7
Dasha wrote to Alexander each day; every single day she wrote him a short letter. How lucky she is, Tatiana thought. To be able to write to him, to have him receive her thoughts, how lucky.
They also wrote to their widowed Babushka in Molotov.
Letters back from her were rare.
The mail was terrible.
Then it stopped coming at all.
When the mail stopped coming to the building, Tatiana started going to the post office on Old Nevsky, where an old gray man with no teeth sat and gave her the mail only after asking her if she had any food for him. She would bring him a remainder of a small cracker. Finally she got a letter from Alexander to Dasha.
My dear Dasha, and everyone else,
The saving grace of war is that most women don’t have to see it, only the nurses who tend to us, and they are immune to our pain.
Across from Shlisselburg we’re trying to supply the island fortress Oreshek with munitions. A small group of soldiers has been holding that island since September, despite intense German shelling from the banks of Lake Ladoga just 200 meters away. You remember Oreshek? Lenin’s brother Alexander was hanged there in 1887 for his part in the plot to assassinate Alexander III.
Now that war has started, the sailors and soldiers guarding the entrance to the Neva are lauded as heroes of the New Russia — the Russia after Hitler. We are all told that after we win, everything will be completely different in the Soviet Union. It will be a much better life, we are promised, but for that life we have to be prepared to die. Lay down your life, we are told, so your children can live.
All right, we say. The fighting doesn’t end, even at night. Neither does the rain. We have been wet all day and all night for seven days. We can’t dry out. Three of my men have died of pneumonia. It almost seems cosmically unfair to die from pneumonia, when Hitler is so intent on killing us himself. I’m glad I’m not in Moscow right now. Have you heard much about what’s going on there? I think that’s what’s saving us. Saving you. Hitler diverted a large part of his Army Group Nord, including most of his planes and tanks, away from Leningrad for his attack on Moscow. If Moscow falls, we’re done for, but right now it’s our only reprieve.
I’m fine myself. I don’t like being wet much. They still feed us officers. Each day I have meat I think of you.
Be well. Tell Tatiana to walk close to the sides of the buildings. Except when the bombs are falling; then tell her to stop walking and wait in a doorway. Tell her to wear the helmet I left.
Girls, under no circumstances give away your bread. Stay clear of the roof.
And use the soap I left you. Remember that you always feel slightly better about things when you’re clean. My father told me that. I will add it’s impossible to keep yourself clean on the winter front. But on the plus side, it’s so cold here that the lice that spread typhus can’t live.
Believe me when I tell you I think of you every minute of every day.
Until I see you again, I remain distantly
Yours,
Alexander
Tatiana wore the helmet. She used the soap. She waited in the doorways. But for some reason all she could think about with a peculiar and prolonged aching, as she didn’t take off her felt boots, her felt hat, and her quilted coat, which Mama had made in the days when there was a sewing machine, was Alexander being wet all day and night in his uniform on the icy Ladoga.