“
You never asked. How would I like you to kill it? You are a captain in the Red Army, for goodness’ sake. What do they teach you there?” “How to kill human beings. Not mice.” She barely touched her food. “Well, throw a grenade at it. Use your rifle. I don’t know. But do something.” Alexander shook his head. “You went out into the streets of Leningrad while the Germans were throwing five-hundred-kilo bombs that blew arms and legs off the women standing ahead of you in line, you stood fearless in front of cannibals, you jumped off a moving train to go and find your brother, but you are afraid of mice?” “Now you got it,” Tatiana said defiantly. “It doesn’t make sense,” Alexander said. “If a person is fearless in the big things—” “You’re wrong. Again. Are you done with your questions? Anything else you want to ask? Or add?” “Just one thing.” Alexander kept his face serious. “It looks like,” he said slowly, his voice calm, “we’ve found three uses for that too-high potato countertop I built yesterday.” And he burst out laughing. “Go ahead, laugh,” Tatiana said. “Go ahead. I’m here for your amusement.” Her eyes twinkled. Putting his own plate on the bench, Alexander took the plate out of her hands and brought her to him to stand between his legs. Reluctantly she came. “Tania, do you have any idea how funny you are?” He kissed her chest, looking up at her. “I adore you.” “If you really adored me,” she said, trying to twist herself out of his arms, unsuccessfully, “you wouldn’t be sitting here idly flirting when you could be militarizing that cabin.” Alexander stood up. “Just to point out,” he said, “it’s not called flirting once you’ve made love to the girl.” After Alexander went inside, a smiling Tatiana sat on the bench and finished her food. In a few minutes he emerged from the cabin holding his rifle in one hand, his pistol in the other, and a bayonet attachment between his teeth. The dead mouse was swinging at the end of the bayonet. He spoke out of the corner of his mouth. “How did I do?” Tatiana failed to keep a straight face. “All right, all right,” she said, chortling. “You didn’t have to bring out the spoils of war.” “Ah, but I know you wouldn’t believe in a dead mouse unless you saw it with your own eyes.” “Will you stop quoting me back to me? Shura, you tell me, I will believe it,” said Tatiana. “Now, go on, get out of here with that thing.” “One last question.” “Oh, no,” said Tatiana, covering her face, trying not to laugh. “Do you think this dead mouse is worth the price of a…killed mouse?” “Will you just go?” Tatiana heard his boisterous laughter all the way to the woods and back.
”
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