morning water, and watched her son push himself on a tire swing. Her arms were twisted around her stomach. She was trying not to rock like Alexander rocked at three o’clock in the morning.
Has he left me? Did he kiss my hand and go?
No. It wasn’t possible. Something’s happened. He can’t cope, can’t make it, can’t find a way out, a way in. I know it. I feel it. We thought the hard part was over—but we were wrong. Living is the hardest part. Figuring out how to live your life when you’re all busted up inside and out—there is nothing harder. Oh dear God. Where is Alexander?
She had to go to Bangor immediately. But how? She didn’t have a car; would she and Ant go there by bus? Would they leave Stonington for good, leave their things? And go where? But she had to do something, she couldn’t just continue to sit here!
She was clenched inside, outside.
She had to be strong for her son.
She had to be resolute for him.
Everything was going to be all right.
Like a mantra. Over and over.
This is my vicious dream, Tatiana’s entire body shouted. I thought it was like a dream that he was with me again, and I was right, and now I’ve opened my eyes, and he’s gone like before.
Tatiana was watching Anthony swing, looking beyond him, dreaming of one man, imagining only one other heart in the vastness of the universe—then, now, as ever. She still flew to him.
Is he still alive?
Am I still alive?
She thought so. No one could hurt this much and be dead.
“Mama, are you watching me? I’m going to spin and spin and spin until I get dizzy and fall down. Whee! Are you watching? Watch, Mama!”
Her eyes were glazed over. “I’m watching, Antman. I’m watching.”
The air smelled so August, the sun shone so brightly, the pines, the elms, the cones, the sea, the spinning boy, just three, the young mother, not even twenty-three.
Tatiana had imagined her Alexander since she was a child, before she believed that someone like him was even possible. When she was a little girl, she dreamed of a fine world in which a good man walked its winding roads, perhaps somewhere in his wandering soul searching for her.
On the Banks of the Luga River, 1938
Tatiana’s world was perfect.
Life may not have been perfect; far from it. But in the summer, when the day began almost before the last day ended, when the crickets sang all night and cows mooed before dreams fled, when the smells of summer June in the village of Luga were sharp—the cherry and the lilacs and the nettles in the soul from dawn to dusk—when you could lie in the narrow bed by the window and read books about the Grand Adventure of Life and no one disturbed you—the air so still, the branches rustling and, not far, the Luga River rushing—then the world was a perfect place.
And this morning young Tatiana was skipping down the road, carrying two pails of milk from Berta’s cow. She was humming, the milk was spilling, she was hurrying so she could bring the milk back and climb into bed and read her marvelous book, but she couldn’t help skipping, and the milk couldn’t help spilling. She stopped, lowered the rail over her shoulders onto the ground, picked up one pail and drank the warm milk from it, picked up the other and drank some more. Replacing the rail around her shoulders she started skipping again.
Tatiana was one elongated reedy limb from toe to fingers, all one straight line, feet, knees, thighs, hips, ribs, chest, shoulders, a stalk, tapering off in a slender neck and expanding into a round Russian face with a high forehead, a strong jaw, a pink smiling mouth and white teeth. Her eyes glinted green with mischief, her cheeks and small nose were drowned in freckles. The joyous face was framed with white blonde hair, just wispy feathers falling on her shoulders. No one could sit by Tatiana without caressing her silky head.
“TATIANA!” The scream from the porch.
Except maybe Dasha.
Dasha was always shouting. Tatiana, this, Tatiana, that. She is going to have to learn to relax and lower her voice, Tatiana thought. Though why should she? Everyone in Tatiana’s family hollered. How else could one possibly be heard? There were so many of them. Well, her gray quiet grandfather managed somehow. Tatiana managed—somehow. But everyone else, her mother, her father, her sister, even her brother, Pasha—what did he have to shout about?—shouted as if they were just coming into the world.
The children played noisily and the grown-ups fished and grew vegetables in their yards. Some had cows, some had goats; they bartered cucumbers for milk and milk for grain; they milled their own rye and made their own pumpernickel bread. The chickens laid eggs and the eggs were bartered for tea with people from the cities, and once in a while someone brought sugar and caviar from Leningrad. Chocolate was as rare and expensive as diamonds, which was why when Tatiana’s father—who had left for a business trip to Poland recently— asked his children what they wanted for gifts, Dasha instantly said chocolate. Tatiana wanted to say chocolate, too, but instead said, maybe a nice dress, Papa? All her dresses were hand-me-downs from Dasha and much too big.
“TATIANA!” Dasha’s voice was now coming from the yard.
Turning her reluctant head, Tatiana leveled her bemused gaze at her sister, standing at the gate with her exasperated arms at her large hips. “Yes, Dasha?” she said softly. “What is it?”
“I’ve been calling you for ten minutes! I’m hoarse from shouting! Did you hear me?” Dasha was taller than Tatiana, and full-figured; her unruly curly brown hair was tied up in a ponytail, her brown eyes indignant.
“No, I didn’t hear,” Tatiana said. “Next time, maybe shout louder.”
“Where have you been? You’ve been gone two hours—to get milk from five houses up the road!”
“Where’s the fire?”
“Stop it with your fresh lip this instant! I’ve been waiting for you.”
“Dasha,” said Tatiana philosophically, “Blanca Davidovna says that Christ says that blessed are the patient.”
“Oh, you’re a fine one to talk, you’re the most impatient person I know.”
“Well, tell that to Berta’s cow. I was waiting for it to come back from pasture.”
Dasha took the pails off Tatiana’s shoulders. “Berta and Blanca fed you, didn’t they?”
Tatiana rolled her eyes. “They fed me, they kissed me, they sermonized me. And it’s not even Sunday. I’m fed and cleansed and one with the Lord.” She sighed. “Next time you can go get your own milk, you impatient heathen.”
Tatiana was three weeks from fourteen, while Dasha had turned twenty-one in April. Dasha thought she was Tatiana’s second mother. Their grandmother thought she was Tatiana’s third mother. The old ladies who gave Tatiana milk and talked to her about Jesus thought they were her fourth, fifth and sixth mothers. Tatiana felt that she barely needed the one loud exasperated mother she had—thankfully in Leningrad
