She didn’t move, not even when the bombing started, not even when she saw shelling down Mikhailovskaya and across Nevsky. She watched a bomb fall on the pavement and explode in a black flame. Alexander will be so angry when he finds out I’m here, Tatiana thought, finally getting up and heading home. But she wanted him alive; she didn’t care if he killed her. She had seen Alexander’s temper—he had lost his mind during their last days in Lazarevo. How Alexander got sane—if Alexander got sane—after he left her, Tatiana did not know.

She went back to work at Grechesky Hospital. She had been right. The hospital was in dire need of help. The administration officer saw her former Grechesky employment stamp, asked if she had been a nurse, and Tatiana replied that she had been a nurse’s aide and that it would take her no time at all to brush up on her skills. She asked to be placed in the critical care unit. She was given a white uniform and followed a nurse named Elizaveta for one nine-hour shift and then a nurse named Maria for another nine-hour shift. The nurses did not lift their eyes to Tatiana.

But the patients did.

After two weeks of working eighteen-hour days, Tatiana was finally given her own rounds and a Sunday afternoon off. She got up her courage to go to Pavlov barracks.

2

Tatiana needed just a word that Alexander was all right and where he was stationed.

The sentry at the gate was no one she knew; his name was Viktor Burenich. The young soldier was friendly and eager to help. She liked that. He checked the roster of all the soldiers currently at the barracks and told her that Alexander Belov was not there. She asked if he knew where the captain was. The guard replied with a smile that he did not. “But he’s all right as far as you know?” she asked.

The guard shrugged. “I think so, but they don’t tell me these things.”

Holding her breath, Tatiana asked if Dimitri Chernenko was still alive.

He was. Tatiana exhaled. Burenich said Chernenko wasn’t at the garrison at present, but that he constantly came and went with supplies.

Tatiana tried to think of who else she knew. “Is Anatoly Marazov here?” she asked.

He was, what luck.

In a few minutes Tatiana saw Marazov through the gate.

“Tatiana!” He seemed glad to see her. “What a surprise to see you here. Alexander had told me you evacuated with your sister.” He paused. “I’m sorry about your sister.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” she said, her eyes welling up involuntarily. She was extremely relieved. If Marazov mentioned Alexander so offhandedly, it meant that everything was all right.

“I didn’t mean to upset you, Tania,” Marazov said.

“No, no, you haven’t upset me.” They stood in the passageway.

“You want to walk around the block?” Marazov asked her. “I have a few minutes.”

They strolled with their coats buttoned to Palace Square.

“Are you here to see Dimitri? He’s not in my unit anymore.”

“Oh, I know,” she said, and stammered. Could she keep all the lies in her head? How would she have known about Dimitri? “I know he was injured. I saw him at Kobona a few months back.” And if she wasn’t here to see Di-mitri, who was she here to see?

“Yes, he’s now on this side. Running. Unhappy about that, too. I just don’t know what he wants the war to give him.”

“Are you still in… Alexander’s destroyer company?”

“No, Alexander doesn’t have a company anymore. He was wounded—” Marazov broke off as Tatiana stumbled. “Are you all right?”

“I’m sorry. Yes, of course. I tripped,” she said, crossing her arms around her stomach. She thought that any minute she was going to faint. She had to keep herself together at all costs. She had to. “What happened to him?”

“His hands were burned in an attack in September.”

“His hands?” His hands.

“Yes. Second-degree burns. Couldn’t hold a cup of water for weeks. He’s better now.”

“Where is he?”

“Back at the front.”

Tatiana couldn’t continue anymore. “Lieutenant, maybe we should go back. I really must get back.”

“All right,” Marazov said, puzzled, as they turned around. “Why did you come back to Leningrad anyway?”

“There’s a shortage of nurses. I came back to be a nurse.” She quickened her step. “Are you posted to Shlisselburg?”

“Eventually, yes. We have a new base of operations for the Leningrad front, up in Morozovo—”

“Morozovo? Listen—I’m glad you’re all right. What’s next for you?”

He shook his head. “We’ve lost so many men trying to break the blockade, we’re constantly regrouping. But next time out I think I’m with Alexander again.”

“Oh, yes?” she said, her legs weakening. “Well, I hope so. Listen, it was good to see you.”

“Tania, are you all right?” Marazov stared at her, that look of sad familiarity creeping into his eyes again. Tatiana remembered his face when he met her for the first time, last September. He had looked at her as if he already knew her.

She managed a small smile. “Of course. I’m fine.” Stiffly she came up to him and laid her hand on his sleeve. “Thank you, Lieutenant.”

“Should I tell Dimitri you stopped by?”

“No! Please don’t.”

He nodded. Tatiana was nearly down the street when he yelled, “Should I tell Alexander?”

She turned around. “Please don’t,” she called back faintly.

The following night when Tatiana came home from the hospital, she found Dimitri waiting for her in the hallway with Stan and Inga.

“Dimitri?” said a shocked Tatiana. “What—how—what are you doing here?” She glared at Stan and Inga.

“We let him in, Tanechka,” said Inga. “He said you used to see each other last year?”

Dimitri came up to Tatiana and put his arms around her. She stood with her own arms at her side. “I heard you came asking for me,” he said. “I was so touched. You want to go inside your room?”

“Who told you I stopped by?”

“Burenich, the sentry guard. He said a young girl stopped by asking for me. You didn’t leave your name, but he described you. I’m very touched, Tania. These have been very hard months for me.”

He was lopsided and hollow-eyed.

“Dimitri, this is not a good time for me,” she said, casting an angry glance toward Inga and Stan. She turned her face away from him. “I’m very tired.”

“You must be hungry. You want to have dinner?”

“I ate at the hospital,” Tatiana lied. “And I have almost nothing here.” How to get him to go, just go? “I have to wake up tomorrow at five. I have two nine-hour shifts back to back. I’m on my feet all day. Another time, perhaps?”

“No, Tania. I don’t know if there will be another time,” Dimitri said. “Come on. Maybe you can make me some tea. A little something to eat? For old times?”

Tatiana could not even imagine Alexander’s reaction when he found out that Dimitri was in the room with her. This was not in her plans—to deal with him. She didn’t know what to do about him. But then she thought, Alexander still has to deal with him. So I have to deal with him. He is not just Alexander’s. He is ours.

Tatiana fried Dimitri some soybeans on a Primus stove that she had borrowed from Slavin in return for occasionally cooking for him. She threw in a few small carrots with the beans and a piece of old onion. She gave him some black bread with a spoonful of butter. When Dimitri asked for vodka, Tatiana told him she was all out, not wanting him to get drunk while she was alone with him. The room was poorly illuminated by a kerosene lamp; there was electricity, but Tatiana couldn’t find any lightbulbs in the stores.

He ate with the plate on his lap. She sat on the far end of the couch and realized she had not taken off her coat yet. She took off her coat, and while he ate, she went and made herself a cup of tea.

“Why is it so cold in this room?” Dimitri asked.