Alexander caught her in his arms and kissed her, lifting her into the air. Tatiana felt them both slipping back, back, back, and they fell in, and when they came up for air, all decorum gone, Tatiana jumped on him to dunk him, but she just didn’t weigh enough to push him down. He threw her off him and held her head for a few seconds underwater while she grabbed for his leg. “Do you give up?” he asked, pulling her head out.

“Never!” she yelped, and he pushed her back down.

“Do you give up?”

“Never!”

Alexander pushed her back down.

After the fourth time, all out of breath, she said, “Wait, the clothes, the clothes!”

The laundry — undergarments, pillowcases — was all floating cheerfully by.

Alexander went after them. Dripping and laughing, Tatiana went back on shore.

He walked out of the water, dropped the clothes on the ground, and came for her. “What?” she said, dizzied by his expression. “What?”

“Look at you,” he said hotly. “Look at your nipples, look at your body in that dress.”

He lifted her. “Wrap your legs around me.”

“What do you mean?” she said, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him.

“I mean, open your legs and wrap them around me.” Holding her with one hand under her bottom, he moved her leg around his waist with the other hand. “Like this.”

“Shura, I . . . put me down.”

“No.”

Their wet lips would not stop.

When they opened their eyes, Alexander had to put Tatiana down, because six women from the village were standing at the clearing, holding their clothes baskets, staring at them with a look of perplexed and frankly disapproving confusion.

“We were just leaving,” Tatiana muttered as Alexander draped something wet over her shoulders to cover her see-through dress. She never wore a bra, didn’t own one, and for the first time in her life she was aware of her nipples poking out and being seen through a sheer item of clothing. It was as if suddenly she saw herself with Alexander’s eyes.

“Well, that will be all over Lazarevo tomorrow,” she said. “Could it be any more humiliating?”

“I would say yes,” said Alexander, leaning into her. “They could have come three minutes later.”

Turning bright red, Tatiana didn’t respond. Laughing, he put his arm around her.

When they got to the house, Tatiana in a wet dress and Alexander in wet trousers and nothing else, the old ladies looked mortified. “The clothes floated away,” Tatiana explained — unsatisfactorily, she felt. “We had to dive in and rescue them.”

“Well, I’ve never heard of such a thing happening,” mumbled Dusia, crossing herself. “In all my years of living.”

Alexander disappeared into the house, emerging five minutes later dressed in his khaki army trousers, black army boots, and the white ribbed sleeveless top Tatiana had sewn for him. She peered at him through the sheets she was haphazardly hanging. He was crouching as he rummaged through his rucksack. She watched Alexander in profile, his bare muscled arms, his soldier’s body, his spiky wet black hair, a cigarette in the corner of his lips — Tatiana’s breath was taken away from her, he looked so beautiful. He turned his head to her and smiled.

“I have a dry dress for you,” he said, and out of his rucksack he produced her white dress with red roses.

He told her how he had retrieved it from Fifth Soviet.

“I don’t think it’ll fit me anymore,” she said, very moved. “But maybe I’ll try it on another day?”

“Fine,” Alexander said, stuffing it back into his rucksack. “You can wear it for me another day.” He picked up his rifle and all his belongings. “You don’t need anything. You’re done here. Let’s go.”

“Where are we going?”

“Away from here,” he said, lowering his voice. “Where we can be uninterrupted and alone.”

They stared at each other.

“Bring money,” he said.

“I thought you said we didn’t need anything?”

“And bring your passport. We might go to Molotov.”

The immense excitement Tatiana felt vanquished all guilt as she told the four ladies she was leaving. Naira said, “Are you going to be back for dinner?”

Slinging his rifle on his back and taking Tatiana by the hand, Alexander said, “Probably not.”

“But, Tania, our sewing circle is today at three.”

“Yes . . .” Alexander drew out. “Tania won’t be joining you today. But you ladies have a great session.”

They ran down to the river. Tatiana never even looked back.

“Where are we going?”

“Your grandparents’ house.”

“Why there? It’s such a mess.”

“We’ll see about that.”

“And we had such a fight there yesterday.”

“No.” He gazed at her. “You know what we had there yesterday?”

Tatiana knew. She made no reply but held his hand tighter.

When they got to the clearing, Tatiana walked inside the izba, which was empty but spotless. It was a one-room cabin with four long windows and a great big furnace stove in the center that took up half the room. There was not an item of furniture, but the wooden floor had been mopped, the windows were clean, and even the sheer white curtains had been washed and dried and no longer smelled moldy. Tatiana peeked out. Alexander was on his knees driving a tent stake into the ground. His back was to her. She put her hand on her heart. Come on, calm down, she told herself.

Walking outside, she collected some twigs into a bundle in case he wanted to make a fire.

Tatiana was paralyzed by fear and love, walking around the sandy pine-needle banks of the river Kama during a sunlit noon in June.

She took off her sandals and put her feet into the cool water. She could not go near Alexander now, but maybe later they could go swimming. “Watch out!” she heard from behind her. Alexander sprinted into the water and dove in, wearing just his army skivvies.

“Tania, want to go swimming?” he called to her.

Her heart pounding, she shook her head. “I see you know how to swim very well,” she said, watching him do the backstroke.

He lifted his face to her from the water. “I know how to swim,” he said. “Come in, I’ll race you.” He grinned. “Underwater. All the way to the other side.”

If she weren’t so nervous, she would have grinned back and then taken him up on it.

Alexander came out, pulling back his wet hair. His naked chest, his naked arms, his naked legs glistened. He was laughing; to Tatiana he appeared to be glowing from the inside out. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from his taut, magnificent body. His wet skivvies clung to him—

No, she was not going to make it.

“Feels good,” Alexander said, coming up to her. “Come on, let’s swim.”

Tatiana shook her head, backing away on unsteady legs to the edge of the clearing, where she picked some blueberries off the low bushes. Please, calm down, she kept repeating to herself. Please.

“Tatia,” he called quietly from right behind her, and she turned around. He was drying himself off. She handed him some blueberries; he took them but didn’t let go of her hand, gently pulling her down to the grass. “You sweet girl, sit down for a minute.”

Tatiana sat on the grass, and Alexander knelt in front of her. Leaning forward, he very softly kissed her lips. Tatiana stroked his arms. She could barely breathe.

“Tatia . . . Tatiasha,” he said huskily, taking her hands and kissing them, kissing her wrists and the insides of her forearms.

“Yes?” she said, just as huskily.

“We’re alone together.”

“I know,” she replied, suppressing a moan.

“We have privacy.”

“Hmm.”

“Privacy, Tania!” Alexander said intensely. “For the first time in our life you and I have real privacy. We had it yesterday. And we have it today.”

She couldn’t take the emotion in his crème brûlée eyes. She lowered her gaze.

“Look at me.”

“I can’t,” she whispered.

Alexander cupped her small face in his massive hands. “Are you . . . scared?”

“Terrified.”

“No. Please, don’t be scared of me.” He kissed her deeply on the lips, so deeply, so fully, so lovingly, that Tatiana felt the aching pit inside her open up and flare upward. She tottered, physically unable to continue sitting upright. “Tatiasha,” he said, “why are you so beautiful? Why?”

“I’m a rag,” she said. “Look at you.”

He hugged her. “God, what a blessing.” Pulling away, Alexander took her hands. “Tania, you are my miracle, you know that, don’t you? You are the one God sent me to give me faith.” He paused. “He sent you to redeem me, to comfort me, and to heal me — and that’s just so far,” he added with a smile. “I’m barely able to hold myself together right now, I want to make love to you so much . . .” Here he stopped. “I know you’re afraid. I will never hurt you. Will you come into my tent with me?”

“Yes,” Tatiana said, softly but audibly.

Alexander carried her in his arms to his tent, setting her down on his blanket and closing the tent flaps behind them. It was subdued and dusky inside, with only the barest sunlight filtering in through the open ties. “I would have brought you inside the nice, clean house,” he said, smiling, “but we have no quilts, no pillows, and it’s all wood and a hard furnace top.”

“Mmm,” Tatiana muttered. “Tent is good.” She could have been on a marble floor of the Peterhof Palace for all she cared.

Alexander was hugging her to him, but all she wanted was to be lying down in front of him. How did he do that? “Shura,” she whispered.

“Yes,” he whispered back, kissing her neck.

But he wasn’t . . . he wasn’t doing anything else, as if he were waiting, or thinking, or . . .

Alexander pulled away from her, and she saw by the reserve in his eyes that something was troubling him.

“What’s the matter?”

He couldn’t look at her. “You said so many upset things to me yesterday . . . not that I don’t deserve all of them . . .”

“You don’t deserve all of them.” She smiled. “What?”

He took a deep breath.

“Ask me.” She knew what he wanted from her.

His eyes remained lowered.

Shaking her head, Tatiana said, “Lift your head. Look at me.” He did. Kneeling in front of him, Tatiana held his face between her hands, kissed his lips, and said, “Alexander, the answer is yes . . . yes . . . of course I’ve saved myself for you. I belong to you. What are you even thinking?”

His happy, relieved, excited eyes flowed into her. “Oh, Tania.” For a moment he didn’t speak. “You have no idea . . . what that means to me—”

“Shh,” she whispered. She knew.

He closed his eyes. “You were right,” he said emotionally. “I don’t deserve what you have to give me.”

“If not you, who?” said Tatiana, hugging him. “Where are your hands? I want them.”

“My hands?” He kissed her ardently. “Lift your arms.” He took off her sundress and laid her down on the blanket, kneeling over her, roaming over her face and throat with his hungry lips, roaming over her body with his hungry fingers.

“Now I need you completely naked before me, all right?” he whispered.

“All right.”

He took off her white cotton panties, and Tatiana in her weakness watched him in his weakness, staring at her and then uttering, “No, I can’t take it . . .”

He put his cheek against her breast. “Your heart is pounding like gunfire . . .” He licked her nipples. “Don’t be scared.”

“All right,” Tatiana whispered, her hands in his damp hair.

Bending over her, Alexander whispered, “You tell me what you want me to do, and I’ll do it. I’ll go as slow as you need me to. What do you want?”

Tatiana couldn’t reply. She wanted to ask him to bring her instant relief from the fire but could not. She had to trust in Alexander.

His palm pressing into her stomach, Alexander whispered, “Look at you, your wet, erect nipples standing up, pleading with me to suck them.”

“Suck them,” Tatiana whispered, moaning.

He did. “Yes. Moan, moan as loud as you want. No one can hear you but me, and I came sixteen hundred kilometers to hear you, so moan, Tania.” His mouth, his tongue, his teeth devoured her breasts as her back and chest and hips arched into him.

Lying down on his side next to her, Alexander eased his hand between her thighs.

“Wait, wait,” she said, trying to keep her legs together.

“No, open,” Alexander said, his hand pushing her legs apart. With his fingers he traced her thigh upward. “Shh,” he whispered, wrapping his free arm around her neck. “Tania, you’re trembling.” His fingers touched her. Her body stiffened. Alexander’s breath stopped. Tatiana’s breath stopped. “Do you feel how gently I rub you,” he whispered, his lips on her cheek. “You . . . so blonde all over.”