Tatiana and Alexander: A Novel(129)

Bread. Flour, milk, butter, salt, eggs, yeast. A complete food. Bread.

Vikki tried to figure out why every other night at eleven they had to make yeast dough by hand, and Tatiana finally said to her, "So that in morning, I don't have to leave my house to go get warm bread for my family." Vikki did not ask again, but every morning before she had Tania's fresh croissants or fresh rolls or fresh crusty loaf with some black coffee and a cigarette, she smacked her lips and said, "Give us Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

this day our daily bread."

"Amen," said Tatiana.

"Hey Men!" repeated Anthony.

"Who taught you to make such delicious bread, Tania?"

"My sister. She taught me how to cook."

"She must have been a very good cook."

"She was good teacher." She taught me how to tie my shoes and how to swim and how to tell time.

"How did she die?"

"She...she didn't get enough of her daily bread, Vikki."

Can't do enough, she thought, staring at the ceiling. Too many minutes and seconds to fill the day. Look at me now. I got up at six, and got Anthony up for Isabella, thank God she comes here to take care of him. I was at Ellis from eight until four, and then at Red Cross until six to take blood for an hour and to fill their POW medical kits to be sent overseas. I picked up Anthony from Isabella's, took him to the park, bought food, cooked dinner, played with him, bathed him, put him to bed, and listened to the radio and listened to Vikki, and made bread dough for tomorrow. Now it's after one and Vikki and Anthony are asleep, but here I still am, staring up at the ceiling, because there is not enough for me to do.

I need to do until I'm too tired even for nightmares.

Until I'm too exhausted by my American life to see his face.

He holds her waist in his hands, his face wet, his hair wet, his teeth gleaming like the river. He counts one, two, three, and flings her as far as he can into the Kama, and then hurls himself on top of her. She dives under him, wriggles free and swims away. He chases her, threatening her with all kinds of bodily harm when he catches her, and she slows down a bit, so that he can.

With her heart resolutely turned to the east, Tatiana made bread and bought seven varieties of bacon with her ration cards, she bought pots and pans and kitchen utensils, towels and sheets, she so liked the stores, the fruit stands, the butchers, the supermarkets, the corner delis. With inexorable force, Tatiana's physical body moved forward while the spirit of Tatiana languished relentlessly in the past. He had found her, a Lazarevo orphan waiting for him, and made her whole.

But she couldn't find him. She barely even tried. What a poor effort it had been. Not: I'm not going to stop until I find you, Shura, but I couldn't find a babysitter, sorry, Shura. She began to hate herself, a first for her. Not even in the days when she played the moral roulette with Dasha and Alexander, did Tatiana feel such a gnawing self-loathing.

No matter how many times Vikki asked, Tatiana would not go dancing at a club called Ricardo's up in Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

Greenwich Village on Astor Place on Saturday night. She would not buy a new dress, she would not buy new shoes.

"You must come with me to Elks Rendezvous in Harlem," Vikki said. "It's some place! Great dancing, lots of doctors."

"There is no fury like a woman trying to find herself a new lover," said Tatiana, quoting from a book she just read. "Have you readThe Unquiet Grave by Cyril Connolly? I highly recommend it."

"Forget this reading business. Do you want to go see Bette Davis and Leslie Howard inOf Human Bondage at the Apollo?"

"Maybe other time."

"There is no other time! This Friday night, let's go to Lady Be Beautiful. I've been telling them about you, they're very eager to meet you. We'll get manicures, and then go out for dim sum on Mott Street, you have to try Chinese food, it's fantastic, and then we'll go to Elks Rendezvous."

"All the way to Harlem?"

"It's the best for a bit of jitterbug."

"Isthat what you call it?"

"Are you being saucy?" Vikki studied her with a grin. "Will you come?"

"Maybe other time, okay?"

"Tania," Vikki said one evening as the girls curled up on the couch, "I've finally decided what's wrong with you. Besides you making bread and eating bacon all the time."

"What's wrong with me?"

"You're a moper. You need to learn how to curse like a sailor, you need to learn how to walk with bravado as if the entire world belonged to you, you need to come to Lady Be Beautiful and get a beauty treatment, but mostly you need a man."

"All right," said Tatiana. "Where do we find this man?"

"I'm not talking aboutlove ," Vikki said, as if explaining was what Tatiana needed.

"Of course not."

"No. I'm talking about a hair-raising good time. You're too uptight. You worry too much. You're always fretting, always working, being a mother. Ellis, Red Cross, Anthony, it's too much."

"I not always fretting," Tatiana defended herself.

"Tania, you're in America! I know it's war, but the war is not here.You're here. Didn't you always want to come to the United States?" Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html