SMOKE AND THUNDER
TATIANA’S world changed after Alexander stopped coming to see her. She was now one of the last people to leave work. As she slowly walked out the double doors of the factory, she still turned her head expectantly, hoping that maybe she would see his head, his uniform, his rifle, his cap in his hands.
Down the length of the Kirov wall Tatiana walked, waiting for the buses to pick up passengers. She sat on the bench and waited for him. And then she walked the eight kilometers back to Fifth Soviet, looking for him, seeing him, in fact, everywhere. By the time she would get home at eleven or later, the dinner her family had prepared at seven was old and cold. At home everyone listened tensely to the radio, not speaking about the only thing that was on their minds — Pasha.
Dasha came home one evening in tears and told Tatiana that Alexander wanted to take a break. She cried for five straight minutes while Tatiana gently patted her back. “Well, I’m not going to give up, Tania,” said Dasha. “I’m not. He means too much to me. He is going through something. I think he is afraid of commitment, like most soldiers. But I’m not going to give up. He said he needed a little time to think. That doesn’t mean forever; that’s just until he sorts himself out, right?”
“I don’t know, Dashenka.” What kind of person said he was going to do something and then did? No person Tatiana knew.
Dimitri came to see her once, and they spent an hour together surrounded by her family. She was mildly surprised that he hadn’t been by more often, but he made some — Tatiana thought lame — excuse. He seemed distracted. He had no information on the position of the Germans in the Soviet Union. His mouth on her cheek at the end of the night was as distant as Finland.
Up on the roof the kids from the building looked for excitement, for incendiary bombs to put out. There weren’t any bombs. It was quiet at night, except for the laughing of Anton and his friends next to her, except for the beating of her heart.
Up on the roof Tatiana thought about the evening minute, the minute she used to walk out the factory doors, turn her head to the left even before her body turned, and look for his face. The evening minute as she hurried down the street, her happiness curling her mouth upward to the white sky, the red wings speeding her to him, to look up at him and smile.
At night she was still turned to the wall, her back to the absent Dasha, who was never home.
Tatiana would have continued this wretched way, but one morning the Metanovs heard on the radio that the Germans were trouncing their way through the countryside and, despite all measures taken by the heroic Soviet soldiers, were nearly at Luga. It wasn’t the Luga part that stunned the family and made them unable to eat or talk to each other. It was that they all knew that Luga was mere kilometers from Tolmachevo, where Pasha was safely, they thought — no, were sure — ensconced at camp.
If the Germans were about to steamroll through Luga, what was to happen to Tolmachevo? Where was their son, their grandson, their brother?
Tatiana tried to console her family with hollow words. “He is fine, he’ll be all right.” When that didn’t work, she tried, “We’ll get in touch with him. Come on, Mama, don’t cry.” When that didn’t work, she tried, “Mama, I can feel him still out there. He is my twin brother. He is all right, I’m telling you.” Nothing worked.
There remained no word on Pasha, and Tatiana, despite her brave talk, became increasingly afraid for her brother.
The local Soviet had no answers. The borough Soviet also had no answers. Tatiana and her mother went there together.
“What can I tell you?” the stern, mustachioed woman told Mama. “My information says only that the Germans are near Luga. It doesn’t say anything about Tolmachevo.”
“Then why isn’t there any answer when we try to call the camps?” Mama demanded. “Why are the phones not working?”
“Who do I look like, Comrade Stalin? Do I have all the answers?”
“Can we get to Tolmachevo?” Mama asked.
“What are you talking about? Can you get to the front? Can you take a bus, comrade, to the front? Yes, sure. Good luck to you.” The woman’s gray mustache moved as she laughed. “Natalia, come here, you have to hear this.”
Tatiana wanted to say something rude back, but she couldn’t muster the courage. Wishing she had tried harder to convince her family about Pasha, she led her mother out of the borough council office.
That night when Tatiana was pretending to sleep, her face to the wall, her hand on the floor below on Alexander’s copy of The Bronze Horseman, she overheard her parents whispering tearfully to each other. It started with her mother’s quiet sobbing, followed by her father’s comforting “Shh, shh.” Then he was sobbing, too, and Tatiana wanted to be anywhere but where she was.
Little whispers came to her, fragmented sentences, mournful longings.
“Maybe he is all right,” she heard her mother say.
“Maybe,” echoed her father.
“Oh, Georg. We can’t lose our Pasha. We can’t.” She moaned. “Our boy.”
“Our favorite boy,” added Papa. “Our only son.”
Mama sobbed.
Tatiana heard the sheets rustling. Her mother sniffed.
“What kind of God would take him away?”
“There is no God. Come now, Irina,” Papa said in a comforting voice. “Not so loud. You’ll wake the girls.”
Mama cried out. “I don’t care,” she said, nonetheless lowering her voice to a whisper once more. “Why couldn’t God take one of them?”
“Irina, don’t say that. You don’t mean it.”
“Why, Georg, why? I know you feel the same way. Wouldn’t you give up Tania for our son? Or even Dasha? But Tania is so timid and weak, she’s never going to amount to anything.”
“What kind of a life can she have here anyway, timid or not?” said Tatiana’s father.
“Not like our son,” said Mama. “Not like our Pasha.”
Tatiana put the sheet over her ears so she wouldn’t hear any more. Dasha continued to sleep. Mama and Papa soon fell asleep themselves. But Tatiana remained awake, the words crashing their agonizing tune on her ears. Why couldn’t God take Tania instead of Pasha?