Tatiana stared at a darkly grim Alexander and then at Nick. “I know about my husband at war,” she said, her voice shaking. “But you leave him alone. He needs peace, too.”
“Please, Tania,” Nick whispered, bending his head into her hand. “Look at me. My revels now are ended. Have mercy on me. Just give me the morphine. It’s not violent, I’ll feel no pain. I’ll just drift off. It’s kind. It’s right.”
Tatiana looked questioningly up at Alexander.
“I’m begging you,” said Nick, seeing her vacillation.
Alexander pulled Tatiana up out of the chair. “Stop this, both of you,” he said, in a voice that brooked no argument, not even from the colonel. “You two have lost your minds. Good night.”
Later, in bed, they didn’t speak for a long while. Tatiana was scooped narrowly into him.
“Tania... tell me, were you going to kill Nick so that I wouldn’t spend any more time with him?”
“Don’t be ridi—” she broke off. “The man is dying. The man wants to be dead. Can’t you see that?”
With difficulty came Alexander’s reply. “I see it.”
Oh God.
“Help him, Alexander,” said Tatiana. “Take him to Bangor, to the Army Hospital. I know he doesn’t want to go, but he needs to go. The nurses are trained to take care of people like him. They will put the cigarettes in his mouth, they will read to him. They will care for him. He will live.” That man can’t be around you. You can’t be around him.
Alexander stopped talking. “Should I go to Bangor Hospital, too?” he asked.
“No, darling, no, Shura,” she whispered. “You have your own nurse right here. Round the clock.”
“Tania...”
“Please . . . shh.” They were whispering desperately, he into her hair, she into the pillow in front of her.
“Tania, would you...do it for me, if I asked? If I was . . . like him—”
He broke off.
“Faster than you can say Sachsenhausen.”
Click click somewhere, crickets crickets, bats and wings, Anthony snoring in the silence, in the sorrow. There was once so much Tatiana could help Alexander with. Why couldn’t she do it anymore?
Soundlessly she cried, only her shoulders quaking.
The next day Alexander took the colonel to the Bangor Army Hospital, four hours away. They left in the early morning. Tatiana filled their flasks, made them sandwiches, and washed and ironed Alexander’s khaki fatigues and a long-sleeved crew.
Before he left he asked, crouching by Anthony’s small frame, “You want me to bring you something back?”
“Yes, a toy soldier,” replied Anthony.
“You got it.” Alexander ruffled his hair and straightened up. “What about you?” he asked Tatiana, coming close to her.
“Oh, I’m fine,” she said, purposefully casual. “I don’t need anything.” She was trying to look beyond his bronze eyes, into somewhere deeper, somewhere that would tell her what he was thinking, what he was feeling, trying to reach across the ocean waters she could not traverse.
Nick was already in the camper, and his wife and daughter were milling nearby. Too many people around. The backs of Alexander’s fingers stroked her cheek. “Be a good girl,” he said, kissing her hand. She pressed her forehead into his chest for a moment before he stepped away.
When he was near the cab of the Nomad, he turned around. Tatiana, standing still and erect, squeezed hard Anthony’s hand, but that was the only indication of the turmoil within her, for to Alexander she presented herself straight and true. She even managed to smile. She blew him a kiss. Her hand went up to her temple in a trembling salute.
Alexander didn’t come back that night.
Tatiana didn’t sleep.
He didn’t come back the next morning.
Or the next afternoon.
Or the next evening.
She searched through his things and saw that his weapons were gone. Only her pistol remained, the German-issue P-38 he gave her in Leningrad. It was wrapped in a towel near a large wad of bills—extra money he had made from Jimmy and left for her.
She slept in a stupor next to Anthony in his twin bed.
The next morning Tatiana went down to the docks. Jimmy’s sloop was there, and Jimmy was doing his best to repair some damage to the side. “Hey, little guy,” he said to Anthony. “Your dad back yet? I gotta go and get me some lobsters or I’m gonna go broke.”
“He’s not back yet,” said Anthony. “But he’s going to bring me a toy soldier.”
Tatiana wavered on her calf legs. “Jim, he didn’t say anything to you about how many days he was going to take off?”
Jimmy shook his head. “He did say if I wanted to, I could hire one of the other guys coming here looking for work. If he doesn’t come back soon, I’m gonna do it. I gotta get back out there.”
The morning was dazzling.
Tatiana, dragging Anthony by the hand, practically ran uphill to Bessie’s and knocked until Bessie woke up and came miserably to the door. Tatiana, without apologizing for the early call, asked if Bessie had heard from Nick or from the hospital.
“No,” Bessie said gruffly. Tatiana refused to leave until Bessie called the hospital, only to find out that the colonel had been admitted without incident two days ago. The man who brought him stayed for one day and then left. No one knew anything else about Alexander.
Another day passed.
Tatiana sat on the bench by the bay, by the morning water, and watched her son push himself on a tire swing. Her arms were twisted around her stomach. She was trying not to rock like Alexander rocked at three o’clock in the morning.
Has he left me? Did he kiss my hand and go?
No. It wasn’t possible. Something’s happened. He can’t cope, can’t make it, can’t find a way out, a way in. I know it. I feel it. We thought the hard part was over—but we were wrong. Living is the hardest part. Figuring out how to live your life when you’re all busted up inside and out—there is nothing harder. Oh dear God. Where is Alexander?
She had to go to Bangor immediately. But how? She didn’t have a car; would she and Ant go there by bus? Would they leave Stonington for good, leave their things? And go where? But she had to do something, she couldn’t just continue to sit here!
She was clenched inside, outside.
She had to be strong for her son.
She had to be resolute for him.
Everything was going to be all right.
Like a mantra. Over and over.
This is my vicious dream, Tatiana’s entire body shouted. I thought it was like a dream that he was with me again, and I was right, and now I’ve opened my eyes, and he’s gone like before.
Tatiana was watching Anthony swing, looking beyond him, dreaming of one man, imagining only one other heart in the vastness of the universe—then, now, as ever. She still flew to him.
Is he still alive?
Am I still alive?
She thought so. No one could hurt this much and be dead.
“Mama, are you watching me? I’m going to spin and spin and spin until I get dizzy and fall down. Whee! Are you watching? Watch, Mama!”
Her eyes were glazed over. “I’m watching, Antman. I’m watching.”
The air smelled so August, the sun shone so brightly, the pines, the elms, the cones, the sea, the spinning boy, just three, the young mother, not even twenty-three.
Tatiana had imagined her Alexander since she was a child, before she believed that someone like him was even possible. When she was a little girl, she dreamed of a fine world in which a good man walked its winding roads, perhaps somewhere in his wandering soul searching for her.
On the Banks of the Luga River, 1938
Tatiana’s world was perfect.
Life may not have been perfect; far from it. But in the summer, when the day began almost before the last day ended, when the crickets sang all night and cows mooed before dreams fled, when the smells of summer June in the village of Luga
were sharp—the cherry and the lilacs and the nettles in the soul from dawn to dusk—when you could lie in the narrow bed by the window and read books about the Grand Adventure of Life and no one disturbed you—the air so still, the branches rustling and, not far, the Luga River rushing—then the world was a perfect place.
And this morning young Tatiana was skipping down the road, carrying two pails of milk from Berta’s cow. She was humming, the milk was spilling, she was hurrying so she could bring the milk back and climb into bed and read her marvelous book, but she couldn’t help skipping, and the milk couldn’t help spilling. She stopped, lowered the rail over her shoulders onto the ground, picked up one pail and drank the warm milk from it, picked up the other and drank some more. Replacing the rail around her shoulders she started skipping again.
Tatiana was one elongated reedy limb from toe to fingers, all one straight line, feet, knees, thighs, hips, ribs, chest, shoulders, a stalk, tapering off in a slender neck and expanding into a round Russian face with a high forehead, a strong jaw, a pink smiling mouth and white teeth. Her eyes glinted green with mischief, her cheeks and small nose were drowned in freckles. The joyous face was framed with white blonde hair, just wispy feathers falling on her shoulders. No one could sit by Tatiana without caressing her silky head.
“TATIANA!” The scream from the porch.
Except maybe Dasha.
Dasha was always shouting. Tatiana, this, Tatiana, that. She is going to have to learn to relax and lower her voice, Tatiana thought. Though why should she? Everyone in Tatiana’s family hollered. How else could one possibly be heard? There were so many of them. Well, her gray quiet grandfather managed somehow. Tatiana managed—somehow. But everyone else, her mother, her father, her sister, even her brother, Pasha— what did he have to shout about?—shouted as if they were just coming into the world.
The children played noisily and the grown-ups fished and grew vegetables in their yards. Some had cows, some had goats; they bartered cucumbers for milk and milk for grain; they milled their own rye and made their own pumpernickel bread. The chickens laid eggs and the eggs were bartered for tea with people from the cities, and once in a while someone brought sugar and caviar from Leningrad. Chocolate was as rare and expensive as diamonds, which was why when Tatiana’s father—who had left for a business trip to Poland recently— asked his children what they wanted for gifts, Dasha instantly said chocolate. Tatiana wanted to say chocolate, too, but instead said, maybe a nice dress, Papa? All her dresses were hand-me-downs from Dasha and much too big.
“TATIANA!” Dasha’s voice was now coming from the yard.
Turning her reluctant head, Tatiana leveled her bemused gaze at her sister, standing at the gate with her exasperated arms at her large hips. “Yes, Dasha?” she said softly. “What is it?”
“I’ve been calling you for ten minutes! I’m hoarse from shouting! Did you hear me?” Dasha was taller than Tatiana, and full-figured; her unruly curly brown hair was tied up in a ponytail, her brown eyes indignant.
“No, I didn’t hear,” Tatiana said. “Next time, maybe shout louder.”
“Where have you been? You’ve been gone two hours—to get milk from five houses up the road!”
“Where’s the fire?”
“Stop it with your fresh lip this instant! I’ve been waiting for you.”
“Dasha,” said Tatiana philosophically, “Blanca Davidovna says that Christ says that blessed are the patient.”
“Oh, you’re a fine one to talk, you’re the most impatient person I know.”
“Well, tell that to Berta’s cow. I was waiting for it to come back from pasture.”
Dasha took the pails off Tatiana’s shoulders. “Berta and Blanca fed you, didn’t they?”
Tatiana rolled her eyes. “They fed me, they kissed me, they sermonized me. And it’s not even Sunday. I’m fed and cleansed and one with the Lord.” She sighed. “Next time you can go get your own milk, you impatient heathen.”
Tatiana was three weeks from fourteen, while Dasha had turned twenty-one in April. Dasha thought she was Tatiana’s second mother. Their grandmother thought she was Tatiana’s third mother. The old ladies who gave Tatiana milk and talked to her about Jesus thought they were her fourth, fifth and sixth mothers. Tatiana felt that she barely needed the one loud exasperated mother she had—thankfully in Leningrad at the moment. But Tatiana knew that for one reason or another, through no fault of her own, women, sisters, other people felt a need to mother her, smother her more like it, squeeze her in their big arms, braid her wispy hair, kiss her freckles, and pray to their God for her.
“Mama left me in charge of you and Pasha,” Dasha declared autocratically. “And if you’re going to give me your attitude, I won’t tell you the news.”
“What news?” Tatiana jumped up and down. She loved news.
“Not telling.”
Tatiana skipped after Dasha up the porch and into their house. Dasha put the pails down. Tatiana was wearing a little-girl sundress and bouncing up and down. Without warning she flung herself onto her sister, who was nearly knocked to the floor before she caught her footing.
“You shouldn’t do that!” Dasha said but not angry. “You’re getting too big.”
“I’m not too big.”
“Mama is going to kill me,” said Dasha, patting Tatiana’s behind. “All you do is sleep and read and disobey. You don’t eat, you’re not growing. Look how tiny you are.”
“I thought you just said I was too big.” Tatiana’s arms were around Dasha’s neck.
“Where’s your crazy brother?”
“He went fishing at dawn,” Tatiana said. “Wanted me to come too. Me get up at dawn. I told him what I thought of that.”
Dasha squeezed her. “Tania, I have kindling that’s fatter than you. Come and eat an egg.”
“I’ll eat an egg if you tell me your news,” said Tatiana, kissing her sister’s cheek, then the other cheek. Kiss kiss kiss. “You should never keep good news all to yourself, Dasha. That’s the rule: Bad news only to yourself but good news to everybody.”
Dasha set her down. “I don’t know if it’s good news but...We have new neighbors,” she said. “The Kantorovs have moved in next door.”
Tatiana widened her eyes. “You don’t say,” she said in a shocked voice, grabbing her face. “Not the Kantorovs!”
“That’s it, I’m not speaking to you anymore.”
Tatiana laughed. “You say the Kantorovs as if they are the Romanovs.”
In a thrilled tone, Dasha continued. “It’s rumored they’re from Central Asia! Turkmenistan, maybe? Isn’t that exciting? Apparently they have a girl—a girl for you to play with.”
“That’s your news?” said Tatiana. “A Turkmeni girl for me to play with? Dasha, you’ve got to do better than that. I have a village-full of girls and boys to play with—who speak Russian. And cousin Marina is coming in two weeks.”
“They also have a son.”
“So?” Tatiana looked Dasha over. “Oh. I see. Not my age. Your age.”
Dasha smiled. “Yes, unlike you, some of us are interested in boys.”
“So really, it’s not my news. It’s your news.”
“No. The girl is for you.”
Tatiana went with Dasha on the porch to eat a hard-boiled egg. She had to admit she was excited, too. New people didn’t come to the village very often. Never actually. The village was small, the houses were let out for years to the same people, who grew up, had children, grew old.
“Did you say they moved in next door?”
“Yes.”
“Where the Pavlovs lived?”
“Not anymore.”
“What happened to them?”
“I don’t know. They’re not there.”
“Well, obviously. But what happened to them? Last summer they were here.”
“Fifteen summers they were here.”
“Fifteen summers,” Tatiana corrected herself, “and now new people have moved into their house? N
ext time you’re in town, stop by the local Soviet council and ask the Commissar what happened to the Pavlovs.”
“Are you out of your mind, such as it is? I’m going to the Soviet to ask where the Pavlovs went? Just eat, will you? Have the egg. Stop asking so many questions. I’m tired of you already and it’s only morning.”
Tatiana was sitting, cheeks like a chipmunk, the whole egg uneaten in her mouth, her eyes twinkling. Dasha laughed, pulling Tatiana to herself. Tatiana moved away. “Stay still,” said Dasha. “I have to rebraid your hair, it’s a mess. What are you reading now, Tanechka?” she asked as she started unbraiding it. “Anything good?”
“Queen Margot. It’s the best book.”
“Never read it. What’s it about?”
“Love,” said Tatiana. “Oh, Dasha—you’ve never dreamed of such love! A doomed soldier La Môle falls in love with Henry IV’s unhappy Catholic wife, Queen Margot. Their impossible love will break your heart.”
Dasha laughed. “Tania, you are the funniest girl I know. You know absolutely nothing about anything, yet talk in thrall of words of love on a page.”
“Obviously you’ve never read Queen Margot,” Tatiana said calmly. “It’s not words of love.” She smiled. “It’s a song of love.”
“I don’t have the luxury of reading about love. All I do is take care of you.”
“You leave a little time for some nighttime social interaction.”
Dasha pinched her. “Everything is a joke to you. Well, just you wait, missy. Someday you won’t think that social interaction is so funny.”
“Maybe, but I’ll still think you’re so funny.”
“I’ll show you funny.” Dasha knocked her back on the couch. “You urchin,” she said. “When are you going to grow up? Come, I can’t wait for your impossible brother anymore. Let’s go meet your new best friend, Mademoiselle Kantorova.”
Saika Kantorova.
The summer of 1938, when she turned fourteen, was the summer that Tatiana grew up.
The people who moved in next door were nomads, drifters from parts of the world far removed from Luga. They had odd Central Asian names. The father, Murak Kantorov, too young to be retired, mumbled that he was a retired army man. But his black hair was long and tied in a pony-tail. Did soldiers have long hair like that? The mother, Shavtala, said she was a non-retired teacher “of sorts.” The nineteen-year-old son, Stefan, and the fifteen-year-old daughter, Saika, said nothing except to pronounce Saika’s name. “Sah-EE-ka.”