He came over in long pur­pose­ful strides, sat at the edge of her bed, and in a ten­der, pos­ses­sive ges­ture wiped the lip­stick off her lips. “What is that?” he asked. “All the other girls wear it,” Ta­tiana said, quickly wip­ing her mouth, breath­less at the sight of him. “In­clud­ing Dasha.” “Well, I don’t want you to have any­thing on your lovely face,” he said, stroking her cheeks. “God knows, you don’t need it.

This is days and days and months and years and all the minutes in between, just you me.

Tania, last time in Morozovo, I let you go, but not this time. This time we live together or we die together.

A bus came. The soldier turned away from her and walked toward it. Tatiana watched him. Even his walk was from another world; the step was too sure, the stride too long, yet somehow it all seemed right, looked right, felt right. It was like stumbling on a book you thought you had lost. Ah, yes, there it is.

Everything comes at a price. Everthing in your life. The question you have to ask yourself is, what price are you willing to pay?

Tatiana and the soldier were having a silence

When Tatiana looked up from her ice cream, she saw a soldier staring at her from across the street.