Tatiana and Alexander: A Novel(143)

"What am I looking for, Tania? What? I went out with a real idiot tonight, no, such a creep. Todd. From last week."

"I told you stay away from him."

"He was so nice at first."

"You mean last week?"

"Yes. But this week he is all demanding and creepy. Roughed me up outside Ricardo's. Grabbed me too hard. Thank God a car drove by. He wanted to come home with me and wouldn't take no for an answer."

"Why should he? You said yes to him first time you saw him."

"I just want to meet a nice man who loves me. What's wrong with that?"

Did Dasha go out every Friday and Saturday night after work and get involved with her boss, a married dentist, because she wanted to meet a nice man who loved her, too? And then she met a nice man, a tall Red Army officer in Sadko. ("Tania, wait till you meet him. You've never met anyone so handsome!")

"Nothing."

"I want that Harry back. Harry--he was such a sweetie."

He was a drunk. Tatiana didn't say anything.

"I want Jude back, or Mark, or even my former husband. Before the war ended it was better. Now they come back and they want us, they just don't know how to treat us. They want us to be like their war buddies." Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

"Do we know how to treat them?"

"I want my loving heart back," said Vikki, crying. "You know what I'm afraid of? That I will turn out like my mother. Rootless. I don't want to be like her. They say we all turn out like our mothers, you believe that?" Before Tatiana had a chance to answer, Vikki went on. "My mother left me, left New York, went abroad, traveled, loved, I guess, but ended up in a home somewhere in Montecito, imagine, I don't even know where Montecito is and my mother found a loony bin there."

"I'm sorry for her. And about her."

"You know what I think sometimes?" Vikki whispered with a small sob. "Sometimes I think I want my mother back. Isn't that ridiculous?"

"No," said Tatiana. "I wantmy mother back."

"Did you have a good mother?"

"I don't know. She was my mother, that's all."

"Did you have a good sister?"

"I had a very good sister," Tatiana whispered. "She carried me on her back when I was young and protected me from bad boys her whole life. I want them all back. My sister, my brother." She closed her eyes.Pasha and Tania holding on to the same rope, swinging over the River Luga, one swing, two, three, letting go, and falling in, Pasha and Tania running flat out to the banks of the Luga, taking a running jump and diving in .

"But don't you want love, too? I want love. A nice two-bedroom Levitt house in the suburbs of Long Island, a car, two kids. I want what my grandparents have. For forty-three years they've had each other."

"Vikki, you don't want that. You don't want kids. It's not for you. You have wandering heart."

Vikki squinted in the dark at Tatiana. Mascara was spread in black globs under Vikki's eyes. "Icould have that."

Without taking her hand away from Vikki's hair, Tatiana shook her head.

"What do you know about anything? You never leave this apartment."

"Where do I have to go? I'm home."

"Do you?" asked Vikki, reaching out and touching Tatiana's hair. "Doyou have a wandering heart?"

"I wish I did."

Vikki moved over and put her arms around Tatiana, who shut tight her eyes and lay nestled into Vikki, the way she once, a lifetime ago, used to sleep at the Fifth Soviet apartment, nestled into Dasha.

"Tania," said Vikki, "how could you have not given yourself to anyone all this time?" Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

Tatiana made no reply.

"Have you been with a man other than your husband?"

Tatiana moved away in the bed. To bear it in the night next to someone else was beyond her strength, beyond her limits. "No," she said in a low voice. "I fell in love when I was sixteen. I never loved anyone else. I never been with anyone else."

"Oh, Tania. My Grammy was right about you. She said that girl is still getting over her Travis."

Tatiana said nothing. Vikki inched over, putting her arms around her again.

"But you have his son. Isn't he a comfort to you?"

"When I don't think of his father, yes."

"But don't you want love again? Happiness? Marriage? God, Tatiana," Vikki breathed out. "You have...so much to give." She held Tatiana closer. "Edward's divorce has come through. Why don't you go to dinner with him? Why do you always keep him at lunch length?"

"Edward deserves better than me."

"Edward doesn't think so. I don't think so."

Tatiana laughed lightly, caressing Vikki's arms. "I'll get there," she whispered. "You said so yourself, I'll get there."

Hours in the dark, and they were not sleeping. Vikki sobered up a bit, drank some water. She was smoking and lying in bed under the covers.

"Please tell me you'll go to dinner with him. What can one dinner hurt?"

"What do you matter about all this?"