The Four Winds of Heaven Read online

  She sat just underneath a staircase, on the deck that was crowded with howling refugees of all ages and backgrounds. She cradled her son in her arms, and crooned to him a song of her childhood. Her golden hair blew about her face in the wind, her cornflower-blue eyes glistening with memories of dances and gay moments, of the Mariin-sky Theater, of a watch crafted by Fabergé. “But you, my love, are a Russian, don’t you ever forget it,” she said to the little boy, bouncing him precariously on her knee.

  She had wanted to find Ossip, to take him with them all on this exodus. Her mother and father, impoverished, had told her he had gone to Odessa when last they had heard. Sioma had said, “Why not? We are already a crowd, and he is family.” But the old man, the hideously miserly old man, her father-in-law, had shaken his head and propelled them all like a flock of sheep toward this ship. He could not wait, the Reds would catch up with them if they stopped to fetch this cousin of Tania. How she detested him, the old man, she thought, as she rocked her baby in her arms, and was jostled by another woman. Here she was, Baroness Tatiana Alexandrovna de Gunzburg, and she had been lucky to locate this tiny space beneath the staircase for herself and her son. Tears of rage came to her eyes.

  But, she thought, it is this dreadful family, these ugly Kiev upstarts who are saving Mama and Papa today. Her father-in-law had hoarded a veritable fortune in a Swiss bank, and the Halperins were not ruined. She thought painfully of Jean, then dismissed the memory, and thought of Ossip, her companion-in-thoughts, her friend. Should she have married him? She licked her lips and mused. He would have enchanted her, given her passion of the flesh, made her collapse with hilarity. But he would never have amassed a fortune, would not have found a way to save her parents from ruin. Twenty years ago, Ossip would have made her a fine husband, with inherited wealth. Today, hard as it was to accept, she desperately needed Sioma Halperin.

  “Honor thy father, partridge of mine,” she said to the child, with an effort at light laughter. “Love him, sweetest. That is the least we can do, you and I. And I shall try, you’ll see…”

  The Red Army was coming to Feodosia. Newspapers no longer existed, only two-page leaflets filled with Bolshevik propaganda. The educated members of the town now attempted to refer to the Petrograd government as “the Bolsheviks” and to their army as “the Reds,” so that they could speak more clearly of them. Russia was so vast that the Council of the People’s Commissars, in the capital, could only spread its control through the individual Soviets that were gradually forming in the towns, but not always in the smaller villages. Opposition to the Red takeover of government processes compelled Lenin to resort in December 1917 to the creation of the Extraordinary Commission for the Suppression of Counterrevolution, commonly called the Cheka. This body perpetrated such horrible deeds that it came to be known as the Red Terror. In addition, when members of the Red Army took over an area, executions and assassinations frequently took place as a matter of course. Gino had written his mother, “You must remember that civil war is the worst of all man’s fights, and he turns most viciously on his own kind. White takeovers are bound to become equally bloody.” But, he added, after the initial reprisals, life would probably resume its course.

  When the Reds marched into Feodosia, the Gunzburgs were not at home, but at the house of the Pomerantzes, for it was New Year’s Eve. Immediately, Nadezhda Igorovna and Olga took their guests to a back room where old furniture was being stored, and where there were no windows. Mathilde and Sonia, in mourning, had not wished to celebrate the New Year, but Nadezhda Igorovna, whom Mathilde now familiarly called “Nadia,” had insisted that they come for a most simple supper, in order not to be alone with their grief. Johanna de Mey had refused to go along.

  The four women and the Pomerantz servants huddled together in the dark, among the dusty crates and boxes. Sonia’s hand remained on Mathilde’s arm, as though to warn her mother to keep quiet. But Mathilde was far too terrified to scream. She leaned against Nadezhda Igorovna. Suddenly a noise, of glass splintering harshly, penetrated the musty room, and Sonia’s lips parted on an intake of breath. Her heart was pounding in her throat. More noises followed, and Mathilde, who treasured peace, beauty, and wholeness, felt as though her own body were being violated along with the house. Then the looters departed, or so Sonia thought, hearing the shouts moving toward the street, and a horrid silence take over the house. She rose, and touched Olga on the shoulder. The two young women slipped out of the storage area and into the living room. Even in the darkness they could discern the damage, the broken tables and slashed Persian rugs. “Oh, my God!” Sonia cried.

  But Nadia Pomerantz exclaimed, “They did not know about my lack of taste, did they, my friends? Aren’t you pleased, Mathilde, that the paintings you selected for me had not yet arrived?” She began to laugh, the warmth of her resonant chuckles spreading to her daughter and two guests. Calmly, she requested her servants to attempt to make order in the house.

  Only then did Mathilde suddenly clap her hand to her mouth, crying, “Johanna! She is alone with Marfa, the maid. Sonia, we must go at once. Will your valet accompany us, Nadia?” She thanked her hostess and left, Sonia pressing behind her with the Pomerantz servant. They nearly ran the short distance that spanned the two houses. There were no lights in the Gunzburg windows, and Sonia said, “I cannot tell if the panes are broken. Come, Mama, through the back.”

  They discovered upon entering their rented house that many beautiful carvings, oil canvases, and silver and crystal bibelots had been smashed and dented, while others had been stolen. Now they ran about the house, calling, “Johanna! Juanita!” and “Marfa, where are you hiding?” Naked terror filled them as they stepped over shards of glass in an effort to open all doors.

  They found Johanna crouched in the kitchen broom closet, her aquamarine eyes bloodshot and dilated, her thin hands scraping against her clothing, her hair, her face. Mathilde took a step back, bile rising to her mouth as if she had seen a wild animal. Then, as Sonia resolutely pulled the woman from between the brooms, Mathilde came to her, and extended her hands. But Johanna de Mey regarded her with enormous bulging eyes, and shook herself away. “You left me here for them to murder!” she cried, her voice rising shrilly.

  “You must leave now,” Sonia whispered with embarrassment to the curious Pomerantz valet. She walked with him to the front door, which had been pushed in, and he helped her to lift the heavy wood and replace it upon its hinges. In the kitchen, Mathilde, her face white, her eyes full of tears, was saying softly, “No, it was you who would not come to Nadia’s. Remember, Johanna, it was your decision. She invited you. We… had no idea… they would come tonight.”

  “But you chose to be with her! You have stopped loving me, Mathilde. I can see everything; that woman has taken over, and it is her you love. Oh, if I had been replaced by a young girl, by a round plump girl, by a lithe sylph of a girl, then I might have understood, although it might still have killed me! But not this woman, this Nadia, who resembles a horse, yes, a horse! What solace can you possibly find in her caresses, the caresses of a woman every day as old as I, who have loved you more than twenty years?”

  Johanna de Mey was now advancing upon Mathilde, her eyes wildly shining, her breath hot upon the face of the other woman, who backed away with sudden fear and loathing. Sonia, panting from her exertions with the door, entered, carrying a kerosene lamp. Her mother turned to her, her face agape, her body trembling. “Yes!” Johanna screamed. “Tell your sweet precious daughter about what we have done, you and I, during the years of your marriage to her sanctified father! Tell her, Mathilde, or I shall!”

  Sonia stood like an ebony statue in her mourning gown, holding the lamp. Its flame lit the ceiling, then fell upon her mother’s expression of sheer horror and fear. Startled, Sonia moved closer, then saw Johanna, her long body quivering, her face splotched with red, her nose etched like a knife against the background of darkness. “Sonia!” the Dutchwoman cried, her face coming alive. “Would you like me
to tell you a story? About betrayal and abandonment, about lost faith, about kisses in the night—”

  “I do not know what you are talking about,” Sonia declared, her voice crisp and clear. “Here, you are hysterical with fright. Where’s Marfa?”

  “Marfa? Oh, the maid! That is another story of abandonment. God will punish you, Mathilde. The maid has vanished into the night air, wearing scarlet ribbons in her hair and proclaiming she wants to be free and join the Reds. She left, and now we have no servants at all.”

  “You’re lying!” Sonia exclaimed, grabbing Johanna’s arm and giving it a shake. “Marfa’s been with us since I was a child! She wouldn’t leave us. We’ve been good to her.”

  “But she has, nevertheless. She said: The Baroness has no money left, and I am tired of running errands.’ And then she, a woman of forty, took the arm of the soldier who was here, and off she skipped, laughing. Bunch of hoodlums, the lot of them. Ossip was crazy to burden himself with Stepan—now he’ll probably be knifed in the back, in Odessa, by that tall brute!”

  “Shut up!” Sonia cried. She stepped directly in front of the Dutchwoman and glared at her from her large gray eyes. Her body was shaking, and she could hardly breathe, but she propelled the woman in front of her to the room which Johanna used as a bedroom. She pushed her roughly onto the bed, and stood over her, her white face taut. “You will remain here,” she said with authority. “Mama will go to bed, and you will stay away from her, do you understand? I shall have to do some work to clean up this mess they have left us.”

  When she returned to the kitchen to fetch a dustpan and a mop, Mathilde still stood, transfixed, in the same spot. Sonia stated tersely, bending to pick up a piece of debris, “There is much work to be done. Windows to be covered up somehow, with pieces of wood or cardboard, or whatever I can find. Go to sleep, Mama.” Then, without looking at her mother, she added, “Do you remember when I caught pneumonia, in ‘03? Looking for Anna? Well, you were never told the story of what happened that night. Not even Papa was told the truth. Actually—I alone know what happened. I did not even tell Anna, but Juanita had sent the Secret Police after her. Had it not been for our friendship with Lopukhin, Annushka might have been sent to the Fortress, on charges of high treason. Juanita tried to send Anna away, because of her insane hatred of her—of all of us. Don’t you see that she’s always hated us—Papa, Annushka, me?” She walked briskly into the living room, carrying her kitchen utensils.

  Mathilde’s sapphire eyes glowed like shiny new marbles, but they saw nothing. She could not speak.

  As she swept broken windowpanes into a corner, Sonia remembered suddenly that it was the New Year, 1918, and that this marked the fifth anniversary of her engagement to Kolya Saxe. For the first New Year since 1913 she had failed to be overwhelmed by dejection and regret. She touched her hair, which was covered with dust, and thought: Could it be that finally I am over loving him? Or did all the things that happened tonight shadow my feelings? She waited, but the familiar, dull ache did not spread through her muscles and into her bones, and her throat did not constrict. So! she reflected, and resumed her activities.

  Because of heavy fighting in the Ukraine, where White regiments had joined with the fierce separatist forces for an independent state, Gino was obliged to detour in his efforts to reach his mother and sister. Normally, trains were kept on schedule, and one could plot a voyage stop by stop; but now the young man realized that at every station the trains would halt indefinitely. He spent many nights stretched out on benches in waiting rooms, as had his mother on her honeymoon, during the Sabbath. And then, in Kursk, while watching for an approaching train, he found two urchins next to him, hovering over his bags. He turned around in time to see one of them making off with his knapsack, the other with a kit containing personal property and toilet articles.

  “Hey!” Gino shouted, and he began to run after them, his sturdy, well-exercised legs pumping toward the thieves. There were many people at the station, and some now turned to stare with interest at the young soldier pursuing the boys. “They stole my bags! Stop them!” Gino cried, but in response he heard only a jeer. Nobody cared about personal property these days. At length he caught up with the one hoisting the knapsack, and he grabbed him from behind and forced him to drop the bundle. The boy began to scream, “Help! Burshui! Help!” but Gino, red with anger, was only interested in recovering his other bag. He clutched the knapsack, pushing the boy to the ground, and raced after the other youngster. But when he reached him, he himself felt dragged down to the hard cement quay of the station, and an enormous corporal stood above him, readying his fist.

  “What is this?” Gino exclaimed. “They made off with my things, and now you’re after me—”

  He felt the blow, and fell forward, and as he fell he heard the whistle of the approaching train, for which he had been waiting almost twelve hours. Overwhelming nausea came over him, his head reeled, and then he was enveloped in darkness. When he came to, it was almost night. A freezing wind had started to blow, and there was a huge, bloody bump at the back of his head. His hand hurt, and looking down, he saw that the signet ring, inherited from his grandfather, Baron Yuri, was gone. The flesh around his knuckles was scraped raw. I have missed my train, he thought with dismay. And my bags…

  A tremendous sense of defeat descended upon his emotions. Gino rose, and walked inside the station. He stopped one of the attendants, and asked, “The train south?”

  “Gone, hours ago. But don’t feel bad,” the old man added, noticing Gino’s downcast expression. “It can’t have gotten too far. We’ve just heard that near Kharkov the rails have been removed for a very long stretch. Everyone going your way will be delayed for quite a few days. Might as well warm yourself with a glass of tea, boy.”

  Gino shook his head, bewildered, aghast, and finally amused. A year ago, though no officer’s insignia adorned his uniform, this illiterate old station attendant would not have called him “boy.” He would have bowed, and walked away backward, obsequiously, addressing him as “Excellency.” Gino regarded him with sheepishness. “I’ve been robbed of my bags,” he stated. “I have no money.”

  “Ah, well, then I can’t help you,” the old man muttered, shaking his head. “Tea’s for the ones that can afford it, and a tip for me.”

  “We’ve lost all but one servant, too,” Nadia Pomerantz said valiantly to Mathilde de Gunzburg. She dipped her spoon into the bowl of steaming soup. “And they’ve set about nationalizing my business. I have two Bolsheviks in the office, every day, peering over my shoulder. As soon as the girls finish that stenography course, we must go to Simferopol. It is a larger city, and it’s not a port, and the Reds haven’t taken it yet. Besides, Olga’s signed up for some courses at the University…”

  “But we’ve heard nothing from my son Gino,” Mathilde said despondently.

  “Ah! The soldier. That is true, my dear. Travel is so precarious these days, and if indeed he’s left the army—”

  “Yes, I must wait. But, if you go, will you take Sonia with you?”

  “I shall wait beside you. Sonia would no sooner leave than would your friend, Johanna Ivanovna. Come now, rest a while, Mathilde.”

  But the mention of Johanna had made Mathilde perceptibly shiver. She said nothing, but hugged her shawl more tightly around her shoulders. “Simferopol, capital of the Crimea… Yes,” she stated, “it makes sense. But what about your own funds?”

  Nadia Pomerantz smiled. “They do not know it, but I possess a cache in a Simferopol bank. Most convenient.”

  “Indeed. We are so grateful to you, Nadia. What would we do without your counsel, and friendship?”

  “Nonsense. You have a splendid, resourceful daughter. It’s true, our houses are a shambles, but the girls, both of them, have kept them well. Although I’m tired of boiled barley—aren’t you?”

  The two women began to laugh. “Barley is about all we can afford, or this peasant soup,” Mathilde sighed. “Sometimes, Sonia brings home be
ans. Creamy white beans. To think of pureed mushrooms, atop a bed of baby peas…”

  “I never could waste time on such food,” her friend cut in peremptorily. “But boiled barley… Olga burns the bottom of the pan. Sonia’s soup seems a treat.”

  “Olga is a charming child,” Mathilde stated. “How she would have enjoyed Petrograd. Was she never betrothed, Nadia?”

  “Olga? No, she’s only nineteen. Hardly had time for a proper debut. Yes, yes, don’t look so at me—I gave her a most proper debut, with trimmings and all. She loved it. But she’s adjusted. One of the young Bolshevik supervisors they’ve sent me at the offices has quite a crush on her, I dare say. She treats him as though he were scum. But who will marry her in this godforsaken country? And Sonia? What is to become of our fine young daughters, Mathilde?”

  “Sonia tells me I must concentrate upon the essential task, which is remaining alive and in good health. Madame Zevina, our overseer’s wife, lives in Simferopol. Perhaps the Zevins can help us find a place to live—inexpensively. We never did find boarders here, to help us with the rent, and it’s created havoc with our savings. But I complain endlessly, my dear. Forgive me?”