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Alexander alking fast down Ligovsky

They were silent for a fewhis breath, said, "Nice family"

"Very nice," said Alexander calmly He was not out of breath And he did not want to talk to Dimitri about the Metanovs

"I re up with Alexander "I’ve seen her with you a few ti, though, don’t you think?"

Alexander didn’t reply

Dii Vasilievich said Tania was nearly seventeen" His head shuddered "Seventeen! Remember us at seventeen, Alexander?"

Alexander kept on walking "Too well" He wished he could re to him "I didn’t hear What?"

"I said," Di seventeen or an old seventeen?"

"Too young for you, Diardless," Alexander said coolly

Dimitri was silent "She is very pretty," he finally said

"Yes Still too young for you"

"What do you care? You’re close to the older sister, I’er" Dimitri chuckled "Why not? We could make afoursome, don’t you think? Two best friends, two sistersthere’s a syht? She toldhihed "No I can get dozens like Elena Besides, why not Elena, too? No Tatiana is not like the others" He rubbed his hands together and smiled

Not a muscle htening of his lips, not a furrowing of his brow Nothing s, faster and faster down the street

Dimitri broke into a trot "Alexander, wait About TaniaI just want to make sureyou don’t mind, do you?"

"Of course, not, Dima," Alexander said evenly "Why would I?"

"Absolutely!" He slapped Alexander on the back "You’re a good e entertainht Coht" He paused "Not again, all right?"

"But--"

"I’ to run I’ll see you at the barracks"

UNCHARTED TIDES

THE next e in her mind was Alexander’s face Tatiana did not speak to Dasha, tried in fact not to look at her sister, who, as she was leaving said, "Happy birthday"

"Yes, Tanechka, happy birthday," said Maet to lock up"

Papa kissed her on the head and said, "Your brother is seventeen today, too, you know"

"I know that, Papa"

Papa worked as a pipe engineer at the Leningrad orks plant Mama was a seamstress at a Nevsky hospital uniform facility Dasha was an assistant to a dentist She had worked for hio They had had a romance, but once it was over, Dasha continued there because she liked the job It paid well and demanded little fro she sat in on er of her departei Krasenko, asked if anyone wanted to join the People’s Volunteer Ar trenches down south to help defeat the hated Germans

Today the German was hated Yesterday he was beloved What about tomorrow?

Yesterday Tatiana had met Alexander

Krasenko continued to speak The fortifications north of Leningrad, along the old frontier with Finland, were to be put into full defensive order The Red Ar to want Karelia back Tatiana perked up Karelia, Finland Alexander spoke about that yesterday AlexanderTatiana perked down

The wo up to volunteer for anything No one, that is, except Tamara, the woot to lose?" she whispered with fervor as she scrambled to her feet Tatiana had suspected that Ta

Today before lunch she received goggles, a protective mask for her hair, and a brown factory coat After lunch she was no longer packaging spoons and forks Now small cylindrical metal bullets came to her down the assembly line They fell by the dozen into small cardboard containers, and Tatiana’s job was to put the containers into large wooden crates

At five o’clock Tatiana took off her coat and her les, splashed water on her face, retied her hair into a neat ponytail, and left the building She walked on Prospekt Stachek, along the famous Kirov wall, a concrete structure seven meters tall that ran fifteen city blocks She walked three of those blocks to her bus stop

And waiting for her at the bus stop was Alexander

When she saw hi her hand on her chest, she stopped walking for adohatever was in her throat, walked toward him She noticed that his officer’s cap was in his hands She wished she had scrubbed her face harder

The presence of so many words inside her head made her incapable of small talk, just at the ti here?" she asked timidly

"We’re at ith Germany," Alexander said "I have no ti, not to let his words linger in the air So she said, "Oh"

"Happy birthday"

"Thank you"

"Are you doing soht?"

"I don’t know Today is Monday, so everyone will be tired We’ll have dinner A drink" She sighed In a different world, perhaps, she ht have invited him over for dinner on her birthday Not in this world

They waited Somber people stood all around theht, but is this what I’ for the bus like the to look like for the rest of ht, we’re at war What is the rest ofto look like?

"How did you know I’d be here?"

"Your father told me yesterday you worked at Kirov I took a chance you’d be waiting for the bus"

"Why?" she asked lightly "Have we had so much luck with public transportation?"

Alexander smiled "You mean we in the sense of the Soviet people? Or do you mean you and I?"

She blushed

Bus Number 20 came with room for two dozen people Three dozen piled on Alexander and Tatiana waited

"Co her away

"Walk where?"

"Walk back ho"

She looked at hilanced at her feet

"Are your shoes co

"Yes, thank you," she said, cursing herself for her little-girl aardness

"I’ll tell you what," he suggested "Why don’t alk one long block over to Govorova Ulitsa, and take tra block? Everybody here is waiting for the bus or the trolleybus We’ll catch traht about it "I don’t think that tram drops me off at my aparte at the Warsaw railroad station for tram Number 16 that will take you to the corner of Grechesky and Fifth Soviet, or you can change with me for tram Number 2, which will drop me off close to my barracks and you at the Russian Museuht kilometers," said Tatiana "No o to the tra off at some railroad station to catch another tram back home by herself

When the trareed to walk a few kilometers to tram Number 16 Govorova turned into Ulitsa Skapina and then onally northward until it ended in the embankment of the Obvodnoy Canal -- the Circular Canal

Tatiana didn’t want to get to her tra the blue canal How to tell his, too, to ask him Always she tried to be less forward Always she tried to find the right thing to say and didn’t trust the etiquette pendulu, which was perceived either as painful shyness or haughtiness Dasha never had that proble that came into her head

Tatiana knew she needed to trust her inner voice h

Tatiana wanted to ask Alexander about Dasha

But he began with, "I don’t kno to tell you this Youpresu presumptuous," Tatiana remarked, "you probably are"

He stayed silent

"Tell me anyway"

"You need to tell your father, Tatiana, that he has to get your brother back from Tolmachevo"

As she heard those words, she saw the imperially ornate Warsaw train station across the street, and she was thinking fleetingly about what it would be like to see Warsaw and Lublin and Swietokryst, and suddenly there was Pasha and Tol it She had wanted so else Instead, Alexander had mentioned Pasha, whom he did not know and had never met

"Why?" Tatiana asked at last

"Because there is soer," Alexander said after a pause, "that Tol about?" She did not understand, and even if she did, she would not want to She would choose not to understand She didn’t want to get upset She had been too happy that Alexander had come to see her unbidden, of his own free will Yet there was so in his voice -- Pasha, Tolether in one sentence, said by a near-stranger arm eyes in a cool tone Had he come all the way to Kirov to alarm her? What for?

"What can I do?" she asked

"Talk to your father about getting Pasha out of Tolmachevo Why did he send him there?" he exclai passed over his face Unblinking, she watched him intently forelse Not even words

Tatiana cleared her throat "There are boys’ camps there That’s why he sent hiraders sent their boys there yesterday" His face was blank

"Alexander, the Germans are down in Crimea," said Tatiana "Comrade Molotov said so himself Didn’t you hear his speech?"

"Yes, they are in Crimea But we have a border with Europe that’s two thousand kilo Hitler’s araria north to Poland" He paused She didn’t say anything "For right now, Leningrad is the safest place for Pasha Really"

Tatiana was skeptical "Why are you so sure?" She beca about the Red Arest army in the world? We have tanks, we have planes, we have artillery, we have guns The radio is not saying what you’re saying, Alexander" She spoke those words almost as a rebuke

He shook his head "Tania, Tania, Tania"

"What, what, what?" she said, and saw that Alexander, despite his serious face, nearly laughed That h herself, despite her own serious face

"Tania, Leningrad has lived for so many years with a hostile border with Finland only twenty kiloot to arer is"

"If that’s where the danger is, then how coest, all is quiet?"

Alexander was silent "Reconnaissance," he said at last Tatiana felt he left so unsaid "My point is," he went on, "all of our precautionary defenses are focused in the north But south and southwest, Leningrad does not have a single division, a single regiment, not oneyou?"

"No," she said, a little defiantly

"Talk to your father about Pasha," he repeated

They fell silent as they walked side by side through the quiet streets Subdued was the sunlight, still the leaves, and only Alexander and Tatianadown at the end of every block, looking at the pave, please don’t let this end so soon What was he thinking?

"Listen," Alexander said, "about yesterdayI’m sorry about the mishap What could I do? Your sister and II didn’t know she was your sister We had met at Sadko--"

"I know Of course You don’t have to explain," interjected Tatiana He brought it up That meant so much

"Oh, but I do I’m sorry if I’ve" -- he paused -- "upset you"

"No, not at all Everything is fine She had toldto add that she was all right with that, but got stuck on her words "So what’s Di back from Karelia?" Did she say that for effect? Tatiana wasn’t sure She just wanted to change the subject

"I don’t know When his entrenching assign tired Can we catch a tram?"

"Sure," Alexander said slowly "Let’s wait for the Nuain "Tatiana, your sister and I weren’t serious I will tell her--"

"No!" she exclaimed The two stolid men in front of her turned around quizzically "No," she repeated, more quietly, but no less adamantly "Alexander, it’s impossible" She put her hands over her face and then took them away "She is my older sister Do you understand?"

I was my mother and father’s only child His violin words echoed in her chest

More gently, Tatiana said, "She is my only sister" She paused "And she is serious about you" Did she need to sayby the displeased look on his face, yes, she did "There will be other boys," she finally added with a gallant shrug, "but I will never have another sister"

All Alexander said was, "I’m not a boy"

"Men, then," Tatiana stammered This was too difficult for her

"What makes you think there will be other men?"

Dumbstruck, Tatiana nonetheless persisted "Because you make up half the world But I know for a fact I have only one sister"

When Alexander didn’t comment, she ventured, "You do like Dasha, don’t you?"

Quietly he replied, "Of course But--"

"Well, then," Tatiana interrupted, "it’s settled No reason to speak any hed heavily

"No," Alexander said, sighing briefly "Guess not"

"All right, then" She stared out the

Whenever Tatiana thought of what she randfather and the dignity hich he conducted his si, but he chose to beco of irrefutable ible issues with the same black-and-white code or if it was the very essence of his character that drew him to math’s absolutes, but whatever it was, Tatiana had always marveled at it Whenever people asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up, she invariably said, "I want to be like randfather"

Tatiana knehat Deda would do He would never step on his sister’s heart

The traet off a few stops before Fifth Soviet, near the redbrick Grechesky Hospital on Second Soviet and Grechesky "I was born in this hospital," Tatiana offered, pointing

"So, Tania, tell ood minute before Tatiana could answer hi as a spy for Dimitri or for himself? And what should she say? If it was for Dimitri and Tatiana said no, she did not like his, and she didn’t want to do that

If it was for Alexander and she said yes, she liked Dis, and she didn’t want to do that either What were girls supposed to say? Weren’t they supposed to play soame? Lure, pull, pretend

Alexander was Dasha’s Did Dasha’s younger sister owe him an honest answer?

Did he want one?

He wanted one

"No," she finally said Tatiana didn’t want to hurt Alexander’s feelings iven hiive hih What do you think?"

"No," he replied at once

They were stopped at the corner of Second Soviet and Grechesky Prospekt The dolistened a few hundred ht of hi Now that he had come, asked the impossible, and been refused, she was afraid she would not see hiain

She couldn’t let him leave just yet Not just yet "Alexander," she asked quietly, looking into his face, "are yourmother and father still in Krasnodar?"

"No," he said "They’re not in Krasnodar"

She didn’t look away His eyes poured into her "Tania, so s I can’t explain but want to"

"So explain," Tatiana said softly, holding her breath

"Just reht now in the Red Aranization -- none of it can be understood except through the events of the last four years Do you see?"

Tatiana stood still "I don’t see What does it have to do with your parents?"

Alexander stepped a shade closer, shielding her fro sun "My parents are dead My mother in 1936, my father in 1937" He lowered his voice even more "Shot," he whispered "By the NKVD -- the not-so-secret police Now I have to go, all right?"

Tatiana’s shocked face must have slowed hiris don’t work out the e hope, do they? No matter how much we plan, or how much ish True?"

"No, they don’t," replied Tatiana, lowering her gaze For so just about his parents "Alexander, do you want to--"

"I have to go," he cut in "I’ll see you"

All she wanted to ask hen? but all she said was, "All right"

Tatiana didn’t want to go back to her apartment, inside the kitchen, inside She wanted to be on the traain, or at the bus stop, even at the store, on the street -- anywhere, as long as it wasn’t in the apart, she stood duure eight with her fingers, readying herself for the climb up and beyond

With a heavy heart she a the war There was no birthday dinner, but there was plenty of drink And plenty of loud argurad? As Tatiana arrived, her father and grandfather were disagreeing on Hitler’s intentions -- as if they both knew him personally All Mama wanted to knohy Comrade Stalin had not spoken to the people Dasha wanted to know if she should continue working

"As opposed to what?" snapped an irritated Papa "Look at Tania She is barely seventeen, and she doesn’t ask if she should continue working"

Everybody looked at Tatiana, including Dasha -- unhappily

Tatiana put down her bag "Seventeen today, Papa"

"Ah, yes!" Papa exclaimed "Of course The day has been so crazy Let’s drink a toast to Pasha’s health" He paused "And to Tania’s"

The room was somehow sainst the wall, wondering ould be a good ti up her brother and Tol up the wall, except Dasha, who glanced at her from the couch and said, "Why don’t you have soht that was a good idea In the kitchen, she poured herself two ladlefuls of carrots and a bit of chicken and then sat on theledge and looked out into the yard as the soup got cold next to her She couldn’t eat anything hot She was burning up inside

When Tatiana walked back into their rooly to her father, "This ill not continue into winter By then it will all be over"

Papa was quiet, rubbing the folds of his shirt He said, "You know, Napoleon, too, came to the Soviet Union with his armies in June"

"Napoleon!" Mai Vasilievich? Please I beg of you"

Tatiana opened herabout Tole she was supposed to relay to her , insufferable faht have to explain how she came by this inforht? she thought She closed her lass "Let’s have another shot," he said "And drink to Pasha"

"Let’s go to Luga!" exclaiet away fro now? "Maybe," she coughed up, with the confidence of a la Pasha back from camp in the meantime"

Papa, Mama, Dasha, Deda, and Babushka all stared at Tatiana with confusion and remorse, as if, one, they had been surprised she could speak and, two, they were sorry for saying grown-up things in the presence of a child