Tatiana and Alexander (48 page)

He swung his axe.

I inhale the frozen earth, I inhale ice that fills my lungs, and I breathe out fire.

I didn’t go because I was an arrogant bastard. I thought I could always run. I thought I was fucking immortal. Death would never get me. I was stronger and smarter than death. Stronger and smarter than the Soviet Union. I jumped thirty meters into the Volga, I made my way through half the country with nothing on my back, Kresty didn’t get me, Vladivostok didn’t get me, typhus didn’t get me.

Tatiana got me.

I will be fifty-one when they let me out of here.

He felt so old, having been young with her.

Alexander had been in the woods too long. And the deathly, eerie silence of the forest was icily frightening. He looked around. Suddenly he heard a noise. What was that? It sounded almost familiar. He held his breath.

There it was. In the middle distance, the sound of soft laughter.

Again the soft trilling sound, so familiar his bones ached.
Tatiana
, he whispered.

She comes to him, and she is pale. She is wearing a polka dot bathing
suit, and her hair is long. She comes up to him and sits down on the stump so he can’t cut his wood. He lights a cigarette and watches her mutely. He doesn’t know what to say to her.

“Alexander,” she speaks first. “You’re alive. And you’ve grown so old. What happened to you?”

“How do I look?” he asks.

“You look like you’re nearly fifty.”

“I am fifty.”

She smiles. “You’re fifty, but I am seventeen.” She laughs melodiously. “How unfair life is. La-la-la.”

“Lazarevo, Tania, do you remember it? Our summer of ’42?”

“What summer of ’42? I died in ’41. I’m forever seventeen. Remember Dasha? Dasha! Come! Look who I found.”

“Tania, what do you mean, you died? You didn’t die. Look at you. Wait, don’t call Dasha.”

“Dasha, come! Of course I died. How do you think my sister and I could have survived that Leningrad? We didn’t. We couldn’t. One morning I couldn’t carry the water up anymore. Couldn’t get the rations anymore. We lay down together in our bed, and we were fine. We couldn’t move. I covered us with a blanket. The fire went out. The bread ended. We didn’t get up again.”

“Wait, wait.”

Tania smiles at him, white teeth all, freckles all, braids, breasts, all.

“Tania…what about me? Why didn’t I help you?”

“Help me with what?”

“With bread, with rations? Why didn’t I get you out of Leningrad?”

“What do you mean? We never saw you again after September. Where did you go? You said you were going to marry Dasha, and then you disappeared. She thought you had run out on her.”

“On her?” Alexander says, aghast. “What about you?”

“What about me?” she asks brightly.

“What about our talk at St. Isaac’s? What about Luga?”

“What St. Isaac’s? What Luga? Dasha, where are you? You won’t believe who I ran into!”

“Tania,” he says. “Why are you acting as if you don’t know me? Why are you pretending? You’re breaking my heart. Please stop. Please say something to comfort me.”

She stops bouncing, bounding, skipping, flinging her braids around, stops cold, looks at him and says, “Alex, what are you—”

“What did you just call me?”

“Alex—”

“You’ve never called me that.”

“What do you mean? We called you that all the time.”

Alexander is desperately trying to wake up. He can’t dream this anymore. He will go mad. Except he is awake. The axe is in front of him. She is skipping on one leg. “Luga, Tania? What about Luga?”

“Luga is where our
dacha
was. We thought we’d go back there after the war, but we never made it.”

“How do you know me?” he asks. “How do you know who I am?”

“What do you mean?” Peals of her soft laughter ripple the water in the river. “You’re my sister’s guy.”

“How did you and I meet?”

“She introduced us. She’d been talking about you for weeks. Finally you came for dinner.”

“When?”

“I don’t know. July sometime.”

“What about June? June 22? You met me in June, didn’t you? The war started and you and I met at the bus stop, remember?”

“June 22? Of course we didn’t.”

“Did you have ice cream on the bench?”

“Yes…”

“Didn’t a soldier—me—see you from across the street?”

“There was no soldier,” she says adamantly. “The street was empty. I had my ice cream and the bus came to take me to Nevsky Prospekt. I went to Yelisey, got some caviar. Didn’t last us long. Didn’t help us through the winter.”

“But where was I?” he cries.

“I don’t know,” she chirps, jumping up and down. “I never saw anyone.”

Ashen, he stares into her face. Not a flicker of affection moves across it. “Why didn’t I help your sister during the blockade?” he barely gets out.

Lowering her voice in an excited whisper, she says, “I don’t know if this is true about you, Alexander, but Dimitri told us that you escaped! Escaped and ran to America—all by yourself. Can that be true? Did you leave us all behind and run?” She laughs. “That’s so delicious. America! Wow. Dasha, come here.” She turns to Alexander. “Dasha and I talked and talked about it through the winter months. Even as we lay in bed our last morning, we said, can you believe, Alexander must be warm now and full. Was there heat in America during the war? White bread?”

Alexander has long ceased to stand. He has dropped to his knees on the snow. “Tania…” he says desperately, looking up at her. “Tatia…”

“What did you call me?”

“Tatiasha, my wife, Tania, mother of my only child, don’t you remember our Lazarevo?”

“Where?” she says frowning. “Alexander, you’re acting so odd. What are you talking about? I’m not your wife. I was not anybody’s wife.” She laughs briefly and shrugs. “Child? You perfectly well know I never even had a boyfriend.” Her eyes twinkle. “I had to live through my angel sister. Dasha, come here, look who I found. Tell me more about this Alexander of yours. What was he like?” She skips away without a backward glance. And soon her laughter fades away.

Alexander dropped his axe, got up and started walking.

They caught him in the woods and brought him back, and after two weeks in the camp jail, Alexander picked the lock on the leg chains with a pin he carried in his boots. They rechained him and took away the boots. He picked the lock on the leg chains with a small straight piece of straw he found on the cement floor of the isolation cell. They beat him and strung him up by his legs upside down for twenty-four hours. The effort of pulling his body up dislocated both his ankles.

After that he was left on the straw in the jail, his arms chained above his head, and three times a day someone came in and shoved bread down his throat.

One day, Alexander turned his head away and refused the bread. He took the water.

The next day, he refused the bread again.

They stopped bringing it.

One night he opened his eyes; he was cold and thirsty. He was filthy and his body hurt. He could not move it. He tried to sweep up some straw to cover himself with. It was no use. He turned his head to the left and stared at the dark wall. He turned his head to the right and blinked.

Harold Barrington was sitting on his haunches against the wall. He was wearing slacks and a white shirt, his hair was brushed. He looked young, younger than Alexander. He was quiet for a long time. Alexander didn’t blink; he was afraid his father would be gone if he did.

“Dad?” he whispered.

“Alexander, what’s happening to you?”

“I don’t know. It’s all over for me.”

“Our adopted country has turned its back on you.”

“Yes.”

“Have you married?”

“I married.”

“Where is your wife?”

“I don’t know.” Alexander paused. “I haven’t seen my wife in many years.”

“Is she waiting for you?”

“I think she is long past that. She is living her own life.”

“Are you? Are you living your own life?”

“Yes,” Alexander said. “I’m living my own life, too. I’m living the life I made for myself.”

Harold was silent in the dark. “No, son,” he said. “You’re living the life I made for you.”

Alexander was so afraid to blink.

“I had thought you would go far, Alexander. Your mother and I both thought so.”

“I know, Dad. I was all right there for a little while.”

“I imagined a different life for you.”

“Me, too.”

Harold stood over Alexander. “Where is my son?” he whispered. “Where is my boy? I want my son back. I want to carry him to sleep in my arms, just like I did when he was born.”

“Here I am,” said Alexander.

His voice cracking, Harold said, “Ask for some bread, Alexander. Please. Don’t be so proud.”

Alexander did not respond.

Harold leaned over him and whispered:
“If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew, to serve your turn long after they are gone, and so hold on when there is nothing in you, except the will which says to them, ‘Hold on!’”

Now Alexander blinked. And Harold was gone.

New York, December 1945

TATIANA WAS PUTTING ANTHONY
to bed when he suddenly said, “Mama, can Jeb be my daddy?”

“Probably not, honey.”

“Can Edward?”

“Yes, maybe him. You like him?”

“I like him. He is nice.”

“Yes, honey, Edward is a good man.”

“Mama, tell me a story.”

She kneeled by the side of Anthony’s bed, and clasped her hands together as if in prayer. “Want to hear about how Pooh Bear and Piglet found an endless pot of honey and Pooh Bear got so big he had to be put on a diet—”

“No, don’t want that one. Tell me a cary one.”

“I don’t know scary ones.”

“Cary one,” he said, in a declaration that invited no argument.

Tatiana thought about it. “All right, I’ll tell you about Danaë, the woman in the chest.”

“The woman in the chest?”

“Yes. A painting of her, by great painter named Rembrandt, used to be in big museum of city I was born, Leningrad. But when war started, paintings were all shipped out from museum, and I don’t know if Danaë and all others are safe.”

“Tell me about woman in chest, Mama.”

Tatiana took a deep breath. “Once upon a time, there was cowardly man named Acrisius. He had a daughter named Danaë.”

“Was she young?”

“Yes.”

“Was she a bootiful princess?” Anthony giggled.

“Yes.” Tatiana paused. “But Acrisius had the oracle—”

“What is oracle?”

“Person who tell you future. He had oracle warn him that his daughter’s son was going to kill him. So he got very scared—”

“He didn’t want to die?”

“That’s right. So he locked Danaë away in bronze chamber so no one could get to her and give her a baby.”

Anthony smiled. “Someone got to her?”

“That’s right. Zeus.” Tatiana’s hands were clasped. She was on her knees. “Zeus found way into Danaë’s bronze chamber by making himself into golden rain, and Danaë was loved by a god…and he gave her a baby, a son. Do you know what they called him? They called him Perseus.”

“Perseus,” Anthony repeated.

Tatiana nodded. “When Acrisius found out that his daughter had son, he became so scared that he didn’t know what to do. He did not dare kill boy, but he couldn’t let him live, either. So he had mother and child put into chest and set adrift in stormy sea.”

Anthony was listening raptly.

“They were set adrift with no food and all alone. Danaë was scared, but Perseus wasn’t scared.” Tatiana smiled. “Perseus knew in his baby heart that his father wouldn’t let anything happen to him. Nor to Danaë.” She paused. “And his father didn’t. Zeus asked god of sea—Poseidon—to still the waters and calm the waves to let them pass safely in their frail ark to wash ashore on island in Greece.”

Anthony smiled. “I knew they be safe.” He breathed in deeply. “Did they live happily ever after?”

“…Yes.”

“What happened to Perseus?”

“Someday, when you are older, I will tell you what Perseus’s future held.”

“You will be my…
oracle?
”

“Yes.”

“But he didn’t die?”

“Oh, no. He grew up nicely. All people on island could guess right away that Perseus was of royal birth—the son not just of a king, but of a god. He grew up strong, played all games, always beat his playmates, but his mind was set only on brave deeds by which he might prove himself to be hero among men.”

Anthony stared at his mother. “Did Perseus become a hero?”

“Yes, son,” answered Tatiana. “Perseus became spectacular hero. When you are little older, I will tell you what he did to Gorgon Medusa
and to sea monster. But now I want you to have sweet dreams. I want you to dream of Luna Park and cotton candy and playing hide and seek under the boardwalk. All right?”

“Mama, wait—was the oracle right? Did Perseus kill…that man?”

“Yes, son. Perseus did kill Acrisius. Accidentally. Without meaning to.”

“So he was right to send them away.”

“Suppose so. Didn’t matter much, though, did it?”

“No. That wasn’t very cary, Mama. Maybe sea monster next time?”

“Maybe. I love you.” She closed the bedroom door behind her.

Vikki had gone out for the evening, to another Christmas party at the hospital. She had invited Tatiana, but Tatiana had gone to several holiday parties in the last few weeks and was all partied out. She was at the kitchen table with a cup of tea and the
New York Times
spread out in front of her, and the radio on with the latest from Nuremberg, when the doorbell rang.

It was Jeb. He was wearing his naval whites, and he looked tall and wide, and…

“What you doing here?” she asked, surprised. She was not expecting him.

“Why, I’ve come to see you,” Jeb said, pushing past her and inside.

She closed the door behind him. “It’s late.”

“Late for what?”

Tatiana went to the kitchen. “You want cup of tea?”

“How about a beer? You have a beer?”

“No, no beer. Just tea.”

She made him a cup of tea and settled tensely on the couch next to him. Jeb took a sip and put the cup down. “House is quiet,” he said. “That
Vikki
not here?”

“She stepped out for minute,” said Tatiana.

“At eleven at night?”

“She be back any minute.”

“Hmm.” Jeb eyed her. “You know, you and I never have a chance to be alone.” He rubbed her thigh.

Tatiana did not move away from him.

“Yes. Why won’t you come over to my place?”

“Don’t you share apartment with Vincent?”

“What does
that
have to do with anything?”

“You not alone, either.”

“Yes, but Vikki is
always
around,” he said tendentiously. “And Anthony, too.”

Tatiana squinted. “Anthony has nowhere to go,” she said slowly.

“Hmm. He’s sleeping now?”

“Restlessly, yes,”

“Hmm.” He pushed her down on the couch. His mouth was on her neck.

“Wait,” said Tatiana, turning her head this way and that. “I can’t breathe.” She was pushing him away, but he wasn’t going anywhere.

“Hey,” he said, “you smell
great
…and we’re alone.”

“Get off, please.”

“Oh, Tania, sweetheart, you don’t know who you’re dealing with.”

“And you don’t know who you’re dealing with,” she said, forcibly moving his face off her, and slipping onto the floor from under him. Panting, she said, “Jeb, I’m sorry, I’m tired. I have to get up very early. Can you go?”

“Go?” he said in an irritated voice. “I’m not going anywhere. Not going anywhere, till I—” He broke off. “What do you think I came here for?”

“Jeb, I don’t know. I’m not going to guess. Fight with me, I reckon. I’m not in mood to fight.”

“I won’t fight with you, Tatiana,” he said, getting up off the couch and coming toward her. “That’s not what I’m in the mood for.”

“Well, I’m not in mood to fight or anything,” she said, souring on him and his naval uniform and his height and his hair, souring on him, gleaning a displeasure at herself, and remorse, and suddenly a clearing of her senses. Could she have been
so
transparent?

“Tania, I feel you’ve been stringing me along,” Jeb declared, stepping away and sitting down on the sofa.

“Not at all. We are getting to know each other, that’s all.”

“Yes, we’ve gotten to know each other plenty. Plenty! Frankly, I want to get to know you a little better.”

Tatiana stared coldly at Jeb, sitting with his legs spread open, his arms spread open on the back of the couch. “I have child in bedroom. What are you thinking, raising your voice, acting this way?” She started to walk to the door.

Jumping up, he grabbed her by the arm. “I’m not leaving.”

“You
are
, Jeb,” she said. “If you want to see me again, you will leave now.”

“Is that a threat?” he said, yanking at her sweater. “What are you going to do?” He laughed. “Kick me out? Stop me?”

“Yes, and yes,” she said.

He grabbed her, bringing her to him. “I see the way you look at me,” he whispered. “You think I don’t see, but I see. I know you want it too, Tania.”

“Stop it,” she said, struggling to wrest herself away from him. A pang of sadness shot through her. Sadness for herself.

He laughed and held her tighter. Tatiana took his arm and pinched him very hard on the wrist. “Get control of yourself.”

“Ouch!” he said loudly. “You want it rough? Is that what you want?” He forced her back onto the couch.

“Don’t you understand?” she said, panting. “I don’t want it at all. I’ve made terrible mistake.”

“Too late for mistakes, dearie. I’m done walking around you on eggshells.”

She was trapped beneath him, and she was so fed up, and so sick and tired of herself, she didn’t know what to do. I have been loved by Alexander, she thought. This will not be my life. Pretending to kiss Jeb, Tatiana bit down hard, breaking the skin of his lip with her teeth. He yelled, and she pushed him off her and jumped to her feet. He jumped up too, and before she could move or duck or turn away, Jeb swung and struck her. She tottered, dropped to the couch, wavered, saw white light, but struggled to keep conscious because she heard a low noise near the bedroom door. Anthony stood in his pajamas, melting into the wall, looking at Jeb and trembling. “Don’t—” he said in a small voice. “Don’t you hurt my mama.”

Tatiana crawled to him.

Jeb cursed, wiping the blood off his mouth.

Tatiana pushed Anthony inside the bedroom and whispered, “Stay here, and don’t come out no matter what, do you hear me?” Quickly she went to the closet, and reached down into the corner on the floor to get to the black backpack.

Anthony didn’t respond, his lip curling down in a shudder.

“Do you hear me? Not for
anything
.”

He nodded.

Tatiana closed the door behind her.

Tatiana looked at Jeb as if she had never seen him before. How could she have been so swayed by what Alexander had been? She had thought she could replace just a part of him, that it would be all right if she replaced the one part she so desperately missed of Alexander, the one part she craved and wanted for herself, that she would feel better, that she would be comforted. And now look at what she had done.

Breathing hard, Tatiana pointed her German P-38 pistol at an amused and panting Jeb, and said, “Get out of my apartment.”

He glared at the gun with surprise and then laughed. “Where on earth did you get
that
little playtoy?”

“My husband and father of my child gave it to me to protect me from cannibals,” she said. “My husband was major in Red Army and he knew how to use this, and he taught me. Now get out.”

She was holding the gun with both hands and her feet were apart.

“Is that even loaded?” he asked with contempt.

Tatiana paused, cocked the hammer, moved the muzzle slightly to the left of Jeb’s face, took a deep breath, and fired. Jeb staggered backward and fell to the floor. The bullet blew a hole in the plaster and got lodged in the outside brick of the building. It had made a very loud noise, but Anthony did not come out of the bedroom. There was some half-hearted banging from downstairs, warning her to keep it down.

Tatiana came up to Jeb and hit him hard on the face with the barrel of the gun. “Yes. It’s loaded,” she said. “Now get the hell out.”

“Are you fucking crazy?” he yelled, his hands up in front of him.

She stepped away and pointed the weapon at him. “Out.”

“You’ll be sorry for this! Very sorry. I want you to know I am
not
coming back,” Jeb said to Tatiana, scrambling to his feet.

“I’m hoping somehow I’ll manage. Get out.”

After he had gone, Tatiana bolted and chained the door. She washed her face and hands, and then went in to see her son, who was huddled in the corner of the room. Bringing him back to bed, Tatiana covered him up, sat with him a moment but couldn’t speak. She patted his blanket and left the room.

She went out onto the fire escape and sat in the cold night. Six flights below was the whine of an ambulance rushing down Church Street.

That’s it for me, Tatiana thought. That’s it. I feel it. I can’t continue.

I am going to lie down on his sled and close my eyes and he will pull me along the snow to my Fifth Soviet building, except when we get there, I will not feel his hand on my cheek.

She looked at the gun in her lap, with seven bullets still in the clip, and she thought, it would take just one split second. Not even that. It would take one one-thousandth of a second, and it would all be over. So easy.

She closed her eyes. What comfort. Not to have to wake up again. Not to have to wake up and think of him on the ice.

What comfort not to suffocate.

Not to love.

Not to hurt, to want, to grieve. As if grief is not only my prerogative but my comeuppance. I caress the grief as I once caressed him; as long as it’s here, he is here; as long as I’m pretending to live, I can be near him. I’ve paused over it, one, two, three years nearly, going on the fourth cartwheel of despair, I’m bereaved, let me alone, and let me gaze at my grief with passion and ardor.

We thought I was strong. We thought I could live through it all.

But we were wrong.

I just can’t seem to live through you.

Though I want to. I want to so much.

What a relief it would be not to have to live for both of us. What joy. She stared at the gun in her raised hands.

In her darkest hour, Tatiana heard her son’s voice say, “Mama?”

He was standing in his cotton pajamas near the open window, his lower lip quivering, watching her hold the pistol.

“Anthony,” she said. “Go back to your room.”

“No. I want you to put me to bed.”

“Go back to your bed. I’ll be right there.”

“No. Come with me now.” He was crying.

She put the gun down on the metal floor of the fire escape and climbed inside.

“Vikki will be here soon,” she whispered, laying him back down and covering him up.

“No,” said Anthony. “I don’t want Vikki. I want you. Lie down next to me.”

“Anthony—”

“Mama, lie down next to me.”