3
They lay under their blankets in semiconsciousness. During the night Tatiana woke up hearing a knock on the door. It took her many minutes to get out of bed from under the coats and blankets. Unsteadily she walked through the dark hallway.
Alexander stood at the door dressed in his white battle uniform. Over his ears and head was a quilted hat, and in his hands he held a blanket.
“What’s the matter?” she said, putting her hand on her chest. Seeing him, Tatiana’s heart pulsed a beat faster, even in the middle of the night. Her eyes opened a bit wider; she was awake. “What’s happened?”
“Nothing,” he said. “Get yourself and Dasha ready; where is she? She needs to get ready.”
“Where are we going? Dasha can’t get up,” Tatiana said. “You know that. She is coughing badly.”
“She will get up,” Alexander replied. “Come on. There is an armament truck leaving the garrison tonight. I will get you to Ladoga, and then you will go to Kobona. Tania! I will get you out of Leningrad.”
He walked through the hallway and came into the bedroom. Dasha was lying under her blankets and coats. Her lips were not moving, her eyes would not open.
“Dasha,” Alexander whispered. “Dashenka, dear, wake up. We’ve got to leave. Right now, we’ve got to go. Quick.”
Without opening her eyes, Dasha muttered, “I can’t get up.”
“You can get up, and you will get up,” he said. “An armament truck is waiting at the barracks. I will get you to Lake Ladoga. Then we will get you across the lake. Tonight. You’ll get to Kobona, where there is food, and then you girls can go to your Babushka in Molotov. But you have to get up right now, Dasha. Now, let’s go.” He moved the blankets off her.
Dasha whispered, “I can’t get to the barracks.”
“Tania has a sled. And look!” He opened his coat and took out a piece of white bread with a crust. Breaking off a hunk of the soft inside, he put it to Dasha’s mouth. “White bread! Eat. It will give you strength.”
Dasha opened her mouth. She chewed listlessly without opening her eyes and then coughed. Tatiana stood nearby, wrapped in her own coat with a blanket over her shoulders, looking at the piece of bread the way she once used to look at Alexander. Maybe Dasha won’t finish it all. Maybe there will be some left for me.
It was only a little piece. Dasha ate everything. “Is there more?” she asked.
“Only the crust,” Alexander replied.
“I’ll have it.”
“You can’t chew it.”
“I’ll swallow it whole.”
“Dasha . . . maybe your sister can have it?” he asked with feeling.
“She’s standing, isn’t she?”
Alexander looked up at Tatiana, who was standing next to him. Shaking her head, she said, looking longingly at the crust, “Give it to her. I’m standing.”
Breathing in deeply, Alexander gave the crust to Dasha and then, rising to his feet, said to Tatiana, “Let’s get going. What do you need to do to get ready? Can I help you pack?”
Tatiana stared at him with empty eyes. “I have nothing. I’m ready now. My boots are on. My coat is on. We’ve sold everything and burned everything else.”
“Everything?” he asked her in the darkness — one word, brimming with the past.
“I have . . . the books—” She broke off.
“Bring them,” Alexander said and, leaning closer to her, continued, “Check out the back cover of Pushkin when you’re feeling particularly down on your luck. Where are they?”
Alexander crawled under the bed to get her books, while Tatiana found Pasha’s old backpack. Then he lifted Dasha and forced her to stand up. In the dark the three silhouettes struggled in silence, with only Dasha’s intermittent moans and chesty coughing breaking the night into shards. Finally Alexander picked her up and carried her out of the apartment, and they slid down the stairs. Outside in the bitter night he laid Dasha across the sled, covering her with the blanket he had brought. Alexander and Tatiana picked up the reins and slowly pulled Dasha down the streets through the snow in the girls’ childhood blue sled with bright red runners.
“What’s going to happen to Dasha?” Tatiana said quietly.
“In Kobona there is food and a hospital. Once she is better, you will go to Molotov.”
“She sounds bad.”
Alexander didn’t say anything.
“Why is she coughing like that?” Tatiana said, and coughed herself.
Alexander didn’t say anything.
“I haven’t heard from Babushka in so long.”
“She is fine. She is better off than you,” Alexander said. “Is it hard for you to pull? Just walk beside me. Let go of the sled.”
“No.” It was a tremendous effort. “Let me help you.”
“Save your strength.” He made her release the rope. Tatiana let go and walked alongside him.
“Hold on to my arm,” Alexander told her. She did.
The night was so cold, Tatiana stopped feeling her feet. Leningrad was still and silent and almost completely dark. In the sky the translucent banded lights of the aurora borealis streaked green through the blackness. Tatiana turned around to look at Dasha, who lay motionless in the sled.
“She seems so weak,” Tatiana said.
“She is weak.”
“How do you manage?” she asked in a low voice. “How do you manage to carry your weapon, to stand guard, to go and fight, to be strong for all of us?”
“I give you,” said Alexander, glancing at her, “what you need most from me.”
They trod mutely through the snow. Alexander got slower. Tatiana took the second rope from his hands. He did not protest.
“I’ll feel better knowing you two are out of Leningrad. I’ll feel better knowing you’re safe,” he said. “Don’t you think it will be better?”
Tatiana didn’t reply. Better to eat, yes. Better for Dasha to eat, yes.
But not better for Alexander, not better for her. Not better to stop seeing him. She said none of these things. And then she heard his soft “I know.” And wanted to cry, but she knew crying was impossible. Her eyes exposed to the black frost, sore from the wind, half shut from the cold, were dry.
When they finally got to the barracks an hour later, the army truck was minutes away from leaving. Alexander carried Dasha inside the covered vehicle. There were six soldiers sitting on the floor, and a young woman holding a small infant sitting next to a man who looked barely alive. He looks much worse than Dasha, Tatiana thought, but when she looked at Dasha, she saw that her sister could not even sit up by herself. Every time Alexander sat her up Dasha would tilt to one side. Tatiana needed help getting inside the truck. She could not jump up or pull herself up by her arms. She needed someone to lift her. All the people inside the truck were oblivious to her, including Alexander, who was trying anxiously and solicitously to get Dasha to open her eyes. Someone from the outside shouted, “Go!” And the truck started slowly moving forward in the snow. “Shura!” Tatiana cried.
Alexander crawled across the floor of the truck, grabbing Tatiana’s arms and pulling her in.
“Did you forget about me?” she asked and saw Dasha’s open eyes watching them.
The door closed, and it became very dark, and in the dark, on her hands and knees, Tatiana made her way to Dasha.
In silence they drove toward Lake Ladoga.
Alexander sat on the floor next to his rifle. Dasha lay on the sawdust-covered floor with her head in his lap. Tatiana picked up her sister’s feet and slid under them, closer to Alexander. Dasha now lay nearly on top of them. Alexander had her head, Tatiana had her feet. Alexander leaned against the wall of the cabin, and Tatiana leaned against the wall of the truck. She picked up a piece of sawdust and put it in her mouth. It tasted like bread. She had another piece.
“Don’t eat that, Tania,” said Alexander. How could he see her? “It’s filthy.”
Time passed. In the occasional flicker of light, Tatiana would catch Alexander staring at her. Their eyes met and held until the light from the passing vehicle dimmed. Without saying a word, without touching each other, they sat on the floor and in every lit moment caught each other’s gaze.
Endless minutes passed.
“What time is it, do you know?” Tatiana asked quietly.
Alexander said, “Two in the morning. We’ll be there soon.”
Tatiana wanted to eat, and she wanted to stop being cold. She wanted her sister to get better, to get up. At the same time, leaving for Molotov seemed so final.
She waited for another light so she could catch Alexander’s eye for a second or two. Her eyes got used to the dark, and she could make out his silhouette, his head and hat, the shape of his arms that lay around Dasha to keep her warm. Tatiana squeezed Dasha’s legs, first softly, then harder. She shook Dasha’s legs, first softly, then harder. Dasha stirred a bit and coughed. Relieved, Tatiana closed her eyes, only to instantly open them again. She didn’t want to close her eyes. In a little while she would be across the Ladoga ice, away from him. If I reach out, I can almost touch him, she thought.
“Tania?” she heard his voice.
“Yes — Alexander?”
“What’s the name of the village your grandmother lives in?”
“Lazarevo.” She stretched out her hand to him. He stretched out his hand to her.
“Lazarevo.” Passing light. Alexander and Tatiana touched each other. Darkness again.
Alexander fell asleep. Dasha was asleep. All the people in the truck had their eyes closed, except for Tatiana, who could not take her eyes off Alexander’s sleeping form. Maybe I’m dead, she thought. Dead people can’t close their eyes. Maybe that’s why I can’t sleep. I’m dead. But she could not close her eyes. She watched him. Both his hands were on Dasha’s head.
“Alexander, why didn’t you buy yourself an ice cream, too?”
“I didn’t want one.”
“Then why are you looking so longingly at mine?”
“I’m not looking longingly at your ice cream.”
“No? Would you like a taste?”
“All right.” He bent and had a lick of her creamy ice cream.
“Isn’t it good?”
“So good, Tania.”
Finally the truck stopped. Alexander opened his eyes. The other people stirred. The woman with the baby got up first and whispered to her husband, “Leonid, come on, dear, time to get across, get up, darling.”
Alexander moved out from under Dasha, stood, and gave his arm to Tatiana. “Get up, Tatia,” he said softly. “It’s time.” He pulled her up. She swayed from weakness.
“Shura,” she said, “what am I going to do with Dasha in Kobona? She can’t walk. And I’m not you, I can’t carry her.”
“Don’t worry. There will be soldiers and doctors to help you. Look at that woman,” he whispered to her. “She carries her baby, but her husband can’t hold himself up, just like Dasha. She’ll manage. You’ll see. Come, I’ll help you down.”
Jumping down, he extended his arms to Tatiana, who could not have jumped down if she wanted to. Alexander lifted her and brought her down to stand in front of him. He did not let go.
“Go get Dasha, Shura,” Tatiana whispered.
“Come on! Let’s move it!” a sergeant shouted behind them. Alexander let go of Tatiana and grimly turned around. The sergeant quickly apologized to the captain.
Tatiana saw four other trucks with their lights on, shining down on the snow-covered field ahead. She realized that it wasn’t a field. It was Lake Ladoga. It was the Road of Life.
“Come on, come on, comrades! Walk down to the lake. There is a truck waiting there for you. Come on, the quicker you get inside, the quicker we can go. It’s thirty kilometers, a couple of hours on the ice, but there’s butter on the other side, and maybe even some cheese. Hurry!”
The woman with the baby was already walking down the hill with her husband limping beside her.
Dasha was in Alexander’s arms. “Stand her up, Shura,” said Tatiana. “Let’s get her to walk.”
He put Dasha down, but her legs buckled under her. “Come on, Dasha,” said Tatiana. “Walk with me. There’s butter on the other side, did you hear?”
Dasha groaned. “Where am I?” she whispered.
“You’re at the Road of Life. Now, come on. In just a little while we’re going to eat, and we’re going to be all right. A doctor will look at you.”
“Are you coming with us?” Dasha asked Alexander.
He supported her with his arm. “No, Dasha, I stay. My Zenith is just up ahead. But write to me as soon as you get to Molotov, and when I get furlough, I’ll come and see you.” Alexander said it without glancing at Tatiana, but Tatiana couldn’t hear it without glancing at Alexander.
Dasha moved a few meters by herself and then sank to the snow. “I can’t.”
“You can, and you will,” said Tatiana. “Come on. Show him your life means something. Show him you can walk to the truck to save yourself. Come on, Dasha.” They lifted Dasha to her feet.
She walked another few meters and stopped. “No,” she whispered.
Holding Dasha up between them, Alexander and Tatiana walked down the slope to the lake, where the army truck was waiting.
Alexander lifted Dasha and laid her on the floor of the truck. Then he hopped down to help Tatiana, who could barely stand. She leaned against the tarpaulin, heard shouts. The truck revved its engines.
“Come on, Tania, I’ll help you inside,” Alexander said. “You have to be strong for your sister.” He came close to her.
“I will be,” she thought she said.
“Don’t worry about the bombing,” Alexander said. “It’s usually quieter at night.”
“I’m not worried,” Tatiana said, coming into his arms.
He hugged her. “Be strong for me, Tatiana,” Alexander said hoarsely. “Save yourself for me.”
“That’s what I do, Shura,” Tatiana said. “I save myself for you.”
Alexander bent to her, but she couldn’t even look up. He kissed the top of her hat. They held on for a few more seconds.
“Time!” someone shouted.
Alexander helped Tatiana inside the truck. He hopped in himself to get the two girls comfortable, moving Dasha’s head to rest on top of Tatiana’s lap.
“Is this all right?” he asked, and both sisters answered, “Yes.”
Kneeling down in front of Dasha, Alexander said, “Now, remember, when they offer you food in Kobona, eat small bites. Don’t gulp it down, it can tear your stomach. Eat small and eat slow. You’ll get used to it, and then you can eat more. Drink soup in small spoonfuls. All right?”
Dasha took hold of his hand. He kissed her on the forehead. “So long, Dasha. I’ll see you soon.”
“Good-bye—” whispered Dasha. “What did my sister call you? Shura?”
Alexander glanced at Tatiana. “Yes, Shura.”
“Good-bye, Shura,” said Dasha. “I love you.”
Tatiana closed her eyes so as not to look at him speak. If she could have covered her ears, she would have.
“I love you, too,” Alexander said to Dasha. “Don’t forget to write.”
After he stood up, Dasha said, “Say good-bye to Tania. Or did you already say good-bye?”
“Good-bye, Tatiana,” he said.
“Good-bye,” she replied, staring at him.
“As soon as you get to Molotov, I want to hear from you. Promise?” Alexander said, hopping off the truck.
“Alexander!” Dasha called after him.
“Yes?” he leaned in.
“Tell me, how long have you loved my sister?”
Alexander glanced from Tatiana’s face to Dasha’s and back again. He opened his mouth to speak and then closed it with a shudder of his head.
“How long? Tell me. Look at us all — what secrets can we possibly have left? Tell me, darling. Tell me.”
Setting his jaw, Alexander said forcefully, “Dasha, I never loved your sister. Never. I love you. You know what we have.”
“You told me that next summer maybe we would get married,” said Dasha weakly. “Did you mean it?”
Nodding, he replied, “Of course I meant it. Next summer I will come and we will get married. Now, go.”
He blew Dasha a kiss and disappeared, not even glancing at Tatiana. And she desperately wanted just one small last glance, almost in the dark, his soft eyes on her, so she could see a bit of truth. But he didn’t look at her. She didn’t see any truth. She saw Alexander not even breathe her way. She saw Alexander deny her.
The tarpaulin was closed, the truck was off, and they were in the dark again. Except that now there was no Alexander between the darkness and the light, and no moon, just gunfire and the sound of bursting in the distance that Tatiana could barely hear, so loud was the sound of bursting inside her chest. Finally she closed her eyes, so that Dasha, who was lying with her eyes open, couldn’t look up and see what must have been so plain on Tatiana’s face.
“Tania?”
She didn’t answer. Her nose was hurting from breathing the freezing air. She parted her lips and breathed through her mouth.
“Tanechka?”
“Yes, Dasha, dear?” she whispered at last. “Are you all right?”
“Open your eyes, sister.”
Couldn’t. Wouldn’t.
“Open them.”
She opened them. “Dasha, I’m very tired. You’ve kept your eyes closed for hours. Now it’s my turn. I’ve pulled your sled and held your legs and helped you down the hill. Now you’re lying on me, and I just want to close my eyes for a second, for a minute. All right?”
Dasha didn’t say anything but looked at Tatiana with lucid clarity. Tatiana held her sister’s face and closed her eyes, listening to Dasha’s wet cough.
“How did it feel, Tania, hearing him say he never loved you?”
With the greatest effort Tatiana stopped herself from a groan of pain. “Fine,” she said hoarsely. “As it should be.”
“Then why did your body recoil as if he had hit you?”
“Don’t know what you mean,” Tatiana said faintly.
“Open your eyes.”
“No.”
Dasha spoke. “You love him unbearably, don’t you? How did you manage to hide it from me, Tania? You couldn’t love a man more.”
I couldn’t love a man more. “Dasha,” said Tatiana with finality and grace, “I love you more.” She never opened her eyes as she spoke.
“And you didn’t hide it from me,” said Dasha. “Not at all. You put your love for him on a shelf, not in a cupboard. Marina was right. I was just blind.” She closed her own eyes, but her voice carried across the truck, to the woman with her baby and husband, to Tatiana, to the truck driver. “You left it for me to see in a thousand places. I see every bitter one of them now.” She started to cry, breaking into a coughing fit. “But you were a child! How could a child love anyone?” Dasha fell quiet and then groaned.
I grew up, Dasha, thought Tatiana. Somewhere between Lake Ilmen and the start of war, the child had grown.
Outside there was a distant sound of cannons, of mortar fire. Inside the truck was silent.
Tatiana wondered about the baby that was held by the mother, a young woman with sallow skin and sores on her cheeks. Her husband was leaning on her shoulder; in fact, he was more than leaning, he was falling on his wife, and no matter how hard she pulled at him to sit upright, he would not sit up. The woman started to cry. The baby never made a sound.
Tatiana spoke to the woman. “Can I help you?”
“Listen, you’ve got your own problems,” said the woman brusquely. “My husband is very weak.”
Dasha said, “I’m not a problem. Pull me up, Tania, and lean me against the wall. My chest hurts too much to keep lying down. Go, help her.”
Tatiana crawled across the truck to the woman and her husband. The woman was clutching her baby with both arms and not letting go.
Tatiana shook the man a bit, pulled him up briefly, but he fell back down, and this time he fell to the floor of the truck. He was heavily wrapped in a scarf, and his coat was buttoned to his neck. It took Tatiana ten minutes to unbutton him. The woman kept talking to her nonstop.
“He is not doing well, my husband. And my daughter is not much better. I have no milk for her. You know, she was born in October, what luck! Huh, what bad luck for a baby to be born in October. And when I got pregnant last February, we were so happy. We thought it was a sign from God. We just got married the September before. We were so excited. Our first baby! Leonid was working at the city public transportation department; he couldn’t leave and his ration was quite good, but then the trams stopped, and there was nothing for him to do — why are you unbuttoning him?”
Without waiting for an answer, the woman continued. “I’m Nadezhda. My daughter was born, and I had no milk for her. What to give her? I’ve been giving her soy milk, but it gave her terrible diarrhea, so I had to stop. And my husband really needed the food. Thank God, we finally got on the truck. We’ve been waiting to get out for so long. Now it will all be all right. Kobona will have bread and cheese, someone said. What I would do to see a chicken, or something hot. I’ll eat horsemeat, I don’t care. Just something for Leonid.”
Tatiana took her two fingers off the man’s neck and very carefully buttoned him up again and wrapped the scarf around his neck. She moved him slightly so he was not lying on top of his wife’s legs and went back to sit by Dasha. The truck was deathly quiet. All Tatiana could hear was Dasha’s shallow breathing broken by bursts of coughing. That, and Alexander saying he never loved her.
Both sisters closed their eyes so as not to look at the woman and her dead baby and her dead husband. Tatiana put her hand on Dasha’s head. Dasha did not push it away.
They got to Kobona at daybreak — daybreak, a purple haze on the dark horizon. The features on Dasha’s face became dim instead of vague. Why was Tatiana noticing Dasha’s rasping breathing all of a sudden?
“Can you get up, Dasha?” Tatiana asked. “We’re here.”
“I can’t,” she said.
Nadezhda was shouting for someone to help her and her husband. No one came. Rather, a soldier came, lifted the tarpaulin off the back of the truck, and grunted, “Everybody off. We’ve got to load up and drive back.”
Tatiana pulled at Dasha. “Come on, Dasha, get up.”
“Go and get help, Tania,” Dasha said. “I can’t move anymore.”
Yanking at her sister, Tatiana pulled Dasha up on all fours. “You crawl to the edge, and I’ll help you down.”
“Can you help my husband down?” said Nadezhda plaintively. “Help him, please. You’re so strong. You see he is sick.”
Tatiana shook her head. “He’s too big for me.”
“Oh, come on, you’re moving. Help us, will you? Don’t be selfish.”
“Just wait,” said Tatiana. “I’m going to help my sister down, and then I will help you.”
“Leave her alone,” Dasha said to Nadezhda. “Your husband is dead. Leave my poor sister alone.”
Nadezhda shrieked.
Dasha crawled, pulling herself like a soldier across the truck floor. At the edge Tatiana swung Dasha around, lowering her off the truck, legs first. Dasha’s legs hit the ground, and the rest of her body followed and fell. She remained in the snow.
“Dasha, come on, please. I can’t pull you up by myself,” said Tatiana.
The driver of the truck came around and in one motion lifted Dasha to her feet. “Stand up, comrade. Stand up and walk to the field tent. They’re giving you food and hot tea. Now, go.”
From inside the truck Nadezhda shouted, “Don’t you forget me in here!”
Tatiana didn’t want to stay to hear Nadezhda discover the truth about her husband and baby. Turning to Dasha, she said, “Use me as a crutch. Put me under your arm and walk with me.” She pointed up a shallow slope. “Look, we’re at the river Kobona.”
“I can’t. I couldn’t walk with you and Alexander downhill on the other side, I can’t walk uphill with just you.”
“It’s not a hill. It’s a slope. Use that anger you feel at me. Use it, and walk up the damn slope, Dasha.”
“So easy for you, isn’t it?” said Dasha.
“Is that what it is?” Tatiana shook her head.
“So easy. You just want to live, and that’s all.”
I do want to live. But that’s not all. They stumbled through the snow, Dasha holding on to Tatiana.
“And you? Don’t you want to live?”
Dasha made no reply.
“Come on,” said Tatiana. “You’re doing so well. There is nobody to help us.” She squeezed her sister and whispered intensely, “It’s just you and me, Dasha! The soldiers are busy, the other people are all helping their own. Like I am. And you do so want to live. In the summer Alexander will come to Molotov, and you will get married.”
Dasha summoned enough strength to laugh softly. “Tania, you never stop, do you?”
“Never,” said Tatiana.
Dasha fell in the snow and would not get up.
Swirling around in despair, Tatiana spotted Nadezhda walking up the hill alone, no baby, no husband. She went up to her. “Nadezhda, please help me. Help me with Dasha. She’s fallen in the snow.”
Nadezhda ripped her arm away from Tatiana’s hold. “Get away from me. Can’t you see, I’ve got no one with me now.”
Tatiana saw. “Please help me.”
“You didn’t help me. And now they’re all dead. Leave me alone, will you?” Nadezhda walked away.
Suddenly Tatiana heard a familiar voice. “Tatiana? Tatiana Metanova?”
Turning in the direction of the voice, she saw Dimitri hobbling to her, supported by his rifle.
“Dimitri!” She walked up to him. He hugged her. “Help me, Dima, please. My sister! Look, she has fallen.”
Dimitri quickly got to Dasha. “Come on,” he said. “I’m still wounded. I can’t carry her myself. I’ll get you another soldier.” He turned to Tatiana and gave her another long hug. “I can’t believe we ran into each other like this.” Smiling. “It must be destiny,” he said.
Dimitri got someone else to lift Dasha and carry her to the hospital field tent as Tatiana trudged after them in the mauve light of the sky.
In the hospital tent near the Kobona River, a doctor came to see Dasha. He listened to her heart, to her lungs, felt her pulse, opened her mouth, shook his head, stood, and said, “Galloping consumption. Forget about her.”
Tatiana took a step toward the doctor. “Forget about her? What are you talking about? Give her something, some sulfa—”
The doctor laughed. “You’re all the same, all of you. You think I’m going to be giving away my precious sulfa on a terminal case? What are you, crazy? Look at her. She doesn’t have an hour to live. I wouldn’t waste a piece of bread on her. Have you seen how much mucus she’s bringing up? Have you listened to her breathing? I’m sure the TB bacteria has traveled to her liver. Go and get some soup and porridge for yourself in the next tent. You might actually make it, if you eat.”
Tatiana studied the doctor for a few moments. “Am I all right?” she asked. “Can you listen to my lungs? I don’t feel all right.”
The doctor opened Tatiana’s coat and pressed the stethoscope to her chest. Then he turned her around and listened through her back. “You need some sulfanilamide yourself, girl. You’ve got pneumonia. Let me have the nurse take care of you. Olga!” Before he left, he turned to Tatiana and said, “Don’t go near your sister anymore. TB is contagious.”
Tatiana lay on the ground, while Dasha lay in the clean bed. After a while she became too cold. Tatiana lay down on her side in the narrow cot very close to her sister. “Dasha,” she whispered, “all my life whenever I had nightmares, I would nestle like this with you, in our bed.”
“I know, Tania,” whispered Dasha. “You were the sweetest child.”
Outside wasn’t light so much as blue. Dark blue tints on Dasha’s trembling face. She heard Dasha’s hoarse voice. “I can’t breathe . . .”
Tatiana knelt on the ground in front of the bed, opened Dasha’s mouth, and blew into it, blew into it cold, brusque, stunted, pitiful breath, breath without soil, without roots, without food. She breathed from her own lungs into her sister’s. Tatiana tried to breathe deeply, but she couldn’t. For endless minutes Tatiana breathed into Dasha’s mouth, into Dasha’s lungs, the shallow whisper of life.
A nurse came up to them and pulled Tatiana away. “Stop it,” she said in a kind voice. “Didn’t the doctor tell you to leave her alone? Are you the sick one?”
“Yes,” whispered Tatiana, holding Dasha’s cold hand.
The nurse gave Tatiana three white pills, some water, and a hunk of black bread. “It’s dipped in sugar water,” she said.
“Thank you,” gasped Tatiana between pain-soaked breaths.
The nurse put her arm on Tatiana’s back. “Do you want to come with me? I’ll try to find you a place to lie down before breakfast.”
Tatiana shook her head.
“Don’t give her any of the bread. Eat it yourself.”
“She needs it more than I do,” said Tatiana.
“No, darling,” the nurse replied. “No, she doesn’t.”
As soon as the nurse left, Tatiana crushed the sulfa tablets against the bed frame, crumbling them into her hand and then into the water, and after taking a small gulp, lifted Dasha’s head slightly off the pillow and made her drink the dissolved medicine.
Tatiana broke off a little piece of the bread and fed it to Dasha, who swallowed with obvious pain and choked. Spluttering, she coughed up blood onto the white sheet. Tatiana wiped Dasha’s mouth and chin and then blew her breath into Dasha’s mouth again.
“Tania?”
“Yes?”
“Is this dying? Is this what dying feels like?”
“No, Dasha” was all Tatiana could reply.
She stared into Dasha’s muted, blinking eyes.
“Tania . . . darling, you’re a good sister,” whispered Dasha.
Tatiana continued to breathe into Dasha’s mouth.
She couldn’t hear her sister’s painful labored breathing, only her own.
Tatiana felt a warm hand on her back, and a voice behind her said, “Come. You won’t believe what I have for you. It’s breakfast time. I have buckwheat kasha and bread and a teaspoon of butter. You will have tea with some sugar, and I will even find you some real milk. Come. What’s your name?”
“I can’t leave my sister,” said Tatiana.
The nurse said in a sympathetic voice, “Come, my dear. My name is Olga. Come, breakfast won’t last forever.”
Tatiana felt arms lifting her. She stood up, but one look at Dasha and she sank back down on the floor.
Dasha’s mouth remained open as Tatiana had left it open. Her eyes were open, too, staring upward to the violet sky beyond the cloth of the tent, beyond Tatiana.
Bending and broken, Tatiana kissed Dasha’s eyes closed and made the sign of the cross on her forehead. She struggled up, took Olga’s hand, and left.
In the adjoining mess she sat down at a table and looked into an empty plate. Olga brought her some buckwheat. Tatiana ate half the small bowl. When Olga asked her to eat more, Tatiana said she couldn’t because she was saving the rest for Dasha, and fainted.
Tatiana awoke in a bed.
Olga came, offering her a piece of bread and some tea. Tatiana refused.
“If you don’t eat, you will die,” said Olga.
“I’m not going to die,” said Tatiana weakly. “Give it to Dasha, my sister.”
“Your sister is dead,” said Olga.
“No.”
“Come with me. Let me take you to her.”
Tatiana walked to a back room with Olga, where she saw Dasha lying on the floor next to three other bodies.
Tatiana asked who was going to bury them. Olga said with a laugh, “Oh, girl, what are you thinking? Nobody, of course. Did you take the drugs the doctor gave you?”
Shaking her head, Tatiana said, “Olga, can you bring me a sheet? For my sister.”
Olga brought Tatiana a sheet, some more medicine, a cup of black tea with sugar, and bread with a chunk of butter. This time Tatiana took the drugs and ate, sitting in a low metal chair in a room full of corpses. After she finished, she laid the sheet on the ground and rolled Dasha into it.
Tatiana held her sister’s head in her hands for a long time.
After wrapping Dasha tightly with the sheet, ripping the tattered ends and tying them together, Tatiana left the tent and went to find Dimitri. In Kobona, the small seaside town in the dark of January, Tatiana found many soldiers, but not him. She needed to find him. She needed his help. She went back to the Kobona River. Stopping an officer, she asked him where Dimitri Chernenko might be. He did not know. She asked ten soldiers, but none of them knew. The eleventh one looked at her and said, “Tania? What the hell is the matter with you? I am Dimitri.”
She did not recognize him. Without emotion she said, “Oh. I need your help.”
“Don’t you recognize me, Tania?”
“Yes, of course,” she said flatly. “Come with me.”
He limped with her, his arm lightly around her shoulder. “Aren’t you going to ask me about my leg?”
“In a bit, all right,” Tatiana said, leading him to the partitioned room and showing him Dasha’s body wrapped in a sheet surrounded by uncovered corpses. “Will you help me bury Dasha?” she asked, the strands of her voice barely holding together.
Dimitri sucked in his breath. “Oh, Tania,” he said, shaking his head.
She continued. “I can’t take her with me. But I can’t leave her here either. Please help me.”
“Tania,” he said, opening his arms. She backed away from him. “Where are we going to bury her? The ground is frozen solid. An earthmoving machine couldn’t dig this dirt.”
Tatiana stood and waited. For sunshine, for a solution.
“The Nazis are bombing the Road of Life, yes?”
“Yes.”
“The ice on the lake gets broken, yes?”
“Yes.” His face registered gradual understanding.
“Then, let’s go.”
“Tania, I can’t.”
“Yes, you can. If I can, you can.”
“You don’t understand—”
“Dima, you don’t understand. I can’t let her lie in the back room, now, can I? I won’t be able to leave her, and I won’t be able to save my own life.” Tatiana came up to stand in front of him. “Tell me, Dimitri, when I’m dead, will you even know how to sew a sack for me? When I’m dead, will you put me in the back room on top of the other bodies? What will you do with me?”
Banging his rifle on the ground, he said, “Oh, Tania.”
“Please. Help me.”
Sighing, he barely shook his head. “I can’t. Look at me. I’ve been in the hospital for nearly three months. They just let me out, put me on the Kobona detail, and now I have to walk around for hours. It hurts my foot, and the Germans bomb the lake all the time. I’m not going out there. I can’t run if the shelling starts.”
“Get me a sled, will you? Can you do that for me?” she said coldly, going to sit by Dasha.
“Tania—”
“Dimitri, just a sled. Surely you can do that?”
He came back after some time with a sled. Tatiana got up off the ground. “Thank you. You can go,” she said.
“Why are you doing this?” Dimitri exclaimed. “She is dead. Who cares now? Don’t worry about her anymore. This f*cking war can’t hurt her.”
Raising her eyes at him, Tatiana said, “Who cares? I care. My sister did not die alone. I’m still here. And I will not turn from her until I bury her.”
“And then what are you going to do? You don’t sound too good yourself. Are you going to go ahead to your grandparents? Where were they again? Kazan? Molotov? You probably shouldn’t go, you know. I keep hearing horror stories about the evacuees.”
“I don’t know what I’m going to do.” She added, “Don’t worry about me.”
As he was leaving, she called after him. “Dimitri?”
He turned around.
“When you see Alexander, tell him about my sister.”
He nodded. “Of course, I will, Tanechka. I’m going to see him next week. I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more help.”
Tatiana turned sharply away.
After he left, she got Olga to help her lift Dasha’s body onto the sled and then pushed the sled down the slope and walked after it. On the Kobona River she took the reins, and under the seeping silent gray sky, Tatiana pulled Dasha, wrapped in a white hospital sheet, on Lake Ladoga. It was early afternoon and nearly dark. There were no German planes overhead. About a quarter of a kilometer out, Tatiana found a water hole. She kept tugging at Dasha’s body until it slid down onto the ice.
Tatiana knelt next to it and put her hand on the white sheet.
Dasha, do you remember when I was five and you were twelve, teaching me how to dive into Lake Ilmen? You showed me how to swim underwater, saying you loved the feeling of water all around you because it was so peaceful. And then you taught me to stay under longer than Pasha, because you said that girls always had to beat boys. Well, you go and swim underwater now, Dasha Metanova.
Tatiana’s wet face was turning to ice in the Arctic wind. She whispered, “I wish I knew a prayer. I need a prayer right now, but I don’t know one. Dear God, please let my only sister Dasha swim in peace and not ever be cold again, and please . . . can you let her have all the daily bread she can eat, up in Heaven . . . ?”
On her knees Tatiana pushed Dasha’s body into the ice hole. In the waning light the white sack looked blue. Dasha went in reluctantly, as if unwilling to part with life, and then disappeared. Tatiana continued to kneel on the ice. Eventually she got up and, coughing into her mittens, slowly pulled the empty sled back to shore.
* * *