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eat her ice cream in peace, while she waited for the bus to take her to buy caviar because war had started.
    There was no one else waiting for the bus, and she was glad for the fine moment to feast on her delight in seclusion. She took off the white paper wrapping, threw it in the trash can next to the bench, smelled the ice cream, and took a lick of the sweet, creamy, cold caramel. Closing her eyes in happiness, Tatiana smiled and rolled the ice cream in her mouth, waiting for it to melt on her tongue.
    Too good, Tatiana thought. Just too good.
    The wind blew her hair, and she held it back with one hand as she licked the ice cream in circles around the smooth ball. She crossed and uncrossed her legs, swung her head back, lolled the ice cream in her throat, and hummed the song everyone was singing these days: “Someday we’ll meet in Lvov, my love and I.”
    It was a perfect day. For five minutes there was no war, and it was just a glorious Sunday in a Leningrad June.
    When Tatiana looked up from her ice cream, she saw a soldier staring at her from across the street.
    It was unremarkable in a garrison city like Leningrad to see a soldier. Leningrad was full of soldiers. Seeing soldiers on the street was like seeing old ladies with shopping bags, or lines, or beer bars. Tatiana normally would have glanced past him down the street and moved on, except that this soldier was standing across the street and staring at her with an expression Tatiana had never seen before. She stopped eating her ice cream.
    Her side of the street was already in the shade, but the side where he stood swam in the northern afternoon light. Tatiana stared back at him for just a moment, and in the moment of looking into his face, something moved inside her;
moved
she would have liked to say
imperceptibly,
but that wasn’t quite the case. It was as if her heart started pumping blood through all four chambers at once, pouring it into her lungs and flooding it through her body. She blinked and felt her breath become shorter. The soldier was melting into the pavement under the pale yellow sun.
    The bus came, obstructing Tatiana’s view of him. She almost cried out and got up, not to get on the bus, no, but to run forward, across the street, so she would not lose sight of him. The bus doors opened, and the driver looked at her expectantly. Tatiana, mild-mannered and quiet, nearly shouted at him to get out of her way.
    “Are you getting on, young lady? I can’t be waiting forever.”
    Getting on? “No, no, I’m not going.”
    “Then what the hell are you doing waiting for the bus!” the driver hollered and slammed the doors shut.
    Tatiana backed away toward the bench and saw the soldier running around the bus.
    He stopped.
    She stopped.
    The bus doors opened again. “Need the bus?” asked the driver.
    The soldier looked at Tatiana, then at the bus driver.
    “Oh, for the sake of Lenin and Stalin!” the driver bellowed, slamming the doors shut for the second time.
    Tatiana was left standing in front of the bench. She backed away, tripped, and sat quickly down.
    In a casual tone, with a shrug and a roll of his eyes, the soldier said, “I thought it was my bus.”
    “Yes, me, too,” she uttered, her voice croaky.
    “Your ice cream is melting,” he said helpfully.
    And it was, melting right through the bottom point of the waffle cone, onto her dress. “Oh, no,” she said. Tatiana brushed the ice cream, only to spread it in a smear. “Great,” she muttered, and noticed that her hand wiping the dress was trembling.
    “Have you been waiting long?” the soldier asked. His voice was strong and deep and had a trace of… she didn’t know. Not from around here, she thought, keeping her gaze lowered.
    “Not
too
long,” she replied quietly, and, holding her breath, raised her eyes to get a better look at him. And raised them and raised them. He was tall.
    He was wearing a dress uniform. The beige fatigues looked like his Sunday best, and his cap