Tatiana and Alexander: A Novel(157)

And soon even her breasts were gone from him, and her face, and her voice calling for him. All was gone.

What remained was his male impact upon her female moaning.

And soon even that was gone.

His hands flung up over his right shoulder, he paused in introspection of the wood and crashed down. And with every swing of the axe, Alexander cut apart his life.

Did he think so little of it--to have so quickly given it up? How many times had fate twisted him to Finland? When he was young, hadn't he refused the path given to him, offering excuses to the gods instead?

He had always been in the middle of something else.

Stepanov's son--there was nothing else he could do that day.

But during the blockade, when he pushed the Finns north to Karelia? He had an automatic weapon against five NKVD men with single-shot rifles. He could have been free.

He swung his axe, dumbstruck by himself.

Alexander could have gone, and forgotten her, and she him. She would have forgotten him and lived through the war, remained in Leningrad, and married. She would have had one child. She never would have known the difference. But Alexanderhad known the difference. And now they both knew the difference. Now they both were split apart--except she is wearing high heels and red lipstick somewhere, and all the soldiers returning from war are fawning over her and she says, oh I had a husband, and I made some vows but now he is dead, and come dance with me, come, look at my heels and my glorious hair, come dance away the war with me, I live and he is dead, I was sad, and then the war was over and I breathed again and now I'm dancing.

He swung his axe.

I inhale the frozen earth, I inhale ice that fills my lungs, and I breathe out fire.

I didn't go because I was an arrogant bastard. I thought I could always run. I thought I was f*cking immortal. Death would never get me. I was stronger and smarter than death. Stronger and smarter than the Soviet Union. I jumped thirty meters into the Volga, I made my way through half the country with nothing on my back, Kresty didn't get me, Vladivostok didn't get me, typhus didn't get me.

Tatiana got me.

I will be fifty-one when they let me out of here.

He felt so old, having been young with her. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

Alexander had been in the woods too long. And the deathly, eerie silence of the forest was icily frightening. He looked around. Suddenly he heard a noise. What was that? It sounded almost familiar. He held his breath.

There it was. In the middle distance, the sound of soft laughter.

Again the soft trilling sound, so familiar his bones ached.Tatiana , he whispered.

She comes to him, and she is pale. She is wearing a polka dot bathing suit, and her hair is long. She comes up to him and sits down on the stump so he can't cut his wood. He lights a cigarette and watches her mutely. He doesn't know what to say to her.

"Alexander," she speaks first. "You're alive. And you've grown so old. What happened to you?"

"How do I look?" he asks.

"You look like you're nearly fifty."

"I am fifty."

She smiles. "You're fifty, but I am seventeen." She laughs melodiously. "How unfair life is. La-la-la."

"Lazarevo, Tania, do you remember it? Our summer of '42?"

"What summer of '42? I died in '41. I'm forever seventeen. Remember Dasha? Dasha! Come! Look who I found."

"Tania, what do you mean, you died? You didn't die. Look at you. Wait, don't call Dasha."

"Dasha, come! Of course I died. How do you think my sister and I could have survived that Leningrad? We didn't. We couldn't. One morning I couldn't carry the water up anymore. Couldn't get the rations anymore. We lay down together in our bed, and we were fine. We couldn't move. I covered us with a blanket. The fire went out. The bread ended. We didn't get up again."

"Wait, wait."

Tania smiles at him, white teeth all, freckles all, braids, breasts, all.

"Tania...what about me? Why didn't I help you?"

"Help me with what?"

"With bread, with rations? Why didn't I get you out of Leningrad?"

"What do you mean? We never saw you again after September. Where did you go? You said you were going to marry Dasha, and then you disappeared. She thought you had run out on her."

"On her?" Alexander says, aghast. "What about you?"

"What about me?" she asks brightly. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

"What about our talk at St. Isaac's? What about Luga?"

"What St. Isaac's? What Luga? Dasha, where are you? You won't believe who I ran into!"

"Tania," he says. "Why are you acting as if you don't know me? Why are you pretending? You're breaking my heart. Please stop. Please say something to comfort me."

She stops bouncing, bounding, skipping, flinging her braids around, stops cold, looks at him and says, "Alex, what are you--"

"What did you just call me?"

"Alex--"

"You've never called me that."

"What do you mean? We called you that all the time."

Alexander is desperately trying to wake up. He can't dream this anymore. He will go mad. Except he is awake. The axe is in front of him. She is skipping on one leg. "Luga, Tania? What about Luga?"