Tatiana and Alexander: A Novel(80)

Tatiana didn't celebrate. She worked all day and played with her nearly one-year-old boy in the evening. At night, with the curtains open, the windows open, the briny air wafting through the room, Tatiana kneeled by the side of her bed, grasping the wedding rings hanging at her chest. She'd been in the United States nearly a year. On the night of her twentieth birthday, Tatiana sat on the floor of her room at Ellis after nursing Anthony and took everything out of her black backpack--for the first time since she left the Soviet Union. One by one, she took out the loaded German-issue pistol, theBronze Horseman book, the Russian-English phrasebook, the photo of him, the wedding photos of them, his officer cap, and everything out of the pockets.

That's when she found theHero of the Soviet Union medal that had once belonged to Alexander.

She stared at it with incomprehension for what seemed half the night, and then she went out into the hall and looked at it under the light, to see if maybe she had made a mistake. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

The sun went up, came down. It was warm. The water shimmered. And she still stared at the medal. She was dumbstruck. Was it a mistake?

As clearly as she saw the sailboats in the bay, Tatiana saw the medal hanging on the back of Alexander's chair the last evening she saw him with Dr. Sayers by her side. Alexander had said, "I'm going to come back tomorrow afternoon a decorated lieutenant colonel," and Tatiana had beamed and glanced at the medal hanging on the back of the chair by his hospital bed.

How did this medal end up in her backpack? She could not have taken it--it was not hers to take.

What does it mean?she whispered to herself, but was no closer to understanding; in fact was further away. The more she tried to think clearly, the more she came up against the concrete blocks her mind had put up.

But Dr. Sayers had brought her the backpack when she was on the floor in his office after she'd learned about Alexander's truck blowing up and sinking in Lake Ladoga. Sayers brought the backpack for her before they got into his Red Cross jeep and drove to Finland.

And on that floor she still remained--in the morning and at night, between patients and shopping, between lunch and dinner, between Vikki and Edward, between Ellis and Anthony. She hopped on the ferry and remained on the floor, and on that floor was her backpack and in it was Alexander'sHero of the Soviet Union medal.

Did Alexander give the medal to her? Could she have forgotten that?

When Dr. Sayers told her about Alexander, he gave her Alexander's officer cap. Did the doctor give her the capand the medal?

She did not think so.

Did Colonel Stepanov?

Not him either.

She got up off the floor, and draped the medal over her neck next to the rope that held their wedding rings.

A day passed and then another and then another.

A German soldier saw the medal and in broken English said, "Where you get that? That's very powerful medal. Only given to most honor soldiers. Where you get that?"

Every time Tatiana nursed her boy, every time he lay in her arms and she watched him, she could not help thinking,if Alexander was wearing that medal when he died, it would still be on his neck. Because Tatiana knew that when you went to get promoted, you went draped in your honor. You carried your flag with you.

The doctor might have given me his cap, but he wouldn't have taken a medal off Alexander's neck. And even if he did, the doctor would havehanded the medal to me. Wouldn't he?Here, Tania, here is your husband's cap, and here is his medal, too. Keep it all. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

No, this medal was hidden from her; it was placed in the smallest compartment in the bag, inside a secret pocket. There was nothing else in that pocket, and she never would have found it had she not taken everything out and felt through the canvas.

Why would Dr. Sayers have hidden the medal?

Why not give it to her with the cap?

Because he was afraid it would raise too many questions.

Would she have become too suspicious? But suspicious of what?

Tatiana was groping blindly for the false note. She couldn't figure it out. She slept, worked, nursed, and in the middle of one late June night, she opened her eyes and gasped.

She knew what it was.

Perhaps she would have flared up at the medal had she been given it, thought about it too much, wondered about it. Become too suspicious of one thing or another.

But Dr. Sayers wouldn't have known that.

Only one person would have known that.

Alexander wanted her to have his highest medal of honor, but knew she couldn't see it right away, that it would raise too many questions for her. So he told Dr. Sayers to hide it. On the ice, in the hospital, somewhere, he asked Dr. Sayers to hide it.

Which meant there had been a deception and Dr. Sayers was in on it.

Was Alexander's death in the plan, too?

Was Dimitri's?

"Tatiasha--remember Orbeli."

That was the last thing he had said to her. Remember Orbeli. Was he asking her if she remembered, as in "Remember Orbeli?"

Or was he telling her to remember? "Remember Orbeli."

Tatiana did not sleep for the rest of the night.

Byelorussia, June 1944

Alexander called Nikolai Ouspensky into his tent. They had set up camp in western Lithuania for two days of rest and further instructions. "Lieutenant, what's wrong with Sergeant Verenkov?"