Tatiana continued to sit next to Alexander, but her head was not resting on him anymore.

“Tatia, Tatiasha, Tania,” he whispered, “can you hear me?”

“I can hear you, Shura.”

“Press your head into me again. Go on.”

She did.

“How are you holding up?”

“You see.”

“I see.” He took her mittened hand and kissed it. “Courage, Tatiana. Courage.”

I love you, Alexander, thought Tatiana.

The following day Alexander came back in the evening and said happily, “Girls! You know what day today is, don’t you?”

They looked at him blankly. Tatiana had gone to the hospital for a few hours. What she did there, she could not remember. Dasha seemed even more unfocused. They attempted to smile, and failed. “What day is it?” asked Dasha.

“It’s New Year’s Eve!” he exclaimed.

They stared.

“Come, look, I brought us three cans of tushonka.” He grinned. “One each. And some vodka. But only a little bit. You don’t want to be drinking too much vodka.”

Tatiana and Dasha continued to stare at him. Tatiana finally said, “Alexander, how will we even know when it’s New Year? We have only the wind-up alarm clock that hasn’t been right in months. And the radio is not working.”

Alexander pointed to his wristwatch. “I’m on military time. I always know precisely what time it is. And you two have got to be more cheerful. This is no way to act before a celebration.”

There was no table to set anymore, but they laid their food out on plates, sat on the couch in front of the bourzhuika, and ate their New Year’s Eve dinner of tushonka, some white bread and a spoonful of butter. Alexander gave Dasha cigarettes and Tatiana, with a smile, a small hard candy, which she gladly put in her mouth. They sat chatting quietly until Alexander looked at his watch and went to pour everyone a bit of vodka. In the darkened room they stood up a few minutes before twelve and raised their glasses to 1942.

They counted down the last ten seconds, and clinked and drank, and then Alexander kissed and hugged Dasha, and Dasha kissed and hugged Tatiana, and said, “Go on, Tania, don’t be afraid, kiss Alexander on New Year’s,” and went to sit on the couch, while Tatiana raised her face to Alexander, who bent to Tatiana and very carefully, very gently kissed her on the lips. It was the first time his lips had touched hers since St. Isaac’s.

“Happy New Year, Tania.”

“Happy New Year, Alexander.”

Dasha was on the couch with her eyes closed, a drink in one hand, a cigarette in the other. “Here’s to 1942,” she said.

“Here’s to 1942,” echoed Alexander and Tatiana, allowing themselves a glance before he went to sit next to Dasha.

Afterward they all lay down in the bed together, Tatiana next to her wall, turned to Dasha, turned to Alexander. Are there any layers left? she thought. There is hardly life left, how can anything be covering our remains?

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. She wanted to tell him she was grateful to be able to look into his face but didn’t have the energy. Nodding, she turned to walk up the stairs. Alexander remained at the bottom. She slipped on the second step and stumbled backward. Putting his hands out, Alexander caught her, straightening her up. She grabbed on to the railing and then turned around to him. Something resembling a smile passed over her face. “I really am all right without you,” she said. “I can manage.”

“What about the ravenous boys who follow you home?”

Tatiana warmed her eyes, so she could look at him with the truth that was inside her. “I really am not all right without you,” she said. “I can’t manage.”

“I know,” Alexander said. “Hold on to the rail.”

Slowly Tatiana walked up the slippery stairs. At the top she turned around to see if Alexander was still there. He was, looking up at her. She pressed her gloved hand to her lips.

The morning after the post office Dasha could not get up. “Dasha, please.”

“I can’t. You go.”

“Of course I will go, but, Dasha, I don’t want to go by myself. Alexander is not here.”

“No, he’s not.”

Tatiana fixed the blankets and coats on top of her. Even as she begged Dasha to get up, Tatiana knew that her sister wasn’t going anywhere. Dasha’s eyes were closed, and she was lying in the same position in which she had fallen asleep the night before. Dasha had also been very quiet the night before. Very quiet except for a cough. “Please get up. You need to get up.”

“I’ll get up later,” said Dasha. “I just can’t right now.” Her eyes were closed.

Tatiana went to fetch water from downstairs. That took her an hour. She lit the fire in the bourzhuika, putting a chair leg in it, and when the fire was started, she made Dasha some tea.

After she had fed Dasha small spoonfuls of the barely brown, barely sweet liquid, she left by herself to go to the ration store. It was ten in the morning but still dark. At eleven it would be light, Tatiana thought. When I’m coming back with the bread it will be light. “Give us this day our daily bread,” she whispered to herself. I wish I had known that earlier. I could have said that prayer every day since September.