Paullina Simons - The Summer Garden

“You did, you did,” Anthony said. “You get that tight mouth when you get upset.” He tightened his mouth to show his father.

“Doesn’t she just,” said Alexander.

“All right you two,” Tatiana said quietly. “Will you go on ahead, Anthony?”

But he lifted his arms to her, and she picked him up.

“Dad, she called us communists!”

“I can’t believe it.”

“Dad?”

“Yes?”

“What are communists?”

That night before dinner, of lobsters (“Oh, not again!”) and potatoes, Anthony said, “Dad, is twenty-two dollars a lot or a little?”

Alexander glanced at his son. “Well, it depends for what. It’s a little money for a car. But it’s a lot of money for candy. Why?”

“Mrs. Brooster wants us to pay twenty-two more dollars.”

“Anthony!” Tatiana was near the stove; she didn’t turn around. “No, the child is impossible. Go wash your hands. With soap. Thoroughly. And rinse them.”

“They’re clean.”

“Anthony, you heard your mother. Now.” That was Alexander. Anthony went.

He came up to her by the sink. “So what’s going on?”

“Nothing.”

“It’s time to go, don’t you think? We’ve been here two months. And soon it’s going to get much colder.” He paused. “I’m not even going to get started on the communists or the twenty-two dollars.”

“I wouldn’t mind it if we never left here,” she said. “Here on the edge of the world. Nothing intrudes here. Despite …” she waved her hand to Mrs. Brewster upstairs. “I feel safe here. I feel like no one will ever find us.”

Alexander was quiet. “Is someone … looking for us?”

“No, no. Of course not.” She spoke so quickly.

He placed two fingers under her chin and lifted her face to him. “Tania?”

She couldn’t return his serious gaze. “I just don’t want to go yet, okay?” She tried to move away from his hand. He didn’t let her. “That’s all. I like it here.” She raised her hands to hold on to his arms. “Let’s move to Nellie’s. We’ll have two rooms. She has a bigger kitchen. And you can go for a drink with your pal Jimmy. As I understand, he’s been coming around there a little.” She smiled to convince him.

Letting go of her, Alexander put his plate in the sink, clanging it loudly against the cast aluminum sides. “Yes, let’s,” he said. “Nellie, Jimmy, us. What a fine idea, communal living. We should have more of it.” He shrugged. “Oh, well. Guess you can take the girl out of the Soviet Union, but you can’t take the Soviet Union out of the girl.”

At least there was some participation. Though, like Tatiana kept saying, not great.

They moved to Nellie’s. The air turned a little chilly, then a lot chilly, then cold, particularly in the night, and Nellie, as they found out, was Dickensianly cheap with the heat.

They may have paid for two rooms, but it was all never mind to Anthony, who had less than no interest in staying in a room all by himself. Alexander was forced to drag his twin bed into their room, and push the beds together—again. They paid for two rooms and lived in one.

They huddled under thick blankets, and then suddenly, in the middle of October, it snowed! Snow fell in balls out of the sky, and in one night covered the bay and the barely bare trees in white wool. There was no more work for Alexander, and now there was snow. The morning snow fell, they looked out the window and then at each other. Alexander smiled with all his teeth.

Tatiana finally understood. “Oh, you,” she said. “So smug in your little knowledge.”

“So smug,” he agreed, still smiling.

“Well, you’re wrong about me. There is nothing wrong with a little snow.”

He nodded.

“Right, Anthony? Right, darling? You and me are used to snow. New York had snow, too.”

“Not just New York.” The smile in Alexander’s eyes grew dimmer, as if becoming veiled by the very snow he was lauding.

The stairs were slippery, covered with four inches of old ice. The half-filled metal bucket of water was heavy and kept spilling over the stairs as she held on to the banister with one hand, the bucket with the other and pulled herself up one treacherous step at a time. She had to get up two flights. At the seventh step, she fell on her knees, but didn’t let go the banister, or the bucket. Slowly she pulled herself back to her feet. And tried again. If only there were a little light, she could see where she was stepping, avoid the ice maybe. But there wouldn’t be daylight for another two hours, and she had to go out and get the bread. If she waited two hours there would be no bread left in the store. And Dasha was getting worse. She needed bread.

Tatiana turned away from him. It was morning! There was no dimming of lights at the beginning of each day; it was simply not allowed.

They went sledding. They rented two Flexible Flyers from the general store, and spent the afternoon with the rest of the villagers sledding on the steep Stonington hill that ran down to the bay. Anthony walked uphill exactly twice. Granted, it was a big hill, and he was brave and good to do it, but the other twenty times, his father carried him.

Finally, Tatiana said, “You two go on without me. I can’t walk anymore.”

“No, no, come with us,” said Anthony. “Dad, I’ll walk up the hill. Can you carry Mama?”

“I think I might be able to carry Mommy,” said Alexander.

Anthony trudged along, while Alexander carried Tatiana uphill on his back. She cried and the tears froze on her face. But then they raced down, Tatiana and Anthony on one sled, trying to beat Alexander, who was heavier than mother and son, and fast and maneuvered well, unhampered by fear for a small boy, unlike her. She flew down anyway, with Anthony shrieking with frightened delight. She almost beat Alexander. At the bottom she collided into him.

“You know if I didn’t have Ant, you’d never win,” she said, lying on top of him.

“Oh, yes, I would,” he said, pushing her off him into the snow. “Give me Ant, and let’s go.”

It was a good day.

They spent three more long days in the whitened mountain ash trees on the whitened bay. Tatiana baked pies in Nellie’s big kitchen. Alexander read all the papers and magazines from stem to stern and talked post-war politics to Tatiana and Jimmy, and even to indifferent Nellie. In Nellie’s potato fields, Alexander built snowmen for Anthony. After the pies were in the oven, Tatiana came out of the house and saw six snowmen arrayed like soldiers from big to little. She tutted, rolled her eyes and dragged Anthony away to fall down and make angels in the snow instead. They made thirty of them, all in a row, arrayed like soldiers.

On the third night of winter, Anthony was in their bed restfully asleep, and they were wide awake. Alexander was rubbing her bare buttocks under her gown. The only window in their room was blizzarded over. She assumed the blue moon was shining beyond. His hands were becoming very insistent. Alexander moved one of the blankets onto the floor, silently; moved her onto the blanket, silently; laid her flat onto her stomach, silently, and made love to her in stealth like they were doughboys on the ground, crawling to the frontline, his belly to her back, keeping her in a straight line, completely covering her tiny frame with his body, clasping her wrists above her head with one hand. As he confined her, he was kissing her shoulders, and the back of her neck, and her jawline, and when she turned her face to him, he kissed her lips, his free hand roaming over her legs and ribs while he moved deep and slow! amazing enough by itself, but even more amazingly he turned her to him to finish, still restraining her arms above her head, and even made a brief noise not just a raw exhale at the feverish end … and then they lay still, under the blankets, and Tatiana started to cry underneath him, and he said shh, shh, come on , but didn’t instantly move off her, like usual.