The Bronze Horseman (26 page)

Her eyes filled again. “What’s happened? Why am I so cold?”

“Nothing,” he said hastily. “The medic’s assistant, Mark, had to cut open your trousers and your—”

Tatiana lifted her hands and felt through her open clothes. Alexander looked away. He had managed to pretend so well with her at Kirov, to keep his distance, but he couldn’t pretend that finding her alive and covered with blood meant nothing, that saving her meant nothing, that she meant nothing.

She brought her hand to her face and stared at the blood. “Is it my blood?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Then what’s wrong with me? Why can’t I move?”

“Your ribs are broken—”

She groaned.

“And your leg.”

“My back,” she whispered. “Something is wrong with my back.”

Anxious and concerned, Alexander said, “What’s the matter?”

“I don’t know. It’s burning.”

“It’s probably the ribs,” he said. “I broke a rib in the Winter War last year. It feels like your back is on fire.”

“Oozing.”

Leaving the wet rag in the bucket of water, Alexander looked into her face. “Tania, can you hear me all right?”

“Hmm.”

“Can you sit up?”

Tatiana tried to sit up. “I can’t,” she whispered. Her hands were holding her ripped tunic and undershirt together.

Alexander’s whole heart was giving out. He lifted her to a sitting position. “Let me take the clothes off you. They’re no good to you anyway; they’re all blood-soaked. You can’t wear them.”

She shook her head.

“I have to take them off you,” he said. “I will look at your back, and then I’ll clean you. You don’t want to get an infection. You will if you have open wounds. I’ll clean you, I’ll wash the blood off your hair, and then I’ll bandage your ribs and leg. You’ll feel better right away once they’re bandaged.”

She shook her head, sitting against him.

“Don’t be scared, Tania,” Alexander said. He held her to him, and after a few moments, when she didn’t say anything, he carefully took off her tunic and then her vest. Small and hurt and weak, she pressed her naked body against him; her blood-covered back was underneath his hands, and her skin felt warm. She needs me so much to take care of her, Alexander thought, gently feeling for any gashes. And I desperately need to take care of her. “Where does it hurt?”

“Where you’re touching me,” she whispered. “Right under your fingers.”

He leaned over her shoulder to take a look. Her back was grimy, but the blood was already thick. “I think you’ve probably been cut. I’ll wash your back in a minute, but I think you’re all right.” Alexander pressed her head against his chest. His lips pressed against her damp hair.

He lowered her onto the white sheet. Her hands covered her breasts, and she closed her eyes. “Tatiasha,” Alexander said, “I need to clean you.”

Her eyes remained closed. “Let me do it myself,” she whispered.

“All right,” he said, “but you can’t even sit up by yourself.”

She didn’t reply at first. “Give me a wet towel, and I’ll do it myself.”

“Tatia, let me take care of you.” He stopped and took a breath. “Please. Don’t be afraid. I will never hurt you.”

“I know that,” she muttered, unable or unwilling to open her eyes.

“I tell you what,” Alexander said. “Don’t worry. Stay like that. I’ll—wash around you.”

He washed her hair, her arms, her stomach, and the top of her chest, all under the glimmering light of a kerosene lamp in the corner of the tent. Tatiana groaned loudly when he touched her blackened rib cage.

As he cleaned her, Alexander soothingly whispered, “One of these days, just one, I’m not saying now, but soon, maybe you can explain to me what you were doing in a train station during bombing. All right? I want you to think about what you’re going to tell me. Look how lucky you are. Move your arms a bit. After I dry you, I’ll bandage your ribs. They’ll heal on their own in a few weeks. You’ll be as good as new.”

Her eyes remaining closed, Tatiana turned her face away, her hands on her breasts. Alexander removed her torn trousers, leaving her in her underwear, and washed her legs. She flinched and fainted when he touched her broken shin. He waited for her to come to.

“It hurts very much?”

“Like it’s about to be cut off,” muttered Tatiana. “Do you have anything for the pain?”

“Just vodka.”

“I’m not much for vodka.”

As he was drying her stomach with a towel, Tatiana, her eyes still closed, her hands still covering herself, whispered, “Please… don’t look at me.” Her voice broke.

His own voice breaking, Alexander said, “It’s all right, Tatiasha.” He bent down and kissed the top of her soft breast above her hand. “It’s all right.” He left his lips on her skin for a moment and then straightened up. “I have to turn you over, I have to clean the rest of you.”

“I can’t turn over by myself,” she said.

“
I
will turn you over.” And he did, cleaning her back with the same careful, tender meticulousness he had washed the rest of her. “Your back is all right. Many glass cuts. It’s the ribs that are burning you.”

Her face in the sheet, Tatiana muttered, “What am I going to wear? This was all I had.”

“Don’t worry. We’ll find you something tomorrow.” Turning her around, Alexander sat her up and patted her dry. He bandaged her from behind so his face wouldn’t be just centimeters from her breasts, which she continued to keep covered. He wrapped the bandage around her ribs, tying it carefully under her arms, wanting to kiss the top of her shoulder. He didn’t.

After laying Tatiana down, he covered her upper body with a blanket and then tightly bandaged her leg, using a wood splint for extra support. “How is that?” he asked, managing a smile. “Told you, good as new. Now, come here, hold on to me.” She could barely lift her arms to his neck.

Alexander moved her to his trench-coat bed on the ground, and when he set her down, Tatiana held on to him for a moment before she let go. He covered her with a woolen blanket.

Pulling the blanket to her neck, she said, “Why am I so cold? I’m not going to die, am I?”

“No,” Alexander said as he cleaned up the sheets and the towels. “You’re going to be fine.” He smiled. “We just have to get you back to the city.”

“I can’t walk. How are we going to do that?”

Patting her good leg lightly, Alexander said, “Tania, when you’re with me, don’t worry. I will take care of everything.”

“I’m not worried,” Tatiana replied, staring at him intensely in the dim light.

“Maybe the railroad will be repaired tomorrow. That’s only three kilometers from here. I wish I still had my truck, but the army took it. They need it more.” He paused. “We need to leave early tomorrow morning.” He moved a little closer to her. “Where were you before you decided to go under the German fire?”

“Downriver. Under the German fire.” Tatiana swallowed. “They’re on the other side.”

“I know. Tomorrow or the next day they’ll be on this side. We will need to leave at dawn. Now, stay here, and don’t go anywhere.” He smiled. “My Primus stove is right outside. I’m going to go and get some clean water from the stream, wash, and then I’ll make you some tea.” Out of his rucksack he took a bottle of vodka and brought it to her lips, lifting her head slightly.

“I don’t—”

“Please drink it. You’re going to be extremely sore. This will make it a bit better. Have you ever had anything broken before?”

“My arm, years ago,” Tatiana replied, and drank with a shudder.

“Why did you cut your hair?” Alexander asked, holding her head, looking down at her. He needed to shut his eyes for a moment not to continue to look at her so close to him.

“I didn’t want it to be in the way,” she said. “You hate it?” She looked up at him with her sweet, defenseless eyes.

“I don’t hate it,” Alexander said hoarsely. It took all his strength not to lean down and kiss her. He laid her on his coat and left the tent, needing to gather himself emotionally. Her helplessness and vulnerability had made his barely hidden feelings for her float to the surface, where they bobbed now, tantalizingly
in
reach, achingly
out
. He went to the stream and then made her some tea and went back inside. She was half awake and half conscious. He wished he had some morphine.

“I have some chocolate for you. Do you want a piece?”

Tatiana moved onto her good side and sucked on a small piece of chocolate as Alexander sat by her on the grass, his knees drawn up.

“Do you want the rest?”

He shook his head. “Why did you do this crazy thing, Tania?”

“To find my brother.” She glanced at him and looked away.

“Why didn’t you just come back to the barracks and ask me?”

“I had already gone once. I thought if you knew something, you’d come and see me.” She looked at him. “Did you—”

“I’m sorry,” said Alexander. He watched her round face pale. She was trying to be so brave. “Tania, I’m really sorry,” he said, “but Pasha was sent to Novgorod.”

With a choking whimper, Tatiana said, “Oh… no. Please, don’t say any more. Please.” She started to shiver and couldn’t stop. “I’m so cold,” she said, her hand coming up to rest on his boot. “Can you give me my tea before I fall asleep?”

He held her head up and the cup to her mouth as she drank.

“I’m tired,” she whispered, leaning back. Her eyes never left his face. Just like at Kirov.

Alexander started to move away before her voice sounded. “Where are you going?”

“Nowhere. Right here,” he replied. “I’ll sleep here, and early tomorrow we’ll set out for home.”

“You’ll be cold on the grass,” she whispered. “Come here.”

Alexander shook his head.

“Please, Shura,” said Tatiana in her dulcet voice, her hand stretching out to him. “Please come near me.”

He couldn’t say no even if he wanted to. Turning off the lamp, he removed his boots and his bloodied and soiled uniform, fumbled around his rucksack for a clean undershirt, and lay down on his trench coat next to Tatiana, covering them both with the woolen blanket.

It was pitch black in the tent. He lay on his back, and she lay on her left side, in the crook of his arm. Alexander heard the noise of the crickets. He heard her soft breath. He
felt
her warm breath on his shoulder and chest. He
felt
her naked body under his arm, pressing against his side. He couldn’t breathe.

“Tania?”

“Yes?” Her expectant voice quivering.

“Are you tired? Too tired to talk?”

“Not too tired to talk.” Less expectantly.

“Start at the beginning, and don’t stop until you get to Luga Station. What happened to you?”

After she told him everything, he waited a moment and then asked incredulously, “Did you cover yourself by crawling under a pile of bodies before the station collapsed?”

“Yes,” she replied.

Alexander was silent for a few moments. “Nice military maneuver, Tatia.”

“Thank you.”

They were quiet, and then he heard her crying. He held her closer. “I’m sorry about your brother.”

“Shura,” Tatiana said, speaking so softly he had to strain to hear, “remember I told you about how Pasha and I used to go to Lake Ilmen in Novgorod?”

“I remember, Tania.” He stroked her hair.

“My Aunt Rita and Uncle Boris and my cousin Marina—”

“
The
cousin Marina?”

“What do you mean?”

“The cousin Marina you were going to visit on the bus?” He smiled in the dark and felt her hand lightly pinch his stomach.

“Yes. They had a
dacha
and a rowboat on that lake, and Pasha and I used to take turns rowing. I’d row halfway across the lake and he’d row halfway. Well, one day we got into a stupid argument about where halfway actually was. He just didn’t want to let me row, so he kept arguing and arguing, and then yelling, and then screaming, and finally he said, ‘You want this oar? Well, here, you can have it,’ and he swung it at me and knocked me right out of the boat into the lake.” Tatiana shivered. Alexander heard her laugh a little. “I went into the water, and I was fine, but I didn’t want him to think I was fine, so I held my breath and went under the boat, and I heard him from above yelling for me, more and more panicked, more and more frantic, and suddenly he jumped into the water to rescue me, and I swam to the other side of the boat, climbed in, picked up one of the oars and whistled for him. As soon as he turned around, I whacked him on the head.” Tatiana wiped her face with the hand that had just been touching Alexander. “Well, with my luck, he of course lost consciousness. He had put on a life jacket—”

“Unlike you?”

“Unlike me. I saw him floating in the water facedown, and I thought he was just playing a trick on me, too. I wanted to see how long he could hold his breath. I was convinced he couldn’t hold it as long as me. So I let him float for a minute, then another minute. Finally I jumped in and pulled him to the boat. Don’t know how I got him in. And rowed all the way back to shore by myself while he lay there and moaned that I had hit him too hard. Oh, did I get it from my parents when they saw the bruise on Pasha’s head. And after I’d been thoroughly punished, then he told everybody that he was just faking and was conscious the whole time.” She started to cry again. “Do you know how I feel now? Like I’m waiting any minute for Pasha to come out of the water and tell me this was all just a big joke.”

His voice cracking, Alexander said, “Tatiasha, the fucking Germans just hit him too hard with that oar.”

“I know,” she whispered. “I’m so sad he was alone without all of us.” She fell silent, and Alexander, too, as he lay and listened to her breath recover its rhythm. That he was alone without
you,
Tatiana, thought Alexander. He would have felt better had he been with
you.

He listened to her paused breath, as if she were trying to ask him something. He continued to stroke her hair to give her strength. “What, Tatia?”

“Shura, are you asleep?”

“No.”

“I’ve missed you… coming to Kirov. Is that all right to say?”

“And I’ve missed
you,
” Alexander said, rubbing his lips against her gold-silk, down-feather hair. “And it’s all right to say.”