Tatiana and Alexander (14 page)

“What about political asylum?”

“On what grounds? Besides, you know how many Soviets come this way asking for asylum? Dozens every day. On Mondays, near a hundred. We’re here by invitation from the Soviet government. We want to maintain our ties to the Soviet community. If we started accepting their people, how long do you think they’d allow us to stay here? You’d be the last one. Just last week, we relented and let a widowed Russian father with two small children pass. The father had relatives in the United States and said he would find work. He had a useful skill, he was an electrician. But there was a diplomatic scandal. We had to give him back.” The sentry paused. “You’re not an electrician, are you?”

“No,” replied Alexander. “But I am an American citizen.”

The sentry shook his head. “You know you can’t serve two masters in the military.”

Alexander knew. He tried again. “I have relatives in America. I will live with them. And I can work. I’ll drive a cab. I will sell produce on the street corner. I will farm. I will cut down trees. Whatever I can do, I will do.”

The sentry lowered his voice. “It’s not you. It’s your father and mother. They’re just too high profile for the consulate to get involved. Made too much of a fuss when they came here. Wanted everyone to know them. Well, now everyone knows them. Your parents should have thought twice about relinquishing their U.S. citizenship. What was the hurry? They should have been sure first.”

“My father was sure,” said Alexander.

The trip back from Moscow was only as long as the trip
to
Moscow; why did it seem decades longer? His mother was mute. The countryside was flat bleak fields; there was still no food.

Jane cleared her throat. “I desperately wanted to have a baby. It took me ten years and four miscarriages to have you. The year you were born the worldwide flu epidemic tore through Boston, killing thousands of
people, including my sister, your father’s parents and brother, and many of our close friends. Everybody we knew lost someone. I went to the doctor for a check-up because I was feeling under the weather and was terrified it might be the dreaded flu. He told me I was pregnant. I said, how can it be, we’ll fall sick, we’ve given up our family inheritance, we are broke, where are we going to live, how will we stay healthy, and the doctor looked at me and said, “The baby brings his own food.”

She took Alexander’s hand. He let her.

“You, son—you brought your own food. Harold and I both felt it. When you were born, Alexander—when you were born, it was late at night, and you came so suddenly, I didn’t even have time to go to the hospital. The doctor came, delivered you in our bed, and said that you seemed in a great hurry to get on with living. You were the biggest baby he had ever seen, and I still remember, after we told him we were naming you Anthony Alexander after your great grandfather, he lifted you, all purple and black-haired, and exclaimed, “Alexander the great!” Because you were so big, you see.” She paused. “You were such a beautiful boy,” she whispered.

Alexander took his hand away and turned to the window.

“Our hopes for you were extraordinary. I wish you could imagine the kinds of things we dreamed for you as we strolled down the Boston Pier with you in the carriage and all the old ladies stopping to gaze at the baby with hair so black and eyes so shining.”

The flat fields were rushing by.

“Ask your father—ask him—when next you can, if his dreams for you ever included
this
for his only son.”

“I just didn’t bring enough food, did I, Mom?” said Alexander, with hair so black and eyes so shining.

The Ghosts of Ellis Island, 1943

THERE WAS SOMETHING UNDENIABLY
comforting about living and working at Ellis. Tatiana’s world was so small, so insular, and so full that there was little left of her to imagine a different life, to move forward in her imagination to New York, to the real America, or backward in her memory, to Leningrad, to the real Alexander. So long as she stayed at Ellis with her infant son, lived with him in a small stone room with the large white window, slept in her single bed on her white linen, wore her one set of white clothes and sensible shoes, so long as she lived in that room with Anthony and her black backpack, she didn’t have to imagine an impossible life in America without Alexander.

Desperately trying to get away from that black backpack, she frequently longed for the noise of her family, for the chaos and the arguing, for the music of loud vodka drinkers, for the smell of incessant cigarette smokers. She wished for her impossible brother, for her sister, for her bedraggled mother, her gruff father and for her grandmother and grandfather—revered by her. She ached for them the way she used to ache for bread during the blockade. She wished for them to walk loudly down the Ellis halls with her as they did now every day, silent ghosts by her side, helpless before his screaming ghost also by her side.

During the day she carried her boy and bandaged and fed the wounded, leaving her own festering wounds until night-time when she licked them and nursed them, and remembered
the pines and the fish and the river and the axe and the woods and the fire and the blueberries and the smell of cigarette smoke and the loud laughter coming from one male throat.

It was impossible to walk the stripped bare corridors of Ellis Island Three without hearing the millions of footsteps that had walked there on the black-and-white checkered floor before Tatiana. When she ventured across the short bridge to the Great Hall on Ellis Island One, the sense grew. Because unlike Ellis Three, where present life was continuing, Ellis One was deserted. All that remained in the gothic building, on
the stairs, the corridors, the gray dusty rooms was the spirit of the past—of those who came before, since 1894, those who came by shiploads, seven times a day, who docked across the water at Castle Garden or who came off the planks here, right into Immigration Hall, and then trudged upstairs into the Great Registry Room clutching their bags and children, adjusting their head coverings, having left behind everything in the Old World: mothers and fathers, husbands, brothers and sisters, having either promised to send for them or having promised nothing. Five thousand a day, eighty thousand a month, eight million one year, twenty million from 1892 to 1924, without visas, without papers, without money, but with the clothes they wore and whatever useful skills they had—as carpenters, seamstresses, cooks, metalworkers, bricklayers, salesmen.

Mama would have done well here, sewing. And Papa would have fixed their water pipes, and Pasha would have fished. And Dasha would have looked after Alexander’s boy while I worked. Ironic and sad as that would have been, she would have done it.

They came with their children, for no one left the children behind—it was for the children they had come, wanting to give them the halls of America, the streets, the seasons, the New York of America. New York, right across the water, so close yet impossibly far for those who had to be cleared through immigration and medical examinations before they could step on the shores of Manhattan Island. Many had been sick like Tatiana, and worse. The combination of contagious illness, no language skills, and no work skills occasionally made the doctors and the INS officers turn the immigrants away—not a lot, handfuls a day. Older parents and their grown children could be split up. Husbands and wives could be split up.

Like I was split up. Like I am split up.

The threat of failure, the fear of return, the longing to be admitted was so strong that it remained in the walls and the floors, permeating the stone between the cracked glass windows, and all the yearning hope echoed off the walls of Ellis and into Tatiana as she walked the herring-bone tile corridors with Anthony in her arms.

After the clampdown in 1924, Ellis Island stopped being the nucleus for nearly all immigration into the United States. Nonetheless, ships with immigrants arrived each day, then each week, then each month. Processing at Ellis dwindled from millions a year to thousands, to hundreds. Most people came to Port of New York with visas already in hand. Without visas, the immigrants could now be legally turned
away and often were, and so fewer and fewer people risked making a life-changing, life-threatening journey only to be turned back at the port of call. But still, 748 people smuggled themselves in between crates of tomatoes in the year before the war, without papers, without money.

They were not turned away.

Just as talk was beginning to swell about closing down the largely unneeded Ellis Island, World War II broke out, and suddenly in 1939, 1940, 1941, Ellis became useful as a hospital for refugees and stowaways. Once America entered the war, it would bring the wounded and captured Germans and Italians from the Atlantic and detain them at Ellis.

That’s when Tatiana arrived.

And she felt needed. No one wanted to work at Ellis, not even Vikki, who instinctively felt that her natural and prodigious flirting skills were utterly wasted on the foreign wounded men who would be going back to their home country or to work on U.S. farms as field-hands. Vikki grudgingly pulled her duty at Ellis but she much preferred the NYU hospital, where the wounded, if they did not die first, had a hope of pleasing Vikki—the medium-term gal—in the medium-term.

Quietly the German wounded continued to be brought to Ellis Island, and continued to convalesce. The Italian men, too, who talked even as they were dying, talked in a language Tatiana did not understand; yet they spoke with a cadence, with a fervor and a fury that she did understand. They had hearty laughs and throaty cries and clutching fingers with which they would grab onto her as they were carried off the boats, as they stared into her face and muttered hopes for life, chances for survival, words of thanks. And sometimes before they died, if holding her hands wasn’t enough, and if they had nothing contagious or infectious, she brought them her boy and placed him on their chests, so that their war-beaten hands could go around his small sleeping form and they would be comforted, and their hearts would beat at peace.

She wished she could have brought Alexander his sleeping son.

Something about Ellis Island’s contained, confined nature soothed
her
. She could stay in her whitewashed, clean-linen room with Anthony, and she could eat three meals at the cafeteria, saving her meat rations and her butter rations. She could nurse her son, pleased by the heft of him, by the size of him, by the health and shine of him.

Edward and Vikki, one late summer afternoon, sat her down in the cafeteria, put a cup of coffee in front of her and tried to convince her to move to New York. They told her New York was booming during war, there were night clubs, there were parties, there were clothes and shoes
to buy and perhaps she could rent a small apartment with a kitchen and perhaps she could have her own room, and Anthony could have another, and perhaps perhaps perhaps.

Thousands of miles away there was war. Thousands of miles away there was the River Kama, the Ural Mountains which had watched it all, seen it all, known it all. And the galaxies. They knew. They bent their midnight rays to shine through Tatiana’s window at Ellis Island, and they whispered to her, keep going. Let
us
weep. You live.

The echoes spoke to Tatiana, the corridors felt familiar, the white sheets, the salty smell, the back of the robes of Lady Liberty, the night air, the twinkling lights across the bay of a city of dreams. Tatiana already lived on an island of dreams, and what she needed, New York could not give her.

The fire has gone out. The clearing is dark, but on the cold blanket they remain. Alexander sits with his legs open and Tania sits between them, her back to his chest. His arms swaddle her. They are both looking up at the sky. They are mute.

“Tania,” Alexander whispers, kissing her head, “do you see the stars?”

“Of course.”

“You want to make love right here? We’ll throw the blanket off and make love and let them see us—so they will never forget.”

“Shura…” Her voice is soft and sad. “They’ve seen us. They know. Look, can you see that constellation up to the right? You see how the cluster stars at the bottom form a smile? They’re smiling at us.” She pauses. “I’ve seen them many times, looking beyond your head.”

“Yes,” Alexander says, wrapping his arms and the blanket tighter around her. “I think that constellation is in the galaxy of Perseus, the Greek hero—”

“I know who Perseus is.” She nods. “When I was a little girl, I lived inside the Greek myths.” She presses against him. “I like that Perseus is smiling at us while you make love to me.”

“Did you know that the stars in Perseus that are yellow might be close to imploding, but the stars that are blue, the biggest, the brightest—”

“And they are called novas.”

“Yes, they shine, gain in brilliance, explode, then fade. Look how many blue stars there are around the smile, Tatia.”

“I see.”

“Do you hear the stellar winds?”

“I hear rustling.”

“Do you hear the stellar winds, carrying from the heavens a whisper, straight from antiquity…into eternity…”

“What are they whispering?”

“Tatiana…Tatiana…Ta…tiana…”

“Please stop.”

“Will you remember that? Anywhere you are, if you can look up and find Perseus in the sky, find that smile, and hear the galactic wind whisper your name, you’ll know it’s me, calling for you…calling you back to Lazarevo.”

Tatiana wipes her face on Alexander’s arm and says, “You won’t have to call me back, soldier. I’m not ever leaving here.”

Baseball in Central Park, 1943

JULY HAD GONE BY
, and August, too, and September. Seven months since she left the Soviet Union. Tatiana stayed at Ellis, not venturing once across the harbor, until finally Edward and Vikki had had enough of her, and they took her and Anthony—nearly by force—in the ferry one Saturday afternoon to see New York. Against Tatiana’s objections (“Vikki, I don’t have carriage to put Anthony.”) Vikki bought a carriage for four dollars at a second-hand shop. “It’s not for you. It’s for the baby. You can’t refuse a present for your baby.”

Tatiana didn’t refuse. She often wished her boy could have a few more clothes, a few more toys. A carriage perhaps for the walks around Ellis. In the same shop Tatiana bought Anthony two rattles and a teddy bear, though he preferred the paper bags they came in.

“Edward, what’s your wife going to say when she finds out you’re out with not one but two of your nurses, gallivanting around gay New York?” asked Vikki with a grin.

“She will scratch out the eyes of the wench who told her.”

“My mouth is shut. What about you, Tania?”

“I’m not speak English,” said Tatiana, and they laughed.

“I can’t believe this girl has never once been to New York. Tania, how do you keep from going to the Immigration Department? Don’t you need to speak to them every few weeks so they can see how you’re doing?”

Looking at Edward gratefully, Tatiana said, “Justice Department come to me.”

“But three months! Didn’t you want to go to New York and see for yourself what all the fuss is about?”

“I busy working.”

“Busy nursing,” punned Vikki, and laughed at herself. “He is a nice boy. He is not going to fit into the carriage soon. I think he is extra big for his age. All that milk.” She glanced at Tatiana’s abundant chest and coughed loudly.

“I do not know,” said Tatiana, looking at Anthony with swelling pride. “I do not know boys his age.”

“Trust me, he is gigantic. When are you going to come for dinner? How about tomorrow? I don’t want to hear it from Grammy about my divorce anymore. It’s official, you know. I’m divorced. And my grandmother every Sunday dinner says to me that no man shall ever want me again, a tainted divorced woman.” Vikki rolled her eyes.

“Vikki, but why do you have to prove her so wrong?” said Edward. Tatiana stifled a laugh.

“I have eyes but for one man. Chris Pandolfi.”

Tatiana snorted. Edward smiled. “Our Tania doesn’t much like Chris, do you, Tania?”

“Why?” asked Vikki.

“Because he calls me Nurse Buttercup. I think he make fun of me. What is this buttercup?”

Shaking his head and smiling, Edward placed his arm on Tatiana’s back and said, “Happy yellow flower,” but Vikki was already talking about how Chris was going to take her to Cape Cod for Thanksgiving weekend, and how she had found the most exquisite chiffon dress to go dancing in next Saturday.

The market in front of Battery Park was teeming with people.

Tatiana, Vikki, and Edward pushed a sleeping Anthony past the market, through Church Street and then turned down Wall Street and crossed downtown to go to South Street, through the Fulton Fish Market and then up to Chinatown and Little Italy. Edward and Vikki were exhausted. Tatiana walked on, mesmerized by the tall buildings, by the swarming crowds, everyone shouting, cheerful, hot, by the street vendors selling candlesticks, candles, old books, apples, by the musicians on street corners, playing harmonica and accordion. She walked as if her feet did not belong to her and did not touch the hard pavement. She was amazed at the potatoes and peas and cabbages spilling out of bushels onto the sidewalks, by the peaches and apples and grapes, by the horse-drawn carriages selling cottons and linens, by the cabs and cars, thousands of them, millions of them, by the double-decker buses, by the constant clang of the el on Third Avenue, on Second Avenue, amazed, open-mouthed by it all.

They stopped at a coffee house on Mulberry Street, and Vikki and Edward sank into the sidewalk chairs. Tatiana remained standing, her hand on the carriage. She was looking at the bride and groom descend
ing the church steps into the courtyard across the street. There were many people around them. They looked happy.

“You know she’s a tiny girl and looks deceptively as if she will fall down any second, but look at her, Edward. She’s not even out of breath,” said Vikki.

“I, however, have lost several pounds. I have not walked this much since my days in the army,” said Edward.

Ah, so Edward
was
a military man. “Edward, you walk this much through hospital beds every day,” Tatiana said, not turning away from the couple at the church. “But your New York, it is something.”

“How does it compare to the Soviet Union?” asked Vikki.

“Favorably,” Tatiana replied.

“Someday, you’ll have to tell me about it,” said Vikki. “Oh, look, peaches! Let’s go buy some.”

“New York is always like this?” said Tatiana, trying not to sound wide-eyed.

“Oh, no. It’s only like this because of the war. Usually it’s very lively.”

Two Sundays later, Tatiana went with Anthony and Vikki to Central Park to watch Edward play softball against the health officials at PHD, including Chris Pandolfi. Edward’s wife did not come. He said she was resting.

Tatiana smiled at the passers-by and at the fruit stand sellers. The birds were joyous overhead and life bustled forward in freshwater color spurts, and she bowed her head and held her son with one hand and the peaches in the other, and said, yes, these are ripe and smell sweet. She was contemplating taking a ride with Vikki and Edward up to Bear Mountain one Sunday, when Edward had a few gallons of rationed gasoline and his wife was home resting and the leaves were changing. But this Sunday Tatiana was in Central Park, in New York, in the United States of America, holding Anthony while the sun was bright and Edward played softball, and Vikki jumped up and down at every hit and every catch, and Tatiana was not dreaming.

But where
is
Anthony’s mom? What’s happened to her? Tatiana wanted that girl back, the girl before June 22, 1941, the girl who sat on the bench in her French-made, Polish-bought white dress with red roses and ate ice cream on the day war started for Russia. The girl who swam with her brother, Pasha, who read away her summer days, the girl with everything in front of her. With the Red Army first lieutenant in his
Sunday best Class As standing across the sunlit street in front of her. She could have not bought the ice cream, she could have gotten on the earlier bus and hurtled across town in a different direction toward a different life. Except she had to have bought the ice cream. That was who she was. And because of that ice cream now she was here.

Now, wartime New York with its bustling fervor and Vikki with her brightest laugh and Anthony with his fiercest cry, and Edward with his gentle good humor were all trying to bring that girl back. Everything that had been in front of Tatiana was behind her now. The very worst and the very best, too. She lifted her freckled face at a loud and jumping Vikki on the baseline and smiled and went to the drink stand to buy some Coca Cola for her friends. Tatiana’s long blonde hair was in a long braid, as always. She was wearing a simple blue sundress that was too big for her, too long and too wide.

Edward caught up with her and asked if he could carry Anthony for a bit. Tatiana nodded. She bent her head low so she wouldn’t see Edward carrying Alexander’s boy, so the ancient ruins would stay in Rome where they belonged, far away from an afternoon in Sheep Meadow with Vikki and Edward.

He bought the Cokes, water and some strawberries, and the three of them slowly walked back to her blanket on the grass. Tatiana didn’t speak.

“Tania,” said Edward. “Look at how he’s smiling.” He laughed. “The infant smile, nothing quite like it, is there?”

“Hmm,” said Tatiana, not looking. She knew Anthony’s toothless ear-to-ear smile. She’d seen it in action in the infirmary at Ellis. The German and Italian soldiers worshipped Anthony.

“I bought something nice for you and him. You think it’s too early for him to eat strawberries?”

“I do, yes.”

“But look—aren’t they nice? I bought too many. Have some. Maybe you can cook them up or something.”

“I can,” Tatiana said quietly, taking a long drink of water. “I can make jam, I can make jelly, I can preserve them whole in sugar, I can make pie out of them, and crumble, I can cook them and freeze them for winter. I am queen of preserving fruit.”

“Tania—how many ways are there of cooking blueberries?”

“You’d be surprised.”

“I’m already surprised. What are you making me now?”

“Blueberry jam.”

“I like the skim off them.”

“Come here and have some.”

She brings the spoon to his mouth and lets him taste. He licks his lips. “I love that.”

“Hmm.” She sees the look in his eyes. “Shura, no. I have to finish this. It needs to be stirred constantly. This is for the old women for the winter.”

“Tania…”

“Shura…”

His arms go around her. “Did I mention that I’m sick to death of blueberries?”

“You’re impossible.”