Tatiana and Alexander: A Novel(64)

Then Came the War, 1939

As part of the Leningrad garrison, quartered at the Pavlov barracks--formerly the barracks that belonged to the Tsar's Imperial Guards--Alexander was responsible for patrolling the streets, for sentry duty over the Neva, and for the fortifications of the Finland?Russia border. Vladimir Lenin had whored half of Russia in March 1918--Karelia, Ukraine, Poland, Bessarabia, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia--to ensure survival of the fledgling communist state. The Karelian Isthmus had been given up to Finland.

After Hitler and Stalin divided Poland in September 1939, Stalin received assurances from Hitler that a "campaign" against Finland to reclaim the disputed land would not be seen as a sign of aggression against Germany. In November 1939, Stalin attacked Finland to get the Karelian Isthmus back. No matter how much the command insisted on it, Alexander refused to call the war with Finland a campaign with Finland. A campaign was two grown men driving around the country shaking hands with the electorate and then going to the polls. Any time you tried to take territory with tanks and rifles and mortars and the Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

lives of men it ceased being a campaign and became a war.

Alexander's first battle was fought in the swamps of the vast Karelian forest. Unfortunately, Komkov had been completely right about Dimitri. In battle, Dimitri turned out to be a fainthearted, yellow-bellied, miserable, craven coward, words Komkov shouted straight into Dimitri's cowering face before tying him to a tree to prevent him from deserting. Komkov would have shot him but Alexander stayed his hand, regretting it every minute since.

Even without Dimitri's help, the Soviets managed eventually to overpower the unconquerable Finns. When it was over, Alexander counted the Finnish bodies. There had only been twenty Finns in the woods. Now all twenty were dead, which was good, but to kill them they had sacrificed 155 Red Army soldiers. Twenty-four came back to Lisiy Nos with Alexander. Twenty-four plus Dimitri. Komkov did not come back.

In 1940, the Finns sent more troops into southern Karelia and took back the trees and the thirty meters the Soviets had won, and another twenty kilometers besides, and the lives of thousands more Soviet men. Alexander found himself in charge of three platoons of strangers and his orders were to push the Finns from the Karelian Isthmus, back to Vyborg. Vyborg needed to be in Soviet hands, according to the Red Army--and according to Alexander, since penetrating the border there would leave him only a few hundred kilometers from Helsinki, Finland. Him and Dimitri. Despite everything, he would honour his promise to Dimitri. Alexander felt their opportunity for escape was close.

During the last days of the so-calledcampaign , in March 1940, Alexander served under Major Mikhail Stepanov, a stoic commanding officer with impenetrable eyes. Alexander was given a mortar and thirty men, including the commander's young son, Yuri, to clear the area in the swamps near Vyborg. Thirty rifles and three light mortars just did not do the job against a well entrenched Finnish army. Alexander's platoon was unable to penetrate enemy lines, and neither could the five other platoons that stretched inland from the Gulf of Finland.

When Alexander finally returned to the rear at Lisiy Nos with only four of his thirty men, Major Stepanov asked about his son. Alexander told him that he didn't know what had happened to Yuri. He knew that Yuri's battle buddy had been killed. Alexander volunteered to go back into the swamps by himself to bring back Yuri Stepanov. The major instantly agreed and ordered Alexander to take one more man with him into the forest.

Alexander took Dimitri. He also took his ten thousand dollars, and they set off with nothing but his money and their rifles and grenades into the marshy lands near the gulf without any intention of coming back to the Soviet Union.

They found Yuri Stepanov.

"God, he's alive, Dima," said Alexander, turning Stepanov over. The soldier could barely breathe. Alexander pushed Stepanov's tongue down with his fingers to help the boy breathe better. "He's alive," he repeated, looking up at Dimitri.

"Yeah. Barely." Dimitri glanced around. "Come on, let's go. We don't have much time. We need to get going. It's perfect right now. Quiet."

Alexander cut open Stepanov's uniform to see where he was hit. He saw blood over the young man's torso. The blood was viscous and brown. Alexander couldn't tell how much blood Stepanov had lost. Judging by the pallid look of him, quite a bit. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

Mumbling, Yuri Stepanov opened his eyes and his hand reached up to touch Alexander. He tried to say something but couldn't.

"Alexander!" Dimitri exclaimed. "Let's go."

"Dimitri!" Alexander exclaimed, not even looking up. "Stop your shouting and let me think for a minute. Just for one minute, all right."

He continued to crouch in the marsh by Stepanov's side, listening to the boy's labored breathing, looking at the boy's gray face. Thirty meters away was the unprotected Finnish border. Thirty meters away were the low-lying bushes near the gulf coast. Thirty meters away was a country other than the Soviet Union. And in that country was the sea that would take Alexander to Stockholm, and in Stockholm was a building where Alexander would go to beg for his freedom. And afterward...Alexander could see the whitewashed shingles, the whitewashed clapboard of the Barrington houses in between the cinnabar sugar maples. He could smell Barrington. He breathed deeply in, his lungs hurting. He would save himself, he would save Dimitri who helped him see his father, he would breathe the air of home once more.