I know what I am, Alexander said with every movement of his body.

Tatiana had forgotten to breathe. Taking a breath now, she turned to the Neva.

“I love looking at this river,” Alexander said quietly. “Especially during the white nights. We have nothing like this in America, you know.”

“Maybe in Alaska?”

“Maybe,” he said. “But this—the river gleaming, the city around its banks, the sun setting behind Leningrad University on the left, and rising in front of us on Peter and Paul’s…” Shaking his head, he stopped talking. They sat silently.

“How did Pushkin put it in ‘The Bronze Horseman’?” Alexander asked her. “And rather than let darkness smother… the lustrous heaven’s golden light…” He broke off. “I can’t remember the rest.”

Tatiana knew “The Bronze Horseman” practically by heart. She continued for him, “One twilight glow speeds on the other… to grant but half an hour to night.”

Alexander turned his head to look at Tatiana, who continued to look at the river.

“Tania… where did you get all those freckles?” he asked softly.

“I know, they’re so annoying. It’s the sun,” she replied, blushing and touching her face as if wanting to scrub off the freckles that covered the bridge of her nose and spread in sprinkles under her eyes. Please stop looking at me, she thought, afraid of his eyes and terrified of her own heart.

“What about your blonde hair?” he continued, just as softly. “Is that the sun, too?”

Tatiana became acutely aware of his arm behind her on the bench. If he wanted to, he could move his hand a few centimeters and touch the hair that fell down her back. He didn’t.

“White nights are something, don’t you think?” he said, not taking his gaze off her.

She muttered, “We make up for them with the Leningrad winter, though.”

“Yes, winter is not much fun around here.”

Tatiana said, “Sometimes in the winter, when the Neva freezes, we go sledding on the ice. Even in the dark. Under the fleeting northern lights.”

“You and who?”

“Pasha, me, our friends. Sometimes me and Dasha. But she’s much older. I don’t tag along with her too much.” Why did she say that about Dasha’s being much older? Was she trying to be mean? Shut up already, Tatiana said to herself.

“You must love her very much,” said Alexander.

What did he mean by that? She would rather not know.

“Are you as close to her as you are to Pasha?” he asked.

“Different. Pasha and I—” Tatiana broke off. She and Pasha ate out of the same bowl together. Dasha prepared and served them that bowl. “My sister and I share a bed. She tells me I can never get married because she doesn’t want my husband sleeping in bed with us.”

Their stares locked. Tatiana could not look away. She hoped he didn’t notice her crimson color in the golden sunlight.

“You’re too young to get married,” Alexander said quietly.

“I know,” Tatiana said, as always a little defensive about her age. “But I’m not too young.”

Too young for what? Tatiana wondered, and no sooner had she wondered than in a measured voice Alexander said, “Too young for what?”

The expression in his eyes was just too much for her. Too much on the Neva, too much in the Summer Garden, too much.

She didn’t know what to say. What would Dasha say? What would a grown-up say?

“Not too young to serve in the People’s Volunteers,” she finally said. “Maybe I can join? And you could train me?” She laughed and then lost herself in her embarrassment.

Unsmiling, Alexander flinched a little but said, “You are too young for even the People’s Volunteers. They won’t take you until—” He did not finish. And she felt his unfinished sentence but couldn’t grasp the meaning of the hesitation in his voice, nor of the palpitations of his lips. There was an indentation in the middle of his bottom lip, almost like a soft nesting crevice—

Suddenly Tatiana could not look at Alexander’s lips for a second longer while the two of them sat by the river in the sunlit night. She shot up from the bench. “I’d better be heading home. It’s getting late.”

“All right,” Alexander said, also standing, much more slowly. “It’s such a nice evening.”

“Yes,” she quietly agreed without looking at him. They started to walk along the river.

“Alexander, your America, do you miss it?”

“Yes.”

“Would you ever go back if you could?”

“I suppose,” he replied evenly.

“Could you?”

He looked at her. “How would I get there? Who would let me? What claim do I have on my American name?”

Tatiana had an urge to take his hand, to touch him, to ease him somehow. “Tell me something about America,” she asked. “Did you ever see an ocean?”

“Yes, the Atlantic, and it’s quite something.”

“Is it salty?”

“Yes, and cold and immense, and it’s got jellyfish and white sailboats.”

“I saw a jellyfish once. What color is the Atlantic?”

“Green.”

“Green like the trees?”

He looked around, at the Neva, at the trees, at her. “Green a little bit like the color of your eyes.”

“So kind of muddy, murky green?” Emotion was pressing hard on her chest, making it difficult for her to breathe. I don’t need to breathe now, she thought. I’ve breathed all my life.

Alexander suggested walking back through the Summer Garden.

Tatiana agreed but then remembered the sinuous lovers. “Maybe we shouldn’t. Is there a quicker way?”

“No.”

The tall elms cast long shadows as the sun fell behind them.

They walked through the gate and down the narrow path between the statues.

“The park looks different at night,” she remarked.

“You’ve never been here at night?”

“No,” she admitted, quickly adding, “but I’ve been out at night in other places. Once I—”

Alexander leaned in to her. “Tania, you want to know something?”

“What?” she said, leaning away.

“The less you’ve been out at night, the better I like it.”

Speechless, she staggered ahead, looking at her feet.

He walked alongside, narrowing his soldier’s stride to stay by her. It was a warm night; her bare arms twice touched the rough material of his army shirt.

“This is the best time, Tatiana,” Alexander said. “Do you want to know why?”

“Please don’t tell me.”

“There will never be a time like this again. Never this simple, this uncomplicated.”

“You call this uncomplicated?” Tatiana shook her head.

“Of course.” Alexander paused. “We’re just friends, walking through Leningrad in the lucent dusk.”

They stopped at the Fontanka Bridge. “I’ve got duty at ten,” he said. “Otherwise I’d walk you home—”

“No, no. I’m going to be fine. Don’t worry. Thank you for dinner.”

Looking into Alexander’s face was not possible. Her saving grace was her height. Tatiana stared at his uniform buttons. She was not afraid of them.

He cleared his throat. “So tell me,” he asked, “what do they call you when they want to call you something other than Tania or Tatiana?”

Her heart jumped. “Who’s they?”

Alexander said nothing for what seemed like minutes.

Tatiana backed away from him, and when she was five meters away, she looked at his face. All she wanted to do was look into his wonderful face. “Sometimes,” she said, “they call me Tatia.”

He smiled.

The silences tormented her. What to do during them?

“You are very beautiful, Tatia,” said Alexander.

“Stop,” she said—inaudibly—as sensation left her legs.

He called after her, “If you wanted to, you could call me Shura.”

Shura! That’s a marvelous endearment. I would love to call you Shura, she wanted to tell him. “Who calls you Shura?”

“Nobody,” Alexander replied with a salute.

Tatiana didn’t just walk home. She flew. She grew brilliant red wings, and on them she sailed through the azure Leningrad sky. Closer to home, her heavy-with-guilt heart brought her down and the wings disappeared. She tied up her hair and made sure his books were at the very bottom of her bag. But she couldn’t go upstairs for a number of minutes as she stood against the wall of the building, clenching both fists to her chest.