Tatiana and Alexander_A Novel

CHAPTER FORTY

Sachsenhausen, June 1946

MARTIN WANTED TO STARTthe next day. Tatiana said no. They were going immediately. They were getting into their jeep and driving. Immediately.

Martin had a hundred reasons why they should wait until tomorrow. Stepanov's telegraph wire would not have reached the camps yet. They could wait for more Red Cross jeeps and go as a true convoy, the way the Red Cross entered Buchenwald after the war ended. They could have more support. They could go via the hospitals in Berlin itself to see if they needed help. They could have some lunch. The military governor invited them to lunch and was going to introduce them to the generals of the U.S. Marines stationed in Berlin. Tatiana was listening while making them sandwiches and taking all their belongings into the jeep. Then she took Martin's keys, unlocked the doors, pointed to the wheel and said, "Tell me everything, but tell me on the way. Should I drive, or do you want to?"

"Nurse! Have you not been listening to a word I was saying?"

"I've been listening very carefully. You said you were hungry. I have sandwiches for you. You said you wanted to meet a general. You will meet the commandant of the largest concentration camp in Germany in just over an hour if we hurry and don't get lost." Sachsenhausen was about twenty-five miles north of Berlin.

"We need to call Red Cross in Hamburg."

"Governor Bishop is doing that for us. It's all taken care of. We just need to go. Right now."

They got into the truck.

"Where do you think we should start?" said Martin in sulky capitulation. "Apparently Sachsenhausen has one hundred subcamps. Maybe we should start with a few of those. Show me the map. They're small, we could get through them quickly."

"Depending on what you find there," said Tatiana. "But no, we should head for Sachsenhausen." She did not show Martin the map. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

"Hmm, no, I don't think so," said Martin. "On my information sheet it says the population of Sachsenhausen is twelve thousand prisoners. We don't have enough kits."

"We'll get more."

"What's the point? Why don't we just wait until we get more?"

"How long would you wait to give life support, Dr. Flanagan?" said Tatiana. "Not too long, right?"

"They've waited for us all these months, they can wait another couple of days, no?"

"I don't think they can, no."

Evgeny Brestov, the commandant of the camp was surprised, "shocked, actually," to find the three of them at his doorstep. "You're here to inspect mywhat ?" he said to Tatiana in Russian. He had not asked to see her credentials. Her uniform seemed to be enough for him. He was an overweight, underwashed, sloppily dressed man who quite obviously drank unconscionably.

"We're here to tend to the sick. Hasn't the military commander of Berlin been in touch with you?" Tatiana was the only one able to speak to him.

"Where did you learn Russian?" he asked her.

"At an American university," Tatiana replied. "I don't think I'm very good."

"Oh, no, no, your Russian is excellent."

Brestov walked with them down the road to his administrative offices where a telegraph wire from Stepanov marked "Urgent" was waiting for him.

"Well, if it's urgent, it's urgent," said Brestov. "Why hasn't anyone brought me this!" he bellowed. And then, "Why such urgency now, I don't understand. Everything is good. We are keeping up with the new regulations. If you ask me there are too many of them. Regulations. They ask us to do the impossible, then they complain when we don't do it to their liking."

"Of course. It must be very difficult."

He nodded vigorously. "So difficult. The guards have no experience. How are they going to manage a trained killing force like the Germans? You know they put up that sign on the gate to the camp, `Work Makes You Free' or something. You'd think the Fritzes would do a little bit of it."

"Maybe they know it won't make them free," said Tatiana.

"It might. We're discussing terms with the Germans. It certainly won't if they continue to be so recalcitrant."

"So who does the work?"

Brestov fell quiet. "Oh, you know..." he said, and changed the subject. "I'm going to introduce you to Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

my superintendent, Lieutenant Ivan Karolich. He oversees the daily routine of the camp."

"Where can we safely keep our truck?"

"Safely? Nowhere. Park it in front of my house. Lock it up."

Tatiana looked down the wooded path and saw that the commandant's house was several hundred yards from the camp's gatehouse. "Could we park it inside the camp? Otherwise, too hard for us to carry thousands of kits. You have what, twelve thousand in there?"

"Give or take."

"Which is it, give or take?"

"Give."

"How many?"

"Four thousand."

"Sixteen thousand men!" Then with less inflection Tatiana said, "I thought the camp was built to house only twelve thousand. Did you construct new barracks?"

"No, we stuffed them all in the sixty barracks we have. We can't build new barracks for them. All the lumber we log in Germany goes back to the Soviet Union to rebuild our cities."

"I see. So can we park inside the gate?"

"Well, all right. What do you have in your truck, anyway?"

"Medical supplies for the sick. Canned ham. Dried milk. Two bushels of apples. Wool blankets."

"The sick will get better. And they're eating too much as it is. It's summer, we don't need blankets. Have you got anything to drink there?" He coughed. "Besides dried milk, that is?"

"Why, yes, Commandant!" Tatiana said, glancing at Martin, and taking Brestov's arm as she led him to the back of the jeep. "I've got just the thing you need." She took out a bottle of vodka. Brestov relieved her of it swiftly.

A sheepish Martin drove the jeep through the gatehouse and parked it on the right-hand side. "The camp looks like an army base," he said quietly to Tatiana. "It's so well designed."

"Hmm," she said. "I bet when the Germans ran it, it was cleaner, better kept. Now look at it."

And true, the walls of the buildings were chipping, the grass was sloppy and uncut, wooden planks from broken window frames lay haphazardly on the grass. The iron was rusting. It had an unpainted, dogged, Soviet look.

"Did you know," Brestov said, "and translate for your friends here, that this camp used to be a model camp? This is where SS guards were trained." Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

"Yes," said Tatiana. "The Germans really knew how to build camps."

"A lot of f*cking good it did them, excuse my language," said Brestov. "Now they're all rotting in their model camps."

Tatiana pulled herself up to stare gravely at the commandant, who coughed in embarrassment. "Where is your superintendent?"

Brestov introduced Lieutenant Karolich, and left the four of them to get oriented. Karolich was a tall, neat man who enjoyed his food. Though he was fairly young, he had the jowly look of someone who'd been eating lard too long. His hands were meticulously clean, Tatiana noticed, as she gave him her hand to shake. How someone with such sanitized hands managed a disease-ridden camp full of unwashed men, Tatiana had no idea. She asked for a walk-through of the camp grounds.

The camp was large and though poorly maintained, the original pie-shaped design of being widest at the front and narrowest at the back made it easy to shoot at prisoners from the gatehouse all the way to the back apex four hundred yards away. The barracks, laid out in three concentric smaller and smaller semi-circles in front of the gatehouse, housed most of the German civilians and soldiers.

The hangings used to take place prominently in the middle of the first semi-circle, perhaps after morning roll call. "Where are your officers housed?" asked Tatiana as they came up to the infirmary.

"Oh, they..." Karolich trailed off. "They're in the former Allied barracks."

"Where is that?"

"Just beyond the perimeter, at the back of the camp."

"Well, Lieutenant Karolich, are the German officers so well taken care of that they don't need our help?"

"No, I don't think that's true."

"So? Let's see them."

Karolich coughed. "I think there might be some Russians there, too."

"All right."

"Well, it's a problem to let you into those barracks."

"Why? We will help them, too. Lieutenant, perhaps you misunderstand me. We are here to feed your prisoners. We are here to administer alms. The doctor is here to heal your sick and ailing. So why don't we start? Why don't you escort Dr. Flanagan and Nurse Davenport to the infirmary and leave them to do their work, and then you and I will walk through the barracks to help your men. Let's start at the officers' camp, shall we?"

Dumbfounded, Karolich stared at her. "The commandant told me you would like to have--um--some lunch." He stumbled on his words. "I'm having the kitchen prepare something special. Perhaps have a rest in the afternoon? The commandant has made nice rooms available to you and your staff." Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

"Thank you so much. We will eat and rest when the work is done, Lieutenant. Let's begin."

"What can you do without the doctor?"

"Why, nearly everything. Unless you need brain surgery performed, but I don't know if even our doctor can help there."

"No, no."

Tatiana was too tense to smile. She continued. "Everything pertaining to the sick and wounded, I can do. I can stitch, and wash and bandage, I can administer blood and morphine, treat any kind of infectious disease, prepare medications, make diagnoses, treat lice, reduce fever, shave heads to prevent further problems." She patted her nurse's bag. "Most everything I need is in here. When I run out, my jeep is full of additional supplies."

Karolich muttered something unintelligible, mumbled that the camps didn't need blood, or morphine, they were just internment camps.

"Nobody has died in your camps?"

"People die, Nurse," Karolich said haughtily. "Of course they die. But you can't do much for those, can you?"

Blinking, Tatiana didn't reply, flying fleetingly back to all the people in her life she had tried to save and could not.

"Tania," Martin whispered, "the commandant had mentioned lunch, no?"

"Oh, yes," she said, taking her nurse's bag. "But I told them we just ate." She leveled Martin with a look. "Dr. Flanagan, we did just eat, didn't we?"

He stammered.

"I thought so. You and Penny head right to the infirmary barracks. I will start with the officers' barracks and see what I can do there."

Since Tatiana was the only bridge between the cultures and the nations and the languages, she was the only one in charge. Martin and Penny went to the infirmary.

She and Karolich came back to the jeep and opened the back doors. Tatiana stared at the medical kits, at the food parcels, at the apples, trying to get her bearings. She turned away from Karolich for just a few moments because she was afraid. She didn't want him to see her fear. Without looking at him, she said, to stall for time, to give herself another moment, "Do you have an adjutant? I think we need an extra person. Also maybe a handtruck." She paused. "To carry the medical kits and the apples."

"I'll carry them," Karolich said.

Now she turned to him. She was calmer, more in control. "Then who will carry the machine gun, Lieutenant?" They stood silent in front of each other for a few moments, until Tatiana was sure he had absorbed the meaning of what she was getting across to him. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

Karolich flushed uncomfortably. "The men are all right, Nurse. They won't bother you."

"Lieutenant Karolich, I don't for a moment doubt that in another life many of them were decent men, but I've also had four months of reality and three years of nursing the German POWs on the American front. I have few illusions. And I think it's bad form for a nurse to brandish her own protection, don't you?"

"You are completely right." He wasn't looking at her anymore. Asking her to wait, he retrieved his assistant, a sergeant. They precariously loaded a bushel of apples and thirty kits onto a wobbling handtruck and set off for the officers' barracks.

The sergeant waited outside with the kits. Tatiana, lugging a burlap bag full of apples in one hand, walked through the first two barracks, holding on to Karolich's arm with the other. She didn't want to, but she suddenly realized that if she saw Alexander on one of those nasty, filthy, too-close-together bunks, she might not be able to hide what was inside her.

She glanced through the bunks, two men per bunk, handed them an apple and moved on. Sometimes, if they were sleeping, she touched them, sometimes she pulled back their blankets. She listened to their calls, their banter, to the sound of their voices. She ran out of apples very quickly. She didn't open her nurse's bag once.

"What do you think?" Karolich said, when they stepped outside.

"What do I think? Terrible," she said, deeply breathing in the fresh air. "But at least the men were alive."

"You didn't stop to examine any of them."

"Lieutenant," she said, "I will give you my full report when we have gone through all the barracks. I need to write down the few I have to come back to, the few that require immediate medical attention from Dr. Flanagan. But I have a method for doing this. I can tell by the odor who is sick with what, who needs what, who is alive and who is dying. I can tell by the temperature of their skin and by the color of their face. I can also tell by their voices. If they, like those men were, are calling out, shouting things in German at me, reaching out for me, then I know things aren't too bad. When they don't move, or worse when they follow me with their eyes but don't make a sound, that's when I start to worry. Those two barracks had live men in it. Have your sergeant give out the small medical kits to each and every one of them. Next."

They went through the next two. Not as good here. She covered two of the men lying in their beds and told Karolich they needed to be taken out and buried. Five men had raging fevers. Seventeen had open sores. She had to stop and dress their wounds. Soon she ran out of bandages and had to return to the truck to get more. She stopped by the infirmary on her way back and got Penny and Dr. Flanagan to come with her. "The situation is worse than I thought," she said to them.

"Not as bad as in here. The men here are dying of dysentery," said Martin.

"Yes, and it's breeding in the barracks," said Tatiana. "Come look."

"Any signs of typhus?"

"Not so far, though a number of the men have fever, but I've only been through four barracks."

"Four! How many are there altogether?" Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

"Sixty."

"Oh, Nurse Barrington."

"Doctor, let's walk quickly. They pack those barracks with one hundred and thirty-four bunks each. Two hundred and sixty-eight men. What do you expect?"

"We're not going to be able to get through this."

"That's the spirit," said Tatiana.

The men from one of the barracks were in the yard. The men from another were in the showers.

After going through barrack number eleven, Martin wiped his face and said, "Tell Carol-itch, or whatever his name is, tell him that every healthy man in that one is going to die if the diphtheria cases don't immediately get sent to the infirmary."

In barrack thirteen, Tatiana was bandaging the upper arm of a German man when he suddenly heaved himself off his bunk and fell on top of her. At first she thought it was an accident, but he immediately started grinding against her, keeping her pinned to the floor. Karolich tried pulling him off, but the man wouldn't budge, and none of the other prisoners would help. Karolich had to knock him very hard on the head with the barrel of his Shpagin, and he only stopped after he lost consciousness.

Karolich helped Tatiana up. "I'm sorry. We'll take care of him."

Dusting herself off and panting, she picked up her nurse's bag and said, "Don't worry. Let's go." She did not finish bandaging her attacker.

It was eight o'clock at night when they got through barrack fifteen. Karolich said they had to stop. Martin and Penny said they had to stop. Tatiana wanted to continue. She had heard Russian spoken only in the last two barracks. She went extra carefully through those, pulling back all the covers, handing out the medical kits and apples, talking to some of them. There was no Alexander.

And then Karolich and Martin and Penny all shook their heads and said they had to stop, they couldn't do it anymore, they would start fresh the next day. She couldn't continue without them. She couldn't walk through those barracks alone. Reluctantly, she returned to the commandant's house. They washed up, scrubbed down. Penny took another dose of penicillin. They met Brestov and Karolich for dinner.

"So what does your doctor think, Nurse?" Brestov asked. "How are we doing?"

"Poorly," said Tatiana without even bothering to translate. Martin and Penny were scarfing down their food. "You have a real health situation with those men you've got there. I'll tell you your biggest problem. They're unclean. They're scabby and furfuraceous. Are your showers working? Is your laundry working?"

"Of course," Brestov said indignantly.

"They're not working around the clock, though, and they should be. If you kept your men clean and dry, you would prevent half of what's going on in there. Disinfectant in the toilets wouldn't hurt, either." Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

"Listen, they're getting up, they're walking, they can't be that sick. They get a little exercise in the yard, they eat three times a day."

"What are you feeding them?"

"This isn't a resort, Nurse Barrington. They eat prison food."

Tatiana looked at the steak on Brestov's plate.

"What, gruel in the morning, broth for lunch, potatoes for dinner?" she asked.

"Also bread," he said. "And sometimes they get chicken soup."

"Not clean enough, not fed enough, bunks too close together, those barracks are incubators for disease, and lest you think it has nothing to do with you,your men have to guard them, and your men are getting sick, too. Remember, diphtheria is contagious, typhoid from eating spoiled food is contagious, typhus is contagious--"

"Wait, wait, we don't have typhus!"

"Not yet," Tatiana said calmly. "But your prisoners have lice, they have ticks, their hair is unshaven and too long. And when they get typhus, your men will still have to guard them."

For a moment, Brestov said nothing as the piece of steak hung suspended from his fork, and then he spoke: "Well, at least they're not being eaten alive by syphilis." He threw his head back and laughed. "We've taken care ofthat little problem."

Tatiana got up from the table. "You're mistaken there, Commandant. We found sixty-four men with syphilis, seventeen of them in advanced tertiary stages."

"That's impossible!" he cried.

"Nonetheless, they're ill with it. And by the way, your nationals, the Soviet prisoners, seem to be in worse shape than the Germans, ifthat's possible. Well, thank you very much for a pleasant evening. I will see you all tomorrow."

"We don't want the mentoo healthy," said Brestov after her, taking a large gulp from his vodka glass, "do we now, Nurse Barrington? Good health makes men less...cooperative."

Tatiana continued walking.

The next morning she was up at five. No one else was, though. She had to sit on her hands--literally--until six o'clock.

They got ready--slowly; they ate--slower, and finally resumed inspection of the remaining five officers' barracks.

"Are you all right?" Karolich asked her with a polite smile. His uniform collars were starched, his hair clipped and brushed neatly back. He was incongruous. "Yesterday shake you up?"

"A little. I'm fine," she said. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

"He's been sent to the brig because of what happened."

"Who? Oh, him. Don't worry."

"Does it happen often?"

"Not that often."

He nodded. "Your Russian really is very good."

"Well, thank you. I think you're just being kind."

They gave out the kits and apples, treated what they could, and got the infectious cases out of the common barracks. Tatiana took a walk through the infirmary beds. He was not there, either.

"I'm surprised at the condition of the Soviet men," Martin said when they went outside to take a break. It was raining, and they stood under an awning for just a breath of reprieve.

"Why?" said Tatiana.

"I don't know. I would have thought they'd be treated better than the Germans."

"Why would you think that? The Soviet men are not in danger of being scrutinized by international eyes. It's all about appearances. Those Soviet officers are about to be shipped back to the Soviet Union work camps. What do you think awaits them there?" She shuddered. "At least here, there's a summer."

It was in barrack nineteen, as Tatiana was perched on one bunk, cleaning out an old burn wound with boric acid that she heard a voice behind her and a familiar laugh. She turned her head, looked across the row and found herself eye to eye with Lieutenant Ouspensky from the Morozovo hospital. Instantly she looked elsewhere, then turned back to her patient, but her heart was beating wildly. She waited for him to call out to her, "Why, NurseMetanova , what bringsyou here?"

But he didn't. Instead, when she was finished and stood up to leave, he said, speaking Russian to her. "Oh, nurse, nurse, looky here."

Slowly she looked. He was smiling widely. "I have a number of things very wrong with me that I know only you can fix--being a nurse and all. Can you come hither and help me?"

The makeup, the hair worked. He didn't recognize her. Collecting her things and snapping shut her bag, Tatiana stood up and said, "You look perfectly healthy to me."

"You haven't felt my head. You haven't felt my heart. You haven't felt my stomach. You haven't felt my..."

"I'm an old professional. I can see you are fine from a distance."

He laughed joyously, and then, a smile still big on his face, said, "What is it about you that looks so familiar to me? You speak such good Russian. What's your name again?"

She had Penny give him a small medical kit and a food parcel while she herself left in a hurry. How long Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

before Ouspensky put her face together with his memory?

Slower and slower she walked through the last barrack. She dawdled and paused at every bed, even talked to some of the men, slower, slower. If Ouspensky was here, wouldn't it mean that Alexander was here, too? But barrack twenty proved just as fruitless. Two hundred and sixty-eight men, none of them Alexander. Twenty barracks, five thousand men, none of them Alexander. There was the rest of the camp to get through, but Tatiana had few illusions. Alexander would be where the Soviets were. He wouldn't be with the German civilians. Besides, Karolich told her as much. All the Soviets were together. The camp didn't like to mingle the German and Russian prisoners. In the past, violent conflicts erupted over nothing.

When they stepped outside, she left the others for a minute and walked over to the short barbed-wire fence that separated the housing units from the cemetery. It was June, and wet. It had been lightly drizzling since dawn. She stood, in her soiled white pants, her soiled white tunic, her black hair falling out of her hat, her arms around herself, and motionlessly gazed at the small freshly dug elevated hills without markers, without crosses.

Karolich came up to her. "Are you all right?" he asked.

With a pained sigh she turned to him. "Lieutenant, the men who died in the barracks yesterday, where are they buried?"

"They're not buried yet."

"Where did you take them?"

"For now they're in the corpse cellar, in the autopsy barracks."

She didn't know how she got the next words out. "Could we see the corpse cellar, please?"

Karolich laughed. "Sure. You don't think the dead are getting fair treatment?"

Martin and Penny returned to the infirmary and Tatiana went with Karolich. The autopsy room was a small, white-tiled bunker with high tiled berths for the bodies.

"Where's the cellar?"

"We slide them to the cellar this way." Karolich pointed.

At the back of the room Tatiana saw a long metal chute that led down twenty feet into darkness.

She stood silently over the chute.

"How do you"--her voice was untrustworthy--"how do you bring the bodies up from there?"

"We often don't. It's connected to the kilns in the crematorium." Karolich grinned. "Those Germans thought ofeverything ."

Tatiana stood and stared down into the darkness. Then she turned and walked outside.

"I just need a couple of minutes, Lieutenant, all right? I'm going to go over there and sit on the bench." Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

She attempted a smile. "It will be a little easier for you when some of the Soviets get shipped out, no? You'll have more room."

"Yes." He waved dismissively. "They bring more in. It never stops. But the bench is wet."

She sank down. He waited a bit. "Do you want me to, um, leave you alone?"

"Would you mind? For just a few minutes."

Tatiana's lower stomach was burning. That's what it felt like, a slow charring away of her insides. There was such a thing, wasn't there, as feeling better, eventually and forever? She couldn't feel this old into eternity, could she?

In eternity, wouldn't she be young, wearing her white dress with red roses, her golden hair streaming down past her shoulders?

She would be walking in the Summer Garden late at night, strolling down the path with the ghostly sculptures standing to attention before her, and she would break into a run, as her hair flowed, and a smile was on her face.

In eternity she would be running all the time.

Tatiana thought of Leningrad, of her white-night, glorious flowing river Neva, and over it Leningrad's bridges and in front of it the statue of the Bronze Horseman, and St. Isaac's Cathedral rising up, beckoning her with its arcade, with its balustrades, with its wrought-iron railing above the dome, where they had stood once before, a lifetime ago, and looked out onto the blackest night, waiting for war to swallow them.

And it did.

She sat in disbelief.

Something was finishing inside her, she felt it.

Had it been raining all this time and she didn't even notice?

Tatiana lay down on the bench in the rain.

"Nurse Barrington?"

She opened her eyes. Karolich helped her up. "If you're not feeling well, I'll be glad to take you back to the house. You can have a rest. We can do the camp prison and the rest of the barracks another time. There is no hurry."

Tatiana stood up. "No," she said. "Let's do the camp prison now. Are there many in there?"

"It's in three wings, two of them we closed, but the operational one is half full." He spat. "They break the rules all the time. Disobey, don't come to roll call, or even worse, constantly try to escape. You'd think they'd learn." Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

There was only one way into the prison wing and one way out, and it was guarded by a man in a chair with his machine gun propped up against the wall. He was playing cards with himself.

"How has it been today, Corporal Perdov?"

"Quiet today," the corporal said, standing up briefly in salute. He smiled at Tatiana. She did not smile back.

The prison was a long corridor, floor covered with sawdust and cells on each side. They went through the first five cells.

"How many prisoners are you keeping this way?" Tatiana asked.

"About thirty," Karolich replied.

In the sixth cell, the man had fainted and Tatiana put smelling salts under his nose to revive him. Karolich had left to open cell number seven. Cell number six revived. Tatiana gave him a drink of water and walked out into the corridor.

From inside cell number seven, she heard Karolich say in a mocking voice, "How is my favorite prisoner doing this morning?"

"F*ck you," came the reply.

Her knees buckled.

Tatiana stepped from the corridor into the doorway. The cell was long and narrow with a step down divider, and on the straw beneath the tiny window that shed no light on the floor, twenty feet in front of her, lay Alexander.

The moments of silence fell through the cell. They fell onto her face and her shoulders. Her breath taken away, her burning stopped, her heart stopped too, she stood and looked at the bearded, thin man in manacles, in dark slacks and a blood-drenched white shirt. She dropped her nurse's bag, and her hand went over her mouth stifling a racking sob.

"Oh, I know. This is our very worst, Nurse," said Karolich. "We're not proud of this one, but there is just nothing we can do with him."

When the door opened and light streamed in, Alexander had been sleeping. Rather, he thought he had been sleeping. His eyes were closed, and he had been dreaming. He had not eaten in two days: he hated his food left on the floor for him as if he were a dog. He was planning on eating soon.

Alexander was furious with himself. The last escape had been so close to being successful. The orderly, bringing some medical supplies into the infirmary, was dressed in civilian clothes, and as usual was coming freely in and out of the camp, waving to the sentries, who would wave back and without a second glance open the gate for him. What could be easier? Alexander had been in the infirmary for the previous three weeks with broken ribs. He knocked out the orderly, took his clothes, shoved him in a closet, and walked up to the gatehouse, waving to the guards. And one of them came down and opened Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

the gate for him. Never even looked at Alexander.

He waved a thanks, a goodbye and started walking.

Why did Karolich have to come out of the green casino just on the left, why at that very moment? He looked through the gate, saw Alexander's back and screamed for the sentries.

Now, three days later, bloodied and worn out, he had been dreaming of swimming and of the sun and of cool water on his body. He dreamed of being clean, of not being thirsty. He dreamed of summer. It was so dark in the cell. He dreamed of finding a corner of order in the infinite chaos that his world had shown him. He dreamed of...

...And through the small bars he heard voices and then the door lock turn and the door open. Squinting, Alexander saw Karolich walk in. That Karolich! How he enjoyed flaunting Alexander's failure to Alexander. They had their usual exchange, and then a shadow of a small nurse appeared in the doorway. For a moment, just a single moment, coming out of a dream as he was, the small shape of the nurse looked almost like...but it was hard to see, and, besides, hadn't he been hallucinating her enough? He couldn't get far enough from his delusions of her.

But then she gasped, and he heard her voice, and while the hair was different, the voice belonged only to her, and he heard it so clearly. He tried to see her face, he peered, he tried to sit up, to move away from the wall, but he could do nothing. She took one step forward. God, it looked like Tatiana! He shook his head, he thought he was delirious again, the visions of her in the woods in her polka dot bathing suit with her loveless eyes chasing him through every night, through every day. He raised his arms as far as his chains would permit, raised them in supplication: vision, comfort me this time, don't afflict me again.

Alexander shook his head and blinked, and blinked again.I'm imagining her , he thought. I've imagined her for so long, what she looks like, what she sounds like. She is an apparition, like my father, my mother; I will blink and she too will be gone--as always. He blinked and blinked again. Blinked away the long shadow of life without her, and she was standing in front of him, and her eyes shined and her lips were bright.

And then he heard Karolich say something to her, and it was then that Alexander knew that the bastard Karolich could not be imagining her, too.

They stared speechlessly at each other and in their eyes were minutes and hours, months and years, continental drifts and ocean divides. In their eyes was pain and there was vast regret.

The scythe of grief fell evenly upon their stricken faces.

She tripped on the step and nearly fell. Dropping to her knees by his side, she did what she did not think she would do again in this lifetime.

Tatiana touched Alexander.

He had dried blood on his hair and face, and he was shackled. He looked at her and did not speak.

"Nurse Barrington, we don't treat them all this way, but he has proven himself to be incorrigible and beyond rehabilitating." Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

"Lieutenant Karolich," she croaked. "Lieutenant," she repeated, but lower, her body trembling so badly that she thought Karolich would not only notice but become alarmed. But he noticed nothing. It was dim in the cell; the only light came from the corridor. "I think I left my nurse's bag in cell number six. Could you get it for me, please?"

As soon as his back was turned, Tatiana whispered, "Shura," in a barely audible voice.

Alexander groaned.

Tatiana touched his trembling arm, moved closer, and just as Karolich was coming back, she placed both hands on Alexander's face.

"How is he?" Karolich said. "Here is your bag. You've got quite a few tubes of toothpaste in there. Why do you carry toothpaste in your nurse's bag?"

"It's not toothpaste," she said, with extreme effort taking her hands away. "It's morphine." Could she continue to speak normally, sitting so close to Alexander, unable to lay her hands on him? No, not unable. "What's happened to him?" she asked as she put her hands on Alexander's chest. His heart was pummeling into her palms. Sitting beside him, tears trickling down her face, she said, "He's got a head wound that has not been treated. We will need to get some water and soap, and a razor. I will clean him and bandage him. Let me give him a drink first. Can you hand me my flask, please?"

Motionlessly, Alexander continued to lie against the wall, his eyes on Tatiana, who could barely look at him as she brought the flask to his lips. He tilted his head back and drank. Her fingers were shaking and she dropped the flask.

The lieutenant noticed. "Are you all right?" he asked. "Is this too much for you, seeing them like this? You don't seem cut out for this kind of work. You seem kind of...fragile."

Without responding, Tatiana said, "Lieutenant, would you please get me a large bucket of preferably warm water for the head wound, some soap, some strong shampoo, and one of my medical kits from the truck?"

"Yes, but come outside. You can't stay here by yourself with the prisoner. You know what happened to you yesterday. It's not safe."

"He's in shackles. I'll be fine. Go ahead. But hurry. We have many more to do." Her hand was on Alexander.

As soon as Karolich was around the corner, Tatiana pressed her forehead to Alexander's head. "God, it can't be," she whispered in Russian. "It can't be you."

She felt his body shudder.

Tatiana was bent over him. Alexander's eyes were closed.

They remained that way, not moving and not speaking.

A groan left her. She couldn't find a single word, a single word when she had thought books, when she had screamed and wept and railed against the unjust fate, when she had grieved and in her sorrow been Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

so angry, when she had grieved and in her sorrow been so lost. Now she pressed her face into his bloodied black head and couldn't find a word. Groans, yes. Wretched cries, yes. Not much silence, but no actual words.

On her knees by his side, through her barely moving lips, Tatiana whispered, "Oh, Shura..." She put her shaking hands to her face and cried.

"Tania, come on, now."

Doubled over, she took deep breaths, covering her face, hiding it from him in his blood-stained shirt in an effort to get calm.

"How have you been, Tania?" Alexander asked in a rupturing voice.

"Good, good." She clasped his chained hands.

"What about--" He broke off. "What about...the baby?"

"Yes. We have a son."

"Ason ." Alexander breathed out. "What did you name him?"

"Anthony Alexander. Anthony."

His eyes filled up and he turned his head away.

Tatiana stared at him, her mouth opening and closing. "Is it reallyyou ?" she whispered. "Tell me, before I break down, tell me it'syou ."

"Before?" he said.

He was more gaunt than she had ever seen him, even during the worst of the Leningrad blockade. "Alexander..." she whispered.Blink. The cheek was unshaven. Foam on his cheeks. And she held the mirror between her breasts. Blink . She ran her fingers over his beard, his lips. He kissed her fingers. "Tatiana..." he whispered. "Tania..."

"What happened to you? You were arrested, weren't you?"

"Yes."

"Let me guess. You knew you were going to be arrested--" She stopped. "Somehow, I don't know how, you knew you were going to be arrested and you faked your own death to get me out of Russia. Sayers helped you."

"Sayers helped me. I didn't fake my own death. I thought it was imminent. I didn't want you to stay behind and watch me die. I knew you wouldn't leave any other way."

They spoke quickly, afraid any minute Karolich was going to return.

"Stepanov helped you?" Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

"Yes."

"He's in Berlin."

"I know. He came to see me a few months back."

"How did you get Sayers...? I don't care." She couldn't sit away from him, or move away. She couldn't even breathe away. "You think that's what I wanted? To leave you behind?"

Shaking his head, he said, "I knew you didn't."

"I would've never left."

"I knew that." He paused. "Too well."

She stopped touching him. "You and your impossible ego," she said. "Leningrad, Morozovo, Lazarevo. You always thought you knew what was best."

"Ah," he said. "So there was a Lazarevo?"

"What?" she said, momentarily puzzled. "I told you I would have waited for you, and I would have."

"Like you told me you would not leave Lazarevo? You would have lived there without me," said Alexander. "I've been sentenced to twenty-five years' hard labor."

She flinched.

"Tania, why aren't you looking at me?" he asked haltingly. "Why are you looking down at your lap?"

"Because I'm afraid," she whispered. "I'm so afraid."

"Me, too," Alexander said. "Please lift your eyes. I need your eyes on me."

She lifted her eyes. Tears were rolling down her cheeks.

They fell mute. She was bending under the weight of her heart.

"Thank you," she whispered, "for keeping yourself alive, soldier."

"You're welcome," he whispered back.

There was the sound of the outside door opening and closing. Moving away, Tatiana quickly wiped her face. Her mascara was running. Alexander closed his eyes.

Karolich walked into the cell with a pail and gauze.

"Lieutenant, let's begin, but I need you to unlock him. His wrists and ankles are raw from the iron. I need to clean them and bandage them or they will get infected if they haven't already." Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

Karolich took out his key and brought his machine gun into his hands. "You don't know this one, Nurse Barrington. I wouldn't have much sympathy for him, if I were you."

"I have sympathy for all the afflicted," she replied.

"This is all his own doing."

Tatiana could see that Karolich's genial manner changed when he was around Alexander. He was cold and rough as he unlocked the shackles and dropped them noiselessly to the straw. "Why do you use irons here?" she asked. "Why don't you use leather restraints? They do what you need but are easier for the prisoner."

Karolich laughed. "Nurse, you obviously have not been paying attention.We don't use the irons, the Germans used the irons. This is what they've left behind for us. Besides, this one would gnaw through the leather in three hours."

She sighed. "We should at least change the straw when we're done."

Karolich shrugged, then sat back against the wall, on clean straw, his legs stretched out comfortably, and took the machine gun into his hands. "One wrong move, Belov, and you know what's going to happen?"

Alexander said nothing.

Tatiana kneeled by Alexander. "Come on," she said. "Let me clean you, all right?"

"All right."

"Tip your head back. It will be easier for me to clean your hair."

He tipped his head back.

"What happened to him, Lieutenant?" asked Tatiana, as one of her hands went around Alexander's neck, supporting his head, his face nearly in her nurse's uniform, nearly at her breasts, as she with a towel wiped the dried and bloodied mats out of his hair. It was as long as his beard. "I will shave and trim him, but you know you need to keep your men's hair short, you can't let it grow this long and not keep it clean. Not just him, all your men."

"Why are you looking at him like that?" Karolich asked suddenly.

"Like what?" she whispered.

"I don't even know."

"I'm tired. I think you're right. This has been too much for me."

"So leave him. Let's go to the house. We'll have a decent lunch." He smiled. "Yesterday you didn't have any wine. The wine is very good."

"No. I will finish here." She snipped away the hair and gently cleaned Alexander's wound. He had been cut in the skull above the ear and had bled down onto his neck and shirt. The blood had dried where it fell. How long had he been here? His face looked swollen with bloodied bruises under his eyes, below Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

his jawline. Was he beaten? In the dark, she could make out the black of the blood and the white of his shirt, and the black of his hair, and the black of his eyes. He was long unshaven, long unwashed. Long untouched. He lay in her arms, his eyes closed, barely breathing. Only his heart thundered through his veins. He lay in her arms so still, so comforted, so hers, so relieved, so afraid, she felt it all in him, and felt it all in her, and was so desperate to bend to him, to say something to him, that through the effort she was expending to remain composed, she bit her lip so hard it bled, right onto Alexander's face.

"Nurse, you're bleeding on the prisoner."

Alexander blinked, and mutely raised his eyes to Tatiana.

"It's nothing." Tatiana licked the blood off her mouth as she dipped her rag in cool water. "Tell me what happened to him."

Karolich chuckled. "He's been with us nearly a year. He was well behaved at first, worked hard, logged, was quiet, a model prisoner, a tireless worker and was amply rewarded. We wished we had more prisoners like him. Unfortunately, since November he has been trying to escape every time we let him out of here and back into the barracks. He thinks he's in a hotel. Comes and goes as he pleases. You'd think he would learn after seventeen failures, but you'd be wrong."

"F*ck you," said Alexander.

"Tsk, tsk. The man has no manners in front of a lady. Well, it doesn't matter." Karolich lowered his voice. "He's not staying here."

"No?" Tatiana was cleaning Alexander's wrists. As she did so, she slipped two pins from her hair into his palm and squeezed it shut.

Karolich shook his head. "No. He and a thousand others are leaving for Kolyma tomorrow." He laughed lightly and poked Alexander in the ribs with the muzzle of the machine gun. "Try to escape from there."

"Please don't provoke the prisoner," said Tatiana, beginning to shave his beard. "Why isn't he wearing prison clothes?"

"He stole these from an orderly in the infirmary. When we caught him, we threw him in here as he was. He obviously likes it here. He always wants to return."

"Why is he bleeding, so bruised? Was he beaten?"

"Nurse, did you hear me? Seventeen times! Beaten? He's lucky he's alive. What if the man yesterday did what he did to you seventeen times? How many times would you take it before you said, enough already and beat him to death?"

Tatiana glanced down at Alexander. His eyes blackened.

"Nurse, you're getting his filth all over your nice white uniform," said Karolich with distaste. "Lay him down on the straw. He doesn't care if he's shaved. He is not used to this kind of treatment. Nor should he be getting it."

She did release Alexander. His wrists were clean and dressed, his hair was cut and washed, his scalp Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

wound cleaned and bandaged. She even had him swill his mouth out with baking soda and peroxide. Now she needed to look at the rest of him, to make sure nothing was broken.

"Does this man have a rank?"

"Not anymore," said Karolich.

"Whatwas his rank?"

"He was a major, once. Demoted to captain."

"Captain, how are your ribs? Do you think they're broken?" asked Tatiana.

"I'm not a doctor," said Alexander. "I don't know. Perhaps."

Unbuttoning his shirt, she slowly ran her hands from his throat down to his ribs, whispering, "What hurts, what hurts?"

He did not answer. He said nothing, nor did he open his eyes.

His body was unclean and black and blue. She thought his ribs were broken, but when she touched them he did not flinch. That could just be Alexander--he didn't flinch when she cleaned his head, either--but decided to leave the matter.

She moved down to his leg irons, detached them, and washed his feet in soapy water. His ankles felt pulpy. The skin on them felt eaten away and raw. It was hard to see in the dark.

Karolich continued to sit. He even lit a smoke, sat coolly and enjoyed it.

"Would you like a smoke, Nurse Barrington? These cigarettes are very good."

"Thank you, Lieutenant, but I don't smoke. Perhaps your prisoner would like one?"

Karolich laughed and shoved Alexander's hip with his boot. "Prisoners in camp jail do not get cigarette privileges, do they, Belov?" He took a deep drag and blew the smoke into Alexander's face.

Tatiana got up. "Lieutenant, stop provoking the prisoner in front of me. We're finished here. Let's go."

Alexander emitted a despondent sound.

Tatiana collected her things. Karolich locked Alexander's wrists and ankles to the manacles once again.

"How long has it been since this prisoner was fed?" she asked.

"We feed him," Karolich replied gruffly. "More than he deserves."

"How does he eat? Do you take the irons off him?"

"The irons never come off him. We put the food in front of him, and he crawls to it and bends his face and eats it off the ground." Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

"He didn't eat his food. Do you see the state of him? Is this his old plate? He didn't eat it, but the rats did. You have rats here, Lieutenant, because you leave the food on the ground for days, and they know where to come for their supper. You do know that rats carry the plague, don't you? The International Red Cross is here to ensure that exactly these kinds of abuses do not happen. Now, let's get the old straw out and sweep some clean straw under him."

After they had done so, Karolich picked up the plate off the ground. "He'll be brought fresh food later," he said brusquely.

She glanced at Alexander, who lay with his eyes closed, his hands clenched in shackles at his stomach. She wanted to tell him she would be back, but she didn't want Karolich to hear her quivering voice.

"Don't go," he said, without opening his eyes.

"We'll come back later to see how you are," Tatiana said weakly, and was grateful that his hands were manacled because she knew he would not have let her go had he been able to move them.

Tatiana was blinded for a moment by the gray daylight. She stopped cold to get her bearings, and when Karolich asked if she wanted to get some lunch, she said, no, thank you, because she had to count how many supplies they still had left. She told him to go on ahead, that she would soon follow.

The camp prison was located just to the right of the gatehouse and just to the right of her parked Red Cross jeep. The two guards stood sentry above it on the roof. One of them waved to her. She opened the jeep and looked inside. The truck was a quarter full of supplies, there was another bushel of apples and some food parcels left. She knew she had only minutes to think. She stood quietly, and then loaded up the handtruck with sixty medical kits and walked by herself to the nearest barracks. The fact that she could think of entering a barracks by herself, a woman amid 266 men, only spoke of her desperation, but she was not a fool. Her nurse's bag hung on the handtruck handle and her P-38 was tucked into the front of her pants where everyone could see it.

She handed out one medical kit per bed, told them as she passed them that she would be back with the doctor, quickly ran back to get more kits, and more, and more, rushing, rushing. When she got back to the commandant's house everyone else was finishing lunch. After downing a glass of water, she went to change her clothes, retouched her makeup and then took Penny and Martin aside and said, "Listen, I think we should return to Berlin to get more kits. We have none left, and we're running out of bandages and penicillin. We'll go back tonight and return here tomorrow."

"We just got here and you want to leave already? She is so fickle, Martin, isn't she?" Penny said with a twinkle.

"Fickle is the least of what she is," Martin said. "I told you we shouldn't have come to a place like this without proper support."

Tatiana patted him on the shoulder. "You were so right, Dr. Flanagan," she said. "But we did get through five thousand people between yesterday and today, and that's quite an achievement."

They agreed to leave at eight in the evening, though Martin expressed reservations about driving on unfamiliar roads at night. While Penny and Martin went with Karolich through the German civilian barracks that Tatiana had just been through, she said that she was going to finish inspecting the rest of the Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

jailed men. When Karolich said he would come with her, Tatiana said, "Nurse Davenport and Dr. Flanagan need you more. The jailed men are the safest, you know that. After all, they can't touch me, and I'll have Corporal Perdov with me."

Reluctantly, Karolich left with Martin and Penny, and Tatiana ran to the commandant's kitchen and got them to prepare a hot lunch of sausage, potatoes, squash, bread with butter, and oranges. "I haven't eaten and I'm starved," she said gamely. There was a carafe of water, and a large glass of vodka that she poured herself.

As she walked through the jail door, this time she smiled at Corporal Perdov, and he smiled back. "Corporal, I'm here to feed cell number seven. I've discussed it with Lieutenant Karolich. The prisoner hasn't eaten in three days."

"I can't unchain him."

"It won't be necessary. I'll feed him."

"Hey," Perdov said, looking at her tray. "Is that a glass of somethingextra special?"

"Why, yes!" She smiled. "But I don't think our prisoner should have that, do you?"

"Absolutely not!"

"Exactly. Why don't you have the whole thing."

Perdov took the vodka and downed it in two gulps. Tatiana watched him amiably. "Very good," she said. "I might come back later with his dinner, and maybe I can bring the prisoner another glass." She winked at Perdov.

"Oh, yes," he said, "but don't be so stingy next time." And burped.

"I'll see what I can do. Now, can you open cell seven for me?"

Alexander was sleeping in a sitting position.

"I think you're wasting your time," Perdov said. "This one doesn't deserve a nurse's attention. Don't take too long, all right?"

Leaving the door open, he walked back to his chair and Tatiana descended the step and came to Alexander. Setting the tray on the ground, she kneeled by him and whispered, "Shura..."

He opened his eyes. She threw her arms around him and pressed herself to him, his bandaged head cradled near her neck. She held him as tightly as she could, every once in a while whispering, "Shura...Shura..."

"Tighter, Tania, hold me tighter."

She held him tighter. "How are the locks?"

Alexander showed her they were open. His wrists lay in them freely. "What happened to your hair?" Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

"I colored it. Keep your hands in the manacles. Perdov can come in at any time."

"Are you always on a name basis with the gatekeeper? Why did you color it?"

"Didn't want to be recognized. Just as well. Nikolai Ouspensky is here."

"Be very very careful with Nikolai," he warned. "Like Dimitri, he is the enemy. Come closer."

She did.

"What happened to your freckles?" he whispered.

"Makeup over them."

They kissed. They kissed as if they were young once again in the Luga woods, and it was the first summer of their life, or standing on the ledge of St. Isaac's under the moon and the stars, they kissed as if they were in Lazarevo, raw for each other, they kissed as if she had just told him she was getting him out of Russia, bending over him in the Morozovo hospital ward. They kissed as if they had not seen each other for many years. They kissed as if they had been together for many years.

They kissed away Orbeli and Dimitri, they kissed away war and communism, America and Russia. They kissed awayeverything , leaving behind only what remained--pale fragments of Tania and Shura.

His hands moved out of the manacles. She pulled away instantly and shook her head. "No, no, I'm serious. He can come in at any time and then we're sunk."

With great reluctance he slipped his hands back in the open iron rings. "Makeup can't hide the scar on your cheek. Where did you get it? Finland?"

"I'll tell you all about it later if we have time. Now I'm going to feed you, and you are going to eat your food and listen to me."

"I'm not hungry. How on this God's earth did you find me?"

"You will eat your food because you need to be strong," she said, bringing the spoonful of sausage and potatoes to his mouth. "And you left a short trail of yourself in this world."

Contrary to his words, he ate ravenously. She didn't speak while she watched his great hunger.

"Shura...we have seconds, are you listening?"

"Why is this suddenly so familiar?" he said. "Tell me another one of your plans, Tatiasha. How is our boy?"

"Our boy is great. He's a great, smart, beautiful boy."

"Where are you living?"

"New York. We have no time. Are you listening?"

He was chewing the bread and could only nod. "What was the name of the man who assaulted you?" Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

"I'm not telling you."

"You are telling me. What was his name?"

"No."

"Tania! What was his name?"

"Grammer Kerault. He is Austrian."

"I know him." Alexander's eyes were cold. "He's always in here. Dying of stomach cancer, doesn't care what he does." Then they warmed as he turned his gaze on her. "How are you going to get me out of here?" he whispered.

She bent over him. They kissed desperately. "Honey," she whispered. "Honey, I know you're afraid."

"I don't want food, I don't want drink, or even a smoke. Just...just sit by me for two seconds, Tania. Press yourself to me for two seconds to let me know I am real."

She pressed herself to him.

"Where are our wedding rings?"

She pulled the rope out from her tunic. "Until we can wear them again," she whispered--and suddenly heaved herself away.

Perdov stepped into the doorway. "Are you all right, Nurse? You've been here a while. Do you need me to help you?"

"No, that won't be necessary, Corporal, thank you," Tatiana said, tucking the rings back into her tunic and giving Alexander the last bit of potato. "I'm almost finished. I'll be just another minute."

"Give a holler if you need me." He smiled and disappeared.

"Are you here with a convoy?" Alexander asked.

"There are three of us in one Red Cross jeep. Me, another nurse, and a doctor. We have to get you on that jeep."

"Tomorrow Stalin is coming for me to take me back to the Soviet Union."

"Stalin, my love, is late," said Tatiana. "I'm here for you today. We are leaving at eight p.m. sharp. I'm coming for you promptly at seven. I'm coming with Karolich, so please be ready. I'm bringing you dinner, and you will eat it in front of him, slowly. We need twenty minutes for the secobarbital to work on Perdov."

Alexander was silent. "You better give him a large amount of secobarbital."

"An unconscionable amount." Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

Alexander stopped chewing his food as he stared at her. "What are you thinking? That you'll just put me in your little truck and drive me to Berlin?"

"Something like that," she whispered.

He stared at her for a longish moment and then shook his head. "You're underestimating the Soviets. How far to Berlin?"

"About twenty-two miles--I mean, thirty-five kilometers."

Alexander allowed himself a small smile. "You don't have to convert for me, Tania."

And she allowed herself a small smile back.

"Any checkpoints?"

"Yes, five."

"What about your two colleagues?"

"What about them? In one hour, we're all in the American sector and safe. There is no problem."

Alexander stared at her incredulously and grimly. "Well, let me tell you, your Red Cross truck will be stopped after twenty minutes. You'll be lucky to get out of Oranienburg before they'll come for me, and for you, and for the rest of your gallant crew." He shook his head. "I'm not doing it."

"What are you talking about?" she gasped. "How will they know? They won't know for at least a few hours. And by that time, we'll be in Berlin."

Alexander shook his head. "Tania, you have no idea."

"Then we'll get off earlier, if you want," she said. "We'll get off...wherever you want."

"They'll find me before we leave. The guards will inspect the truck."

"They won't. You're going to walk out as Karolich, and drive out of the gate with me, and then you will hide in the crutch and litter compartment in the back. They don't know there is a compartment in the back."

"Where are the crutches and litters?"

"Back in Hamburg. We'll get off, and Martin and Penny will drive on to Berlin, knowing nothing."

Perdov stood outside the door, swaying. He held on to the door. "Nurse? That's enough now."

"I'm coming." She stood up. Someone called for him, and Perdov staggered down the corridor.

They had a myriad details to go over, but there was no time. From her nurse's bag she retrieved the Colt 1911 and two extra clips. "Muchmuch more in the truck," she said, hiding the gun underneath him in the straw. "When we're on our way for a bit, I'll knock twice, and you make a distraction for me to stop the truck." Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

He said nothing. "And then?"

"Then? There is a hatch on the roof. We climb out onto the roof and jump."

"While the truck is moving?"

"Yes." She paused. "Or we can just do it my way and drive the truck into Berlin."

He said nothing at first. "Not as good as your last plan, Tania," he said. "And that one failed."

"That's the spirit. I'll see you at seven. Be ready," she said, and saluted him. "O Captain, my Captain."

Tatiana pretended to eat dinner with Brestov and Karolich, to listen to banter between Penny and Martin, even to smile. How? She didn't know. To save him.

She didn't want to keep looking at her watch, but couldn't keep herself from staring at Martin's wrist until she realized she was making him twitch with her unexplained scrutiny. She excused herself and said she would go and pack. Penny excused herself and said since she was already packed she would go and check on barrack nineteen. Tatiana knew there was a man there Penny wanted to say goodbye to. It was 6:00 p.m. For fifteen minutes Tatiana agonized in her room, looking over the map of the area between Oranienburg and Berlin. She could not still her unquiet heart.

At 6:20 she carried her pack to the jeep and returned to the commandant's kitchen to get another plate of food for Alexander. At 6:45 she filled a glass with vodka and secobarbital and, with her nurse's bag on her shoulder, picked up the food tray and went to find Karolich.

At 6:55, Penny walked through the beds in barrack nineteen, moving past the bunk of Nikolai Ouspensky.

"Hey, nurse, where is the rest of your crew?" he called out in Russian. "Where is that other, hmm, little nurse?"

"It's a good thing I don't understand a word of what you're saying," Penny retorted in English with a smile, without stopping.

With a smile himself Ouspensky fell back on his bed. Penny brought back the image of the other nurse, the small, black-haired one. He had forgotten all about it, but something had niggled him about her. What was it about her that was so faintly familiar, and why for such a faint familiarity was that niggling so sharp?

"Lieutenant, could you come with me?" Tatiana smiled. "It's getting late. I want to bring the plate of food for the prisoner in cell number seven, and I don't want to go alone. And this way you and I could drive the jeep back to the commandant's house to retrieve Miss Davenport and Dr. Flanagan."

Karolich walked gladly through the forested path with her. He seemed flattered. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

"You are a very good nurse," he said. "You shouldn't care so much about the prisoners, though. Take it from me. It makes it too hard to do your job."

"Don't I know it, Lieutenant," she said, walking a little faster.

"You can call me Ivan if you wish." He coughed.

"Let's stick with lieutenant for now," she said, walking faster still.

It was 7:00 when they walked into the jail corridor. All was quiet. Perdov stood up in a salute. Tatiana winked at him, glancing at the vodka glass. Perdov winked back. Karolich passed first, then Tatiana, who nodded and moved the tray over to Perdov who grabbed the full glass, downed it, and put it back on the tray. Karolich was opening cell seven. "Are you coming, Nurse?"

"Coming, Lieutenant."

Alexander was lying on his side.

Karolich sank down onto the straw with a yawn. He was facing Alexander's back and his machine gun was on his lap angled at Alexander.

"Feed him quickly, Nurse. I want to be done with my day. That's the thing about this work. Begins early, ends late, feels like it's never done."

"I know what you mean." Putting the tray on the ground, Tatiana pretended to examine Alexander. "He doesn't look so good, does he?" she said. "I think he's getting a terrible infection."

Indifferently, Karolich shook his head. "He'd look worse dead, don't you agree?" He lit a cigarette.

"Captain, would you like something for the pain?"

"Yes, thank you," said Alexander.

"Before or after you eat?"

"After."

He turned onto his back and she fed him. He ate quickly, and then groaned, rolling back on his side. "My head hurts. Maybe something for the pain now?"

"I'm going to give you a little morphine to help you."

Alexander continued to lie on his side. He opened his eyes and glanced at Tatiana without blinking. His hands were in front of him, his back was to Karolich, and in his hands, he held the Model 1911.

"So, how long have you been working for the Red Army, Lieutenant?" Tatiana asked Karolich, opening her nurse's bag and taking out three syrettes--small, toothpaste-type tubes each filled with a half-grain of morphine solution.

"Twelve years," he said. "How long have you been a nurse?" Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

"Just a few," she replied, fumbling with the needle and safety seal. Her hands were useless. Usually she could do this in her sleep. "I worked with German POWs in New York." She needed to get all three syrettes ready, and she couldn't even break the safety seal on one.

"Oh, yeah? Any escapees?"

"Not really. Oh, yes. One. Knocked out one of the doctors and took a ferry across the water."

"What happened to him? Ever catch him?"

"Yes," she said, walking between Alexander and Karolich and kneeling down. The three syrettes were in her right hand. "He was caught six months later living in New Jersey." She laughed. Her laugh sounded fake. "He wanted to escape to New Jersey."

"What is this New Jersey? And why are you using so many tubes on him? One is not enough?"

"He is too big a man," she said. "He needs an extra dose."

"Last thing we need around here is a morphine addict. Although, do you think it will make him pliant?"

At that moment, there was a loud thump from the corridor as if something heavy had fallen. Karolich turned his head toward the cell door and immediately reached for his machine gun.

"Now!" said Alexander.

Tatiana, without another breath, pushed the machine gun off Karolich's lap with her left hand and plunged the three syringes into his thigh with her right, puncturing his pants and his skin, squeezing the morphine through all the needles. He opened his mouth in a gasp, and struck out, hitting Tatiana with his forearm square across the jaw, and with his other arm grabbing for his falling machine gun. But Alexander was already up behind Tatiana, pushing her aside. He kicked the machine gun against the wall and struck Karolich violently on the head with the butt of the Colt. Karolich's head opened up like a dropped watermelon. It had all taken maybe four seconds.

"I'll show you f*cking pliant," said Alexander, kicking a convulsing Karolich with his bare foot.

"Take his clothes, Shura, quick, before he bleeds all over them."

Karolich was bleeding copiously.

Alexander ripped the lieutenant's uniform off Karolich's body and quickly undressed. Tatiana, a little wobbly from the blow, peered out of the doorway. Perdov had fallen off the chair and was unconscious on the floor.

Alexander threw his bloodied white shirt and brown slacks on Karolich and shackled the man's wrists and ankles. Then he put on the lieutenant's boots, his cap, took his Shpagin, and in Karolich's uniform appeared in the corridor. "He is just the right size," he said to Tatiana. "A little shorter and bigger, the fat f*cking bastard."

Walking over to Perdov, he lifted him and sat him back in the chair. Perdov kept falling. Finally they got him to sit straight, his head bent all the way forward. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

"That did not take twenty minutes," Alexander said.

"I know. I decided to give him a little, hmm, larger dose."

"Good. How much morphine did you give Karolich?" Alexander asked.

"One and a half grains, but I think it's going to be his open skull that will keep him quiet."

Alexander hoisted the machine gun over his shoulder. The cocked Colt was in his hand. "Where is the truck?"

"Fifty yards in front of you, as you walk out the door. When we get to the truck, look up at the sentry on the gatehouse and salute them. That's what he always does when we pass. He opens the gate himself with his master key. He's left-handed, though. You might..."

Alexander switched the jangling key from his right hand to his left. "Okay. Better for me. I shoot with my right. Are you ready? Does he walk in front of you or behind you?"

"Next to me. And he doesn't open any doors for me. He just salutes them and gets in the truck."

"Who drives?"

"I do."

Before she opened the door, he put the hand that held the pistol on her. "Listen," he said very quietly. "Get in the truck as fast as you can and start the engine. If something goes wrong, I will shoot the guards but I need you to be ready to drive."

She nodded.

"And Tania..."

"Yes?"

"I know you like to do as you please, but there can only be one person in charge--me. If we're both in charge, we both die. Understood?"

"Understood. You're in charge."

He pulled open the door. They were outside. It was dark and cool. Alexander walked quickly in long strides across the illuminated courtyard; Tatiana could barely keep up. As the sentries looked down and watched him, Alexander walked over to the gate, the one that said, "Work Makes You Free," unlocked it, pushed it open and walked back to the truck. Tatiana was already inside with the ignition on. In fact, the truck lurched before Alexander had a chance to get in.

He looked up at the sentries, smiled, and saluted them. They saluted him back.

He got in, and Tatiana drove him out of Sachsenhausen, down the leafy forested road to the commandant's house. In the dark of the trees, halfway between the gatehouse and the commandant's house, she stopped the jeep. They got out, ran to the back doors. Tatiana opened them, climbed in and Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

raised the hatch to the long compartment. Suddenly seeing Alexander next to her, she wondered if he would fit. She had forgotten how tall he was.

He himself seemed to wonder that, because he looked at the narrow space, looked at her and said, "It's a good thing I haven't eaten in six months."

"Yes," she breathed out, taking out the bags with the weapons. "Get in, quick. When we're on the road a little while, I'll give a knock and you do something."

"Tania, I don't forget. You don't have to repeat it. Are those your two packs?"

She nodded. "Plus my backpack over there."

"Weapons? Ammunition? Knife, rope?"

"Yes, yes."

"A flashlight?"

"Below in the compartment."

He grabbed it.

"In."

He squeezed in sideways, and she slammed the hatch shut. "Can you hear me?"

"Yes," came his muffled voice. He opened the hatch from inside. "But knock loudly so I can hear above the noise of the jeep. What time is it?"

"Seven forty."

"Get them in as soon as possible and start driving."

"Right now."

Before she climbed into the jeep, Tatiana ran to the side of the path and threw up.

"I don't know what the hurry is," said Penny plaintively. "I'm tired, I had some wine, why can't we just go to sleep and drive back tomorrow?"

"Because we have to be back here tomorrow," said Tatiana, pushing her to the jeep. "Dr. Flanagan, are you coming?"

"Yes, I'm coming, I'm coming. I just want to make sure I haven't forgotten anything."

"We'll be back tomorrow, even if you did."

"That's true. Should we say goodbye to the commandant?" Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

"I don't think that's necessary," said Tatiana as casually as she could. She wanted to scream. "I already made our goodbyes to him. Besides, we'll see him tomorrow."

They walked outside, dropped their bags in the back.

"Where areyour bags, Tania?" Penny asked.

She pointed to them.

"You have so many bags," Martin said. "More and more, it seems like."

"You're never sure what you're going to need on a trip like this. Would you like me to drive? My head is clear. I've had no wine."

"Yes, why don't you?" said Martin, sliding in past the wheel. "But do you know the way in the dark?"

"I mapped out our route earlier to make it easier for us. We go down to Oranienburg and make a left."

"I guess." Martin closed his eyes. "Let's go."

Tatiana drove away from the commandant's house and made her way slowly in the darkness, and then faster and faster. It impressed on her that she wanted to be as far away as soon as possible from Special Camp Number 7.

At 7:55, Nikolai Ouspensky opened his eyes and screamed. He jumped out of bed and ran waving like a madman to the guard by the door of the barracks.

"I must see the commandant!" he yelled. "I must see him now! It's a matter of great urgency, believe me, great urgency!"

"Easy now," the guard said calmly, pushing him away. "What's so urgent all of a sudden?"

"One of their prisoners is about to escape! Tell Commandant Brestov that Captain Alexander Belov is about to escape!"

"What are you talking about? Belov? The one who is shackled in isolation until the trains come?"

"I'm telling you, one of the Red Cross nurses is not an American. She is his Russian wife, and she is about to help him escape!"

Tatiana drove for a minute, two, three. Time and distance suddenly stood still. She could not drive fast enough, nor get enough time to pass before they needed to make their move. She couldn't remember if there was a checkpoint at Oranienburg, and didn't know if she should chance it. Could Special Camp communicate with the checkpoint? Was there a phone? What if someone came into the cell block? What if Karolich came to and started screaming? What if Perdov fell off his chair and became revived by the fall? What if, what if, what if. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

"Tania, we're talking to you, did you hear us?" Martin said.

"No, sorry, what?"

They reached Oranienburg and made a left onto a paved road. As soon as the dim lights of the small town were behind them, Tatiana rapped her knuckles twice on the cabin. Penny and Martin were talking and didn't notice.

Ouspensky was brought before Brestov at 8:15.

"What is this all about?" Brestov said, inebriated and smiling. "Who did you say is escaping?"

"Alexander Belov, sir. The Red Cross nurse is his wife."

"What Red Cross nurse?"

"The black-haired one."

"I thought they both had...dark hair."

Ouspensky through his teeth said, "The small one."

"They were both small."

"The thin one! She was a Russian nurse by the name of Tatiana Metanova, and she escaped from the Soviet Union some years back."

"And you're saying she came back for him?"

"Yes."

"How did she know he was here?"

"I don't know that, but sir..."

Brestov laughed and shrugged. "Where is Karolich?" he said to the guard at the door of his quarters. "Ask him to join us, will you?"

"I haven't seen him, sir."

"Well, find him."

"Why don't you talk to the nurse?" said Ouspensky. "She's his wife, why don't you talk to her?"

"I'll have to do that tomorrow, prisoner."

"Tomorrow will be too late!" Ouspensky nearly screeched. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

"Well, tonight is not possible. They've left."

He gasped. "Left where?"

"Back to Berlin. Ran out of supplies. They'll be back tomorrow. We'll talk to her then."

Ouspensky took one step back. "Sir, she won't be coming back tomorrow."

"Of course she will."

"Yes. But though I am not a betting man, I will bet that Alexander Belov is no longer in your custody."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Brestov said, rubbing his head. "Belov is in the camp brig. We'll wait for Karolich and then look into it."

"Call the next checkpoint on the road," said Ouspensky. "Have them at least stop the truck until you know Belov is still here."

"I'm not doing anything until my lieutenant gets here." When Brestov tried to get up, he sloppily knocked a number of papers off his table. "Besides, I liked that nurse. I don't think she is capable of what you say."

"Just check on your prisoner," said Ouspensky. "But if I am right, perhaps the commandant could do me a small service and speak to Moscow on my behalf? I'm supposed to be getting shipped out tomorrow. Perhaps a commutation of some sort?" He smiled thinly and beseechingly.

"Let's stop counting the eggs until they've hatched, shall we?"

They waited for Karolich.

There was the sound of doors banging hard against the sides of the truck and then a loud thump as if something fell or was run over.

"Geez, what was that?" exclaimed Penny. "Tania, oh my, did you run over a dog?"

They stopped the jeep and all got out onto the empty road and hurried to the back. The doors of the jeep were swinging open. They stared at them mutely.

"What in heaven's name happened here?" Penny asked.

"I think I must have forgotten to lock them all the way," replied Tatiana. She looked deeper inside the truck. Her backpack was gone.

"Yes, but what did you run over?"

"Nothing."

"Then what was that noise?" Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

She turned around. A bulky form was lying some twenty meters back. She ran to it.

It was her backpack.

"Your backpack fell out?"

"We must have hit a nasty bump in the road. Look, everything is all right."

"Well, let's get back in," said Martin. "No use standing idly on a dark highway."

"No, you're right," said Tatiana, and then she rushed over to the side of the road and retched, pretending to throw up. They gave her a flask of water to clean her mouth, and stood solicitously by her side. She said, "I'm sorry, I guess I'm not feeling as well as I thought. Martin, would you mind driving the rest of the way? I think I'll lie down in the back."

"Of course, of course."

They helped her in. Before Martin closed the doors, Tatiana looked at them fondly. "Thank you both. For everything."

"Not to worry," said Penny.

Martin, being most careful, locked the doors from the outside. Before he was in the driver's seat, Tatiana opened the hatch to the litter compartment. Alexander was looking at her. The truck pulled away from the roadside.

Martin was driving cautiously--at some thirty kilometers per hour. She knew he wasn't comfortable driving on foreign roads in the dark.

Tatiana heard the muffled talking in the cabin through the small pane of glass. Alexander got out of the compartment and pulled out Karolich's sub-machine gun.

"You should have left the backpack on the road," he whispered, nearly inaudibly. "Now we'll have to throw it and it will be harder to find."

"We'll find it."

"We should leave it."

"All our things are in it. We also have to take this." She pointed to the smaller canvas bag and the ruck.

"No. We will have to make do with one backpack."

"This one has pistols, grenades, a revolver, and rounds for all your weapons."

"Ah."

He stood on his tiptoes, reaching for the latch that kept closed the hatch in the roof.

"Let me get out first," he whispered, "you'll hand me our things, I'll throw them down, and then I'll pull you up." Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

Once he threw down the backpack, her nurse's bag, the weapons, and pulled her up onto the roof of a moving vehicle from which they were going to jump down a black slope, Tatiana nearly reconsidered. The slope looked like a bottomless pit, but in less than seventy minutes of comfortable driving they could be in the French sector.

The wind was ripping through her hair and she could hardly hear him, but she heard him well enough. "Wehave to jump, Tania. Push off as hard as you can, land in the grass. I go first."

Alexander didn't even take a breath or count or look back. He just sprang off from a crouching position and jumped, the bag of ammo on his back. He was down the slope and she couldn't see him.

Holding her breath and tensing her body, she crouched and jumped. She fell awkwardly and hard. But she fell onto the grassy slope, into bushes, and rolled down underbrush, not concrete. Because it had rained, the ground was soft and muddy. Clambering up to the side of the road, she saw that the truck had not stopped. It continued moving down the highway. Something hurt. She didn't have time to think what it was or where. She began to run back, every once in a while stopping and whispering, "Alexander? Alexander?"

It was 8:30. Karolich was nowhere to be found. The guard who reported this was unconcerned, and so was Brestov. He asked that Ouspensky be taken back to his barracks. "We'll check this out tomorrow morning, Comrade Ouspensky."

"Couldn't you just check Belov's cell, Commandant? Just to make sure. It will take two minutes. We can check the jail as you're walking me back to barracks."

Brestov shrugged. "Go ahead, Corporal, walk by the jail, if you want."

Ouspensky and the guard walked back to the gatehouse.

"Havethey seen Karolich?" asked Ouspensky, motioning to the sentries.

"Yes, they said they saw him and a Red Cross nurse get into the jeep and head for the commandant's house about forty-five minutes ago."

"But he's not at the commandant's house."

"That doesn't mean anything."

The guard pushed open the door of the jail and walked inside the cell block corridor. Perdov was sprawled out on the floor, unconscious. He reeked of vodka. "Oh, just great," muttered the guard. "Some f*cking sentry you are, Perdov." He grabbed the master key from him and unlocked cell number seven.

Ouspensky and the guard stood in the doorway. The man on the straw was chained and was wearing a bloodied white shirt and dark slacks. His head was tilted back. He wasn't moving.

"Well?" said the guard. "Satisfied?" Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

Ouspensky walked down to the prisoner and looked into his face. Then he turned around. "I'm satisfied," he said. "Come look for yourself."

The guard stepped down. Dumbly he stared into the open eyes of Ivan Karolich.

"Tania!" She heard his voice.

"Where are you?"

"Down here, come."

She ran down the slope to him. He was waiting for her by the trees. He had already found the weapons and her backpacks. In his hands he was holding the nurse's bag. She wanted to come closer, but he was holding too many bags.

"Will you be all right carrying the smaller bag with the ammo and your nurse's bag?" he asked. "I'll take the rest of the ammo, the weapons and the large backpack. What did you put in here, rocks?"

"Food. Wait. I have clothes for you. Once you change into them, it'll be lighter."

"I'll wash first, then change." Alexander led the way, carrying the flashlight.

"What river is this?" he asked.

"Havel."

"How far south does it run?"

"To Berlin, but it runs along the highway nearly the whole way."

"Ah, too bad." He undressed. "I'll be happy to get out of the uniform of that motherf*cking bastard. And just a lieutenant, too. Do you have any soap? Did you get hurt?"

"No," she said, her head slightly leaden. She handed him the soap.

He walked naked into the water. Sitting down on the embankment she shined the light on him.

"Turn it off," he said. "You can see light for miles in the dark."

She wanted to look at him. But she turned it off and listened to him instead, splashing, lathering, diving under.

She was facing his dark form in the river. He was facing her and the incline to the road. Suddenly he stopped moving. All she heard was his breath.

"Tatiana," he said.

She didn't have to be told anything. When she turned around and looked up, she already knew what she would be seeing. Bright lights, moving down the highway, engine noise getting closer, the sound of men Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

shouting, and dogs barking.

"How could they have found out so quickly?" she whispered.

Quickly she handed him his clothes. He got dressed. He kept Karolich's boots, because otherwise he would have been barefoot. ("I can't think of everything," she said.)

"We have to lose our scent. The Alsatians will find us. The Soviets are really enjoying the fruits of Hitler's superior military machine."

"But they passed us."

"Yes. Where do you think they're going?" he asked.

"To the truck."

"Are we in that truck?"

Ah. "But where can we go?" she asked. "We're stuck between the river and the road. They'll smell us here for sure."

"Yes, the dogs will find us. It's a windy night."

"Let's cross the river and head west."

"Where's the nearest river crossing?"

"Forget about a crossing" she replied. "There may be one five miles down. Let's just cross here. We'll swim across and then move west, away from Berlin, before we turn south and return back east into the British sector."

"Where's the American sector?"

"All the way south. But all four zones in the city have open borders, so the sooner we leave Soviet-occupied territory the better."

"You think?" he said. "The river is not that deep, maybe eight feet."

She was already undressed down to her vest and underwear. "That's fine. We'll swim to the other side. Let's go."

"We can't swim," he said. "If our weapons and ammo get wet, they'll be no good to us until they dry." They stood for a moment, their eyes on each other. "Get on top of my back," Alexander said, quickly taking off the clothes he had just put on. "I'll swim across and you hold all our things on your back."

Tatiana climbed onto Alexander. The feel of his naked back against her vest produced such a peculiar aching inside, such a sense of familiarity and loss--and not temporal but permanent loss--that she couldn't help it, she groaned, and he misunderstood and said, "Hey," and she, to keep from breaking down, bit down on the strap of the backpack.

With the packs and the machine gun on her back, and her on his back, Alexander waded into the river Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

and began to swim. The river was less than half the size of the Kama. Did he notice? She couldn't say for sure, but she knew one thing for sure--he was having trouble. She could almost feel him sinking. He kept upright, but he wasn't able to speak. All she heard was his bubbling breath, in from the air, out into the water. When they reached the other side, he lay for a minute on the ground, panting. She sat down next to him, pulling off the backpacks. "You did great," she said. "Is it hard for you?"

"Not hard, just..." He jumped up. "Six months in a cell will do that to you."

"Well, let's rest. Lie back down." She touched his leg, looking up at him.

"Do you have a towel? Hurry."

She had one small towel. "Tania," he said, drying off quickly. "You're not thinking this through. What do you think that posse is going to do five miles down the road when they stop the Red Cross truck and when your friends open the back and find you not there? Do you think everybody will just go on as before? Your friends, being unprepared and not knowing they have anything to hide, will say, `Oh, but we just saw her right down the road.' And they will lead the guards to the spot from where we just swam. They'll get an armored vehicle across to here in forty seconds. Ten men, two dogs, ten machine guns, ten pistols. Now--can we go, please? Let's put as much distance between us and them as possible. Do you have a compass, a map?"

"Do you think they'll get into trouble with the Soviet authorities?"

He stood silent for a moment. "I don't think so," he said at last. "They don't like to bring their darkness out into the open. They'll interrogate them for sure. But they're not going to trifle with U.S. nationals. Let's go."

They dried off as best they could, threw on their clothes, and ran to the woods.

Meandering they walked through the night-time woods for what seemed to Tatiana tens of miles. He was ahead with the knife, clearing the way. She was doggedly behind him. Sometimes they ran if the woods were clear. Most of the time it took a grunting effort to get through the thick underbrush. He would shine the flashlight for three seconds to illuminate the way just ahead of them. He often stopped and listened for sound, and then continued forward. She wished they could stop moving. Her legs weren't carrying her. He slowed down and said, "Are you tired?"

"A little. Can we stop?"

He stopped to look at the relief map. "I like where we are, we're much more west than I think they would expect, and not nearly as far south. We've moved laterally very well."

"Yet we're no closer to Berlin."

"No, not much closer. But we're farther away from them, and that's better for now." He closed the map. "You don't have a tent?"

"I have a waterproof trench. We could make a lean-to." She paused. "I'd rather find a barn, maybe? The ground is so wet." Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

"Fine, let's find a barn. It will be warmer and dryer. There will be farms just the other side of the woods."

"So we have to walk some more?"

Alexander pulled her up and, for a moment, held her close to him. "Yes," he said. "We still have a way to go."

Onward and slowly, they moved through the woods.

"Alexander, it'smidnight . How many miles west do you think we've gone in total?"

"Three. In another mile there will be fields."

She didn't want to tell him she was scared to be in the constantly creaking woods. He probably didn't remember the story she had once told him about herself, about being lost in the woods when she was younger. He had been wounded and near death, and probably didn't remember her telling him that being lost in the woods was the most terrifying experience of her life up to then.

They came out onto a field. The night was clear; Tatiana could just make out the shape of a silo at the other end.

"Let's walk across," she said.

Alexander made her walk around. He didn't trust fields anymore, he told her.

The barn was a hundred yards away from the farmhouse. Popping open the latch, Alexander motioned her inside. A horse whinnied in surprise. Inside was warm and smelled of hay and manure and old cow's milk. They were familiar smells to Tatiana, as familiar as Luga. Again a pronounced aching hit her. All the things America had nearly made her forget, she was remembering now with him.

Alexander pulled up a ladder next to a hay loft above the cows and prodded her upward.

In the loft, sitting in a heap on the hay, Tatiana found a flask of water, drank some, gave him some. He drank, and then said, "Got anything else in there?"

Smiling, she rummaged and pulled out a pack of Marlboros.

"Ah, American cigarettes," he said, lighting up. He smoked three cigarettes without saying a word while she sat collapsed on the hay and watched him. Her eyes were closing.

When she opened them, she found Alexander sitting mutely and staring at her with an expression of profound emotion. She crawled on her hands and knees to him and buried herself inside his fierce arms, and somewhere near her head, she heard his whisper,Shh, shh .

They could not speak. To be in Alexander's arms, to smell him, to hear his breathing, his voice again...

Shh, shh,he was still whispering and holding her, pulling off her hat, her hairnet, her hairpins, letting her black hair fall down.

His hands were in it. His eyes were closed. Perhaps he was imagining her hair was not black but blonde Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

again.

The way Alexander was touching her now, she could tell that he was blind and had not yet learned to see--he was holding her in that impossible choke that had to do not quite with love or passion, but somehow with both and with neither. The embrace wasn't an alloy, it was a conflagration of anguish and bitter relief and fear.

Tatiana could tell Alexander would like to have spoken more, but he couldn't, and so he sat on the hay with his legs open, while she kneeled in front of him, folded into his arms, and every once in a while from his shuddering body would come aShh, shh ...

Not for her. Not for Tatiana. For himself.

Continuing to hold her, Alexander lowered her onto the straw. His trembling limbs surrounded her. Tatiana was barely breathing, her own body convulsing. To rage, to quell--

They didn't know what to do--to undress? To stay clothed? She couldn't move, nor want to. His lips were on her neck, her clavicles, he was clawing at her, ripping open her tunic, baring her breasts to his desperate gasping mouth. She wanted to whisper his name, to moan maybe. Tears kept trickling down her temples.

He removed from himself and her only what was necessary. He didn't so much enter her as break her open. Her mouth remained in a mute screaming O, her hands clutched him, not close enough, and through the whisper of grief, through the cry of desire, Tatiana felt that Alexander, in his complete abandon, was making love to her as if he were being pulled from the cross to which he was still attached by nails.

His gripping her, his ferocious, unremitting movement was so intense that Tatiana felt consciousness yield to--

Oh my God, Shura, please...she mouthed inaudibly.

But it could not be any other way.

Violent release came for Alexander at the expense of Tatiana's momentary lapse of reason, as she cried out, her pleas carrying through the barn, to the basin, to the river, to the sky.

He remained on top of her without moving, without pulling away. His body was shaking. He couldn't be any closer. She held him closer still...And then...

Shh, shh.

That wasn't Alexander.

That was Tatiana.

They both fell asleep.

Still they hadn't spoken. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

She woke up to find him inside her again.

And night, though lengthened by gods, wasn't long enough.

She spread the trench coat on the hay. He took the clothes off her. In the unmuted darkness, Tatiana cried and cried out, stretched out on the rack of his famine.

Time and again she was imprisoned and released--barely, just for breath; time and again she burned for Alexander, in thehands of Alexander, and cried out again,Oh, Shura ...endlessly, endlessly.

During brief respite, he continued to lie with his limbs over her, and again she was crying.

He whispered, "Tatia, what's a man to think when every time he makes love to his wife, she cries?"

"That he is his wife's only family," said Tatiana, crying. "That he is her whole life."

"As she is his," he said. "You don't see him crying." Tatiana could not see his face--it was buried in her breasts.

There was no night.

There was only twilight; the sky turned blue then lavender, then pink again within minutes that weren't long enough.

The night was not long enough.

Not long enough for the floor in Mathew Sayers's office, for Lisiy Nos, for the swamps of Finland, not long enough for Stockholm.

Not long enough for the punishment cell in Morozovo, for the ten grains of morphine in Slonko, for the drive across Europe with Nikolai Ouspensky.

Not long enough for the river Vistula.

And nothing was long enough for the forests and mountains of Holy Cross.

"Don't tell me another word." Tatiana's voice was defeated. "I don't have the strength to hear it."

"I don't have the strength to tell it."

After Tatiana heard about Pasha, she could not talk or look at Alexander, as she lay supine, her legs drawn up to her chest, while he lay behind her whispering, "I'm sorry, Tania. I'm sorry."

Just a gasp from a bereft Tatiana.

"I was dying in 1944 before I found him," said Alexander. "You can't imagine what stormed inside me as I pushed my penal battalion across every f*cking river in Poland." Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

"Alexander, what I would have given for a penal battalion."

He kissed the soft flesh between her shoulder blades.

She rolled into a tighter coil, seeking to return to the place she had once shared with her brother.

Alexander didn't even bother uncoiling her to return to the place he shared with her.

Alexander was not so much sleeping as unconscious, while Tatiana was propped up on her elbow, tracing the scars on his body. She didn't want to wake him but she couldn't stop touching him. He had marks on his body that defied her understanding. How could a body bear all this yet live, thinner than before, less whole than before, raggedly tearing apart at the seams, yet live?

Her hand cupped him softly, then ran down to his shins, and up again to his arms, where it stayed, caressing him, while Tatiana stared at his sleeping face.

There is one moment, a moment in eternity. Before we find out the truth about one another. That simple moment is the one that propels us through life--what we felt like at the very edge of our future, standing over the abyss, before we knew for sure we loved. Before we knew for sure we loved forever. Before the dying Dasha, the dying Mama, the dying Leningrad. Before Luga. Before the divinity of Lazarevo, when the miracles you heaped upon me with your love and your body alloyed us for life. Before all that, you and I walked through the Summer Garden, and once in a while my bare arm touched your arm, and once in a while you spoke and that gave me an excuse to look up into your face, into your laughing eyes, to catch a glimpse of your mouth and I, who had never been touched, tried to imagine what it might be like to have your mouth touch me. Falling in love with you in the Summer Garden in the white nights of Leningrad is the moment that propels me through life.

He woke up, saw her. "What are you doing?" he whispered.

"Watching over you," she whispered back.

And he closed his eyes and reached for her, taking her almost without waking, and then slept.

The next morning at dawn, the farmer came in to milk the cows. They lay silently in the loft and listened to him, and after he left, Tatiana dressed, went down the ladder and squeezed some milk for her and Alexander into a cup she carried to dispense medicine. He came with her, holding both pistols in his hands.

They drank to bursting.

"My God, you're thinner than I've ever seen you," she said. "Have some more milk. Have all of it."

He drank. "You're curvier than I've ever seen you." He bent to her on the little stool. "Your breasts are bigger." Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

"Motherhood, I guess," she muttered, kissing him.

"Let's go up," he said, his hand on her.

They went up. But before they had a chance to undress, they heard the sound of an engine outside. It was seven in the morning. Alexander looked out the small, four-pane loft window. A military truck was outside and four Red Army officers were talking to the farmer in the clearing.

He glanced back at Tatiana.

"Who's there?" she whispered.

"Tania, sit back against the wall but not too far. Hold the P-38 and the ammo."

"Who's there?"

"They've come for us."

She emitted a cry, creeping to the window. "Oh, my God, there are four of them, what are we going to do, we're trapped up here!"

"Shh. Maybe they'll leave." Alexander readied the machine gun, all three pistols and the Commando. She watched them out of the corner of the window. The farmer was opening his hands, shrugging his shoulders. The soldiers were coming up too close to him, pointing to the house, the fields, and finally the barn. The farmer moved out of their way, motioning with his hand in the direction of the barn.

"The revolver, is it double action, or single action?"

"What?"

"Never mind."

"Double action, I think. I'm almost sure," she said, trying to remember. "Does it recock by itself you mean? Yes."

Alexander lay flat with two bales in front of him, the machine gun and pistols by his right side, the Commando in his hands pointed at the ladder. Tatiana, her shaking hands full of clips, sat against the barn wall behind him.

He turned around. "Not a single sound, Tania. Stop shaking."

Mutely she nodded. Tried to stop shaking.

The barn door opened and the farmer came in with one of the officers. Tatiana's heart was beating so loudly that she could barely hear. The officer spoke very poor German intermingled with Russian. The farmer must have told him that no one had been through these parts, because the officer yelled in Russian, "You're sure of this, you're sure?"

They went on in circles like this for a few seconds, and suddenly the officer stopped speaking and looked around. "Do you smoke?" he asked in Russian. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

"Nein, nein,"said the farmer."Ich rauche nei in der Scheune wegen Brandgefahr."

"Well, fire or no fire, somebody has been smoking in your f*cking barn!"

Tatiana put her hand over her mouth to stop herself from crying out.

The officer ran out of the barn. She looked out the window. He said something to the rest of the men. One of them turned off the engine and they all retrieved their machine guns.

"Shura," Tatiana whispered.

"Shh. Don't speak. Don't even breathe."

The farmer was still standing in the middle of his barn when the four Soviets walked in with their weapons.

"Get the f*ck out of here," one of them said to the farmer. He ran.

"Who's here?" they called.

Tatiana held her breath.

"There's no one here," said one of them.

"We know you're here, Belov," said another. "Just come out and nobody will get hurt."

Alexander said nothing.

"You have a wife you should think about. You want her to live, don't you?"

Tatiana heard the quiet creaking of the ladder.

Alexander lay so still you could have walked by him and not known he was there. There was another creak.

One of the officers below said, "If you come out peacefully, your wife will get amnesty."

Another said, "We are all heavily armed. You cannot escape. Let's do this reasonably."

Alexander barely even leaned over. He just tipped the Commando downward and fired a .357 bullet into the head of the man on the ladder. The man flew backward in a spasm, the other men crouched, raising their guns, but they couldn't raise them fast enough, nor hide. Alexander aimed fired, aimed fired, aimed fired. The men didn't have a chance to take cover, much less open fire.

He jumped up and turned to Tatiana. "Let's go," he said. "Can't stay here another second. If the farmer has a telephone, he's on it right now."

"Maybe he doesn't have a telephone," Tatiana muttered.

"Can't count on that, can we? Hurry." Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

She quickly collected their things while Alexander reloaded the revolver.

"Nice weapon, Tania," he said. "Some recoil on it, though. What's the muzzle velocity, do you know?"

"The man who sold it to me told me it was four hundred and fifty meters per second."

Alexander whistled. "Immense power. Almost like my Shpagin. Are you ready?"

They glanced out the window to make sure no one was coming, and then descended the ladder, stepped over the dead men at the door--though not before Alexander reached into their pockets and relieved them of their Soviet cigarettes--and were out. From their truck, Alexander took one light machine gun and one ammunition belt. Tatiana asked how he was going to carry another machine gun, this one with a bipod, plus a sub-machine-gun, three sidearms, and all the ammo.

"Don't worry about my end," he said, throwing the metal ammunition belt around his neck. "Just worry about yours."

"We could take their truck," Tatiana suggested.

"Yes, good idea, we'll drive it to the next checkpoint."

They ran through the fields, away from the farm, into the forest.

They walked until noon.

"Can we stop?" Tatiana pleaded. They were about to cross a stream. "You must be tired. We'll wash up, maybe have a bite to eat. Where are we, anyway?"

"Nowhere," he said, reluctantly stopping. "Barely four miles from the farm and the Soviet army."

"Four miles south?" she said with hope. "That would mean that we're only about--"

"West. We're not heading south."

She stared at him. "What do you mean, we're not heading south? Berlin is south."

"Hmm. That's where they think we'll be going."

"But eventually we have to go south, no?"

"Eventually, yes."

She didn't want to say anymore. They washed their faces and brushed their teeth. "Just don't give me any of that morphine toothpaste," Alexander said.

She unpacked a few things to eat. She had Spam--with a smile. And he actually smiled back, and said, "I like it. But how do you plan to open it?"

"Ah, because it comes from America," she said, "it has a little can opener built into the cap."

She had some dried bread, dried apple chips. They ate, drinking water out of the stream. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

"Okay, let's go," he said, springing up.

"Shura," she said, glancing up at him. "I'd like to go in the water. Wash. All right? It won't take long."

He sighed.

After he had smoked two or three cigarettes, he undressed and went into the water after her.

They were sitting on a log next to the stream in the canopied and secluded woods. They were both astride the log, she in front of him, with her back to him. He was wearing his skivvies. She was wearing a white tank top and underwear. They weren't speaking.

Presently Alexander leaned down to her and, kissing her neck under her ear, whispered, "I want to see those freckles." Tatiana purred in a soft chime, and turned her head to him. They looked at each other a moment, and then they kissed. The brush fell from his hands as they went around her neck, touching the wedding bands.

He bent her head all the way back, as his hand moved down to her breasts, to her stomach, to between her thighs. She undressed and straddled him on the log, standing against him. He cupped her breasts, and pulled her to sit on top of him, bending to her nipples.

Her soft moans echoed through the woods.

Alexander carried her to their open trench blanket. She lay on the blanket in front of him, and he kneeled in front of her and put his fingers on her, but only for a short while, too short a while. She was too fevered. He climbed on top of her, and she began to cry out and cry--

Suddenly Tatiana stopped moving. Stopped making a single sound except the panting which she could not control. Clutching Alexander to herself, she whispered, "Shura, oh my God, there is a man watching us."

He stopped moving, too. "Where?" he said into her ear, not turning his head.

"Over to my--"

"Clock, Tania. Tell me where he is on the clock. I'm in the middle."

"He's at four thirty."

Alexander lay very still, as still as he had lain up in the barn that morning. Tatiana emitted a puppy whimper.

"Shh," he said without a breath. The P-38 lay on the trench blanket by his left hand. He lifted himself slightly off Tatiana and in one fluid motion, cocked the lever, turned his left hand and fired three times. There was a cry from the woods and the sound of a body crashing into the bushes.

They both jumped up. Alexander threw on his shorts, Tatiana her underwear. He went to look, armed with his Commando and his Colt. She followed close behind, her hands on her breasts. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

A man in a Soviet uniform lay spurting blood. Two of the shots hit him, one in the shoulder, one in the neck. Alexander took away the man's loaded pistol and went back to the clearing. Tatiana kneeled down in front of the man and pressed her hand against his neck wound.

From behind she heard Alexander's incredulous low voice. "Tatiana, what are you doing?"

"Nothing," she said, loosening the man's collar. "He can't breathe."

With a guttural growl, Alexander grabbed her, pulled her out of the way, pointed the Colt and shot the man twice, point-blank in the head. She screamed, fell down, and in her terror tried blindly to get away from Alexander who yanked her up off the ground, still holding the Colt in his hand. She shut her eyes, struggling so hard she was on the verge of becoming hysterical.

"Tatiana! What the f*ck are you doing?"

"Let go of me!"

"He can't breathe? I f*cking hope not! Certainly not anymore. Are you trying to save him or us? This is not a f*cking joke, your life and mine! You can't be bending down, making his last moments better when we're seconds away from death!"

"Stop it, stop it, let go!"

"Oh, for f*ck's sake!" Alexander threw down his weapons and squared off against her, who stood in front of him, her trembling hands palms out at her chest. "What do you want? Why did you come here? Was your goal to leave our son without his mother? Don't you understand it's either you and me, or it's them? There is no middle ground. It's f*cking war, don't you understand that?"

"Please--just--"

"No, I don't think you do!" He grabbed her, squeezed her. "He was watching us, watchingyou , probably from the very beginning, he saw everything, heard everything, and you know what he was waiting for? For me to finish so he could kill me and then have you all to himself. And then he would have killed you. We don't know who he is, he may be an army man, he may be a deserter, but one thing I know, his intentions were not to partake in our lunch!"

"Oh my God, what's happened to you?"

He shoved her away. "What, areyou of all people judging me?" He spat on the ground. "I'm a soldier, not a f*cking saint."

"I'm not judging you. Shura, please..." she whispered, opening her hands to him.

"Us or them, Tatiana."

"You, Alexander,you. " She swayed. He took hold of her with one arm to steady her, but did not press her to him, did not comfort her.

"Don't you understand anything? Go clean his blood off and get dressed. We have to move out." Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

They left the clearing within ten minutes, and back in olive drab, they walked through the woods not speaking except to stop, have a drink, move on. Alexander smoked as he walked. He would stop to listen for the ambient noise of the countryside and then cautiously proceeded forward.

They avoided villages and paved roads, but the farms were also problematic. It was summer, planting season, crop season, harvest season. The combine harvesters, the simple threshers, the tractors, the field-hands were out everywhere. They had to walk around the perimeter of busy fields just to avoid the workers.

They walked through the meadows and woods for six hours,finally heading in a southerly direction. Tatiana wanted desperately to stop. But he wasn't slowing his stride and so she wouldn't slow hers.

They came to a potato field and she, very hungry, walked out in front of him. He immediately grabbed her and pulled her back. "Don't walk in front of me, You don't know anything about this field."

"Oh, and you do."

"Yes, because I've seen thousands like it."

"I've seen a field before, Alexander."

"A mined field?"

This gave her pause. "It's a potato field. It's not mined."

"And you know this how? Did you look at it through your binoculars? Did you examine the ground? Did you crawl through it, your bayonet in front of you feeling for the mines? Or are you just thinking that when you were a little girl growing up in the Luga fields, they weren't mined?"

"Stop it, okay?" she said quietly.

He took out the binoculars. He examined the earth. He said he thought it looked safe, but he wasn't taking any chances. He pored over a relief map for a few minutes, and said, "Let's go to the left. On the right there's a highway. Too dangerous. But the woods on the other side are thick and cover about ten miles."

He let her dig out five or six potatoes from the edge of the field.

The sun was setting by the time they got to the woods. When they stopped at a stream for a drink, Tatiana said, "Maybe we could catch a fish? If you build a fire, I can cook these potatoes and a fish. We'll eat. Break camp, you know." She wanted to smile at him but he looked so grim that she reconsidered.

"Fire? You've completely lost your mind, haven't you? They smelled my cigarette in a barn. What do you think their dogs are trained to sniff out, if not the scent of cooking fish?"

"Oh, Alexander. They're not looking for us anymore. They're not here."

"No, they're there." He waved in a nebulous direction. "By the time they're here, it'll be too late."

"So we're not going to eat?" Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

"We'll eat the potatoes raw."

"Great," muttered Tatiana.

They ate the potatoes raw. They had their second to last can of Spam. Tatiana would have brought more, but who would have thought they weren't going to be able to build a fire, to cook a fish, a potato? They washed again, he smoked again and said, "Ready?"

"Ready for what?"

"We have to go."

"Oh, please no more, no more! It's eight in the evening. We need to rest, we'll walk tomorrow during the day." She wanted to add that she was afraid to walk at night, but didn't want him to see her weakness, so she said nothing, waiting for him to do the right thing.

He was silent.

She was silent.

"Let's go until ten," he said with a sigh. "Then we'll stop."

She stayed very close behind him. But she hated that there was no one behindher . She kept feeling that there was someone there, and would whirl around every time Alexander stopped to listen to the woods. Once, something fell, a rock rolled, or a branch hit something, and Tatiana cried out and grabbed for Alexander.

He put his hand on her. "What, Tatiasha?" he said softly.

"Nothing, nothing."

Patting her, he said, "Let's stop."

She had to bite her lip to keep from begging him to find a barn, a shed, a ditch near a house, a mined field even, anything as long as they didn't have to spend the night in the woods.

He built them a small lean-to with some sturdy branches and the trench blanket. He said he would be right along, but after fifteen minutes of not being right along, she climbed out and found him sitting against a nearby tree, smoking.

"Shura," she whispered. "What are you doing?"

"Nothing. Go to sleep. We have a long day tomorrow."

"Come in the lean-to."

"It's too small, I'm fine here."

"It's not too small. We'll sleep side by side, come." She pulled on his arm. He pulled it away. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

Kneeling by him, she studied him and then her hands went on his face. "Shura..."

"Look," he said, "you've got to stop fighting with me. I'm on your side. You have to let me do what I know we need to do. I can't have it out with you every time we're in danger."

"I know," she said. "I'm sorry. But you know I can't help it. It's my nature."

"Youhave to help it. I know it's hard, and I know you're overwhelmed, but you have to win that battle inside yourself. One way or another, you have to make it right inside you. Or don't you care if the Huns win?" His arms went around her.

She pressed her face into his throat. "I care if the Huns win. I will try, all right?" she whispered.

"You willdo ," he said, holding her. "You will do as I say, and you will not heal those who mean to kill us, that's what you will do." He took her face into his hands. "Tania, last time in Morozovo, I let you go, but not this time. This time we live together or we die together."

"Yes, Alexander," she breathed out.

"I've put away everything in my nature except what I need to do to get us out of here, and you will put away everything in yours."

"Yes, Alexander. Come in and sleep."

He shook his head.

"Please," she whispered. "I'm scared at night in the woods."

He came inside and fit in behind her. She covered them up with her cashmere blanket. "I bought this for you," she said. "My first Christmas in New York."

"It's light and warm," he said. "Good blanket.Oh, God, make small the old, star-eaten blanket of the sky, that I may fold it round me, and in comfort lie."

They lay fitted into each other, like two metal bowls.

"Tania," he said, "tell me, I won't be upset. I wanted you to be happy. Have you been with someone else?"

"I have not," she said, pausing slightly, remorsefully, remembering how close she had come with Jeb, how close she had come with Edward. "Who is blessed like you, endowed like you with gifts from the gods?" Tatiana felt Alexander's body tense. She wanted to ask him, but couldn't.

"I haven't." He paused. "Though I would have liked to once, twice, to stave off death."

She closed her eyes. "Yes, me too," she said. "You want to finish the earlier...staving off?"

"No," he said.

When she opened her eyes again, it was still dark and he was not behind her. He was sitting outside the lean-to by the trees, with a machine gun in his hands. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Watching over you," he replied.

Tatiana brought the blanket out and covered him with it, and then lay down on the ground with her head in his lap. She closed her eyes and restlessly slept.

When she awoke, her head was covered by the blanket. She moved it off her and found him staring at her in the near darkness and smoking. His body was as stiff as a springboard.

"What's wrong?" she whispered.

"I didn't want to drop ashes on your hair."

"No, I mean...what'swrong? "

Alexander looked away. "I don't think we're going to make it, Tatiana," he whispered.

She watched him for a moment and then closed her eyes, settling deeper into his lap. "Live as if you have faith," she said, "and faith shall be given to you."

He said nothing.

She took the rings off her neck. She fitted the small one onto her ring finger and took his hand--though it took some doing to get him to release the gun--and slipped the larger band onto his finger. He squeezed her hand, and then picked up the M1911 again.

"Do you want to sleep?I'll sit."

"No," he said. "I can't sleep."

She caressed his arm. "What can I do?" She nudged him. "AnythingI can do?"

"No."

"No?" With surprise.

"No," he repeated flatly. "Too much around us. I'm not losing the edge, not even for a moment. Look what nearly happened."

Tatiana slept. He shook her awake sometime when the trees turned blue with dawn. Silently they brushed their teeth, picked up their things. She went a few meters away into the woods and when she returned, his back was to her.

"Are you hungry?" Tatiana asked, and before she was finished inflecting, Alexander whirled around, two cocked pistols pointing at her. A second went by before he lowered his arms and without a word turned back to what he was doing.

She went to see what he was doing. He was going through every inch of her backpack. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

"What are you looking for?"

"You have any more cigarettes?"

"Of course. I brought six packs."

He paused. "Besides them."

She paused. "You smokedsix packs of cigarettes last night?"

He resumed looking through the backpack.

"What about the pack you took from the Soviets?"

"What about it?" said Alexander.

Tatiana came to him, took the backpack out of his hands. She tried to take the weapons out of his belt but he wouldn't let her. She hugged him with the pistols and the ammunition belt between them. "Shura," she whispered. "Darling, husband, it'll be--"

"Let's go," he said, moving away. "Let's get going."

They got going. This time they headed south. Gradually he stopped letting her get even a meter away. There was no swimming in streams, no fire, and they were out of Spam and crackers. They picked some blueberries while walking. They found another field of potatoes.

At the end of the day, she asked if they could build a fire. After all, they hadn't heard anything suspicious all day. He told her no. She was surprised they had gone only ten miles, they seemed to be moving so slowly. Tatiana wondered if he was for some reason afraid to get to Berlin. But why? "I think we're very close. We seem close. Don't you think?"

"No. We're--yes, we're only about six miles away."

"We can do that by tomorrow."

"No. I think we should wait in the woods for a while," he said.

"Wait in the woods? But you insist on walking, you don't want to stop."

"Let's stop."

"When we stop, we can't build a fire, can't cook, can't eat, can't swim, or sleep, or...anything. What are we waiting in the woods for?"

"They'll be looking for us now. Don't you hear it?"

"Hear what?"

"Them. Around the edges, in the distance, agonizing back and forth, don't you hear it?"

Tatiana didn't. "Even so," she allowed, "North Berlin is spread out. They're not going to be looking for Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

us everywhere."

"They are. We should stay here."

She put her hands on him. "Come on, Alexander," she said. "Let's go, let's push on, push on until we're done."

He moved away and said, "Fine, if that's what you want. Let's go."

The woods became sparse in the last stretch before Berlin. There was a sloping countryside, a flat countryside, some trees partitioning the fields. They were moving slowly, and once they sat in the bushes for two hours because, on the horizon, Alexander glimpsed a truck gliding by.

There were no streams and nowhere to hide. He was getting more and more tense, holding his sub-machine-gun in front of him as he walked. Tatiana didn't know how to help him. They were out of cigarettes.

At nine in the evening, as he was letting her rest her feet, she said, "You don't think the countryside is quiet?"

"No," he said. "The countryside is anything but quiet. On the periphery of the fields, in the echo of distance, I hear trucks constantly, I hear voices, I hear dogs barking."

"I don't hear them," she said.

"Why would you?"

"Why wouldyou ?"

"Because that's what I do. Come on, are you ready?"

"No. Can you show me on the map where we are?"

Sighing, he brought out the relief map. She followed his finger. "Shura, but that's great! A few kilometers ahead of us is a hill, with not too big an elevation--six hundred meters is not too big? Six hundred meters up, six hundred meters down. When we get down on the other side, we'll stop, and Berlin is just a few kilometers away. We'll be in the American sector by noon tomorrow."

Alexander watched her. Without saying a word, he put the map away and began walking.

The moon was out in the clear sky and it was possible to walk at night without shining a flashlight. When they got to the top of the hill, Tatiana thought she could almost see Berlin in the distance. "Come on," she said. "We can run the last six hundred meters to the bottom."

He sank into the ground. "It's obvious to me you were not paying attention to the war around Leningrad. Have you learned nothing from Pulkovo, from Sinyavino? We're not moving from the top of the hill. It's the only advantage we have, height. Perhaps a small element of surprise. At the bottom of the hill, we might as well wait for them with our hands up."

She remembered the Germans at Pulkovo and Sinyavino. She just felt too exposed here on the bare hilltop, with only a tree and a few bushes. But Alexander said they weren't going. Therefore they weren't Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

going.

He didn't build a lean-to, telling her to take nothing out of the backpack except the blanket if she needed it, so they could be ready to run at any moment.

"Run? Shura, look how quiet everything is, how peaceful."

Alexander wasn't listening. He walked away and began doing something on the ground. Tatiana could just make out his silhouette. "What are you doing?" she asked, coming closer.

"Digging. Can't you see?"

She watched him for a moment. "What are you digging?" she asked quietly. "A grave?"

Without glancing up, he said, "No, a trench."

Tatiana didn't understand him. She feared the lack of cigarettes and his acute anxiety were turning into a temporary (temporary, right?) madness. She wanted to tell him he was being paranoid, but she didn't think that would be helpful, so she bent down and helped him dig with a knife and her bare hands until the pit was long enough for him to lie down in and be covered.

He was finished around two in the morning.

They sat under the linden tree, Alexander against the trunk, Tatiana in his lap. He refused to lie down or to put down his machine gun, but once she felt it fall on top of her only to scare her and make him jump up, knocking her to the ground.

After they sat back down, she tried to sleep, but it was impossible to relax into sleep with his body so tense around her.

She heard him say, "You shouldn't have come back for me. You had a good life. You were taking care of our son. You were working, you had friends, the promise of new things, New York. We were over. You should have let it be."

What are you talking about? she wanted to cry out. He didn't mean what he was saying, no matter how grim he sounded. "Well, why then did you give me Orbeli in my nightmare if you wanted me to let it be?" she asked. "Why did you give me a glimpse of your wasted life?"

"I didn't give you Orbeli for a nightmare," he said. "I gave you Orbeli to have faith."

"No!" She jumped up and away from him.

"Keep your voice down," he said, without jumping up.

She lowered her voice, remaining standing. "You gave me Orbeli to damn me!" Here came the deluge.

"Ah, yes, becausethat's what I was thinking during those last moments." He twisted his boot into the ground.

"You gave me Orbeli to torture me!" Tatiana cried. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

"I said keep your voice down!"

"If you really wanted me to think you were dead, you would have said nothing. If you really wanted me to think you were dead, you would not have asked Sayers to put your damned medal into my bag. You knew,knew , that if I had any hint, a single word that you were alive, I would not be able to live my life. Orbeli was that word."

"You wanted a word, you got a f*cking word. Can't have it both ways, Tatiana."

"We were supposed to be all about truth, and you ended our life on the biggest lie imaginable. You put me on the rack every day. Your life, your death were my meathooks. I couldn't twist my way out. And you knew it!"

They stopped for a moment. Tatiana tried to compose her trembling body. "That horseman has chased me every day, every night of my life and you're telling me I shouldn't have come back for you?" Leaning down, she grabbed him and shook him. He didn't protest, didn't defend himself, but after a moment pushed her slightly away.

"Take off my clothes," he said. "Come to me, lie with me uncovered, lie naked with me and tear the raw flesh off my bones with your teeth, just like in your dream. As you have been doing, eat me alive piece by piece, Tatiana."

"Oh my God, Alexander." Helplessly she sank to the ground.

And so they sat, under the linden tree in June, his back to one side, hers to another. Covering her face, she lay down on the earth. He sat with all the guns around him.

Hours passed. She heard his voice. "Tatiana," he said very quietly, and he didn't have to say anymore, because she heard them herself. They were coming. And this time, the sound of their engines and their shouting and their dogs wasn't off on the distant horizon, this time, the insistent barking of the dogs was just a hillside away.

She was about to jump up when his hand held her down. He didn't say a word, just held her down. "What are you doing," she whispered. "Why are you sitting? Let's run! We'll be down the hill in sixty seconds."

"And they will be at the top of the hill in sixty seconds. How many times do I have to tell you?"

"Get up! We'll run--"

"Where? There are rolling hills and fields all around us. You think you can outrun German shepherds?"

He was still holding her to the earth. She stopped hyperventilating. "Will those dogs sniff us out?"

"No matter where we are, yes."

Tatiana looked down the hill. She couldn't see them, but she heard their frantic noise, and the sound of men holding them, ordering them to be quiet, in Russian. But she knew the dogs were only barking because they were so close to their prey.

"Go into the trench, Shura," she said. "I'm going to climb this tree to hide." Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

"Better tie yourself to it. They'll throw a smoke bomb, you won't be able to hold on."

"Go. And give me the binoculars. I'll tell you how many of them there are." He let go of her and they jumped up. "You might as well give me my P-38." She paused. "We have to kill the dogs. Without the dogs, they won't know where we are."

And here Alexander smiled. "You don't think two dogs lying dead at their feet will give them an inkling?"

She didn't smile back. "Give me the grenades, too. Maybe I can throw them."

"I'll throw them. I don't want you popping the pin too early. When you fire the pistol, watch for the recoil. It's not bad with a P-38, but still it'll give you a jolt back. And even if you have one round left in the clip, if you have a moment, reload. Better to have eight bullets than one."

She nodded.

"Don't let anyone get too close to the tree, the farther they are away, the easier it is for them to miss." He gave her the gun, the rope, all the 9-millimeter clips in a canvas bag, and nudged her forward. "Go," he said, "but don't come down for anything."

"Don't be silly," she said. "I'm coming down if I'm needed down. If you need me down then that's where I'll be."

"No," he said. "You will come down when I tell you to come down. I cannot be worrying about where you are and what you're doing."

"Shura..."

He loomed over her. "You will come down when I tell you to come down, do you understand?"

"Yes," she said in a small voice. She tucked the weapon into her slacks and raised her arms. The first branch of the tree was too high for her to reach. He lifted her up, she grabbed on and climbed. He ran to the trench and lined up all of his pistols and magazines, threaded the ammo belt into the light machine gun he set up on a bipod, wrapping the rest of the belt around himself and finally settling down behind the bipod. The Shpagin was by his side. The belt had 150 rounds in it.

Tatiana climbed as high as she could go. It was hard to see: the linden tree, known for its shade, was leafy in the summer. She broke off some of the softer branches and perched herself astride a thick branch close to the trunk. From her height she could make out the sloping countryside even in the first haze of dawn. The shapes of the men were small and far down below. They were scattered, meters from each other, not a formation but a blot.

"How many?" Alexander called out.

She looked through her binoculars. "Maybe twenty." Her heart was pulverizing her breastbone. At least twenty, she wanted to add, but didn't. The dogs she couldn't see. What she could see, however, was the men holding the dogs, because they were moving faster than the others and more jerkily, as if the dogs were yanking them forward.

"How far now?" Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

She couldn't tell how far. They were down below, still small. Alexander would be able to tell how far, she thought, but he can't do both, spot them and kill them. The Commando had a sight and was extremely accurate, maybe he could spot the dogs with it?

"Shura, can you see the dogs?"

She waited to hear from him. She saw him picking up the Commando, aiming it; there was a sound of two shots being fired and then the barking stopped.

"Yes," he replied.

Tatiana looked through her binoculars. The commotion below was considerable. The band started dispersing. "They're moving out!"

But Alexander did not have to be told. He jumped up and opened machine-gun fire. For many seconds that's all Tatiana heard, the bursts of popping. When he stopped there was a whistling sound, and a grenade exploded a hundred meters below them. The next one exploded fifty meters below them. The next one twenty-five.

"Where, Tania?" he yelled out, machine gun rest still propped against his shoulder.

She kept looking through her binoculars. Her eyes were playing tricks on her. The men now seemed to be crawling in their dark uniforms, crawling along the ground, moving closer. Were they crawling or writhing?

A few got up. "There are two at one o'clock, three at eleven," she called out. Alexander opened fire again. But then he stopped suddenly and threw the machine gun off him. What happened? When Tatiana saw him picking up the Shpagin, she knew he must have run out of ammunition. But the Shpagin had only half a drum in it--maybe thirty-five rounds. They were gone in seconds. He picked up the Colt pistols, fired eight times, paused for two seconds, fired eight times, paused for two seconds. The rhythm of war, Tatiana thought, wanting to close her eyes. The three men at eleven o'clock suddenly became five at two o'clock, and four more at one. Alexander, crouching down, never stopped firing except for the two seconds it took him to reload.

There was rapid fire from below. It was haphazard fire, but it was coming their way. She looked again. The men firing were giving off a flame charge every time their machine guns went off. It made them much easier to spot. Alexander spotted them. It occurred to Tatiana that his pistols were giving off a flame charge that made him also easier to see, and she yelled for him to get down. He was back on his stomach in the trench.

One man was coming up the hill, only about a hundred meters below them, right in front of Tatiana's tree.

She saw him throw something, and it whistled through the air, landed very close to Alexander and exploded. The bushes and the grass in front of him burst into flames. Alexander popped the pins out of two grenades and threw them, but he threw them blindly, he couldn't see where the men were.

Tatiana could. She cocked her P-38, aimed it at the shape in front of her, and before she had a moment to reconsider, fired. The recoil was violent, it threw her shoulder back, but the deafening sound was worse, because now she could not hear. The bushes and the grass in front of Alexander's trench were Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

burning.

Alexander? she thought she whispered, but could hear no sound coming out of her mouth. She looked through the binoculars. It was getting lighter, and the shapes on the ground were still. She fired again and again. There were no more mortar shells, but suddenly there was sporadic machine-gun fire from below, all aimed at Alexander's small trench. Tatiana found them, lying behind the bushes, halfway up the hill. Because she couldn't speak to Alexander, and could not hear his response to her, she aimed her weapon again, not sure if the bullets would carry two hundred meters, but fired anyway. She wished she could hear sounds from below, but she couldn't. She reloaded six times.

Alexander continued to fire. The bushes may have gone up in flames from the explosives out of his own weapons. Tatiana couldn't be sure of anything anymore. She pointed her gun down the hill, closed her eyes and fired and reloaded and fired until all the bullets were gone.

Then all was quiet. Maybe all wasn't quiet.

She opened her eyes.

"Watch your back!" she screamed, and Alexander rolled out of the trench just as a soldier, coming up behind him, shot into the pit. Alexander kicked the rifle out of the man's hands, kicked him again in the legs, pulled him down and they grappled with one another on the ground. The man grabbed a knife out of his boot. Tatiana, losing all sense of self, nearly fell out of the tree. She ripped off the rope around her, scrambled down and ran across the clearing to the two fighting men. Stop, stop, she shouted, raising her pistol, cocking it, knowing it didn't have any bullets left. Stop, but she couldn't hear herself so how could they hear her? The man was forcing his knife toward Alexander, who was barely stopping him.

Tatiana ran up close and, raising her empty-chambered pistol, brought it down hard on the soldier's neck. He jumped from the blow but did not release Alexander--his fingers remained around the knife handle, Alexander's remained around the man's wrist, just stopping him from sinking that knife into his abdomen. Crying out, Tatiana hit the man again, but she couldn't hit him hard enough. Alexander grabbed the man around the neck, twisted him fast and hard, and he went slack. Throwing the man off him, he sprang to his feet, all bloodied and wired. He said something, she didn't hear. He motioned her back. Tatiana dropped her gun and backed away. Picking up her pistol, Alexander aimed at the soldier and pulled the trigger, but there was no sound.

The gun is empty, Tatiana wanted to say, but Alexander knew that. He picked up the Commando which still had bullets in the cylinder, aimed at the soldier, but didn't fire. The man's neck was broken. Dropping the gun, he came to her then and held her to him for a few moments to calm her down.

They were both panting hard. Alexander was covered with black as hand bleeding from his arm, his head, the top of his chest, his shoulder.

He said something and she said, what?

He bent to her ear. "Well done, Tania. But I thought I was clear: don't move until I tell you to move."

She looked up at him to see if he was joking. She couldn't tell.

Squeezing her, he said, "We have to go. We have only revolver rounds left."

Did you get them all? she mouthed. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

"Stop shouting. I'm sure I didn't, and in any case, they'll be sending a hundred men next, with bigger bombs. Let's run."

"Wait, you're injured--"

He put his hand over her mouth. "Stop shouting," Alexander said to her. "You'll get your hearing back in a little while, just keep quiet and follow me."

Tatiana pointed at his bleeding chest. Shrugging, he crouched down. She ripped away the sleeve of his shirt. It was a shell grazing; she pulled the pieces of shrapnel out of his shoulder; one was deeply stuck in his deltoid and pectoral. Shura, look, she thought she said.

He leaned to her. "Just grab it with your fingers and pull it out."

She yanked it out, nearly fainting at the pain she knew he must have felt. He winced but did not move. She washed out the wound with an antiseptic and bandaged it.

"What about your face?"

His scalp wound had reopened.

"Stop speaking. It's fine. Later. Let's just go." Her face was stained with his blood from when he had pressed her to him. She didn't wipe it off.

Leaving the empty machine gun, Alexander picked up his pistols, the sub-machine-gun, and the backpack; Tatiana grabbed her nurse's bag and they ran as fast as they could down the hill.

Around the perimeters of the fields along tree walls and stone walls they ran and walked and crawled for the next two to three hours until the dwellings became progressively more residential and less farm-like, and finally there were streets and finally there was a white sign posted on the side of a three-story bombed-out building that said, "YOU ARE ENTERING THE BRITISH SECTOR OF THECITY OFB ERLIN."

Tatiana could hear now. She grabbed his good arm, smiled and said, "Almost there."

There was no reply from Alexander.

And in a few hundred feet she knew why. Berlin was not abandoned, and there were trucks and jeeps on the road, and though many of them belonged to the Royal armed forces, quite a few of them didn't. They saw a truck up ahead barreling forward, honking, with the hammer and sickle on the crest, and Alexander yanked her into a doorway and said, "How far to the American sector?"

"I don't know. I have a street map of Berlin."

It turned out to be five kilometers. It took them all day. They would run from building to building and then stop in broken-down entrance-ways, hallways, doorways, and wait.

By the time they got to the American sector it was four in the afternoon. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

They found the U.S. embassy on Clayallee at four thirty.

And they could not cross the street to it, because the hammer-and-sickle jeeps were parked four in a row across the entrance.

This time it was Tatiana who pulled him inside the doorway, under the stairs.

"They're not necessarily here for us," she said, trying to sound optimistic. "I think it's standard procedure."

"I'm sure it is. You don't think they've been notified to be on the lookout for a man about my size and a woman, yours?"

"No, I don't think so," she said in a doubting voice.

"All right then, let's go." He began to get up.

She stopped him.

"Tatiana, what are you thinking?"

She thought about it. "I'm an American citizen. I have a right to ask to go into the embassy."

"Yes, but you'll be stopped before you get a chance to exercise that right."

"Well, we have to do something."

He was quiet. She kept thinking, looking him over. He wasn't so tense as before. The fight seemed to have left his body. Reaching out, she touched his face. "Hey," she said. "Rear up. We're not done fighting, soldier." She pulled on him. "Let's go."

"Where to now?"

"To the military governor's house. It's not too far from here, I think."

When they got to the U.S. command headquarters, Tatiana hid inside a building across the boulevard, changed from olive drab into her grimy nurse's uniform, and motioned Alexander to follow her to the armed, gated entrance. It was five in the evening. There were no Soviet vehicles nearby.

"I'll wait here, you go in by yourself and then come out for me," he said.

She took hold of his hand. "Alexander," she said, "I'm not leaving you behind. Let's go. Just put your weapons away."

"I'm not crossing the street without my weapon."

"It's empty! And you're coming up to the military governor's house. Who is going to let you in brandishing weapons? Put them away."

They had to leave the machine gun--it was too big. With the other weapons in the backpack, they Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

walked up to the gate and Tatiana, standing shoulder to shoulder with Alexander, asked the sentry if she could see Governor Mark Bishop. "Tell him Nurse Jane Barrington is calling for him," she said.

Alexander was looking at her. "Not Tatiana Barrington?"

"Jane was the name on the original Red Cross documents," she replied. "Besides, Tatiana sounds so Russian."

They stared at each other. "Itis so Russian," he said quietly.

Mark Bishop came to the gate. He took one look at Tatiana, one look at Alexander and said, "Come through." Before they got inside he said, "Nurse Barrington, what a ruckus you've been causing."

"Governor, this is my husband, Alexander Barrington," Tatiana said in English.

"Yes," was all Bishop said, before falling completely silent. "Is he injured?"

"Yes."

"Are you?"

"No. Governor, could one of your men please give us a ride to the embassy? We need to see the consul, John Ravenstock. He is waiting for us."

"He is, is he?"

"Yes."

"Is he waiting for your husband, too?"

"Yes. My husband is American citizen."

"Where are his papers?"

Tatiana leveled a look at Bishop. "Governor," she said. "Please. Let's havethe consulate take care of everything. No use getting you involved, too. I would really appreciatea "--special emphasis on the indefinite article--"ride."

Bishop summoned two of his on-duty privates. "Would you like a jeep, Nurse Barrington, or..."

"A covered truck would be best, Governor."

"But of course."

She asked Bishop if Dr. Flanagan and Nurse Davenport had reached the American sector.

"Not without a fight, but we did get them back two days ago, yes."

"I'm very sorry. I'm glad they're back and safe."

"Don't apologize to me, Nurse Barrington. Apologize to them." Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

Two privates drove Tatiana and Alexander to the embassy. They sat in the back on the floor, close together, not speaking. Tatiana tried to wipe the dried blood off his temple. He pulled his head away.

When the doors opened, they were on American soil.

"Everything will be all right, Shura," she whispered before they got out. "You'll see."

But when the summoned John Ravenstock, wearing black tie, came out of the embassy doors into the paved courtyard where they were standing, he was neither smiling nor friendly. Either he was always a serious man wearing a tuxedo or else he did not want to make a single gesture that could be interpreted as warm.

"Mr. Ravenstock, Sam Gulotta in Washington told us to come see you," said Tatiana.

"Oh, believe me, I've been hearing quite a lot from everybody these past three days, including Sam, yes." He sighed deeply. "Nurse Barrington, come with me. Have your husband wait here. Does he need a doctor?"

"Later," she said, taking hold of Alexander's hand. "Right now he needs to come in with us. We will speak privately if you wish and he will wait outside, but he has to come in. Or we speak now in front of him."

Ravenstock shook his head. "You know," he said, "it's six in the evening. My working day finishes at four. I have a reception to go to tonight. My wife is waiting."

"My husband is waiting," Tatiana said quietly.

"Yes, yes. Your husband, your husband. But the working day is over! Come in, but I'm telling you, I can't deal with this properly at the moment. I'm going to be egregiously late."

They walked through the embassy doors and up the wide stairs to the second floor, to Ravenstock's wood-paneled office. He called a guard to come and stay by Alexander in the waiting room and led Tatiana inside. Tatiana turned to glance at Alexander, not wanting to leave him, but they were inside the American embassy, and it was better than leaving him in Soviet-occupied Berlin in an abandoned building. Alexander was already taking out his light and asking the guard for cigarettes.

"Please don't sit down, we don't have that kind of time," said Ravenstock, closing the door. He was a heavy, gray-haired man in his fifties; he had a long sloping gray mustache and gray eyebrows that grew over his eyes.

Tatiana remained standing.

"Do you have any idea what kind of trouble you have caused?" said Ravenstock hotly. "You don't, do you? Nurse Barrington, you are in Berlin by privilege! To abuse your Red Cross uniform and to so incite our former allies is pure folly. But I don't have time to get into it right now."

"Sir, the consulate office in United States will authorize the issuing of a passport to my husband--"

"Passport! Yes, Sam Gulotta has been in touch with me about this. Forget about a passport. We have a very big problem on our hands, a very tough situation, you do realize that, or no?" Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

"I realize--"

"No, I don't think you do. The Commander of the Berlin garrison, the Soviet military administration in Germany, heck, the National Security Department in Moscow, have been completely overwrought about this matter!"

"The Commander of the Berlin garrison?" Tatiana said with surprise. "General Stepanov has been overwrought?"

"No, not him, he was replaced two days ago, by a Moscow man, a veteran general, Rymakov or something."

Tatiana paled.

"And they are all in unison, crying for your blood!" He paused. "For you both. Your husband apparently broke every military and civil law on their books. He is a Soviet citizen, they say, amajor in their army. First they accused him of treason, of espionage, of desertion, of anti-Soviet agitation, and when we said that we did not have him in our custody, they accused him of being an American spy! We asked if he was both, a traitor to them and a spy for us? We asked them to pick. They refused and upped the ante on you, too. You've been on their class enemies list since 1943, did you know that? You didn't just escape apparently, you deserted your Red Army post as a military nurse, and you killed five of their border troops, including a decorated lieutenant, in order to get out of Russia. They told me your brother is a..." Ravenstock scratched his head. "I can't remember the word they used. Apparently a traitor of the worst kind."

"My brother is dead," said Tatiana, holding on to the back of a chair.

"Bottom line is, Nurse Barrington, they want you both extradited into their hands here in Berlin. So when you ask about a passport, you have no idea what you're talking about. Now I really have to run, look, it's six fifteen!"

Tatiana sat down in the chair in front of Ravenstock's desk.

"I asked you not to sit!"

"Mr. Ravenstock," she said calmly. "We have a small son in United States. I am U.S. citizen now. My husband is a U.S. citizen, he came to Russia with his parents when he was a small boy, he could not help that he had to register for compulsory draft, he could not help that his parents were shot and killed by the NKVD. Do you want me to read you the regulations on citizenship?"

"No, thank you. I know them by heart."

"He is an American citizen. He wants to come back home."

"I understand that's what hewants , but do you understand that he has been convicted by the Soviet authorities under the laws of their country for desertion and treason? And just to make matters more complicated, not only has he escaped, which is a crime in itself, escaping just punishment, or so they tell me--and you colluded to help him, which is also a crime--but you and he cut a swathe through sixty of their men! They arescreaming for your blood!" He glanced at his watch, ripping off his bow tie in frustration. "Oh, no. Oh, no. I can't tell you how late you are making me." Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

"Sir," said Tatiana. "We desperately need your help."

"Of course you do. But you should have thought of what you were doing before you embarked on this lunatic mission."

"I came back to Europe to find my husband. He never meant to be Soviet. Not like me. I was Soviet-born, and Soviet-raised." She swallowed. "But it doesn't matter. I don't matter in this, the only one who matters is my husband. If you talk to him you will find out he served on the side of the Allies honorably, you will see he was a great soldier who deserves to go back home. The U.S. Army would be proud to commission a man like my husband." Tatiana's voice did not tremble. "I was Soviet citizen. I did not kill those men on the Finnish border, but I did escape, they are right about that. You have every right, to turn me over to the Soviet authorities. I will willingly go, as long as I know my husband returns home where he belongs."

She realized even as she was saying it how absurd it was, how ridiculous! As if Alexander would allow any scenario in which Tatiana would be handed over to the Soviets while he moseyed off safely home. She lowered her head, but couldn't let Ravenstock know of her bluff. She raised her eyes.

Ravenstock sat on the edge of his desk and watched her. His body stopped fidgeting for a short spell until it remembered again it needed to be someplace else. He started fumbling with his torn-off tie. "Look, we are not in the business of judging our allies." He fell quiet. "But the Soviets are proving themselves to be a determined and vicious force in the occupation of Europe. It's true they do not want to make any concessions to the Allies. But you both did break a number of their laws. This is not in dispute."

Tatiana remained mute, her intense gaze on Ravenstock.

The consul tapped nervously at his watch. "Nurse Barrington, I wouldlove to sit here with you and discuss the merits and demerits of the Soviet Union, but you are making meimpossibly late. I have to, I simply must resolve this matter, but I have to resolve it tomorrow."

"Please telegraph Sam Gulotta," she said. "He will give you all information on Alexander Barrington you need."

Ravenstock lifted a heavy file off his desk. "A copy of that information is already in my hands. Tomorrow morning at eight sharp we will speak to your husband."

"Who is we?" she breathed out.

"Myself, the ambassador, the military governor, and the three inspector generals of the armed forces here in Berlin. After he is questioned by our military, we will decide what to do. Be aware, though, that the army is very strict on military matters, be they pertaining to soldiers of our own army or someone else's. Desertion, treason, these are grave charges. There is nothing graver."

"What about me? Are you going to questionme ?"

Ravenstock rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I don't think that will be necessary, Nurse Barrington. I've spoken to you plenty. Now, will you please stand up from my chair and go tend to your husband?"

They opened the door to his office. Alexander was sitting in the reception area, smoking. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

Ravenstock came up to Alexander. "You will be questioned tomorrow, um--what is your rank now, anyway?" he said in English.

"Captain," Alexander replied in English.

Ravenstock shook his head. "You say captain, they told us major, your wife says they took away your rank. I understand nothing. Tomorrow at eight, Captain Belov." He looked him over. "You may eat in the embassy canteen, or..."

"Brought up to the room will be fine," said Alexander.

"A military man indeed." Ravenstock mulled Alexander's shredded, muddied, bloodied clothes. "Do you have anything else to wear?"

"No."

"Tomorrow at seven, I will have housekeeping bring you a spare captain's uniform from headquarters. Please be ready to be escorted to the conference room at seven fifty-five."

"I'll be ready."

"You're sure you don't need someone to take a look at your injuries?"

"Thank you, I have someone."

Ravenstock nodded. "See you tomorrow. Guard, please take them to the sixth-floor residences. Have housekeeping make up a room for them and bring them some dinner. You two must be starving."

Their room was large, with wood floors, area rugs, three large windows and high ceilings. The ornate crown molding ran around the perimeter of the walls. There were comfortable chairs and a table and even a private bathroom. Alexander dropped all their things on the floor and sat in an upholstered chair. Tatiana walked around the room for a few minutes, looking at the pictures, at the crown molding, at the area rugs, at anything but Alexander.

"So how apoplectic are the Soviets?" he asked from behind her.

"Oh, you know," she said, not turning around.

"I can imagine."

"They replaced Stepanov with someone else," Tatiana said, turning to him.

Alexander's hands twitched. "He told me when he came to see me in February that he was surprised he had lasted as long as he had. Things are getting particularly nasty for the generals in the post-war Soviet army. Too many campaigns gone wrong, too many men lost, too much blame to lay." He lowered his head.

"How did he know you were there?" Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

"He saw my name in the Special Camp rolls."

"They wouldn't letme look through the rolls."

"You are not the military commander of the Soviet garrison in Berlin."

Tatiana collapsed onto the window ledge and put her face into her hands. "What's happening?" she said. "I thought the hard part was behind us. I thought this was going to be the easy part."

"You thought this was going to be the easy part!" Alexander exclaimed. "What about our life has ever been easy? Did you think you would step onto American soil and they would welcome us with a reception?"

"No, but I thought after I explained it to Ravenstock--"

"Perhaps Ravenstock is not familiar withall your powers of persuasion, Tatiana," said Alexander. "He is a consul, a diplomat. He follows orders and he has to do what's best for the relations between the two countries."

"Sam told me to ask for his help. He wouldn't have--"

"Sam, Sam, and who is this Sam, and why do you think the NKGB will listen to him?"

She wrung her hands. "I knew it," she said. "We should have never come here! We should have run north where they wouldn't be expecting us. We should've taken a cargo boat to Sweden. Sweden would've given us asylum."

"That's the first I'm hearing ofthis plan, Tania."

"We didn't have time to think. Berlin, Berlin! Why would I ever have taken you to Berlin if I thought for a second we wouldn't find help here?"

There was a knock on the door. They looked at each other. Alexander got up to answer it, but Tatiana pointed to the bathroom and said, no, go there, don't come out, just in case.

It was housekeeping, with dinner and fresh towels.

"Do you have any cigarettes?" Tatiana asked, her voice cracking on every word. "I'll pay you if you have a pack--or two maybe?" The girl returned with three packs.

"Alexander? Are you all right?" It had been so quiet in the bathroom and Tatiana had been waiting for the girl to come back and didn't go get him, and it suddenly occurred to her that he could have hurt himself in there, and she ran to the door and pushed it open with such force, screaming, "ALEXANDER!" that she nearly knocked him off his feet.

"What's the matter with you?" he said. "Why are you screaming?"

"I don't--I...you were very quiet, I didn't--"

He took the cigarettes from her hands. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

"Look, they brought you food," she said, quieter, showing him the food trays. "They brought steak." She tried to smile. "When was the last time you had steak, Shura?"

"What's steak?" he said, and tried to smile, too.

They sat down at the table and moved the food around on their plates. Tatiana drank water. Alexander drank water and smoked.

"It's good, right?"

"It's good."

They moved it around some more, not looking at each other, not speaking. It got dark. Tatiana went to turn on the light.

"No, don't," he said.

The only light in the room was the short fuse of his cigarette, one after another.

Nothing was said, but there was no silence. Tatiana was screaming inside and she knew Alexander was smoking to mute his own screaming. To drown out hers.

Finally he said, "You learned English well."

And she said, "I once had a very good teacher," and started to cry.

"Shh," he said, looking not at her but past her to the open window. "Russian is somehow easier for us, more familiar."

"Yes, it hurts more to speak it," she said.

"Feels so comforting to speak it with you."

They stared at each other across the table.

"Oh, God," she said, "what are we going to do?"

"Nothing to do," he replied.

"Why do they need to speak to you? What's the point?"

"As always, when ever it's a military matter, it has to be dealt with in a military way. The Soviets took away my rank when they sentenced me, but they know they will get nowhere with the U.S. military if they say the man seeking safe passage is a civilian. The governor would not even think about it then, the matter would pass straight to Ravenstock. But the Soviets invoke treason, desertion, all highly provocative military words, especially to the Americans, and they know it. I haven't been a major for three years, yet they call me major, a commissioned high-ranking officer to incite them further. These words beg a correct military response. Which is why they will question me tomorrow."

"What do you think? How will it go?" Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

Alexander didn't reply, which to Tatiana was worse than a bad answer because it left her to imagine the unimaginable.

"No," she said. "No. I can't--I won't--I will not--" She raised her head and squared her shoulders. "They will give me over, too, then. You are not going alone."

"Don't be ridiculous."

"I'm--"

"Don't--be--ridiculous!" Alexander stood up but didn't come near her. "I don't...I refuse to have even a theoretical discussion about it."

"Not theoretical, Shura," said Tatiana. "They want me, too. I spoke to Ravenstock, remember? Stepanov himself told me. Class enemy list. They want us both handed over."

"Oh, for f*ck's sake!" he exclaimed. "You've really done it, haven't you?" Suddenly he went to the window and looked outside, as if calculating the distance to the ground from the sixth floor. "Tania, unlike me, you actually carry an American passport."

"Just a technicality, Alexander."

"Yes, a vital technicality. Also you're a civilian."

"I was a Red Army nurse, on a grant to the Red Cross."

"They won't hand you over."

"They will."

"No. I will speak to them tomorrow."

"No! Speak to them? Haven't you spoken enough? To Matthew Sayers, to Stepanov, you looked me in the eye and lied to my face, isn't it enough?" She shook her head. "You won't be speaking to anyone."

"I will."

She burst into tears. "What happened to we live together or we die together?"

"I lied."

"You lied!" She trembled. "Well, I should have known. Know this, they'renot taking you back. If you're going to Kolyma, I'm going, too."

"You have no idea what you're saying."

"You chose me," Tatiana said in a breaking voice, "then in Leningrad, because I was straight and true."

"And you choseme ," Alexander said, "because you knew I fiercely protected what was mine; as fiercely as Orbeli." Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

"Oh, God, I'm not leaving without you. If you go back to the Soviet Union, I go, too."

"Tania!" Alexander was not sitting anymore. He was standing in front of her, his despondent eyes glistening. "What are you talking about? You're making me want to tear my hair out, and yours, too. You're talking as if you've forgotten!"

"I haven't forgotten--"

"The interrogators will torture you until you tell them the truth about me or until you sign the confession they put in front of you. You sign and they shoot me dead on the spot and send you to Kolyma for ten years, for subverting the principles of the Soviet state by marrying a known spy and saboteur."

Tatiana put her hands up. "All right, Shura," she said. "All right." She saw he was losing control.

He grabbed her by the arms, pulled her up to stand in front of him. "And then do you know what will happen to you in the camps? Lest you think it's going to be just another adventure. You'll be stripped naked and bathed by men and then paraded naked down a narrow corridor between a dozen trustees who are always on the look-out for pretty girls--and they will notice a girl like you--and they will offer you a cushy position in the prison canteen or the laundry in exchange for your regular services, and you, being the good woman you are, will refuse, and they will beat you in the hall, and rape you, and then send you out logging, as they have done with all the women since 1943."

Tatiana, afraid for Alexander and his inflamed heart, said, "Please--"

"You'll be hauling pine onto flatbeds and by the time you are done, you won't be able to function as a woman, having lifted what no woman should lift, and then no one will want you, not even the trustee who takes anyone except women loggers because everyone knows they are damaged goods."

Pale, Tatiana tried to disengage herself from him.

"At the end of your sentence in 1956 you'll be released back into society, with all the things that once made you what you are gone." He paused, not letting go of her. "All the things, Tania. Gone."

All she could manage was a broken "Please...."

"All without our son," said Alexander, "without the boy who might grow up to change the world, and without me. There you will be--without your front teeth, childless and widowed, broken down and barren, sodomized, dehumanized--going back to your Fifth Soviet apartment. Is that what you prefer?" he asked. "I haven't seen your life in America, but tell me, willthat be your choice?"

Grim but determined, Tatiana said quietly, "You survived. I will, too."

"Thatwas you surviving!" Alexander yelled. "You didn't die in that scenario, did you? You want death? That's different." He let go of her and stepped away. "Death, all right. You will die from the cold, from the hunger. Leningrad didn't kill you; Kolyma will for sure. Ninety per cent of all themen who are sent there die. You will die after performing an abortion on yourself, from infection, from peritonitis, from pellagra, from TB, which will kill you for certain, or you'll be beaten to death after your streetcar gang rape." He paused. "Or before."

She put her hands over her ears. "God, Shura, stop," she whispered. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

He shuddered. She shuddered, too.

Alexander drew her to him, into his chest, into his arms. Though every breath out of him sounded as though exhaled from a throat lined with glass spikes, she felt better pressed against him.

"Tania, I survived because God made me a strong man. No one was going to get near me. I could shoot, I could fight, and I was not afraid of killing anybody who approached me. What about you? What would you have done?" His hand went on top of her head, and then he lifted her face to him. Pulling her arms away, he pushed Tatiana backward, and she fell on the bed. Sitting next to her, he said, "You can't protect yourself againstme --and I love you as much as it is possible for a man to love a woman." He shook his head. "Tatiasha, that world was not meant for a woman like you--which is why God didn't send you into it."

She placed her hand on his face. "But why would He sendyou into it?" she asked with quiet bitterness. "You--the king among men."

He didn't want to speak anymore.

She wanted to and couldn't.

He went to have a shower, and she curled into a ball in the chair by the window near the bed.

When he came out, just a towel around his waist, he said, "Will you come and look at my gash? I think it's getting infected."

He was right. He knew about such things. He sat very still while she gave him a shot of penicillin and cleaned the rip on his chest and shoulder with carbolic acid. "I'm going to stitch it," she said, taking out her surgical thread, suddenly remembering that she had used surgical thread to sew the Red Cross emblem onto a Finnish truck that took her out of the Soviet Union. She swayed from her weakness. She couldn't save Matthew Sayers.

"Don't stitch it, it's been too long already," Alexander said.

"No, it needs it. It will prevent infection, it'll heal better." How did she continue to speak?

She took out a syringe to anesthetize the area and he took her hand and said, "What's this?" He shook his head. "Stitch away, Tania. Just give me a cigarette first."

He needed eight stitches. After she was done, she placed her lips on the wound. "Sore?" she whispered.

"Didn't feel a thing," he said, taking another drag of the cigarette.

She bandaged his shoulder, his arm down to his elbow, bandaged his hand that was raw from gunpowder burns. She didn't want him to see her face so close, but she cried as she took care of him and she could tell by his breathing how hard it was for him to listen to her, to be so close to her without touching her. She knew he could not bring himself to touch her the closer they were to the very end.

"Would you like some morphine?"

"No," he said. "Then I'm unconscious all night." Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

She stumbled away a step.

"Shower was good," he said. "White towels. Hot water. So good, so unexpected."

"Yes," she said. "There are many comforts in America."

They turned away from each other. He left the bathroom, she went into the shower. When she came out wrapped in towels, he was already asleep, on his back, naked over the quilt. She covered him and then sat in the chair by the bed and watched him, her hand inside her nurse's bag, touching the morphine syrettes.

Tatiana could not, would not allow him to be taken back to Russia. God would have him before the Soviet Union ever had him again.

Taking her nurse's bag with her, she climbed under the covers, to his naked body, and spooned him from behind. She held him in her arms and cried into his shorn head. The Soviet Union had left only skin and bones on him.

And then he spoke. "Anthony," he said, "is he a nice boy?"

"Yes," she replied. "The nicest."

"And he looks like you?"

"No, husband, he looks like you."

"That's too bad," said Alexander, and turned to Tatiana.

They lay naked face to face.

Their regrets, their breath, their two souls twisted between them, bleeding and shouting grief into the unquiet night.

"With or without me, you have lived and will always live by only one standard," he said.

"I tried harder for you. Wanted to do even better for you. I imagined whatyou might have wanted for the both of us, and I tried to live it."

"No.I tried harder for you," said Alexander. "I wanted to do better for you. I held you before my eyes, hoping whatever I did, however I managed, you would be pleased. That you would nod at me and say, you did all right, Alexander. You did all right."

A pause.

A hoot of an owl.

Maybe a bat flapping by.

Dogs barking. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html

"You did all right, Alexander."

He wrapped his arms around her and pressed his lips to her forehead. "Tatiana, my wife, we never had a future. We'll live tonight for five minutes from now," he whispered. "That's how we always lived, you and I, and we will live like that again, one more night, in a white warm bed."

"Be my comfort, come away with me," said Tatiana, weeping. "Rise up and come away, my beloved."

His hand caressed her back. "You know what saved me through my years in the battalion and in prison?" he said. "You. I thought, if you could get out of Russia, through Finland, through the war, pregnant, with a dying doctor, withnothing but yourself, I could survivethis . If you could get through Leningrad, as you every single morning got up and slid down the ice on the stairs to get your family water and their daily bread, I thought, I could get through this. If you survivedthat I could survivethis ."

"You don't even know how badly I did the first years. You wouldn't believe it if I told you."

"You had my son. I had nothing else but you, and how you walked with me through Leningrad, across the Neva and Lake Ladoga and held my open back together and clotted my wounds, and washed my burns, and healed me, and saved me. I was hungry and you fed me. I had nothing but Lazarevo." Alexander's voice broke. "And your immortal blood. Tatiana, you were my only life force. You have no idea how hard I tried to get to you again. I gave myself up to the enemy, to the Germans for you. I got shot at for you and beaten for you and betrayed for you and convicted for you. All I wanted was to see you again. That you came back for me, it'severything , Tatia. Don't you understand? The rest is nothing to me. Germany, Kolyma, Dimitri, Nikolai Ouspensky, the Soviet Union, all of it, nothing. Forget them all, let them all go. You hear?"

"I hear," Tatiana said. We walk alone through this world, but if we're lucky, we have a moment of belonging to something, to someone, that sustains us through a lifetime of loneliness.

For an evening minute I touched him again and grew red wings and was young again in the Summer Garden, and had hope and eternal life.