Tatiana and Alexander: A Novel(137)

"He is dead, Captain," whispered Ouspensky. "Look for yourself."

"No," said Alexander. "He cannot die. It's impossible. Leave me alone. Either walk with me, or walk the other way, but leave me alone."

And he continued to walk with Pasha limp on his back, for another half-hour, another hour, and then Alexander slowed down on the unpaved empty road, stopped by a lone bare tree, and lowered Pasha to the ground. Pasha was no longer hot, and he was no longer struggling for breath. He was white and cold and his eyes were open.

"No, Pasha," whispered Alexander. "No." He felt Pasha's head. He closed Pasha's eyes. For a few moments he stood over Pasha, and then he sank to the ground. Wrapping him tightly with the trench Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

coat, Alexander took Pasha's body into his arms and, cradling him from the cold, closed his own eyes.

For the rest of the night Alexander sat on an empty road, his back against the tree, not moving, not opening his eyes, not speaking, holding Tatiana's brother in his arms.

If Ouspensky spoke to him, he did not hear. If he slept, he did not feel it, not the cold air, nor the hard ground, nor the rough bark of the tree against his back, against his head.

When morning broke, and gray close light rose over Saxony, Alexander opened his eyes. Ouspensky was sleeping on his side, wrapped in his trench coat next to them. Pasha's body was rigid, very cold.

Alexander got up from under Pasha, washed his own face with whisky, rinsed out his mouth with whisky, and then got his titanium trench tool and started to carve a hole in the ground. Ouspensky woke up, helped him. It took them three hours of scraping at the earth, to make a hole a meter deep. Not deep enough, but it would have to do. Alexander covered Pasha's face with the trench coat so the earth wouldn't fall on it. With two small branches and a piece of string, Alexander made a cross and laid it on top of Pasha's chest, and then they lifted him and lowered him into the hole, and Alexander, his teeth grit the entire time, filled the shallow grave with fresh dirt. On a wide thick branch, he carved out the name PASHA METANOV, and the date, Feb 25, 1945, and tying it to another longer branch made another cross and staked it into the ground.

Alexander and Ouspensky stood still. Alexander saluted the grave. "The Lord is my shepherd," he mouthed inaudibly to himself. "I shall not want. He maketh me lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me to high waters, to the valley of death..." Alexander broke off. Sinking down near his tree by the road, he lit a cigarette.

Ouspensky asked if they were going to get going.

"No," Alexander said. "I'm going to sit here a while."

Hours went by.

Ouspensky asked again.

"Lieutenant," said Alexander, in a voice that was so defeated he did not recognize it as his own, "I am not walking away from him."

"Captain!" Ouspensky exclaimed. "What about those winds of fate you said were blowing at you?"

"You must have misunderstood, Nikolai," said Alexander, not looking up. "I said they were blowingby me."

The next day the German police picked them up, loaded them onto an armored truck and took them back to Colditz.

Alexander was badly beaten by the German guards and taken to solitary, where he spent so long he lost track of time.

With Pasha's death came the death of faith.

Release me, Tatiana, release me, forgive me, forget me, let me forget you. I want to be free of you, free Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

of your face, free of your freedom, free of your fire, free, free, free.

The flight across the ocean was over, and with it all the warmth of his imagination. A numbness encroached on him, freezing him from the heart out, the anesthetic of despair creeping its tentacles over his ten-dons and his arteries, over his nerves and his veins until he was stiff inside and bereft of hope and bereft of Tatiana. Finally.

But not quite.

CHAPTER THIRTY

New York, April 1945

IN APRIL THE AMERICANSand Russians swarmed over Germany, and in the first week of May, Germany unconditionally surrendered. The European war was over. In the Pacific theater, the Americans continued to suffer bloodletting even as they beat back the Japanese from every beach head, from every island.

June 23 quietly came and went. Tatiana turned twenty-one. How long did they say you would mourn before the years dulled your pain? How long before the hand of time, tick, tick, tick, relentless days and nights and months and years chipped away at the stone of sorrow inside your throat until it was no more than a pebble with smooth sides? Every time you think his name, the air can't get past it, every time you look at his son, the air can't get past it. Every time it's Christmas, your birthday, his birthday, March 13, you can't breathe for a day, another day, another year. They fly by, the years, and yet the grief remains lodged in your throat, through which everything else in your life has to pass. Everything else: happiness for yourself, affection for other people, joy at living, at comfort, at convenience, laughter at your child, food on your plate, drink at your table, every prayer, every clasping of the hands, past it, past it, past it.

In the summer of 1945, Vikki agreed to go to Arizona by train with Tatiana and Anthony. Tatiana wanted to take a vacation to celebrate her becoming a U.S. citizen.

On the way, Tatiana told Vikki they needed to make a short stop in Washington DC.