The Bronze Horseman

In the Moonlight’s Pallid Glamour

LATE the next morning Tatiana came into the critical care ward at the field hospital, the wooden building that was once a school, and found someone else in Alexander’s bed. She had expected his bed to be empty. She did not expect to see a new patient in Alexander’s bed, a man with no arms or legs.

Staring at the man with incomprehension, she thought she had made a mistake. She had woken up late and rushed and then spent too many hours in the terminal ward. Seven soldiers had died that morning.

But no, it was the critical ward. Leo in bed number thirty was reading. The two beds next to Alexander had also been emptied and refilled by new patients. Nikolai Ouspensky, the lieutenant with one lung next to Alexander, was gone, and so was the corporal next to him.

Why would they have filled Alexander’s bed? Tatiana went to check with Ina, who knew nothing; she wasn’t even on shift duty yet. Ina told Tatiana that late last night Alexander had asked for his dress uniform, which she brought him and then left for the night. Past that she knew nothing. Ina said that maybe Alexander had been moved to the convalescent wing.

Tatiana went to check. He hadn’t been.

She came back to the critical ward and looked under the bed. His rucksack was gone. Alexander’s medal of valor was no longer hanging on the wooden chair that stood by the new patient, whose face was covered in gauze, oozing blood near his right ear. Absentmindedly Tatiana said that she would get a doctor to take a look at him and groggily ambled away. She was feeling as well as she could for a woman four months pregnant. Her stomach was begi

She couldn’t find him anywhere, but when she found Ina, who was getting ready to start her shift, Ina told her that Dr. Sayers had been looking for her.

“He couldn’t have been looking very hard,” said Tatiana. “I’ve been in terminal all morning.” Tatiana found Dr. Sayers in the terminal ward himself, with a patient who had lost most of his stomach. “Dr. Sayers,” she whispered, “what’s going on? Where is Major Belov?” She saw that the patient had mere minutes to live.

Sayers didn’t look up from the man’s wounds when he said, “Tatiana, I’m almost done here. Help me hold his sides together while I sew.”

“What’s going on, Doctor?” Tatiana repeated as she helped him.

“Let’s just finish with him first, all right?”

Tatiana looked at the doctor, looked at the patient, and put her gloved and bloodied hand on the patient’s forehead. For a few moments she kept her hand on him and then said, “He is dead, Doctor, you can stop suturing.”

The doctor stopped suturing.

Tatiana ripped off her gloves and walked outside. The doctor followed her. It was nearly the middle of March and unremittingly windy. “Listen, Tania,” Sayers said, taking hold of her hands and looking white. “I’m sorry. Something terrible has happened.” His voice half broke on happened. The circles under his eyes were so dark, it looked as if he had been beaten. Tatiana stared at him for a moment, another moment—

She pulled her hands away. “Doctor,” Tatiana said, paling and looking around for something to hold on to. “What’s happened?”

“Tania, wait, don’t shout—”

“I’m not shouting.”

“I’m very sorry to tell you this, very sorry, but Alexander—” He broke off. “Early this morning, when he was taken with two other soldiers to Volkhov…” Sayers couldn’t continue.

Tatiana listened motionlessly, her insides becoming anesthetized. She tried to say, “What?”

“Listen, they were going across the lake when enemy fire—”

“What enemy fire?” Tatiana whispered vehemently.

“They left to cross before the shelling started, but we’re fighting a war. You hear the bombing, the German shells flying from Sinyavino? A long-range rocket hit the ice in front of the truck and exploded.”

“Where is he?”

“I’m sorry. Five people in that truck… nobody survived.”

Tatiana turned her back to the doctor and shook so violently that she thought she would split open. Without looking back, she asked, “Doctor, how do you know this?”

“I was called to the scene. We tried to save the men, the truck. But the truck was too heavy. It sank.” His voice was below a whisper.

Tatiana gripped her stomach and was sick in the snow. Her pulse tearing through her body at over 200 beats a minute, she reached down, grabbed a handful of snow, and wiped her mouth. She took another handful and pressed it to her face. Her heart would not quieten. She could not stop retching. She felt the doctor’s hand on her back, heard his voice dimly calling for her, “Tania, Tania.”

She did not turn around. “Did you see him yourself?” she asked, panting.

“Yes. I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I got his cap—”

“Was he alive when you saw him?”

“I’m sorry, Tatiana. No.”

She couldn’t stand any more.

“No, please,” she heard Dr. Sayers’s voice and felt his arms holding her up. “Please.”

Straightening herself, willing herself to remain upright, Tatiana turned around and leveled her gaze at Dr. Sayers, who touched her face and said, very concerned, “You need to go and sit down immediately, you’re in a state of—”

“I know what I am in,” Tatiana said. “Give me his cap.”

“I’m sorry. It breaks my—”

“I’ll take his cap,” said Tatiana, but her hand was shaking so badly that she couldn’t grasp it for a moment, and when she did, it fell out of her hands and onto the snow.

She couldn’t hold the death certificate either. Dr. Sayers had to hold it up for her. She saw only his name and the place of death. Lake Ladoga.

The Ladoga ice.

“Where is he?” she said faintly. “Where is he now—” She could not finish.

“Oh, Tania… what could we do? We…”

Waving him off, she doubled over. “Don’t speak to me anymore. How could you not have woken me? How could you not have told me instantly?”

“Tania, look at me.” She felt herself being pulled upright. Sayers had tears in his eyes. “I did look for you after I returned. But I can barely stand in front of you now when you’ve come for me, when I’ve got no choice. If I could, I would have sent you a telegram.” He shivered. “Tania, let’s get out of here! You and I. Let’s be done with this place! I have to get out of here, I can’t do it anymore. I need to be back in Helsinki. Come on, we’ll get our things. I’ll call Leningrad, let them know.” He paused. “I have to leave tonight.” He glanced at her. “We have to leave tonight.”

Tatiana did not respond. Her mind was playing tricks on her. For some reason she couldn’t get past the death certificate. It wasn’t a Red Army certificate. It was a Red Cross death certificate.

“Tatiana,” said Sayers, “can you hear me?”

“Yes,” she said indistinctly.

“You will come with me.”

“I can’t think right now,” she managed to utter. “I need to think for a few minutes.”

“Will you…” Sayers let out. “Will you please come back to my office? You’re not—Come, sit in my chair. You’ll—”

Backing away from Sayers, Tatiana watched him with an intensity she knew was excruciating to him. She turned and walked as fast as she could to the main building. She had to find Colonel Stepanov. The colonel was busy and refused to see her at first.

She waited outside the front door until he came out.

“I’m headed for the mess tent. Walk with me?” Stepanov said to her, not catching her eye and hurrying forward.