the rations on the way home. Because Mama sews every morning. Because Dasha does laundry. Who am I going to send? Babushka?”

Alexander didn’t reply, but the anger didn’t leave his face.

Tatiana touched his coat. He moved away. “Why are you upset with me?” she asked. “Because I went out onto the roof?”

“Because you don’t—” He broke off. “Because you don’t listen to me.” He sighed. “I’m not upset with you, Tatia. I’m angry at
them
.”

“Don’t be,” she said. “It all just happened this way. I’d rather be out here than washing laundry.”

“Oh, because Dasha is washing laundry so often? You could be sleeping late six days a week like she is.”

“Listen, she is having a hard time with all this. I started going—”

“You started going because they told you to, and you said all right. They said, oh, and can you cook for us, too, and you said all right, broken leg and all.”

“Alexander, what are you upset about? That I do what they tell me to? I also do what you tell me to.”

Gritting his teeth, he said, “You do what I tell you to? Are you off the fucking roof? Are you in the shelter? Have you stopped giving your food to Nina? Yes, you do what I tell you.”

“You think I listen to them
more
?” Tatiana said incredulously. It wasn’t their turn yet. A dozen people still ahead of them in line. A dozen people listening to them. “I thought you said you weren’t upset with me?”

“I’m not upset about
that
. You want to know what I’m upset about?”

“Yes,” she said tiredly. She didn’t really.

“Everything they ask of you, you do.”

“So?”

“Everything,” he said. “They say, go, you say, all right. They say, give me, you say, how much? They say, go away, you say, fine. They hit you, you defend them. They say, I want your bread, I want your milk, I want your tea, I want your—”

Suddenly seeing where he was going, Tatiana tried to stop him. “No, no,” she said, shaking her head. “No, don’t.”

Through clamped teeth, trying to keep his voice quiet, Alexander continued. “They say, he’s mine, and you say, all right, all right, he’s yours, of course, take him. Nothing matters to me at all. Not me, not my food, not my bread, not my life, and not him either,
nothing
matters to me.” He brought his face very close to hers and whispered angrily, “I, Tatiana, fight for
nothing
.”

“Oh, Alexander,” Tatiana said, looking at him with intense reproach.

They fell silent until they got their rations. Alexander received potatoes, carrots, bread, soya milk and butter. And sour cream.

On the street he carried the bag with the food, and she walked mutely beside him. He was walking too fast; she couldn’t keep up. First Tatiana slowed down, and when she saw that he did not shorten his stride, she stopped.

Turning around, Alexander barked, “What?”

“You go ahead,” Tatiana said. “Go ahead home. I can’t walk that fast. I’ll be along.”

He came back and gave her his arm. “Let’s go,” he said. “To celebrate our Russian Revolution, the Germans are going to start bombing in a few minutes, and mark my words, they will not end until late tonight.”

Tatiana took his arm. She wanted to cry, and she wanted to keep up, and she wanted not to be cold. Snow seeped inside her ripped boots that were tied together with twine. Sorrow seeped inside her ripped heart that was tied together with twine.

They trod through the snow looking at their feet.

“I didn’t give you away, Shura,” Tatiana said finally.

“No?” There was so much bitterness in his voice.

“How can you do that? How can you turn the right thing I did for my sister into a tragic flaw on my part? You should be ashamed of yourself.”

“I
am
ashamed of myself,” he said.

She held on tighter to his arm. “You’re supposed to be the strong one. I don’t see you fighting for me.”