7
The next evening after work Tatiana found her mother moaning in the room and Dasha sitting in the hallway, crying into her cup of tea. The Metanovs had just received a telegram from the long-defunct Novgorod command, informing them that on 13 July 1941 the train carrying one Pavel Metanov and hundreds of other young volunteers was blown up by the Germans. There were no survivors.
A week before I went to find him, thought Tatiana, pacing dully through the rooms. What did I do on the day that my brother’s train blew up? Did I work, did I ride the tram? Did I even think once of my brother? I’ve thought of him since. I’ve felt him not being here since. Dear Pasha, she thought, we lost you and we didn’t even know it. That’s the saddest loss of all, to go on for a few weeks, a few days, a night, a minute, and think everything is still all right when the structure you’ve built your life on has crumbled. We should have been mourning you, but instead we made plans, went to work, dreamed, loved, not knowing you were already behind us.
How could we not have known?
Wasn’t there a sign? Your reluctance to go? The packed suitcase? The not hearing from you?
Something we could point to so that next time we can say, wait, here is the sign. Next time we will know. And we will mourn right from the start.
Could we have kept you with us longer? Could we have all hung on to you, held you closer, played in the park once more with you to stave off the unforgiving fate for a few more days, a few more Sundays, a few more afternoons? Would that have been worth it, to have you for one more month before you were claimed, before you were lost to us? Knowing your inevitable future, would it have been worth it to see your face for another day, another hour, another minute before you were blink and gone?
Yes.
Yes, it would have been worth it. For you. And for us.
Papa was drunk, spread out on the couch, and Mama was wiping the couch, crying into the bucket of water. Tatiana offered to clean up. Mama pushed her away. Dasha was in the kitchen, crying while she was cooking dinner. Tatiana was filled with an acute sense of finality, a sharp anxiety for the days ahead. Anything could happen in a future forged by the incomprehensible present in which her twin brother was no longer alive.
As they prepared dinner, Tatiana said to Dasha, “Dash, a month ago you asked me if I thought Pasha was still alive, and I said—”
“Like I pay any attention to you, Tania,” snapped Dasha.
“Why did you ask me?” questioned a surprised Tatiana.
“I thought you were going to give me some comforting pat answer. Listen, I don’t want to talk about it. You might not be shocked, but we all are.”
When he came for dinner, Alexander raised his questioning eyebrows to Tatiana, who told him about the telegram.
No one ate the cabbage with a little canned ham that Dasha had made, except Alexander and Tatiana, who, despite a small hope, had been living with a lost Pasha since Luga.
Papa remained on the couch, and Mama sat by his side listening to the tick-tock, tick-tock of the radio’s metronome.
Dasha went to put the samovar on, and Alexander and Tatiana were left alone. He didn’t say anything, just bent his head slightly and peered into her face. For a moment they held each other’s eyes.
“Courage, Alexander,” she whispered.
“Courage, Tatiana.”
She left and went out onto the roof, looking for bombs in the chilly Leningrad night. Summer was over. Winter wasn’t far off.