2
One night a week later, Tatiana woke up feeling her face being stroked. She wanted to open her eyes, but it felt so much like a dream, and she felt so drugged and tired that she let her eyes stay closed. A man with big hands and vodka on his breath was stroking her face. She knew only one man with big hands. She kept her eyes shut, but she knew that her breathing pattern had changed from sleepy breaths to shallow rasps. He stopped touching her. “Tatia?”
She so wanted the illusion to continue. The illusion of being touched by Alexander in the middle of an August night. Tatiana opened her eyes.
It was Alexander. He wasn’t wearing his hat. There was that look in his molasses eyes again; even in the dark she could make it out.
“Did I wake you?” He smiled.
She sat up. “Yes. I think.” She reached out and touched his arm. “It seems like the middle of the night.”
“It is,” he said. He stared at her blanket, and she looked at the top of his black head. “It’s around three.”
They were speaking in just above a whisper.
“What’s the matter?” she asked. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. I just wanted to see if you were all right. I keep . . . thinking of you here by yourself. Are you sad? Lonely?”
“Yes and yes,” Tatiana said. She smelled vodka on him. “Have you been drinking?”
“Hmm.” His wandering eyes were slightly unfocused. “For the first time in a while. I had a night off tonight. Marazov and I went out, had a few drinks.” He stopped. “Tatia . . .”
Her heart pounding, she waited breathlessly. His hands were on her blanket. Her legs were underneath the blanket. “Shura,” she said, and suddenly, for an instant, felt happy. The way she felt coming out of Kirov and turning her head and seeing his smile. Happier.
Alexander said, “I can’t find the right words. I thought maybe after I’d had enough to drink . . .”
“Every word you’re saying is the right word,” Tatiana told him. “What?”
Alexander took her hands and pressed them to his chest. His head remained bent. He said nothing.
What to do? Tatiana was a child. Any other girl would know what to do. She didn’t even know what the right thing might be. I’m like a newborn. How I wish I knew what to do now in this moment with him. In my hospital bed, with my ribs taped up, with my leg in a cast, yes, but alone with him.
Dasha’s face appeared between them, as if Tatiana’s conscience could not let her heart have even a moment of stolen joy. That is how it should be, she said to herself, wanting desperately to lift his head and kiss him. Suddenly Dasha’s face evaporated. Tatiana leaned toward him and kissed his hair. It smelled of soap and smoke. Alexander looked up. They were centimeters away from each other; she smelled his delicious, vodka-laden, Alexander-laden breath. “I’m so happy you came to see me, Shura,” she whispered, feeling an aching pull in her lower body.
Alexander tilted his head and kissed her deeply on the lips. He let go of her hands, and she wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing herself against him. They kissed as if in a fever . . . they kissed as if the breath were leaving their bodies.
The aching in her stomach got to be too much to bear; Tatiana opened her mouth and moaned. Alexander took her face into his hands. “You sweet thing,” he murmured. “You’re the sweetest thing. I don’t know what to do, what to do, Tania.” He kissed her lips and licked them with his tongue and kissed her eyes and her cheeks and her neck. Tatiana moaned again, still holding on to him; she felt herself incinerating from within. His lips were so insistent and hungry that Tatiana, suddenly unable to breathe or sit, started to float down onto the bed.
Alexander held her up. Tatiana felt his hands gently moving up and down on her partially exposed back where her nightgown opened. Slowly he untied the strings of her gown. Alexander was completely clothed, sitting on her bed and kissing her as he pulled the nightgown down. Tatiana breathed out, shuddering.
He pulled back from her face, still holding her, still whispering. His eyes were blazing. “Tania, you are too much for me . . . I can’t take you, not in small doses, not in large ones, not here, not on the street, nowhere.” His hands moved around to hold her just above her bandaged ribs.
“Shura,” she whispered, her whole aching weakness in her voice. “What’s happening to me? What is this?”
Alexander cupped her breasts and fondled them. Flattening out his palms, he rubbed her nipples in circles. Tatiana moaned. He rubbed them harder. Pulling away and staring at her breasts, he muttered, “Oh, God . . . look at you . . .” Tatiana watched him as he bent down to her breast, put her nipple in his mouth, and sucked it, while rubbing her other nipple with his fingers. Then he sucked the other nipple. Watching and feeling Alexander’s lips on her nipples utterly overwhelmed Tatiana. Her hands clutching his head, she moaned so loudly that he pulled away and lightly put his hand over her mouth. “Shh,” he whispered. “They’ll hear you outside.” His right hand never stopped. Spanning her, his thumb and his little finger kneaded her nipples. Tatiana moaned just as loudly. His left hand went around her mouth a little firmer. “Shh,” he said, smiling, short of breath.
“Shura, I’m going to die.”
“No, Tatia.”
“Breathe on me . . .”
He breathed on her. She kissed him hotly, her hands not leaving his hair. The friction and pressure on her breasts from his fingers was making her delirious; she moaned with such abandon that Alexander moved away. Tatiana sat in the blue light, topless, naked to the hips, gazing at him and panting. Her hands were gripping the hospital sheet.
“Tania,” Alexander said, looking at her with wonder and lust. “How can you be so innocent in this day and age? How can you be so innocent?”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I wish I knew more.”
Moving flush with her, he held her to him. “Knew more?”
“Had more experience. I just—”
“You’re joking, right?” Alexander whispered fiercely. “Don’t you understand me at all? It’s your innocence that’s driving me mad. Can’t you see that?”
His hands caressed her. “Don’t moan,” he said. “They’ll have me arrested.”
Tatiana wanted him to — but she wasn’t brave enough to say it. Gently she pushed his head downward. The only thing she could manage in a stilted whisper was, “Please . . .”
Smiling, he went to lock the door. The door wouldn’t lock. He took his rifle and stuck it against the door handle.
Alexander came back to Tatiana, laid her flat on the bed, covered her mouth, bent to her breasts, and sucked her nipples until she nearly fainted, quivering the whole time and groaning into the palm of his hand.
“God, is there more?” she whispered, panting.
“Have you ever had more?” Alexander asked, panting himself.
Tatiana stared into his face. To tell him the truth? He was a man — how could she tell him? She didn’t want to lie to him. She said nothing.
He sat up, pulling her up, too. “Have you? Tell me the truth. Please. I must know. Have you ever had more?”
She didn’t want to lie to him. “No,” she said. “I haven’t had more.”
His eyes glazed with amazement, heartache, and desire, Alexander lowered his head and said, “Oh, Tania, what are we going to do?”
“Shura . . .” Tatiana whispered, having forgotten everything else in the universe. She took his hands and put them on her breasts. “Please, Shura, please.”
Alexander quietly moved his hands away to rest on her legs. “We can’t here.”
“Then where?”
He couldn’t even look up at her.
Tatiana saw he didn’t have an answer. “What about you?” she said, nearly crying. “Don’t you want more? Don’t you need something for yourself?”
“God, yes.” His voice was hoarse.
“What is it? What can I do?”
Smiling lightly, he whispered, “What are you offering?”
“I have no idea.” Tatiana timidly touched his thigh. “But I’ll do anything.” She kissed his neck. “Anything,” she whispered. “You tell me what to do and I’ll do it.” She moved her hand a little higher. Her fingers were trembling.
Now it was Alexander’s turn to groan. He gripped her hand, and said, “Tania, wait — is this how you want it to be for you?”
“I don’t know,” she moaned back, licking his lips. “I want it any—”
Suddenly the door moved and light streaked into the room. A nurse’s voice sounded from the outside. “Tatiana? Are you all right? What’s wrong with the door?”
Quickly Tatiana pulled up her nightgown, and Alexander went to his rifle, picked it up, turned on the light in the room, and opened the door.
“Everything is fine,” he said, an air of formality enveloping him. “Just came to say good night to Tatiana.”
“Good night?” the nurse shrieked. “Are you an idiot or something? It’s four in the morning. There are no visiting hours at four in the morning.”
“Nurse! You’re forgetting yourself,” said Alexander, raising his voice. “I’m a lieutenant in the Red Army.”
Substantially more quietly, the nurse said, “I heard screams, I thought she was hurt.”
“I’m fine,” said Tatiana, and her voice was all croaky. “We were just laughing.”
“And I was just leaving,” Alexander said.
“You’re going to wake up my other patients,” the nurse said.
“Good night, Tatiana,” Alexander said, his eyes boring into her. “I hope your leg feels better.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Tatiana said. “Come again soon.”
“Just not at four in the morning,” the nurse mumbled, coming inside to check on Tatiana. Behind the nurse’s back, Alexander pressed his fingers to his lips and blew Tatiana a kiss. Then he was gone.
There was no more sleep to be had that night, or the following morning. Tatiana had Vera bathe her twice, and kept obsessively brushing her teeth and tongue all day to make sure her breath was clean. She had no food, only water to drink, though by the afternoon, she nibbled on some bread left over from lunch.
Tatiana had thought that guilt would overtake her, that the force of conscience would make her unable to face herself and her thoughts. But that wasn’t the case. The only thing she kept reliving was the evening minute on fiery wings with Alexander on her breasts and lips.
Nothing in Tatiana’s former life had prepared her for Alexander.
There was school and there was Fifth Soviet, and there was Luga. In Luga, Tatiana had had many friends and many endless summers of mindless adventures. In Luga there had been nothing but the abandon of childhood, and in every step of that childhood there was Pasha, in her games and in her days.
It wasn’t that Tatiana had not been occasionally and peripherally aware that every once in a while one of Pasha’s friends looked at her for a little too long or stood too close to her. It was that she herself had never looked too long at anyone.
Until Alexander.
He was new. Transcendentally new. Immemorially new. She had thought all the while that their instant familiarity was based on the things she understood — compassion, empathy, fondness, friendship. Two people resoundingly coming together. Needing to sit close together on the tram, to bump into each other, to make each other laugh. Needing each other. Needing happiness. Needing youth.
But now Tatiana could not believe her preternatural desire for him. Her suffocating need for him. Simply could not fathom it. The throbbing in her lower stomach continued unabated all day as she bathed and brushed her teeth and brushed her hair.
That evening before Vera left, Tatiana asked her for some lipstick.
When Dasha, Alexander, and Dimitri came to see her, Dasha took one look at Tatiana and said, “Tania, I’ve never seen you wear lipstick before. Look at your lips.” Dasha said it as if realizing for the first time that Tatiana actually had lips.
Dimitri came over, sat on her bed, and said, smiling, “Yes, just look at them.”
Only Alexander kept quiet. Tatiana couldn’t read his expression because she could not bring herself to raise her eyes. She realized that the consequence of last night was going to be her complete inability to ever look at him in public again.
They stayed for a short time. Alexander got up and said he had to be getting back.
Tatiana sat catatonically until she heard a knock on the door, and Alexander came in, closing the door behind him. She pulled herself up straight. He came over in long purposeful strides, sat at the edge of her bed, and in a tender, possessive gesture wiped the lipstick off her lips. “What is that?” he asked.
“All the other girls wear it,” Tatiana said, quickly wiping her mouth, breathless at the sight of him. “Including Dasha.”
“Well, I don’t want you to have anything on your lovely face,” he said, stroking her cheeks. “God knows, you don’t need it.”
“All right,” she said, wiping her mouth, and waited. Her head fell back on the pillow as she raised her expectant, earnest eyes to him, her expectant, earnest lips to him.
Alexander was quiet. “Tania,” he finally said with a great sigh, “about last night . . .”
She groaned.
“See,” he said, the resolve in his eyes fading, “that’s exactly what you can’t do.”
“All right,” she said hoarsely, holding on to his sleeve. Reaching up, she traced his lips with her fingers. “Shura . . .”
Alexander moved his face away and stood up. The sheen had gone from his eyes. Tatiana stared at him in bewilderment. “I’m sorry about last night,” he said coolly. “I had too much to drink. I took advantage of you—”
“No,” she said, shaking her head.
He nodded. “I did. It was a terrible mistake. I shouldn’t have come here; you know it even better than I do.”
Speechlessly Tatiana shook her head.
“God, I know, Tania,” said Alexander, his face constricted. “But we live an impossible life. Where can we—”
“Right here,” she whispered, turning bright red, not looking at him.
The nurse walked in to check on Tatiana, looking askance at Alexander. They remained mute until she walked out.
“Right here?” Alexander said. “What, with the nurses outside the door? For fifteen minutes right here, that’s what you want for yourself?”
Tatiana didn’t reply. She felt as if she would have taken five minutes with the nurses inside the door. Her eyes remained lowered.
“All right, and then what?” Alexander said, letting out a heavy breath. “What then for us?” He paused. “What then for you?”
“I don’t know,” she said, biting her lip to keep herself from crying. “What then for everyone?”
“Everyone has it off in the alleys against the wall!” Alexander exclaimed. “And on garden benches, and in their barracks, and in communal apartments with their parents on the sofa! Everyone else does not have Dasha in her bed. Does not have Dimitri.” He glanced away. “Everyone else is not you, Tatiana.”
She turned onto her side, away from him.
“You deserve better than that.”
She didn’t want him to see her tears.
“I came here to apologize to you and to say I won’t let it happen again.”
She closed her eyes, trying not to shake, blinded for a moment. “All right.”
Alexander walked around the bed to stand in her line of sight. He wasn’t letting go of his rifle. Tatiana wiped her face. “Tania, please don’t cry,” he said emotionally. “Last night I came here ready to sacrifice everything, you included, to satisfy the burning inside me I’ve had since the day we met. But God was looking out for you, and He stopped us, and more important He stopped me, and I, in the gray of the morning, am less confused . . .” Alexander paused. “Though only more desperate for you.” He took a long breath, staring at his rifle.
Tatiana could not find her voice to speak.
Alexander said, “You and I—” then broke off, shaking his head. “But the time is all wrong for us.”
She turned onto her back, putting her arm over her face. The time, the place, the life. “Couldn’t you have thought this through before you came here?” she said. “Couldn’t you have had this talk with yourself before last night?”
“I cannot stay away from you,” he said. “Last night I was drunk. But tonight I’m sober. And I’m sorry.”
Tears choking her throat, Tatiana said nothing.
Alexander left without touching her.