“It doesn’t count—he’s alive!”
“Oh.”
“Before he came back I had been going dancing every weekend, but now I can’t do anything. God!” she exclaimed. “Being married is a real drag.”
“Do you love him?”
“Sure.” Vikki shrugged. “But I love Chris, too. And two weeks ago, I met a radiologist who was nice … but it’s all over for that now.”
“You right,” Tatiana said. “Marriage very inconvenient.” She paused. “Why do you not get, what is it called?”
“A divorce?”
“Yes.”
“What are you, crazy? What kind of country do you come from? What kind of customs do you have there?”
“In my country,” said Tatiana, “we faithful to our husbands.”
“He wasn’t here! Surely I can’t be expected to be faithful to him when he is thousands of miles away, and getting up to no good in the Far East? As far as divorce … I’m too young to get divorced.”
“But not too young to be widow?” Tatiana flinched when she said it.
“No! There is an honor that comes with being a widow. I can’t be a divorcée. What am I, Wallis Simpson?”
“Who?”
“Tania, you’re doing well. Brenda tells me, albeit grudgingly”—Edward smiled—“that you are very good with the patients.” Edward and Tatiana were walking between the patient beds. Tatiana was carrying an awake and alert Anthony.
“Thank you, Edward.”
“Are you afraid your boy is going to get sick from being around sick people?”
“They not sick,” Tatiana replied. “Right, Anthony? They wounded. I bring my boy, and he makes them happy. Some of them have wives and sons back home. They touch him and they happy.”
Edward smiled. “He is a very fine boy.” Edward stroked Anthony’s dark head. Anthony paid Edward back by grinning toothlessly. “You take him outside?”
“All time.”
“Good. Babies need fresh air. And you, too.” He cleared his throat. “You know, on Sundays the doctors from NYU and PHD play softball in Sheep Meadow, in Central Park, and the nurses come to cheer us on. Would you like to come this Sunday with Anthony?”
Tatiana was too flustered to answer. They were on the stairs when they heard the clomping of high heels. “Edward?” a voice screeched from the ground floor. “Is that you?”
“Yes, sweetheart, it’s me.” Edward’s voice was calm.
“Well, thank goodness I found you. I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
“I’m right here, sweetheart.”
Mrs. Ludlow walked up the stairs, panting, and the three of them stopped on the landing. Tatiana held her baby closer. Disapprovingly, Edward’s wife eyed Tatiana and said, “A new nurse, Edward?”
“Nurse Barrington? Have you met Marion?”
“Yes,” said Tatiana.
“No, we never met,” declared Marion. “I never forget a face.”
“Mrs. Ludlow,” said Tatiana. “We meet every Tuesday in dining room. You ask me where Edward, and I say I don’t know.”
“We have never met,” repeated Mrs. Ludlow, with extra firmness to her voice.
Tatiana said nothing. Edward said nothing.
“Edward, can I talk to you in private? And you,” she added, glaring at Tatiana, “are too young to be carrying a child. You’re not carrying him correctly. You’re not holding his head. Where is the baby’s mother?”
“Marion, she is the baby’s mother,” said Edward.
Mrs. Ludlow was critically silent for a moment, then tutted and before anyone could say anything, she tutted again with emphasis, muttered the word “immigrants” and dragged Edward away.
Vikki stormed into the hospital ward, grabbed Tatiana by the arm and pulled her out into the corridor. “He asked me for a divorce!” Vikki whispered in an indignant and offended hiss. “Can you believe it?”
“Um—”
“I said I wasn’t giving him a divorce, it wasn’t proper, and he said he would sue me for a divorce and win because I—I don’t even know what he said—broke some covenant. Oh, I said to him, like you weren’t with Far Eastern whores while you were away from me, and you know what he said?”
“Um—”
“He said yes! But it’s different for soldiers, he said. Do you even believe it?” Vikki shook, Vikki shrugged, Vikki warded off the insulted glint in her eyes. Her mascara did not run, and her lips never lost their shine. “Fine, I said, just fine, you’re the one who is going to be sorry, and he said he was already sorry. Ugh.” She shuddered and brightened. “Hey, come for dinner on Sunday. Grammy is making Sunday lasagna.”
But Tatiana didn’t.
Come for dinner, Tania. Come to New York, Tania. Come play softball in Sheep Meadow with us, Tania. Come on the ferry ride with us, Tania, come for a car ride to Bear Mountain with us, Tania. Come, Tania, come back to us, the living.
CHAPTER NINE (#ulink_cc89770d-1d18-5b11-a84c-132826022800)
With Stepanov, 1943
WHEN ALEXANDER OPENED HIS eyes—did he open them?—it was still black, still cold. He was shaking, his arms around himself. There is no shame in dying in war, in dying young, in dying in a cold cell, in saving your body from humiliation.
Once, when he was convalescing, Tatiana asked without looking at him as she was dressing his wound, did you see the light? And he replied, no, he had not seen.
It was only a partial truth.
Because he had heard …
The gallop of the red horse.
But here all the colors had run dry.