7

“Oh, my,” she said, trying to extricate herself from him. “Let go. I have to go, quick.”

Alexander was profoundly asleep and not moving. She noticed that about him. He was a good sleeper. She managed to move out from under his arm and jump down from the side of the stove.

Tatiana put on a clean dress and ran to get the water from the well, and ran to milk the goat, and ran to exchange goat’s milk for some cow’s milk. When she came back to the house, Alexander was already up and shaving. “Good morning,” he said to her, smiling.

“Good morning,” she said, too embarrassed to look at him. “Here, let me help.” She sat in the chair in front of him, holding a small broken mirror to her chest as he shaved. He kept cutting himself every few seconds, as if the knife he was using weren’t sharp. “You’re going to kill yourself with that thing,” said Tatiana. “What do they issue you in the army? Maybe you should grow your beard back.”

“It’s not the knife,” he said. “The knife is very sharp.”

“What is it, then?”

“Nothing, nothing.”

She saw him staring at her breasts.

“Alexander . . .” she said, putting the mirror down.

“Oh, now that it’s daylight, I’m suddenly Alexander again?” he said.

Tatiana couldn’t look at him but couldn’t help smiling either. She felt so exhilarated this morning, she had practically skipped home carrying the two pails of milk.

Alexander made coffee. He poured her a cup, and they sat silently outside in the breathy morning and drank the hot liquid, their bodies lightly touching. “It’s a nice morning,” she said quietly.

“It’s a glorious morning,” he said, turning to her and beaming.

Naira called her, and Tatiana went to attend to her chores while Alexander collected his things. “What are you doing?” she asked with a twitch of anxiety when he came outside.

“We’re getting out of here,” he said. “Right now.”

“We are?” A smile lit up her face.

“Yes.”

“I can’t, I have to do laundry. I have to make breakfast.”

“Tania, that’s my point exactly. I have to come before laundry. I have to come before breakfast.” Alexander stared at her.

She backed away. “Look,” she said, “help me. I’ll be done so much faster if you help me.”

“And then you’ll come with me?”

“Yes,” she said, almost inaudibly. But Alexander smiled at her. She knew he had heard.

She made eggs and potatoes for everyone. Alexander gulped down his food and said, “Let’s go do the laundry.”

Quickly he carried the basket of clothes to the river. Tatiana carried the washboard and soap. She could hardly keep up.

“So since when do you make rude jokes in the presence of a whole group of young people?” Alexander asked.

Tatiana shook her head. “Shura, it was just a stupid joke. I didn’t realize it was going to upset you.”

“Yes you did. That’s why you didn’t want to tell it in front of me.”

She ran alongside him. “I didn’t want you to be upset.”

“Why would I be upset? Have I ever been upset by your other jokes?”

Tatiana kept quiet before she answered him because she wanted to figure out what it was that was obviously still niggling him. That the joke was inappropriate? That it was rude? That she told the joke to Vova? To strangers Alexander didn’t know? That it was out of her character? That it didn’t fit in with what he knew about her? Yes, Tatiana decided. It was the last. He brought it up now because he was worried about something. She said nothing until they got to the river. “I barely know what the joke means,” she said.

He glanced at her. “But you know just enough what it means?”

Aha, thought Tatiana. He is worried about me. She didn’t reply, stepping into the water and wetting the washboard and the soap.

Alexander watched her while he smoked. “So how do you keep your white dress from getting wet?”

“The bottom gets a little wet. What?” She blushed. “What are you looking at?”

“The whole dress doesn’t get wet?” He was grinning.

“Well, no. I don’t stand and wash clothes in water up to my neck.”

Stubbing out his cigarette and taking off his shirt and boots, Alexander said, “Here, let me. Just hand me the clothes, will you?”

There was something so endearing and incomprehensible about him, a captain in the Red Army standing knee deep in the Kama, shirtless, his big soapy arms immersed in women’s work, while Tatiana stood dry as gin and handed him dirty clothes. She found it so amusing, in fact, that when she saw him drop a pillowcase in the river and bend to pick it up, she tiptoed up to him and gave him a great shove. Alexander toppled over into the water.

When he came back up, Tatiana was laughing so hard it took her a few seconds to run up the riverbank away from him. Alexander caught her in three strides.

“Not very good balance, big man,” Tatiana said, laughing. “What if I were a Nazi?”

Saying nothing, he carried her to the river.

“No, instantly put me down,” she said, “I’m wearing a nice dress.”

“You are,” he said, flinging her into the water.

She came up soaked. “Now look what you’ve done,” she said, splashing him. “I have nothing to go back in.”

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 br?lée 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.”

Her hands were clenched on her stomach under his forearm. Her eyes were closed.

“Do you feel that, Tatia?”

She moaned.

Alexander stroked her up and down and then in small circles. “You feel unbelievable . . .” he whispered.

Her hands clenched tighter.

He rubbed her a little firmer. “Want me to stop?” He groaned slightly.

“No!”

“Tania, do you feel me against your hip?”

“Hmm. I thought that was your rifle.”

His hot breath was in her neck. “Whatever you want to call it is fine with me.” He bent over her and sucked her nipples as he rubbed her and rubbed against her—

In circles, in circles—

As she moaned and moaned—

And—

He pulled his fingers away and his mouth away and himself away.

“No, no, no. Don’t stop,” Tatiana murmured in a panic, opening her eyes. In the palpitating tension of her flesh she had begun to feel combustion, and when he stopped, she started to quiver so uncontrollably that Alexander lay on top of her briefly to calm her, pressing his forehead to her forehead. “Shh. It’s all right.” He paused for a second and got off her. “Tell me what you want me to do.”

Unsteadily, Tatiana said, “I don’t know. What else have you got?”

He nodded. “All right, then.” He pulled off his shorts and knelt in front of her.

When Tatiana saw him, she sat straight up. “Oh, my God, Alexander,” she muttered incredulously, backing away.

“It’s all right,” he said, smiling from ear to ear. “Where are you going?” His hands held on to her legs.

“No,” she said, shaking her head, staring at him in astonishment. “No, no. Please.”

“Somehow, and in His infinite wisdom,” Alexander said, “God has ensured that it all works the way it’s supposed to.”

“Shura, it can’t be possible. It’ll never—”

“Trust me,” Alexander said, staring at her with lust. “It will.”

He lay her down flat, and said, “I cannot wait a second longer. Not another second. I need to be inside you right now.”

“Oh, God. No, Shura.”

“Yes, Tania, yes. Say that to me. Yes, Shura.”

“Oh, God. Yes, Shura.”

Alexander climbed on top of her, supporting himself on his arms. “Tania,” he whispered passionately, “you are naked and underneath me!” As if he could not believe it himself.

“Alexander,” she said, still trembling, “you are naked and above me.” She felt him rubbing against her.

They kissed. “I can’t believe it,” he said, his breath shallow. “I didn’t think this day would ever come.” He paused and then whispered, “Yet I couldn’t imagine my life without it. You alive, under me. Tania, touch me. Put your hands on me.”

Instantly she reached down and took hold of him.

“Do you feel how hard I am,” he whispered, “. . . for you?”

“God, yes,” she said in crazed disbelief. Seeing him was a profound shock to her. Feeling him was entirely too much. “It’s impossible,” she muttered, stroking him gently. “You will kill me.”

“Yes,” Alexander said. “Let me. Open your legs.”

She did.

“No, wider.” Alexander kissed her and whispered, “Open yourself for me, Tania. Go ahead . . . open for me.”

Tatiana did. She continued to stroke him.

“Now, are you ready?”

“No.”

“You are, you are ready. Let go of me.” He smiled. “Hold on to my neck. Hold on tight.”

Slowly Alexander pushed himself inside her, little by little, little by little. Tatiana grasped at his arms, at the blanket, at his back, at the grass above her head. “Wait, wait, please . . .” He waited as best he could. Tatiana felt as she had imagined she would — that she was being torn open. But something else, too.

An intemperate hunger for Alexander.

“All right,” he said at last. “I’m inside you.” He kissed her and breathed deeply out. “I’m inside you, Tatiasha.”

Softly she moaned, her hands around his neck. “Are you really inside me?”

“Yes.” He pulled up slightly. “Feel.”

She felt. “I can’t believe you . . . fit.”

Smiling, Alexander whispered, “Only just, but yes.” He kissed her lips. Took a breath. Left his lips on her. “As if God Himself joined our flesh . . .” He took another breath. “. . . Me and you together, and said, they shall be one.”

Tatiana lay very still. Alexander was very still, his lips pressed against her forehead. Was there more? Tatiana’s body was aching. There was no relief. Her hands went around to hold him a little closer. She looked up into his flushed face. “Is that it? Is that all there is to it?”

Alexander paused a moment. “Not quite.” He inhaled her breath. “I’m just — Tania, we’ve been so desperately longing for this . . .” he whispered into her mouth, “and the moment will never come again.” He gazed into her face. “I don’t want to let it go.”

“All right,” she whispered back. She was throbbing. She tilted her hips up to him.

Another moment.

“Ready?” He pulled slowly and slightly out and pushed himself back in. Tatiana gritted her teeth, but through the gritted teeth a moan escaped.

“Wait, wait,” she said.

Slowly he pulled halfway out and pushed himself back in.

“Wait . . .”

Alexander pulled all the way out and pushed himself all the way in, and Tatiana, astounded, nearly screamed, but she was too afraid he would stop if he thought she was in pain. She heard him groan, and less slowly he pulled all the way out and pushed himself all the way in. Moaning, she gripped his arms.

“Oh, Shura.” She was unable to breathe.

“I know. Just hold on to me.”

Less slowly. Less gently.

Tatiana was feverish from the pain, from the flame.

“Am I hurting you?”

Tatiana paused, dizzy and lost. “No.”

“I’m going as slow as I can.”

“Oh, Shura.” Breath, breath, where is my breath . . .

Short panting pause. “Tania . . . God, I’m done for, aren’t I?” Alexander whispered hotly. “Done for, forever.”

Less, less gently.

Speechlessly Tatiana clung to him, her mouth open in a mute scream.

“You want me to stop?”

“No.”

Alexander stopped. “Wait,” he said, shaking his head against her cheek. “Hang on tight,” he whispered. He was still for another moment.

Through his parted lips he breathed, “Oh, Tania . . .” and suddenly he thrust in and out of her so hard and so fast that Tatiana thought she was going to pass out, crying in tumult and pain and gripping his head buried in her neck.

A breathless moment.

And another.

And another.

The heart was wild, and the throat was parched, and the lips were wet, and breath was slowly coming back, and sound, and sensation, and smell.

And her eyes were open.

Blink.

Alexander pulsed to a gradual stop, took a deep relieved breath, and lay on top of her for a few panting minutes.

Her hands continued to grip him.

A bittersweet tingle remained where he had just been. Tatiana felt regret; she wanted him inside her again; it had felt so excessive and absolute.

Lifting himself off her, Alexander blew on her wet forehead and chest. “Are you all right? I hurt you?” he whispered, tenderly kissing her freckles. “Tania, honey, tell me you’re all right.”

She couldn’t answer him. His lips on her face were too warm.

“I’m fine,” Tatiana finally replied, smiling shyly, holding him to her. “Are you all right?”

Alexander lay down by her side. “I’m fantastic,” he said, his fingers running down the length of her body from her face to her shins and slowly back up again. “I have never been better.” His shining smile was so full of happiness that Tatiana wanted to cry. She pressed her face against his face. They didn’t speak.

His hand stopped moving and rested on Tatiana’s hip. “You were surprisingly more quiet than I had anticipated,” he said.

“Mmm, I was trying not to faint,” Tatiana said, making him laugh.

“I thought you might be.”

She turned on her side to him. “Shura, was it . . . ?”

Alexander kissed her eyes. “Tania,” he whispered, “to be inside you, to come inside you . . . it was magic. You know it was.”

“What did you think it was going to be like?” she asked, nudging him.

“This was better than anything my pathetic imagination could conjure up.”

“Have you been imagining this?”

“You could say that.” He held her to him. “Forget me. Tell me — what did you expect?” He grinned, kissed her, and laughed with delight. “No, I’m going to burst,” he said. “Tell me everything.” Huskily he added, “Have you been imagining this?”

“No,” she said, nudging him again. Certainly not this. Her fingers floated down from Alexander’s throat to his stomach. All she wanted was permission to touch him again. “Why are you looking at me like that? What do you want to know?”

“What were you expecting?”

Tatiana thought about it. “I really don’t know.”

“Come on, you must have been expecting something.”

“Mmm. Not this.”

“What then?”

Tatiana was quite embarrassed and wished Alexander wouldn’t look at her with such mouthwatering adoration. “I had a brother, Shura,” she said. “I knew what you all looked like. Sort of quiet . . . and down . . . and very . . . hmm . . .” Tatiana searched for a proper word. “Unalarming.”

Alexander burst out laughing.

“But I’ve never seen one . . .”

“That was alarming?”

“Hmm.” Why was he laughing like that?

“What else?”

Tatiana paused. “I guess I thought this unalarming thing would . . . I don’t know . . . quietly sort of . . .” She coughed once. “Let’s just say the movement was also quite a surprise to me.”

Alexander grabbed her, kissing her happily. “You’re the funniest girl. What am I going to do with you?”

Tatiana lay quietly facing him, the aching inside her thoroughly unsubsided. She was fascinated with his body. Her fingers lightly stroked his stomach. “So what now?” She paused. “Are we . . . done?”

“Do you want to be done?”

“No,” she said at once.

“Tatiana,” Alexander said, his voice filled with emotion, “I love you.”

She closed her eyes. “Thank you,” she whispered.

“Don’t give me that,” he said, lifting her face to him. “I have never heard you say it to me.”

That couldn’t be true, thought Tatiana. I’ve felt it every minute of every day since we met. Spilling over — “I love you, Alexander.”

“Thank you,” he whispered, gazing at her. “Tell me again.”

“I love you.” She hugged him. “I love you breathlessly, my amazing man.” With affection she smiled into his face. “But you know, I have never heard you say it to me either.”

“Yes, you did, Tatiana,” said Alexander. “You heard me say it to you.”

A moment passed.

She didn’t speak, or breathe, or blink.

“You know how I know?” he whispered.

“How?” she mouthed inaudibly.

“Because you got up off that sled . . .”

Another mute moment passed.

The second time they made love, it hurt less.

The third time Tatiana experienced a floating, incandescent moment of such pain-infused exquisite pleasure that it caught even her by surprise. She cried out.

Crying out, she moaned, “God, don’t stop. Please . . .”

“No?” Alexander said, and stopped.

“What are you doing?” she said, opening her eyes, parting her lips, looking up at him. “I said don’t stop.”

“I want to hear you moan again,” he murmured. “I want to hear you moan for me not to stop.”

“Please . . .” she whispered, milling her hips against him, her hands around his neck.

“No, Shura, no? Or yes, Shura, yes?”

“Yes, Shura, yes.” Tatiana closed her eyes, “I beg you . . . don’t stop.”

Alexander moved in and out of her deeper and slower. She cried out.

“Like this?”

She couldn’t speak.

“Or . . .”

Faster and faster. She cried out.

“Like this?”

She couldn’t speak.

“Tania . . . is it so good?”

“It’s so good.”

“How do you want it?”

“Any which way.” Her tense hands clenched around him.

“Moan for me, Tania,” Alexander whispered, changing his rhythm and his speed. “Go ahead . . . moan for me.”

Alexander didn’t have to ask twice.

“Don’t stop, Shura . . .” she said helplessly.

“I won’t stop, Tania.”

He didn’t stop, and there it was — finally Tatiana felt her entire body stiffen and explode in a convulsive burn, then a lava melt. It was some time before she was able to stop moaning and quivering against Alexander. “What was that?” she uttered at last, still panting.

“That was my Tania discovering what is so fantastic about making love. That was . . . relief,” he whispered, pressing his cheek to her cheek.

Tatiana clasped him to her, turning her face away and murmuring through her happy tears, “Oh, my God, Alexander . . .”

“How long have we been here?”

“I don’t know. Minutes?”

“Where’s your ‘precise’ watch?”

“Didn’t bring it. Wanted time to stop moving forward,” said Alexander, blinking and closing his eyes.

“Tania? You’re not sleeping?”

“No. My eyes are closed. I’m very relaxed.”

“Tania, will you tell me the truth if I ask for it?”

“Of course.” She smiled. Her eyes were still closed.

“Have you ever touched a man before? Touched a man.”

Tatiana opened her eyes and laughed quietly. “Shura, what are you talking about? Besides my brother when we were younger, I’ve never even seen a man before.”

Tatiana was nestled in his arms, her fingers touching his chin, his neck, his Adam’s apple. She pressed her index finger to the vividly pulsing artery near his throat. She moved up a little and kissed the artery and then left her mouth on it, feeling it beat against her lips. Why is he so endearing? she thought. And why does he smell so good?

“What about those hordes of young beasts you told me about, chasing you in Luga? None of them?”

“None of them what?”

“Did you touch any of them?” asked Alexander.

She shook her head. “Shura, why are you so funny? No.”

“Maybe through clothes?”

“What?” She didn’t take her mouth away from his neck. “Of course not.” She paused. “What are you trying to get out of me?”

“What kind of things you got up to before me.”

Teasingly, Tatiana said, “Was there life before Alexander?”

“You tell me.”

“All right, what else do you want to know?”

“Who has seen your naked body? Other than your family. Other than when you were seven, doing your naked cartwheels.”

Is this what he wanted? The complete truth? She had been so afraid to tell him. Would he want to hear it? “Shura, the first time any man saw me even partly naked was you in Luga.”

“Is that true?” He moved away a little to see her eyes.

She nodded, returning to rubbing her mouth against his neck. “It’s true.”

“Has anyone touched you?”

“Touched me?”

“Felt your breasts, felt—” His fingers searched for her.

“Shura, please. Of course not.”

Through his artery she felt his heart quicken its beat into her mouth. Tatiana smiled. She would tell it all to him right now, if that’s what he wanted from her. “Do you remember the woods in Luga?”

“How can I forget?” he said huskily. “It was the sweetest kiss of my life.”

Her lips in his neck, Tatiana whispered, “Alexander . . . it was the first kiss of mine.”

He shook his head and then turned on his side, peering into her face in skeptical emotional disbelief, as if what she had been giving him were less than the total truth. Tatiana turned on her side to him. “What?” she asked, smiling. “You’re embarrassing me. What now?”

“Don’t tell me that—”

“All right, I won’t tell you.”

“Will you tell me, please?”

“I told you.”

His stupefied eyes unblinking, Alexander said shallowly, “When I kissed you in Luga . . .”

“Yes?”

“Tell me.”

“Shura . . .” She pressed her body flush against his. “What do you want? You want the truth from me or something else?”

“I don’t believe you.” He shook his head. “I just don’t believe you.”

“All right,” Tatiana said, lying on her back and putting her hands under her head.

Alexander bent over her. “I think you’re just telling me that because you think it’s what I want to hear,” he said, running his fingers over her breasts and stomach. His hands on her were unremitting. They never stopped moving.

“Is it what you want to hear?”

Alexander didn’t reply at first. “I don’t know. No. Yes, God help me,” he said with difficulty. “But I want the truth more.”

Tatiana patted him cheerfully on the back. “You have the truth.” And smiled. “In my whole life I have never been touched by anyone but you.”

But Alexander wasn’t smiling. His bronze eyes melting right in front of her, he asked haltingly, “How can that be?”

“I don’t know how it can be,” she said. “It just is.”

“What did you do, walk straight from your mother’s womb into my arms?”

Tatiana laughed. “Very nearly.” She gazed into his face. “Alexander, I love you,” she said. “Do you understand? I never wanted to kiss anyone before you. I wanted you to kiss me so much in Luga I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to tell you. I stayed up half the night trying to figure out a way to get you to kiss me. Finally in the woods, I wasn’t going to give up. If I can’t get my Alexander to kiss me in the woods, I thought, I have no hope of ever being kissed by anyone.” Her hands were on him.

His face was over hers. “What are you doing to me?” he whispered intensely. “You need to stop right now. What are you doing to me?”

“What are you doing to me?” Her fingertips pressed into his back.

When Alexander made love to her, his lips did not leave hers, and in his impassioned climax, which she barely heard through her shattering own, Tatiana was almost sure he groaned as if he were stopping himself from crying. He whispered into her mouth, “I just don’t know how I’m going to survive you, Tatiana.”

“Honey,” Alexander murmured, his body over her, as she lay underneath him. “Open your eyes. Are you all right?”

Tatiana didn’t speak. She was listening to the loving cadence of his voice.

“Tania . . .” he whispered, his shimmering fingers circling her face, her throat, the top of her chest. “You have newborn skin,” he said quietly. “Do you know that?”

“Well, no,” she murmured.

“You have newborn skin and the sweetest breath, and your hair is silk upon your head.” Kneeling over her, Alexander tenderly sucked her nipple. “You are divine through and through.”

Listening, comforted, she held his head in her hands. He stopped talking and lifted his face to her. There were tears in his eyes.

“Please forgive me, Tatiana,” said Alexander, “for hurting your perfect heart with my cold and indifferent face. My own heart was always overflowing with you, and it was never indifferent. You didn’t deserve any of what you’ve been given, of what you’ve had to bear. None of it. Not from your sister, not from Leningrad, and certainly not from me. You don’t even know what it took me not to look at you one last time before I closed the tarpaulin on that truck. I knew that if I did, it would all be over. I would not have been able to hide my face from you or from Dasha. I wouldn’t have been able to keep my promise to you for your sister. It wasn’t that I didn’t look at you. I couldn’t look at you. I gave you so much when we were alone. I hoped it would be enough to carry you forward.”

“It was, Shura,” said Tatiana, with tears in her own eyes. “I’m here. And it will be enough in the future.” She pressed his head to her chest. “I’m sorry I ever doubted you. But now my heart is light.”

Alexander kissed her between her breasts.

“You have fixed me.” And Tatiana smiled.

Murmuring and whispering, Tatiana lay happily under Alexander, having been once again loved and relieved, and relieved . . . “Oh, and I thought I loved you before.”

His lips pressed into her temple. “This does add a whole new dimension, doesn’t it?” His hands did not leave her body. Nothing of him left her body. He was holding her from underneath, still moving inside her.

Turning her face up to him, a smile coming to her lips, a smile of youth and ecstasy, Tatiana said, “Alexander, you are my first love. Did you know that?”

He squeezed her bottom, pressed himself into her, licked the salt off her face, and nodded. “That I know.”

“Oh?”

“Tatia, I knew it even before you yourself knew it.” He grinned. “Before you finally found the word to describe to yourself what you were feeling, I knew it from the start. How else could you have been so shy and guileless?”

“Guileless?”

“Yes.”

“Was I that obvious?”

“Yes.” Alexander smiled. “Your inability to look at me in public, yet your total devotion to my face when we were together — like now,” he said, kissing her. “Your embarrassment at the smallest things — I couldn’t even keep my hand on you in the tram without you blushing . . . your fingers on me when I was telling you about America . . . your smile, your smile, Tania, when you ran to me from Kirov.” Alexander shook his head at the memory. “What a prison you have set up for me with your first love.”

She put her arms tighter around him and said teasingly, “Oh, so the first love part you believe, but the first kiss part you have a problem with? What kind of girl do you think I am?”

“The nicest girl,” he whispered.

“Are you ready for more?”

“Tania . . .” Alexander shook his head in smiling disbelief. “What’s gotten into you?”

She laughed, her hands caressing his stomach. “Shura . . . am I wanting too much?”

“No. But you are going to kill me.”

Tatiana craved something, but she just couldn’t find a way out of her timidity to ask him. Quietly, thoughtfully, she stroked his stomach and then cleared her throat. “Honey? Can I lie on top of you?”

“Of course.” Alexander smiled, opening his arms. “Come and lie on top of me.”

She lay down on him and softly, wetly kissed his lips. “Shura . . .” she whispered, “do you like that?”

“Mmm.”

Her lips were on his face, on his throat, on the top of his chest. She whispered, “You know what your skin feels like to me? The ice cream that I love. Creamy, smooth. Your whole body is the color of caramel, like my crème br?lée, but you’re not cold like ice cream, you’re warm.” She rubbed her lips back and forth against his chest.

“So — better than ice cream?”

“Yes.” She smiled, moving up to his lips. “I love you better than ice cream.” After kissing him deeply, she gently, gently sucked his tongue. “Do you like that?” she whispered.

He groaned his assent.

“Shura, darling . . .” she asked very shyly, “is there . . . anywhere else you might like me to do that?”

Pulling away, he gaped at her. Silent and tantalized, Tatiana watched his incredulous face.

“I think,” Alexander said slowly, “there is a place where I might like you to do that, yes.”

She smiled back, trying to hide her excitement. “You’ll just — you’ll just have to tell me what to do, all right?”

“All right.”

Tatiana kissed Alexander’s chest, listened to his heart, moved lower, lay her head on his rippled stomach. Moving lower still, she brushed her blonde hair against him and then rubbed her breasts against him, feeling him already swollen underneath her. She kissed the arrow line of his black hair leading down from his navel and then grazed her lips against him.

Kneeling between Alexander’s legs, Tatiana took hold of him with both hands. He was extraordinary. “And now . . .”

“Now put me in your mouth,” he said, watching her.

Her breath leaving her body, she whispered, “Whole?” and took what she could of him into her mouth.

“Move up and down on me.”

“Like this?”

There was a thickening pause. “Yes.”

“Or . . .”

“Yes, that’s good, too.”

Tatiana felt him hard against her fervent lips and rubbing fingers. When Alexander gripped her hair, she, stopping for a moment, looked into his face. “Oh, yes,” she whispered, hungrily putting him deeper inside her mouth and moaning.

“You’re doing so well, Tatia,” he whispered. “Keep going, and don’t stop.”

She stopped. He opened his eyes. Smiling, Tatiana said, “I want to hear you groan for me not to stop.”

Alexander sat up and kissed her wet mouth. “Please don’t stop.” Then he gently pushed her face down on him, falling back on the blanket.

Right before the end he pulled her head away and said, “Tania, I’m going to come.”

“So come,” Tatiana whispered. “Come in my mouth.”

Afterward, as she lay cradled in his chest, Alexander said, gazing at her in stark amazement, “I’ve decided that I like it.”

“Me, too,” she said softly.

For a long time she lay next to him, feeling his tender fingers feather her.

“Why did we spend two days fighting when we could have been doing this?”

Alexander ruffled her hair. “That wasn’t fighting, Tatiasha. That was foreplay.”

They kissed each other. “I’m sorry again,” Tatiana whispered.

“Me, too, again,” he whispered back.

Then Tatiana fell quiet.

“What’s the matter?” he asked. “What are you thinking?”

How does he know me so well? she thought. All I have to do is blink, and he knows I’m thinking, or fretting, or anxious. She took a breath. “Shura . . . have you loved many girls before?” she asked in a small voice.

“No, my angel face,” Alexander said passionately, caressing her. “I have not loved many girls before.”

Tears forming at the base of her throat, she asked, “Did you love Dasha?”

He was silent for a moment. “Tania, don’t do this.”

She was silent herself.

“I don’t know what answer you want me to give you,” Alexander said. “I’ll give you whatever answer you want.”

“Give me only the truth.”

“No, I did not love Dasha,” Alexander said. “I cared for her. We had some good times.”

“How good?”

“All right,” he said.

“The truth.”

“Just all right,” he repeated. He tweaked her nipple. “Haven’t you figured out yet,” Alexander said, “that Dasha was not my type?”

“What will you say about me to your next girl?”

He grinned. “I’ll say that you had perfect breasts.”

“Stop it.”

“That you had young, perky, incredible breasts with the biggest, most sensitive cherry nipples . . .” he said, climbing on top of her and holding up her legs high against his arms. “And lips for the gods, and eyes for kings. I will say,” Alexander whispered hotly, pushing himself inside her and groaning, “that you felt like nothing else on this earth.”

“What time is it, do you think?”

“I don’t know,” he replied sleepily. “Toward evening.”

“I don’t want to go back to them.”

“Who’s going back?” said Alexander. “We’re not moving from here.” He paused. “Ever.”

“We’re not?”

“Try to leave.”

Before night set, they crept out of the tent, and Tatiana sat on a blanket with Alexander’s uniform tunic around her shoulders while he built a fire with the twigs and dry branches she had found earlier. The fire was a raging blaze in five minutes.

“You build a good fire, Shura,” Tatiana said quietly.

“Thank you.” He pulled out two cans of tushonka, some dry bread and water.

“Look what else I’ve got.” In a piece of aluminum foil he had a few squares of chocolate.

“Wow,” Tatiana mouthed, staring at him in wonder, not even looking at the chocolate.

They ate.

“Are we going to sleep in the tent?” Tatiana asked.

“If you want, I can build a fire in the house.” He smiled. “Do you see how I cleaned it for you?”

“Yes, and when did you do this?”

“Yesterday, after our fight. What do you think I did all afternoon?”

“After our fight?” More surprised. “But before you came back and told me to give you your things so you could leave?”

“Yes.”

Tatiana shoved him in the ribs. “You just wanted to hear me . . .”

“Don’t say it,” Alexander whispered. “Or right here, right now, I’ll have to make love to you again, and you won’t live through it.”

And she almost didn’t.

In front of the fire, in his arms, Tatiana was crying against Alexander’s chest.

“Tania, why are you crying?”

“Oh, Shura.”

“Please don’t cry.”

“All right. I miss my sister.”

“I know.”

“Did we treat her right, you think? Did we do right by her?”

“We did as well as we could. You did the best you could. What do you think, we asked for this? To break each other’s hearts, to hurt other people, to fall in love like this? I struggled against my feelings. I wanted to love your sister, God bless her. I couldn’t help that it was impossible.”

Turning away from him, toward the fire and the Kama behind it and the full moon above it, Tatiana said, “I tried not to love you for her.”

“But it was impossible.”

“Yes.” Then tentatively, “Shura . . . are you . . . in love with me?”

“Turn to me,” Alexander said. She turned. “Tatia, I worship you. I’m crazy in love with you. I want you to marry me.”

“What?”

“Yes. Tatiana, will you marry me? Will you be my wife?” Pause. “Don’t cry.” Pause. “You didn’t answer me.”

“Yes, Alexander. I will marry you . . . I will be your wife.”

“Now why are you crying?”