The Four Winds of Heaven Page 18

  Jean spent much time poring over textbooks of Russian grammar and vocabulary, for he had found to his dismay that the upper classes whom he frequented spoke French among themselves. Sonia and Tania would keep him company, helping him rehearse his verb forms. Sometimes Tania would bounce upon his knee, like an overgrown child, and Sonia, scandalized, would pull her down. But Jean would only laugh.

  There were many gay events at the Mikhail de Gunzburg mansion. Young people came to meet Clara and Misha’s nieces. Many of Clara’s relations came, and some members of the sugar industry, with their offspring. One evening, the Zlatopolsky family came to supper, and Sonia was placed at the table between Shoshana, the daughter, a large girl slightly her elder, and her brother, Mossia. He was not a handsome youth, but even though he was not yet fifteen, Sonia’s own age, she found him compelling to look at. He was very tall, very well built, and had the square face of a lion, with green-tinted blue eyes and strong features. He did not resemble his parents in the least, for his father was a small distinguished man with a Vandyke beard, and his mother, less elegant, was also quite short. Where had Mossia and Shoshana acquired their largeness, attractive in the boy but quite ungraceful in his sister?

  Sonia considered Mossia Zlatopolsky brilliant. That year, he was to take his entrance exams for the University of Moscow. His father had begun as a small sugar manufacturer, and was now almost as wealthy as Uncle Misha and Aunt Clara’s father. “I am starting to learn my father’s business,” Mossia said, and Sonia thought: How extraordinary, when Ossip still has more than two years of gymnasium left! But, as though sensing her wonder, Mossia laughed, a frank, hardy chuckle. “I am a quick learner,” he confessed, “but if I am in a hurry, it’s because I am hungry. I want to experience life, to work with Papa, to dance, to sing, to travel. I cannot do these things if I am trapped in school.” Listening to him, Sonia felt momentarily frightened of the big leonine face, on which lust for the world had appeared. How unlike Ossip, her beautiful brother, who watched the world go by for fear of being crushed to death in its embrace. The boy would risk everything for a breath of new, fresh air.

  But his sister, Shoshana, was not gay and lusty. She sat stiffly, and answered Sonia’s query as to her unusual name with quick haughtiness: “You may know that ‘Shoshana’ means ‘rose’ in Hebrew,” she said. “I was born Rosa, but I have changed my name.”

  Sonia, blushing, asked, “But your parents? Were they not hurt when you did that?”

  Shoshana merely shrugged. “Papa was very proud,” she said. “He is an ardent Zionist, and has been purchasing land in Palestine on behalf of several active Jewish groups. Someday, all the Jews of Russia and other oppressive nations will once again possess a home.”

  “But my father says that we must struggle to attain full citizenship here, in Russia. He says that Russia is our home, and that Judaism is our faith.” Sonia regarded Shoshana with her gray eyes, unafraid of the other’s domineering attitude.

  “I have heard of your father, the famous Baron David,” Shoshana said, and suddenly Sonia felt chilled. “He is a shtadlan” Shoshana spoke this as though she were spitting out an insult.

  “You must not mind my sister,” Mossia said at once, seeing the younger girl turn very pale, and her eyes fill with outraged tears. “You see, she has recently undergone a dreadful experience. She used to attend one of the best schools for young ladies, here in Kiev. One day, she had an argument with a friend. The girl turned on her and called her a ‘dirty Jew.’ Shoshana slapped her, and was dismissed from the school.”

  Sonia was appalled. “But that girl was in the wrong!” she cried.

  “The Jew in Russia is always in the wrong,” Shoshana said tersely.

  After that, Sonia found it very difficult to enjoy her supper. She wanted to cry, and to return to the warmth of her father’s arms in St. Petersburg. Never before had she thought that his own people, other Jews, would turn against Baron David and what he stood for the way Shoshana had. Her wonderful father, who worked so hard for the Jews! A bitter hatred came into her young heart for Shoshana Zlatopolskaya.

  After coffee, the young people retired to a corner of the drawing room to play games. Jean, though somewhat old to join in, was good-humored enough to allow his little cousin Tania to drag him boldly by the hand into the circle. They began by pushing the delicate furniture against the walls. First came a boisterous blind man’s bluff. Then, laughing, panting, they sat down upon Misha’s ancient carpet and started a series of word games. “We shall do something novel, for the sake of Jean!” Tania announced brightly. “We shall play this game in Russian, instead of French!” And she threw a knotted handkerchief into the circle, calling out a syllable. The handkerchief fell closest to Jean, who closed his eyes with effort and then added a second syllable, so that a word had been formed. The group applauded. He threw the handkerchief toward Sonia, and called out a new syllable, for her to complete. When several more of these games had been played, it was Tania once again who made a suggestion: “We shall play charades, in Russian!” she cried, her golden hair cascading down her back, her small breasts bouncing saucily. After that, Clara brought in the tea table, laden with cakes and biscuits. It was Tania, naturally, who devoured the most, without a wince of heartburn. And then it was she who ran to her Uncle Misha, and who threw her small round arms about his neck and begged, “Please, let us roll up the carpet, and allow Sonia to sit at the piano so that we can dance!”

  “No, my love, that would not be fair,” her uncle said. “Your aunt shall play. I shall dance with Sonitchka.” Misha had seen Sonia’s look of loneliness and desolation during supper, and his heart had been moved.

  “I am not jealous,” Tania said pertly. “Sonia may have you, but I shall have Jean!”

  She did not see the look of amusement which passed between her uncle and her French cousin. She was too busy tossing her curls and showing off her perfect white teeth.

  The crowd had gathered in the small, gritty square in the center of Kiev’s poorest neighborhood, where the streets were unpaved and haphazardly strewn with uneven planks of wood from which brown slush oozed. Men in tattered clothing, their faces red and perspiring in spite of the winter ice, were muttering shouts in response to the thin young man who had hoisted himself upon an overturned beer keg.

  A man shouted, “The Tzar says he is our little Father. But he is killing off our brothers and making their wives starve, that’s what he’s doing to take care of us!” Women with babies in their arms were wailing, their hands balled into fists. “Where is my Petrushka?” one cried. “He is dead in a faraway land that does not concern him, and his children are orphans!”

  The thin man on the beer keg waved back their angry words. His voice, high and shrill, penetrated through the thickening mob like a sliver of thin steel into a fat man’s gut. “It is not the Tzar who should be blamed, my friends,” he spat. “It is the Jews. The sugar barons who refuse us employment, the ones who live in their fine houses with their well-bred servants and their sleek carriages. It is the Jew who has infested our country with problems, who is bleeding us all to death. Brothers and sisters, shall we allow the heathen pigs to suck our nation dry? Or are we going to fight back, to give them a piece of what is coming to them, the arrogant bastards!”

  Slowly, one red face turned to another. A murmur spread through the crowd and swelled. Fists were raised. Somebody entered a hovel nearby and returned with a knife, another made a hasty exit and brought back the sturdy leg of an old chair. “Yes, yes, the Jews!” The cry was taken up. The thin man smiled. “This way, my friends!” he called out, swinging his arm toward a hill behind him.

  Then, as hundreds of feet began to move, he slipped down from his perch and ducked into an alley. He was met by a well-dressed man waiting with a small buggy. “Get in,” the man said. “You have done good work and shall be well rewarded by the governor.”

  Tea had just been served in Mikhail de Gunzburg’s drawing room. Misha was seated on a Louis XV
sofa with his French cousin, Jean, at his side. Clara was pouring amber liquid into fine crystal goblets, and the two girls, Sonia and Tania, were adding slices of lemon and sugar cubes as they were requested by their elders. Suddenly the maître d’hôtel entered the room, his hair disheveled and his black frock coat unbuttoned. Clara’s mouth opened in silence, and the man cried, “Baron! Baroness! There is a mob on its way, and word has spread of a pogrom—”

  Misha rose instantly. “Pogrom? But no one would come here! After all, we are friends with the police, we are known to all in power—”

  “We must act with haste, honored Baron. The servants await your orders.”

  Clara finally succeeded in uttering a wail, and fell back upon her pillows. Sonia and Tania huddled together, their faces white. Then Misha, running an absent hand through his fine golden hair, exclaimed; “Have the back doors unlocked. Clara, get your case of jewels from the safe. We are going to go over the hedge to the British Consulate. Lord Latimer is a friend, he will grant us asylum. But move at once, and take nothing unnecessary. We must hurry.”

  In the moments that followed, Sonia’s mind did not have time to sort anything out. She squeezed Tania’s hand, for the younger girl had begun to shriek. The maître d’hôtel pushed the two girls unceremoniously to the servants’ wing, where Marfa joined them, holding two small purses in which each girl kept several gems of value. Running out the kitchen doors, Sonia could hear shouting coming closer to the house, and her heart nearly failed her. But she strengthened her grip upon Tania’s hand, dragging the other girl almost bodily behind her. They were in the garden. Their Aunt Clara, looking more gaunt and sallow than ever, stood huddled by a ladder which the maître d’hôtel was clumsily pushing against the wall that separated the Gunzburg property from the British Consulate. A roar could be heard from the street. Misha ran out, holding one small painting by Vermeer and a small case. “Where the devil is Jean?” he demanded.

  “I shall find him, honored Baron,” the maître d’hôtel replied. “But the ladies must go over this instant.” He gave his hand to his mistress, who struggled onto the ladder. Sonia followed and Misha came behind her, supporting Tania between them. “Jump!” he ordered his wife. There was no ladder on the other side but the British Consul had heard the commotion and sent several servants, who now extended their arms to the frightened Clara. Shutting her eyes, bumping her jewelry case against her chest, she jumped, and was caught by a sturdy coachman. Sonia took a deep breath and followed, then Misha, holding his second niece by the waist, for she had begun to kick with hysteria. Last of all came little Marfa.

  Jean, who had run out of the house empty-handed, had suddenly realized that he had forgotten something inside his cousin’s mansion. In spite of the warning, he had made his way back to his room, then stopped in a panic. Horrid yells were now reverberating from inside the house, and he saw a red face in the hall, then a knife slashing through a Rembrandt. Broken china shattered from below. He thought: Dear God, what have I come for? And then, seeing his silk top hat, he grabbed it with relief. At that instant he had run out, and now, barely twenty feet ahead of the looters and murderers, he reached the ladder in the garden. Clutching at his hat, he climbed the rungs and jumped over the wall to the other side. The maître d’hôtel, behind him, was hacking at the ladder to destroy it.

  Lady Anne Latimer, the Consul’s wife, was tending to the Gunzburgs in her sitting room, administering smelling salts and distributing brandy. She came to Jean, her hands outstretched in sympathy, and said, “You had left something dear to you in the house, Jean Solomonovitch? Was it of great price, or of personal import?”

  Gazing with wonder at his hat and turning it over in his trembling fingers, the young man shook his head, dazed. “I don’t know!” he exclaimed. His knees buckled under him quite suddenly.

  Not long afterward, on January 22, 1905, an event occurred that convinced Jean de Gunzburg not to visit his cousins in St. Petersburg. Several hundred workers, under the guidance of a priest, Father Gapon, marched peacefully to petition the Tzar for reforms while the sovereign was at his Winter Palace, only blocks away from the residence of Baron Horace de Gunzburg. They were received with volleys of open fire, and this massive slaughter was given the name of Bloody Sunday. Anna, prostrate with tears, demanded of David during the days that followed: “Are you not sorry now that you did not join the Union of Unions, Papa? What will happen next?”

  David took her by the shoulders, but she stiffened defensively. “My beloved,” he replied, his own face reflecting deep grief, “what happened to Sonia, what has occurred so recently here, are demonstrations of violence that defy comprehension. Surely the Tzar cannot be blamed for the actions of some of his soldiers. I am not so naive as you think. There are of course agents provocateurs who stir up trouble. But as a member of two Ministries, I know more than men such as Pavel Milyukov who have formed this Union. I know, for example, that the Tzar has plans to instigate a Duma, a kind of Parlilament. He is attempting to face his problems. Do not lose your faith in your country.”

  But Anna regarded him with ill-hidden contempt. “I possess a strong faith in my country, Papa,” she said. “In its healthy peasants. But the Tzar frightens me, and you frighten me with your blindness. I share a room with Sonia. Since her experience in Kiev, she cannot sleep properly. She cries out. Somehow the pogroms are tied into this Bloody Sunday, although I cannot quite see how. But the people are being deluded. Of that I am certain.”

  Sonia was not so certain. Unlike her sister, she accepted David’s explanations of the massacre of Bloody Sunday. Horrified, she believed, nevertheless, as he did, that the Tzar could not be held responsible. But she could not rationalize Kiev. Over and over, she kept hearing Shoshana’s mocking voice. Finally, she took her anguish to her father. Her small face was white, and purple circles puffed beneath her eyes when she appeared in David’s study.

  “Maybe we are wrong,” she said gently. “Perhaps it is the Zionists who are correct, for if the Russian mob can turn against members of their own nation, then perhaps we are truly citizens of nowhere.”

  His heart filling with love and a deep pain, David tilted the small, firm chin upward, and gazed into Sonia’s face. “Never, my sweet,” he said. “We shall never cry defeat. This is our country, and should you or Anna happen to marry a foreigner, my last request would be that you might never forget that you are Russians.”

  Sonia threw her arms around his neck, and pressed her cool cheek against his, which had grown gaunt. For the moment, she was comforted.

  But Ossip, who was eighteen, regarded all this with irony in his deep blue eyes. He said nothing at all, but he was thinking: We could so easily convert. Then nobody would harm us, and the Tzar would have to find proper means to deal with his peasants, rather than taking the easy way out by making scapegoats of the Jews. Ossip did not believe in God. It did not matter to him how, or whether, he worshiped.

  Mathilde, however, had lost patience with philosophy. Her fine black hair piled into a thick chignon, her hands pressed against her alabaster cheeks, she came to her husband and stated calmly: “I have borne all I can. We could all be murdered! If you will not accompany me, because of your work, then I shall take Johanna and the children back to France.”

  David’s heart contracted. He took her hands in his, but she withdrew them angrily. “I know all about your duties. Duty to the government, duty to the Jews. What about duty to us, your family? Ossip could be hurt.”

  “You will not stand by me?” he whispered.

  “No, it is you who will not stand by us! Tomorrow. We are leaving tomorrow! Was it not sufficient that your daughter and your niece nearly lost their lives in Kiev, that your brother Misha has had to settle his wife in Paris, that he intends to come to Kiev only during the months of the sugar campaign? He, at least, is a man who cares for his wife.”

  “But he is not a man of purpose,” David said with distress. “I would lose my honor if I abandoned my country, my Jews
. Even Sasha, who has only the bank to think of, is not departing.”

  “He probably has some seamstress hidden away in a garret!” Mathilde declared. “Besides, he is not my husband.”

  The following morning, Anna came to her mother in her boudoir. She stood erect, in an embroidered blouse over a multicolored skirt that ballooned from her waist. There was a look of fierce determination on her face. She said, “Mama, I am twenty. I do not want to leave during this crisis, as the others must. I have my landscape work, with the artist Kuindji. Besides, the only friends I have are in Petersburg. I would like to remain here, keep house for Papa. If there is anything, Aunt Rosa will be here, and Grandfather Horace. I am not a child, to be sheltered.”

  A wave of despair washed over Mathilde. She saw the pride in her daughter, the burning resolve. Suddenly she was tired. Forcing Anna to go would make the trip unbearable for everyone, especially for Mathilde herself. Johanna would quarrel with the girl, there would be shouting and sullenness. “I am leaving to escape from havoc, not to create more of it,” she sighed. “You are stubborn and selfish, traits which seem to run in this family. All right, Anna, stay. But remember that you are a lady, and a Gunzburg.”

  “I am never allowed to forget it,” the girl murmured. But a glimmer of joy flickered in her deep brown eyes.

  Sonia had grown thinner during the months since the pogrom in Kiev. It was her last morning in St. Petersburg before leaving for Paris with her mother. Ossip had gone to the gymnasium, and she had had her lesson with Johanna. They had not taken their customary stroll afterward, for with the strikes, people were afraid to be on the streets unless they had to. She sat at the piano, the gray skies beyond the house penetrating to her soul, which felt inexplicably mournful. Her fingers traveled absently over the keys and she began to play an ineffably sad melody, a Schubert composition to which she could not place a name. She sat erect and the delicate bones of her back could be seen beneath the batiste of her shirtwaist. Suddenly she felt tears upon her eyelids.