The Bronze Horseman (The Bronze Horseman #1)

The Bronze Horseman (The Bronze Horseman #1) Page 45

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The following morning Tatiana went without him to the store. She had just gotten the family their kilo of bread, light even in her weak arms, and was about to walk out when suddenly she felt a blow to the back of her head and another blow to her right ear. She buckled and watched helplessly as a young boy of maybe fifteen grabbed her bread and before she could utter a sound, shoved it into his hyena mouth, his eyes wild and desperate. The other customers beat him with their purses, but under their blows he continued to swallow her bread until it was all gone, every last bite. One of the store managers came out and hit him with a stick. Tatiana yelled, “No!” but he fell, and his eyes from the floor were still wild, a destroyed animal’s eyes. Blood dripping out of her ear where he had hit her, Tatiana bent down to help him up, but he shoved her away, got up, and ran out the door.

The salesclerk couldn’t give her more bread. “Please,” said Tatiana. “How can I go home with nothing?”

The clerk, her eyes sympathetic, said, “I can do nothing. The NKVD will shoot me for giving away bread. You don’t know what it’s like.”

“Please,” she begged. “For my family.”

“Tanechka, I would give you bread, but I can’t. The other day they shot three women for forging ration cards. Right on the street. And left them there. Go on, honey. Come back tomorrow.”

“Come back tomorrow,” muttered Tatiana as she left the store.

She could not go home. In fact, she did not go home, but sat in the bomb shelter and then appeared at the hospital to work. Vera was gone; Tatiana’s punch card was gone; no one cared. She went and slept in one of the cold rooms, and in the cafeteria she received some clear liquid and a few spoonfuls of gruel, but there was no extra for her to take home. She looked for Vera to no avail. She sat at the nurses’ station, then went into one of the rooms and sat with a dying soldier. As she held his hand, he asked if she was a nun. She said no, not really, but you can tell me anything.

“I have nothing to tell you,” the man said. “Why are you bleeding?”

She began to explain, but really there was nothing to say, except “for the same reason you’re lying here in the hospital.”

Tatiana thought of Alexander, how he kept trying to protect her. From Leningrad, from Dimitri, from working at the hospital — the brutal, infectious, contagious place. From the bricks in Luga. From the German bombs, from the hunger. He didn’t want her to do duty on the roof. He didn’t want her to walk to Fontanka alone or without the absurd helmet he had given her, or to sleep without all her clothes. He wanted her to clean herself, even with cold water, and he wanted her to brush her teeth even though they had no food on them. He wanted just one thing.

He wanted her to live.

That brought a bit of relief.

A bit of comfort.

That would have to be good enough.

When she got home, around seven in the evening, she found her family frantic with worry. After she told them what had happened, they were upset that she hadn’t just come home. “We would have understood,” said Mama. “We don’t care about the bread.”

Dasha said she had sent Alexander out to look for her.

“You’ve got to stop doing that, Dasha,” said Tatiana wearily. “You’re bound to get him killed.”

Tatiana was surprised her family was not more upset with her. Then she found out why. Alexander had brought them some oil — and soybeans — and half an onion. Dasha had made a delicious stew, adding a tablespoon of flour and a bit of salt. “Where is this stew?” Tatiana asked.

“There wasn’t a lot, Tanechka,” said Dasha.

“We thought you’d eat wherever you were,” added Mama.

“You ate, right?” asked Babushka.

“We were so hungry,” said Marina.

“Yes,” Tatiana said, deeply discouraged. “Don’t worry about me.”

Alexander came back around eight. He had been out for three hours. The first thing he said was, “What happened to you?”

Tatiana told him.

“Where have you been all day?” he demanded, talking to her as if there were no one else in the room.

“I went to the hospital. To see if they had some food there.”

“They didn’t.”

“Not much. I did have some oatmeal.” White water.

“It’s all right,” Alexander said, taking off his coat. “There’s some stew.”

Coughs. Averted eyes.

Alexander didn’t understand. He turned to Dasha. “I brought you soybeans. Dasha? You said you were making stew.”

“We did, Alexander,” said Dasha sheepishly. “But there was so little. We ate it.”

“You ate it and didn’t leave her any?” He turned red.

“Alexander, it’s all right,” said Tatiana anxiously. “They didn’t leave you any either.”

Dasha laughed nervously. “You can eat at the barracks, and she said she ate, dear.”

“She is a liar!” he screamed.

“I did eat,” Tatiana put in.

“You’re a liar!” Alexander screamed at her. “I forbid you,” he yelled to Tatiana, “I forbid you to get their food for them. Give them back their ration cards and tell them all to get their own damn food. I never want to see you getting their bread for them if they can’t save you some of the food I bring!”

Tatiana stood quietly, her entire heart so full that for a moment she did not need any bread at all.

Turning to Dasha, Alexander said, out of breath, “Who is going to get your bread for you if she dies? Who is going to carry soup back home in a pail? Who is going to bring you porridge?”

Mama said disagreeably, “I bring porridge from the factory.”

“You eat half of it before you set foot in the house!” yelled Alexander. “What, you think I don’t understand? You think I don’t know that Marina finishes her coupons before the month is out and then demands bread from Tania, who is getting beaten up while you’re still sleeping?”

“I’m not sleeping. I sew,” said Mama. “I sew every morning.”

“Tania,” Alexander stated, glaring at her, “you are not getting them their rations again. Understand?” Again he was talking to her as if there were no one else present.

Tatiana muttered that she was going to go and wash. When she came back, Alexander was sitting at the table smoking. He was calmer. “Come here,” he said quietly.

Marina was in the other room with Mama. Babushka was down the hall with Nina Iglenko.

“Where is Dasha?” Tatiana said, moving slowly toward him. She saw his eyes.

“Getting a can opener from Nina. Come closer.”

Standing in front of him, Tatiana said quietly, “Shura, please. Where is your indifferent face? You promised me.”

He stared into her sweater.

“Don’t worry,” she whispered. “I’ll be all right.”

“You’re making me feel worse,” Alexander said. “Don’t do it.” Reaching out, he placed his hand on her hip. A small groan of anguish escaped him. Tatiana leaned into him and pressed her forehead to his forehead.

For a moment they stood still.

She took her forehead away.

He took his hand away. “Look what I have for you, Tania.” He pulled out a small metal can from his coat.

Dasha came into the room, saying, “Here’s the can opener. What do you need it for anyway?”

Alexander used it to open the small can and, taking a knife, cut the product inside into little morsels. He passed the can to Tatiana. “Go ahead, try it.”

“What is it?” she asked, wanting to smile. It was the most delicious thing she had ever tasted. Not quite ham, not quite bologna, not quite pork, but all three, covered with lard and aspic. The can was small, maybe a hundred grams. “What is that?” she said, her eyes showing the delight that her body, her lips could not muster.

“Spam.”

“Spam? What is Spam?”

“Like ham. In Russian it’s tushonka.”

“Oh, it’s much better than ham.”

“Can I try it?” asked Dasha.

“No.” Alexander didn’t turn to Dasha. “I want your sister to eat the whole can. Dasha, you already ate. You can’t possibly want more after all that stew.”

“I just want a little bite,” said Dasha. “To taste.”

“No.”

“Tania?” Dasha said. “Please? I’m sorry I ate your stew. I know you’re upset.”

“I’m not upset, Dasha.”

“I am, though,” said Alexander, turning to her. “You’re a grown woman. I expect better from you.”

Dasha said grumpily, “I said I was sorry.”

Tatiana took another bite, and another. Half a can left. “Alexander?”

“No, Tatiana.”

She had one more bite. Two small pieces left. Tatiana licked up all the lard and the aspic, and then she took one piece out of the can and handed it to Alexander. He shook his head. “Please,” Tatiana said. “One for you, one for Dasha?”

Dasha snatched it out of Alexander’s hand. Tatiana gave him the last piece, giving it one more glance. He ate it. Nodding, she licked out the can with her tongue. “This is the most wonderful thing. Where did you get it?”

“Americans, through Lend-Lease. A case of Spam for Leningrad and two of their army trucks.”

“I’d rather have a case of this.”

“I don’t know. They’re very good trucks.” Alexander smiled.

Tatiana wanted to smile back. Looking away from him and to her sister, Tatiana said, “Dasha, honey, how is Nina holding up?”

“Terrible.”

After a few minutes Alexander left to go back to the barracks. The next morning, when Tatiana got up to get the rations, Dasha came with her.

The following morning Dasha stayed in bed, but downstairs on the street a soldier was waiting for Tatiana. “Sergeant Petrenko!” she said, managing a smile. “What are you doing here?”

“Orders of the captain.” He saluted, looking warmly at her. “He asked me to take you to the store.”

The morning after that, Petrenko wasn’t downstairs, but Alexander was waiting for Tatiana at Fontanka. He walked her home and went back to base. The next morning he came to the apartment.

On the way back from the store he had left her to help a lady struggling with two sleds that she was trying to pull by herself down Ulitsa Nekrasova. One had a body wrapped in a white sheet, and one had a bourzhuika. Alexander went to explain to the woman that she would have to come back for one or the other. He told Tatiana he was going to suggest taking the stove and coming back for the body.

Tatiana was waiting for him patiently and alone, leaning against a building, when she saw three boys approaching her with determined strides. She looked for Alexander, who was maybe a hundred meters away, with his back to Tatiana, pulling one of the sleds for the woman. “Alexander!” she yelled, but the wind was loud and her voice was weak. He didn’t hear.

Tatiana turned to the boys. One of them she recognized as the boy who had taken her bread three days earlier. The street was deserted, and the snowdrifts were piled meters high on the road. In the snowdrifts lay dead bodies. There were no cars, no buses. Just Tatiana. She sighed. She thought of running across the street, but the effort, the effort. She couldn’t move. She stood.

When they came close, she extended her and Alexander’s bread to them without a word. Two of them grabbed her and pulled her into a doorway. She struggled, but there was nothing of her to struggle with. The third boy, the hyena from before, took her bread but then looked at her with his beastly eyes and said to the other two, “Ready? Let’s go.” A shiny metal blade flashed in front of Tatiana.

Without blinking or breathing, Tatiana looked the boy in the eye and said, “Go, get away while you have time. Go on, now. He is going to kill you.”

The boy looked at her and said, “What?”

“Go!” Tatiana said, but in that instant a pistol handle came down hard on the boy’s head and he dropped to the snow. The other two didn’t have even a moment to let go of her. Alexander smashed his gun into one, then the other. In seconds they were all motionless on the ground.

Pulling Tatiana out of the doorway and behind him, he said, “Step away,” and cocked his gun, aiming it at her assailants.

Her hand came up from behind and rested on the gun. “No,” she said.

He pushed her hand away. “Tatiana, please. They are going to get up and terrorize someone else. Step back.”

“Shura, please. No. I saw their eyes. They won’t last till morning. Don’t let their deaths be at your hands.”

Alexander reluctantly put away his gun, then picked up their bag of bread off the ground and, with his arm around Tatiana, walked her back home in the blistering cold. “Do you know what would have happened to you if I hadn’t been there?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said, wanting to look up at his face but not having the energy to look anywhere but down at the ground. “Same thing that’s happening to me when you are.”

The next morning Alexander brought her a gun. Not his own standard-issue Tokarev, but a P-38 self-loading German pistol he had acquired near Pulkovo two months earlier.

“Remember the boys are all cowards; they will only pick on you because they think they can. You don’t have to use the gun. Just flash it at them. They won’t come up to you again.”

“Shura, I’ve never used a—”

“It’s war, Tania!” he exclaimed. “You remember how you played war with Pasha? Did you play to win? Well, play now. Just remember the stakes are higher.”

Then he gave her a handful of rubles.

“What’s this?”

“A thousand rubles,” he said. “It’s half my monthly pay. There is no food, but you can still get something on the black market. Go, and don’t even think about the prices. Just buy what you have to. In Haymarket they’re still selling flour, maybe some other things. I’m afraid to leave you, but I have to. Colonel Stepanov wants me to go with our trucks and men to Lake Ladoga.”

“Thank you,” she whispered.

Alexander’s face was drawn. “The girls need to go with you to the store, Tatia. Please don’t go by yourself. I won’t be back for a week, maybe ten days. Maybe longer.” The unspoken hung in the crushing cold. “Don’t worry about me.” He paused. “Bad news is we’ve lost Tikhvin,” he said grimly. “Dimitri shot himself just in time. Tikhvin was—” He broke off. “Never mind.”

“I can imagine.”

Nodding, he continued. “There is no railroad going to the other side of the lake. The only way to bring food into Leningrad is by Ladoga, but now there’s no way to get the food to Ladoga.” He paused. “The bread you’re getting — it’s made from reserve flour. We have to get Tikhvin and the railroad back. Without them we have no realistic way of getting food into the city.”

“Oh, no,” she said.

“Oh, yes. Meanwhile, the council has issued a command that we have to build a road through the barely inhabited villages up north near Zaborye that lead to the other side of the lake. There’s never been a road there, but we have no choice. Either build the road or die.”

“How do you get food from there across a barely iced lake?” She shuddered.

Alexander’s brown eyes were sadder than a calf’s. “If we don’t get Tikhvin back, there will be no food to bring no matter how well iced the lake is. We have no chance without it,” Alexander said, not touching Tatiana. “No chance at all.” Reluctantly he added, “Hang on to whatever provisions you’ve got left. The ration is going to be reduced again.”

“There’s not much left, Shura,” she whispered.

As they were walking to the corner of Nevsky and Liteyniy where he was going to say good-bye to her, Alexander said, “Yesterday you called me Shura in front of your family. You have to be more careful. Your sister is bound to notice that.”

“Yes,” Tatiana said mournfully. “I will have to be more careful.”

On Haymarket, Tatiana bought less than half a kilo of flour for 500 rubles. Two hundred and fifty rubles a cup. She bought half a kilo of butter for 300 rubles, some soy milk, and a small package of yeast.

At home they still had a bit of sugar. She made bread.

That’s what a thousand rubles bought the Metanovs — half of Alexander’s monthly salary for defending Leningrad bought them a loaf of bread with a smear of butter. Dinner for one night. At least Alexander had gotten them some wood for the stove, and even a little kerosene.

They broke the bread Tatiana made into five portions, put it on their plates, and ate it with a knife and fork, and afterward Tatiana didn’t know about anyone else, but personally she thanked God for Alexander.