Tatiana and Alexander: A Novel(153)

She was so angry at him. He knew perfectly well she didn't want this life without him. Did he think that she'd be better off in America amid post-war small appliances and radios and the promise of a television than she would have been in the Gulag?

Well, wait. What about Anthony? The boy is not a specter. He is a real boy, he would have been born regardless. What would have happened to him?

She looked into the water on the harbor. How long would it take me to jump and swim, swim like the last fish in the ocean to where it's winter and the water is cold? I would swim slower and slower and slower, and then I would stop, and maybe on the other side of life he would be waiting for me with his hand outstretched, saying what took you so long to come to me, Tatia? I've been waiting and waiting.

She stepped away from the railing of the boat. No. On the other side, he is looking at me, shaking his head, saying, Tania, look at Anthony, he is the perfect son. How lucky you are to lay your hands on him. How I wish I could. Wherever I am--know that's what I'm thinking. How I wish I could touch my boy.

Anthony needed his mother. Anthony could not be an orphan, not here in America, not there in the Soviet Union. His mother couldn't abandon him, too. That sweet boy, with his sticky hands, with his chocolate mouth and his black hair. Tatiana coiled when she looked at, when she touched his black hair.

"Shura, let me wash your hair for you," she says, sitting on the ground, looking out onto the clearing.

"Tania, it's clean. We just washed this morning."

"Come on, please. Let's go swim. Let me wash it for you."

"All right. Only if I can wash--"

"You can do whatever you like. Just come."

She coiled every time she looked at her son.

That night she went out on the fire escape, without a coat or a hat, and sat mutely breathing in the cold ocean air. It smelled so good.

"Alexander," Tatiana whispered. "Are you there? Can you hear me? Can you see me?" Up on the fire escape, she lifted her arms to the sky. "How am I doing? Better, right?" She nodded to herself. Better.

New York, every day pulsing as if indeed it was the heartbeat of the world. No dim-out at night anymore, every building illuminated like endless fireworks. There was not a street that was not teeming with people, a street where the manholes were not open, where steam wasn't coming out of the underground, an avenue where the men didn't sit on top of telephone poles and electrical poles, laying new pipe, hanging new wire, breaking down the El. The constant clang of construction, every day from Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

seven in the morning, along with the sirens and the buses, and the honking horns and the yellow cabs. The stores were filled with merchandise, the coffee shops with donuts, the diners with bacon, stores with books and records and Polaroid cameras, music poured every night from the bars and the caf?s, oh, and lovers, too, under trees, on benches, lovers in uniform and in suits and in doctors' coats and nurses' shoes. And in Central Park where they went every weekend, each blade of grass had a family on it. The lake had a hundred boats in the daytime.

But then there was night.

In the ocean, her arm outstretched to God, was Lady Liberty and on the fire escape was Tatiana, sitting in the three-in-the-morning air, listening across the ocean for the breathing of one man.

The fire embers are flickering out. He is finally done. Not only is he done, but asleep, too. He hasn't moved off her. He had exhausted himself and, spent, nuzzled for a few moments and fell soundly asleep. She doesn't even try to move him. He is heavy, what bliss. He is on top of her, so close. She can smell him and kiss his wet hair, and his stubbly cheek. She caresses his arms. It's sinful for her to love his muscled arms so much. "Shura," she whispers. "Can you hear me, soldier?"

She doesn't sleep, for a long time cradling him to her, listening to him breathe, hearing the wood turn to ashes and the sound of the crackling rain outside and willowy wind, while inside it is warm, dim, cozy. She listens to his happy breathing. When he sleeps he is still happy. He is not bothered by bad dreams, by sadness. He is not tormented when he sleeps. He is breathing. So peaceful. So fulfilled. So alive.

Why did her present life suddenly start to feel so desperate? On the surface, there was so much. But under the surface she felt herself settling in--as if, as if--

She could close her eyes and imagine life...

Without him.

Imagine forgetting him.

The war was over.

Russia was over.

Leningrad was over.

And Tatiana and Alexander were over, too.

Now she had words to dull her senses. English words, a new name, and covering it all like a warm blanket, a new life in amazing, immoderate, pulsatingAmerica . A sparkling new identity in a gilded immense new country. God had made it as easy as possible to forget him. To you, I give this, God said. I give you freedom and sun, and warmth, and comfort. I give you summers in Sheep Meadow and Coney Island, and I give you Vikki, your friend for life, and I give you Anthony, your son for life, and I give you Edward, in case you want love again. I give you youth and I give you beauty, in case you want someone other than Edward to love you. I give you New York. I give you seasons, and Christmas! And baseball and dancing and paved roads and refrigerators, and a car, and land in Arizona. I give it all to you. All I ask, is that you forget him and take it. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html