“What kind of miracle?” asked Dasha hopefully.

“German unconditional surrender,” replied Alexander dryly. “Once we lost Luga, our fate was sealed. We are certainly going to try to stop the Germans at Mga, the central point for rail travel to the rest of the Soviet Union. In fact, we are told that under no circumstances are we allowed to surrender Mga to the Germans. It is now against the law to give up railroads to the Nazis.” Alexander smiled. “But I have an uncanny ability to see the future. The law will be broken, and there will be no trains in September.”

Tatiana heard the subtext in his even voice. Tania, I told you and told you to leave this damned city, you didn’t listen to me, and now with a broken leg you can’t go anywhere.

4

Tatiana’s life was positively joyous in the hospital compared to what she encountered when she came back home in the middle of August.

When she returned, finally able to walk—badly—on crutches, Tatiana found Dasha cooking dinner for Alexander, and Alexander sitting behind the table happily eating, joking with Mama, talking politics with Papa, smoking, relaxing, and not leaving. And not leaving.

And not leaving.

Tatiana sat morosely and nibbled at her food like an overstuffed mouse.

When was he going to leave? It was getting so late. Didn’t he have taps?

“Dimitri, what time is taps for you?”

“Eleven,” Dimitri replied. “But Alexander has the night off tonight.”

Oh.

“Tania, did you hear? Mama and Papa are now sleeping in Deda and Babushka’s room,” Dasha said, smiling. “You and I have a room to ourselves, can you believe it?”

There was something in Dasha’s voice that Tatiana did not like. “No,” said Tatiana. When was Alexander leaving?

Dimitri went back to the barracks. Before eleven o’clock Mama and Papa got ready to go to bed. Mama leaned to Dasha and whispered, “He can’t stay overnight, do you hear me? Your father will go through the roof. He’ll kill us both.”

“I hear you, Mama,” Dasha whispered back. “He’ll leave soon, I promise.”

Not soon enough, Tatiana thought.

Their parents went to bed, and Dasha took Tatiana aside and whispered, “Tania, can you go up on the roof and play with Anton? Please? I just want to have an hour alone with Alexander—in a room, Tania!”

Tatiana left Dasha alone with Alexander. In her room.

She went to the kitchen and threw up in the sink. The nauseating din inside her head continued even after she went up onto the roof and sat with Anton, who was supposed to be on night duty. Anton was not a very good sky-watcher. He was sleeping. Fortunately the sky was quiet. Even from far away there was no sound of war. Tatiana sifted the sand in the bucket and cried in the moonless night.

I’ve done this, she thought. This is all because of me. Shuddering at herself, she laughed out loud. Anton twitched. I’ve done this to myself, and I have no one else to blame.

Had she not decided to single-handedly bring Pasha back, had she not joined the volunteers and walked off God knows where and got blown up and had her leg broken, she and Dasha would have left with Deda and Babushka for Molotov. And the unthinkable would not be happening in her room right now.

She sat on the roof until Dasha came upstairs sometime later and motioned for her to come to bed.

The following evening Mama told Tatiana that now that she was home by herself all day with a broken leg and nothing to do, she would have to start cooking dinner for the family.

All Tatiana’s life Babushka Anna, who did not work, had cooked. On the weekends Tatiana’s mother cooked. Sometimes Dasha cooked. During holidays like New Year everybody cooked; everybody, that is, except Tatiana, who cleared up.

“I’d be glad to, Mama,” said Tatiana. “If I only knew how.”

Dismissively Dasha said, “There is nothing to it.”

“Yes, Tania,” said Alexander, smiling. “There’s nothing to it. Make something delicious. A cabbage pie or something.”

Why not? Tatiana thought; while her leg was healing, she needed to busy her idle hands. She would try. She could not continue sitting in the room and reading all day, even if the reading was a Russian-English phrase book. Even if it was rereading Tolstoy’s War and Peace. She could not continue sitting in her room, thinking about Alexander.

The crutches had been killing her ribs, so Tatiana stopped using them. She hobbled to the store on her cast leg. The first thing she would cook in her life would be a cabbage pie. She would have also liked to make a mushroom pie but couldn’t find any mushrooms in the store.

The yeast dough took Tatiana three attempts and five hours in all. She made some chicken soup to go with the pie.

Alexander came for dinner, along with Dimitri. Extremely nervous about Alexander trying her food, Tatiana suggested that perhaps the two soldiers wanted to go back and eat at the barracks. “What, and miss your first pie?” Alexander said teasingly. Dimitri smiled.

They ate and drank and talked about the day and about war, and about evacuation, and about hopes for finding Pasha, and then Papa said, “Tania, this is a little salty.”

Mama said, “No, she just didn’t let the dough rise enough. And there are too many onions. Why didn’t you try to get something else besides cabbage?”

Dasha said, “Tania, next time cook the carrots a little longer in the soup. And put a bay leaf in. You forgot the bay leaf.”

Smiling, Dimitri said, “It’s not too bad for your first effort, Tania.”

Alexander passed Tatiana his plate, and said, “It’s great. Can I please have some more pie? And here’s my bowl for the soup.”

After dinner Dasha took Tatiana away and whispered in her pleading voice, “Can you and Dimitri go on the roof for a little while? It’s not going to be too late tonight. He’s got to get back. Please?”

Kids from the apartment building were constantly on the roof. Dimitri and Tatiana were not alone.

But Dasha and Alexander were alone.

What Tatiana needed was not to see her sister and him. Him for a lifetime. Her for two weeks. In two weeks, when the summer would end, Dasha’s infatuation would surely end, too. Nothing could survive the Leningrad winter.

But how could Tatiana not see Alexander? Maybe she could lie to everyone else, but she could not lie to herself. She held her breath the whole day until the evening hour when she would finally hear him walking down the corridor. The last two nights he stopped at her door, smiled, and said, “Hello, Tania.”

“Hello, Alexander,” she replied, blushing and looking down at his boots. She couldn’t meet his eyes without trembling somewhere on her body.

Then she fed him.

Then Dasha took Tatiana aside and whispered.

Tatiana had been ready, gritted teeth and all, to put Alexander away. She had known all along what the right thing was, and she was prepared to do it.

But why did her face have to be rubbed in the right thing night after night?

As the days went on, Tatiana realized she was too young to hide well what was in her heart but old enough to know that her heart was in her eyes.

She was afraid she would glance at Alexander and something in her look would catch Dimitri’s attention, something would make him think, wait a minute, why is she looking at him? Or worse, what is that in her eyes? Or worse still, why is she looking away? Why can’t she look at him like everyone else? Like I look at Dasha, like Dasha looks at me?

Looking at Alexander condemned Tatiana, but not looking at him equally betrayed her, maybe even more so.

And Dimitri seemed to catch it all. Every glance away, every glance toward, Dimitri’s quietly studying eyes were on Alexander, on Tatiana.

Alexander was older. He could hide better.