The next morning when Tatiana came to feed him breakfast, Alexander said quietly, “I hope you know, I hope you understand that I’m not going anywhere with you pregnant.”

“What are you talking about? Of course you are.”

“Forget it.”

“God, Shura, that’s why I didn’t want to tell you. I know how you get.”

“How do I get, Tatiana?” he said hotly. “Tell me, how do I get? I can’t get out of bed. How am I supposed to get? Lying here powerless, while my wife—”

“You’re not powerless!” she exclaimed. “Everything you are, you still remain, even wounded. So don’t give me that. This is all temporary. You are permanent. So courage, soldier. Look what I found for you—eggs. I have an assurance from Dr. Sayers these are real eggs and not dehydrated. You tell me.”

Alexander shuddered as he thought of going from Helsinki to Stockholm in trucks on ice for 500 kilometers under German fire. He wouldn’t even look at the eggs she was holding out for him.

He heard her sigh. “Why is this the nature of your beast?” she asked. “Why do you always get like this?”

“How do I get?”

“Like this,” she said, giving him the fork for the eggs. “Eat, please—”

Alexander threw the fork on the metal tray. “Tania, have an abortion,” he said adamantly. “Have Dr. Sayers take care of it. We’ll have other babies. We’ll have many, many babies, I promise. All we’ll do is have babies, we’ll be like Catholics, all right, but we can’t do what we’re planning with you pregnant, we just can’t. I can’t,” he added. He took hold of her hand, but she yanked it away and stood up.

“Are you joking?” she said.

“Of course I’m not. Girls have them all the time.” He paused. “Dasha had three.” Alexander saw by Tatiana’s face that she was horrified.

“With you?” she asked weakly.

“No, Tatia,” he said tiredly, rubbing his eyes. “Not with me.”

With a breath of relief but still white, Tatiana whispered, “But I thought abortion has been illegal since 1938?”

“Oh, God!” Alexander exclaimed. “Why are you so naïve?”

Her hands shook as she fought for control, and through her closed teeth she said, “That’s right. Yes. Well, perhaps, I could have had three illegal abortions myself before I met you. Perhaps that would have made me more attractive and less naïve in your eyes.”

Alexander’s heart squeezed. “I’m sorry—I didn’t mean that.” He paused. She was too far away and too upset for him to take her hand. “I thought Dasha might have told you.”

“No, she didn’t tell me,” Tatiana said in a low, agonized voice. “She never talked to me about those things. And yes, my family protected me as best they could. Still, we lived in close quarters in a communal apartment. I knew that my mother had half a dozen abortions in the mid-thirties, I knew that Nina Iglenko had eight, but that’s not even what I’m talking about—”

“So? What’s the problem? What are you talking about?”

“Knowing how I feel about you—do you think it’s something I could ever do?”

Tightening his lips, Alexander said, “No, of course not. Why would you?” He raised his voice. “Why would you ever do anything that would give me peace of mind!”

Leaning over him, Tatiana whispered angrily, “You’re right. Your peace of mind or your baby. The choice is tough.” She threw the plate of eggs down on the metal tray and walked away without another word.

When she did not return all day, Alexander concluded that having Tatiana be angry with him was more than he could endure—for a minute, let alone for the sixteen hours it took her to come back. He asked Ina and Dr. Sayers to bring her to him, but apparently she was very busy and could not come. Very late that night she finally returned, bringing with her a piece of white bread with butter. “You’re upset with me,” Alexander said, taking the bread out of her hands.

“Not upset,” she said. “Disappointed.”

“That’s even worse.” Alexander shook his head in resignation. “Tania, look at me.” Tatiana raised her eyes to him, and there, around the edges of her ocean current irises, he saw her love for him flow out. “We will do exactly as you want,” Alexander said, sighing heavily. “Like always.”

Smiling, Tatiana sat on the edge of his bed and took a cigarette from her pocket. “Look what I brought you. Want a quick smoke?”

“No, Tania,” said Alexander, reaching for her, bringing her to him. “I want to feel your breasts on my face.” He kissed her, undoing her uniform.

“You’re not going to recoil in terror, are you?”

“Just come here. Bend over me.”

It was dark in the ward, and everyone else was sleeping. Tatiana pulled up her shirt. Alexander lost his breath. She bent over and pressed herself into him. Keeping his eyes open, he cupped her full warm breasts, nesting his face in between them. He inhaled deeply and kissed the white skin in front of her heart. “Oh, Tatiasha…”

“Yes?”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too, soldier.” She lightly rubbed her breasts back and forth across his mouth, his nose, his cheeks. “I’ll have to shave you,” she whispered. “You’re very stubbly.”

“And you are very soft,” he muttered, his mouth closing around her enlarged nipple. Alexander could tell that Tatiana tried very hard not to moan. Once she moaned, she backed away, pulling her shirt down. “Shura, no, don’t excite me. Every one of those men will wake up, I guarantee it. They can smell desire.”

“So can I,” Alexander said thickly.

All buttoned up and more composed, Tatiana hugged him. “Shura,” she whispered, “don’t you see? Our baby is a sign from God.”

“It is?”

“Absolutely,” she said, her face sparkling.

Suddenly Alexander understood. “That’s the radiance,” he exclaimed. “That’s why you’re like a flame walking through this hospital. It’s the baby!”

“Yes,” she said. “This is what is meant for us. Think about Lazarevo—how many times did we make love in those twenty-nine days?”

“I don’t know.” He smiled. “How many? How many zeros follow the twenty-nine?”

She laughed quietly. “Two or three. We made love to wake the dead, and yet I didn’t get pregnant. You come to see me for one weekend, and here I am—how do you say, up the stick?”

Alexander laughed loudly. “Thank you for that. But, Tania, I want to remind you, we did make love quite a bit that weekend, too.”

“Yes.”

They stared at each other for a silent, unsmiling moment. Alexander knew. They had both felt too close to death that gray weekend in Leningrad. And, yet, here it was—

As if to confirm what he was thinking, Tatiana said, “This is God telling us to go. Can’t you feel that, too? He is saying, this is your destiny! I will not let anything happen to Tatiana, as long as she has Alexander’s baby inside her.”

“Oh?” said Alexander, his hands tenderly stroking her stomach. “God is saying that, is He? Why don’t you tell that to the woman in the Ladoga truck with you and Dasha, holding her dead baby all the way from the barracks across to Kobona?”

“I feel stronger now than ever,” Tatiana said, hugging him. “Where is your famous faith, big man?”

“Tania, have you talked to Dr. Sayers?” Alexander was caressing her hands under his blanket, kneading her fingers, feeling her knuckles, her wrists, her palms.

“Of course. All I do is talk to him, go over all the details. We’re waiting for you to walk. Everything is set. He’s already filled out my new Red Cross travel documents.” She purred, leaning closer to him. “That feels so nice, Shura. I’m going to fall asleep.”

“Don’t fall asleep. Under what name?”

“Jane Barrington.”

“That’s nice. Jane Barrington and Tobe Hanssen.”

“Tove.”

“My mother and a Finn. Some couple we make.”

“Don’t we?” She half-closed her eyes. “That feels very nice, Shura,” she murmured. “Don’t stop.”