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Tatiana’s life was positively joyous in the hospital compared to what she encountered when she caust

When she returned, finally able to walk -- badly -- on crutches, Tatiana found Dasha cooking dinner for Alexander, and Alexander sitting behind the table happily eating, joking with Ma, and not leaving And not leaving

And not leaving

Tatiana sat morosely and nibbled at her food like an overstuffedso late Didn’t he have taps?

"Dimitri, what time is taps for you?"

"Eleven," Diht"

Oh

"Tania, did you hear? Ma in Deda and Babushka’s roo "You and I have a roo in Dasha’s voice that Tatiana did not like "No," said Tatiana When was Alexander leaving?

Dimitri went back to the barracks Before eleven o’clock Mao to bed Maht, do you hear h the roof He’ll kill us both"

"I hear you, Mama," Dasha whispered back "He’ll leave soon, I proht

Their parents went to bed, and Dasha took Tatiana aside and whispered, "Tania, can you go up on the roof and play with Anton? Please? I just want to have an hour alone with Alexander -- in a room, Tania!"

Tatiana left Dasha alone with Alexander In her room

She went to the kitchen and threw up in the sink The nauseating din inside her head continued even after she went up onto the roof and sat with Anton, as supposed to be on night duty Anton was not a very good sky-watcher He was sleeping Fortunately the sky was quiet Even from far away there was no sound of war Tatiana sifted the sand in the bucket and cried in the ht This is all because of hed out loud Anton twitched I’ve done this to myself, and I have no one else to bla Pasha back, had she not joined the volunteers and walked off God knohere and got blown up and had her leg broken, she and Dasha would have left with Deda and Babushka for Molotov And the unthinkable would not be happening in her rooht now

She sat on the roof until Dasha came upstairs someti evening Mama told Tatiana that now that she was ho to do, she would have to start cooking dinner for the family

All Tatiana’s life Babushka Anna, who did not work, had cooked On the weekends Tatiana’sholidays like New Year everybody cooked; everybody, that is, except Tatiana, who cleared up

"I’d be glad to, Mama," said Tatiana "If I only kne"

Dis to it"

"Yes, Tania," said Alexander, s delicious A cabbage pie or so was healing, she needed to busy her idle hands She would try She could not continue sitting in the roolish phrase book Even if it was rereading Tolstoy’s War and Peace She could not continue sitting in her roo her ribs, so Tatiana stopped using the she would cook in her life would be a cabbage pie She would have also liked to make a mushroom pie but couldn’t find any h took Tatiana three atteo with the pie

Alexander ca with Di her food, Tatiana suggested that perhaps the two soldiers wanted to go back and eat at the barracks "What, and ly Dimitri smiled

They ate and drank and talked about the day and about war, and about evacuation, and about hopes for finding Pasha, and then Papa said, "Tania, this is a little salty"

Mah And there are tooelse besides cabbage?"

Dasha said, "Tania, next tier in the soup And put a bay leaf in You forgot the bay leaf"

S, Dimitri said, "It’s not too bad for your first effort, Tania"

Alexander passed Tatiana his plate, and said, "It’s great Can I please have some more pie? And here’s my bowl for the soup"

After dinner Dasha took Tatiana away and whispered in her pleading voice, "Can you and Di to be too late tonight He’s got to get back Please?"

Kids fro were constantly on the roof Dimitri and Tatiana were not alone

But Dasha and Alexander were alone

What Tatiana needed was not to see her sister and him Him for a lifetime Her for teeks In teeks, when the summer would end, Dasha’s infatuation would surely end, too Nothing could survive the Leningrad winter

But how could Tatiana not see Alexander? Maybe she could lie to everyone else, but she could not lie to herself She held her breath the whole day until the evening hour when she would finally hear hihts he stopped at her door, smiled, and said, "Hello, Tania"

"Hello, Alexander," she replied, blushing and looking down at his boots She couldn’tsomewhere on her body

Then she fed him

Then Dasha took Tatiana aside and whispered

Tatiana had been ready, gritted teeth and all, to put Alexander away She had known all along what the right thing was, and she was prepared to do it

But why did her face have to be rubbed in the right thing night after night?

As the days went on, Tatiana realized she was too young to hide as in her heart but old enough to know that her heart was in her eyes

She was afraid she would glance at Alexander and so wouldat him? Or worse, what is that in her eyes? Or worse still, why is she looking away? Why can’t she look at him like everyone else? Like I look at Dasha, like Dasha looks atat him equally betrayed her, maybe even lance away, every glance toward, Di eyes were on Alexander, on Tatiana

Alexander was older He could hide better

Most of the tiht or tonight, before an hour ago,hour, ed so to hi to her

But how?

How did he hide their Kirov walks and their arainst each other, how did he hide his life that he poured into her, how did he hide his unstoppable hands on her breasts, and his lips on her, and all the things he had said to her? How did he hide Luga froa, when he washed her bloodied body? When she lay naked against him as he kissed her hair and held her with his tender arms, while his heart beat wildly in his chest How did he hide his eyes? When they were alone, Alexander looked at Tatiana as if there were no one else in the world but her

Was that the lie?

Was this the lie?

Maybe that’s what grown-ups did They kissed your breasts and then pretended itAnd if they could pretend really well, it rown-up

Or

Hoas that possible? To touch another hu?

But rown-up

Tatiana didn’t know, but she was baffled and hu herself in Alexander’s hands when he could barely be bothered to call her by name

Tatiana would lower her head and wish for them all to disappear But every once in a while when Alexander would be sitting down at the table, and she was in the roo up teacups, she would see hilance at her, and for a flicker she would see his true eyes

All Tatiana had with Alexander were estures He would open the door for her, and as she walked by hi for a day Or when she ers would -- accidentally? -- touch the very tips of hers, and that kept her going for another day Until the next time she saw hiainst a part of her Until the next time he said, "Hello, Tania" But one time, when Dimitri had already walked inside and Dasha was elsewhere, with a big smile on his face Alexander said, "Hello, Tania! I’h she didn’t want to And when she looked up at hiht when Alexander tasted her cheese blinchiki, he said, "Tania, I think that’s the best yet" And that lifted her spirits, until Dasha kissed hiodsend for us all"

Tatiana didn’t s, and then she sh Later, when Dasha and Alexander were sitting together on the couch, Dimitri said, "Dasha, I must say that I have never seen Alexander as happy with anyone as he is with you," and everybody s Tatiana Yes, and we haveDis, how to make sweet pies because she saw that Alexander liked the, followed by his tea and cigarettes

"Do you knohat else I like?" he said once

Tatiana’s heart stopped for a moment

"Potato pancakes"

"I don’t kno to make those"

Where was everyone else? Maone to the bathroom Dimitri was not there Alexander sious, and it was for her "Potatoes, flour, some onions Salt"

"Is that from--"

Dasha came back

The next day Tatiana made potato pancakes ladled with sour crea they had never tasted anything so delicious "Where did you learn to make that?" asked Dasha

The only s Alexander The pleasure was ed by hurt in the hours before the fa forward to seeing his face During dinner e clouds, and soon after dinner two things happened: either Alexander left to go back to barracks, which was bad enough, or Dasha asked to be left alone with hione before they had a rooo to? Tatiana could not conceive of the things Alexander had said to her in the hospital about alleys and benches Dasha, always the protective older sister, certainly never talked to Tatiana about those things Didn’t talk to Tatiana about anything

No one talked to Tatiana about anything

Tatiana never saw Alexander alone

He hid everything

But one evening after dinner, when they all went out onto the roof, Anton asked Tatiana if she wanted to play their dizzy geography ga on one leg

"Coht," Tatiana said, wanting a bit of giddiness She hopped around and around on her one good leg, while keeping her eyes closed Anton’s friendly hands were on her arot all the countries in the world completely out of whack, and when she opened her eyes, she saw Alexander looking at her with such a black expression that it hurt her even to breathe, as if her ribs were rebroken She straightened herself out and went to sit next to Dirown-ups couldn’t hide everything

"That’s a fun ga his aroing to grow up?"

Alexander said nothing

Of all the srateful for was her broken leg’s preventing her frorateful for the constant buzz of people in the apart alone with Diot back downstairs from the roof, Tatiana discovered to her panic that her parents had the the two couples alone together

Tatiana saw Di closeness Dasha smiled at Alexander and said, "Are you tired?"

Tatiana could barely continue to stand on one leg

It was Alexander who ca tonight Co, not taking his eyes off Tatiana

Alexander said, "Yes, you do, Diht before taps Let’s go"

Tatiana was grateful for Alexander Though it was a bit like the Gerrateful to the you

When Mama and Papa came back from their walk, Tatiana quietly asked theain, not even for a cold glass of beer on a war the days Tatiana went out for sloalks around the block to check the local stores for any food She had begun to notice an absence of beef and pork She could not find even the 250 grams of meat a week per person that was allotted them Only occasionally did she find chicken

Tatiana still found the ever-present cabbage, apples, potatoes, onions, carrots But butter was h The pies started tasting worse, though Alexander still ate thes, milk She couldn’t buy a lot; she couldn’t carry a lot She would buy enough to make one pie for dinner, and then in the afternoons she would take a nap and study her English words before turning on the radio

Tatiana listened to the radio every afternoon, because the second thing her father said when he ca he said was, "Any news?" leaving out the unspoken Any news about Pasha?

So Tatiana felt obliged to listen to the radio to find out the minimum about the Red Army’s position, or about von Leeb’s army’s advance She didn’t want to hear it On occasion, yes -- listening to bleak reports from the front lifted her spirits Even defeat at the hands of Hitler’s men was better than what she had to endure inside herself every day She turned on the radio in the hope that hopeless news elsewhere would cheer her up

She knew if the announcer started listing open radio frequencies, then nothing extraordinary had happened that day Usually there was some news But even before the announcer cas and pauses, like a rat-ta-tat-tat of a typewriter The radio information bulletin itself lasted a few seconds Maybe three short sentences about the Finnish-Russian front

"The Finnish ar all the territory they lost in the war of 1940"

"The Finns are corad"

"The Finns are at Lisiy Nos, only twenty kilometers from the city limits"

Then followed a few sentences about the Ger out the no-news bulletin to i that wasn’t there After he listed the cities south of Leningrad that were under Gero and open a map

When she found out that Tsarskoye Selo was in Gerot about Alexander for the s Tsarskoye Selo, like Peterhof, was a su place of Alexander Pushkin, but the worst thing was that Tsarskoye Selo was just ten kilometers southeast of the Kirov factory, which was located on the city lirad

Were the Gerrad?

"Yes," Alexander said that night "The Gered in the olden spires of the Admiralty and Peter and Paul’s Cathedral had been spray-painted gray Soldiers were on every street, and the NKVD militia in their dark blue uniforms were even more conspicuous than the soldiers Everyin the city was taped against explosion; the people on the streets walked quickly and with a purpose Tatiana sometimes sat on a bench near the church across the street and watched them In the sky floated the ubiquitous airships, sohtly h flour to e pies Alexander often brought some of his rations with hih to one

Diot Tatiana out onto the roof while Dasha and Alexander were downstairs alone in Tatiana’s roo his ar so sad How long a her hand on his arm, Tatiana asked, "What’s the matter?"

"I just need a little co her cheeks, trying to bring histhat felt al her She couldn’t put her finger on it "Dihtly away fro for Anton, who skipped over and chatted with theot fed up and left

"Thanks, Anton," said Tatiana

"Anytime," he replied "Why don’t you just tell him to leave you alone?"

"Anton, you wouldn’t believe it, but the more I do, the more he comes around," said Tatiana

"Older men are all like that, Tania," said Anton with authority, as if he knew about such things "Don’t you understand anything? You have to give in Then he’ll leave you alone!" He laughed

Tatiana laughed, too "I think you ht, Anton I think that’s how older men work"

She continued to busy Dimitri with cards or books, with jokes or vodka Vodka, in particular, was good Dimitri tended to have a little too much and then fall asleep on the srando up onto the roof without him and sit with Anton and think of Pasha, and think of Alexander

She passed the time with Anton, told jokes, read Zoshchenko and War and Peace, and looked at the Leningrad sky, wondering howhow

And after the other kids left to go to sleep, Tatiana continued to sit by the kerosene lalish words to herself from the dictionary and the phrase book She learned to say "Pen" "Table" "Love" "The United States of America" "Potato pancakes" She wished she had twophrases she was learning

One night at the very end of August, with Anton asleep next to her, Tatiana tried to think of a way to ht as it could be Suddenly after June 22 there was such havoc, constant, cheerless, and unending But not all of it cheerless

Tatianahour with Alexander at Kirovhour when they had sat apart and together and ah the empty streets; when they talked and were silent, and the silence flowed into their words as Lake Ladoga flowed into the Neva that flowed into the Gulf of Finland that flowed into the Baltic Sea The evening hour when they smiled and the white of his teeth blinded her eyes, when he laughed and his laughter flew into her lungs, when she never took her eyes off hiht with it

The evening hour at Kirov when they were alone

What to do? How to fix this? Soain inside For her own sake, for her sister’s, and for Alexander’s

It o in theonly an old sundress with a cardigan over it She was thinking that she would rather spend the rest of her life on the roof than downstairs with Mama and Papa’s forlorn hope for Pasha, or with Dasha’s supplicating whisperTania, go away so I can be alone with hiht about the war Maybe if the Ger, I could save everyone else but die in the process Would they s were different?

Different how?

Different when?

She knew that Alexander already wished things were different He wished they had been different froether, untouched by anything but each other, was there a place where Tania and Shura could have gone when they wanted to be alone for two lish phrases to one another? Other than the walk home from Kirov?

Tatiana didn’t know of such a place

Did Alexander?

This was a pointless exercise, designed only to pummel herself further As if she needed it