Текст книги "The Bronze Horseman"
Автор книги: Paullina Simons
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Текущая страница: 43 (всего у книги 47 страниц)
Pain and anger tripping over each other in their race to his already embattled heart, Alexander said, “Tania, don’t listen to him. Dimitri, leave her alone. This is between us. This has nothing to do with her.” Dimitri was quiet. Tatiana was quiet, her fingers rubbing the inside of Alexander’s palm, thoughtfully, intently, rhythmically. She opened her mouth to speak. “Don’t say a word, Tatiana,” said Alexander.
“Say the word, Tatiana,” Dimitri said. “It’s up to you. But please, let me hear your answer. Because I don’t have much time.”
Alexander watched Tatiana rise to her feet. “Dimitri,” Tatiana said without blinking, “woe to him who is alone when he falls, for he has not another to pick him up.”
Dimitri shrugged. “By that I take it to mean that you—” He broke off. “What? What are you saying? Is that a yes or a no?”
Her hand holding Alexander’s tightly, Tatiana said, barely audible, “My husband made you a promise. And he always keeps his word.”
“Yes!” Dimitri exclaimed, springing to her. Alexander watched Tatiana pull sharply away.
Tatiana spoke softly. “Every kindness is repaid by good people,” she said. “Dimitri, I will tell you of our plans later. But you need to be ready at a moment’s notice. Understand?”
“I’m ready this moment,” Dimitri said with excitement. “And I mean that. I want to leave as soon as possible.” He extended his left hand to Alexander, who turned his face away, still holding on to Tatiana. He had no intention of shaking hands with Dimitri.
It was a pale Tatiana who brought their hands together. “It’s all right,” she said, her voice quavering slightly. “It’ll be all right.”
Dimitri left.
“Shura, what could we do?” Tatiana said while feeding him. “It will have to work. It changes things a little bit. But not much. We’ll figure it out.”
Alexander turned his gaze to her.
She nodded. “He wants to survive more than anything else. You told me so yourself.”
But what did you tell me, Tatiana? thought Alexander. What did you tell me up on the roof of St. Isaac’s under the black Leningrad sky?
“We’ll take him. He’ll leave us alone. You’ll see. Just please get better soon.”
“Let’s go, Tania,” said Alexander. “Tell Dr. Sayers that whenever he’s ready to leave, I’ll make myself ready.”
Tatiana left.
A day passed.
Dimitri returned.
He sat down in the chair next to Alexander, who did not look his way. He was staring into the middle distance, into the long distance, into the short distance of his brown wool blanket, trying to recall the last name of the Moscow residence hotel he had lived in with his mother and father. The hotel kept regularly changing names. It had been a source of confusion and hilarity for Alexander, who was now deliberately focusing his mind away from Tatiana and away from the person sitting in the chair not a meter away from him. Oh, no, thought Alexander, with a stab of pain.
He remembered the last name of the hotel.
It was Kirov.
Dimitri cleared his throat. Alexander waited.
“Alexander, can we talk? This is very important.”
“It’s all important,” stated Alexander. “All I do is talk. What?”
“It’s about Tatiana.”
“What about her?” Alexander stared at his IV. How long would it take him to disconnect it? Would he bleed? He looked around the ward. It was just after lunch, and the other wounded were either sleeping or reading. The shift nurse was sitting by the door reading herself. Alexander wondered where Tatiana was. He didn’t need the IV. Tatiana kept it on him to force him to remain in the critical ward, to keep his bed. No. Don’t think about Tatiana. Pulling himself up, Alexander sat upright against the wall.
“Alexander, I know how you feel about her—”
“Do you?”
“Of course—”
“Somehow I doubt it. What about her?”
“She is sick.”
Alexander said nothing.
“Yes. Sick. You don’t know what I know. You don’t see what I see. She is a ghost walking around this hospital. She is fainting constantly. The other day she lay in a faint in the snow for I don’t know how long. A lieutenant had to get her up. We brought her to Dr. Sayers. She put on a brave face—”
“How do you know she was in the snow?”
“I heard the story. I hear everything. Also I see her in the terminal ward. She holds on to the wall when she walks. She told Dr. Sayers she was not getting enough food.”
“And you know this how?”
“Sayers told me.”
“You and Dr. Sayers are getting to be good friends, I see.”
“No. I just bring him bandages, iodine, medical supplies from across the lake. He never seems to have enough. We talk for a few minutes.”
“What’s your point?”
“Did you know she was not feeling well?”
Alexander was thoughtfully grim. He knew why Tatiana was not getting enough food, and he knew why she was fainting. But the last thing he was going to do was trust Dimitri with anything about Tatiana. Alexander kept customarily quiet for a moment and then said, “Dimitri, do you have a point?”
“Yes, I have a point.” Dimitri lowered his voice and pulled the chair closer to the bed. “What we’re planning… it’s dangerous. It requires physical strength, courage, fortitude.”
Alexander turned his head to Dimitri. “Yes?” he said, surprised that words like “fortitude” could have come from Dimitri’s mouth. “So?”
“How do you think Tatiana will manage through it all?”
“What are you talking about—”
“Alexander! Listen to me for a second. Wait, before you say more. Listen. She is weak, and we have a very hard road ahead of us. Even with Sayers’s help. Do you know there are six checkpoints between here and Lisiy Nos? Six. One syllable out of her at any of them and we’re all dead. Alexander…” Dimitri paused. “She can’t come.”
Keeping his voice low—it was the only way he could keep it—Alexander said, “I am not having this ludicrous conversation.”
“You are not listening.”
“You’re right, I’m not.”
“Stop being so obstinate. You know I am right—”
“I know no such thing!” Alexander exclaimed, his fists clenching. “I know that without her—” He broke off. What was he doing? Was he trying to convince Dimitri? To keep from shouting required an effort out of Alexander he just wasn’t prepared to make. “I’m growing tired,” he said loudly. “We’ll finish this another time.”
“There is no other time!” Dimitri hissed. “Keep your voice down. We’re supposed to be going in forty-eight hours. And I’m telling you I don’t want to hang because you can’t see clear through the day.”
“Crystal clear, Dimitri,” snapped Alexander. “She’ll be fine. And she will come with us.”
“She collapses here after a six-hour day.”
“Six-hour? Where have you been? She is here twenty-four hours a day. She doesn’t sit in a truck, she doesn’t sit and have cigarettes and vodka on her job. She sleeps on cardboard, and she eats what the soldiers don’t finish, and she washes her face in the snow. Don’t tell me about her day.”
“What if there is a border incident? What if, despite all of Sayers’s efforts, we’re stopped, interrogated? You and I will have to use our weapons. We’ll have to stand and fight.”
“We’ll do what we have to.” Alexander glared at Dimitri’s cane, at his bruised face, at his hunched body.
“Yes, but what will she do?”
“She’ll do what she has to.”
“She is going to faint! She is going to collapse in the snow, and you won’t know whether to kill the border troops or help her up.”
“I will do both.”
“She can’t run, she can’t shoot, she can’t fight. She’ll swoon at the first sign of trouble, and believe me, there is always trouble.”
“Can you run, Dimitri?” Alexander asked, unable to keep the hate out of his voice.
“Yes! I’m still a soldier.”
“What about the doctor? He can’t fight either.”
“He’s a man! And frankly, I’m less worried about him either way—”
“You’re worried about Tatiana? That’s good to hear.”
“I’m worried about what she will do.”
“Ah, that is a fine difference.”
“I’m worried that you will be so busy fretting about her, you will screw up, make stupid mistakes. She will slow you down, make you think twice about taking the kind of chances we might need to take. The Lisiy Nos forest checkpoint is poorly defended, not undefended.”
“You are right. We might have to fight for our freedom.”
“So you agree?”
“No.”
“Alexander, listen to me. This is our last chance. I know it. This is a perfect plan; it could work so well. But she will lead us to ruin. She is not up to it. Don’t be stupid now when we are so close. This is it.” Dimitri smiled. “This is what we’ve been waiting for! There are no more trial runs, there are no more tomorrows, no more next times. This is it.”
“Yes,” said Alexander. “This is it.” Closing his eyes briefly, he fought an impulse to keep them closed.
“So listen to me—”
“I will not listen.”
“You will listen!” exclaimed Dimitri. “You and I have been planning this a long time. Here is our chance! And I’m not saying leave Tania in the Soviet Union for good. Not at all. I’m saying let us, two men, do what we have to do to get out. Get out safely and, most importantly, alive! You’re no good to her dead, and I’m not going to enjoy America if I’m dead myself. Alive, Alexander. Plus, to hide in the swamps—”
“We’re driving to Helsinki in a truck. What swamps?”
“If we need to, I said. Three men and a frail girl, we’re a crowd. We’re not hiding out. We’re asking to be caught. If something were to happen to Sayers, if Sayers were to get killed—”
“Why would Sayers get killed? He’s a Red Cross doctor.” Alexander studied Dimitri intensely.
“I don’t know. But if we had to make it by ourselves across the Baltic—on ice, on foot, hiding out in convoy trucks—well, two men can do it, but three people? We will be too easily noticed. Too easily stopped. And she won’t make it.”
“She made it through the blockade. She made it through the Volga ice. She made it through Dasha. She will make it,” said Alexander, but his heart was burning with uncertainty. The dangers Dimitri was pointing out were so close to Alexander’s own anxieties for Tatiana, it was brutalizing his stomach. “All the things you say may be true,” he continued with great effort, “but you’re forgetting two very important things. What do you think will happen to her here once I’m reported missing?”
“To her? Nothing. Her name is still Tatiana Metanova.” Dimitri nodded slyly. “You have been very careful to keep your marriage hidden. That’ll help you now.”
“It won’t help her.” Alexander stopped.
“No one will know.”
“You’re wrong,” said Alexander. “I will know.” He gritted his teeth to keep the groan of pain from escaping his throat.
“Yes, but you’ll be in America. You’ll be back home.”
Alexander spoke in a flat voice. “She cannot remain behind.”
“She can. She’ll be fine. Alexander, she’s never known anything but this life—”
“Neither have you!”
Dimitri went on. “She’ll continue here as if she’d never met you—”
“How?”
Dimitri laughed. “I know you think a lot of yourself, but she will get over you. Others have. I know she probably cares for you very much—but with time she’ll meet someone else, and she’ll be fine.”
“Stop being an idiot!” Alexander said. “She’ll be arrested in three days. The wife of a deserter. Three days. And you know it. Stop talking horseshit.”
“No one will know who she is.”
“You found out!”
Ignoring Alexander, Dimitri continued calmly, “Tatiana Metanova will go back to Grechesky Hospital and will go on with her life in Leningrad. And if you still want her when you’re settled in America, after the war is over, you can send her a formal letter of invitation, asking her to come to Boston to visit a sick and dying distant aunt. She will come by proper methods, if she can, by train, by ship. Think of this as a temporary separation, until there is a better time for her. For all of us.”
Alexander rubbed the bridge of his nose with his left hand. Somebody come and rescue me from this hell, he thought. The short hairs on his neck stood on end. He breathed more erratically. “Dimitri!” said Alexander, staring straight at him. “You have a chance, for the second time in your life, to do something decent—take it. The first time was when you helped me to see my father. What do you care if she comes with us?”
“I have to think of myself, Alexander. I cannot spend all my time thinking about protecting your wife.”
“How much time have you spent thinking about that?” Alexander exclaimed. “You have always thought only of yourself—”
“Unlike, say, you?” Dimitri laughed.
“Unlike anyone else. Come with us. She extended her hand to you.”
“To protect you.”
“Yes. It doesn’t make her hand any less extended. Take it. She will get us out. We will all be free. You will have the one thing you care about the most—your free life away from war. You do care about that the most, don’t you?” Tania’s St. Isaac’s words swam by Alexander. He covets from you most what you want most. But Alexander would not be defeated. He will never take it all from you, Alexander, his Tatiana had said to him. He will never have that much power. “You will have your free life—because of her. We will not perish—because of her.”
“We’ll all be killed—because of her.”
“I guarantee—you will not perish. Take this chance, have your life. I’m not denying you what is rightfully yours. I said I would get you out, and I will. Tania is very strong, and she will not let us down. You’ll see. She will not falter; she will not fail. You have nothing to do but say yes. She and I will do the rest. You said yourself, this is our last chance. I agree. I feel that more now than ever.”
“I bet you do,” Dimitri said.
Trying to hide his desperate anger, Alexander said, “Let something else guide you! This war has brought you inside yourself, you have forgotten other people. Remember her. Once. You know that if she stays here, she will die. Save her, Dimitri.” Alexander almost said, please.
“If she comes with us, we will all die,” Dimitri said coldly. “I’m convinced of it.”
Alexander turned his body forward and faced the middle distance once again. His eyes glazed over, cleared, glazed over.
Darkness engulfed him.
Dimitri spoke. “Alexander—think of it as dying at the front. If you had died out on the ice, she would have had to find a way to continue living in the Soviet Union, wouldn’t she? Well, it’s the same thing.”
“It’s all the difference in the world.” Alexander looked into his stiffening hands. Because now there is light in front of her.
“It is no difference to her at all. One way or the other she is without you.”
“No.”
“She is a small price to pay for America!” Dimitri exclaimed.
Shuddering, Alexander made no reply, his heart pumping out of his chest. The Fontanka Bridge, the granite parapets, Tatiana on her knees.
“She will doom us all.”
“Dimitri, I already said no,” he said, steel in his voice.
Dimitri narrowed his eyes. “Are you deliberately not understanding me? She can’t come.”
I am just a means to an end, she had said. I am just ammunition.
Alexander laughed. “Finally! I was wondering how long it would take you to issue your useless threats. You say she can’t come?”
“No, she can’t.”
“That’s fine,” said Alexander with a short nod. “I’m not going either. The whole thing is off. It’s over. Dr. Sayers is leaving for Helsinki immediately. In three days I’m going back to the front. Tania will return to Leningrad.” Steadying his loathing stare on Dimitri, he said, “No one is going. You’re dismissed, Private. Our meeting is finished.”
Dimitri looked at Alexander with cold surprise. “Are you telling me you will not go without her?”
“Have you not been listening?”
“I see.” Dimitri paused, rubbing his hands. He leaned over, propping himself on Alexander’s bed as he spoke. “You underestimate me, Alexander. I can see you will not listen to reason. That’s too bad. Perhaps, then, what I should do is go and talk to Tania, explain the situation to her. She is much more reasonable. Once Tania sees that her husband is in grave danger, why, I am certain she herself will offer to stay behind—” Dimitri didn’t finish.
Alexander grabbed Dimitri’s arm. Dimitri yelped and threw his other hand up, but it was too late, Alexander had them both.
“Understand this,” said Alexander as his thumb and forefinger tightened in a twisting vise around Dimitri’s wrist. “I don’t give a fuck if you talk to Tania, to Stepanov, to Mekhlis, or to the whole Soviet Union. Tell them anything! I am not leaving without her. If she stays, I stay.” And with a savage thrust, Alexander ruptured the ulnar bone in Dimitri’s forearm. Even through the red of his fury Alexander heard the snap. It sounded like the ax crashing against the pliant pine in Lazarevo. Dimitri screamed. Alexander did not let go. “You underestimate me, you fucking bastard!” he said, jerking the wrist violently again and again until the broken bone tore out of Dimitri’s skin.
Dimitri continued to scream. Clenching his fist, Alexander punched Di-mitri in the face, and the uppercut blow would have driven the fractured nasal bone into Dimitri’s frontal lobe had the impact not been weakened by an orderly who had grabbed Alexander’s arm, who literally threw himself on Alexander and yelled, “Stop it! What are you doing? Let go, let go!”
Panting, Alexander shoved Dimitri away, and Dimitri slumped to the floor. “Get off me,” Alexander said loudly to the stunned and grumbling orderly. As soon as the man got off him, Alexander started wiping his hands. He had yanked the IV right out of the vein, which was now dripping blood between his fingers. So it does bleed, he thought.
“What in the world happened here?” yelled the nurse, running up. “What kind of awful situation is this? The private comes for a visit, and what do you do?”
“Next time don’t let him through,” Alexander said, throwing off his blankets and getting out of bed.
“Get back into bed! My orders are that you don’t get out of bed under any circumstances. Wait till Ina comes back. I never work the critical ward. Why does something always happen on my shift?”
After a commotion that lasted a good half hour, a bleeding and unconscious Dimitri was removed from the floor, and the orderly cleaned up the mess, complaining that he already had plenty to do without the wounded making more wounded out of perfectly healthy men.
“You call him perfectly healthy?” said Alexander. “Did you see his limp? Did you see his pulverized face? Ask around. This isn’t the first time he’s been assaulted. And I guarantee it won’t be the last.”
But Alexander knew: he had not merely assaulted Dimitri. Had he not been stopped, Alexander would have killed Dimitri with his bare hands.
Alexander slept, woke up, looked around the ward.
It was early evening. Ina was at her station by the door, chatting to three civilian men. Alexander stared at the civilian men. That didn’t take long, he thought.
Motionless and alone, he remained with the rucksack on his lap, both of his hands inside, on the white dress with red roses. Alexander finally had the answer to his question.
He knew at what price Tatiana.
It was Colonel Stepanov who came to see him later that evening, eyes sunk deep into his ashen face. Alexander saluted his commander, who sat down heavily in the chair and said quietly, “Alexander, I almost don’t know how to say this to you. I should not be here. I’m here not as your commanding officer, understand, but as someone who—”
Alexander interrupted him gently. “Sir,” he said, “your very presence is a balm to my soul. More than you know. I know why you’re here.”
“You do?”
“Yes.”
“Then it’s true? General Govorov came to me tonight and said that Mekhlis”—Stepanov seemed to spit the word out—”approached him with a slew of information that you have previously escaped from prison as a foreign provocateur? As an American?” Stepanov laughed. “How can that be? I said it was ridiculous—”
Alexander said, “Sir, I have proudly served the Red Army for nearly six years.”
“You have been an exemplary soldier, Major,” said Stepanov. “I told them that. I told them it couldn’t possibly be true. But as you know—” Stepanov broke off. “The accusation is all. You remember Meretskov? He’s now commanding the Volkhov front, but nine months ago he was sitting in the NKVD cellars waiting for a wall to become available.”
“I know about Meretskov. How much time do you think I have?”
Stepanov was quiet. “They will come for you in the night,” he said at last. “I don’t know if you’re familiar with their operations—”
“Unfortunately, very familiar, sir,” replied Alexander, not looking at Stepanov. “It’s all about stealth and cover-up. I didn’t know they had the facilities here in Morozovo.”
“Primitive, but yes. They have them everywhere. You’re too high up, though. They’ll most likely send you across the lake to Volkhov.” He spoke in a whisper.
Across the lake. “Thank you, sir.” He managed to smile at his commanding officer. “Do you think they’ll promote me to lieutenant colonel first?”
Stepanov breathed out a choking gasp. “Of all my men I had hoped the most for you, Major.”
Alexander shook his head. “I had the least chance, sir. Please, do me a favor. If you yourself are questioned about me, understand”—he struggled for his words—”that despite your valor, there are some battles that are lost from the start.”
“Yes, Major.”
“As long as you understand that, you will not waste a second’s breath defending my honor or my army record. Distance yourself and retreat, sir.” Alexander let his gaze drop. “And take all your weapons with you.”
Stepanov stood.
The unspoken remained between them.
Alexander couldn’t think of himself, couldn’t think of Stepanov. He had to ask about the unspoken. “Do you know if there was any mention of my…” He couldn’t continue.
Stepanov understood regardless. “No,” he said quietly. “But it’s just a matter of time.”
Thank God. So Dimitri didn’t want them both. What he wanted was for them not to have each other, but he still wanted to save his own skin. He will never take all from you, Alexander. There was hope.
Alexander heard Stepanov say, “Can I do anything for her? Maybe arrange for a transfer back to a Leningrad hospital—or perhaps to a Molotov hospital? Away from here?”
After a spasm Alexander spoke, looking in the other direction. “Yes, sir, you actually could do something to help her…”
Alexander didn’t have time to think, and he didn’t have time to feel. He knew the time for that would swallow too soon what was left of him. But right now he had to act. As soon as Stepanov left, Alexander motioned for Ina and asked her to call Dr. Sayers.
“Major,” said Ina, “I don’t know if they’re allowing anyone near you after this afternoon.”
Alexander glanced at the plainclothed men. “It was a little accident, Ina, nothing to worry about. Do me a favor, though, don’t tell Nurse Metanova, all right? You know how she gets.”
“I know how she gets. You better be good from now on, or I’ll tell her.”
“I’ll be good, Ina.”
Sayers came a few minutes later, sat down cheerfully, and said, “What’s going on, Major? What’s this about some private’s arm? What happened?”
Shrugging, Alexander said, “He lost the arm wrestle.”
“I’ll say he lost. What about his broken nose? Did he lose the nose wrestle, too?”
“Dr. Sayers, listen to me. Forget him for a second.” Alexander summoned his remaining will to speak. What strength he once possessed had left his body and gone to a tiny girl with freckles.
“Doctor,” he said quietly, “when we first spoke about—”
“Don’t say it. I know.”
“You asked me what you could do to help, remember? And I said to you,” Alexander continued, “that you owed me nothing.” He paused, collecting himself. “It turns out I was wrong. I desperately need your help.”
Sayers smiled. “Major Belov, I’m already doing all I can for you. Your terminal nurse is quite a persuader.”
My terminal nurse.
Shrinking into himself, Alexander said, “No, listen carefully. I want you to do just one thing for me, and only one.”
“What is it? If I can do it, I will.”
With a halting voice, Alexander said, “Get my wife out of the Soviet Union.”
“I am, Major.”
“No, Doctor. I mean now. Take my wife, take—” He could not get the words out. “Take Chernenko, the prick with the broken arm,” he whispered, “and get them out.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Doctor, we have very little time. Any minute someone is going to call you away from me, and I won’t be able to finish.”
“You’re coming with us.”
“I am not.”
In agitation, Sayers exclaimed, “Major, what the hell are you talking about?” In English.
“Shh,” said Alexander. “You will need to leave tomorrow at the absolute latest.”
“What about you?”
“Forget about me,” Alexander said firmly. “Dr. Sayers, Tania needs your help. She is pregnant—did you know that?”
Sayers shook his head, dumbstruck.
“Well, she is. And she’s going to be very scared. She is going to need you to protect her. Please get her out of the Soviet Union. And protect her.” Alexander stared away from the doctor. His eyes filled with… the river Kama, with the soap on her body. They filled with… her hands going around his neck and her warm breath in his ear, whispering, potato pancakes, Shura, or eggs?
They filled with… her coming out of Grechesky Hospital in November, small, alone, wearing a big coat, her eyes at her feet; she couldn’t even lift her eyes as she walked past him to her Fifth Soviet life, alone to her Fifth Soviet life.
“Save my wife,” whispered Alexander.
In an emotional voice Dr. Sayers said, “I don’t understand anything.”
Shaking his head, Alexander said, “Do you see the casually dressed men you had to walk past on your way here? Those are NKVD men. Remember I told you about the NKVD, Doctor? What happened to my mother and father, and to me?”
Sayers paled.
“The NKVD enforces the law of this great land. And they are here for me—again. Tomorrow,” Alexander said, “I will be gone. Tania cannot stay here a minute after that. She is in grave danger. You must get her out.”
The doctor still didn’t understand. He protested, he shook his head. He became increasingly nervous. “Alexander, I will call the U.S. consulate personally. I’ll call them tomorrow on your behalf.”
Alexander became worried about the doctor. Could he even do what was needed? Could he keep his composure when he would need it the most? He didn’t seem composed in the least. “Doctor,” Alexander said, keeping his own composure, “I know you don’t understand, but I don’t have time to explain. Where is this U.S. consulate? In Sweden? In England? By the time you call them and they reach the U.S. State Department back home, the Mekhlis blue boys will have taken not only me but her, too. What does Tatiana have to do with America?”
“She is your wife.”
“I have only my Russian name, the name I married her under. By the time the United States gets together with the NKVD to clear up the confusion, it’ll be too late for her. Forget me, I said. Just take care of her.”
“No,” Sayers said. He bucked, he couldn’t sit. He walked around Alexander’s bed, adjusted his blankets.
“Doctor!” Alexander exclaimed. “You have no time to think this through, I know. But what do you think will happen to a Russian girl once it’s discovered she is married to a man suspected of being an American and infiltrating the Red Army’s high command? What use do you think the Commissariat of Internal Affairs will have for my pregnant Russian wife?”
Sayers was mute.
“I’ll tell you what use—they will use her as leverage against me when they interrogate us. Tell us everything, or your wife will be ‘strictly judged.’ Do you know what that means, Doctor? It means I will be forced to tell them everything. I won’t stand a chance. Or they will use me as leverage against her. Your husband will be safe, but only if you tell the truth. And she will. And afterward—”
Shaking his head, Sayers said, “No! We will put you in my ambulance right now and take you back to Leningrad, to Grechesky. Right now. Get up. And from there we will drive to Finland.”
“Fine,” said Alexander. “But those men”—he nodded in their direction—”will come with us. They will come with us every step of the way. You won’t get either of us out.”
Alexander could see that Dr. Sayers was grasping at what he could. Glancing toward the door, to Ina, to the shuffling, smoking men standing chatting with her, Alexander shook his head. Sayers was not getting it.
“What about him? Chernenko? I don’t know him or owe him anything.”
“You must take him,” whispered Alexander. “After this afternoon, he finally understood. He thought I would sacrifice her to save myself because he could not imagine any other way. Now he knows the truth. He also knows I will not sacrifice her to destroy him. I will not keep her from escaping to keep him from escaping. And he is right. So take him. It’ll help her, and I don’t give a shit about anything else.”
Dr. Sayers was at a loss for words.
“Doctor,” said Alexander gently, “stop fighting for me. She does that. I don’t want you to worry about me; my fate is sealed. But hers is wide open. Concern yourself only with her.”
Rubbing his face, Dr. Sayers said, still shaking his head, “Alexander, I’ve seen that girl—” His voice broke. “I’ve seen that girl drain her lifeblood into you. I’m fighting for you because I know what it will do to her—”
“Doctor!” Alexander was nearly at the end of his tether. “You’re not helping me. Don’t you think I know?” He closed his eyes. Everything she had she gave to me.
“Major, do you think she’ll even go without you?”
“Never,” said Alexander.
“God! So what can I possibly do?” Sayers exclaimed.
“She must never know I’ve been arrested. If she finds out, she will not go. She’ll stay—to find out what happened to me, to help me in some way, to see me one last time, and then it will be too late for her.”
Alexander told Dr. Sayers what they had to do.
“Major, I can’t do that!” Sayers exclaimed.
“Yes, you can. It’s just words from you, Doctor. Words and an impassive face.”
Sayers shook his head.
“Many things can go wrong. And they will,” said Alexander. “It’s not a perfect plan. It’s not a safe plan. It’s not a foolproof plan. But we have no choice. If we’re to succeed at all, we must use all the weapons at our disposal.” Alexander paused. “Even the ones with no ammunition.”
“Major, you’re out of your mind. She will never believe me,” said Sayers.
