The Bronze Horseman (The Bronze Horseman #1)

The Bronze Horseman (The Bronze Horseman #1) Page 58

5

The next morning Alexander opened his eyes and looked at his watch. It was late — eight in the morning. He looked around for Tatiana. She was nowhere, but he was covered by her quilt and he was lying on her pillow. Smiling, he turned on his stomach and pressed his face into the pillow. It smelled of soap and fresh air and her.

He went outside. It was a chirping and sunny rural morning; the air was as still as peacetime; the cherry tree blossoms and the lilacs filled the yard with their overripe scent. The lilacs made Alexander especially cheerful — the Field of Mars was full of lilacs in late spring. He could smell them all the way from the barracks. It was one of his favorite smells, lilacs in the Field of Mars. Not his favorite smell: of an alive Tatiana’s breath as she kissed his unconscious face last night. Lilacs could not compete with that smell.

The house was quiet. After quickly washing, Alexander went to look for her, finding her on the road, returning home carrying two pails full of warm cow’s milk. Alexander knew it was warm because he stuck his fingers in the pail. Tatiana’s shiny white-blonde hair was left down, and she was wearing a blue wraparound skirt and a small white shirt that came up above her navel, exposing her stomach. The round outlines of her high breasts were clearly visible. Her face was a lovely flushed pink color. Alexander’s heart stopped in his chest when he saw her. He took the milk pails from her. They walked for a minute in silence. He felt himself getting short of breath.

“I suppose after this you’re going to go and fetch water from the well,” he said.

“Going to?” Tatiana said. “And what did you shave with this morning?”

“Who shaved?”

“Did you brush your teeth?” She smiled lightly.

He laughed. “Yes, with your water from the well. Tania, after breakfast,” he said, lowering his already husky voice, “I want you to show me your grandparents’ house. Is it far?”

“It’s not too far,” she said and her face was inscrutable.

Alexander was not used to Tatiana being inscrutable. His job was to make her scrutable. He smiled. “Hmm.”

“What do you want to see it for? It’s all padlocked shut.”

“Bring the key. Where did you sleep?”

“On the couch in the porch,” she replied. “Were you comfortable? I didn’t think so. You were in all your clothes. But I couldn’t wake you up for anything—”

“Did you try?” asked Alexander in a measured tone.

“I had to practically shoot your pistol in the air to get you to climb up onto the stove.”

“Tania, don’t shoot it up in the air,” Alexander said. “The bullet has to come down.” Remembering her lips on his face, he added, “You removed my socks and my belt.” He grinned. “You should have gone the extra step.”

“Couldn’t lift you,” Tatiana said, blushing. “How are you feeling this morning? After all that vodka?”

“Great. How about you?”

“Hmm,” she said, surreptitiously looking him over. “Do you have any clothes to wear besides your uniforms?”

“No.”

“I’ll wash your Class-As for you today,” she said. “But if you’re planning to stay for a little while, I have some regular clothes for you.”

“Do you want me to stay for a little while?”

“Of course,” Tatiana replied, her voice measured. “You came all this way. No point in going back so soon.”

“Tania,” Alexander said, walking close to her, knocking into her gently, “now that I’m lucid again, tell me about Dimitri.”

“No,” she said. “I can’t. I will, but—”

“Tania, do you know that I saw him two weeks ago, and he didn’t tell me he saw you in Kobona.”

“What did he say?”

“Nothing. I asked him if he saw you or Dasha, and he said, no, he had not.”

Shaking her head, Tatiana gazed straight ahead and faintly said, “Oh, he saw me and Dasha, all right.”

Some of the milk spilled to the ground.

As they walked, Alexander told her about Leningrad, about Hitler and his losses. He told her about the vegetables growing all over the city. “Tania,” he said, “they’ve planted cabbage and potatoes right in front of St. Isaac’s.” He smiled. “And yellow tulips. What do you think of that?”

“I think that’s great,” she said in a tone that conveyed no connection to St. Isaac’s whatsoever. Inscrutable.

Alexander didn’t want her to feel sad this morning. Were there just too many things for them to get past before he could get a morning smile out of her?

“What’s the ration up to now?” Tatiana asked, her eyes to the ground.

“Three hundred grams for dependents. Six hundred for workers. But soon there might be white bread. The council promised white bread this summer.”

“Well, it’s certainly easier to feed one million people than it is to feed three.”

“Fewer than a million now. They’re being evacuated by barges across the lake.” He changed the subject. “I see you have plenty of bread here in Lazarevo.” Alexander eyed her. “Plenty of everything here in—”

“Everybody been buried?”

He sighed imperceptibly. “I supervised the excavation of graves at Piskarev Cemetery myself.”

“Excavation?”

She didn’t miss a thing. “We used military mines to dynamite—”

“Mass graves?” she finished.

“Tania . . . come on.”

“You’re right, let’s not talk about it. Oh, look, we’re home.” She rushed ahead.

Disappointed they were already home, Alexander caught up with her. “Can you show me those clothes? I’d like to put something else on.”

Inside the house she pulled out her trunk from near the stove and was about to open it when Dusia’s voice sounded from one of the bedrooms. “Tanechka? Is that you?”

Naira came out and said, “Good morning, dear. I didn’t smell the coffee this morning. I woke up, sweetheart, because I didn’t smell the coffee.”

“I’ll make it now, Naira Mikhailovna.”

Raisa came out of her bedroom and said, “When you have a minute, dear, could you help me to the outhouse?”

“Of course.” Tatiana started to close the trunk. “I’ll show you later,” she whispered to Alexander.

“No, Tatiana,” Alexander said impatiently. “You will show me now.”

“Alexander, I can’t now,” she said, pushing the trunk back against the wall. “Raisa has a hard time going to the bathroom by herself. You see how she shakes. But you can sit for five minutes, can’t you?”

What, he hadn’t been patient enough? “I can sit for longer than that,” he said. “I sat all night yesterday with you and your new friends.”

She chewed her lip.

He sighed. “All right, all right. Do you have a mortar and pestle?” Alexander couldn’t help himself; his spirits were too high, and he was too crazed by her to remain exasperated for long. Trying to keep the double meaning out of his voice, he asked, “Would you like me to grind your coffee beans for you?”

“Yes, thank you,” Tatiana replied. She was not playing. “That will be a big help. I’ll get you the cheesecloth, too.” She paused. “Could you fire up the stove, please? So I can make breakfast?”

“Of course, Tania.”

Tatiana took Raisa to the outhouse and then gave her her medicine.

She dressed Dusia.

She made all the beds, and then she fried some eggs with potatoes. Alexander watched it all. As he was sitting on the bench outside and smoking, Tatiana came up to him with a cup of coffee in her hands, and asked, “How do you like it?”

His eyes twinkling, Alexander looked up at her standing in front of him, so lavender fresh and young and alive. “How do I like what?”

“Your coffee.”

“I like my coffee,” said Alexander, “with thick, warm cream and lots of sugar.” He paused. “Get the cream right from the pail, Tatiasha, right off the top. But warm. And lots of it.”

The cup in her hands started to shake.

Scrutable.

It was all Alexander could do not to laugh out loud, not to grab her, not to pull her to him.

After breakfast he helped her clear the table and wash the dishes. Her hands were immersed in a pan of sudsy water when Alexander, having watched her for a while, put his own hands in and felt for hers.

“What are you doing?” she said in a hoarse voice.

“What?” he said innocently. “I’m helping you with the dishes.”

“You are not a very good helper, I’m afraid,” Tatiana said, but she did not take her hands away, and as Alexander watched her face, he finally saw something dissolving against her wall of pain. He rubbed intently between her fingers, getting fixated and inflamed by the fine blonde down on her forearms and by her blonde eyebrows. “I think the dishes are going to be very clean,” he said, glancing at the four women, who were sitting in the morning sunshine and chatting within a few meters of them. In the warm, soapy water, Alexander stroked Tatiana’s fingers one by one, from the first knuckle down to the fingertip, and with his thumbs circled the palms of her slippery hands, while Tatiana stood, barely breathing through her parted lips, her eyes glazed over.

The fire raged in Alexander’s stomach.

“Tatia,” he said quietly, “your freckles are so pronounced. And,” he added, “very enti—”

Axinya came up to Tania, pinching her bottom. “Our Tanechka is freckled as if she’s been kissed by the sun.” Damn it. Alexander couldn’t even whisper to her without them overhearing. But when Axinya turned her back, Alexander leaned forward and softly kissed Tatiana’s freckles. He let her pull her fingers away from him and walk off, wet hands and all. Without drying his own hands, he followed her. “Is now a good time for you to show me those clothes?”

Going inside and opening her trunk, Tatiana pulled out a large white cotton button-down shirt with short sleeves, a knitted cotton shirt, a cream linen shirt, and three pairs of drawstring trousers made out of bleached linen. She also had a couple of sleeveless tops for him, and some drawstring cotton shorts. “To go swimming in,” she said. “What do you think?”

“These are great.” He smiled. “Where did you get them?”

“I made them.”

“You made them?”

She shrugged. “Mama taught me how to sew. It wasn’t hard. What was hard was trying to remember how big you were.”

“I think you remembered quite well,” Alexander said slowly. “Tania, you . . . made clothes for me?”

“I didn’t know for sure you were coming, but if you were, I wanted you to have something comfortable to wear.”

“Linen is expensive,” he said, very pleased.

“There was a lot of money in your Pushkin book.” She paused. “I bought a few things for everybody.”

Ah. Less pleased. “Including Vova?”

Tatiana guiltily glanced away.

“I see,” Alexander said, dropping the clothes into the trunk. “You bought Vova things with my money?”

“Just some vodka, and cig—”

“Tatiana!” Alexander took a deep breath. “Not here. Let me change,” he said, turning away from her. “I’ll be right out.”

She went outside while he changed into the trousers and the white cotton shirt that was slightly tight around his chest but otherwise fit fine.

When Alexander stepped down from the house, the old women clucked at how nice he looked. Tatiana was gathering clothes into a basket. “I should have made it a little bigger. You do look nice.” She swallowed and lowered her eyes. “I haven’t seen you often in civilian clothes.”

Alexander looked around. Here it was, his second day with her, and they were still clucking around four old women, and he was still unable to get to whatever was bothering her, to all the things that were bothering him, much less to her ample blondeness. That was it. “You’ve seen me in civilian clothes once,” he said. “In Peterhof. Perhaps you’ve forgotten Peterhof.” He extended his hand. “Come on, let’s go for a walk.”

Tatiana stepped up to him but did not take his hand. He had to reach down and take hold of her hand himself. Being so close to her made him a little light-headed. “I want you to show me where the river is.”

“You know where the river is,” she replied. “You went there yesterday.” She took her hand out from his. “Shura, I really can’t. I’ve got to hang yesterday’s laundry and then wash today’s.”

He pulled her with him. “No. Let’s go.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Shura, no, please!”

Alexander stopped. What the hell was that in her voice? What did that sound like? That wasn’t anger. Was that . . . fear? He peered into her face. “What’s wrong with you?” he said. She was flustered, and her hands were shaky. She couldn’t look at him. Letting go of her hand, he took hold of her face, lifting it to him. “What—”

“Shura, please,” Tatiana whispered, trying to look away from his eyes, and then Alexander saw, and he knew.

Letting go of her, he backed away and smiled. “Tania,” he said, in a soothing voice, “I want you to show me your grandparents’ house. I want you to show me the river. A field, a f*cking rock, I don’t give a shit. I want you to take me to two square meters of space where there is no one around us, so we can talk. Do you understand? That’s all. We need to talk, and I’m not talking — I’m not doing anything — in front of your new friends.” He paused, keeping the smile away. “All right?”

Deeply flushed, she did not raise her eyes.

“Good.” He pulled her by the hand.

Naira said, “Tanechka, where are you going?”

“We’re going to pick some blueberries for tonight’s pie,” Tatiana yelled back.

“But, Tanechka, what about the clothes?”

Raisa yelled, “Will you be back at noon to give me my medicine?”

“When will we be back, Alexander?”

“When you’re fixed, Tatiana,” he said. “Tell her that. When Alexander fixes me, then I’ll be back.”

“I don’t think even you can fix me, Alexander,” said Tatiana, and her voice was cold.

He was walking with all deliberate speed away from the house.

“Wait, I have to—”

“No.”

“Just one more . . .” She tried to pull her hand away. He wasn’t having any of it. She tried again.

Alexander wasn’t letting go. “Tania, you can’t win this,” he said, staring at her and squeezing her hand harder. “You can win a lot of things, but you can’t win a physical struggle with me. Thank God. Because then I’d really be in trouble.”

Naira yelled after them, “Tania, but Vova is coming for you soon! When shall I tell him you’ll be back?”

Tatiana looked at Alexander, who stared back coldly, shrugged indifferently, and said, “It’s me or the laundry. You’re going to have to decide. I know the choice is tough. Or it’s me or Vova.” He let her hand drop. “Is that choice tough, too?” He’d just about had enough. They had stopped walking and were standing facing each other, a meter apart. Alexander folded his arms across his chest. “What’s it going to be, Tania? The choice is yours.”

Tatiana yelled back to Naira, “I’ll be back in a while! Tell him I’ll see him later!” Sighing, she motioned for Alexander to come.

He was walking too quickly, and she couldn’t keep up.

“Why so fast?”

Temper was flaring up in Alexander, like the sizzle of an antipersonnel grenade before it exploded. He breathed in and out deeply to calm himself, to shove the pin back up the hole. “I’m going to tell you something right now,” he said. “If you don’t want trouble, you will have to tell Vova to leave you alone.”

When she didn’t reply, Alexander stopped walking and pulled her to him. “Do you hear me?” he said, raising his voice. “Or perhaps you’d like to tell me to leave you alone? Because you can do that right now, Tatiana.”

Not raising her eyes and not trying to get away from him, Tatiana said quietly, “I’m sorry about Vova. Don’t be upset. You know perfectly well I just don’t want to hurt his feelings.”

“Yes,” Alexander said pointedly, “nobody’s but mine.”

“No, Alexander,” Tatiana said, and this time she looked up at him with sullen reproach. “I don’t want to hurt yours most of all.”

He was not letting go of her. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” He squeezed her arm. “One way or another, he will have to leave you alone — permanently—” Alexander said, “if we’re to fix what’s wrong between us.”

Weakly prying his fingers off her, Tatiana said, “I don’t know why you worry about him . . .”

“Tania, if I’ve got nothing to worry about, then show me. But I’m not playing these games anymore. Not here. Not in Lazarevo. I will not do it here for strangers, do you understand? I will not be guarding Vova’s feelings the way I guarded Dasha’s. Either you tell him, which would be best, or I tell him, which would be worst.”

When Tatiana, biting her lip shut, didn’t say anything, Alexander continued. “I don’t want to grapple with him. And I don’t want to have to pretend to Zoe as she brushes her tits against me. I won’t do it just to keep peace in this house.”

That made Tatiana look up. “Zoe does what?” Shaking her head, she muttered, “Vova doesn’t go around brushing anything against me.”

Standing very close against her, Alexander said, “No?” He paused. His breath quickened. Tatiana’s breath quickened. And very lightly Alexander brushed against Tatiana. “You will tell him to leave you alone, do you hear me?”

“I hear you,” she said faintly. He let go of her, and they resumed walking.

“But frankly,” she continued, even more faintly, “I think Vova is the least of our problems.”

Alexander walked faster down the village road. “Where are we going?”

“I thought you wanted to see my grandparents’ house.”

Alexander let out his breath and laughed without much humor.

“What’s funny?” Tatiana did not sound amused herself.

Neither was Alexander. “I didn’t think it was possible,” he said, shaking his head. “I didn’t, after what I had seen at Fifth Soviet, but somehow you managed to do it.”

“Do what?” Tatiana said, no longer faintly.

“Explain to me how,” he snapped. “How did you manage to find and surround yourself with people even more needy than your family?”

“Don’t talk about my family that way, all right!”

“Why does everyone flock around you, why? Can you explain it?”

“Not to you.”

“Why do you submerge yourself in their life this way?”

“I’m not discussing this with you. You’re just being mean.”

“Do you even have a moment to yourself in that f*cking house?” Alexander exclaimed. “A moment!”

“Not a moment!” Tatiana retorted. “Thank God.”

They walked in resentful silence the rest of the way, through the village, past the banya and the village Soviet, past the tiny hut that said “Library” and a small building with a gold cross on top of a white kupola.

They walked into the woods and down the path leading to the Kama. Finally they came to a wide, slightly sloping clearing surrounded by tall pines and clusters of leaning white birches. Willows and poplars framed the sparkling, streaming river.

On the left side of the clearing under the pines stood a boarded-up izba, a wooden cabin. It had a small covering on the side that served as a woodshed, but there was no wood.

“This is it?” Alexander said, walking around the cabin in thirty long strides. “It’s not very big.”

“There were only two of them,” said Tatiana, walking around with him in fifty short ones.

“But they were waiting for three grandchildren. Where would you all have fit?”

“We would have fit,” said Tatiana. “How do we fit in Naira’s house?”

“Extremely tightly,” declared Alexander, reaching into his rucksack. He pulled out his trench tool and started to break off the boards on the windows.

“What are you doing?”

“I want to see what’s inside.”

Alexander watched her walk to the sandy riverbank, sit down, and take off her sandals. He lit a cigarette and continued to break off the boards.

“Did you bring a key for the padlock?” he called to her.

He didn’t hear her response. Fed up, he strode over and said loudly, “Tatiana, I’m speaking to you. Did you bring the key for the padlock, I asked?”

“And I replied to you,” she snapped without glancing up. “I said no.”

“Fine,” he said, getting out his semiautomatic from his belt and pulling back the breechblock. “If you didn’t bring the key, I will shoot the f*cking padlock off.”

“Wait, wait,” she said, tutting and taking a rope from her neck on which the key hung. “Here. Don’t snatch!” She turned away. “You’re not at war, you know. You don’t have to bring that gun everywhere.”

“Oh, yes, I do.” He started to walk away and glanced back — at her blonde hair, at her back exposed at the waist, at her shoulders. Alexander dropped the padlock key into his trouser pocket and, holding his pistol in one hand and his trench tool in the other, strode into the water, still in his boots, stood in front of her with his feet apart, and said in a determined voice, “All right, let’s have it.”

“Have what?” Still sitting down, she backed away from him slightly on her haunches.

“Have what?” he exclaimed. “Why are you upset? What did I do, or not do? What did I do too much of, or not enough of? Tell me. Tell me now.”

“Why are you talking to me like that?” Tatiana said, jumping to her feet. “You have no right in the world to be upset with me.”

“You have no right in the world to be upset with me!” he said loudly. “Tania, we are wasting our precious breath. And you’re wrong — I have plenty of right to be upset with you. But unlike you, I’m too grateful you’re alive and too happy to see you to be too upset with you.”

“I have more reason to be upset with you.” Tatiana paused. “And I am grateful you are alive.” She couldn’t look at him when she spoke. “I am happy to see you.”

“It’s hard for me to tell, your wall against me is so thick.” When she didn’t reply, Alexander said, “Do you understand that I came all the way to Lazarevo without hearing from you once in six months?” He raised his voice. “Not once in six months! I should have just thought you both were dead, no?”

“I don’t know what you thought, Alexander,” said Tatiana, looking past him at the river.

“I’m going to tell you what I thought, Tatiana. In case it’s not clear. For six months I didn’t know if you were alive or dead, because you couldn’t be bothered to pick up a f*cking pen!”

“I didn’t know you wanted me to write to you,” Tatiana said, grabbing a couple of pebbles and tossing them past him into the water.

“You didn’t know?” he repeated. Was she mocking him? “What are you talking about? Hello, Tatiana. I’m Alexander. Have we met before? You didn’t know I would have wanted to hear that you were all right, or perhaps that Dasha had died?”

He saw her recoil from his words, and from him.

“I am not talking about Dasha with you!” She walked away.

He followed her. “If not with me, then with who? With Vova, perhaps?”

“Better with him than with you.”

“Oh, that’s charming.” Alexander was still trying to be rational, but if she kept saying things like that, all reason was going to leave him.

Tatiana said, “Look, I didn’t write to you because I thought Dimitri would tell you. He said he definitely would. So I thought for sure you knew.” Something unspoken remained in her after that, but Alexander’s temper didn’t let him get to it.

“You thought Dimitri would tell me?” Alexander repeated in disbelief.

“Yes!” she said challengingly.

“Why didn’t you just write me yourself?” he yelled, coming close and looming over her. “Four thousand rubles, Tatiana, you’d think I’d deserve a f*cking letter from you, no? You’d think my four thousand rubles would buy you a pen to write me and not just vodka and cigarettes for your village lover!”

“Put your weapons down!” she yelled back. “Don’t you dare come near me with those things in your hands!”

Hurling away his gun and his trench tool, he came for her, making her back away, and came for her again, without touching her, making her back away once more. “What’s the matter, Tania?” he said. “Am I crowding you? Getting too close?” He paused, leaning into her face. “Scaring you?” he added bitingly.

“Yes and yes,” she said. “And yes.”

Alexander picked up a handful of pebbles and threw them hard into the water.

For a minute, maybe two, maybe three, neither of them spoke, getting their breath. He waited for her to say something, and when she didn’t, Alexander tried again to lure her back into what they felt when it was just the two of them, at Kirov, at Luga, at St. Isaac’s. “Tania, when you first saw me here . . .” He trailed off. “You were so happy.”

“What gave my happiness away?” she asked. “Was it my sobbing?”

“Yes,” he said. “I thought you were crying from happiness.”

“Have you seen much of that, Alexander?” Tatiana asked, and for a second, just for a moment, he wondered if there was a double meaning behind her words, but he was too confounded to think carefully.

“What did I say?” he asked.

“I don’t know. What did you say?”

“Do we have to play these guessing games?” he said in exasperation. “Can’t you just tell me?” When she didn’t say anything, Alexander sighed. “All I asked was where Dasha was.”

Tatiana almost curled into herself.

“Tania, if you’re unhappy because I’m making you remember things you want to forget then we will deal with that—”

“If only—”

“Wait!” he said loudly, raising his hand. “I said if that’s what it is. But if it’s something else—” He stopped. Her face looked so upset. Lowering his voice back to calm, opening his hands to her, looking at her with everything he felt for her, Alexander said, “Listen. How about this? I will forgive you for not writing me, if you will forgive me for one thing that’s bothering you.” He smiled. “Is there only one?”

“Alexander, there are so many things that are bothering me, I don’t even know where to begin.”

He saw that she really didn’t. And through it all, the hurt remained in her eyes.

It was Tatiana’s eyes that Alexander reacted to now: they were the same eyes he had seen on the Fifth Soviet pavement when she yelled to him that she could forgive him for his indifferent face but not for his indifferent heart. Weren’t they past that? He wore his heart for her as a medal on his chest; weren’t they beyond all the lies?

How much was there beyond that Fifth Soviet pavement?

Alexander realized, only death was beyond that. They had never fixed that fight. And all the things that preceded it. And all the things that surpassed it.

And through all those things ran Dasha, whom Tatiana had tried to save and could not. Whom Alexander had tried to save and could not.

“Tania, is all this because Dasha and I were planning to get married?”

She didn’t reply.

Aha.

“Is all this because of the letter that I wrote to Dasha?”

She didn’t reply.

Aha.

“Is there more?”

“Alexander,” Tatiana said, shaking her head, “how petty you manage to make it all sound. How trivial. All my feelings have now been reduced to your contemptuous ‘all this.’ ”

“I’m not contemptuous,” he said, with surprise. “It’s not trivial. It’s not petty, but it’s all in the past—”

“No!” she cried. “It’s all right here, right now, all around me and inside, too! I live here now. And here,” she said raising her voice even more, “they have been waiting for you to come to marry my sister! And I don’t mean just the old women. I mean everybody in the village. Since I came to live here, it’s all I’ve heard, and not just every day but every dinner, every lunch, every sewing circle. Dasha and Alexander. Dasha and Alexander. Poor Dasha, poor Alexander.” She shuddered. “Does that seem like the past to you?”

Alexander tried to reason with her. “How is that my fault?”

“Oh, did they perhaps ask Dasha to marry you?”

“I told you, I didn’t ask her to marry me—”

“Don’t play this game with me, Alexander, don’t toy with me! You told her you would be married this summer.”

“And I did this why?” he said sharply.

“Oh, just stop it! At St. Isaac’s we agreed to keep away from each other. Except you couldn’t keep away from me, so you made plans to marry my sister.”

“He left you alone after that, didn’t he?” Alexander declared grimly.

“He would have left me alone if you’d never come to the apartment again, too!” she yelled.

“Which would you have preferred?”

She stopped moving for a moment. “Are you really asking me,” she said, panting, “what I would have preferred?” Her eyes were wide. “Are you in all honesty asking me if I would have preferred your marrying my sister to not seeing you again?”

“Yes! At St. Isaac’s you were ready to beg me not to stay away from you. So don’t give me this shit. It’s only easy to say now, in retrospect.”

“Oh, is that what this is — easy?” Tatiana was walking around the clearing in such furious circles she was almost spinning. With his long strides Alexander kept up with her, but she was making him dizzy.

“Stop moving!” he shouted. She stopped. “I see, so you set the rules and then you don’t like that I play by them. Well, live with it.”

“I am living with it,” Tatiana retorted. “Every single damned day since the day I met you.”

“Oh, this is the fight you want?” Alexander yelled. “This fight? You won’t win this one, because this one goes right back to you—”

“I don’t want to hear it!”

“Of course you don’t!”

Breathing hard, Tatiana said, “You told Dasha you would get married, she told my grandmother, my grandmother told the village. You wrote her a letter saying you were coming to marry her. Words have meaning, you know.” Tatiana fell briefly quiet. “Even words you don’t mean.”

Why did he think she wasn’t talking about Dasha now?

“If you felt so strongly about this,” he said, “then why didn’t you write me a letter back, saying, ‘You know what, Alexander, Dasha didn’t make it, but I’m right here.’ ” I would have come sooner. And I wouldn’t have lived the six months I lived not knowing if you had survived!”

“After the letter you wrote her,” Tatiana said incredulously, “you think I’d be writing you and asking you to come here? You think after that letter I’d be asking you for anything? I’d be an idiot to do that, wouldn’t I? An idiot, or—” She stopped.

“Or what?” he demanded.

“Or a child,” she said, not looking at him.

Alexander took a deep breath. “Oh, Tania—”

“These games you grown-ups play,” she said, backing away from him. “These lies — you’re just too good at them.” She lowered her head. “Too good for me.”

All Alexander wanted that instant was to touch her. Her lips, her anger, her face — he wanted to touch it all. “Tania . . .” he whispered, holding out his hands to her. “What are you talking about? What games, what lies?”

“Why did you come here, why?” she said coldly.

He felt himself about to choke on his words. “How can you even ask me that?”

“How? Because the last thing you wrote was that you were coming to marry Dasha. How much you loved her. How she was the woman for you. The only woman for you. I read that letter. That’s what you wrote. Because one of the last things I heard you say on Lake Ladoga was that you never—”

“Tatiana!” Alexander screamed, the pin falling to the ground. “What the hell are you talking about? Did you forget you made me promise to lie till the last? You made me promise. As late as November I was still saying, let’s tell the truth. But you! Lie, lie, lie, Shura, marry her, but promise me you won’t break my sister’s heart. Do you remember?”

“Yes, and you did commendably well,” Tatiana said acidly. “But did you have to be so convincing?”

Running his hand through his hair, Alexander shook his head. “You know I didn’t mean it.”

“Which part?” she said loudly, stepping up close and looking up at him, angry and unafraid. “The marrying Dasha part? The loving her part? Which part of all those lies do I know you didn’t mean?”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” he exclaimed. “What answer did you want me to give her as she lay dying in your arms?”

“The only answer you could give her,” she replied. “The only answer you meant to give, living your life of lies.”

“We both live that life of lies, Tatiana — because of you!” he yelled, wanting to tear her hair out. “But you know I didn’t mean what I said.”

“I thought you didn’t mean it,” Tatiana said. “I hoped you didn’t mean it. But can you understand that it was the only thing I heard all the way on the train to Molotov and all the way across the Volga ice and for two months in the hospital as I struggled for my breath, can you understand that?”

She struggled for her breath now as Alexander stood and watched her, feeling unbearable remorse.

“I wouldn’t have cared,” Tatiana continued. “I told you, I don’t need much, I don’t need much comfort.” She clenched her fists again. And the hurt was in her eyes. “But I do need a little bit,” she said, her voice unsteady. “I need a little bit for me, and then you could have said what you needed to say to Dasha, as you absolutely had to!” She took a breath. “I wanted your eyes on me for a second to let me know that I wasn’t nothing, so I could have a little faith. But no,” she said. “You treated me like you always do — as if I weren’t there.”

“I don’t treat you as if you aren’t there,” Alexander said, paling with confusion. “What are you talking about? I hide you from everyone. That’s not the same thing.”

“Ah, that’s a fine difference for a girl like me,” said Tatiana. “But if you can hide your heart so well even from my eyes, then maybe you can hide your heart for Dasha, too — the same way. And maybe for Marina and for Zoe, and for every girl you’ve ever been with. Maybe that’s what you grown men do — in private look at us one way and then blatantly deny us in public, as if we mean absolutely nothing.” She stared at the ground.

“Are you crazy?” asked Alexander. “Are you forgetting that the only one who did not see the truth was your blinded sister? Private, public, Marina saw it in five minutes.” He paused. “On second thought, the only two people who seem not to have seen the truth are your sister and you, Tatiana.”

“What truth?” She stood a stride away from him, and her fists were shaking. “I couldn’t have done it,” she said. “Lied so well. But you are a man. You did. You denied me in your last words, and you denied me in your last glance. And for a while it almost seemed right. How could you feel for me? I thought. Who could feel for anything after that Leningrad . . .” Tatiana paused, panting hard. “But still I wanted to believe in you so much! So when we got your letter to Dasha, I ripped it open, hoping I was wrong, praying that maybe there was a word in it for me—” Tatiana raised her voice. “A single word, a single syllable that I could keep for my own, needing it so desperately, to show me that my entire life had not been a complete lie!” She broke off. “A single word!” she yelled, hitting Alexander with both fists in the chest. “Just one word, Alexander!”

He tried to remember what he had written. He could not. But it was her hurting eyes he wanted to heal most of all. He took her into his arms, fighting with him, clutching him, and then crying. “Tania, please. You knew I was in agony—”

But she was so upset and volatile that she wrested herself out of his arms and cried, “I knew this? How did I know this?”

“You are supposed to just know,” Alexander said, coming toward her. “That’s the whole point of you.”

“Well, what’s the point of you?” she yelled, backing away.

“The point of me,” he yelled back, “is that I stood with my arms around you and my whole heart in my eyes in the back of that f*cking Ladoga truck and pleaded with you to save yourself for me!”

“How do I know you don’t ask every girl you send across the Road of Life to save herself for you with those eyes of yours?”

“Oh, my God, Tatiana.”

In a broken voice she said, “I don’t know anything other than you. Not how to act, or how to play games, or how to lie, or anything.” She lowered her head. “You show me one thing in private, and then suddenly you plan to marry my sister. On Ladoga you tell her you never felt for me, you tell her you love only her, you don’t look at me as you leave me to face death, and then you don’t send a word my way. How in the world do you expect someone like me to know what the truth is without a little help from you? All I’ve ever known in my life is your damn lies!”

“Tatiana!” he cried. “Have you forgotten St. Isaac’s?”

“How many other girls went to visit you there, Alexander?”

“Have you forgotten Luga?”

“I was just a damsel in distress,” she said bitterly. “Dimitri himself told me how much you liked to help us girls out.”

Alexander was about to lose control completely. “What did you think I was doing coming to Fifth Soviet every chance I got, bringing you all my food?” he shouted. “Who did you think I was doing that for?”

“I never said you didn’t feel pity for me, Alexander!”

“Pity?” he exclaimed. “For f*ck’s sake, pity?”

Folding her arms across her chest, Tatiana said, “That’s right.”

“You know what?” he said, nearly right up against her. “Pity is too good for you. That’s the price you pay for living your life as a lie. Don’t like it much, do you?”

“No, I hate it,” Tatiana said, looking up and not backing away one centimeter. “And knowing that I hate it, why in the hell did you come here? Just to torture me further?”

“I came because I didn’t know Dasha had died!” he yelled. “You couldn’t be bothered to f*cking write me!”

“So you did come to marry Dasha,” Tatiana said in a calm voice. “Why didn’t you just say so?”

Growling helplessly, Alexander clenched his fists and stepped quickly away from her.

“Can’t keep all the lies straight in your head, can you?”

“Tatiana, you are completely out of line,” he said. “I told you from the first day we met, let’s come clean, let’s not live this life. Let’s choose a different one. I told you that from the start. Let’s tell them the truth and live with the consequences. You were the one who said no. I didn’t like it. But I said fine.”

“No! You did not say fine, Alexander! Had you said fine, you would not have been coming to Kirov every single day against my wishes.”

“Against your wishes?” he said, staggering back.

Tatiana shook her head at him. “You are unbelievable. What, whose head do you think you won’t sway, Alexander Barrington, with your rifle and your height and your life? You think that just because I, a seventeen-year-old child, opened my mouth and my eyes and gaped at you as if I’d never seen anything quite like it, you had the right to ask my sister to marry you? You think because I’m so young that wouldn’t break me? You think I need nothing from you, while you just take and take and take from me—”

“I don’t think you need nothing from me, and I have not taken and taken and taken from you,” Alexander said through his own clenched teeth.

“You’ve taken everything but that!” she screamed. “And that you don’t deserve!”

He came up close to her and hissed, “I could have taken that, too.”

“That’s right,” she said, furiously shoving him away. “Because you haven’t broken me enough.”

“Stop shoving me!”

“Stop menacing me! Stay away from me!”

He stood back. “None of this would be happening if you had listened to me from the beginning. None of it! Let’s tell them, I told you.”

“And I told you,” Tatiana said vehemently, “that my sister was more important to me than some need of yours I couldn’t comprehend. She was more important to me than some need of my own I couldn’t understand either. All I wanted was for you to respect my wishes. But you! Oh, you kept coming at me and coming at me and coming at me, and little by little you tore me apart, and when it wasn’t enough, you came for me in the hospital and tore me apart some more, and when that wasn’t enough, you got me up on the roof of St. Isaac’s with you to finish me off—”

“I have not finished you off,” he said.

“To finish off my heart for good,” continued Tatiana with clenched everything. “And you knew it. And when you had it all, and had me, and knew it, that’s when you showed me how much I really meant to you by planning to marry my sister!”

“Well, what do you think?” Alexander shouted. “What do you think happens when you can’t be f*cking bothered to fight from the start for what you want? What do you think happens when you give the people you want away? That’s what happens! They go on with their lives, they get married, they have children. You wanted to live that lie!”

“Don’t tell me I wanted to live that lie! I was living the only truth I knew. I had a family I did not want to sacrifice for you! That’s what I fought for.”

Unsteady on his feet, Alexander could not believe the words that were coming out of her. “That was your only truth, Tatiana?”

She blinked and lowered her eyes.

“No,” she said. “You came for me, and I did not push you away far enough. How could I? I was—” She broke off. “I was in this with my eyes open, and my eyes were only for you. I hoped you were smarter, but I saw you were not smarter by much, and so I continued with you, knowing that I would stand by you and believe in you. I would give you anything and everything you needed, wanting so little back for myself.” She couldn’t look at him bravely anymore. “Give me a glance at the end of your proclamation of love to someone else,” Tatiana said, “and that would have been enough for me. Give me one word in your letter of love for someone else, and that would have been enough for me. But you didn’t feel enough for me to know I might need even so little—”

“Tatiana!” he screamed into her face. “I will stand here and be accused of anything, but don’t you dare tell me I didn’t feel enough for you! Don’t even pretend to yourself you can speak that lie and have it come out of your mouth as the truth. Everything I have f*cking done with my life since the day I met you was because of how I felt about you, so if you continue to give me your bullshit now, I swear to God—”

“I won’t,” she said faintly, but it was too late then.

Alexander grabbed her and shook her. Tatiana felt so vulnerable, so soft in his arms. Utterly defeated by his anger and his remorse and his desire, he pushed her hard away, cursed, picked up his things off the ground, and ran up the hill and through the path.