“What’s the matter?” he said. “What?”

Tatiana fought for her courage, struggled for the right words, afraid of asking, afraid of hearing his answer, afraid of making him angry or upset. He didn’t deserve it, and in the end she trusted and believed in him so much that it made her like herself less to think that she would give the cynical Marina any credit for her ill-chosen words. Yet the words sat in her chest and churned in her anxious, aching stomach.

Tatiana didn’t want to burden Alexander. She knew he was already carrying plenty. At the same time she could not continue to let him touch her. His hands were tenderly caressing her from her hips up to her hair and back down again. “What’s the matter?” Alexander whispered. “Tania, tell me, what?”

“Wait,” she said. “Shura, can you—” She limped sideways from him. “Wait, just stop, all right?”

He didn’t come after her, and she was a couple of meters away in the arcade when she sank to the floor and gathered her knees to her chest.

“Talk to me about Dimitri,” she said, feeling slightly deflated.

“No,” Alexander said, continuing to stand. He folded his arms. “Not until you tell me what’s bothering you.”

Tatiana shook her head. She just couldn’t have this conversation with him. “I’m fine. Really.” She smiled. Did she manage a good smile? Not according to his long face.

“Just—It’s nothing.”

“All the more reason to tell me.”

Looking down at her long brown skirt, at her toes peeking out from the cast, Tatiana took a few deep breaths. “Shura, this is very, very difficult for me.”

“I know,” he said, crouching where he stood, his arms coming to rest on his knees.

“I don’t know how to say this to you,” she said without lifting her head.

“Open your mouth and speak to me,” said Alexander. “Like always.”

Tatiana couldn’t find her nerve. “Alexander, there are too many more important things for us to resolve, to discuss—” Tatiana managed a quick glance at him. He was studying her with curiosity and concern. “I can’t believe I’m wasting our minutes like this—” She stopped. “But…” He said nothing. “Am I… ?” It was so stupid. What did she know of these things? She sighed. “Listen, you know who helped me get out to see you tonight? My cousin Marina.”

Alexander nodded, unsmiling. “Good. What does she have to do with us? Am I ever going to meet this girl?”

“You might not want to after I tell you what she told me…” Tatiana paused. “About soldiers.” She lifted her eyes. Alexander’s suddenly comprehending and upset face was filled with annoyance, and guilt.

That was not what she wanted to see. “She told me some interesting things.”

“I bet she did.”

“She wasn’t talking about you—”

“That’s a relief.”

“She was trying to warn me about Dimitri, but she said that to soldiers all girls were just a big conquest party and notches in their belt.” Tatiana stopped talking. She thought it was very brave of her to get out even this much.

Slowly Alexander moved over to Tatiana. He didn’t touch her; he just sat by her quietly and finally said, “Do you have a question for me?”

“Do you want a question?”

“No.”

“I won’t ask you then.”

“I didn’t say I wouldn’t answer it. I said I didn’t want it.”

Tatiana wished she could look into Alexander’s face. She just didn’t want to see the guilt there again. And she thought, what if, after our summer, after Kirov, after Luga, after all the unfathomable, breath-dissolving things that I have felt—what if after all that, I will right now find out that Marina was right about Alexander, too? Tatiana could not ask. Yet to have so much of what she felt be built on a lie… How could she not?

“What’s your question?” Alexander repeated, so softly, so patiently, so everything of what he had been to her, that Tatiana, strengthened by him, as always, opened her mouth and in her smallest voice said, “Shura, is that what I am… just another conquest to you? Just more difficult? Am I, too, just another young, difficult notch in your belt?” She lifted her uncertain, vulnerable eyes to him.

Alexander enveloped her in his arms whole, all gathered together like a tiny bandaged package. Kissing her head, he whispered, “I don’t know what I am going to do with you.” Pulling away slightly, he cupped her face. His eyes sparkled. “Tatiasha,” he said beseechingly, “what are you talking about? Have you forgotten the hospital? Conquest? Have you forgotten that if I wanted to, that night, or the following night, or any night that followed, I could have taken it from you standing?” He stared at her and said, even more quietly, “And you would have given it to me standing. Have you forgotten that it was I who put a stop to our senseless desperation?”

Tatiana shut her eyes.

Alexander held her face firmly in his hands. “Come on, open your eyes and look at me. Look at me, Tania.”

She opened her mortified and emotional eyes to find Alexander gazing at her with unremitting tenderness. “Tania, please. You’re not my conquest, you’re not a notch in my belt. I know how difficult it is, what you are feeling. I wish you wouldn’t worry yourself for a second with things you know to be plainly not true.” He kissed her passionately. “Do you feel my lips?” Alexander whispered. “When I kiss you”—he kissed her tenderly—”don’t you feel my lips? What are they telling you? What are my hands telling you?”

Tatiana closed her eyes and moaned. Why did she feel so helpless near him, why? It occurred to her that not only was he right, not only would she have given it to him then, but she would give it to him now, on the cold hard floor of the gilded rotunda. When she opened her eyes, Alexander was looking at her and smiling lightly. “Perhaps,” he said softly, “what you should be asking me is not, are you another notch in my belt, but why aren’t you another notch in my belt?”

Tatiana’s hands were trembling as she held his sleeves. “All right,” she whispered. “Why?”

Alexander laughed.

Tatiana cleared her throat. “Do you know what else Marina told me?”

“Oh, that Marina,” said Alexander, sighing and moving away. “What else did Marina tell you?”

Tatiana curled back into her knees. “Marina told me,” she said, “that all soldiers have it off with garrison hacks nonstop and never say no.”

“My, my,” said Alexander, shaking his head. “That Marina is trouble. It’s a good thing you didn’t get off the bus to go and see her that Sunday in June.”

“I agree,” said Tatiana, her face melting at the memory of them on that bus.

And his face melted back.

What was she even thinking? What was she even doing? Tatiana shook her head, upset at herself.

“Now, listen to me. I didn’t want to tell you any of this, but…” Alexander drew a deep breath. “When I first got into the army, I saw that genuine relationships with women were going to be very difficult because of the nature of our confinement”—he shrugged—”and the realities of Soviet life. No rooms, no apartments, no hotels for the Soviet man and the Soviet woman to go to. You want the truth from me? Here it is. I don’t want you to be afraid of it or afraid of me because of it. On our weekend furlough, it is true, we would go out for some beers and often find ourselves in the presence of all kinds of young women, who were quite willing to… knock around with soldiers without any strings attached.” Alexander stopped.

“And did you”—Tatiana held her breath—”knock around?”

“Once or twice,” Alexander replied. He didn’t look at her. “Don’t be upset by this, please.”

“I’m not upset,” Tatiana mouthed. Stunned, yes. Torn with self-doubt, yes. Entranced by you, yes again.

“We were all just having a bit of youthful fun. I kept myself extremely unattached and detached. I hated entanglements—”

“What about Dasha?”