Tatiana and Alexander: A Novel(96)

"Why would it want to?"

"It can only report on the visible, on the ostensible, on the tangible. Science has no place inside my head, nor yours. How can it possibly tell you if there is a God? It cannot tell me what even you are thinking about and you are as transparent as glass."

"I am, am I? You'd be surprised, Captain. I'll tell you what I'm thinking about--"

"Where the nearest cathouse is?"

"How did you know?"

"Transparent as glass, Lieutenant."

They drove on in their tank.

Later: "Captain, what are you thinking?"

"I try not to, Lieutenant."

"What about when you can't help it?"

"I think about the Boston Red Sox," said Alexander. "And whether they're having a good season this year."

"The who?"

"Never mind."

"Oh, my dear God."

"There you go, calling on Him again. I thought He didn't exist?"

"I thought you tried not to think?"

Alexander laughed. "I'm going to prove the inability of science to disprove the existence of God to you, Ouspensky." He turned around and looked at the column of men marching doggedly behind the tank. "Now, look. Over there we have Corporal Valery Yermenko. This is what the army knows about him: he is eighteen years old, he has never lived away from his mother. He went straight from his family farm to Stalingrad. He fought in the city, surrendering to the Germans in December of 1942. When the Germans themselves surrendered a month later, he was "freed" and sent up the Volga to a forced labor camp. My question to you is, how did he gethere ? How is this young man walking with us through eastern Poland, in a penal battalion with the dregs the Siberian camps didn't want? That's my question: How did he get here?" Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

Ouspensky stared at Yermenko and then at Alexander. "Are you telling me that there is a God because some bastard named Yermenko managed to claw his way into your penal battalion?"

"Yes."

"And I understand this why?"

"You don't. But if you talk to him for two minutes, you will understand why God created the universe and the universe did not create itself."

"We have time for this?"

"You have some place else to go?"

Very close to Lublin, they made their slow way through a field that was heavily mined in staggered row formations. The chief combat engineer got almost all of the mines, except for the last one. They buried the engineer in the hole made by the mine. "All right," said Alexander. "Who wants to be the new chief engineer?"

No one spoke.

"One of you will either volunteer or I will volunteer one of you. Now which will it be?"

A small private in the back of the formation raised his hand. He was tiny, he could have been a woman, Alexander thought. A small woman. Private Estevich trembled as he stepped forward and said, "We won't be hitting another field for some time, sir?"

"We will be coming into a town that has been occupied by the Germans for four years and before they retreated, they mined it to welcome us. If you want to sleep tonight, you will have to prepare to un-prime our sleeping quarters, Private."

Estevich continued to tremble.

Inside the tank and in motion, Ouspensky said, "Will you tell me the end of your fascinating theory? I'm aflutter with anticipation."

"Well, aflutter further, Lieutenant. I will tell you tonight, if we make it into Lublin alive."

Estevich did well. He found five round mines in a small, largely intact house. The Germans left one place in town for the Soviet soldiers to rest in and then mined it to kill them. Eighty men made their beds in a broken dwelling, and when they were sitting in front of the fire outside in the yard, Alexander said, "Ouspensky, do you ever think of how many things you don't know?"

Ouspensky laughed.

"Think of how many things you stumble on and say, how should I know?"

"I never say that, sir," said Ouspensky. "I say, how the f*ck should I know?" Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

"You don't even know how an insignificant corporal in the first brigade ended up under my command when by all rights he should have been somewhere else, and yet you can sit there and assure me with all confidence that you are certain there is no God."

Ouspensky thought first and then said, "I'm starting tohate this Yermenko."

"Let's call him over."

"Oh, no."

"Before I call him, I will remind you that for the last four hours you have been performing a scientific experiment on him. You have been observing him, you have been watching him carefully. The way he marches, the way he carries his rifle, the way he holds his head. Is he out of step? Does he show signs of tiring? Is he hungry? Does he miss his mother? Did he ever lie down with a woman?" Alexander smiled. "How many of these questions have you been able to answer?"

"Quite a few, sir," said Ouspensky indignantly. "Yes, he is hungry. Yes, he is tired. Yes, he wants to be someplace else. Yes, he misses his mother. Yes, he lay down with a woman. All he needed was half a month's salary back in Minsk."