Tatiana's Table

by Paullina Simons

  “You think changing your sons diapers is the same as making blinchiki?”

  “Changing diapers is much harder,” Harry said, straight-faced.

  He was shoved and pushed by his sister, he was laughed at by his brother. Alexander was at work so he couldn’t be asked, but all the children said they would ask him that evening, and that evening at dinner they wanted to, but that evening Alexander was cooking. He made baked potatoes, a tenderloin, and corn on the cob, all on the grill, and he himself ladled out the strawberries and ice cream after dinner, while all Tatiana did was help him clean up afterward. They sat outside on the covered porch, the music played through the speakers, the stars were out and the kids were in the pool. When the evening was perfect, it seemed churlish to ask why the father who carried weapons for ten years and scars on his body for the rest of his life, the father who crawled across thousands of miles to marry their mother and make one son, and then kept himself alive long enough for her to find him so that one day many years later they could give life to three more, why the father who brought the filet mignon to their table usually sat and was served at his wife’s table, at their mother’s table, at Tatiana’s table.

  Alexander’s Ice Cream

  There is no need for two metal bowls and rock salt and mixing by hand, when for a few dollars, he can buy a metal bowl that spins and in thirty minutes makes delicious soft-serve ice cream. But in Lazarevo, without electricity or Williams-Sonoma or a free market economy, in the middle of war, this kind of ice-cream maker proved difficult to acquire so Alexander had to make do with two metal bowls and rock salt. He had to become the ice-cream maker.

  Imagine it first, then do it. In Lazarevo, they didn’t grow tomatoes, and didn’t make pastry, they had little flour, they had no meat, they are what they grew and they grew what they could. They barely let the earth lie fallow, yet still …

  An eighteen-year-old girl, newly married, was able to make for her soldier husband potato pancakes, and pancake batter, and even cabbage pie. They caught fish, and she made fish soup. There were no bananas, no plantains, no white bread, no canned goods aside from the Spam he brought with him, no sardines and no freezers. And yet the soldier man who had never cooked before imagined making something special for his child bride, something he knew she loved but hadn’t had in a very long time. And so he, wishing to make her happy, wishing to do a small thing for her, imagined what he might need to do it. And in Lazarevo he went to a fishing plant and, using his Red Army credentials, using all the powers of persuasion at his disposal, including two bottles of vodka, two cans of Spam, and two hundred roubles, bartered for some rock salt, which the fishermen used to preserve fish, and a small amount of ice from a fish storage room.

  From an old man too old to go to war, Alexander borrowed two metal buckets, one large, one small that fit inside the other, the small one two-thirds the size of the large, like a sublime Fibonacci frame. He picked some blueberries, he cleaned their stems. He didn’t have lemon, but he managed to get a cup of sugar from the old ladies his bride had lived with. And he got one of them to help him get the cream that rose to the top of the fresh milk they got from the cows each morning. He macerated the blueberries with the sugar for half an hour, he added the cream, he placed these items into the small bucket. Into the large bucket he placed rock salt and ice. He set the small bucket inside the large one, and he mixed his blueberry cream, until the sides of the bucket got cold, until the mixture got icy, until it started to freeze and, as he was mixing it, to thicken. He stirred until the ice melted. It was slightly soft, but he did succeed in making his new wife ice cream in a small fishing village named Lazarevo. And when the wife saw it, she cried.

  “Don’t cry, eat. It’ll melt,” he said.

  Things were a bit different fifty years down the pike, down the miles and years of a long, complicated life. Ice was abundant, refrigeration was in, rock salt was no longer necessary, there was plenty of lemon and blueberries and sugar and heavy cream. There was plenty.

  Almost as if there was nothing else.

  On the morning of their fiftieth wedding anniversary, before the renewal of their vows at Santa Maria’s Church in Scottsdale, before the grand ballroom of the Arizona Biltmore Hotel was taken over by 400 guests for a day-long celebration, Alexander got up early while Tatiana was still sleeping and from the fridge got out two pints of strawberries.

  Imagine it first, then do it.

  Afterward he came back to bed and fell asleep.

  In the bright morning, on the white sheets, covered with a large warm hunter-green down quilt, Tatiana stared at a sleeping Alexander until he woke up. “On the most important day of his life, the soldier sleeps till noon,” she said softly.

  “This is not the most important day of my life,” said Alexander, jumping up. “And you know nothing.”

  They made the bed, began to get ready.

  “I know what the children got us for our anniversary present,” she said.

  “So do I,” said Alexander.

  It was a two-week trip to St. Petersburg, Russia.

  They stopped their ablutions and turned to each other. “Do you want to go?” he asked.

  “I’ll go if you want,” she replied. They stopped speaking.

  Alexander and Tatiana meandered off Nevsky, down the Griboyedov canal towards the Church of the Spilt Blood, then back to Nevsky to the Moika, past it, to the Arc of the General Staff, to the Winter Palace Square, to the Winter Palace, around the Winter Palace to the Neva, and then they walked down the granite carapace headed towards the unknown. On the opposite side of the river, the golden spire of Peter and Paul’s cathedral blazed in the morning light.

  “I can’t do it,” Tatiana said. “I can’t walk down the streets of our life with you.”

  “I know.” They turned back to their reflections in the mirror.

  In front of their family, Alexander and Tatiana renewed their vows at the family church. She wore a crème silk dress with maroon shoes and a maroon hat. Tatiana, who still weighed what she weighed in 1943 (almost), who still had her blonde hair, her open smile, her faded freckles, stood small next to Alexander’s big body in black tie.

  “Shura, I can’t believe what you look like,” she whispered, gazing at him at the altar.

  “What?” he said. “Old? Gray? Done for?” He took her hand and kissed it. “You’re not going to be racked with doubt again, are you, while we’re waiting for the priest?”

  She chuckled softly. “I think it’s too late for that. The kids are watching.”

  “Yes. Can’t annul the marriage,” said Alexander, “after it’s been so thoroughly consummated.”

  “Shh!”

  “I was talking about the children,” he said calmly.

  Tatiana tried to regain her composure. “What have you chosen to read?”

  “What have you chosen to read?”

  “From the Song of Solomon.”

  “Oh, no,” said Alexander, moving closer to her. “In front of the children?”

  She nearly laughed out loud in a church. “Now you.”

  He leaned in. “ ‘Who can find a virtuous woman?’ ” he quoted quietly from Proverb thirty-one. “ ‘For her price is far above rubies.’ ”

  “Hmm,” said Tatiana. “Have you tried diamonds?”

  And Alexander did laugh out loud in a church.

  Father John stepped forward to stand in front of them. He cleared his throat, his glittering eyes on the congregation and on Tatiana and Alexander. “Fifty years ago, these two people stood in front of another altar of God as they stand in front of us today, wanting to reaffirm that covenant. They have asked me to speak the same words the priest commenced with in 1942.

  “Most gracious God,” the priest began. “Look with favor upon this man and this woman living in a world for which your Son gave His life. Make their life together a sign of Christ’s love to this sinful and broken world. Defend this man and this woman from every enemy. Lead them into peace. Let their
love for each other be a seal upon their hearts, a mantle upon their shoulders, and a crown upon their foreheads. Bless them in their work and in their friendship, in their sleeping and in their waking, in their joys and their sorrows, in their life, and in their death.” Father John smiled. “Now turn to each other. You have prepared your own readings. Alexander?”

  Alexander turned to Tatiana. “Who can find a virtuous woman?” he said in his deep voice, taking her hands. “For her price is far above rubies.” He tried not to smile, and she tried not to smile. “Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish. Let him drink and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more. The heart of her husband does safely trust in her. She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life.” He nodded. “She seeks wool and flax and she works willingly with her hands.” Alexander squeezed Tatiana’s hands. “She is like the merchants’ ships. She brings her food from afar.” Tatiana’s eyes filled with tears. She shook her helpless head as if to stop him. “She rises while it is still night and gives meat to her household.” Alexander’s voice cracked. “She perceives that her merchandise is good. Her candle does not go out by night.” He paused. “She is not afraid of the snow for her household: for all her household are clothed in scarlet. Her husband is known at the gates, when he sits among the elders of the land. She makes herself coverings of tapestry. Strength and honor are her clothing. She opens her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness. She eats not the bread of idleness. Her children rise up and call her blessed and her husband also, and he praises her,” Alexander said. “Many daughters have done virtuously, but you have excelled them all. Give her the fruit of her hands; and let her own works praise her at the gates.” He bowed his head momentarily. “Shh,” he whispered to her, shaking slightly.

  There was silence in the pews.

  Father John turned to Tatiana.

  She wiped her face. “The song of songs,” Tatiana began, “which is Solomon’s. Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for his love is better than wine. By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loves, I sought him but I found him not. I will rise now and go about the city and the streets, and in the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loves: I found him. I held him and would not let him go. My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. For the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing of birds is come. My beloved is mine, and I am his, he feeds among the lilies. His head is as the most fine gold, his locks are black as raven. His eyes are as the eyes of doves by the rivers of waters. His cheeks are as a bed of spices, his lips like lilies. His hands are as gold rings set with beryl. His legs are as pillars of marble. His mouth is most sweet: he is altogether lovely. This is my beloved, and this is my friend.” Alexander’s eyes unblinkingly stared at Tatiana. “Set me as a seal upon your heart,” she said. “As a seal upon your arm, for love is strong as death, the coals thereof are coals of fire, which has a most vehement flame.” She blushed. “Many waters cannot quench love, neither the floods can drown it. Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.” She lowered her gaze, and stared at the planked floor of the church.

  They renewed and vowed and confirmed and kissed and danced to the Anniversary Waltzin four languages and “E Lucevan Le Stelle” in six renditions, they ate to bursting and spent all day and night with their children, grandchildren and friends. There was music, food and drink. There was plenty.

  Almost as if there was nothing else.

  “Tania?” They were in their bedroom. It was late, and they had just come back. Alexander was still in his tux, the cummerbund off, the bow tie now loosened.

  “Yes, darling?” She had perched on the corner of the bed and was bending to take off her shoes and stockings. “You hungry? I can make you something. Though how you can eat after that—”

  “What do you think you’d be doing now if you hadn’t gone back to Europe to find me?” He opened the French doors and lit a cigarette, blowing smoke out into the night.

  Tatiana straightened out. The shoes and stockings remained on. “What?”

  “Please. Tell me. How do you see it, your future, except without me?”

  “What are you talking about? Obviously I didn’t see it. Don’t see it.”

  “You almost didn’t go back. You were so close to not going back. Or you could’ve gone back and never found me. I could have been too far gone for you to find me. You could have not come to Berlin. Not found Stepanov. Many, many things could have happened or not happened. Tell me. What would have been next for you?”

  “Shura, please.” Her hands tensed around her knees.

  “No, Tania, you please. Tell me.”

  “Well, I don’t know.” She struggled with herself. “Why in the world do you want to talk about this now, today of all days?”

  “Precisely because it is today of all days. Why are you equivocating?”

  “I’m not equivocating.” She paused. “What do you think would’ve happened to you?” she asked, equivocating. She lowered her eyes.

  “Yes, don’t look at me,” he said. “As if I don’t know what you’re doing. Anyway, what was your question? What would’ve happened to me? Ah, that’s easy. I would’ve been taken to Kolyma. I know what my sentence was. Twenty-five years. I would have stayed in prison for three years, five, ten, and then I would have tried to escape.”

  In a small voice she asked, “Tried, or escaped?” She kicked off her high heels. They were killing her feet. He watched her. Watched her take off her high heels because they were killing her feet. She nearly gave out. “Shura …” she breathed out, opening her hands to him.

  “Tried. Or escaped,” he said flatly, still near the French doors, one foot in, one out. “Either way, the result would have been the same. I would’ve been caught. Either I would have been shot dead or taken to Novaya Zemlya, to Lenin’s Island, up in the Arctic Circle, where I would have spent until the mid-sixties wishing I had been shot dead.”

  “Alexander, please …”

  But he continued. “In the sixties, when they were rehabilitating many old soldiers, I would have been ‘pardoned’ and released. I would have been sent to exile, to Magadan, or worse, to Aykhal.”

  “Aykhal? Where is that?”

  “Precisely. There I would have mined the alluvial deposits for ten years or so. Until I was rehabilitated and in the seventies allowed to return to Leningrad. They would’ve reinstated my rank, perhaps even promoted me. They would have given me an exclusive membership at the Party athletic club, so I could swim in style any time I wanted to. Suspecting that I spoke flawless English, they would have given me a cushy position as a military advisor and my own apartment near Senate Square where I could look out my windows onto the statue of the Bronze Horseman. During the night I’d pull the curtains open to let the northern sun melt into the burning horizon and rise again behind the Neva.”

  “Have you given this much thought, Alexander?” Tatiana said, her sad voice tinged with bitterness.

  He said nothing, silently sad and bitter back.

  “Why? Why torture yourself?” Why torture yourself today is what she wanted to add.

  “And you?”

  “I don’t think about this.”

  “Not this, no. But tell me what you would have done if you hadn’t gone looking for me? Many people, I’m sure, judged you harshly for leaving our son.”

  “Yes,” was all she said. But she still didn’t answer him.

  He sighed in exasperation. “Would you have married Edward Ludlow?”

  “I don’t know. Possibly. Wouldn’t you have married again?”

  “No,” said Alexander. “How could I have, Tatiana? I was already married.”

  “Shura, God!” She nearly covered her face. “Please don’t do this.”

  “So you would have married Edward. Would you have stayed in New York?”

  “Probably. I may have eventually come here, settled here.�
� Her voice was low.

  “Had other children?”

  “Probably.” This was said in an inaudible whisper. “Though seeing what it took even for us, the answer should be possibly, not probably.”

  “You’re wrong. It’s because it was you and me that it took so long.” Alexander fell quiet.

  “Ah, finally even you are reconsidering this conversation,” said Tatiana.

  “No,” he said, but didn’t say much more. “Anthony would have been safe. He wouldn’t have gone to Vietnam.”

  With a closing heart, Tatiana shook her head. “Oh yes, he would have. He would’ve wanted to be like the warrior father he never knew.” She swallowed to wet her dry throat. “He would have come back, and he might have even been injured. He would have still moved up in rank, he would have become Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. And as Communism was falling like bricks in the Berlin Wall, he would have gone back to Russia, just as he did a few years ago to talk the Soviet government into releasing the records on the U.S. servicemen MIA since the Second World War. He would have asked me to go with him. And I would have gone.”

  “You would’ve gone to Russia?”

  “To find you? Yes. For you, I would have gone back to Russia.”

  Alexander stepped inside the bedroom.

  “And we would have found you.”

  “You think?” he asked. His voice trembled.

  “Absolutely.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “I’m positive. We would have.”

  He came to sit beside her on the bed. “How old would I be when you found me?”

  She looked at him. “Seventy-three. Like now.”

  He looked at her. “And you sixty-eight.”

  “Yes.”

  “We would not have seen each other for fifty years.”

  “Yes.”

  “Where is Edward?”

  “Passed on years ago. He was fifteen years older than me. He died in 1985.”

  They stared at each other. A small tear ran down Tatiana’s face.