Tatiana and Alexander: A Novel(198)

He stopped moving, too. "Where?" he said into her ear, not turning his head.

"Over to my--"

"Clock, Tania. Tell me where he is on the clock. I'm in the middle."

"He's at four thirty."

Alexander lay very still, as still as he had lain up in the barn that morning. Tatiana emitted a puppy whimper.

"Shh," he said without a breath. The P-38 lay on the trench blanket by his left hand. He lifted himself slightly off Tatiana and in one fluid motion, cocked the lever, turned his left hand and fired three times. There was a cry from the woods and the sound of a body crashing into the bushes.

They both jumped up. Alexander threw on his shorts, Tatiana her underwear. He went to look, armed with his Commando and his Colt. She followed close behind, her hands on her breasts. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

A man in a Soviet uniform lay spurting blood. Two of the shots hit him, one in the shoulder, one in the neck. Alexander took away the man's loaded pistol and went back to the clearing. Tatiana kneeled down in front of the man and pressed her hand against his neck wound.

From behind she heard Alexander's incredulous low voice. "Tatiana, what are you doing?"

"Nothing," she said, loosening the man's collar. "He can't breathe."

With a guttural growl, Alexander grabbed her, pulled her out of the way, pointed the Colt and shot the man twice, point-blank in the head. She screamed, fell down, and in her terror tried blindly to get away from Alexander who yanked her up off the ground, still holding the Colt in his hand. She shut her eyes, struggling so hard she was on the verge of becoming hysterical.

"Tatiana! What the f*ck are you doing?"

"Let go of me!"

"He can't breathe? I f*cking hope not! Certainly not anymore. Are you trying to save him or us? This is not a f*cking joke, your life and mine! You can't be bending down, making his last moments better when we're seconds away from death!"

"Stop it, stop it, let go!"

"Oh, for f*ck's sake!" Alexander threw down his weapons and squared off against her, who stood in front of him, her trembling hands palms out at her chest. "What do you want? Why did you come here? Was your goal to leave our son without his mother? Don't you understand it's either you and me, or it's them? There is no middle ground. It's f*cking war, don't you understand that?"

"Please--just--"

"No, I don't think you do!" He grabbed her, squeezed her. "He was watching us, watchingyou , probably from the very beginning, he saw everything, heard everything, and you know what he was waiting for? For me to finish so he could kill me and then have you all to himself. And then he would have killed you. We don't know who he is, he may be an army man, he may be a deserter, but one thing I know, his intentions were not to partake in our lunch!"

"Oh my God, what's happened to you?"

He shoved her away. "What, areyou of all people judging me?" He spat on the ground. "I'm a soldier, not a f*cking saint."

"I'm not judging you. Shura, please..." she whispered, opening her hands to him.

"Us or them, Tatiana."

"You, Alexander,you. " She swayed. He took hold of her with one arm to steady her, but did not press her to him, did not comfort her.

"Don't you understand anything? Go clean his blood off and get dressed. We have to move out." Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

They left the clearing within ten minutes, and back in olive drab, they walked through the woods not speaking except to stop, have a drink, move on. Alexander smoked as he walked. He would stop to listen for the ambient noise of the countryside and then cautiously proceeded forward.

They avoided villages and paved roads, but the farms were also problematic. It was summer, planting season, crop season, harvest season. The combine harvesters, the simple threshers, the tractors, the field-hands were out everywhere. They had to walk around the perimeter of busy fields just to avoid the workers.

They walked through the meadows and woods for six hours,finally heading in a southerly direction. Tatiana wanted desperately to stop. But he wasn't slowing his stride and so she wouldn't slow hers.

They came to a potato field and she, very hungry, walked out in front of him. He immediately grabbed her and pulled her back. "Don't walk in front of me, You don't know anything about this field."

"Oh, and you do."

"Yes, because I've seen thousands like it."

"I've seen a field before, Alexander."

"A mined field?"

This gave her pause. "It's a potato field. It's not mined."

"And you know this how? Did you look at it through your binoculars? Did you examine the ground? Did you crawl through it, your bayonet in front of you feeling for the mines? Or are you just thinking that when you were a little girl growing up in the Luga fields, they weren't mined?"

"Stop it, okay?" she said quietly.

He took out the binoculars. He examined the earth. He said he thought it looked safe, but he wasn't taking any chances. He pored over a relief map for a few minutes, and said, "Let's go to the left. On the right there's a highway. Too dangerous. But the woods on the other side are thick and cover about ten miles."