The Summer Garden

Alexander backed away, stumbled to the dock, sat in his chair, smoked. When he came back inside, he stood in front of her. She had put away his weapon. “Tania,” he said. “What the fuck is going on?”

His voice was too loud in the house, with Anthony just steps away in his bedroom.

“Nothing, nothing at all,” she said quietly. “Please, let’s just—”

“Are you going to tell me?”

“There is nothing to tell, honey.”

He grabbed his jacket and said he was going out. “By the way, you forgot to lock the magazine catch on the P-38,” he said coldly. “It’s at the bottom of the grip.” He left without giving Tatiana a chance to reply.

Alexander came home hours later. There was no food on the stove, and she was sitting stiff, like a board bent in the middle, at the little kitchen table.

She jumped up when he walked in the door. “My God! Where have you been? It’s been four hours!”

“Wherever I’ve been, I’d be coming home hungry,” was all he said.

She made him a cold chicken sandwich, heated up some soup while he stood silently near the stove. He took his plate and his cigarette outside. He thought for sure she would follow him out but she didn’t. After quickly eating he came back in the house, where she was still sitting behind the kitchen table.

“You don’t want to have this conversation in the house with Anthony,” Alexander said. “Come outside.”

“I’m not having this conversation.”

In two strides he was near her, pulling her up from the table.

“Okay, okay,” she whispered, before he even opened his mouth. “Okay.”

Outside on the deck Alexander stood before her in the growing darkness, silent but for the hushed rippling off the water, the distant rustle of trees from a small cool wind.

“Oh, Tatiana,” said Alexander. “What have you done?”

She said nothing.

“I called Aunt Esther,” he said. “She wasn’t an easy egg to crack. Then I called Vikki. I know everything.”

“You know everything,” she said without inflection, stepping away from him and shaking her head. “No. You know nothing.”

“I’ve been wondering why in two years you haven’t called your friend. Why you’re poring over maps. Why you’re shielding me from officers of law. Why you’re practicing with my weapon.” Alexander spoke low and pained. “Now I know.”

Abruptly she turned away, and he grabbed her and spun her back to him. “Two years ago—two years!—we could’ve stopped in DC on the way to Florida. What are you proposing we do now?”

“Nothing,” Tatiana said, pulling away from his hands. “We do nothing now. That’s what we do.”

“You do see how from their point of view it looks as if we’ve been on the run?”

“I don’t care how it looks.”

“We’re not fugitives. We have nothing to hide.”

“No?”

“No! One conversation with the generals at Defense and the diplomats at State would’ve put this whole thing behind us.”

“Oh, Alexander,” said Tatiana with a shake of her head, “you once saw through so much. Since when did you become so naïve?”

“I’m not naïve! I know what’s going on, but since when did you become so cynical?”

“They already talked to you in Berlin. Why do you think they want to talk to you again?”

“It’s procedure!” he yelled.

“It’s not procedure!” she yelled back. Their voices carried down the black canals, echoing down the water tunnels. She lowered her voice. “Don’t you understand anything? Interpol is looking for you, too.”

“You know this how?”

“Because Sam told me, that’s how.”

Alexander fell back in his chair. “You talked to Sam?” he said aghast. “You knew this, and you didn’t tell me?”

“I didn’t tell you a lot of things.”

“Obviously. When did you talk to him?”

She wouldn’t say.

“When?” He raised his voice. “Tania! When? Hard way or easy way, you’re going to tell me. You might as well tell it to me easy.”

“Eight months ago,” she whispered.

“Eight months ago!” he yelled.

“Oh, why did you have to call Esther? Why?” Tatiana threw her arms down in defeat.

“Is this why we left Napa? Oh my God.” He glared at her with sharp reproach. “All this time, moving from place to place, wringing your hands, falling silent on me, asking me about desertion to the Urals. What games you played, knowing this.” Alexander was so disappointed, he was forced to look away from her. How could the Tatiana he thought he knew keep secrets from him so well? And what was so wrong with him that he never prodded, never pursued, never pushed, even though he sensed and suspected that something was wrong? Alexander couldn’t look at her.

Tatiana continued to stand in front of him and not speak.

“We’re leaving tomorrow morning,” he said finally. “We’re leaving and going to Washington.”

“No!”

“No?”

“That’s right, no. Absolutely under no circumstances. We stay put. We go nowhere. Unless it’s to the woods in Oregon.”

“I’m not going to the woods in Oregon,” said Alexander. “I’m not hiding out in the Urals. Or Bethel Island.”

Tatiana bent to him, raising her voice, carrying it far. “We’re not going, and that’s it,” she said. “We’re not going anywhere.”