“Lowering his voice, he said, "In America we have a custom. When you're given presents for your birthday, you're supposed to open them and say thank you."Tatiana nervously looked down at the present. "Thank you." Gifts were not something she was used to. Wrapped gifts? Unheard of, even when they came wrapped only in plain brown paper."No. Open first. Then say thank you."She smiled. "What do I do? Do I take the paper off?""Yes. You tear it off.""And then what?""And then you throw it away.""The whole present or just the paper?"Slowly he said, "Just the paper.""But you wrapped it so nicely. Why would I throw it away?""It's just paper.""If it's just paper, why did you wrap it?""Will you please just open my present?" said Alexander”

“You know I can’t make her pregnant,” he said. “You know she is lying at least about that, right? After what I’d seen in Moscow, after what my mother taught me, and all during my years“as a garrison soldier, think—what did I tell you about myself and the women I’d been with? Have I ever had it off bareback with anyone? Ever, even once in my whole fucking life?”“Yes,” she said faintly. “With me.”“Yes,” Alexander said, sinking down. “Only with you.” His shoulders slumped. “Because you are holy.” He looked at his hands. “And a fat load of good it’s done me.”

“What was she thinking?” muttered Alexander, closing his eyes and imagining his Tania.“She was determined. It was like some kind of a personal crusade with her,” Ina said. “She gave the doctor a liter of blood for you—”“Where did she get it from?”“Herself, of course.” Ina smiled. “Lucky for you, Major, our Nurse Metanova is a universal donor.”Of course she is, thought Alexander, keeping his eyes tightly shut.Ina continued. “The doctor told her she couldn’t give any more, and she said a liter wasn’t enough, and he said, ‘Yes, but you don’t have more to give,’ and she said, ‘I’ll make more,’ and he said, ‘No,’ and she said, ‘Yes,’ and in four hours, she gave him another half-liter of blood.”Alexander lay on his stomach and listened intently while Ina wrapped fresh gauze on his wound.He was barely breathing.“The doctor told her, ‘Tania, you’re wasting your time. Look at his burn. It’s going to get infected.’ There wasn’t enough penicillin to give to you, especially since your blood count was solow.” Alexander heard Ina chuckle in disbelief. “So I’m making my rounds late that night, and who do I find next to your bed? Tatiana. She’s sitting with a syringe in her arm, hooked up to acatheter, and I watch her, and I swear to God, you won’t believe it when I tell you, Major, but I see that the catheter is attached to the entry drip in your IV.” Ina’s eyes bulged. “I watch herdraining blood from the radial artery in her arm into your IV. I ran in and said, ‘Are you crazy? Are you out of your mind? You’re siphoning blood from yourself into him?’ She said to me inher calm, I-won’t-stand-for-any-argument voice, ‘Ina, if I don’t, he will die.’ I yelled at her. I said, ‘There are thirty soldiers in the critical wing who need sutures and bandages and their wounds cleaned. Why don’t you take care of them and let God take care of the dead?’ And she said, ‘He’s not dead. He is still alive, and while he is alive, he is mine.’ Can you believe it, Major? But that’s what she said. ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ I said to her. ‘Fine, die yourself. I don’t care.’ But the next morning I went to complain to Dr. Sayers that she wasn’t following procedure,told him what she had done, and he ran to yell at her.” Ina lowered her voice to a sibilant, incredulous whisper. “We found her unconscious on the floor by your bed. She was in a dead faint, but you had taken a turn for the better. All your vital signs were up. And Tatiana got up from the floor, white as death itself, and said to the doctor coldly, ‘Maybe now you can give him the penicillin he needs?’ I could see the doctor was stunned. But he did. Gave you penicillin and more plasma and extra morphine. Then he operated on you, to get bits of the shell fragment outof you, and saved your kidney. And stitched you. And all that time she never left his side, or yours. He told her your bandages needed to be changed every three hours to help with drainage,to prevent infection. We had only two nurses in the terminal wing, me and her. I had to take care of all the other patients, while all she did was take care of you. For fifteen days and nights she unwrapped you and cleaned you and changed your dressings. Every three hours. She was a ghost by the end. But you made it. That’s when we moved you to critical care. I said to her, ‘Tania, this man ought to marry you for what you did for him,’ and she said, ‘You think so?’ ” Ina tutted again. Paused. “Are you all right, Major? Why are you crying?”

“Open your eyes, soldier,” Tatiana said fondly, caressing his face.“Are you hungry?” “I was hungry,” Alexander said. “But you fed me.” His body was shaking underneath his sheet.”

“I'm going to die with Alexander's hand on my face, Tatiana thought. That is not a bad way to die. I cannot move. I can't get up. Just can't. She closed her eyes and felt herself drifting. Through the haze in front of her she heard Alexander's voice. "Tatiana, I love you. Do you hear me? I love you like I've never loved anyone in my whole life. Now, get up. For me, Tatia. For me, please get up and go take care of your sister. Go on. And I'll take care of you.”

“You are still not fucking immortal, sir. And your men certainly aren’t, but I don’t give a shit about the men. It’s you we can’t replace. And I’m supposed to be here to protect you. How can you engage in hand-to-hand combat in the water when you are supposed to be in the rear? What do you think you are made of, Captain? Until just now when I saw you bleed red blood like the rest of us, I wasn’t sure.”“It’s not my blood,” Alexander said.“What?”But Alexander shook his head.”

“Joseph handed me a neatly wrapped gift also in the metallic purple paper. “Diana wrapped it for you. She said my wrapping was an insult to humanity,” he said breaking out in a grin that made dimples appear in his cheeks.”