Vera stared at Tatiana, who shrugged. “Luga. Wish I hadn’t gone. But… Listen, can you saw my leg off?”

They went inside. Vera said, “How about if I just remove the cast? I think taking the leg off is a bit drastic.”

It was the first time Tatiana had seen her leg in over six weeks. She wished she had more time to contemplate her peculiar, wilted limb without the cast, but as she was wobbling around, she heard a commotion down the hall at the nurses’ station. All the nurses ran upstairs. Tatiana followed them limply. Her leg hurt when she put weight on it.

On the roof she watched two formations of eight planes each fly above her. Half a city away there was an explosion, followed by fire and black smoke. She thought, it’s really happening. The Germans are bombing Leningrad. I thought I had left it all behind in Luga. I thought what I had seen there was the worst I was ever going to see. At least I was able to leave Luga and come back to peace. Where can I go now?

Tatiana smelled acrid acidity and thought, what is that? “I’m going home,” she said to Vera. “To my family.” But all she could think about was that smell.

By afternoon they knew. The Badayev storage warehouses supplying Leningrad with food had been bombed by the Germans and now lay in flaming ruins. The acrid smell was burning sugar.

“Papa,” asked Tatiana while they were sitting solemnly at the dining table, “what’s going to happen to Leningrad?”

Papa had no answers. “What happened to Pasha, I suspect.”

Mama started to cry. “Don’t talk like that!” she exclaimed. “You’ll scare the children.”

Dasha, Tatiana, and Marina looked at each other.

The bombing continued through late afternoon.

Anton came for Tatiana, and they both went out onto the roof. However odd it was to be walking without a cast, there was nothing odder than the sight of black smoky fragments in the sky over Leningrad.

Alexander was right, she thought, He has been right about everything. Everything that he told me would happen has come to pass. Her heart swelling with respect and affection, she made a mental note to listen to every word he uttered from now on, but then a tic of fear ran through her.

Hadn’t Alexander told her there would be a battle to the death on the city streets?

Dimitri with his gun, Alexander with his grenade, and Tatiana with her rock.

Hadn’t Alexander told her to buy food as if she were never going to see it again? Maybe he was exaggerating for effect, she thought, feeling only slightly relieved. Didn’t he rail at her to get out of the city when he used to come to pick her up at Kirov? As the black smoke hung like a memorial canopy over Leningrad, Tatiana got a feeling of foreboding, a slight, aching darkness as she thought of her family’s future.

Anton stood looking at the sky with expectant eyes. “Tania!” he exclaimed. “Earlier I did it. One fell, an incendiary, and I put it out with this!” He pointed to the stick in his hand, the bottom end of which was attached to a concrete half-circle that looked like a soldier’s helmet.

Jumping up and down and waving his fist to the sky, Anton squealed, “I’m ready for you, come on, come again!”

“Anton,” said Tatiana, laughing, “you’re as crazy as Slavin.”

“Oh, much crazier,” said Anton happily. “He’s not on the roof, is he?”

Tatiana could see fires in the direction of Nevsky, in the direction of the river.

Suddenly Mama stuck her head out the stairwell door, not daring to venture onto the roof herself, and yelled, “Tatiana Georgievna! Are you crazy? Come down this instant!”

“I can’t, Mama, I’m on duty.”

“I said, come! Come this instant.”

“I’m going to come in about an hour, Mamochka. Go on, go downstairs.”

Mama muttered angrily and left, but in ten minutes she returned, this time with Alexander and Dimitri.

Tatiana, standing high on the roof, shook her head. “What are you doing, Mama, bringing reinforcements?”

“Tatiana,” Alexander said, striding out to her, “come downstairs with us.” Dimitri remained near the landing with Mama.

When Tatiana didn’t move, Alexander said, raising his eyebrows, “Immediately, Tania.”

Sighing, she said, “I can’t leave Anton here by himself, can I?”

“I’ll be fine, Tania!” Anton yelled, waving his stick at the sky. “I’m ready for them.”

As he was leaving, Alexander turned to Anton and remarked, “Put the helmet on your head, soldier.”

Downstairs in the room, Dimitri said, “Tania, dear, you really shouldn’t go on the roof during an air raid.”

“Well, there’s not much point going on the roof at other times,” she retorted mildly. “Unless I wanted to get a suntan.” She moved away from him.

“You live in the wrong city for a suntan,” snapped Alexander. “But honestly, Tania, what are you thinking? Dimitri is right. Your mother is right. Do you want to leave your family without two of their three children? All bombs are not incendiaries; they don’t land harmlessly at your feet like felled pigeons. Have you forgotten Luga? What do you think happens when a bomb explodes in midair? The explosive wave blows apart glass, wood, plastic. Why did we tape all the windows in the city? What do you think would happen to you if that wave hit you?”

“Maybe,” Tatiana said dryly, “we can put a little tape on me, maybe a little palm tree.”

“Stop it with your smart mouth!” said Dasha. “Don’t cause more trouble. I’m not having our brave boys dig you out again.” She squeezed Alexander.

“I really cannot take any credit for that,” said Dimitri, his eyes flaring. “Can I, Alexander?”

“Tania, you know what?” said Mama. “Why don’t you go and start dinner and leave us adults to talk a bit, all right? Marina, go help Tania with dinner.”

Tatiana made potatoes with a little butter, and some beans and carrots on the side. That’s really not enough food for everyone, she thought, and fried up one of Deda’s cans of ham, which no one liked.

“Tania, your parents still don’t like to talk in front of you, do they?” said Marina.

“No, not really.”

“The soldiers are quite protective of you. Especially Alexander,” Marina remarked.

“He is protective of everybody,” stated Tatiana. “Can you go and get me more butter? I don’t think this will be enough.”

Dinner was a somber occasion that evening. Alexander and Dimitri were leaving for the front, and everyone was afraid to mention the unspeakable—Germans in the middle of their city and Alexander and Dimitri leaving for the front. Tatiana knew that, unlike Dimitri, Alexander was not going into front-line battle, but that was small comfort to her, imagining him commanding his artillery company.

Still somehow it was she who managed to ask brightly, “Well, what now?” as everyone was sipping black tea.

Alexander said, “All of you, use the bomb shelter you’ve got downstairs. You’re lucky to have one. Many buildings don’t. Use it every day. And, Dasha, make sure your sister doesn’t go on the roof. Tell her to let the boys take care of the bombs. Do you hear me, Dasha?”

“I hear you, darling.”

Tatiana heard him loud and clear.

“Alexander, was there much food in the burned-down warehouses?” she asked.

Alexander shrugged. “There was sugar, some flour. Perhaps a couple of days’ supply. It’s not the Badayev warehouses we have to worry about. It’s the Germans surrounding the city.”

Dasha said, “Oh, Alexander, I can’t believe they’re here, in Leningrad! All summer they seemed so far away.”

“Now they’re here. The circle around Leningrad is nearly complete.”

“Hardly a circle,” muttered Tatiana.

“Who the hell are you to argue with an army lieutenant!” yelled her intoxicated father.

Alexander lifted his hand and said calmly, “Your father is right, Tania. Don’t argue with me. Even if you are right.”

Tatiana kept herself from smiling.