20
Late at night Tania and Shura were playing strip poker. Tania, Tania, Tania. Death-defying, life-affirming, star-making, indomitable, ridiculously beautiful Tania hated to lose at anything. And she was splendidly losing at poker. Alexander needed to focus on the cards and not her.
Having just lost her shirt, his moaning wife was sitting halfway up, leaning back on her arms while Alexander was kneeling forward, lingeringly sucking her nipples. They were outside in the clearing in front of the fire below the waxing gibbous moon. “Take me inside,” she whispered.
“Not until you lose one more hand.” But he couldn’t back away from her. “Look at me, Tania. I’m in a gaseous state when I’m with you . . .”
“Not all of you is in a gaseous state,” she said, grabbing hold of him and falling back onto the blanket. “And I’m not losing one more hand for anything.”
Things weren’t going well for Tatiana in their poker game but very well for Alexander. She had only her underwear left. “My underwear and my wedding ring,” she pointed out. “I think I can win in two tries.”
“You take that wedding ring off, and you can keep it off for good,” Alexander told her as he dealt the cards.
He watched her as she examined her hand; Alexander could barely pay attention to his own. By the fire, Tatiana’s poetic face was focused on the cards she kept in front of her chest to cover herself from his prying eyes. Alexander wanted her to put down the cards. He took a breath. He would get to her soon enough.
In English, she said, “How do you say . . . hit me.” She smiled. “Twice.”
She concentrated diligently. Suddenly her face cleared. Eyes flickering, she turned her gaze to him and said, back to Russian, “All right, I’ll raise you two kopecks.”
Trying to be serious, Alexander said, “I’ll see your two. Come on, Tatia.” He smiled. “Show me what you’ve got.”
“Aha!” She threw down a full house, beaming at him.
“Aha nothing,” Alexander said, putting down his cards. He had four kings.
“What?” She frowned.
“I win. Four kings.” He pointed to her underwear. “Go on — off.”
“What do you mean?”
“Four of a kind beats full house.”
“Oh, you’re such a liar,” she fumed, throwing her cards at him and covering her breasts with her hands.
He pulled her hands away. “This isn’t Luga, I’ve seen them.” He grinned. “I’ve—”
She covered herself again. “I finally understand how you win all the time. You cheat.”
Alexander could not stop laughing. He couldn’t shuffle anymore. “How many times do I have to explain it, Comrade I-remember-everything-you-ever-tell-me? Huh?” He reached over and pulled at her panties. “Rules are rules. Off.”
Tatiana scooted away from him on the blanket. “Yes, cheating rules,” she declared defiantly. “Let’s play again.”
“We’ll play again, but you’ll be playing buck naked. Because you lost this game.”
“Shura! Just the other day you told Naira Mikhailovna that your full house beat her four of a kind. You are just the biggest cheater. I’m not going to play with you if you cheat.”
“Tania, the other day Naira Mikhailovna had three of a kind, not four of a kind, and I had a straight, and a straight does beat three of a kind.” Alexander stared at her, grinning broadly. “I don’t need to cheat to beat you in poker. Dominoes, yes. But not poker.”
“If you don’t need to cheat, then why do you?” Tatiana demanded.
“That’s it,” Alexander said, putting down the cards. “Your panties are coming off, Tania, one way or another. I won fair and square.”
“Cheated fair and square,” she said.
Alexander was wearing his army trousers. He was naked to the waist. Tatiana’s hands were still up at her breasts, but her lips were moist and slightly parted, and her eyes were roaming over his exposed body. “Tania,” he said, staring at her intently, “do you want me to enforce the rules?”
“Yes,” she said, jumping up. “I want to see you try.”
Alexander liked her fighting spirit. He was only seconds behind her when he jumped up off the blanket, but Tania was going to stop at nothing to get away. By the time he was up and running, she was already in the Kama.
Alexander stopped at the waterline. “You’re out of your mind!” he yelled to her.
“Yes, and you cheat at poker just to get me to take my clothes off!” she yelled back from the river.
Crossing his arms on his chest, Alexander said, “Do I really need to cheat at poker to get you to take your clothes off? I can’t keep them on you.”
“Oh, you . . .” he heard from the river.
He laughed. “Come out.” But he couldn’t see her. She was a dark space in the river. “Come on, come out.”
“Come in and get me if you’re so clever.”
“I’m clever but not crazy. I’m not going into the river at night. Come.”
He heard her cluck like a chicken.
“Fine,” Alexander said and turning around walked away from the shoreline. He went back to the fire, collected their cards, his cigarettes, their teacups. He brought everything, including the blanket, into the house and then came back out. The clearing was quiet. The river was quiet, too. It was cooler at night now.
“Tania!” Alexander called.
Nothing.
“Tania!” he called, louder.
Nothing.
Alexander walked quickly to the river. He could see nothing, not even a dark space. The moon was pale; the stars did not reflect in the water.
“Tatiana!” he shouted loudly.
Silence.
Suddenly Alexander remembered the swift midriver current of the Kama, the rocks they sometimes stumbled on, the drifts of wood that floated by. Panic like adrenaline shot through him.
“Tania!” he yelled. “This is not funny at all!” He listened for a splash, a breath, a stirring.
Nothing.
He ran into the water in his trousers. “You won’t want to get near me if this is another one of your jokes!”
Nothing.
Alexander swam against the current, yelling for her. “Tania!”
He turned his gaze back to the shore.
And there she was—
Standing, already dry, wearing a long shirt, wiping her hair, watching him. He couldn’t see her expression because the fire was behind her, but when she spoke, he could tell she was wearing a big smug smile on her face. “I thought you didn’t want to go into the Kama with your trousers on, you big cheater?”
He was speechless. Relieved but speechless.
Running out of the water, Alexander came at her so quickly that she backed away and stumbled to the ground, looking up at him, the smile on her face evaporating.
He stood over her for a few moments, breathing hard and shaking his head. “Tatiana, you are impossible.” He gave her his hand to pull her up but didn’t look at her again as he let go and, dripping wet, walked to the cabin.
He heard her say behind him, “It was just a joke . . .”
“Not f*cking funny!”
“Someone doesn’t know how to take a little joke,” she muttered.
“What do you think would be so funny to me about you drowning?” he shouted, whirling around to face her. “What part of that do you think I would find particularly funny?” Alexander grabbed her, let go, and went inside. He heard her behind him, and then she was in front of him. Longingly looking up at him, she whispered, “Shura . . .” She took his hand and placed it under her shirt. She had taken off her underwear. Alexander held his breath. She was impossible. His hand remained between her thighs.
“You were supposed to come into the water and rescue me,” Tatiana said contritely, feeling for him, unbuttoning his trousers. “You forgot the part where the knight rescues the frail maiden.”
His fingers caressed her. “Frail?” Alexander said, bringing her closer. “You must be thinking of someone else. And you forget that your sole job as a maiden is to make love to, not terrorize the knight.”
“I didn’t mean to terrorize the knight,” she murmured as Alexander picked her up and laid her atop their bed. She opened her arms to him.
In the flickering light of the kerosene lamp, Alexander gazed at his Tatiana lying naked, flat on her back, quivering for him, open for him, moaning for him. They had been making love for a long while, and he knew she nearly had no more, having burned and burned through the wave. Tania, was all he could think. Tania. He placed his hand on her toes and ran it up her legs, between her open thighs, gently, so she wouldn’t jump out of her skin, up her stomach to her chest, spanning her from one side to the other, pressing his palm into her breasts, and then slowly moving his hand up to encircle her throat.
“What, Alexander? What, darling?” she whispered.
Alexander made no reply. His hand remained on her throat.
“I’m here, soldier,” said Tatiana, placing her own hand on top of his. “Feel me.”
“I’m feeling, Tania,” Alexander whispered, bending over her. “I’m feeling.”
“Please come to me,” she moaned. “Please . . . come, take me like you want . . . take me like I love . . . go ahead . . . but like I love, Shura . . .”
He took her like she loved, and afterward, when they were warm under the covers, spent, murmuring, clasped and saturated in each other, ready to go to sleep, Alexander opened his mouth to speak, and Tatiana said, “Shura, I know it all. I understand it all. I feel it all. Say nothing.”
They were enveloped in a fierce embrace, their naked bodies not just pressed hard against each other but in a trance, attempting a Bessemer smelt, in which they would be alloyed and conjoined by heat and perhaps in their cooling, grieving bliss eventually be tempered.
Alexander didn’t feel tempered. He felt as if he were being daily blown out of sand into a still-warm glass.
