"You're going to go where?"

"Listen..."

Vikki threw her arms down in front of her, flat on the table. Several times she banged her forehead on the tabletop, and flailed her head from side to side.

"Vikki, stop."

"Okay, this one is the best one yet. I don't think you're going to top this one. Massachusetts was good, Iowa was better, Arizona was best, but this one, this one is out of the park."

"I wait until you finished."

"What are you talking about?" Vikki said, finally swallowing her food and banging the table with her fist. "I know you're just joking. No one goes to Germany."

"International Red Cross goes. I'm going."

"The Red Cross doesn't go!"

"It does. And I'm going with it."

"You can't go! Anthony and I can't come with you if you go with the Red Cross to occupied territories!"

"I know. I don't want Anthony and you to come with me. I want him to stay here where he is safe..."

Vikki's mouth fell open. This time it was empty.

"I want him to stay here with you." She took Vikki's hands. "With you," she repeated. "Because you love my boy, and he loves you, because you will take care of him, as if he were your own, take care of him for me and his father."

"Tania," Vikki whispered hoarsely. "You're crazy, you can't go."

Tatiana squeezed Vikki's hands. "Vik, listen to me. When I thought he was dead, I was dead. I have been resurrected by Paul Markey and by Josif Orbeli. My husband needs me. He is calling for me, trust me when I tell you he needs my help. Paul Markey saw him alive in April last year all way in Saxony, Germany, when he was supposed to be dead in Lake Ladoga, Leningrad, thousand kilometers away. Edward talked me out of going in 1944 because he said I had nothing. And he was right. This time I have something. And I'm going. I just need you to look after my son. Your Grammy and Grampa will help you." Tatiana paused. "No matter what happens."

Helplessly, Vikki shook her head.

"I can't live out my ice cream life here and leave him to rot away his Soviet life there. You do understand how impossible that is, don't you?"

Vikki continued to shake her head.

"He needs me, Vikki. What kind of wife would I be if I did not help him? I help complete strangers at Ellis. What kind of wife does not help her own husband?"

"A sane wife?" whispered Vikki.

"A not very good wife," said Tatiana.

That same day she took the train to Washington.

Sam Gulotta motioned three people out of his office and shut the door.

"Sam, how are you? I need your help," she said.

"Tatiana, I'm tired of hearing that. Look, you think I don't understand? You think I don't know? Why do you think I've been helping you all these years? You think if there were some way I could bring my Carol back, I wouldn't do it? I would, I would sacrifice everything to have her back. And so I've bent over backwards for you. I did everything I could for you. But I can't help you anymore."

"Yes, you can," she said calmly. "I need you to get me passport for Alexander."

"How can I get him a passport?" Sam yelled. "On the basis of what?"

"He is American citizen and to come back he needs passport."

"Come back from where? How many times do I have to tell you..."

"Not one more time. Your own State Department says he has not lost his citizenship."

"They say nothing of the kind."

"Oh yes, they do. Doesn't the federal code for dual nationals read, and I quote"-she took out a piece of paper and brought it to her nose-"'The law requires that the U.S. national must apply for the foreign citizenship voluntarily.'" She put special emphasis on voluntarily and then, just in case Sam didn't get it, she repeated it. "Voluntarily."

Then she sat with a satisfied expression on her face.

"Why are you looking at me like the cat that ate the canary?"

"I say for third time-voluntarily."

"I heard you the first time."

"I quote more." Paper to nose again. "'He must apply for foreign citizenship by free choice and with the intention of giving up U.S. citizenship.'"

Sam rubbed his eyes. "The code might say that. What is your point?"

"Military conscription in Soviet Union for boys sixteen years of age is compulsory!" Just in case he didn't get it, Tatiana repeated it. "Compulsory."

"Oh, for God's sake, what is this, kindergarten? I got it the first time you said it to me."

"Voluntary. Compulsory. Do you see, two words have polar, opposite meanings?"

"I see, thank you for defining English words to me, Tania."

"That's what I'm saying. He did not give up his citizenship by free choice, he did not surrender it voluntary...ly. He was forced to join Red Army at sixteen."

"You told me he enrolled in an officers' program at eighteen. That sounds voluntary to me."

"Yes, but sixteen comes before eighteen. At sixteen he was already forced to conscript and made to believe he had no right to America." She paused. "And he does. And I need you to help him."

Sam stared blinklessly at Tatiana. At last he said, "Do you know something about his whereabouts I don't know?"

"I know nothing. I wish you could help me with that. But I know that one way or another he is going to need passport."

"Passport? Tania! The Soviets have him. Do you understand? Why can't you accept that he is more lost now than ever, without a doubt in the clutches of the Soviet machine that threw millions of their boys at the Germans?"

Tatiana said nothing. Her lower lip quivered slightly.

"And I can't issue a passport without a photo. Without a regulation black-and-white, face only, nothing-covering-the-head photo. I suppose you have one of those?"

"I don't have one of those."

"Then I can't help you."

She stood up. "He is American citizen and he is behind Iron Curtain. He needs you."

Sam stood up, too. "The Soviets are refusing to give us information on our MIAs. How do you suppose they will give us information on a man they've been hunting for the last ten years?"

"One way," she said, "or another. I go now. I will wire you when I need you."

"Of course you will."

BOOK THREE.

Alexander.

She is coming, my life, my fate; The red rose cries, "She's near, she's near;"

And the white rose weeps, "She's late;"

The larkspur listens, "I hear, I hear;"

And the lily whispers, "I wait."

Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE.

Eastern Germany, March 1946.

TATIANA WENT TO GERMANY on faith.

She was partnered with a short nurse named Penny-shorter than Tatiana!-and a doctor just out of residency named Martin Flanagan. Penny was a bubbly, heavy, funny gal. Martin was medium height, medium weight, medium paunch under his dress shirts, and excruciatingly serious. Martin was losing what thin hair he was born with, which Tatiana thought might have contributed to his humorlessness. Still, she thought Martin was all right until the day before they were leaving when he told her she was putting too much gauze in the medical kits.

"Is there such thing as too many medical supplies?" she said.

"Yes. Our instructions say one gauze, one adhesive tape, and you're putting in two of each."

"So?"

"That's not what we're supposed to do, Nurse Barrington."

Slowly she pulled out the second gauze, but as soon as he turned his back, she threw another three in the cardboard box. Penny saw and suppressed a giggle. "Don't get under his skin. He is very meticulous about how things are supposed to be done."

"He obviously doesn't have enough to worry about," said Tatiana. What would Martin think when she colored her hair and put on makeup? What would he think when she called him Martin? She found out the next morning when she said, "Ready to sail, Martin?"

He coughed and said, "Dr. Flanagan will be fine, Nurse Barrington."

The hair and makeup he did not comment on. Tatiana had colored her hair black that morning, after she said goodbye to Anthony. She didn't want him to see his mother looking like a different person, and so she took him to playgroup as usual and hugged him as usual and said in as calm a voice as possible, "Anthony, now you remember what we been talking about, right? Mama has to go on business trip for Red Cross, but I'm going to be back as soon as I can, and we'll go somewhere fun for our vacation, all right?"

"Yes, Mama."

"Where did you say you wanted to go?"

"Florida."

"That sounds great. We go there."

He didn't say anything, just kept his hand on her neck.

"You're going to be all right with Vikki. You know how much she loves to take care of you. She make you eat donuts and ice cream every day."

"Yes, Mama."

She watched him walk through the classroom doors, his backpack on his back, and then went after him. "Anthony, Anthony!"

He turned around.

"Just one more hug for your mommy, honey."

Vikki took the day off to help with the hair color and to see her off. Tatiana wanted to dye her hair and put on makeup because she didn't want to be accidentally recognized. It took them three hours to dye Tatiana's very long hair. "Remember, this is the toughest part. After this, you just do touch-ups at the crown, every five, six weeks. You think you'll be back by then, maybe?"

"I don't know." She didn't think so. "You better give me enough color for several touch-ups."

"How many?"

"I don't know. Give me enough for a dozen."

Vikki put mascara on Tatiana, some liquid black eyeliner, some cake makeup to cover up her freckles, and some rouge. "I can't believe this is what you go through every day," said Tatiana.

"I can't believe this is what it takes to get you to wear makeup. A suicide mission to the war zone."

"Not suicide. And how am I going to apply it without you? Easy, easy on the lipstick!" Lipstick made her mouth too full and conspicuous-not the effect Tatiana was going for. She glanced at herself in the mirror. She wasn't recognizable even to herself. "Well, what do you think?"

Vikki leaned over and kissed the corner of Tatiana's mouth. "You're completely incognita."

But Martin-Dr. Flanagan-said nothing when they met at the docks that morning, though he did clear his throat and look the other way. Penny was stunned, however. "You have the most beautiful blonde hair, and you went and colored it black?" she said incredulously, her own hair a short thin brown.