Tatiana and Alexander: A Novel(185)

"I would've never left."

"I knew that." He paused. "Too well."

She stopped touching him. "You and your impossible ego," she said. "Leningrad, Morozovo, Lazarevo. You always thought you knew what was best."

"Ah," he said. "So there was a Lazarevo?"

"What?" she said, momentarily puzzled. "I told you I would have waited for you, and I would have."

"Like you told me you would not leave Lazarevo? You would have lived there without me," said Alexander. "I've been sentenced to twenty-five years' hard labor."

She flinched.

"Tania, why aren't you looking at me?" he asked haltingly. "Why are you looking down at your lap?"

"Because I'm afraid," she whispered. "I'm so afraid."

"Me, too," Alexander said. "Please lift your eyes. I need your eyes on me."

She lifted her eyes. Tears were rolling down her cheeks.

They fell mute. She was bending under the weight of her heart.

"Thank you," she whispered, "for keeping yourself alive, soldier."

"You're welcome," he whispered back.

There was the sound of the outside door opening and closing. Moving away, Tatiana quickly wiped her face. Her mascara was running. Alexander closed his eyes.

Karolich walked into the cell with a pail and gauze.

"Lieutenant, let's begin, but I need you to unlock him. His wrists and ankles are raw from the iron. I need to clean them and bandage them or they will get infected if they haven't already." Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

Karolich took out his key and brought his machine gun into his hands. "You don't know this one, Nurse Barrington. I wouldn't have much sympathy for him, if I were you."

"I have sympathy for all the afflicted," she replied.

"This is all his own doing."

Tatiana could see that Karolich's genial manner changed when he was around Alexander. He was cold and rough as he unlocked the shackles and dropped them noiselessly to the straw. "Why do you use irons here?" she asked. "Why don't you use leather restraints? They do what you need but are easier for the prisoner."

Karolich laughed. "Nurse, you obviously have not been paying attention.We don't use the irons, the Germans used the irons. This is what they've left behind for us. Besides, this one would gnaw through the leather in three hours."

She sighed. "We should at least change the straw when we're done."

Karolich shrugged, then sat back against the wall, on clean straw, his legs stretched out comfortably, and took the machine gun into his hands. "One wrong move, Belov, and you know what's going to happen?"

Alexander said nothing.

Tatiana kneeled by Alexander. "Come on," she said. "Let me clean you, all right?"

"All right."

"Tip your head back. It will be easier for me to clean your hair."

He tipped his head back.

"What happened to him, Lieutenant?" asked Tatiana, as one of her hands went around Alexander's neck, supporting his head, his face nearly in her nurse's uniform, nearly at her breasts, as she with a towel wiped the dried and bloodied mats out of his hair. It was as long as his beard. "I will shave and trim him, but you know you need to keep your men's hair short, you can't let it grow this long and not keep it clean. Not just him, all your men."

"Why are you looking at him like that?" Karolich asked suddenly.

"Like what?" she whispered.

"I don't even know."

"I'm tired. I think you're right. This has been too much for me."

"So leave him. Let's go to the house. We'll have a decent lunch." He smiled. "Yesterday you didn't have any wine. The wine is very good."

"No. I will finish here." She snipped away the hair and gently cleaned Alexander's wound. He had been cut in the skull above the ear and had bled down onto his neck and shirt. The blood had dried where it fell. How long had he been here? His face looked swollen with bloodied bruises under his eyes, below Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

his jawline. Was he beaten? In the dark, she could make out the black of the blood and the white of his shirt, and the black of his hair, and the black of his eyes. He was long unshaven, long unwashed. Long untouched. He lay in her arms, his eyes closed, barely breathing. Only his heart thundered through his veins. He lay in her arms so still, so comforted, so hers, so relieved, so afraid, she felt it all in him, and felt it all in her, and was so desperate to bend to him, to say something to him, that through the effort she was expending to remain composed, she bit her lip so hard it bled, right onto Alexander's face.

"Nurse, you're bleeding on the prisoner."

Alexander blinked, and mutely raised his eyes to Tatiana.

"It's nothing." Tatiana licked the blood off her mouth as she dipped her rag in cool water. "Tell me what happened to him."

Karolich chuckled. "He's been with us nearly a year. He was well behaved at first, worked hard, logged, was quiet, a model prisoner, a tireless worker and was amply rewarded. We wished we had more prisoners like him. Unfortunately, since November he has been trying to escape every time we let him out of here and back into the barracks. He thinks he's in a hotel. Comes and goes as he pleases. You'd think he would learn after seventeen failures, but you'd be wrong."