Tatiana stood by her car. Alexander was panting a few feet away. It was cold; he was burning hot.
“Where the fuck have you been?” he repeated. “Answer me.”
“Where have you been?” she said. “Did you answer me?”
“You didn’t ask me a single thing.”
“I didn’t have to, did I?”
Blinking, he took a step back. “Since Thursday gone from our house,” Alexander said. “Where were you?”
“I owe you no explanation,” she said in a barely controlled voice. “So stop talking to me like I do. I owe you nothing.”
“You owe me nothing?” His head shuddered, his body shuddered from the effort to control his emotion. “Who are you talking to, Tatiana?” Alexander said, deathly quiet.
“You, Alexander,” she said, her acrid voice in her eyes. “I’m talking to you. Because it’s very obvious that you owe me nothing.”
He tried not to look away. Tried and failed. “That’s not true.”
“Stop speaking! Stop. Stop.” Her voice got lower and lower. “I can’t do this,” she said just above a whisper, pressed against the car, her fists at her sides. “I don’t know what’s happening, what’s happened to us. I understand nothing! But I can’t do this anymore.” She started to shake like he was shaking. “You have to leave this house.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“You haven’t been home for three days,” said Alexander. “You’re coming home at one thirty in the morning, wearing fuck-me heels, and you’re telling me I have to pack my bags? Where have you been?” His voice rose decibel by decibel. He took a step toward her, and one more.
“I’m done answering your questions.”
“You haven’t answered a single fucking one!”
Tatiana’s fists were pressed to her chest. She was leaning against the car, and it was a good thing, because she was falling down. Holding herself up by the door handle, she reached down and threw the stilettos off. Now she was minute. Alexander’s heart, burned, scarred, furious, raw, was helpless before her.
“Yesterday in ER—” she began to say, but he cut her off.
“No,” he said. “Not until you tell me where you were tonight.”
“I had dinner with David Bradley.”
The sails, the boat, the rudders, the anchor were pulled out from under Alexander. “You had dinner with David Bradley?” he repeated slowly.
“That’s right.”
He was quiet. “Must have been a long dinner,” he said at last.
“It was,” said Tatiana. “And now that we have that out of the way, let me tell you about last night. Last night your friend Carmen Rosario and her husband were brought in, accompanied by police, amid charges of a knifing. They had a domestic dispute that escalated out of control. Apparently Cubert stabbed Carmen, and she retaliated by stabbing him back. He got a shoulder wound, nothing too serious. We managed to save him—so unfortunately for you, she’s not a widow.”
All Alexander said was, “She is not my friend.”
“No?”
“No.”
Tatiana was supported by the car. “Apparently Carmen—” She broke off. “I know this,” she said in her fake calm voice, “because I chose not to take care of Carmen’s wound—I’m sure you understand the delicacy of the situation—and took care of Cubert’s wound instead, and he, in his emotional state, told me more than I think he intended to. According to Cubert, his wife has been addicted to the lustful desire that men have for her rather, um, substantial breasts.” Tatiana paused.
Alexander stepped three feet back. He would have liked to step three countries back.
“Carmen could not keep the boobs in her shirt since before they were married. They had been having this trouble since the start. Cubert had hoped that marriage would cure her, but alas, it had not, resulting in his year-long bout with impotence and his frequent trips away from home. Yes, I agree with your shaking head. I also thought he was telling me too much. And I wouldn’t tell you this,” Tatiana said, “except as it relates to my larger story. Imagine Cubert’s surprise then, when upon his return from Las Vegas yesterday, Carmen informed him that she was pregnant.”
Alexander listened intently, frowning, sensing more trouble for him blowing in just around the next breath—as if he already didn’t have plenty. His hand went up. “I’m going to stop you right there,” he said.
Tatiana continued as if he had not spoken. “Cubert and Carmen had some words about this,” she said in her infuriating, fraudulently collected voice. “Cubert, as any normal husband would—when informed of his wife’s pregnancy—naturally tried to stab her in the chest.” Tatiana paused, for maximum effect, Alexander thought, though no pause was necessary: everything was already to the fucking hilt. “Then and only then, as she was bleeding from her mammary, did Cubert inquire of his wife whose child it was. Since he knew, you see, that it couldn’t be his. And just guess, Alexander,” said Tatiana, less collected, less fraudulent, her hand gripping the door handle behind her, “what Carmen told Cubert?”
Alexander was mute. He wished he were deaf. So that’s why all the dishes were broken. So that’s why the hair was cut. Now he understood. Madness indeed. Fucking Carmen. In war, men lost their lives for less than this. Dudley lost his life for threatening his family. What was Alexander supposed to do now? “Why didn’t you walk over to exam room number two,” he finally asked, “and talk to Carmen? One question and you would’ve known she was lying.”
“Oh, I would have,” said Tatiana, “but having been stabbed in her ample bosom, Carmen was unconscious, so it was difficult to extract information from her, other than science confirming her positive blood-work.” She uttered a sound of such anger and despair that Alexander himself wished he had something to hold on to.
“Tania,” he said, taking one of the deepest breaths of his life. There was nothing left for him to do but stand up, but he simply could not believe what he was about to say to his wife. “Last Friday I was with her, but I didn’t have sex with her.”
Tatiana broke down.
Alexander stood helplessly, and then went to her, trying to take her by the arms. She hit him, straight up into his chin, and staggered from the car, barefoot on the pebbles. Seeing double for a moment, he went after her, catching her by the front deck, trying to hold her, to calm her down, the way he had done so many times when she was upset and he held her to make her better.
This time he did not make her better.
Tatiana didn’t say, “Let go of me,” which he could take. She said, “Don’t touch me!” Which he could not.
He stopped touching her. “Let me tell you what happened.”
“Do I look to you like I want to hear anything?” she yelled, hobbling back to the car.
“Had you come home with me yesterday,” Alexander said, following her, “I would’ve told you what happened. I would have told you the truth before you got to fucking Cubert, who doesn’t know the truth. How many times did I ask you to come home?”
She whirled to him. “You haven’t lifted your lying eyes to me all week! You have been screaming to me for the last seven days! I’m going deaf from your screaming! What more do you think I need to hear? The details? Oh, yes, do, please—regale!”
In a low voice he said, “Babe, I’m so sorry.” They were standing feet apart. His chin was at his chest.
“And what about Wednesday?” she asked. Her hands covered her face.
He could barely look at the periphery of her convulsing body. “On Wednesday, I was going to meet up with her again, but you know I didn’t. I came home.”
“Meet up with her again for what?” Tatiana said into her hands. “Tell your wife, Alexander—meet up with her again for what?”
In one large step, Alexander came and took her in his arms. “Please, Tania,” he whispered. She didn’t just struggle with him; she pushed him away like he was burning her. Her emotion made her frantic and stronger, whereas his remor
se made him quiet and weaker. To hold her required more from him than he was able to give and talk at the same time, to explain what he could not explain, to say what he could not say. He lost his breath trying to keep her still. She was hyperventilating from the struggle to twist away. “Let go of me! Let go!”
“No!” he said, spinning her around and getting behind her. He pinned her forearms in front of her, to keep her from hurting either herself or him. “Slow down, or you’re going to faint. Come on—just a bit of reason—”
Tatiana flailed her head from side to side, her body in spasms. “I’ll show you fucking reason,” she said, fighting desperately to get out of his hold.
It was the first time in his life Alexander heard Tatiana swear. He held her arms tighter, standing pressed behind her, his face lowered into her neck. She was against the side of the Thunderbird. “Tania, I’m trying very hard to tell you what happened,” he said, “but you won’t let me get two words out.”
“Oh, I’m listening,” she panted. “I’m just not believing my fucking ears. Now let go of me, I said!” Heaving sideways, she hit him in the jaw with her head and tore away from him. They were both speechless. He tried to get his breath back, and she wasn’t even trying. She couldn’t breathe at all.
“Tania, please,” Alexander said, stretching out his hand.
She reeled away. “Tell me,” she said, “how does it work? Do you take your wedding ring off beforehand? Or during?”
“Ring doesn’t come off,” said Alexander. “Carmen is lying.”
“Oh, she’s the one who is lying, is she!”
“She is. I know this for a fact because I didn’t have sex with her.” He took a step to her. Her fist flew out and struck him. “Oh, for fuck’s sake!” he yelled, remorse gone, quiet gone, temper here, anger here. “What are you doing? Stop fighting me!”
She squared off against him—yes, that’s right, she squared off against him—feet away, half his size, chest to chest, fists to fists. “Don’t come near me, Alexander,” said Tatiana, clenched and blazing. “Don’t ever touch me again.”
“Stop fucking saying that!”
“No.” She jabbed her fist at him so fast, he barely jerked away. “Get out of my house.”
“Fuck you,” Alexander said, grabbing her fists. “This is my house, too. I’m not going anywhere.” She tried to pull away, but he bore down on her, grinding her fists in his hands. “You didn’t come back at one thirty in the morning to tell me to go. If you didn’t want to see me, you could’ve just stayed with your fucking doctor, stayed all night with him, and not bothered me with your bullshit.” Alexander shook his head like a black Lab, and perspiration flew at her from his hair. “You don’t want to hear it from me, you don’t want to have it out, so what’d you come back for, Tatiana? Just to tell me not to touch you?” He squeezed her fists furiously and then pushed her away. “I wasn’t fucking touching you when you weren’t here! Why didn’t you just stay where you were?”
“I was three days in the hospital, working!” she yelled, hitting him against his raised and parrying hands. “I wasn’t fucking Carmen!”
“I wasn’t fucking Carmen either!”
“She says you were!”
“She’s a lying cunt!”
“Well, you should know, Alexander,” said Tatiana. “You were fucking her.”
Alexander shoved her away from him. He was unbearably hot. From his intense effort to control himself and her, cold sweat was covering him, soaking his T-shirt, soaking his body. He stepped away, and she, grabbing her stomach, bent over, breathing shallow, trying to stop herself from retching. There was no comfort, not for her, not for him.
“Tatiana, I’m going to repeat again,” he said, panting, “I didn’t have sex with her.”
“I’m going to repeat again, I don’t believe a word you say—so stop speaking! She’s lying is she? Are you often accused of knocking up women you have no business with? So what were you doing with her last Friday until six in the morning? Just having a drink? A little smoke? Getting her up the stick with your cigarette?” She exhaled her misery, still bent over, clutching her stomach, unable to look up or straighten up. When he said nothing was when she lifted her eyes. “Those were not rhetorical questions,” she said scathingly. “I would like an answer.”
“What the fuck am I supposed to say to that?”
“That’s right! How about, you’ve been banging her for months. Her, anyone, everyone, every Friday night. So convenient for you—Ant’s away, I’m away. You never would have told me about this either. Just happened to be caught this time, weren’t you?”
“Stop it!” Alexander didn’t know how to calm her down, he didn’t know how to calm himself down. “This is crazy! I didn’t have sex with her. And you know she is lying because you know she can’t be pregnant by me.”
“I don’t know it at all,” said Tatiana. “Your lies are what I know.”
“You know it!” Alexander yelled. “I can’t believe I even have to tell you this, for fuck’s sake! For fuck’s sake!”
“Oh, yes, scream at me, good!” she screamed, holding on to the car and pointing to the house. “Your son is inside. What, he isn’t traumatized enough?”
“Oh, plenty traumatized,” Alexander said, lower and through his teeth. “And why not? His mother never comes home. He must think he’s an orphan again.”
Gasping, she came at him with violence on her face and hands. There was no getting away from her jabbing fists, from her frenzied arms. “I can’t believe,” she said, her face streaming, “I left my baby to go and find you. I can’t believe I chose such a heartless bastard over my boy. I wish to God I had never gone. You with your ugly fucked-up faithless heart, you should be rotting in Kolyma, gang raping the male loggers there—that should be your fate, instead of coming here to betray me!”
Alexander rammed her against the car, his hand on her throat. A red veil covered his sight. He wasn’t just hot anymore, smoke was coming out of his pores. “Oh my God,” he said, gripping her neck. “Will you never fucking stop?”
“Will you never fucking stop? Get away from me,” she said hoarsely, choking, trying to pull away from his hands. He let go. She was coughing.
“Why are you still here? Quick. Go to your Carmen. She and her tits are waiting for you.” Insane she came for him again, and Alexander didn’t know how to stop her when he himself was so close to the void. He moved his face away slightly, put his hands up slightly. His only advantage was his height because she was unstoppable. She seized his T-shirt; he yanked away, and the shirt ripped, tore from top to bottom. She hit him in the chest, in the stomach. He’d had enough.
“Tania,” he said, grabbing her wrists, “that’s it. Stop it.”
“No!”
He squeezed her wrists harder and harder but she didn’t cry out. Instead she stood like she was numb and without flinching said, “Break them. Go ahead. Everything else I got, you broke.”
He pushed her away but she was right back on him. “I’m warning you,” he said, pushing her away again, keeping her literally at arm’s length. “Get away from me—”
“You get away from me,” she said, choking on her tears and her words. “That’s what you want, isn’t it? Nothing I ever gave you was enough. All we had, all I gave you, all that I gave you was not enough!” She went to strike him with her right fist, he half-blocked her and she struck him with her left, and he took it because he deserved it.
“There is no hope for us,” said Tatiana. “I will not live like this. I will never live like this. Loyalty was your only condition for a life with me, and you knew it when you went and fucked another woman, degraded me, and showed me exactly what I’m worth, which is nothing—and what you’re worth, which is nothing. So now pack your bags and go where you want, go where you belong. It’s not with me. I don’t care what you do anymore.”
Alexander had to get away from her—she wasn’t the only one whose judgment was about to be vanquished by her anger. She
, having lost all reason, was saying things to deprive him of all reason. “Listen to me! Are you fucking deaf? I will repeat—once again—I didn’t have sex with her! I didn’t have sex with her!”
“Repeat ad nauseam—but it’s her word against yours, Alexander,” Tatiana said, her face distorted, her body shaking. “That’s all I got. Your word against hers. And we now know what your word is worth, don’t we? Not even a breath on which it’s uttered. Unholy lies on your side, and she says she is pregnant—do you understand—pregnant!” She was overcome, devastated; she couldn’t continue.
“Well, at least someone around here is getting pregnant,” Alexander said through clenched teeth, bending in his own stricken fury. “And it didn’t take fifteen fucking years.”
“Like I’d keep any baby that was yours!” cried Tatiana. “I’d take a coat hanger to it before I kept one of your babies!”
Alexander hit her so hard across the face that she reeled sideways and fell to the ground.
Blinded he stood over her. Guttural sounds were coming from his throat. Her arms covered her head. “You have stepped out of all bounds, all decency,” he said, yanking her up. “I can’t believe how much you hate me.” When he flung her away from him, Tatiana couldn’t get her balance and fell again on the pebbled stones, shaking her head, mouthing something, trying to stand up, crawl away. But Alexander had lost his mind. Growling in his helpless rage, he came after her, bent over her, shoved her back down onto the ground, swung out his open hand—
And from behind Anthony came running up to him, knocking him away. “Don’t touch my mother!” he yelled.
Alexander pushed his son aside. Fleetingly he remembered himself fighting with his own father, just like this, over his own mother, just like this, twenty-five years earlier in Leningrad, on the very edge of their deaths. There was only one difference. Alexander was not Harold Barrington.
The Summer Garden Page 67