Tatiana and Alexander Read Online Free PDF

truck,” Sayers said.
    “Yes. He won’t let you leave without him. Guaranteed. You must take him.”
    “I don’t want to take him.”
    “You want to save her, don’t you? If he doesn’t come, she has no chance. So stop thinking about the things you can’t change. Just watch out for him. Trust him with nothing.”
    “What do I do with him in Helsinki?”
    Here Alexander allowed himself a small smile. “I’m not the one to be advising you on that one. Just—don’t do anything to endanger you or Tania.”
    “Of course not.”
    Alexander spoke. “You must be very careful, nonchalant, casual, brave. Leave with her as soon as you can. You’ve already told Stepanov you’re headed back?” Colonel Mikhail Stepanov was Alexander’s commander.
    “I told him I’m headed back to Finland. He asked me to bring…your wife back to Leningrad. He said it would be easier for her if she left Morozovo.”
    Alexander nodded. “I already spoke to him. I asked him to let her leave with you. You’ll be taking her with his approval. Good. It’ll be easier for you to leave the base.”
    “Stepanov told me it’s policy for soldiers to get transported to the Volkhov side for promotions. Was that duplicity? I can’t understand anymore what’s truth and what’s a lie.”
    “Welcome to my world.”
    “Does he know what’s happening with you?”
    “He is the one who told me what’s about to happen to me. They have to take me across the lake. They don’t have a stockade here,” Alexander explained. “But he will tell my wife what I have told her—I’m getting promoted. When the truck blows up, it will be even easier for the NKVD to go along with the official story—they don’t like to explain arrests of their commanding officers. It’s so much easier to say I’ve died.”
    “But they do have a stockade here in Morozovo.” Sayers lowered his voice. “I didn’t know it was the stockade. I was asked to go check on two soldiers who were dying of dysentery. They were in a tiny room in the basement of the abandoned school. It was a bomb shelter, divided into tiny cells. I thought they had been quarantined.” Sayers glanced at Alexander. “I couldn’t even help them. I don’t know why they didn’t just let them die, they asked for me so late.”
    “They asked for you just in time. This way they died under doctor’s care. An International Red Cross doctor’s care. It’s so legitimate.”
    Breathing hard, Dr. Sayers asked, “Are you afraid?”
    “For her,” said Alexander, glancing at the doctor. “You?”
    “Ridiculously.”
    Alexander nodded and leaned back against the chair. “Just tell me one thing, Doctor. Is my wound healed enough for me to go and fight?”
    “No.”
    “Is it going to open again?”
    “No, but it might get infected. Don’t forget to take the sulfa drugs.”
    “I won’t.”
    Before Dr. Sayers walked away, he said quietly to Alexander, “Don’t worry about Tania. She’ll be all right. She’ll be with me. I won’t let her out of my sight until New York. And she’ll be all right then.”
    Faintly nodding, Alexander said, “She’ll be as good as she can be. Offer her some chocolate.”
    “You think that’ll do it?”
    “Offer it to her,” Alexander repeated. “She won’t want it the first five times you ask. But she will take it the sixth.”
    Before Dr. Sayers disappeared through the doors of the ward, he turned around. The two men stared at each other for a short moment, and then Alexander saluted him.
    Living in Moscow, 1930
    When they were first met at the train station, even before heading to their hotel they were escorted to a restaurant where they ate and drank all evening. Alexander delighted in the fact that his father was right—life seemed to be turning out just fine. The food was passable and there was plenty of it. The bread was not fresh, however, and, oddly, neither was the chicken. The butter was kept at room temperature, so was the water, but the black