2
Opening his eyes took too much energy out of him. It was such an effort that as soon as he opened them, he closed them again and slept for what felt like a week or a year. It was impossible to tell. He heard faint voices, faint noises; faint smells trickled in: camphor, alcohol. Alexander dreamed of his first roller coaster, the stupendous Cyclone on the shores of Revere Beach in Massachusetts. He dreamed of the sand on Nantucket Sound. There was a short wooden boardwalk, and on this boardwalk they sold cotton candy. He bought three red cotton candies and ate them in his dreams, and every once in a while something would smell not like cotton candy and not like the salt water, and instead of looking forward to a roller coaster, or swimming, or playing cops and robbers under the boardwalk, Alexander started trying to place the smell.
There were other memories, too — of woods, of a lake, of a boat. And other images — collecting pinecones, stringing together a hammock. Falling into a bear trap. They were not his own.
Through his closed eyes and closed brain he heard soft female voices, over him, and male voices, too; once he heard something fall loudly to the floor; once the noise of a heartbeat: must be the metronome. Then he was thinking of driving through the desert as a child, sandwiched between his mother and father. It was the Mojave; it wasn’t pretty, but it was hot and the car was stuffy, yet he felt cold. Why was he cold?
But the desert. For some reason that smell again in the desert. Not cotton candy, not salt, just the smell of—
A river rushing morning in.
He opened his eyes again. Before he closed them, he tried to focus. Blurry vision and all, he made out no faces. Why couldn’t he see any faces? All he saw was hazy glimpses of white. But there was the smell again. A shape bending over him. He closed his eyes and could have sworn he heard someone whisper, Alexander. Then metal clanging. Felt his head being held. Held.
Held.
Suddenly his brain came awake. He willed his eyes open. He was on his stomach. That’s why he couldn’t see any faces. Blurry again. The shape of something small and white. A voice whispering. What? What? he wanted to say. He couldn’t speak. That smell. It was breath, sweet breath, close to his face. A distinct smell of comfort, the kind of comfort he had known only once in his life.
That brought his eyes into alertness. Not focus, just a steady Gaussian white blur.
“Shura, please wake up,” the voice whispered. “Alexander, open your eyes. Open your eyes, my love.” He felt pillow lips on his cheek.
Alexander opened his eyes. His Tatiana’s face was next to him.
His eyes filling with tears, he shut them, mouthing, no. No.
He had to open his eyes. She was calling him. “Shura, right now open your eyes.”
“Where am I?”
“At the field hospital in Morozovo,” she replied.
Trying to shake his head. Couldn’t move. “Tatia?” he whispered. “It can’t be you.”
He slept.
Alexander was on his back. A doctor was standing in front of him, talking to him in Russian. Alexander concentrated on the voice. Yes. A doctor. What was he saying? It wasn’t clear. The Russian, he couldn’t understand it.
A little while later, more clear, more comprehensible. Russian suddenly wasn’t foreign.
“I think he’s coming out of it. How are you feeling?”
Alexander tried to focus. “How have I been?” Slowly.
“Not too good.”
Alexander looked around. He was in a rectangular wooden structure with a few small windows. The beds, full of white- and red-bandaged people, were in two rows with a passageway in between.
He tried to look at the nurses in the distance. The doctor was calling his attention back to him. Alexander reluctantly returned his gaze to the doctor, not wanting to answer any questions. “How long?”
“Four weeks.”
“What the hell happened?”
“Do you not remember?”
“No.”
The doctor sat by the bed and spoke very quietly. “You saved my life,” he said in comforting, grateful English.
Dimly Alexander remembered. The ice. The hole. The cold. He shook his head. “Russian only. Please,” he added. “Don’t want to be trading your life for mine.”
Nodding, the doctor said, “I understand.” He squeezed his hand. “I’ll come back in a few days when you’re a little better. You can tell me more then. I’m not here for long. But you can be sure I wasn’t going to leave you until you were out of the woods.”
“What were you thinking . . . going out on the ice?” Alexander asked. “We have medics for that.”
“Yes, I know,” said the doctor. “I was going out to save the medic. Who do you think you put on my back as you dragged us to the truck?”
“Oh.”
“Yes. It was my first time at the front. Could you tell?” The doctor smiled. A good American smile. Alexander wanted to smile back.
“Has our sleepy patient come awake?” said a cheery nurse with black hair and black button eyes, coming up to his bed, smiling, bustling, and feeling his pulse. “Hello there. I’m Ina, and aren’t you a lucky one!”
“Am I?” said Alexander. He did not feel lucky. “Why is my mouth full of cotton?”
“It’s not. You’ve been on morphine for a month. We’ve just begun to cut you back last week. I think you were getting hooked.”
“What’s your name?” Alexander asked the doctor.
“Matthew Sayers. I’m with the Red Cross.” He paused. “I was an idiot, and for that you nearly paid with your life.”
Alexander shook his head. He looked around the ward. It was quiet. Maybe he had dreamed it. Maybe he had just dreamed her.
Dreamed her whole.
Wouldn’t that be something? She was never in his life. He had never known her. He could go back to the way it had been. To the way he had been.
What was that way? That man was dead. Alexander did not know that man.
“A shell exploded right behind us, and a fragment hit you.” Dr. Sayers said. “You rammed into the truck and fell. I couldn’t move you myself.” His Russian wasn’t very good, but he continued. “I was waving for help. I didn’t want to leave you, but . . .” The doctor glanced at Alexander. “Let’s just say we needed a stretcher for you immediately. One of my nurses came out onto the ice to help.” Sayers shook his head. “She is something, that one. Actually crawled out. I said to her, ‘Well, you’re three times smarter than me.’ ” Sayers leaned into Alexander. “And not only that, she crawled out pushing the box of plasma in front of her!”
“Plasma?”
“Blood fluid without the blood. Lasts longer than whole blood, freezes great, especially in your Leningrad winter. A miracle for wounded like you — it replaces fluid you lose until we can get a transfusion into you.”
“Did I . . . need fluid replacement?” Alexander asked.
The nurse patted him cheerfully on the arm. “Yes, Major,” she said, “you could say you needed fluid replacement.”
“All right, nurse,” said Dr. Sayers. “The rule we have in America is that we don’t upset the patient. Are you familiar with that rule?”
Alexander stopped the doctor. “How bad was I?”
Sayers said jovially, “You weren’t looking your best. I left the nurse with you while I went — crawled,” the doctor corrected himself, smiling, “to get the stretcher. I don’t know how, but she helped me carry it. She carried the end with your head. After we got you to shore, she looked as if she could have used some plasma herself.”
Alexander, wanting to make the doctor feel better, said, “Crawling or not, if the shell hits you, you’re done for.”
The nurse said, “You were almost done for. A shell hit you.”
“Did you crawl out onto the ice?” Alexander asked, feeling grateful, wanting to pat her hand.
She shook her head. “No, I stay far from the front line. I’m not with the Red Cross.”
Sayers said, “No, I brought my nurse with me from Leningrad.” He smiled. “She volunteered.”
“Oh,” said Alexander. “What hospital were you with?” He felt himself starting to fade again.
“Grechesky.”
Alexander couldn’t help it, he groaned in pain. He couldn’t stop until Ina gave him another dose of morphine. The doctor, watching carefully, asked if he was all right.
“Doctor, the nurse who came with you?”
“Yes?”
“What is her name?”
“Tatiana Metanova.”
A wretched sound escaped Alexander.
“Where is she now?”
Shrugging, Sayers replied, “Where isn’t she? Building the railroad, I think. We broke the blockade, you know. Six days after you were hit. The two fronts joined together. Immediately eleven hundred women started to build that railroad. Tania is helping out on this side—”
“Well, she didn’t start right away,” said Ina. “She was with you, Major, for most of the time.”
“Yes, but now that he’s better, she’s gone to help.” Dr. Sayers smiled. “They’re calling it the railroad of victory. Too soon if you ask me, seeing the state of the men that are brought in here.”
“Can you bring the nurse in here when she returns from the railroad?” Alexander paused. He wanted to explain but felt shattered. He was shattered. “Where did you say I was hit?”
“Your back. Your right side got blown out. But the shell fragment cut open the body on top of you, so it’s a good thing you had him.” Dr. Sayers paused. “We worked very hard to save your kidney.” He leaned forward. “Didn’t want you to be taking on the Germans in the future with just one kidney, Major.”
“Thank you, Doctor. How did you do?” Alexander tried to think about what hurt. “My back doesn’t feel great.”
“No, Major, it wouldn’t. You’ve got a third-degree burn around the periphery of the wound. That’s why we kept you on your stomach for so long. We just started rolling you over on your back.” Sayers patted him on the shoulder. “Feel your head? You hit that truck quite hard. But, listen, you’re going to be as good as new, I figure, once the wound and the burn heal and we wean you off the morphine. Maybe in a month you’ll be out of here.” The doctor hesitated, studying Alexander, who did not want to be studied. “We’ll talk another time, all right?”
“Fine,” Alexander muttered.
Brightening, the doctor said, “But on the plus side, you’ve been given another medal.”
“As long as it wasn’t posthumously.”
“As soon as you can stand up, they’re going to promote you, I’ve been told,” Sayers said. “Oh, and some supply guy keeps coming around asking about you. Chernenko?”
“Bring the nurse to me, won’t you?” said Alexander, closing his eyes.