Tatiana and Alexander. Paullina Simons
often were, and so fewer and fewer people risked making a life-changing, life-threatening journey only to be turned back at the port of call. But still, 748 people smuggled themselves in between crates of tomatoes in the year before the war, without papers, without money.
They were not turned away.
Just as talk was beginning to swell about closing down the largely unneeded Ellis Island, World War II broke out, and suddenly in 1939, 1940, 1941, Ellis became useful as a hospital for refugees and stowaways. Once America entered the war, it would bring the wounded and captured Germans and Italians from the Atlantic and detain them at Ellis.
That’s when Tatiana arrived.
And she felt needed. No one wanted to work at Ellis, not even Vikki, who instinctively felt that her natural and prodigious flirting skills were utterly wasted on the foreign wounded men who would be going back to their home country or to work on U.S. farms as field-hands. Vikki grudgingly pulled her duty at Ellis but she much preferred the NYU hospital, where the wounded, if they did not die first, had a hope of pleasing Vikki—the medium-term gal—in the medium-term.
Quietly the German wounded continued to be brought to Ellis Island, and continued to convalesce. The Italian men, too, who talked even as they were dying, talked in a language Tatiana did not understand; yet they spoke with a cadence, with a fervor and a fury that she did understand. They had hearty laughs and throaty cries and clutching fingers with which they would grab onto her as they were carried off the boats, as they stared into her face and muttered hopes for life, chances for survival, words of thanks. And sometimes before they died, if holding her hands wasn’t enough, and if they had nothing contagious or infectious, she brought them her boy and placed him on their chests, so that their war-beaten hands could go around his small sleeping form and they would be comforted, and their hearts would beat at peace.
She wished she could have brought Alexander his sleeping son.
Something about Ellis Island’s contained, confined nature soothed her. She could stay in her whitewashed, clean-linen room with Anthony, and she could eat three meals at the cafeteria, saving her meat rations and her butter rations. She could nurse her son, pleased by the heft of him, by the size of him, by the health and shine of him.
Edward and Vikki, one late summer afternoon, sat her down in the cafeteria, put a cup of coffee in front of her and tried to convince her to move to New York. They told her New York was booming during war, there were night clubs, there were parties, there were clothes and shoes to buy and perhaps she could rent a small apartment with a kitchen and perhaps she could have her own room, and Anthony could have another, and perhaps perhaps perhaps.
Thousands of miles away there was war. Thousands of miles away there was the River Kama, the Ural Mountains which had watched it all, seen it all, known it all. And the galaxies. They knew. They bent their midnight rays to shine through Tatiana’s window at Ellis Island, and they whispered to her, keep going. Let us weep. You live.
The echoes spoke to Tatiana, the corridors felt familiar, the white sheets, the salty smell, the back of the robes of Lady Liberty, the night air, the twinkling lights across the bay of a city of dreams. Tatiana already lived on an island of dreams, and what she needed, New York could not give her.
The fire has gone out. The clearing is dark, but on the cold blanket they remain. Alexander sits with his legs open and Tania sits between them, her back to his chest. His arms swaddle her. They are both looking up at the sky. They are mute.
“Tania,” Alexander whispers, kissing her head, “do you see the stars?”
“Of course.”
“You want to make love right here? We’ll throw the blanket off and make love and let them see us—so they will never forget.”
“Shura …” Her voice is soft and sad. “They’ve seen us. They know. Look, can you see that constellation up to the right? You see how the cluster stars at the bottom form a smile? They’re smiling at us.” She pauses. “I’ve seen them many times, looking beyond your head.”
“Yes,” Alexander says, wrapping his arms and the blanket tighter around her. “I think that constellation is in the galaxy of Perseus, the Greek hero—”
“I know who Perseus is.” She nods. “When I was a little girl, I lived inside the Greek myths.” She presses against him. “I like that Perseus is smiling at us while you make love to me.”
“Did you know that the stars in Perseus that are yellow might be close to imploding, but the stars that are blue, the biggest, the brightest—”
“And they are called novas.”
“Yes, they shine, gain in brilliance, explode, then fade. Look how many blue stars there are around the smile, Tatia.”
“I see.”
“Do you hear the stellar winds?”
“I hear rustling.”
“Do you hear the stellar winds, carrying from the heavens a whisper, straight from antiquity … into eternity …”
“What are they whispering?”
“Tatiana … Tatiana … Ta … tiana …”
“Please stop.”
“Will you remember that? Anywhere you are, if you can look up and find Perseus in the sky, find that smile, and hear the galactic wind whisper your name, you’ll know it’s me, calling for you … calling you back to Lazarevo.”
Tatiana wipes her face on Alexander’s arm and says, “You won’t have to call me back, soldier. I’m not ever leaving here.”
Baseball in Central Park, 1943
JULY HAD GONE BY, and August, too, and September. Seven months since she left the Soviet Union. Tatiana stayed at Ellis, not venturing once across the harbor, until finally Edward and Vikki had had enough of her, and they took her and Anthony—nearly by force—in the ferry one Saturday afternoon to see New York. Against Tatiana’s objections (“Vikki, I don’t have carriage to put Anthony.”) Vikki bought a carriage for four dollars at a second-hand shop. “It’s not for you. It’s for the baby. You can’t refuse a present for your baby.”
Tatiana didn’t refuse. She often wished her boy could have a few more clothes, a few more toys. A carriage perhaps for the walks around Ellis. In the same shop Tatiana bought Anthony two rattles and a teddy bear, though he preferred the paper bags they came in.
“Edward, what’s your wife going to say when she finds out you’re out with not one but two of your nurses, gallivanting around gay New York?” asked Vikki with a grin.
“She will scratch out the eyes of the wench who told her.”
“My mouth is shut. What about you, Tania?”
“I’m not speak English,” said Tatiana, and they laughed.
“I can’t believe this girl has never once been to New York. Tania, how do you keep from going to the Immigration Department? Don’t you need to speak to them every few weeks so they can see how you’re doing?”
Looking at Edward gratefully, Tatiana said, “Justice Department come to me.”
“But three months! Didn’t you want to go to New York and see for yourself what all the fuss is about?”
“I busy working.”
“Busy nursing,” punned Vikki, and laughed at herself. “He is a nice boy. He is not going to fit into the carriage