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The next ed Alexander and said, "Be nice," as she opened their bedrooa were sitting in the hallway Stan stood up, extended his hand to Alexander, introduced hiized for yesterday, and asked Alexander to sit and have a sarette fro is hard on everyone, I know But it’s not forever You knohat the Party says, Captain--" said Stan, sly

"No, what does the Party say, co down at Tatiana, who stood beside hi deterh, and we’ll all get used to it Soon we’ll all becoa said plaintively, "I don’t want to live like this! We had a nice aparta The council promised us a two-bedroom"

Alexander said, "How long do you think, Stan, we’ll have to live like this before we’re changed? And changed into what?" He stared bleakly at Tatiana, who said, peering up into his face, "Shura, I have so as if it were his breakfast, Alexander nodded She didn’t like the look in his eyes

When she came back inside with tls of kasha and a cup of coffee for hia, -standing members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Alexander barely excused himself before he went to eat his kasha inside the roo Tatiana to follow hi to answer Inga’s curious questions about Alexander Then she washed the dishes froht before, cleaned the kitchen, and finally and reluctantly joined hi She did not want to face Alexander alone

He was collecting her things into her black backpack Glaring at her, he said, "You wanted to coers, Co to your every word, your every moan? You missed all this, Tania?"

"No," Tatiana said "I missed you"

"There is no place for me here," he said "There is hardly a place for you"

After watching hi"

"Packing?" she repeated quietly, closing the door behind her Here it starts, Tatiana thought I didn’t want it I wished we didn’t have to have it But here it is "Where are we going?"

"Across the lake I can get you across easily to Syastroy, and then I’ll take you in an arda Froo now It’ll take et back, and I orously Tatiana shook her head

"What?" Alexander snapped "What are you shaking your head for?"

She shook her head

"Tatiana, I’oing anywhere"

"Yes you are"

In a small voice she said, "No I’m not"

Alexander raised his voice "You are!"

In the same small voice Tatiana said, "Don’t raise your voice toher backpack with a thud to the wooden floor, Alexander ca down, said into her face, "Tatiana, in a second I’ to raise more than my voice to you"

Tatiana felt so sad inside But she squared her shoulders and did not look away Quietly she said, "Go ahead, Alexander I’ his teeth "Well, I’m terrified of you" He stepped away and picked up the backpack Tatiana reme her father, no, I don’t want to go, and being sent away anyway, and dying

"Alexander, stop it, I said I’ anywhere"

"Oh, you are, Tania," he said, whirling to her, his face distorted by anger "You are I will take you to Vologda, if have to carry you there "

Tatiana backed away from him, just a little bit, half a step, and said, "Fine But I will not be kicking, I will not be screa As soon as you leave, I will coainst the wall, close to Tatiana’s head He came at her with clenched fists and smashed the wall near her so hard that the plaster cru, her eyes closed, Tatiana backed away another half a step and stopped e, punching the wall next to her face "What will it take for you to listen toonce, ill it take for you to do as I say?" He grabbed her by the arainst the wall

"Shura, this is not the army," Tatiana whispered tre here!"

"I am," she said faintly

There was a knock Alexander went to the door, ripped it open, and shouted, "What?"

Inga, her face red, ht Tania? I heard yelling -- banging--"

"I’ away fros

"You’ll hear a lot a "Just put the fcking glass to the wall," and sla around, he came for Tatiana, who backed away fro, "Shura, please" but, unstoppable and crazed, he came at her just the same and shoved her down onto the couch She fell back and covered her face Bending over her, Alexander knocked her hands away "Don’t cover your face!" he shouted, grabbing her cheeks between his fingers and shaking her "Don’t make me more crazy!"

Tatiana cried out and tried to push him away, but it was useless "Stop!" she panted "Stop"

"Safe or dead, Tania?" he yelled "Safe or dead? What will it be?"

Clutching helplessly at his arms, she wanted to answer him but couldn’t speak Dead, she wanted to say Dead, Shura

"You can see what it’s doing tohere!" Alexander squeezed her face harder and harder as she struggled to break free "You can see But you just don’t give a shit"

She ceased fighting hi her hands over his "Please," Tatiana whispered, trying to catch his eye "Pleasestop You’re hurting o of her face, nor did Tatiana pull away, even though she could hardly breathe Underneath hi her with his body, he lay on top of her, panting Through the crashing noise in her head Tatiana remotely heard the air-raid siren and explosive sounds outside her s She moved herHer own hands went around his back to clasp hiot off Tatiana, stood miserably before her, and then dropped to his knees "Tatiana," he said in a broken voice, "this frantic wretch begs you, please leave If you feel any love for o back to Lazarevo Be safe You just don’t knohat kind of danger you’re in"

Still short of breath, her body tree of the couch and pulled Alexander to her She couldn’t bear to see hi his face "Please don’t be angry with me"

Alexander moved her hands off him "Do you hear the bombs? Do you hear, or are you deaf? Do you see there is no food?"

"There’s food," she said quietly, putting her hands back on hira well" She smiled "It’s much better than last year And I don’t care about the bo to hten you What are you afraid of?"

Outside, the whistling shells whizzed nearby One sounded close Tatiana pulled Alexander to her "Listen tohis head to her breasts "Do you hearon to hi her eyes Dear God, she prayed Please let th sohi behind in Lazarevo, Shura Besides ot up and sat heavily on the couch

Ripping open the inseam on her trousers, Tatiana took out Alexander’s five thousand dollars "Look I returned to give you this" She stared at him "I see you took only half Why?" Stop Breathe

Alexander’s bronze eyes were toffee pools of pain "I’a at our door," he said, barely a at our door"

They looked away fro Who was going to pick up their frag thehi his head to her "This isn’t Lazarevo, is it, Shura?" she whispered into his hair

His voice breaking, his ar her, Alexander whispered back, "What is, Tatia?"

She ile self into hi him to s her, to i froive back to hiive his life back to hione, panting and

"Tatiasha," Alexander whispered, still unceasing, "stop crying What’s a man to think when every time he makes love to his wife, she cries?"

"That he is his wife’s only fa his head "That he is her whole life"

"As she is his," said Alexander "But you don’t see hi" He was turned away from her Tatiana couldn’t see his face

After the air raid was over and they were finished, they bundled up and went out "Too cold to be out," Tatiana said, clinging to him

"Why didn’t you wear a hat?"

"So you can see love, he ran his hand across her head "Put on your scarf," he said, tying it around her "You’ll be cold"

"I’, like a tent" In sadness, she lowered her eyes She shouldn’t have said the word tent Too many Lazarevo memories Some words were like that Whole lives attached to them Ghosts and lives and ecstasy and sorrow The simplest words, and suddenly she couldn’t continue to speak "It looks warm," she added quietly

Alexander smiled "Next week I will have better than a tent I’ll have a room in the main headquarters, just five doors away fro I’ll actually be warlad," said Tatiana "Do you have a blanket?"

"My coat is ht, Tania It’s war Nohere do you want to go?"

"To Lazarevo -- with you," she said, unable to look at hihed heavily "To the Summer Garden it is, then"

They walked silently forher head into Alexander’s sleeve Finally she took a deep breath "Talk toon We’re alone now We have a little privacy TellTatiana listened Still nothing She put her face on his woolen coat Still nothing She looked at the slushy snow at her feet, at the trolleybus that went by, at the policelass they stepped over, at the red traffic light up ahead Nothing Nothing Nothing

She sighed Why was this so difficult for him? More difficult than usual "Shura, why didn’t you take all of the money?"

"Because," he let out slowly, "I left you as mine"

"It’s all yours All the

"Alexander! What did you take five thousand dollars for? If you’re running, you need all of it If you’re not running, you don’t need any of it Why did you take half?"

No reply It was like Lazarevo Tatiana would ask, he would answer, tight-lipped and thoughtful, and she would spend an hour trying to decipher as between the single words Lisiy Nos, Vyborg, Helsinki, Stockholm, Yuri Stepanov, all multisyllables with Alexander hidden in the

"You knohat?" Tatiana said, exasperated, detaching herself froa without holding back, without stupid guessing ga theht now, or just turn around, go and get your things, and get away fro near the Fontanka Canal, folded her ar, too, but didn’t reply

"Are you thinking it over?" she exclai to look deeper -- behind his constricted face Letting go of hiuish, she said, "I know, Alexander, that when you’re wearing these clothes, your arainstBecause I also know that when you’re naked andlove to er, I could ask anything then, and you would tell er I’ to see the truth and your agony, afraid I’ll see that you’re saying good-bye to me, you turn me over because you think if I don’t see it, I can’t feel it" She started to cry I’th?

"Please, stop," Alexander whispered, not looking at her

"Well, I can feel it, Shura," Tatiana said, wiping her face and grabbing his hand He pulled it frory, yes, upset, yes, because you thought you had said good-bye to ry and upset"

"As it turns out," Tatiana continued, "you’re going to have to say good-bye to ht?"

Tatiana saw Alexander’s tormented eyes

She stepped up He backed away What a waltz they danced in the stark ; she could take it "Alexander I know -- you think I don’t know? I’ve got nothing to do but think about the things you tell me You have wanted to escape to A that had kept you going the years before ht return hoht?"

"You’re right," Alexander said "But then I met you"

Then I hts by the Neva, the Su face Tatiana looked at his heartbreaking face She wanted to speak Where were all those words she once knew? Where were they nohen she needed them most?

Alexander shook his head "Tania, it’s too late for me From the moment my father decided to abandon the life we had in America, he doomed us all I knew it first -- even then My mother second My father third, last, buthi the ar, but who did er to?"

Tatiana came up to him and held on to his coat Alexander put his arms around her "Tania, when I found you, I felt for that hour or tere together -- before Diht my life" Alexander smiled bitterly "I had a sense of hope and destiny that I can neither explain nor understand" He wasn’t s anymore "Then our Soviet life interfered You saw, I tried to stay away I thought, I a Look how I tried after I came to see you at the hospital I tried to put distance between us after St Isaac’s, after the Gerrad" He paused He shook his head "I should have, somehow"

"I didn’t want you to," Tatiana said faintly

"Oh, Tania," Alexander said "If only I hadn’t coasped "What are you saying? How can you regret--" She didn’t finish How could he be regretting them? She stared at him, perplexed and ashen

Alexander didn’t respond "So since the day Iyou into my own destruction" He shook his head so hard his cap fell off

Tatiana picked up his cap, brushed off the slush, and gave it back to hiet all that, it’s done with Alexanderand I ca "What destruction? I’ "I’m lucky"

"You’re blind"

"Then open hter around her neck, wanting to bundle up, wanting to be near a fire, wanting to be in Lazarevo

Tatiana watched Alexander gulp down his fear He turned his face away and started to walk along the canal pave at her, Alexander said, "I took the five thousand dollars because I was going to give it to Di to convince hi "Stop it" She shook her head "I suspected that hy you took half the o half a kilooing to Aht just past Engineers Castle, last winter used as a hospital and now nearly unrecognizable after repeated boo by himself," Tatiana went on "I already told you He is a coward and a parasite You are his courage and his host What are you even thinking? As soon as Dio either, and if he reot no hope of escape, then he’s going straight to his new friend Mekhlis of the NKVD, and you will be instantly--"

Tatiana broke off, staring at Alexander So dawned on her His face was too o without you You know this already"

Alexander didn’t reply

They began walking again, over the crippled-by-shelling Fontanka Bridge, stepping over the granite pieces "So what are you even talking about, then?" Tatiana said, nudging hi up into his face, full of incoine that Alexander was afraid for hi of ot stuck in her throat

Her eyes opened; her heart opened

Truth flowed in, but not the truth she had knoith Alexander No Truth illu up those hideous corners of an ugly roo wood and the broken plaster and the ratty furniture Once Tatiana saw it, once she saas left--

She ca hi therad Saturday Alexander was thinking of her He was thinking only of her

"Tell me" Tatiana said faintly, "what do they do to wives of Red Arh treason? Arrested for being foreign infiltrators? What do they do to wives of American men who jumped out of trains on the way to prison?’

Alexander said nothing, closing his eyes

And suddenly -- the flip side His eyes were closed Hers were open

"Oh, no, Shura" she said "What do they do to wives of deserters?"

Alexander did not reply He tried to go around her, but Tatiana stopped hi both her hands on his chest "Don’t turn your face from me," she said "Tell me, what does the Commissariat of Internal Affairs do ives of soldiers who desert, soldiers who run into the woods in marshy Finland, what do they do with the Soviet wives who remain behind?"

Alexander didn’t answer her

"Shura!" she cried "What is the NKVD going to do withthey do to wives of MIAs? Or POWs? What did Stalin call it, protective custody? What is that a euphemism for?"

Alexander was silent

"Shura!" Tatiana wasn’t letting hi shot? Is it?" She was panting

Tatiana stared at Alexander in disbelief, inhaling the cold wet air, her nose hurting froht back to the river Ka on her naked body as it touched hiht back to all Alexander had tried to hide from her in the corners of his soul where he hoped she would not peek But in Lazarevo, Tatiana’s eyes saw only the Karad that all was exposed, the darkness and the light, the day and the night "Are you telling o or stay, I aonized face away fro

Tatiana’s scarf fell off her head Numbly she picked it up and held it in her hands "No wonder you couldn’t tell me But how could I not have seen?" she whispered