The Four Winds of Heaven Read online

  He replied, quite easily, not looking at Sonia, “They’re keeping me alive, if that’s what you mean. And you? How are you managing?”

  The woman raised finely penciled eyebrows: “I always manage, my dear, not exactly in the style to which you’ve accustomed me, but then again, survival is an instinct with me. Do you miss me?”

  “I don’t have time to,” he replied rudely, his gentle blue-green eyes turning to ice-blue shards. The set of his jaw became more pronounced. Sonia’s posture had grown rigid, her breath came in quick gasps. She felt the blood flowing once more to her cheekbones, and thought: It is not possible. But of course it’s possible! Men have mistresses all the time. Tears rose to her eyes as she vividly recalled her conversation with him in her parents’ home, when he had told her about Kolya’s mistress.

  The woman said, tauntingly, “Are you ashamed to introduce me to this pretty lady, with whom you were discussing such heated topics?”

  “We were discussing nothing of the sort. Baroness Sofia de Gunzburg is an acquaintance of long standing.” His face was set like stone, but he regarded Sonia, and his eyes softened, appealed to her—and held her. “Sofia Davidovna, may I present to you my wife, Elena Lvovna?”

  Sonia had been prepared for anything but this. Yet, though her heart had leaped into her throat, she continued to stand upright, her features composed. She inclined her head, weighed down by her pompadour and topknot, and forced herself to smile, weak though it was. “How do you do,” she stated.

  She saw the stare of open admiration on Mossia’s face, and all at once she felt terribly sorry for him. Why had he married her? Clearly, he did not love this woman. She felt certain of that. War made people do such stupid, senseless things...

  “You must call me ‘Lialia,’” Elena Lvovna said, placing a hand on Sonia’s arm. “Lialia means ‘doll’ in Polish. It was my professional name. You see, I used to sing at a cafe-concert in Kiev. My mother sang operetta, and it was she whom Mossia met first. It was a strange story, really, but so typical of my husband,” she said, glancing toward him. “He had won a fortune by being the only person at a horse race to bet on the winner. Naturally, this came about because of a mistake: Mossia had meant to place his bet on the favorite, as everyone else had. When his horse won he felt guilty, for this was money he had not earned. So he spent it on a magnificent house for all the actors and singers—and demimondaines, for there were many!—that he knew. He even hired servants. My mother went to live there, and so we met. Now I have become his own little doll, haven’t I, sweet?” She eyed him with undisguised lust, as if to taunt him.

  “I am certain that the Baroness had no desire to hear this long and ancient story,” Mossia declared abruptly.

  But Sonia regarded him with the pure straight gaze of her gray eyes, and smiled. “On the contrary—I found it quite touching.”

  “And did he tell you how he came to be put in prison? One of those Germans was drunk, and made improper advances toward me. Mossia didn’t stand for it, of course. Isn’t he... honorable?”

  “Tomorrow I shall return with food for Gino,” Sonia stated. “My mother will be most pleased to add some things for you, too, Mossia Gillelovitch,” She nodded her head and placed her delicate fingers upon Olga’s arm, “Come, my darling,” she murmured. “Our mothers will be waiting.” She took her brother’s hand through the bars, and kissed it. Then she turned back to the Zlatopolskys. “Good evening,” she said graciously.

  Mossia watched sadly as Sonia disappeared.

  During the period of Gino’s imprisonment, Sonia went to the jail each day with a basket of food. She always brought enough to allow her brother to share with Mossia Zlatopolsky, and she would often stop to chat with the young man in an amiable way, never forgetting to inquire about his wife. Once or twice she saw the voluptuous, flamboyant Lialia in the streets of Feodosia, and she replied to her ostentatious greetings with utmost courtesy. When Mathilde commented with horror upon Mossia’s choice of wife, her daughter stopped her. “Hillel Zlatopolsky did business with Papa, and knew Uncle Misha in Kiev,” she stated. “If his son, who is a gentleman, has married this woman, he has probably done so after mature consideration, knowing her qualities far better than we do. We owe her the same graciousness that we would give to any friendly acquaintance, Mama.” She held her head high, undaunted by the fact that others of Feodosia society, such as the elder Madame Zevina, frowned upon her for speaking to this woman of dubious character.

  One day, not long after Gino’s arrest, Mathilde received a message from a distant relation, Hans Blumenfeld of Hamburg. Baroness Rosa de Gunzburg had been born a Warburg in Germany, and this young man was the son of one of Rosa’s sisters. He was a lieutenant in the German army, however, and, as delicately as possible, was requesting permission to visit his relations in Feodosia.

  “Gino is in prison because of the German occupants,” Sonia objected. “We should not receive this young man, considering his nationality and what his people are doing to ours.”

  But Mathilde leveled her eyes at her daughter and replied, “He is a member of our family, and surely he is not responsible for Gino’s predicament, Sonia. If we helped the Falkenhayns, why should we refuse Rosa’s own flesh and blood? Had Gino been a soldier in Hamburg, I would have been most grateful to the Blumenfelds for inviting him to their home. He will have luncheon with us tomorrow.”

  When Sonia announced this to her brother, Gino’s face flushed a deep purple and he grasped the cell bars with anger. “I have fought the Germans, risked my life!” he exclaimed. “The Falkenhayn episode was totally different. Blumenfeld is not dying. He is an enemy, and Mama is behaving outrageously. I am glad that I am here—or I should be obliged to go to Olga’s house to eat, in order not to have to sit in front of him at the table Mama shames me.”

  Sonia said nothing. Conflicting emotions were warring within her: loyalty to her country and brother on the one hand, family tradition and devotion to her mother on the other. But a plan was forming in her mind, although she would never have outlined it to Gino.

  When young Blumenfeld appeared the next day, Sonia made him welcome, and served a beautifully presented meal which considerably stretched the Gunzburgs’ budget. There was fresh salad, cold fish, and boiled potatoes sprinkled with parsley, and for dessert, apples and a cheese. The officer smiled, his light eyes brightening with pleasure, and he began to relax. He told Mathilde that he had heard that his Aunt Rosa and Uncle Sasha had reached France, that Tania and her in-laws had gone to Basel, Switzerland.

  It was over coffee that Sonia cleared her throat, and said, “Hans, a grave situation has arisen on account of my young brother’s—impulsiveness. You are a lieutenant, an officer. Might it be within your power to help a member of our own family, who has acted foolishly? Gino is in jail because of a girl, really.” Then, without blushing, she began to recount Gino’s actions, tempering them a bit, and smiling sweetly at the young man. “You see how overblown the case actually has been,” she finished, gazing with her pure gray eyes at Hans Blumenfeld. “And isn’t it romantic, really?”

  And so it was that on the following day, a joyful Gino appeared at the Gunzburg house. “They released me!” he cried. “And I don’t know why. Did Nadezhda Igorovna convince them that I was not a criminal?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” his sister answered. “But some criminals are less dangerous than a fool in love.” And she turned her back, seemingly annoyed at him. His mother raised her eyebrows and shook her head in Sonia’s direction. Don’t cross her today, her blue eyes told him.

  Even after her brother’s return to the family, Sonia continued her visits to the prison. She brought the same basket, filled with whatever food they could manage, and casually deposited it in the hands of Mossia Zlatopolsky. “I am sorry that we couldn’t help you, too,” she declared the first day. “But one favor was all that we thought we could curry from the enemy.” When she departed, Mossia thoughtfully shared the food with Vassya, who was indeed
grateful. For both of them realized that Sonia could ill afford her generosity and that, had she learned of Vassya’s connection with Gino at the front, she would surely have sacrificed her own portion to add more to the basket. Mossia felt within his heart that no one in the Gunzburg household knew of her continued visits, nor of the tidbits she put aside for him. It was a gesture of personal honor that Mossia cherished.

  But the two prisoners had another visitor each morning, one Sonia never knew about. Every day, Gino came to see Vassya and Mossia, also bearing whatever scraps he could save. In order to preserve the dignity of the siblings’ selfless acts, the two men never revealed to either Gunzburg what the other was doing. It is the indomitable Gunzburg spirit which must at any cost be salvaged from this strife, Mossia determined. Even if Russia herself perishes, these two young people, the Baron’s children, must fight to survive. They are his greatest legacy on earth.

  Soon the Germans began to relax their hold on Feodosia, and could hardly be bothered with such harmless men as Vassya and Mossia Zlatopolsky. The two men were released from jail, Vassya returning to his nearby farm, and Mossia going in search of his wife, Lialia. It was old Madame Zevina who announced to Sonia, Mathilde, and Johanna that she had heard that the Zlatopolskys had gone to Yalta, where members of his family had been staying. “It is strange that he did not stop to say good-bye to us,” Mathilde remarked, furrowing her brow. But Madame Zevina shrugged: “If he is indeed a gentleman, then he merely spared you a face-to-face encounter with his... vivid spouse.”

  Sonia simply smiled. She was thinking of a racehorse that had won, against all odds.

  Chapter 22

  Sonia and Gino carefully perused the newspapers, which were not accurate, spouting German and communist propaganda. But these tabloids were all that were available to them, and they were eager to know what was occurring in the rest of the country. News of Ossip could not reach them, and if Hans Blumenfeld had not told them of Sasha, Rosa, and Tania, they might have thought them dead in Petrograd and Kiev. News from abroad was nonexistent, except to relate German exploits in the final throes of the world war—distorted exploits, naturally, for the Central Powers were, in fact, faring badly.

  One event, however, did come through the propaganda, about a political murder which took place in July in Ekaterinburg, deep in Siberia. Brother and sister regarded each other, sick and frightened: the Tzar and his wife and four children had been shot and killed by the communists. “A purge,” the tabloid had called it. Gino sat with his chin upon his clenched hands, thinking of his beloved country. He had been less of a Tzarist than his parents, brother, and sister Sonia. They had been true aristocrats. He thought of himself as a well-educated, simple man with the instincts of an intelligent peasant or soldier. He sat and pondered the fate of his Russia, and wept. The death of the Tzar signified the end of a truly Russian tradition, embedded in its land and in its people.

  Cut off from everything that had given meaning to his existence, and fiercely set against fighting his own countrymen, Gino de Gunzburg felt as though a maelstrom were storming all around him. Chaos reigned, blood was shed, but at this particular place in the Crimea he was isolated from its direct effects. He might actually have been living in another nation. A logical, sensible young man, a young man imbued with strong principles, he could not sort out the confusion or his own part in it. He felt that the only ordered aspect of his life was centered around his mother and sister, and Olga, of course. She too was strangely at loose ends, not knowing how best to proceed with life.

  Clutching at the first sign of safety, Olga and Gino felt that the best thing for them was simply to proceed with their lives, thereby lending a measure of sanity to their families too. After much discussion, therefore, the two young people resolved to enter the University of Simferopol in the fall. As soon as Alexander Zevin wrote that he had found lodgings for everyone, Gunzburgs and Pomerantzes made their way from Feodosia to the larger city, which was the capital of the Crimea. Zevin had rented a pleasant house for Nadezhda Igorovna and her daughter, who could afford it. But, knowing the tight straits in which the Gunzburgs now found themselves, with no resources but the small remains of the 1917 harvest, he took for them the living room and alcove of a large house which was being opened to boarders.

  This residence belonged to a widow, Madame Solovéichik, who had once been of the wealthy gentry but whose income had greatly diminished. At one time, she had lived from the proceeds of her nearby farm in Beshterek, but now the communists were sending groups of the Cheka to collect much of her livestock and vegetables for the feeding of their own party members in the cities. Her income had therefore much declined, and she had begun to take in paying guests.

  The house was large but had only a single story, and it already contained two families when the Gunzburgs arrived. Sonia and Gino cheered up their mother and ignored Johanna’s complaints, converting the sitting room into a room for the three women, who would sleep on a couch and two cots, and preparing a third cot for Gino in the alcove, with a pinned-up sheet to separate him from the women, as a curtain.

  Madame Solovéichik did not provide meals for her guests, but she allowed the Gunzburgs to use her kitchen facilities. Everyone ate together in the vast dining room, and the dinners were animated. Apart from her live-in boarders, Madame Solovéichik had with her an aged friend of ninety-two who, not wishing to accept charity, tended the enormous samovar all day long in a small storeroom; and also an impoverished lady of society who had become her housekeeper. Two schoolteachers came to supper, and an old poetess as well. Mathilde enjoyed these people and Sonia and Gino sometimes joined one of the boarder families, whose daughter played the piano and knew the youth of Simferopol. But the Gunzburgs were still in mourning for David, and did not dance. Besides, Gino spent most of his evening hours with Olga, working on their Greek or their history homework. And Sonia, after her household chores, was frequently tired.

  Gino was serious about his studies, and, as his French and German were flawless, he took home translations for some of his professors to add small amounts of money to the family funds. Sonia, when there was time, occasionally accompanied her brother and Olga to a particularly intriguing lecture. But she had discovered that Alexander Zevin’s wife owned a typewriter, and three or four times a week Sonia would walk to her house to practice on her machine.

  The younger Madame Zevina was also an excellent pianist, and since Sonia had not had occasion to play for a long time, she would sit down with her hostess after her typing sessions and indulge in that pastime fraught with memories, four-handed piano. Together, Sonia and Ekaterina Zevina attacked classical symphonies, opera partitas, overtures, military marches, Peer Gynt, and many pieces by Schumann, Grieg, Saint-Saëns, and Tchaikovsky. They would play for two full hours, during which time Sonia forgot that she was poor, that her brother Ossip had disappeared, that her former governess did not miss a single chance to harass her. She forgot that the Solovéichik stove had only four burners for more than four boarders, and that each time she had to go to the bathroom she would return to find that one of the other ladies had substituted a pot of her own for Sonia’s, and that the soup or barley which she had been boiling had been relegated to a cold corner of the stove, where it had begun to congeal.

  It was to Ekaterina Zevina that Sonia admitted, one afternoon, “The last time that I played four-handed piano my heart very nearly broke.” But she did not elaborate, and she spoke these words as if she had been discussing the weather. Madame Zevina sighed, and thought: For someone like Sonia, this is tantamount to a confession. She pressed Sonia’s fingers expressively.

  Madame Solovéichik had a small dog, Kaffa, who loved Sonia more than anyone and followed her around, sniffing nosily. Sonia would sometimes find upon arriving at the Zevins’ that Kaffa was still at her heels. The two Zevin daughters would scoop her into their arms like a fuzzy ball, laughing. Sonia was grateful for their easy affection and acceptance of her, and to show her gratitude she began t
o teach the two girls stenography. So, on the days when she visited the Zevins’ house, Sonia would seldom return until suppertime.

  One winter day, upon awakening, Johanna de Mey discovered that she had caught a chill. She shivered and sneezed from her reddened nose, and within days seemed to become as thin as a wraith. It was Sonia who sat by her bed, nursing her.

  Nadezhda Igorovna Pomerantz traveled a good bit between her rented house in Simferopol and her mansion in Feodosia, to make certain that some of the moneys from her business came to her after all, in spite of interference from the Germans and the Cheka. Of course, with the signing of the Armistice between the Allies and the Central Powers in November 1918, she no longer feared the enemy. But the Cheka sent members constantly to collect revenues. When she would go to Feodosia, Johanna’s face would light with joy, and her aquamarine eyes, the only remnants of her once extraordinary beauty, would fill with moisture. Now that she was ill, she tossed upon her pillow, pulling strands of hair through nervous fingers, coughing for Mathilde. But Sonia said calmly, “Mama has gone to stay with Olga, for Nadezhda Igorovna is out of town. I did not want Mama to catch your cold, Juanita. She has been weak of late.”

  The sick woman sat up, her thin face distorted. “You?” she shrieked. “I might have known that you would separate us! If it isn’t that ill-bred woman from Feodosia, then it is you, Miss Priss! Or are you in cahoots with the snake-haired Sappho, you ignoble girl?”

  “You are echoing a tiresome refrain,” Sonia replied. She plumped her governess’s pillow and took up the book from which she had been reading aloud. But Johanna snatched it from her fingers, and hurled it across the room. Sonia raised her eyebrows questioningly, and folded her arms over her chest. “Now what is it?” she sighed.