Tatiana and Alexander: A Novel(60)

"I'm sorry, Grammy. Tania wasn't done with--I don't even know what she does in that hospital. Tania, meet my grandmother, Isabella, oh, and this is Tania's little boy, Anthony."

Tatiana was hugged but Anthony was scooped up by the floury hands, and taken, all three and a half months of him, into the kitchen, where he was splayed out on the counter, on his back, and Tatiana thought if she didn't instantly come to her son's rescue, Isabella might just make a zeppole out of him.

"Gelsomina?" Tatiana inquired quietly of Vikki as they stood in the kitchen and drank wine.

"Don't ask. It means jasmine. It has something to do with my dead mother."

"Your mother is not dead!" Isabella shouted without rancor, caressing the baby. "She is in California."

"She's in California," Vikki explained. "That means purgatory in Italian."

"Stop it. You know how ill she is."

"Your mother is ill?" Tatiana whispered.

"Yes," Vikki whispered back, "mentallyill."

"Stop it, you impossible child," Isabella boomed, beaming at Anthony. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

"I told them under no circumstances to ask you about the baby's father," Vikki loudly whispered. "Is that good?"

"That's good, Vikki," Tatiana quietly whispered back.

Tatiana liked the apartment, which was large and lived-in, with oversized windows and tall bookshelves and big furniture, but she was slightly unsettled by the decorating colors: the entire apartment from the carpeted floors to the walls to the crown molding to the velvet curtains was the color of the red wine she was drinking.

In the burgundy and dark-wood parlor room, she met Travis, Isabella's thin, small and less-boisterous-than-his-wife husband.

"When I met my Travis," Isabella said over dinner, holding Anthony with one hand and serving lasagna to Tatiana with the other, "Vikki, pass the bread to Tania, and the salad, and don't just sit there, pour her some wine for the sake of Mary and Jesus, where was I? When I met Travis--"

"You already said that, woman," said Travis, glancing at Tatiana and scratching his bald head as if in apology.

"Prego, don't interrupt. When I met you, you were on your way to marry my Aunt Sophia."

"Don't tellme !I know. Tellher !"

A little more bread was going to keep her mouth nice and occupied. She could eat and they could talk and a good time would be had by all.

"My mother's younger sister," elaborated Isabella. "Travis and I met in a small town in Italy. Near Florence. You know where Florence is?"

"Yes," Tatiana said. "My husband's mother was from Italy."

"I was sent by my mother to meet Travis at the train station. Because he never could have found his way. We lived deep in the valley between the mountains. I was sent to meet him and bring him to my Aunt Sophia who was waiting."

Vikki said, "Grammy, with your help, henever found his way."

"Be quiet, child. It was ten kilometers--about six miles--back to my house. By the time we had walked two kilometers I knew I could not live a day without him. We had stopped at a local tavern for some wine. I never drank. I was too young, just sixteen, but Travis offered me some of his. We drank from the same chalice..." She had stopped serving, smiled and turned to Travis who was eating lasagna and pretending not to pay any attention.

"We didn't know what to do," continued Isabella. "My aunt was twenty-seven, and so was Travis. They were going to be married, there was no way out. We sat in that tavern in the hills near Florence and we didn't know what to do. So you know what we did?" Isabella poked Travis, who dropped his fork and groused. "We didn't come home. We just said, let's go to Rome, we'll write to the family from there. Instead of Rome, we took a train to Naples, and then a boat from Naples to Ellis Island. We came here in 1902. With nothing but each other." Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

Tatiana had stopped eating and was watching Isabella and Travis. "Did your aunt forgive you?"

"Nobody forgave me," said Isabella.

"Her mother doesn't write to her to this day," said Travis, his mouth full.

"Well, she's dead, Travis, she can hardly write to me now."

"Alexander, how long have you loved my sister?" asks a starved and dying Dasha.

"Never. I never loved her," replies Alexander. "I love you. You know what we have."

"You said when you get furlough in the summer you would come to Lazarevo and we would get married," says Dasha, coughing.

"Yes. I will come to Lazarevo on furlough, and we will get married," says Alexander to Tatiana's sister, Dasha.

Tatiana deeply lowered her head, kneading and pinching her stiffened fingers.

"We had two daughters in America," continued Isabella. "Travis wanted a son, but God decided otherwise." She sighed. "We tried for a boy. I had three miscarriages." Isabella looked longingly at Anthony, so longingly in fact that Tatiana wanted to get hold of her son again, as if desire somehow equaled possession.

"In 1923, our oldest daughter Annabella had Gelsomina--"

"And called meViktoria ," pointed out Vikki.