The Summer Garden (6 page)

“I wake up and I don’t know where I am. And Bessie is saying, what’s the matter? You’re not paying attention to me. You haven’t said anything about my new dress. You end up living with someone who cooks your food for you and who used to open her legs for you, but you don’t know them at all. You don’t understand them, nor they you. You’re two strangers thrown together. In my dreams, with legs, after marching, I’m always leaving, wandering off, long gone. I don’t know where I am but I’m never here, never with them. Is it like that with you, too?”

Alexander quietly smoked, downing another glass of whiskey, and another. “No,” he finally said. “My wife and I have the opposite problem. She carried weapons and shot at men who came to kill her. She was in hospitals, on battlefields, on frontlines. She was in DP camps and concentration camps. She starved through a frozen, blockaded city. She lost everyone she ever loved.” Alexander took half a glass of sour mash into his throat and still couldn’t keep himself from groaning. “She knows, sees, and understands everything. Perhaps less now, but that’s my fault. I haven’t been much of a—” he broke off. “Much of anything. Our problem isn’t that we don’t understand each other. Our problem is that we do. We can’t look at each other, can’t speak one innocent word, can’t touch each other without touching the cross on our backs. There is simply
never
any peace.” Another stiff drink went into Alexander’s throat.

Suddenly Tatiana appeared in the dark corner. “Alexander,” she whispered, “it’s eleven o’clock. You have to be up at four.”

He looked up at her bleakly.

She glanced at Nick, who was staring at her with a knowing, full expression. “What have you been telling him?”

“We’ve just been reminiscing,” said the colonel. “About the good old days that brought us here.”

Slightly slurred, Alexander said he would be right back and stood up, knocking over his chair and swaying away. Tatiana was left alone with Nick.

“He tells me you’re a nurse,” Nick said.

“I was.”

He fell silent.

“What do you need?” She placed her hand on him. “What is it?”

His moist eyes were pleading. “Do you have morphine?”

Tatiana straightened up. “What’s hurting?”

“Every single fucking thing that’s left of me,” he said. “Got enough morphine for that?”

“Nick…”

“Please. Please. Enough morphine so that I never feel again.”

“Nick, dear God…”

“When it gets unbearable for your husband, he’s got the weapons he cleans, he can just blow his brains out. But what about me?”

Nick couldn’t grab her, but he threw his body forward to her. “Who is going to blow my brains out, Tania?” he whispered.

“Nick, please!” Her hands were propping him up, but he’d had too much to drink and was listing.

Alexander came back, unsteady on his feet. Nick stopped speaking.

Tatiana had to wheel Nick up the steep hill herself because Alexander kept releasing the handlebars and Nick kept rolling back down. It took her a long time to get him to his house. Nick’s wife and daughter were purple with ire. The shrieking would have been sweeter for Tatiana had the colonel not spoken to her, but since he had, and since Alexander himself was too drunk to react to the histrionics of the two women, and since Nick Moore was also in a stupor, the punchline of the joke—a quadruple amputee in a wheelchair vanishing from the front lawn—went unappreciated by all parties, except for Anthony the following day.

The next morning Alexander had three cups of black coffee, staggered to work hung over, could put down only three traps at a time instead of the usual twelve, and came back with barely seventy lobsters, all of them chickens or one-pounders. He refused his pay, fell asleep right after dinner and never woke up until Anthony screamed in the middle of the night.

In the evening after supper, Tatiana went outside with a cup of tea, and Alexander wasn’t there. He and Anthony were with Nick in the next yard. Alexander had even taken his chair. Anthony was looking for bugs, and the two men were talking. Tatiana watched them for a few minutes and then went back inside. She sat down at the empty kitchen table and, surprising herself, burst into tears.

And the next night, and the next. Alexander didn’t even say anything to her. He just went, and he and Nick sat together, while Anthony played nearby. He started leaving his chair on Nick’s front lawn.

After a few days of not being able to stand it, Tatiana made a long distance call to Vikki before breakfast.

Vikki screamed into the phone with joy. “I can’t believe I’m finally hearing from you! What’s
wrong
with you? How are you? How is Anthony, my big boy? But first, what is
wrong
with you? You are a
terrible
friend. You said you’d be calling every week. I haven’t heard from you in over a month!”

“It hasn’t really been a month, has it?”

“Tania! What in heaven’s name have you been doing? No, no, don’t answer that.” Vikki giggled. “How has everything been?” she said in a low, insinuating voice.

“Oh, fine, fine, how’s it with you? How have you been keeping?”

“Never mind me, why haven’t you called me?”

“We’ve been—” Tatiana coughed.

“I know what you’ve been doing, you naughty girl. How is my adored child? How is my beloved boy? You don’t know what you’ve done to me. Tania giveth him and Tania taketh him away. I really miss looking after him. So much so that I’m thinking of having my own baby.”

“Unlike mine, Gelsomina,” said Tatiana, “your own child you’re going to have to keep forever. No giving him away like a puppy. And he’s not going to be as nice as Antman.”

“Who ever could be?”

They talked about Vikki’s nursing, about Deer Isle, about the boats, and the swings, and Edward Ludlow, and about a new man in Vikki’s life (“An
officer
! You’re not the only one who can take up with an officer”), and about New York (“Can’t walk any street without getting your shoes dirty with construction debris”), about her grandparents (“They’re fine, they’re trying to fatten me up, they say I’m too tall and skinny. Like if they feed me, I’ll get shorter”) and about the new short teased haircuts and new stilettos, and new fandango dresses and suddenly—“Tania? Tania, what’s the matter?”

Tatiana was crying into the phone.

“What’s the matter? What is it?”

“Nothing, nothing. Just…nice to hear your voice. I miss you very much.”

“So when are you coming back? I can’t live without you in our empty apartment,” said Vikki. “Absolutely can’t. Can’t do without your bread, without your boyzie-boy, without seeing your face. Tania, you’ve ruined me for other girls.” She laughed. “Now tell Vikki what’s wrong.”

Tatiana wiped her eyes. “Are you thinking of moving out of the apartment?”

“Moving, are you joking? Where am I going to find a three-bedroom in New York? You can’t imagine what’s happened to apartment prices since the war ended. Now stop changing the subject and tell me what’s the matter.”

“Really. I’m fine. I just…” Anthony was by her feet. She blew her nose and tried to calm down. She couldn’t speak aloud about Alexander in front of his son.

“You know who’s been calling for you? Your old friend Sam.”

“What?” Tatiana instantly stopped crying. She became alert. Sam Gulotta was her contact at the State Department for the years she had been trying to find Alexander. Sam knew very well Alexander had been found; why would he be calling for her? Her stomach dropped.

“Yes, calling for you. Looking for Alexander.”

“Oh.” Tatiana tried to keep her voice careless. “Did he say why?”

“He said something about the State Department needing to talk to Alexander. He was
adamant
that you call him. He’s been adamant every time he called.”

“How many times, um, has he called?”

“Oh, I don’t know, try…every day?”

“Every
day
?” Tatiana was stunned and frightened.

“That’s right. Every day. Adamant every day. That’s too much
adamant
for me, Tania. I keep telling him, as soon as I hear from you, I’ll give him a call, but he doesn’t believe me. Do you want his number?”

“I have Sam’s number,” she said slowly. “I’ve called him so many times over the years, I have it committed to memory.”

When Alexander first returned home, they had gone to Washington to thank Sam for helping with Alexander’s return. Sam had mentioned something about a mandatory debriefing by the State Department, but he had said it calmly and without haste, and added that it was summer and vital people were away. When they had left Sam at the Mall near the Lincoln Memorial, he didn’t say another word about it. So why such urgency now? Did this have anything to do with the reversal of friendly relations between two recent war allies, the United States and the Soviet Union?

“Call Sam, please, so he stops calling
me
. Although…” Vikki’s voice lowered a notch into flirtation territory. “Perhaps we should let him continue calling me? He’s a cutie-pie.”

“He’s a 37-year-old widower with kids, Vikki,” said Tatiana. “You can’t have him without becoming a mother, too.”

“Well, I’ve always wanted a child.”

“He has
two
children.”

“Oh, just stop it. Promise you’re going to call him?”

“I will.”

“Will you give our boyzie-boy a kiss from me the size of Montana?”

“Yes.” When Tatiana went to Germany to search for Alexander, it was Vikki who took care of Anthony. She had grown very attached to him. “I can’t call Sam right away,” Tatiana said. “I have to talk to Alexander about it first when he comes home tonight, so do me a favor, if Sam calls again, just say you haven’t spoken to me yet, and you don’t know where I am. All right?”

“Why?”

“I just…I need to talk to Alexander, and then sometimes we can’t get the phone to work. I don’t want Sam to panic, so hang tight, okay? Please don’t say anything.”

“Tania, you’re not very trusting, that’s your problem. That’s always been your problem. You’ve always been suspicious of people.”

“I’m not. I’m just…suspicious of their intentions.”

“Well, Sam wouldn’t do anything to…”

“Sam’s not running the State Department, is he?” said Tatiana.

“So?”

“He can’t vouch for everyone. Haven’t you been reading the papers?”

“No!” Vikki said proudly.

“The State Department is afraid of espionage on all fronts. I must talk to Alexander about this, see what he thinks.”

“This is
Sam
! He didn’t help you get Alexander back home just to accuse him of espionage.”

“I repeat, is Sam running the State Department?” Tatiana felt apprehension she could not explain to Vikki. In the 1920s Alexander’s mother and father belonged to the Communist Party of the United States. Harold Barrington got himself into quite a bit of trouble stateside. Suddenly Harold’s son was back in America just as tension between the two nations was escalating. What if the son had to pay for the sins of the father? As if he hadn’t paid enough—and by the looks of him indeed he had. “I have to run,” Tatiana said, glancing at Anthony and squeezing her hands around the phone. “I’ll talk to Alexander tonight. Promise you won’t say anything to Sam?”

“Only if you promise to come and visit me as soon as you leave Maine.”

“We’ll try, Gelsomina,” said Tatiana, hanging up. I will try someday to make that promise.

Shaking, she called Esther Barrington, Alexander’s aunt, his father’s sister, who lived in Massachusetts. She called ostensibly to say hello, but really to find out if anyone had contacted Esther about Alexander. They hadn’t. Small relief.

That evening over lobsters, Anthony said, “Dad, Mama called Vikki today.”

“She did?” Alexander looked up from his plate. His eyes probed her face. “Well, that’s great. How is Vikki?”

“Vikki is good. Mama cried though. Two times.”

“Anthony!” Tatiana lowered her head.

“What? You did cry.”

“Anthony, please, can you go and ask Mrs. Brewster if she wants some dinner now or if I should keep it in the oven for her?”

Anthony disappeared. Acutely feeling Alexander’s silence, Tatiana got up to go to the sink, but before she could utter a word of defense for her tears, Anthony reappeared.

“Mrs. Brewster is bleeding,” he said.

They rushed upstairs. Mrs. Brewster told them her son, newly returned from prison, beat her to get the rent money Alexander was paying. Tatiana tried to clean up the old lady with rags.

“He’s not staying with me. He’s staying down the road with friends.” Could Alexander help her with her son? Since he’d been in prison too, he should understand how things were. “I don’t see you beatin’ your wife, though.” Could Alexander ask her son not to beat her anymore? She wanted to keep her rent money. “He’s just going to spend it on filthy drink, like always, and then get hisself into trouble. I don’t know what you was in for, but he was in the pen for assault with a deadly weapon. Drunken assault.”

Alexander left to go next door to sit with Nick, but late that night he told Tatiana he was going to talk to Mrs. Brewster’s son.

“No.”

“Tania, I don’t like her either, but what kind of a fucked-up loser beats his own mother? I’m going to talk to him.”

“No.”

“No?”

“No. You’re too tightly wound.”

“I’m not tightly wound,” Alexander said slowly, into her back. “I’m just going to talk to him, that’s all, man to man. I’ll tell him beating his mother is not acceptable.” They were whispering in the dark, the beds pushed together, Anthony lightly snoring by Tatiana’s side.

“And he says to you, screw you, mister. Stay out of my business. And then what?”

“Good question. But perhaps he’ll be reasonable.”

“You think so? He beats his
mother
to take her money!” Sighing, Tatiana twitched in the middle between her two men.

“Well, we can’t just do
nothing
.”

“Yes, we can. Let’s not ask for someone else’s trouble.” We’ve got plenty. She didn’t know how to bring up Sam Gulotta, cold terror gluing his name to her throat. She tried to keep thinking about someone else’s troubles. She didn’t want Alexander
near
that woman’s son. But what to do?