CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Colditz, January 1945
PERHAPS THEY WERE RIGHTin what they said about Colditz. There was no escape. And there was no work, either. There was nothing for the men to do except sleep and play cards and go for two walks a day. They got up at seven for roll call, and turned off their lights every evening at ten. In between there were three meals and two walks.
Colditz was the sprawling fifteenth-century fortress castle in northern Saxony, in the triangle between three great German cities: Leipzig, Dresden, and Chemnitz. Colditz stood on a steep hill above the river Mulde. And it wasn't just a hill. Colditz was surrounded by moats on the south and vertical drops on the east and leg-buckling precipices on the north and west. Colditz was built out of the rocky hill. When the mountain ended, the castle began.
The castle was extremely well run by high-minded, well-organized Germans who took their jobs very seriously and would not be corrupted, as Alexander learned from the five Soviet officers already residing in their small, cold, single stone cell with four bunks.
Colditz had a sick ward and a chapel, it had a delousing shed, two canteens, a movie theater, even a dentist. And that was just for the prisoners. As if it were their permanent residence, the German guards lived and ate very well. The commandant of Colditz had a quarter of the castle all to himself.
The most notorious escapees in all the other POW camps in Germany were brought to Colditz, where the sentries with machine guns stood every fifteen meters, on level ground, on raised catwalks and in round towers, and watched them twenty-four hours a day. Floodlights covered the castle at night. There was only one way in and one way out, over a moat bridge that led to the German garrison and the commandant's quarters.
There must have been two sentries for every one of the 150 prisoners; it certainly felt like it. Alexander spent thirty-one January days watching the sentries as they went out for their walks in the large inner courtyard, cobbled with gray stones that reminded him slightly of Pavlov barracks in Leningrad. He wondered whatever happened to Colonel Stepanov.
For thirty-one days he watched the guards in the canteen, in the showers, in the courtyard. Twice a week for an hour--with good behavior only--the prisoners were allowed, in small clusters of twelve, to take walks on the outer terrace facing west. It was an enclosed stone space, and below it over a parapet was a grassy, completely enclosed garden, but the prisoners weren't permitted there. Alexander, always on his best behavior, went out to the terrace for his two walks a week and watched the men who were watching him. He even watched them changing guard out of the window of his room. His bunk was next to the window, on the third floor over the sick ward, facing west. He liked that he was facing west. Something hopeful about it. Below him was the long and narrow terrace, and below that the long and narrow garden.
Colditz certainly looked impenetrable. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
But how did Tania do it? How did she make it to Finland, with Dimitri dead and Sayers fatally wounded? He wished he knew, but he knew one thing--somehow she ended up in Finland. So there must be a way out of this place, too. He just couldn't see it.
Pasha and Ouspensky were a lot less optimistic. They had no interest in watching the guards. Alexander wanted to talk to the British POWs in the courtyard, but he had no interest in explaining his flawless English to Pasha or Ouspensky. There were no Americans in sight, only British and French officers, one Polish officer and the five Soviets with whom they shared their cell.
The one Polish officer was General Bor-Komarovsky. Alexander and he got talking in the canteen. Komarovsky had taken over the Polish Underground Resistance to Hitler and to the Soviets in 1942. When he was caught he went straight to Colditz, to ensure his permanent incarceration. And though he was very willing to tell Alexander stories of previous escape attempts out of the castle, and even gave Alexander his old relief maps of the area, in Russian, Komarovsky told Alexander that he could forget about escaping from here. Even those who had gotten outside the fortress walls were all caught within days. "Which goes to show you," Komarovsky said, "that what I've always believed is especially true of a place like Colditz. Despite the most meticulous planning and organization, there is no successful way out of any difficult situation without the hand of God."
Tania got out of the Soviet Union, Alexander wanted to say. I rest my case.
At night on his top bunk, he thought of her arms. He thought of trying to find her...Where would she be? If she were still waiting for him, where would she be so he could find her? Helsinki? Stockholm? London? America? Where in America, Boston, New York? Somewhere warm, perhaps? San Francisco? The City of Angels? When she left Russia with Dr. Matthew Sayers, he was going to take her to New York. Though the doctor had died, perhaps Tatiana headed there as planned. He would start there.
He hated these blind alleys of his imagination, but he liked to picture what her face might look like when she saw him, what her body might look like as it trembled, what her tears might taste like, how she would walk to him, maybe run to him.
What about their child, how old was it now? One and a half. A boy, a girl? If a girl, maybe she was blonde like her mother. If a boy, maybe he was dark-haired like his once dark, now hairless father. My child, what is it like to hold a small child, to lift it up in the air?
He would get himself into a self-defeating frenzy thinking of her hands on him, and of his own on her.
When she had first left him, the aching for her in his body was unabated, through windy March and wet April, and dry May and warm June. June was the worst. The aching was so intense that sometimes he thought that he would not be able to continue another day, another minute of such want, of such need.
Then a year passed and another. And little by little the aching was numbed, but the want, the need--there was no escape from that.
Sometimes he thought of the girl in Poland, blowzy Faith, who offered him everything and to whom he gave a chocolate. Would he be as strong now if a Faith walked through these parts? He didn't think so.
In Colditz, there was no escape, not from the thoughts, not from the fear, not from the throbbing. Not from the realization that it had now been many months, many years, and how long could one faithful wife wait for her dead husband? Even his Tatiana, the brightest star in the sky. How long could she wait Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
before she moved on?
Please, no more. No more thoughts. No more desire. No more love.
Please. No more anything.
How long could she wait before she put her blonde hair down, and walked out of work, and saw another face that made her smile?
He turned his own face to the window. He had to get out of Colditz, at whatever the cost.
"Comrades, look here," he said to Pasha and Ouspensky, when they were out on the terrace one freezing February afternoon. "I want you to see something." Without motioning he pointed to the two sentries one on each side of the rectangular terrace, seven meters wide by twenty meters long.
Then he walked them casually across the terrace to the stone parapet and casually looked over the ledge while lighting a cigarette. Pasha and Ouspensky also looked over the ledge. "What are we looking at?" said Pasha.
In the walking garden far below, same shape as the terrace but twice as wide, two sentries with machine guns stood at opposite sides, one in an elevated pagoda, one on a raised catwalk.
"Yes?" said Ouspensky. "Four guards. Day and night. And the garden is over a vertical drop. Let's go." He turned.
Alexander grabbed his arm. "Wait, and listen."
"Oh no," said Ouspensky.
Pasha leaned forward. "Let him go, Captain," he said. "We don't need him. Go to hell, Ouspensky, and good riddance."
Ouspensky stayed.
Alexander, without pointing, said, "There are two guards down in the garden during the day, and two up here on the terrace. But at night the two guards here are relieved until morning because there is not much point in looking right at the floodlights. The guards here are replaced by one additional sentry in the garden below for a total of three. The third sentry watches the barbed wire fence over the fifty-foot--" Alexander coughed--"sixteen-meter precipice that leads to the bottom of the hill and to freedom." He paused. "At midnight, two things happen. One is the changing of the guard. The other is the turning of the floodlights to light this terrace and the castle. I've been watching it all out of our window at night. The guards walk off their posts, and new ones come to take their place."
"We're familiar with what changing of the guard means, Captain," said Ouspensky. "What are you proposing?"
Alexander turned away from the precipice and toward the castle. He continued to smoke leisurely. "I propose," he said, "that when the guard is changing and the floodlights aren't on, we jump out of our window carrying a long rope, run across this terrace, jump down right here into the garden below, run to Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
the barbed wire, cut it, and then descend on ropes the sixteen meters down to the ground to make our escape."
Pasha and Ouspensky were quiet. Ouspensky said, "How much rope would we need?"
"Ninety meters in all."
"Oh, can we just pick that up at the canteen? Or should we ask housekeeping?"
"We will make it out of bed linen."
"That's a lot of bed linen."
"Pasha has been making friends with Anna from housekeeping." Alexander smiled. "You can get us extra sheets, can't you?"
"Wait, wait," said Pasha. "We have to jump out of our window, nine meters above concrete..."
"Yes."
Pasha tapped his foot twice on the ground. "Concrete, Alexander!"
"Hold on to the rope and run down the wall."
"And then hold on to the rope to scale another thirteen meters down into the garden, run fourteen meters across, cut the barbed wire, and descend on another rope sixteen meters to the ground?"
"Yes, but the second rope we can attach in the dark. Won't be any floodlights on the wall down there."
"Yes, but the sentries will have taken their places."
"We will have to be on the other side of the barbed wire and in the trees when they do."
"Ah!" exclaimed Pasha. "What about the long white rope that's hanging out of our window? You don't think the guards will notice that, with the floodlights illuminating it so discreetly?"
"One of our bunkmates will have to brace us and then pull up the rope. Constantine will do it."
"And he will do this why?"
"Because he has nothing better to do. Because you will give him all your cigarettes. Because you will introduce him to Anna in housekeeping." Alexander smiled. "And because if it works, he can escape himself the following night. The barbed wire will already be cut."
Ouspensky said, "Comrade Metanov, as usual, there is something you have overlooked to ask the captain. What about time? How long do we have before the new guard takes his place and the floodlights come on?"
"Sixty seconds."
Ouspensky opened his mouth and laughed. Pasha joined him. "Captain, you are always so amusing, Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
wry, witty."
Alexander smoked and said nothing. Pasha did a double-take, his mouth still open, still wanting to smile. "You're not serious about this?"
"Absolutely am."
"Comrade, he will have us on," said Ouspensky to Pasha, "until Friday if necessary. He is a terrible prankster."
Alexander smoked. "What would you two rather do? Spend two years digging a tunnel? We don't have two years. I don't know if we have six months. The British here are convinced the war will be over by the summer."
"How do you know?" said Ouspensky.
"I can understand rudimentary English, Lieutenant," Alexander snapped. "Unlike you, I went to school."
"Captain, I enjoy your sense of humor, I really do. But why do we have to dig a tunnel? Why do we have to fling ourselves out of windows on sheets? Why don't we just wait the six months for the war to be over?"
"And then, Ouspensky?"
"Then, then," he stammered. "I don't know what then, but let me ask you, what now? You're throwing yourselves off a cliff, why? Where are you hoping to go?"
Pasha and Alexander both stared at Ouspensky and didn't reply.
"As I thought," said Ouspensky. "I'm not going."
"Lieutenant Ouspensky," said Pasha, "have you ever in your entire f*cking miserable life said yes to anything? You know what's going to be on your grave? `Nikolai Ouspensky. He said no.'"
"Both of you are such comedians," said Ouspensky, walking away. "You are just the height of hilarity. My stomach is hurting. Ha. Ha. Ha."
Alexander and Pasha turned back to the garden below them.
Pasha asked how they were going to get through the barbed wire.
"I've got the wire cutters with me from the Catowice Oflag," said Alexander, smiling. "Komarovsky gave me his military maps of Germany. We just need to get to the border with Switzerland."
"How many kilometers?"
"Many," Alexander admitted. "A couple of hundred." But fewer than from Leningrad to Helsinki, he wanted to add. Fewer than from Helsinki to Stockholm. And certainly fewer than from Stockholm to the United States of America, which is what he and Tania had planned.
Pasha didn't say anything. "Failure cost is high." Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
"Oh, Pasha, what areyour options? Even if you for a moment thought I might have some, which believe me I don't, where does staying in Colditz leaveyou ?"
Shrugging, Pasha said, "I didn't say I wasn't with you, I didn't say I wasn't going. I just said..."
Alexander patted him on the back. "Yes, the risk is high. But the reward is also high."
Pasha looked up to the third-floor window of his cell, to the terrace they were standing on, down to the garden below. "How in the world do you expect us to do all this in sixty seconds?"
"We'll have to hurry."
They planned for another two weeks until the middle of February. They got medical supplies and canned goods and a compass. They stole sheets out of the laundry room and at night cut them in the dark and braided them together and then hid them in their ripped-apart mattresses. While helping to make rope Ouspensky kept saying he wasn't going, but everybody in the cell knew he was. The hardest thing was to get some civilian clothes. Pasha finally managed to sweet-talk Anna into stealing them from the laundry at the German senior officers' quarters. Their weapons had long been taken away from them, but Alexander still had his rucksack, which had a titanium trench tool, wire cutters, his empty pen, and some money. Anna even stole them some German IDs the night before their escape.
"We don't speak German," said Ouspensky. "It won't do us much good."
"I speak a little," said Pasha, "and since we'll be wearing German clothes, it's only right we should have German IDs."
"And what did you promise this young na?ve girl for risking her job and livelihood for you?" Ouspensky asked with a sneer.
"My heart." Pasha smiled. "My undying devotion. Isn't it what we always promise them? Right, Alexander?"
"Right, Pasha."
Finally the planned night in February came and the time was near. Everything was ready.
It was eleven in the evening and Ouspensky was snoring. He asked to be woken up ten minutes before departure. Alexander thought it was smart to rest, but he himself could not sleep since yesterday.
He and Pasha were sitting on the floor by the closed window, tugging on the rope that was securely--they hoped--attached to one of the bunkbeds cemented into the floor.
"Do you think Constantine is strong enough to hold the rope steady? He doesn't look that strong," Pasha whispered.
"He'll be fine." Alexander lit a cigarette.
So did Pasha. "Will we succeed, Alexander? Will we make it?" Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
"I don't know." Alexander paused. "I don't know what God has planned for us."
"There you go with your God again. Are you prepared for anything?"
Alexander paused before answering. "Anything," he said, "except failure."
"Alexander?"
"Yes?"
"Do you ever think about your child?"
"What do you think?"
Pasha was quiet.
"What do you want to know? If I think she still remembers me? Do I think she has forgotten me--found a new life? Assumed that I was dead, accepted that I was dead." Alexander shrugged. "I think about it all the time. I live inside my heart. But what can I do? I have to move toward her."
Pasha was quiet.
Alexander listened to his palpitating breathing.
"What if she is happy now?"
"I hope she is."
"I mean--" Pasha went on, but Alexander interrupted him.
"Stop."
"Tania is at her core a happy soul, a resilient person. She is loyal and she is true, she is unyielding and relentless, but she also feels a child's delight for the smallest things. You know how some people gravitate toward misery?"
"I know how some people do that, yes," said Alexander, inhaling the nicotine.
"Tania doesn't."
"I know."
"What if she is remarried and has made herself a fine life?"
"I'll be happy to find her happy."
"But then what?"
"Then nothing. We salute her. You stay. I go." Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
"You're not risking your life to justgo , Alexander."
"No." I am a salmon, born in fresh water, living in salt water, swimming 3,200 kilometers upstream over rivers and seas back home to fresh water to spawn, and to die. I have no choice.
"What if she's forgotten you?"
"No."
"Maybe not forgotten, but what if she doesn't feel the same way anymore? She is in love with her new husband. She's got kids. She looks at you and is horrified."
"Pasha, you have a twisted Russian soul. Shut the f*ck up."
"Alexander, when I was fifteen, I had a crush on this girl, we had a great time for a month, and the next year I went back to Luga thinking we would continue our romance, and you know what? She didn't even remember who I was. How pathetic was that?"
"Pretty pathetic." They both laughed. "You obviously were doing something wrong if she forgot you that quick."
"Shut up yourself."
Alexander had no doubt--whatever Tatiana's life was, she had not forgotten him. He still felt her crying in his dreams. Every once in a while he dreamed of her not in Lazarevo but in a new place, with a new face, speaking to him, begging him, imploring him--but even in a new place with a new face, Alexander could smell her pure breath, breathing her life into him.
"Alexander," Pasha barely whispered, "what if we never find her?"
"Pasha, you're going to make a chain smoker out of me," Alexander said, lighting up. "Look, I don't have all the answers. She knows that if I am able, I will never stop looking for her."
"What are we going to do with Ouspensky?" Pasha said. "Couldn't we leave him here? Just forget to wake him."
"I think he'll notice when he wakes up."
"So?"
"He'll send them after us."
"Ah, he would, wouldn't he? That's the thing about him. He's a bit...baleful, don't you think?"
"Don't think twice about it," said Alexander. "It's a Soviet thing."
"Even stronger in Ouspensky," Pasha muttered, but Alexander sprung up and shook Ouspensky. It was near midnight. It was time.
Alexander opened the window. It was a rainy and stormy night, and it was hard to see. He thought that might play to their advantage. The guards wouldn't willingly be looking up at the rain. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
With the ends of the ropes tied around their waists, the slack rolled up in their hands, their belongings tied around their backs, the wire cutters in Alexander's boot, they stood and waited for the signal from Constantine. The guards on the terrace had already left for the night. Constantine would wave as soon as the guards were gone from the garden, and then Alexander would jump first, then Pasha, then Ouspensky.
Finally, a few minutes after midnight, Constantine waved and moved out of the way. Alexander flung himself out of the small window. The rope had four meters of slack. He bounced hard--too hard--against the wet stone wall, and then quickly released the roll of rope bit by bit as he ran down the wall to the ground. Pasha and Ouspensky were right behind him, but a little slower. He ran across the terrace and jumped over the parapet, releasing the rope bit by bit in a great hurry. The rope was too short, f*ck, it yanked him up two meters above the grass, but it was all right, because he let go, fell into the sloshing, icy wet grass, rolled, jumped up and ran to the barbed wire, his cutters already out of his boot. Pasha was behind him, Ouspensky, breathing heavily, was behind Pasha. By the time they got to him, seconds later, the barbed wire was already cut. They squeezed through the hole and hid in the trees over the precipice. The floodlights came on. The guards took longer tonight to come out. It was windy and raining hard. Alexander glanced at the floodlit castle to see if the rope had been pulled up by Constantine. It could have been, it was hard to see through the rain. The guards were still not out and Alexander had extra time to attach one rope fifteen meters long to the branches of the three-hundred-year-old oak. This time he let Ouspensky and Pasha go first. The three of them slowly edged down the slippery wall, suspending themselves over the precipice. It was dark, and a good thing too because Ouspensky called out, "Captain, did I ever tell you I'm afraid of heights?"
"No, and now is not the f*cking time."
"I was thinking now is a very good time."
"It's pitch black. There is no height. Just come on! Move a little faster."
Alexander was soaked to the skin. German trench coats were made of thick canvas, but weren't waterproof. What good were they?
They all released the rope and jumped to the ground a minute later. Alexander cut through the barbed wire fence surrounding Colditz at the bottom of the hill and they were out.
Now he wished the weather would quieten. Who wanted to run at night in this weather?
"Everybody good?" Alexander said. "We did great."
"I'm good," said Ouspensky, panting.
"I'm good, too," said Pasha. "I scraped myself on something when I landed. Scraped my leg."
Alexander got out a flashlight. Pasha's trousers were slightly ripped at the thigh, but he was barely bleeding. "Must have been the barbed wire. Just a scratch. Let's go."
They were running, running all day and night, or maybe they slept in barns at night, but they dreamed of running, and when they opened their eyes, they were exhausted. Alexander ran slowly, Pasha ran slower, Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
and Ouspensky barely moved. In the fields, in the rivers, in the woods. A day went by, then another, how far had they gotten from Colditz? Maybe thirty kilometers. Three grown men, five healthy lungs between them, and thirty kilometers. They weren't even past Chemnitz, just south-west. There were no trains, and they did their best to avoid paved roads. How were they going to get to Lake Constance on the border of Switzerland at this rate?
Pasha slowed down even more on the third day. He stopped chatting in between breaths, and stopped eating on the third night. Alexander noticed because when he said, Pasha, eat some fish, Pasha replied that he wasn't hungry. Ouspensky made a joke, something like, I'll eat everything, don't have to ask me twice, and Alexander gave him the fish without a second glance, but he stared at Pasha. He took a look at Pasha's thigh. It was raw and red and oozing yellow liquid. Alexander poured diluted iodine on it, sprinkled some sulfa powder on it and bandaged it. Pasha said he was feeling cold. Alexander touched him. He felt warm.
They made a lean-to with their sheets for all three of them, and they crawled in and kept barely warm, and in the middle of the night, Alexander woke up because he was sweating. He thought there was a fire in the lean-to, he jumped up with a start. But it wasn't a fire. It was just a burning Pasha.
What's wrong with you, Alexander whispered.
Don't feel so good, Pasha mouthed inaudibly.
Everything was silent and mute. Alexander used the last of their water, placing rags on Pasha's head. It helped a little. The water was gone, and the rags were hot from Pasha's forehead, and Pasha was burning. Alexander went out in the cold rain and got more water.
Don't feel so good, Pasha's mouth moved. By morning his mouth was cracked and bleeding. Alexander unbandaged his leg. It looked the same as yesterday. More green than yellow. He disinfected it, and poured sulfa powder on it, and then he diluted the sulfa in some rain-water and made Pasha drink it, and Pasha did, and then threw up and Alexander cursed and yelled, and Pasha mouthed, I been wet too long, Alexander. I think I was cold and wet too long.
It was just above freezing. The rain was turning to sleet. Alexander wrapped Pasha in his trench coat. Pasha was burning. Alexander took his trench coat off Pasha.
When it stopped raining, he built another fire and dried all of Pasha's clothes and gave him a smoke and a small drink of whisky out of their flask. Shaking, Pasha drank the whisky.
"What are we going to do?" asked Ouspensky.
"Why do you have to talk so much?" snapped Alexander.
They decided to walk on.
Pasha tried, he tried to put one foot in front of the other, he tried to move his arms across his body to help propel him forward, but his shaking knees kept buckling. I'm going to rest a bit, mouthed Pasha, and then he said, I'll be all right. He sat down on the ground. Alexander held him up, stood him up, raised him up, then lifted him and threw him on his back.
"Captain--" Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
"One more word, Ouspensky, and with my bare hands--"
"Understood."
They walked, Alexander carrying Pasha all the gray morning. Alexander lowered him, gave him a drink of rain, raised him, carried him all the gray afternoon. Lowered him, gave him a drink of whisky, stuffed a piece of bread into his mouth, raised him, carried him.
Somewhere on a dirt road in south-east Saxony, Pasha felt heavier and heavier. Alexander thought he was getting tired. It was the end of the day. They broke camp, sat by the fire. Alexander went ice fishing in the pond by the woods. Caught one perch, cooked it in water. He made Pasha drink the fish broth with some diluted sulfa powder, and then he and Ouspensky divided the fish and ate it, head and all.
Ouspensky slept. Alexander smoked. And sat holding the ice rag against Pasha's burning head. Then Pasha was cold, and Alexander covered him up with two trench coats, and took the coat from Ouspensky for Pasha.
No one spoke anymore, not even to mouth the words.
Next morning, Pasha, his eyes swollen with fever, shook his head, as if to say, leave me. And Alexander shook his, and lifted Pasha and carried him. There was no sun, it was February in central Germany. The slate sky was meters above their heads. Alexander knew they couldn't stop and ask for help--they spoke no German without Pasha. He also knew that the Saxony police had no doubt been notified about three escapees and was looking for precisely three men, masquerading as Germans yet not speaking a word of German.
They couldn't get too far with a sick Pasha. He had to get better. They found a small barn and waited out the cold morning covered by hay. Sitting, listening to Pasha's breaking-up breathing, watching Pasha's struggle and his inflamed face was too much for Alexander. He got up. "We have to go. We have to keep moving."
"Can I have a word with you?" Ouspensky said.
"Absolutely not," said Alexander.
"Outside the barn, for a moment."
"I said no."
Ouspensky glanced at Pasha, whose eyes were closed. He seemed unconscious.
"Captain, he is getting worse."
"All right, Dr. Ouspensky, thank you, that will be all."
"What are we going to do?"
"We're going to continue. We just need to find a Red Cross convoy."
"There weren't any Red Cross personnel in Colditz or Catowice. What makes you think there will be some here?" Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
"Maybe Red Cross. Maybe Americans."
"Have the Americans gotten this far?"
"Ouspensky, like you, I've been in prison these last four months. How the f*ck should I know how far the Americans have gotten? I think probably yes, they're here somewhere. Didn't you hear war planes headed to Dresden?"
"Captain--"
"Not another word about this, Lieutenant. Let's go."
"Go where? He needs help."
"And we have to get him help. Help isn't going to come to us in a barn."
He picked up Pasha and flung him on his back. Pasha could not hold on.
Alexander barely saw the road in front of him. It took all his effort to continue walking. Every hour he stopped and gave Pasha a drink, and pressed a cold rag against Pasha's head, and wrapped him tighter in two coats, and walked on again, without his own coat.
Ouspensky walked by his side.
Alexander heard Ouspensky's voice. "Captain," he called. "Captain."
"What?" He did not look sideways, as if he could. He continued walking. Ouspensky came up in front, crossed Alexander's path, made him stop. "What, Lieutenant?"
Ouspensky placed his hand on Alexander. "Captain. I'm sorry. He is dead."
Alexander moved him aside with his hand. "Get out of my way."
"He is dead, Captain. Please, let's not do this any longer."
"Ouspensky!" He took a deep breath and lowered his voice. "He is not dead. He is unconscious. Now, we have only a few hours of daylight left. Let's not waste it by standing in the middle of the road."
"He is dead, Captain," whispered Ouspensky. "Look for yourself."
"No," said Alexander. "He cannot die. It's impossible. Leave me alone. Either walk with me, or walk the other way, but leave me alone."
And he continued to walk with Pasha limp on his back, for another half-hour, another hour, and then Alexander slowed down on the unpaved empty road, stopped by a lone bare tree, and lowered Pasha to the ground. Pasha was no longer hot, and he was no longer struggling for breath. He was white and cold and his eyes were open.
"No, Pasha," whispered Alexander. "No." He felt Pasha's head. He closed Pasha's eyes. For a few moments he stood over Pasha, and then he sank to the ground. Wrapping him tightly with the trench Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
coat, Alexander took Pasha's body into his arms and, cradling him from the cold, closed his own eyes.
For the rest of the night Alexander sat on an empty road, his back against the tree, not moving, not opening his eyes, not speaking, holding Tatiana's brother in his arms.
If Ouspensky spoke to him, he did not hear. If he slept, he did not feel it, not the cold air, nor the hard ground, nor the rough bark of the tree against his back, against his head.
When morning broke, and gray close light rose over Saxony, Alexander opened his eyes. Ouspensky was sleeping on his side, wrapped in his trench coat next to them. Pasha's body was rigid, very cold.
Alexander got up from under Pasha, washed his own face with whisky, rinsed out his mouth with whisky, and then got his titanium trench tool and started to carve a hole in the ground. Ouspensky woke up, helped him. It took them three hours of scraping at the earth, to make a hole a meter deep. Not deep enough, but it would have to do. Alexander covered Pasha's face with the trench coat so the earth wouldn't fall on it. With two small branches and a piece of string, Alexander made a cross and laid it on top of Pasha's chest, and then they lifted him and lowered him into the hole, and Alexander, his teeth grit the entire time, filled the shallow grave with fresh dirt. On a wide thick branch, he carved out the name PASHA METANOV, and the date, Feb 25, 1945, and tying it to another longer branch made another cross and staked it into the ground.
Alexander and Ouspensky stood still. Alexander saluted the grave. "The Lord is my shepherd," he mouthed inaudibly to himself. "I shall not want. He maketh me lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me to high waters, to the valley of death..." Alexander broke off. Sinking down near his tree by the road, he lit a cigarette.
Ouspensky asked if they were going to get going.
"No," Alexander said. "I'm going to sit here a while."
Hours went by.
Ouspensky asked again.
"Lieutenant," said Alexander, in a voice that was so defeated he did not recognize it as his own, "I am not walking away from him."
"Captain!" Ouspensky exclaimed. "What about those winds of fate you said were blowing at you?"
"You must have misunderstood, Nikolai," said Alexander, not looking up. "I said they were blowingby me."
The next day the German police picked them up, loaded them onto an armored truck and took them back to Colditz.
Alexander was badly beaten by the German guards and taken to solitary, where he spent so long he lost track of time.
With Pasha's death came the death of faith.
Release me, Tatiana, release me, forgive me, forget me, let me forget you. I want to be free of you, free Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
of your face, free of your freedom, free of your fire, free, free, free.
The flight across the ocean was over, and with it all the warmth of his imagination. A numbness encroached on him, freezing him from the heart out, the anesthetic of despair creeping its tentacles over his ten-dons and his arteries, over his nerves and his veins until he was stiff inside and bereft of hope and bereft of Tatiana. Finally.
But not quite.