CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Jeb, November 1945
TATIANA AGREED TO GOto dinner with Edward. Vikki looked after Anthony. Tatiana dressed up a little, putting on a blue skirt and a beige merino wool sweater, but no matter how much Vikki asked her to, she did not let down her hair, leaving it pinned back in one very long braid, and she did not put on any makeup. Then she put on her coat and scarf, sat on the couch and waited with Anthony on her lap and a picture book in front of them.
"What are you worried about?" Vikki asked, milling around them, picking up the newspapers that had piled up. "You go to lunch with him all the time and talk. Only the title of the meal will change." Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
"And time of day."
"Yes, that, too."
Tatiana didn't say anymore, pretending to be preoccupied with Anthony's book.
Edward arrived dressed in a suit. Vikki commented on how handsome he looked. Tatiana agreed that Edward looked nice. Edward was fairly tall, thin, composed. He carried himself well--in a suit, in doctor's whites. He had serious, kind eyes. She felt comfortable and yet intensely uncomfortable around him.
Edward took her to Sardi's on 44th Street. Tatiana had a shrimp cocktail and a steak followed by some chocolate cake and coffee.
After an initial awkward silence, she spent the entire dinner asking Edward questions and listening to him. She asked him about medicine and surgery and the wounded and the dying and the sick, she asked him about the hospitals he had worked in and why he chose to be a doctor and whether it still meant something to him to be a doctor. She asked him about where in America he had traveled to and which place out of all he had seen he liked best. She looked him straight in the eye and laughed in all the right places.
And somewhere in the space between the taking way of the chocolate cake and the bringing of the check, Tatiana, while nodding, while listening, her head slightly tilted to one side, saw a color image of herself sitting across a table just like this from Edward, except the table was longer and they were much older, and around the table with them sat their grown children, all daughters.
She leaped up and asked the waiter the time. "Ten o'clock? My, look how late it is. I must get back to Anthony. I had really nice evening, thank you."
Looking a little shellshocked, Edward took her home in a taxi.
She sat all the way from 44th looking out the side window. Somewhere around 23rd Street, Edward said, "How do you do that? I can't believe what a bore I must have been, talking only about myself."
"Not at all," she said. "You were fascinating. As you know, I like to hear everything."
"Maybe next time, we can talk about you."
"I'm so boring," she said. "Nothing to talk about."
"Now that you've been here a couple of years, what do you like about America?"
"The people," she said without thinking.
Edward laughed. "But Tania, all the people you know are immigrants!"
She nodded. "True Americans. They are here in New York for all right reasons. New York is great city."
"What else do you like? What do you like the most?" Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
"Delicious bacon," she said. "I guess I like the comfort. Everything Americans do, produce, create is to make life little bit easier. I like that. Music is pleasant, clothes are comfortable. Blankets don't itch. Milk is right around corner. So is bread. Shoes fit. Chairs are soft. It's good here." She looked out the window as they passed through 14th Street. "So much to take for granted," she added quietly.
The cab pulled up in front of her building. "Well..." she said.
"Tania," he said in an emotional voice, reaching for her.
She leaned over to Edward, pecked him on the cheek, said, "Thank you so much for lovely evening," and got hastily out of the car.
"I'll see you on Monday," he called out, but she was already running inside the doors, opened instantly and reverentially by Diego from Romania.
Tania Tania.
I hear him shouting for me.
I turn and there he is, still alive and calling my name.
Tania Tania.
I turn, I must turn and there he is, wearing his fatigues, rifle slung on his shoulder, running towards me, out of breath.
Still so young.
Why do I hear him so clearly?
Why is his voice an echo in my head?
In my chest.
In my arms and fingers, in my barely beating heart, in the vapor of my cold breath?
Why is he loud, why is he deafening?
At night all is quiet.
But during the day, amid the crowds...
I walk, always slowly, I sit, always motionlessly, and I hear him calling my name.
Tania, Tania...
Why do I hear it?
Didn't he tell me to listen for the stellar wind at night? Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
It will be me, he whispered, calling you back.
To Lazarevo.
Then why is he SHOUTING now?
Here I am, Shura! Stop calling for me. I'm not going anywhere.
Tania Tania...
One cold and sunny Saturday afternoon, a bundled-up Tatiana, Vikki, and Anthony were walking as usual through the outdoor market on Second Avenue. Vikki was idly chatting, Tatiana was idly listening and holding Anthony by the shoulders. He wanted to push his own carriage today--into the ankles of the pedestrians. Vikki carried all their shopping, never missing an opportunity to complain about how unfair it was.
"And explain to me why you refuse to go out with Edward again?"
"I don't refuse," Tatiana said gently. "I told him I need little time, little more adjustment. We still have lunch."
"Lunch shmunch. It's not dinner, is it? He knows a brush-off when he sees one."
"No brush-off. Just...slow-off."
Vikki was already onto something else. "Tania, I know you want bacon for dinner today, bacon and bread, but I was thinking maybe you could make something other than bread and meat. What about spaghetti and meatballs?"
"What is spaghetti made of?"
"How do I know? It grows in Portugal, like olives, and my grandmother buys it in special shops."
"No. Spaghetti made of flour."
"So?"
"Meatballs made of meat."
"So?"
Tatiana didn't answer. Half a block ahead of her, she saw a tall male shape. She held Anthony's hand tighter as she stared through the crowds, trying to see. Second Avenue was busy and she tilted her head, then moved three steps to the right, and then tried to speed up.
"So?"
"Come on, little faster. Excuse me," she said to the people in front of them. "Excuse me, please." Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
"Hey, what's the hurry? Tania! You didn't answer my question."
"Question?"
"So? That was my question. So?"
"Spaghetti and meatballs are also bread and meat. Excuse me," Tatiana said again to the people in front of her, pulling Anthony faster than his short legs could carry him. "Come on, son, let's not dawdle." But she wasn't looking at Anthony, or at Vikki, or at the people she was pushing out of her way with the carriage. No one liked to have their ankles rammed by an aggressive Russian woman, even in a Russian neighborhood--especially in a Russian neighborhood. Tatiana heard some very unkind words in her native tongue. "Hurry, Vikki, hurry."
She picked up Anthony, thrust the carriage into Vikki's already full hands and said, "I've got to--" Then, breaking off, she started to run. She couldn't restrain herself. She ran out into the street and alongside the curb, trying to catch two men about a block ahead of her. Short of shouting at their backs, she didn't know what to do; panting, her heart pounding, she caught up with them at the light and before speaking--because she couldn't speak--she placed her free hand, the one that wasn't holding Anthony, on the man's arm, and tried to say,Alexander ? But no words would come out.
The man was very tall and very broad. She kept her hand on him long enough for him to turn around, and see her staring. He smiled. Turning red, Tatiana took away her hand and averted her gaze, but it was too late.
"Yes, sweetheart?" he said. "What can I do you for?"
She backed away. Temporarily forgetting her English, she started yammering in Russian. Then went back to a broken language even she didn't recognize. "I sorry, I think you was someplace, someone else..."
"For you, I'll be anyone you want me to be. Who do you want me to be, sweetheart?"
Vikki had caught up by now, with the carriage and shopping bags, flushed and put upon. "Tania! What do you think you're--" She broke off when she saw the two men, and smiled.
The tall man introduced himself as Jeb and his friend as Vincent.
Jeb was dark-haired, but his face was all wrong. It was Jeb's face. It wasn't Tatiana's husband's. Nonetheless, on a Saturday afternoon, in standing close to him, in looking up into his friendly smiling eyes, Tatiana felt a twinge of want. A breath of desire.
A few minutes later, as they were walking away, Vikki said, "Tania, why is it feast or famine with you? You completely ignore all men for years, then you knock down old ladies to chase one down the street. What is wrong with you?"
The next day Jeb called.
"Are you crazy?" Vikki said. "You gave him our number? You don't know where he's been."
"I know where he been," said Tatiana. "Japan. He was sailor." Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
"I don't understand. You don't know him at all. I've been trying to get you to go out with Edward for two years--"
"Vikki, I don't want Edward to be my rebound. He too good for that."
"Edward doesn't think so. You want Jeb to be your rebound?"
"I don't know."
"Well, I don't like him for you," Vikki stated flatly. "I didn't like the way he was looking at you. I can't believe of all the men out there, you had to pick theone I don't like."
"He will grow on you."
But he didn't grow on Vikki. Tatiana was too ashamed of being attracted to Jeb to go out alone with him, but she did invite him for dinner.
"What are you going to make him? Eggs and bacon? Bacon, lettuce and tomato on bread? Or stuffed cabbage--with bacon?"
"Stuffed cabbage sounds good. Stuffed cabbage and bread."
Jeb came and had dinner with them. Vikki would not disappear into her room for a moment, and Anthony was underfoot all evening. Finally, Jeb left.
"I didn't like the way he looked at you the first time he saw you and I like him even less now," Vikki declared. "Don't you find him condescending?"
"What?"
"He cut you off every time you spoke, didn't you notice? Always with a smile, the fraud. And don't tell me you didn't notice how he ignored your boy?"
"How could he ignore him? Thanks to you, Anthony was under table entire night!"
"Don't you think Anthony is worth a better man than Jeb?"
"I do," said Tatiana. "But better man is not here. What am I supposed to do?"
"Edward is a better man than Jeb," Vikki said.
"So why don't you go for Edward then? He is available."
"Don't think I haven't tried!" rejoined Vikki. "He is not interested inme ."
Vikki was right about Jeb. Hewas possessive and he was condescending. But Tatiana couldn't help it--she wanted the agony of his big arms around her.
Tatiana thought of Alexander; she imagined Alexander whole and in the imagining created the kind of hell for herself that only the true masochist can create, thethinking male praying mantis who creeps to the Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
female fully knowing that as soon as she is finished with him, she is going to snap off his head and devour him. And still he creeps, with his eyes closed, with his heart shut tight, creeps to the gates of life and death, and thanks God for being alive.
A couple of weeks before Christmas, when Tatiana came to pick up Anthony from Isabella's, Isabella sat her down and, giving her a hot cup of tea, said, "What's wrong, Tania?"
"Nothing."
Isabella studied her.
Tatiana looked at her hands. "I wish having faith was easier."
"Faith in what?"
"Faith in this life. In me. Faith in doing what I am supposed to." I don't want to forget him, she wanted to say.
"Darling, of course you're doing what you're supposed to," Isabella said. "Go on the way all women do when their husbands have died."
"But what if he is not dead?" Tatiana whispered. "I need some proof to have faith."
Isabella replied, "But, darling, then it wouldn't be called faith, would it, if you had proof?"
Tatiana didn't say anything.
"You grit your teeth and go on," Isabella said, "just as you have been doing."
"Dear Isabella," said Tatiana, "as you know, I'm queen of grit teeth. But every day that moves me farther from him, I hate that day."
"But that's when you need faith the most--when it's darkest around you." Isabella watched Tatiana thoughtfully. "Honey, it must be better now than it was? You were so sad when you first came to New York. It's better now?"
"It is, Isabella," Tatiana replied. On the outside her life was right. But inside was his damn medal. And his damn Orbeli.
"Would you feel better if you had more proof than his death certificate?"
Tatiana made no reply. Whatcould she say?
"Pray he is dead, darling. Pray he is at peace, that he is not tormented anymore. He is not hurting. He is free. He is your guardian angel, looking over you."
"Isabella," said Tatiana. "Don't tell me he is dead, because if I believe that, it's harder for me to go on living--knowing that with one bullet, I could be with him." Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
"Who'd take you," asked Isabella, "if you died and left your son an orphan?"
"Why not?" said Tatiana. "He died and left his son an orphan."
"So if it's easier, believe he is still alive."
"If he's still alive, then how can I go on with my life?" Tatiana emitted a cry of such physical pain that Isabella paled and moved her chairaway from her.
"Oh, Tania," Isabella whispered. "How can I help you?"
Tatiana stood up. "You can't help me." She called for Anthony, taking her bag from the floor. "Must be pleasant to see things so clearly. Well, why not? You are still with Travis. Your faith is easy--you have living proof right here."
"And you do, too--here he is," said Isabella, pointing at Anthony who came bounding out of the den, leaped into his mother's arms and said, "Mama, I want ice krrreeeem for dinner."
"All right, son," said Tatiana.
And he did.
"Mama, how come Timothy has a daddy, and Ricky has a daddy, and Sean has a daddy, too?"
"Honey, what's your question?" They were walking to school near Battery Park. It was Anthony's second week in playgroup. Tatiana was intent on introducing Anthony to more children his own age. She thought he was around grown-ups too much. Around Isabella too much. His brow was creased in an adult manner; Tatiana didn't like it. He spoke too fluently, he was too pensive, too solemn for a boy of two and half. She thought playgroup would do him good.
And now this.
"Why I don't have a daddy?"
"Baby, you have daddy. He is just not here. Just like Mickey's daddy, and Bobby's daddy, and Phil's, too. Their daddies aren't here, and their mommies take care of them. You're lucky. You have your mommy, and Vikki and Isabella--"
"Mama, when is Daddy going to come back? Ricky's daddy came back. He walks him to school in the morning."
Tatiana stared into the middle distance.
"Ricky wished for his dad for Christmas. Maybe I can wish for my dad for Christmas."
"Maybe," whispered Tatiana.
Anthony didn't let his mother kiss him at the doors of the school or walk him inside. Squaring his shoulders and creasing his solemn brow, he went through the doors himself, carrying his small lunch bag. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
The four stages of grief. First there was shock. And then there was denial. That lasted until this morning. Today, onward to the next stage. Anger. When will acceptance come?
She was so angry at him. He knew perfectly well she didn't want this life without him. Did he think that she'd be better off in America amid post-war small appliances and radios and the promise of a television than she would have been in the Gulag?
Well, wait. What about Anthony? The boy is not a specter. He is a real boy, he would have been born regardless. What would have happened to him?
She looked into the water on the harbor. How long would it take me to jump and swim, swim like the last fish in the ocean to where it's winter and the water is cold? I would swim slower and slower and slower, and then I would stop, and maybe on the other side of life he would be waiting for me with his hand outstretched, saying what took you so long to come to me, Tatia? I've been waiting and waiting.
She stepped away from the railing of the boat. No. On the other side, he is looking at me, shaking his head, saying, Tania, look at Anthony, he is the perfect son. How lucky you are to lay your hands on him. How I wish I could. Wherever I am--know that's what I'm thinking. How I wish I could touch my boy.
Anthony needed his mother. Anthony could not be an orphan, not here in America, not there in the Soviet Union. His mother couldn't abandon him, too. That sweet boy, with his sticky hands, with his chocolate mouth and his black hair. Tatiana coiled when she looked at, when she touched his black hair.
"Shura, let me wash your hair for you," she says, sitting on the ground, looking out onto the clearing.
"Tania, it's clean. We just washed this morning."
"Come on, please. Let's go swim. Let me wash it for you."
"All right. Only if I can wash--"
"You can do whatever you like. Just come."
She coiled every time she looked at her son.
That night she went out on the fire escape, without a coat or a hat, and sat mutely breathing in the cold ocean air. It smelled so good.
"Alexander," Tatiana whispered. "Are you there? Can you hear me? Can you see me?" Up on the fire escape, she lifted her arms to the sky. "How am I doing? Better, right?" She nodded to herself. Better.
New York, every day pulsing as if indeed it was the heartbeat of the world. No dim-out at night anymore, every building illuminated like endless fireworks. There was not a street that was not teeming with people, a street where the manholes were not open, where steam wasn't coming out of the underground, an avenue where the men didn't sit on top of telephone poles and electrical poles, laying new pipe, hanging new wire, breaking down the El. The constant clang of construction, every day from Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
seven in the morning, along with the sirens and the buses, and the honking horns and the yellow cabs. The stores were filled with merchandise, the coffee shops with donuts, the diners with bacon, stores with books and records and Polaroid cameras, music poured every night from the bars and the caf?s, oh, and lovers, too, under trees, on benches, lovers in uniform and in suits and in doctors' coats and nurses' shoes. And in Central Park where they went every weekend, each blade of grass had a family on it. The lake had a hundred boats in the daytime.
But then there was night.
In the ocean, her arm outstretched to God, was Lady Liberty and on the fire escape was Tatiana, sitting in the three-in-the-morning air, listening across the ocean for the breathing of one man.
The fire embers are flickering out. He is finally done. Not only is he done, but asleep, too. He hasn't moved off her. He had exhausted himself and, spent, nuzzled for a few moments and fell soundly asleep. She doesn't even try to move him. He is heavy, what bliss. He is on top of her, so close. She can smell him and kiss his wet hair, and his stubbly cheek. She caresses his arms. It's sinful for her to love his muscled arms so much. "Shura," she whispers. "Can you hear me, soldier?"
She doesn't sleep, for a long time cradling him to her, listening to him breathe, hearing the wood turn to ashes and the sound of the crackling rain outside and willowy wind, while inside it is warm, dim, cozy. She listens to his happy breathing. When he sleeps he is still happy. He is not bothered by bad dreams, by sadness. He is not tormented when he sleeps. He is breathing. So peaceful. So fulfilled. So alive.
Why did her present life suddenly start to feel so desperate? On the surface, there was so much. But under the surface she felt herself settling in--as if, as if--
She could close her eyes and imagine life...
Without him.
Imagine forgetting him.
The war was over.
Russia was over.
Leningrad was over.
And Tatiana and Alexander were over, too.
Now she had words to dull her senses. English words, a new name, and covering it all like a warm blanket, a new life in amazing, immoderate, pulsatingAmerica . A sparkling new identity in a gilded immense new country. God had made it as easy as possible to forget him. To you, I give this, God said. I give you freedom and sun, and warmth, and comfort. I give you summers in Sheep Meadow and Coney Island, and I give you Vikki, your friend for life, and I give you Anthony, your son for life, and I give you Edward, in case you want love again. I give you youth and I give you beauty, in case you want someone other than Edward to love you. I give you New York. I give you seasons, and Christmas! And baseball and dancing and paved roads and refrigerators, and a car, and land in Arizona. I give it all to you. All I ask, is that you forget him and take it. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
Her head bowed, Tatiana took it.
A week would fly by, filled with work and the people in whose eyes she could see what she meant to them, and filled with Edward, in whose eyes Tatiana could see what she meant to him, and with blessed, impossible Vikki. Tatiana endlessly saw in Vikki's eyes what she meant to Vikki. They went to the pictures and took in Broadway shows, and advanced nursing classes at NYU. Tatiana got dressed up in high heels and pretty dresses and went to Ricardo's, and it was there that she would realize she had lived another week, almost as if she weremeant to, as if Alexander were indeed becoming...remote.
There was a settling of the stellar dust. Soon the first love would fall into the recesses of memory, like childhood, it would all fall through the cracks in the cement of life, and weeds would grow over it.
But every morning, Tatiana took the ferry to Ellis, and as the boat broke the water of the harbor, she saw Alexander's eyes, showing her what she had meant to him. Every day of forgetting, of wanting life, was another day of his eyes telling her what she had meant to him.
America, New York, Arizona, the end of war, feverish reconstruction, a baby boom, dancing, her high-heeled shoes, her painted lips--whatshe had meant...
Tohim .
What would she have, had she meantless to him? Why, nothing. She would have the Soviet Union, that's what. Fifth Soviet, two rectangular rooms, and a domestic passport, and maybe adacha in the summers for her child. She would be fifth in line forever, pulling the quilted hat down over her ears in the blizzard.
Every day of forgetting was a day of increased remorse. How could you forget me so quick, she thought Alexander was saying to her, when I have paid for you with my life?
Quick?
She was getting tiresome even to herself. Quick.
Quicksand into the earth.
Quicksilver into the water.
Quick quick quick, forget him so you can lie down with Jeb. Forget, Tania, so you can lie down with your third and fourth and fifth, Alexander is dead; hi ho, hi ho.
The months, the months, the months, the months.
Alexander, Alexander, Alexander, Alexander.
Tania, Tania...
That's you, I know, that's the pitiless horseman calling me back, calling me back to....
Lazarevo... Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
We lived it in our rapture and abandon as if we knew even then it had to last us our whole life.
Do you see our rumpled bed, our kerosene lamp? Do you see the kettle of water I boiled for you and do you see the counter top you had built for me, for the potatoes we never got, and for our cabbage pie? Do you see the cigarettes I rolled for you and the clothes I washed for you and do you see my hands on you, and my lips, and my ear pressing against your chest to listen to your beating heart, tell me, do you see all this before you and around you and inside you, too?
God keep you if you are alive, you unrelenting Alexander.
But if you are an angel watching over me, don't come here, don't follow me into the Superstition Mountains, don't come here where it's black around me and cold. I live in the desert, watching the winds and the wildflowers in the spring.
Don't go here.
Come with me instead to the place I fly to, follow me over the oceans and the seas and the rivers between us, take my hand and let me lead you down through the pine cones, through the pine needles to wet our feet with the River Kama, as the sun peeks over the barren edges of the Urals, promising us one more day, and one less day every sunrise times twenty-nine, one more day, one less day, and gone again. Come with me into the river, flow with me as you and I swim across to the other shore against the rushing current. You swim slightly afraid I'm going to be carried away downstream into the Caspian Sea. I call swim faster, faster, and you smile and swim faster, your eyes on me. You're always just ahead, your shining face to me. Come with me there for one more morning, one more fire, one more cigarette, one more swim, one more smile, one more, one more, one more,alsk?r into the eternity we call Lazarevo, my Alexander.