There was a knock at the front door, and Tatiana went to answer it. It was Nina Iglenko wanting to know if they had any extra anything she could give Anton. Tatiana knew that Nina was having a hard time sustaining him on a dependent’s ration after he was wounded on the roof. Alexander came out to the hallway, enormous and imposing, standing next to her small, sweater-wrapped body. His arm pressing into Tatiana’s arm, Alexander said, “Comrade Iglenko, everyone collects the same dependent ration. I’m sorry, we have nothing.” And he shut the door, turning to Tatiana. “You didn’t tell me that Anton got wounded on the roof.” He was still very close to her. Not only could she smell him, breathe him, inhale him, but in one moment his chest would touch her face.

“He’s fine,” Tatiana said in a dismissive tone, trying not to breathe erratically. “It’s just a scratch on his leg.” She didn’t want Alexander to worry.

“Tania, did you know that everyone collects the same dependent ration?” Alexander said pointedly, edging forward and scaring Tatiana into the coat-rack.

“I heard that.”

“You don’t have any more than Nina does.”

“I know. Excuse me. I have to go and make you breakfast.” Tatiana couldn’t spend another second standing with him in the narrow hallway while he was wearing his long johns. She walked out and caught up with Nina in the corridor, handing her a hunk of the butter.

“God bless you, Tanechka,” said Nina. “God bless you as long as you live. You’ll see. He will protect you all your life for your kind heart.”

Tatiana returned to the kitchen and was making eggs and oatmeal, when Alexander came in and leaned against the stove, facing her.

“Careful, your back will get burned,” said Tatiana, not looking at him.

He didn’t say anything at first, but then a fierce whisper came out of him. “Tania, better than anyone else, I know what you are. I know what you’re doing—”

“What?” she said. “I’m making oatmeal. And eggs.”

Alexander put his finger under her chin and turned her face up to him. “You cannot give your food away, do you understand? There isn’t enough for you and your family.”

Opening her mouth and pretending to bite his finger, Tatiana nodded. Alexander left his fingers on her for a moment.

Tatiana made the oatmeal with a couple of tablespoons of milk, some butter, and a few teaspoons of sugar. And water. She made enough for four small bowls and divided it into four uneven parts, the largest one for Alexander, the next for Dasha, then Marina, and the smallest for her. He had brought them twenty eggs. She scrambled five of them with butter and salt. It felt as if they were having a feast.

Alexander took one look at his bowl and said he would not eat it. Dasha had already finished her oatmeal by the time he had stopped speaking. Marina, too. And her eggs.

Only Tatiana gazed down into her bowl as Alexander gazed down at his. “What is the matter with you two?” Dasha said. “Alex, you need much more food than she does. You’re a man. She is the smallest. She needs the least out of all of us. Now, eat. Please.”

“Yes,” said Tatiana, still not looking up. “You’re a man. I am the smallest. I do need the least. Now, eat. Please.”

Alexander switched his bowl with Tatiana’s. “Now, you eat,” he said. “I can get food at the barracks. Eat.”

Gratefully Tatiana ate every last bite in seconds. Then she finished her eggs.

Dasha said, “Oh, Alexander, how different things are since the last time you were here. It’s a lot harder now. People are harder. Everyone is now only for themselves, it seems.” She sighed, glancing away.

Alexander and Tatiana silently stared at Dasha.

“We’re getting only three hundred grams of bread a day,” she continued. “How much worse can it get?”

“Much worse,” said Tatiana, sparing Alexander an answer. “Because our provisions will soon be gone.”

“How many cans of ham do you have left?” he asked.

“Twelve.”

“Yes,” said Tatiana, “but four days ago we had eighteen. We ate six cans in four days. We’ve been hungry at night.” She wanted to add that they were hungry every waking and sleeping minute of every day but didn’t.

The girls had to go to work. Tatiana watched Dasha come close to Alexander, who put his hands on her waist. “Oh, Alexander, I’ve gotten so thin,” Dasha said. “You’re not going to like me anymore, thin like this. Soon I’ll start looking like Tania.” She kissed him. “Are you going to be all right while we’re gone? What are you going to do?”

Alexander smiled. “I’m going to fall down in your bed and not wake up until you come home.”

Tatiana ran home at five o’clock, bombing or no bombing.

At home it was toasty warm. Alexander came out of the room grinning happily at her, and Tatiana, grinning happily back, said, “Hello, Alexander, I’m home!”

He laughed.

She wanted to kiss him.

He had gone and retrieved a dozen bundles of wood from the basement and brought them upstairs. Dasha came in from the kitchen. “Isn’t it cozy in here, Tania?” she said, hugging Alexander.

“Girls,” he said, “you will have to keep heating these rooms. It’s getting too cold.”

“We’re getting heat from the central heating system, Alex,” argued Dasha.

“Dash,” he said, “the Leningrad Council is heating residential buildings to a maximum of ten degrees Centigrade. You think that’s warm enough?”

“It hasn’t been so bad,” said Tatiana, taking off her coat.

Alexander patted Dasha’s arm. “I’m going to bring you more wood from the basement and leave it for you. Heat your rooms with the big stove, not the little bourzhuika that can’t warm up a penguin. All right, Tania?”

Suddenly shivering, Tatiana said nothing at first. “Alexander, these wood-burning stoves take a lot of wood,” she said, and hurried out to make him dinner.

Babushka brought seven potatoes from Malaya Ochta. They ate one more can of ham and all of the potatoes. After dinner Alexander suggested that from now on they eat only half a can of ham a day. Dasha got upset. She said they could barely make it on the whole can. He said nothing.

When the air-raid siren sounded, he motioned for the family to go down into the shelter—everyone, including Tatiana. When Dasha asked him to come with them, Alexander looked at her thoughtfully and said, “Dasha, go on now, and don’t worry about me.” When she insisted, he said, more firmly, “What kind of a soldier would I be if I ran for shelter every time there was a little bombing? Now, go. And, Tania, you, too. You haven’t been on the roof, have you?”

No one answered him as they filed out, certainly not Tatiana.

Later that night Dasha said, “Marinka, can you sleep with Babushka tonight? Please? It’s warm in her room, not like ours. I want Alexander to sleep next to me. Mama, you don’t mind, do you? We are getting married.”

“Next to you and Tania?” Marina gave Tatiana a look that Tatiana did not return.

“Yes.” Dasha smiled, getting clean bedding out of the dresser. “Alexander, you don’t mind sleeping in the same bed as Tania?”

He grunted.

“Tanechka, tell me,” Dasha said teasingly, as she started to make the bed, “should I put him in the middle, between us?” She laughed lightly. “It will be good for Tania. It’ll be the first time she has slept with a man.” Amused at herself, Dasha pinched Alexander’s arm and said, “Though, darling, maybe she shouldn’t start with you.”

Not looking at Tatiana, Alexander muttered that he really wouldn’t be comfortable in the middle, and Tatiana, not looking at him, muttered that he was right, and Dasha said to him, “Relax, you don’t think I was really going to put you next to my sister?”

At bedtime Tatiana climbed in next to her wall, Dasha climbed in next to her, and Alexander fitted in on the end in his thermals. There was no room to move, but it was warmer, and his presence so close, yet so far away, a whole heart away, softened Tatiana’s eyes. Quietly they lay in bed listening to Mama as she cried on her sofa.