Paullina Simons - The Summer Garden

Alexander has nearly completely forgotten what it’s like to play, except when he’s in the water, but there had been no water in Texas, barely any in New Mexico, and now they’re in Arid Zona.

Anthony tries land games with his father. He perches on Alexander’s lap, holds the tips of his index fingers together, and says, “Daddy, want to see how strong I am? Hold my fingers in your fist, and I’ll get free.”

Alexander stubs out his cigarette. He holds Anthony’s fingers lightly, and the boy wriggles free. The delight of freeing himself from his daunting father is so great that he wants to play the game again and again. They play it two hundred times. And then the reverse. Alexander holds his index fingers together while Anthony clenches his tiny four-year-old fist over them. When Alexander is unable to get free, Anthony’s joy is something to behold. They play that two hundred times while Tatiana either prepares lunch or dinner, or washes or tidies, or just sits and watches them with a gladdening heart.

Alexander takes Anthony off his knee and says in a throaty, nicotine-stained voice, “Tatia, want to play? Put your fingers into my fist and see if you can wriggle free. Come.” Not a muscle moves on his face, but her heart is no longer just gladdening. It’s quickening, it’s maddening. She knows she shouldn’t, Anthony is right there, but when Alexander calls, she comes. That’s just how it is. She perches on his lap and touches together the tips of her slightly trembling index fingers. She tries not to look into his face, just at her fingers, over which he now places his enormous fist, squeezes lightly, and says, “Go ahead, wriggle free.” Her whole body weakens. She tries, of course, to get free, but she knows this: while as a father Alexander plays one way with Anthony, as a husband, he plays the opposite way with her. She bites her lip to keep from making a single sound.

“Come on, Mommy,” says the uncomprehending child by her side. “You can do it. I did it! Wriggle free.”

“Yes, Tatiasha,” whispers Alexander, squeezing her fingers tighter, looking deep into her face as she sits on his lap. “Come on, wriggle free.”

And she glimpses the smiling soul peeking out.

But when he drives, he is often silent and sullen. She hates it when he reduces himself like this to the worst of his life—it’s hard to draw him away, and sometimes even when he wants to be drawn, he can’t be. And sometimes Tatiana is so full of fears herself of the imminent danger to Alexander at every stop sign that she loses the weapons she needs to draw him away, herself reduced to the worst of her life.

She wishes for something else to swallow them, where the road wouldn’t apprehend her, where his soul wouldn’t apprehend him. Perhaps if they were less human.

She was leading him to Phoenix, but Alexander was too hot; he almost wanted to drive straight on to California. “I thought you wanted to see the ninety-seven acres I bought with your mother’s money,” she said to him.

He shrugged, drank some water. “What I want,” he said, “is to feel water on my body. That’s what I want. Will we get that in Phoenix?”

“Not if I can help it.”

“Exactly. I am thus reluctant.”

It took them a day to get from Arizona’s eastern border to Phoenix. They had stopped at a camping site that evening near the Superstition Mountains. Alexander lay down on the wooden deck under the water spout with the cold water pouring down onto his chest and face. Anthony and Tatiana stood at a polite distance and watched him. Anthony asked if his dad was all right.

“I’m not sure,” said Tatiana. “I’d say the odds are fifty-fifty.” Had Alexander insisted a little harder, she would’ve been easily persuaded to keep moving until they reached the Pacific. Not because she didn’t want to show him their desert property, but because she thought there was a possibility that Federal agents would be waiting for them in the only place that belonged to them. Vikki might have mentioned the land to Sam Gulotta. Tatiana suspected she might have mentioned it to Sam herself. She and Sam had developed a friendship over the years. What if they were waiting? The thought was sickening her. But unfortunately Alexander didn’t protest hard enough. Tatiana already knew what she wanted to do—unthinkable though it was: to sell the land! Just sell it at whatever price, take the money, go far into another state, maybe into the vastness of Montana, and never be seen again. She had no illusions: Sam’s allegiance was hardly going to be to her and Alexander. Sam wasn’t Aunt Esther. Tatiana was mute as she thought of these things while her husband lay on the deck drowning himself with running water.

The following morning, they took the Superstition Freeway. “It’s very flat here,” Alexander said.

“Well, it is called Mesa,” said Tatiana. “It means flat.”

“Please tell me the land is not here.”

“Okay, the land is not here.” There were stone mountains in the far distance across the flatlands. “This is too developed.”

“ This is too developed?” he said. There were no stores, no gas stations, just farmland on one side, untouched flat desert on the other.

“Yes, this is Tempe,” Tatiana said. “Quite built up. Scottsdale, where we’re headed, is a little Western town. It’s got a few things—a store, a market. You want to see it first? Or …”

“Let’s see this mythical promised land first,” he said.

They continued to drive north through the desert. He was thirsty. She was frightened. The paved road ended, and a gravelly Pima Road began that separated the Phoenix valley from the Salt River Indian Reservation that stretched for miles to the McDowell Mountains. It wasn’t as flat anymore, the blue dusty mountains rising up on all sides far and near, low and wide, in the apocalyptic heat.

“Where are these mountains you told me about?”

“Shura, don’t tell me you don’t see them!” Tatiana pointed straight ahead. The ranges did loom rather large and monolith-like across the saguaros, but Alexander was in a good mood this morning and wanted to tease her.

“What, those? Those aren’t mountains. Those are rocks. I know, because I’ve seen mountains. The Tontos we passed yesterday, those were mountains. The Santa Fe, those were mountains. Also I’ve seen the Urals, I’ve seen the Holy Cross Mountains, completely covered by coniferous forest. Those were mountains.” His mood became less good.

“Now, now …” Tatiana said, reaching over and easing him away with her hand on his thigh. “These are Arizona’s McDowell Mountains. Sedimentary rock on top of granite rock formed from lava two billion years ago. Precambrian rocks.”

“Aren’t you a little geologist.” Alexander grinned. “A capitalist and a geologist.” She was in yellow gingham today, white bobby socks and ballet slipper shoes, her hair pulled back in a braided bun. She didn’t have a bead of perspiration on her face, looking almost serene if only Alexander didn’t look down on her lap and notice her fingers pressed so stiffly against each other, they looked as if they were breaking.

“All right, all right,” he said with a slight frown. “They’re mountains.”

They chugged along north, kicking up dirt with their dusty tires. The McDowell Mountains drew closer. The sun was high. Alexander said they were idiots, morons for taking a trip across the hottest part of the country during the hottest part of the year. If they were smart they would have left Coconut Grove early, driven up to Montana to spend the summer, then carried on to California for the grape-picking.

“You didn’t want to leave Florida, remember?”

“Hmm,” he assented. “Coconut Grove was quite nice for a while.”