4
At home Dasha was on the roof. Each building had already designated their air-raid workers, first clearing debris from the attics, then taking shifts on the roofs, watching for German planes.
Dasha was sitting down on the tar roofing paper, smoking a cigarette and talking loudly with the two youngest Iglenko brothers, Anton and Kirill. Near them were buckets of water and heavy bags of sand. Tatiana wanted to sit next to her sister but couldn’t.
Dasha got up and said, “Listen, I’m off. Will you be all right here?”
“Of course, Dasha. Anton will protect me.” Anton was Tatiana’s closest friend.
Dasha touched her sister’s hair. “Don’t stay up here too long. Are you tired? You’re home so late. We knew Kirov would be too far for you. Why don’t you get a job with Papa? You’ll be home in fifteen minutes.”
“Don’t worry, Dash. I’m fine.” She smiled as if to prove it.
After Dasha left, Anton Iglenko tried to jolly Tatiana out of her mood, but she didn’t want to talk to anyone. She just wanted to think for a minute, for an hour, for a year. Tatiana needed to think herself out of what she was feeling.
Finally she relented and played the dizzy geography game. She put her hands over her eyes while Anton spun her around, stopping her suddenly, and she had to point in the direction of Finland. In the direction of Krasnodar. Which way the Urals? Which way America?
Then Tatiana spun Anton.
They named as many geographical locations as they could think of, and when they were done, they counted up their correct points. As the winner, Tatiana got to jump up and down.
Tonight Tatiana did not jump up and down. She sat down heavily on the roof. All she could think about was Alexander and America.
Anton, a scrawny blond boy, said, “Don’t look so glum. It’s all exciting.”
“Is it?” she said.
“Why, yes. In two years, I’ll be able to join. Petka left yesterday.”
“Left yesterday for where?”
“For the front.” He laughed. “In case you didn’t notice, Tania, there’s a war on.”
“I noticed, all right,” said Tatiana, shaking a little. “Have you heard from Volodya?” Volodya was with Pasha in Tolmachevo.
“No. Kirill and I wish we could have gone. Kirill can’t wait to turn seventeen. He says the army will take him at seventeen.”
“The army will take him at seventeen,” said Tatiana, getting up.
“Tania, will somebody take you at seventeen?” Anton smiled.
“I don’t think so, Anton,” she replied. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Tell your mother I have some chocolate for her if she wants. Tell her to come by tomorrow evening.”
Tatiana went downstairs. Her grandparents were reading quietly on the couch. The small lamp was on. She squeezed in snugly between them, almost on both their laps.
“What’s the matter, dear?” said her grandfather. “Don’t be afraid.”
“Deda, I’m not afraid,” said Tatiana. “I’m just very, very confused.” And I have no one to talk to, she thought.
“About the war?”
Tatiana considered. Telling them was out of the question. Instead, she asked, “Deda, you always said to me, ‘Tania, there is so much still ahead of you. Be patient with life.’ Do you still feel that way?”
Her grandfather didn’t reply at first, and she felt she had her answer. “Oh, Deda,” she mouthed plaintively.
“Oh, Tania,” he said, putting his protective arm around her while her grandmother patted her knee. “Things have changed overnight in this world.”
“It does seem that way,” said Tatiana.
“Maybe you should be less patient.”
“That’s what I thought.” She nodded. “I think patience is overrated as a virtue anyway.”
“But be no less moral,” said Deda. “No less righteous. Remember the three questions I told you to ask yourself to know who you are.”
She wished Deda wouldn’t remind her. She had no interest in asking herself those questions tonight. “Deda, in this family we leave the righteousness to you,” Tatiana said, smiling weakly. “There is nothing left for the rest of us.”
His head of thick gray hair shaking, her grandfather said, “Tania, that’s all that’s left.”
In her bed Tatiana lay quietly and thought about Alexander. She thought about him not just telling her about his life but drowning her in it, the way he himself was drowned in it. As she listened to him, Tatiana had stopped breathing, her mouth remaining slightly open, so that Alexander could breathe his sorrow—from his words, from his own breath—into her lungs. He needed someone to bear the weight of his life.
Needed her.
Tatiana hoped she was ready.
She could not think about Dasha.
5
On the way to Kirov on Wednesday morning, Tatiana saw firemen building new water storage basins and installing what looked like fire hydrants. Was Leningrad expecting that many more fires? she wondered. Were the German bombs going to incinerate the city? She could not imagine it. It was as unimaginable as America.
In the distance the great Smolny Cathedral and Monastery was beginning to take on an unrecognizable shape and form. Camouflage nets were being draped over it by workers, who were dousing the nets in green, brown, and gray paint. What were the workers to do with the harder-to-cover—though also harder to spot from the air—spires of Peter and Paul’s Cathedral and the Admiralty? For the time being they remained in full luminescent view.
Before she left work, Tatiana scrubbed her hands and face until they glistened, then stood in front of the mirror next to her locker and thoroughly brushed out her hair, leaving it long and down. This morning she had put on a wraparound floral print skirt and a blue blouse with short sleeves and white buttons. As she checked herself in the mirror, she couldn’t decide—did she look twelve or thirteen? Whose kid sister was she? Oh, yes, Dasha’s. Please be waiting for me, she thought before rushing out.
She hurried to the bus stop, and there was Alexander, his cap in his hands, waiting for her.
“I like your hair, Tania,” he said, smiling.
“Thank you,” she muttered. “I wish I didn’t smell like I worked with petroleum all day. Petroleum and grease.”
“Oh, no,” he said, rolling his eyes. “You weren’t making bombs again?”
She laughed.
They looked at the sulky, overworked crowd waiting for the bus and then at each other and together said, “Tram?” and nodded, crossing the street.
“At least we’re still working,” Tatiana said lightly. “Pravda says things are not so good with work in your America these days. Full employment here in the Soviet Union, Alexander.”
“Yes,” Alexander said, leaning into her as they walked. “There is no unemployment in the Soviet Union or in the Dartmoor jail—and for the same reason.”
Smiling, Tatiana wanted to call him a subversive but didn’t.
While they waited for the tram, Alexander said, “I brought you something.” He handed her a package wrapped in brown paper. “I know Monday was your birthday. But I didn’t have a chance before today . . .”
“What is it?” Sincerely surprised, she took the package from him. A small lump came up in her throat.
Lowering his voice, he said, “In America we have a custom. When you’re given presents for your birthday, you’re supposed to open them and say thank you.”
Tatiana nervously looked down at the present. “Thank you.” Gifts were not something she was used to. Wrapped gifts? Unheard of, even when they came wrapped only in plain brown paper.
“No. Open first. Then say thank you.”
She smiled. “What do I do? Do I take the paper off?”
“Yes. You tear it off.”
“And then what?”
“And then you throw it away.”
“The whole present or just the paper?”
Slowly he said, “Just the paper.”
“
But you wrapped it so nicely. Why would I throw it away?”
“It’s just paper.”
“If it’s just paper, why did you wrap it?”
“Will you please open my present?” said Alexander.
Eagerly Tatiana tore open the paper. Inside were three books—one hefty hardcover collection by Aleksandr Pushkin called The Bronze Horseman and Other Poems, and two smaller books, one by a man she’d never heard of, named John Stuart Mill; the book was called On Liberty. It was in English. The last one was an English-Russian dictionary.
“English-Russian?” Tatiana said, smiling. “It’s less helpful than you might think. I speak no English. Was this yours from when you came here?”
“Yes,” he said. “And without it you won’t be able to read Mill.”
“Thank you so much for all of them,” she said.
“The Bronze Horseman book was my mother’s,” said Alexander. “She gave it to me a few weeks before they came for her.”
Tatiana didn’t know what to say. “I love Pushkin.” Very quietly.
“I thought you might. All Russians do.”
“Do you know what the poet Maikov wrote about Pushkin?”
“No,” Alexander said.
Flustered by his eyes, Tatiana tried to remember the lines. “He said . . . let’s see . . . His sounds do not seem made in this world’s fashion . . . as if pervaded with his deathless leaven . . . All earthly stuff—emotions, anguish, passion—had been transmuted to the stuff of heaven.”
“All earthly stuff—emotions, anguish, passion—had been transmuted to the stuff of heaven,” Alexander repeated.
Tatiana turned red and looked down the street. Where was that tram? “Have you ever read Pushkin yourself?” she asked in a tiny voice.
“Yes, I have read Pushkin myself,” Alexander replied, taking the wrapping paper out of her hands and throwing it away. “ ‘The Bronze Horseman’ is my favorite poem.”
“Mine, too!” echoed Tatiana, looking up at him wondrously. “There was a time, our memories keep its horrors fresh and near us, of this a tale now suffer me, to tell before you gentle readers, a grievous story it will be.”
“Tania, you quote from Pushkin like a true Russian.”
“I am a true Russian.”
Their tram arrived.
At the Russian Museum, Alexander asked, “Would you like to walk a bit?”
Tatiana couldn’t say no even if she wanted to.
Even if she wanted to.
They walked toward the Field of Mars.
“Do you ever work?” she asked him. “Dimitri is off on missions in Karelia—don’t you need to do something?”
“Yes, I stay behind,” Alexander said with a grin, “and teach the rest of the soldiers how to play poker.”
“Poker?”
“It’s an American card game. Someday maybe I’ll teach you how to play. Also, I’ve been deputized as the officer in charge of all recruitment and training of the People’s Volunteer Army. I’m on duty from seven until six. I do sentry duty every other evening from ten to midnight.” He paused.
Tatiana knew. That must be when Dasha went to see him.
Alexander quickly continued. “For all this I get my weekends off. I don’t know how long that’s going to last. I suspect not long. I’m here with the Leningrad garrison to protect the city. That’s my post. When we run out of men at the front, that’s when we’ll send me.”
But then we would run out of you, she thought. “Where are we going?”
“To Letniy Sad—the Summer Garden. But wait.” Alexander stopped not far from his barracks. Across the street, lining the Field of Mars, were some benches. “Why don’t you sit, and I’ll go and get us some dinner.”
“Dinner?”
“Yes, for your birthday. We’ll have a birthday dinner.” He offered to bring her some bread and meat. “Maybe I can even find some caviar.” He smiled. “As a true Russian, Tania, you like caviar, don’t you?”
“Mmm,” she said. “What about matches?” she asked, trying not to sound too teasing, unsure how he would like it. “Aren’t I going to perhaps need some matches?” Remembering the Voentorg store.
“If you need to light something, we will light it on the eternal flame in the Field of Mars. We walked past it last Sunday, remember?”
She remembered. “Can’t touch that bold Bolshevik flame,” she said, stepping away. “That’s nearly sacrilegious.”
Alexander laughed. “Sometimes we cook shish kebabs on it on our nights off. Is that sacrilegious? Besides, I thought there was no God.”
Tatiana gazed up at him, but not for long. Was he teasing her? “That’s right. There is no God.”
“Of course not,” he said. “We are in Communist Russia. We’re all atheists.”
Tatiana remembered a joke. “Comrade One says to Comrade Two, ‘How is the potato crop this year?’ Comrade Two replies, ‘Very good, very good. With God’s help the crop will reach all the way to His feet.’ Comrade One says, ‘Comrade! What are you saying? You know the Party says there is no God.’ Comrade Two says, ‘There’s no potatoes either.’ ”
Alexander laughed. “You are so right about the potatoes. There aren’t any. Now, go on,” he said. “Wait on the bench for me. I’ll be right back.”
She walked across the street and sank down onto the bench. She smoothed out her hair, stuck her hand into her canvas bag, caressed the books he had given her, and was awash with—
What was she doing? She was so tired, she wasn’t thinking. Alexander should not be here with her.
He should be here with Dasha. I know that for a fact, Tatiana thought, because if Dasha asks me where I’ve been, I won’t be able to tell her. Standing up, Tatiana began to walk away when she heard Alexander calling her. “Tania!”
He came up, out of breath, carrying two paper bags. “Where are you going?”
She didn’t have to say anything. He saw her face.
“Tania,” Alexander said amiably, “I promise, I will just feed you and send you home. Let me feed you, all right?” Holding the bags in one hand, he placed the other hand on her hair. “It’s for your birthday. Come on.”
She couldn’t go, and she knew it. Did Alexander know it, too? That was even worse. Did he know what a bind she found herself in, what unspeakable flux of feeling and confusion?
They crossed the Field of Mars on their way to the Summer Garden. Down the street the river Neva glowed in the sunlight, though it was nearly nine o’clock in the evening.
The Summer Garden was the wrong place for them.
Alexander and Tatiana couldn’t find an empty bench amid the long paths, the Greek statues, the towering elms, and the intertwined lovers, like tangled rose branches all.
As they walked, her head was lowered.
They finally found a spot near the statue of Saturn. It was not the ideal place for them to sit, Tatiana thought, since Saturn’s mouth was wide open and he was stuffing a child into it with derelict zeal.
Alexander had brought a little vodka and some bologna ham and some white bread. He had also brought a jar of black caviar and a bar of chocolate. Tatiana was quite hungry. Alexander told her to have all the caviar. She protested at first, but not vigorously. After she had eaten more than half, scooping the caviar out with the small spoon he had brought, she handed him the rest. “Please,” she said, “finish it. I insist.”
She had a gulp of vodka straight from the bottle and shuddered involuntarily; she hated vodka but didn’t want him to know what a baby she was. Alexander laughed at her shuddering, taking the bottle from her and having a swig. “Listen, you don’t have to drink it. I brought it to celebrate your birthday. Forgot the glasses, though.”
He was spread out all over the bench and sitting conspicuously close. If she breathed, a part of her would touch a part of him. Tatiana was too overwhelmed to speak, as her intense feelings dropped into the brightly lit well inside her.
“Tania?” Alexander asked gently. “Tania, is the
food all right?”
“Yes, fine.” After a small throat clearing, she said, “I mean, it’s very nice, thank you.”
“Do you want some more vodka?”
“No.”
She avoided his smiling eye as best she could when he asked her, “Have you ever had too much vodka?”
“Hmm.” She nodded, still not looking up. “I was two. Gulped down half a liter or something. Had to be taken to the children’s ward of Grechesky Hospital.”
“Two? Not since?” His leg accidentally touched hers.
Tatiana blushed. “No, not since.” She moved her leg and changed the subject to the Germans. She heard him sigh, then talk a little about what was happening at the garrison. But when Alexander was the only one talking, Tatiana was able to gaze at him, her eyes roaming around his face. She noticed his dark stubble, and she wanted to ask him if he was ever clean-shaven but decided it was too forward and didn’t. The stubble was most pronounced around his mouth, where the black frame of the facial hair made his lips more vivid. She wanted to ask him about his slightly chipped side tooth but didn’t do that either. She wanted to ask him to put away that soft, smiling look in his ice cream eyes.
She wanted to smile back.
“So, Alexander . . . do you still speak English?”
“Yes, I speak English. I don’t get to practice. I haven’t spoken it since my mother and father—” He broke off.
With a shake of her head, Tatiana said, “No, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—I only wanted to know if you knew any words you could teach me in English.”
Alexander’s eyes gleamed so brightly that Tatiana felt as if all the blood in her body had rushed to her cheeks. “Tania, what words,” he asked slowly, “would you like me to teach you in English?”
She couldn’t answer him, afraid she would stammer. “I don’t know,” she finally managed. “How about vodka?”
“Oh, well, that’s easy,” he said. “It’s vodka. “ And laughed.
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