Tatiana and Alexander: A Novel(207)

"I'll be ready."

"You're sure you don't need someone to take a look at your injuries?"

"Thank you, I have someone."

Ravenstock nodded. "See you tomorrow. Guard, please take them to the sixth-floor residences. Have housekeeping make up a room for them and bring them some dinner. You two must be starving."

Their room was large, with wood floors, area rugs, three large windows and high ceilings. The ornate crown molding ran around the perimeter of the walls. There were comfortable chairs and a table and even a private bathroom. Alexander dropped all their things on the floor and sat in an upholstered chair. Tatiana walked around the room for a few minutes, looking at the pictures, at the crown molding, at the area rugs, at anything but Alexander.

"So how apoplectic are the Soviets?" he asked from behind her.

"Oh, you know," she said, not turning around.

"I can imagine."

"They replaced Stepanov with someone else," Tatiana said, turning to him.

Alexander's hands twitched. "He told me when he came to see me in February that he was surprised he had lasted as long as he had. Things are getting particularly nasty for the generals in the post-war Soviet army. Too many campaigns gone wrong, too many men lost, too much blame to lay." He lowered his head.

"How did he know you were there?" Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

"He saw my name in the Special Camp rolls."

"They wouldn't letme look through the rolls."

"You are not the military commander of the Soviet garrison in Berlin."

Tatiana collapsed onto the window ledge and put her face into her hands. "What's happening?" she said. "I thought the hard part was behind us. I thought this was going to be the easy part."

"You thought this was going to be the easy part!" Alexander exclaimed. "What about our life has ever been easy? Did you think you would step onto American soil and they would welcome us with a reception?"

"No, but I thought after I explained it to Ravenstock--"

"Perhaps Ravenstock is not familiar withall your powers of persuasion, Tatiana," said Alexander. "He is a consul, a diplomat. He follows orders and he has to do what's best for the relations between the two countries."

"Sam told me to ask for his help. He wouldn't have--"

"Sam, Sam, and who is this Sam, and why do you think the NKGB will listen to him?"

She wrung her hands. "I knew it," she said. "We should have never come here! We should have run north where they wouldn't be expecting us. We should've taken a cargo boat to Sweden. Sweden would've given us asylum."

"That's the first I'm hearing ofthis plan, Tania."

"We didn't have time to think. Berlin, Berlin! Why would I ever have taken you to Berlin if I thought for a second we wouldn't find help here?"

There was a knock on the door. They looked at each other. Alexander got up to answer it, but Tatiana pointed to the bathroom and said, no, go there, don't come out, just in case.

It was housekeeping, with dinner and fresh towels.

"Do you have any cigarettes?" Tatiana asked, her voice cracking on every word. "I'll pay you if you have a pack--or two maybe?" The girl returned with three packs.

"Alexander? Are you all right?" It had been so quiet in the bathroom and Tatiana had been waiting for the girl to come back and didn't go get him, and it suddenly occurred to her that he could have hurt himself in there, and she ran to the door and pushed it open with such force, screaming, "ALEXANDER!" that she nearly knocked him off his feet.

"What's the matter with you?" he said. "Why are you screaming?"

"I don't--I...you were very quiet, I didn't--"

He took the cigarettes from her hands. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

"Look, they brought you food," she said, quieter, showing him the food trays. "They brought steak." She tried to smile. "When was the last time you had steak, Shura?"

"What's steak?" he said, and tried to smile, too.

They sat down at the table and moved the food around on their plates. Tatiana drank water. Alexander drank water and smoked.

"It's good, right?"

"It's good."

They moved it around some more, not looking at each other, not speaking. It got dark. Tatiana went to turn on the light.

"No, don't," he said.

The only light in the room was the short fuse of his cigarette, one after another.

Nothing was said, but there was no silence. Tatiana was screaming inside and she knew Alexander was smoking to mute his own screaming. To drown out hers.

Finally he said, "You learned English well."

And she said, "I once had a very good teacher," and started to cry.

"Shh," he said, looking not at her but past her to the open window. "Russian is somehow easier for us, more familiar."

"Yes, it hurts more to speak it," she said.

"Feels so comforting to speak it with you."

They stared at each other across the table.

"Oh, God," she said, "what are we going to do?"