“It does seem that way,” said Tatiana.

“Maybe you should be less patient.”

“That’s what I thought.” She nodded. “I think patience is overrated as a virtue anyway.”

“But be no less moral,” said Deda. “No less righteous. Remember the three questions I told you to ask yourself to know who you are.”

She wished Deda wouldn’t remind her. She had no interest in asking herself those questions tonight. “Deda, in this family we leave the righteousness to you,” Tatiana said, smiling weakly. “There is nothing left for the rest of us.”

His head of thick gray hair shaking, her grandfather said, “Tania, that’s all that’s left.”

In her bed Tatiana lay quietly and thought about Alexander. She thought about him not just telling her about his life but drowning her in it, the way he himself was drowned in it. As she listened to him, Tatiana had stopped breathing, her mouth remaining slightly open, so that Alexander could breathe his sorrow — from his words, from his own breath — into her lungs. He needed someone to bear the weight of his life.

Needed her.

Tatiana hoped she was ready.

She could not think about Dasha.


5


On the way to Kirov on Wednesday morning, Tatiana saw firemen building new water storage basins and installing what looked like fire hydrants. Was Leningrad expecting that many more fires? she wondered. Were the German bombs going to incinerate the city? She could not imagine it. It was as unimaginable as America.

In the distance the great Smolny Cathedral and Monastery was beginning to take on an unrecognizable shape and form. Camouflage nets were being draped over it by workers, who were dousing the nets in green, brown, and gray paint. What were the workers to do with the harder-to-cover — though also harder to spot from the air — spires of Peter and Paul’s Cathedral and the Admiralty? For the time being they remained in full luminescent view.

Before she left work, Tatiana scrubbed her hands and face until they glistened, then stood in front of the mirror next to her locker and thoroughly brushed out her hair, leaving it long and down. This morning she had put on a wraparound floral print skirt and a blue blouse with short sleeves and white buttons. As she checked herself in the mirror, she couldn’t decide — did she look twelve or thirteen? Whose kid sister was she? Oh, yes, Dasha’s. Please be waiting for me, she thought before rushing out.

She hurried to the bus stop, and there was Alexander, his cap in his hands, waiting for her.

“I like your hair, Tania,” he said, smiling.

“Thank you,” she muttered. “I wish I didn’t smell like I worked with petroleum all day. Petroleum and grease.”

“Oh, no,” he said, rolling his eyes. “You weren’t making bombs again?”

She laughed.

They looked at the sulky, overworked crowd waiting for the bus and then at each other and together said, “Tram?” and nodded, crossing the street.

“At least we’re still working,” Tatiana said lightly. “Pravda says things are not so good with work in your America these days. Full employment here in the Soviet Union, Alexander.”

“Yes,” Alexander said, leaning into her as they walked. “There is no unemployment in the Soviet Union or in the Dartmoor jail — and for the same reason.”

Smiling, Tatiana wanted to call him a subversive but didn’t.

While they waited for the tram, Alexander said, “I brought you something.” He handed her a package wrapped in brown paper. “I know Monday was your birthday. But I didn’t have a chance before today . . .”

“What is it?” Sincerely surprised, she took the package from him. A small lump came up in her throat.

Lowering his voice, he said, “In America we have a custom. When you’re given presents for your birthday, you’re supposed to open them and say thank you.”

Tatiana nervously looked down at the present. “Thank you.” Gifts were not something she was used to. Wrapped gifts? Unheard of, even when they came wrapped only in plain brown paper.

“No. Open first. Then say thank you.”

She smiled. “What do I do? Do I take the paper off?”

“Yes. You tear it off.”

“And then what?”

“And then you throw it away.”

“The whole present or just the paper?”

Slowly he said, “Just the paper.”

“But you wrapped it so nicely. Why would I throw it away?”

“It’s just paper.”

“If it’s just paper, why did you wrap it?”

“Will you please open my present?” said Alexander.

Eagerly Tatiana tore open the paper. Inside were three books — one hefty hardcover collection by Aleksandr Pushkin called The Bronze Horseman and Other Poems, and two smaller books, one by a man she’d never heard of, named John Stuart Mill; the book was called On Liberty. It was in English. The last one was an English-Russian dictionary.

“English-Russian?” Tatiana said, smiling. “It’s less helpful than you might think. I speak no English. Was this yours from when you came here?”

“Yes,” he said. “And without it you won’t be able to read Mill.”

“Thank you so much for all of them,” she said.

“The Bronze Horseman book was my mother’s,” said Alexander. “She gave it to me a few weeks before they came for her.”

Tatiana didn’t know what to say. “I love Pushkin.” Very quietly.

“I thought you might. All Russians do.”

“Do you know what the poet Maikov wrote about Pushkin?”

“No,” Alexander said.

Flustered by his eyes, Tatiana tried to remember the lines. “He said . . . let’s see . . . His sounds do not seem made in this world’s fashion . . . as if pervaded with his deathless leaven . . . All earthly stuff — emotions, anguish, passion — had been transmuted to the stuff of heaven.”

“All earthly stuff — emotions, anguish, passion — had been transmuted to the stuff of heaven,” Alexander repeated.

Tatiana turned red and looked down the street. Where was that tram? “Have you ever read Pushkin yourself?” she asked in a tiny voice.

“Yes, I have read Pushkin myself,” Alexander replied, taking the wrapping paper out of her hands and throwing it away. “ ‘The Bronze Horseman’ is my favorite poem.”

“Mine, too!” echoed Tatiana, looking up at him wondrously. “There was a time, our memories keep its horrors fresh and near us, of this a tale now suffer me, to tell before you gentle readers, a grievous story it will be.”

“Tania, you quote from Pushkin like a true Russian.”

“I am a true Russian.”

Their tram arrived.

At the Russian Museum, Alexander asked, “Would you like to walk a bit?”

Tatiana couldn’t say no even if she wanted to.

Even if she wanted to.

They walked toward the Field of Mars.

“Do you ever work?” she asked him. “Dimitri is off on missions in Karelia — don’t you need to do something?”

“Yes, I stay behind,” Alexander said with a grin, “and teach the rest of the soldiers how to play poker.”

“Poker?”

“It’s an American card game. Someday maybe I’ll teach you how to play. Also, I’ve been deputized as the officer in charge of all recruitment and training of the People’s Volunteer Army. I’m on duty from seven until six. I do sentry duty every other evening from ten to midnight.” He paused.

Tatiana knew. That must be when Dasha went to see him.

Alexander quickly continued. “For all this I get my weekends off. I don’t know how long that’s going to last. I suspect not long. I’m here with the Leningrad garrison to protect the city. That’s my post. When we run out of men at the front, that’s when we’ll send me.”

But then we would run out of you, she thought. “Where are we going?”

“To Letniy Sad — the Summer Garden. But wait.” Alexander stopped not far from his barracks. Across the street, lining the Field of Mars, were some benches. “Why don’t you sit, and I’ll go and get us some dinner.”

“Dinner?”

“Yes, for your birthday. We’ll have a birthday dinner.” He offered to bring her some bread and meat. “Maybe I can even find some caviar.” He smiled. “As a true Russian, Tania, you like caviar, don’t you?”

“Mmm,” she said. “What about matches?” she asked, trying not to sound too teasing, unsure how he would like it. “Aren’t I going to perhaps need some matches?” Remembering the Voentorg store.

“If you need to light something, we will light it on the eternal flame in the Field of Mars. We walked past it last Sunday, remember?”

She remembered. “Can’t touch that bold Bolshevik flame,” she said, stepping away. “That’s nearly sacrilegious.”

Alexander laughed. “Sometimes we cook shish kebabs on it on our nights off. Is that sacrilegious? Besides, I thought there was no God.”

Tatiana gazed up at him, but not for long. Was he teasing her? “That’s right. There is no God.”

“Of course not,” he said. “We are in Communist Russia. We’re all atheists.”

Tatiana remembered a joke. “Comrade One says to Comrade Two, ‘How is the potato crop this year?’ Comrade Two replies, ‘Very good, very good. With God’s help the crop will reach all the way to His feet.’ Comrade One says, ‘Comrade! What are you saying? You know the Party says there is no God.’ Comrade Two says, ‘There’s no potatoes either.’ ”

Alexander laughed. “You are so right about the potatoes. There aren’t any. Now, go on,” he said. “Wait on the bench for me. I’ll be right back.”

She walked across the street and sank down onto the bench. She smoothed out her hair, stuck her hand into her canvas bag, caressed the books he had given her, and was awash with—

What was she doing? She was so tired, she wasn’t thinking. Alexander should not be here with her.