“Verushka?” he says, frowning.
At the sound of his voice, she feels herself start to fall. Her legs are giving out on her. If this is dying, she wants to give in, and when his arms come around her and hold her up, she is sure she is dead. She can feel the warmth of his breath on her throat; he is holding her upright. No one has held her in so long.
“Verushka,” he says again, and she hears the question in his voice, the worry. He doesn’t know why she hasn’t spoken.
She laughs. It is a cracked, papery sound, rusty from disuse. “Sasha,” she says. “Am I dreaming you?”
“I’m here,” he says.
She clings to him, but when he goes to kiss her, she draws back in shame. Her breath is terrible; hunger has made her smell foul.
But he won’t let her pull away. He kisses her as he used to, and for a sweet, perfect moment, she is Vera again, a twenty-two-year-old girl in love with her prince. . . .
When finally she can bear to let him go, she stares up at him in awe. His hair is gone, shaved down to nothing, and his cheekbones are more pronounced, and there is something new in his eyes—a sadness, she thinks—that will now be a mark of their generation. “You didn’t write,” she says.
“I wrote. Every week. There is no one to deliver the letters.”
“Are you done? Are you back now?”
“Oh, Vera. No.” He closes the door behind him. “Christ, it’s cold in here.”
“And we’re lucky. We have a burzhuika.”
He opens his ragged coat. Hidden beneath it are half a ham, six sausage links, and a jar of honey.
Vera goes almost light-headed at the sight of meat. She cannot remember the last time she tasted it.
He sets the food down on the table. Taking her hand, he walks over to the bed, stepping around the broken furniture on the floor. At the bedside, he stares down at his sleeping children.
Vera sees the tears that come to his eyes and she understands: they do not look like his babies anymore. They look like children who are starving.
Anya rolls over in bed, bringing her baby brother with her. She smacks her lips together and chews in her sleep—dreaming—and then she slowly opens her eyes. “Papa?” she says. She looks like a little fox, with her sharp nose and pointed chin and sunken cheeks. “Papa?” she says again, elbowing Leo.
Leo rolls over and opens his eyes. He doesn’t seem to understand, or doesn’t recognize Sasha. “Quit hitting me,” he whines.
“Are these my little mushrooms?” Sasha says.
Leo sits up. “Papa?”
Sasha leans down and scoops his children into his arms as if they weigh nothing. For the first time in months, the sound of their laughter fills the apartment. They fight to get his attention, squirming like a pair of puppies in his arms. As he takes them over toward the stove, Vera can hear snippets of their conversation.
“I learned to make a fire, Papa—”
“I can cut wood—”
“Ham! You brought us ham!”
Vera sits down beside her mother, who smiles.
“He’s back,” Mama says.
“He brought food,” Vera says.
Mama struggles to sit up. Vera helps her, repositions her pillows behind her.
Once she’s upright, Mama’s foul breath taints the air between them. “Go spend the day with your family, Vera. No lines. No getting water from the Neva. No war. Just go.” She coughs into a gray handkerchief. They both pretend not to see the bloody spots.
Vera strokes her mother’s brow. “I’ll make you some sweet tea. And you will eat some ham.”
Mama nods and closes her eyes again.
Vera sits there a moment longer, listening to the strange mix of Mama’s troubled breathing and her children’s laughter and her husband’s voice. It all leaves her feeling vaguely out of place. Still she covers her mother’s frail body and stands up.
“He is so proud of you,” Mama says on a sigh.
“Sasha?”
“Your papa.”
Vera feels an unexpected tightness in her throat. Saying nothing, she walks forward, and Leo’s laughter warms her more than the burning legs of any old desk ever could. She gets out her cast-iron frying pan and fries up some of the ham in a tiny spot of sunflower oil and adds sliced onions at the last minute.
A feast.
The whole room smells of rich, sizzling ham and sweet, caramelized onions. She even adds extra honey to their tea, and when they all sit on the old mattress to eat (there are no chairs anymore), no one says anything. Even Mama is lost in the unfamiliar sensation of eating.
“Can I have more, Mama?” Leo says, wiping his finger in the empty cup, looking for any trace of honey.
“No more,” Vera says quietly, knowing that as kingly as this breakfast is, it is not enough for any of them.
“I say we go to the park,” Sasha says.
“It’s all boarded up,” Anya tells him. “Like a prison. No one plays there anymore.”
“We do,” Sasha says, smiling as if this is an ordinary day.
Outside, the snow is falling. A veil of white obscures the city, softens it. The dragon’s teeth and trenches are just mounds of snow and hollowed-out white valleys, respectively. Every now and then a white hillock sits on a park bench or lies by the side of the road, but it is easy to miss. Vera hopes her children do not know what is beneath the cover of snow.
In the park, everything is sparkling and white. The sandbagged Bronze Horseman is only visible in pieces. The trees are frosted white and strung with icicles. It amazes Vera that not a tree has been cut down here. There are no wooden fences or benches or railings left in the city, but no tree has been cut down for firewood.
The children immediately rush forward and drop onto their backs, making snow angels and giggling.
Vera sits by Sasha on a black iron bench. A tree shivers beside them, dropping ice and snow. She takes his hand, and although she cannot feel his flesh beneath her glove, the solid feel of him is more than enough.
“They are making an ice road across Ladoga,” he says at last, and she knows it is what he has come to tell her.
“I hear trucks keep falling through the ice.”
“For now. But it will work. They will get food into the city. And people out of it.”
“Will they?”
“It’s the only evacuation route.”
“Is it?” She glances sideways, deciding not to tell him about their other evacuation, how she almost lost their children.
“I will get all of you passes as soon as it’s safe.”
She does not want to talk about any of this. It doesn’t matter. Only food matters now, and heat. She wishes he would just hold her and kiss her.
Maybe they will make love tonight, she thinks, closing her eyes. But how could she? She is too weak to sit up sometimes. . . .
“Vera,” he says, making her look at him.
She blinks. It is hard sometimes to stay concentrated, even now. “What?” She stares into his bright green eyes, sharp with both fear and worry, and suddenly she is remembering the first time they met. The poetry. He said something to her, a line about roses. And later, in the library, he said he’d waited for her to grow up.
“You stay alive,” he says.
She frowns, trying to listen carefully; then he starts to cry and she understands.
“I will,” she says, crying now, too.
“And keep them well. I’ll find you a way out. I promise. You just have to hang on a little while longer. Promise me.” He shakes her. “Promise me. The three of you will make it to the end.”
She licks her cracked, dry lips. “I will,” she says, believing it, believing in it.
He pulls her close and kisses her. He tastes like sweet summer peaches, and when he draws back they are both done with crying.
“It’s your birthday tomorrow,” she says.
“Twenty-six,” he says.
She leans against him; his arm comes around her. For a few hours, they are just a young family playing in the park. People hear the children laughing and come to see; they stand at the edges of the park like confused mental patients suddenly set free. It has been a long time since any of them heard a child laugh.
It is the best day of Vera’s life—as impossible as that sounds. The memory of it is golden, and as she walks home, holding his hand, she can feel herself protecting it. It is a light she will need in the months to come.
But when she gets home, she knows instantly that something is wrong.
The apartment is dark and freezing. She can see her breath. On the table, a pitcher of water is frozen solid. Frost shines on the metal stove. The fire has gone out.
She hears her mother coughing in bed and she runs to her, yelling at Sasha to build a fire.
Her mother’s breathing is noisy and strained. It sounds like old fruit being pushed through a sieve. Her skin is as pale as dirty snow. The flesh around her mouth is darkening, turning blue. “Verushka,” she whispers.
Or did she really speak? Vera doesn’t know. “Mama,” she says.
“I waited for Sasha,” Mama says.
Vera wants to beg with her, to plead, to say that he is not back, he is only visiting, and that she needs her mother, but she—
I can’t say anything.
All I can do is sit there, staring down at my mother, loving her so much I don’t even remember how hungry I am.
“I love you,” Mama says softly. “Never forget that.”
“How could I?”
“Don’t try. That’s what I mean.” Mama struggles to lean forward and it’s terrible to watch the effort it takes, so I lean forward and take her in my arms. She’s like a stick doll now. Her head lolls back.
“I love you, Mama,” I say. It is not enough, those three little words that suddenly mean good-bye, and I am not ready for good-bye. So I keep talking. I hold her close and say, “Remember when you taught me to make borscht, Mama? And we argued about how small to cut the onions and why to cook them first? You made a pot and put the vegetables in raw so I could taste the difference? And you smiled at me then, and touched my cheek, and said, ‘Do not forget how much I know, Verushka.’ I am not done learning from you. . . .”
At that, I feel my throat tighten and I can’t say anything more.
She is gone.
I hear my son say, “Mama, what’s wrong with Baba?” and it takes all my strength not to cry. But what good will crying do?
Tears are useless now in Leningrad.
Twenty-three
The silence that followed was so thick and gray Meredith expected to taste ash.
I can’t say anything.
She looked at her mother, still in bed, with her knees drawn up and the covers pulled to her chin, as if a bit of wool could somehow protect her.
“Are you okay, Mom?” Nina said, getting up.
“How could I be?”
Meredith got up, too. Although they said nothing, didn’t even make eye contact, Meredith felt for once as if they were in perfect agreement. She took her sister’s hand and they walked over to the bed.
“Your mother and sister knew how hard you tried, and how much you loved them,” Meredith said.
“Do not do that,” Mom said.
