The Bronze Horseman (2 page)

Papa nodded anxiously.

Mama continued to clean anxiously.

Tatiana watched Babushka stroke Pasha’s back. “Pasha,” Tatiana whispered, crawling to the edge of the bed and pulling on her brother. “Want to go to Tauride Park later? I’ll beat you in war.”

“Dream on,” said Pasha. “You will never beat me.”

The radio began to make a series of clicking sounds. It was 12:30 p.m. on June 22, 1941.

“Tania, be quiet and sit down,” Papa ordered his daughter. “It’s about to begin. Irina, you, too. Sit.”

Comrade Vyacheslav Molotov, Joseph Stalin’s Foreign Minister, began:

Men and women, citizens of the Soviet Union—the Soviet government and its head, Comrade Stalin, have instructed me to make the following announcement. At 4 a.m., without declaration of war and without any claims being made on the Soviet Union, German troops attacked our country, attacked our frontier in many places, and bombed from the air Shitomir, Kiev, Sevastopol, Kaunas, and other cities. This attack has been made despite the fact that there was a nonaggression pact between the Soviet Union and Germany, a pact the terms of which were scrupulously observed by the Soviet Union. We have been attacked, although during the period of the pact the German Government had not made the slightest complaint about the USSR’s not carrying out its obligations…

The government calls upon you, men and women citizens of the Soviet Union, to rally even more closely around the glorious Bolshevik Party, around the Soviet government and our great leader, Comrade Stalin. Our cause is just. The enemy will be crushed. Victory will be ours.

The radio went dead, and the family sat in stunned and heavy silence.

Finally Papa said, “Oh, my God.” And from the sofa he stared at Pasha.

Mama said, “We have to immediately go and get our money out of the bank.”

Babushka Anna said, “Not evacuation again. Can we survive another one? Almost better to stay in the city.”

Deda said, “Can I even get another evacuation teaching post? I’m nearly sixty-four. It’s time to die, not move.”

Dasha said, “The Leningrad garrison doesn’t go to war, right? The war comes to the Leningrad garrison?”

Pasha said, “War! Tania, did you hear? I’m going to enlist. I’m going to go and fight for Mother Russia.”

Before Tatiana could say what she was thinking—which was an immeasurably excited “Wow!”—her father jumped up off the sofa and, responding only to Pasha, exclaimed, “What are you thinking? Who do you think will take you?”

“Come on, Papochka,” said Pasha with a smile. “The war always needs good men.”

“Good men, yes. Not children,” barked Papa as he kneeled on the floor, looking under Tatiana and Dasha’s bed.

“War, why, that’s not possible,” Tatiana said slowly. “Didn’t Comrade Stalin sign a peace treaty?”

Mama poured tea and said, “Tania, it’s for real. It’s for real.”

Tatiana tried to keep the thrill out of her voice when she said, “Will we have to…
evacuate
?”

Papa pulled an old, ratty suitcase from under the bed.

“So soon?” said Tatiana.

She knew of evacuation from the stories Deda and Babushka had told her of the unrest around the time of the Revolution of 1917, when they went just west of the Ural Mountains to live in a village whose name Tatiana could never remember. Waiting for the train with all their belongings, crowding in, crossing the Volga on barges…

It was the change that excited Tatiana. It was the unknown. She herself had been to Moscow once for a minute when she was eight—did that even count? Moscow wasn’t exotic. It wasn’t Africa or America. It wasn’t even the Urals. It was just Moscow. Beyond the Red Square there was nothing, not even a little beauty.

As a family the Metanovs had taken a couple of day trips to Tsarskoye Selo and Peterhof. The summer palaces of the tsars had been turned by the Bolsheviks into lavish museums with landscaped grounds. When Tatiana wandered the halls of Peterhof, treading carefully on the cold, veined marble, she could not believe there had been a time when people had
all this
to live in.

But then the family would return to Leningrad, to their two rooms on Fifth Soviet, and before Tatiana got to her room, she would have to walk past the six Iglenkos who lived off the corridor with their door open.

When Tatiana was three, the family vacationed in the very Crimea that this morning had been attacked by the Germans. What Tatiana remembered from that trip was that it was the first time she ate a raw potato. Also the last. She saw tadpoles in a little pond and slept covered with a blanket in a tent. She vaguely remembered the smell of salt water. It was in the frigid April Black Sea that Tatiana felt her first and last jellyfish, floating past her tiny naked body and making her shriek with delighted terror.

The thought of evacuation filled Tatiana with stomach-churning excitement. Born in 1924, the year of Lenin’s death,
after
the revolution,
after
the hunger,
after
the civil war, Tatiana had been born
after
the worst but
before
anything good either. She had been born
during
.

Lifting his black eyes to her, as if measuring her emotions, Deda spoke. “Tanechka, what are you even thinking?”

She tried to make her face calm. “Nothing.”

“What’s going on in that head of yours? It’s war. Do you understand?”

“I understand.”

“Somehow I don’t think you do.” Deda paused. “Tania, the life you know is over. Mark my words. From this day forward, nothing will be as you have imagined.”

Pasha exclaimed, “Yes! We’re going to boot the Germans back to hell, where they belong.” He smiled at Tatiana, who smiled back.

Mama and Papa were quiet.

Papa said, “Yes. And then what?”

Babushka went to sit on the sofa next to Deda. Placing her large hand on his, she pursed her lips and nodded, in a way that showed Tatiana that Babushka knew things and was keeping them to herself. Deda knew, too, but whatever it was they knew did not measure up to Tatiana’s tumult. That’s all right, she thought. They don’t understand. They are not young.

Mama broke the silence of seven people. “What are you doing, Georgi Vasilievich?”

“Too many children, Irina Fedorovna. Too many children to worry about,” he said dolefully to her, struggling with Pasha’s suitcase.

“Really, Papa?” said Tatiana. “Which of your children would you like not to worry about?”

Without replying, Papa went to Pasha’s drawers in the armoire they all shared and started haphazardly throwing the boy’s clothes into the suitcase.

“I’m sending him away, Irina. I’m sending him away to camp in Tolmachevo. He was going to go anyway next week with Volodya Iglenko. He’ll just go a little sooner. Volodya will go with him. Nina will be glad to have them go a week early. You’ll see. Everything will be all right.”

Mama opened her mouth and shook her head. “Tolmachevo? He will be safe there? Are you sure?”

“Absolutely,” said Papa.

“Absolutely not,” said Pasha. “Papa, war has started! I’m not going to camp. I’m going to enlist.”

Good for you, Pasha, thought Tatiana, but Papa whipped around to glare at her brother, and, sucking in her breath, Tatiana suddenly understood everything.

Grabbing Pasha by the shoulders, Papa started to shake him. “What are you saying? Are you crazy?
Enlist?
”

Pasha fought to break free. Papa would not let go.

“Papa, let go of me.”

“Pavel, you’re my son, and you will listen to me. The first thing you’re going to do is get out of Leningrad. Then we’ll discuss enlisting. Right now we have a train to catch.”

There was something embarrassing and awkward about a physical scene in a small room with so many people watching. Tatiana wanted to turn away, but there was nowhere to turn. Across from her were her grandmother and grandfather, behind her was Dasha, to the left of her were her mother and father and brother. She looked down at her hands and closed her eyes. She imagined lying on her back in the middle of a summer field eating sweet clover. No one was around her.

How did things change in a matter of seconds?

She opened her eyes and blinked. One second. She blinked again. Another second.

Seconds ago she was sleeping.

Seconds ago Molotov spoke.

Seconds ago she was exhilarated.

Seconds ago Papa spoke.

And now Pasha was leaving. Blink, blink, blink.

Deda and Babushka were diplomatically silent, as always. Deda, God love him, never missed an opportunity to keep quiet. Babushka was quite the opposite of him in that respect, but in this particular instance she had obviously decided to follow his lead. Perhaps it was his hand tightly squeezing her leg each time she opened her mouth, but for whatever reason, she did not speak.

Dasha, unafraid of their father and not discouraged by the distant prospect of war, got up and said, “Papa, this is crazy. Why are you sending him away? The Germans are nowhere near Leningrad. You heard Comrade Molotov. They’re at the Crimea. That’s thousands of kilometers from here.”

“Be quiet, Dashenka,” said Papa. “You have no idea about the Germans.”

“They’re not here, Papa,” Dasha repeated in her strong voice that allowed for no argument. Tatiana wished she could speak as persuasively as Dasha. Her own voice was echo soft, as if some female hormone hadn’t come her way yet. In many ways it barely had. She’d got her monthlies only last year, and even then… she
barely
got her monthlies. They were more like quarterlies. They came in the winter, decided they didn’t like it, and left till fall. In the fall they came and stayed as if they were never leaving. Since then Tatiana had seen them twice. Maybe if they came more often, Tatiana would have a meaningful voice like Dasha’s. You could set the clock by Dasha’s monthlies.

“Daria! I’m not going to argue with
you
on this point!” exclaimed Papa. “Your brother is not staying in Leningrad. Pasha, get dressed. Put on some trousers and a nice shirt.”

“Papa, please.”

“Pasha! I said get dressed. We cannot waste time. I guarantee those children’s camps are going to completely fill up in one hour, and then I won’t be able to get you in.”

Perhaps it was a mistake to tell that to Pasha, because Tatiana had never seen her brother move more slowly. He must have spent a good ten minutes looking for the one dress shirt he owned. They all averted their eyes while Pasha changed. Tatiana closed her eyes again, searching for her meadow, for the pleasant summer smell of white cherry and nettles. She wanted some blueberries. She realized she was a little hungry. Opening her eyes, she glanced around the room. “I don’t want to go,” complained Pasha.

“It’s just for a little while, son,” said Papa. “It’s a precaution. You’ll be safe in camp, out of harm’s way. You’ll stay maybe a month, until we see how the war is going. Then you’ll come back, and if there’s evacuation, we’ll get you and your sisters out.”

Yes! Tatiana wanted to hear that.

“Georg.” Deda spoke softly. “Georg.”

“Yes, Papochka?” Tatiana’s father said respectfully. No one loved Deda more than Papa, not even Tatiana.

“Georg. You cannot keep the boy out of conscription. You can’t.”

“Of course I can. He is only seventeen.”

Deda shook his neat gray head. “Exactly—seventeen. They’ll take him.”

The look of trapped fear slid across Papa’s face and was gone. “They won’t take him, Papochka,” said Papa hoarsely. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about.” He was clearly unable to say what he felt:
everyone stop talking and let me save my son the only way I know how.
Deda sat back against the sofa cushions.

Feeling bad for her father and wanting to be helpful, Tatiana began to say, “We’re not yet—” but Mama cut in with, “Pashechka, take a sweater, darling.”

“I’m not taking a sweater, Mama,” he exclaimed. “It’s the middle of summer!”

“We had frost two weeks ago.”

“And now it’s hot. I’m not taking it.”

“Listen to your mother, Pavel,” said Papa. “The nights will be cold in Tolmachevo. Take the sweater.” Pasha sighed deeply, rebelliously, but took the sweater and threw it inside the suitcase. Papa closed it and locked it. “Everyone, listen. Here’s my plan…”

“What plan?” Tatiana said with mild frustration. “I hope this plan includes some food. Because—”

“I know why,” Papa snapped. “Now, be quiet and listen. This concerns you, too.” He started telling them what he needed them to do.

Tatiana fell back on the bed. If they weren’t evacuating this
instant,
she didn’t want to hear any more.

Pasha went to boys’ camp every summer, in Tolmachevo, Luga, or Gatchina. Pasha preferred Luga because it had the best river for swimming. Tatiana preferred Pasha in Luga because he was close to their
dacha,
their summer house, and she could go and visit him. The Luga camp was only five kilometers from their
dacha
straight through the woods. Tolmachevo, on the other hand, was twenty kilometers from Luga, and there the counselors were strict and expected you up by sunrise. Pasha said it was a bit like being in the army. Well, now it would be almost like enlisting, she thought, not listening to her father speak.

She felt Dasha pinch her hard on the leg. “Ouch!” she said, deliberately loudly, hoping her sister would get into trouble for hurting her. No one cared. No one said anything. They didn’t even look her way. All eyes were on Pasha as he stood—reedy and awkward in his brown trousers and frayed beige shirt—in the middle of the room, in the half bloom of late adolescence, so beloved. And he knew it.

He was everyone’s favorite child, favorite grandchild, favorite brother.

Because he was the only son.

Tatiana lifted herself off the bed and came to stand by Pasha. Putting her arm around him, she said, “Cheer up. You’re so lucky. You’re going to camp. I’m not going anywhere.”

He stepped slightly away from her, but only slightly; stepped away not because he was uncomfortable with her, Tatiana knew, but because he did not feel himself to be lucky. She knew that her brother wanted to become a soldier more than anything. He didn’t want to be in some silly camp. “Pasha,” she said cheerfully, “first you have to beat
me
in war.
Then
you can enlist and fight the Germans.”