Tatiana and Alexander: A Novel(92)

"You're doing very well. Please continue." Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

In the corner over the wide counter under the fluorescent lights, a middle-aged, overweight woman squinted grimly at Tatiana with delighted disapproval. "Mr. Gulotta," said Tatiana. "Are you right person for me to talk to? Maybe there someone else?"

"I don't know if I'm the right person." He squinted at her himself over the counter. "Since I don't know why you're here. I could be the wrong person. But my boss has already left for the day. Tell me what you need."

"I want you to find out what happened to my husband."

"Is that all?" he said with irony.

"Yes," she said without irony.

"Let me see what I can do. Would next week be soon enough for you?"

Now she understood. "Mr. Gulotta--"

He clasped his hands. "Listen to me. I don't think I'm the right person after all. I don't think there is a right person in this entire department--heck, in this entire government who can help you. Tell me again your husband's name."

"Alexander Barrington."

"Never heard of him."

"Were you working for State Department in 1930? That's when he and his family emigrated."

"No, I was still at university then. But that's not the point."

"I told you--"

"Oh, yes, unforeheard circumstances."

Tatiana turned around and was about to walk away when she felt his hand on her arm. He had stepped out from the counter and was now on her side. "Don't go yet. It's quitting time. Why didn't you come to me earlier in the day?"

"Mr. Gulotta, I took fiveA.M . train to come from New York. I have only these two days off, Thursday and Friday. I spent until now walking between State and Justice Department buildings. You first person talking to me. I was going to White House next."

"I think our President is busy. Something about an invasion of Normandy. I hear there's a war on."

"Yes," said Tatiana. "I was nurse in that war. I am still nurse in that war. Can Soviets help you? They our allies now. All you want is little information." She squeezed her hands in a palsy around the handle bars of the baby carriage.

Sam Gulotta stared at her.

Tatiana might have given up, but Sam had good eyes. Listening, seeing, feeling eyes. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

"Look up his file," she continued. "You must have file on people who emigrate to Soviet Union? How many people can there be? Look up his file. Maybe something there. You'll see--he was just small boy when he left America."

Sam made a small disbelieving sound, somewhere between a chortle and a groan. "All right, say I look up his file, and learn that yes, indeed, he was a small boy when he left the United States. So what? You already know that."

"Maybe there will be something else. Soviet Union and United States communicate, yes? Maybe you find out what happened to him. For certain."

"How much more certain than a death certificate can I get?" Gulotta muttered, and then louder said, "all right, say I find out, by some miracle, that your husband is still alive. Then what?"

"You let me worry about then what," said Tatiana.

Sam sighed. "Come back tomorrow morning. Come back at ten. I will try to locate his file. What year did you say his family left?"

"Nineteen thirty, December," Tatiana said, smiling at last.

She stayed with Anthony in a small hotel on C Street near the State Department. It pleased her to get a room in a hotel. No trepidation, no refusal, no demand for papers. She wanted a room, she produced three dollars, she got a nice room with a bathroom. That simple. No one looked at her twice even after they heard the Russian accent.

The next morning she came back to Consular Affairs before nine and sat on the bench for an hour with her son on her lap, playing with his fingers, looking at a picture book. Gulotta came out at nine forty-five and motioned for her to follow him to his office. "Sit, Mrs. Barrington," he said. In front of him lay a dossier ten inches thick. For a few moments, maybe a minute, he didn't say anything. His hands were on the file and his eyes were on it too. Then he sighed heavily. "What relation did you say you are to Alexander Barrington?"

"His wife," Tatiana said in a small voice.

"Jane Barrington?"

"Yes."

"Jane Barrington was the name of Alexander's mother."

"I know. That's why I took it. I'm not Alexander's mother," Tatiana said, glancing at him suspiciously as he studied her suspiciously. "I took her name to get out of Soviet Union." She tried to figure out what he was worried about. "What you worried about? That I'm communist?"

"What is your real name?"

"Tatiana."

"Tatiana what? What was your Soviet name?" Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

"Tatiana Metanova."

Sam Gulotta stared at her for what seemed to her to be solemn hours. His hands, clenched around the dossier, never unclenched, not even when he said, "May I call you Tatiana?"

"Of course."

"Did you say you got out of the Soviet Union as a Red Cross nurse?"