Winter Garden

Vera stares up at him and shakes her head. She has become like her mama, hungry enough and sick enough to see ghosts. The ax falls from her grasp, thunks on the floor at her feet.

“Verushka?” he says, frowning.

At the sound of his voice, she feels herself start to fall. Her legs are giving out on her. If this is dying, she wants to give in, and when his arms come around her and hold her up, she is sure she is dead. She can feel the warmth of his breath on her throat; he is holding her upright. No one has held her in so long.

“Verushka,” he says again, and she hears the question in his voice, the worry. He doesn’t know why she hasn’t spoken.

She laughs. It is a cracked, papery sound, rusty from disuse. “Sasha,” she says. “Am I dreaming you?”

“I’m here,” he says.

She clings to him, but when he goes to kiss her, she draws back in shame. Her breath is terrible; hunger has made her smell foul.

But he won’t let her pull away. He kisses her as he used to, and for a sweet, perfect moment, she is Vera again, a twenty-two-year-old girl in love with her prince. . . .

When finally she can bear to let him go, she stares up at him in awe. His hair is gone, shaved down to nothing, and his cheekbones are more pronounced, and there is something new in his eyes—a sadness, she thinks—that will now be a mark of their generation. “You didn’t write,” she says.

“I wrote. Every week. There is no one to deliver the letters. ”

“Are you done? Are you back now?”

“Oh, Vera. No. ” He closes the door behind him. “Christ, it’s cold in here. ”

“And we’re lucky. We have a burzhuika. ”

He opens his ragged coat. Hidden beneath it are half a ham, six sausage links, and a jar of honey.

Vera goes almost light-headed at the sight of meat. She cannot remember the last time she tasted it.

He sets the food down on the table. Taking her hand, he walks over to the bed, stepping around the broken furniture on the floor. At the bedside, he stares down at his sleeping children.

Vera sees the tears that come to his eyes and she understands: they do not look like his babies anymore. They look like children who are starving.

Anya rolls over in bed, bringing her baby brother with her. She smacks her lips together and chews in her sleep—dreaming—and then she slowly opens her eyes. “Papa?” she says. She looks like a little fox, with her sharp nose and pointed chin and sunken cheeks. “Papa?” she says again, elbowing Leo.

Leo rolls over and opens his eyes. He doesn’t seem to understand, or doesn’t recognize Sasha. “Quit hitting me,” he whines.

“Are these my little mushrooms?” Sasha says.

Leo sits up. “Papa?”

Sasha leans down and scoops his children into his arms as if they weigh nothing. For the first time in months, the sound of their laughter fills the apartment. They fight to get his attention, squirming like a pair of puppies in his arms. As he takes them over toward the stove, Vera can hear snippets of their conversation.

“I learned to make a fire, Papa—”

“I can cut wood—”

“Ham! You brought us ham!”

Vera sits down beside her mother, who smiles.

“He’s back,” Mama says.

“He brought food,” Vera says.

Mama struggles to sit up. Vera helps her, repositions her pillows behind her.

Once she’s upright, Mama’s foul breath taints the air between them. “Go spend the day with your family, Vera. No lines. No getting water from the Neva. No war. Just go. ” She coughs into a gray handkerchief. They both pretend not to see the bloody spots.