Tatiana couldn’t even answer. His body on hers was making her speechless.

“I’m furious with you.” He was kissing her as if he were dying. “You don’t care I’m furious with you?”

“I don’t care… take your anger out on me,” Tatiana groaned. “Go ahead, take it out on me, Shura… now.”

He was inside her in seconds.

Her hands clutching his head, Tatiana whispered, “Cover my mouth,” ready to scream.

Alexander hadn’t taken off his coat, nor his boots.

There was a knock on the door. “Tania, are you all right?” Inga’s voice sounded.

His hand over Tatiana’s mouth, Alexander yelled, “Get the hell away from the door!”

“Cover my mouth, Shura,” Tatiana whispered, crying from happiness. “Oh, God, cover it.”

“No, don’t get off me, don’t get off me, please,” she murmured, holding on to his coat, to his head, grasping on to any part of him. “How are your hands?” In the dark, she couldn’t see them. They felt scabbed.

“They’re fine.”

Tatiana was kissing his lips, his chin, his stubble, his eyes—she couldn’t take her lips away from his eyes—holding his head close to her. “Shura, darling, don’t get off me, please, I’ve missed you so much, stay right here. Stay where you are…” For a few dark moments Tatiana pressed herself against Alexander. “Don’t pull away from me, feel how warm I am? Don’t pull out into the cold…” She lay underneath him and tried not to cry. And failed. “Is that why you hadn’t written to me? Because of your hands?”

“Yes,” Alexander said. “I didn’t want you to worry.”

“You didn’t think the absence of your letters would make me crazy?”

“You know,” he said, getting off her, “I had hoped you would just wait.”

“Darling, lovely husband, are you hungry?” Tatiana murmured to him. “I can’t believe I’m touching you again. I can’t be this lucky. What can I make for you? I have some pork, some potatoes. Do you want food?”

“No,” Alexander said, helping her sit up. “Why is it so cold in here?”

“Stove’s broken. Bourzhuika is in the other room, remember? Slavin lets me use his Primus stove in the kitchen.” She smiled, her hands running up and down his coat. “Honey, Shura, do you want me to make you some tea?”

“Tania, you’ll freeze. Do you have anything else to wear? Something warm?”

“I’m burning,” she said, her hands on his coat. “I’m not cold.” She hung on to him.

“Why is the sofa in the middle of the room?”

“My bed is behind the couch.”

Alexander looked over the back of the couch to see Tatiana’s cot. Pulling a blanket off it, he covered her. “Why are you sleeping between the sofa and the wall?”

When she didn’t answer, Alexander reached over and touched the wall with his hand. They stared at each other in the dark. “Why did you give them the warm room, Tania?”

“I didn’t give it to them. They took it. There are two of them, only one of me. They’re sad. He’s got a bad back. Shura, how about a hot bath? I’ll run you one.”

“No. Get dressed. Right now.” Alexander buckled his belt and walked out of the bedroom, still in his coat. Disheveled and barely buttoned, Tatiana followed him. He walked past Inga in the hallway into the bedroom, where Stan was sitting reading the newspaper, and asked Stan to switch rooms with Tatiana. Stan said he wasn’t switching. Alexander replied that indeed Stan was, and he and Tatiana started moving all of Inga and Stan’s things into the cold room and all of Tatiana’s things into the warm room.

For fifteen minutes Tatiana heard Stan grumbling, standing with Inga in the hallway, and at one point as she passed him, she whispered, “Stanislav Stepanich, shh. Please. Don’t provoke him.”

Stan did not heed her warning. As Alexander was walking past carrying Stan’s trunk, Stan seethed, “Who do you think you are? You don’t know who you’re dealing with. You’ve got no right to treat me this way.”

Dropping the trunk, Alexander grabbed his rifle and jammed Stan against the wall with the barrel under his throat. “Who the fuck do you think you are, Stan?” Alexander said loudly. “You don’t know who you’re dealing with! What, you think I’m going to be scared of you, too, you bastard? You’ve come to the wrong man. Now, get into the other room, and don’t fuck with me, because I’m not in the mood.” He gritted his teeth. “And don’t ever upset her again, you hear me?” Giving Stan a last jolt under the chin, Alexander stepped away from him and kicked his heavy trunk, rolling it over. “Here, carry your own fucking trunk.”

Tatiana, who watched Alexander, did not come to Stan’s rescue, even though she thought Alexander looked angry enough to really hurt Stan. Inga mumbled, “What kind of sick people come and see you here, Tania? Come on, Stan, let’s go.”

Rubbing his throat, Stan started to stay something, and Inga yelled, “Come on, Stan. Shut your mouth and let’s go!”

In the warm room Tatiana quickly stripped off Inga and Stan’s bedding, throwing it out into the hall, and put clean sheets on her old bed.

“That’s better, don’t you think?” Alexander said, sitting on the sofa and motioning Tatiana to him.

Tatiana shook her head. “Oh, you, Alexander. Do you want some food?”

“Later. Come here.”

“Will you take off your coat this time?”

“Come here and I’ll let you know.”

She fell into his arms. “Leave your coat on. Leave everything on.”

Tatiana ran a hot bath for Alexander, took him by the hand into the small bathroom, undressed him, and soaped him and scrubbed him and rinsed him, and cried over him, and kissed him. “Your poor hands,” she kept saying. His red fingers looked pretty bad to her, but Alexander assured her they would heal almost without scarring. His wedding ring was not on his finger but on a rope around his neck—just like hers.

“Is the water warm enough for you?”

“It’s fine, Tania.”

“I can boil another pot.” She smiled. “And then I’ll come in here and pour the boiling water over you. Remember?”

“I remember,” he said, and did not smile.

“Oh, Shura…” she whispered, kissing his wet forehead, turning his face to her as she knelt beside the bath. “I know,” she said, brightening. “We can play a game.”

“No games right now,” he said.

“You’ll like this one,” she murmured. “Let’s pretend we’re in Lazarevo, and I’m you, stroking my fingers in the dishpan. Remember?” She immersed her arms up to her elbows in the soapy hot water.

“I remember,” said Alexander, closing his eyes and reluctantly smiling.

While he was drying and dressing, Tatiana went outside into the kitchen and made him dinner, cooking him almost all the food she had—potatoes, carrots, and a bit of pork meat—and then took him into the bedroom and breathlessly sat by him on the couch, watching him eat. “I’m not hungry,” she said. “I ate at the hospital. Eat, darling, eat.”

During their senseless, sleepless night, Tatiana told Alexander about everything Dimitri had told her—the NKVD general, Lisiy Nos, and the other allusions. Alexander stared at the ceiling. “Are you waiting for me to answer you before you ask me?”

“No,” Tatiana said. “I’m not asking you anything.” She was lying in his arms, playing with his wedding ring.

“I’m not talking to you about Dimitri here.”

“That’s fine.”

“Because the walls have ears.” Alexander banged loudly on the wall with his fist.

“Well, then, they’ve already heard everything.”

He kissed her forehead. “Everything else he told you—about me—it’s not true.”

“I know.” She laughed lightly. “But, Shura, tell me, how many knocking joints are there in Leningrad, and why would you have to go to all of them?”

“Tania, look at me.”

She gazed at him.

“It’s not true. I—”

“Shura, darling—I know.” She kissed his chest and covered them both up with two wool blankets. “There is only one thing true nowadays, Alexander.”