The Bronze Horseman (16 page)

“Yes,” he said and bent his face to kiss her. With a small cry Tatiana turned her face down and sharply away.

“No! Let go of me, Dimitri,” she said. She did not lift her head.

Suddenly he let go of her. “I’m sorry,” he said with a tremor in his voice.

“I have to go home right now,” she said, walking as fast as she could. “Dima, you’re too old for me.”

“No. No. Please. I’m only twenty-three.”

“That’s not what I mean. I’m too young for you. I need someone who”—she paused in thought—”expects less,” she finished.

“How much less?”

“Who expects
nothing.
”

“I’m really sorry, Tania,” he said. “I didn’t mean to scare you off like that.”

“That’s fine,” she said, not looking at him. “I’m just not the kind of girl who goes by the trees.” With
you,
she thought with a pang in her heart, remembering the Summer Garden.

“I know that now. I think that’s why I really like you. I just don’t know how to act around you sometimes.”

“Be respectful and patient.”

“Fine, I’ll be as patient as Job.” Dimitri leaned in to her. “Because, Tanechka,” he said, “I have no intention of leaving you alone.”

She hurried up Suvorovsky.

Suddenly Dimitri said, “I hope Dasha likes Alexander.”

“Dasha does like Alexander.”

“Because
he
really likes her.”

“Oh, yes?” Tatiana said weakly. “How do you know?”

“He has almost stopped his previously uncontrolled extracurricular activities. Don’t say that to Dasha, of course. It’ll just hurt her feelings.”

Tatiana wanted to say to Dimitri that she had no idea what he was talking about, but she was too afraid that he would tell her.

When they got home, Dasha and Alexander were sitting together on the small sofa in the hallway, reading from a volume of Zoshchenko’s short stories and laughing. The only thing Tatiana could say was a sullen and grumpy, “That’s
my
book.”

For some reason Dasha found that very funny, and even Alexander smiled. As Tatiana walked past him, his legs were sticking so far out that she tripped over them and would have fallen face forward for sure, had he not instantly grabbed her. And just as instantly let go.

“Tania,” Alexander said, “what’s that on your arm?”

“What? Oh, it’s nothing.” Making hasty excuses about exhaustion, she said good night and disappeared into her grandparents’ room, where she sat between her Deda and Babushka on the sofa and listened to the radio. They chatted quietly about Pasha, and soon she felt better.

Later that night she was facing the wall when she heard Dasha whispering to her. “Tania? Tania?”

Tatiana turned to her sister. “What is it? I’m tired.”

Dasha kissed her shoulder. “Tania, we never talk anymore. Our Pasha left, and we never talk. You miss him, don’t you? He’ll be back soon.”

“I miss him. You’re busy. We’ll talk tomorrow, Dashenka,” said Tatiana.

“I’m in
love,
Tania!” Dasha whispered.

Tatiana whispered back, “I’m glad for you, Dasha.” And she turned to the wall.

Dasha kissed the back of Tatiana’s head. “I think this is really it, I do. Oh, Tanechka, I just don’t know what to do with myself!”

“Have you tried sleep?”

“Tania, I can’t think about anything else. He is driving me crazy. He is so… hot and cold. Tonight he was fine, relaxed and funny, but other days… I just can’t figure him out.”

Tatiana didn’t say anything.

Dasha continued, “I know I can’t expect too much at once. The fact that he is finally coming around at all is a miracle. I couldn’t get him to come over until last Sunday, when he came with Dima and you.”

Tatiana wanted to point out that it wasn’t Dasha who got Alexander to come over, but of course said nothing.

“I’m not looking a gift horse in the mouth. I think he likes our family. Did you know he’s from Krasnodar? He hasn’t been back there since he joined the army. Doesn’t have any brothers or sisters. Doesn’t talk about his parents. He is… I can’t explain. So closemouthed. Doesn’t like to say too much about his own business.” She paused. “Asks me about mine, though.”

“Oh?” was all Tatiana could manage.

“He tells me he wishes it weren’t war.”

“Yes,” said Tatiana. “We all wish it weren’t war.”

“But that sounds hopeful, doesn’t it? As if a better life with him would be possible once the war was over. Tania,” said Dasha into Tatiana’s hair, “do you like Dimitri?”

Tatiana fought for her voice. “I like him fine,” she whispered.

“He really likes you.”

“No, he doesn’t.”

“Yes, he does. You have no idea about these things.”

“I have some idea, and he doesn’t.”

“Is there anything you want to talk to me about, want to ask me?”

“No!”

Dismissively, Dasha said, “Tania, you mustn’t be so shy. You’re seventeen already. Why can’t you just give in a little?”

“Give in to Dimitri?” whispered Tatiana. “Never, Dasha.”

In the minutes before she fell asleep, Tatiana realized she was less afraid of the intangible of war than she was of the tangible of heartbreak.

On Saturday, Tatiana went to the Leningrad public library and borrowed a
Russian
-English phrase book. She was already somewhat familiar with the odd alphabet, having learned it in school. She spent most of the afternoon trying to speak some of the more ridiculous phrases out loud. The
Ths, Ws
, and the soft
Rs
were very difficult.
“The weather will be thunder and rain tomorrow”
was constructed to torment her. She could say
“be”
pretty well.

On Sunday, when Alexander came by, he single-handedly glued paper strips on their windows to keep the glass from shattering in the explosive waves that might come during shelling, if and when bombs fell on Leningrad. “Everyone must tape their windows,” he said. “Soon the patrols are going to walk around the city to check that all the windows have been taped. We won’t be able to find replacement glass anywhere if the Germans get to Leningrad.”

The Metanovs watched him with great interest, with Mama commenting every few minutes on how tall he was, and on his good work and how steady his hands were, and how solidly he stood on the windowsill. Mama wanted to know where he’d learned how to do that. Dasha replied impatiently, “Well, he
is
in the Red Army, Mama!”

“Did they teach you to stand on the windowsill in the Red Army, Alexander?” Tatiana asked.

“Oh, shut up, Tania,” Dasha said, laughing, but Alexander laughed, too, and he did not say
shut up, Tania
.

“What is that design you made on our windows?” Mama said as Alexander jumped down from the sill.

Tatiana, Dasha, Mama, and Babushka looked at the shape of the glued paper on the window. Instead of being the white crisscross that the women had seen on other windows in Leningrad, Alexander’s design looked like a tree. A thick trunk, slightly bent to one side, with elongated leaves growing from it, longer at the bottom, tapering off at the top.

“What
is
that, young man?” Babushka demanded imperiously.

Alexander said, “That, Anna Lvovna, is a palm tree.”

“A
what
?” said Dasha, standing close to him. Why always so close?

“A palm tree.”

Tatiana, standing by the door, watched him without blinking.

“A palm tree?” Dasha said quizzically.

“It’s a tropical tree. Grows in the Americas and the South Pacific.”

“Hmm,” said Mama. “Strange choice for our windows, don’t you think?”

“Better than just an old crisscross,” muttered Tatiana.

Alexander smiled at her. And lightly she smiled back.

Gruffly, Babushka said, “Well, young man, when you do
my
windows, don’t do any fancy things. Just a simple crisscross for me. I don’t need any palm trees.”

Afterward Alexander and Dasha went out by themselves, leaving Tatiana with her moody and exhausted family. Tatiana went to the Leningrad library, where she spent hours mouthing alien English sounds to herself. It seemed extremely difficult: to read in this language, to speak it, to write it. Next time she saw Alexander, she would ask him to say a few things to her in English. Just to hear how they sounded. She was already thinking about the next time she saw Alexander, as if it were a certainty. She vowed to tell him that maybe, perhaps, he shouldn’t come to Kirov anymore. She made the promise to herself that night as she lay in bed and faced the wall, she made the promise to the wall, touching the old wallpaper with her fingers, stroking it up and down and saying, I promise, I promise, I promise. Then she reached down to the floor between the bed and the wall and touched the
Bronze Horseman
book Alexander had given her. Maybe she would tell him that another day. After she heard some English from him, and after he talked to her about the war, and after—

There was another air-raid siren. Dasha returned home well after it, waking Tatiana, whose fingers remained on the listening wall.

On Monday at work, Krasenko called her to his office and told her that although she was doing a good job on the flamethrowers, he had to transfer her to one of the tank-production facilities immediately, because the order had come through from Moscow that Kirov had to make 180 tanks a month regardless of capability or manpower.

“Who’s going to make the flamethrowers?”

“They’ll make themselves,” said Krasenko, lighting a cigarette. “You’re a nice girl, Tania. Go. Have some soup at the canteen.”

“Do you think the People’s Volunteers would take me?” she asked him.

“No!”

“I heard that 15,000 people have already joined from Kirov to entrench the Luga line. Is that true?”

“What’s true is that you can’t go. Now, get out of here.”

“Is Luga in danger?” Pasha was near Luga.

“No,” Krasenko replied. “The Germans are far away. It’s just a precaution. Now, go.”

In tank production there were many more people and the assembly line was much more intricate, but because of that, Tatiana had less to do. She placed the pistons in the cylinders that went below the combustion chambers on the tank’s V-12 diesel engine.

The facility was the size of an airplane hangar, gray and dark inside.

By the end of the day the diesel engine was in place, thanks to Tatiana, and the tread was on the tires, and the frame was tightly bolted, but there was no inside, no instruments, no panels, no weapons, no missile boxes, no ammunition launchers, and no hull roof—basically nothing that would make the machine anything other than a heavily armored car. But unlike the crating of the small-arms ammunition, or the making of flamethrowers, or the greasing of high-explosive GP bombs, making half a tank gave Tatiana a sense of accomplishment that she had not had in her entire first month of full-time work. She felt as if she had made the KV-1 herself. Another note of pride: in the afternoon Krasenko had told her the Germans could not even conceive of a tank this well built, well armed, this facile, this agile, this simple, yet armored with 45 mm of steel all around, supplied with an 85-mm gun. They thought their Panzer IV was the best tank there was. “Tania,” he told her, “you did an excellent job on the diesel engine. Maybe you should be a mechanic when you grow up.”

At eight in the evening Tatiana ran outside with her clean hands and her straightened-out collar and her brushed-out hair, not believing she could be running at the end of an eleven-hour day, yet running nonetheless, so afraid that Alexander wouldn’t be waiting for her.

But he was.

He was waiting for her but not smiling.

Out of breath, Tatiana tried to regain her composure. She was alone with him for the first time since last Friday, alone in a sea of strangers. She wanted to say,
I’m so happy you came to see me
. What had happened to
don’t come and see me anymore?

Someone yelled out her name; Tatiana reluctantly turned around. It was Ilya, a boy of sixteen, who worked alongside her on the tank tracks. “You catching the bus?” Ilya asked, glancing at Alexander, who said nothing.

“No, Ilya, but I’ll see you tomorrow.” Tatiana motioned for Alexander to cross the street.

“Who was
that
?” Alexander asked.

Puzzled, Tatiana glanced at him. “Who? Oh, just some boy I work with.”

“Is he bothering you?”

“What? No, no.” Ilya actually
was
bothering her a little bit. “I started in a new department. We’re building tanks to send to the Luga line,” she said proudly.

Nodding, he said, “How fast can you make them?”

“My department is making one every two days,” she replied. “That’s good, right?”

“To help at the Luga line,” Alexander said, “you’re going to need ten a day.”

Detecting something… she looked up at him, tried to figure it out but couldn’t. “Are you all right?”

“Yes.”

She thought. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.”

The people near the tram stop were standing silently, smoking. No one was talking to anyone else. “You want to walk back home?” Tatiana asked shyly.

Alexander shook his head. “I’ve been in military training all day.”

Nudging him with her fingers, Tatiana said teasingly, “I thought you already were in the military.”

“Yes. Not for me, for them. Maneuvers, gun training, more air-raid shelters.” He sounded depleted for some reason. Was she that close to the nuances of his voice? Of his face?

“What’s the matter?” she asked again.

“Nothing,” he repeated. But then he took her arm, pulling up her sleeve a little to reveal the dark bruises on the underside. “Tania, what’s this?”

Ah. “Nothing.” She tried to pull her arm away. He would not let go as he stood very close to her.

“Really nothing,” she said, unable to look up at him. “Come on. I’m fine.”

“I don’t believe you,” Alexander said. “I told you, don’t take up with Di-mitri.”

“I’m not taking up with him,” Tatiana said.

They glanced at each other, and then Tatiana stared at his uniform buttons.

“Alexander, it’s nothing,” she said. “He was just trying to get me to sit with him.”