Just before midnight, the old man’s hand on my shoulder jolts me from a deep sleep. “Helena,” he croaks, “there’s dust everywhere.” My hands grasping the sides of my mattress, I blink and try to make sense of what is happening. The old man is in my bedroom. My door is open, and yellow light from the hallway is streaming in. Behind me, it is dark. “It’s the middle of the night,” I moan, more to orientate myself than to make him see reason. “Why are you up this late?” “Because

“You knew this would happen, marrying a soldier,” Mama said as we stood on the steps outside Kazan Cathedral, “my father and his father... I had the sense to find a greengrocer.” She busied herself picking tiny lint balls off my black coat while thoughts jumped fences in my mind. There was no body. There were no pictures. Just an empty casket and Nikita’s personal effects from the barracks. I didn’t believe them. It wasn’t him. Mama ceased her plucking and lifted her hands, s

Come on, I say. Hurry up. Someone is going to see us. It is so close to the end of twilight that it’s practically night. It is unbearably cold, despite my gloves, despite my down jacket, despite the scarf and hat and layers of cloth which camouflage my form in non-varying shades of black. We have a flashlight, one of the portable torches reserved for rescue crews searching for teeth in the dead of night around the debris of an accident site, but it is only for emergencies;