The Summer Garden (85 page)

She had said this to him once, in Lazarevo.

It was cold in the desert in the December night. Alexander wore nothing but fatigues and a black army T-shirt and it was just what he needed. The labor got rid of some of the fury, the grinding anxiety, the debilitating fear.

What if this was one of the things they couldn’t fix?

What if she didn’t come home again tonight?

Alexander had no sanity left, none.

Faster and faster the axe came down. He wanted to be weak from the physical exertion; he did not trust himself. Groaning in his agony, he brought the axe down on the withered stump until there was no oxygen left in his lungs.

He heard a noise. Oh God—the pebbles! That was her car in the driveway. He threw down the axe and ran, coming around the house and under the covered carport just as she was getting out, and Tatiana didn’t even have a chance to gasp before he was on her. He grabbed her and shook her. He was so out of breath, he could not speak, and she did not speak.

“Where the
fuck
have you been?” he groaned, shaking her limp in his arms. “Do you have
any
idea what—Anthony has been going through? My God—couldn’t you have thought one fucking
second
—at least about him?” He was shaking her but weaker and weaker, and then his hands went around her, his arms clasped around her. He pressed her to his chest. “My God, where have you been?” he said. He was trembling.

“Let go of me,” she said, in a voice he did not recognize. “Get your hands
off
me.”

Alexander didn’t just let go. He staggered away.

With Leningrad ice and a blockaded face, with her bitter condemning eyes on him, Tatiana stood, her back to the red Thunderbird. She was wearing pink capris and a short pink sweater. She looked shattered like she hadn’t slept in days; the raccoon-like rings, the ashen mouth, the sunken cheeks, and the hair! Her hair…it was gone, cut off, sheared to her neck. It curled up now, was tousled. Alexander had been afraid she had given herself a military cut, but she had merely changed her life and become a different woman. This new woman looked barely able to stand. Perhaps it was the pink stilettos. That was his other thought after the shock of her hair. Having been gone for three days, having vanished, disappeared, she was coming back home at one thirty on a Sunday morning, wearing pink capris and pink stilettos.

Tatiana stood by her car. Alexander was panting a few feet away. It was cold; he was burning hot.

“Where the
fuck
have you been?” he repeated. “Answer me.”

“Where have
you
been?” she said. “Did you answer
me
?”

“You didn’t ask me a single thing.”

“I didn’t have to, did I?”

Blinking, he took a step back. “Since Thursday gone from our house,” Alexander said. “Where were you?”

“I owe you no explanation,” she said in a barely controlled voice. “So stop talking to me like I do. I owe you nothing.”

“You owe
me
nothing?” His head shuddered, his body shuddered from the effort to control his emotion. “Who are you talking to, Tatiana?” Alexander said, deathly quiet.

“You, Alexander,” she said, her acrid voice in her eyes. “I’m talking to you. Because it’s very obvious that you owe
me
nothing.”

He tried not to look away. Tried and failed. “That’s not true.”

“Stop speaking! Stop. Stop.” Her voice got lower and lower. “I can’t do this,” she said just above a whisper, pressed against the car, her fists at her sides. “I don’t know what’s happening, what’s happened to us. I understand
nothing
! But I can’t do this anymore.” She started to shake like he was shaking. “You have to leave this house.”

“
What
?”

“You heard me.”

“You haven’t been home for three days,” said Alexander. “You’re coming home at one thirty in the morning, wearing fuck-me heels, and you’re telling me
I
have to pack my bags? Where have you
been
?” His voice rose decibel by decibel. He took a step toward her, and one more.

“I’m done answering your questions.”

“You haven’t answered a single fucking one!”

Tatiana’s fists were pressed to her chest. She was leaning against the car, and it was a good thing, because she was falling down. Holding herself up by the door handle, she reached down and threw the stilettos off. Now she was minute. Alexander’s heart, burned, scarred, furious, raw, was helpless before her.

“Yesterday in ER—” she began to say, but he cut her off.

“No,” he said. “Not until you tell me where you were
tonight
.”

“I had dinner with David Bradley.”

The sails, the boat, the rudders, the anchor were pulled out from under Alexander. “You had
dinner
with David Bradley?” he repeated slowly.

“That’s right.”

He was quiet. “Must have been a long dinner,” he said at last.

“It was,” said Tatiana. “And now that we have
that
out of the way, let me tell you about last night. Last night your friend Carmen Rosario and her husband were brought in, accompanied by police, amid charges of a knifing. They had a domestic dispute that escalated out of control. Apparently Cubert stabbed Carmen, and she retaliated by stabbing him back. He got a shoulder wound, nothing too serious. We managed to save him—so unfortunately for you, she’s not a widow.”

All Alexander said was, “She is not my friend.”

“No?”

“No.”

Tatiana was supported by the car. “Apparently Carmen—” She broke off. “I know this,” she said in her fake calm voice, “because I chose
not
to take care of Carmen’s wound—I’m sure
you
understand the delicacy of the situation—and took care of Cubert’s wound instead, and he, in his emotional state, told me more than I think he intended to. According to Cubert, his wife has been addicted to the lustful desire that men have for her rather, um, substantial breasts.” Tatiana paused.

Alexander stepped three feet back. He would have liked to step three countries back.

“Carmen could not keep the boobs in her shirt since before they were married. They had been having this trouble since the start. Cubert had hoped that marriage would cure her, but alas, it had not, resulting in his year-long bout with impotence and his frequent trips away from home. Yes, I agree with your shaking head. I also thought he was telling me too much. And I wouldn’t tell you this,” Tatiana said, “except as it relates to my larger story. Imagine Cubert’s surprise then, when upon his return from Las Vegas yesterday, Carmen informed him that she was pregnant.”

Alexander listened intently, frowning, sensing more trouble for him blowing in just around the next breath—as if he already didn’t have plenty. His hand went up. “I’m going to stop you
right
there,” he said.

Tatiana continued as if he had not spoken. “Cubert and Carmen had some words about this,” she said in her infuriating, fraudulently collected voice. “Cubert, as any normal husband would—when informed of his wife’s pregnancy—naturally tried to stab her in the chest.” Tatiana paused, for maximum effect, Alexander thought, though no pause was necessary: everything was already to the fucking hilt. “Then and only then, as she was bleeding from her mammary, did Cubert inquire of his wife whose child it was. Since he knew, you see, that it couldn’t be his. And just guess, Alexander,” said Tatiana, less collected, less fraudulent, her hand gripping the door handle behind her, “what Carmen told Cubert?”

Alexander was mute. He wished he were deaf. So that’s why all the dishes were broken. So that’s why the hair was cut. Now he understood. Madness indeed. Fucking Carmen. In war, men lost their lives for less than this. Dudley lost his life for threatening his family. What was Alexander supposed to do now? “Why didn’t you walk over to exam room number two,” he finally asked, “and talk to Carmen? One question and you would’ve known she was lying.”

“Oh, I would have,” said Tatiana, “but having been stabbed in her ample bosom, Carmen was unconscious, so it was difficult to extract information from her, other than science confirming her positive blood-work.” She uttered a sound of such anger and despair that Alexander himself wished he had something to hold on to.

“Tania,” he said, taking one of the deepest breaths of his life. There was nothing left for him to do but stand up, but he simply could not believe what he was about to say to his wife. “Last Friday I was with her, but I didn’t have sex with her.”

Tatiana broke down.

Alexander stood helplessly, and then went to her, trying to take her by the arms. She hit him, straight up into his chin, and staggered from the car, barefoot on the pebbles. Seeing double for a moment, he went after her, catching her by the front deck, trying to hold her, to calm her down, the way he had done so many times when she was upset and he held her to make her better.

This time he did not make her better.

Tatiana didn’t say, “Let go of me,” which he could take. She said, “Don’t
touch
me!” Which he could not.

He stopped touching her. “Let me tell you what happened.”

“Do I look to you like I want to hear anything?” she yelled, hobbling back to the car.

“Had you come home with me yesterday,” Alexander said, following her, “I would’ve told you what happened. I would have told you the truth before you got to fucking Cubert, who doesn’t know the truth. How many times did I ask you to come home?”

She whirled to him. “You haven’t lifted your lying eyes to me all week! You have been
screaming
to me for the last seven days! I’m going deaf from your
screaming!
What more do you think I need to hear? The details? Oh, yes, do, please—
regale
!”

In a low voice he said, “Babe, I’m
so
sorry.” They were standing feet apart. His chin was at his chest.

“And what about Wednesday?” she asked. Her hands covered her face.

He could barely look at the periphery of her convulsing body. “On Wednesday, I was going to meet up with her again, but you know I didn’t. I came home.”

“Meet up with her again for what?” Tatiana said into her hands. “Tell your wife, Alexander—meet up with her again for what?”

In one large step, Alexander came and took her in his arms. “Please, Tania,” he whispered. She didn’t just struggle with him; she pushed him away like he was burning her. Her emotion made her frantic and stronger, whereas his remorse made him quiet and weaker. To hold her required more from him than he was able to give and talk at the same time, to explain what he could not explain, to say what he could not say. He lost his breath trying to keep her still. She was hyperventilating from the struggle to twist away. “Let
go
of me! Let go!”

“No!” he said, spinning her around and getting behind her. He pinned her forearms in front of her, to keep her from hurting either herself or him. “Slow down, or you’re going to faint. Come on—just a bit of reason—”

Tatiana flailed her head from side to side, her body in spasms. “I’ll show you fucking reason,” she said, fighting desperately to get out of his hold.

It was the first time in his life Alexander heard Tatiana swear. He held her arms tighter, standing pressed behind her, his face lowered into her neck. She was against the side of the Thunderbird. “Tania, I’m trying very hard to tell you what happened,” he said, “but you won’t let me get two words out.”

“Oh, I’m listening,” she panted. “I’m just not believing my fucking ears. Now let
go
of me, I said!” Heaving sideways, she hit him in the jaw with her head and tore away from him. They were both speechless. He tried to get his breath back, and she wasn’t even trying. She couldn’t breathe at all.

“Tania, please,” Alexander said, stretching out his hand.

She reeled away. “Tell me,” she said, “how does it work? Do you take your wedding ring off beforehand? Or during?”

“Ring doesn’t come off,” said Alexander. “Carmen is lying.”

“Oh,
she’s
the one who is lying, is she!”

“She is. I know this for a fact because I didn’t have sex with her.” He took a step to her. Her fist flew out and struck him. “Oh, for fuck’s sake!” he yelled, remorse gone, quiet gone, temper here, anger here. “What are you doing? Stop fighting me!”

She squared off against him—yes, that’s right,
she
squared off against
him
—feet away, half his size, chest to chest, fists to fists. “Don’t come near me, Alexander,” said Tatiana, clenched and blazing. “Don’t
ever
touch me again.”

“Stop fucking saying that!”

“No.” She jabbed her fist at him so fast, he barely jerked away. “Get out of my house.”

“Fuck you,” Alexander said, grabbing her fists. “This is my house, too. I’m not going anywhere.” She tried to pull away, but he bore down on her, grinding her fists in his hands. “You didn’t come back at one thirty in the morning to tell me to go. If you didn’t want to see me, you could’ve just stayed with your fucking doctor, stayed all night with him, and not bothered me with your bullshit.” Alexander shook his head like a black Lab, and perspiration flew at her from his hair. “You don’t want to hear it from me, you don’t want to have it out, so what’d you come back for, Tatiana? Just to tell me not to touch you?” He squeezed her fists furiously and then pushed her away. “I wasn’t fucking touching you when you weren’t here! Why didn’t you just stay where you were?”

“I was three days in the hospital, working!” she yelled, hitting him against his raised and parrying hands. “I wasn’t fucking Carmen!”

“I wasn’t fucking Carmen either!”

“She says you were!”

“She’s a lying cunt!”

“Well,
you
should know, Alexander,” said Tatiana. “You were fucking her.”

Alexander shoved her away from him. He was unbearably hot. From his intense effort to control himself and her, cold sweat was covering him, soaking his T-shirt, soaking his body. He stepped away, and she, grabbing her stomach, bent over, breathing shallow, trying to stop herself from retching. There was no comfort, not for her, not for him.