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Tatiana ran to work the next nore the ignoble, ever-present, blue-unifor by the front doors of Kirov with their obscene rifles, walking through the factory floors, al their weapons close to their hips A few of them would look at her as she passed by, and it was the only time in her life when she wished she were srave, unyielding faces, they stared at Tatiana, hardly blinking, while she blinked frequently as she hurried past theh the doors, to the relative anonyet bored and therefore negligent on any one production facet of the KV-1, they werethe pulley that lifted the treadless tank and placed it on tread, to painting the red star on a finished tank ready to be flatbedded and put into production She spray-painted not only the red star but the white words for stalin! on the hull that stood out reen paint

Ilya, the skinny boy with the crew cut, had not left Tatiana alone after Alexander stopped coht He would ask her all sorts of questions that she was too polite not to answer, but in the end even Tatiana gave way to slight rudeness I have to concentrate onhow in the world he always et a position next to her, nothe day to different tank-building responsibilities In the canteen Ilya would get his plate and sit next to her and Zina, who could not stand him and frequently told him so

But today Tatiana felt sorrier for hi into her ravy, her mouth full "He doesn’t seem to have anybody Stay, Ilya" So Ilya stayed

Tatiana could afford to be generous She couldn’t wait for her day to end After going to see Alexander yesterday, she was certain he would cohtest skirt and her lightest, softest blouse, and even had a bath in the ht before

That evening she ran out of the Kirov doors, her golden hair shining and down, her face scrubbed and pink, and turned her s head, breathless for Alexander

He wasn’t there

It was after eight, and she sat on the bench until after nine with her hands on her lap Then she got up and walked home

There was no news of Pasha, and Ma intermittently Dasha was not hos Tatiana went out onto the roof and sat watching the airships float like white whales across the northern sky, listening to Anton and Kirill reading Tolstoy’s War and Peace, evoking their brother Volodya, lost in Tol of her brother Pasha, lost in Tolmachevo

Alexander didn’t come to see her He had no news Or the news he had was bad and he couldn’t face her But Tatiana knew the truth: he didn’t come to see her because he was done Done with her, with her childish ways, done with that part of his life They had been friends walking in the Summer Garden, but he was a ht, of course, not to come And she would not cry

But to face Kirov day after day without hi without him and without Pasha, to face war, to face herself without Alexander and without Pasha filled Tatiana with such a pervasive eht in front of the laughing Anton and Kirill

She needed just one thing now -- to lay her eyes on the boy who had breathed the same air as her for seventeen years, in the same school, in the same class, in the same room, in the same woht she could feel Pasha while sitting out on the roof under the darkening sky; the white nights had ended on July 16 Her brother was not har for Tatiana to co to be like the rest of her fa Tatiana knew: five et et Alexander And she needed to do soone to bed, Tatiana went downstairs, got a pair of kitchen scissors, and began tostrands into the coriue reflection All she saas her sulky lips and her sad, hollow eyes that glowed greener without the hair to frame her face The freckles on her nose and under her eyes stood out even more prominently Did she look like a boy? All the better Did she look younger? More frail? What would Alexander think of all her hair gone? Who cared? She knehat he would think Shura, Shura, Shura

Just as daas breaking, Tatiana put on the only pair of beige trousers she could find, packed so soda and peroxide for her teeth, her toothbrush -- she never took trips without her toothbrush -- retrieved Pasha’s sleeping bag from his old days at camp, left a one-sentence note for her fa at work Tatiana was assigned to the diesel engines She screwed the glow plugs into the cos warnition could take place She was very good at that part of the asse performed it many ti struggling with her nerve

At lunchti, and told him they both wanted to join the People’s Volunteer Ar the volunteers for over a week

Krasenko told her she was too young

She persisted

"Why are you doing this, Tania?" Krasenko asked with syirl like you"

She told his were there The bulletin boards at work shouted, "At Luga -- to the trenches!" She said she knew that boys and girls of fourteen and fifteen orking in the fields digging trenches She and Zina wanted to do all they could to help the Red Army soldiers Zina nodded mutely Tatiana knew she needed special dispensation froei Andreevich," she said