“You’re right, we didn’t,” Tatiana replied. “Our wedding was tiny. Just us, the priest, and the couple we paid to be our witnesses.”
Amanda looked at Tatiana incredulously. “You got married and didn’t even invite your families?”
Alexander and Tatiana said nothing.
Amanda went on. “What about a wedding reception? You didn’t have any food? Any music? How can there be no food or music at a wedding?”
It was Alexander who answered her. “There was music,” he said. “Oh, how we danced on the night we were wed.”
An odd hush fell over the table. “But I can’t remember if we had any food.” He paused. “Did we have food, Tania?” He didn’t look at her.
“I don’t think so, Shura.” She didn’t look at him.
“What did she just call you?” asked Amanda.
“Just a nickname she has for me.” He couldn’t take one more second of Amanda watching them, not one more. He stood up, pulling Tatiana up, too and motioning to Bobo, who instantly had the band start to play “Bésame Mucho.” On the dance floor Alexander drew her to him. “Tania, come on, they’re all right. Lighten up. You’re not being very good.”
“But, Shura, you tell me I’m so good,” she murmured against his chest, blinking up at him.
Alexander threaded his large fingers through her small ones. “Stop that right now,” he said, gazing down at her and squeezing her hands.
“Tell me, why won’t your buddy Steve marry that poor girl?”
“Why buy the cow,” said Alexander, “when you can get the milk for free?”
He was expecting her to laugh, but she didn’t. She said with a straight face, “You think she’s giving him free milk?”
“And cheese and butter too.”
And then she laughed.
Bésame, bésame Mucho . . .
“All I want to do,” he said, “is kiss the top of your breasts. Right now.”
Como si fuera esta noche la ultima vez . . . She lifted her face to him. “Let’s go home and you can kiss me all over.” Que tengo miedo perderte, perderte despues ...
When they got back, Alexander called for the bill and Tania excused herself to go to the ladies’ room. Amanda went with her. The girls were barely a yard away from the table when Alexander said, “Stevie, you crazy bastard, did you say something inappropriate to my wife when she was setting your arm? She’s acting as if you killed her dog.”
Steve shrugged. “Alex, I’m sorry, man, I know she says she set it, and I’m sure she’s right, but I honestly don’t remember ever meeting her.”
“Stop bullshitting me. You told me four months ago you met someone at the hospital, remember? It was her, wasn’t it?”
“I don’t think so.” Steve lowered his voice. “I meet so many goils.”
“In the hospital? How many times do you go to the fucking hospital?”
“If I said anything to her, I apologize. I didn’t know she was your wife or I never would have said anything, ever. You know that, man. Here, let me have that. Dinner’s on me. I insist.”
The following Friday Alexander was back at Bobo’s, once again waiting for her, this time with Vikki and Richter. They had just flown in; he picked them up at Sky Harbor, got them set up at home, left Ant at Francesca’s, and now they were all waiting. When Tatiana finally arrived, only forty minutes late (“Oh, for Vikki, you’re almost on time!”), it was Vikki not Bobo who jumped up and squealed, throwing her arms around Tatiana.
They spent the next four uncompressed, unstilted, unmannered hours, eating, drinking, smoking, swearing, dancing, even rude-joking.
Vikki and Richter were a good-looking couple, young and tall, in love and all charged up. Nearly all conversation at the table, directed entirely by two soldiers, revolved around Korea. Vikki and Tatiana couldn’t get a word in. “In fact, you’re not allowed to speak,” Richter said to Vikki. “I know all you want to do is complain about me, and I’m not going to let you spoil a perfectly good evening of hearty man talk about war.”
“Well, if you didn’t do so many things wrong, Tom, I wouldn’t have to complain about you.”
Richter was aghast that the U.S. troops had just been ordered to pull out of South Korea, since the intentions of the Communist North were so clearly to cross the 38th parallel. Five months earlier, in July 1949, Owen Lattimore, a State Department official, had said that the only thing to do was to let South Korea fall but not to let it look as if the U.S. had pushed it to fall. Calling into question Lattimore’s loyalty and priorities, Alexander wanted to know what kind of message that was sending to the North Koreans and the Soviets, who were arming and training them.
“I’ll tell you what kind of message,” Richter said. “Come any time, take what you want. Take what you think is yours. Reunite—please. We won’t stop you and, more important, we don’t want to stop you.”
Alexander had just read the military intel reports from General Charles Willoughby, who said that the North Koreans, despite their firm denials were already amassing on the 38th parallel.
“We’re pulling out our troops, and they’re arming the DMZ?” Richter said. “Do you see a small problem with this?”
Alexander saw.
“Come spring, they’re going to invade,” said Richter, “be in Seoul a month later and then we won’t be able to stop them even if we wanted to.”
“If our troops are getting pulled out, Tom, maybe we won’t have to go?” Vikki said expectantly, taking his hand.
“Bite your tongue, woman,” Richter said, pulling his hand away. “We’re shipping out to Seoul, even if you and I and Willoughby are the only Americans left in the entire fucking Korean peninsula.”
“Well, that’s just great, Lieutenant-husband,” said a deflated Vikki. “That’s just fucking great.”
Pouring her wine and lighting her cigarette, Richter said, “Stop sulking.” He turned her to him. “That’s an order, Viktoria.”
“That’s an order, Viktoria,” she mimicked.
And then they kissed for five minutes, wine glasses in hand, right at the table, while Alexander turned his gaze politely away to Tatiana, who did not turn politely away, her expression affectionate and unwithering. He didn’t have to even ask for a seal of approval on Tom Richter— from the first moment she met him. “Richter could take your Vikki right on the table,” Alexander whispered into Tatiana’s ear, his forehead pressed to her temple, “and it would be just dandy with you, but my poor buddy Steve tells one tasteless joke and gets nothing but scorn.”
During dessert Vikki finally managed to edge in one complaint. “It was our first anniversary last month,” she said, “and do you know what my newlywed besotted husband bought me? A food processor! Me—a food processor!”
“It was a hint, Viktoria.”
Vikki theatrically rolled her eyes. Richter just rolled his.
Trying not to smile, Alexander glanced at Tania, who was loving on her death-by-chocolate cake and hardly paying attention. She embraced electric gadgets with all her heart. There was not an electric can opener, a blender, a coffee maker that did not get his wife wildly enthusiastic. She window shopped for these items every Saturday, read their manuals in the store and then at night regaled Alexander with their technical attributes, as if the manuals she was reciting were Pushkin’s poetry.
“Tania, darling, my closest friend,” said Vikki, “please tell me you agree. Don’t you think a food processor is extremely unromantic?”
After thinking carefully, her mouth full, Tatiana said, “What kind of food processor?”
For Christmas, Alexander bought Tatiana a Kitchen-Aid food processor, top of the line, the best on the market. Inside it she found a gold necklace. Despite a very full house, and Anthony right outside on the couch, she made love to Alexander that Christmas night in candlelight wearing nothing but the necklace, perched and posted on top of him, her soft silken hair floating in a mane and her warm breasts swinging into his chest.
The
Roofer
She had gotten herself dressed up, a yellow flowing dress with a short jacket; her hair was loosely braided and her face was scrubbed. She’d brought Alexander lunch but he was nowhere to be seen on the site— just the roofers, who were busy in the open loft space of the new structure. She stood by the car and while she waited, she thought about her dear Vikki, who had just left, and how uncomfortable she made her son Anthony, who wasn’t himself for the week Vikki and Tom had stayed with them. And Vikki wasn’t her usual self either. She married Richter after a whirlwind romance a year ago, but now he was about to leave for Korea, and she didn’t want to go, but what was a married young gal to do while her husband was across the world? Vikki had witnessed first hand how Tatiana lived by herself in New York. “I don’t want to live like Tania did, being a flippin’ widow,” Vikki complained, even to Alexander.
“Tell me,” Alexander said to Vikki, who looked puzzled by the suddenly pleased look on his face, “exactly how bereaved was she? And spare me no macabre detail.” Tatiana had to rescue her friend, drag away her trouble-making husband and end the conversation.
Tatiana’s thoughts were interrupted by the roofers, who had stopped their work and were staring at her. Feeling self-conscious, she got back in the car and no sooner than she did that—
“Hello, Tania.” Steve Balkman was knocking on the window, opening the sedan’s door. “Alexander’s not here. He must have forgotten you were coming.”
“Unlikely,” said Tatiana, reluctantly getting out.
“He had to run back to Pop’s office to get some forms for the damn inspectors. I had the wrong forms on hand. He’ll be back soon.”
Tatiana debated not waiting.
Steve cleared his throat.
“Please,” she said. “The less said the better.”
“If I offended you in the hospital that time, I apologize,” he said.
“No offense taken.” Which time?
“You know I never would’ve said anything to you had I known Alexander.”
Tell that to the former foreman with a girlfriend.
“I was just fooling with you. I’m very happy with Amanda.”
A man can be perfectly happy with any woman, as long as he does not love her, Tatiana thought, in memory of the immortal Oscar Wilde. She said nothing, moving a step away from him. Where was that husband of hers? She didn’t like the way the roofers were staring at her. They’d never act like that if Alexander were here.
Steve smiled. “You look very pretty today,” he said, looking her up and down. “Come, I’ll introduce you to our crew.”
Shaking her head, Tatiana said, “I’m not the queen, Stevie. I’m Alexander’s wife. Do yourself a big favor, don’t introduce me to other men.”
Steve’s smile barely faltered. “Oh, we’re all friendly around here. Believe me, your husband knows very well how it is.”
“No,” Tatiana said coldly. “I don’t think my husband does.”
It was to the frozen smile on Steve’s face that Alexander returned, and Tatiana and Steve did not get to have a fuller discussion about Alexander’s understanding nature. Alexander handed the signature forms to Steve and took Tatiana and the food basket in his truck to a lot nearby, where they had their lunch away from everyone.
“You’re dressed too nicely, Tania,” he said. “I don’t need it, and those animals certainly don’t.”
She didn’t want to say what she was thinking—I can’t get dressed up for you because the people you work with can’t show a little basic respect?
He leaned over. “They’re just assholes, ignore them. I have to go back. Kiss me.”
She was all pulpy-lipped and slightly dishevelled from having his hands in her hair and under her petticoat when they returned to the construction site. As Alexander was walking her to her car, there was a wolf whistle. Alexander glared at the pack of roofers who were finishing their lunch. “Are you out of your minds?”
No one acknowledged his speaking to them.
Tatiana drove away without comment.
Alexander walked away without comment.
He didn’t get far before the head roofer gave Alexander a knowing smile.
Where did Balkman get these people from? But the worker must have been from a country that did not know the ancient code of man. With raised eyebrows, the roofer looked down the road where her sedan had disappeared and said, “She is somethin’ else, that one. Must keep you up—”
“You must be fucking kidding me,” said Alexander.
The roofer was also missing the faintest sense of self-preservation. He opened his mouth again to speak. Alexander grabbed the man by the shirt lapels and hurled him to the ground. In an offended huff (he was offended!) the roofer quit and took his whole crew with him.
Bill Balkman was not happy.
“You work for me,” Balkman said to Alexander. “You represent my company. This reflects badly on our business, people quitting left and right. And you know these people don’t mean anything by it. It’s just men talking.”
“That’s bullshit,” said Alexander. “I’ve been around, I’ve been in the army, for fuck’s sake, and nowhere did men talk like that about another man’s wife—not unless they wanted to lose their teeth.”
“Oh, come on, it’s just good old fun. Amanda, Margaret, they don’t mind.”
Margaret was Bill’s girlfriend. Alexander said pointedly, “Tania is my wife. Marriage is her protection.” Maybe it wasn’t in the Soviet Union, where it was her death sentence. But they weren’t in the Soviet Union. “She is completely off limits,” he said. “There is no discussion on this issue. Bill, we’re going to have a major problem over this if I’m going to have to explain it again”—Alexander glared at Balkman—“to anybody.”
“Calm down, calm down,” Balkman said quickly. “You’re right, of course. He was out of line. I’m glad he’s gone. He was terrible, anyway. But in the meantime, what are we going to do without even a terrible roofer?”
Alexander hired a few extra guys and spent the spring hauling heavy glazed blocks and concrete and sitting under the hot sun spackling the mortar undercoating and then laying ceramic roof tile on top of it, which Balkman showed him how to do. He was diligent, hard-working, fast. “Good work, man,” Balkman called from below, in full hearing of Steve, and gave Alexander a raise.
From hauling thousands of pounds of roof tiles and cement bags, day in and day out, Alexander’s arms and chest started to look like they were carved out of stone, by Roman sculptors. He became massive. None of his shirts and jackets fit; he had to buy a new everything.
In the summer Tatiana hosted her first Tupperware party. She did it for her friend Carolyn Kaminsky, who was always doing something extra besides nursing. This month it was Tupperware. Tatiana invited a few nurses, Francesca—who declined, having recently given birth—and reluctantly, on a plea from Alexander, Amanda and Cindy, Jeff’s girl. Despite the social gatherings they all went to, the dinner parties, the barbecues, and the occasional all-girl lunches, Tatiana’s friendship with Amanda was proceeding slowly, much like the vaunted wedding—that did not happen in spring.
Twelve women came over on a Sunday afternoon. Anthony went over Sergio’s. Alexander promised to stay in the work shed and not come out until the women left.
The party was a success. Tatiana had prepared little pirozhki and finger sandwiches with homemade bread. They drank black tea like Russians. The ladies, always taking an opportunity to look attractive, were all well turned out, comely and tall, Carolyn especially, teased, tweezed, back combed, sprayed, swing skirts, petticoats, full panty girdles, high collar pressed shirts all. A pint of black liquid eye liner was used among them. Only Tatiana wore little makeup, her freckles uncovered by pancake powder. She had on a dress Alexander liked, sans petticoat, a soft floral raw silk dress with bow ties for sleeves, and was bare-legged (he liked that too), her hair plaited and swirled into a bun to maintain appearance with the rest of the ladies.
; They were nearly at the end of the gathering, the girls deciding on their plastic container orders. They’d been chattering about the latest in Ladies Home Journal—“Frozen Foods that Will Send Shivers Down his Spine,” “Two Novel Ways to Use Mirrors,” “Faking Flawless Skin”— when one of the women looked out the window and said, “Tania, you have workmen here on a Sunday? One of them is coming to your house.” All the girls peeked out.
Tatiana bit her lip. He was supposed to stay in the shed!
“Oh, that’s not a workman,” said Amanda. “That’s her husband.”
Slowly, the nurses turned their heads to Tatiana.
The back kitchen door opened and Alexander stepped in. He was wearing his torn, faded Lees and large brown work boots, in which he must have stood six-five. He was perspiring, and his enormous browned bare arms were covered with dirt and wood particles. The short sleeves of his black T-shirt were rolled up to his shoulders, and the slices of gray scars and blue tattoos were clearly visible. “Hello, ladies,” he said, standing in the doorway, grinning white teeth at them through his black stubble, a day unshaven. He brought with him heat from the outside, cigarette smoke, sweat—and clammy confusion among the decorous women. “Hi, Carolyn, how’s it going? Sorry to interrupt. Tania, can you get me my cigarettes and something to drink, please? I’ve run out.”
Quickly Tatiana got up.
“Aren’t you going to introduce us?” said Melissa in a stilted voice.
“Oh, yes, sorry. Um, girls, this is Alexander, my husband.”
He tipped his invisible hat; she hurried to get him his things.
Carolyn said, “Alexander, why don’t you sit down right here and have a drink with us. We’re almost done, aren’t we, girls?”
“Oh, yes! It’s so hot out, by all means, do please sit. And we’re almost done anyway.”
Promptly bringing him his lemonade and cigarettes, Tatiana said, “Alexander has a lot of work to do in the shed, don’t you?” She pushed him to the door.