The Summer Garden (92 page)

“To get a first-rate education,” Alexander returns to Anthony’s rhetorical question. “Military intel for strategy and planning, for weapons acquisition in Southeast Asia. You speak fluent Russian. Bilingual backing for Soviet documents outlining the extent of their massive support for the NVA, for Pathet Lao. You’d be working for the director of Command Central for all U.S. military intelligence. It’s an incredible opportunity.”

“They already have
you
for that,” rejoins Anthony. “Take the spot since one is available.
I’m
not going to sit and analyze data.”

“You are fucking unbelievable, you know that.”

“Shh!” Tatiana says. And Alexander’s hands come off her shoulders.

“I’m not going to argue with you again,” Anthony says to Alexander. “I’m not going to do it. I’m not going to spend the next two months in this house fighting with you. I’ll leave right now and go back to New York if that’s what my life is going to be like around here.”

“Anthony!” Tatiana yells.

“So go!” yells Alexander. “Get the fuck out of here! Who’s keeping you?”

“Alexander!” Tatiana yells. “Both of you,
please
!” They’re panting, she’s panting. “This is insane,” she says. “Ant, you have a great opportunity to stay in the U.S. Why won’t you take it?”

“Because I don’t want it!”

“How can you say that when you know how hard your father worked to help you?”

“Did I ask him to help me? Who asked for his help?”

“That’s exactly right,” says Alexander. “That’s exactly fucking right. So go, Ant, what are you waiting for? A ride?”

“Alexander, no!” yells Tatiana, whirling to him.

“Tania, stay out of it!”

Anthony lowers his head.

Suddenly Tatiana is facing Alexander’s tormented eyes, and she realizes, falling mute, this is how many of these arguments have been going the last seven years. She cajoles one man, then the other, she gets between them, she tries to make it better, they stand their ground, one argues thick-headed, the other argues thick-headed, Anthony raises his voice, Alexander loses his temper, and suddenly it’s Tatiana whirling on her husband, asking him to have reason, and suddenly what was between father and son is between husband and wife. Since Anthony was fourteen this has been so.

Alexander is right. Contrite in her face and body, she puts her palms on his forearms.
Sorry
, she mouths but stands her ground. Because this one is different. This isn’t just between father and son. This is for the life of her family. This is the Sonoran Desert artillery fire.

Before another harsh word is spoken, two white-blond boys roll like shrieking tumbleweeds into the kitchen. Gordon Pasha is six, Harry is five. Joyously slapping Anthony, they run past him to their father; one hangs on one arm, one on the other. Tatiana steps away as Alexander jacks them up into the air and holds them both. Alexander wore Pasha for the first sixteen months of the boy’s life, first on his chest, then on his back. And then he wore Harry. He barely surrendered them to their mother for nursings. They may be blond like her, but they stride and swagger like their dad, they talk like him, they hold their plastic hammers and drive their plastic trucks like him, they wear their hair short, they bang the table, and sometimes, when they need to get their mother’s attention, they say, “Ta-TIA-na!” in their father’s tone. They roll and play over him fearlessly, they worship him unconditionally and without any baggage.

“Antman,” says Harry, “why are you wearing your ice cream man clothes again?”

“Going to an air force base in a little while, bud.”

“Can I come?”

“Can I come?”

Not replying to his brothers, Anthony says to Alexander, pointing to the older boy, “When you name my brother
Charles Gordon
, what do you
think
he is going to grow up to be?”

And Pasha replies, “A doctor, Ant. So I can heal people like Mommy. And my name is Pasha.”

And Harry says, his arm around Alexander’s neck, “And I’m gonna make weapons like Daddy, Ant. You should see the spear I caught a lizard with.”

Tatiana nearly cries, seeing Anthony chasing lizards on their empty land when he was four.

“You
fool
,” says Pasha, reaching across Alexander and pulling his brother’s hair. “You absolute
fool
. Daddy doesn’t make weapons. Except wood spears, but they don’t count.”

“Mommy, I’m hungry,” wails Harry.

“Me, too, Mommy,” says Pasha.

From a distant place in the house, they hear the demanding squeal of a small girl.

“You know what, Ant?” Alexander says loudly. “This is not about Pasha, or even about you and me. This is just about you.”

“You got
that
right,” Anthony says loudly.

Pasha and Harry stare with surprise at their father, at their brother, and then at their mother, who mouths to them,
Get down and get on out of here. Now.

A grim Alexander, still holding his sons, says, trying to soften his voice, “Guys, hear Jane yell? Hear Jane call? Go see your sister, will you. I’m right behind you. We’ll get her ready, and then Mommy will feed us.”

They leap down, their palms knocking into Anthony on their way out.

“Ant,” says Harry, “come swimming with us. I want to show you my forward pike.”

“Later, bud. And I’ll show you my reverse pike.” His hand goes over Harry’s head.

“Ant,” says Pasha, “you promised you would play ‘Do Wah Diddy.’”

“Absolutely. When I come back from Luke.”

They roll out of the kitchen and bound down the gallery, singing
Do Wah Diddy…

“You think you’re so smart doing what you want?” Alexander says to Anthony as soon as they’ve gone. Tatiana wants to touch him but can’t. “You didn’t talk to us before you took the spot at West Point, you know how upset your mother was—”

“I thought you would try to talk me out of it,” Anthony retorts, “and I was right, wasn’t I? Look at you now.”

“And now you don’t talk to us before you volunteer for
combat
? For fuck’s sake, Anthony! You think it’s just you doing the opposite of what I want, of what your mother wants? You’re not fifteen any more, coming home too late. This isn’t you trying to mouth off to me. This is about the irreversible path of your life.” Alexander takes a deep breath. “Why don’t you think of yourself first for once, instead of thinking first of upsetting
me
?”

“Oh God, this isn’t about
you
!” Anthony yells.

Tatiana bites her lip and closes her eyes because next—

“Don’t raise your fucking voice to me in my house,” says Alexander, stepping forward.

Anthony steps back. Not another word comes out of him.

“Why tell us at all?” asks Alexander. “Why not just send a letter from Kontum? Guess where I am, folks. That’s what you’re doing now anyway. Why even come here?” Alexander flings his arm out. “Go—train at Yuma. Your mother promises she’ll send you a care package. She’ll send you one to Yuma, she’ll send you one to Saigon.” He turns, taking Tatiana by the arm. “Let’s go.”

Glaring at Anthony and trying to peel Alexander’s fingers off her, Tatiana says, “I’ll be right there, darling. Give me a minute.”

Alexander pulls her. “No, Tania. Let’s go. No more talking to him. Can’t you see it’s useless?”

She looks up at him, placing her hand on his chest. “Just…one minute, Shura.
Please
.”

He lets go of her arm, storms out, and no sooner does he disappear than Tatiana whirls on Anthony. “What is
with
you?” she says furiously.

She can see that her being upset with him is more than he can take. Funny how he can take his father’s anger, but from her—one cross word, and he falls quiet and uncertain. “Mom, this country is at war. I know they’re not calling it war; conflict, disagreement, whatnot. But it’s war! There will be a draft any minute. If I don’t put in a request for a spot now, Richter soon won’t be able to get me into 2nd Airborne.”

She comes close to him. He is a head and a half taller than she, twice as wide, but when she comes near, he sinks into a chair, so she can stand over him. “Anthony, please,” she says. “You are not going to be drafted if you’re working for the Director of DIA. Dad promised you that.”

“Mom, I went to
West Point
, not Harvard. My future is in the U.S. Army. I go where they need me. They don’t need me in MI. They need me in Vietnam.”

She grabs his hands and presses them to her, propping herself on the edge of the kitchen table. “Ant, you know what your father went through, you know better than anyone, you of all people! You know where your mom and dad have been. War, Anthony. We didn’t read about the war. We lived through it, and you did, too. You do know that boys die in war, no? And those are the lucky ones. The unlucky ones come back like Nick Moore. Remember him? Or they come back somewhere in between, like your father. You do remember your father, no? Is that what you want?”

Not pulling his hands away from her, Anthony says, “First and foremost, I’m not him.”

Pushing him away, Tatiana steps away. “You know what?” she says coldly. “You would do well to aspire to be half the man your father is. Why don’t you learn to walk with grace and valor?”

“Ah, yes, of course,” Anthony says, nodding. “How could I forget? If only I could live up to his impossible standards.” He glares pointedly at his mother. “And he certainly has some high ones.”

“Well, surely that’s not why you enlisted in Vietnam, is it?” she cries. “What is that going to prove?”

“I know you’re finding it hard to believe, Mom,” Anthony says, shaking his head, “but this really does have
nothing
to do with you. Or him.”

Tatiana just stares at him with bleak eyes.

Shaking his head, he says, “It doesn’t! Can’t you see, this is
my
life I’m living!”

“What kind of a rebellion is that?” she snaps. “Following your father’s footsteps?”

“Clearly in your eyes no one can ever follow his footsteps.”

“Not like this, no.” She comes to him, to touch him, to embrace him; she is so sad for him, and he puts up his hands against her, almost as if protecting himself.

“He has always said to me, you choose what you want to be. Well, this is what I choose. This is what I want.” Anthony blinks.

“Your father,” Tatiana whispers, “didn’t
want
to go to war. He had no choice. You think he went through what he went through, to save us, to save himself, so his firstborn son could go fight the Viet Cong?” She is so upset, she can’t stand in front of him anymore; she turns to leave her kitchen. She doesn’t want Anthony to see her cry for him.

Taking her hand, Anthony doesn’t let her leave. Bringing her back, he looks at her contritely. “I’m sorry, Mom. Don’t be upset with me, please,” he says. “West Point
was
my choice, that’s true, but this isn’t. Now I
have
to go. Just like
he
had to,
I
have to. I don’t know why Dad is wasting his time fighting the inevitable.”

“Your mission remains fixed, determined, inviolable. It is to win our wars. You are this nation’s gladiators in the arena of battle.”

Somewhere in her house, three small children are shrieking. Even Alexander can’t get the two boys to quieten down for long. One time he yelled at Harry in a booming voice, “Calm down!” And Harry, in the same booming voice, yelled right back at Alexander, “I’ll calm down when I’m dead!” Though he has never since raised his voice to his father, he also hasn’t calmed down.

Tatiana bends to Anthony, her hand on his cropped head. “Don’t be upset with your father, darling,” she whispers, kissing his hair. “He is just trying to save his son, any way he knows how.” She rushes out of the kitchen, unable to tell Anthony why his father always fights the inevitable.

“Let others debate the issues that divide men’s minds. Not you. May you, West Point soldiers, always be worthy of the long gray line that stretches two centuries before you.”

She cannot show Anthony how afraid she is, seeing nothing but flocks of ravens flying over the heads of all the people in her lovely desert house.

The Long Gray Line

Anthony spent the summer at home
, playing wild, out-of-control war and pool games with his siblings, and left for Vietnam in August 1965. Pasha, Harry and Janie missed him when he went.

Every day when Alexander came home, the first thing he said after kissing Tatiana was, “Any news?” Meaning,
any letters? Any phone calls?

He’d call during the day and say, “Did the mail come?”

And if the mail did come and bring tidings from La Chu, from Laos, from Dakto, from Quang Tri, Alexander took his smokes to the garden outside their bedroom and sat by himself and read his son’s letters.

Alexander was slightly graying. The fierce Arizona sun had darkened his face. Lines came to his eyes. But the genes were good from his Italian mother and his Pilgrim father. Though he had gained a little weight, Alexander worked too hard and trained too hard at Yuma to feel the years. Upright, wide-shouldered, watchful like always, he carried his large frame with the unspoken but clear,
don’t even think of messing with me
air. No one could mistake him for anything but a military man.

As they had during the Korean War, his combat support duties increased. He often spent more than seventeen active duty days a year at Yuma—still the largest weapons testing facility in the world. In the late fifties and early sixties, when the boys were infants and toddlers, and Anthony came to help, Tatiana still went with Alexander once a month, and their baby carriages were arrayed in a row with the others outside the married barracks. But once the boys got too big for carriages, and Anthony went to West Point, and Janie was born, vast Yuma became too small for her two untamed sons and their baby sister who thought she was a male cub herself. It was either rein themselves in or stay home with Mom, while their father went alone, translating volumes of raw data coming in from Russian services and conducting extensive training drills and weapons tests.