“How many of these questions have you been able to answer?”
“Quite a few, sir,” said Ouspensky indignantly. “Yes, he is hungry. Yes, he is tired. Yes, he wants to be someplace else. Yes, he misses his mother. Yes, he lay down with a woman. All he needed was half a month’s salary back in Minsk.”
“And you know all this how?”
“Because that describes me,” replied Ouspensky.
“All right. So you know the answers to these simple questions because you know yourself.”
“What?”
“You know the answers because you’ve looked inside yourself and you know that though you’re marching and though you’re holding your rifle high, and though your step is with your fellow soldier, you’re tired, you’re hungry, and you want to get laid.”
“Yes.”
“So, you’re saying there is something behind what you see, and the reason you’re saying there is something else is because you know there is something behindyou. There is something inside you that makes you say one thing and do another, that makes you march yet feel melancholy, that makes you look for whores yet love your wife, that makes you shoot an innocent German yet not want to hurt the rat that’s running among the mines.”
“There’s no such thing as an innocent German.”
Alexander continued. “The thing that makes you lie and feel remorse, that makes you betray your wife and feel guilt, the thing that makes you steal from the villagers knowing all the while you’re doing wrong, that thing is inside Yermenko, too, and that’s the thing science can’t measure. Let’s go and talk to him, and I will show you how far from the truth you were.”
Alexander sent Ouspensky to get Yermenko. He offered both men a cigarette and a glass of vodka and put more wood on the fire. Yermenko was wary at first, but then drank and warmed up. He was young and extremely diffident. He wouldn’t look Ouspensky in the eye, kept shifting from place to place, and said, yes, sir, no, sir, to every question that was asked of him. He talked a little about his mother in
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Kharkov, about his sister who died of scarlet fever at the start of the war, about his farming life. When asked about the Germans, Yermenko shrugged and said he didn’t read any newspapers and didn’t listen to much news. He didn’t know what was going on, he just did as he was told. He made a small joke at the expense of the Germans, he drank another glass of vodka, and shyly asked for one more cigarette before going to bed. Alexander excused him and he left.
Ouspensky raised his eyebrows. “All right—so he’s a cipher. He is everyman, he is like Telikov, and like the engineer who just got killed—he is like me.”
Alexander was rolling cigarettes.
“He doesn’t want to know about the Germans, he just goes and shoots them when you tell him to. He is a good soldier, the kind you want in your battalion. Has some war experience, listens to orders, doesn’t complain. What?”
“So you’ve observed him closely, you’ve watched him, and now you called him over and you talked to him. We socialized with him. We warmed him up, we chatted, we joked, we know a bit about this person, science has made its conclusions, right?”
“Right.”
“Just the same way that science has observed the earth and the motion of the moon and the sun and the stars in the galaxy. The same way the telescope helped science discover the Milky Way and the nine planets, the same way the microscope helped Fleming discover penicillin and Lister discover carbolic acid. Right? We put Yermenko under the telescope when he marched, and under the microscope when he sat with us. We observed him the way science observes the universe—theonly way science can observe the universe. Perhaps for a shorter time, but we have used the scientific principles that scientists use to tell us of the universe and how it was made, of atoms, of electrons, of cells. Perhaps we could find out what Yermenko’s blood type is? Perhaps we could find out how tall he is? How many push-ups he can do? Would all that help us, you think, to understand what is behind the man who marches on the field with us?”
“Yes,” said Ouspensky. “I think it would.”
Alexander lit a cigarette and offered one to Nikolai. “Lieutenant Ouspensky, Valery Yermenko is only sixteen years old. He killed his own father at the age of twelve. Village justice they called it, for the father was beating his mother daily. Yermenko simply got tired of watching it. He beat him to death with a stick.
Do you know how hard it is to beat to death a grown man, especially for a small boy? He escaped village justice by running away and joining the army. He lied about his age—said he was fourteen—and they took him. During his training, he constantly had run-ins with his training sergeant, finally accosting him in the woods as the man was coming from mess and breaking his neck for humiliating him earlier at target practice. In Stalingrad, he distinguished himself by killing over three hundred Germans with his hands and his army knife—the army was too afraid to issue him a rifle. The building he took over remained under Soviet control from the beginning of the siege until the end. The Soviets gave up Yermenko to the Germans because they didn’t want anything to do with him. When the Germans surrendered, the Red Army got Yermenko back. They sent him to the Gulag where he sliced open the guard on duty, took the guard’s uniform and rifle and walked out of the camp compound, walking a thousand kilometers through the Soviet plains before coming to Lake Ladoga. Do you know where he was headed? To Murmansk.
He wanted to get on one of the Lend-lease ships. Turns out he read just enough papers to learn about American Lend-lease: what they’re sending, what they’re producing, and in what numbers the ships are coming into the port. He was apprehended at Volkhov and our General Meretskov, not knowing what to
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do with him, decided to give him to me to dispose of.”
Ouspensky did not take a single drag of his cigarette. “Lieutenant,” said Alexander, “don’t waste my precious cigarettes. Smoke or give them to me.”
Dropping the cigarette on the floor, Ouspensky, without taking his eyes off Alexander, said, “You’re bullshitting me.”
“Because that’s me?”
“You’re lying.”
“Me again.” Alexander smiled.
“So let me understand…”
“Behind Yermenko ishimself which only he knows. Only Yermenko knows the workings of his own soul. Only you know why you walk slightly in front of me at all times even though I am your commander, and only I know why I fucking let you. That’s my point. Behind the exterior of us there is Yermenko’s soul, and yours and mine, and everyone else’s. And if science looked in on us, it would never know.
How much more there must be behind the vast and unknowable universe.”
Ouspensky was pensive. “Why does that bastard Yermenko show so much loyalty to you, Captain?”
“Because Meretskov told me to shoot him and I didn’t. He is now mine till death.”
By the fire, Ouspensky asked, “So because of fucking Yermenko you are sure there is a God?”
“No. It’s because I have seen Him with my own eyes,” replied Alexander.
BOOK TWO
The Bridge to Holy Cross
Come my friends
’Tis not too late to seek a newer world,
Push off, and sitting well in order smite, the sounding furrows;
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For my purpose holds, to sail beyond the sunset and the baths, Of all the western stars until I die.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The Bridge to Holy Cross, July 1944
INLUBLIN, ALEXANDER’S TROOPSrested and liked it so much they unilaterally decided to stay.
Lublin, unlike the scorched and burned and plundered villages they had found in Byelorussia, remained nearly intact. Except for a few bombed and
burned houses, Lublin was whitewashed and clean and hot with narrow streets and yellow stucco squares, which on Sundays had markets which sold—! things!
Fruits, and ham, and cheese, and sour cream! And cabbage (Alexander’s men stayed away from the cabbage). In Byelorussia they encountered maybe a handful of livestock; here, succulent, already basted and smoked pigs were being sold for zlotys. And fresh milk and cheese and butter implied the presence of enough cows to milk, not to eat. Eggs were sold, and chickens, too. “If this is what it means to be German-occupied, I’ll take Hitler any day over Stalin,” whispered Ouspensky. “In my village, my wife can’t pull the fucking onions out of the ground without thekolkhoz coming to take them away. And onions are the only thing she grows.”
“You should have told her to grow potatoes,” said Alexander. “Look at the potatoes here.” The vendors sold watches, and they sold dresses for women, and they sold knives. Alexander tried to buy three knives, but no one wanted Russian rubles. The Polish people hated the Germans, and they liked the Russians only marginally more. They would lie down with anyone to get the Germans out of their country, but they wished it weren’t the Russians they were lying down with. After all, the Soviets had carved up Poland alongside Germany in 1939, and it looked as if they had no intention of giving their half back. So the people were skeptical and wary. The troops couldn’t buy anything unless they had barter goods. No matter which way they turned, no one would accept their worthless Russian money. The Moscow treasury needed to stop printing meaningless paper. Alexander finally managed to sweet talk an old lady out of three knives and a pair of glasses for his near-blind Sergeant Verenkov for two hundred rubles.
After a dinner of ham and eggs and potatoes and onions, and much vodka, Ouspensky came to Alexander and whispered excitedly that they had found a “whore’s mess tent” and were all going; would Alexander like to come, too?
Alexander said no.
“Oh, come on, sir. After what we saw at Majdanek we need something to reaffirm life. Come. Have a good bang.”
“No. I’ll be sleeping. We are forcing the bridgeheads at the Vistula in a few days. We’re going to need our strength for that.”
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“Never heard of the Vistula.”
“Fuck off.”
“Let me understand—because of a river in some nebulous future, you’re not going to get some cully-shangy today?”
“No. I’m going to sleep because that is what I need.”
“With all due respect, Captain, as your drudge, I am with you every minute of every day, and I know what you need. You need Sir Berkeley as badly as the rest of us. Come with me. Those girlswant to take our money.”
Smiling, Alexander said, “Oh, because you’ve had so much luck unloading your rubles earlier.
Ouspensky, you couldn’t buy a damn watch. What makes you think you’re going to buy a whole woman? She is going to spit at your rubles.” Alexander was polishing his new knives in front of the tent.
“Come with us.”
“No. You go ahead. Maybe when you come back you can tell me all about it.”
“Captain, you are like my brother, but I will not let you live vicariously through me. Now come on. I heard there are five lovely Polish girls, and for thirty zlotys they will have each and every one of us.”
Alexander laughed. “You don’t have thirty zlotys!”
“But you do. Come on.”
“No. Maybe tomorrow. Tonight I’m exhausted.”
Nothing inside Alexander lifted when he was alone. When he was in the midst of battle, when he was commanding the tank, or waiting to attack, or killing other human beings, he could will his heart to forget.
He wet a towel in a bucket of water and lay down on his makeshift bed, covering his head and face with the sopping cotton. There, there. The cold water ran down his neck, his cheeks, his scalp. His eyes were closed. There, there.
“Shura, lie down, right here on the blanket.”
Alexander obeys gladly. It is a warm, sunny, quiet afternoon. He has been chopping wood, and she has been reading. He wants to go for a swim.
“All that wood chopping, has it tired you out?”
“No, I’m all right.”
“Are you a little tired?”
He doesn’t know what answer she wants. “Uh—yes. I’m a little tired.”
Smiling, Tatiana plops down on top of him and pins his arms above his head.
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Her scent meanders into his insides. Alexander fights the impulse to kiss her collarbone. “OK, now what?” he says.
“Now you have to try to get away.”
“How far do I have to get?” Alexander asks, flipping her on the blanket and rising to his feet.
She shakes her head. “I wasn’t ready. Get back here.” She is trying not to smile. Failing.
He obeys gladly.
She pins his arms—her fingers unable to circle the very wrists she is so judiciously attempting to pin—back under his head. Her scent weakens Alexander’s senses. He is aroused by her spirited fearless playful struggle with him, by her jumping on his back, pulling him down on the ground, by her attempts to wrestle with him, by her wild antics in the water—her shy, erotic woman-child self is an endless aphrodisiac to him, like ambrosia.
“Are you ready yet?” he asks, gazing at her determined face as she thinks of the best way to keep him in place. She moves his wrists close together and under his head. “That’s good,” he says. “What else?”
“I’m thinking.” Tatiana’s legs squeeze his ribs. She takes a deep breath. “Ready?”
Before she can finish talking, Alexander flips her over. This time he does not stand up.
Sitting up, she asks plaintively, “What am I doing wrong? Why can’t I hold you in place?”
He lays her down on the blanket. “Could it be because you are one and a half meters and forty-five kilos, and I’m a meter ninety and ninety kilos?” He places his large, dark, messy hand on her alabaster throat.
Moving away, she says stubbornly, “No. First of all, I’m a meter fifty-seven, so there. And secondly, I should be able to—physics demands that I can—put enough weight on you in the right place to immobilize you.”
Alexander is trying hard to remain serious. Straddling her, he pins her wrists above her head. And smiles. “Am I allowed to kiss you during this game?”
“Absolutely not,” Tatiana declares.
“Hmm,” he says. He stares down at her face. He really wants to kiss her. Bending his head—
“Shura, that’s not part of the game.”
“I don’t care,” he says, kissing her. “I’m making up the rules as I go.”
“Like you do at poker, right?”
“Don’t start with the poker thing.”
She tries not to laugh. “Are you ready?”
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He is looking down at her. “I’m ready.”
She tries to get away but she can’t move. Her ribs are between his knees. Her legs flail behind him, actually rising high enough to hit him on the back. Her head is bobbing from side to side as she tries to lift her torso and disentangle her wrists. “Wait,” she pants. “I think I got it.”
“I tell you what,” says Alexander. “I’ll hold your wrists with just one hand; will that help?” With his right hand he squeezes her wrists together above her head.
“Ready?”
He laughs. “Yes, babe.” He is trying to catch her eye, but she won’t have any of it. Alexander knows once their eyes meet, that will be the end for this portion of the game. Tatiana knows the look in his eyes so well, as soon as she sees it, she moans a little, even while she is still fighting with him. Especially if she is still fighting with him.
Her legs are still flailing. She can’t even free her wrists. With his roam
ing hand, Alexander caresses her thigh under her dress.
“That’s not allowed,” she pants, struggling against him.
“Not allowed?” His hand becomes more insistent.
“No. I do not allow that.”
“All right, tadpole, come on,” says Alexander, kissing her lips, her freckles, her eyes. “Show me what you got.”
Tatiana turns her cheek to him. “I think I know what I’m doing wrong,” she says. “Let’s try it again.”
His hand tightens around her wrists. “Go ahead.”
Nearly inaudibly she moans. But Alexander hears.
“Well, you have to let go of me,” whispers Tatiana.
“I thought you knew what you were doing wrong.”
“I do. But you have to let go of me and lie down.”
Reluctantly this time, Alexander obeys her.
Tatiana kneels between his legs. She doesn’t hold his hands but pulls off his trousers and climbs back astride him, lifting her dress. “Now…” she murmurs, pinning his wrists above his head and moving her lips to his face. “Go ahead, soldier.”
Alexander doesn’t move. Tatiana moves. Up and down.
“Go ahead,” she murmurs again. “You were saying? Show me what you got. Try to get away.”
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Alexander emits a low groan. Tania kisses him. “Oh, husband…” she calls melodiously, to the rhythm of her heart, to the rhythm of her motion. “You were saying…”
“Nothing.” He closes his eyes. Tatiana yields herself to remind him that her submission—the source of all his strength—is his privilege and not his right. Wrapped in her, he takes it from her as though it is an elixir he needs to continue living.
Afterward she is still holding his wrists and he is still not moving, except for his heart, which is pumping 160 beats a minute of Tatiana through his body.