Tatiana and Alexander: A Novel(98)

do with him, decided to give him to me to dispose of."

Ouspensky did not take a single drag of his cigarette. "Lieutenant," said Alexander, "don't waste my precious cigarettes. Smoke or give them to me."

Dropping the cigarette on the floor, Ouspensky, without taking his eyes off Alexander, said, "You're bullshitting me."

"Because that's me?"

"You're lying."

"Me again." Alexander smiled.

"So let me understand..."

"Behind Yermenko ishimself which only he knows. Only Yermenko knows the workings of his own soul. Only you know why you walk slightly in front of me at all times even though I am your commander, and only I know why I f*cking let you. That's my point. Behind the exterior of us there is Yermenko's soul, and yours and mine, and everyone else's. And if science looked in on us, it would never know. How much more there must be behind the vast and unknowable universe."

Ouspensky was pensive. "Why does that bastard Yermenko show so much loyalty to you, Captain?"

"Because Meretskov told me to shoot him and I didn't. He is now mine till death."

By the fire, Ouspensky asked, "So because of f*cking Yermenko you are sure there is a God?"

"No. It's because I have seen Him with my own eyes," replied Alexander.

BOOK TWO

The Bridge to Holy Cross

Come my friends

'Tis not too late to seek a newer world,

Push off, and sitting well in order smite, the sounding furrows; Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

For my purpose holds, to sail beyond the sunset and the baths,

Of all the western stars until I die.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The Bridge to Holy Cross, July 1944

INLUBLIN, ALEXANDER'S TROOPSrested and liked it so much they unilaterally decided to stay. Lublin, unlike the scorched and burned and plundered villages they had found in Byelorussia, remained nearly intact. Except for a few bombed and burned houses, Lublin was whitewashed and clean and hot with narrow streets and yellow stucco squares, which on Sundays had markets which sold--! things! Fruits, and ham, and cheese, and sour cream! And cabbage (Alexander's men stayed away from the cabbage). In Byelorussia they encountered maybe a handful of livestock; here, succulent, already basted and smoked pigs were being sold for zlotys. And fresh milk and cheese and butter implied the presence of enough cows to milk, not to eat. Eggs were sold, and chickens, too. "If this is what it means to be German-occupied, I'll take Hitler any day over Stalin," whispered Ouspensky. "In my village, my wife can't pull the f*cking onions out of the ground without thekolkhoz coming to take them away. And onions are the only thing she grows."

"You should have told her to grow potatoes," said Alexander. "Look at the potatoes here." The vendors sold watches, and they sold dresses for women, and they sold knives. Alexander tried to buy three knives, but no one wanted Russian rubles. The Polish people hated the Germans, and they liked the Russians only marginally more. They would lie down with anyone to get the Germans out of their country, but they wished it weren't the Russians they were lying down with. After all, the Soviets had carved up Poland alongside Germany in 1939, and it looked as if they had no intention of giving their half back. So the people were skeptical and wary. The troops couldn't buy anything unless they had barter goods. No matter which way they turned, no one would accept their worthless Russian money. The Moscow treasury needed to stop printing meaningless paper. Alexander finally managed to sweet talk an old lady out of three knives and a pair of glasses for his near-blind Sergeant Verenkov for two hundred rubles.

After a dinner of ham and eggs and potatoes and onions, and much vodka, Ouspensky came to Alexander and whispered excitedly that they had found a "whore's mess tent" and were all going; would Alexander like to come, too?

Alexander said no.

"Oh, come on, sir. After what we saw at Majdanek we need something to reaffirm life. Come. Have a good bang."

"No. I'll be sleeping. We are forcing the bridgeheads at the Vistula in a few days. We're going to need our strength for that." Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

"Never heard of the Vistula."

"Fuck off."

"Let me understand--because of a river in some nebulous future, you're not going to get some cully-shangy today?"

"No. I'm going to sleep because that is what I need."

"With all due respect, Captain, as your drudge, I am with you every minute of every day, and I know what you need. You need Sir Berkeley as badly as the rest of us. Come with me. Those girlswant to take our money."

Smiling, Alexander said, "Oh, because you've had so much luck unloading your rubles earlier. Ouspensky, you couldn't buy a damn watch. What makes you think you're going to buy a whole woman? She is going to spit at your rubles." Alexander was polishing his new knives in front of the tent.

"Come with us."

"No. You go ahead. Maybe when you come back you can tell me all about it."

"Captain, you are like my brother, but I will not let you live vicariously through me. Now come on. I heard there are five lovely Polish girls, and for thirty zlotys they will have each and every one of us."