The Four Winds of Heaven Page 10

  He was of steady temperament, perhaps because he had never been hurt physically or emotionally, for even Johanna liked the boy. He was, after all, a boy, and therefore less of a threat than the girls. And also he was not, as was his older brother, Mathilde’s secret favorite. He was not even David’s favorite, which would have irritated the governess, for the Baron held each of his daughters in special regard for vastly different reasons. His brother and sisters all loved him, and he was not passive, as Ossip was in his calculated manner. No, he simply had no passions, no points of view as yet.

  The two middle children, Ossip and Sonia, were thrown together a great deal of the time and developed an unusual closeness. They were thirteen and ten. They looked alike, for Sonia’s figure had not yet begun to bud. Ossip was still very fragile, and beneath his specially tailored clothing bore a very small hump on his back from the vertebrae weakened by Pott’s disease.

  They were Mathilde’s preferred children, but to Johanna, Sonia was still a child, too young to be thought of as a companion to her mother. True, she was frequently present during Mathilde’s teas, but she sat modestly and passed around trays of petits fours. She was too young to be permitted to speak out of turn, and the governess had seen that her dress was simple, so that the ladies would not be drawn to her as they were to that bright bird of a cousin, Tatiana. In fact, Sonia, in awe of her splendid governess, regarded herself as plain, and had never been contradicted in this by the Dutchwoman. She knew that she learned well enough, that if she applied herself to the piano she could rise in rapture, though Johanna had frequently told her that she possessed only mediocre talent. She took ballet lessons at Aunt Rosa’s house, where an instructress from the Imperial Ballet taught several girls three times a week, and she was well aware of her own agility. But her Aunt Rosa never praised her as much as she did Tania. One afternoon, a friend of her Mama had passed her hand over Sonia’s sleek black hair and said, “You are a very pretty child.” And Sonia had replied, “Oh, no! You have not seen my cousin!” Mathilde had set her glass down and calmly stated, “It is silly to compare people. You are fresh and gay, and that is most important in a person, Sonitchka.” For she had not wished to make her favorite daughter vainglorious.

  As for Ossip, mature beyond his years, he knew quite well how not to irk Johanna. Frequently, he and his mother would exchange looks that bespoke their kindred spirits, but almost by common accord they did this only when Johanna de Mey was otherwise occupied. When David became carried away by his Jewish causes, the governess would look upon the bland, expressionless face of the young boy, and would think: Indeed, I have an ally. She had guessed Ossip’s feelings in that area, and so she did not hate him.

  Each morning, now, David’s two middle children helped him receive his many petitioners. For Sonia, this was a tremendous honor, a means of sharing a precious cause with her beloved Papa. But for Ossip, it was a duty to be executed with perfection, as all duties were. The men and women who came to beg for favors were of all kinds—wealthy businessmen with suede portfolios, and whining old men in rags reeking of pickle brine. Invariably, Alexei, David’s librarian, would introduce each one into the Baron’s study, to be greeted with a handshake and an offer to be seated. Ossip would draw the chair up, Sonia would remove shawls and excess baggage. The interview would begin.

  Sometimes people came with grave problems that the Baron would then bring up with the proper minister or magistrate. There were questions involving stoppage of pogroms if news arrived ahead of time; removal from prison of an innocent Jew; permission to be granted for residence in the capital on behalf of someone who did not possess the proper credentials; or the assignment of an impartial lawyer to a Jew accused of a crime.

  Other times the situation could not be brought to light, and was very serious. Widows of artisans, who had been members of the Second Guild and been allowed to dwell in St. Petersburg only because of their spouses’ work, were, once husbandless, expected by law to remove themselves and their children to the Pale of Settlement, the only area where most Russian Jews were allowed to live. Many of these women had been daughters of artisans of St. Petersburg before they had become wives, and now were told to leave the only city they had ever known. David’s most fervent wish was to obtain the abolishment of this law. But in the meantime, since the widows were expected to leave within twenty-four hours of their husbands’ death, affairs had to be put in order for these bereaved people, and while this went on, shelter had to be granted them. Sonia and Ossip knew of the secret apartment at the back of the house where their father hid the widows and orphans, and although the police were well bribed, the risks were enormous each time. Sonia found these proceedings noble and adventuresome, but Ossip, a cynic, felt that no anti-Semitic government would ever change, that his father was tilting at windmills like Don Quixote.

  The boy admired his father, who was accepted into the inner chambers of noted diplomats because, so modest, he never came to plead for himself. But he had come to despise the man for not expending his vast and unique gifts in more selfish directions. Ossip was not a hardhearted egocentric like his Uncle Sasha, who only associated with those who could benefit him, but he did not believe in hopeless causes. Ossip believed that the Tzar and his entourage were possessed of an incurable disease, and that his father’s hopes for an antidote or cure were vain and somewhat naive. The poor Jews whom Ossip helped tugged at his heartstrings, but also filled him with a sense of frustration and disgust. “Poor fools,” he would murmur to himself, “their lot will never improve: they are such perfect scapegoats for the world!” And so he performed his duties with compassion, but also with lack of conviction, for he still believed that there was but a single solution to Jewish persecution. One quick conversion would eliminate all need for his work, and for that of his father and grandfather. Why didn’t others, particularly David, see this point as clearly as he, a mere lad of thirteen?

  He knew better than to share his feelings with Sonia. To her, the moments with the petitioners were a high point of the day. She fervently accepted their father’s mission. And when Anna would tell her, “Your poor Jews will have all their problems solved once the government takes the entire peasant population into account, for theirs is part of a greater problem,” little Sonia would deny it.

  “I cannot hurt for those I do not see,” she would counter. “At Mohilna, everyone seems happy. In Papa’s study, I can see for myself many injustices. I can see the poor Jews, but I cannot see your beloved peasants.”

  “And so, after all, you are turning into a sweet-faced bourgeoise, like Mary Antoinette,” Anna would say with bitterness.

  Now and then a note of laughter would creep among the stern works of the Baron’s study. One morning, a woman in shawls and a calico kerchief entered the room, and as she kissed David’s hand, she wailed: “Dear messenger of God, you must help my son! We in our village know how you have financed so many young musicians, who started their careers at the Conservatory. That is where my son needs to go, and I have no money to send him there.”

  “Well then, what instruments does the boy play?” David asked easily.

  Sonia, who loved her own music, listened eagerly, but the woman merely looked dumbstruck. “Instruments? He plays none. We cannot afford any.”

  David smiled indulgently. “But he has learned the rudiments of harmony and counterpoint, and he can read music? And now he wants to choose an instrument? Is that the problem?”

  Tears arose in the woman’s eyes. “Oh, no, my noble Baron! He cannot read music. But—” and now red patches of joy formed on her cheeks, and once more her eyes sparkled—“he can bang with two twigs on the old wine keg. And does it so sweetly!”

  David did not smile, for he was keeping his face averted from his children’s. Sonia had taken Ossip’s hand and was squeezing it, and the boy was gazing at his shoes in order not to laugh. “My dear woman,” their father said at length, “in order to send a boy to the Conservatory, he needs to be familiar with all th
e rudiments of music, and must play at least one instrument with talent.” His face grew gentle. “What made you come to me, now?”

  The woman said, “I have seen those men brandishing their little white sticks. And so I thought that it would be so easy for Misha to learn. Anyone can move a stick up and down and around, and look elegant. Is that not so?”

  “I suggest that you think of another occupation for your Misha, for the conductor of an orchestra has the most difficult job of all,” David said. And then he noted Sonia in the corner, bending over a frill on her skirt. He saw her small shoulders quivering. He rose, and the woman stood up too. Placing an arm around her, he led her to the door and remanded her to the care of Alexei. Then he returned alone to the study, and regarded his children with gravity. “Never laugh,” he admonished them, “at the ignorance of others.” And then, helplessly, he joined them in a paroxysm of soundless mirth.

  In 1903, Anna’s fascination with the bereaved peasants of Russia caused her some confusion. In her haphazard, unguided readings, she had at first embraced the ideals of the Narodnyki, the reform party of the ‘70s, because, unlike the Marxists, they focused their attentions on the tillers of the soil rather than on the workers of the cities. She felt uneasy about Lenin, this strange man who had been sent to Siberia in ‘95 for spreading Marxist doctrine to the factory workers of St. Petersburg, and who had now exiled himself to Switzerland, though his followers were still brewing plots in Anna’s city. Just this year there had occurred a schism within Lenin’s party, the Social Democrats, and now his followers called themselves Bolsheviks and favored revolution, while the milder elements went under the name of Mensheviks and sought first of all to turn Russian autocracy into a capitalistic state, to precede the onslaught of socialism. Anna thought: Well then, perhaps I am a Menshevik. But where have my Narodnyki gone? For Lenin, grim and unsmiling, filled her with a strange terror. He seemed so unflinching, so uncompromising. So inhuman.

  The Narodnyki, it seemed, had turned quite violent. Now they bore the political name of Social Revolutionaries, and countered the Social Democrats by organizing fighting cells among the peasants. Anna found herself hopelessly alone, entangled in events that bewildered her, knowing only that she was a heartfelt socialist and that the Tzar had forgotten his people. She could no longer speak to her father, even in secret. She had discovered that he was a believer in class systems, that he truly did think that he, as a shtadlan, was better qualified to help the poor than they were of helping themselves. And in his blind patriotism, her father, furthermore, was wholeheartedly Tzarist.

  Anna was eighteen, and a young woman, but she had refused to make her debut and enter society. She had lost her few girl friends to gay balls and parties. Her own figure had blossomed, and though she was thin, her breasts, beneath her rough mujik blouses, pushed roundly to the surface. Mathilde’s despair had grown with her daughter: how would the girl make a good marriage, even with the dowry David would provide? She saw no young men, and besides, the sag was still quite evident on the left side of her face.

  In St. Petersburg, young girls no longer were expected to bring their mothers to their parties as chaperones. It was sufficient for their brothers to accompany them. But generally, there was a companion at home with the girls, so that, when they drove into town, or went shopping, they were properly escorted. Anna went nowhere. But there was a banker, Aron Berson, with whom David was forced to transact family business, whose daughters went everywhere alone, and who gave parties the likes of which Petersburg had never witnessed. Aliza and Kazimira Berson were spoiled by their immensely wealthy father, and their mother, whose family had been prominent among Warsaw Jewry, allowed them total freedom. When dances were given, the parents were asked to leave, and unchaperoned, the young people would turn out the lights for a full fifteen minutes. Mathilde and her friends were so shocked that they refused to set foot within the Berson household, although they could not turn away the Berson girls if they chose to come by for a visit. “I do not understand,” Mathilde would say to Johanna, “going to the home of someone who does not welcome you.” But twice a year or so, Madame Berson and her two daughters, Alia and Kazia, would pay a visit to Mathilde’s drawing room. The other ladies would make a hasty departure. Everyone knew that Mathilde had to endure this family for the sake of business, but that did not mean that her more fortunate friends had to put up with them.

  One morning, a messenger delivered a note to Mathilde. “It is that abominable Alia Berson,” she wailed, having read the letter with increasing distress.

  “She has written a novel. It has been published, with private funds of course, in Paris. Now she wants to come here and show it to me.”

  “You cannot refuse her hospitality, my love,” David said with compassion. “The Bersons are one pill that I must force you to swallow. Alia’s father controls a great many of our investments.”

  Mathilde nodded silently. A grim expression had set over her lovely ivory-toned features. She looked around the table, and her eyes rested on thirteen-year-old Sonia in her simple mint-green dress, her tiny, budding breasts appearing just above the Empire waistline. Her black curls hung innocently down her back, and she held her small, dainty hands demurely by the sides of her plate. “Sonia, you do not need to be present for tea. Why don’t you and Ossip take it by yourselves, in your room? Anna will assist us in the drawing room.” She looked directly at her older daughter, who had flushed with surprise and whose brown eyes flashed dismay. “It is a must, Anna, for today,” Mathilde stressed severely.

  Anna opened her mouth, then closed it again. The Berson girl. Sonia was too young to be “tainted.” Ironic glints pierced yellow in Anna’s pupils, and she nodded her comprehension. Then she resumed her breakfast, thinking that it might be interesting to listen to this wild girl about whom Petersburg smirked and gossiped. At least, she was not known to be a lady.

  Anna had mixed emotions as she dressed for tea. Aliza, or Alia as her intimates called her, was petite and well endowed in the right places, and she dressed with elegance. Anna, in accordance, donned the very simplest of her blouses, a shapeless white peasant cotton affair. Then she thought of her mother, and relented. She selected her brightest flowered skirt, and slippers trimmed with gold that turned in a curl at the toe. She planted a yellow dahlia in the middle of the coil behind her right ear, and added a yellow belt to cinch her waist. The impression she created was arresting, if somewhat peculiar, and she was not unhappy with her reflection in the mirror. As an artist, she admired the colors.

  As she entered the parlor, she wondered whether Madame Berson would be accompanying her older daughter. She straightened her shoulders, ready for an onslaught of critical looks. Even Madame Berson chose her clothing from Worth models in Paris. But as she looked toward the tea table, she was struck with surprise. Alia was there, trussed up like a small partridge, but next to her sat someone whom Anna had never seen before, a young man of about twenty with brilliant green eyes and blond hair that fell casually over his brow. A well-built young man with broad, sturdy shoulders and good strong hands folded in his lap. His clothing was as simple as Anna’s blouse. He wore a brown suit of rough, well-worn corduroy. His shoes were scuffed. Then she recalled Alia’s reputation, and remembered, blushing in spite of herself, that young men of breeding did not accept invitations to the Berson home any longer. He must be an impoverished student whom Alia had somehow taken as her lover. A sudden anger seized her and her face burned: How dare she do this to Mama! she thought furiously. Anna thought her mother a prude, but she deserved nonetheless to be respected within her own house! And yet, to her added dismay, her mother seemed more relaxed now than Anna had ever seen her around any of the Berson women.

  Confused, and irritated by her own confusion, Anna coughed abruptly to indicate her presence. Juanita, thank heaven, was nowhere to be seen. Feeling more confident, Anna strode into the room. The young man rose, and Anna thought he had more breeding than she expected. And then she was ashamed
. If Alia had indeed picked a poor lover, perhaps she had more sense than any of Mama’s snobbish friends gave her credit for. Eusebe, at Mohilna, would have been far more worthy of love than some of her father’s wealthy cronies. She smiled at the young man.

  “Anna,” Mathilde said pleasantly, “Alia has brought us her brother, Ivan Aronovitch. Ivan Aronovitch, my daughter, Anna.”

  Anna’s hand rose to her mouth, and Alia Berson began to giggle. “Oh, you are a naughty one!” she cried out. “Why, Mathilde Yureyevna, Anna must have thought that Vanya was my—”

  “Whatever Anna Davidovna thought, it is not up to you to put into words, though you tell us that you have turned writer,” her brother interrupted with a smile. He laughed, a low chuckle. “I am your effort at respectability, Alitchka. Do not ruin it by your habitual bad manners. I am sorry, Mathilde Yureyevna. My sister is incorrigible.”

  “Oh, but I am trying, trying!” Alia cried. She placed a pretty round hand on Mathilde’s arm. “You know how much I love to come here. You are such a lady, Mathilde Yureyevna, and I want to feel accepted here. Vanya teases me, but I thought that you would approve if he escorted me. And then, there was the added incentive.” She glanced meaningfully toward Anna. “Vanya does not go out much, unlike Kazia and me. He is the family recluse. He is reading law at the University, and spends all his time studying and… thinking, he says. Always about politics. So annoying, when I have so many charming friends for him to meet. And he never takes me to meet his own friends.”