Полина Саймонс – The Summer Garden (страница 42)

“You are runners,” said Shpeckel, finally downing his and gasping. “Egads, man, I wouldn’t drink this stuff anymore. It’s going to set you on fire. Come to the Boathouse with us on Friday night. We drink good old beer there.”

Alexander politely declined. “But you’re wrong about us. Why do you say we’re runners? We’re not runners.”

Shpeckel shrugged. “Well, I’ve been wrong before. How long are you staying?”

“I have no idea. Not long, I think.”

“Where’s your wife?”

“Hunting and gathering,” he said. Tatiana had gone alone to the store to buy food. She always went alone, dismissing Alexander’s offers of help. “I didn’t catch any sturgeon today.”

There were other fish in the waters. Striped bass, black bass, catfish—and perch. The perch was a Russian fish—here all the way from the Kama River, Alexander thought with amusement as it trembled on his line. Tatiana didn’t mention the existence of Russian perch in American waters as she cleaned it and cooked it and served it. And Alexander didn’t mention that she didn’t mention it.

He did mention, however, what Shpeckel had said to him. “Imagine that, calling us runners. We’re the most rootlessly rooted people I know. We tool around, find a spot, then don’t move from it.”

“He is being silly,” she agreed.

“Did you get me a newspaper?”

Tatiana said she had forgotten. “But the Czech Foreign Minister Jan Masaryk was just killed in a ‘fall’ from his office window following the Communist coup in Prague.” She sighed.

“Now my gloomy wife is also a newscaster and a Czechophile. What’s your interest in Masaryk?”

Downtrodden, Tatiana said, “A long time ago, in 1938, Jan Masaryk was the only one who stood up for his country when Czechoslovakia was about to be handed over to Hitler on a plate. He was hated by the Soviets, while Herr Hitler was admired by everyone. Then Hitler took his country, and now the Soviets took his life.” She looked away. “And the world has stood on its head.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Alexander said. “We don’t even have a radio in the house. Did you get a radio as I asked? I can’t keep going outside into the Nomad.”

She forgot that, too.

“Did you get me Time magazine?”

“Tomorrow, darling. Today I got you some nice American books from the 19th century. The Wings of the Dove from Henry James, ghost stories from Poe and the complete works of Mark Twain. If you like something a little more current, here is the excellent The Everlasting Man from 1923.”

The isolation was complete on their last frontier. The house they were living in had a name—on a plaque. It was called Free. The dock they fished on was called My Prerogative. The skies remained gunmetal gray with no sunshine day after day, and the blue herons hid behind the reeds in the fields across the canal, and the swans flew away in lonely formations. The stillness as far as the eye could see was vertical and horizontal.

Well, perhaps not horizontal, for they had a room of their own and a case of sparkling wine.

They drifted through the winter like river rats in the lost world downstream from Suisun Bay.

One March morning in 1948, Shpeckel, with a salute, said after sounding his bugle, “I guess I was wrong about you and your wife, Captain. I’m surprised. Few women can live this life, day in and day out.”

“Well, you have to know who you are,” Alexander called back, a cigarette in his mouth and his fishing rod in the water. “And you don’t know my wife.”

And Tatiana, who heard the exchange from the window, thought that perhaps Alexander didn’t know his wife either.

The boy was remarkable. The boy was so dark haired, so dark eyed, growing so lean. He went on boats; now he was fearless. On Bethel Island, they taught him how to read, in English and Russian, how to play chess, cards, how to make bread. They bought bats and gloves and balls, and spent the cold days outside. The three of them went to the nearby field and in their winter jackets—because the temperature was in the forties—kicked a soccerball, threw a football, hit a baseball.

Anthony learned how to sing—in English and Russian. They bought him a guitar, and music books, and in the long winter afternoons, they taught him notes and chords and songs, and how to read the bass clef and the treble clef, the tones and the semitones. Soon he was teaching them.

And one afternoon, Tatiana, to her horror, watched Anthony change the magazine cartridge in his father’s Colt M1911 in six seconds.

“Alexander! Are you out of your mind?”

“Tania, soon he will be five.”

“Five, not twenty-five!”

“Did you see him?” Alexander was beaming. “Do you see what he is?”

“Do I ever. But you don’t want to be teaching him that.”

“I teach him what I know.”

“You’re not going to teach him everything you know, are you?”

“Oh, sauce in the winter! Come here.”

They hibernated, ate berries, slept, waiting for the ice to melt. Underneath Tatiana was mute. Even to herself she seemed disabled in her dread. For her son, for her husband, she put on her bravest face, but she feared it wasn’t brave enough.

Sitting next to each other, Alexander and Anthony had finished fishing; it was the end of a quiet day, before dinner, and their rods were down. Anthony climbed into Alexander’s lap and was touching the hair on his face.

“What, son?” He was smoking.

“Nothing,” Anthony said quietly. “Did you shave today?”

“Not today, not yesterday.” He couldn’t remember the last time he shaved.

Anthony rubbed Alexander’s face, then kissed his cheek. “When I grow up, am I going to have black stubble like you?”

“Unfortunately yes.”

“It’s so bristly. Why does Mommy always say how much she likes it?”

“Mommy sometimes likes strange things.” Alexander smiled.

“Am I going to be tall like you?”

“Sure, why not?”

“Big like you?”

“Well, you are my son.”

“Am I going to … be like you?” Anthony whispered.

Alexander took a careful look at the boy’s upturned blinkless gaze. Leaning down he kissed him. “Maybe, bud. You and only you will decide what kind of man you want to be.”

“Ticklish, like you?” Anthony pulled up his father’s flannel shirtsleeve and tickled his forearm and the inside of his elbow. He tickled him under the arms.

Alexander put the cigarette out. “Watch out,” he said, holding the boy to him, “because in a minute there’ll be no mercy for you.”

Anthony squealed, his arms around Alexander, whose arms were around Anthony. The chair was nearly falling over. Suddenly Anthony pressed his head to Alexander’s ear. “Daddy, don’t turn around, because this will frighten you, but Mommy is standing behind us.”

“Is Mommy looking particularly frightening this evening?”

“Yes. She’s crying. Don’t turn around, I said.”

“Hmm,” Alexander said. “What do you think it is?”

“I don’t know. Maybe she’s jealous we’re playing?”

“No,” said Alexander. “She is not a jealous mom.”

He whispered to Anthony, who nodded and slowly climbed down from his father. They both turned around to face her. She stood there blankly, her face still wet.

“One two three—go!” said Alexander. They ran, and she ran from them; they chased her into the house, and brought her down onto the carpet, and she was laughing and she was crying.

Alexander was sitting outside down the long dock, in his quilted patchwork winter jacket, smoking, fishing. He hadn’t shaved in weeks, and his hair had grown shaggy. Tatiana knew if she drew attention to it, ran her hands through it, looked at it too long, he might cut it. So she watched him from behind as he sat on his little chair, with a rod in the water and a cigarette in his mouth, humming. He was always humming when he was trying to catch that prehistoric sturgeon.

Tatiana couldn’t help herself. Wiping her face, she walked down the dock to his chair, pressed her face to his head, kissed his temple, his bearded cheek. “What’s this for?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she whispered. “I like your pirate beard.”

“Well, your Captain Morgan will be done soon. I’m trying to catch us a fish.”

“Don’t make me cry, Shura.”

“All right, Tania. You too. You with your kissing. What is it with you and the boy lately?”