She squinted at him. “You know something about this?”
“I know something about this.” He pointed to his ears. “I listened to quite a bit of chatter and rumor among the rank and file outside my door in solitary confinement.”
“Really?” Tania said that in a mulling tone, but what she was trying to do was to not let Alexander see her eyes. She didn’t want him to see Sam Gulotta’s anxious phone calls in her frightened eyes.
When they didn’t talk about food or HUAC, they spoke about Anthony.
“Can you believe how well he’s talking? He is like a little man.”
“Tania, he comes into bed with us every night. Can we talk about that?”
“He’s just a little boy.”
“He needs to sleep in his own bed.”
“It’s big and he gets scared.”
Alexander bought a smaller bed for Anthony, who didn’t like it and had no interest in sleeping in it. “I thought the bed was for you,” said Anthony to his father.
“Why would I need a bed? I sleep with Mommy,” said Anthony Alexander Barrington.
“So do I,” said Anthony Alexander Barrington.
Finally Alexander said, “Tania, I’m putting my foot down. He can’t come into our bed anymore.”
She tried to dissuade him.
“I know he has nightmares,” Alexander said. “I will take him back to his bed. I will sit with him as long as it takes.”
“He needs his mother in the middle of the night.”
“I need his mother in the middle of the night, his naked mother. He’s going to have to make do with me,” Alexander said. “And she is going to have to make do with me.”
The first night, Anthony screamed for fifty-five minutes while Tatiana remained in the bedroom with a pillow pressed over her head. Alexander spent so long in the boy’s room, he fell asleep on Anthony’s bed.
The following night Anthony screamed for forty-five minutes.
Then thirty.
Then fifteen.
And finally, just whimpers coming from Anthony, as he stood by his mother’s side. “I won’t cry anymore, but please, Mama, can you take me back to my bed?”
“No,” said Alexander, getting up. “I will take you back.”
And the following afternoon as mother and son were walking back home from the boat, Anthony said, “When is Dad going back?”
“Going back where?”
“The place you brought him from.”
“Never, Anthony.” She shivered. “What are you talking about?” The shiver was at the memory of the place she had brought him from, the bloodied, filth-soaked straw on which he lay shackled and tortured, waiting not for her but for the rest of his life in the Siberian resort. Tatiana lowered the boy to the ground. “Don’t ever let me catch you talking like that again.” Or your nightmares now will pale compared to the ones you will have.
“Why does he walk as if he’s got the weight of the whole world on his shoulders?” Alexander asked while walking home. The green and stunning ocean was to their right, through the bending palms. “Where does he get that from?”
“I can’t imagine.”
“Hey,” he said, knocking into her with his body. Now that he wasn’t covered with lobster he could do that, knock into her. Tatiana took his arm. Alexander was watching Anthony. “You know what? Let me … I’ll take him to the park for a few minutes while you fix dinner.” He prodded her forward. “Go on now, what are you worried about? I just want to talk to him, man to man.”
Tatiana reluctantly went, and Alexander took Anthony on the swings. They got ice cream, both promising conspiratorially not to tell Mommy, and while they were in the playground, Alexander said, “Ant, tell me what you dream about. What’s bothering you? Maybe I can help.”
Anthony shook his head.
Alexander picked him up and carried him under the trees, setting him down on top of a picnic table while he sat on the bench in front of him so that their eyes were level. “Come on, bud, tell me.” He rubbed Anthony’s little chubby legs. “Tell me so I can help you.”
Anthony shook his head.
“Why do you wake up? What wakes you?”
“Bad dreams,” said Anthony. “What wakes you?”
His father had no answer for that. He still woke up every night. He had started taking ice cold baths to cool himself down, to calm himself down at three in the morning. “What kind of bad dreams?”
Anthony was all clammed up.
“Come on, bud, tell me. Does Mommy know?”
Anthony shrugged. “I think Mommy knows everything.”
“You’re too wise for your own good,” said Alexander. “But I don’t think she knows this. Tell me. I don’t know.”
He cajoled and prodded. Anthony’s ice cream was melting; they kept wiping up the drips. Finally Anthony, looking not at his father’s prying face but at his shirt buttons, said, “I wake up in a cave.”
“Ant, you’ve never been in a cave. What cave?”
Anthony shrugged. “Like a hole in the ground. I call for Mom. She’s not there. Mommy, Mommy. She doesn’t come. The cave starts to burn. I climb outside, I’m near woods. Mommy, Mommy. I call and call. It gets dark. I’m alone.” Anthony looked down at his hands. “A man whispers, Run, Anthony, she is gone, your mommy, she is not coming back. I turn around, but there is no one there. I run into the woods to get away from the fire. It’s very dark, and I’m crying. Mommy, Mommy. The woods go on fire too. I feel like somebody’s chasing me. Chasing and chasing me. But when I turn around, I’m all alone. I keep hearing feet running after me. I’m running too. And the man’s voice is in my ear. She is gone, your mommy, she is not coming back.”
The ice cream dripped through Alexander’s fingers, through Anthony’s fingers. “That’s what you dream about?” Alexander said tonelessly.
“Uh-huh.”
Alexander stared grimly at Anthony, who stared grimly back. “Can you help me, Dad?”
“It’s just a bad dream, bud,” Alexander said. “Come here.” He picked up the boy. Anthony put his head on Alexander’s shoulder. “Don’t tell your mom what you just told me, all right?” he said in a hollow voice, patting the boy’s back, holding him close. “It’ll make her very sad you dream this.” He started walking home, his gaze fixed blinklessly on the road.
After a minute, he said, “Antman, did your mother ever tell you about her dreams when she was a little girl in Luga? No? Because she used to have bad dreams, too. You know what she used to dream about? Cows chasing her.”
Anthony laughed.
“Exactly,” Alexander said. “Big cows with bells and milk udders would go running down the village road after your young mother, and no matter how hard she ran, she couldn’t get away.”
“Did they go moo?” said Anthony. “Here moo, there moo, everywhere moo-moo.”
“Oh, yes.”
In the night Anthony crawled to his mother’s side, and Alexander and Tatiana, both awake, said nothing. Alexander had just come back to bed himself, barely dry. Her arm went around Anthony, and Alexander’s damp icy arm went around Tatiana.