Tatiana and Alexander: A Novel(181)

"Poorly," said Tatiana without even bothering to translate. Martin and Penny were scarfing down their food. "You have a real health situation with those men you've got there. I'll tell you your biggest problem. They're unclean. They're scabby and furfuraceous. Are your showers working? Is your laundry working?"

"Of course," Brestov said indignantly.

"They're not working around the clock, though, and they should be. If you kept your men clean and dry, you would prevent half of what's going on in there. Disinfectant in the toilets wouldn't hurt, either." Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

"Listen, they're getting up, they're walking, they can't be that sick. They get a little exercise in the yard, they eat three times a day."

"What are you feeding them?"

"This isn't a resort, Nurse Barrington. They eat prison food."

Tatiana looked at the steak on Brestov's plate.

"What, gruel in the morning, broth for lunch, potatoes for dinner?" she asked.

"Also bread," he said. "And sometimes they get chicken soup."

"Not clean enough, not fed enough, bunks too close together, those barracks are incubators for disease, and lest you think it has nothing to do with you,your men have to guard them, and your men are getting sick, too. Remember, diphtheria is contagious, typhoid from eating spoiled food is contagious, typhus is contagious--"

"Wait, wait, we don't have typhus!"

"Not yet," Tatiana said calmly. "But your prisoners have lice, they have ticks, their hair is unshaven and too long. And when they get typhus, your men will still have to guard them."

For a moment, Brestov said nothing as the piece of steak hung suspended from his fork, and then he spoke: "Well, at least they're not being eaten alive by syphilis." He threw his head back and laughed. "We've taken care ofthat little problem."

Tatiana got up from the table. "You're mistaken there, Commandant. We found sixty-four men with syphilis, seventeen of them in advanced tertiary stages."

"That's impossible!" he cried.

"Nonetheless, they're ill with it. And by the way, your nationals, the Soviet prisoners, seem to be in worse shape than the Germans, ifthat's possible. Well, thank you very much for a pleasant evening. I will see you all tomorrow."

"We don't want the mentoo healthy," said Brestov after her, taking a large gulp from his vodka glass, "do we now, Nurse Barrington? Good health makes men less...cooperative."

Tatiana continued walking.

The next morning she was up at five. No one else was, though. She had to sit on her hands--literally--until six o'clock.

They got ready--slowly; they ate--slower, and finally resumed inspection of the remaining five officers' barracks.

"Are you all right?" Karolich asked her with a polite smile. His uniform collars were starched, his hair clipped and brushed neatly back. He was incongruous. "Yesterday shake you up?"

"A little. I'm fine," she said. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

"He's been sent to the brig because of what happened."

"Who? Oh, him. Don't worry."

"Does it happen often?"

"Not that often."

He nodded. "Your Russian really is very good."

"Well, thank you. I think you're just being kind."

They gave out the kits and apples, treated what they could, and got the infectious cases out of the common barracks. Tatiana took a walk through the infirmary beds. He was not there, either.

"I'm surprised at the condition of the Soviet men," Martin said when they went outside to take a break. It was raining, and they stood under an awning for just a breath of reprieve.

"Why?" said Tatiana.

"I don't know. I would have thought they'd be treated better than the Germans."

"Why would you think that? The Soviet men are not in danger of being scrutinized by international eyes. It's all about appearances. Those Soviet officers are about to be shipped back to the Soviet Union work camps. What do you think awaits them there?" She shuddered. "At least here, there's a summer."

It was in barrack nineteen, as Tatiana was perched on one bunk, cleaning out an old burn wound with boric acid that she heard a voice behind her and a familiar laugh. She turned her head, looked across the row and found herself eye to eye with Lieutenant Ouspensky from the Morozovo hospital. Instantly she looked elsewhere, then turned back to her patient, but her heart was beating wildly. She waited for him to call out to her, "Why, NurseMetanova , what bringsyou here?"

But he didn't. Instead, when she was finished and stood up to leave, he said, speaking Russian to her. "Oh, nurse, nurse, looky here."

Slowly she looked. He was smiling widely. "I have a number of things very wrong with me that I know only you can fix--being a nurse and all. Can you come hither and help me?"

The makeup, the hair worked. He didn't recognize her. Collecting her things and snapping shut her bag, Tatiana stood up and said, "You look perfectly healthy to me."

"You haven't felt my head. You haven't felt my heart. You haven't felt my stomach. You haven't felt my..."