![]() Slowly they walked across the Field of Mars, Tatiana barefoot and carrying the red sandals in her slightly swinging hands.” “Ancient,” Tatiana replied, failing to keep the smile off her face. “What? Is that very old?” Alexander asked, failing to keep the smile off his face. “Twenty-two, just.” “Oh,” she said, and couldn’t hide the disappointment in her voice. “How old are you?” “Twenty-two,” he said. “Seventeen tomorrow!” she repeated indignantly. “When?” “Tomorrow.” “You’re not even seventeen,” Alexander echoed. ![]() “Tell me, how old are you?” “I’m going to be seventeen soon,” she said. “Do I have ice cream-” “How do you know how old I think you are?” he asked. She licked her lips, trying to clean the corners. Did she have ice cream all around her lips? Yes, that must be it. His eyes traveled from her hair to her eyes to her mouth where they stopped. Standing in front of her, Alexander reached out and brushed the hair away. She wished she had a rubber band for her ponytail. Holding her shoes with one hand, she attempted to sort out her hair with the other. The warm Leningrad breeze blew her blonde hair over her face. “How old are you, Tania?” “Older than you think,” Tatiana said, wanting to sound old and mature. “You’re just outsized.” Blushing, she lowered her gaze. “Now you’re really tiny,” he said at last. ![]() Straightening up and raising her eyes to him, she said, “That is a little better.” Alexander was silent. Breathing a sigh of relief, she bent, unstrapped the sandals, and slipped them off. “It will be easier for you to walk on the grass.” He was right. How did he know her feet were killing her? Was it that obvious? “Go on,” he prodded gently. “Tania, why don’t you take off your shoes? You’ll be more comfortable.” “I’m fine,” she said. What are you doing? she would ask him when he was sitting on the bench and smoking. But for the future, Tatiana seemed to harbor a rosy hope, or at the very least a sense of humming unconcern. She had a stony sadness around her edges that she had not had before. He knew she sometimes thought about the past. Tatiana so ceaselessly and happily did for him, so constantly smiled and touched him and laughed-even as their twenty-nine moon-cycle days spun faster around the loop of grief-that Alexander had to wonder if she ever even thought about the future. And he thought-it was better to have them. Lazarevo was not going to come again, neither for him nor for her. “As they ate and played, and talked and told jokes, as they fished and wrestled, as they walked in the woods practicing Tatiana’s English and swam naked across the river and back, as he helped her with their laundry and the laundry of four old women, as he carried the water from the well for her and her milk pails, as he brushed her hair each morning and made love to her many times a day, never tiring, never ceasing to be aroused by her, Alexander knew that he was living the happiest days of his life.
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