“You know what?” he said. “I think I’m going to head back to the barracks. You don’t mind, do you? I’ve got”—he paused—”things to do. All right?”

“Of course, Dima,” said Tatiana, staring at him standing next to her in his helpless, distant, pointless proximity. Could other people have interested him less? Tatiana didn’t think so.

“I don’t know when I’m going to come by again,” Dimitri said. “I hear my platoon is being sent over the river. I’ll come by when I’m back. If I’m back. I’ll write if I can.”

“Of course.” Tatiana said good-bye to Dimitri on the street corner, watching him as he walked away from her. She didn’t think she would be seeing him again soon.

She went home by herself, and when she was near her apartment building, she saw Alexander run out the front doors. She was maybe ten meters away from him. He stood for a moment trying to get his breath, and then saw her stopped dead on the pavement. Tatiana’s control over herself was so fragile that she knew she could not face him. She turned around and started walking quickly in the opposite direction. “Tania!” she heard him calling from behind, and in a moment he stood in front of her. Tatiana backed away and put her arms up. “Leave me alone,” she said in a faint voice. “Just leave me alone.”

“Where have you been?” Alexander asked quietly. “I’ve been coming to the store on Fontanka and Nekrasova for three mornings in a row trying to catch you.”

“Well, you caught me, all right,” said Tatiana.

“Tania, look at you, how could you let him do that to you?”

“I ask myself that question over and over,” Tatiana said. “And not just about him.”

Alexander blinked. “Tania—”

“I don’t want to talk to you right now!” Tatiana screamed. And then, taking another step back, her lip shaking and her eyes filled with tears, she said, much more quietly, “I don’t want to talk to you ever.”

“Tania, can I just explain—”

“No.”

“Will you for a second—”

“No!”

“Tania…”

“NO!” She came up to him, her teeth gritted, and she couldn’t believe herself: she wanted to hit him. She clenched her fists. She wanted to hit Alexander.

He stared at her fists and at her and said with upset incredulity, “You promised me you would forgive me—”

“Forgive you,” Tatiana hissed through her teeth, tears streaming down her face, “for your brave and indifferent face, Alexander!” She groaned in pain. “Not your brave and indifferent heart.”

Before he had a chance to respond or to stop her, Tatiana ran from him, through the doors, flying up three flights of stairs to her apartment.

At home Papa was lying on the floor in the hallway, still drunk, but also unconscious. Mama and Dasha were crying in the room. Oh, my God, thought Tatiana, wiping her own face. Will this never end?

Marina whispered to Tatiana, “Tania, what a mess! You cannot believe the things Alexander said when he stormed in here. Look what he did to the wall!” She pointed with a thrill to some broken plaster in the hallway. “Alexander said that with his drinking your Papa had turned his back on his family just when they needed him most. That he had failed in his responsibilities to the people he was supposed to protect, not harm. Alexander was like a growling tank!” Marina said, looking extremely impressed. “He said, ‘Where can she go if outside the Nazis are bombing her, and inside her own father is trying to kill her?’ Tania, he was unstoppable!” Marina exclaimed. “He told your mother to put your father in the hospital. He said, ‘You are a mother, for God’s sake—save your children!’ “ Tatiana lowered her eyes away from Marina. “Your father was very drunk and went to hit him, and Alexander grabbed him by both shoulders and shoved him against the wall and cursed and screamed and then stormed out. How he didn’t kill him, I swear I don’t know. Can you believe it?”

“I can believe it,” Tatiana whispered. Alexander carried his own father with him wherever he went. He carried his own father, his own mother, his own self. Tatiana was the only person in the world he trusted, and so she bore some of that cross with him. Not much of it, but just enough to remember him at this time. For a moment—but it was all that she needed—Tatiana stopped feeling for herself and felt for Alexander, and when she did, she became less angry with him.

“Has he just passed out?” Tatiana said, sitting down on the sofa and looking at her father.

“No, I think he fell from fear. Tania, did you hear me? Alexander looked ready to kill him!”

“I heard you,” said Tatiana.

“Oh, Tania,” said Marina, lowering her voice to a whisper in the hallway, two meters away from one room, three meters away from another. “Tania, whatever are you two going to do?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Tatiana said. “I, for one, am going to try to help Papa.”

Papa remained unconscious, and the Metanovs became worried. Mama suggested that maybe they really should put Papa in the hospital for a few days to sober up. Tatiana thought it was a good idea. Papa had not been sober for many days.

Tatiana asked Petr Petrov down the hall for help with carrying Papa to the drunk ward at Suvorovsky Hospital. There were no beds available at Grechesky, where Tatiana worked.

The girls and Petr carried Papa to the hospital—on the north side of an east-west street—where he was admitted and put into a large room with four other drunk men. Tatiana asked for a sponge and some water and washed her father’s face, and then sat with him for a few minutes, holding his flaccid hand. “I’m really sorry, Papa,” she said.

She sat with him, holding his hand, every once in a while squeezing it and saying, “Papa, can you hear me?”

Finally he groaned in a way that told her maybe he could. He opened his unfocused eyes.

“Right here, Papa,” she kept saying. “I’m right here. Look at me.”

His head bobbed on the pillow. She continued to hold his hand. “You’re in the hospital for just a few days. Until you get sober. Then you’ll come home. Everything will be all right then.” Tatiana felt him squeeze her hand. “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to bring Pasha back for you. But you know, the rest of us are all still here.”

She saw tears in his eyes. His mouth opened as he squeezed her hand again, whispering hoarsely, “It’s all my fault…”

Tatiana kissed him on the head and said, “No, darling Papa. It’s not. It’s just war. But you do need to get sober.” He closed his eyes, and Tatiana went home.

At home Dasha was upset at Tatiana and shouted at her while Marina mediated. Tatiana sat on the sofa in the room and remained silent, imagining herself sitting peacefully between Deda and Babushka. At one point Dasha got herself so worked up that she leaned forward to hit Tatiana and was pulled away by Marina, who said, “Dasha, this is ridiculous. Stop it!”

Dasha ripped herself from Marina’s grasp, but Marina exclaimed, “Stop yourself. She is hurt enough! Can’t you see she’s hurt enough?”

Tatiana watched Marina with soft eyes and Dasha with harder ones, and then she got up wearily and went to walk past them to the other room. She needed to lie down and never have another day like this one. Or like the last one. Or the one before. Dasha grabbed her. Tatiana twisted away, raised her face to her sister, and said, “Dasha, in one minute I’m going to lose my patience. Stop and leave me alone. Can you do that?”

Her eyes remained unblinking on her sister, who let go of her and left Tatiana alone.

Later that night in bed Marina stroked Tatiana’s back, whispering, “It’s all right, Tania. It’ll be all right.”

“And you know this how?” Tatiana whispered. “We’re bombed every day, we’re blockaded, soon there will be no food, Papa can’t stop drinking—”

“That’s not what I’m talking about,” whispered Marina.