Tatiana and Alexander: A Novel(71)

With a touch of self-hatred, he tried to look for sleep. It was three in the morning, June 22, 1941.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The Railroad at Sinyavino Heights, 1943

ALEXANDER CALLEDOUSPENSKY INTOhis tent. "Lieutenant, what's wrong with Sergeant Verenkov?"

"I don't know what you mean, sir."

"Well, just this morning, he brought me not only his coffee ration, but some of his gruel, too, though thankfully not all of it."

"Yes, Captain."

"Lieutenant, why is Verenkov bringing me his gruel? Why is Sergeant Telikov offering me his French letters? Why would I require condoms from my sergeant? What's going on here?"

"You're our commanding officer, sir."

"I did not command gruel. Nor French letters."

"He wants to be nice."

"Why?"

"I don't know, sir."

"I'm going to get the truth out of you, Lieutenant."

The rear of the base was a kilometer from Lake Ladoga and every morning Alexander walked to the lake to wash. In the early, still, tepid summer, the lake smelled like what it had turned into--a burial ground for thousands of Soviet men.

One morning he was returning from the lake as he passed the mess tent, and through the canvas he Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

heard Ouspensky's voice. Normally he would have just kept going, but he heard his own name mentioned in a conspiratorial tone. Alexander slowed down.

Ouspensky was talking to Sergeant Verenkov, a young political convict who had previously never been in the army, and Sergeant Telikov, who had been in the army for ten years and was a career sergeant. Ouspensky was saying, "Sergeants, you stay away from our commander. Do not talk to him directly. Don't look him in the eye. You have something to ask him, ask me. And pass it down to all your men. I'm here as your buffer."

Alexander smiled.

"Do we need a buffer?" That was Telikov. He was a careful man.

"Oh," said Ouspensky, "believe me. You need a buffer. Captain Belov acts like a reasonable man. He acts like a rational man, he acts like a patient man. But he will kill you with his bare hands if you're not careful."

Verenkov was skeptical. "Fuck off, you are full of shit."

Ouspensky continued undaunted, but in a lower voice. "Do you know he ripped the arm off a supply runner named Dimitri Chernenko, ripped the arm right off its hinges! Left him with nothing but a bloodied stump. And that's not even the worst of it. The severed arm didn't kill him. But one punch in the face nearly killed him. One punch, Verenkov. Just think about that."

Alexander laughed soundlessly. If only that had been true.

"And when Chernenko still would not die, our commander ordered his execution on the border with Finland, while he was still laid up in the hospital in Morozovo."

"You're f*cking with us."

"I'm telling you, he is not afraid of anything. Not of runners, not of the Germans, not of death, not even of the NKGB. Now listen carefully and don't repeat this to anyone..." Ouspensky's voice was down to a whisper. "When he was in a cell back in Morozovo, an interrogator came to see him--"

"Why was he arrested?"

"For being a double agent."

"Fuck off!"

"It's true."

"A double agent for who?"

"I think the Japanese. It's not important. Listen. An interrogator came to see him. Our commander was not armed, he had no weapons on him, but do you know what happened?"

"He killed the interrogator?"

"Sure as shit he killed the interrogator!" Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

"How?"

"No one knows."

"He punched him?"

"There wasn't a mark on him."

"He choked him?"

"Not a mark on him, I tell you."

"How, then? Poison?"

"Nothing!" Ouspensky said with excitement. "That's the whole point! No one knows. But just remember--our commander is a man who can kill another in a tiny cell with nothing. Just by the sheer force of his will. So stay the f*ck away from him. Because he eats runts like you for lunch."

"Lieutenant!" Alexander walked into the tent.

Ouspensky, Verenkov, and Telikov jumped up. "Yes, sir."

"Lieutenant, stop terrorizing our sergeants. I don't like you telling lies about me. For the record, I am not a double agent for the Japanese. Is that clear?"

A pause. In shaky voices, "Yes, sir."

"Now go back to your duties. All of you."

"Yes, sir."

They did not look at him as they hastily filed out. Alexander could barely keep the smile off his face.

After a few weeks, Alexander began to see a pattern: He would send two squads, three, a platoon, two platoons, fifty men to the railroad, and they would not come back. For those who did come back there were no bandages, no antibiotics, no blood, no morphine. The Germans were protected by the Sinyavino hills and the trees, but they had an unfettered view of the broken railroad. Still provisions had to get to Leningrad one way or another, the railroad had to be rebuilt one way or another, and Alexander had no choice but to send his men to the railroad.