Tatiana and Alexander: A Novel(134)

They planned for another two weeks until the middle of February. They got medical supplies and canned goods and a compass. They stole sheets out of the laundry room and at night cut them in the dark and braided them together and then hid them in their ripped-apart mattresses. While helping to make rope Ouspensky kept saying he wasn't going, but everybody in the cell knew he was. The hardest thing was to get some civilian clothes. Pasha finally managed to sweet-talk Anna into stealing them from the laundry at the German senior officers' quarters. Their weapons had long been taken away from them, but Alexander still had his rucksack, which had a titanium trench tool, wire cutters, his empty pen, and some money. Anna even stole them some German IDs the night before their escape.

"We don't speak German," said Ouspensky. "It won't do us much good."

"I speak a little," said Pasha, "and since we'll be wearing German clothes, it's only right we should have German IDs."

"And what did you promise this young na?ve girl for risking her job and livelihood for you?" Ouspensky asked with a sneer.

"My heart." Pasha smiled. "My undying devotion. Isn't it what we always promise them? Right, Alexander?"

"Right, Pasha."

Finally the planned night in February came and the time was near. Everything was ready.

It was eleven in the evening and Ouspensky was snoring. He asked to be woken up ten minutes before departure. Alexander thought it was smart to rest, but he himself could not sleep since yesterday.

He and Pasha were sitting on the floor by the closed window, tugging on the rope that was securely--they hoped--attached to one of the bunkbeds cemented into the floor.

"Do you think Constantine is strong enough to hold the rope steady? He doesn't look that strong," Pasha whispered.

"He'll be fine." Alexander lit a cigarette.

So did Pasha. "Will we succeed, Alexander? Will we make it?" Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

"I don't know." Alexander paused. "I don't know what God has planned for us."

"There you go with your God again. Are you prepared for anything?"

Alexander paused before answering. "Anything," he said, "except failure."

"Alexander?"

"Yes?"

"Do you ever think about your child?"

"What do you think?"

Pasha was quiet.

"What do you want to know? If I think she still remembers me? Do I think she has forgotten me--found a new life? Assumed that I was dead, accepted that I was dead." Alexander shrugged. "I think about it all the time. I live inside my heart. But what can I do? I have to move toward her."

Pasha was quiet.

Alexander listened to his palpitating breathing.

"What if she is happy now?"

"I hope she is."

"I mean--" Pasha went on, but Alexander interrupted him.

"Stop."

"Tania is at her core a happy soul, a resilient person. She is loyal and she is true, she is unyielding and relentless, but she also feels a child's delight for the smallest things. You know how some people gravitate toward misery?"

"I know how some people do that, yes," said Alexander, inhaling the nicotine.

"Tania doesn't."

"I know."

"What if she is remarried and has made herself a fine life?"

"I'll be happy to find her happy."

"But then what?"

"Then nothing. We salute her. You stay. I go." Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

"You're not risking your life to justgo , Alexander."

"No." I am a salmon, born in fresh water, living in salt water, swimming 3,200 kilometers upstream over rivers and seas back home to fresh water to spawn, and to die. I have no choice.

"What if she's forgotten you?"

"No."

"Maybe not forgotten, but what if she doesn't feel the same way anymore? She is in love with her new husband. She's got kids. She looks at you and is horrified."

"Pasha, you have a twisted Russian soul. Shut the f*ck up."

"Alexander, when I was fifteen, I had a crush on this girl, we had a great time for a month, and the next year I went back to Luga thinking we would continue our romance, and you know what? She didn't even remember who I was. How pathetic was that?"

"Pretty pathetic." They both laughed. "You obviously were doing something wrong if she forgot you that quick."

"Shut up yourself."

Alexander had no doubt--whatever Tatiana's life was, she had not forgotten him. He still felt her crying in his dreams. Every once in a while he dreamed of her not in Lazarevo but in a new place, with a new face, speaking to him, begging him, imploring him--but even in a new place with a new face, Alexander could smell her pure breath, breathing her life into him.

"Alexander," Pasha barely whispered, "what if we never find her?"

"Pasha, you're going to make a chain smoker out of me," Alexander said, lighting up. "Look, I don't have all the answers. She knows that if I am able, I will never stop looking for her."

"What are we going to do with Ouspensky?" Pasha said. "Couldn't we leave him here? Just forget to wake him."