Tatiana and Alexander: A Novel(200)

"No," he said.

When she opened her eyes again, it was still dark and he was not behind her. He was sitting outside the lean-to by the trees, with a machine gun in his hands. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Watching over you," he replied.

Tatiana brought the blanket out and covered him with it, and then lay down on the ground with her head in his lap. She closed her eyes and restlessly slept.

When she awoke, her head was covered by the blanket. She moved it off her and found him staring at her in the near darkness and smoking. His body was as stiff as a springboard.

"What's wrong?" she whispered.

"I didn't want to drop ashes on your hair."

"No, I mean...what'swrong? "

Alexander looked away. "I don't think we're going to make it, Tatiana," he whispered.

She watched him for a moment and then closed her eyes, settling deeper into his lap. "Live as if you have faith," she said, "and faith shall be given to you."

He said nothing.

She took the rings off her neck. She fitted the small one onto her ring finger and took his hand--though it took some doing to get him to release the gun--and slipped the larger band onto his finger. He squeezed her hand, and then picked up the M1911 again.

"Do you want to sleep?I'll sit."

"No," he said. "I can't sleep."

She caressed his arm. "What can I do?" She nudged him. "AnythingI can do?"

"No."

"No?" With surprise.

"No," he repeated flatly. "Too much around us. I'm not losing the edge, not even for a moment. Look what nearly happened."

Tatiana slept. He shook her awake sometime when the trees turned blue with dawn. Silently they brushed their teeth, picked up their things. She went a few meters away into the woods and when she returned, his back was to her.

"Are you hungry?" Tatiana asked, and before she was finished inflecting, Alexander whirled around, two cocked pistols pointing at her. A second went by before he lowered his arms and without a word turned back to what he was doing.

She went to see what he was doing. He was going through every inch of her backpack. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

"What are you looking for?"

"You have any more cigarettes?"

"Of course. I brought six packs."

He paused. "Besides them."

She paused. "You smokedsix packs of cigarettes last night?"

He resumed looking through the backpack.

"What about the pack you took from the Soviets?"

"What about it?" said Alexander.

Tatiana came to him, took the backpack out of his hands. She tried to take the weapons out of his belt but he wouldn't let her. She hugged him with the pistols and the ammunition belt between them. "Shura," she whispered. "Darling, husband, it'll be--"

"Let's go," he said, moving away. "Let's get going."

They got going. This time they headed south. Gradually he stopped letting her get even a meter away. There was no swimming in streams, no fire, and they were out of Spam and crackers. They picked some blueberries while walking. They found another field of potatoes.

At the end of the day, she asked if they could build a fire. After all, they hadn't heard anything suspicious all day. He told her no. She was surprised they had gone only ten miles, they seemed to be moving so slowly. Tatiana wondered if he was for some reason afraid to get to Berlin. But why? "I think we're very close. We seem close. Don't you think?"

"No. We're--yes, we're only about six miles away."

"We can do that by tomorrow."

"No. I think we should wait in the woods for a while," he said.

"Wait in the woods? But you insist on walking, you don't want to stop."

"Let's stop."

"When we stop, we can't build a fire, can't cook, can't eat, can't swim, or sleep, or...anything. What are we waiting in the woods for?"

"They'll be looking for us now. Don't you hear it?"

"Hear what?"

"Them. Around the edges, in the distance, agonizing back and forth, don't you hear it?"

Tatiana didn't. "Even so," she allowed, "North Berlin is spread out. They're not going to be looking for Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

us everywhere."

"They are. We should stay here."

She put her hands on him. "Come on, Alexander," she said. "Let's go, let's push on, push on until we're done."

He moved away and said, "Fine, if that's what you want. Let's go."

The woods became sparse in the last stretch before Berlin. There was a sloping countryside, a flat countryside, some trees partitioning the fields. They were moving slowly, and once they sat in the bushes for two hours because, on the horizon, Alexander glimpsed a truck gliding by.

There were no streams and nowhere to hide. He was getting more and more tense, holding his sub-machine-gun in front of him as he walked. Tatiana didn't know how to help him. They were out of cigarettes.