The Four Winds of Heaven Page 35

  “No, my love, of course not,” her aunt replied. She sat down, a strange glow in her eyes. “But I come bearing news. You have two suitors for your hand in marriage. Aunt Guitele has told me that Maxik wishes you to be his wife, and Madame Saxe came to me yesterday, announcing that Kolya is very much in love with you and also wishes to marry you. What do you think? Have you thought about either of them, Sonitchka?”

  The young woman sat down abruptly, the blood rushing to her cheeks. “It did occur to me that Kolya was most gracious at the last ball, and that Maxik enjoys talking with me,” she said slowly. “But somehow, I did not think that they were serious. I like them both. Each one possesses unique qualities, each surely has his faults. Frankly—I am quite speechless, Aunt Clara.”

  “But you are not leaving Kiev for two weeks,” her aunt replied. “Nobody will press you for your decision until the moment of your departure. You will have time to reflect, and to decide. Each one is a good match, in your uncle’s and my opinion. Of course, I need not tell you that Sioma Halperin has made a similar proposal. But I have only to look at you when I mention his name to gauge your reaction. Your uncle has already politely discouraged him.”

  “Oh, thank God!” Sonia cried. “Now perhaps he will leave me alone!”

  Sonia felt dizzy. With Volodia she had felt something new, something actually quite terrible, something forbidden and yet sweet. She had respected him, but hated his family. Never had the idea of a union truly entered her mind. She had wanted to kiss him, yes, but had in fact wished mostly for the security of knowing his love—just that. Because she had not allowed herself the freedom of candidly loving in return, she had never resolved her emotions after his death. Now she was suddenly presented with two mature young men of good standing who could offer her an entire life of which no one close to her could disapprove. She could decide, and permit her emotions to influence her decision. She could acknowledge her womanhood! Finally, after all the years, she could place Volodia in a special niche, a treasured and beloved niche, but nonetheless remove him from the mainstream of her existence. She could hope to live in joy again, and put away her guilt.

  But after the first breath of happiness, sobriety returned. Sonia had always been logical, and now she sat in the quiet of her room, thinking about her future. She could not select a husband for his attractiveness alone, for she knew so many who had, disastrously. There must also be emotional, financial, physical balance. Max was a good son, faithful, affectionate, and therefore would indubitably be an attentive husband. He was a very talented musician, and that was an important point they had in common. He dressed well and had received an impeccable education. He was original, which was both good and bad, but at least she could be sure that he would not bore her through their days together.

  However, Max possessed two enormous defects. For one, he was excessively ugly. If his children, particularly a daughter, were to resemble him, what a disaster that would be! But, and this was more serious, he did not work and did not wish to work. Certainly he had no need of additional income—but Sonia wished he would do something, no matter what, even collect rare coins or stamps! How could Sonia, so industrious by nature, live with a man of total leisure and no dedication?

  Kolya Saxe, on the other hand, was extremely handsome, yet not in the pretty manner that she despised in so many dandies of her generation. He was more refined, more worldly than Max, and was a driven worker. But there was something indefinable which kept her from unhesitatingly going to him, guided by her physical attraction for him and her respect. Was it the slight drooping motion of his lips, was it the bright glitter of his black eyes that were so difficult to penetrate? She thought: Perhaps he would fall in love with another, and one day be unfaithful. With Max, I would never have to fear that…

  Since Aunt Clara had told her of the two proposals, Sonia no longer felt the same toward the two young men. At Aunt Guitele’s, Maxik would dispense with an excess of formality and whisk her toward the piano more rapidly than before, and at the Saxes’, she was placed next to Kolya for tea. But now, when Kolya’s black spaniel came between them under the table, begging for scraps, Sonia would lower her hand to comb her fingers through its hair, and would encounter Kolya’s fingers performing the same caress from his side. It was their only intimate gesture, but it filled the young woman with feverish chills so that she could hardly speak. Yet she was almost afraid of her magnetic pull toward the tall, dark man. She had never realized that she, cool and poised like her mother, possessed such emotions urging her to do forbidden, impulsive things. She wondered if she were quite normal, quite healthy, when she sat beside Kolya and felt his fingertips brush past her own, electrifying her entire body.

  Time continued to pass, inexorably bringing Sonia’s day of reckoning closer. One afternoon, when Kolya was taking tea at Aunt Clara’s apartment, she asked him softly, “Will you be at the Horowitz concert tomorrow?”

  He started. “Is it tomorrow?” he cried. “I had certainly intended to be present, but work piled up and I forgot the date.” He gazed at her, and his black eyes bored intensely into her delicate face. “If you go, I must go, absolutely. When I return home, I shall send someone to purchase me a ticket.”

  She blushed, and regarded her glass. “I doubt that you will find one, Karl Maximovitch,” she stated. “Uncle Misha purchased ours three days ago, and few remained even then.”

  “But I shall try, nevertheless,” he asserted. She raised her gray eyes and saw his longing, and shuddered. She was both delighted and afraid.

  The next day the Gunzburgs arrived early at the concert hall, which was still nearly empty. On the stage, the piano had been pushed against the right wall, and in the open space, seven or eight rows of chairs had been set up. The first row was barely six feet from Horowitz’s stool. It would be difficult for him to play with people crowding behind him, and for the listeners it would be no less disagreeable, for the balance of the music would be wrong. But undoubtedly those seated on the stage would be students of the Conservatory, and to hear the Master from too close was better than to miss him altogether.

  The public began to stream in. Sonia turned in her seat and stared at the front door, straining to discern all who passed through it. Kolya was not among them. The flow of patrons became a flood, and she could no longer make out each individual. She turned back nervously and adjusted the folds of her skirt. Kolya had not come. Evidently he had been unable to purchase a ticket.

  Horowitz entered, greeted by thunderous applause, although he was only at the start of his career. As he bowed and sat down silence fell upon the hall. He began his first piece, and when he had finished it, the audience applauded and the ushers opened the doors to let the latecomers into the hall. Five or six people entered, but not Kolya. He would definitely not come. Sonia regarded the program on her lap. But all at once, a deep electric shock rushed through her body, and she raised her eyes. Horowitz had patiently awaited silence, was raising both hands above the keyboard to attack the second piece. At that instant, Sonia saw Kolya upon the stage, about to take one of the student seats at the back. One second later, the people in front of him hid him from her sight. She had just had time to make him out. He would come to her at intermission.

  She closed her eyes, and warmth flooded her being. Now she knew! If she had suddenly felt his presence so strongly, it must be because she truly loved him. She allowed the nape of her neck to touch the back of her chair, and thought: My mind is made up. But when he sought her out between numbers, and bowed over her hand, she did not betray her decision. Nor did she breathe a word of it to her aunt and uncle.

  The following morning, at breakfast, she announced, “I would like to accept Kolya’s suit, Aunt Clara, Uncle Misha. But how can we announce this to Aunt Guitele without offending her?”

  “There shall not be a problem,” Misha declared. “Guitele always knew about Kolya’s proposal. She is aware that Max is not a man to turn the head of a pretty girl. Clara will go to her at tea
, without you, and tonight I shall go to the Saxes. We shall telegraph your parents. Your father can meet us in Warsaw, for we too must leave Kiev and head back to Paris. Then I shall be able to discuss the details with him, matters which would not interest you but which must be settled. This is not a time for a lady’s maid to escort you home.”

  When the Gunzburgs departed from Kiev, their many friends and relatives flocked to the train station to see them off. Maxik came to Sonia and said, “We shall see you again, Sofia Davidovna. Kiev is in need of you.” But he did not linger, and she was swept up in good-byes, from new friends who she knew would be hers for life, since she would be returning soon as Madame Karl Maximovitch Saxe.

  Most of those present had come to kiss Misha and Clara goodbye, as they would not see them again until the next sugar campaign, so they did not fuss too much over the visiting niece. No one but Max and his mother knew of the impending wedding plans, and so they did not notice that Kolya’s parents, and Moussia and Ilya, took Sonia aside and kissed her, or that she blushed when she was momentarily left alone with the second son, Karl. He did not kiss her. But his black eyes did not leave her face, and he whispered, “You will return as my bride, and the next time I shall see you, we shall be betrothed before the world.”

  At the Hotel Bristol in Warsaw, Baron David met his brother, his sister-in-law, and his daughter. He declared that he did not need to meet Kolya in order to grant his consent, after the glowing report he heard from Misha. Mathilde would write the Saxes, and would invite them to spend the New Year in St. Petersburg, where they would formulate an official marriage proposal. It would be two weeks hence. Until then, only Ossip and Johanna would be told.

  On December 30, Kolya and his parents arrived at the Hotel de l’Europe in the capital. Mathilde and Sonia went to greet them, and Mathilde thought: This young man is everything I myself would have liked in a husband. She looked at her daughter and admired the rosy glow upon her cheeks, the sparkle in her eyes. The two young people were never alone, but they spoke to one another with their faces. Mathilde felt a twinge of regret, witnessing this younger, lither version of herself in the throes of a fulfilling love. But she was glad for her daughter, and relieved, too, after her years of worry concerning Sonia’s withdrawn moods. She invited the Saxes to spend New Year’s Eve with the Gunzburgs and also asked them to come to luncheon the next day, in order to make their first official visit to the parents of their son’s intended.

  Baron David had recently begun to suffer acute attacks of angina pectoris, and was in bed. But waiting for Sonia and Mathilde was Johanna de Mey, very excited, the cords standing out in her neck, her hands dry as she rubbed them over and over each other. Her eyes gleamed unhealthily. “Add ‘1912,’” she said to Sonia when she returned from the hotel with her mother.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Add all the digits. They make up the number 13. And the year that is about to start will be 1913. A most unlucky circumstance. You shall have to celebrate your engagement on New Year’s Eve, on the stroke of midnight. That way you can dispel ill omens, for you will be pledging your troth between two most unpromising years.”

  Sonia cleared her throat. “But I am not the least superstitious,” she declared calmly.

  Johanna placed her hands upon her hips, and cried, “You are ungrateful! I, in any event, shall take no part in this ill-fated celebration, unless you do it according to my plan! I, who have sacrificed my youth for you, will not even appear otherwise. Do you wish to insult me?”

  “Sonia—” Mathilde interposed.

  “Mama, you know how I feel about New Year’s Eves! I have always spent them in quiet intimacy. My engagement is another matter altogether. That is one of the most important moments of my life! It is a public celebration! I do not want to mix the two events.”

  “Then I shall return to France, where my family needs me. Here, my advice is repudiated by a mere girl—Mathilde, I am useless!” And Johanna burst into loud sobs, her thin shoulders shaking. Mathilde regarded her daughter, who stood erect and firm, and then her own eyes widened with sudden fear. Sonia sighed and turned away as Mathilde placed a gentle, hesitant hand upon her friend’s arm, and murmured something inaudible. The Dutchwoman lifted her hands from her face, and encountered Sonia’s cold, disdainful eyes. Her own, bloodshot, were full of hatred. She said, “Your mother, at least, is wise. You will be affianced between the years.”

  Silently, Sonia squared her shoulders and stuck out her chin, and she stared with bitterness at her one-time governess. Then her face fell. “It is as Mama wants, of course,” she whispered. A flicker of a smile flashed across Johanna’s tight features, and Sonia wheeled about and ran out of the room, feeling utterly defeated, dejected. Take me to Kiev! she thought pleadingly, speaking to the image of Kolya. She did not see her mother’s distressed face, where fear mingled with anger and distaste and abject love.

  The luncheon was cordial. David was feeling better and joined his daughter’s future in-laws for a light repast, but Sonia noticed that although Johanna de Mey spoke with deference to Maxim Saxe, she as much as ignored his petite, round wife. Kolya was sitting at the table with Sonia, and the sheer excitement of his presence, with his marvelous black eyes and majestic deportment, was sufficient to send little prickles of delight up and down her spine.

  The Saxes returned to their hotel, and reappeared for the evening’s celebrations. After a light meal, the young couple was left alone for the first time ever. It was eleven o’clock, one hour before the moment of their official engagement. Kolya took hold of Sonia’s hands, and pressed them in his larger, stronger ones. “Never in my life have I known such joy!” he said. “My love for you will never cease, my darling. It has grown from the instant of our encounter. I do not deserve you.”

  Sonia raised her eyes to him, and the blood flowed into her cheeks. She murmured candidly, “I shall do anything to make you happy. I love you so!”

  “Then,” he declared, “you must kiss me now. I have dreamed of this kiss, of this magic moment, since the evening when I was told that you had accepted my suit. Do you not wish to kiss me now, beloved, while we are alone?”

  She hesitated thoughtfully. “I told my governess that I am not superstitious, Kolya,” she said. “But in one hour we shall be engaged. I have always wanted you to kiss me, that is true—but it would mean so much more if I were your declared fiancée… Can we not wait until the New Year?”

  “Others will share that moment, which I wish to be a private one,” he countered gently.

  Tears welled into her eyes. “Oh, Kolya, you think me silly, and old-fashioned… My cousin Tania kisses English fashion, in empty landaus and troikas that are parked outside ballrooms, when the coachmen have gathered together for a chat! I know that things have changed! It is not that. When I was much younger, my brother Ossip fell in love with a beautiful girl, and one day I saw them kiss. She was… wrong for him. He still suffers from the loss of her. I do not wish to cloud any part of our future. I do not wish to lose you, as Ossip lost Natasha! Can you understand?”

  He reached out and touched her chin, and said, “You are a silly little doe, my Sonia. Whatever could come between us? We shall be married in 1913, and you will bear my children. I would like to tell those children that their mother and I shared a private festivity, before the public kiss. You are mine, and what I ask of you is hardly improper. Grant me my wish, Sonia.”

  She shivered. But he lifted her small oval face, and he grasped it in both hands, and bent his head toward her. She closed her eyes, feeling queasy, and suddenly his lips were upon hers, his tongue had entered her mouth, and she abandoned herself to the delicious pleasure of this kiss, her very first. Her arms went round his neck, and she could hear buzzing in her ears, and pinpoints of red flashed from her closed eyelids. Then he drew away, and she laughed lightly, touching her hair in an embarrassed gesture. He laughed with her, seizing her hands. “It wasn’t such a dreadful thing, was it, darling?” he teased her
softly.

  “It was wonderful. But it was not what I wanted. You are stronger than I, and have proved it. Are you always so willful, Kolya?”

  A flicker of unexplained emotion passed like a film over his eyes. “I am not willful,” he declared. “It is my love for you that is so.”

  Shortly before midnight, the Gunzburgs and Saxes passed into the dining room where a cold supper had been laid out. When midnight struck, champagne glasses clinked around the table and David stood up, magnificent in his dinner jacket with the decoration of State Councillor pinned to the lapel. “I toast the fiancés, my daughter Sonia and the man she has chosen, Kolya Saxe!” he stated. All through the room gay voices echoed: “To Sonia and Kolya! To Kolya and Sonia!” Kolya placed his glass before Sonia’s lips, and she took a sip, while her family clapped. Then, gently, she reciprocated the gesture and made him drink from the glass. His eyes glittered over the rim, and she inhaled deeply. The bubbles tickled her chin and nose. But somewhere deep inside, she felt mournful. This was the New Year, and now people were toasting it along with her engagement to Kolya. She had not planned to share her celebration with anything else.

  Now Kolya pulled out of his pocket the small box which held the ring. He had ordered it from Marshak, the most renowned jeweler in Kiev. In all the Russias, only Fabergé was held in higher repute than this jeweler. The ring was set in platinum, and was composed of an emerald and a diamond of the same size, placed side by side. Kolya placed it upon Sonia’s slender finger, and the two families gathered around her to admire and kiss her. Johanna stood back, watching, and a vague glimmer of distaste shadowed her eyes. But she too approached the young woman and raised her fine eyebrows at the lovely gems. Sonia smiled and thanked her brother and parents and future mother- and father-in-law for their blessings, and thanked Johanna, too. She smiled and she smiled until lines of exhaustion began to form around her eyes. And then, under the magnificent chandelier, with its unique set of light bulbs, she fainted.