“Tania, stop it, you don’t mean a word of that.”

“What?” she exclaimed, still on her knees. “Which part don’t you think I mean? Have you be alive in America or dead in the Soviet Union? You think I don’t mean that? Shura, it’s the only way, and you know it.” She paused when he did not speak. “I know what I would do if I were you.”

Alexander shook his head. “What would you do? You would leave me to die? Leave me in the Fifth Soviet apartment, living with Inga and Stan, orphaned and alone?”

Frantically Tatiana chewed her lip. It was love or truth.

Love won.

Steeling herself, she said, “Yes,” in a fragment of a voice. “I would choose America over you.”

Alexander broke down. “Come here, you lying wife,” he said, bringing her close, encompassing her.

The ice on the Fontanka Canal was just forming where they were crumbled against the granite parapets.

“Shura, listen to me,” Tatiana said into Alexander’s chest, “if no matter which way we twist in this world, we are faced with this impossible choice, if no matter what we do, I cannot be saved, then I beg of you, I beg of you—”

“Tania! God, I will not listen to this anymore!” he shouted, pushing her away and jumping to his feet, holding the rifle in his hands.

She stared at him pleadingly, still on the ice. “You can be saved, Alexander Barrington. You. My husband. Your father’s only son. Your mother’s only son.” Tatiana extended her hands to him in supplication. “I am Parasha,” she whispered. “And I am the cost of the rest of your life. Please! There was once a time I saved myself for you. Look at me, I’m on my knees.” She was weeping. “Please, Shura, please. Save your one life for me.”

“Tatiana!” Alexander pulled her up to him so hard, he lifted her off her feet. She clung to him, not letting go. “You are not going to be the cost of the rest of my life!” he said, setting her down. “Now, I need you to stop this.”

She shook her head into his chest. “I won’t stop.”

“Oh, yes, you will,” he said, squeezing her to him.

“You’d rather we both perish?” she cried. “Is that what you would prefer? You’d prefer all the suffering, all the sacrifice, and no Leningrad at the end of it?” She shook him. “Are you out of your mind? You must go! You will go, and you will build yourself a new life.”

Alexander pushed her away and walked a few strides from her. “If you don’t keep quiet,” he said, “I swear to God, I am going to leave you here and go” — he pointed down the street — “and I will never come back!”

Tatiana nodded, pointing in the same direction. “That’s exactly what I want. Go. But far, Shura,” she whispered. “Far.”

“Oh, for God’s sake!” Alexander yelled, slamming his rifle on the ice. “What kind of crazy world do you live in? What, you think you can come here, fly in on your little wings, and say, all right, Shura, you can go, and I just go? How do you think I can leave you? How do you think it’ll be possible for me to do that? I couldn’t leave a dying stranger in the woods. How do you think I can leave you?”

“I don’t know,” Tatiana said, crossing her arms. “But you better find a way, big man.”

They fell quiet. What to do? She watched him from a distance.

“Do you see how impossible it is what you’re saying?” Alexander said. “Do you even see, or have you completely lost your senses?”

She saw how impossible it was what she was saying. “I’ve completely lost my senses. But you must go.”

“Tania, I’m not going anywhere without you,” he said, “except to the wall.”

“Stop it. You must go.”

He yelled, “If you don’t stop—”

“Alexander!” Tatiana screamed. “If you don’t stop, I am going back to Fifth Soviet and I’m going to hang myself over the bathtub, so you can run to America free of me! I’m going to do it on Sunday, five seconds after you leave, do you understand?”

They stared at each other for a mute, unspeakable moment.

Tatiana stared at Alexander.

Alexander stared at Tatiana.

Then he opened his arms, and she ran into them; he lifted her off her feet, they hugged and did not let go. For many silent minutes they stood on the Fontanka Bridge, wrapped around each other.

At last Alexander spoke into her neck. “Let’s make a deal, Tatiasha, all right? I will promise you that I’ll do my best to keep myself alive, if you promise me that you’ll stay away from bathtubs.”

“You got yourself a deal.” Tatiana looked into his face. “Soldier,” she said clutching him, “I hate to point out the obvious at a time like this, but still . . . I need to point out that I was completely right. That’s all.”

“No, you were completely wrong. That’s all,” Alexander said. “I said to you that some things were worth a great sacrifice. This is just not one of those things.”

“No, Alexander. What you said to me — your exact words to me — was that all great things worth having required great sacrifices worth giving.”

“Tania, what the hell are you going on about? I mean, just for a second, step away from the world in which you live and into mine, for a millisecond, all right, and tell me, what kind of life do you think I could build for myself in America knowing that I left you in the Soviet Union — to die — or to rot?” He shook his head. “The Bronze Horseman would indeed pursue me all through that long night into my maddening dust.”

“Yes. And that would be your price for light instead of darkness.”

“I’m not paying it.”

“Either way, Alexander, my fate is sealed,” Tatiana said without acrimony or bitterness, “but you have a chance, right now, while you are still so young to kiss my hand and to go with God because you were meant for great things.” She took a breath. “You are the best of men.” Her arms were around his neck, and her feet were off the ground.

“Oh, yes,” said Alexander, clamping her to him. “Running to America, abandoning my wife. I’m just fucking priceless.”

“You’re just impossible.”

“I’m impossible?” Alexander whispered, setting her down. “Come on, let’s walk a bit before we freeze.” She held on to him as they stepped slowly through the trampled snow down Fontanka to the Field of Mars. Silently they crossed the Moika Canal and walked into the Summer Garden.

Tatiana opened her mouth to speak, but Alexander shook his head. “Don’t say a word. What are we even thinking, walking through here? Let’s go. Quick.”

Their heads bent and his arm around her, they walked quickly down the path among the tall, bare trees, past the empty benches, past the statue of Saturn devouring his own child. Tatiana remembered that the last time they were here in the warmth, she had yearned for him to touch her, and now in the cold she was touching him and feeling that she did not deserve what she had been given — a life in which she was loved by a man like Alexander.

“What did I tell you then?” he said. “I told you that was the best time. And I was right.”

“You were wrong,” Tatiana said, unable to look at him. “The Summer Garden was not the best time.”

She was sitting on his bare shoulders in the water, waiting for him to throw her over into the Kama. He wasn’t moving. “Shura,” she said, “what are you waiting for?” He wasn’t moving. “Shura!”

“You’re not going anywhere,” he said. “What kind of man would throw off a girl sitting naked around his neck?”

“A ticklish man!” she shouted.

Exiting through the gilded iron gates on the Neva embankment, they headed mutely upriver. Weakening by minutes, Tatiana took Alexander’s arm and slowed him down. “Can’t walk our streets with you anymore,” she said hoarsely.

From the embankment they turned to Tauride Park. They passed their bench on Ulitsa Saltykov-Schedrin, walked a little farther along the wrought-iron fence, stopped, stared at each other and turned around. They sat down in their coats. Tatiana sat for a minute next to Alexander, then got up and climbed into his lap. Pressing her head to his, she said, “That’s better.”

“Yes,” he said. “That’s better.”

Silently they sat together on their bench in the cold. Tatiana’s whole body struggled with heartbreak. “Why,” she whispered into his mouth, “why can’t we have even what Inga and Stan have? Yes, in the Soviet Union, but together twenty years, still together.”

“Because Inga and Stan are Party spies,” replied Alexander. “Because Inga and Stan sold their souls for a two-bedroom apartment, and now they don’t have either.” He paused. “You and I want too much from this Soviet life.”

“I want nothing from this life,” said Tatiana. “Just you.”

“Me, and running hot water, and electricity, and a little house in the desert, and a state that doesn’t ask for your life in return for these small things.”

“No,” Tatiana said, shaking her head. “Just you.”

Moving her hair back under her scarf, Alexander studied her face. “And a state that doesn’t ask for your life in return for me.”

“The state,” she said with a sigh, “has to ask for something. After all, it protects us from Hitler.”

“Yes,” Alexander said. “But, Tania, who is going to protect you and me from the state?”

Tatiana held him closer. One way or another she had to help Alexander. But how? How to help him? How to save him?

“Don’t you see? We live in a state of war. Communism is war on you and me,” Alexander said. “That’s why I wanted to keep you in Lazarevo. I was just trying to hide my artwork until the war was over.”

“You’re hiding it in the wrong place,” said Tatiana. “You told me yourself there was no safe place in the Soviet Union.” She paused. “Besides, this war is going to be a long one. It’s going to take some time to reconstruct our souls.”

Squeezing her, Alexander muttered, “I have to stop talking to you. Do you ever forget anything I tell you?”

“Not a word,” she said. “Every day I’m afraid that’s all I’ll have left of you.”

They sat.

Tatiana brightened. “Alexander,” she said, “want to hear a joke?”

“Dying to.”

“When we get married, I’ll be there to share all your troubles and sorrows.”

“What troubles? I don’t have any troubles,” said Alexander.

“I said when we get married,” replied Tatiana, her tearful eyes twinkling. “You have to admit that you getting killed at the front so I can live in the Soviet Union, and me hanging myself over a bathtub so you can live in America is an ironic tale quite well told, don’t you think?”

“Hmm. But since we are not leaving a scrap of family behind,” said Alexander, “there will be no one to tell it.”

“There is that,” said Tatiana. “But still . . . how Greek of us, don’t you think?” She smiled and squished his face.

Alexander shook his head. “How do you do that?” he asked. “Find comfort? Through anything. How?”

“Because I’ve been comforted by the master,” she said, kissing his forehead.

He tutted. “Some master I am. Couldn’t even get one tiny tadpole of a wife to stay in Lazarevo.”

Tatiana watched him stare at her. “What, husband?” she said. “What are you thinking?”

“Tania . . . you and I had only one moment . . .” said Alexander. “A single moment in time, in your time and mine . . . one instant, when another life could have still been possible.” He kissed her lips. “Do you know what I’m talking about?”

When Tatiana looked up from her ice cream, she saw a soldier staring at her from across the street.

“I know that moment,” whispered Tatiana.

“Regret that I crossed the street for you?”

“No, Shura,” she replied. “Before I met you, I could not imagine living a life different from my parents, my grandparents, Dasha, me, Pasha, our children. Could not have conceived of it.” She smiled. “I didn’t dream of someone like you even when I was a child in Luga. You showed me, in a glimpse, in our tremor, a beautiful life . . .” She peered into his eyes. “What did I ever show you?”

“That there is a God,” whispered Alexander.

“There is!” exclaimed Tatiana. “And I felt your need for me clear across the steppes. I’m here for you. And one way or another we will fix this.” She squeezed him. “You’ll see. You and I will fix this together.”

“How? And now what?” came Alexander’s voice at her head.

Taking a frigid breath, Tatiana spoke, trying to sound as cheerful as possible. “How, I don’t know. What now? Now we go blindly into the thick forest at the other side of which awaits the rest of our short but oh-so-blissful time on this earth. You go and fight me a nice war, Captain, and you stay alive, as promised, and keep Dimitri off your back—”