Pain and anger tripping over each other in their race to his already embattled heart, Alexander said, “Tania, don’t listen to him. Dimitri, leave her alone. This is between us. This has nothing to do with her.” Dimitri was quiet. Tatiana was quiet, her fingers rubbing the inside of Alexander’s palm, thoughtfully, intently, rhythmically. She opened her mouth to speak. “Don’t say a word, Tatiana,” said Alexander.

“Say the word, Tatiana,” Dimitri said. “It’s up to you. But please, let me hear your answer. Because I don’t have much time.”

Alexander watched Tatiana rise to her feet. “Dimitri,” Tatiana said without blinking, “woe to him who is alone when he falls, for he has not another to pick him up.”

Dimitri shrugged. “By that I take it to mean that you—” He broke off. “What? What are you saying? Is that a yes or a no?”

Her hand holding Alexander’s tightly, Tatiana said, barely audible, “My husband made you a promise. And he always keeps his word.”

“Yes!” Dimitri exclaimed, springing to her. Alexander watched Tatiana pull sharply away.

Tatiana spoke softly. “Every kindness is repaid by good people,” she said. “Dimitri, I will tell you of our plans later. But you need to be ready at a moment’s notice. Understand?”

“I’m ready this moment,” Dimitri said with excitement. “And I mean that. I want to leave as soon as possible.” He extended his left hand to Alexander, who turned his face away, still holding on to Tatiana. He had no intention of shaking hands with Dimitri.

It was a pale Tatiana who brought their hands together. “It’s all right,” she said, her voice quavering slightly. “It’ll be all right.”

Dimitri left.

“Shura, what could we do?” Tatiana said while feeding him. “It will have to work. It changes things a little bit. But not much. We’ll figure it out.”

Alexander turned his gaze to her.

She nodded. “He wants to survive more than anything else. You told me so yourself.”

But what did you tell me, Tatiana? thought Alexander. What did you tell me up on the roof of St. Isaac’s under the black Leningrad sky?

“We’ll take him. He’ll leave us alone. You’ll see. Just please get better soon.”

“Let’s go, Tania,” said Alexander. “Tell Dr. Sayers that whenever he’s ready to leave, I’ll make myself ready.”

Tatiana left.

A day passed.

Dimitri returned.

He sat down in the chair next to Alexander, who did not look his way. He was staring into the middle distance, into the long distance, into the short distance of his brown wool blanket, trying to recall the last name of the Moscow residence hotel he had lived in with his mother and father. The hotel kept regularly changing names. It had been a source of confusion and hilarity for Alexander, who was now deliberately focusing his mind away from Tatiana and away from the person sitting in the chair not a meter away from him. Oh, no, thought Alexander, with a stab of pain.

He remembered the last name of the hotel.

It was Kirov.

Dimitri cleared his throat. Alexander waited.

“Alexander, can we talk? This is very important.”

“It’s all important,” stated Alexander. “All I do is talk. What?”

“It’s about Tatiana.”

“What about her?” Alexander stared at his IV. How long would it take him to disconnect it? Would he bleed? He looked around the ward. It was just after lunch, and the other wounded were either sleeping or reading. The shift nurse was sitting by the door reading herself. Alexander wondered where Tatiana was. He didn’t need the IV. Tatiana kept it on him to force him to remain in the critical ward, to keep his bed. No. Don’t think about Tatiana. Pulling himself up, Alexander sat upright against the wall.

“Alexander, I know how you feel about her—”

“Do you?”

“Of course—”

“Somehow I doubt it. What about her?”

“She is sick.”

Alexander said nothing.

“Yes. Sick. You don’t know what I know. You don’t see what I see. She is a ghost walking around this hospital. She is fainting constantly. The other day she lay in a faint in the snow for I don’t know how long. A lieutenant had to get her up. We brought her to Dr. Sayers. She put on a brave face—”

“How do you know she was in the snow?”

“I heard the story. I hear everything. Also I see her in the terminal ward. She holds on to the wall when she walks. She told Dr. Sayers she was not getting enough food.”

“And you know this how?”

“Sayers told me.”

“You and Dr. Sayers are getting to be good friends, I see.”

“No. I just bring him bandages, iodine, medical supplies from across the lake. He never seems to have enough. We talk for a few minutes.”

“What’s your point?”

“Did you know she was not feeling well?”

Alexander was thoughtfully grim. He knew why Tatiana was not getting enough food, and he knew why she was fainting. But the last thing he was going to do was trust Dimitri with anything about Tatiana. Alexander kept customarily quiet for a moment and then said, “Dimitri, do you have a point?”

“Yes, I have a point.” Dimitri lowered his voice and pulled the chair closer to the bed. “What we’re planning… it’s dangerous. It requires physical strength, courage, fortitude.”

Alexander turned his head to Dimitri. “Yes?” he said, surprised that words like “fortitude” could have come from Dimitri’s mouth. “So?”

“How do you think Tatiana will manage through it all?”

“What are you talking about—”

“Alexander! Listen to me for a second. Wait, before you say more. Listen. She is weak, and we have a very hard road ahead of us. Even with Sayers’s help. Do you know there are six checkpoints between here and Lisiy Nos? Six. One syllable out of her at any of them and we’re all dead. Alexander…” Dimitri paused. “She can’t come.”

Keeping his voice low—it was the only way he could keep it—Alexander said, “I am not having this ludicrous conversation.”

“You are not listening.”

“You’re right, I’m not.”

“Stop being so obstinate. You know I am right—”

“I know no such thing!” Alexander exclaimed, his fists clenching. “I know that without her—” He broke off. What was he doing? Was he trying to convince Dimitri? To keep from shouting required an effort out of Alexander he just wasn’t prepared to make. “I’m growing tired,” he said loudly. “We’ll finish this another time.”

“There is no other time!” Dimitri hissed. “Keep your voice down. We’re supposed to be going in forty-eight hours. And I’m telling you I don’t want to hang because you can’t see clear through the day.”

“Crystal clear, Dimitri,” snapped Alexander. “She’ll be fine. And she will come with us.”

“She collapses here after a six-hour day.”

“Six-hour? Where have you been? She is here twenty-four hours a day. She doesn’t sit in a truck, she doesn’t sit and have cigarettes and vodka on her job. She sleeps on cardboard, and she eats what the soldiers don’t finish, and she washes her face in the snow. Don’t tell me about her day.”

“What if there is a border incident? What if, despite all of Sayers’s efforts, we’re stopped, interrogated? You and I will have to use our weapons. We’ll have to stand and fight.”

“We’ll do what we have to.” Alexander glared at Dimitri’s cane, at his bruised face, at his hunched body.

“Yes, but what will she do?”

“She’ll do what she has to.”

“She is going to faint! She is going to collapse in the snow, and you won’t know whether to kill the border troops or help her up.”

“I will do both.”

“She can’t run, she can’t shoot, she can’t fight. She’ll swoon at the first sign of trouble, and believe me, there is always trouble.”

“Can you run, Dimitri?” Alexander asked, unable to keep the hate out of his voice.

“Yes! I’m still a soldier.”

“What about the doctor? He can’t fight either.”