The Summer Garden (48 page)

What they never talk about in their
Ladies Home Journal
life: Mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers. The rivers in which they swam, the rivers they fought across, their blood trail that runs across continents. Sisters with warm hands. Grandfathers in hammocks. Bare linden trees in Germany. And frozen lakes with ice holes.

In the early spring of 1952, Alexander said to Tatiana, “Let’s build a swimming pool.”

She said no. “We can go to the public pools.”

“Like you’d let mothers and small children look at my body. I want a pool so I can swim any time I want. Naked with you.”

“How much?”

“Three thousand dollars.”

“Too much! Our whole trailer cost that much.”

“It’s not a trailer, it’s a mobile home. How many times do you have to be told?”

“But we’re saving for a house!”

It was time to light another cigarette and stare blinklessly at her for a second. “Tania,” he said, “let’s build a fucking pool.”

It was something else. At twelve feet wide and fifty feet long, the lap pool had a diving board and an outdoor hot tub on a raised platform. It took seven weeks to build, and there were one or two hidden costs: like the large intricate meandering stone deck, the wrought-iron fence, the desert landscaping and the decorative lighting. Also the heating equipment to keep it at eighty degrees all year round. The total came to over six thousand dollars. Alexander just paid the surplus out of his bonus account with Bill and didn’t tell Tatiana.

In early May, Bill Balkman, his girlfriend, Margaret, Steve and Amanda came over for a Sunday afternoon pool party. The sun was, as always, out; it was in the high eighties, a fine Sunday. Tatiana had bought a fashionable new yellow polka-dot bikini, but Alexander took one look at her and forbid her to wear it.

Steve didn’t look her way in any case. He had a gash on his cheek with three black stitches. He hadn’t come to Phoenix Memorial, and since it was the only hospital in the city, Tatiana had to wonder where Bill Balkman was now taking his son to get sewn up so that he wouldn’t come to a place where Tatiana would know what happened. Uncharacteristically silent, Steve didn’t explain and no one asked. He didn’t swim, hardly ate, cracked no jokes, barely talked to his father, and his father barely talked to him. His father did, however, talk to Alexander—non-stop. “Great place you got here, Alexander,” Balkman said as they sat out on the patio after swimming. “But I don’t understand, why don’t you build yourself a real house? I hear you know a good builder.” He chuckled. “Why live in a hut?”

Alexander avoided meeting Tatiana’s eye, for he hated other people to see what was inside him: a small hut in the pine woods on pine needle river banks where freshly spawned sturgeon swam past on their way to life in the Caspian Sea. Or—holes in the woods, his weapons around him, waiting at dawn for the enemy to come from below. All that was in his laconic reply to Bill: “It’s plenty for us right now.”

Sunbathing in a pleated satin and wired-bust maroon Marilyn Monroe one-piece, Amanda said, “Tania, the maillot you’re wearing is so forties. Alexander, you should buy your wife a nice new bikini to celebrate that pool of yours and to show off her little figure.”

“You think?” said Alexander, glancing at Tatiana.

“But you’re a very good diver,” Amanda continued, looking Tatiana over with a puzzled brow. “That back flip was hopping, and that cartwheel off the board! Where did you learn to dive like that? I thought you grew up in New York City.”

“Oh, you know, here and there, Mand.” Mostly there.

“Tania, can you go get us some more potato salad, please?” That was Alexander, running interference.

Balkman, when she returned, was saying, “Alexander, good boy you’ve got there.”

Anthony was showing off in the water.

“Thanks, Bill.”

Tatiana found it fascinating the way Bill hardly ever addressed her.

“Anthony!” Balkman called. “Come here for a sec.”

Anthony came out of the pool, long, lean, dark, dripping, and stood shyly by Balkman.

“You’re a good swimmer,” Balkman said.

“Thank you. My dad taught me.”

“How old are you?”

“I’m nine on June 30.”

“You’re going to be tall like your father.”

Tatiana watched Alexander sitting smoking, his calm eyes appraising his son.

“So what do you want to be when you grow up?” Balkman asked. “My son, Stevie over here is a builder like me. What do you think? Are you going to come build houses with me and your dad?”

“Maybe,” said Anthony, deflecting with the best of them. Tatiana smiled at her son’s skills. “But my dad’s been lots of things. He was a lobster man. He made wine. And he drove boats. I drove a boat with him. He was a fisherman, too. He can make all kinds of furniture. What’s that called?”

“A furniture maker,” said Tatiana helpfully, her own eyes adoring her son.

“Yes. Oh, and he is also a captain in the United States Army, and was,” said Anthony, “a soldier in the Second World War. He went up the mountains carrying—how many pounds of gear, Mom? I forgot. Like a hundred and fifty.”

“Sixty, Ant,” said Tatiana, glancing at Alexander, shaking his head at
her
.

“Sixty,” said Anthony. “He was in a POW camp, and in a real castle, and he led battalions of men across—”

“Anthony!” That was both Tatiana and Alexander, who got up and took Anthony by the hand. “Come,” he said. “Show me that reverse pike dive your impossible mother’s been teaching you.” As they walked past, Tatiana heard Alexander quietly saying, “Ant, how many damn times do I have to tell you?” And Anthony in a distressed voice replying, “But, Dad, you said don’t speak about you to
strangers
!”

Brown-haired Margaret, tall and angular, in her forties but trying to look younger, was clearly trying to make up for Bill ignoring Tatiana. She said, “Tania, you do know that Bill loves Alexander? We both do.”

“Of course. Alexander is lucky to have found Bill.” Tatiana didn’t like Margaret much. She kissed Alexander hello and goodbye too close to his mouth.

“No, no. Bill’s lucky to have
him
. He couldn’t do without him.” She lowered her voice. “Stevie is…don’t get me wrong, he’s the son, he’ll inherit the business, but he is just not cut out for…for hard work. Not like Alexander.”

Tatiana agreed.

And then Margaret said, louder, “Why do you still work? Your husband makes a very good living—and will make even a better one as soon as he resigns his commission.”

“I didn’t know my husband was resigning his commission,” Tatiana said, her eyebrows tensing. Nearby, Alexander shook his head slightly and rolled his eyes.

Margaret went on. “You know Bill and I have been seeing each other for a couple of years, but I’m already not working.” She smiled proudly. “Bill likes to take care of everything.”

Tatiana did not say, oh, congratulations, doesn’t that make you a concubine?

The sun was setting. They were sitting on their brand new deck, around their patio tables, smoking, listening to jazz and blues. Tatiana made some more margaritas, poured them for everyone, for her husband first. “Tania,” he said, “you didn’t want to make beergaritas?” He smiled. “From her friend from Mexico, Tania got a recipe for margaritas with beer that…”

“Let’s just say, we’d have four overnight guests after a pitcher of those,” finished Tatiana. Which is why she didn’t make them. “They light you up.” Alexander’s eyes twinkled at her.

“I bet they’re good for drinking games,” said Stevie. It was practically the only thing he said all afternoon.

“Steve, there you go, always with the naughty,” said Amanda, somehow seeming less happy about it. She turned to Tatiana. “So, Tania, when are you and Alex having another baby? Anthony needs a little brother or sister to play with in that pool.”

“It’s definitely time, Mand,” Tatiana agreed pleasantly. “When are you and Steve going to get married?”

“It’s definitely time, Stevie,” said Margaret, and laughed, and Bill laughed. Amanda didn’t laugh, but she did stop asking Tatiana about babies.

They were enjoying the evening, listening to Louis Armstrong, finishing the margaritas before dessert was put out, when Balkman said thoughtfully, “Wonder if this land is worth anything.”

They had been lounging near the swimming pool they had built in the frontier country, in the setting sun, near the mountains, overlooking the dimming mulberry desert under a violet sky. There was no one around. After Balkman’s question, Tatiana sat up straighter. “There’s nothing to buy here,” she said. “The U.S. government owns everything to the left, including the mountains. Down below us, it’s already been bought by Berk Land Development. There’s nothing available.”

Balkman pointed. “What about this right here, the land to the mountains?”

After a marital pause, Alexander said, “We own that.”

Balkman turned his head away from the saguaros. “Own what?”

Tatiana turned her head away from the saguaros and to Alexander. She made her gaze calm, her face inscrutable, but with her eyes it was as if she were putting a staying hand on him, saying, pride, soldier, it’s your pride talking. Don’t do it.

But she saw he couldn’t help himself. He must have really wanted to impress Bill Balkman. “Two hundred feet to the left, two hundred to the right, and fifty acres straight to the mountains,” said Alexander.

No one at the table spoke. They were in a silent picture, just moving without words.

Tatiana got up abruptly and began clearing the table. Loud sounds erupted—of her clearing the dishes and of Balkman exclaiming, “You own all this land? How much altogether?”

“Ninety-seven acres,” said Alexander.

Tatiana shook her head. The smile of pride was still on Alexander’s face when Balkman said, “Do you have any idea what a gold mine you’re sitting on? How much damn money we can make?”

Tatiana brusquely moved Alexander’s hand out of the way to get his plate and stared hard at him, wondering with frustration why it was so difficult for him sometimes to see even
one
chess move ahead. He saw it now, though; saw it nice and clear. The smile wiped off his face, he cast her a resentful glare—as if it was her fault!—and yelled for Anthony. “Ant, get out of the pool and help your mother.” Turning to Balkman, he said, “Bill, the land’s not for sale.”

“What do you mean?” Balkman boomed. “Everything is for sale.”

“Not this land.”

Tatiana laid her hand on Alexander’s shoulder. “What my husband is trying to say, Bill”—her voice was genial—“is that this land belongs to his family.”

“Well, surely you don’t need ninety-seven acres! You live in a trailer on a postage stamp lot. A bomb shelter would take up more room than where you’re living. Even with the pool and the work shed you’ve barely used up a quarter of an acre. You can keep seven acres.” He wasn’t even addressing Tatiana, who had spoken to him. He was talking directly to Alexander, his gestures all twitchy. “You sell ninety acres to the business, make a shitload—pardon my French—of money, and then we parcel out the rest into quarter-acre units. I will split the profit on the land with you fifty-fifty. Your wife here will be covered in diamonds by the time we’re through. She won’t be able to see the desert for all the rocks you’ll buy her.” He was feverishly calculating on a napkin—using one of
her
napkins to calculate his nefarious little math!

“Bill,” Tatiana said, still genially, “first of all, it’s not a trailer, it’s a mobile home. And second of all, the land is not for sale.”

“Sweetheart, please,” said Balkman, not even looking up, “let the men take care of business, all right?”

Tatiana took her hand off Alexander’s shoulder.

“Bill,” Alexander said, “the land is not for sale.”

Balkman wasn’t listening. “We can have a whole community here. We’ll call it Paradise Hills, Love Hills, Tatiana Hills, whatever you want. Ninety acres will parcel out to 300 units. We can even have a community pool, a clubhouse, charge annual fees. Three hundred units at a thousand dollars a pop just for the land, that’s one hundred and fifty thousand dollars for your end, Alexander. And the 300 houses on these lots will be twenty-five bucks a square foot, plus an extra fifty a square foot for the concrete bomb shelters we’ll sell for each one. If we cap the size of the houses at 4000 square feet—I don’t have a napkin big enough to calculate those profits!”

Tatiana stood up straight with the dirty trays in her hands. “Bill,” she said calmly, “even without the bomb shelters you’ll make twenty-six million dollars, but we won’t have our land. What would be the point of that?”

“Twenty-six million? How did you?—Well, there you have it! What’s the point? Sweetheart, because you’ll never have to work again. Alexander, she can just stay home and make you babies all day. Now where were we?”

Tatiana dropped her stack of dirty trays onto the new sandstone patio. The trays were metal and didn’t break, but what a clang they made, and all the food she had made that the Balkmans did not finish fell onto the weathered concrete tiles. “Excuse me,” she said. “Accident.” She crouched to clean it. Alexander crouched beside her. “Tell me,” she said through her teeth, “will you be resigning your commission before or after you give him our land?”

“Stop it.”

“You either tell him to leave my house, Shura,” she whispered, “or I’m going to tell him a few things he won’t want to hear.”

“What did I say?” he whispered. “Go inside and calm down.”

Of course he was right—dessert had not been served. Apple pie, blueberry muffins, chocolate chip cookies, strawberry shortcake that Tatiana made to show hospitality to her guests, to Alexander’s boss, to his boss’s family. Snatching the trays from him she squalled into the house.

Balkman opened his mouth and Alexander said, “Let’s talk about this tomorrow.”

“Oh, come on—”

“Tomorrow, Bill.”

“You know, Alexander,” Bill said in a wise voice, “sometimes women get a little upset by things. They don’t understand the ways of men. All you have to do is show them who’s boss—they’re quick learners.” Bill smacked Margaret’s rump. “Aren’t they, hon?”