Tatiana and Alexander: A Novel(196)

Alexander was not so much sleeping as unconscious, while Tatiana was propped up on her elbow, tracing the scars on his body. She didn't want to wake him but she couldn't stop touching him. He had marks on his body that defied her understanding. How could a body bear all this yet live, thinner than before, less whole than before, raggedly tearing apart at the seams, yet live?

Her hand cupped him softly, then ran down to his shins, and up again to his arms, where it stayed, caressing him, while Tatiana stared at his sleeping face.

There is one moment, a moment in eternity. Before we find out the truth about one another. That simple moment is the one that propels us through life--what we felt like at the very edge of our future, standing over the abyss, before we knew for sure we loved. Before we knew for sure we loved forever. Before the dying Dasha, the dying Mama, the dying Leningrad. Before Luga. Before the divinity of Lazarevo, when the miracles you heaped upon me with your love and your body alloyed us for life. Before all that, you and I walked through the Summer Garden, and once in a while my bare arm touched your arm, and once in a while you spoke and that gave me an excuse to look up into your face, into your laughing eyes, to catch a glimpse of your mouth and I, who had never been touched, tried to imagine what it might be like to have your mouth touch me. Falling in love with you in the Summer Garden in the white nights of Leningrad is the moment that propels me through life.

He woke up, saw her. "What are you doing?" he whispered.

"Watching over you," she whispered back.

And he closed his eyes and reached for her, taking her almost without waking, and then slept.

The next morning at dawn, the farmer came in to milk the cows. They lay silently in the loft and listened to him, and after he left, Tatiana dressed, went down the ladder and squeezed some milk for her and Alexander into a cup she carried to dispense medicine. He came with her, holding both pistols in his hands.

They drank to bursting.

"My God, you're thinner than I've ever seen you," she said. "Have some more milk. Have all of it."

He drank. "You're curvier than I've ever seen you." He bent to her on the little stool. "Your breasts are bigger." Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

"Motherhood, I guess," she muttered, kissing him.

"Let's go up," he said, his hand on her.

They went up. But before they had a chance to undress, they heard the sound of an engine outside. It was seven in the morning. Alexander looked out the small, four-pane loft window. A military truck was outside and four Red Army officers were talking to the farmer in the clearing.

He glanced back at Tatiana.

"Who's there?" she whispered.

"Tania, sit back against the wall but not too far. Hold the P-38 and the ammo."

"Who's there?"

"They've come for us."

She emitted a cry, creeping to the window. "Oh, my God, there are four of them, what are we going to do, we're trapped up here!"

"Shh. Maybe they'll leave." Alexander readied the machine gun, all three pistols and the Commando. She watched them out of the corner of the window. The farmer was opening his hands, shrugging his shoulders. The soldiers were coming up too close to him, pointing to the house, the fields, and finally the barn. The farmer moved out of their way, motioning with his hand in the direction of the barn.

"The revolver, is it double action, or single action?"

"What?"

"Never mind."

"Double action, I think. I'm almost sure," she said, trying to remember. "Does it recock by itself you mean? Yes."

Alexander lay flat with two bales in front of him, the machine gun and pistols by his right side, the Commando in his hands pointed at the ladder. Tatiana, her shaking hands full of clips, sat against the barn wall behind him.

He turned around. "Not a single sound, Tania. Stop shaking."

Mutely she nodded. Tried to stop shaking.

The barn door opened and the farmer came in with one of the officers. Tatiana's heart was beating so loudly that she could barely hear. The officer spoke very poor German intermingled with Russian. The farmer must have told him that no one had been through these parts, because the officer yelled in Russian, "You're sure of this, you're sure?"

They went on in circles like this for a few seconds, and suddenly the officer stopped speaking and looked around. "Do you smoke?" he asked in Russian. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

"Nein, nein,"said the farmer."Ich rauche nei in der Scheune wegen Brandgefahr."

"Well, fire or no fire, somebody has been smoking in your f*cking barn!"

Tatiana put her hand over her mouth to stop herself from crying out.

The officer ran out of the barn. She looked out the window. He said something to the rest of the men. One of them turned off the engine and they all retrieved their machine guns.

"Shura," Tatiana whispered.

"Shh. Don't speak. Don't even breathe."

The farmer was still standing in the middle of his barn when the four Soviets walked in with their weapons.

"Get the f*ck out of here," one of them said to the farmer. He ran.

"Who's here?" they called.

Tatiana held her breath.