The Summer Garden (7 page)

“You’re right,” Tatiana finally said with a throat clearing. “We can’t do nothing. You know what? I think
I’ll
go and speak to him. I’m a woman. I’m little. I’ll talk to him nicely, the way I talk to everybody. He’s not going to get rough with me.”

She felt Alexander stiffen behind her. “Are you joking?” he whispered. “He beats his
mother
! Don’t even
think
of coming close to him.”

“Shh. It’ll be okay. Really.”

He turned her around to face him. “I’m serious,” he said, his eyes on her unblinking and intense. “Don’t take one step in his direction. Not one
step
. Because a syllable out of him against you, and he won’t be speaking to anyone ever again, and I’ll be in an American prison. Is that what you want?”

“No, darling,” she said softly. He was talking! He was animated. He had raised his whispering voice! She kissed his face, kissed him and kissed him, until he kissed her back, his hands pacing over her nightgown.

“Have I mentioned how much I
hate
you wearing clothes in my bed?”

“I know, but there’s a little boy with us,” she whispered. “I can’t be naked next to him.”

“You don’t fool me,” Alexander said heavily.

“Darling, it’s the boy,” she said, avoiding his eyes. “Besides, my slip is made of silk, not burlap. Have you noticed I’m naked underneath?”

Alexander slipped his hands under. “Why were you crying with Vikki?” Something cool and unwelcome got into his voice. “What, you miss your New York?”

Guiltily Tatiana glanced at him. Lonely she glanced at him. “Why do you keep going next door every night?” she whispered, moaning lightly.

Alexander took his hands away. “Come on. You’ve seen Nick’s family. I’m the only one he can talk to. He’s got nobody besides me.”

Me neither, Tatiana thought, the hot hurt of it burning her eyes.

She couldn’t say anything to Alexander about Sam Gulotta and the State Department. There was no more room on his cold plate of anguish.

The next evening Anthony wandered back by himself after only half an hour outside with his father and the colonel. The sun had set and the mosquitoes were out. Tatiana bathed him, and as she was applying Calamine lotion to his bites, she asked, “Ant, what do Daddy and Nick talk about?”

“I don’t know,” Anthony said vaguely. “War. Fighting.”

“What about tonight? Why did you come back so early?”

“Nick keeps asking Dad for something.”

“What does he keep asking Dad for?”

“To kill him.”

A crouching Tatiana staggered backward, nearly falling on the floor. “
What
?”

“Don’t be upset with Dad. Please.”

She patted him. “Anthony…you’re a good boy.”

Seeing the crashed look on his mother’s face Anthony began to whimper.

She took him in her arms. “Shh. Everything is going to be all right, son.”

“Dad says he doesn’t want to kill him.”

Tatiana quickly dressed the boy for bed. “You wait here, you promise? Don’t go outside in your nightshirt. Stay in your bed and look at your book of boats and fish.”

“Where are you going?”

“To get Daddy.”

“Are you going to…come right back after you get Dad?” he said uncertainly.

“Of course. Anthony, of course. I’ll be right back.”

“Are you going to yell at him?”

“No, son.”

“Mama, please don’t be mad if he killed the colonel.”

“Shh. Look at your book. I’ll be right back.”

Tatiana got her nurse’s bag from the closet. It took her a few minutes to compose herself, but finally she walked determined down the road.

“Uh-oh,” said Nick when he saw her. “I think there’s going to be some hollerin’.”

“There isn’t,” Tatiana said coldly, opening the gate.

“It’s not his fault,” Nick said. “It’s mine. I’ve kept him.”

“My husband is a big boy,” she said. “He knows when enough is enough.” She looked at Alexander accusingly. “But he does forget that his son speaks English and hears every word the adults say.”

Alexander got up. “On that note, good night, Nick.”

“Leave the chair,” said Tatiana. “Go. Ant is by himself.”

“You’re not coming?”

“I’m going to talk to Nick for a minute.” She looked steadily at Alexander. “Go on. I’ll be right along.”

Alexander didn’t move. “What are you doing?” he said quietly.

She could see he wasn’t going to go and she wasn’t going to argue in front of a stranger. Though an argument would’ve been nice. “Nothing. I’m going to talk to Nick.”

“No, Tania. Come.”

“You don’t even know what—”

“I don’t care. Come.”

Ignoring his outstretched hand, she sat down in the chair and turned to the colonel. “I know what you’re talking to my husband about,” Tatiana said. “Stop it.”

Nick shook his head. “You’ve been at war. Don’t you understand anything?”

“Everything,” she said. “You can’t ask this of him. It’s not right.”

“Right?” he cried. “You want to talk about what’s right?”

“I do,” said Tatiana. “I’ve got a few things I’m trying to set right myself. But you went to the front, and you got hurt. That’s the price you paid to keep your wife and daughter from speaking German. When they stop grieving for you, they’ll be better. I know it’s hard now, but it will get better.”

“It’ll never get better. You think I don’t know what I was fighting for? I know. I’m not complaining about it. Not about
that
. But this isn’t life, not for me, not for my wife. This is just bullshit, pardon my language.” Because he could do nothing else, Nick heaved himself out of his chair onto the grass. Tatiana gasped. Alexander picked him up, put him back into his chair. “All I want is to die,” Nick said, panting. “Can’t
you
see it?”

“I see it,” she said in a low voice. “But leave my husband alone.”

“No one else will help me!” Nick tried to throw himself on the ground again, but Tatiana kept a firm arm on him.

“He won’t help you either,” she said. “Not with this.”

“Why not? Have you asked him how many of his own men he had shot to spare them agony?” Nick cried. “What, he hasn’t told you? Tell her, Captain. You shot them without thinking twice. Why won’t you do it for me now? Look at me!”

Tatiana stared at a darkly grim Alexander and then at Nick. “I know about my husband at war,” she said, her voice shaking. “But you leave him alone. He needs peace, too.”

“Please, Tania,” Nick whispered, bending his head into her hand. “Look at me. My revels now are ended. Have mercy on me. Just give me the morphine. It’s not violent, I’ll feel no pain. I’ll just drift off. It’s kind. It’s right.”

Tatiana looked questioningly up at Alexander.

“I’m begging you,” said Nick, seeing her vacillation.

Alexander pulled Tatiana up out of the chair. “Stop this, both of you,” he said, in a voice that brooked no argument, not even from the colonel. “You two have lost your minds. Good night.”

Later, in bed, they didn’t speak for a long while. Tatiana was scooped narrowly into him.

“Tania…tell me, were you going to kill Nick so that I wouldn’t spend any more time with him?”

“Don’t be ridi—” she broke off. “The man is dying. The man wants to be dead. Can’t you see that?”

With difficulty came Alexander’s reply. “I see it.”

Oh God.

“Help him, Alexander,” said Tatiana. “Take him to Bangor, to the Army Hospital. I know he doesn’t want to go, but he
needs
to go. The nurses are trained to take care of people like him. They will put the cigarettes in his mouth, they will read to him. They will care for him. He will live.” That man can’t be around you. You can’t be around him.

Alexander stopped talking. “Should I go to Bangor Hospital, too?” he asked.

“No, darling, no, Shura,” she whispered. “You have your own nurse right here. Round the clock.”

“Tania…”

“
Please…
shh.” They were whispering desperately, he into her hair, she into the pillow in front of her.

“Tania, would you…do it for me, if I asked? If I was…like him—”

He broke off.

“Faster than you can say Sachsenhausen.”

Click click somewhere, crickets crickets, bats and wings, Anthony snoring in the silence, in the sorrow. There was once so much Tatiana could help Alexander with. Why couldn’t she do it anymore?

Soundlessly she cried, only her shoulders quaking.

The next day Alexander took the colonel to the Bangor Army Hospital, four hours away. They left in the early morning. Tatiana filled their flasks, made them sandwiches, and washed and ironed Alexander’s khaki fatigues and a long-sleeved crew.

Before he left he asked, crouching by Anthony’s small frame, “You want me to bring you something back?”

“Yes, a toy soldier,” replied Anthony.

“You got it.” Alexander ruffled his hair and straightened up. “What about you?” he asked Tatiana, coming close to her.

“Oh, I’m fine,” she said, purposefully casual. “I don’t need anything.” She was trying to look beyond his bronze eyes, into somewhere deeper, somewhere that would tell her what he was thinking, what he was feeling, trying to reach across the ocean waters she could not traverse.

Nick was already in the camper, and his wife and daughter were milling nearby. Too many people around. The backs of Alexander’s fingers stroked her cheek. “Be a good girl,” he said, kissing her hand. She pressed her forehead into his chest for a moment before he stepped away.

When he was near the cab of the Nomad, he turned around. Tatiana, standing still and erect, squeezed hard Anthony’s hand, but that was the only indication of the turmoil within her, for to Alexander she presented herself straight and true. She even managed to smile. She blew him a kiss. Her hand went up to her temple in a trembling salute.

Alexander didn’t come back that night.

Tatiana didn’t sleep.

He didn’t come back the next morning.

Or the next afternoon.

Or the next evening.

She searched through his things and saw that his weapons were gone. Only her pistol remained, the German-issue P-38 he gave her in Leningrad. It was wrapped in a towel near a large wad of bills—extra money he had made from Jimmy and left for her.

She slept in a stupor next to Anthony in his twin bed.

The next morning Tatiana went down to the docks. Jimmy’s sloop was there, and Jimmy was doing his best to repair some damage to the side. “Hey, little guy,” he said to Anthony. “Your dad back yet? I gotta go and get me some lobsters or I’m gonna go broke.”

“He’s not back yet,” said Anthony. “But he’s going to bring me a toy soldier.”

Tatiana wavered on her calf legs. “Jim, he didn’t say anything to you about how many days he was going to take off?”

Jimmy shook his head. “He did say if I wanted to, I could hire one of the other guys coming here looking for work. If he doesn’t come back soon, I’m gonna do it. I gotta get back out there.”

The morning was dazzling.

Tatiana, dragging Anthony by the hand, practically ran uphill to Bessie’s and knocked until Bessie woke up and came miserably to the door. Tatiana, without apologizing for the early call, asked if Bessie had heard from Nick or from the hospital.

“No,” Bessie said gruffly. Tatiana refused to leave until Bessie called the hospital, only to find out that the colonel had been admitted without incident two days ago. The man who brought him stayed for one day and then left. No one knew anything else about Alexander.

Another day passed.

Tatiana sat on the bench by the bay, by the morning water, and watched her son push himself on a tire swing. Her arms were twisted around her stomach. She was trying not to rock like Alexander rocked at three o’clock in the morning.

Has he left me? Did he kiss my hand and go?

No. It wasn’t possible. Something’s happened. He can’t cope, can’t make it, can’t find a way out, a way in. I know it. I feel it. We thought the hard part was over—but we were wrong. Living is the hardest part. Figuring out how to live your life when you’re all busted up inside and out—there is nothing harder. Oh dear God. Where is Alexander?

She had to go to Bangor immediately. But how? She didn’t have a car; would she and Ant go there by bus? Would they leave Stonington for good, leave their things? And go where? But she had to do something, she couldn’t just continue to sit here!

She was clenched inside, outside.

She had to be strong for her son.

She had to be resolute for him.

Everything was going to be all right.

Like a mantra. Over and over.

This is
my
vicious dream, Tatiana’s entire body shouted. I thought it was like a dream that he was with me again, and I was right, and now I’ve opened my eyes, and he’s gone like before.

Tatiana was watching Anthony swing, looking beyond him, dreaming of one man, imagining only one other heart in the vastness of the universe—then, now, as ever. She still flew to him.

Is he still alive?

Am I still alive?

She thought so. No one could hurt this much and be dead.

“Mama, are you watching me? I’m going to spin and spin and spin until I get dizzy and fall down. Whee! Are you watching? Watch, Mama!”

Her eyes were glazed over. “I’m watching, Antman. I’m watching.”

The air smelled so August, the sun shone so brightly, the pines, the elms, the cones, the sea, the spinning boy, just three, the young mother, not even twenty-three.

Tatiana had imagined her Alexander since she was a child, before she believed that someone like him was even possible. When she was a little girl, she dreamed of a fine world in which a good man walked its winding roads, perhaps somewhere in his wandering soul searching for her.

On the Banks of the Luga River, 1938

Tatiana’s world was perfect.

Life may not have been perfect; far from it. But in the summer, when the day began almost before the last day ended, when the crickets sang all night and cows mooed before dreams fled, when the smells of summer June in the village of Luga were sharp—the cherry and the lilacs and the nettles in the soul from dawn to dusk—when you could lie in the narrow bed by the window and read books about the Grand Adventure of Life and no one disturbed you—the air so still, the branches rustling and, not far, the Luga River rushing—then the world was a perfect place.