Tatiana and Alexander: A Novel(123)

"The pen, Lieutenant."

Ouspensky handed it over.

Alexander stuck the short plastic barrell halfway into the hole, taking care in his expediency not to ram it against the back of the trachea.

Alexander let himself draw a breath. "We did all right, Pasha," he said. "Ouspensky, the twine." He tied one end of the barrell to the rope, the other around Pasha's neck, so the pen would hold steady and not slip out.

"How long before the swelling goes down?" Alexander asked.

"How should I know?" replied Ouspensky. "All the men I've seen with their throats closed up died Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

before the swelling went down. So I don't know."

Pasha was lying in Alexander's arms, erratically, sporadically, ecstatically breathing through the dirty plastic tube while Alexander watched his mud-covered struggling face, thinking that the whole war had been reduced to waiting for death while Pasha's life piped through the inkless barrell of a broken Soviet pen.

One minute Grinkov, Marazov, Verenkov without his glasses, Telikov, Yermenko, one minute Dasha, and one minute Alexander, too. One minute he was alive, and the next minute he was lying on the ice on Lake Ladoga bleeding out, his icy clothes entombing him. One minute, alive, the next face down, helmet down, in his white coat, lying on the ice, bleeding out.

But in less time than it took to draw a breath, Alexander had been loved. In one deep breath, in one agonized blink, he had been so beloved.

"Pasha, can you hear me?" asked Alexander. "Blink if you can hear me."

Pasha blinked.

Tightening his mouth, taking shallow breaths, Alexander remembered a poem,The Fantasia of a Fallen Gentleman on a Cold Bitter Night :

Once in finesse of fiddles found I ecstasy

And in a flash of gold heels on the hard pavement

Now see I

That warmth's the very stuff of poesy

Oh, God, make small

The old, star-eaten blanket of the sky,

That I may fold it round me, and in comfort lie.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

New York, October 1944

EDWARD LUDLOW CAME THROUGHthe double doors of the hospital quarters in Ellis Island and pulled Tatiana by her hand out into the hall. "Tatiana, is it true what I saw?"

"I don't know. What you see?"

He was pale from anxiety.

"What?" Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

"Is it true? I saw the NYU Red Cross roster for the nurses about to be sent to Europe, and the name Jane Barrington was on it. Tell me it's a different Jane Barrington, just a coincidence."

Tatiana was quiet.

"No. Please. No."

"Edward--"

He took her hands. "Have you talked to anyone about this?"

"No, of course not."

"What are you thinking? The Americans are in Europe. Hitler is getting squeezed on both fronts. The war is coming to an end soon. There is no reason to go."

"The POW camps are in desperate need of medicine and food and packages and care."

"Tatiana, they have care. From other nurses."

"If they have care, how come army asking for Red Cross volunteers?"

"Yes, forother volunteers. Not for you."

When she did not reply, Edward pressed her. "God, Tatiana," he said in a shocked voice, "what are you planning to do with Anthony?"

"I wanted to leave him with his great-aunt in Massachusetts, but I think she won't be able to run after small boy." Tatiana saw the expression in Edward's eyes. She took her hands away. "Esther say I could leave him with her. She says her housekeeper Rosa could help look after the baby, but I do not think that's good idea."

"You don'tthink ?"

Tatiana did not reply to the sarcasm in his voice but instead said, "I thought I would leave him with Isabella--"

"Isabella? A complete stranger!"

"Not complete stranger. She offered..."

"Tania, she doesn't know what I know. She doesn't even know what you know. But I know things even you don't know. Tell me the truth, are you going because you are planning to look for your husband?"

Tatiana did not reply.

"Oh, Tatiana," said Edward with a shake of his head. "Oh, Tatiana. You told me he was dead."

"Edward, what you worried about?" Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

He wiped his brow, stepping away from her slightly in his confusion and anxiety. "Tania," he said, his low voice trembling. "Heinrich Himmler has taken control of the German POW camps this fall. The first thing he did was to refuse any packages or letters to be passed on to the American POWs or to have the camps inspected by the IRC. Himmler assured us the Allied forces are getting fair treatment, all but the Soviets. Right now, the Red Cross does not have permission to examine the German POW camps. Which only speaks to their desperation. They know the war is so close to being lost, they don't even care anymore about the fate of their own prisoners. They cared last year, the year before, but not now. I'm sure the ban on the Red Cross will be lifted, but even so, how many prisoner camps do you think there are, two? Do you know how many? Hundreds! And dozens more Italian, French, English, American camps. How many prisoners do you think that is? Hundreds of thousands would be a conservative estimate."