The Bronze Horseman (81 page)

While he was drying and dressing, Tatiana went outside into the kitchen and made him dinner, cooking him almost all the food she had—potatoes, carrots, and a bit of pork meat—and then took him into the bedroom and breathlessly sat by him on the couch, watching him eat. “I’m not hungry,” she said. “I ate at the hospital. Eat, darling, eat.”

During their senseless, sleepless night, Tatiana told Alexander about everything Dimitri had told her—the
NKVD
general, Lisiy Nos, and the other allusions. Alexander stared at the ceiling. “Are you waiting for me to answer you before you ask me?”

“No,” Tatiana said. “I’m not asking you anything.” She was lying in his arms, playing with his wedding ring.

“I’m not talking to you about Dimitri here.”

“That’s fine.”

“Because the walls have ears.” Alexander banged loudly on the wall with his fist.

“Well, then, they’ve already heard everything.”

He kissed her forehead. “Everything else he told you—about me—it’s not true.”

“I know.” She laughed lightly. “But, Shura, tell me, how many knocking joints are there in Leningrad, and why would you have to go to all of them?”

“Tania, look at me.”

She gazed at him.

“It’s not true. I—”

“Shura, darling—I
know.
” She kissed his chest and covered them both up with two wool blankets. “There is only one thing true nowadays, Alexander.”

“Only one,” he whispered, staring at her intensely in the dark. “Oh, Tatia.”

“Shh.”

“Do you have a picture of yourself here? A picture I can take with me?”

“Tomorrow I’ll find you one. I’m afraid to ask. When are you leaving?”

“Sunday.”

Her heart squeezed shut. “So soon.”

“My commander puts his head on the butcher block every time he lets me have special leave.”

“He is a nice man. Thank him for me.”

“Tatiana, someday I will have to explain to you the concept of keeping a promise. You see, when you
give
your word, you have to
keep
your word.” He was stroking her hair.

“I know what keeping a promise means.”

“No, you only know what
making
a promise means,” Alexander said. “You are very good at making the promise. It’s
keeping
the promise you have a problem with. You promised me you would stay in Lazarevo.”

Thoughtfully Tatiana said, “I promised because that’s what you wanted me to do.” She squeezed tighter into the crook of his arm. “You didn’t give me much choice.” She couldn’t lie close enough to him. “At the point you were asking for my promise, I would have promised you anything.” Under his arm was no good. She climbed on top of him. “And did.” She kissed him softly. “You wanted me to promise. I promised. I always do what you want me to do.”

His hands tenderly moving down her back, Alexander said, “No, you always do as you please. You certainly
make
the right noises.”

“Mmm,” she said, rubbing herself into him.

“Yes,
that
you do,” Alexander said, his hands more insistent. “You certainly say the right things. Yes, Shura; of course, Shura; I promise, Shura; maybe even, I love you, Shura, but then you just do as you please.”

“I love you, Shura,” Tatiana said, her tears falling into his face.

All the agonizing words Tatiana had meant to say to Alexander, she kept inside, slightly surprised that he kept his own agonizing words to her under control, and she could tell he had plenty. But she knew—the endless November Leningrad night was too short for misery, too short for what they were feeling, too short for them. Alexander wanted to hear her moan, she moaned for him, indifferent to Inga and Stan just centimeters of thin plaster away. Under the flickering light of the open
bourzhuika
Tatiana made love to her Alexander, yielding to him, clutching him, clinging to him, unable to keep herself from crying each time she came, each time he came, each time they came together. She made love to him with the abandon of the skylark’s last flight south when the bird knows he is going to either make it to the warmth or die.

“Your poor hands,” she was whispering as she kissed the scars on his fingers and wrists. “Your hands, Shura. They’ll heal, right? They won’t scar?”

“Your hands healed,” he said. “Yours didn’t scar.”

“Hmm,” she said, remembering putting out the fire on the roof last year. “I don’t know how.”

“I know how,” Alexander whispered. “You healed them. Now heal mine, Tania.”

“Oh, soldier.” Tatiana was on top of him, desperately pressing his head to her naked breasts.

“I can’t breathe.”

She was embracing him the way he used to embrace her in Lazarevo. And for the same reason. “Open your mouth,” she whispered, leaning into his face. “I’ll breathe for you.”

The next morning, before they came out into the corridor, Tatiana hugged Alexander and said, “Be
nice,
” as she opened their bedroom door.

“I’m always nice,” said Alexander.

Stan and Inga were sitting in the hallway. Stan stood up, extended his hand to Alexander, introduced himself, apologized for yesterday, and asked Alexander to sit and have a smoke. Alexander did not sit, but he took a cigarette from Stan.

“This kind of living is hard on everyone, I know. But it’s not forever. You know what the Party says, Captain—” said Stan, smiling ingratiatingly.

“No, what does the Party say, comrade?” Alexander asked, glancing down at Tatiana, who stood beside him holding his hand.

“Being determines consciousness, doesn’t it? We live like this long enough, and we’ll all get used to it. Soon we’ll all become changed human beings.”

“But, Stan,” Inga said plaintively, “I don’t want to live like this! We had a nice apartment. I want that back.”

“We’ll get it back, Inga. The council promised us a two-bedroom.”

Alexander said, “How long do you think, Stan, we’ll have to live like this before we’re changed? And changed into what?” He stared bleakly at Tatiana, who said, peering up into his face, “Shura, I have some
kasha
. Darling, I’ll make you some?” Smoking as if it were his breakfast, Alexander nodded. She didn’t like the look in his eyes.

When she came back inside with two bowls of
kasha
and a cup of coffee for him, Tatiana overheard Stan telling Alexander that he and Inga, married for twenty years, were both engineers and long-standing members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

Alexander barely excused himself before he went to eat his
kasha
inside the room, not even asking Tatiana to follow him.

Tatiana ate her
kasha
with Inga and Stan, refusing to answer Inga’s curious questions about Alexander. Then she washed the dishes from the night before, cleaned the kitchen, and finally and reluctantly joined him inside the room. Tatiana knew she was procrastinating. She did not want to face Alexander alone.

He was collecting her things into her black backpack. Glaring at her, he said, “You wanted to come back for this? You missed this? Strangers,
Communist Party
strangers, listening to your every word, your every moan? You missed all this, Tania?”

“No,” Tatiana said. “I missed
you.
”

“There is no place for me here,” he said. “There is hardly a place for you.”

After watching him for a moment she asked, “What are you doing?”

“Packing.”

“Packing?” she repeated quietly, closing the door behind her. Here it starts, Tatiana thought. I didn’t want it. I wished we didn’t have to have it. But here it is. “Where are we going?”

“Across the lake. I can get you across easily to Syastroy, and then I’ll take you in an army truck to Vologda. From there you’ll catch a train. We have to go now. It’ll take me a while to get back, and I must return to Morozovo tomorrow evening.”

Vigorously Tatiana shook her head.

“What?” Alexander snapped. “What are you shaking your head for?”

She shook her head.

“Tatiana, I’m warning you. Don’t provoke me.”

“All right. But I’m not going anywhere.”

“Yes you are.”

In a small voice she said, “No. I’m not.”

Alexander raised his voice. “You are!”

In the same small voice Tatiana said, “Don’t raise your voice to me.”

Dropping her backpack with a thud to the wooden floor, Alexander came up to her and, leaning down, said into her face, “Tatiana, in a
second
I’m going to raise more than my voice to you.”

Tatiana felt so sad inside. But she squared her shoulders and did not look away. Quietly she said, “Go ahead, Alexander. I’m not afraid of you.”

“No?” he said, gritting his teeth. “Well, I’m terrified of you.” He stepped away and picked up the backpack. Tatiana remembered the first day of the war, she remembered Pasha telling her father, no, I don’t want to go, and being sent away anyway, and dying.

“Alexander, stop it, I said. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Oh, you are, Tania,” he said, whirling to her, his face distorted by anger. “You are. I will take you to Vologda, if have to carry you there myself, kicking and screaming.”

Tatiana backed away from him, just a little bit, half a step, and said, “Fine. But I will not be kicking, I will not be screaming. As soon as you leave, I will come back.”

Alexander threw the backpack against the wall, close to Tatiana’s head. He came at her with clenched fists and smashed the wall near her so hard that the plaster crumbled and his hand went through the hole.

Her legs trembling, her eyes closed, Tatiana backed away another half a step and stopped moving.

“For fuck’s sake!” Alexander screamed in a rage, punching the wall next to her face. “What will it take for you to listen to me, just once, just fucking once, what will it take for you to do as I say?” He grabbed her by the arms and pinned her roughly against the wall.

“Shura, this is not the army,” Tatiana whispered tremulously, afraid to look at him.

“You are not staying here!”

“I am,” she said faintly.

There was a knock. Alexander went to the door, ripped it open, and shouted, “What?”

Inga, her face red, muttered, “I just wanted to see if Tania was all right. Tania? I heard yelling—banging—”

“I’m fine, Inga,” Tatiana said, stepping away from the wall on unsteady legs.

“You’ll hear a lot more before we’re done,” Alexander said to Inga. “Just put the fucking glass to the wall,” and slammed the door shut. Whirling around, he came for Tatiana, who backed away from him, her hands up, whispering, “Shura, please…” but, unstoppable and crazed, he came at her just the same and shoved her down onto the couch. She fell back and covered her face. Bending over her, Alexander knocked her hands away. “Don’t cover your face!” he shouted, grabbing her cheeks between his fingers and shaking her. “Don’t make me more crazy!”

Tatiana cried out and tried to push him away, but it was useless. “Stop!” she panted. “Stop…”

“Safe or dead, Tania?” he yelled. “Safe or dead? What will it be?”

Clutching helplessly at his arms, she wanted to answer him but couldn’t speak.
Dead
, she wanted to say.
Dead, Shura.

“You can see what it’s doing to me, your being here!” Alexander squeezed her face harder and harder as she struggled to break free. “You can
see.
But you just don’t give a shit.”

She ceased fighting him, placing her hands over his. “Please,” Tatiana whispered, trying to catch his eye. “Please… stop. You’re
hurting
me.”

Alexander eased his hold on her but did not let go of her face, nor did Tatiana pull away, even though she could hardly breathe. Underneath him, she lay on the couch, panting. Covering her with his body, he lay on top of her, panting. Through the crashing noise in her head Tatiana remotely heard the air-raid siren and explosive sounds outside her windows. She moved her mouth away from his hands a little. She was suffocating. Her own hands went around his back to clasp him. “Oh, Shura,” she whispered.

Alexander got off Tatiana, stood miserably before her, and then dropped to his knees. “Tatiana,” he said in a broken voice, “this frantic wretch
begs
you, please leave. If you feel any love for me at all, please go back to Lazarevo. Be safe. You just don’t know what kind of danger you’re in.”

Still short of breath, her body trembling, her face aching, Tatiana sat up at the edge of the couch and pulled Alexander to her. She couldn’t bear to see him so upset. “I’m so sorry you’re angry,” she said, holding his face. “Please don’t be angry with me.”

Alexander moved her hands off him. “Do you hear the bombs? Do you hear, or are you deaf? Do you see there is no food?”

“There’s food,” she said quietly, putting her hands back on him. “I get 700 grams a day. Plus my lunch and dinner at the hospital. I’m doing well.” She smiled. “It’s much better than last year. And I don’t care about the bombs.”

“Tatiana…”

“Shura, stop lying to me. It’s not the Germans or the bombs that frighten you. What are you afraid of?”

Outside, the whistling shells whizzed nearby. One sounded close. Tatiana pulled Alexander to her. “Listen to me,” she whispered, clutching his head to her breasts. “Do you hear my heart?”

He surrounded her. She sat for a moment holding on to him, closing her eyes. Dear God, she prayed. Please let me be strong for him. He needs my strength so much, don’t let me weaken right now. Gently pushing him away, she went to her dresser. “You left something behind in Lazarevo, Shura. Besides me.”

Alexander got up and sat heavily on the couch.

Ripping open the inseam on her trousers, Tatiana took out Alexander’s five thousand dollars. “Look. I returned to give you this.” She stared at him. “I see you took only half. Why?” Stop. Breathe.

Alexander’s bronze eyes were toffee pools of pain. “I’m not talking about this with Inga at our door,” he said, barely moving his lips.

“Why not? We do everything else with Inga at our door.”

They looked away from each other. Tatiana could tell they were both splintering. Who was going to pick up their fragmented pieces? She. She was going to pick them up. Leaving the money on the dresser, Tatiana went to him, straddling him, holding his head to her. “This isn’t Lazarevo, is it, Shura?” she whispered into his hair.