Tatiana knew she needed to trust her inner voice more. It was certainly loud enough.

Tatiana wanted to ask Alexander about Dasha.

But he began with, “I don’t know how to tell you this. You might think I’m being presumptuous. But…” He trailed off.

“If I think you’re being presumptuous,” Tatiana remarked, “you probably are.”

He stayed silent.

“Tell me anyway.”

“You need to tell your father, Tatiana, that he has to get your brother back from Tolmachevo.”

As she heard those words, she saw the imperially ornate Warsaw train station across the street, and she was thinking fleetingly about what it would be like to see Warsaw and Lublin and Swietokryst, and suddenly there was Pasha and Tolmachevo, and…

Tatiana wasn’t expecting it. She had wanted something else. Instead, Alexander had mentioned Pasha, whom he did not know and had never met.

“Why?” Tatiana asked at last.

“Because there is some danger,” Alexander said after a pause, “that Tolmachevo will fall to the Germans.”

“What are you talking about?” She did not understand, and even if she did, she would not want to. She would choose not to understand. She didn’t want to get upset. She had been too happy that Alexander had come to see her unbidden, of his own free will. Yet there was something in his voice—Pasha, Tolmachevo, Germans, these three words were flowing together in one sentence, said by a near-stranger with warm eyes in a cool tone. Had he come all the way to Kirov to alarm her? What for?

“What can I do?” she asked.

“Talk to your father about getting Pasha out of Tolmachevo. Why did he send him there?” he exclaimed. “To be safe?” Alexander shuddered, and something passed over his face. Unblinking, she watched him intently for more, for less, for an explanation. But there was nothing else. Not even words.

Tatiana cleared her throat. “There are boys’ camps there. That’s why he sent him.”

He nodded. “I know. Many, many Leningraders sent their boys there yesterday.” His face was blank.

“Alexander, the Germans are down in Crimea,” said Tatiana. “Comrade Molotov said so himself. Didn’t you hear his speech?”

“Yes, they are in Crimea. But we have a border with Europe that’s two thousand kilometers long. Hitler’s army is on every meter of that border, Tania, south from Bulgaria north to Poland.” He paused. She didn’t say anything. “For right now, Leningrad is the safest place for Pasha. Really.”

Tatiana was skeptical. “Why are you so sure?” She became animated. “Why does the radio keep talking about the Red Army being the strongest army in the world? We have tanks, we have planes, we have artillery, we have guns. The radio is not saying what you’re saying, Alexander.” She spoke those words almost as a rebuke.

He shook his head. “Tania, Tania, Tania.”

“What, what, what?” she said, and saw that Alexander, despite his serious face, nearly laughed. That made her nearly laugh herself, despite her own serious face.

“Tania, Leningrad has lived for so many years with a hostile border with Finland only twenty kilometers to the north that we forgot to arm the south. And that’s where the danger is.”

“If that’s where the danger is, then how come you’re sending Dimitri up to Finland where, as you suggest, all is quiet?”

Alexander was silent. “Reconnaissance,” he said at last. Tatiana felt he left something unsaid. “My point is,” he went on, “all of our precautionary defenses are focused in the north. But south and southwest, Leningrad does not have a single division, a single regiment, not one military unit deployed. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

“No,” she said, a little defiantly.

“Talk to your father about Pasha,” he repeated.

They fell silent as they walked side by side through the quiet streets. Subdued was the sunlight, still the leaves, and only Alexander and Tatiana moved languidly through the summer, slowing down at the end of every block, looking at the pavement, looking up to the street signs. Tatiana was thinking, please don’t let this end so soon. What was he thinking?

“Listen,” Alexander said, “about yesterday… I’m sorry about the mishap. What could I do? Your sister and I… I didn’t know she was your sister. We had met at Sadko—”

“I know. Of course. You don’t have to explain,” interjected Tatiana. He brought it up. That meant so much.

“Oh, but I do. I’m sorry if I’ve”—he paused—”upset you.”

“No, not at all. Everything is fine. She had told me about you. She and you—” Tatiana stopped, wanting to add that she was all right with that, but got stuck on her words. “So what’s Dimitri like? Is he nice? When is he coming back from Karelia?” Did she say that for effect? Tatiana wasn’t sure. She just wanted to change the subject.

“I don’t know. When his entrenching assignment is finished. In a few days.”

“Listen, I’m getting tired. Can we catch a tram?”

“Sure,” Alexander said slowly. “Let’s wait for the Number 16.”

They were seated on the tram when he spoke again. “Tatiana, your sister and I weren’t serious. I will tell her—”

“No!” she exclaimed. The two stolid men in front of her turned around quizzically. “No,” she repeated, more quietly, but no less adamantly. “Alexander, it’s impossible.” She put her hands over her face and then took them away. “She is my older sister. Do you understand?”

I was my mother and father’s only child. His violin words echoed in her chest.

More gently, Tatiana said, “She is my only sister.” She paused. “And she is serious about you.” Did she need to say more? She didn’t think so, but judging by the displeased look on his face, yes, she did. “There will be other boys,” she finally added with a gallant shrug, “but I will never have another sister.”

All Alexander said was, “I’m not a boy.”

“Men, then,” Tatiana stammered. This was too difficult for her.

“What makes you think there will be other men?”

Dumbstruck, Tatiana nonetheless persisted. “Because you make up half the world. But I know for a fact I have only one sister.”

When Alexander didn’t comment, she ventured, “You do like Dasha, don’t you?”

Quietly he replied, “Of course. But—”

“Well, then,” Tatiana interrupted, “it’s settled. No reason to speak any more about it.” She sighed heavily.

“No,” Alexander said, sighing briefly. “Guess not.”

“All right, then.” She stared out the window.

Whenever Tatiana thought of what she might like to be in life, she always thought of her grandfather and the dignity with which he conducted his simple existence. Her grandfather could have been anything, but he chose to become a math teacher. Tatiana didn’t know if it was the teaching of irrefutable math that made Deda approach more intangible issues with the same black-and-white code or if it was the very essence of his character that drew him to math’s absolutes, but whatever it was, Tatiana had always marveled at it. Whenever people asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up, she invariably said, “I want to be like my grandfather.”

Tatiana knew what Deda would do. He would never step on his sister’s heart.

The tram moved past Insurrection Square. Alexander asked her to get off a few stops before Fifth Soviet, near the redbrick Grechesky Hospital on Second Soviet and Grechesky. “I was born in this hospital,” Tatiana offered, pointing.

“So, Tania, tell me, do you like Dimitri?”

It was a good minute before Tatiana could answer him.

What answer was he looking for? Was he asking as a spy for Dimitri or for himself? And what should she say? If it was for Dimitri and Tatiana said no, she did not like him, then she would hurt Dimitri’s feelings, and she didn’t want to do that.

If it was for Alexander and she said yes, she liked Dimitri, then she would hurt Alexander’s feelings, and she didn’t want to do that either. What were girls supposed to say? Weren’t they supposed to play some kind of game? Lure, pull, pretend.