the ice cold Colorado.” Standing close, she put her intimate hands on him. “And you are a little bit like the mighty saguaro,” she murmured.
Okay, Alexander was noting the playing, he was coming back to it very shortly. “I won’t live anywhere without water, Tatiana Metanova.” He stamped out his cigarette and his arms went around her. “I don’t care what you’re trying to get away from.”
“It’s Tatiana Barrington, Alexander Barrington,” said Tatiana, slipping out of his hold. “And you don’t know anything about what I’m trying to get away from.”
He blinked at her. “I think even here in Arizona there might be a moon. Maybe a crimson moon, Tatia? A large, low, harvest crimson moon?”
She blinked back. “Why don’t you put on your sixty pounds of gear and pick up your weapons, soldier.” Backing away with a swirl, she walked back to the Nomad, while Alexander remained like a post in the sand. In a moment she returned with some water, which he gulped gladly, then went to look for Anthony, finding him near the prickly pears, deeply immersed in a study of rocks. Turned out it wasn’t rocks, it was a lizard, which the boy had pinned to the ground with a sharp cactus needle.
“Ant, isn’t that the cactus your mother told you to stay away from?” Alexander said, crouching by his son and giving him some water.
“No, Dad,” Anthony replied patiently. “Cholla is bad for playing with lizards.”
“Son,” said Alexander, “I don’t think that lizard is playing.”
“Dad, this place is swarming with reptiles!”
“Don’t say that as if it’s a good thing. You know how afraid your mother is of reptiles. Look how you’re upsetting her.”
They peeked out from the prickly pears. The upset mother was leaning back against the Nomad, eyes closed, palms down, sun on her face.
After a while, he returned to her, splashing water on her. That made her open her eyes. Alexander paused to take her in, her square-jawed flushed face, outrageous freckles, serene seaweed eyes. He appraised the rest of her up and down. She was so arousingly tiny. And bewildering. Shaking his head, Alexander hugged her, he kissed her. She tasted as though plums had dried on her lips.
“You are out of your mind, my freckle-faced tadpole,” he said, eventually stepping away, “to have bought this land in the first place. I honestly don’t know what in the world possessed you. But now the die is cast. Come on, Arizona-lover, cholla-expert, before we go see the appraiser, let’s eat. Though we’ll have to go somewhere else to put water on our bodies, won’t we?”
They brought out their flasks, their bread, their ham. Earlier that morning they had bought plums, cherries, tomatoes, cucumbers at a farm stand. They had so much to eat. He rolled out the canopy, they sat under it, where it was a hundred in the shade, and feasted.
“How much did you say you paid for the land?” he asked.
“Fifty dollars an acre.”
Alexander whistled. “This is near Scottsdale?”
“Yes, Scottsdale is only twenty miles south.”
“Hmm. Is it a one horse town?”
“Oh, not anymore, sir!” said a real estate agent in Scottsdale. “Not anymore. There’s the army base, and the GIs, like you, sir, they’re all comin’ back from the war and marrying their sweethearts. You two are newlyweds?”
No one said anything, as the four-year-old child sat near them lining up the real estate brochures in neat rows.
“The housing boom is something to behold,” the realtor went on quickly. “Scottsdale is an up-and-coming town, you just watch and see. We had nobody here, almost as if we weren’t part of the Union, but now that the war is over, Phoenix is exploding. Did you know,” he said proudly, “our housebuilding industry is number one in the country? We’ve got new schools, a new hospital—Phoenix Memorial—a new department store in Paradise Valley. You would like it here very much. Would you be interested in seeing some properties?”
“When are you going to pave the roads?” asked Alexander. He had changed into clean beige fatigues and a dry black T-shirt. Tattoos, scars, blue death camp numbers, no matter—he could not wear a long-sleeve shirt in Arizona. The real estate man kept trying not to glance at the long scar running up Alexander’s forearm into the blue cross. The realtor himself was wearing a wool suit in which he was sweating even in air conditioning.
“Oh, every day, sir, new roads are being paved every day. New communities are being built constantly. This is changing from farm country to a real proper town. The war has been very good for us. We’re in a real boom. Are you from the East? I thought so, by your wife’s accent. Much like your Levittown communities, except the houses are nicer here, if I may be so bold. May I show you a couple of—”
“No,” said Tatiana, stepping forward. “But we would be interested in finding out the going price of our own property here. We’re up north, off Pima Road, near Pinnacle Peak.”
The realtor’s face soured when he heard they weren’t in the market. “Where, near Rio Verde Drive?”
“Yes, a few miles south of there. On Jomax.”
“On what? They just named that road. You have a house there? There’s nothing up there.” He said it as if he didn’t believe her.
“No house, just some property.”
“Well,” he said with a shrug. “My appraiser is out to lunch.”
An hour later, the appraiser and the realtor’s faces were trying to maintain their poker expressions, but it wasn’t working. “How many acres did you say you have?” the appraiser said, a short man with a small head, a large body and an ill-fitting suit.
“Ninety-seven,” repeated Tatiana calmly.
“Well, that’s impossible,” said the appraiser. “I know all the land bought and sold here. I mean, the town of Scottsdale is just now thinking of incorporating—do you know how many acres?—sixty hundred and forty. Three and a half square miles. A smart man bought them last century for three and a half dollars an acre. But that was then. You’re telling me you have ninety-seven acres? A sixth of the land of our whole town? No one sells in large parcels like that. No one would sell you ninety-seven acres.”
Tatiana just stared at him. Alexander just stared at him. He was trying to figure out if this was a ploy, a game, or whether the guy was actually being rude, in which case—
“Land’s too valuable,” stated the appraiser. “Around here we sell one acre, two at most. And up there, there’s nothing but desert. It’s all owned by the Federal Government or the Indians.”
So it was a ploy. Alexander relaxed.
Tatiana was silent. “I don’t know what to tell you. You don’t think I can count to ninety-seven?”
“Can I see the deed, if you don’t mind?”
“Actually, we do mind,” Alexander said. “Are you going to tell us what the land is worth or do we have to go somewhere else?”
