“Shut up.”

Dasha knocked Tatiana back, throwing herself on top of her, “Tania, Tania, Tania,” she squealed, tickling Tatiana. “You’re the funniest girl.” And when she was very close to Tatiana’s face, she said, “Look at all your freckles.” Dasha bent her head and kissed them. “They’ve really popped out. You must be walking outside a lot. You don’t walk home from Kirov, do you?”

“No, and get off me. You are way too heavy,” said Tatiana, tickling her sister back and pushing her off.

Dimitri said, “Tania, you didn’t answer the question.”

“Yes,” said Alexander. “Let Tatiana answer the question.”

It took Tatiana a few moments to get her breath back. Finally she said, “Love is…” And with a pulsing heart she thought about what she could say and what would be a big lie. What would be the truth? Partial truth, whole truth? How much could she give right now? Knowing who was listening. “Love is,” she repeated slowly, looking only at Dasha, “when he is hungry and you feed him. Love is knowing when he is hungry.”

Dasha said, “But, Tania, you don’t know how to cook! He’d pretty much starve, wouldn’t he?”

Dimitri cackled. “What about when he is horny? What do you do then?” He laughed so hard he started hiccuping. “Is love knowing when he is horny? And feeding him?”

“Shut the hell up, Dimitri,” said Alexander.

“Dima, you are just so crass,” said Dasha. “You have no class.” Turning to Alexander and smiling, she pushed him lightly and said in an eager voice, “All right, now your turn.”

Tatiana, sitting motionless in her lotus position, looked beyond Alexander to the Great Palace, thinking of the gilded throne room and all her dreams blossoming here in Peterhof when she was a child.

“Love is, to be loved,” said Alexander, “in return.”

Her lower lip trembling, Tatiana would not take her eyes off Peter the Great’s Summer Palace.

Dasha leaned into him with a smile. “That’s nice, Alexander.”

Only when they all got up and folded their blanket to catch the train back did it occur to Tatiana that no one had asked Dimitri what love meant to him.

That night, as she was turned to the wall, remorse over Alexander ate Tatiana up from the whites of her bones. To turn away from Dasha like this was to admit the unadmittable, to accept the unacceptable, to forgive the unforgivable. Turning away meant that deception was going to become her way of life, as long as she had a dark wall to turn her face to.

How could Tatiana live a life, breathe in a life where she could sleep next to her sister with her back turned every night? Her sister, who took her mushroom picking in Luga a dozen years ago with only a basket, no knife and no paper bag, “so that the mushrooms wouldn’t be afraid,” Dasha had said. Her sister, who taught Tatiana how to tie her shoelaces at five and to ride her bike at six, and to eat clover. Her sister, who looked after her summer after summer, who covered for all her pranks, who cooked for her and braided her hair and bathed her when she was small. Her sister, who had once taken her out at night with her and her wild beaus, letting Tatiana see how young men behaved with young women. Tatiana had stood awkwardly against the wall of Nevsky Prospekt, eating her ice cream, while the older boys kissed the older girls. Dasha never took Tatiana with her again and after that night became more protective of Tatiana than ever.

Tatiana could not continue like this one more day.

She had to ask Alexander to stop coming to Kirov.

Tatiana felt one way. That was indisputable. But she had to behave another way. That was indisputable, too.

Turning away from the wall and to Dasha, Tatiana reached out and gently stroked the length of her sister’s thick curls.

“That feels nice, Tanechka,” murmured Dasha.

“I love you, Dasha,” said Tatiana, as her tears trickled down on the pillow.

“Mmm, love you, too. Go to sleep.”

All the while her mind was laying down the unassailable law of right and wrong, Tatiana’s breath was whispering his name in the rhythmic beat of her heart. SHU-rah, SHU-rah, SHU-rah.

13

On the Monday after Peterhof, when a smiling Alexander met an unsmiling Tatiana at Kirov, she said to him before even a hello, “Alexander, you can’t come anymore.”

He stopped smiling and stood silently in front of her, at last prodding her with his hand. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s walk.”

They walked the long block to Govorova.

“What’s the matter?” He was looking at the ground.

“Alexander, I can’t do this anymore. I just can’t.”

He stayed quiet.

“I can’t make it,” said Tatiana, strengthened by the concrete pavement under her feet. She was glad they were walking and she didn’t have to look at his face. “It’s too hard for me.”

“Why?” he asked.

“Why?” Flummoxed by that question, she fell silent. Not one of her answers could she speak aloud.

“We’re just friends, Tania, right?” Alexander said quietly. “Good friends. I come because I know you’re tired. You’ve had a long day, you have a long way home, and a long evening ahead of you still. I come because sometimes you smile when you’re with me, and I think you are happy. Am I wrong? That’s why I come. It’s not a big thing.”

“Alexander!” she exclaimed. “Yes, we have the pretense of not really being up to much. But please.” She took a breath. “Why don’t we tell Dasha then that you take me home from Kirov? Why do we get off every single day three blocks before my building?”

Slowly he said, “Dasha wouldn’t understand. It would hurt her feelings.”

“Of course it would. It should!”

“But, Tania, this has nothing to do with Dasha.”

Tatiana’s efforts to remain calm were costing her white fingers blood. “Alexander, this has everything to do with Dasha. I can’t lie in bed with her night after night, afraid. Please,” she said.

They came to the tram stop. Alexander stood in front of her. “Tania, look at me.”

She turned her head away. “No.”

“Look at me,” he said, taking both her hands in his.

She raised her eyes to Alexander. His big hands felt so comforting.

“Tatia, look at me and say, Alexander, I don’t want you to come anymore.”

“Alexander,” she said in a whisper, “I don’t want you to come anymore.”

He did not let go of her hands, nor did she pull away.

“After yesterday you don’t want me to come anymore?” he asked, his voice faltering.

Tatiana could not look at him when she spoke. “After yesterday most of all.”

“Tania!” he exclaimed suddenly. “Let’s tell her!”

“What?” She thought she had misheard.

“Yes! Let’s tell her.”

“Tell her what?” Tatiana said, her tongue suddenly full of frozen fear. She shivered in her sleeveless top. “There is nothing to tell her.”

“Tatiana, please!” Alexander’s eyes flashed at her. “Let’s tell the truth and live with the consequences. Let’s do the honest thing. She deserves that. I’m going to end it with her and then—”

“No!” She tried to pull her hands away. “Please, no. Please. She’ll be devastated.” She paused. “We have to think about other people.”

“What about us?” He squeezed her hands. “Tania…” he whispered, “what about you and me?”

“Alexander!” Her nerves were raw. “Please…”

“You please!” he said loudly. “I’m sick to death of this—all because you don’t want to do the honorable thing.”

“When is it honorable to hurt other people?”

“Dasha will get over it.”

“Will Dimitri?”

When Alexander did not reply, Tatiana repeated, “Will Dimitri?”

“Let me worry about Dimitri, all right?”

“And you’re wrong. Dasha will not get over you. She thinks you’re the love of her life.”

“She thinks wrong. She doesn’t even know me.”

Tatiana couldn’t listen anymore. She yanked her hands away. “No, no. Stop talking.”