The Summer Garden

by Paullina Simons

  “Oh yes,” Alexander replied. “He wouldn’t speak to me at breakfast either. And I’m beginning to understand my own father’s predicament. My mother pushed him on me: go talk to him, go talk to him. At the time I thought it was hilarious. Why don’t I think so anymore?”

  Tatiana pushed him toward Anthony’s bedroom. “I still think it’s hilarious. Go talk to him, go talk to him.”

  Alexander didn’t budge. “It occurs to me—suddenly—that I didn’t need the talk from my parents. Why does Ant?”

  “Because he does. Stop with your excuses. You keep telling me how you’re the one in charge of him. So go be in charge. Go.”

  Reluctantly Alexander knocked on the door. After coming in, he sat by a quiet Anthony on the bed, and taking a deep breath asked, “Bud, is there anything you want to talk to me about?”

  “NO!” Anthony said.

  “Hmm. You sure?” He patted his leg, prodded him.

  Anthony didn’t say anything.

  Alexander talked to him anyway. He explained that adults every once in a while wanted to have a baby. The men had this, and the women had that, and to make a baby there needed to be some conjoining, much like a tight connection of mortise and tenon between two pieces of wood. For the conjoining to be effective, there needed to be movement (which is where the mortise and tenon analogy broke down but Anthony thankfully didn’t question it), which is probably the thing that frightened Anthony, but really it was nothing to be afraid of, it was just the essence of the grand design.

  To reward Alexander’s valiant efforts, Anthony stared at his father as if he had just been told his parents drank the cold blood of vampires every night before bed. “You were doing what?” And then he said, after a considerable pause, “You and Mom were trying to have a—baby?”

  “Um—yes.”

  “Did you have to do that once before—to make me?”

  “Um—yes.”

  “This is what all adults have to do to make a baby?”

  “Yes.”

  “So, Sergio’s mom has three children. Does that mean his parents had to do that... three times?”

  Alexander bit his lip. “Yes,” he said.

  “Dad,” said Anthony, “I don’t think Mom wants to have any more children. Didn’t you hear her?”

  “Son...”

  “Didn’t you hear her? Please, Dad.”

  Alexander stood up. “All righty then. Well, I’m glad we had this talk.”

  “Not me.”

  When he came outside, Tatiana was waiting at the table. “How did it go?”

  “Pretty much,” said Alexander, “like my father’s conversation went with me.”

  Tatiana laughed. “You better hope it went better than that. Your father wasn’t very effective.”

  “Your son is reading Wonder Woman comics, Tatia,” said Alexander. “I don’t know how effective anything I say is going to be very shortly.”

  “Wonder Woman?”

  “Have you seen Wonder Woman?” Alexander shook his head and went to get his cigarettes. “Never mind. Soon it’ll all become clear. So yes for building the house, or no?”

  “No, Shura. Just lock the door next time.”

  So the house went unbuilt. Wonder Woman got read, Anthony’s voice changed, he started barricading his bedroom door at night, while across the mobile home, across the kitchen and the living room, behind a locked door, “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” played on and on and on.

  Though Alexander was almost certain that every once in a while he heard Rosemary Clooney croon to him that his mother was right, there were blues in the night.

  * * *

  Tatiana and Alexander were sitting by their pool. The transistor radio was playing, he was smoking, she was sipping her tea, the dim yellow lights by the pool were on. They had been quietly chatting. There is rarely any wind in the desert at night and there wasn’t any now. A song came on that Alexander loved, a slow sad favorite song of his, and he stood and took a step to her. Tatiana looked up at him uncertainly, put her tea down. He pulled her up, he pulled her close. His hand went around her back, their fingers entwined, and on the stone deck they swirled to Nat King Cole’s “Nature Boy,” and Tatiana pressed into him as they glided in slow rivulets, in small circles by the blue ripples of their lit-up pool under the December southwestern stars. She put her head on his chest while Nat King Cole and Alexander sang to her about the magic day he passed her way, and when Alexander looked up toward the house, he saw himself, a fourteen-year-old, standing in adolescent embarrassment, watching his own father dance close with his mother near a hammock in Krasnaya Polyana, twenty years ago, in 1935—at the beginning of the end. It had been the last time he saw his parents touching gently, touching in love, and when Alexander blinked himself away, he saw his son, Anthony, standing on the deck of the house, in adolescent embarrassment watching his father dance close with his mother.

  For the last time?

  No matter how close Alexander and Tatiana danced—and they danced pretty darn close—there was still no child, and the relentless tick tock of the clock was heard louder and louder in all the rooms of their home, in the expanse of the plans for a pueblo mansion lying on their table. It lived with them—this white elephant in their just the right size double wide trailer—the white elephant that pored over the blueprints with them and whispered, why do we need a custom-made castle with courtyards and fountains and dining rooms and playrooms and six bedrooms if there are going to be no more children?

  Chapter Ten

  Blockade Girl

  The Nurse Is In, Flip Side

  On a Friday night that December, 1955, Alexander came home from work with Anthony, and lo and behold Tatiana was already home! Not only was she home, but she was wearing a clingy cotton-knit cream-colored top over a black pencil skirt. The table was set, the candles were lit, the music was playing, and the wine was poured.

  “What is that unbelievable smell?” Alexander said, walking in confounded.

  “Leek and bacon stuffing!” she exclaimed.

  Standing close, she pressed intimately against him as she served him. They had a roast with oven potatoes, with leek and bacon crunchy stuffing, which Alexander declared was the best. “What’s in it?”

  “Leeks. Bacon.” Tatiana laughed. “Also cubed and toasted bread, made by yours truly.”

  “Of course.”

  “A few diced carrots, some garlic, some butter, chicken broth, a little milk, all cooked for about an hour. I’m so glad you like it, darling.”

  Darling?

  For dessert she made him cream puffs with chocolate sauce and black Russian tea. Alexander was so full he couldn’t move from the table.

  “Whatever it is you did, Dad, you have to do more of it. Mom, this was great.”

  “Thank you, son.”

  Tatiana and Ant were clearing the dishes when Alexander said, “So what exactly did I do that was so wonderful?”

  With the plates in her hands, Tatiana said, “I have great news, you two. Guess what?”

  Alexander’s breath stopped in his chest. Please, please, let it be—

  “I’ve been promoted!”

  The breath was let out.

  “You what?”

  “Shura, they made me head ER nurse!”

  Alexander sat quietly. Anthony stood quietly. “That’s great, Mom,” he said, glancing at his father. “Congratulations.”

  Alexander said nothing. Now he understood the clingy sweater and the leek stuffing.

  “Aren’t you happy for me?” she asked, frowning slightly. “I got a raise.”

  “Have you accepted yet?”

  Tatiana stammered. “I said I was going to talk to my husband, but—”

  Nodding, Alexander said, “Good, let’s talk about it,” cutting her off, glancing at Anthony. “Later.”

  Anthony looked away.

  Later, on the deck, it went like this:

  “Honey, a raise, isn’t that great?”

  “Y
es, wonderful.” Alexander said, smoking and not looking at her. “Seven thousand dollars. Tania, our profit from the business last year after paying all labor and operating costs was $92,000. The business is booming. We can’t keep up with the work. Our land is now worth $10,000 an acre. That’s nearly a million dollars, in case you forgot your math skills. So I’m pleased for your raise, but... let’s just put it into a little bit of perspective.” Alexander paused. “This raise,” he said, “does it come with a raise in hours?”

  “Just one more shift, honey.”

  He waited to hear.

  “Just four days a week. You work six days.”

  “I know how many days I work, Tatiana,” he said. “When is this extra shift going to be?”

  She coughed and stopped looking at him. “I would work Monday, Wednesday, Thursday—and then Friday seven to seven . . .” Tatiana stopped, adding very quietly, “Graveyard.”

  “I didn’t hear,” Alexander said. “What?”

  “The graveyard shift. Seven in the evening till seven on Saturday morning.” She must have seen the expression on his face because she said quickly, “But I’ll be here for Ant on Saturdays, like always. And I know you have to go to Yuma, but you and Ant can just pick me up from the hospital on Saturday morning and we’ll drive straight out. I’ll sleep in the truck. I’ll be fine. Really. We’ll work everything out. I’m sorry, but as head ER nurse I have to work on the busiest night of the week. It’s such a big responsibility.”

  He was smoking and said nothing.

  She came closer to him. “I’ll have off Tuesdays, and Saturdays and Sundays. All the other nurses have work at least one weekend day...”

  “Already gone from the house,” Alexander interrupted, “gone from your family fourteen hours a day three days a week. Forty-two hours not in this house. On Wednesday you came home at almost eight-thirty.”

  “Iris was late,” Tatiana said apologetically.

  “Now you want to be gone all night,” Alexander continued, “gone from the house at night. I didn’t go to Las Vegas once without you. I didn’t go to DC for Richter. I don’t go to Yuma, I don’t go anywhere that will take me from your bed for an occasional overnight, and you want to work overnight in the fucking hospital, every week, times fifty-two, times forever?”

  “Darling,” Tatiana said pleadingly, “what can I do?” She touched his arm; he yanked away. She stood up to face him. “I know you don’t like my work,” she said. “You’ve never liked it. But this is what I do. This is what I am. I have to work—”

  “Bullshit. You choose to work.”

  “For us!”

  “No, Tatiana, for you.”

  “Well, who do you work for? Don’t you work for you?”

  “No,” said Alexander. “I work for you. I work so that I can build you a house that will please you. I work very hard so you don’t have to, because your life has been hard enough. I work so you can get pregnant; so you can cook and putter and pick Anthony up from school and drive him to baseball and chess club and guitar lessons and let him have a rock band in our new garage with Serge and Mary, and grow desert flowers in our backyard. I work so you can buy yourself whatever you want, all your stiletto heels and clingy clothes and pastry mixers. So you can have Tupperware parties and bake cakes and wear white gloves to lunch with your friends. So you can make bread every day for your family. So you will have nothing to do but cook and make love to your husband. I work so you can have an ice cream life. From my first lobster on Deer Isle, to every boat trip in Coconut Grove, to the last brick in Scottsdale, this is what I do. What do you do, Tatiana?”

  The wind taken out of her sails, she took one step to him, then stopped and opened her palms when Alexander turned his face from her. “Darling,” she said. “Please. I can’t leave my job.”

  “Why not? People leave their jobs every day.”

  “Yes, other people,” she said. “But too many people depend on me. You know that.”

  “Your son and husband depend on you too, Tania. The babies you’re not having depend on you, too.”

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, clenching her fists against her stomach. “I know—but we’ll get pregnant, we will, it’s just a matter of time.”

  “I’ve been back nearly ten years,” said Alexander. “Tick tock.”

  Her legs shaking, Tatiana stepped away. Alexander stood from the bench. “Okay, I’m going to tell you what I think. It’s like this,” he said grimly. “Quit or don’t quit. Take the promotion or not take it. But, if you take the graveyard shift, mark my words, we will eventually—I don’t know how, and I don’t know when—live to regret it.” Without saying another word he walked inside.

  In bed Alexander let her kiss his hands. He was on his back, and Tatiana sidled up to him naked, kneeling by his side. Taking his hands, she kissed them slowly, digit by digit, knuckle by knuckle, pressing them to her trembling breasts, but when she opened her mouth to speak, Alexander took his hands away.

  “I know what you’re about to do,” he said. “I’ve been there a thousand times. Go ahead. Touch me. Caress me. Whisper to me. Tell me first you don’t see my scars anymore, then make it all right. You always do, you always manage to convince me that whatever crazy plan you have is really the best for you and me,” he said. “Returning to blockaded Leningrad, escaping to Sweden, Finland, running to Berlin, the graveyard shift. I know what’s coming. Go ahead, I’ll be good to you right back. You’re going to try to make me all right with you staying in Leningrad when I tell you that to save your hard-headed skull you must return to Lazarevo? You want to convince me that escaping through enemy territory across Finland’s iced-over marsh while pregnant is the only way for us? Please. You want to tell me that working all Friday night and not sleeping in my bed is the best thing for our family? Try. I know eventually you’ll succeed.” He was staring at her blonde and lowered head. “Even if you don’t,” he continued, “I know eventually, you’ll do what you want anyway. I don’t want you to do it. You know you should be resigning, not working graveyard—nomenclature, by the way, that I find ironic for more reasons that I care to go into. I’m telling you here and now, the path you’re taking us on is going to lead to chaos and discord not order and accord. It’s your choice, though. This defines you—as a nurse, as a woman, as a wife—pretend servitude. But you can’t fool me. You and I both know what you’re made of underneath the velvet glove: cast iron.”

  When Tatiana said nothing, Alexander brought her to him and laid her on his chest. “You gave me too much leeway with Balkman,” he said, kissing her forehead. “You kept your mouth shut too long, but I’ve learned from your mistake. I’m not keeping mine shut—I’m telling you right from the start: you’re choosing unwisely. You are not seeing the future. But you do what you want.”

  Kneeling next to him, she cupped him below the groin into one palm, kneading him gently, and caressed him back and forth with the other.

  “Yes,” he said, putting his arms under his head and closing his eyes. “You know I love that, your healing stroke. I’m in your hands.”

  She kissed him and whispered to him, and told him she didn’t see his scars anymore, and made it if not all right then at least forgotten for the next few hours of darkness.

  Tatiana accepted her new position, and Alexander’s money went to the bank. They lived on her salary and had plenty left over. They had nothing to spend money on. Alexander did buy Tatiana a new car. She wanted something sporty, so he bought her a red Ford Thunderbird— just out on the market and all the rage—so his wife could have the wind blowing through her nurse’s cap as she flew to the hospital to work her Friday night graveyard shift.

  They spent money on clothes and shoes. Quite a fashion plate, she bought designer dresses and the latest capri slacks and stiletto heels and silk slips. She bought Alexander fatigues and rayon shirts and long johns and jerseys, and suits that were not drab flannel but linen and cotton, so when Alexander went out for a drink without her on Friday nigh
ts, he could look smashing.

  Anthony was the best dressed boy in school. Smartest, tallest, strongest, most athletic, most beautiful boy in all of Phoenix. There was nothing that Anthony could not do. Having learned from his own experience, Alexander tried to instill in his distressingly good-natured and open son a sense of the circumspect, a slight reserve, some conservation of the confident gleam when it came to the opposite sex. He was slightly anxious for Anthony’s future: the playing field was so unlevel.

  Alexander’s family strolled out into the Commons, starched, shined, slick. The husband and son: tanned and dark and broad, one a miniature of the other, pressed without a wrinkle, and she! petite but high-heeled, freckled still, blonde and buxomy, bedazzling still, her arm always through his. Families with children, for whom Alexander had built houses, stopped them on Main Street, near the Little Red School House, shook his hand, offered him cigars, a drink, small gifts, as they told him how much they liked their new homes, appreciated the craftsmanship that went into them.

  And once an old man fell on his knees—but not in front of Alexander—and cried and said I know you. I’d know you anywhere. Thank you for saving my little girl.

  It had been months since Alexander and Tatiana talked about building the house. Maybe months was too kind.

  It had been months since they talked about having a baby. Maybe months was too kind.

  They were busy, busy, busy.

  Alexander didn’t know when the change happened, because it was so gradual, like the slight ebbing away of the shoreline, like dune erosion; years went by unnoticed, and suddenly you looked and the dunes were gone, but one day when he glimpsed in her closet her crisp white nurse’s uniform, not only did he not feel one solitary beat of arousal, but distinctly what he felt in his chest was a cold gnashing of the metaphoric teeth.

  The Russian Cook

  On Friday nights Alexander took care of Anthony, but the boy got older, became more self-sufficient and often wanted to stay out with his friends. Alexander started to stay out with his friends himself, drinking or going over Johnny’s to play poker. Young and single, the high-wired stud Johnny was his latest foreman. The business was hopping and after working hard, Johnny really liked to unwind. Shannon and Skip, who played poker with them, had to go home at midnight. But Johnny didn’t have anywhere to be at any time and so he and Alexander went out with a bunch of his derelict friends.