Tatiana wished they could have days when they would never leave their tiny room. Because usually Alexander left early in the morning and didn’t come back until he was worn-out and filthy after pulling up lobster traps for twelve hours.
But some evenings he read the paper to her and they went to sit on the bench by the bay to watch the sea gulls squabble for their own dinner. There were nights he was ravenous and days he was thirsty, and there were some nights when he lay turned away and could not bring himself to turn to her, when she kissed his bare back and wiped her own salty tears off his shoulders and whispered to his disconsolate soul, trying to soothe him, to soothe herself and failing that, lay behind him and cried.
“It’s all a dream,” he would whisper on those black nights. “It will all be gone, in a breath. Watch and see. All this, all this want and hope, washed into the Atlantic. Just watch.”
“I can’t tell, Alexander, are we happy?” she asked, her crying breath melting into his back. “Is this what we are? Delirious from joy?”
“Yes, this is the slow falling away into the land of enchantment.”
She fell into silence.
“Ya lyublyu tebya, Tania.”
“Jägälskar dig, Shura.”
Tatiana didn’t cook much worth remembering in Deer Isle, except for lobsters, and breakfast for him. He was so distressingly underweight, so gaunt in his face and body that she tried to make him a breakfast before he went out on the boat, a breakfast big enough and filling enough to tide him over till lunch. She got up at four in the morning to make him toasted muffins with bacon or ham, fried egg and melted cheese, and something she called a soldier’s breakfast, which Alexander seemed to actually like because he sometimes asked for it, even when it wasn’t breakfast.
4 large, all-purpose potatoes, about 1lb (450g)
½ cup (120ml) canola oil
2 tablespoons butter
4 eggs
1 long, thick stick of Italian bread
butter
salt and pepper, to taste
Peel the potatoes and dice them into small cubes. In a heavy-bottom pan heat ½ cup (120ml) canola oil and 2 tablespoons butter. When oil is very hot, add the potatoes, and cook on medium-high, stirring often, uncovered, for 15 minutes, until brown and crispy. Salt and pepper generously. When the potatoes are done, break four eggs over the top, salt them slightly, and cover to cook quickly, about 2 minutes.
Meanwhile, scoop out the inside of the crusty bread and toast lightly. Spoon the potato/egg mixture into the bread cavity. Eat. Breakfast of soldiers. Tatiana’s soldier, back from the dead, went on the lobster boat in his tall rubber boots and his orange coveralls and didn’t need anything else till the sun was at full noon.