Dear Tania,

Pushkin never needed to write again after The Bronze Horseman—and never did, having died so young. But you’re right—the righteous do not always forge a path to glory. But often they do.

I don’t care how busy you are, you need to write me more than a couple of lines a week.

Alexander

P.S. And you wanted to have what Inga and Stan have.

Dearest Tatiasha,

How was your New Year? I hope you had something delicious. Have you been to see Oleg?

I’m not happy. My New Year was spent in the mess tent with a number of people, none of whom was you. I miss you. I dream sometimes of a life in which you and I can clink our glasses on New Year’s. We had a little vodka and many cigarettes. We hoped maybe 1943 would be better than 1942.

I nodded, but thought about the summer of 1942.

Alexander

P.S. We lost all 600. I did not send Tolya. He said he will thank me after this war is over.

P.S.S. Where are you, damn it? I haven’t heard from you in ten days. You haven’t gone back to Lazarevo, have you, now that I’ve finally grown accustomed to your strengthening spirit from only seventy kilometers away? Please send me a letter in the next few days. You know we’re going and we’re not coming back until the Leningrad front and the Volkhov front shake hands. I need to hear from you. I need one word. Don’t send me out on the ice without a single word from you, Tatiana.

Darling Shura!

I’m here, I’m here, can’t you feel me, soldier?

I myself spent New Year at the hospital, and I just want you to know that I clink my glass against yours every day.

I’ve been working I cannot tell you how many hours, how many nights I sleep in the hospital and don’t come home at all.

Shura! As soon as you’re back, you must come and see me instantly. Other than for the obvious reasons, I’ve got the most amazing wonderful fantastic thing I desperately need to talk to you about—and soon. You wanted a word from me? I leave you with one—the word is HOPE.

Yours,

Tania

In Storied Battles

ALEXANDER looked at his watch. It was the early morning of January 12, 1943, and Operation Spark—the Battle for Leningrad—was about to begin. There was going to be no further attempt. This was it. On the orders of Comrade Stalin, they were going to break the German blockade, and they weren’t returning until they did.

Alexander had spent the last three days and nights hidden in the wooden bunker on the banks of the Neva with Marazov and six corporals. The artillery encampment was right outside, hiding from view their two 120-millimeter breech-loading mortars, two portable 81-millimeter muzzle-loading mortars, one Zenith antiaircraft heavy machine gun, a Katyusha rocket launcher, and two portable 76-millimeter field guns. On the morning of the attack Alexander was not just ready to fight, he would have fought Marazov if it meant getting out of the confinement of the bunker. They played cards, they smoked, they talked about the war, they told jokes, they slept—he was done with it all after six hours, and they had stayed in it for seventy-two. Alexander thought about Tatiana’s last letter. What the hell did she mean by “HOPE”? How was that going to help him? Obviously she couldn’t tell him in the letter, but he wished she wouldn’t go firing up his imagination when he didn’t know when he would be able to get to her.

He needed to get to her.

Wearing white camouflage, he peeked out of the encampment. The river was disguised like Alexander, the south shore barely visible in the gray light. He was on the northern bank of the Neva just west of Shlisselburg. Alexander’s artillery unit was covering the outermost flank of the river crossing and the most dangerous—the Germans were extremely well entrenched and defended in Shlisselburg. Alexander could see the fortress Oreshek a kilometer in the distance at the mouth of Lake Ladoga. A few hundred meters before Oreshek lay the bodies of 600 men, who had made a surprise attack six days ago and failed. Alexander wanted to know if they had failed gloriously or vainly. Bravely and without support, they went across the ice and were laid down one by bloody one. Will history remember them? wondered Alexander as he turned his gaze straight ahead.

He was on air detail today. Marazov was launching Katyusha’s solid-fuel rockets. Alexander knew this was it. He felt it. They were going to break the blockade or die in the process. The 67th Army was forcing the river along an eight-kilometer stretch at whatever the cost. The strategy for the attack was to close ranks with Meretskov’s 2nd Army in Volkhov that was simultaneously attacking Manstein’s Army Group Nord from the rear. The plan was for the rifle guard divisions and some light tanks to cross the river, four guard divisions in all. Two hours later three more rifle divisions with heavy and medium tanks would follow, including six of the men under Alexander’s immediate command. He would remain behind the Zenith on the Neva. He would cross in the third wave, with another heavily armored platoon, commanding a T-34, a medium tank that had a chance of crossing the river without sinking.

It was just before nine, barely sunrise, the morning sky a dark lavender.

“Major,” said Marazov, “is your phone working?” He put out his cigarette and stepped up to Alexander.

“Phone’s working fine, Lieutenant. Back to your post.” He smiled. Marazov smiled back.

“How many miles of field phone wire did Stalin demand from the Americans?” Marazov asked.

“Sixty-two thousand,” replied Alexander, taking the last deep drag of his cigarette.

“And your phone is not working already.”

“Lieutenant!”

Marazov saluted Alexander. “I’m ready, Major.” He stepped aside to the Katyusha. “I’ve been ready. Sixty-two thousand miles is a bit excessive, don’t you think?”

Alexander threw his cigarette butt in the snow, wondering if he had time to light another one. “It’s not nearly enough. The Americans will supply us with five times that much before this war is over.”

“You’d think they could supply you with a working telephone,” Marazov mumbled, looking away from Alexander.

“Patience, soldier,” said Alexander. “Phone is working fine.” He was trying to figure out if the Neva was wider than the Kama. He decided it was, but not by much. He had swum the Kama to the other shore and back in heavy current in about twenty-five minutes. How long would it take him to cross the 600 meters of the Neva ice under German fire?

Alexander concluded he would have to take less than twenty-five minutes.

The phone rang. Alexander smiled. Marazov smiled. “Finally,” he said.

“All good things come to those who wait,” said Alexander, his heart soaring to Tatiana and away. “All right, men,” he called. “This is it. Be ready,” he said, standing slightly behind them, his arms positioning the barrel of the Zenith upward. “And be brave.”

He picked up the phone and flagged the go-ahead command to the corporals on the mortars. The men fired three slow-emission smoke bombs that flew across the river and exploded, temporarily obscuring the Nazi line of sight. Instantly Red Army soldiers poured out onto the ice in long, snakelike formations, one right in front of Alexander, and ran across.