“I don’t know.” He smiled. “How many? How many zeros follow the twenty-nine?”

She laughed quietly. “Two or three. We made love to wake the dead, and yet I didn’t get pregnant. You come to see me for one weekend, and here I am — how do you say, up the stick?”

Alexander laughed loudly. “Thank you for that. But, Tania, I want to remind you, we did make love quite a bit that weekend, too.”

“Yes.”

They stared at each other for a silent, unsmiling moment. Alexander knew. They had both felt too close to death that gray weekend in Leningrad. And, yet, here it was—

As if to confirm what he was thinking, Tatiana said, “This is God telling us to go. Can’t you feel that, too? He is saying, this is your destiny! I will not let anything happen to Tatiana, as long as she has Alexander’s baby inside her.”

“Oh?” said Alexander, his hands tenderly stroking her stomach. “God is saying that, is He? Why don’t you tell that to the woman in the Ladoga truck with you and Dasha, holding her dead baby all the way from the barracks across to Kobona?”

“I feel stronger now than ever,” Tatiana said, hugging him. “Where is your famous faith, big man?”



“Tania, have you talked to Dr. Sayers?” Alexander was caressing her hands under his blanket, kneading her fingers, feeling her knuckles, her wrists, her palms.

“Of course. All I do is talk to him, go over all the details. We’re waiting for you to walk. Everything is set. He’s already filled out my new Red Cross travel documents.” She purred, leaning closer to him. “That feels so nice, Shura. I’m going to fall asleep.”

“Don’t fall asleep. Under what name?”

“Jane Barrington.”

“That’s nice. Jane Barrington and Tobe Hanssen.”

“Tove.”

“My mother and a Finn. Some couple we make.”

“Don’t we?” She half-closed her eyes. “That feels very nice, Shura,” she murmured. “Don’t stop.”

“I won’t stop,” he whispered huskily, gazing at her. That made her open her eyes.

A moment. They stared at each other. Remembering. Blink.

Tatiana smiled. “In America can I please carry your name?” she whispered.

“In America I will insist on it.” Alexander was thoughtful.

“What’s the matter?”

“We don’t have passports,” he said.

“So? You’ll go to the U.S. consulate in Stockholm. We’ll be fine.”

“I know. We still have to get from Helsinki to Stockholm. We can’t stay in Helsinki for a second. It’s too dangerous. Crossing the Baltic Sea. It’s not going to be easy.”

Tatiana grinned. “What were you going to do with your limping demon? Same thing with me.” She paused. “Eugene calls to the wherryman — and he, with daring unconcern is willing, to take him for a quarter-shilling, across that formidable sea.” Smiling happily, she said, “Your mother, you, your ten thousand dollars will get us back to your America.” Both her tiny delicate hands were threaded through his.

Alexander was suffocating under the weight of his love.

“Shura,” Tatiana said, her voice tremulous, “remember the day you gave me your Pushkin book? When you fed me in the Summer Garden?”

“Like it was yesterday.” Alexander smiled. “It was the night you fell in love with me.”

Tatiana blushed and cleared her throat. “Were you . . . if I weren’t such a shy chicken . . . would you have—” She broke off, looking away momentarily.

“What? What?” He squeezed her hand. “Would I have kissed you?”

“Hmm.”

“Tania, you were so terrified of me.” Alexander shook his head at the memory, his body aching. “I was completely gone for you. Kissed you? I would have ravished you right on the bench by the child-eating Saturn if you had given me half a sign.”


7


Alexander got stronger every day. He could get up and stand near his bed. It still hurt him to be upright, but he was off morphine completely, and now his back throbbed from morning until night, reminding him of his mortality. He was carving constantly. He had just carved a cradle out of another piece of wood. Soon, soon, he kept saying to himself. He wanted to be moved over into the convalescent ward, but Tatiana talked him out of it. She said his location and care were too good to give up his place in critical.

“Remember,” Tatiana said to him one afternoon as they were both standing by his bed, his arm around her. “You have to get better so that no one thinks you’re getting better. Or before you know it, they’ll send you back to the front with your stupid mortar.” She smiled up at him.

Alexander removed his arm. He saw Dimitri walking toward them. “Courage, Tania,” he whispered.

“What?”

“Tatiana! Alexander!” Dimitri exclaimed. “No, how incredible is this? The three of us together again. If only Dasha were here.”

Alexander and Tatiana said nothing. They did not look at each other.

“Tania, how are the terminal cases coming along? I just got you some more white sheets.”

“Thanks, Dimitri.”

“Oh, sure. Alexander, here are some cigarettes for you. Don’t worry about paying me. I know you probably don’t have any money on you. I can get your money and bring it to you—”

“Don’t worry, Dimitri.”

“It’s not a problem.” He stood at the foot of Alexander’s bed, his eyes darting from Alexander to Tatiana. “So, Tania, what are you doing here in critical care? I thought you were in the terminal ward.”

“I am. But I see my crossover patients, too. Leo in bed number thirty used to be terminal. Now he is always asking for me.”

Dimitri smiled. “Tania, not just Leo. Everybody is asking for you.” Tatiana didn’t say anything. Neither did Alexander, who sat down on his bed. Dimitri continued to study them. “Listen, it was good to see you both. Alexander, I’ll come by and visit you tomorrow, all right? Tania, you want to walk me out?”

“No, I have to change Alexander’s dressing.”

“Oh. It’s just that Dr. Sayers was looking for you. ‘Where is my Tania?’ Dr. Sayers said.” Dimitri smiled warmly. “Those were his exact words. You’re getting to be quite friendly with him, aren’t you?” He raised his eyebrows to her. “You know what they say about those Americans.”

Tatiana did not nod, did not blink. She just turned to Alexander and said, “Come on, lie down.” Alexander did not move.

“Tania, did you hear me?” Dimitri asked.

“I heard you!” Tatiana said, not looking at Dimitri. “If you see Dr. Sayers, you can tell him I’ll be with him as soon as I can.”

After Dimitri left, Alexander and Tatiana looked at each other. “What are you thinking?” he asked her.

“That I need to change your dressing and go. Lie down.”

“Do you want to know what I’m thinking?”

“Absolutely not,” she replied.

Lying down on his stomach, Alexander said, “Tania, where is the rucksack with my things?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Why? What do you need it for?”

“It was on my back when I got hit . . .”

“It wasn’t on your back when we got to you. It’s probably lost, honey.”

“Yes . . .” he drew out. “But usually the rear units clean up once the battle is over. Pick up things like that. Can you ask around for it?”

“Of course,” she said, unwrapping his bandages. “I’ll ask Colonel Stepanov.” She paused, and Alexander heard her purr. “You know, Shura, the only thing I want to do when I see your back is play rail tracks, rail tracks.” She kissed his bare shoulder.

“The only thing I want to do when I see your back,” he said, closing his eyes, “is play rail tracks, rail tracks.”



Later that night when she was sitting by him, Alexander said to her, “Tatiana, you have to promise me — God help me — that if something happens to me, you will still go.” He held on to her when he said it.

“Don’t be ridiculous. What can happen to you?” She didn’t look at him when she said it.

“Are you trying to be brave?”

“Not at all,” she said. “As soon as you’re fit, we’re leaving. Dr. Sayers is ready to go anytime. In fact, he is itching to go. He is a big grumbler. Keeps complaining about everything. Doesn’t like the cold, doesn’t like the help, doesn’t like—” Tatiana stopped. “So what are you talking about? What can happen? I won’t let you go back to the front. And I won’t leave without you.”

“That’s what I’m talking about. Of course you will.”

“Of course I won’t.”

Alexander took her hand. “Now listen to me—”

Tatiana moved to get up from him, turning her head. “I don’t want to listen.” He wouldn’t let her hand go. “Alexander, please don’t scare me,” she said. “I’m trying to be so brave. Please,” Tatiana said calmly, her breath shallow.

“Tania, many things can go wrong.” He paused. “You know that there is always the danger I will be arrested.”

She nodded. “I know. But, if you’re taken by Mekhlis’s henchmen, I will wait.”

“Wait for what?” he exclaimed in frustration. Alexander had learned the hard way that the best he could hope for was that Tatiana would agree with him. If she had her own opinion, he didn’t have an icy hope of talking her out of it.

His emotion must have shown on his face, because she took both his dark war-beaten hands into her flawless white ones, pressed them to her lips and said, “Wait for you.” Then she tried to disentangle herself from him. He wasn’t having any of it. Pulling her off the chair, he brought her to sit next to him on the bed. “Wait for me where?” he asked.

“In Leningrad. In my apartment. Inga and Stan have left. I have two rooms. I will wait. And when you come back, I will be there with your baby.”

“The Soviet council will take the hallway and the room with the stove away.”

“Then I will wait in the room that’s left.”

“For how long?”