Bronze 1 - The Bronze Horseman by Paullina Simons

Author:Paullina Simons [Simons, Paullina]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9780061854149
Published: 2009-09-08T00:00:00+00:00

The day after New Year’s, Alexander and Tatiana slowly made their way to the post office. Every week Tatiana still went to check if there were any letters from Babushka and to send her a short note. Since Deda died, they had received just one letter from her, telling them she had moved from Molotov to a fishing village on the mighty Kama.

Tatiana’s letters were brief; she could not get out more than a few paragraphs. She wrote to Babushka about the hospital, about Vera, about Nina Iglenko, and a little about crazy Slavin, who before his inexplicable disappearance two weeks earlier had spent the days and nights, as always, on the floor of the corridor, halfway in, halfway out, indifferent to the bombing and the hunger, his only nod to winter being a blanket over his sunken frame. Slavin, Tatiana could write about. Herself, she could not; even less about the family. She left that to Dasha, who always seemed to manage to write a bright sentence to tack onto Tatiana’s grim paragraph. Tatiana didn’t know how to hide the Leningrad of October, November, December 1941. Dasha, however, hid it all, constantly and cheerfully writing only about Alexander and their plans for marriage. Well, she was a grown-up. Grown-ups could hide so well.

The letter Tatiana was carrying today did not have an addendum from Dasha, who had been too tired yesterday to write.

Alexander and Tatiana made their careful way in the snow, their faces down and away from the choking wind. The snow was getting inside Tatiana’s shredded boots and not melting. Holding on to Alexander’s arm, she was thinking about her next letter. Maybe in the next letter she could write about Mama. And Marina. And Aunt Rita. And Babushka Maya.

The post office was on the first floor of the old building on Nevsky. It used to be on the ground floor, but high explosives blew out the windows on the ground floor, and the glass could not be replaced. So the post office moved upstairs. The problem with upstairs was that it was hard to get to. The stairs were covered with ice and bodies.

At the foot of the stairs Alexander said, “It’s getting late, I have to go. I have to report back at noon.”

“It’s many hours till noon,” said Tatiana.

“No, actually, it’s eleven. It took us an hour and a half to get here.”

Tatiana felt even colder. “Go, Shura, get out of the cold,” she muttered.

Fixing her scarf, Alexander said, “Don’t go to any stores. Go straight home. I already gave you my ration. And we spent all my money.”

“I know. I will.”

“Please.”

“All right,” she said. “Are you coming back tonight?”

Shaking his head, he said, “I’m leaving tonight. I’m going back up. My replacement gunner—”

“Don’t say it.”

“I’ll come back as soon as I can.”

“All right. You promise?”

“Tatia, I’m going to try to get you and Dasha out of Leningrad on one of the trucks. You hang on until I can do it, all right?”

They stared at each other.

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