The Summer Garden (77 page)

Alexander stood from the bench. “You think it’s Lazarevo I want from you?” he said in a stunned voice.

“Yes,” Tatiana said loudly, taking half a step back. “You want that young girl back. Look at her, how beautiful she was, how young, and how much she loved me!”

“No!” Tatiana saw he was struggling to restrain himself from taking one step to her. “I don’t need your 18-year-old self to love me. I can get that any second of any day.” He was breathing hard to keep in control. “I don’t even have to close my eyes.” He broke off to take another breath.

Oh Shura.

“I’d settle not for Lazarevo but for Napa,” he said. “I’d settle for our first months here in Scottsdale. I’d settle for a week in Coconut Grove, for one
hour
on Bethel Island. I’d settle for anything other than what I’m getting from you lately,” he said, “which is a whole lot of fucking nothing.”

“Oh God, I honestly don’t know what you’re accusing me of,” she whispered, unable to look at him, lowering her stricken head. Tatiana’s hands were clenched at her chest. Alexander’s hands were clenched at his sides. He was on one side of the wooden deck railing, she on the other, the potted yellow prickly pears between them, their hands knotted, their mouths twisted.

Black silence passed crashingly between them.

“You’re glad we don’t have a baby,” Alexander finally said. “Because you don’t ever want to leave your work.”

“I’m not glad we don’t have a baby!” she said, her voice breaking. “But you’re right, I don’t want to leave my work. Leave work and do what? Stare at the walls all day?” She squeezed her hands together, trying to keep herself from emitting a cry. “Shura, we’ve been through this and through this. When I get…” She couldn’t continue.

“That’s right, do
please
stop yourself,” he said, shaking his head. “Words are so fucking cheap. But don’t you find it ironic,” he went on in a voice that was anything but ironic, “that we made Anthony in Leningrad? In complete desperation, when the bombs were whistling by, when we were both at death’s open door, the besieged and starving Leningrad begat our only child. You’d think that here, in the land of plenty—” He broke off, his gaze fixed on the planks of the deck, and stepped further away from her. “You don’t want to hear it. You’ve never wanted to hear it, but I’m telling you once again,” Alexander said, “it’s because you’ve put that place between us in our bed—you with your trembling fingers and visions of death—and you’ve put it between us and our hope of
ever
having another baby—yes! Don’t shake your head at me!”

“What you’re saying is not true!” Tatiana cried, fighting the impulse to put her hands over her ears.

“Oh, it’s true and you know it! You’ve got
nothing
left for a baby, nothing! Everything you have goes to that fucking hospital.”

“Please stop, please,” she whispered. “I’m begging you…”

Alexander stopped. When he spoke again, every breath out of him was exhaled with alkaloid poison anguish. “I
won’t
make peace with it,” he said. “I know you want me to, but I can’t and I won’t. I know you think we’ve been dealt a fine hand here, but very soon Ant will be grown and gone—and then what?”

“Shura,
please
!”

“Don’t you
see
,” said Alexander, “that unless an infant comes to this house, we are forever in the ice in Lake Ladoga with your dead sister and sunk under the winter tree with your brother? We are against the wall with my mother and father with blindfolds over our faces, and I’m digging coal in Kolyma. The
baby
,” he whispered wrenchingly, “is the American thing. The baby is the new house and the new life. The baby is the power that sustains the stars. Don’t
you
see that?”

Her head shuddering in sorrow, Tatiana’s hands were clasped in a suffocating prayer—at her throat.

Everything she had she gave to him. Everything—except the one thing he desperately wanted. Except the one thing he desperately needed.

“Our house is divided against itself,” said Alexander.

She shook her head. “Please don’t say that,” she whispered. “God, please.”

Waving his hand to flag the finish, Alexander collected his beer can, his ash tray. “There’s no use talking any more about it,” he said, walking past Tatiana to the house. “We’ve talked it now to
death
.”

These were the snapshots of their brief and unspeakably silent love that night: Tatiana with her legs draped over the bedroom chair, her white crinoline and red flowing skirt spread around and near and over Alexander’s lowered
black black
head. And this: Alexander standing, not touching, and Tatiana kneeling on the floor in front of him. And this: Tatiana on her hands and knees in her red bolero dress, Alexander behind her. And finally the afterglow: he’s gone back outside and is sitting on the deck, smoking, and she is alone in the armchair, in her red bolero dress. The ticks of time, the fractions of an hour, four bars of a rhyme. There was no whispering, no sighing, no crying out, not a single
oh Shura
. The only muted sounds coming out of her throat were as if she had been suffocating.

And the next morning Tatiana got up and flew to work in the red Ford Thunderbird rag-top Alexander bought her so she would love him.

Faith Noël

Tatiana and Bradley were sitting across from each other
having lunch that afternoon, a Thursday. Tatiana kept the conversation flowing, shop talk, other nurses, and patients, Red Cross blood drive, which she organized every year for the city of Phoenix. “Did you hear about the woman who refused a Cesarian section for her twins?” Tatiana asked.

“This isn’t one of your little jokes, is it?” He grinned.

“No, no joke,” she said seriously, now wishing it were. “One of the babies was stillborn.”

Bradley stopped smiling and nodded. “I know. The other one is okay, though. He’s already been adopted. But sometimes this happens with twins.”

“Yes,” said Tatiana. “I was one of those too-small, non-Cesarian twins. But that was in a Soviet peasant village. This is going on in your maternity clinic, David. The woman refused the op because she said the doctor looked shifty.”

“I’m not responsible for the choices Cesarian mothers make in my clinic.”

“Mmm,” she said. “You mean non-Cesarian mothers. Are you responsible for Dr. Culkin?”

Bradley rolled his eyes. “Unfortunately for him, yes. Shifty, she said? Dr. Culkin, a pediatric
surgeon
who came to work drunk?”

Tatiana nodded. “Perhaps that woman was right to express reservations about his services, don’t you think? He could’ve cut out her lungs by mistake.”

They both smiled.

She looked away.

“By the way,” Bradley said, “you looked very beautiful yesterday.”

“Thank you.” She wasn’t looking at him.

“You were the loveliest woman in that room.”

“Very specific, but thank you.”

Suddenly Bradley reached over and placed his hand over hers. It was not the hand that had her wedding ring on it. She took her hand away. Reaching for her again, he opened his mouth, and she shook her head.

“David,” she said, in a very low voice. “Don’t say anything.”

“Tania…”

“No. I beg you.”

“Tania…”

“Please,” she said, her eyes lowered.

He leaned to her, halfway across the narrow table.

“David!” she cut him off, too loudly, then lowered her voice in supplication. “Please…”

“Tania, I have to tell you—”

“If you speak another word to me, one more word, I won’t be able to have lunch with you again,” said Tatiana. “I won’t be able to talk to you again or work with you again. Do you understand?”

He stopped, silently staring at her.

“If you break the unspoken barrier between us, you’ll stop being like everyone else I sit down to have lunch with. We’ve been good friends, it’s no secret.” She blinked. “There will be no fooling anyone anymore if you open your mouth. Because then I won’t be able to come home and look my husband in the face and say you and I are just co-workers.”

“Is that what you say to him when he asks?”

“Of course.”

“Does he…ask?”

She blinked again, swallowing the lump in her throat. “Yes. Even then he doesn’t believe me. I’m not doing anything wrong by sitting down having lunch with you twice a week, as we chat about all sorts of nonsense. But I
would
be doing something wrong if I sat down with you after hearing what you cannot say to another man’s wife.” Tatiana could see Bradley was deeply conflicted. “What you cannot say,” she repeated intensely, “to another man’s wife.”

“Tania, if you only knew…”

“Now I know.”

“You have
no
idea.”

“Now I do.”

“No, Tania,” Bradley said, shaking his head with sadness. “You really don’t.”

“We were friends,” she said weakly. “We are still friends.”

“Did you know how I felt?”

“I’m married, David,” said Tatiana. “Married in a church, sworn before God, promised for life to someone else.” She winced as she said it. Her Alexander was now
someone else
? Tatiana’s head was deeply down. She was ashamed. She sat with Bradley because he was calm and didn’t blame her for unfathomable sorrows she could not fix; because he made her laugh; she sat with him because he made her a little bit happy. Isn’t that what friends did? This is what Vikki did.

But Tatiana
had
known very well how he felt.

“Tania, what if…” Bradley broke off. “What if you weren’t married?”

“But I am.”

“But what if…he never came back from war? What if you were still alone, like before, in New York? When it was just you and Ant.”

“State your question,” Tatiana said quietly.

“What about you and me, Tania?” His blue eyes were so emotional. “If you weren’t married?”

“But I am,” she whispered.

“Oh God. Is there no chance for us? No chance at all?”

Reaching out, Tatiana put her hand on his face. “No, David,” she replied. “Not in this life.”

Bradley looked across at her. For a moment he did not speak, and she did not take her palm away. Then he whispered, “Thank you. Thank you for giving me my answer.” He kissed her hand. “You are a very good wife,” he said. “And perhaps in another life, I might have known that.”

“I really have to go,” Tatiana said, hastily getting up. “Please don’t mention this again.” As steadily as she could, Tatiana walked out of the cafeteria, leaving Dr. Bradley alone at the table.

Jingle Bell Swing

A day later, on Friday night, Tatiana was working
, Anthony was overnight with Sergio, and Alexander was at Maloney’s with Shannon, Skip and Johnny. Johnny was regaling everyone with stories of how Emily went out with him for dinner earlier in the week, how Emily agreed to go to Scottsdale Commons with him on Sunday, how Emily was planning to invite him over for Christmas to meet the folks.

“The problem is, you see, she is looking at it like a courtship, when courtship is the
last
thing I need. Why am I spending so long getting her to do what I want her to do?”

“A
week
is too long?” Alexander laughed. “Oh, man. They have places for people like you, Johnny-boy. Special darkened places that don’t require courtship.”

Johnny waved him off. He was a young hard kid in good duds with a hot rod, a biker, a strapper. “I’m not paying for it, no way. Who do you think I am?”

Shannon, Skip, Alexander exchanged glances, and shook their collective married heads. Alexander said, “Johnny, how much have you spent so far on dinner, drinks, pictures, flowers?”

You could tell Johnny had never thought about it like that. “It’s not the same,” he said, downing his drink. “It’s the conquest, the chase that’s interesting. The pro-cre-ative process.”

“Oh, the pro-cre-ative process,” mimicked Shannon. “You’re such an asshole.”

Skip and Shannon branched off to talk about their new babies. Alexander and Johnny branched off to talk about Emily and whether she was worth pursuing further.

“Don’t you think,” said Johnny, “it’s too much effort to expend on a little fly-cage?”

Alexander was thoughtful. “Depends how much you like her,” he replied. “If you like her, it’s not too much effort.”

“Well, how would I know? I haven’t—”

“If you liked her,” said Alexander, “no effort would be too much.”

“You know something about that?”

“I know something about that,” said Alexander.

A hand went on Alexander’s shoulder. “Well, hello!” It was Carmen and Emily. They had gotten all gussied up and sprayed. Johnny suavely kissed Emily’s cheek.

“Alexander, we really must stop meeting like this,” said Carmen. “It’s our third time in a week.”

Soon Shannon and Skip left to go home to their waiting wives, who cared what time they came home.

Emily, Johnny, Carmen, and Alexander went to a corner booth and ordered drinks. Carmen sat next to him on the bench. Her perfume was unfamiliar and a little strong but not terrible. She herself wasn’t terrible. Her dark eyes flashed, she had some vim. She had a good laugh, she was a flirt, a talker. She was not shy, she was not afraid. During their conversation she moved her leg and it touched his. And at one in the morning, Alexander didn’t move it away.

“So, Alexander,” Carmen said, “is my memory failing me, or are you the same Alexander Barrington who killed a man that broke into your house late one night a few years ago? I recall reading something in the paper about that.”

“He’s one and the same man, Carmen,” said Johnny. “So don’t get on his bad side.”

“Oh, how positively
frightening
!” squealed Carmen, moving an inch closer. “So you have a bad side?”

“I might,” said Alexander.

“How bad?” she asked in a low voice.

Alexander could have said nothing. Certainly he should have said nothing. But it was late Friday night and he’d been drinking, and his head was swimming, and so what he said instead of keeping silent was, “Very very bad, Carmen.”