The Bronze Horseman (91 page)

“I am, yes.”

“Absolutely, why not? So I went back to Colonel Stepanov and said, ‘Colonel, isn’t it fantastic that our wanton Alexander has finally found himself a
nice
girl, like our Nurse Metanova,’ and the colonel said he had been surprised himself that you got married in Molotov on your summer furlough and told no one.”

Alexander said nothing.

“Yes!” exclaimed Dimitri in a frank and cheerful manner. “I said that
was
quite surprising because I was your best friend, and even I didn’t know, and the colonel agreed that you were indeed a very secretive fellow, and I said, ‘
Oh, you have no idea, sir
.’ ”

Alexander looked away from Dimitri, sitting in the chair, and looked at the other soldiers lying on the beds. He wondered if he could get up. Could he get up? Walk around? What could he do?

Dimitri got up. “Listen, it’s great! I just wanted to say congratulations. I’m going to go find Tania now and congratulate her.”

Tatiana came to Alexander later that afternoon. After she fed him, she went to get a pail of warm water and some soap. “Tania, don’t carry that,” he said. “It’s too heavy for you.”

“Stop it,” she said, smiling. “I’m carrying your baby. You think a
backet
is too heavy for me?”

They didn’t speak much. Tatiana washed Alexander and shaved him with a razor and then dried his face. He kept his eyes closed so she wouldn’t see through him. Every once in a while Alexander smelled her warm breath on him, and every once in a while her lips touched his eyebrows or his fingers. He felt her stroking his face and heard her sigh.

“Shura,” she said heavily, “I saw Dimitri today.”

“Yes.” It was not a question.

“Yes.” She paused. “He was… he told me you told him we got married. He said he was happy for us…” She sighed. “I guess it was inevitable he was going to find out sooner or later.”

“Yes, Tatiana,” said Alexander. “We did as well as we could hiding ourselves from Dimitri.”

“Listen, I may be wrong, but he didn’t seem to have as much of his usual nervous tension. As if he really didn’t care about you and me anymore. What do you think?” she asked hopefully.

You think maybe this war has made him into a human being?
Alexander wanted to ask her.
You think this war is a school for humanity, and Dimitri is now ready to graduate with honors?
But then Alexander opened his eyes and saw Tatiana’s frightened expression. “I think you’re right,” he said quietly. “I don’t think he cares about you and me anymore.”

Tatiana cleared her throat and touched Alexander’s clean-shaven face. Leaning closer to him, she whispered, “Do you suppose you can get up soon? I don’t want to rush you. I saw you yesterday trying to get around. It’s painful for you to stand? Your back hurts? It’s healing, Shura. You’re doing great. As soon as you’re ready, we’ll go. And we’ll never have to see him again.”

Alexander looked at her for interminable minutes.

Before he opened his mouth, Tatiana said, “Shura, don’t worry. My eyes are open. I see Dimitri for what he is.”

“Do you?”

“Yes. Because like all of us, he, too, is the sum of his parts.”

“He cannot be redeemed, Tania. Not even by you.”

“You don’t think so?” She tried to smile.

Alexander squeezed her hand. “He is exactly what he wants to be. How can he be redeemed when he has constructed his life on what he believes is the only way to live it? Not your way, not my way,
his
way. He has built himself on lies and deceit, on manipulation and malice, on contempt for me and disrespect for you.”

“I know.”

“He has found himself a dark corner of the universe and wants us all there with him.”

“I know.”

“Be very careful with him, all right? And tell him nothing.”

“All right.”

“What would it take for you, Tatiana, to reject him, to turn your back on him? To say, I cannot take his hand because he does not want salvation. What?”

Her thoughts trickled out from her eyes. “Oh, he’ll
want
salvation, Shura. He’ll just have no hope of it.”

Walking with the help of a cane, Dimitri came to see Alexander the next day. This is becoming my life, Alexander thought. There is fighting across the river, there is healing in the next room, the generals are making plans, the trains are bringing food into Leningrad, the Germans are slaughtering us from Sinyavino Heights, Dr. Sayers is getting ready to leave the Soviet Union, Tatiana sits with the terminal soldiers, growing life inside her, and I lie here in my crib and get my bedding changed and watch the world rush by me. Watch my minutes rush by me. Alexander was so fed up that he pulled back his covers and got out of bed. He stood up and began unhooking his IV bag when Ina ran up and laid him back down, muttering that he’d better never try that again. “Or I’ll tell Tatiana,” she whispered, leaving Alexander alone with Dimitri, who sank down in the chair.

“Alexander, I need to talk to you. Are you strong enough to listen?”

“Yes, Dimitri, I’m strong enough to listen,” said Alexander, with a supreme effort turning his head in Dimitri’s direction. He could not meet his eyes.

“Listen, I really am sincerely happy that you and Tania got married. I’m past bad feeling. Honestly. But, Alexander, as you know, there is one thing that’s left unfinished with us.”

“Yes,” Alexander replied.

“Tania, she’s very good, she keeps her composure well. I think I’ve underestimated her. She is less of a pushover than I first thought.”

Dimitri had no idea.

“I know you two are planning something. I know it. I feel it in my heart. I tried to get her to talk to me. She kept saying she didn’t know what I was talking about. But I know!” Dimitri sounded excited. “I know
you
, Alexander Barrington, and so I’m asking you if perhaps there is room for little old me in your plans.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Alexander steadfastly, thinking, there was once a time I had no one else to trust but this man. I put my life in this man’s hands. “Dimitri, I have no plans.”

“Hmm. Yes. But you see, I understand so many things now,” Dimitri said with an unctuous smile. “Tatiana is the reason you’ve been dragging your feet on running.” He paused. “Wanted to work out a way to run with her? Or didn’t want to desert and leave her behind? Either way I don’t blame you.” He cleared his throat. “But now I say we all must go together.”

“We don’t have any plans,” said Alexander. “But if something changes, I will let you know.”

An hour later Dimitri limped back, but this time with Tatiana. He sat her down in the chair while he hunkered down close to them on his haunches. “Tania, I need you to talk some sense into your wounded husband,” Dimitri said. “Explain to him that all I want is for you two to get me out of the Soviet Union. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. To get out of the Soviet Union. I’m getting very jittery, very nervous, you see, because I can’t take the chance that you two will run off and leave me here. In the middle of war. You understand?”

Alexander and Tatiana said nothing.

Alexander looked at his blanket. Tatiana stared straight at Dimitri. And it was when he saw Tania looking unflinchingly at Dimitri that Alexander felt stronger and stared at Dimitri, too.

“Tania, I’m on your side,” Dimitri said, “I don’t want any harm to come either to you or to Alexander. Just the opposite.” He smiled. “I wish you the best of luck. It’s so hard for two people to find happiness. I know. I’ve tried. That you two somehow managed—I don’t know how—is a miracle. Now all I want is a chance for myself. I just want you to help me.”

“Self-preservation,” said Alexander, “as an inalienable right.”

“What?” said Dimitri.

“Nothing,” replied Alexander.

Tatiana said, “Dimitri, I really don’t know what this has to do with
me
.”

“Why,
everything
, dearest Tanechka, why, it’s got everything in the world to do with you. Unless, of course, it’s the smooth, healthy American doctor you’re planning to run away with and not your injured husband. You’ve been making plans to go with Sayers when he returns to Helsinki, haven’t you?”

No one spoke.

“I don’t have time for these games,” Dimitri snapped coldly, rising to his feet and leaning on his cane. “Tania, I’m talking to you. Either you take me with
you
or I’m afraid I’m going to have to keep Alexander here in the Soviet Union with
me
.”

Her hand still in Alexander’s, Tatiana sat stoically in her chair and then looked at Alexander and raised her shoulders to form a faint question.

Alexander squeezed her hand so hard that she emitted a tiny cry.

“There, there,” exclaimed Dimitri. “That’s the moment I want to see. She convinces you, miraculously seeing everything. Tatiana, how do you do that? How do you have such an uncanny ability to see everything? Your husband, who’s got less of that ability, struggles against you but in the end gives in because he knows it’s the only way.”

Alexander and Tatiana didn’t say a word. He relaxed his hold on her hand, which remained nested in his.

Dimitri folded his arms and waited. “I’m not leaving here until I hear an answer. Tania, what do you say? Alexander has been my friend for six years. I care for both of you. I don’t want any trouble.” Dimitri rolled his eyes. “Believe me—I
hate
trouble. All I want is to have a small portion of what you are planning for yourselves. That’s not too much to ask, is it? I want a tiny piece of it. Don’t you feel you’ll be selfish, Tania, if you don’t allow me a chance for a new life, too? Come on, now—you, who gave away your oatmeal to a starving Nina Iglenko last year, surely you aren’t going to deny me so little when”—and here he looked at her and Alexander—”you have so much?”

Pain and anger tripping over each other in their race to his already embattled heart, Alexander said, “Tania, don’t listen to him. Dimitri, leave her alone. This is between us. This has nothing to do with her.” Dimitri was quiet. Tatiana was quiet, her fingers rubbing the inside of Alexander’s palm, thoughtfully, intently, rhythmically. She opened her mouth to speak. “Don’t say a
word
, Tatiana,” said Alexander.

“Say the word, Tatiana,” Dimitri said. “It’s up to you. But please, let me hear your answer. Because I don’t have much time.”

Alexander watched Tatiana rise to her feet. “Dimitri,” Tatiana said without blinking, “woe to him who is alone when he falls, for he has not another to pick him up.”

Dimitri shrugged. “By that I take it to mean that you—” He broke off. “What? What are you saying? Is that a yes or a no?”

Her hand holding Alexander’s tightly, Tatiana said, barely audible, “My husband made you a promise. And he always keeps his word.”

“Yes!” Dimitri exclaimed, springing to her. Alexander watched Tatiana pull sharply away.

Tatiana spoke softly. “Every kindness is repaid by good people,” she said. “Dimitri, I will tell you of our plans later. But you need to be ready at a moment’s notice. Understand?”

“I’m ready this moment,” Dimitri said with excitement. “And I mean that. I want to leave as soon as possible.” He extended his left hand to Alexander, who turned his face away, still holding on to Tatiana. He had no intention of shaking hands with Dimitri.

It was a pale Tatiana who brought their hands together. “It’s all right,” she said, her voice quavering slightly. “It’ll be all right.”

Dimitri left.

“Shura, what could we do?” Tatiana said while feeding him. “It will have to work. It changes things a little bit. But not much. We’ll figure it out.”

Alexander turned his gaze to her.

She nodded. “He wants to survive more than anything else. You told me so yourself.”

But what did you tell
me
, Tatiana? thought Alexander. What did you tell
me
up on the roof of St. Isaac’s under the black Leningrad sky?

“We’ll take him. He’ll leave us alone. You’ll see. Just please get better soon.”

“Let’s go, Tania,” said Alexander. “Tell Dr. Sayers that whenever he’s ready to leave, I’ll make myself ready.”

Tatiana left.

A day passed.

Dimitri returned.

He sat down in the chair next to Alexander, who did not look his way. He was staring into the middle distance, into the long distance, into the short distance of his brown wool blanket, trying to recall the last name of the Moscow residence hotel he had lived in with his mother and father. The hotel kept regularly changing names. It had been a source of confusion and hilarity for Alexander, who was now deliberately focusing his mind away from Tatiana and away from the person sitting in the chair not a meter away from him. Oh, no, thought Alexander, with a stab of pain.

He remembered the last name of the hotel.

It was
Kirov.

Dimitri cleared his throat. Alexander waited.

“Alexander, can we talk? This is very important.”

“It’s all important,” stated Alexander. “All I do is talk. What?”

“It’s about Tatiana.”

“What about her?” Alexander stared at his IV. How long would it take him to disconnect it? Would he bleed? He looked around the ward. It was just after lunch, and the other wounded were either sleeping or reading. The shift nurse was sitting by the door reading herself. Alexander wondered where Tatiana was. He didn’t need the IV. Tatiana kept it on him to force him to remain in the critical ward, to keep his bed. No. Don’t think about Tatiana. Pulling himself up, Alexander sat upright against the wall.

“Alexander, I know how you feel about her—”

“Do you?”

“Of course—”

“Somehow I doubt it. What about her?”

“She is sick.”

Alexander said nothing.

“Yes. Sick. You don’t know what I know. You don’t see what I see. She is a ghost walking around this hospital. She is fainting constantly. The other day she lay in a faint in the snow for I don’t know how long. A lieutenant had to get her up. We brought her to Dr. Sayers. She put on a brave face—”

“How do you know she was in the snow?”

“I heard the story. I hear everything. Also I see her in the terminal ward. She holds on to the wall when she walks. She told Dr. Sayers she was not getting enough food.”