“When I was in Colditz, that impenetrable fortress, whittling away my life, I wanted to know this.""Looks like you're still there, Shura.""No," he said. "I'm in New York, a fly on the wall, trying to see you without me.”

“He was breathing heavily. “I honestly don’t understand what’s wrong with you,” he said. “You’re telling me to pack my bags, to leave our house, knowing you’re going to have a baby?”“And this surprises you why? Have you seen what’s been happening in our house?”“Stop talking to me like this in our bed, Tatiana. My white flag is up,” said Alexander. “I have no more.”“My white flag is up, too, Shura,” she said. “You know when mine went up? June 22, 1941.”

“Tatiana...you and I had only one moment..." said Alexander. "A single moment in time, in your time and mine...one instant, when another life could have still been possible." He kissed her lips. "Do you know what I'm talking about?" When Tatiana looked up from her ice cream, she saw a soldier staring at her from across the street."I know that moment," whispered Tatiana.”

“I want you to know that should something happen to me, don’t worry about my body. My soul isn’t going to return to it, nor to God. It’s flying straight to you, where it knows it can find you, in Lazarevo. I want to be neither with kings nor heroes, but with the queen of Lake Ilmen.”

“Oh,to be walking through Leningrad white night after white night, the dawn to dusk all smelting together like platinum ore, Tatiana thought, turning away to the wall, again to the wall, the wall, as ever. Alexander, my nights, my days, my every thought. You will fall away from me in just a while, won't you, and I'll be whole again, and I will go on and feel for someone else, the way everyone does. But my innocence is forever gone.”

“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.”

“Alexander moved her off him, laid her down, was over her, was pressed into her, crushing her. Anthony was right there, he didn't care, he was trying to inhale her, trying to absorb her into himself. "All this time you were stepping out in front of me, Tatiana," he said. "Now I finally understand. You hid me on Bethel Island for eight months. For two years you hid me and deceived me - to save me. I am such an idiot," he whispered. "Wretch or not, ravaged or not, in a carapace or not, there you still were, stepping out for me, showing the mute mangled stranger your brave and indifferent face."Her eyes closed, her arms tightened around his neck. "That stranger is my life," she whispered. They crawled away from Anthony, from their only bed, onto a blanket on the floor, barricading themselves behind the table and chairs. "You left our boy to go find me, and this is what you found..." Alexander whispered, on top of her, pushing inside her, searching for peace.Crying out underneath him, Tatiana clutched his shoulders."This is what you brought back from Sachsenhausen." his movement was tense, deep, needful. Oh God. Now there was comfort. "You thought you were bringing back him, but Tania, you brought back me.""Shura...you'll have to do..." Her fingers were clamped into his scars."In you," said Alexander, lowering his lips to her parted mouth and cleaving their flesh, "are the answers to all things."All the rivers flowed into the sea and still the sea was not full.”