3

At the morning meeting at Kirov the next day, Tatiana was told that the workday, in honor of the war effort, was extended until seven in the evening, until further notice. Until further notice, Tatiana guessed, was until the war ended. Krasenko informed the workers that he and the Party secretary from Moscow decided to step up production of the KV-1, heavy tank for the defense of Leningrad. Krasenko said that Leningrad would be defended with what tanks, ammunition, artillery they could make at Kirov. Stalin would not redeploy arms from the southern front to the Leningrad front to protect the city.

Whatever Leningrad could produce to defend itself—arms and food—would have to be sufficient.

After that meeting so many workers volunteered for the front that Tatiana thought the factory would be closed down. But no such luck. She and another worker—a worn, middle-aged woman named Zina—returned to their projectile assembly line.

Late in the day the nail gun broke, and Tatiana had to nail the crates shut with a hammer. By seven her back and her arm ached.

Tatiana and Zina walked along the Kirov wall, and before she got to the bus stop, Tatiana saw Alexander’s black-haired head rising above the tide of others.

“I have to go,” Tatiana said, losing a breath and speeding up. “See you tomorrow.”

Zina mumbled something in return.

“Hello,” she greeted him, her heart racing, her voice steady. “What are you doing here?” She was too tired to feign disinterest. She smiled.

“I’m coming to take you home. Did you have a nice birthday? Did you talk to your parents?”

“No,” Tatiana replied.

“No to both?”

“I didn’t talk to them, Alexander,” Tatiana said, avoiding the birthday issue. “Maybe Dasha can talk to them? She is a lot braver than I am.”

“Is she?”

“Oh, much,” said Tatiana. “I’m a big chicken.”

“I tried to talk to her about Pasha. She is even less concerned than you.” He shrugged. “Look, it’s not my place. I’m just doing what I can.” He glanced at the line of people. “We’ll never get on this bus. Want to walk?”

“As long as it is up the tram steps,” she said. “I can’t move today. I’m so tired.” She paused, adjusting her ponytail. “Have you been waiting long?”

“Two hours,” he replied, and Tatiana suddenly felt less tired. She stared at Alexander with surprise.

“You’ve been waiting two hours?” What she didn’t say was, you’ve been waiting two hours for me? “My day has been extended till seven. I’m sorry you waited so long,” she said softly to him.

They fell away from the crowd, crossed the street, and headed toward Ulitsa Govorova.

“Why are you carrying that?” Tatiana asked, pointing to Alexander’s rifle. “Are you on duty?”

“I’m off duty until ten,” he said. “But I’ve been ordered to carry my weapon with me at all times.”

“They’re not here yet, are they?” Tatiana said, trying to be jovial.

“Not yet,” came his short reply.

“Is the rifle heavy?”

“No.” He paused and smiled. “Would you like to carry it?”

“Yes,” she said. “Let’s see. I’ve never held a rifle before.” Taking it from him, she was surprised by how heavy it was and how hard it was to hold it with both hands. She carried it for a while and then gave it back to Alexander. “I don’t know how you do it,” she said. “Carry your weapon and all your other things, too.”

“Not just carry it, Tania, but fire it. And run forward, and fall on the ground, and jump up with it in my hands, with all my other things on my back.”

“I don’t know how you do it.” She wished she could be physically strong like that. Pasha would never beat her at war again.

The tram came, and they got on. It was crowded. Tatiana gave up her seat to an elderly lady, while Alexander looked as if he never intended to sit down. He held on to the brown overhead strap with one hand and his rifle strap with the other. Tatiana held on to the partially rusted metal handle. Every once in a while the tram would lurch and she would bump into him, and every time she would apologize. His body felt as hard as the Kirov wall.

Tatiana wanted to sit down with him alone somewhere and ask him about his parents. Certainly she couldn’t ask him on the tram. And was knowing about his parents a good thing? Wouldn’t knowledge about his life just make her feel closer to him, when what she needed was to feel as far away from him as possible?

Tatiana remained silent as the tram took them to Vosnesensky Prospekt, where they caught tram Number 2 to the Russian Museum.

“Well, I’ll be going,” Tatiana said—extremely reluctantly—after they got off.

“Do you want to sit for a minute?” Alexander suddenly asked. “We can rest on one of the benches in the Italian Gardens. Want to?”

“All right,” Tatiana said, trying not to skip with joy as she walked in little steps next to him.

After they sat down, Tatiana could tell that something was weighing heavily on his mind, something he wanted to say and couldn’t. She hoped it wasn’t about Dasha. She thought, aren’t we past that? She wasn’t. But he was older. He should have been.

“Alexander, what’s that building over there?” she asked, pointing across the street.

“Oh, that’s the European Hotel,” Alexander replied. “That and the Astoria are the best hotels in Leningrad.”

“It looks like a palace. Who is allowed to stay there?”

“Foreigners.”

Tatiana said, “My father went to Poland on business once a few years ago, and when he came back, he told us that in his Warsaw hotel Polish people from Krakow were staying! Can you imagine? We didn’t believe him for a week. How could Polish people be staying in a hotel in Warsaw?” She chuckled. “That’s like me staying at the European over there.”

Alexander looked at her with an amused expression and said, “There are places where people can actually travel as they please in their own country.”

Tatiana waved him off. “I guess,” she said. “Like Poland.” She swallowed hard and cleared her throat. “Alexander… I’m so sorry about your mother and father.” She touched him gently on the shoulder. “Please tell me what happened.”

With a suspended breath of relief escaping his mouth, Alexander said, “Your father is right, you know.” He paused. “I’m not from Krasnodar.”

“Really? Where are you from?”

“Have you ever heard of a town called Barrington?”

“No. Where is that?”

“Massachusetts.”

She thought she had misheard. Her eyes became saucers. “Massachusetts?” she gasped. “As in, as in America?”

“Yes. As in America.”

“You’re from Massachusetts, America?” Tatiana said, astonished.

“Yes.”

For a full minute, maybe two, Tatiana could not speak. Her heart drummed deafeningly and electrifyingly in her ears. She willed her jaw to stay shut.

“You’re just teasing me,” she said at last. “I am not that gullible.”

Alexander shook his head. “I’m not teasing.”

“You know why I don’t believe you?”

“Yes,” Alexander said. “You’re thinking, who would want to come here?”

“That’s exactly what I’m thinking.”

“Communal living was a great disillusionment for us,” Alexander told Tatiana. “We came here—my father anyway—so full of hope, and suddenly there were no showers.”

“Showers?”

“Never mind. Where was the hot water? We couldn’t even take a bath in the residential hotel we were staying at. Do you have hot water?”

“Of course we don’t. We boil water on the stove and add it to the cold water in the bath. Every Saturday we go to the public bathhouse to wash. Like everybody in Leningrad.”

Alexander nodded. “In Leningrad, in Moscow, in Kiev, in all of the Soviet Union.”

“We’re lucky. In the big cities we actually have running water. In provincial towns they don’t even have that. Deda told me that about Molotov.”