Tatiana and Alexander: A Novel(208)

"Nothing to do," he replied.

"Why do they need to speak to you? What's the point?"

"As always, when ever it's a military matter, it has to be dealt with in a military way. The Soviets took away my rank when they sentenced me, but they know they will get nowhere with the U.S. military if they say the man seeking safe passage is a civilian. The governor would not even think about it then, the matter would pass straight to Ravenstock. But the Soviets invoke treason, desertion, all highly provocative military words, especially to the Americans, and they know it. I haven't been a major for three years, yet they call me major, a commissioned high-ranking officer to incite them further. These words beg a correct military response. Which is why they will question me tomorrow."

"What do you think? How will it go?" Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

Alexander didn't reply, which to Tatiana was worse than a bad answer because it left her to imagine the unimaginable.

"No," she said. "No. I can't--I won't--I will not--" She raised her head and squared her shoulders. "They will give me over, too, then. You are not going alone."

"Don't be ridiculous."

"I'm--"

"Don't--be--ridiculous!" Alexander stood up but didn't come near her. "I don't...I refuse to have even a theoretical discussion about it."

"Not theoretical, Shura," said Tatiana. "They want me, too. I spoke to Ravenstock, remember? Stepanov himself told me. Class enemy list. They want us both handed over."

"Oh, for f*ck's sake!" he exclaimed. "You've really done it, haven't you?" Suddenly he went to the window and looked outside, as if calculating the distance to the ground from the sixth floor. "Tania, unlike me, you actually carry an American passport."

"Just a technicality, Alexander."

"Yes, a vital technicality. Also you're a civilian."

"I was a Red Army nurse, on a grant to the Red Cross."

"They won't hand you over."

"They will."

"No. I will speak to them tomorrow."

"No! Speak to them? Haven't you spoken enough? To Matthew Sayers, to Stepanov, you looked me in the eye and lied to my face, isn't it enough?" She shook her head. "You won't be speaking to anyone."

"I will."

She burst into tears. "What happened to we live together or we die together?"

"I lied."

"You lied!" She trembled. "Well, I should have known. Know this, they'renot taking you back. If you're going to Kolyma, I'm going, too."

"You have no idea what you're saying."

"You chose me," Tatiana said in a breaking voice, "then in Leningrad, because I was straight and true."

"And you choseme ," Alexander said, "because you knew I fiercely protected what was mine; as fiercely as Orbeli." Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

"Oh, God, I'm not leaving without you. If you go back to the Soviet Union, I go, too."

"Tania!" Alexander was not sitting anymore. He was standing in front of her, his despondent eyes glistening. "What are you talking about? You're making me want to tear my hair out, and yours, too. You're talking as if you've forgotten!"

"I haven't forgotten--"

"The interrogators will torture you until you tell them the truth about me or until you sign the confession they put in front of you. You sign and they shoot me dead on the spot and send you to Kolyma for ten years, for subverting the principles of the Soviet state by marrying a known spy and saboteur."

Tatiana put her hands up. "All right, Shura," she said. "All right." She saw he was losing control.

He grabbed her by the arms, pulled her up to stand in front of him. "And then do you know what will happen to you in the camps? Lest you think it's going to be just another adventure. You'll be stripped naked and bathed by men and then paraded naked down a narrow corridor between a dozen trustees who are always on the look-out for pretty girls--and they will notice a girl like you--and they will offer you a cushy position in the prison canteen or the laundry in exchange for your regular services, and you, being the good woman you are, will refuse, and they will beat you in the hall, and rape you, and then send you out logging, as they have done with all the women since 1943."

Tatiana, afraid for Alexander and his inflamed heart, said, "Please--"

"You'll be hauling pine onto flatbeds and by the time you are done, you won't be able to function as a woman, having lifted what no woman should lift, and then no one will want you, not even the trustee who takes anyone except women loggers because everyone knows they are damaged goods."

Pale, Tatiana tried to disengage herself from him.

"At the end of your sentence in 1956 you'll be released back into society, with all the things that once made you what you are gone." He paused, not letting go of her. "All the things, Tania. Gone."

All she could manage was a broken "Please...."

"All without our son," said Alexander, "without the boy who might grow up to change the world, and without me. There you will be--without your front teeth, childless and widowed, broken down and barren, sodomized, dehumanized--going back to your Fifth Soviet apartment. Is that what you prefer?" he asked. "I haven't seen your life in America, but tell me, willthat be your choice?"