“How do you know how old I think you are?” he asked. “Tell me, how old are you?”

“I’m going to be seventeen soon,” she said.

“When?”

“Tomorrow.”

“You’re not even seventeen,” Alexander echoed.

“Seventeen tomorrow!” she repeated indignantly.

“Seventeen, right. Very grown up.” His eyes were dancing.

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-two,” he said. “Twenty-two, just.”

“Oh,” she said, and couldn’t hide the disappointment in her voice.

“What? Is that very old?” Alexander asked, failing to keep the smile off his face.

“Ancient,” Tatiana replied, failing to keep the smile off her face.

Slowly they walked across the Field of Mars, Tatiana barefoot and carrying the red sandals in her slightly swinging hands.

Once they got to the pavement, she put her sandals back on and they crossed the street, stopping at a nondescript brown stucco four-story building, distinguished by its lack of a front door. A deep, darkened passageway ran inside. “These are the Pavlov Barracks,” Alexander said, “where I’m stationed.”

“These are the famous Pavlov Barracks?” Tatiana looked up at the grubby building. “Surely this can’t be it.”

“What were you expecting? Maybe a snowcapped palace?”

“Do I come in?”

“Just to the gate. I’m going to turn in my weapon and sign out. You’ll wait, all right?”

“I’ll wait.” After walking through the long archway, they came to a manned iron gate, deep inside the entranceway. A young sentry lifted his hand in salute to Alexander. “Proceed, Lieutenant. Who is this with you?”

“Tatiana. She’ll wait for me here, Sergeant Petrenko.”

“Of course she will,” the guard said, eyeing Tatiana surreptitiously, but not so surreptitiously that she didn’t notice. Tatiana watched Alexander walk beyond the iron gate across a courtyard, salute a tall officer, then stop and chat briefly to a cluster of smoking soldiers, breaking into a laugh and striding off. Nothing distinguished Alexander from the others, except that he was taller than anyone else and had darker hair and whiter teeth, broader shoulders and a wider stride. Nothing but that he was vivid and they were muted.

Petrenko asked if she wanted to sit down.

She shook her head. Alexander had told her to wait right here, and she wasn’t going to move. Certainly she wasn’t going to be sitting in some other soldier’s chair, though she would have liked to sit.

As she stood looking through the garrison gate, waiting for Alexander, Tatiana felt herself floating on the cloud of fate that laced her afternoon with improbability and desire.

Desire for life.

One of her Deda’s favorite sayings was, “Life is so unpredictable. That’s what I like least about it. If only life were more like math.”

This one day Tatiana had to disagree with him.

She would take a day like this over any day in school or in the factory. She decided she would take a day like this over any other day in her life.

Taking a short step toward the guard, Tatiana asked, “Tell me, are civilians allowed inside?”

Smiling, Petrenko said with a wink, “Well, it depends what the sentry gets for it.”

“That will be quite enough, Sergeant,” Alexander said, walking briskly past him. “Let’s go, Tania.” He didn’t have his rifle anymore.

Just as they were about to walk through the passageway onto the street, a soldier jumped out at them from a secret door Tatiana had not seen. He startled her so much that she actually yelped as if stung. Placing his hand on Tatiana’s back, Alexander shook his head. “Dimitri, why?”

The soldier laughed noisily. “Your faces! That’s why.”

Tatiana composed herself. Was she wrong, or did Alexander move not just closer to her but closer and to the front, as if to stand not next to her but to shield her? How absurd.

Smiling, the soldier said, “So, Alex, who is your new friend?”

“Dimitri, this is Tatiana.”

Dimitri shook Tatiana’s hand vigorously, not letting go. Graciously, she pulled away.

Dimitri was average height by Russian standards, short compared to Alexander. He had a Russian face: broad, slightly washed-out features, as if the colors had all run dry. His nose was wide and turned up, his lips extremely thin. They were two rubber bands loosely strung together. His throat was nicked in several places by his razor. Underneath his left eye he had a small black birthmark. Dimitri’s sidecap did not have an enameled red star like Alexander’s, nor were his shoulder boards metallic. Dimitri’s were red, with one thin blue stripe. His uniform tunic bore no medals.

“Very nice to meet you,” said Dimitri. “So where are you two headed?”

Alexander told him.

“If you like,” said Dimitri, “I’ll be glad to help carry the purchases back to your house.”

“We can manage, Dima, thanks,” said Alexander.

“No, no, it’s nothing.” Dimitri smiled. “It’ll be my pleasure.” He was looking at Tatiana.

“So, Tatiana, how did you happen to run into our lieutenant?” asked Di-mitri, walking alongside her while Alexander trailed behind. Tatiana turned around and found him staring at her with anxiety. Their glances touched and moved apart. Alexander caught up and led them down the street. The Voentorg store was just around the corner.

“I ran into him on the bus,” Tatiana replied to Dimitri. “He took pity on me and offered his help.”

“Well, it was certainly lucky for you,” Dimitri said. “No one likes to help out a damsel in distress as much as our Alexander.”

“I’m hardly a damsel in distress,” Tatiana muttered, while Alexander prodded her with his hand, directing her inside the store and ending the conversation.

Tatiana was amazed at what she found behind a simple glass door with a sign on it that said officers only. First, there was no line. Second, the store was stocked full of sacks and bags and smelled of smoked ham and fish, enveloped in the aroma of cigarettes and coffee.

Alexander asked her how much money she had, and she told him, thinking the sum would stun him. He merely shrugged and said, “We could spend it all on sugar, but let’s be provident, shall we?”

“I don’t know what I’m buying for. So how can I be provident?”

“Buy,” he said, “as if you’re never going to see these goods again.”

She gave him her money without a second thought.

He bought for her four kilos of sugar, four kilos of white flour, three kilos of oats, five kilos of barley, three kilos of coffee, ten cans of marinated mushrooms, and five cans of tomatoes. Also she bought a kilo of black caviar, and with the few rubles that were left she bought two cans of ham to please her Deda. To please herself she bought a small bar of chocolate.

Smiling, Alexander told her he would pay for the chocolate out of his own money and bought her five bars.

He suggested she buy matches. Tatiana mildly scoffed at this, because, she pointed out—she thought cleverly—you couldn’t eat matches. He suggested she buy some motor oil. She told him she didn’t have a car. He said to buy it anyway. She didn’t want to. She didn’t want to be spending her father’s money on something as silly as oil and matches.

“But, Tania,” Alexander pointed out, “how are you going to put the flour you’re buying to good use if you don’t have a match to light the fire? It’ll be hard to bake that bread.”

She relented only after she found out the matches were a few kopecks, and even then she bought only one box of 200.

“Don’t forget the motor oil, Tania.”

“When I get a car, I’ll buy the motor oil.”

“What if there is no kerosene this winter?” said Alexander.

“So what?” she said. “We have electricity.”

He folded his arms. “Buy it,” he said.

“Did you say this winter?” Tatiana waved him off. “What are you talking about, winter? It’s June. We’re not going to be fighting the Germans this winter.”