CHAPTER TWELVE
Conversations with Slonko, 1943
"MAJOR!"
Instantly, Alexander opened his eyes. He was still in the interrogation classroom, still in the wooden chair, still guarded by Ivanov. In walked Slonko with grim strides.
"Well, Major, it looks like you're going to have to stop playing games."
"That'll be fine," said Alexander. "I'm not in a playing mood."
"Major!"
"Why is everyone shouting?" Alexander rubbed his head. His skull was cracking.
"Major, do you know a woman by the name of Tatiana Metanova?"
It was harder for Alexander to stay composed. He kept still through willpower. If I can live through this, he thought, I can live through anything. If I can live through this, Iwill live through anything. He wasn't sure whether to lie, whether to tell the truth. Slonko was obviously planning something.
"Yes," said Alexander.
"And who would she be?"
"She was one of the nurses at Morozovo hospital."
"Was?"
"Well, I'm not there anymore, am I?" Alexander said mildly.
"Turns out she is not there either."
That was not a question. Alexander said nothing.
"She is more than just a nurse, though, isn't she, Major?" said Slonko, producing Alexander's domestic passport out of his pocket. "Why, right in here, it says that she is your wife." Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
"Yes," Alexander said. His whole life in one line. He steadied himself. He knew Slonko was not done by a long shot. He needed to be ready.
"Ah. And where is she at the moment?"
"I would have to be omniscient to know that," Alexander said.
"She is with us," said Slonko, bending forward. "We have her in our custody." He laughed with satisfaction. "What do you think of that, Major?"
"What do I think of that?" said Alexander, not taking his gaze away from Slonko. He folded his arms around his chest and waited. "Could I have a smoke?" he asked, and was brought one. He lit it with steady hands. Before anyone spoke again, Alexander decided Slonko was bluffing. He decided tobelieve Slonko was bluffing. Just yesterday, was it, Stepanov had told Alexander that Tatiana was missing and no one could find her. Stepanov said Mekhlis's men were all in a panic. Yet there was nothing about that from Slonko in their previous two conversations. Nothing at all, as if the matter were unknown to him. Suddenly now, he had pulled Tatiana out of his hat with the proud air of a peacock. He was bluffing. Had they caught her, Alexander would have been asked about her sooner. Slonko would have certainly brought up that they were looking for her and could not find her. But there had been not a word from him about Dimitri, not a word about Sayers, and not a word about Tatiana.
Still, he was alone, and Slonko was with three guards. There was bright light shining directly into Alexander's face, there was the feeling of weakness all over his body, of no sleep, of mental exhaustion, of an aching wound in his back, and there was his weighted-down heart. He said nothing, but the effort cost him considerable resources. How many resources did he have left? In 1936 when he was arrested he had all his resources and he had not been wounded. Why couldn't he have met Slonko then? Alexander grit his teeth and waited for the rest.
"Your wife is being questioned at this very moment--"
"By someone other than you?" said Alexander. "I'm surprised, comrade, that you would entrust someone else with such an important job. You must have many qualified men working for you."
"Major, do you remember what happened three years ago in 1940?"
"Yes, I fought in the war with Finland. I was wounded and received a medal of valor and was promoted to second lieutenant."
"I'm not talking about that."
"Ah."
"In 1940, the Soviet government established rules for women who failed to renounce their husbands for crimes committed under Article 58 of the Penal Code. Failure to renounce your spouse was a crime punishable by ten years in a hard labor camp. Do you know anything about that?"
"Not much, comrade, thankfully. I was not married in 1940."
"I'm going to level with you, Major Belov, because I'm tired of playing games. Your wife, Dr. Sayers, and a man named Dimitri Chernenko tried to escape--" Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
"Wait," said Alexander. "Surely Dr. Sayers was not escaping? Wasn't he with the Red Cross? They're free to cross international borders, no?"
"Yes," snapped Slonko. "But your wife and her companion were not. There was a border incident in which Private Chernenko was shot."
"Was he your witness?" Alexander smiled. "I hope he wasn't your only witness."
"Your wife and Dr. Sayers made it to Helsinki."
Alexander remained smiling.
"But the doctor was gravely wounded. Do you know how we know that, Major? Because we called the hospital in Helsinki. We were told that the doctor died two days ago."
The smile was frozen on Alexander's face.
"We were also told by the very helpful Red Cross doctor that Sayers had come in with a wounded Red Cross nurse. She fits the description of Tatiana Metanova. Small, blonde, apparently pregnant? A gash on her face? That would be her?"
Alexander made no motion.
"I thought so. We had asked him to keep hold of her until our men got there. We met up with her in the Helsinki hospital and brought her back early this morning. Do you have any questions?"
"Yes," said Alexander, struggling with himself to stand. He decided to remain sitting. He steeled his face and he steeled his arms and he steeled his entire body. But it was no use. His legs were shaking. Yet in a steely voice he said, "What do you want from me?"
"The truth."
Time--what a funny thing it was. In Lazarevo, it had blinked through them; blink and gone. What was it doing now, standing still, as he tried to breathe through the seconds, as he tried to keep calm. For a moment as he looked down onto the dirty wood floor, he thought, to save her, I will tell him the truth. I will sign his f*cking paper. From me, there actuallyis truth. Iam who he says. But then he thought, what about Corporal Maikov? His truth was that he had known nothing; certainly he had not known me. What truth could he have given them before they shot him? To Slonko, lies are truth and truth is a lie. The answers we give, the answers we keep hidden, he knows it's all a sham, yet his life's achievement is measured by the success of how many lies he can get out of us. He doesn't think I'm anymore Alexander Barrington than Stepanov is, than Maikov was. What he wants is for me to lie so he can declare his mission a success. What he wants is the seventeen-year-old boy he never got to question. The nerve--the audacity!--of a convicted agitator to escape and not die. That's what he's responding to. What he wants is for me to sign a piece of paper that will tell him it's all right to kill me, now, seven years later, whether or not I'm Alexander Barrington. He wants absolution for killing me. With my confession I would give it to him.
Slonko was twisting the truth, trying to make Alexander weak. Tatiana had disappeared, that was true. They were looking for her--also true. Maybe they did call the Helsinki Red Cross. Maybe they did find out that Sayers had died. Poor Sayers. Maybe they did find out there was a nurse with him and without Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
knowing her name, just from the description alone, they deduced it was Alexander's wife. It had only been a few days. Could they really have gotten one of their operatives to Helsinki that quickly? They had trouble retrieving supply trucks from Leningrad barely seventy kilometers away. Helsinki was five hundred kilometers from here. Could they really have not just intercepted her, but brought her back, too?
Would Tania have stuck around Helsinki? True, Alexander had told her they couldn't stay in that city, but in her abandoned distress, would she have remembered?
Alexander lifted his gaze back to Slonko, who was staring at him with the expression of a man who is rubbing his hands together before he digs into the feast in front of him. With the expression of a man who is about to witness the goring of the matador.
Coldly Alexander said, "Is there some truth you haven't gotten from me, comrade?"
"Maybe, Major Belov, you don't care for your own life, but surely you will talk to us when the life of your pregnant spouse is at stake?"
"I will repeat my question to you, comrade," said Alexander, "in case you didn't hear me the first time. Is there something you want I haven't given you?"
"Yes, you haven't given me the truth!" exclaimed Slonko, slapping Alexander very hard across the face.
"No!" Alexander's teeth were grit. "What I haven't given you is the satisfaction of knowing you were right. You think you've finally caught the man you've been chasing. I'm telling you, you are wrong. You will not take your impotence out on me. I need to be brought in front of a military tribunal. I am not one of your small-time Party prisoners you can bully into submission. I am a decorated officer in the Red Army. Have you ever served your country in a war, comrade?" Alexander stood up. He was a head taller than Slonko. "I didn't think so. I want to be brought up in front of General Mekhlis. We will resolve this matter immediately. You want to get at the truth, Slonko? Let's get to it. The war still needsme . While you," Alexander said, "have to run back to your Leningrad jail."
Slonko cursed. He ordered the two guards to restrain Alexander, which they did with difficulty.
"You've got nothing on me," Alexander said loudly. "My accuser is dead, otherwise you would have brought him to me. The authority over me lies with my commanding officer, Colonel Stepanov, and with General Mekhlis who has ordered my arrest. They will tell you that I received anOrder of the Red Star in front of five Red Army generals prior to Operation Spark. I was wounded in the storming of the river, and for my effort in the war I received theHero of the Soviet Union medal."
Slonko could barely get the words out. "Where is this medal, Major?"
"My wife took it for safekeeping. Surely, if you have her in your custody, you'll be able to take a look at the medal." Alexander smiled. "It will be the only time you'll get a chance to look at one."
"Iam the interrogating officer!" Slonko yelled, red in the face and his bald head, striking Alexander again.
"Ah f*ck!" Alexander yelled back. "You are not an officer!I am an officer. You have no power over me."
"That's where you're wrong, Major," said Slonko. "I do have power over you, and do you know why?" Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
When Alexander didn't answer, Slonko leaned closer. "Because very soon I am going to have power over your wife."
"Really?" Alexander said, ripping his arms away from his guards, jumping up, kicking away the chair behind him. "Do you have power even over your own? I doubt you'll have power over mine."
Slonko did not back away as he replied, "Oh, be sure I will and I intend to tell you all about it."
"Please do," Alexander said, stepping away from the fallen chair. "Then I will instantly know you're lying."
Slonko snarled into his face.
"Comrade," said Alexander, "I am not the man you're looking for."
"You are that man, Major. Everything you say and do only convinces me further of it."
Back in his small cold cell, Alexander thanked God for his clothes.
They had left the kerosene lamp in his cell and the eye of the guard never left the porthole.
Alexander could notbelieve that what was happening to him came down not to ideology, not to communism, not to treason, or even to espionage, but to the pride of one small man.
Dimitri and Slonko were cut from the same cloth. Dimitri, petty-minded and small-hearted, was first cousin to Slonko who actually had some clout to back up his malice. Dimitri had nothing and his helplessness infuriated him all the more. Now he was dead. Not soon enough.
Alexander was sitting in the corner when he heard the lock turn. He sighed. They just weren't going to leave him alone, were they?
Slonko walked in, leaving the door open behind him. The guard remained just outside. Slonko stood a good twenty centimeters below the ceiling of the cell. He ordered Alexander to stand. Alexander reluctantly stood, bent at the knees, his own head five or six centimeters above the ceiling of the cage. Because of that, his slightly forward-leaning form looked ready to spring, though his head was bent in a way that may have seemed to Slonko like subservience.
"Well, well. Your wife Tatiana is quite an interesting woman," said Slonko. "I just finished with her." He rubbed his hands together. "Quite interesting indeed."
Alexander glanced at the open door. Where was the guard? He reached into the inside pocket of his BVDs and Slonko yelled, "What are you doing?" But he wasn't armed. He did not pull out a weapon.
"I'm getting my penicillin shot," Alexander said. "I was wounded." He smiled. "I need to take my medicine. I'm not the man I used to be in January, comrade."
"That's good to know," Slonko replied. "Are you the man you used to be in 1936?" Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
"Yes, I am still that man," said Alexander.
"While you're fixing yourself up, let me tell you what your wife told us about you--"
"Before you continue," interrupted Alexander, opening the vial of morphine and not even looking at Slonko, "I have read that there are some countries in the world where it is against the law to force a wife to give information about her husband. Amazing, isn't it?" He dipped the needle into the vial and then slowly drew the morphine solution up into the hollow barrel.
"Oh, we didn't force her," Slonko smiled. "She gave it up quite willingly." He smiled again. "And it's not the only thing--"
"Comrade!" Alexander yelled, taking a small step forward. "I am warning you. Donot continue." He was a half-meter away from Slonko. He could put his hands on Slonko's shoulders in a fraternal gesture if such a gesture were called for at this time. It wasn't.
"No?"
"No," said Alexander. "Trust me with this, Comrade Slonko. You are inciting the wrong man."
"Oh, why is that?" Slonko asked warmly. "Because youwon't be incited?"
"Quite the opposite," replied Alexander. "Because I will be."
Slonko fell quiet.
Alexander fell quiet.
"Well, aren't you going to shoot yourself full of penicillin, Major?"
"When you leave, yes."
"I'm not leaving."
Alexander shook his head without stepping back to the wall. "Stick to the business at hand. Have you gotten me a tribunal in front of a military command? I'm sure you will be welcome to sit in on the proceedings, to hear an innocent man acquit himself in your country."
"Inyour country, Major," Slonko corrected Alexander.
"In my country," agreed Alexander, not moving any part of his body. The cell was barely two meters long, a meter wide. He waited. He knew that Slonko did not have a tribunal set up. He had not been given the authority for anything--for a tribunal, for an execution, for a thorough investigation. He wanted a confession out of Alexander while no one else gave a damn. For all Alexander knew, since the star witness was lying dead in the snow, Mekhlis himself could have already said to Slonko, free Belov. We can't afford to lose good men, we have no information on his espionage except from a dead deserter, and Stalin did not issue an order for Belov's death, which is the only order I will listen to. At the same time, Slonko was not giving up. Why?
Slonko could not touch him. Alexander would pass a man like Slonko on the street and not acknowledge him. That's how far the proletariat had come. A man like Slonko, a Party pig all his life, Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
had no power over a man like Alexander, his prey for seven years.
That was so right in Alexander's world, yet obviously so wrong in Slonko's.
Alexander waited. After a few moments, he said, "Why don't you leave, comrade, and come back when you've got something more. Bring me before the generals. Or bring me my release order."
"Major, you will never be free again," said Slonko. "I have recommended that you will never be free."
"When I die I will be."
"I will not allow your death. Your mother has died. Your father has died. I want you to live the life they planned for you, the life they brought you here for. They both thought so much of you, Alexander Barrington. They both told me so. Do you think you have fulfilled their dreams?"
"I don't know aboutthem , but I have fulfilled my own mother and father's dreams, yes. They were simple farmers. I have gone far in the Red Army. They would be proud of me."
"What about your wife's hopes, Major? Do you think you have fulfilled your wife's?"
"Comrade, I have already told you--do not speak to me about my wife."
"No? She was quite willing to talk about you. When she wasn't--ahem--otherwise--"
"Comrade!" Alexander stepped toward Slonko. "That will be thelast time," he said. "There will be no more."
"I will not leave."
"You will leave. You are dismissed. Come back when you've got something."
"Oh, I'm not leaving, Major," said Slonko. "The more you want me to, the more I want to stay."
"I don't doubt it. Youwill leave, though." Not a flicker moved through Alexander, who stood as if he were a statue. He was barely breathing.
"Major! I'm not the one arrested. I'm not the one whose wife has been arrested. I'm not the American."
"As to the last, I'm not either."
"You are, you are, Major. Your own wife told me so when she finished sucking my cock."
Alexander's hand slammed into Slonko's throat. Slonko didn't even have time to breathe in his surprise. His head snapped back against the concrete wall, eyes bulging, mouth open. With his free hand, Alexander plunged a syringe filled with ten grains of morphine through Slonko's sternum, straight into the right chamber of his heart. He pressed his palm against the thumb plate and snapped Slonko's jaws shut. Slonko could not emit a single sound even if he wanted to.
In English, Alexander said, "I'm surprised at you. Didn't you know who you were dealing with?" Gritting his teeth, he squeezed Slonko's neck, and saw the eyes first cloud, then glaze over. He whispered, "This is for my mother...and my father...and for Tatiana." Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
Convulsing, Slonko was sinking to the ground. Alexander held him up with one hand on his throat, as Slonko's neck muscles stretched and relaxed, as his pupils dilated, and when Slonko stopped blinking, Alexander let go of his neck. The chief investigator dropped to the floor like a heap of stones. Alexander pulled out the empty syringe from Slonko's chest, threw it down the drainpipe, came up to the door and yelled, "Guard! Guard! Something is wrong with Comrade Slonko!"
The guard ran in, looked around the room, looked at Slonko limp on the floor and said in a confused voice, "What happened?"
"I don't know," Alexander said calmly. "I'm not a doctor. But maybe you should get one. The comrade may have had a heart attack."
The guard didn't know whether to run, to stay, to leave Alexander, to take him along. He didn't know whether to lock the door or to leave it open. The confusion was so apparent on his frightened and pale face that Alexander, smiling kindly, said, "Leave him here, and take me with you. Don't bother locking the cell. He is not going anywhere."
The guard took Alexander and they both ran up the stairs, through the school, outside, and to the commandant's building. "I don't even know who I should speak to," the guard said helplessly.
"Let's go and talk to Colonel Stepanov. He'll know what to do."
To say that Stepanov was surprised to see Alexander would have been an understatement. The guard by this time was in such a panic he was not able to speak. He mumbled something about Slonko and no noise and just doing his job, just standing right by the door, hearing nothing. Stepanov asked him several times to calm down, but the guard was unable to follow simple orders. Finally, Stepanov had to offer the boy a drink of vodka, and turned to Alexander with a perplexed face.
"Sir," said Alexander, "Comrade Slonko collapsed while he was in my cell. The guard was obviously away for a few moments"--Alexander paused--"perhaps attending to some private business. He is afraid it will seem that he was derelict in his duty. Yet, I know firsthand he is a diligent and dedicated guard. There was nothing he could have done for the comrade."
"Oh, my God, Alexander," said Stepanov, getting up and quickly getting dressed. "Are you telling me Slonko is dead?"
"Sir, I don't know. I'm not a doctor. I would recommend finding one, though. Probably soon."
They procured a medic who came to the cell, shuddered once, and without even listening for Slonko's pulse pronounced the man dead. The cell had a filthy stench it had not had before. Everyone held their breath as they filed out.
"Oh, Alexander," said Stepanov.
"Yes, sir," said Alexander, "I seem to have bad f*cking luck."
No one had any idea what to do with Slonko. He had come to Alexander's cell at two in the morning. Everyone else was soundly asleep. There was nowhere to put Alexander, who offered to sleep in Stepanov's anteroom with the guard by his side. Stepanov agreed. "Thank you, sir," said Alexander, lying down on the floor and putting his head down. Stepanov glanced at the trembling guard in the corner, Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
and then back at Alexander. "What the hell is going on, Major?" he whispered, crouching by him.
"You tell me, Colonel," said Alexander. "What did Slonko want with me? He kept telling me they've brought Tatiana back from Helsinki, that she's confessed. What was he talking about?"
"They're beside themselves," Stepanov said. "They tried to find her, but she is nowhere. People don't just disappear in the Soviet Union--"
"Actually, sir--"
"Not without a trace."
"Actually, sir--"
"Alexander, stop being impossible."
"Yes, sir."
"I'm telling you that once the Grechesky hospital told the NKGB--"
"The what?
"Oh, they haven't informed you? NKVD is gone. Now it's the NKGB. The People's Kommitet on Government Security. Same agency, different name. First name change since 1934." Stepanov shrugged. "Anyway. Once the NKGB was informed that Sayers and Metanova had not made it to the Leningrad hospital, they got very suspicious. They have a turned-over truck, they have four dead Soviet troops and a handful of Finnish ones, no first aid kit in the truck, and in fact, the Red Cross symbol had been torn out of the cabin's canvas. No one can explain it. There is no trace of either the doctor or his nurse. Yet six border stations along the way say they checked through a doctor and his nurse returning to Helsinki with a wounded Finnish pilot in a prisoner exchange. They cannot remember the nurse's name, but they swear it was American. Well, we have the wounded Finnish pilot. He is neither Finnish, nor a pilot, and wounded is a euphemism for what he is. He is your friend Dimitri and he is ripped full of holes. That's the situation on the ground. He's dead, and the doctor and the nurse have vanished into thin air. So Mitterand called the Helsinki Red Cross hospital and found a doctor who doesn't speak any Russian. It took the bumbling idiots"--Stepanov was barely whispering at this point--"it took them a whole day to find someone to talk to the doctor in English." Stepanov smiled. "I was going to suggest you."
Alexander stayed impassive.
"Anyway, they finally got someone from Volkhov to speak to the doctor in English. From what I can understand, Matthew Sayers has died."
"So that much was true." Alexander sighed. "They all have such a way of mixing their lies with just enough truth that you go mad trying to uncover what's real and what isn't."
"Yes, Sayers died in Helsinki. Blood poisoning from his wounds. As for the nurse with him, the doctor said that she had gone and he hadn't seen her for two days. He assumed she was no longer in Finland."
Alexander stared at Stepanov with sadness and relief. For a sick moment he actually felt regret that they hadn't brought Tatiana back; he thought maybe he could lay his eyes on her one last time. But finally something real bobbed to the surface. "Thank you, sir," Alexander whispered. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
Stepanov patted Alexander on the back. "Sleep now. You need your strength. Are you hungry? I have some smoked sausage and some bread."
"Leave it for me, but right now I sleep."
Stepanov disappeared into his quarters and Alexander, the heaviness from his soul having lifted like morning fog, thought before he fell asleep that indeed Tania had listened to his every word and did not remain in Helsinki. She must have gone on to Stockholm. Perhaps she was in Stockholm now. He also thought that Sayers must have done right by her to the end, because had he broken and told Tatiana the truth about Alexander's "death," then Tatiana would have already been back in the Soviet Union right in the clutches of the man who--Oh, Tatiana, my--
But that was all he had.
At least f*cking Dimitri was dead.
Fitfully, he slept.
The Bridge over the Volga, 1936
Alexander was asked who he was at seventeen, at the Kresty prison after he was arrested. They were indifferent about it then--they knew. They asked, they went away--for days at a time--they came back, and then they said, "Are you Alexander Barrington?"
"I am, yes," said Alexander, because then he did not have another answer and he thought the truth would protect him.
And then they read him his sentence. There was no courtroom for Alexander in those days, no tribunal presided over by generals. There was an empty windowless concrete cell with bars for doors and a toilet bucket on the concrete floor and no privacy, and there was a naked bulb up high. They made him stand as they read to him from a piece of paper in sonorous voices. There were two men, and as if Alexander didn't understand the first one, the second one took the paper and read it to him again.
Alexander heard his name, loud and clear, "Alexander Barrington," and he heard the sentence, louder and clearer: "Ten years in forced labor camp in Vladivostok for anti-Soviet agitation in Moscow in 1935 and for efforts to undermine Soviet authority and the Soviet state by calling into scurrilous and spurious question the economics lessons of the Father and Teacher." He heard ten years; he thought he hadmis heard. It was a good thing they read it to him again. He almost said, where is my father, he will solve this, he will tell me what to do.
But he didn't say that. He knew that whatever befell him, befell his mother and father as it had befallen the seventy-eight people who had once lived at the hotel with them in Moscow, the piano group Alexander sometimes went to, the group of communists he and his father belonged to, his friend Slavan, the old Tamara.
They asked him if he understood the charges against him; did he understand the punishment meted out to him?
He didn't understand. He nodded anyway. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
He was busy trying to envision the life he was meant to live. The life his father had wanted him to live. He wanted to ask his father if spending his youth fulfilling two of Stalin's Five Year Plans for the industrialization of Soviet Russia--part of the fixed capital that Alexander understood so well because he knew precisely what was not working in the socialist state--was what Harold had wanted for Alexander. But his father wasn't around to ask.
Was Alexander's destiny to mine for gold in the tundra of Siberia because the utopian state couldn't afford to pay him?
"Do you have any questions?"
"Where is my mother?" asked Alexander. "I want to say goodbye to her."
The guards laughed. "Your mother? How the f*ck should we know where your mother is? You're leaving tomorrow morning. See if you can find her by then."
Laughing, they left. Standing, Alexander remained.
And the next day he was put on a train to Vladivostok. The scarred, knotted man next to him said, "We're lucky they're taking us to Vladivostok. I just came back from Perm-35. Nowthat is hell on earth."
"Oh, where is that?"
"Near the city of Molotov. Have you heard of it? Near the Ural Mountains on the Kama River. It's not as far as Vladivostok, but it's much worse. No one who goes there survives."
"You survived."
"Because I served only two years, and they let me out. I exceeded my production quota for five quarters in a row. They were pleased with my capitalist productivity. They thought the proletariat in me had worked hard enough for the common man."
Once Alexander placed Vladivostok on a map of the Soviet Union, he knew that, though he had no money and no home, he had to escape if he were to have any chance of living. The city was in the bowels of the world, and if there was a Hades on earth, then to him Vladivostok seemed it. To travel by cattle train through the Ural Mountains, through the west Siberian plain, through the central Siberian plateau, past all of Mongolia, and around all of China to rot in an industrial cement city on a thin strip of land on the shores of the Sea of Japan. Alexander was sure there was no return from the catacomb that was Vladivostok.
For a thousand kilometers Alexander looked out of the small porthole in the train, or out of the doors the guards sometimes left open to give the prisoners some air. He saw his chance when they were coming up to cross the River Volga. I will jump, he thought. The Volga was far down below, the wobbly rail bridge high over a precipice, maybe thirty meters high, a hundred feet by American standards. Alexander didn't know much about the Volga; was it rocky? Was it deep? Was it fast? But he saw it was wide, and he knew it emptied a thousand kilometers south in Astrakhan into the Caspian Sea. He didn't know if he would get another--better--chance. But he knew that if he managed to survive the Volga, he could make his way into one of the southern republics, Georgia, maybe, or Armenia, and then cross the border into Turkey. He wished he had his mother's American dollars. After they returned from the failed trip to Moscow he had put the book back in the library and then was arrested so quickly he never had a chance Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
to retrieve it. But even without the money, he knew escape or death were his only choices.
He looked down and his stomach twisted. Could he survive? It struck him that he didn't want to die. He remembered William Miller in Barrington. Nice, blond, popular William Miller. Had been taking swimming lessons since he was five weeks old. He could jump and somersault and hold his breath under water, he could outswim and outjump any other kid in Barrington, including Alexander, who certainly didn't shy away from trying. And then one summer afternoon when they were eight, they were playing Tarzan in the Olympic-sized pool at William's house, jumping cannonball into the deep end, into what was supposed to be twelve feet of water. William jumped from a diving boardtwo feet high into twelve feet of water. But what William didn't consider was large-boned Ben down the street, who, at the moment of William's ill-timed upside-down cannonball, was treading water too close to the diving board. William saw Ben just a millisecond too late and lurched to the left to avoid Ben's substantial form. William's head hit the concrete wall of the pool, snapped and popped, and from then on William Miller was wheeled around by a twenty-four-hour-a-day nurse and was fed through a tube in his stomach. Strange? Could it be any more strange than a seventeen-year-old boy, nearly six foot three and 180 pounds, throwing himself down one hundred feet into what might be eight feet of water with boulders for a bottom? Alexander couldn't recite the immutable laws of physics on that one, but something was telling him they were not in his favor. There was no time to panic and no time to think. He knew he could be jumping to his death. He knew it. His stomach knew it. His exploding heart knew it. But this death would at least be quick. He crossed himself. In Vladivostok he would be dying for the rest of his life.
He mouthed,help me God , and jumped from the train with only the prison clothes he was wearing.
A hundred feet was a long way to fall, though it took but a few seconds; the train was nearly on the other side of the river by the time he reached the water. He had jumped feet first and hoped the Volga was deep enough to withstand his fall. It was. It was also cold and very fast. The river current grabbed him and carried him half a kilometer, fighting the whole way for a gulp of air, and by the time he turned his head to the bridge, the train was just a speck in the distance. It didn't look as if it had stopped. He wasn't sure if anyone even noticed, except for the convict next to him, who had been smirking from Leningrad to the Volga, and muttering, "A strapping young lad, just wait till Vladivostok, wait to see what'll become of ya."
He didn't want to risk getting out of the water until he could no longer see the bridge. He swam with the current, maybe five kilometers, and finally became tired and crawled out. It was summer and drying off was quick. Alexander dug some potatoes out of the ground, ate them raw, took off his clothes, made himself a bed out of leaves, and a lean-to canopy out of twigs (thank God for Cub Scouts) and then slept. When he woke up, his clothes were damp and his legs sore. He didn't know how to make himself new clothes, so he built a fire, dried the clothes and turned them inside out, so the prison gray wouldn't be as clearly visible. He smeared green leaves all over himself to further disguise the color, some mud, some strawberry pulp, and when the clothes were unrecognizable as having been issued by the NKVD, he set out again, staying close to the river.
Alexander traveled downstream on the Volga on barges and fishing boats, offering his fishing services until one fisherman asked him for his domestic passport. After that, Alexander veered away, walking deeper inland, hoping to find his way to the mountains between Georgia and Turkey. He stayed away from fisherman and from farmers--he knew sooner or later someone from whom he could not get away would ask for his domestic passport. His had been taken from him, and he had been issued a prison workbook; certainly he could not have shown that. He burned it.
Traveling without accepting help had the great disadvantage of slowness. Walking would only get him thirty or less kilometers a day. Alexander had to risk hitching rides in horse carriages to get south a little Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
faster.
It was the fifteen-year-old girl working in the fields through which he was passing who stopped him. Long enough to ask for a drink, to ask for some bread, to ask if there was any work he could do to make some spare cash. She brought him home by the hand to her open-hearted parents. She of the large warm calloused farmer's hand, she of the thick long light-brown hair, the round face, the round flesh, the perspiration around the neck and the arms, and a glistening chest on which a small gold cross lay, nearly horizontally, so healthy and young was she.
Alexander didn't get as far as Georgia. He ended up staying in Belyi Gor, a village near Krasnodar by the Black Sea, still in the republic of Russia where--because he had noticed Larissa and it was August and harvesting season--he offered his fieldhand services to the farmer's family, the Belovs. Yefim and Maritza Belov had four sons, Grisha, Valery, Sasha, Anton, and a daughter.
The Belovs had no room for him in their small farmhouse, but he stayed gladly in the barn, slept on hay, worked from sunup to sundown and at night thought about Larissa. She smiled at him with her parted mouth, pretending to be constantly out of breath. Alexander knew it was a ruse, but it worked, for he had been starved and needed feeding. His body had been too tense for too long, on the run and on guard. Larissa was the promise of relief.
But Alexander stayed away. Her brothers were not the trifling types. Working in the fields digging potatoes, carrots, onions, threshing wheat for the collective farm orkolkhoz without the help of animals had made them like oxen, and living around their adolescent, tumescent, eager sister had made them more than a little wary of migrant workers like Alexander, who took off their shirts and worked in their trousers, getting slicker and more tanned by each sun-drenched day. Alexander was seventeen, but he looked like a man and ate like a man, and worked like a man. In all ways, he had the appetites of a man and the heart of one. Larissa saw it. The brothers saw it. He stayed away. He offered to make hay bales. He offered to chop winter wood for the family. He offered to build them a new--bigger--table, hoping he would remember from the childhood days with his father what it was like to use the saw, a plane, hammer and nails. He offered all this, hoping his work would keep him out of the fields and in the barn.
Of course the more Alexander remained aloof, the more Larissa pushed forward, becoming as brazen as a fifteen-year-old girl could get living in a small farmhouse with her parents and four brothers.
It was late August in scorching Krasnodar by the Black Sea. And one afternoon when he was in the barn tying up the hay into neat stacks, he saw the light stream on the ground and when he turned around, the light stream was gone, blacked out by Larissa who stood in front of him.
In his hands he held a pitchfork, a ball of twine, and a knife. She asked him in a low voice what he was doing. Making hay bales, he was going to reply, but realized she knew and he didn't have to say a word. Under different circumstances, he would have not stopped himself. He could barely stop himself now. But the girl was trouble; he felt it.
"Larissa, this is going to end in no good," he said.
"I don't know what you mean," she said, sauntering closer. She was barefoot and was wearing what was barely a dress. "It's godlessly hot out there. I came in for a little shade in the middle of the day. You don't mind, do you?"
He turned his back to her, bending to the hay. "Your brothers will kill me." Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
"Why would they do that? You're working so hard. They'll applaud you." She came closer. He could smell the summer sweat on her body. She inhaled. She could smell his.
"Stop."
She took another step toward him and stopped. His back was still to her but with his peripheral vision he saw her jump on top of a wooden stable gate. "I'll just sit here and watch you," he heard her say.
He watchedher for a moment, and then went back to his work. His body was nearly giving out. In one moment, he thought, in one moment, I could have such sweet relief, and it would take but a moment. No harm done. She was close enough to him that he could smell her farm fresh body, her washed hair, her breath. He closed his eyes momentarily.
"Alexander," she said huskily. "Look. I want to show you something."
Aching, reluctant, desperate, he looked. She slowly pulled up her skirt and slightly opened her legs. Her hips were just below Alexander's eye level. His gaze stopped between her bare thighs. A groan escaped him.
"Come here, Alexander."
He came. Pushing her hands away, he stood between her legs, and pulled down her dress to expose her body. Panting, perspiring, ravenous, he raised his head to her lips and then feverishly bent to her breasts, while his fingers caressed her, the softness, the warmth...she was moaning as she clutched the bar--and then laughter sounded right outside the barn, and Larissa tried to push Alexander away. He wasn't moving from her.
Larissa shoved him hard, jumping down from the beam, and the light was on the grass, and Grisha, her oldest brother, came in and said, "Larisska, there you are, I've been looking all over for you. Get out of here. Stop trying to corrupt our Alexander. Can't you see he's got real work to do? Go to Mama. She wants to know why you haven't gotten the cows from the pasture yet. Thekolkhoznik will be here for the milk soon."
"I'm going," said Larissa, walking past Alexander. Grisha left first, and before Larissa disappeared she turned around and with a delicious smile on her face whispered, "Alexander, next time we won't be interrupted and my mouth will beall over you, I promise. And afterward I will call you Shura, instead of Sasha like my brother. Just you wait."
Alexander could think about nothing else for the rest of the day, or the evening, or certainly the night alone in his barn. But the next day something happened that stopped him from self-immolation. It was Larissa's pale face in the morning. When he approached her, she put her hands up and without looking at him said, "I'm not feeling well."
"I don't mind," he said. "I'll make you feel better."
She pushed him weakly away and, without glancing at him, said, "Stay away, Alexander. Do yourself a favor. Stay away from me."
Perplexed he went to do his work. He didn't see her for the rest of the day, but in the evening during dinner, Larissa's now extremely pale face was accompanied by fever. The fever was higher the following evening and was miserably followed by a red raised rash on her face a day later. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
Oh no, the grown-ups said in a panic. She issick .
And then came Alexander's fever and his rash, but by the time he was sick, no one saidoh no in a panic. Because the horseman of the apocalypse sat atop a pale horse that they all knew was typhus, the incurable, contagious, deadly pestilence. The headache that preceded the onset of the disease was so severe, so throbbing, so eye-poppingly wretched that by the time the 105?F fever and the scabby, scratchy, inflamed rash came, Alexander welcomed the distracting delirium that accompanied it. The brothers were feverish and Larissa was hemorrhaging, and then the parents were delirious, and Larissa was dead. One minute pressed against Alexander's burning hands, the next dead and unburied as they were all too weak to dig a hole for her, and so she lay in theizba , and they all panted feebly and waited for the horseman to come for them. And it did.
In the end, only Larissa's father, Yefim, and Alexander remained. They had not been outside in many days, weeks maybe? They held on to each other and drank water, and prayed, and Alexander started praying in English, mixing it with Russian, pleading for peace, for his mother and father, pleading for their lives, praying for America, for health, for his life, for his mother, for Teddy, Belinda, Boston, Barrington, for the woods, for death finally because he couldn't take it anymore, and then he saw Yefim's tormented eyes watching him, felt Yefim's hand on him, heard Yefim's bleeding mouth whispering to him, "Son, don't die, don't die here like this. Go back to your father and mother. Find your way back home. Where is your home, son?"
Yefim died. Alexander did not. After spending six weeks in quarantine, he got better. The Soviet authorities, to prevent the outbreak of disease in the fall heat over the Caucasus region, burned the village of Belyi Gor and all the bodies and huts and barns and fields contained therein. Alexander, who remained alive but had no identity, got himself a new identity as Yefim's third son Alexander Belov. When the Soviet council workers came with masks on their faces and clipboards to their chests and in muffled voices asked, "Your name?" Alexander without hesitation said, "Alexander Belov." They checked against the birth records for Belyi Gor, against the available records for the Belov family and issued Alexander a new domestic passport that allowed him to travel in the Soviet Union without getting stopped and arrested for lack of documents. Alexander was put on a train and with written permission from the regionalSoviet made his way back to Leningrad and went to live with Mira Belov, Yefim's sister. Mira was taken aback to see him. Fortunately for Alexander, she had not seen the family and the real Alexander Belov in twelve years and though she pointed out with surprise Alexander's black hair and dark eyes, the leanness and the height ("Sasha, I can't get over it. You were so short and blond and chubby when you were five!"), she couldn't remember well enough to become suspicious. Alexander stayed, sleeping on a cot in the hall, a cot that was half a meter too short for him. He ate dinner with Mira and her husband and her husband's parents and tried to be in their apartment as little as possible. He had a plan. He needed to finish school and then he would join the army.
Alexander didn't have time to remember, to think, to ache. He had only one mission--to see his parents again--and he had only one goal and one imperative--one way or another to leave the Soviet Union.
A New Best Friend, 1937
In the last six months of secondary school, Alexander met Dimitri Chernenko. Dimitri, nondescript and diminutive, kept sidling up to Alexander and asking questions, his curiosity pervasive, invasive and sometimes irritating. Dimitri was like the puppy Alexander never had. He seemed lonely and in need of friendship--and harmless. He was a scrawny kid with shaggy hair and eyes that constantly darted from one face to the next, never staying for more than a few seconds on anyone or anything. Yet the way he looked up to Alexander, literally looked up to him, the way his mouth opened in fawning awe when Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
Alexander spoke, amused Alexander. Dimitri was easy to tease; he laughed at himself for always coming last in a race, for always missing the goal at football, for falling out of trees.
Once or twice, however, Alexander saw Dimitri bullying the younger boys in the school yard, and the second time when Dimitri tried to get Alexander to join in on the taunting of a petrified kid, Alexander pulled Dimitri aside and said, "What are you doing?" And Dimitri apologized and didn't do it again. Alexander attributed this lack of propriety ton ever being the popular one and over looked it, just as he overlooked his off-color remarks about girls ("Doesn't she have a hot ass? Hey, you, hotass!"). Alexander would patiently point out the errors in tact and judgment and Dimitri was a willing student, reforming himself to the best of his abilities, though nothing Alexander could teach would make Dimitri kick the ball into the goal or finish first in a race, or listen to a girl talk about her hair with out a bored sneer around his mouth. But in other ways, Dimitri became better behaved. And he laughed at all of Alexander's jokes, and that went a long way in friendship.
Dimitri was very interested in Alexander's tinge of an accent, but Alexander brushed off the questions. He didn't trust Dimitri, which said less about Dimitri than it said about Alexander who didn't trust anybody. Other than talking to Dimitri about his American past, Alexander and Dimitri managed to cover many other topics: communist politics (in hushed, mocking terms), girls (Dimitri had less experience than Alexander, i.e. none), and parents.
And that's when one afternoon while walking home, Dimitri let slip that his father was a guard at one of the city prisons, and not just any prison, but (in a glorious stage whisper) inthe House of Detention , the most feared and hated of the Leningrad prisons. He said it, Alexander knew, because his father's position of power made Dimitri seem more powerful in Alexander's eyes. But it was at that moment that Alexander looked differently at Dimitri.
Suddenly he saw an opening in the porthole of destiny, a possibility of discovering what happened to his family, and that opportunity was enough for Alexander to swallow his hard-earned mistrust and confide in Dimitri. Alexander told Dimitri the truth about his past and asked for Dimitri's help in locating Harold and Jane Barrington. Dimitri, his eyes shining, said he would be glad to help Alexander, who in his gratefulness gave Dimitri a hug and said, "Dima, if you help me, God help me, I swear, I'll be your friend for life. I'll do anything for you."
Patting Alexander on the back, Dimitri replied that no thanks were necessary, he would help Alexander gladly because they were best friends, weren't they?
Alexander agreed that they were.
A few days later, Dimitri brought him the news about his mother. She had been "imprisoned without a right of correspondence."
Alexander remembered the old babushka Tamara and her husband. He knew what that meant. He remained composed in front of Dimitri, but that night he cried for his mother.
With Dimitri's father's help, they managed to get into the House of Detention for five minutes under the auspices of visiting Dimitri's father and doing a school report on the progress of the Soviet state against agitators and foreign traitors to the socialist cause.
Alexander saw his father for a few minutes one incongruously sunny and warm June afternoon. He had hoped for ten; maybe one or two alone. He got one or two, with Dimitri, Dimitri's father, and another guard. No privacy for Harold and Alexander Barrington. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
Alexander had gone over what he wanted to say to his father until the few words were cut into his memory that neither anxiety nor fear could obliterate.
Dad! he wanted to say. Once when I was barely seven, you, me and Mom went to Revere Beach, remember? I swam until my teeth chattered, and you and I dug a large sand hole and built a sand bar and waited for the rising tide to wash the ocean in. We got so burned those hours on the beach, and then we went on the awesome Cyclone--three times--and ate cotton candy and ice cream until my stomach hurt and you smelled of sand and salt water and the sun, and you held my hand and said I too smelled like the sea. It was the happiest day of my life, and you gave that day to me, and when I close my eyes that's what I will remember. Don't worry about me. I will be all right. Don't worry about anything.
But he wasn't alone with his father for a moment to say those words to him, in any language. Alexander became afraid that Harold's emotion would alert the guard. Fortunately the apathetic sentry wasn't looking for subterfuge.
His father was the only one who spoke, in English, with a little lead-in help from Alexander. "Could the prisoner say something to us in English?" Alexander had asked the guard, who grunted and said, "All right. But make it short. I don't have time to waste."
"I'll say something short in English," said Harold. His voice barely strong enough to get the words out, he grasped Alexander by the hands and whispered, holding him tight, his eyes spilling over, "Would that I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!"
Saying nothing, Alexander stepped away and blinked back his father. At the end of those few short minutes in a bare concrete cell, Alexander's cost for keeping himself in control was a chipped tooth and a bit of his immortal soul.I love you , he mouthed silently, and then the door closed.
After that, Dimitri never left Alexander's side, which was all right with Alexander: he needed a friend.
It didn't take long for Dimitri to start formulating plans to get him and Alexander out of the Soviet Union. Since much of what Dimitri was saying echoed what Alexander already had been thinking and planning, Alexander saw no reason to stop him. And he saw no reason not to get Dimitri out with him. Two could fight better than one, could cover each other, could watch each other's back. That's what Alexander imagined. That Dimitri would be like a battle buddy. That Dimitri would watch his back.
But Alexander was patient, and Dimitri was not. Alexander knew the right time had to come, and would. They talked about taking trains down to Turkey, they talked about making their way to Siberia in the winter and walking across the Bering Strait ice. They talked about Finland and finally settled on it. It was the nearest and most accessible.
Alexander went every week to check on hisBronze Horseman book. What if someone checked it out? What if someone kept it? He couldn't help but feel that his money was not safe.
Having graduated secondary school, Alexander and Dimitri decided to enroll in the three-month program at the Officer Candidate School of the Red Army. The OCS was Dimitri's idea. He thought it would be a good way to impress girls. Alexander thought it would be an entry way into Finland if the Soviet Union and Finland went to war, which seemed likely: Russia did not like having a foreign country, a historical enemy, only twenty kilometers from Leningrad, arguably Russia's greatest city. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
OCS was nothing like Alexander had imagined. The brutality of the instructors, the grueling schedule of the training, the constant humiliation by the sergeants in charge were all meant to break your spirit before war could. The humiliation was harder to bear than the running, the sweating in the cold, the rain. But worse than everything was being awoken after taps and told to stand for hours while some f*cking cadet got taken to task for forgetting to shine his boots.
Alexander learned about imperfection in OCS, and about leadership, and about respect. He learned about keeping his mouth shut and about keeping his locker spotless and about being on time and about sayingyes, sir when he wanted to sayf*ck you . He also learned that he was stronger and faster and quicker than other trainees, that he was neater, that he was more calm under pressure, and that he was less afraid.
He also learned that words spoken to him that were meant to rattle him actually did.
After experiencing the grunt duality of officer school--they wanted to make a man out of you by breaking your spirit until you had none left--Alexander was grateful only that he wasn't an enlisted man: they must have had it even harder.
And then Dimitri flunked OCS.
"Can you believe it? What bastards they all are, after putting me through such hell, to not let me graduate! What kind of stupid bullshit is that? I've got a good mind to write the commander a letter--who is the commander of OCS, Alexander? Do you see this letter? They're telling me I unloaded and loaded my weapon too slowly, and that I crawled on my belly like a f*cking snake too slowly, and that in battle tests I didn't keep quiet enough, or exhibit enough leadership quality to be considered for an officer rank. Look at this: they're inviting me to join the enlisted ranks. Well, if I can't load my weapon fast enough for them as an officer, what good am I going to be as a f*cking grunt?"
"Perhaps the standards are different for officers and regular soldiers."
"Sure they are! But they should be tougher for the frontoviks! After all, those are the guys who are first at the battle line. So they're flunking me out of a program that would have kept me in the rear where I would do the least damage, but instead offering me a position where I'm going to be thrown into the f*cking war zone? No, thanks." Dimitri looked up at Alexander. "Did you get your letter?"
He had gotten it, of course, and was informed of his impending graduation as a second lieutenant, but he didn't think Dimitri was in any mood to hear that. To lie was impractical. Alexander told Dimitri the truth.
"Alexander, this is just idiotic. Our plans are completely f*cked. What good are we to each other, with you an officer and me a private?" Dimitri hit himself on the head for emphasis. "I've got it! Great idea. Only one thing left to do--do you see it?"
"I don't see it."
"You've got to reject your second lieutenantship. Tell them you're honored and grateful, but you've reconsidered. They'll enlist you as a private in a few days, and then we'll be together in one unit and able to run together when the opportunity arises." He was gleefully smiling. "And for a moment I thought all was lost and our plans were as good as dead."
"Hold on, hold on." Alexander looked at Dimitri askance. "Dima, you want me towhat ?" Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
"Decline your officership."
"Why would I do that?"
"So we can execute our plans."
"Our plans haven't changed. If I'm second lieutenant, then I'm commanding a unit that has a sergeant who's in charge of your squad. We'll go to Finland together no matter what."
"Yes, but what good is it if we're not in the same unit? Those were our plans, Alexander."
"Our plans were to become officers together. We didn't say anything about becoming privates."
"All right, but our plans changed. We have to be flexible."
"Yes. But if we're both privates, we've got no power whatsoever."
"Who said anything about power? Who wants power?" Dimitri narrowed his eyes. "You?"
"I don't want power," Alexander said. "I want to be in a position to help us. You've got to admit, one of us being an officer gives us more options, more opportunity to get to where we need to be. I mean, if it were reversed and I flunked and you became an officer, I'd definitely want you to stay an officer. You could do so much for us."
"Yes," Dimitri said slowly, "but I didn't become an officer, did I?"
"Just dumb luck, Dima," Alexander said. "I'd think no more about it."
"I'm hardly going to be able to help thinking about it," said Dimitri, "since I'm about to become everybody's shitting pot."
Alexander said nothing. Dimitri spoke again. "I think it would be better if you and I were in the same squad."
"There is no guarantee of being in the same squad," Alexander said. "They'll send you to Karelia and me to the Crimea..." Alexander broke off. It was ridiculous. There was no way he was declining his officership. But by the look in Dimitri's eyes, by the hunched manner of Dimitri's shoulders, by the unpersuaded sneer of Dimitri's mouth, Alexander heard the first tear in the fabric of his and Dimitri's friendship. Shoddy Soviet workmanship, Alexander decided, and worked harder to convince Dimitri that this was going to work out. "Dima, think how much better your life will be in the army if I'm in the commissioned ranks, helping you out every step of the way. Better food. Better cigarettes. Better vodka. Better assignments. Better girls."
Dimitri looked skeptical.
"I'm your ally and your friend, and I'll be in a position to help you."
Dimitri still looked skeptical.
And rightly so, for, despite Alexander's proffered hand, life was only marginally easier for Dimitri. But Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
there was no denying it--it wasconsiderably easier for Alexander. He was quartered better, he was fed better, he was allowed more privileges and liberties, he was paid better, he received better weapons, he was privy to sensitive military information, and a better class of woman threw herself at him at the officers' club. The benefit to Dimitri was that Alexanderwas his commanding officer at the Leningrad garrison--with two sergeants and a corporal in between. But it was a dubious benefit the first time Alexander shouted at Dimitri for not maintaining order during a forward march and saw Dimitri coil up. Alexander knew he was either going to continue to shout orders at everyone including Dimitri, which was clearly not acceptable to Dimitri, or not shout orders at anyone, which was clearly not acceptable to the Red Army.
Alexander transferred Dimitri into another unit, placing him under the command of one of his quartermates, Lieutenant Sergei Komkov--permanently damaging his relationship with Komkov.
"Belov, you ought to be drawn and quartered," the short, nearly bald Komkov said to him one evening at cards. "What were you thinking asking me to take Chernenko? He is the biggest p-ssy I've ever seen! He is a worthless excuse for a soldier. My little sister is braver. He can't do anything right but hates to be told what to do. Can we court martial him for cowardice?"
Alexander laughed. "Come on, he's a good guy. You'll see he'll be good in battle."
"Belov, cut the shit. Today I was nearly going to shoot him for desertion when he dropped his rifle during a march and then had to step three paces out of formation to pick it up. I actually cocked my weapon at him, for which I was sorry. Then, to make it up to him, I put him in charge of cleaning the officers' latrine."
"Stop it, Komkov. He'll be all right."
"Do you know that one of our rifles was accidentally fired and Chernenko dropped to the ground in the courtyard and covered his head? Didn't protect his assigned buddy, I might add. I don't know why you defend him all the time as you do. He'll be the death of us in battle."
Here Come the Girls, 1939
When they first started going to clubs, he got together with a girl named Luba and she started coming around more often, and Alexander started being less interested in meeting new girls, but then he found Dimitri talking to her, and then Dimitri expressed an interest in her and Alexander nodded and stepped away. Luba was hurt, while Dimitri played with her for a while and dropped her.
That happened twice, three times more. Alexander didn't mind; he could always find himself another girl. He tried leaving Dimitri at the Sadko bar and going to the officers' club instead, but Dimitri disapproved. So Alexander continued to go to Sadko with Dimitri and to pretend that he wasn't that interested in any specific girl. And that was true. He quite liked all women.
Oksana only liked to be on top and did not want to be touched.
Olga liked to be touched.Only touched.
Milla talked too much about communism and economics.
Agafia talked too much period. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
Isabel came once, returned for more, and on the third try, asked if he wanted to be married.
Dina said she liked him more than any other man she'd ever been with, and then he found her with Anatoly Marazov the next weekend.
Maya wanted it any which way, and he gave it to her any which way, and then again, and again, and afterward she said all he cared about was himself.
Megan talked all the while she was using her mouth on him.
Nina talked all the while he was using his mouth on her.
Nadia wanted to play cards, not before, not after, but instead of.
Kyra said she would do it only if her best friend Lena could join in.
Zoe was brazen all around and was done in fifteen minutes.
Masha was brazen all around and was done in two hours.
Marisa was the girl who liked to be talked to, and Marta was the girl who didn't.
Sofia was the girl who liked most everything as long as she had to do nothing herself.
Sonia was the almost funny girl until suddenly, after one Saturday night too many, she became the girl with a broken heart, and suddenly she wasn't funny and she wasn't broken-hearted. She was just livid.
Valentina wanted to know if he ever killed another human being.
Zhenya wanted to know if he wanted to have a baby.
And then Alexander started forgetting their names.
That happened when he started to keep himself from release longer and longer. He kept coming back to them, looking into their eyes, their mouths, trying to get them completely naked, wanting a connection, wanting something else, but wanting and forgetting and continuing. A few a night, Friday night, Saturday night, Sunday night, and sentry evenings, and Sunday afternoons--not many during daylight, much to his dissatisfaction, for he so liked to look at them in their fervor.
Alexander started to withdraw from them, still liking them, still needing them, still wanting them, but with a resigned face, an unsmiling face, with a detached manner and a growing indifference to their pleasure, and suddenly and inexplicably their attachment to him grew!
There seemed to be more and more of the girls who liked his company, who wanted to walk with him along Nevsky Prospekt and hold his arm, who squeezed him gratefully at the end, and whispered thank you, who would come back the following weekend when he would already be on his next girl, on his next three. More and more of them seemed to want something from him--what, he did not know and, more to the point, could not give.
"I want more, Alexander," she said to him. "I want more." Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
And he smiled and said, "Believeme, I gave you all I got."
"No," she said. "I want more."
As they were walking back, he said in a resigned voice, "I'm sorry, but--what you want, it's just not possible. This is about as much as I'm capable of."
Still every girl he looked at, every girl he said hello to, every girl he touched, he thought,is she the one ? I've had nearly all of them, hasthe one come and gone?Come --and gone, and I did not know?
But every once in a while, before dreams, before the black of night took him, for a moment, for a second, under the stars, on trains, and barges, and in other people's carriages, Alexander saw the barn and smelled Larissa, and heard her pleasure breath, and felt regret for something lost he was afraid would never come again.