CHAPTER TWENTY
Lazarevo, 1942
LAZAREVO--EVEN THE NAMEitself was reminiscent of myth, of legend, of revelation. Lazarus, the brother of Mary and Martha, raised from four days dead by Jesus. A miracle given by God to reaffirm man's faith that so angered His enemies they started plotting to kill both the mortal and the divine.
Lazarevo--a small fishing village on the needle banks of the mighty Kama, the river that for ten million years flowed a thousand miles south into the world's largest sea.
Alexander went to Lazarevo on faith.
He had heard nothing from her. Nothing for six months. All he had to say was, I do not believe she could have survived because I have seen with my own eyes thousands stronger than her, healthier than her that had not survived. They got sick, and she was sick. They had no food, they were starved and she was starved. They had no defences and she had none. They were alone, and she was also. She was small and she was weak and she didn't make it.
That would have required nothing of Alexander. He could have said, it must be so. All he had to do was nothing. How easy!
But Alexander learned by now: there was no easy step in his life, no easy day, no easy choice, no easy way. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
He had his one life. In June 1942 he went to Lazarevo holding it in his hands.
By the shores of the Kama, he found her gorgeous and restored, and not just restored to her original shining brilliance but enlarged and clarified. Light reflected off her, no matter which way she turned.
They ran down to the almighty river. She never even looked back.
She would never know what it meant to him, an unremitting sinner, after all the unsacred things he had seen and done, to have her innocence. He held her to him. He had dreamed of it too long, touching her. Dreamed of seeing her naked too long, beautiful, bare, ready for him. He was afraid to hurt her. He had never been with an untouched girl before; he wasn't sure if he was supposed to do something first.
In the end, he did nothing first, but she baptized him with her body. There was no Alexander anymore; the man he knew had died and was reborn inside a perfect heart, given to him straight from God, to him and for him.
He had lived the last five years of his life being with women whose names he could not remember, whose faces he could not recall, women to whom he meant nothing but a well spent moment on a Saturday night. The connections he had made with those women were transient links, gone as soon as the moment was gone. Nothing lasted in the Red Army. Nothing lasted in the Soviet Union. Nothing lasted inside Alexander.
He had lived the last five years of his life amid young men who could die instantly as he was covering them, as he was saving them, as he was carrying them back to base. His connections to them were real but impermanent. He knew better than anyone the fragility of life during Soviet war.
Yet Tatiana had lived through the hunger, made her blind way through the snow on the Volga, made her way inside his tent to show Alexander that in his life there was one permanence. In Alexander's life there was one thread that could not be broken by death, by distance, by time, by war. Could not be broken. As long as I am in the world, she said with her breath and her body, as long asI am, you are permanent, soldier.
And he believed.
And before God they were married.
Alexander was sitting on a blanket, his back against the tree, and she was on top of him, straddling him, kissing him so deeply he couldn't get his breath. "Tania..." he whispered. "...Hang on..."
It was their third morning as husband and wife. They got up, washed, drank and were now deeply ensconced under the birch.
"Shura, darling, I can't believe you're my husband. Myhusband. "
"Mmm."
"Shura, my husband forlife. " Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
"Mmm." His hands were caressing her thighs.
"Do you know what that means? You've sworn to make love only to me for life."
"I'lltake that job."
"Do you know I read that in some African cultures I get to have your liver as a sign of your love for me." She giggled.
"You can take my liver, Tatia, but I won't be much good to you afterward. Maybe you should make love to me first."
"Shura, wait."
"No. Take your dress off. Take it all off."
She obliged.
"Now sit on top of me."
"But you're completely dressed!"
"Just sit on top of me." He gazed at her hungrily. Tatiana had a beautiful body. And Alexander had seen them all. Lithe, smooth, cr?me, from her clavicles to her carpals, Tatiana was formed to fit Alexander's desire. Everything he liked in a woman's body, his tiny maiden wife unsparingly had. She had a small waist and rounded hips, she had soft thighs and lush breasts. She had the gift of silk and velvet from her golden hair to the soles of her feet and all within her. Alexander's breath was short. He opened his arms.
Tatiana straddled him. "Like this?"
"This is good," he said, his hands over her, groaning at the feel of her. Tatiana lifted herself up to let him kiss her warm breasts. His hands grasped her hips. He closed his eyes. "Tania, do you know that in Ethiopia a woman, to make herself more attractive to her new husband, makes a series of cuts on her torso and then rubs ash into them to raise them into scars?"
Sitting back down on him, Tatiana stared at him. "You would find this attractive?"
"Not particularly." Alexander smiled. "It's thesacrifice that appeals to me."
"I'll show you, sacrifice. I think it's in the same Ethiopia," she said, "that the women get shaved from the neck down."
"Mmm."
"Doesthat appeal to you?"
He was pressing her body into himself and licking her lips. "Let's just say it doesn't not appeal to me."
"Shura!"
"What? You know in some African cultures the women are not allowed to speak to their husbands Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
unless they're spoken to first?"
"Yes, and in others, they can flirt with both the husband and his cousin and both men can share the marriage bed if the woman so desires. How doesthat strike you?" She went on without letting him respond. "And in some, I keep myself completely covered in a, in a--what is that thing called..."
"A black box," Alexander said, smiling.
"No, the real name."
"A burka."
"Yes! A burka. I keep myself covered with a burka from head to toe my entire life, but at the beginning of the marriage you have to lift the burka off my face and I have to reach up and help you, and the one whose hand is on top gets to be the boss in the marriage." She laughed infectiously. "Which one of those appeals to you, husband?"
He couldn't speak for a moment as she continued to kiss him to end all wars. "Well, first of all," he said hoarsely, "my father's sister had no children, so the cousin thing is out. And yes, I would like for you to wear a black box so no one else can lay their eyes on you. And to address your third point, I find it hard to imagine a tadpole like you being the boss of anything."
"Imagine away, soldier," Tatiana said bravely. Her fire lips consumed him.
It was time for him to get undressed. But he couldn't move. Her knees were against his ribs, her arms were holding his head, and her lips were ravishing his mouth.
Alexander groaned. "In Barrington, do you know what we did? It wasn't Africa, but we cut our palms and pressed our blood together to say we were going to be friends for life."
"If youwant we can press our palms together, but in Russia, when we want to reaffirm marriage, we just have a baby." She bit his neck.
"I tell you what," said Alexander. "Let me up, and we'll see what we can do to reaffirm our marriage." Not only did she not move off him, but she held him tighter. "Tania..." he said. Nothing from her except her lips. He was feeling weaker by degrees.
"A minute ago, I was a tadpole," she whispered. "Now suddenly you can't move me off you."
He didn't just move her off him. Holding her with one hand, he jumped up off the ground into a standing position while continuing to hold her. "You, my dear," Alexander said, "are lighter than all of my gear and my weapons and the mortar that I carry." With his free hand he unzipped his trousers.
"Where is that mortar that you carry," Tatiana said huskily, her lips at his neck.
Time, time, time. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
They were walking back to the cabin. Alexander's blueberry bucket was half full. Tania's was flowing over. "I don't know how you're going to survive in the wilderness," she said.
"By not picking blueberries, that's for sure." He took her hand. "Want me to carry that?"
"I'm fine."
"Say something in English."
"I'm hungry," she complied in English.
"Something else." He smiled.
She tutted.
"Something else," he repeated, squeezing her hand emphatically.
In English, she asked, "Do you ever went todoghouse ?"
Alexander didn't understand. "A doghouse--"
He understood. "Tania..." He laughed. "It's thecathouse ."
"Oh." She blushed. Alexander pulled her to him.
"Careful with the blueberries," she said in English. "Don't spill my full backet."
"Okay." Alexander shook his head. "And it'sbucket ." Balling up her hand into a fist, he brought it to his lips.
At the cabin, Tania immediately perched down to pick through the blueberries while Alexander went for a swim. Drying off, Alexander stood in front of Tatiana, buckets between her parted legs. She looked up at him expectantly. He extended his hand.
After they had finished making sweet slow afternoon love, and she was cradled in his arms, he said, "Yes, I've been to a cathouse. A long time ago."
She shuddered briefly, not looking at him. "Often?"
"No, not often."
"Didn't you ever--all those skanks have been with so many men. Do they even wash in between?"
Alexander smiled at her innocence, at her blinding blondeness. "Not all women can be untrampled snow like you," he said. He paused, slightly shuddering himself. "I'll never go again, all right?"
She looked at him, puzzled. "Why would you?" she asked, her expression full of love, full of faith. "You're married now. To me." Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
"I know who I'm married to." He thought a moment. "Besides," he added slowly, "I was very careful. I always wore a safety sheath."
"A what?"
Oh, dear God. "A false scabbard," he said. She was heartbreaking. "Over the sword."
Tatiana was thoughtful. "When you sayalways ..."
"Always."
"Notalways , right?"
"Always, Tania. How can you not believe me? A second ago you didn't even know what--"
"Shura."
"What?"
"Not always," she said firmly, propping herself up on her arm. "You don't wear one with me."
Alexander smiled. "Why would I?" He took her in his arms. "Why should I?" he whispered.
"Wait, wait!" She disentangled herself. "Are you telling me that you were never uncovered..."
"That's what I'm saying."
"Never?"
"Never."
"I don't believe you."
Alexander laughed. "The truth is not dependent on your belief, Tania."
"All those women, all those good-time girls, all those garrison hacks, not a single one?"
"Particularly not them."
"But Shura, you--" She paused. "You must have needed quite a lot of them." She smiled. "Scabbards, not girls."
He smiled back.
"What did you do when you ran out?"
"I stayed away until I got some more."
Tatiana was very quiet. "What about Dasha?"
"What about her?" Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
"With her, too?"
"Tania, with everyone."
"Shura..." Tatiana jumped on him, hugging him to kill the alive. She was shaking him. When she lifted her face from his neck, tears were in her eyes. "You're such a beast. How could you have not told me this for five whole days? And after I told you all about me in the first five minutes."
He grinned, his hands running up and down her bare back. "You never asked."
She shook him again. He stroked her arms, her neck, her lips. Caressing her, he watched her face, her closed eyes, her slightly parted mouth. "Say something in English."
"No," she said. "But now I am going to go and make you blueberry jam."
"Great," Alexander muttered, watching her hop down. "Can't wait. Much better than abit of fresh ."
Tatiana turned to him and smiled. "Shura," she said in halting English, "show me yourmarriage bait ."
Alexander laughed. "Tania, come here. Please. Forget the blueberries."
"What did I say now?" she said, coming back, kneeling in front of him and smiling.
"It's notmarriage bait , it's thewedding tackle . And here it is." He smiled. "But stop using your English as a source of comedy on our marriage rack. Touch me."
Fondling him and grinning, she said in English, "All right, you well drawn soldier."
"Tania...oh, no." His stomach was beginning to hurt. "Stop, I said. You're killing me."
"Come, give mea slice of tail ."
"Tania!"
"What?" she said, her eyes twinkling.
"I don't giveyou a slice of tail!"
"Well, all right then." She lay down next to him.
"You're playing with me? Stop. I'll be no good to you in a minute."
"Then who has thesugarstick ?"
He grabbed her, pulling her to him. "That would be me."
"Well, give me some."
"All right, then." Shewas teasing him. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
"Come, come, come." She smiled. "How is my English tongue?"
"Perfect," Alexander said. "And it's the Englishlanguage . But you've reduced a formerly whole man to his frazzled parts."
"What will make you whole again?" asked Tania. "A little trip to the cathouse?"
"A little trip to your cathouse, maybe," said Alexander, his lips devouring her laughing face.
Stop, stop, stop.
He was teaching her how to fire a pistol. She was a reluctant--"and poor"--student. "Attention! You are completely not paying attention."
"I am."
He nudged her with his hand. "You would make a terrible soldier. You don't listen, you don't obey. They'd throw you out of boot camp. Let's try it again. Where's the safety?"
She showed him.
"Where's the magazine catch?"
She showed him.
"Where's the hammer? Where do the bullets go? Do you remember how to put a new magazine in?"
She popped the magazine catch, pulled the old clip out, snapped the new clip in place, cocked the hammer and with both hands aimed the pistol at a tree. From behind her he reached over and took the gun away. "If you fire it, we'll lose dinner for a week. All the fish will leave."
"I see." She jumped up and down. "So how did I do?"
"You get good marks for memory but you completely fail on attitude."
Saluting him, she stood to attention. "Yes, sir. What's the punishment for poor attitude?" She grinned and then burst out laughing and ran away.
Tania is across from him on the wood floor in front of the fire in their cabin. It has rained all morning and afternoon, it is nearing dinner time, which she is supposed to be preparing, but Alexander isn't letting her go--until he wins one, justone idiotic game of dominoes. She asks him, "You have one-ones," almost like it's not a question. And he says yes! because one-ones start the game and give you an advantage. But he has said that before. They've been playing since one. They must have played 40 times. Maybe 50. He's had one-ones and two-twos, he's had, in a seeming impossibility, all seven double tiles at once. He's had every combination of tiles imaginable. He has not won. Alexandercannot believe it. "Wouldn't Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
the law of averages swing my way justonce ?" he demands of Tatiana who smiles sweetly across the floor.
"Husband, I think your luck is changing."
"You think?"
"I'm almost positive."
She is wearing a knee-length skirt and a blue cardigan over a yellow shirt. Her hair is swept up on top of her head, falling into her face. She looks warm and small. Alexander feels the aching in the pit of his stomach. Not even bothering to study her tiles, she is merrily humming, sitting with her legs drawn up. If he weren't so intent on winning, he would ask her to pull up her skirt a little to let him peek.
"But I just want to say, Shura," says Tatiana philosophically, "that you can't win everything."
"Watch me."
"Do I complain when you always beat me across the river?" she asks. "When you catch the perch with your bare hands and I can't? When you unfairly beat me at arm wrestling just because you're bigger? And what about poker? Do I complain when you always beat me at strip poker?" She grins, and Alexander wants to fall on top of her that instant.
"Actually, yes, you do complain," he says, his voice deepening an octave. "And I don't want to win everything. I want to win one lousy game out of fifty, is that too much to ask?"
Her eyes twinkling, she gets all demure. "Would you like me tolet you win, darling?"
"That's it," he exclaims. She laughs. "I'm winning this game, Tania, I don't care what kind of black magic you weave over my tiles."
Alexander comes close. Very close. He has one tile left when she lays down her last and claps joyously, falling back on the floor. Her hitched-up skirt lifts, exposing the flushed backs of her bare thighs, her sheer underwear. He watches her a moment and then falls on top of her.
"Shura, dinner!" She is laughing, feral, trying to get away, and does, and bolts out the door into the clearing and he chases her down to the river in the gloomy dusk, in the miserable rain. He catches her as she is about to dive in, clothes on, into the Kama.
"Oh, no, you don't," he says, lifting her into his arms. "Not this time."
Squealing, she struggles against him, cheerfully and symbolically. He carries her wet inside the house, kicks the door shut behind him and, setting her down, pulls all the blankets and pillows down on the floor in front of the fire.
"Shura, dinner!" she repeats mock-plaintively.
"No, Tania,me. "
It is very warm in the cabin. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
Undressing her, he lays her naked on the blanket and, undressing himself, lies down next to her.
"One of two things is going to happen after I'm done with you," he says in his most soothing erotic voice. Tatiana can't take it; she moans.
"That's right, one of two," he says, caressing her trembling body. "I am going to make love to you until you either beg me to stop, or promise me that you willnever and I mean, never, play dominoes with me again."
She closes her eyes as her hands reach for him, grasp for him. "I'll tell you right now," she whispers. "I will not be begging you to stop."
"We'll just see about that," says Alexander.
Stop time, stop time, stop time.
One less day. In the late evening, Tatiana climbed into his lap. "No, no, don't stop reading," she purred, snuggling up to him. "I'm cold." She curled into his chest. Enfolding her in his arms, Alexander resumed reading, but only every tenth word was getting through because she was nestled against him, and her silky hair was rubbing against his neck, his throat, his jawbone. Alexander listened to her breath. It was rhythmic. He put the book down and peeked at her. Her eyes were closed.
An aching tenderness filled him. He sat, not moving, inhaling her sleeping soapy feminine smell. She fit into him like a cat under his chin, on his collarbone, her legs tucked in over him, she was warming him as he warmed her. He wanted to squeeze her closer to him but didn't want to do anything to wake her up. Unlike him, she was a light sleeper, and he knew when she got up, she would get off his lap.
Minutes, crystalline, wet, chilly, breathless minutes, and the time tick tock, tick tock, it moved, without a watch, without a clock, without the chime of the hour, the bell of the church, but with every sunrise, every sunset, with the waning cycle of the moon it steamrolled ahead without a backward glance.
How many days left? He didn't want to think about it. When they got married they had twenty-six days in front of them and they said, oh, we've been married three days, five days, ten days. But now Tatiana had stopped talking about it, and Alexander was thinking, how many daysleft ?
Dear Tania. I am so happy, yet I've never been more miserable in my whole life. Can you possibly understand? You with your wings of joy, can you understand what you carry on your shoulders, and how heavy I am? No, you are made of gossamer, nothing can weigh you down, not even me. You float, while I founder--in my fear, in my folly, in my fierce weakness.
A short quake went through her, and she opened her eyes. "Oh," she murmured. "Did I fall asleep?"
"Shh," he said. "Don't get up."
"How long have I been on you?"
"Not long enough. Stay here," he said quietly. "Stay. I'll sit up and you bend your head and sleep on me. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
I'll hold you all night."
"And tomorrow you won't be able to walk, your back will be so bad," she replied. She tickled his neck. They sat. "Well? Are we just going to sit here, or do you plan to do your husbandly duty?"
"We're just going to sit here."
Her fingers caressed his neck, her lips kissed his throat, her hips nested into his lap. "What's the matter?" she asked, nuzzling him. "Come on. Let me make you happy."
"Iam happy."
"Happier. Lie down," she whispered.
When they roughhoused, Tatiana was as assertive as a cougar, but during lovemaking, Alexander couldn't get her to be anything but intemperately tender with him. "Harder," he would tell her. "Touch me harder, Tatia. Don't be so gentle with me."
"Shura..." The fire flickered its harvest moonlight around the cabin. She stroked his face with her gentle fingers, her tongue ran in smooth circles around his lips, her fingers sloped down to his neck and throat and caressed his chest, lightly circled his upper arms where she rested before continuing. "I love your arms," she whispered. "I keep imagining you holding me with them."
"You don't have to imagine," Alexander whispered back. "I'll hold you with them right now."
"You lie still." She continued to caress his chest and his stomach; her fingers were silky and fragile, like small nightingales with webbed feet.
"Tatia," he whispered. "I'm dying."
"No," she said, moving lower. "Not yet."
"Yes, yet," he replied. "Come on, don't make a grown man beg."
Adoring and worshipful, groaning from pleasure, she was bent over him, breathing over him, murmuring. "God, Shura, you are--I love you, I can't take it."
Shecouldn't take it? His eyes shut, he clasped her head between his hands.
A few days. A few nights. Later, later. Tomorrow. The next day, the next evening, another breakfast, a waning quarter-moon night.
She sat on the blanket every night before the fire he built outside in the clearing, and called him to her. And he would come, like a lamb to the slaughter, and lie down and put his head into the lion's lap and she would sit over him and stroke his face, and murmur. Every night she murmured to him, soothing him with her lilting stories or her questions, or her jokes, and sometimes she sang to him. Lately all she sang to him was "Moscow Nights":
"The river flows and flows Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
All made from moonsilver
A song is faintly heard and then subsides
During these quiet nights."
"Shura, are you hungry?"
"No." They were sitting side by side. He wasn't looking at her.
"You sure? We haven't eaten since six, and it's--"
"I said no."
Silence. "Are you thirsty? Want another cup of tea?"
"No, thank you," he said a little gentler.
"What about a little vodka?" She nudged him. "I'll drink with you."
"No, Tania. I don't want anything."
"Can I get you a cigarette?"
"Tania!" he exclaimed. "I'm fine. Believe me, if there is something I want, I'll let you know, all right?"
He felt her body tense. She took her hands away. He put them back. "I want you to continue to touch me, I don't want to move, or have you move. I'm fine, right here." He didn't look at her.
"Come here, darling," she said. "Come. Put your head on me."
The lion spoke. The lamb obeyed.
His head was in her lap and she was lightly tickling his neck and murmuring.
"Tania, can you just stop?" he whispered. "Can you just quit for a second? Please. I can't take you."
She cradled him, bending over him, kissing his hair. He felt her breasts soft against his head. "Shura...Shura..." she purred in her sing-song voice. "Husband man, lovely man, big man, soldier man, beautiful man, Tania's man...Shura, beloved man, adored man, worshipped man, alive man, Shura..."
Alexander couldn't speak.
"Shura, listen. Look at me, and listen. Are you listening?"
"Yes," he said, opening his eyes and looking up.
Her eyes were twinkling. She cleared her throat. "In the year 2000, three crocodiles lie on a river bank. One says, `We were green once.' The other one says, `Yes, and we could swim.' The third one says indignantly, `Enough of this. Stop wasting your time. Let's fly around and gather some honey!'" Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
Laughing, Alexander put his hands to his face. The crocodiles might not have known what they were, but he knew very well what he was.
"Shura, stop, come on now. Don't laugh yet. My mission is to make you laugh until you cry." Tatiana peeled his hands away from his face and said, "A husband says to his wife--"
"Please, no more."
"A husband says to his wife, `Dear, did you hear the rumor that the postman has had all the women in the village except one?' And his wife exclaims, `Oh, I bet it's that stuck-up Mira in hut number thirty!'"
Alexander laughed. "Okay, here is mine: `A pest is a man you'd rather make love to than explain why you'd rather not.'"
Tatiana hugged him and said, "And here's mine: `Honey, what do you prefer--my beautiful body or my beautiful face?'"
"Your sense of humor," returned Alexander, holding her to him until she couldn't breathe. Nine days left, he wanted to say, but didn't. Couldn't.
She was struggling with a large basket of wet clothes near the water while he sat on the bench smoking. He had been hacking away at the forest all morning, swinging the axe at the branches as if it were some kind of absolution from his sins. He spent three hours making kindling bundles for her, because he knew it would get cold at night after he had left. But he was upset with her--again. She had been gone all morning, helping the old women clean their house, or plant, or f*ck knows what else.
Alexander watched her resentfully as she struggled with their wet sheets. Tatiana couldn't lift the heavy basket to bring it to the line. He watched her and smoked. Finally she turned around, saw him sitting on the bench and looked surprised and then disheartened.
"Shura," she called to him reproachfully, motioning him to her. "What are you doing? Come and help me."
He didn't move.
"Shura!"
Alexander got up and walked over. Without looking at her, he swung the basket up with one hand and carried it to the line, where he dropped it on the ground and went back to the bench. As he turned to sit down, Tatiana was standing in front of him.
"What?" she said. "Whatnow ?"
"Don't give me the `what now,' all right?"
"What?" she said. "What did I do too much of, or not enough of?"
He opened his mouth, but her hand went over it as she brought her face to his and said quietly, "Stop it. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
Stop yourself before you say something you will have to apologize for in ten seconds." She held her hand over his mouth and then kissed his forehead. Patting him lightly on the cheek, she went to hang the laundry, leaving him dumbfounded and stung by conscience.
Alexander went inside and made her tea. Walking over, he handed her the cup and said guiltily, "Here, you drink, let me do this."
She sat down on a tree stump while he fiddled with the clothes pins. When he was done, he went to her, watched her for a moment, and then slowly descended to his knees. Tatiana parted her legs to let him closer.
"Tania..." he said in a stilted voice.
She stopped him. "Shh. You don't have to apologize for anything. Be whatever you want, Shura, justbe ."
"Why do you do that?" he asked. "Why can't you just tell me to stop being an idiot? Why can't you raise your voice, tell me to shut the hell up?"
"Is that what you want, Alexander?" she said. "You want me to fight with you? We have a handful of days left and you want me to fight with you?"
He hugged her. "Not a handful. Eight. Now tell me what can I do for you? What do you want me to do? You want me to carry something for you? Can I chop wood? Make another fire? Chase you through the woods? Can I carry you?"
He heard her say something in a broken, muted whisper that didn't sound like happiness or even love. It sounded like a gasp torn from a lifetime of grief.
Alexander couldn't respond, couldn't look at her. He pretended he hadn't heard, patted her back, kissed her neck.
Her voice a little happier and thickening, Tatiana answered. "You can do anything you want to me. As you know--I like it all."
Alexander knew Tatiana loved to be carried by him. She loved to be lifted in his arms, or slung over his back, or carried like a backpack. He knew she was remembering Luga every time he picked her up...Luga, when all of Lazarevo was still ahead of them.
When Leningrad was still ahead of them. When Dasha was alive. When she had a family. Could Alexander love her enough for all of them who once sat around her, drinking their tea, smoking, teasing her, neglecting her, loving her? Could he give her enough?
Yes, he could. For the next few days.
And then what?
Alexander brought her inside and laid her on their bed. The stove was still warm from morning.
"I know what you like..." Alexander whispered. Lifting her dress, he exposed her hips and opened her legs. He loved looking at her as he alternately caressed her and put his mouth on her. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
He heard her moaning for him. He stopped touching her for a moment and listened. "Shura...Shura...come up, please, come up."
He knew what she wanted. And he wanted to give it to her. "What do you want, Tatia?"
"Come on, Shura," she whispered. "Come on..."
Alexander went back to touching her. "Look at you," he whispered, lowering his face to her.
He had to stop. He could tell she was moments away. "Not yet, Tania. Who is my good girl..." he whispered. "Who is my beautiful good girl..."
In frustration, she tried to move away. He held her in place, while his careful tender fingers stroked her.
Tatiana was nearly crying from tension. Alexander wanted to put his mouth on her again--but he waited.
She clutched at him, moaning for him to climb to her. He resisted.
Finally she breathed out the words he longed to hear.
Groaning from the excitement of hearing her say it, Alexander whispered, "All right, Tatiasha." He barely had time to enter her, before he was flooded with her relief. Eight days left, Alexander's body cried, his tingling throat cried.
Alexander was going sick out of his mind. He was on a suicide mission--he wanted Tatiana to stop loving him before he left. He wanted her to be glad he was leaving.
What he wanted was tomake her glad he was leaving, not for her to be glad out of her own accord. He wanted to be the one to facilitate this change in her.
Her vulnerability ate at him so much he couldn't look her in the face.
What was happening to him? It was so hateful.
"Come on, lift me up," Tatiana said another night. "Lift me, take me standing like I know you love, take me however you want, but please don't be upset with me, Shura."
He turned from her.
"Honey," she whispered. "Husband...Alexander..."
He couldn't look at her.
Tatiana stood in front of him, topless, nipples erect, her loving face, her wet lips. They forgot the tea, forgot his cigarettes, forgot his anger, forgot it all, all they did, pleading, moaning through the crescent night, was forget it all.
As always. There was nothing else when they were in their cabin. Just Tania and Shura, and they adored Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
each other, and their hearts were breaking, as they implored the God who made them, let us have this for another wordless moment, let us haveus for a moment longer. Alexander took her against the wall and kneeling on the hard floor and on the high counter he had made, and on their bed, he took her gently and roughly and slowly and quickly, but in the end his heart was still breaking.
There was a desperation to their lovemaking--a brutal relinquishing of happiness that was as gradual and inevitable as the low tide. Whereas before Tania and Shura were starving for each other and made love to wake the gods to proclaim the eternalWe to life, now they made love to stave off death, to stem the flood of destruction that awaited them upon his leaving--itself as inevitable as sunset.
Their feverish arrhythmic, broken, violent coupling was a cry to the gods, to any gods who would listen. Pleasure was mixed with a propellant ache; the greater the pleasure, the emptier the heart was after.
Five days left.
The following rainy night on the floor by the fire, he once again stopped himself from release. Alexander thought if he stopped himself, maybe he could stop time.
How long can he keep himself? How long can he watch her, how much longer can he hear her voice, smell her breath when she moaned and when she whispered, like now, what was she saying...I can't even hear her, I want to finish, but no, I can't..."What, Tania?"
"Alexander, please don't leave me."
"Babe, don't worry," he said. "There is life after grieving. Look at us.We felt again." He kissed her. "You will want to love again, and you will." Alexander wanted to add,thank God , but he didn't mean it. My heart on a f*cking stake, twisting in the fire.
"Wait, stop, honey, stop, Shura, I can't breathe, I can't breathe--"
But Alexander wouldn't stop. Until he was finally done. It took her long minutes to get her breath back, while he lay on the floor and smoked. The ash fell on the hardwood. It fell on his chest. He didn't even brush it off. Tatiana brushed it off.
When she was calmer, Tatiana whispered, "Sometimes when you hold me like that, when you constrict me the way you do, when you suffocate me, when I feel your hands on my throat, over my face, when my lungs are crushed by you and your body is on me, I can't help thinking you almost wish Iwould stop breathing."
"That's crazy."
"Is it?"
"Absolutely."
"You hold me, Shura, as if you don't want me to live past this." Tatiana paused. "Past us." Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
"Crazy."
Four days left.
"I don't want you to touch me anymore." These words were spoken by Tatiana as Alexander was holding her against the wall. "I'm serious," she said. "I don't want you to make love to me. I want you to stop. I don't want to need you anymore. I don't want to love you anymore."
"All right," he whispered, not letting her go, not moving away from the wall.
"What are we going to do? What amI going to do? You'll be dead, but what am I going to do the rest of my life in Lazarevo?"
"I'll be back, Tatia," Alexander said.
"You'll be dead. And I'll be alone in Soviet Russia."
"I won't be dead."
"There is no place for us here," she said.
He disagreed. "The Ural Mountains were three hundred million years in the making. We found a place among the round hills. This is our place."
"Please don't." Her body shook. "They were once larger, these mountains. They are nearly flattened out by erosion, by time. But they're still standing."
"Yes. And we with them," whispered Alexander, squeezing her to him. "But this is just the beginning of your life, Tatiana. You'll see. After three hundred million years you'll still be standing, too."
They weren't looking at each other.
"Yes," she whispered. "But not with you."
Alexander was leaving tomorrow. Today he couldn't look at her, couldn't touch her, couldn't talk to her. He didn't know how he was going to go on. He didn't know how she was going to go on.
He knew he would have to. He knew she would have to.
But how?
Where did they teach you how to live after you'd lost it all?
Who taught you how to go on after you had lost everything?
Tatiana. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
Tatiana taught me how to go on after she had lost everything.
Alexander got up early, went for his swim, but afterward didn't come inside like always. Instead he sat on the bench outside and smoked, smoked with closed eyes, so he wouldn't see Lazarevo.
Just behind his closed eyes were the birches and the pines and the cones on the ground and the gray-green mountains beyond the rushing river. He smelled the remnants of the fire, he wanted tea, he wanted another cigarette. He wanted his life to be over.
He was gettingthat wish, wasn't he?
"Tania, I'm telling you, don't cry. That was our deal, do you hear me? I can't take it."
"Am I crying?" she said.
"I'm serious," Alexander said. "I can't do this. I need you--"
"You know what?" she said to him. "All the things you need me to be, I can't be right now. I'll be what I can." She was crying.
His throat burning, Alexander lay next to her. Side by side they steeled themselves in their bed, and she cradled his head to her breasts, and she whispered and whispered and whispered and by the time she was done, his hair was damp from her tears. But she wasn't done. She was never done. Her capacity to heal him, to harvest her love in him was endless.
"There was once a time," she said, "when you placed your hand on my chest, and I thought my whole life was in front of me. In front of the Hermitage. In front of that broken man and his crates of art. Do you remember?"
"How could I forget?" Alexander said. "I never forget that man."
Tatiana turned her face to him. They kissed. She cradled against him, tiny against him, she lay buried in his chest, and Alexander knew she was listening to his heart. She did that all that time; it was comforting and disquieting.
She was as resolute as ever, as fully loving, as completely giving, intensely tender, unbearably moving, as always affecting him utterly. But there was something else. She was holding him so desperately, crying over him, almost as if she were mourning him already, almost as if she were already grieving. She made love to him without letting go of his head, choking him against her and crying, as if she were not just saying goodbye, but saying goodbye to him for good.
As if she were leaving herself with him because he needed her more. She was saying goodbye not only to him but to herself. There you go, Alexander, Tatiana was saying, take me and go. Have it all. There will be nothing left, but I will grow something new for myself. The Tania you love will remain with you. Take her. And he did, until there was nothing left.
Her warm wet space engulfed him. He was not returning to the womb, he was giving himself back to eternity. He was closing his eyes and surrendering to the universe that loved them and believed in their youth. To the stars and the mystery moon and the River Kama rushing onward to its thousand-kilometer trek, for ten million years feeding into the Caspian Sea. Long after Tania and Shura will have returned to the earth, the river, the pines, the mountains, the imploding stars would still be here, constant and Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
changeless over Lazarevo. They were eternal, and Alexander's Tatiana, too...she was eternal, moaning softly against his neck, warm breath, warm breasts and lips and legs around him, surrounding him, all things to him.
Limpid morning became desert evening. He wished he could help her, but he knew what they were losing, better than she who was still an innocent. But he knew everything.
Alexander knew what was ahead.
It was tomorrow.
He was leaving.
It was tomorrow.
He had left.
It was tomorrow.
And he was without her.