She didn’t know what to do. Caressing him until he was swollen in her hands, she asked if he wanted something from her. He shrugged.
Trembling, she put him in her mouth but couldn’t continue; she was choking, she was so sad. Alexander sighed.
Getting off the bed, he brought her down to the plank wood floor, turned her on her hands and knees, told her to keep quiet, and took her from behind, holding her at the small of her back with one hand and at her hip with the other to keep her steady. When he was done, he got up, got back into bed, and never made a sound.
After that night, Tatiana lost her ability to talk to him. That he wouldn’t just tell her what was going on with him was one thing. But the fact that she couldn’t find the courage to ask was wholly another. The silence between them grew in black chasms.
For three subsequent evenings, Alexander wouldn’t stop cleaning his weapons. That he had the weapons was troubling enough, but he wouldn’t part with any of the ones he brought back from Germany, not the remarkable Colt M1911 .45 caliber pistol she had bought for him, not the Colt Commando, not even the 9mm P-38. The M1911, the king of pistols, was Alexander’s favorite—Tatiana could tell by how long he cleaned it. She would go to put Anthony to bed, and when she returned outside, he would still be sitting in the chair, sliding the magazine in and out, cocking it, putting the safety on it and back again, wiping all the parts with cloth.
For three subsequent evenings Alexander wouldn’t touch her. Tatiana, not knowing, not understanding, but desperately wanting to make him happy, stayed away, hoping that eventually he would explain, or evolve back into what they had. He evolved so slowly. On the fourth night Alexander pulled off all his clothes and stood in front of her naked in the dark, as she sat on the bed, about to get in. She looked up at him. He looked down at her. You want me to touch you? she whispered uncertainly, her hands rising to him. Yes, he said. I want you to touch me, Tatiana.
He evolved a little but never explained anything in the dark, in their little room with Anthony sleeping.
The days became cooler, the mosquitoes left. The leaves started changing. Tatiana didn’t think there was breath left in her body to sit on the bench and watch the hills of cinnabar and wine and gold reflect off the still water.
“Anthony,” she whispered. “Is this so beautiful or what?”
“It’s or what, Mama.” He was wearing his father’s officer’s cap, the one Dr. Matthew Sayers had given her years ago off a supposedly dead Alexander’s head. He has drowned, Tatiana, he is dead in the ice, but I have his cap; would you like it?
The beige cap with a red star, too big for Anthony, made Tatiana think of herself and her life in the past tense instead of in the present. Sharply regretting having given it to the boy, she tried to take it from him, to hide it from him, to put it away, but every morning Anthony said, “Mama, where is my cap?”
“It’s not your cap.”
“It is so. Dad told me it was mine now.”
“Why did you tell him he could have it?” she grumbled to Alexander one evening as they were ambling down to town.
Before he had a chance to reply, a young man, less than twenty, ran by, lightly touching Tatiana on her shoulder, and said with a wide, happy smile, “Hi there, girly-girl!” Saluting Alexander, he continued downhill.
Slowly Alexander turned his head to Tatiana, who was next to him, her arm through his. He tapped her hand. “Do I know him?”
“Yes, and no. You drink the milk he brings every day.”
“He’s the milkman?”
“Yes.”
They continued walking.
“I heard,” Alexander said evenly, “that he’s had it off with every woman in the village but one.”
“Oh,” Tatiana said without missing a beat, “I bet it’s that stuck-up Mira in house number thirty.”
And Alexander laughed.
He laughed!
He laughs!
And then he leaned to her and kissed her face. “Now that’s funny, Tania,” he said.
Tatiana was pleased with him for being pleased. “Will you explain to me why you don’t mind the boy wearing your cap?” she asked, squeezing his arm.
“Oh, it’s harmless.”
“I don’t think it’s so harmless. Sometimes seeing your army cap prevents me from seeing Stonington. That isn’t harmless, is it?”
And what did her inimitable Alexander say to that, strolling down a sublime New England autumn hill overlooking the crystal ocean waters with his wife and son?
He said, “What’s Stonington?”
And a day later Tatiana finally figured out why this place was so close to her heart. With its long grasses and sparkling waters, the field flowers and the pines, the deciduous smells coupled with the thinness in the air—it reminded her of Russia! And when she realized this—the minutes and hours of claret and maroon maples, the gold mountain ash and swaying birches piercing her heart—she stopped smiling.
When Alexander came home from the boat that evening and went up to her, as usual sitting on the bench, and saw what must have been her most unresponsive face, he said with a nod, “Ah. And there it finally is. So … what do you think? Nice to be reminded of Russia, Tatiana Metanova?”
She said nothing, walking down to the dock with him. “Why don’t you take the lobsters, go on up?” he offered. “I’ll keep the boy while I finish.”
Tatiana took the lobsters and flung them in the trash.
Alexander bit his amused lip. “What, no lobsters today?”
She strode past Alexander to the boat. “Jim,” she said, “instead of lobsters, I made spaghetti sauce with meatballs. Would you like to come have dinner with us?”
Jimmy beamed.
“Good.” Tatiana turned to go, and then, almost as an afterthought, said, “Oh, by the way, I invited my friend Nellie from Eastern Road to join us. She’s a little blue. She just found out she lost her husband in the war. I hope you don’t mind.”
Jimmy, as it turned out, didn’t mind. And neither did a slightly less blue Nellie.
Mrs. Brewster was beaten for her rent money again. Tatiana was cleaning the cut on her hand for her, while Anthony’s eyes, as somber as his father’s, stared at his mother from the footstool at her feet.
“Mama was a nurse,” said Anthony reverentially.
Mrs. Brewster watched her. There was something on her mind. “You never told me where you come from, the accent. It sounds—”
“Russian,” said the three-year-old whose father wasn’t there to stop him.
“Ah. Your husband a Russki, too?”
“No, my husband is American.”
“Dad is American,” said Anthony proudly, “but he was a captain in the—”
“Anthony!” Tatiana yanked his arm. “Time to go get Dad.”
The next day Mrs. Brewster expressed the opinion that the Soviets were nasty communists. This was her son’s view. She wanted another seven dollars for the water and electric. “You’re cooking all the time on my stove there.”
Tatiana was rattled at the shakedown. “But I make dinner for you.”
Mrs. Brewster said, patting the bandage Tatiana had wrapped around her hand, “And in the spirit of communism, my son says he wants you to pay thirty dollars a week for the room, not eight. Or you can find another collective to live on, comrade.”