“Unlike you?”

“Unlike me. I saw him floating in the water facedown, and I thought he was just playing a trick on me, too. I wanted to see how long he could hold his breath. I was convinced he couldn’t hold it as long as me. So I let him float for a minute, then another minute. Finally I jumped in and pulled him to the boat. Don’t know how I got him in. And rowed all the way back to shore by myself while he lay there and moaned that I had hit him too hard. Oh, did I get it from my parents when they saw the bruise on Pasha’s head. And after I’d been thoroughly punished, then he told everybody that he was just faking and was conscious the whole time.” She started to cry again. “Do you know how I feel now? Like I’m waiting any minute for Pasha to come out of the water and tell me this was all just a big joke.”

His voice cracking, Alexander said, “Tatiasha, the fucking Germans just hit him too hard with that oar.”

“I know,” she whispered. “I’m so sad he was alone without all of us.” She fell silent, and Alexander, too, as he lay and listened to her breath recover its rhythm. That he was alone without you, Tatiana, thought Alexander. He would have felt better had he been with you.

He listened to her paused breath, as if she were trying to ask him something. He continued to stroke her hair to give her strength. “What, Tatia?”

“Shura, are you asleep?”

“No.”

“I’ve missed you… coming to Kirov. Is that all right to say?”

“And I’ve missed you,” Alexander said, rubbing his lips against her gold-silk, down-feather hair. “And it’s all right to say.”

There was nothing else from her, except her hand, moving on his chest, gently, tenderly, up and down. He held her close. A groan of pain escaped her, and another, and another.

Minutes passed.

Minutes.

And then hours.

“Shura, are you asleep?”

“No.”

“I just wanted to say… thank you, soldier.”

Alexander’s eyes stared into the blackness, as he tried to envisage moments of his own life, of his childhood, of his mother and father, of Barrington. He saw nothing. Felt nothing but Tatiana lying on his fallen-asleep arm, caressing his chest. She stopped and placed her hand on his rapid heart. He felt her lips lightly press against his shirt, and then she slept. And finally he slept, too.

When Alexander first saw a tinge of blue-gray light from outside the tent, he said, “Tania?”

“I’m awake,” she said, her hand still on his chest.

He disentangled himself and went to wash by the stream in the woods, where it was still dark. There was no doing it on the banks of the Luga River. The Germans were only seventy-five meters across the water, their cannons and artillery pointed at the Soviet men who slept hugging their machine guns. Not Alexander—he had slept hugging Tatiana.

Coming back to the tent with clean water, he sat Tatiana up covered in the blanket, helped her wash, and then gave her some bread and some more tea.

“How are you feeling this morning?” he asked. “Spry?” He smiled.

“Yes,” she said weakly. “I think I can hop on my good leg.” He saw by her constricted face she was in terrible pain.

Alexander told her he would be right back and went to wake up the medic and ask for some clothes for her and some medication. Mark had no medication, but he found her a dress that belonged to one of the nurses who had died a few days ago. “Corporal, I need one lousy gram of morphine.”

“I don’t have it,” Mark snapped. “They shoot you for stealing morphine. I don’t have it for a broken leg. Bring her to me with intestinal damage and I won’t have it. You want her to have our precious morphine or a captain in the Red Army?”

Alexander did not answer that question.

After returning, he sat Tatiana up and slipped the dress over her head, taking care not to hurt her or to look at her bare and bandaged body.

“You’re a good man, Alexander,” she said, reaching up and laying her small palm onto his face.

“But a man first,” he said quietly, leaning into her hand. He paused briefly before continuing. “Your leg must hurt so much. Have some vodka again. It’ll dull the pain.”

“All right,” she said. “Anything you say.”

He let her have a few swigs. “Ready to go?”

“Leave me,” Tatiana said. “Go yourself, leave me. They’ll have room for me in the field tent eventually. People die, beds become free.”

“You think I came all the way to Luga to leave you waiting for a hospital bed?” He dismantled his tent and packed up his trench coat and blanket. She sat on the ground. “Let me help you up. Can you stand on one leg?”

“Yes,” she said, groaning. Tatiana stood in front of Alexander, barely coming up to the top of his chest. All he wanted to do was kiss her head. Please don’t look up at me, Alexander thought. She was very unsteady, holding on to his arms and swaying. “Put your rucksack on me,” she said. “It’ll be easier for you.”

He did. “Tania, I’m going to crouch in front of you, and you’re going to grab my neck. Just hold on tight, hear me?”

“I will. What about your rifle?”

“You on my back, rifle in my hands,” Alexander said. “Come on, we’ve got to go.”

She grabbed on to him, and he stood up with her on his back, taking hold of his weapon. “Ready?”

“Yes.”

Alexander heard her groaning. “It hurts?”

Her arms around his neck squeezed him. “It’s not bad.”

Alexander carried Tatiana on his back for three kilometers to Luga Station, which despite his hope was not repaired yet. “What now?” she asked anxiously when he stopped to rest.

He offered her a drink of water. “Now we walk through the woods to the next station.”

“How many kilometers is that?”

“Six,” he replied.

She shook her head. “Alexander, no. You can’t carry me for six more kilometers.”

“Do you have any other ideas?” he asked, crouching in front of her. “Let’s go.”

They were on a forest road making their way to the next train station north when they heard the planes just over the trees. Alexander himself would have continued walking, but he did not want to be walking with Tatiana on his back. If a bomb fell, she would be the first one to get hit.

He walked off the path, bringing her into the woods and setting her down by a fallen tree. “Lie down,” he told her, helping her lean back. He lay by her side, holding on to his rifle. “Turn onto your stomach,” he said. “And cover your head.” She didn’t move. “Don’t be afraid, Tania.”

“How can I be afraid now?” she said haltingly, lying on her back looking up at him. She wasn’t moving. She placed her hands on his chest.

“Go on,” he said, staring at her. “What? Do you need me to help? I should have taken your green helmet from the station.”

“Alexander—”

“Now that it’s morning, I’m suddenly Alexander again?”

Gazing up at him, Tatiana whispered, “Oh, Shura…” And Alexander could no longer bear it. He bent to her face and kissed her.

Her lips were as soft and young and full as he had imagined them to be. Tatiana’s whole body started to tremble as she kissed him back with such tenderness, such passion, such need that Alexander involuntarily emitted a small groan. He was bewildered by her hands pressing his head into hers and not letting go. “Oh, God…” he whispered into her parted mouth.

The crashing noise of the bombs overhead stopped them. Alexander felt that something had to stop him. The tip of the pine tree nearby caught fire, and bits of burning branches fell down into the damp forest very close to them. He turned her onto her stomach and lay next to her in the moss with his arm and half his body covering her. “Are you all right?” he whispered. “Bombs frighten you?”

“Bombs are the least of it,” she whispered back.

As soon as the shelling stopped, Alexander said, “Let’s go. We’ve got to get to the train. Let’s hurry.”