The third Saturday night he met her, they found a quiet place under the embankment of the Moika Canal, where the boats quayed. It was secluded enough and Dasha didn't make any noise, and Alexander had certainly trained himself not to utter a sound. There was nowhere for Dasha to lie down, but Alexander could sit.

"Alex-do you mind if I call you Alex?" she asked.

"No," he said.

"Alex, tell me something about yourself." Dasha smiled at him. "You're very interesting."

They had finally finished, and he was hoping to get back. He wanted to sleep. His Sunday morning began at seven regardless of how late the girls kept him up. "Why don't you tell me something about yourself?"

"What do you want to know?"

"Many soldiers before me?"

"Not many." Dasha smiled. "Alexander, you don't want to be having that conversation. Because then I'll have a question for you."

"All right."

"Many women before me?"

He smiled. "Not many."

She laughed.

He laughed, too.

"I tell you what, Alex. Since I met you three weeks ago, I haven't been able to stop thinking about you."

"Really?"

"Really. And I haven't been with any men since then." She paused. "Can you say the same?"

"Absolutely. I haven't been with any men since then either."

She punched him lightly. "Stop. You have time for more?"

"No." He didn't want to tell her he didn't have another condom. "Come and see me next week. I'll have time then."

"Come on," she said teasingly, her hands on him. "I promise it'll be quick."

"No, Dasha. Next week."

After Dasha left and Alexander returned to the barracks, he found a girl in the corridor that he had been with back in May, a girl who was friendly and drunk and attractive and who would not stop or would not leave until he unbuttoned his trousers. Alexander unbuttoned his trousers.

And the week was long, and during the week, Alexander had sentry duty which included a couple of girls Dimitri had set up for them. When Saturday night came, Alexander went to Sadko, having only a cursory interest in getting together with a girl, as in, it's Saturday night, so he might as well. He ran into one he hadn't seen for a while, and after having a couple of drinks and buying her a couple of drinks, he went to the back alley of Sadko and had her against the wall, and when she said, "Aren't you going to throw your cigarette out?" he was surprised it was still in his mouth. He sent the girl home and returned to Sadko.

He felt arms go around his head and a voice say, "Guess who."

It was Dasha. He smiled. She had come alone this time.

He thought he was finished for tonight. But Dasha's evening was just beginning, so Alexander felt obliged to buy her a few beers and talk to her. They smoked, joked a bit, and then she pulled him out of the bar. "Dasha, it's getting late," he said. "I've got to be up tomorrow at seven."

"I know," she said, rubbing his arm. "You're always in a hurry. Always rushing off somewhere. What's the hurry, Alex?"

Sighing, he looked at her with wearied amusement. "What are you proposing?"

"I don't know." She smiled. "Same as last week?"

He tried to remember. For some reason last week had flown out of his head. He could see that if he didn't remember it would upset Dasha, and so he tried. But between last week and this week there had been...he tried to focus his mind. There had been much talk of imminent war.

"Don't you remember? Down by the parapets on Moika?"

Now he recalled. He had taken her down by the canal. "You want to go there again?"

"More than anything."

"Let's go."

Afterward, it was nearly one. "Alexander," she said, sitting on top of him, panting, "I must say, you're quite a strenuous lover...and I don't say that lightly."

"Thank you."

"Are you having a good time?"

"Of course."

"You don't talk much, do you?"

"What do you want to talk about?"

She laughed. "Do you feel we're saying it all?"

"We're saying all I need to."

"You want to meet next week?"

"Sure."

"Do you have a free day? Maybe you can come to my place for dinner? I don't live too far from here. On Fifth Soviet. You can meet the family."

"I don't have many free days."

"What about Monday or Tuesday?"

"This Monday or Tuesday?"

"Yes."

"I'll see. No, wait, I've got to-listen, maybe in a week or so."

"We can't keep meeting like this."

"No?"

"Well, we could." She grinned. "But maybe we could go somewhere?"

"Where would you like to go?"

"I don't know. Somewhere nicer. Maybe to Tsarskoye Selo, or Peterhof?"

"Maybe," he said noncommittally, lifting her off, getting up, stretching. "It's getting late, Dash. I have to get back."

He returned to base where he sat for a few minutes with Sergeant Ivan Petrenko, the sentry, sharing some vodka and a cigarette before he went back to his quarters.

"You think the rumors are true, Lieutenant? You think we're going to war with Hitler?"

"I think it's unavoidable, Sergeant, yes."

"But how is it possible? It's like England going to war with France. Germany and the Soviet Union have been allies for nearly two years. We signed a pact."

"And divided Poland just like old friends." Alexander smiled. "Petrenko, do you trust Hitler?"

"I don't know. I don't think he'll be stupid enough to invade us."

"Let's hope you're right," said Alexander, stubbing out his cigarette. "Good night."

All he wanted was to go to sleep; why was that so much to ask? But both Marazov and Grinkov were with women on their beds, covered with sheets up to their hair. Alexander averted his glance as he climbed atop his bunk, put a pillow over his head, and closed his eyes.

"Alexander," he heard a strident female voice say. "You bastard."

Sighing heavily, he pulled the pillow off and opened his eyes. The girl who had just been with Grinkov was standing in front of his bunk. Behind him, Alexander heard Grinkov chuckling.

"What did I do?" he asked tiredly. He recognized her slightly bloated, greatly drunken face.

"Don't you remember? You told me last week to come and meet you here tonight. I waited for three hours for you at the damn gate! Finally, I gave up and went to Sadko and what do I see but you making time with some girl who is not me."

Alexander did not want to get up, but he felt that at any second he was going to be slapped, and he didn't want to be slapped while he was lying down. "I'm really sorry," he said, rising and sitting with his legs dangling off the bunk. He vaguely remembered her. "I didn't mean to upset you."

"No?" she said, very loudly. Grinkov was laughing into his pillow. Marazov and his girl were going at it and couldn't be less interested. Neither could Alexander.

He couldn't remember her name. He wanted to tell her to get out, but he didn't want to make her feel worse in front of listening ears. He jumped off the bed, and as soon as he did, she made a fist and went to strike him in the face. Grabbing her wrist, he pushed her away, and shook his head. "I am not in the mood for this."

"You're all the same, aren't you?" she said. "You are all just woman haters and whoremongers, you don't give a shit about any of us."

"We're not woman haters," Alexander said with surprise. "I'm not. But-" God, what was her name! "If we're whoremongers, what does that make you?"

She gasped.

"Oh, listen..." he said. "I'm tired. What do you want from me?"

"A little respect, Alexander. That's all. Just a little consideration."

Alexander rubbed his eyes. This was ludicrous. "Look, I'm sorry-"

She broke in with, "You can't even remember my name, can you?" Her hand went up again. Alexander almost didn't stop her that time.

But he did stop her. He hated to be hit by anyone. All the hair on his body stood on end.

"God, I feel sorry for the girl who is going to fall in love with you, you bastard. Because you're going to shred her to pieces, you heartless swine!"

As she walked down the corridor to the stairs, Alexander called after her, "I remember-you're Elena."

"Fuck you," said Elena, disappearing down the hall.

Well, if that's not a soldier's farewell, I don't know what is, Alexander thought, going back to his quarters. He wanted to smoke and smoke again inside these prison walls, and he wanted a quiet room where he could remain composed and alone, and where he could nurse his wounded pride and think of how far he had come away from Krasnodar and from young Larissa, who had given him some of her sweetness right before she died, and from Comrade Svetlana Visselskaya, his mother's friend, who had said to him, Alexander, your gifts are so abundant, don't squander them. Well, Alexander thought, any minute now, one of the girls he had carelessly discarded was going to come by the barracks with a gun and blow his brains out and on his tombstone the epitaph would read, "Here lies Alexander, who couldn't remember the name of any girl he had fucked."

With a touch of self-hatred, he tried to look for sleep. It was three in the morning, June 22, 1941.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

The Railroad at Sinyavino Heights, 1943 ALEXANDER CALLED OUSPENSKY INTO his tent. "Lieutenant, what's wrong with Sergeant Verenkov?"

"I don't know what you mean, sir."

"Well, just this morning, he brought me not only his coffee ration, but some of his gruel, too, though thankfully not all of it."

"Yes, Captain."

"Lieutenant, why is Verenkov bringing me his gruel? Why is Sergeant Telikov offering me his French letters? Why would I require condoms from my sergeant? What's going on here?"

"You're our commanding officer, sir."

"I did not command gruel. Nor French letters."

"He wants to be nice."

"Why?"

"I don't know, sir."

"I'm going to get the truth out of you, Lieutenant."