In the early spring of 1952, Alexander said to Tatiana, “Let’s build a swimming pool.”
She said no. “We can go to the public pools.”
“Like you’d let mothers and small children look at my body. I want a pool so I can swim any time I want. Naked with you.”
“How much?”
“Three thousand dollars.”
“Too much! Our whole trailer cost that much.”
“It’s not a trailer, it’s a mobile home. How many times do you have to be told?”
“But we’re saving for a house!”
It was time to light another cigarette and stare blinklessly at her for a second. “Tania,” he said, “let’s build a f*cking pool.”
It was something else. At twelve feet wide and fifty feet long, the lap pool had a diving board and an outdoor hot tub on a raised platform. It took seven weeks to build, and there were one or two hidden costs: like the large intricate meandering stone deck, the wrought-iron fence, the desert landscaping and the decorative lighting. Also the heating equipment to keep it at eighty degrees all year round. The total came to over six thousand dollars. Alexander just paid the surplus out of his bonus account with Bill and didn’t tell Tatiana.
In early May, Bill Balkman, his girlfriend, Margaret, Steve and Amanda came over for a Sunday afternoon pool party. The sun was, as always, out; it was in the high eighties, a fine Sunday. Tatiana had bought a fashionable new yellow polka-dot bikini, but Alexander took one look at her and forbid her to wear it.
Steve didn’t look her way in any case. He had a gash on his cheek with three black stitches. He hadn’t come to Phoenix Memorial, and since it was the only hospital in the city, Tatiana had to wonder where Bill Balkman was now taking his son to get sewn up so that he wouldn’t come to a place where Tatiana would know what happened. Uncharacteristically silent, Steve didn’t explain and no one asked. He didn’t swim, hardly ate, cracked no jokes, barely talked to his father, and his father barely talked to him. His father did, however, talk to Alexander—non-stop. “Great place you got here, Alexander,” Balkman said as they sat out on the patio after swimming. “But I don’t understand, why don’t you build yourself a real house? I hear you know a good builder.” He chuckled. “Why live in a hut?”
Alexander avoided meeting Tatiana’s eye, for he hated other people to see what was inside him: a small hut in the pine woods on pine needle river banks where freshly spawned sturgeon swam past on their way to life in the Caspian Sea. Or—holes in the woods, his weapons around him, waiting at dawn for the enemy to come from below. All that was in his laconic reply to Bill: “It’s plenty for us right now.”
Sunbathing in a pleated satin and wired-bust maroon Marilyn Monroe one-piece, Amanda said, “Tania, the maillot you’re wearing is so forties. Alexander, you should buy your wife a nice new bikini to celebrate that pool of yours and to show off her little figure.”
“You think?” said Alexander, glancing at Tatiana.
“But you’re a very good diver,” Amanda continued, looking Tatiana over with a puzzled brow. “That back flip was hopping, and that cartwheel off the board! Where did you learn to dive like that? I thought you grew up in New York City.”
“Oh, you know, here and there, Mand.” Mostly there.
“Tania, can you go get us some more potato salad, please?” That was Alexander, running interference.
Balkman, when she returned, was saying, “Alexander, good boy you’ve got there.”
Anthony was showing off in the water.
“Thanks, Bill.”
Tatiana found it fascinating the way Bill hardly ever addressed her.
“Anthony!” Balkman called. “Come here for a sec.”
Anthony came out of the pool, long, lean, dark, dripping, and stood shyly by Balkman.
“You’re a good swimmer,” Balkman said.
“Thank you. My dad taught me.”
“How old are you?”
“I’m nine on June 30.”
“You’re going to be tall like your father.”
Tatiana watched Alexander sitting smoking, his calm eyes appraising his son.
“So what do you want to be when you grow up?” Balkman asked. “My son, Stevie over here is a builder like me. What do you think? Are you going to come build houses with me and your dad?”
“Maybe,” said Anthony, deflecting with the best of them. Tatiana smiled at her son’s skills. “But my dad’s been lots of things. He was a lobster man. He made wine. And he drove boats. I drove a boat with him. He was a fisherman, too. He can make all kinds of furniture. What’s that called?”
“A furniture maker,” said Tatiana helpfully, her own eyes adoring her son.
“Yes. Oh, and he is also a captain in the United States Army, and was,” said Anthony, “a soldier in the Second World War. He went up the mountains carrying—how many pounds of gear, Mom? I forgot. Like a hundred and fifty.”
“Sixty, Ant,” said Tatiana, glancing at Alexander, shaking his head at her.
“Sixty,” said Anthony. “He was in a POW camp, and in a real castle, and he led battalions of men across—”
“Anthony!” That was both Tatiana and Alexander, who got up and took Anthony by the hand. “Come,” he said. “Show me that reverse pike dive your impossible mother’s been teaching you.” As they walked past, Tatiana heard Alexander quietly saying, “Ant, how many damn times do I have to tell you?” And Anthony in a distressed voice replying, “But, Dad, you said don’t speak about you to strangers!”
Brown-haired Margaret, tall and angular, in her forties but trying to look younger, was clearly trying to make up for Bill ignoring Tatiana. She said, “Tania, you do know that Bill loves Alexander? We both do.”
“Of course. Alexander is lucky to have found Bill.” Tatiana didn’t like Margaret much. She kissed Alexander hello and goodbye too close to his mouth.
“No, no. Bill’s lucky to have him. He couldn’t do without him.” She lowered her voice. “Stevie is…don’t get me wrong, he’s the son, he’ll inherit the business, but he is just not cut out for…for hard work. Not like Alexander.”
Tatiana agreed.
And then Margaret said, louder, “Why do you still work? Your husband makes a very good living—and will make even a better one as soon as he resigns his commission.”
“I didn’t know my husband was resigning his commission,” Tatiana said, her eyebrows tensing. Nearby, Alexander shook his head slightly and rolled his eyes.
Margaret went on. “You know Bill and I have been seeing each other for a couple of years, but I’m already not working.” She smiled proudly. “Bill likes to take care of everything.”
Tatiana did not say, oh, congratulations, doesn’t that make you a concubine?
The sun was setting. They were sitting on their brand new deck, around their patio tables, smoking, listening to jazz and blues. Tatiana made some more margaritas, poured them for everyone, for her husband first. “Tania,” he said, “you didn’t want to make beergaritas?” He smiled. “From her friend from Mexico, Tania got a recipe for margaritas with beer that…”
“Let’s just say, we’d have four overnight guests after a pitcher of those,” finished Tatiana. Which is why she didn’t make them. “They light you up.” Alexander’s eyes twinkled at her.
“I bet they’re good for drinking games,” said Stevie. It was practically the only thing he said all afternoon.
“Steve, there you go, always with the naughty,” said Amanda, somehow seeming less happy about it. She turned to Tatiana. “So, Tania, when are you and Alex having another baby? Anthony needs a little brother or sister to play with in that pool.”
“It’s definitely time, Mand,” Tatiana agreed pleasantly. “When are you and Steve going to get married?”
“It’s definitely time, Stevie,” said Margaret, and laughed, and Bill laughed. Amanda didn’t laugh, but she did stop asking Tatiana about babies.
They were enjoying the evening, listening to Louis Armstrong, finishing the margaritas before dessert was put out, when Balkman said thoughtfully, “Wonder if this land is worth anything.”
They had been lounging near the swimming pool they had built in the frontier country, in the setting sun, near the mountains, overlooking the dimming mulberry desert under a violet sky. There was no one around. After Balkman’s question, Tatiana sat up straighter. “There’s nothing to buy here,” she said. “The U.S. government owns everything to the left, including the mountains. Down below us, it’s already been bought by Berk Land Development. There’s nothing available.”
Balkman pointed. “What about this right here, the land to the mountains?”
After a marital pause, Alexander said, “We own that.”
Balkman turned his head away from the saguaros. “Own what?”
Tatiana turned her head away from the saguaros and to Alexander. She made her gaze calm, her face inscrutable, but with her eyes it was as if she were putting a staying hand on him, saying, pride, soldier, it’s your pride talking. Don’t do it.
But she saw he couldn’t help himself. He must have really wanted to impress Bill Balkman. “Two hundred feet to the left, two hundred to the right, and fifty acres straight to the mountains,” said Alexander.
No one at the table spoke. They were in a silent picture, just moving without words.
Tatiana got up abruptly and began clearing the table. Loud sounds erupted—of her clearing the dishes and of Balkman exclaiming, “You own all this land? How much altogether?”
“Ninety-seven acres,” said Alexander.
Tatiana shook her head. The smile of pride was still on Alexander’s face when Balkman said, “Do you have any idea what a gold mine you’re sitting on? How much damn money we can make?”
Tatiana brusquely moved Alexander’s hand out of the way to get his plate and stared hard at him, wondering with frustration why it was so difficult for him sometimes to see even one chess move ahead. He saw it now, though; saw it nice and clear. The smile wiped off his face, he cast her a resentful glare—as if it was her fault!—and yelled for Anthony. “Ant, get out of the pool and help your mother.” Turning to Balkman, he said, “Bill, the land’s not for sale.”
“What do you mean?” Balkman boomed. “Everything is for sale.”
“Not this land.”
Tatiana laid her hand on Alexander’s shoulder. “What my husband is trying to say, Bill”—her voice was genial—“is that this land belongs to his family.”
“Well, surely you don’t need ninety-seven acres! You live in a trailer on a postage stamp lot. A bomb shelter would take up more room than where you’re living. Even with the pool and the work shed you’ve barely used up a quarter of an acre. You can keep seven acres.” He wasn’t even addressing Tatiana, who had spoken to him. He was talking directly to Alexander, his gestures all twitchy. “You sell ninety acres to the business, make a shitload—pardon my French—of money, and then we parcel out the rest into quarter-acre units. I will split the profit on the land with you fifty-fifty. Your wife here will be covered in diamonds by the time we’re through. She won’t be able to see the desert for all the rocks you’ll buy her.” He was feverishly calculating on a napkin—using one of her napkins to calculate his nefarious little math!
“Bill,” Tatiana said, still genially, “first of all, it’s not a trailer, it’s a mobile home. And second of all, the land is not for sale.”
“Sweetheart, please,” said Balkman, not even looking up, “let the men take care of business, all right?”
Tatiana took her hand off Alexander’s shoulder.
“Bill,” Alexander said, “the land is not for sale.”
Balkman wasn’t listening. “We can have a whole community here. We’ll call it Paradise Hills, Love Hills, Tatiana Hills, whatever you want. Ninety acres will parcel out to 300 units. We can even have a community pool, a clubhouse, charge annual fees. Three hundred units at a thousand dollars a pop just for the land, that’s one hundred and fifty thousand dollars for your end, Alexander. And the 300 houses on these lots will be twenty-five bucks a square foot, plus an extra fifty a square foot for the concrete bomb shelters we’ll sell for each one. If we cap the size of the houses at 4000 square feet—I don’t have a napkin big enough to calculate those profits!”
Tatiana stood up straight with the dirty trays in her hands. “Bill,” she said calmly, “even without the bomb shelters you’ll make twenty-six million dollars, but we won’t have our land. What would be the point of that?”
“Twenty-six million? How did you?—Well, there you have it! What’s the point? Sweetheart, because you’ll never have to work again. Alexander, she can just stay home and make you babies all day. Now where were we?”
Tatiana dropped her stack of dirty trays onto the new sandstone patio. The trays were metal and didn’t break, but what a clang they made, and all the food she had made that the Balkmans did not finish fell onto the weathered concrete tiles. “Excuse me,” she said. “Accident.” She crouched to clean it. Alexander crouched beside her. “Tell me,” she said through her teeth, “will you be resigning your commission before or after you give him our land?”
“Stop it.”
“You either tell him to leave my house, Shura,” she whispered, “or I’m going to tell him a few things he won’t want to hear.”
“What did I say?” he whispered. “Go inside and calm down.”
Of course he was right—dessert had not been served. Apple pie, blueberry muffins, chocolate chip cookies, strawberry shortcake that Tatiana made to show hospitality to her guests, to Alexander’s boss, to his boss’s family. Snatching the trays from him she squalled into the house.
Balkman opened his mouth and Alexander said, “Let’s talk about this tomorrow.”
“Oh, come on—”
“Tomorrow, Bill.”
“You know, Alexander,” Bill said in a wise voice, “sometimes women get a little upset by things. They don’t understand the ways of men. All you have to do is show them who’s boss—they’re quick learners.” Bill smacked Margaret’s rump. “Aren’t they, hon?”
The next morning at eight, Balkman said, “Have you talked some sense into that wife of yours?”
Now nearly three years with Balkman, Alexander remained convinced that this was the right job for him, the right place for him. He was so convinced of this that he tried yesterday, after everyone had left, to convince Tatiana. That perhaps they could consider, just consider, Balkman’s offer. He was met with such uncommon, unusual and unwelcome hostility from his normally mild wife that he had to drop the subject before he said some things himself he would later regret.
This morning Alexander stood in front of Bill, his eyes cold, his arms crossed, trying to forget the sight of Tatiana yesterday, her eyes cold, her arms crossed. “This has nothing to do with my wife, Bill,” he said. “We’ve been offered quite a lot of money for that land. Ever since Scottsdale incorporated two years ago, the land’s value has gone out of control. It’s now worth $5000 an acre. That’s a return of nearly half a million dollars on our original investment. Believe me, if we wanted to sell it, we would sell it. We’re not interested.”
“But there’s so much money to be made!”
“It’s not about the money. It’s about the land,” Alexander said. “You’ve seen our life. We live simply. I realize it’s not for everyone. There’s much to be said for making more and spending more, but as long as we have enough for our small things, that’s plenty for us. And we have enough for our small things. The home is paid for. The cars are paid for. We want for nothing.”
“What about—”
Alexander stopped him. “Enough. Please. Let’s talk about our present business. Have you put together a budget proposal for the Schreiner house, or do you want me to do that? They’re eager to get financing and get started. And they’re willing to spend thirty a square foot to get the marble in all the bathrooms, not just the master.”
“Stop changing the subject. 50–50 profit on three hundred land parcels, Alexander! I tell you what, to sweeten the pot, I’ll split the builder’s commission on the houses with you, 75–25. You’re only getting a three percent commission now. Think how much twenty-five percent is going to be on—what did your wife say yesterday? Twenty-six million dollars? She was right, by the way.”
Alexander sighed. Of course she was right. And yes, the money was incredible.
Balkman must have seen his conflict. “Your wife is advising you poorly,” he said. “You should not listen to her. You should do what you feel is right. This is for your future and the future of your family.”
Bill was a fine one to talk about a family—not marrying Margaret so he could keep his options open. Well, Alexander thought, that’s right, why buy the cow when you can have the milk—
And suddenly his mind cleared. He remembered something. “Bill,” he said, “do you know how much cows were worth in Soviet villages?”
“What?” Bill said dumbly. He looked as if he had misheard. “In what villages?”
“Cows. In Soviet villages. Do you know how much you could sell your cow for, if you had one?”
“No—but—”
“Fifteen hundred rubles,” Alexander said. “Now, fifteen hundred rubles is a colossal amount of money to a Russian peasant, who makes maybe twenty rubles a month selling his fish to the collective. But if you sold the cow, your money would be gone in three months, while the cow would feed you for seven years.” He smiled. “I’m not selling my cow, Bill.”
Visibly aggravated, Balkman hit the desk with his fist. “F*cking cows. What are you talking about? I’ve taken very good care of you, Alexander.”
“I know. And I have taken very good care of you.”
“Yes, but what’s good for the business is by definition good for you.” Balkman paused. “The reverse is also true. How would that wife of yours feel about that?”
Alexander stood straight up in silence. To the left of Bill was a larger, more graphic picture of a naked Miss Viva Las Vegas. Something regretfully boiled up inside him. “Bill, if you don’t want me to work for you, fire me. Don’t threaten me, just do what you have to. But the land is not for sale. And do me a favor, leave my wife out of it.”
Balkman growled something in reply. Alexander waited, his arms crossed. He knew Bill couldn’t fire him—he needed Alexander to run the business. They didn’t talk about it again, but Balkman made it clear that he felt Alexander’s intransigence in matters of the ninety-seven acres was all Tatiana’s doing, just like Alexander’s not playing with the boys in Vegas.
The Boys and the Girls
“Dad really wants you to come to Vegas with us next month,” Steve said to Alexander, as they were having a drink after work with Jeff. “The International Builders’ Show is coming up. You must go. He’s going to have to insist.”
They had just been talking about their girls, who had had lunch earlier that day. What do you think they talk about? the boys wondered. Do you think they complain about us? Oh, sure they complain. We ask them to do things they don’t want to do, said Jeff. We won’t marry them, said Steve. Alexander wanted to say that his wife did not complain about him—but what if she did? What if she told the girls he thought he was always right? That he had to have almost everything his way? That occasionally he came home late and not sober and took his fill of whatever he wanted?
Now they were back to Vegas. “Something tells me you don’t get a lot of work done when you go.” Alexander grinned. “And what are you, your father’s f*cking secretary? Bill wants to tell me something, he can tell me himself.”
“Come on, Alex, aren’t you the least bit curious about the bestial cauldron of libertine decadence?” asked Jeff. “I was.”
Alexander palmed his beer glass. His whole life in the Leningrad garrison before Tania was a bestial cauldron of proletarian decadence—with weekends off, officer duds, drinks and perks, and hot and cold running ladies.
“Boys, I have something to tell you,” Jeff announced solemnly. “I fear my Las Vegas days are over. I’m going to marry Cindy.”
“Oh, no,” said Alexander. “Not marry Cindy.”
“Cut the shit. Yes. She has informed me that there are other interested parties.”
“She’s lying,” said Steve. “Amanda tells me that once a month, like clockwork. I set my watch by it. Don’t fall for it; it’s a mantrap.” And laughed loudly at his double-entendre: mantrap had cruder meanings. “Don’t do it, Jeff, save yourself, don’t do it.”
Jeff turned to Alexander. “What do you think I should do?”
“Cindy will make a fine wife,” said Alexander.
Jeff lowered his voice. “I like her. I love her. I guess I’ll marry her.” He sighed. “But Alex, there are some things Cindy just won’t do. Is it unreasonable to expect your wife to do some of the things the ladies in Vegas do?”
“Amanda does them,” Steve said with a grin. “She does what I tell her. But her heart’s not in it. She does them just so I’ll marry her. It’s a mantrap.”
They all laughed. “Man, are you f*cked up,” Alexander said. “She does what you want, mantrap and all, and you’re still not happy?”
“What do you think, Alex?” Jeff said. “Wives one thing, Vegas girls another?”
“Our boy hasn’t been corrupted by the Vegas girls yet,” said Steve with a shoulder shove at Alexander.
Yet? Steve had drunk too much too fast, and was now loose-lipped. “Jeff, man,” said Alexander, “you better pray this is not the kind of thing the girls talk about—how Cindy’s other boyfriend compares with you. What if you don’t stack up?”
“Hey, Alex, is it true?” Steve asked suddenly. “Manda told me the other day that Tania’s never had another boyfriend?”
Jeff laughed. “Oh, man, you’re so f*cking lucky! No wonder you’re so cocky. You’re not stacking up to nothin’.”
Alexander jumped off the bar stool. His beer glass swilled on the counter unfinished.
“What, have to run home already?” said Steve. “It’s early.”
“It’s not early, it’s late,” said Alexander.
This is what Amanda, Cindy and Tatiana talked about at lunch: What was wrong with their bodies. Their feet were too big, their nipples too little, their ears stuck out, their behinds not enough. They were too big, too small, too flat, too tall. It was a Dr. Seuss book for nitpicking women. Staying out of it, Tatiana ate her fettuccine and thought about making it for dinner, with a little garlic bread and lemon chicken, or lime garlic chicken with salsa? Or…
“Tania, did you hear us?”
“Sorry, what?” She had forty-five minutes before Anthony’s bus and wanted to order a slice of cherry pie before she had to run. She continued eating. The bodily analysis was singularly uninteresting to her—she had moved far beyond the magazines and their counseling quizzes. “The Real Secret to a Long and Happy Marriage,” “A Thousand Things You Are Doing Wrong.” “Five Hundred Things You Can Do to Please Your Husband.” Alexander said and showed he was pleased, and she didn’t think about it beyond that. She and Francesca never talked about this. They talked about sons and cooking—and beergaritas. Tatiana smiled. That was the real secret to a long and happy marriage. She wanted to counsel the girls regarding wasting valuable time on things they could not change–but what if they listened to her? Then what would they have to talk about?
“Tania, Cindy thinks Jeff is finally going to take the plunge.”
“Oh, that’s great, Cind,” said Tatiana.
“But what do you think I should do?” Amanda said. “War is over, and it’s been not two war days, like you and Alexander, not three years like Jeff and Cindy here, but seven years! I’m twenty-five, still live at home, and despite all his promises and a ring, he just won’t marry me.”
“So why don’t you tell him to fish or cut bait, Mand?” asked Tatiana.
Amanda was quiet. “Because what if he cuts bait, Tania?”
Tatiana hoped that what she was thinking was not plain on her face, which was, Hallelujah. She placed her hand on Amanda’s hand. “You want me to give you a secret way to get Steve to marry you? I don’t have it. I didn’t have it for me. I don’t have it for you.”
“Well, Alexander married you, didn’t he?” Amanda said. “You must have done something.”
“Alexander and I are not you and Steve,” said Tatiana, and when she saw Amanda’s fallen face, she added quickly, “Cindy and Jeff aren’t you and Steve either. Everybody is different. You have to do what’s right for you.”
“You know what I did? I told my Jeff there was someone else,” Cindy giggled. “That got him really worked up.”
Amanda waved her off. “I’ve been telling that to Steve for five years. You know what he says? The more the merrier, Mand. Let’s bring him to Vegas with us for a little threeway.”
Oh, he is such a prize, Tatiana wanted to say. Please let that not show on my face.
“Tania, tell me what to do,” Amanda said. “Please.”
“Manda,” said Tatiana, “I don’t know why you keep thinking I have all the answers.”
“Because look at what you and Alexander have,” Amanda said resentfully.
“You don’t want my life, trust me,” said Tatiana. “You don’t want to know what it took for him and me to claw our way up that hill off Pima. You won’t believe it if I ever told you. And we’re still finding our way. I’m a terrible example. I was lucky in this—he loved me. But had he not, I would’ve had to move on. I would’ve had no choice, right?”
“Tatiana!” That was Amanda raising her genteel voice in a restaurant. “Are you saying Steve doesn’t love me?”
How did she get drawn into this inane conversation? “He doesn’t want to marry you,” Tatiana said quietly. “That much is clear.”
Amanda got up sharply from the table. “He does love me,” she said, her voice shaking. “He does. You don’t know. He’s a good man. He does love me.” She stormed out of the restaurant.
Across the table Cindy stared perplexed at Tatiana, who shrugged and said, “Why does she ask for advice, if she doesn’t want the advice?” and motioned the waitress for the bill. No cherry pie today.
After coming home from the bar that night, in bed, as Alexander was rubbing Tatiana’s back, he said, his mouth moving down her spine, “Tania, stop talking to Amanda about me.”
“I don’t talk to Amanda about you.”
“You told her you’d never been with anyone else, didn’t you?”
“First of all, I didn’t say that. They were having quite a conversation last week at lunch—these lunches, by the way, that you keep insisting I go to—about whether Cindy was an actual virgin or a technical virgin when she got together with Jeff. I, for one, was having some trouble with the differences. Apparently Cindy has read in one of her magazines that in some parts of the world, in some countries, she would have been considered a technical virgin. So I asked,” said Tatiana, “if they stamped that sort of thing on her passport when she traveled.”
Alexander laughed; even his caressing hands on her buttocks laughed.
“Amanda joked that on her passport, the words ‘was born not a virgin’ would be printed—at least I hope that was a joke,” said Tatiana. “At this point, I ordered dessert and excused myself from the conversation. However, they pursued me like lions running after a frail zebra. I simply said you were my actual first and gave no other information. What was I going to say? What did you want me to say? That you were my technical twentieth?”
Alexander wasn’t laughing anymore. “What I want you to do is change the subject.” He held her in place with his open palms, his mouth moving over her tailbone.
“I do change the subject!” With uncharacteristic irritation, Tatiana moved away from him and sat up. “I’m the queen of the changed subject, Alexander. Including that burning question. Whether there were some small technicalities that I perhaps overlooked. But eventually I have to say something, no?”
He sat up himself. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Nothing. Answer me—did you want me to lie?”
“Just tell them it’s none of their f*cking business, Tatiana. Leave the table. But what happens is, you tell it to Amanda, and she goes and tells it to Steve who then tells Jeff, and suddenly I find myself being snickered at by two drinking men at a bar at night. It’s too much information for them, you understand that part, right?”
“What kind of screwed-up friendship, screwed-up universe is that,” Tatiana exclaimed, “where I can’t reply to a simple question from two girlfriends because of the way it’s going to be interpreted among the animals you call your friends? Vikki knows this about me, and I’m sure she’s told Richter—Richter, who fought with Patton and MacArthur! Do you see him snickering?”
“This is how it is in this universe,” Alexander retorted. “In this one, keep quiet.”
Tatiana cleared her throat. “Really?” she said. “Well, let me ask you, do you think I should be hearing from Amanda that you wish I weren’t working and that you want to have a baby and I don’t?”
Alexander sat up against the brass rails. “I didn’t say that.” He paused. “But surely it’s no surprise to you that I want you to stop working.”
“Oh, that’s not the surprise,” said Tatiana. “What is a surprise, however, is hearing Amanda talk to me about my private life that you discuss with Steve, of all people!” Her voice was raised.
“I don’t discuss it with Steve,” said Alexander, keeping his quieter. “He casually asked me if I liked your job and I casually told him less than you. That was all. I wasn’t complaining.” He broke off, not looking at her.
“You were just being pretend casual?”
Now he raised his eyes. “It’s not a surprise to you, Tania, that I was being pretend casual, is it?”
Tatiana took a breath. “You know what?” she said, “I can’t believe you haven’t quit your job yet,” she said. “But if you insist on staying with Balkman, please do me a favor and stop talking about my personal business to your buddy Steve. Just like you asked me not to discuss the simplest things with my friend Amanda. All right? Not even pretend casual.”
Alexander did not resume caressing her lower back.
The Bachelor Party
Jeff and Cindy were getting married! Jeff was thirty-five and a bachelor all his life. He had started working with Steve four years ago, kept going to Vegas with Steve, got engaged to Cindy, dragged his feet like Steve, set several dates, like Steve, but now really was getting married—and not postponing! Amanda was swollen with indignation. Over dinner Tatiana asked Alexander what he thought about it. They had just finished eating. “I think nothing about it. I stay out of their business.” He cleared his throat. “But the groom and his friends are having a bachelor party.”
Tatiana sat like a stone. Stirring her tea pretend casual. “I’ve heard about bachelor parties. Sort of a last hurrah before marriage? You get drunk, offer him marriage advice.” She smiled thinly. “Sounds like fun.”
“Yes, something like that,” said Alexander, not taking his eyes off her. “Every once in a while…”
Tatiana got up abruptly and started clearing the table.
“…once in a while, the men go to a place where women dance.”
Tatiana stacked dishes in silence.
“Is this…upsetting you?” he asked.
“Is this upsetting me?” she said incredulously. “I don’t understand the question. Are the women dressed?”
“Not entirely dressed.”
“So you have the answer to your own question built in.”
“I go, I drink, I sit, I talk, somewhere the girls dance, I come home. What’s the problem? You have no trouble with me going out for a drink. This is a drink with some pool—”
“And naked women.”
“I deserve your trust. I’ve been exemplary.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Tatiana, “I must have forgotten, in your slew of medals, I can’t remember—did you get one for being exemplary?”
“What’s with the sarcasm? I didn’t say I deserved a medal. I said I deserved your trust.”
“Exemplary is not a favor to me, Alexander. It’s a condition.”
“How can I not go?” Alexander said cajolingly, standing up. “I have to go. It’s Jeff. You and I are in the wedding party. I mean, be serious. They’ll laugh me out of town. It’s for Jeff.”
“Naked girls for you on Jeff’s behalf?” Tatiana raised her hand to stop him. “Look, don’t use that voice of yours with me and don’t insult me with your I-just-don’t-understand-why-you’d-be-upset attitude. I may not have had as much experience as you in this area—as if such a thing is even possible—but I’m not stupid.”
“I didn’t say you were—”
“I know what goes on. Carolyn told me that at her fiancé Brian’s bachelor party, the girls not only got naked but performed personal dances for the men. When Carolyn found out she postponed the wedding for a year.”
“Brian? I thought her husband’s name was Dan,” said Alexander.
“It is,” Tatiana said pointedly. “I’m using the word postpone loosely. A year later she married Dan, who did not have naked women at his bachelor party.”
“Tania,” he said, lowering his voice, “give me a f*cking break.”
“Naked girls dancing in front of you—real close. Am I just too naïve to get why this is okay? Explain it to me. I’m just a peasant girl from Luga. Explain it to me slowly and declaratively so I understand.”
His bemused expression didn’t change as he opened his arms to her. She backed all the way to the other side of the kitchen, raising her hands to stop herself and him. “I can’t talk about this anymore. That Steve…I can’t talk about it.”
His eyebrows puzzled. “Steve? What does this have to do with him?”
“Everything, I’m sure. He’s the one arranging the entertainment? He’s got you so that even you now think I’m too prudish. The damn ironies just pile up, don’t they?” She glared at him. “You keep saying to me, this is the modern world, this isn’t the Soviet village. You say that’s how it’s done in America. Fine. That’s how men behave. Great. If you think it’s okay, that’s enough for me. I don’t know anything but you,” Tatiana said, trying not to let her voice break. “Now you tell me that you want to go get drunk and have naked women flap their boobs in your face. Go ahead, make your wife okay with that one, too.”
“It’s a bachelor party!”
“It’s naked women!”
“Just looking,” he said, opening his hands.
“At naked women!”
They were getting too loud.
Anthony came out. His radio show was over. He observed his mother, tight-lipped, panting, at one end of the counter, and his father, standing tensely at the other, looked at one, the other, then turned around and walked back to his room.
They forced themselves to stop for Anthony’s sake. Alexander stepped away, Tatiana turned to the sink. He went outside to smoke. She followed him in a little while and stood on the deck in front of him holding on to the railing behind her. “Shura, I’m going to make it nice and simple for you,” she said. “I’m going to tell you what I think.”
“Please. Because I just don’t know.”
“You are my husband,” she said. “I trust you explicitly. I believe in you completely. But the thought of you going to this little shindig profoundly upsets me. I see no good that can come from it. I question Steve’s motives. You caring what Steve or Jeff or Bill Balkman will think of you if you don’t go disappoints me. You should care what I will think if you do.”
Alexander was sitting on the bench, not looking up at her at the rail.
“I’m asking you please not to go,” said Tatiana. “I can’t imagine you thought I’d be all right with it.”
“I thought you’d see it for what it is,” he said, “which is nothing.”
“You going to see naked women dance while you’re drunk is not nothing, Shura. It’s a difference of degree, not kind, from here to the girls of Las Vegas.”
“Come on,” he said. “You’re—”
“Overreacting? Not understanding? Being too naïve? You’re right, I wish I could be more understanding—like, say, Amanda. I know that at times like these, you wish perhaps you were married to someone like her. But you’re not. Though I hear she is available.”
Groaning, Alexander shook his head, not looking at her.
“I’m going to tell you something,” Tatiana said. “I didn’t want to say anything, because I had no intention of going. But…I’ve been invited to a party, too.”
Now he looked up at her.
“That’s right. Saturday night,” she said. “The girls are having a hen night. Cindy invited me.”
“A hen night?”
“Yes. We all get dolled up and go out. They want to go to this place called the Golden Corral. Have you heard of it?”
Now he stood up. Even his cigarette was put out. “Yes, I’ve heard of it,” he said. “Servicemen go there to party with the party girls.”
“Oh, servicemen. You mean like soldiers? And it’s rowdy? Ah, well. See, that’s the kind of place I thought it was,” Tatiana said. “And I don’t go out without you at night. I don’t go drinking and playing cards like you do. And so when Cindy asked me, I said no. Because I didn’t think you’d like me in a place like that.”
“And you’d be right.”
“Well, I,” she said, looking across at him, “don’t like you in a place like that.”
“All the men are going!” he exclaimed. “It’s a normal thing. Normal, remember?”
“You can’t sell me your double standard on this one,” said Tatiana, shaking her head. “Not buying it—I already got plenty, thanks.” She paused and waited, and when there was nothing from him, she folded her hands and said, “You know, I thought you had no interest in that anymore. But you’re telling me I’m wrong. I didn’t know that. You live and learn. So since you don’t want to do this for me to be kind to me, and since the rules are changing in our marriage, then why don’t we not talk about it anymore. I don’t want to be a party pooper. You go to your naked party, and I will go to the Golden Corral, and we’ll leave it at that. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go put Ant to bed.” She turned to go.
He came up to her and put his hand over her mouth. “Stop it, you impossible Russian wife,” he said. “Just stop it. I won’t go.” Tatiana’s hands glided over his arms. “I don’t want to upset you. I thought you might’ve been all right with it. What was I thinking?” He shook his head. “I’ll go, have a few drinks, play some pool, give marital advice, but I won’t go to the club. Fair enough?”
She muttered a muffled assent.
He kissed the top of her head and took his hand away from her face with a great sigh.