11
They walked back home down the forest road, carrying their purchases on their backs. Alexander carried nearly everything. Tatiana carried the two pillows.
“We should go to Naira Mikhailovna’s,” she remarked. “They must be out of their minds with worry.”
“There you go, thinking about other people,” he said in a slightly irritated tone. “People other than me. You want to go back to that house on our wedding day? On our wedding night?”
Alexander was right. Why did she always do that? What was she thinking? She didn’t like making people feel bad, that was all. She told him that.
“I know. But it’s all right. You can’t make everyone feel good. I tell you what. Start with me. Feed me. Nurture me. Love me. Then we’ll move on to Naira Mikhailovna.” She walked slowly alongside him. “Tatiasha, we’ll go and see them tomorrow if you want. All right?” said Alexander, sighing.
They arrived at their cabin in the clearing by six in the evening. There was a note on the door from Naira Mikhailovna that said, Tania, where are you? We’re worried sick. N. M.
Alexander tore the note off the door.
“Aren’t we going in?” she asked.
“Yes, but . . .” He smiled. “Just a minute. I have to do something, and then we’ll go in.”
“What?”
“Wait a minute, and you’ll see.”
Alexander took the housewares, the pillows, and the heavy quilts and disappeared inside. While Tatiana waited for him, she made them sandwiches out of bread, butter, tushonka and cheese. He was still inside.
Tatiana began to glide around the clearing in small circles, dancing to a tune in her head. “Someday we’ll meet in Lvov, my love and I.” She saw her dress twirl up, and, smiling, she spun faster and faster with extravagant delight, watching the roses float into the air under her hands. When she looked up, Alexander was standing by the door of the cabin, his enraptured eyes all over her.
She smiled. “Look,” she said, pointing. “I made you a sandwich. Are you hungry?”
Alexander shook his head, walking to her. She ran to him and, throwing her arms around his neck, whispered, “I can’t believe we’re married, Shura.”
Lifting her into his arms, he carried her to the door. “Tania, in America we have a custom. The new husband carries his new wife over the threshold of their new home.”
She kissed his cheek. He was more beautiful than the morning sun.
Alexander carried her into the house and kicked the door closed behind them. Inside was shadowy like a dream. They needed a kerosene lamp. Forgot to buy one. Tomorrow they’d have to get one in Lazarevo.
“Now what?” she said, rubbing her cheek against his. “I see you’ve made the bed. Very thoughtful.” His stubble was already growing in from this morning.
“I do what I can.” He carried her to the bed he had made for them above the stove, stepped onto the hearth, and set her down, opening her legs and standing between them, nuzzling his head in her chest. He lifted her dress.
All Tatiana wanted to do was watch him, but desire kept gluing her eyes shut. “Aren’t you going to come up here?” she asked.
“Not yet,” he said. “Lie back. Like this.” Pulling off her panties, Alexander brought her hips to his face.
For a moment all Tatiana heard was his rapid breathing. Reaching down, she touched his head. “Shura?” His eyes on her, his hands on her, his breath on her were weakening her.
His fingers stroked her. “All this underneath your white dress with red roses . . .” Alexander whispered. “Look at you . . .” He kissed her softly. “Tania, you are such a lovely girl.” She felt his warm, wet lips on her. His hair and stubble rubbed against the insides of her thighs. It was too much. The burn and the melt were near-instant.
She was still quaking with aftershocks when Alexander climbed onto the bed, placing his soothing hand on her trembling lower stomach.
“Dear God, Alexander,” she said breathlessly. “What are you doing to me?”
“You’re unbelievable.”
“I am?” Tatiana murmured, nudging him downward. “Please? . . . Again?” She glanced at him and closed her eyes when she saw his grin. “What?” She smiled herself. “Unlike you, I don’t need a rest period.”
Her hands clasped his head.
“Tatia . . . you’re very blonde . . . have I mentioned how much I love that?”
She moaned in a whisper; his mouth, his tongue felt so tenderly, exceedingly arousing. “Oh, Shura . . .”
“Yes?”
Tatiana couldn’t ask for a moment, unable to stop her soft exultation. “What did you think the first time you saw me in this dress?”
“What did I think?”
She moaned.
“I thought — Can you hear me?”
“Oh, yes . . .”
“I thought—”
“Oh, Shura . . .”
“If there is a God, I thought . . . Please someday let me make love to this girl while she wears that dress.”
“Oh . . .”
“Tatiasha . . . isn’t it nice to know there is a God?”
“Oh, yes, Shura, yes . . .”
“Alexander,” she panted, lying on her side, her eyes half closed, her mouth dry, unable to get a decent breath out of her lungs, “I need you this minute to tell me that you have shown me everything there is. Because I’m just about done for.”
Alexander smiled. “Can I surprise you?”
“No! Tell me there’s nothing more.” She saw the look in his eyes.
Flipping her onto her back, Alexander descended on top of her. “Nothing more?” Hungrily kissing her, he parted her legs. “I haven’t even begun, do you understand?” he whispered. “I have been going easy on you.”
“You’ve been going easy on me?” she repeated in disbelief, crying out as he entered her, clutching at him, moaning under his weight, her molten insides starting to burn again.
“Is it too much? You’re clutching me as if . . .”
“Yes, it’s too much . . .”
“Tania . . .” Alexander’s mouth was on her shoulders, on her neck, on her lips. “It’s our wedding night. Watch out for me . . . there will be nothing left of you. Only the dress will remain.”
“Promise, Shura?” she whispered.
Kneading her hand, touching her ring, Alexander said, “In America, when two people get married, they say their vows. Do you know what those are?”
Tatiana was hardly listening. She had been thinking of America. She wanted to ask Alexander if there were villages in America, villages with cabins on the banks of rivers. In America where there was no war, and no hunger, and no Dimitri.
“Are you listening? The priest says, ‘Do you, Alexander, take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?’ ”
“Lawfully bedded?”
He laughed. “That too. No, lawfully wedded. And then we say our vows. Do you want me to tell you what they are?”
“What what are?” Tatiana brought his fingers to her lips.
“You have to repeat after me.”
“Repeat after me.”
“I, Tatiana Metanova, take this man to be my husband—”
“I, Tatiana Metanova, take this great man to be my husband.” Kissing his thumb and forefinger and middle finger. He had wonderful fingers.
“To live together in the covenant of marriage—”
“To live together in the covenant of marriage.” Kissing his ring finger.
“I will love him, comfort him, honor and keep him—”
“I will love him, comfort him, honor and keep him.” Kissing the ring on his ring finger. Kissing his little finger.
“And obey him.”
Tatiana smiled, rolling her eyes. “And obey him.”
“And, forsaking all others, be faithful to him until death do us part—”
Kissing the palm of his hand. Wiping tears from her face with the palm of his hand. “And, forsaking all others, be faithful to him until death do us part.”
“I, Alexander Barrington, take this woman to be my wife.”
“Don’t, Shura.” Sitting on top of him, rubbing her breasts into his chest.
“To live together in the covenant of marriage—”
Kissing the middle of his chest.
“I will love her” — his voice cracked—” love her, comfort her, honor, and keep her—”
Pressing her cheek to his chest and listening for the iambic rhyme of his heart.
“And, forsaking all others, be faithful to her until—”
“Don’t, Shura.” His chest wet from her tears. “Please.”
His hands above his head. “There are things worse than death.”
Her heart full, overwhelmed. Remembering her mother’s body tilted over her sewing. Remembering Marina’s last words, to the end saying, I don’t want to die . . . and not feel just once what you feel. Remembering a laughing Dasha braiding her young hair already a lifetime ago. “Oh, yes? Like what?”
He didn’t reply.
She understood anyway. “I’d rather have a bad life in the Soviet Union than a good death. Wouldn’t you?”
“If it was a life with you, then yes.”
Nodding into his chest, Tatiana said, “Besides, I haven’t seen a good death.”
“You’ve seen it. What did Dasha say to you before she died?”
Pressing herself into him. Wanting to be inside him, wanting to touch his magnanimous heart. “She said I was a good sister.”
Alexander’s hands holding her head gently to him. “You were a very good sister. She left you well.” Pausing. “She died a good death.”
Kissing the skin over his heart. “What will you say to me, Alexander Barrington, when you leave me alone in the world?” Tatiana whispered. “What will you say so I know, so I can hear it?”
Alexander lay her down on the bed, leaning over her. “Tania,” he whispered, “there is no death here in Lazarevo. No death, no war, no Communism. There is only you and only me, and only life.” He smiled. “Married life. Let’s go and live it.” He jumped off the bed. “Come outside with me.”
“All right,” she said.
“Put on your dress.” He threw on his army trousers. “Just your dress.”
She smiled and hopped down. “Where are we going?”
“We’re going dancing.”
“Dancing?”
“Yes. Every wedding day has to have dancing.”
He took her out into the chilly clearing. Tatiana heard the rushing river, the crackling of pine, smelled pinecones. “Look at that moon, Tatia . . .” said Alexander, pointing into the distant valley between the Ural Mountains.
“I’m looking,” she said, her eyes on him. “But we have no music.” She stood smiling in front of him, her hands in his hands.
Alexander pulled her to him. “Under a wedding moonrise, a dance with my wife in her wedding dress . . .”
They waltzed in the clearing under a haloed rising round crimson moon.
He sang:
Oh, how we danced
On the night we were wed . . .
We found our true love
Though a word wasn’t said . . .
He sang in English. Tatiana understood most of it. “Shura, darling,” she said, “you have such a good voice. I know that song. In Russian we call it ‘The Danube Waltz.’ ”
“I like it better in English,” said Alexander.
“Me, too,” she said, pressed against his naked chest, looking up at him. “You have to teach me how to sing it, so I can sing it to you.”
Taking her hand, he whispered, “Come, Tatiasha.”
They did not sleep that night. Their sandwiches lay untouched on the ground by the trees where she had sat and made them.
Alexander.
Alexander.
Alexander.
Her dacha years, her boat, her Lake Ilmen, on which she once was queen, fell forever away into the cleft of vanished childhood as Tatiana in tremulous awe surrendered herself to Alexander, who, by turns voracious and tender, lavished her starving flesh with miracles she had not dreamed of . . . as if pervaded with his deathless leaven . . . All earthly stuff — emotions, anguish, passion — had been transmuted to the stuff of heaven.