Tatiana and Alexander: A Novel(115)

"I knew his mother. She wheedled food from Tania for the two sons that remained with her."

"What happened to them?"

"Leningrad took them all." Alexander lowered his head another notch. In a moment, his head was going to be in the mud he was sitting in.

Alexander wanted to talk to Pasha about the Vlasovites but couldn't find the words. How to express that never before had a million soldiers turned away from their own army and joined the side of the hated enemy on their own soil against their own people. Spies yes, double spies, individual traitors, yes. But a million soldiers?

All Alexander could manage was, "Pasha,what were you thinking?"

"What was I thinking? About what? Have you not heard what happened in the Ukraine, how Stalin abandoned his own men to the Germans there?"

"I've heard it all," Alexander said tiredly. "I have been fighting for the Red Army since 1937. I've heard everything. I know about everything. Every decree, every law, every edict."

"Don't you know that our great commander made being taken prisoner a crime against the Motherland?"

"Of course I know. And the POW's family gets no bread."

"That's right. But know this: Stalin's own son was taken prisoner by the Nazis."

"Yes."

"And when Stalin learned of this, and saw the potential ironic conflict, do you know what he did?"

"The lore is that he disowned his son," said Alexander, drawing his helmet tighter over his ears.

"The lore is correct. I know because I heard from the German SS that he was sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp near Berlin, and there he died in the execution pit."

"Yes."

"His own son! What hope is there for me?"

"None for any of us," said Alexander, "except this: Stalin doesn't know who we are. That might help us. Save us." Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

"He knows whoI am."

Alexander feared Stalin might know who he was, too. Foreign espionage in his officer ranks. His eyes bore into Pasha's face. "All of this put together and heaped on top of all the dead Chinese in 1937 cannot equal fighting on the side of the enemy against your own people. I think the army calls it high treason. What do you think they will do to you when they catch you, Pasha?"

Pasha wanted to wave his hands with emotion; he struggled against the ropes and whirled his head from side to side. "The same thing they would do to me if I were returned to them a prisoner of war," he said at last. "And don't sit there and judge me. You don't know me. You don't know my life."

"Tell me." Alexander moved closer. They were huddled near the same tree, their backs to the silent line of battle.

"The Germans put me into a camp at Minsk for that first winter of 1941 to '42. There were sixty thousand in our camp, and they couldn't feed us, nor did they want to. They couldn't cover us, or clothe us, or heal us. And our own leaders made sure that extra help wouldn't be coming from the Red Cross. We certainly wouldn't be receiving any parcels of food from home, or letters perhaps, or blankets. Nothing. When Stalin was asked by Hitler about reciprocity for the German prisoners, Stalin replied that he didn't know what Hitler was talking about, because he wassure there were no Soviet prisoners, since no Soviet soldier would ever be so unpatriotic as to surrender to the f*cking Germans, and then added that he certainly wasn't interested in unilateral rights of parcel just for the Germans. And so Hitler said, right, that's just fine with us. There were sixty thousand of us in that camp, I tell you, and at the end of that winter eleven thousand remained. Much more manageable, wouldn't you agree?"

Alexander mutely nodded.

"In the spring I escaped and made my way on rivers down to the Ukraine, where I was promptly seized by the Germans again, and this time put not in a POW camp, but in a work camp. I thought that was illegal, to make prisoners work, but apparently it's not illegal to do anything to Soviet soldiers or refugees. So the work camp was full of Ukrainian Jews, and then I noticed that they were disappearing en masse. I didn't think they were all escaping to join the partisan movement. I found out for sure when they made us non Jews dig out massive holes in the summer of 1942, and then cover up the thousands of bodies with dirt. I knew I was not safe for long. I didn't think the Germans had any special affinity for the Russian man. They hated Jews the most, but the Russians weren't too far behind, and Red Army men seemed to breed a special kind of hostility. They didn't just want to kill us, they wanted to destroy us, to break our bodies, first, then our spirits, then set us on fire. I had enough of it, and escaped that summer of 1942, and that's when I, plundering through the countryside, hoping to make my way to Greece, was picked up by a band of men fighting for Voronov who fought for Andrei Vlasov of the ROA, the Russian Liberation Army. I knew my fate. I joined."

"Oh, Pasha." Alexander stood up.

"You think my sister would prefer that I die at the hands of Hitler or at the hands of Comrade Stalin? I went with Vlasov--the man who promised me life. Stalin said I would die. Hitler said I would die. Hitler, who treats dogs better than the Soviet POWs."

"Hitler loves dogs. He prefers dogs to children."

"Hitler, Stalin, they offered me the same thing. Only General Vlasov stood up for my life. And I wanted Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html