left me in charge of you and Pasha,” Dasha declared autocratically. “And if you’re going to give me your attitude, I won’t tell you the news.”
“What news?” Tatiana jumped up and down. She loved news.
“Not telling.”
Tatiana skipped after Dasha up the porch and into their house. Dasha put the pails down. Tatiana was wearing a little-girl sundress and bouncing up and down. Without warning she flung herself onto her sister, who was nearly knocked to the floor before she caught her footing.
“You shouldn’t do that!” Dasha said but not angry. “You’re getting too big.”
“I’m not too big.”
“Mama is going to kill me,” said Dasha, patting Tatiana’s behind. “All you do is sleep and read and disobey. You don’t eat, you’re not growing. Look how tiny you are.”
“I thought you just said I was too big.” Tatiana’s arms were around Dasha’s neck.
“Where’s your crazy brother?”
“He went fishing at dawn,” Tatiana said. “Wanted me to come too. Me get up at dawn. I told him what I thought of that.”
Dasha squeezed her. “Tania, I have kindling that’s fatter than you. Come and eat an egg.”
“I’ll eat an egg if you tell me your news,” said Tatiana, kissing her sister’s cheek, then the other cheek. Kiss kiss kiss. “You should never keep good news all to yourself, Dasha. That’s the rule: Bad news only to yourself but good news to everybody.”
Dasha set her down. “I don’t know if it’s good news but … We have new neighbors,” she said. “The Kantorovs have moved in next door.”
Tatiana widened her eyes. “You don’t say,” she said in a shocked voice, grabbing her face. “Not the Kantorovs!”
“That’s it, I’m not speaking to you anymore.”
Tatiana laughed. “You say the Kantorovs as if they are the Romanovs.”
In a thrilled tone, Dasha continued. “It’s rumored they’re from Central Asia! Turkmenistan, maybe? Isn’t that exciting? Apparently they have a girl—a girl for you to play with.”
“That’s your news?” said Tatiana. “A Turkmeni girl for me to play with? Dasha, you’ve got to do better than that. I have a village-full of girls and boys to play with—who speak Russian. And cousin Marina is coming in two weeks.”
“They also have a son.”
“So?” Tatiana looked Dasha over. “Oh. I see. Not my age. Your age.”
Dasha smiled. “Yes, unlike you, some of us are interested in boys.”
“So really, it’s not my news. It’s your news.”
“No. The girl is for you.”
Tatiana went with Dasha on the porch to eat a hard-boiled egg. She had to admit she was excited, too. New people didn’t come to the village very often. Never actually. The village was small, the houses were let out for years to the same people, who grew up, had children, grew old.
“Did you say they moved in next door?”
“Yes.”
“Where the Pavlovs lived?”
“Not anymore.”
“What happened to them?”
“I don’t know. They’re not there.”
“Well, obviously. But what happened to them? Last summer they were here.”
“Fifteen summers they were here.”
“Fifteen summers,” Tatiana corrected herself, “and now new people have moved into their house? Next time you’re in town, stop by the local Soviet council and ask the Commissar what happened to the Pavlovs.”
“Are you out of your mind, such as it is? I’m going to the Soviet to ask where the Pavlovs went? Just eat, will you? Have the egg. Stop asking so many questions. I’m tired of you already and it’s only morning.”
Tatiana was sitting, cheeks like a chipmunk, the whole egg uneaten in her mouth, her eyes twinkling. Dasha laughed, pulling Tatiana to herself. Tatiana moved away. “Stay still,” said Dasha. “I have to rebraid your hair, it’s a mess. What are you reading now, Tanechka?” she asked as she started unbraiding it. “Anything good?”
“Queen Margot. It’s the best book.”
“Never read it. What’s it about?”
“Love,” said Tatiana. “Oh, Dasha—you’ve never dreamed of such love! A doomed soldier La Môle falls in love with Henry IV’s unhappy Catholic wife, Queen Margot. Their impossible love will break your heart.”
Dasha laughed. “Tania, you are the funniest girl I know. You know absolutely nothing about anything, yet talk in thrall of words of love on a page.”
“Obviously you’ve never read Queen Margot,” Tatiana said calmly. “It’s not words of love.” She smiled. “It’s a song of love.”
“I don’t have the luxury of reading about love. All I do is take care of you.”
“You leave a little time for some nighttime social interaction.”
Dasha pinched her. “Everything is a joke to you. Well, just you wait, missy. Someday you won’t think that social interaction is so funny.”
“Maybe, but I’ll still think you’re so funny.”
“I’ll show you funny.” Dasha knocked her back on the couch. “You urchin,” she said. “When are you going to grow up? Come, I can’t wait for your impossible brother anymore. Let’s go meet your new best friend, Mademoiselle Kantorova.”
Saika Kantorova.
The summer of 1938, when she turned fourteen, was the summer that Tatiana grew up.
The people who moved in next door were nomads, drifters from parts of the world far removed from Luga. They had odd Central Asian names. The father, Murak Kantorov, too young to be retired, mumbled that he was a retired army man. But his black hair was long and tied in a ponytail. Did soldiers have long hair like that? The mother, Shavtala, said she was a non-retired teacher “of sorts.” The nineteen-year-old son, Stefan, and the fifteen-year-old daughter, Saika, said nothing except to pronounce Saika’s name. “Sah-EE-ka.”
Was it true that they came from Turkmenistan? Sometimes. Georgia? Occasionally. The Kantorovs answered all questions with vagueness.
Usually new people were friendlier, not as watchful or silent. Dasha tried. “I’m a dental assistant. I’m twenty-one. What about you, Stefan?”
