“Anthony,” he said, grabbing the boy and nearly lifting him in the air as he pushed him toward the deck, “what the fuck are you doing? What did I tell you?”
Anthony ripped away from Alexander. “Don’t you dare hurt my mother,” he said, clenching his fists.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” Alexander yelled. “How many times do I have to say it? Can we have one minute of privacy? One fucking minute! I told you to stay inside! GO!” Grabbing Anthony, he pushed him through the door, down the corridor and into his room, where he shoved him on the bed, and said, “Who do you think you’re dealing with? Stay in your fucking room.”
“Don’t hurt my mother,” whispered Anthony, crying into Alexander’s back. “Please.”
Alexander somehow managed not to go out front to her. Blinded, he groped his way to the back door, and stormed panting outside.
Tatiana got herself off the ground and, holding on to the deck railing, stumbled her way to the bathroom. She wanted to go comfort Anthony but she didn’t want him to see her like this. She remained alone for many minutes, trying to pull herself together. Alexander had hit her very hard. She cleaned the blood from her mouth as best she could. From her temple down to her jaw, her eye, her nose, her mouth, nothing was uninjured. Her ear was ringing deafening bells in her head. Her whole body was throbbing.
Finally she went to see her son. Tatiana knew very well his conflicted dual allegiance to his parents. Tonight it was tearing Anthony up; he was inconsolable. Tatiana listened to him, nodded, said, I know, and yes, it’s like this and like that. “You’re a child. Let the grown-ups try to solve their messes. Dad told you—why did you disobey? Stay in your room, he said.”
“Mom, don’t go near him again, stay away from him. Leave him alone. For God’s sake, he shot a man dead.”
“Anthony, he shot more than one man dead. Every one of the marks on his body is nothing compared to what he has seen and done in his short life, in the rivers, in the lakes, house to house, door to door, and yes, hand to hand. You know about your father. I’ve told you enough times. He saved you and me, we left him behind, and he was nearly destroyed. This is what’s left.”
“Stop making excuses for him.”
“Don’t you want me to make excuses for him?” she asked in a breath.
“I don’t know anymore,” Anthony whispered.
Me neither, Ant, Tatiana thought. Me neither. She caressed her son’s face. She was not in control, she was doing what she could for the boy. “Your dad’s lived a brutal life. He’s doing the best he can. I’m making no excuses. I’m telling you once again to stay out of our business.”
He turned away from her, his shoulders heaving.
“All your life, Anthony, from the time you were small, you’ve tried to get between our grown-up words, our fights, as if it’s your responsibility to moderate us. Well, it isn’t. It’s ours.”
“Mama, are you...very upset with him?”
“I’m not going to speak about it to you. You’re young. When I was fourteen, I also knew so little. But believe me, one day you’ll understand.” She swallowed. “The power you have over someone who loves you,” said Tatiana, “is greater than any other power you’ll ever have.” She fought to continue. “You know—you’ve known all your life—that your father has that power over me.” She lowered her head. “But yes, Anthony, yes, darling. I am very upset with him.”
Anthony continued to cry. From the outside, Tatiana heard breaking booming noises. They were piercing her.
She left the son and walked unsteadily outside to the father.
Alexander was taking the deck table to the stump. Holding on to the railing, she watched the axe go up and down. He didn’t stop until the table was shattered into splintered fragments.
“Alexander...”
“Don’t come near me.”
He walked up the deck, picked up the wooden rocking bench he had built for them, raised it above his head and hurled it crashing to the ground. Jumping over the railing, he grabbed his dropped axe and hacked the bench on which they had sat and rocked every night, his axe flying like a scythe up and down through the night air, slicing apart their life.
Then he came for her, gasping, panting.
Seeing his wild eyes, Tatiana backed away but, tripping over her own hasty feet, slipped to the floor of the deck. “Alexander, stop it!” she cried, her hands up. “I can’t finish this with you when you’re like this.”
“You want to finish it with me, do you?” he said. “Well, come on then, I’m your man, finish it.” His black shirt was hanging in matted shreds on him, his fatigues were soiled, his fists clenched, his arms raised. “Here I am—go ahead, Tatiana, stand up and fucking finish it.”
“Please! You’re scaring me . . .” She was having trouble getting the words out through her numb jaw. She was down on the deck, trembling, her hands at her face. “Please, get hold of yourself.”
“I was telling and telling you—you have to get hold of yourself,” he said, towering over her, utterly unrepentant. “Did you fucking listen? I don’t think so. And believe me, this is hold of myself. Now stand up.” He took a menacing step toward her; his boots were at her bare feet. “Stand up, I said.”
“Okay. Okay. Just—” He needed her to stand up, she struggled up, grabbing on to the railing and managing to pull herself to her feet. Tiny she stood, terrified and shaking in front of drenched heaving enormous unhinged him, and did the only thing she ever did when she didn’t know how to make things better but when she wanted to calm, to comfort, to bring impossible things down to a possible level. Slowly she opened her hands. “Here I am, Shura,” Tatiana whispered, her face up, her palms up. “Here I am. Okay? I’m not shouting anymore.”
“Yes, you’re a paragon of virtue,” Alexander said, looking away from her face. “Calm and you, like birds of a feather.” But he withdrew, one step, two. His hand gripped the railing. “Why are you here?” he asked. “You can’t possibly have anything else to say. You’ve said it all, every last fucking thing you could think of. Hope you’re proud of yourself. Hope you’re happy with yourself.”
Tatiana didn’t know what to say. The thing I said, you know I didn’t mean it, she whispered inaudibly, only her mouth moving. I’m just in pain. He didn’t hear. She couldn’t speak and stand at the same time, barely having the strength for one. Hoping it wouldn’t upset him again, she whispered, Shh, shh as she sank to the deck. Alexander panted, struggling for breath, and she tried to find the voice in her chest.
At last she found it. “This is your house,” said Tatiana. “I won’t tell you to leave your house again. Don’t break the furniture you built with your hands.” It was too late for that. All the wood furniture he had made for the deck was gone, except for one lonely chair in the corner. “I’ll go,” she said. “I’ll take Ant and we’ll go. Then I’ll figure out what to do.” Her mouth twisted, she lowered her head.
His mouth twisted, Alexander lowered his. Both his hands now gripped the railing. “I see. So you weren’t quite finished. You still have some evil left.” He nodded. “Quite a bottomless pit inside you, isn’t there?” He paused. “What’s next? Are you about to tell me you’ll take Anthony and go stay with your fucking doctor until you figure out what to do?” His liquid eyes pools of despair, Alexander stood looking at her as if waiting for her to answer. But she remained silent. Not a sound came from Tatiana.
After a short disbelieving gasp, he said, “So what are you waiting for? Would you like me to help you pack?” His voice trembled. “Or first give you my hand to help you off the ground?”
Tatiana wanted to stand up on her own to go, without silently beseeching him, but couldn’t. She didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t stand up without Alexander’s help. And that’s when she knew she was finished. That’s when she knew she was powerless against him, that she didn’t even have her anger as a weapon anymore. She might as well have been naked. She sat and counted out the beats of her heart.
“I
left you on Fridays in all my trust and love,” Tatiana said at last, utterly broken, “believing you would know the way even if I didn’t stand over you every admonishing minute.”
“I knew the fucking way,” said Alexander. “I was blind drunk when I found my way to your hospital—to you—because I needed saving, and what did you do?” He pitched his voice to mimick her. “I have to go, Shura; I have to attend to someone else with real needs, Shura; can’t you be more understanding, Shura; I’m working, working, working, so go to hell, Shura.”
Tatiana, shivering hot, was glad she was on the floor of the deck and didn’t have far to fall, her head hung low, her jaw not moving, her lip swelling, trickling blood. “Was it the Friday when you had her lipstick all over your face?” she asked. “Is that the Friday you’re talking about? My mentioning it wasn’t enough? You wanted me to wipe it off for you, too?”
Alexander backed away from her, to the farthest corner and sank in the solitary chair. Tatiana heard the lighter flick on, once, twice, as he unsuccessfully tried to light a cigarette. Finally she smelled the burning nicotine. She wasn’t looking up. But she listened to him inhale, hold, inhale, hold, smoking it down. After he smoked down one, he lit another.
“What did you think would happen?” Tatiana asked. “Did you think I wouldn’t know?”
At first he didn’t answer. “Obviously,” he finally replied. “This is what I thought, and wanted, and hoped for. That you would never know.”
“You thought you could keep this a secret from me?” she asked. “Of all the secrets you could keep, you thought you could keep this one? You, with the truest eyes, all you had to do was lift them to me after you got caught in a little white lie, lift them to me and say I didn’t want you to worry; sorry. That’s all you would have had to do when passing me that coffee cup last Saturday—just look me in the eye and lie.” Shaking her head, she stared into her palms. “And when you touched me, you couldn’t tremble, and when I asked your lips to kiss me, you had to kiss me instead of step away. You think you can love me and betray me? You think you can kiss me and betray me?” whispered Tatiana. “You couldn’t a day ago, but that’s all you would have had to do—then you could’ve kept your secret.”
Alexander smoked and said nothing.
“It also would’ve been helpful if your lovers didn’t call my house.”
Alexander smoked and said nothing.
“To say you were transparent would not be doing justice to how clearly you were telling me in a dozen different ways you were up to no good.” Tatiana didn’t even want to feel the shadow of his presence fifteen feet away. “So I’ll ask differently—what did you think was going to happen when I knew?”
Alexander smoked down his cigarette before he answered her. “I thought you wouldn’t really care,” he said. “I know that once you might have cared, but I thought that now you would go on with your consuming work, having your little secret lunches, pretending you’re chaste. I thought we might have words, and then you’d pat me gently on the back, kiss me fondly on the head, but in your heart of hearts not give a rat’s ass.”
Tatiana flattened over her knees. “Oh, Alexander,” she whispered. She couldn’t speak. “What did I ever do to you that you can say that to me?” She gasped it out through the throat and chest.
A desperate sound came from his smoke-filled mouth.
“I can’t take it,” she said, holding her stomach. “I can’t bear it. Come here.” She stretched out her arms. “Beat me unconscious and then I won’t care.” A choking Tatiana felt for the deck under her knees. He and his Carmen were like cholla in her eyes. She couldn’t see in front of her. She opened her hands. “Oh, my God, but who is going to help me . . . ?” she whispered in a suffocating voice. “I need help, who is going to help me?” She had to leave the deck immediately, immediately, or she would lose what little sense she had left, the smooth glass of her center already so jagged with his ministrations. Please help me. Please. One ounce of pride to lift me off my feet. One stale gram of sawdust and cardboard pride.
“Tania,” Alexander said into her back. “I know you give yourself to the dying and the afflicted.” He groaned. “But I’m dying and afflicted, too.”
“I can’t help you anymore, Alexander,” said Tatiana. “I can’t even help myself.” She was weeping on her hands and knees. “You turned your back on me despite everything. Well, I’m turning my back on you, despite more things than you know. There. Those are my words. Fond enough for you?” Groping for the deck, she started crawling away from him to the house, crawling away from the only love she had ever known.
She heard him get up and come toward her where she was tilting, spilling over. She lifted her face. Motionless he stood, and then fell on his knees before her.
“Afflicted, Tania,” he said in a ruptured voice. “Look at me. I’m not the drunk in the ER waiting room. I’m your husband. Have mercy on me, too.” He had to stop speaking for a moment. “I come to you every single day of the life that you’ve given me,” said Alexander, “hoping you will touch me—and I stand in line—and you touch me, and I’m good to go for just a few more hours until I need your comfort again. I can’t do without you.” His hands were gripped in front of him, his words barely carrying. “I can’t make it without you, and you know it.”
Tatiana couldn’t turn from him, both of them feeble with fear and sadness.
“Please believe me,” he said. “I didn’t have sex with her. All the things you think I forgot, I remembered them last Wednesday. I haven’t been blameless—” He lowered his head in defeat. “You’re blinded and can’t see straight, I know, but just think for one second and you’ll see through her lies.”
“I can’t even see through yours,” said Tatiana. “I don’t know her at all.”
Alexander tilted his head to stare into her face. Their wretched anguished eyes blinked miserably at each other.
“You know I can’t make her pregnant,” he said. “You know she is lying at least about that, right? After what I’d seen in Moscow, after what my mother taught me, and all during my years as a garrison soldier, think—what did I tell you about myself and the women I’d been with? Have I ever had it off bareback with anyone? Ever, even once in my whole fucking life?”
“Yes,” she said faintly. “With me.”
“Yes,” Alexander said, sinking down. “Only with you.” His shoulders slumped. “Because you are holy.” He looked at his hands. “And a fat load of good it’s done me.”
Tatiana clutched her arms over her stomach, bending over. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t find her voice. When she looked up at him, she found him leaning forward, the copper champagne seeping out of his eyes. “Shura,” she whispered. “I’m going to have a baby.”
At first she didn’t think Alexander heard her, he was mute so long. “You what?” he said in horror.
“I’m going to have a baby,” she mouthed, her shoulders quaking, her swollen lips quivering.
On his haunches Alexander staggered away. Everything became silent except for her low crying, and the terrible sounds that were coming from his throat. “Oh my God,” he breathed out, pressing his back against the wall like a wounded animal. “When were you going to tell me this? God, please, please don’t say—”
“On blinchiki Wednesday,” whispered Tatiana. “When you went to have sex with another woman.”
Alexander groaned as if he were being flayed. He turned away into the wall of the house. His body was in a shudder.
Time passed, and Alexander said nothing, his head in his knees.
And Tatiana said nothing, her head in her knees.
Indeed now it felt as if they had said everything.
She had been feeling so poorly for weeks, and had been throwing up since Saturday. She attributed the sickness to the unfathomable things that had been going on inside her house, things that she found herself completely unable to deal with. She almost wished her husband could look her in the face and lie, like he did in the S
oviet Union when he had to save her life, look her in the face and lie, so she wouldn’t have to live with the ghastly truth—and her life would be saved. She was a month late, but in the stress of the last few weeks, no one noticed, not him, and not even her. Last Tuesday night she was having a bath when she ran a soapy washcloth over her nipples, and she yelped so loudly that Alexander came in from the living room, knocked on the door and asked if she was all right.
And so on Wednesday Tatiana went and got herself a blood test.
Afterward she left work early, bought some food, bought a nice thing to wear for him. Came home, made a little bread, cooked. Alexander was working late, but he would never say no to blinchiki, no matter what time he came home. He would come in, and he would know she had something to tell him, because that is how she always told him things that were too big for regular clothes, for regular food. She lit the candles, put on the music. Tatiana thought that after she would tell Alexander the only thing he had wanted to hear every single month for ten years, that somehow they would make better whatever impossible thing had happened last Friday night. She thought somehow they would pull through it. Maybe he could pretend he was telling the truth and she could pretend to believe him.
But then at nine o’clock, the phone rang, and it was Carmen. Carmen saying, “Well, where is he?” in a tone no woman was allowed to use about someone else’s husband. That’s when Tatiana realized that maybe they wouldn’t pull through it.
And thirty minutes later, someone else’s husband walked through the door. Alexander looked so guilty, so repentant, so threatened, and so bewildered, that not only could he not look at Tatiana, not only could he not kiss her, or speak to her, or make love to her, he couldn’t even see through the blinchiki and the see-through camisole for what they really were: Shura, I have something fantastic to tell you. Sit down, because you simply won’t believe it. And that’s when she knew how blinding the black vile visions in his eyes must have been.