Tatiana and Alexander (19 page)

Alexander said nothing. Dimitri spoke again. “I think it would be better if you and I were in the same squad.”

“There is no guarantee of being in the same squad,” Alexander said. “They’ll send you to Karelia and me to the Crimea…” Alexander broke off. It was ridiculous. There was no way he was declining his officership. But by the look in Dimitri’s eyes, by the hunched manner of Dimitri’s shoulders, by the unpersuaded sneer of Dimitri’s mouth, Alexander heard the first tear in the fabric of his and Dimitri’s friendship. Shoddy Soviet workmanship, Alexander decided, and worked harder to convince Dimitri that this was going to work out. “Dima, think how much better your life will be in the army if I’m in the commissioned ranks, helping you out every step of the way. Better food. Better cigarettes. Better vodka. Better assignments. Better girls.”

Dimitri looked skeptical.

“I’m your ally and your friend, and I’ll be in a position to help you.”

Dimitri still looked skeptical.

And rightly so, for, despite Alexander’s proffered hand, life was only marginally easier for Dimitri. But there was no denying it—it was
considerably
easier for Alexander. He was quartered better, he was fed better, he was allowed more privileges and liberties, he was paid better, he received better weapons, he was privy to sensitive military information, and a better class of woman threw herself at him at the officers’ club. The benefit to Dimitri was that Alexander
was
his commanding officer at the Leningrad garrison—with two sergeants and a corporal in between. But it was a dubious benefit the first time Alexander shouted at Dimitri for not maintaining order during a forward march and saw Dimitri coil up. Alexander knew he was either going to continue to shout orders at everyone including Dimitri, which was clearly not acceptable to Dimitri, or not shout orders at anyone, which was clearly not acceptable to the Red Army.

Alexander transferred Dimitri into another unit, placing him under the command of one of his quartermates, Lieutenant Sergei Komkov—permanently damaging his relationship with Komkov.

“Belov, you ought to be drawn and quartered,” the short, nearly bald Komkov said to him one evening at cards. “What were you thinking asking me to take Chernenko? He is the biggest pussy I’ve ever seen! He is a worthless excuse for a soldier. My little sister is braver. He
can’t do anything right but hates to be told what to do. Can we court martial him for cowardice?”

Alexander laughed. “Come on, he’s a good guy. You’ll see he’ll be good in battle.”

“Belov, cut the shit. Today I was nearly going to shoot him for desertion when he dropped his rifle during a march and then had to step three paces out of formation to pick it up. I actually cocked my weapon at him, for which I was sorry. Then, to make it up to him, I put him in charge of cleaning the officers’ latrine.”

“Stop it, Komkov. He’ll be all right.”

“Do you know that one of our rifles was accidentally fired and Chernenko dropped to the ground in the courtyard and covered his head? Didn’t protect his assigned buddy, I might add. I don’t know why you defend him all the time as you do. He’ll be the death of us in battle.”

Here Come the Girls, 1939

When they first started going to clubs, he got together with a girl named Luba and she started coming around more often, and Alexander started being less interested in meeting new girls, but then he found Dimitri talking to her, and then Dimitri expressed an interest in her and Alexander nodded and stepped away. Luba was hurt, while Dimitri played with her for a while and dropped her.

That happened twice, three times more. Alexander didn’t mind; he could always find himself another girl. He tried leaving Dimitri at the Sadko bar and going to the officers’ club instead, but Dimitri disapproved. So Alexander continued to go to Sadko with Dimitri and to pretend that he wasn’t that interested in any specific girl. And that was true. He quite liked all women.

Oksana only liked to be on top and did not want to be touched.

Olga liked to be touched.
Only
touched.

Milla talked too much about communism and economics.

Agafia talked too much period.

Isabel came once, returned for more, and on the third try, asked if he wanted to be married.

Dina said she liked him more than any other man she’d ever been with, and then he found her with Anatoly Marazov the next weekend.

Maya wanted it any which way, and he gave it to her any which way, and then again, and again, and afterward she said all he cared about was himself.

Megan talked all the while she was using her mouth on him.

Nina talked all the while he was using his mouth on her.

Nadia wanted to play cards, not before, not after, but instead of.

Kyra said she would do it only if her best friend Lena could join in.

Zoe was brazen all around and was done in fifteen minutes.

Masha was brazen all around and was done in two hours.

Marisa was the girl who liked to be talked to, and Marta was the girl who didn’t.

Sofia was the girl who liked most everything as long as she had to do nothing herself.

Sonia was the almost funny girl until suddenly, after one Saturday night too many, she became the girl with a broken heart, and suddenly she wasn’t funny and she wasn’t broken-hearted. She was just livid.

Valentina wanted to know if he ever killed another human being.

Zhenya wanted to know if he wanted to have a baby.

And then Alexander started forgetting their names.

That happened when he started to keep himself from release longer and longer. He kept coming back to them, looking into their eyes, their mouths, trying to get them completely naked, wanting a connection, wanting something else, but wanting and forgetting and continuing. A few a night, Friday night, Saturday night, Sunday night, and sentry evenings, and Sunday afternoons—not many during daylight, much to his dissatisfaction, for he so liked to look at them in their fervor.

Alexander started to withdraw from them, still liking them, still needing them, still wanting them, but with a resigned face, an unsmiling face, with a detached manner and a growing indifference to their pleasure, and suddenly and inexplicably their attachment to him grew!

There seemed to be more and more of the girls who liked his company, who wanted to walk with him along Nevsky Prospekt and hold his arm, who squeezed him gratefully at the end, and whispered thank you, who would come back the following weekend when he would already be on his next girl, on his next three. More and more of them seemed to want something from him—what, he did not know and, more to the point, could not give.

“I want more, Alexander,” she said to him. “I want more.”

And he smiled and said, “
Believe
me, I gave you all I got.”

“No,” she said. “I want more.”

As they were walking back, he said in a resigned voice, “I’m sorry, but—what you want, it’s just not possible. This is about as much as I’m capable of.”

Still every girl he looked at, every girl he said hello to, every girl he touched, he thought,
is she the one
? I’ve had nearly all of them, has
the
one come and gone?
Come
—and gone, and I did not know?

But every once in a while, before dreams, before the black of night took him, for a moment, for a second, under the stars, on trains, and barges, and in other people’s carriages, Alexander saw the barn and smelled Larissa, and heard her pleasure breath, and felt regret for something lost he was afraid would never come again.

Dinner at the Sabatellas’, 1943

FINALLY, ON A SUNDAY
in late October, Tatiana agreed to come for dinner at Vikki’s. The Sabatellas lived in Little Italy, at the corner of Mulberry and Grand.

As they walked through the door, Tatiana heard a bellow and a screech and then an alto voice hollered, “Gelso-MEE-nah!” A dark-haired, tanned woman of large size and short stature came out from the kitchen. “You said you were going to be here three hours ago.”

“I’m sorry, Grammy. Tania wasn’t done with—I don’t even know what she does in that hospital. Tania, meet my grandmother, Isabella, oh, and this is Tania’s little boy, Anthony.”

Tatiana was hugged but Anthony was scooped up by the floury hands, and taken, all three and a half months of him, into the kitchen, where he was splayed out on the counter, on his back, and Tatiana thought if she didn’t instantly come to her son’s rescue, Isabella might just make a zeppole out of him.

“
Gelsomina
?” Tatiana inquired quietly of Vikki as they stood in the kitchen and drank wine.

“Don’t ask. It means jasmine. It has something to do with my dead mother.”

“Your mother is not dead!” Isabella shouted without rancor, caressing the baby. “She is in California.”

“She’s in California,” Vikki explained. “That means purgatory in Italian.”

“Stop it. You know how ill she is.”

“Your mother is ill?” Tatiana whispered.

“Yes,” Vikki whispered back, “
mentally
ill.”

“Stop it, you impossible child,” Isabella boomed, beaming at Anthony.

“I told them under no circumstances to ask you about the baby’s father,” Vikki loudly whispered. “Is that good?”

“That’s good, Vikki,” Tatiana quietly whispered back.

Tatiana liked the apartment, which was large and lived-in, with oversized windows and tall bookshelves and big furniture, but she was slightly unsettled by the decorating colors: the entire apartment from the carpeted floors to the walls to the crown molding to the velvet curtains was the color of the red wine she was drinking.

In the burgundy and dark-wood parlor room, she met Travis, Isabella’s thin, small and less-boisterous-than-his-wife husband.

“When I met my Travis,” Isabella said over dinner, holding Anthony with one hand and serving lasagna to Tatiana with the other, “Vikki, pass the bread to Tania, and the salad, and don’t just sit there, pour her some wine for the sake of Mary and Jesus, where was I? When I met Travis—”

“You already said that, woman,” said Travis, glancing at Tatiana and scratching his bald head as if in apology.

“
Prego
, don’t interrupt. When I met you, you were on your way to marry my Aunt Sophia.”

“Don’t tell
me
!
I
know. Tell
her
!”

A little more bread was going to keep her mouth nice and occupied. She could eat and they could talk and a good time would be had by all.

“My mother’s younger sister,” elaborated Isabella. “Travis and I met in a small town in Italy. Near Florence. You know where Florence is?”

“Yes,” Tatiana said. “My husband’s mother was from Italy.”

“I was sent by my mother to meet Travis at the train station. Because he never could have found his way. We lived deep in the valley between the mountains. I was sent to meet him and bring him to my Aunt Sophia who was waiting.”

Vikki said, “Grammy, with your help, he
never
found his way.”

“Be quiet, child. It was ten kilometers—about six miles—back to my house. By the time we had walked two kilometers I knew I could not live a day without him. We had stopped at a local tavern for some wine. I never drank. I was too young, just sixteen, but Travis offered me some of his. We drank from the same chalice…” She had stopped serving, smiled and turned to Travis who was eating lasagna and pretending not to pay any attention.

“We didn’t know what to do,” continued Isabella. “My aunt was twenty-seven, and so was Travis. They were going to be married, there was no way out. We sat in that tavern in the hills near Florence and we didn’t know what to do. So you know what we did?” Isabella poked Travis, who dropped his fork and groused. “We didn’t come home. We just said, let’s go to Rome, we’ll write to the family from there. Instead
of Rome, we took a train to Naples, and then a boat from Naples to Ellis Island. We came here in 1902. With nothing but each other.”

Tatiana had stopped eating and was watching Isabella and Travis. “Did your aunt forgive you?”

“Nobody forgave me,” said Isabella.

“Her mother doesn’t write to her to this day,” said Travis, his mouth full.

“Well, she’s dead, Travis, she can hardly write to me now.”

“Alexander, how long have you loved my sister?” asks a starved and dying Dasha.

“Never. I never loved her,” replies Alexander. “I love you. You know what we have.”

“You said when you get furlough in the summer you would come to Lazarevo and we would get married,” says Dasha, coughing.

“Yes. I will come to Lazarevo on furlough, and we will get married,” says Alexander to Tatiana’s sister, Dasha.

Tatiana deeply lowered her head, kneading and pinching her stiffened fingers.

“We had two daughters in America,” continued Isabella. “Travis wanted a son, but God decided otherwise.” She sighed. “We tried for a boy. I had three miscarriages.” Isabella looked longingly at Anthony, so longingly in fact that Tatiana wanted to get hold of her son again, as if desire somehow equaled possession.

“In 1923, our oldest daughter Annabella had Gelsomina—”

“And called me
Viktoria
,” pointed out Vikki.

“What does she know?” Isabella said dismissively. “What kind of an Italian name is Viktoria? Gelsomina, now that’s a beautiful Italian name, fitting for a beautiful girl like you. Our youngest, Francesca, lives in Darien, Connecticut. She comes once a month. She’s married to a nice man, no children yet.”

“Grammy, Aunt Francesca is thirty-seven. No one has children at thirty-seven,” declared Vikki.

“We were meant to have a son,” said Isabella mournfully.

“No, we weren’t,” said Travis. “If we were meant to have a son, we would have had a son. Now give the boy back to his rightful mother and eat, woman.”

“Tania, who takes care of him while you work?” asked Isabella, with regret handing Anthony to Tatiana, who took him gratefully.

“I take him with me, or he sleeps, or refugee or soldier looks after him.”

“Well, that’s not very good,” Isabella said. “If you want, I can take care of him for you.”

“Thank you,” Tatiana said. “But I don’t think…”

“I could come to Ellis and pick him up for you. And then I could bring him back for you.”

“Isabella!” exclaimed Travis.

Tatiana smiled at Isabella. “I think about your question, all right?” she said. “And you two are very lucky you have each other. That is wonderful story.”

“You’re lucky to have your boy,” said Isabella.

“Yes,” said Tatiana.

“Where is your family?”

Tatiana said nothing at first. “The Germans blockaded Leningrad two years ago,” she said. “There was no food.” She fell silent.

It is June 23, 1940—Tatiana and Pasha’s birthday. They’re turning sixteen and the Metanovs are celebrating at their dacha in Luga. They have borrowed a table and put it out in the brambled yard because there’s no room in the porch for seventeen people—the seven Metanovs, Papa’s sister, husband and niece, Tatiana’s Babushka Maya and the six Iglenkos. Papa brought black caviar from Leningrad and smoked sturgeon. He brought herring with potatoes and onions and Mama made hot borscht and five different types of Russian salad. Cousin Marina made a mushroom pie, Dasha made an apple pie, Tatiana’s paternal grandmother made her cream puffs, Babushka Maya painted her a picture, and Papa even brought some chocolate from the city because he knows how much Tatiana loves chocolate. Tatiana wears her white dress with red roses. It is the only nice dress she owns. Papa brought it from Poland two years earlier. It is her favorite dress.

Everyone drinks vodka, everyone but Tatiana. They drink until they can’t hold the glass in their hands. They tell endless political Russian anecdotes and they eat to bursting. Papa plays the guitar and sings hearty Russian folk songs and everyone else joins in even though they can’t remember the words; even though they can’t carry a tune.

“When you turn eighteen, Tania,” says Papa, “I will rent out a banquet hall in the Astoria Hotel for you and Pasha, and we’re going to have ourselves a real proper feast, not this.”

“You didn’t have a party like that for me, Papa,” Dasha says, who turned eighteen five years earlier.

“Times were very tough in 1935,” says Papa. “We had so little, but things are better now and they’ll be better still in two years. I’ll raise a glass to you too at the Astoria, Dasha, all right?”

Tania wants to turn eighteen tomorrow so she can have another day like this day. The night air is warm and smells of faded lilacs and blooming cherry blossoms, the crickets are deafening and even the mosquitoes are at bay. Her brother and sister fall on top of her on the grass and they tickle her until she yells, screeches, squeals, stop it, stop it, stop it, my dress my dress, while the adults raise another shaky glass and Papa picks up the guitar again and Tatiana hears his deep inebriated voice carry through the brambles and the nettles and the white cherry trees, scratching out exiled Alexander Vertinsky’s lament for Leningrad…