Tatiana and Alexander: A Novel(86)

"Well, all right then." She lay down next to him.

"You're playing with me? Stop. I'll be no good to you in a minute."

"Then who has thesugarstick ?"

He grabbed her, pulling her to him. "That would be me."

"Well, give me some."

"All right, then." Shewas teasing him. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

"Come, come, come." She smiled. "How is my English tongue?"

"Perfect," Alexander said. "And it's the Englishlanguage . But you've reduced a formerly whole man to his frazzled parts."

"What will make you whole again?" asked Tania. "A little trip to the cathouse?"

"A little trip to your cathouse, maybe," said Alexander, his lips devouring her laughing face.

Stop, stop, stop.

He was teaching her how to fire a pistol. She was a reluctant--"and poor"--student. "Attention! You are completely not paying attention."

"I am."

He nudged her with his hand. "You would make a terrible soldier. You don't listen, you don't obey. They'd throw you out of boot camp. Let's try it again. Where's the safety?"

She showed him.

"Where's the magazine catch?"

She showed him.

"Where's the hammer? Where do the bullets go? Do you remember how to put a new magazine in?"

She popped the magazine catch, pulled the old clip out, snapped the new clip in place, cocked the hammer and with both hands aimed the pistol at a tree. From behind her he reached over and took the gun away. "If you fire it, we'll lose dinner for a week. All the fish will leave."

"I see." She jumped up and down. "So how did I do?"

"You get good marks for memory but you completely fail on attitude."

Saluting him, she stood to attention. "Yes, sir. What's the punishment for poor attitude?" She grinned and then burst out laughing and ran away.

Tania is across from him on the wood floor in front of the fire in their cabin. It has rained all morning and afternoon, it is nearing dinner time, which she is supposed to be preparing, but Alexander isn't letting her go--until he wins one, justone idiotic game of dominoes. She asks him, "You have one-ones," almost like it's not a question. And he says yes! because one-ones start the game and give you an advantage. But he has said that before. They've been playing since one. They must have played 40 times. Maybe 50. He's had one-ones and two-twos, he's had, in a seeming impossibility, all seven double tiles at once. He's had every combination of tiles imaginable. He has not won. Alexandercannot believe it. "Wouldn't Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

the law of averages swing my way justonce ?" he demands of Tatiana who smiles sweetly across the floor.

"Husband, I think your luck is changing."

"You think?"

"I'm almost positive."

She is wearing a knee-length skirt and a blue cardigan over a yellow shirt. Her hair is swept up on top of her head, falling into her face. She looks warm and small. Alexander feels the aching in the pit of his stomach. Not even bothering to study her tiles, she is merrily humming, sitting with her legs drawn up. If he weren't so intent on winning, he would ask her to pull up her skirt a little to let him peek.

"But I just want to say, Shura," says Tatiana philosophically, "that you can't win everything."

"Watch me."

"Do I complain when you always beat me across the river?" she asks. "When you catch the perch with your bare hands and I can't? When you unfairly beat me at arm wrestling just because you're bigger? And what about poker? Do I complain when you always beat me at strip poker?" She grins, and Alexander wants to fall on top of her that instant.

"Actually, yes, you do complain," he says, his voice deepening an octave. "And I don't want to win everything. I want to win one lousy game out of fifty, is that too much to ask?"

Her eyes twinkling, she gets all demure. "Would you like me tolet you win, darling?"

"That's it," he exclaims. She laughs. "I'm winning this game, Tania, I don't care what kind of black magic you weave over my tiles."

Alexander comes close. Very close. He has one tile left when she lays down her last and claps joyously, falling back on the floor. Her hitched-up skirt lifts, exposing the flushed backs of her bare thighs, her sheer underwear. He watches her a moment and then falls on top of her.

"Shura, dinner!" She is laughing, feral, trying to get away, and does, and bolts out the door into the clearing and he chases her down to the river in the gloomy dusk, in the miserable rain. He catches her as she is about to dive in, clothes on, into the Kama.

"Oh, no, you don't," he says, lifting her into his arms. "Not this time."

Squealing, she struggles against him, cheerfully and symbolically. He carries her wet inside the house, kicks the door shut behind him and, setting her down, pulls all the blankets and pillows down on the floor in front of the fire.

"Shura, dinner!" she repeats mock-plaintively.

"No, Tania,me. "

It is very warm in the cabin. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html