Regina Saxony

Ilya didn’t sleep during the retreat, he only sat on the edge of the bed and drank, his bloodshot eyes almost radiating into the pale wood floors. They’re unfinished, barely sanded. He finally lies down at the ripe hour of seven in the morning.

Grain sticks to Regina’s bare feet as she skits around the floors in the morning, sighing as she looks at her beloved tossing and turning atop of the thick covers, hair strewn with sweat and mouth reeking of alcohol. She swore that if she lit a match and placed it near his mouth the entire Dacha would catch ablaze and cease to be ashes upon ashes. “I’m going to church,” Regina announces, her bonnet fastened and flowers placed in her hair accordingly, knowing he isn’t asleep by the contortions dancing across his cheekbones

“Why?”

“You’re the one that insisted we go to church back in St. Petersburg, remember?” Regina fiddles with the satiny bow keeping the ornate headgear attached.

Ilya knits his eyebrows together in a drunken haze, “Well, that was before all of this…”

“Well, I’m going,” She insists, smoothing down his hair in a motherly way.

He holds her hand to the sweaty, clammy face. His nose heightens with the notes of rich lavenders and wildflowers. It’s a strong, subtle attack, but most importantly, it is foreign to what he associates with Regina. “Stay with me.”

“No.”

“Please?”

“No.”

She gathers her clutch, peering out over the banister to the window gazing over the lake, reeds swaying to their own accord, the white sand seemingly melting into the dark, ominous water through shades of value created by the water washing and departing… Washing and departing.

“Regina, I really need you,” Ilya takes the palm of his hand and wicks the salty liquid away from his face in haste. His chest is heaving up and down in a rapid succession of breathing. The stare is what gave him away, that stare that gazed upon a thousand miles and refused to break focus. It fixated on the past, the reliving of the days on the battleship, that moment the bullet tore through precious flesh and ligament, those screams and the fire and everything a war entails. The brutality of this war waged against them took the innocent from his clutches.

Regina sits next to him on the bed, tracing the outline of the cylindrical scar. “If they let the women of the wounded fight the war, Germany would cease to exist,” Regina says with the fervent that is absolutely believable.

The June sun beats through the windows like a fountain of milk and honey, promising prosperity that’s all just a thin veil of lies, a fabrication of the grandest thread count. “Our lives are falling apart,” Ilya sniffles.

“I am one with you, Ilya, I’m willing to give it up,” she ducks her head, a flower escaping from under the exquisite bonnet.

“I’m not willing to ask you to,” Ilya massages his temples, reaching for the bottle as Regina stops him with her doting hand smacking his knuckles.

Regina holds that hand, her Ilya’s hand, with all of the scars and indentations, the callouses he’d earned working on their family’s farm, the hangnails that he earned nervously biting his nails at night. Of all the war Ilya had fought, the war with himself was the only one that wasn’t resolved.

“They’re going to kill you, Regina,” Ilya iterates.

“Or they’ll send me to Siberia. I heard it was so great, Stalin went twice,” Regina jokes, smiling half-heartedly.

Ilya doesn’t take the dry humor, he only clutches her hand as Regina stares at those birch trees outside of the window panes. The heat seeping into the dacha is nearly unbearable as they commune together in close vicinity. A request dangle on her tongue, turning the taste of her dry mouth bloody, a salinity that is unquenchable. She couldn’t be the politician’s wife. The one thing Ilya needed her to be, she couldn’t be convincing enough, she wasn’t a charming, small-talking housewife that simply made her husband dinner and looked pretty and smiled. Regina lets a tear fall as she recognizes her failure.

“I’ll go with you.”

“No, Ilya…” Regina begins to sob.

“I love it here too, Regina. This is our home.” He brings her closer to his chest as the world snaps into two between the overwhelming power of those overthrowing power. “But, I’ll start all over for you. I’ll do it.”

“I’m not willing to ask.”