16
“So what do you have in your bags, big man?” Tatiana said one parched summer afternoon as she sat on the blanket in the clearing with his rucksack and the map case between her legs and painstakingly took out all of his things one by one. Tatiana was thirsty. It had been very hot in Lazarevo. Hot in the morning, sweltering in the afternoons, quite warm at night under the new moon. They slept naked under thin sheets with the windows open. They swam constantly. Still, they were always hot.
Alexander was sawing two long logs down to size. “Nothing at all of interest,” he replied, his back to her.
Tatiana took out his semiautomatic, his pen and paper, a pack of cards, rolling papers, two books, two boxes of ammunition, his military knife, all his maps, and two hand grenades.
She became immediately interested in the maps, but before she had a chance to open them up, Alexander walked across the clearing to her, saw in his hand, cigarette in his mouth, and took the grenades from her. “Tell you what,” he said. “Why don’t we not play with explosive devices?”
“All right,” she said, jumping to her feet. “You taught me how to shoot from the P-38, can you teach me how to fire from your rifle?” She stared at the maps on the blanket. “How many rounds can it fire one after another?”
“Thirty-five,” replied Alexander, smoking down his cigarette.
“You could teach me how to shoot from your mortar, but you don’t have a mortar in your ruck.” She smiled.
He laughed. “No, I don’t carry my mortar around with me in my ruck.”
“You carry all your maps, though.” Tatiana glanced at them again.
“So?”
“Shura, I wish you wouldn’t stay on heavy weapons,” Tatiana said, hugging him. “Can’t Colonel Stepanov make you a runner or something? Can’t you tell him you’ve married a nice girl who can’t live without her soldier?”
“All right, I’ll do that,” he said.
Tatiana led him by the hand inside their house, taking his saw and throwing it on the ground.
“I haven’t finished,” he said, pointing to his logs.
“So? You’re my husband, aren’t you?”
“Yes? So?”
“Don’t I have some inalienable rights, too?”
Tatiana was sitting naked on top of Alexander, pressing the palms of her hands into his chest.
“How does a what work?”
“A mortar. Didn’t you tell Vova you operated a mortar? How does it work?”
“A mortar is one of the things I operate. What do you want to know?”
“Does it have a short barrel like a cannon or a long barrel?”
“It’s got a long barrel.”
“I see. So you have a long barrel, and what do you do?”
“You point it up at a forty-five-degree angle—”
“And then?”
“Then you pop a bomb into the barrel. It drops to the bottom, hits the firing pin, the propellant charge explodes, and—”
“I know what happens next. The bomb flies out at seven hundred meters a second.”
“Something like that.”
“So let me see if I’ve got it straight. Long barrel. Point up. Drop. Fire. Pop.”
“I knew you’d understand.”
“Again. Long. Up. Drop. Fire. Pop. I’m a quick learner.”
“That you are.”
“Shura?”
“Mmm?”
“Why does the mortar barrel have to be so long?”
“To improve muzzle velocity. Do you know what that is?”
“I have some idea.”
Back outside, Tatiana had a quick drink and went straight to Alexander’s relief maps. He went back to his logs. She was even hotter now; she needed to dunk her body in the Kama. Fascinated, Tatiana studied the maps. “Shura, why are all your maps only of Scandinavia? Look, there is one of Finland and one of Sweden and one of the North Sea between Norway and England. Why?”
“They’re just campaign maps.”
“But why of Scandinavia?” She looked over at him. “We’re not fighting Scandinavia, are we?”
“We’re fighting Finland.”
“Oh, and here’s a map of the Karelian Isthmus.”
“So?”
“Didn’t you fight in the Karelian Isthmus, near Vyborg, in the Winter War of 1940?”
Alexander came over and lay on his stomach next to her, kissing her shoulder. “I did, yes.”
Tatiana was quiet for a moment. “At the start of the war last year, didn’t you send Dimitri on several reconnaissance missions to the Karelian Isthmus, to Lisiy Nos?”
Taking the maps away from her, he said, “Do you ever forget anything I say to you?”
“Not a word,” she replied.
“I wish you would have told me that sooner.”
“Why all those maps?” she asked again.
“It’s just Finland, Tania,” Alexander replied, getting up and pulling her up. “Are you hot?”
“And Sweden, Shura. I am hot, yes.”
“A little of Sweden.” He blew on her forehead and her neck.
“And Norway and England, Shura.” She closed her eyes, leaning against him. “Your breath is hot.”
“What’s your question?”
“Sweden is neutral in the current war, isn’t it?” she asked.
Alexander led her inside their house. “Yes. Sweden is trying to stay neutral in the current war. Anything else?”
“I don’t know.” Tatiana smiled, her throat dry. “What else have you got?”
“You’ve seen it all, you’ve had it all — in spades,” Alexander said softly, lifting her to their bed. “What do you want?” He smiled. “What can I do for you?”
“Hmm,” she purred, her hands caressing him, feeling the droplets of heat all over her body. “Can you do that thing where you make us come together?”
“All right, Tatiasha,” Alexander said, bending over her. “I’ll do that thing where I make us come together.”
Scorched and soaked, they fell away from each other. Breathless, they lay on their backs, and then they panted, and then they turned their faces to one another and smiled happily.
Alexander went to get them a drink, and when some time had passed and Tatiana was able to breathe normally again, she gently pleaded with him to tell her how he received his first medal of valor.
For a few minutes Alexander was mute. Tatiana waited. There was a breeze coming in through the curtains, but the breeze was hot. Alexander’s body was wet. Tatiana’s body was wet. They needed that Kama River to cool off in. But Tatiana wasn’t getting off the bed until she heard about Karelia.
Finally he shrugged. “It was not much.” His voice was even. “We had fought all through the swamps near the gulf, from Lisiy Nos practically to Vyborg. We pushed the Finns back to the city but then got bogged down in the swamps in the woods. The Finns were very well entrenched and had munitions and supplies, and we were in the mud and had nothing. In the terrible battle near Vyborg we lost more than two-thirds of our men. We were forced to stop and retreat.”
Alexander paused. “It was really stupid. This was in March, just days before the armistice on March 13, and here we were, losing hundreds of men for no reason. I was in the rifle corps then. We had nothing but single-bolt rifles on us.” He smiled. “And one or two mortars.”
Tatiana smiled back. Her hand was on his chest.
“My platoon had thirty men when we started out. I had four left by the end of two days. Four plus me. When we returned out of the marshes to post at Lisiy Nos, we learned that one of the men left in the swamps near the defense line at Vyborg was Colonel Stepanov’s young son, Yuri. He was eighteen and had just joined the army.”
Alexander paused.
Paused or stopped?
Her hand on his chest, Tatiana waited. She felt his heart speed up.
And then Alexander moved her hand away from his heart.
Tatiana did not put it back.
He said, “So . . . I went back, spent a few hours looking for him, and found him still alive but hit. We brought him back to camp.” Alexander tightened his mouth. “He didn’t make it.” He wasn’t looking at Tatiana.
But she was looking at him. “Oh, no.”
“For Yuri Stepanov I got my medal of valor.”
The bones in Alexander’s face were set, and his eyes were expressionless. Tatiana knew: he was making them expressionless.
She replaced her gentle hand on his chest and watched Alexander slowly blink away his life.
“The colonel was grateful to you for bringing his son back?”
“Yes,” said Alexander, his voice flat. “Colonel Stepanov has been very good to me. He transferred me out of the infantry division and into the motorized. And when he became commander of the Leningrad garrison, he took me with him.”
Tatiana was very, very quiet. She was barely breathing. She didn’t want to know. She didn’t want to ask. But she couldn’t not ask.
“You didn’t go into the swamps by yourself,” she said at last, and sighed deeply. “Who did you take with you?”
Carefully Alexander replied, “Dimitri.”
It was a long time before Tatiana spoke.
“I didn’t know he was in your platoon.”
“He wasn’t. I asked him if he wanted to come on the mission with me, and he said yes.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why would he say yes?” asked Tatiana. “I find it difficult to believe that Dimitri would go on a dangerous mission near enemy lines to find a wounded soldier.”
Alexander didn’t reply for a few moments. “Well, he did.”
“So let me understand. You and Dimitri went into the swamps alone to retrieve Yuri Stepanov?” Tatiana tried to keep her voice even. She couldn’t do it as well as Alexander. Her voice shook.
“Yes.”
“Did you expect to find him?” She sounded pained.
“Well, I don’t know,” Alexander said. “Are you looking for a specific answer, Tatia? Something I’m not telling you?”
Tatiana paused, trying not to swallow. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”
He was looking not at her but at the ceiling. “I told you. We went in, we looked for a couple of hours. We found him. We brought him back. That’s all.”
“Is that when Dimitri was promoted to private first class?”
“Yes.”
Quietly with her fingers Tatiana drew large circles, small circles, medium circles on Alexander, her head on his chest. “Shura?”
“Oh, no.”
“After the armistice of 1940, Vyborg was where the Soviet border with Finland was, right?”
“Right.”
“How far is Vyborg from Helsinki?”
Alexander was silent. “I don’t know.”
Tatiana bit her lip. “Doesn’t look far on the map.”
“It’s a map. Nothing looks far on it,” he said impatiently. “Maybe 300 kilometers.”
“I see. How far—”
“Tania.”
“What? How far from Helsinki to Stockholm?”
“Oh, for God’s sake! Stockholm?” But Alexander was still not looking at Tatiana. “Maybe another 500 kilometers. But across water. There is the Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Bothnia in between.”
“Yes, there is the gulf, there is the sea,” Tatiana said. “I have one more question.”
“What?” He did not sound amused.
“Where is the border now?”
Alexander didn’t reply.
“The Finns came down from Vyborg to Lisiy Nos, right? Where you sent Dimitri last year for reconnaissance?”
“Tatiana, is there a point to your questions?” he asked abruptly. “That’s enough already.”
She sat up abruptly and moved away, starting to climb down.
Alexander caught her by the arm. “Where are you going?”
“Nowhere,” she said. “We were done, right? I’m going to cool off, and then I’ve got to start on dinner.”
“Come here.”
“No. I’ve got to—”
“Come here.”
Tatiana closed her eyes. Alexander had that voice. He had that voice, those eyes, those hands, that mouth. He had that everything.
She came.
“What are you thinking?” he asked, laying her next to him, caressing her. “What are you asking me?”
“Nothing. I’m just thinking.”
“You asked me about my medal, I told you. You asked me about the borders, I told you. You asked me about Lisiy Nos, I told you. Now, stop all that thinking,” he said, gently kneading her nipple between his thumb and forefinger.
Alexander kissed her. They were still damp from before, still parched from before, and thirsty, and hot. “Do you have any more questions? Or are you finished?”
“I don’t know.”
He kissed her again, longer, warmer, deeper, kissed her tenderly, endlessly.
“I might be finished,” she whispered. That’s what he did to her: kissed her until the liquid flame dissolved her flesh. And he knew it. Everything he did to her he did unceasingly until he dissolved her. She was helpless before him. And he knew it. His mouth still on hers, Alexander prodded her thighs apart and slid two fingers inside her . . . pulled them out . . . slid them back in . . . “I think I’m finished now,” whispered Tatiana.