The Four Winds of Heaven Page 20

  In the house at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, the elegant Parisian suburb where Baron Yuri de Gunzburg resided with his wife, Ida, Mathilde sat by the window of her bedroom, looking out at the gardens below. Her father, now sixty-five, was walking with his grandchildren. Ossip, delicate for his eighteen years, slim in contrast to the portly Baron, held his sister’s small hand. Sonia, in her Russian furs, reminded Mathilde touchingly of a Dresden figurine. She said aloud, to Johanna: “I hope that such frailty will not cause her difficulties in bearing children. Look, she has no hips to speak of.”

  “She is not yet sixteen,” Johanna said comfortingly. The two women held their embroidery in their laps as Mathilde continued her examination of her children. Little Gino, ruddy and healthy, was running ahead, now and then turning on his heels and making his sister throw back her head and laugh. Mathilde, through the windowpane, could not hear the tinkling sound, but she imagined it. “Anna has not written me,” she said abruptly. “It has been weeks.”

  “Anna is keeping house for her Papa.”

  “Still… I felt disquiet in David’s letters. But if there were a problem, surely he would let me know? We have had our differences, but she is my daughter, too.”

  “You are allowing worry to cloud your mind,” Johanna declared. “There: see how Gino and Sonia are each taking their grandfather’s hand. He is so delighted with them!”

  “Papa is growing old,” Mathilde sighed. She turned to her friend, and Johanna saw that tears had begun to fall. Mathilde’s face, so lovely and unlined, resembled a Raphaelite portrait of an infinitely sad Madonna. “Papa is old. I had always thought, as children do, that he would never age. And, seeing him grow old now, I am aware of the passing of time in my own life.”

  Johanna de Mey rose then, and gently pulled the curtain cord to hide the view of the garden. The pale blue draperies veiled the window, and she lit a standing lamp in the corner of the room. Apricot hues shone softly around them. She said, “But my darling, you are anything but old. I have yet to see a single white hair on your head. It is the children who grow, but we—” and there, she smiled— “we remain static, do we not?”

  “Perhaps I remain static because the world proceeds, and I am withdrawn from its growing pains. When I think of St. Petersburg I am torn. Half of me feels tremendous relief to have escaped an unbearable life there without electricity or water. How does David manage? Or Uncle Horace, who is even older than Papa? And my daughter? But the thought of them brings guilt with it. A city without the basic comforts of civilization is no place for a young girl.”

  “She has her father,” Johanna declared. She gazed at her friend, and Mathilde looked up and met her aquamarine eyes. They did not speak. Mathilde saw the fine golden pompadour, the slim, lithe figure in its gown of cerise silk. She said, “It is you who have not aged, Johanna. Sometimes, when I look at you, I become filled with fear. You are going to marry one day, and I shall lose you. At least, my hope is that you will marry a gentleman of Petersburg, so that we may continue to see each other. But it would not be the same—oh no, it would never be the same! I could not face the day without consulting you. You are my buffer, my warrior’s shield. Without you I am lost, or worse, overwhelmed.”

  “Most women would be speaking such words to their husbands,” Johanna said. “Surely the Baron would take care of you, my sweet, if, as you say, I should decide to wed.” She bit her lower lip and did not look up into Mathilde’s face, which had fallen as though she had been slapped. She embroidered with steadfast motions, counting time with her needle’s thrust.

  Mathilde cried out, but in the muffled tone of someone horror-struck: “But Johanna! If you have indeed—found someone you care for—why have you said nothing to me? Why have you kept this hidden?”

  Very calmly, Johanna de Mey said, “We are not schoolgirls, that we should run to each other with every detail of our lives. Yes, I have received a proposal of marriage. I shall not tell you—no, do not stare at me so with your enormous eyes—I shall not tell you his name.” Then, her own eyes softening, filling with moisture, she turned to her friend and seized her cold fingertips. “I shall not tell you, so that you may face him in society and not blush at his discomfort. For you see, I shall refuse his kind offer. I have no intention of becoming his wife.” She smiled, but Mathilde’s face was still a ghastly white, her lips still parted in fear. Johanna de Mey rubbed her friend’s fingers, then brought them to her lips and kissed them. “I am cruel to you,” she said. “For I should not have told you. Will you forgive me for my thoughtlessness? Will you, Mathilde?” And her voice began to rise with emotion.

  Mathilde de Gunzburg nodded silently. And then it was Johanna who began to cry, sobbing aloud: “I am ashamed, so ashamed!” she cried. “Oh, please, forgive me!”

  Surprised, and again serene after the reassurance, Mathilde stared blankly at Johanna. She placed a shy hand upon the other’s shoulder. “No, it was I who have not been discreet,” she said. “There is nothing to forgive. Let us forget this discussion. You are not leaving. What else is important?”

  “And that truly matters to you?” Johanna’s beautiful oval face was bathed with tears.

  Mathilde lifted her friend’s chin in her own palm, and smiled with infinite tenderness at her. “Yes,” she murmured. “More than all else. I mean this with my whole heart.”

  Suddenly, in a girlishly impulsive movement, Johanna stood and threw her arms about Mathilde’s neck, covering her cheeks, her hair, her shoulders with hot, tremulous kisses. “Then all is well, all is well,” she murmured to the amazed Mathilde, who began to laugh, unused to displays of great emotion.

  “Yes, of course,” Mathilde said, but she was pink with embarrassment and confusion. Then she gazed at the other woman, and her eyes shone with relief. “I am so glad,” she stated. “For if you were to leave—” And then she shook her head. “But I am supremely selfish! What have I to offer you, compared with marriage, position, and wealth? I love you, my dear friend, and I wish for your happiness. If you should meet another man, then you must not think of me. Think only of your own life. Life is too short. Look at my father, who is old today… You must never grow old, Johanna.”

  Inexplicably, she turned away, her eyes filling anew with tears. It was then that Johanna de Mey placed her arms about Mathilde’s waist, and held her close, not saying a word. The two women remained, embracing, for several minutes, until loud knocks broke into their silence, and Gino’s voice came through the thick door: “Mama! We have stories to tell you!”

  Johanna de Mey watched as her friend opened the door to the children, and sparks of triumph glinted in her pupils. I have nearly won, she thought.

  “Come, Gino,” she said briskly, “take off your overshoes before you soil your mother’s fine carpet. There are some cakes here, for all of you.”

  It was now the beginning of December. A second railroad strike had isolated St. Petersburg from the world, and the rest of Russia. Lolya Raffalovitch, the young schoolteacher, stood in her small apartment wearing men’s trousers made of coarse peasant cloth. She brandished papers in her bony fist. “Witte has bowed to the landowners!” she cried, her eyes rimmed with red behind her spectacles. “You see? The peasants were to represent a large electorate, to vote in March for members of the Duma. And your precious Count Witte was going to present land grants. Now what? The gentry speaks, and suddenly it is their interests that are put first, and to hell with the peasants! Do you think that education will help them now?”

  “We have agreed to go out,” Ivan cut in tersely. “When are we to leave?”

  The schoolteacher regarded him and Anna, seated beside him, and thrust her chin out at them. “How soon can you be ready?” she asked.

  “We do not need to take much with us.” Anna reached for Ivan’s hand, and he squeezed it. “Give us twenty-four hours.”

  Lolya smiled. “Good. We shall be going in small groups —cells. There is no railroad so we shall go in carts and buggies. There will be fo
ur in our group: you two, myself, and Petya Orlov the printer. We shall leave in the morning; that way, no one will miss your fine ladyship until nightfall. And you are not to know where we are headed.” She grimaced sardonically. “Who can tell, you might have a sudden attack of fear, and warn the Chief of the Secret Police… Or are you still friends with him, Anna?”

  “You know very well that Lopukhin has been replaced,” Anna answered angrily.

  “I warn you—we shall be transporting munitions for the peasants. Just so you two don’t think this is a pleasure trip for lovers. Petya is to be our leader. Don’t cross him, Anna. He isn’t an intellectual, like our Vanya here.”

  “Lolitchka,” Ivan remarked with iron, “you need your reserves to fight the burshuis, remember, love?”

  The girl ignored him. She said, “Bring a bag filled with woolens, it will be cold during the trip. And food. Anything will do: bread, cheese, vegetables. So we won’t have to stop all the time to fill our bellies.”

  “We shall be here then, tomorrow,” Ivan acquiesced.

  “At ten. By then Anna’s father will have left for work.” She looked at them again, and extended her hand, grudgingly. “Good luck,” she said more softly. Then her eyes bored into Anna’s: “I must say, I expected you to back down,” she commented.

  “I am not a coward,” Anna replied.

  But outside, she took hold of Ivan’s lapels and huddled close to him. “Vanya, I’m scared,” she whispered. “Scared of not doing the right thing, scared of being caught, scared of execution. Scared—of leaving my home, my father.”

  “I know,” he murmured back. “I am thinking of the small farm we could still have if I go to him—your father —and ask him for your hand in marriage. It is not too late, Annushka.”

  She shivered. “It is too late, Vanya. We have forgotten ourselves for a greater movement. How could we go back to our small comforts?”

  “We shall be together,” he said, holding her.

  She remained muffled in his coat, her red hair blowing in the December wind.

  Anna’s small bundle lay hidden beneath her bed, crammed with all the warm things she could assemble in a small bag, and some foodstuffs she had stolen from the pantry. She had gone into Ossip’s room and taken some of his trousers, for it would be cold, and men and women dressed alike in the fighting cells. But now the dinner bell had sounded, and she thought: This is my last civilized meal, my last meal with Papa. Her bright brown eyes filled with sudden tears. Oh, Papa, she thought, and wrung her hands together. What am I doing? What will this do to you—and to the others? She suddenly felt like a very small girl again.

  She hurried to the dining room, and all at once she was sorry that he would be there alone with her. For he would be the most hurt of all when he discovered her departure. He would never guess where she had gone. That was a relief, for her heart ached at the idea of his distress. He believed in the Tzar, in the promised Duma. She did not; but still, she could understand his loyalty in a way that she would never understand the Victorian prudery of her mother. Anna felt that she had always been a gaping sore in Mathilde’s life, but that her father had respected and cherished her. Now he waited politely by the table for his twenty-year-old daughter to take her seat first. In his mahogany-colored coat of thick velvet, his thinning red hair looked dull, and his face was etched in tired lines.

  “Good evening, Papa,” she said softly, as Stepan held the chair for her across from him. “You seem weary tonight.”

  “We are attempting to take back control of the railroad, my little dove,” he replied, smiling at her. His pale blue eyes were filled with tenderness for her, and she felt as though a knife had been thrust into her stomach. “Not only the Ministries—also your grandfather, and his interests. You know that your great-grandfather was one of the foremost promoters of the railroads in Russia?”

  “I had not forgotten,” she said.

  “I have been thinking, Annushka,” David said after a pause. “I have heard that there are some specialists in Sweden who are working on ways to remodel burned areas of the face and body. I would like to see if perhaps one of them might not take a look at you.”

  She turned very red. “That is silly, Papa,” she stated.

  “No. If it is possible to help burn victims, then surely muscles—”

  “You would be wasting your money, Papa,” Anna said abruptly.

  “Think about it, my love. I am not at all certain that they could help, and it was cruel of me to raise your hopes—but I want to do all I can, the way we did for Ossip, when he fell ill.”

  “But I am not ill,” Anna countered gently. “I am who I am. When I was a little girl, I would have given the world to be pretty, as Sonia is, or Tania, or Mama. But now that I am a woman, I find that there are more important things than how one looks in the mirror, or even to others. If a doctor could change my entire face, he still would find it impossible to erase what I have become, because of my face. He would be too late; and it would be meaningless to me now. I am happier than I have ever been, Papa.”

  “Are you, little one? What do you do with your days? What do you dream of? There was a time when you would tell me, but lately…”

  “Perhaps it is better this way,” Anna said. Her large brown eyes held her father’s warm blue ones. “But promise me that you won’t worry about me, not anymore?”

  Puzzled, he smiled at her across the table. “I shall not raise the issue of the Swedish doctors, if it brings you discomfort,” he said.

  “No, Papa. I want more than that. No worries, about anything to do with me. Remember what I have told you, about my happiness. I am very happy.”

  He sighed. “While your mother is gone, I’ve had a lot to think about. I should like to give a ball, in your honor, on your twenty-first birthday, to show the world that I am terribly proud of my older daughter. Now what do you have to say to that idea?”

  He smiled, and was shocked when Anna burst into tears and ran from the table. He heard her sobs as she fled, and was utterly amazed. And then, he felt very guilty. Poor girl, he thought, she does not enjoy society. A ball would be an ordeal for her. I have thought only of myself, wanting to show her off, forgetting how uncomfortable she would be. He thought once more of the Swedish physicians, then dismissed the notion with anger at himself. Women were still mysterious to David, and these days, added to his wife’s sometimes confusing attitudes, there was his daughter, Anna, now a woman too. He sighed deeply. He would have to think of a way to apologize to her, but it would be best if he let a little time go by. Morning would be better. He did not know that morning would be too late.

  The house in Saint-Germain, where Mathilde and her children were spending the holidays, had been purchased by Baron Yuri’s father, the original Ossip, founder of the Gunzburg dynasty. He had wanted a suburban home. He had already built a large mansion on the Barrière de l’Etoile in Paris itself, but, a true Russian, he had also yearned for the country, and had bought a marvelous chateau in the Beaune region, which was famous for its wines. For this suburban estate, his third French home, he had considered first the Malmaison, where Napoleon I had resided; but it had been too damp. Next he had considered the chateau of Maisons-Laffitte, with its vast acres for horse racing; but Baron Ossip had not liked the work of Mansard, the sixteenth-century architect who had constructed it. Instead, he had become enamored with Napoleon III’s officers’ mess hall.

  Mathilde, who had profoundly loved her Grandfather Ossip, could understand the emotions that had drawn him to this far smaller house. She could feel the peace that bathed the small town of Saint Germain, with its palace where Louis XIV had been born. Mathilde found repose in this chateau’s neat straight walkways, in the glistening stone that was centuries old. In the French garden there were chestnut trees and oaks to provide shade, a loving shade, she thought, like the cool hand of a mother on a child’s feverish brow. The English garden, which the children preferred for its cheer and freer lines, was inside the forest. M
athilde adored the forest, for though it was wild, it was also majestic and peaceful, unlike the threatening Russian woodlands. She liked to walk along its paths, which were safe and wide. But best of all, she enjoyed ambling along the Terrasse, a large, straight avenue nearly two miles long, which bordered the parks and the forest.

  In contrast to the winters of St. Petersburg, this winter seemed mild to Mathilde. Wrapped in white ermine, with a matching muff and bonnet, she walked arm-in-arm with Johanna. “Look,” she said softly, “today the Seine is calm and gray.” The great river stretched far below them, winding its lazy way. She regarded her friend, glad that Johanna seemed so happy here, too and smiled. “You are Dutch, and I am Russian,” she said, “but are we not both French? There is something so civilized about this country, about its land and even its rivers. Something controlled and tamed. I am never afraid here, never gasping for breath. David, you know, has never been fond of Saint-Germain. Perhaps that shows the essential difference between us: he is a true Russian.”

  Johanna squeezed Mathilde’s fingers through her muff. “My dear, your heart has ached for this moment. If that silly revolution had not broken out, you would only have dreamed of this, and a place in your heart would have died. I do not think the Baron knows what sacrifices you have made for him. You have given up your own self for his wishes. But then, you are far too good to think in such terms.”

  Mathilde said, “No, I am not good. I know myself well enough to be aware of that. I am lazy, and uncommitted. David is passionate, and a believer. It is true, though, that living in Russia erased part of my very being. Right now, I wish—” But she stopped, her teeth on her lower lip.

  “You wish you never had to return.” Johanna de Mey, her fine eyes compassionate, did not allow Mathilde to look away. She began to whisper, with a strange urgency: “Yes. And you also wish that you could forget. All the problems. Anna and her pain. The Baron and his love, which you do not reciprocate. I know all these things, for I know you, the Mathilde that lies beneath that surface of regal dignity and serene composure. You detest your life.”