But then she saw Alexander’s officer’s cap tilted to the side, and she saw him take the cap off his head and hold it in his hands as he waited for her to walk up to him, and Tatiana forgot everything. She had to keep herself from breaking into a run. They crossed the street and made their way to Ulitsa Govorova.
“Let’s walk a bit.” Tatiana couldn’t believe it was she who uttered those words after her day. But she didn’t feel her day. She knew she wasn’t going to have a minute with him on the weekend.
“What’s a bit?”
She took a deep breath. “Let’s walk all the way.”
Slowly they strolled through the nearly deserted streets, anonymous to everyone. The railroad tracks and farm fields lay to their right, the industrial buildings of the Kirov borough rose to their left. There were no air-raid sirens, no planes flying overhead, just the pale sun shining. There were no other people.
“Alexander, why isn’t Dima an officer like you?”
Alexander paused for a few moments. “He wanted to be an officer. We entered Officer Candidate School together.”
Tatiana didn’t know that. She told him Dimitri had not said a word about it.
“He wouldn’t. We went in together, thinking we were going to stay together, but unfortunately Dima didn’t make it.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing happened. He couldn’t stay underwater long enough without panicking, couldn’t hold his breath, couldn’t be quiet enough under false fire, didn’t keep his cool, lost his nerve, his time in the five-mile wasn’t good enough. Couldn’t do fifty push-ups in a row. He just didn’t make it. On many levels. He is a good soldier. A pretty good soldier,” Alexander amended. “But he wasn’t cut out to be an officer.”
“Not like you,” said Tatiana, taking an excited breath on the you.
With amusement Alexander glanced at her and shook his head. “I,” he said, “am too angry a fighter.”
The tram stopped right in front of them. Reluctantly they climbed aboard.
“How does Dimitri feel about it all?”
Tatiana had stopped trying to avoid Alexander as the tram bumped them together. She lived for that bumping now. Every time the tram moved, she moved with it in Alexander’s direction, barely holding on to the handle. And he stood there like an inverted pyramid, catching her waist with his arm. Tonight, as he caught her, his hand remained around her. He motioned her to continue talking. But she couldn’t until he took his hand away.
He took his hand away. “About what? Not becoming an officer?”
“No. About you.”
“About how you’d think.”
The tram stopped. To steady her, Alexander took hold of Tatiana’s upper arm. Goose bumps broke out all over her body. Letting her go, he continued. “I think Dimitri often feels that things come too easily to me.”
“What things?” Tatiana asked bravely.
“Don’t know. Things in general. The army, the shooting range . . .” He stopped.
She looked at him, waiting. What was he going to say next? What else came too easily to Alexander?
“Nothing comes easily to you, Alexander,” Tatiana said at last. “You’ve had the hardest life.”
“And it has barely begun,” he said. But when he spoke again, Tatiana detected a forced mildness. “Listen, Dimitri and I have a long history together. If I know Dima, in due course he will tell you things about me that you will not want to believe. I’m surprised he hasn’t already.”
“Things that are true or things that are complete lies?”
“I cannot answer that,” Alexander replied. “Some will be true, some will be complete lies. Dimitri’s got a gift, if you will, for mixing lies with just enough of the truth to drive you crazy.”
“Some gift,” she said. “So how will I know?”
“You won’t. It will all sound true.” Alexander glanced at her. “If you want to know the truth, ask me and I will tell you.”
“If I ask, you’ll tell me the truth about anything?” She looked up at him.
“Yes.”
Tatiana held her breath because for a moment her heart had stopped beating. It stopped as she bit her lip to keep the question off her tongue. Do you love me? she wanted to ask him. She wanted to slap herself into a terror that would paralyze her and make even thinking that impossible, but she could not. He wanted a question? That was the question yelling through her closed teeth and her silence and her breathless heart.
“You have a question for me, Tania?” he asked mildly.
“No,” she replied, looking down at the metal handle and at the gray head of the woman in front of her.
“Here we are,” Alexander said, as they got off at Obvodnoy Canal. They didn’t take their second tram as usual. They ambled the five kilometers back home.
They passed an iron gate with a door behind it. The gate and the door did not look like an entryway to a building, but as if they had been built and now led to nowhere. Pointing, Alexander said, “Those gates, those doors, they can all be listening, now, yesterday, tomorrow, to you at Kirov, lying with a glass to the wall on the other side of your bed—”
“I know you’re kidding. My grandparents are on the other side of my bed. You’re not saying they’re informers?”
“I’m not saying that.” He paused. “What I’m saying is . . . no one at all can be trusted. And no one is safe.”
“No one?” Tatiana asked teasingly, looking at him. “Not even you?”
“Especially not me.”
“Can’t be trusted or is not safe?” She smiled.
He smiled back. “Is not safe.”
“But you’re an officer in the Red Army!”
“Yes? Tell that to the officers in the Red Army in 1937 and 1938. They were all shot. Which is why now no one wants to take responsibility for this war.”
Silently she sidled up to him and finally asked, “Am I safe?”
“Tatiana,” he whispered, leaning close to her ear, “we are followed, always, everywhere. The day might come when someone will jump out at you from a secret door, and then you will be presented to a man behind a desk, and he will want to know what Alexander Belov spoke to you about on your walks home.”
“You have told me way too much, Alexander Belov,” Tatiana declared, leaning away from him. “Why did you do that if you thought I was going to be interrogated about you?”
“I needed to trust someone.”
“Why didn’t you tell Dasha and risk her life?”
Alexander paused before he replied. “Because I needed to trust you.”
“You can trust me,” Tatiana said cheerfully, shoving him lightly with her body. “But do me a favor, don’t tell me anything else, all right?”
“It’s too late,” he said, shoving her lightly back.
“Are you saying we’re doomed?” she asked, laughing.
“Eternally,” replied Alexander. “Can I buy you an ice cream?”
“Yes, please.” She beamed.
“Crème brûlée, right?”
“Always.”
They sat on a bench while she ate it, but even after she was done, they continued to sit and talk and not move until Alexander glanced at his watch and got up.
It was nearing ten o’clock by the time they stopped at the corner of Grechesky and Second Soviet, three blocks away from her building.
Tatiana paused. “So are you coming a little later?” She sighed. “Dasha said you might be.”
“Yes.” He sighed also. “With Dimitri.”
Tatiana was silent. They stood facing each other.
He was so near her she could smell him. Tatiana had never known anyone to smell as good and as clean as Alexander.
She thought he wanted to say something to her. He had opened his mouth, bent his head forward, frowned. She waited tensely, wanting it desperately, not wanting it, hating her ugly brown work boots, wishing she were wearing red sandals, remembering they were Dasha’s, remembering she had no nice shoes of her ow
n, wanting to be barefoot in front of him, and swelling with feeling and guilt previously unknown to her. Tatiana took a step back.
Alexander took a step back. “Go,” he said. “I will see you tonight.”
She walked away, feeling his eyes behind her. Turning around, she found him looking at her from a distance.
8
Alexander and Dimitri came by after eleven. It was still bright outside. Dasha was not home yet. Her boss had her working overtime, taking gold out of people’s teeth. During times of crisis people liked to have gold instead of hard currency to barter with; gold kept its value. Dasha worked later and later, hating it, wanting everyone to behave as if life could still go on in the Leningrad summer as it had been—slow, warm, dusty, and full of young people in love.
Tatiana, Dimitri, and Alexander stood awkwardly in the kitchen as water dripped into the cast-iron sink. “So what’s the matter with you two glum kids?” said Dimitri, looking from Tatiana to Alexander.
“Well, I’m tired,” said Tatiana. It was only a partial lie.
“And I’m hungry,” said Alexander, glancing at her.
“Tania, let’s go for a walk.”
“No, Dima.”
“Yes. We’ll leave Alexander here to wait for Dasha.” Dimitri smiled. “They don’t need us. Those two would love to be left by themselves. Am I right, Alexander?”
“They’re not going to have much luck here,” Tatiana muttered. Thank goodness.
Alexander walked over to the window and looked down into the courtyard.
“I really can’t,” Tatiana protested. “I’m . . .”
Dimitri took Tatiana by the arm. “Come on, Tanechka. You’ve eaten already, haven’t you? Let’s go. We’ll be back soon, I promise.”
Tatiana saw Alexander’s squared shoulders.
She wanted to call him Shura. “Alexander,” she said, “you want us to bring you something back?”
“No, Tania,” he replied, glancing back at her. His unhappy eyes flashed for a moment and were subdued by his own will.
“Why don’t you go inside? Babushka made meat pirozhki. Go have some. There is borscht, too.”
Dimitri’s hand was already yanking Tatiana down the hall. They stepped over Slavin in the corridor, who was resting quietly on the floor, and it looked as if they would pass him without incident, but just as Tatiana neared him, he stirred, lifted his head, and grabbed her ankle.
Roughly Dimitri stepped on his wrist, and Slavin yelped, letting go, looking up at Tatiana, and wailing, “Stay home, Tanechka dear, it’s too late for you to go out at night! Stay home!” He did not look at Dimitri, who cursed at him and stepped on his wrist again.
On the street Dimitri asked if she wanted an ice cream. She didn’t want him to buy her one but said, “All right. A vanilla cone.” She ate the ice cream unhappily as they walked. The night was warm. She was thinking about only one thing.
“What are you thinking about?”
“War,” she lied. “How about you?”
“You,” he replied. “I’ve never met anyone like you, Tania. You’re quite different from the kind of girl I usually meet.”
Tatiana muttered a hapless thank-you, concentrating on her ice cream.
“I hope Alexander goes inside and eats,” she said. “Dasha might not be home for another hour.”
“Tania,” Dimitri said, “is that what you want to talk about? Alexander?” Even Tatiana with her untrained ear heard a chill in Dimitri’s voice.
“No, of course I don’t,” she said hurriedly. “I’m just making conversation.” She changed the subject. “What did you do today?”
“Dug more trenches. The front line to the north is nearly complete. We’ll be ready for those Finns next week.” He smirked. “So Tania, I know you must be thinking it—why am I not an officer like Alexander?”
Tatiana said nothing.
“Why haven’t you asked me about it?”
“I don’t know.” Her heart beat a little faster.
“It’s almost as if you already know.”
“Know? No.” She wanted to throw out what was left of the ice cream and run home.
“Have you been speaking to Alexander about me?”
“No,” she said, high-strung.
“How come you haven’t asked why I’m just a frontovik and he’s an officer?”
Tatiana had no answer for that. This was too stupid. She hated lying. Not saying anything, keeping a straight face, averting her eyes was difficult enough. But outright lying? Her tongue and throat weren’t used to it.
“Alex and I had every intention of being officers together. That was our original plan.”
“What plan?”
Dimitri didn’t answer, and Tatiana’s question hung in the air and then got lodged in her head.
Her hands began to shake slightly.
She did not want to be out at night alone with Dimitri.
She did not feel safe.
They got to the corner of Suvorovsky and Tauride Park. Though the sun was still thirty degrees in the sky, under the trees the park was in shade.
“You want to walk around the gardens for a bit?” Dimitri asked.
“What time is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You know what?” Tatiana said. “I really have to get back.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I do, Dimitri. My parents are not used to my being out late at night. They’ll get upset.”
“They won’t get upset. They like me.” He moved closer to her. “Your father likes me very much. Besides,” he added, “your parents are too busy thinking about Pasha to notice what time you come and go.”
Tatiana stopped and turned around. “I’m going back.” And she started to walk up Suvorovsky away from him.
He grabbed her arm. “Tania, don’t walk away from me.” Without letting go, he said, “Come. Come and sit with me on the bench over by the trees.”
“Dimitri,” she said, not moving, “I’m not going by the trees with you. Can you let go?”
“Come with me by the trees.”
“No, Dimitri, let me go now.”
He stepped up to her, holding her very hard. His fingers dug into her skin. “Well, what if I don’t want to let go, Tanechka? What are you going to do then?”
Tatiana did not move away from him. His free arm went around her waist, and he brought her close to him. “Dima,” said Tatiana, composed and unafraid, looking him right in the face, “what are you doing? Have you lost your mind?”
“Yes,” he said and bent his face to kiss her. With a small cry Tatiana turned her face down and sharply away.
“No! Let go of me, Dimitri,” she said. She did not lift her head.
Suddenly he let go of her. “I’m sorry,” he said with a tremor in his voice.
“I have to go home right now,” she said, walking as fast as she could. “Dima, you’re too old for me.”
“No. No. Please. I’m only twenty-three.”
“That’s not what I mean. I’m too young for you. I need someone who”—she paused in thought—”expects less,” she finished.
“How much less?”
“Who expects nothing.”
“I’m really sorry, Tania,” he said. “I didn’t mean to scare you off like that.”
“That’s fine,” she said, not looking at him. “I’m just not the kind of girl who goes by the trees.” With you, she thought with a pang in her heart, remembering the Summer Garden.
“I know that now. I think that’s why I really like you. I just don’t know how to act around you sometimes.”
“Be respectful and patient.”
“Fine, I’ll be as patient as Job.” Dimitri leaned in to her. “Because, Tanechka,” he said, “I have no intention of leaving you alone.”
She hurried up Suvorovsky.
Suddenly Dimitri said, “I hope Dasha likes Alexander.”
“Dasha does like Alexander.”
“Because he really li
kes her.”
“Oh, yes?” Tatiana said weakly. “How do you know?”
“He has almost stopped his previously uncontrolled extracurricular activities. Don’t say that to Dasha, of course. It’ll just hurt her feelings.”
Tatiana wanted to say to Dimitri that she had no idea what he was talking about, but she was too afraid that he would tell her.
When they got home, Dasha and Alexander were sitting together on the small sofa in the hallway, reading from a volume of Zoshchenko’s short stories and laughing. The only thing Tatiana could say was a sullen and grumpy, “That’s my book.”
For some reason Dasha found that very funny, and even Alexander smiled. As Tatiana walked past him, his legs were sticking so far out that she tripped over them and would have fallen face forward for sure, had he not instantly grabbed her. And just as instantly let go.
“Tania,” Alexander said, “what’s that on your arm?”
“What? Oh, it’s nothing.” Making hasty excuses about exhaustion, she said good night and disappeared into her grandparents’ room, where she sat between her Deda and Babushka on the sofa and listened to the radio. They chatted quietly about Pasha, and soon she felt better.
Later that night she was facing the wall when she heard Dasha whispering to her. “Tania? Tania?”
Tatiana turned to her sister. “What is it? I’m tired.”
Dasha kissed her shoulder. “Tania, we never talk anymore. Our Pasha left, and we never talk. You miss him, don’t you? He’ll be back soon.”
“I miss him. You’re busy. We’ll talk tomorrow, Dashenka,” said Tatiana.
“I’m in love, Tania!” Dasha whispered.
Tatiana whispered back, “I’m glad for you, Dasha.” And she turned to the wall.
Dasha kissed the back of Tatiana’s head. “I think this is really it, I do. Oh, Tanechka, I just don’t know what to do with myself!”
“Have you tried sleep?”
“Tania, I can’t think about anything else. He is driving me crazy. He is so . . . hot and cold. Tonight he was fine, relaxed and funny, but other days . . . I just can’t figure him out.”