The Four Winds of Heaven Page 48

  Indeed, the following afternoon, Marfa announced a Mademoiselle Olga Arkadievna Pomerantz, and a young girl entered the living room. She was of medium height, with short, waved strawberry blond hair arranged in curls. She wore a suit trimmed with muted gold braid and her elegant high boots glistened in the sunlight. Yet the small round pink mouth was natural, the coral cheeks were un-enhanced by rouge, and Sonia thought: She belies what they say in Petrograd about provincial girls! Olga Pomerantz is most attractive, and fashionable, too. Yet she is very young! She touched her own thick hair in its traditional pompadour and topknot, and felt singularly spinsterly and old.

  “Madame Zevina is acquainted with my mother,” Olga said simply, taking a seat at Sonia’s bidding. “I was so pleased when she told me of your presence. It was dreadful, what happened—the Tzar abdicating and all. Mama is the most strong-willed person I know—but still, I did not want to leave her alone here, and remain alone myself in Kharkov. Nevertheless, it has been rather lonesome.”

  “Your mother appears to be quite a legend in this town,” Sonia commented with a smile.

  “Oh, yes! Papa died most unexpectedly, while dressing one morning. And Mama simply took over. She always knew what Papa did: his dealings with the farmers, the estate owners, the shipping executives, the foreign clients… Now she goes to the offices, and turns a better profit than Papa ever did. We are great friends, Mama and I. But we have little time to spend together.”

  “I am sorry,” Sonia said, her large gray eyes taking in the eager young girl before her. How old could she be? Nineteen, twenty—at most? Yet there was depth within her, Sonia thought. “You must come to visit us, then,” she added, brightly. “I do not wish my mother to be so concerned over my welfare. I was ill some years ago, and weakened during some work that I was doing in Petrograd, for the war effort. Mama and Juanita—Johanna Ivanovna, her companion—should visit the sights, and go out more frequently. If you came for tea they would deem me in fine company, and everybody would be satisfied. Will you come?”

  “Of course,” Olga replied. Then, as Sonia paled as she began to rise, she held her in her chair with a swift movement of the arm. “I can pour tea as well as anyone in Feodosia,” she declared, and the green sparks in her hazel eyes shone merrily.

  The Pomerantzes owned the most luxurious mansion on the Catherine Boulevard, and soon the Gunzburgs and Johanna were invited there to suppers and teas. Madame Pomerantz, Nadezhda Igorovna, was tall and sinewy, with large gray eyes that peered shrewdly at those around her. Her black hair refused to stay tamed in curls and coils, and she absolutely abstained from wearing hats, even though this was not an accepted practice. She was vivacious and somewhat loud, her voice a tremulous alto, quite stirring. Feodosia permitted her her eccentricities, for she was an enfant terrible, frank, honest, disarmingly forthright. Her daughter Olga was as gentle as she was rough.

  Nadezhda Igorovna took to Mathilde with instant affection, and brought her from room to room, pointing with mock horror at the lack of refinement of her furnishings, which were singularly devoid of personality. She did, however, possess the most remarkable Persian and Indian carpets that Mathilde had ever seen, but there were no vases, no flowers, no knickknacks, and no paintings or photographs upon the walls. “I cannot spend my energies decorating,” she said, throwing her hands into the air in defeat.

  “I could help you,” Mathilde suggested, hesitantly. She felt drawn to this woman who ran her affairs like a man, and suddenly she felt proud of her own talents. “Perhaps my only gift lies in arranging rooms. It isn’t much of a gift, like Johanna’s in music, or yours, dear Nadezhda Igorovna, in business affairs. But I have always loved the feel of upholstery, the play of gentle colors one upon the other. I would not impose my taste on you, though.”

  “But you must! I insist! What good would you be as a friend, if you could not help me with this blessed house? Ah, I have asked Olga, but you know the young: they lead their own lives, and plan their own futures. You will help, then?”

  “I should do so, gladly,” Mathilde replied with a smile.

  “Mama has never asked me to help her,” Olga whispered to Sonia. “To tell you the truth, she laughed at the notion of spending money on what she calls ‘the trimmings.’ Even when Papa was alive, she hardly cared. But it appears that your mother’s charm and excellent taste have changed her mind.”

  Sonia smiled, and the two young women, arm in arm, followed their elders into the living room. There, the maître d’hôtel served them an excellent tea. Only Johanna de Mey remained silent. But as soon as they had drained their cups, while Olga promised to pick up Sonia for a conference that evening at one of the lecture halls in town, the Dutchwoman hastened her farewells and insisted upon walking ahead of the Gunzburgs for the short trip from the Pomerantz house to their own. Mathilde called out to her once, and, more faintly, a second time. Then, shrugging slightly, she took her daughter’s arm and strolled home, discussing with gentle laughter Nadezhda Igorovna, and with enthusiasm her daughter Olga. Once, Sonia thought with a pang of surprising envy, I was just like her: fresh, moderne, interested in everything. And Kolya loved me, and before him Volodia Tagantsev. But now, what is there to love in me? I am nearly twenty-seven, and my idealism has worn, like old silver. She said, “I never thought the Tzar would give up, did you, Mama?”

  “Hush,” her mother admonished, trying to retain her pleasant mood. “Do be a lady, Sonia, and leave politics alone…”

  Once in their house, no sooner had her daughter gone into her bedroom than Johanna de Mey greeted Mathilde, her golden hair flecked with gray streaming down her back. She was already undressed, and in her peignoir, displayed a thin figure in apricot silk. “That woman is odious!” she cried, and clenched her hands together. “How could you, how could you, Mathilde?”

  Shivering slightly, her friend replied, “How could I what, Johanna? What have I done?”

  “What? You have encouraged the familiarity of a preposterous person, a person unfit for you! She is coarse and crass, and has no friends. No wonder she grovels so for your friendship!”

  Mathilde raised her eyebrows and tilted her magnificent head to one side. “So,” she stated calmly. “It is only the friendless who deign to care for me? Really, Johanna, your jealousy is most, most unbecoming. You resort to wounding me. But why? Because I have found the presence of somebody else agreeable to me? Can I no longer have other friends, Johanna?”

  “You are cruel!” Johanna cried, and tears sprang from her eyes onto her meager cheeks. She rubbed her hands drily against each other. “Nadezhda Igorovna is not a lady.”

  “That is where you are mistaken, and fooled by the exterior,” Mathilde countered. “She is admirably educated. I can tell that she has been speaking French from the cradle. She knows mathematics, poetry, what have you, far better than I. She seems tasteless only where she has not cared to give vent to her most excellent taste. And I like her. She is sophisticated but unworldly, and that is a rarity. Even my mother would enjoy her,” she added, with a proud straightening of her back. “I shall accept her friendship with gratitude. We are not at home, Johanna. Her daughter has befriended mine, it is wartime, we are strangers. I will not reject one of the first ladies of Feodosia.”

  Johanna’s almond-shaped eyes glistened and widened. “And if I reject her?” she whispered.

  “You shall have to be discreet about it. I shall not lose this newfound friend because of you. Good night, my dear.” Mathilde inclined her head, and turned toward her own bedroom. Johanna de Mey remained in the hallway, her shoulders slumped and her hands dangling at her sides.

  Gino cast down his ration of dark bread and dried beef with a gesture of frustration. He had never been very facile with words. Now they failed him totally. He regarded little Vassya, the cowherd, his corporal, who had been promoted to sergeant, with irritability. “I am not against the Provisional Government,” he finally said.

  “Then it is the commissars you oppose,” Vassya
countered.

  “Yes. Yes! What have they to do with this army? With this war?”

  “We are tired of the war, Baron,” Vassya smiled ironically. “Oh, I do not like the communists, this Lenin and his Presidium, which is no better for us than the Tzar. To me, the All-Russian Congress of Soviets simply means Lenin and Trotsky. And that’s not even their right names, mind you. And the Presidium just wants to take my father’s grain away to feed the Party, as they call themselves, without paying him in rubles and kopecks. No, we peasants do not like the Communist Party. But it looks as though your Kerensky—your Provisional Government—cannot do anything about them. Kerensky and Prince Lvov, they just ignore the communists. But they have ordered commissars for us, and that’s what we have to check us from their side; and then the communists have given us our soldiers’ committees, which are supposed to check the officers from our side. But tell me, Baron, what are we really to do if we’re attacked? Go to Kerensky’s commissars, or to the soldiers’ committees? Who’s to tell us what to do or where to fire? I want to go home, and tend my herd, and make sure my father won’t be robbed by all of them put together! That’s where we differ, you and me. You still want to fight.”

  It was the beginning of June 1917. Gino was infinitely demoralized. This was to have been Russia’s moment of triumph. The troops were well supplied, and surely, he had thought, the Central Powers would be defeated this year—in the fall, at the latest. But then the March Revolution had taken place, deposing the Tzar and autocracy. Gino was not actually sorry. Nicholas II and his Tzarina Alexandra had not exactly handled their nation with finesse. He, a Baron, felt that the British system of Parliament was most suitable, allowing for the best of all sorts of people to rise and rule. But, as his father had always maintained, for a man to rule, he had to be suitably educated. Vassya, who was Gino’s friend, could hope to make a good statesman, but only if taught the precepts of statesmanship and law.

  The March Revolution disturbed many people more than it had Gino. The fact was that Gino believed that people were reasonable, that the Tzar had abdicated as a defeated nation surrenders, without bloodshed, because he had seen no other way out. So be it, thought the young man; now let us turn to the next step, the Provisional Government. But he had forgotten Lenin, and the Bolshevik element of the Social Democratic Party. They had become, with their own All-Russian Congress of Soviets, a sort of countergovernment that ran alongside Prince Lvov’s and Alexander Kerensky’s Provisional Government. At the heart of this Congress were Lenin, Trotsky, and a few other extremists who frankly bewildered Gino at first, and then infuriated him. It was they who advocated a separate peace tantamount to surrender, who wished to create havoc within the army. Soldiers’ committees, indeed! Now little Kostya, the dim-witted, was telling him what to do and how to fight, while Kerensky’s commissar, who knew nothing whatsoever about rifles and ammunition, got in the way when he sought to explain a maneuver to Gino’s men. He did not need a sniffy bureaucrat to worry about, not in the middle of a war.

  Milyukov, Pavel Milyukov, the man in charge of Foreign Affairs in Petrograd—a man that Gino remembered had once kindled the admiration of his sister Anna—now there was an honorable man, who had told the Allies that Russia would keep fighting for their cause, their common cause! But he had resigned in disgust, and Kerensky, Minister of War and the Navy, had issued a disclaimer, insisting that Russia would fight only a defensive war from then on. A defensive war! Those were fine words with which to conciliate the Congress of Soviets and Lenin. Gino spat and shook his head. “Do you know whom I found, laughing in his beer with the Austrians?” he demanded of his friend.

  “Who, Baron?”

  “Kostya. I had to shake him away. Singing bawdy songs, clear over in the enemy camp. There’s total chaos, Vassya. Sometimes I do feel as you—I want to find my sister and mother in the Crimea, and have a civilized meal with them, and listen to my sister play the piano. But we can’t just give up!” he cried, spilling some tea onto the ground in his excitement.

  “Kerensky, for all he’s said, is on the offensive, Baron,” Vassya said gently. “Wait and see.”

  Gino munched on his bread and looked across the camp at the evening star, near the crescent of a moon that had risen. His heart swelled with yearning, but he was uncertain as to what he yearned for: warmth, love, victory? His sister had written him that she had made a new friend in Feodosia, a very young and attractive girl. How long it’s been since I have danced, he mused. Then he chuckled. Was dancing to become outdated, too, like autocracy?

  I wonder what she looks like, this Olga Pomerantz, he thought, and felt foolish. “Do you have a girl?” he asked Vassya.

  “Me? Of course!” the soldier replied merrily, throwing back his head and laughing. In that moment, Gino felt loneliness such as he had never experienced.

  “I have never had a girl,” he said softly, almost with surprise.

  The two men finished their supper, and Vassya wiped his grease-stained fingers on his trousers. A hoot owl emitted its nocturnal cry, crickets added their crissing noises. All at once, a shadow came between Gino and the moon, and a boot cracked a stick of dry wood. “May I join you?” a voice asked in courteous, measured tones.

  Gino raised his head and encountered a civilian uniform. Damn! he thought, and his cheekbones suddenly splashed with vivid red. He bit his lower lip and regarded Vassya, who shrugged. “We may as well put up with this one. He’s here, and that’s all there is to it,” the young peasant stated with disdain.

  Gino cleared his throat. “Yes. Well. We are hardly gracious, Commissar. This is an army, in spite of its appearance, and most of us don’t know what to do with our government supervisors. However—we are men, all of us, and Vassya’s right. We may as well learn to live with one another.”

  “I did not choose to be sent here, Sergeant,” the civilian replied with gentle irony. Gino scrutinized him in the dusk, and wondered, Have I not heard that voice before—and seen this man? Is he from Petrograd? He was momentarily baffled, and the other took that opportunity to sit down beside him and to extend his hand. “I am Ivan Berson,” he declared.

  A flood of sensations took over Gino’s consciousness. Berson! He ignored the proffered hand and concentrated upon the longish, wispy white-blond hair, the eyes which shone green as emeralds. This man must have been somewhere in his mid-thirties. His fine-grained skin was etched with thin dry lines about the eyes and mouth. Gino shook his head in amazement. “So,” he said.

  “You know me?” Now it was the other who regarded him closely while Vassya, opposite them, stared at the two with open mouth.

  “It was so long ago, I was just a boy of eight when you came to the house,” Gino murmured, his brown eyes fastened upon the man beside him. “You would hardly know me. But yes, I remember you. My name is Gino de Gunzburg.”

  “Gino! For God’s sake!” The green eyes lit with recognition, the thin mouth turned up in a broad smile. “Little Gino… But I should have known you. Do you recall a very fine portrait that… Anna… made of you, when you were a lad? She showed it to me, and that’s when we became friends. I could not have forgotten you—never!”

  Gino battled conflicting impulses, seeing Ivan Berson’s hand outstretched in his direction. His hunger and loneliness propelled him to want to hug this unforeseen acquaintance from the past, the comfortable past of home; yet there were memories that thrust themselves between his desire to soothe his flesh and heart, and fulfillment of this desire. He saw his Grandfather Horace holding his father by the arm, the stern look on the old man’s face, the tortured, ravaged appearance of his father. He saw his sister Anna before him, too: Anna, whose face had sagged except when he had come to tea, this Ivan Berson, and then his sister had been beautiful and radiant. But his sister had come home in the winter, and she had gone to sleep in the widows’ quarters near the kitchens, and had not been allowed to sleep with Sonia. Ivan Berson… Terrible arguments with Juanita… Vanya?

  “Vanya
. It’s good to see you,” he said at last, extending his own hand to the other, his natural good humor eclipsing his doubts and torn family loyalties. There had definitely been more than a hint of scandal; yet, so long ago…

  They shook hands, and starting to laugh like schoolboys, they embraced, pulled apart, and embraced again. “I’m going to see about the fellows,” little Vassya muttered, rising. He shook his head at them, but they paid no attention, not even when he left. Gino felt joyful as a child, the child he had been when last he had seen Ivan Berson eating crumpets at the Gunzburg apartment.

  “So?” Gino said. “You are a commissar for the Provisional Government. I shan’t ask you what exactly you’re supposed to do—but what about your family? Weren’t they avowed Tzarists?”

  Ivan Berson’s face contracted. “I broke with them long ago,” he answered calmly. Then, bits of the puzzle fell somewhat more into place for Gino, who appeared embarrassed. “It’s perfectly all right,” Ivan smiled. “You were, as you say, still a child. I’ve been a socialist—a Social Revolutionary, like Kerensky, our War Minister—for many years. He appointed me. But the Bolshevik Congress of Soviets hampers us in Petrograd, and the soldiers’ committees here think we’re the enemy. But what about you… and your family?”

  “Papa’s in Petrograd, with my brother Ossip. My mother took my sister, Sonia, to Feodosia, because she was ill. My grandfather, Horace, died in ‘09.”

  “Little Sofia Davidovna, the undaunted,” Ivan said with a grin. “She… wasn’t overly fond of me.”

  Anna hung between them, an unspoken barrier. At length, Ivan whispered, “Well? Tell me about her.”

  A strange compassion filled Gino’s heart. Looking toward the distant evening star, he said, “I have not seen her for some time, you know. She lives in Switzerland, with a friend, a Persian lady who has a son. They paint. They live simply.”