He listened to her paused breath, as if she were trying to ask him something. He continued to stroke her hair to give her strength. “What, Tatia?”

“Shura, are you asleep?”

“No.”

“I’ve missed you . . . coming to Kirov. Is that all right to say?”

“And I’ve missed you,” Alexander said, rubbing his lips against her gold-silk, down-feather hair. “And it’s all right to say.”

There was nothing else from her, except her hand, moving on his chest, gently, tenderly, up and down. He held her close. A groan of pain escaped her, and another, and another.

Minutes passed.

Minutes.

And then hours.

“Shura, are you asleep?”

“No.”

“I just wanted to say . . . thank you, soldier.”

Alexander’s eyes stared into the blackness, as he tried to envisage moments of his own life, of his childhood, of his mother and father, of Barrington. He saw nothing. Felt nothing but Tatiana lying on his fallen-asleep arm, caressing his chest. She stopped and placed her hand on his rapid heart. He felt her lips lightly press against his shirt, and then she slept. And finally he slept, too.

When Alexander first saw a tinge of blue-gray light from outside the tent, he said, “Tania?”

“I’m awake,” she said, her hand still on his chest.

He disentangled himself and went to wash by the stream in the woods, where it was still dark. There was no doing it on the banks of the Luga River. The Germans were only seventy-five meters across the water, their cannons and artillery pointed at the Soviet men who slept hugging their machine guns. Not Alexander — he had slept hugging Tatiana.

Coming back to the tent with clean water, he sat Tatiana up covered in the blanket, helped her wash, and then gave her some bread and some more tea.

“How are you feeling this morning?” he asked. “Spry?” He smiled.

“Yes,” she said weakly. “I think I can hop on my good leg.” He saw by her constricted face she was in terrible pain.

Alexander told her he would be right back and went to wake up the medic and ask for some clothes for her and some medication. Mark had no medication, but he found her a dress that belonged to one of the nurses who had died a few days ago. “Corporal, I need one lousy gram of morphine.”

“I don’t have it,” Mark snapped. “They shoot you for stealing morphine. I don’t have it for a broken leg. Bring her to me with intestinal damage and I won’t have it. You want her to have our precious morphine or a captain in the Red Army?”

Alexander did not answer that question.

After returning, he sat Tatiana up and slipped the dress over her head, taking care not to hurt her or to look at her bare and bandaged body.

“You’re a good man, Alexander,” she said, reaching up and laying her small palm onto his face.

“But a man first,” he said quietly, leaning into her hand. He paused briefly before continuing. “Your leg must hurt so much. Have some vodka again. It’ll dull the pain.”

“All right,” she said. “Anything you say.”

He let her have a few swigs. “Ready to go?”

“Leave me,” Tatiana said. “Go yourself, leave me. They’ll have room for me in the field tent eventually. People die, beds become free.”

“You think I came all the way to Luga to leave you waiting for a hospital bed?” He dismantled his tent and packed up his trench coat and blanket. She sat on the ground. “Let me help you up. Can you stand on one leg?”

“Yes,” she said, groaning. Tatiana stood in front of Alexander, barely coming up to the top of his chest. All he wanted to do was kiss her head. Please don’t look up at me, Alexander thought. She was very unsteady, holding on to his arms and swaying. “Put your rucksack on me,” she said. “It’ll be easier for you.”

He did. “Tania, I’m going to crouch in front of you, and you’re going to grab my neck. Just hold on tight, hear me?”

“I will. What about your rifle?”

“You on my back, rifle in my hands,” Alexander said. “Come on, we’ve got to go.”

She grabbed on to him, and he stood up with her on his back, taking hold of his weapon. “Ready?”

“Yes.”

Alexander heard her groaning. “It hurts?”

Her arms around his neck squeezed him. “It’s not bad.”

Alexander carried Tatiana on his back for three kilometers to Luga Station, which despite his hope was not repaired yet. “What now?” she asked anxiously when he stopped to rest.

He offered her a drink of water. “Now we walk through the woods to the next station.”

“How many kilometers is that?”

“Six,” he replied.

She shook her head. “Alexander, no. You can’t carry me for six more kilometers.”

“Do you have any other ideas?” he asked, crouching in front of her. “Let’s go.”

They were on a forest road making their way to the next train station north when they heard the planes just over the trees. Alexander himself would have continued walking, but he did not want to be walking with Tatiana on his back. If a bomb fell, she would be the first one to get hit.

He walked off the path, bringing her into the woods and setting her down by a fallen tree. “Lie down,” he told her, helping her lean back. He lay by her side, holding on to his rifle. “Turn onto your stomach,” he said. “And cover your head.” She didn’t move. “Don’t be afraid, Tania.”

“How can I be afraid now?” she said haltingly, lying on her back looking up at him. She wasn’t moving. She placed her hands on his chest.

“Go on,” he said, staring at her. “What? Do you need me to help? I should have taken your green helmet from the station.”

“Alexander—”

“Now that it’s morning, I’m suddenly Alexander again?”

Gazing up at him, Tatiana whispered, “Oh, Shura . . .” And Alexander could no longer bear it. He bent to her face and kissed her.

Her lips were as soft and young and full as he had imagined them to be. Tatiana’s whole body started to tremble as she kissed him back with such tenderness, such passion, such need that Alexander involuntarily emitted a small groan. He was bewildered by her hands pressing his head into hers and not letting go. “Oh, God . . .” he whispered into her parted mouth.

The crashing noise of the bombs overhead stopped them. Alexander felt that something had to stop him. The tip of the pine tree nearby caught fire, and bits of burning branches fell down into the damp forest very close to them. He turned her onto her stomach and lay next to her in the moss with his arm and half his body covering her. “Are you all right?” he whispered. “Bombs frighten you?”

“Bombs are the least of it,” she whispered back.

As soon as the shelling stopped, Alexander said, “Let’s go. We’ve got to get to the train. Let’s hurry.”

As she got up, she wouldn’t raise her eyes at him. Turning his back to her, he crouched, and she climbed on. He carried her, his arms under her knees, his hands holding his rifle.

“I’m heavy,” she said into his back.

“You’re no heavier than my ruck,” he said, panting. “Just hang on. We’ll be there soon.”

Every once in a while his rifle bumped her broken leg, and Alexander would feel her constrict in pain, but she didn’t moan, didn’t cry out. At one point he felt her put her head down on his back. He hoped she was all right.

Under a black smoky sky, amid burning woods, Alexander carried Tatiana on his back six kilometers to the next station. The nearby shelling had stopped, but the sound of explosions and artillery guns carried on all around.

At the station Alexander set her down on the ground and sank down next to her. She sidled closer to him and closer still.

“Tired?” she asked him gently.

He nodded.

They waited. The station was full of other people — women with little babies, with their elderly parents, with all their belongings. Grimy and shell-shocked, they waited for the train. Alexander took out a piece of his remaining bread and split it with Tatiana.

“No, you have it,” she said. “You need it more than I do.”

“Did you eat anything yesterday?” Alexander asked her. “No, of course you didn’t.”

“I had a raw potato, some blueberries in the forest. And the chocolate you gave me.” The length of her body and leg pressed against his side. She leaned her head on his arm and closed her eyes.

Alexander put his arm around her. “You’re going to be all right,” he said, kissing her forehead. “You’ll see. Just a little longer, and you’re going to be fine. I promise.”

The train came. It was a cattle train, with no room to sit. “Do you want to wait, maybe?” he asked. “For a passenger train?”

“No,” she replied weakly. “I’m not feeling well. Best get to Leningrad soon. Let’s get on. I’ll stand on one leg.”

Alexander lifted her onto the platform first and then jumped up himself. The carriage was crowded with dozens of other people. They stood near the edge, where they could see the countryside through the open doors. For several hours they stood compressed against each other, Tatiana leaning on him, her head on his chest, and Alexander supporting her as best he could by her arms. He couldn’t hold her tightly around her ribs or on her back. At one point he felt her body start to drift down. “No, stay up, stay up,” he said to her, keeping her upright.

And she stayed up, her arms going around him.

The doors to the carriage were left open in case people wanted to jump off. The train moved past fields and dirt roads that were filled with Soviet farmers dragging their cows and pigs and goats behind them and refugees pulling carts filled with their earthly possessions. Ambulances tried to get through the same roads past the crowds of people; motorcyclists, too. Alexander watched Tatiana’s somber face.

“What are you thinking, Tatia?”

“Why are those silly people carrying their whole lives on their backs? If I were leaving, I wouldn’t take anything. Just myself.”

He smiled. “What about all your things? You have things, don’t you?”

“Yes. But I wouldn’t take any of them.”

“Not even my Bronze Horseman book? You should take that.”

She looked up, attempting a smile. “Maybe that. But either I’m leaving to save myself or I’m saddling myself, slowing myself down, making it easier for the enemy. Don’t you think we should ask ourselves what our purpose is? Are we leaving our home? Are we starting a new life? Or are we planning to continue the old one elsewhere?”

“Those are all good questions.”

“Yes.” Pensively, she stared out at the fields.

Alexander bent and rubbed his cheek against Tatiana’s shorn head, his hand pressing her to him a little tighter. He had only one thing left over from his former life; otherwise America did not exist, except in his memory.

“I wish I could have found my brother,” he heard her whisper.

“I know,” said Alexander with emotion. “I wish I could have found him for you.”

After a pained breath, Tatiana remained silent.

The train arrived at Warsaw Station in the early evening. They sat quietly on the bench overlooking the Obvodnoy Canal and waited for the Number 16 tram to take them to Grechesky Hospital near Tatiana’s house. The tram came. Alexander said, “You want to get on?”

“No,” she replied.

They sat.

The second tram came.

“This one?”

“No,” she replied.

The third came.

“No,” Tatiana said before he even asked, and put her head on his arm.

Four trams came and went — and still they sat, close to each other, not speaking, looking out on the canal.

“In just one more breath,” Tatiana said finally, “on the next tram, you are going to take me back to my old life.”

Alexander said nothing.

Uttering a small cry, Tatiana whispered, “What are we going to do?”

He didn’t reply.

“At Kirov that day,” she asked, “when we fought, did you . . . have a plan?”

He did want to get her out of Leningrad. She wasn’t safe in the city. “Not really.”

“I didn’t think so,” she said, her head against his arm.

Another tram came and went.

“Shura, what do I tell my family about Pasha?”

Tightening his lips, he touched her face. “Tell them you’re sorry. Tell them you did your absolute best.”

“Maybe, like me, he’s alive somewhere?”

“You’re not somewhere,” said Alexander. “You’re with me.”

Tatiana swallowed before she continued. “Yes, but until yesterday, I wasn’t. I was somewhere, too.” She looked at him hopefully. “Maybe?”

Alexander shook his head. “Oh, Tania.”

Tatiana looked away. “Did you have trouble finding me?”

“Not much.” He didn’t want to tell her how he had searched every meter of Luga for her.

“But how did you know to look for me in Luga?”