Tatiana had thought that guilt would overtake her, that the force of conscience would make her unable to face herself and her thoughts. But that wasn’t the case. The only thing she kept reliving was the evening minute on fiery wings with Alexander on her breasts and lips.
Nothing in Tatiana’s former life had prepared her for Alexander.
There was school and there was Fifth Soviet, and there was Luga. In Luga, Tatiana had had many friends and many endless summers of mindless adventures. In Luga there had been nothing but the abandon of childhood, and in every step of that childhood there was Pasha, in her games and in her days.
It wasn’t that Tatiana had not been occasionally and peripherally aware that every once in a while one of Pasha’s friends looked at her for a little too long or stood too close to her. It was that she herself had never looked too long at anyone.
Until Alexander.
He was new. Transcendentally new. Immemorially new. She had thought all the while that their instant familiarity was based on the things she understood—compassion, empathy, fondness, friendship. Two people resoundingly coming together. Needing to sit close together on the tram, to bump into each other, to make each other laugh. Needing each other. Needing happiness. Needing youth.
But now Tatiana could not believe her preternatural desire for him. Her suffocating need for him. Simply could not fathom it. The throbbing in her lower stomach continued unabated all day as she bathed and brushed her teeth and brushed her hair.
That evening before Vera left, Tatiana asked her for some lipstick.
When Dasha, Alexander, and Dimitri came to see her, Dasha took one look at Tatiana and said, “Tania, I’ve never seen you wear lipstick before. Look at your lips.” Dasha said it as if realizing for the first time that Tatiana actually had lips.
Dimitri came over, sat on her bed, and said, smiling, “Yes, just look at them.”
Only Alexander kept quiet. Tatiana couldn’t read his expression because she could not bring herself to raise her eyes. She realized that the consequence of last night was going to be her complete inability to ever look at him in public again.
They stayed for a short time. Alexander got up and said he had to be getting back.
Tatiana sat catatonically until she heard a knock on the door, and Alexander came in, closing the door behind him. She pulled herself up straight. He came over in long purposeful strides, sat at the edge of her bed, and in a tender, possessive gesture wiped the lipstick off her lips. “What is that?” he asked.
“All the other girls wear it,” Tatiana said, quickly wiping her mouth, breathless at the sight of him. “Including Dasha.”
“Well, I don’t want you to have anything on your lovely face,” he said, stroking her cheeks. “God knows, you don’t need it.”
“All right,” she said, wiping her mouth, and waited. Her head fell back on the pillow as she raised her expectant, earnest eyes to him, her expectant, earnest lips to him.
Alexander was quiet. “Tania,” he finally said with a great sigh, “about last night . . .”
She groaned.
“See,” he said, the resolve in his eyes fading, “that’s exactly what you can’t do.”
“All right,” she said hoarsely, holding on to his sleeve. Reaching up, she traced his lips with her fingers. “Shura . . .”
Alexander moved his face away and stood up. The sheen had gone from his eyes. Tatiana stared at him in bewilderment. “I’m sorry about last night,” he said coolly. “I had too much to drink. I took advantage of you—”
“No,” she said, shaking her head.
He nodded. “I did. It was a terrible mistake. I shouldn’t have come here; you know it even better than I do.”
Speechlessly Tatiana shook her head.
“God, I know, Tania,” said Alexander, his face constricted. “But we live an impossible life. Where can we—”
“Right here,” she whispered, turning bright red, not looking at him.
The nurse walked in to check on Tatiana, looking askance at Alexander. They remained mute until she walked out.
“Right here?” Alexander said. “What, with the nurses outside the door? For fifteen minutes right here, that’s what you want for yourself?”
Tatiana didn’t reply. She felt as if she would have taken five minutes with the nurses inside the door. Her eyes remained lowered.
“All right, and then what?” Alexander said, letting out a heavy breath. “What then for us?” He paused. “What then for you?”
“I don’t know,” she said, biting her lip to keep herself from crying. “What then for everyone?”
“Everyone has it off in the alleys against the wall!” Alexander exclaimed. “And on garden benches, and in their barracks, and in communal apartments with their parents on the sofa! Everyone else does not have Dasha in her bed. Does not have Dimitri.” He glanced away. “Everyone else is not you, Tatiana.”
She turned onto her side, away from him.
“You deserve better than that.”
She didn’t want him to see her tears.
“I came here to apologize to you and to say I won’t let it happen again.”
She closed her eyes, trying not to shake, blinded for a moment. “All right.”
Alexander walked around the bed to stand in her line of sight. He wasn’t letting go of his rifle. Tatiana wiped her face. “Tania, please don’t cry,” he said emotionally. “Last night I came here ready to sacrifice everything, you included, to satisfy the burning inside me I’ve had since the day we met. But God was looking out for you, and He stopped us, and more important He stopped me, and I, in the gray of the morning, am less confused . . .” Alexander paused. “Though only more desperate for you.” He took a long breath, staring at his rifle.
Tatiana could not find her voice to speak.
Alexander said, “You and I—” then broke off, shaking his head. “But the time is all wrong for us.”
She turned onto her back, putting her arm over her face. The time, the place, the life. “Couldn’t you have thought this through before you came here?” she said. “Couldn’t you have had this talk with yourself before last night?”
“I cannot stay away from you,” he said. “Last night I was drunk. But tonight I’m sober. And I’m sorry.”
Tears choking her throat, Tatiana said nothing.
Alexander left without touching her.
3
Luga had burned, Tolmachevo had fallen, the German general von Leeb’s men cut the Kingisepp-Gatchina rail line, and despite the efforts of hundreds of thousands of volunteers digging trenches under mortar fire, none of the front lines would hold. Despite all orders not to surrender the railroad, the railroad was surrendered.
And Tatiana was still in the hospital unable to walk, unable to hold the crutches, unable to stand on her broken shinbone, unable to close her eyes and see anything else besides Alexander.
Tatiana couldn’t wring the hurt out of herself. Couldn’t drench the flame out of herself.
In the middle of August, a few days before Tatiana was to come home, Deda and Babushka came to tell Tatiana they were leaving Leningrad.
Babushka said, “Tanechka, we’re too old to stay in the city during war. We’ll never make it through the bombing, or the fighting, or a siege. Your father wants us to leave, and he is right, we need to go. We’ll be better off in Molotov. Your grandfather was assigned a good teaching post and during the summer we will stay in—”
“What about Dasha?” Tatiana interrupted with hope. “She is going to come with you, right?”
Deda said that Dasha would not leave Tatiana behind.
It’s not me she cannot leave behind, thought Tatiana.
Deda said that when the cast came off Tatiana’s leg, she, Dasha, and maybe their cousin Marina, too, would evacuate to Molotov. “Evacuating you right now is too difficult with a broken leg,” concluded Deda.
Yes, Tatiana thought, without Alexander to carry me, it is difficult indeed. ??
?So Marina is staying in Leningrad, too?”
“Yes,” Deda replied. “Your Aunt Rita is very sick, and Uncle Boris is up at Izhorsk. We asked her if she wanted to come with us, but she said she could not leave her mother in the hospital and her father as he prepares to fight the Germans.”
Marina’s father, Boris Razin, was an engineer at Izhorsk, a factory much like Kirov, and as the Germans neared it, the workers, in between making tanks and artillery shells and rocket launchers, were preparing for battle.
“Marina should definitely go with you,” said Tatiana. “She—” Tatiana tried to think of a mild description. “—She does not do well under pressure.”
Deda said, “Yes, we know. But as always, it is the ties and bonds of love and family that keep people from saving themselves. Lucky for us, your grandmother and I are our own bonds. I would say not just bonds, but chains.” He smiled at Babushka.
“Now, remember, Tanechka,” said Babushka, patting her blanket, “Deda and I love you very much. You know that, don’t you?”
“Of course, Babushka,” said Tatiana.
“When you come to Molotov, I’m going to introduce you to my good friend, Dusia. She is old, very religious, and is going to eat you right up.”
“Great,” muttered Tatiana, smiling wearily.
Deda kissed her on the forehead. “There are difficult days ahead for all of us. Ahead of you particularly, Tania. You and Dasha. Now that Pasha is not here, your parents need you more than ever. Your mettle will be tested, along with everyone else’s. There will be only one standard, the standard of survival at all cost, and it will be up to you to say at what price survival. Hold your head high, and if you’re going to go down, go down knowing you have not in any way compromised your soul.”
Pulling him by the arm, Babushka said, “That’s enough. Tania, you do whatever you have to do to survive, and damn your soul. We expect to see you in Molotov next month.”
“Never compromise on what your heart tells you to be right, my granddaughter,” Deda said, getting up and hugging her. “You hear me?”
“Loud and clear, Deda,” Tatiana said, hugging him back.
Later that evening, when Dasha came with Alexander and Dimitri, Tatiana mentioned that Deda had asked the girls to join them when Tatiana’s cast was off in September, and Alexander said, “That won’t be possible. There will be no trains in September.”
He usually avoided speaking to Tatiana, keeping his careful, silent distance.
Tatiana would have liked to speak back to him, but her feelings remained in unquelled turmoil, and she didn’t trust her outer face to hide the tremor in her voice or the softness in her eyes when she looked at him. So she said nothing, as usual, and didn’t look at him. Dimitri sat by her side.
Dasha spoke. “What does that mean?”
“It means there will be no trains,” Alexander repeated. “There were trains in June when you girls could have left, and there were trains in July, but Tatiana here broke her leg. In September, when her leg will be healed, there will not be a single train leaving Leningrad unless a miracle happens between now and when the Germans get to Mga.”
“What kind of miracle?” asked Dasha hopefully.
“German unconditional surrender,” replied Alexander dryly. “Once we lost Luga, our fate was sealed. We are certainly going to try to stop the Germans at Mga, the central point for rail travel to the rest of the Soviet Union. In fact, we are told that under no circumstances are we allowed to surrender Mga to the Germans. It is now against the law to give up railroads to the Nazis.” Alexander smiled. “But I have an uncanny ability to see the future. The law will be broken, and there will be no trains in September.”
Tatiana heard the subtext in his even voice. Tania, I told you and told you to leave this damned city, you didn’t listen to me, and now with a broken leg you can’t go anywhere.
4
Tatiana’s life was positively joyous in the hospital compared to what she encountered when she came back home in the middle of August.
When she returned, finally able to walk—badly—on crutches, Tatiana found Dasha cooking dinner for Alexander, and Alexander sitting behind the table happily eating, joking with Mama, talking politics with Papa, smoking, relaxing, and not leaving. And not leaving.
And not leaving.
Tatiana sat morosely and nibbled at her food like an overstuffed mouse.
When was he going to leave? It was getting so late. Didn’t he have taps?
“Dimitri, what time is taps for you?”
“Eleven,” Dimitri replied. “But Alexander has the night off tonight.”
Oh.
“Tania, did you hear? Mama and Papa are now sleeping in Deda and Babushka’s room,” Dasha said, smiling. “You and I have a room to ourselves, can you believe it?”
There was something in Dasha’s voice that Tatiana did not like. “No,” said Tatiana. When was Alexander leaving?
Dimitri went back to the barracks. Before eleven o’clock Mama and Papa got ready to go to bed. Mama leaned to Dasha and whispered, “He can’t stay overnight, do you hear me? Your father will go through the roof. He’ll kill us both.”
“I hear you, Mama,” Dasha whispered back. “He’ll leave soon, I promise.”
Not soon enough, Tatiana thought.
Their parents went to bed, and Dasha took Tatiana aside and whispered, “Tania, can you go up on the roof and play with Anton? Please? I just want to have an hour alone with Alexander—in a room, Tania!”
Tatiana left Dasha alone with Alexander. In her room.
She went to the kitchen and threw up in the sink. The nauseating din inside her head continued even after she went up onto the roof and sat with Anton, who was supposed to be on night duty. Anton was not a very good sky-watcher. He was sleeping. Fortunately the sky was quiet. Even from far away there was no sound of war. Tatiana sifted the sand in the bucket and cried in the moonless night.
I’ve done this, she thought. This is all because of me. Shuddering at herself, she laughed out loud. Anton twitched. I’ve done this to myself, and I have no one else to blame.
Had she not decided to single-handedly bring Pasha back, had she not joined the volunteers and walked off God knows where and got blown up and had her leg broken, she and Dasha would have left with Deda and Babushka for Molotov. And the unthinkable would not be happening in her room right now.
She sat on the roof until Dasha came upstairs sometime later and motioned for her to come to bed.
The following evening Mama told Tatiana that now that she was home by herself all day with a broken leg and nothing to do, she would have to start cooking dinner for the family.
All Tatiana’s life Babushka Anna, who did not work, had cooked. On the weekends Tatiana’s mother cooked. Sometimes Dasha cooked. During holidays like New Year everybody cooked; everybody, that is, except Tatiana, who cleared up.
“I’d be glad to, Mama,” said Tatiana. “If I only knew how.”
Dismissively Dasha said, “There is nothing to it.”
“Yes, Tania,” said Alexander, smiling. “There’s nothing to it. Make something delicious. A cabbage pie or something.”
Why not? Tatiana thought; while her leg was healing, she needed to busy her idle hands. She would try. She could not continue sitting in the room and reading all day, even if the reading was a Russian-English phrase book. Even if it was rereading Tolstoy’s War and Peace. She could not continue sitting in her room, thinking about Alexander.
The crutches had been killing her ribs, so Tatiana stopped using them. She hobbled to the store on her cast leg. The first thing she would cook in her life would be a cabbage pie. She would have also liked to make a mushroom pie but couldn’t find any mushrooms in the store.
The yeast dough took Tatiana three attempts and five hours in all. She made some chicken soup to go with the pie.
Alexander came for dinner, along with Dimitri. Extremely nervous about Alexander trying her food, Tatiana suggested that perhap
s the two soldiers wanted to go back and eat at the barracks. “What, and miss your first pie?” Alexander said teasingly. Dimitri smiled.
They ate and drank and talked about the day and about war, and about evacuation, and about hopes for finding Pasha, and then Papa said, “Tania, this is a little salty.”
Mama said, “No, she just didn’t let the dough rise enough. And there are too many onions. Why didn’t you try to get something else besides cabbage?”
Dasha said, “Tania, next time cook the carrots a little longer in the soup. And put a bay leaf in. You forgot the bay leaf.”
Smiling, Dimitri said, “It’s not too bad for your first effort, Tania.”
Alexander passed Tatiana his plate, and said, “It’s great. Can I please have some more pie? And here’s my bowl for the soup.”
After dinner Dasha took Tatiana away and whispered in her pleading voice, “Can you and Dimitri go on the roof for a little while? It’s not going to be too late tonight. He’s got to get back. Please?”
Kids from the apartment building were constantly on the roof. Dimitri and Tatiana were not alone.
But Dasha and Alexander were alone.
What Tatiana needed was not to see her sister and him. Him for a lifetime. Her for two weeks. In two weeks, when the summer would end, Dasha’s infatuation would surely end, too. Nothing could survive the Leningrad winter.
But how could Tatiana not see Alexander? Maybe she could lie to everyone else, but she could not lie to herself. She held her breath the whole day until the evening hour when she would finally hear him walking down the corridor. The last two nights he stopped at her door, smiled, and said, “Hello, Tania.”
“Hello, Alexander,” she replied, blushing and looking down at his boots. She couldn’t meet his eyes without trembling somewhere on her body.
Then she fed him.
Then Dasha took Tatiana aside and whispered.