The Summer Garden

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 at the moment. But Tatiana knew that for one reason or another, through no fault of her own, women, sisters, other people felt a need to mother her, smother her more like it, squeeze her in their big arms, braid her wispy hair, kiss her freckles, and pray to their God for her.

“Mama left me in charge of you and Pasha,” Dasha declared autocratically. “And if you’re going to give me your attitude, I won’t tell you the news.”

“What news?” Tatiana jumped up and down. She loved news.

“Not telling.”

Tatiana skipped after Dasha up the porch and into their house. Dasha put the pails down. Tatiana was wearing a little-girl sundress and bouncing up and down. Without warning she flung herself onto her sister, who was nearly knocked to the floor before she caught her footing.

“You shouldn’t do that!” Dasha said but not angry. “You’re getting too big.”

“I’m not too big.”

“Mama is going to kill me,” said Dasha, patting Tatiana’s behind. “All you do is sleep and read and disobey. You don’t eat, you’re not growing. Look how tiny you are.”

“I thought you just said I was too big.” Tatiana’s arms were around Dasha’s neck.

“Where’s your crazy brother?”

“He went fishing at dawn,” Tatiana said. “Wanted me to come too. Me get up at dawn. I told him what I thought of that.”

Dasha squeezed her. “Tania, I have kindling that’s fatter than you. Come and eat an egg.”

“I’ll eat an egg if you tell me your news,” said Tatiana, kissing her sister’s cheek, then the other cheek. Kiss kiss kiss. “You should never keep good news all to yourself, Dasha. That’s the rule: Bad news only to yourself but good news to everybody.”

Dasha set her down. “I don’t know if it’s good news but … We have new neighbors,” she said. “The Kantorovs have moved in next door.”

Tatiana widened her eyes. “You don’t say,” she said in a shocked voice, grabbing her face. “Not the Kantorovs!”

“That’s it, I’m not speaking to you anymore.”

Tatiana laughed. “You say the Kantorovs as if they are the Romanovs.”

In a thrilled tone, Dasha continued. “It’s rumored they’re from Central Asia! Turkmenistan, maybe? Isn’t that exciting? Apparently they have a girl—a girl for you to play with.”

“That’s your news?” said Tatiana. “A Turkmeni girl for me to play with? Dasha, you’ve got to do better than that. I have a village-full of girls and boys to play with—who speak Russian. And cousin Marina is coming in two weeks.”

“They also have a son.”

“So?” Tatiana looked Dasha over. “Oh. I see. Not my age. Your age.”

Dasha smiled. “Yes, unlike you, some of us are interested in boys.”

“So really, it’s not my news. It’s your news.”

“No. The girl is for you.”

Tatiana went with Dasha on the porch to eat a hard-boiled egg. She had to admit she was excited, too. New people didn’t come to the village very often. Never actually. The village was small, the houses were let out for years to the same people, who grew up, had children, grew old.

“Did you say they moved in next door?”

“Yes.”

“Where the Pavlovs lived?”

“Not anymore.”

“What happened to them?”