Alexander lifted Dasha and laid her on the floor of the truck. Then he hopped down to help Tatiana, who could barely stand. She leaned against the tarpaulin, heard shouts. The truck revved its engines.

“Come on, Tania, I’ll help you inside,” Alexander said. “You have to be strong for your sister.” He came close to her.

“I will be,” she thought she said.

“Don’t worry about the bombing,” Alexander said. “It’s usually quieter at night.”

“I’m not worried,” Tatiana said, coming into his arms.

He hugged her. “Be strong for me, Tatiana,” Alexander said hoarsely. “Save yourself for me.”

“That’s what I do, Shura,” Tatiana said. “I save myself for you.”

Alexander bent to her, but she couldn’t even look up. He kissed the top of her hat. They held on for a few more seconds.

“Time!” someone shouted.

Alexander helped Tatiana inside the truck. He hopped in himself to get the two girls comfortable, moving Dasha’s head to rest on top of Tatiana’s lap.

“Is this all right?” he asked, and both sisters answered, “Yes.”

Kneeling down in front of Dasha, Alexander said, “Now, remember, when they offer you food in Kobona, eat small bites. Don’t gulp it down, it can tear your stomach. Eat small and eat slow. You’ll get used to it, and then you can eat more. Drink soup in small spoonfuls. All right?”

Dasha took hold of his hand. He kissed her on the forehead. “So long, Dasha. I’ll see you soon.”

“Good-bye—” whispered Dasha. “What did my sister call you? Shura?”

Alexander glanced at Tatiana. “Yes, Shura.”

“Good-bye, Shura,” said Dasha. “I love you.”

Tatiana closed her eyes so as not to look at him speak. If she could have covered her ears, she would have.

“I love you, too,” Alexander said to Dasha. “Don’t forget to write.”

After he stood up, Dasha said, “Say good-bye to Tania. Or did you already say good-bye?”

“Good-bye, Tatiana,” he said.

“Good-bye,” she replied, staring at him.

“As soon as you get to Molotov, I want to hear from you. Promise?” Alexander said, hopping off the truck.

“Alexander!” Dasha called after him.

“Yes?” he leaned in.

“Tell me, how long have you loved my sister?”

Alexander glanced from Tatiana’s face to Dasha’s and back again. He opened his mouth to speak and then closed it with a shudder of his head.

“How long? Tell me. Look at us all—what secrets can we possibly have left? Tell me, darling. Tell me.”

Setting his jaw, Alexander said forcefully, “Dasha, I never loved your sister. Never. I love you. You know what we have.”

“You told me that next summer maybe we would get married,” said Dasha weakly. “Did you mean it?”

Nodding, he replied, “Of course I meant it. Next summer I will come and we will get married. Now, go.”

He blew Dasha a kiss and disappeared, not even glancing at Tatiana. And she desperately wanted just one small last glance, almost in the dark, his soft eyes on her, so she could see a bit of truth. But he didn’t look at her. She didn’t see any truth. She saw Alexander not even breathe her way. She saw Alexander deny her.

The tarpaulin was closed, the truck was off, and they were in the dark again. Except that now there was no Alexander between the darkness and the light, and no moon, just gunfire and the sound of bursting in the distance that Tatiana could barely hear, so loud was the sound of bursting inside her chest. Finally she closed her eyes, so that Dasha, who was lying with her eyes open, couldn’t look up and see what must have been so plain on Tatiana’s face.

“Tania?”

She didn’t answer. Her nose was hurting from breathing the freezing air. She parted her lips and breathed through her mouth.

“Tanechka?”

“Yes, Dasha, dear?” she whispered at last. “Are you all right?”

“Open your eyes, sister.”

Couldn’t. Wouldn’t.

“Open them.”

She opened them. “Dasha, I’m very tired. You’ve kept your eyes closed for hours. Now it’s my turn. I’ve pulled your sled and held your legs and helped you down the hill. Now you’re lying on me, and I just want to close my eyes for a second, for a minute. All right?”

Dasha didn’t say anything but looked at Tatiana with lucid clarity. Tatiana held her sister’s face and closed her eyes, listening to Dasha’s wet cough.

“How did it feel, Tania, hearing him say he never loved you?”

With the greatest effort Tatiana stopped herself from a groan of pain. “Fine,” she said hoarsely. “As it should be.”

“Then why did your body recoil as if he had hit you?”

“Don’t know what you mean,” Tatiana said faintly.

“Open your eyes.”

“No.”

Dasha spoke. “You love him unbearably, don’t you? How did you manage to hide it from me, Tania? You couldn’t love a man more.”

I couldn’t love a man more. “Dasha,” said Tatiana with finality and grace, “I love you more.” She never opened her eyes as she spoke.

“And you didn’t hide it from me,” said Dasha. “Not at all. You put your love for him on a shelf, not in a cupboard. Marina was right. I was just blind.” She closed her own eyes, but her voice carried across the truck, to the woman with her baby and husband, to Tatiana, to the truck driver. “You left it for me to see in a thousand places. I see every bitter one of them now.” She started to cry, breaking into a coughing fit. “But you were a child! How could a child love anyone?” Dasha fell quiet and then groaned.

I grew up, Dasha, thought Tatiana. Somewhere between Lake Ilmen and the start of war, the child had grown.

Outside there was a distant sound of cannons, of mortar fire. Inside the truck was silent.

Tatiana wondered about the baby that was held by the mother, a young woman with sallow skin and sores on her cheeks. Her husband was leaning on her shoulder; in fact, he was more than leaning, he was falling on his wife, and no matter how hard she pulled at him to sit upright, he would not sit up. The woman started to cry. The baby never made a sound.

Tatiana spoke to the woman. “Can I help you?”

“Listen, you’ve got your own problems,” said the woman brusquely. “My husband is very weak.”

Dasha said, “I’m not a problem. Pull me up, Tania, and lean me against the wall. My chest hurts too much to keep lying down. Go, help her.”

Tatiana crawled across the truck to the woman and her husband. The woman was clutching her baby with both arms and not letting go.

Tatiana shook the man a bit, pulled him up briefly, but he fell back down, and this time he fell to the floor of the truck. He was heavily wrapped in a scarf, and his coat was buttoned to his neck. It took Tatiana ten minutes to unbutton him. The woman kept talking to her nonstop.

“He is not doing well, my husband. And my daughter is not much better. I have no milk for her. You know, she was born in October, what luck! Huh, what bad luck for a baby to be born in October. And when I got pregnant last February, we were so happy. We thought it was a sign from God. We just got married the September before. We were so excited. Our first baby! Leonid was working at the city public transportation department; he couldn’t leave and his ration was quite good, but then the trams stopped, and there was nothing for him to do—why are you unbuttoning him?”

Without waiting for an answer, the woman continued. “I’m Nadezhda. My daughter was born, and I had no milk for her. What to give her? I’ve been giving her soy milk, but it gave her terrible diarrhea, so I had to stop. And my husband really needed the food. Thank God, we finally got on the truck. We’ve been waiting to get out for so long. Now it will all be all right. Kobona will have bread and cheese, someone said. What I would do to see a chicken, or something hot. I’ll eat horsemeat, I don’t care. Just something for Leonid.”

Tatiana took her two fingers off the man’s neck and very carefully buttoned him up again and wrapped the scarf around his neck. She moved him slightly so he was not lying on top of his wife’s legs and went back to sit by Dasha. The truck was deathly quiet. All Tatiana could hear was Dasha’s shallow breathing broken by bursts of coughing. That, and Alexander saying he never loved her.