Tatiana and Alexander: A Novel(56)

Yefim died. Alexander did not. After spending six weeks in quarantine, he got better. The Soviet authorities, to prevent the outbreak of disease in the fall heat over the Caucasus region, burned the village of Belyi Gor and all the bodies and huts and barns and fields contained therein. Alexander, who remained alive but had no identity, got himself a new identity as Yefim's third son Alexander Belov. When the Soviet council workers came with masks on their faces and clipboards to their chests and in muffled voices asked, "Your name?" Alexander without hesitation said, "Alexander Belov." They checked against the birth records for Belyi Gor, against the available records for the Belov family and issued Alexander a new domestic passport that allowed him to travel in the Soviet Union without getting stopped and arrested for lack of documents. Alexander was put on a train and with written permission from the regionalSoviet made his way back to Leningrad and went to live with Mira Belov, Yefim's sister. Mira was taken aback to see him. Fortunately for Alexander, she had not seen the family and the real Alexander Belov in twelve years and though she pointed out with surprise Alexander's black hair and dark eyes, the leanness and the height ("Sasha, I can't get over it. You were so short and blond and chubby when you were five!"), she couldn't remember well enough to become suspicious. Alexander stayed, sleeping on a cot in the hall, a cot that was half a meter too short for him. He ate dinner with Mira and her husband and her husband's parents and tried to be in their apartment as little as possible. He had a plan. He needed to finish school and then he would join the army.

Alexander didn't have time to remember, to think, to ache. He had only one mission--to see his parents again--and he had only one goal and one imperative--one way or another to leave the Soviet Union.

A New Best Friend, 1937

In the last six months of secondary school, Alexander met Dimitri Chernenko. Dimitri, nondescript and diminutive, kept sidling up to Alexander and asking questions, his curiosity pervasive, invasive and sometimes irritating. Dimitri was like the puppy Alexander never had. He seemed lonely and in need of friendship--and harmless. He was a scrawny kid with shaggy hair and eyes that constantly darted from one face to the next, never staying for more than a few seconds on anyone or anything. Yet the way he looked up to Alexander, literally looked up to him, the way his mouth opened in fawning awe when Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

Alexander spoke, amused Alexander. Dimitri was easy to tease; he laughed at himself for always coming last in a race, for always missing the goal at football, for falling out of trees.

Once or twice, however, Alexander saw Dimitri bullying the younger boys in the school yard, and the second time when Dimitri tried to get Alexander to join in on the taunting of a petrified kid, Alexander pulled Dimitri aside and said, "What are you doing?" And Dimitri apologized and didn't do it again. Alexander attributed this lack of propriety ton ever being the popular one and over looked it, just as he overlooked his off-color remarks about girls ("Doesn't she have a hot ass? Hey, you, hotass!"). Alexander would patiently point out the errors in tact and judgment and Dimitri was a willing student, reforming himself to the best of his abilities, though nothing Alexander could teach would make Dimitri kick the ball into the goal or finish first in a race, or listen to a girl talk about her hair with out a bored sneer around his mouth. But in other ways, Dimitri became better behaved. And he laughed at all of Alexander's jokes, and that went a long way in friendship.

Dimitri was very interested in Alexander's tinge of an accent, but Alexander brushed off the questions. He didn't trust Dimitri, which said less about Dimitri than it said about Alexander who didn't trust anybody. Other than talking to Dimitri about his American past, Alexander and Dimitri managed to cover many other topics: communist politics (in hushed, mocking terms), girls (Dimitri had less experience than Alexander, i.e. none), and parents.

And that's when one afternoon while walking home, Dimitri let slip that his father was a guard at one of the city prisons, and not just any prison, but (in a glorious stage whisper) inthe House of Detention , the most feared and hated of the Leningrad prisons. He said it, Alexander knew, because his father's position of power made Dimitri seem more powerful in Alexander's eyes. But it was at that moment that Alexander looked differently at Dimitri.

Suddenly he saw an opening in the porthole of destiny, a possibility of discovering what happened to his family, and that opportunity was enough for Alexander to swallow his hard-earned mistrust and confide in Dimitri. Alexander told Dimitri the truth about his past and asked for Dimitri's help in locating Harold and Jane Barrington. Dimitri, his eyes shining, said he would be glad to help Alexander, who in his gratefulness gave Dimitri a hug and said, "Dima, if you help me, God help me, I swear, I'll be your friend for life. I'll do anything for you."

Patting Alexander on the back, Dimitri replied that no thanks were necessary, he would help Alexander gladly because they were best friends, weren't they?

Alexander agreed that they were.

A few days later, Dimitri brought him the news about his mother. She had been "imprisoned without a right of correspondence."

Alexander remembered the old babushka Tamara and her husband. He knew what that meant. He remained composed in front of Dimitri, but that night he cried for his mother.

With Dimitri's father's help, they managed to get into the House of Detention for five minutes under the auspices of visiting Dimitri's father and doing a school report on the progress of the Soviet state against agitators and foreign traitors to the socialist cause.