Tatiana and Alexander: A Novel(145)

Tatiana closes her eyes.

He is rough with her. She doesn't want to hold him at first, but it is impossible not to hold his anguished body. "Soldier..." she manages through her groans. "You can't take me, you can't leave me--"

"I can take you," he whispers.

Suddenly uttering a helpless groan, he pulls away and goes outside, leaving Tatiana on the floor, where she lies curled into a ball, coughing, panting.

He is on the bench, smoking. His hands are shaking. Tatiana, wrapped in a white sheet, stands in front of him. Her voice is shaking. "Tomorrow," she says, barely able to get the words out, "is our last day here in Lazarevo." She can't look at him and he can't look at her. "Please, let's not do this."

"All right, let's not." Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

She lets the sheet fall to the ground and comes close to his knees. "Careful," Alexander says quietly, glancing at his lit cigarette.

"It's too late for careful," replies Tatiana. "Our destruction is close. What do I care about your cigarette?"

For a long time in bed in the dark Alexander holds her to his warm chest, without talking, without moving, nearly without breathing, without finishing what he had started earlier.

Finally he speaks. "I cannot take you with me," he says. "You'll be in too much danger. I cannot risk--"

"Shh." Tatiana kisses his chest. "I know. Shura, I'm yours. You may not like it today, you may not want it tonight, you may wish for it all to be different now, but it remains, and I remain, as always, only yours. Nothing can change that. Not your wrath, your fists, your body, or your death."

He emits a grinding rasp.

"Darling, honey." She starts to cry. "We are orphans, Alexander, you and I. All we have is each other. I know that you lost everyone you ever loved, but you're not going to lose me. I swear to you on my wedding band, and on my maiden ring that you broke, on my heart you're breaking, and on your life, I swear to you, I will forever be your faithful wife."

"Tania," he whispers, "promise you won't forget me when I die."

"You won't die, soldier," she says. "You won't die. Live! Live on, breathe on, claw onto life, and do not let go. Promise you will live for me, and I promise you, when you're done, I will be waiting for you." She is sobbing. "Whenever you're done, Alexander, I will be here, waiting for you."

Such brave words near their death in the moonless Lazarevo.

Life showed itself in small things. In the dockhand sailor who stood near the gangplank of the ferry she boarded each morning, who smiled and said good morning, offered her a cup of coffee, a cigarette, and then sat with her on deck for the thirteen-minute ride. In Benjamin, the second baseman, who ran into her when he was trying to catch a foul ball, knocked her over, and then lay almost directly on top of her, not getting up for a few moments. Enough moments for Edward, the catcher, to come over and say, all right, break it up here, this is a softball game, not Ricardo's. In Vikki putting lipstick on Tatiana's face every morning before leaving for work, and kissing her on the cheek, and Tatiana wiping the lipstick off as she left the house.

In the one morning Tatiana not wiping the lipstick off.

And in the one Friday night not saying no to Ricardo's.

Life showed itself in the stockbroker in his suit in the coffee shop on Church and Wall Street sitting next to Tatiana and Vikki, laughing at their conversation.

In the father of a family Tatiana helped get into the country coming to see her at Ellis and asking her to Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

marry his oldest son, who was a bricklayer and could support her well. The father brought the lad by so Tatiana could take a look for herself. He was a tall, strong, smiling boy of about eighteen, and he looked at Tatiana with the sweet expression of a long-term crush. Tatiana had coffee with him in the Ellis dining room, telling him she was flattered but couldn't marry him.

Life showed itself in the lunch she had with Edward twice a week.

In the construction workers and the Con Edison workers downtown and the smiling hot dog man who had sold her a Coke and a hot dog.

Tatiana spent all day on the ships, inspecting the new post-war refugees, shepherding them onto the ferry to Ellis, or else at Ellis examining them in the medical rooms. In the afternoons, she went to NYU hospital, walking through all the beds, looking at every male face. Ifhe were going to come, he would come into one of those two places--Ellis or NYU. But the war had ended four months ago. So far only a million troops had been sent back home, a good 300,000 through New York. How many times could Tatiana ask the wounded, where did you fight? Where were you stationed? In Europe? Did you meet any Soviet officers in the POW camps? Did any Soviet soldiers speak English to you? Tatiana met every boat that came in through the Port of New York, looking into the countless faces of the escapees from Europe. How many times could she hear from American soldiers about the horrors they saw in Nazi Germany? How many stories of what happened to Soviet prisoners in German camps? How many accounts of the numbers dead? Of the hundreds of thousands dead, of the millions dead? No plasma, no penicillin could have saved the Soviet men as they were starved by the Germans. How long could she hear the same thing over and over?

And then at night, she collected Anthony from Isabella's and she and Vikki had dinner there and chatted about books and movies and the latest fashion trend. And then they went home and put Anthony to bed. And then they would sit on the couch and read, or talk. And the next day it would begin again.