Tatiana and Alexander: A Novel(76)

"You're wrong, by the way, about me," he told her. "I was wounded in Russia. Over the Ukraine. I was flying bombing missions and was knocked down. When I fell, I nearly lost my stomach." He stopped, remembering. "Literally, lost my stomach."

"I understand," said Tatiana.

"After I healed, they transferred me to the North Channel--less dangerous. Ironic, isn't it? My captain thought I'd lost my edge. But do you know, when I fell over the Ukraine, I fell into the hands of the Soviet partisans, who didn't kill me. They took pity on me, I don't know, maybe because it was Christmas of last year."

"I don't think they took pity on you because it was Christmas," Tatiana said gently. "The Soviets don't celebrate Christmas."

He glanced at her. "Is that why you're here? The holidays don't mean much to you?"

She shook her head. She wanted to cross herself to give herself strength, but didn't. She wanted to cry, but didn't. She wanted to be strong, to be impenetrable, to be like a rock, to be like Alexander. But she couldn't be. "I'm here," she said, "because it makes wounded here happy that they not alone so far from home." Her voice faltered. "I'm here, because I hope that if I do something nice for you, if I bring you just a bit of comfort, then maybe, somewhere else, someplace else, someone might bring comfort to..." A small tear fell from her eye.

Paul stared at her with surprise. "You think that's how it works?"

"I do not know how it works," Tatiana said.

"Is he on the Eastern Front?"

"I don't know where he is," she said. She couldn't lend voice to the death certificate in the black backpack in her room.

"Well, you better pray he's not on the Eastern Front. He won't last a week there." Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

"No?" Her face must have shown the paling of her already weakened spirit, because Paul patted her hand and said, "Ah, hell, don't worry about it, Nurse Tania. Wherever he is, here or in the hereafter, you know what he is hoping for?"

"What?" she whispered.

"Thatyou're safe," Paul replied.

Christmas in New York.

Christmas in New York in wartime. The year before, Tatiana had spent New Year's Eve in Grechesky hospital with Dr. Matthew Sayers, surrounded by Soviet nurses. They had drunk some vodka and passed the glass to a few patients who had been awake enough and strong enough to raise their glasses. Tatiana had thought only about going to the front to meet up with Alexander. They were leaving in five days. Alexander didn't know it yet, but one way or another she was going to get herself and her husband out of the Soviet Union. Leningrad had no lights. Leningrad was covered in broken ruins. German shells flew from Pulkovo on New Year's Eve, German planes bombed the city on New Year's Day. Four days later, Tatiana had left Leningrad in Dr. Sayers' Red Cross truck and thought to herself, will I see Leningrad again?

And now it looked as if she never would.

Instead she was seeing New York at Christmas. She saw Little Italy, covered with green and red flickering lights, and she saw 57th Street, decked out with white lights, and she saw the Empire State Building, with its red and green spire, and she saw the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center. The lights in the tall buildings were on for an hour because it was Christmas, and then were dimmed out for war.

She walked in the cold and the snow, pushing Anthony in the carriage, and all around her was noise and bustling people with shopping bags. Tatiana had no bags. Tatiana wasn't buying presents. She was walking through a snowy, excited New York at war, thinking that Alexander had lived ten Decembers like this, in Boston. Ten Decembers of Christmas carols, and packages under arms, and bells constantly ringing, and trees covered with lights, and a big sign on top of one coffee shop saying "JESUS IS THE REASON."

He had lived with it all, and his mother and father gave him gifts and Santa came to him on Christmas. So Tatiana went into a toy store and bought Anthony a train set from Santa. He was too little for a train set, but he would grow into it.

At Bergdoff's on 58th and Fifth Avenue, Tatiana saw some beautiful Christmas blankets in the window display, and because she was cold and because she was thinking of Alexander, she walked into Bergdoff and inquired about them. The blankets were one hundred per cent cashmere and one hundred outrageous dollars each. The lady told her that and turned away, as if the conversation were over. Then, remembering, she turned back to Tatiana, took the blanket out of her hands and turned away again.

"I'll take it," Tatiana said, getting out her money. "I will take three. What colors do you have?"

That night at Ellis, mother and son slept together in her single bed under two cashmere blankets. The third she was saving for Anthony's father. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

New York at Christmas time. There was ham, and there was cheese, and there was milk and chocolates and a couple of ounces of steak for everyone, and there was the lively spirit of women trying to get the last of the toys for their boys. And there were men who came home from the war for Christmas.

Not Vikki's man, because she divorced him.

And not Tatiana's man, because she had lost him.

But other men.

The trees all glowed with white lights, and even at Ellis, the nurses decorated a tree for the German and Italian soldiers, except that no one wanted to work Christmas Day, not for double pay, not for triple pay, not for a week's vacation. Tatiana worked for triple pay and a week's vacation.