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escape him. He believes she was afraid of his reaction. He went to her pharmacy, he called her at home, but she avoided him. She liked flowers and his mother had a large garden, so he kept trying to bring her bouquets well into autumn. But she wouldn’t see him. He would wait for Marina outside her pharmacy, and finally he caught her coming home from work, and she agreed to let him walk with her. It was cold, a winter night, and they went to a small park near the opera house, and she told him she had had a very difficult life, told him she was nobody, no good—“I’m not what you think I am. I’m not an angel. I’m no good for you.” Then she said, “You must get out of my life.”
    He felt Marina wanted to humiliate herself in front of him, so he repeated, “I am not interested in your past; I am only interested in our present and in our future.” Now, he wonders if maybe she just wanted to get rid of him, although he doesn’t think she was dating anyone he knew. When she tried to tell him about Leningrad, however, she grew very emotional; she cried. He, however, kept saying, “You are here for me, and you will be. I don’t want to know what happened to you before. You are now my life and we’re going to be happy all our lives.”
    She became quiet. Later that night they kissed each other, and she said, “I don’t deserve you. I’m bad.” But he told her, “I love you exactly how you are.”
    That was it. They were together again. He went home. His mother was very strict, and he had to be home by a certain time, but on warmer nights, sometimes she would walk him all the way to his home, and then he would come back with her, and that way they could enjoy an hour or two, walking back and forth.
    This happiness, which began in the summer of 1960, had continued for Sasha, but for its one interruption, until March of 1961, when the Medical Institute had a large students’ party at the Trade Union Palace. He invited Marina, of course, and Kostya Bondarin was there, and Yuri Merezhinsky, and as he recalls, Yuri brought Alik, an American. Just about the time that everybody was dancing, this American, Alik, invited Marina to do the same. Then, Sasha also danced with Marina—for that matter, many men had invited Marina to dance—Sasha didn’t pay any great attention. She was dancing, that’s all. But over the next couple of weeks, Marina became distant. When he called, Valya said she was not in. And when he went down to her pharmacy, she tried to avoid him again. So he knew that something was wrong. As they say in Minsk, “There was a black cat running between us.” Soon enough, he learned that he had a tragedy in his love affair. It was over. His life, and his dreams, vanished. Even now, it is painful.
    He waves his hand gently, as if the residue of this old sorrow, more than thirty years old, could overflow again. “It’s okay,” he says. “We stopped dating each other, and in a month or two, somebody told me, ‘Sasha, did you hear that Marina’s going to marry that American?’”
    She was still in his heart. Whenever he had to go to her pharmacy for medicine, he would follow her with his eyes when she passed. He didn’t have tears, but it was as if a cat were inside his soul, scratching with its paws.

3
    White Nights
    Now that Marina is in her early fifties, she remembers her grandmother as snobby. She doesn’t know from what kind of roots Tatiana came, maybe peasant stock like practically everyone else, but Grandmother was snobby. Maybe she had married a little bit better than her peasant relatives. Her husband was a sea captain, and she was a strong woman. Marina can picture her grandmother even better than she remembers her mother. Her grandmother always smelled good to her, clean and crisp. She was very Victorian, very opinionated. And here was Marina, born from a woman who wasn’t married, Tatiana’s own daughter Klavdia, yet her grandmother never disowned mother or child.
    They all lived