Lara's Gift (5 page)

A Candle of Hope

Thankfully, Zar didn’t need the sick animal hospital, where we quarantined unhealthy animals until they passed on or, if they were lucky, pulled through and got cleared to rejoin the healthy ones. For practical reasons the main animal hospital connected the dog kennel and horse stable. All three sections of the stable smelled of turpentine from the rags we doused and hung from the ceiling to overpower the stench of the stools left by the dogs and horses.

I led Zar into an empty stall. And just like I’d done hundreds of times before, I gathered scissors, flax, a needle, and some herbal balm in preparation to stitch up a wounded dog—except this time the wounded dog was Zar.

“Be still, boy. It’s going to hurt at first,” I said to him.

I took a deep breath and punctured his skin with the
needle, drawing the flax underneath the skin on the other side, and poking through it. Zar cowered and winced. I hated seeing him in pain, yet pulled the two sides together and repeated the process three more times before closing off the opening. When I was done patching him up, Zar rested his head on my shoulder and licked my ears—giving them tiny bites of affection.

“Alexander was right. You’ll be fine, boy,” I said.

Zar’s feet danced in place, from paw to paw.

Just then, Maxim, Papa’s lead trainer, entered the hospital. He carried a sick wolf pup, bred from a pair of training wolves, in his arms. Maxim was twice Papa’s age and kept himself lean like his wolves. “Is it true Zar almost got killed?”

“Hardly.” I pointed to the four stitches. “Take a look for yourself.”

“Hmmm … looks like Zar held his own,” Maxim said, patting my back.

“I can’t wait to tell Papa how fearless Zar was.” To draw Papa’s attention, I tied a long, white, cotton rag around Zar’s neck.

At midday Mama was sound asleep, tucked under cotton bedding that barely covered her belly. At the head of her sleeping bench sat a sewing basket. I couldn’t resist taking a peek. I pulled out Mama’s work and admired the
detailed embroidery and pearl beadwork along the lush, gold, silk fabric.

“I can see why the Countess boasts about Mama’s work,” I whispered to Zar. As I neatly folded and placed her work back into the basket, Zar retreated to his pallet just under my sleeping bench.

For luck I kissed the Mother with Child icon—which hung in the red corner decorated with vigil lights, eggs, dried flowers, and doves made of dough—not once but three times, just as Mama always did in times of hope.

Please, give us a baby girl.

So peaceful was Mama that I dared to rest my hand over her growing belly. Then I closed my eyes—longing to see a little sister inside.

As hard as I tried to summon my gift—all I could see were the backs of my eyelids, and they were as dark as black bread.

My gift never did come to me at will. The visions I had—always of the borzoi dogs, never of people—came to me at random, whether I wanted them to or not.

Mama suddenly jerked upright. She clutched her belly with both hands. “Did you feel that?” Her voice sang with hope. “The baby moved!”

I wanted to share her enthusiasm. With the baby so close to coming, the tension in our tiny, one-room home reminded me of a coiled-up snake ready to pounce. But I didn’t feel a single movement, only the tightness of her
big, round belly. Given Papa’s order for Mama’s bed rest, I was afraid to upset her with the truth and stared back at her with the blankest look I could muster.

“Don’t be afraid, Larochka. I’m sure you’ll feel it. Here, let me show you.” She pushed the cotton bedding down to her knees, then took my hand and positioned it just below her belly button. “Now do you feel it?”

My hand flew from Mama’s belly so fast, as if those little punches were on fire and would burn my fingertips. “Does it hurt?”

Mama laughed—a gentle but tired laugh. “There’s discomfort … but movement is a good sign. I welcome each and every one.”

Mama massaged her belly in big, wide circles. Suddenly her heart-shaped face bunched up in a frown.

“What’s the matter,
Matushka
?” I took her hand into my own and squeezed.

“Your brother’s restless and pushing against my back.” She shut her eyes and began to rock. She hummed a few choruses of a lullaby, and then she paused to catch her breath. “He won’t stop. He’s going to be stubborn, just like your papa.”

Every mention of the word
he
fed my heart bitter bites of poison.

Mama closed her eyes. In a soft soprano the words of the lullaby flowed off her tongue like the coos of a mourning dove.

Mama sang this verse over and over. Each time the words became fainter and fainter until her weary voice faded into a tender hum. My eyelids had begun to feel heavy, as if weighed down by heaps of wet snow. Mama’s singing soothed me, and I could almost feel her arms around me.

The only thing keeping me from a sound sleep was the thought of the Red Thief stealing
me
away into the deep, dark woods. Now that I was older, I heard the words to the lullaby much differently, for wolves, like the Red Thief, nipped and tugged for only one reason.

Hunger.

Mama rubbed her lower back with both hands. “My singing doesn’t calm your brother the way it did with you. I’ll have to find another way to ease his little soul.”

If only I had been born a boy. Then Papa would have the son he wanted and would leave Mama alone.

It didn’t work out the way Papa had wanted.

I glanced at the icon again.

Please, give us a little girl.

I prayed my prayers would be answered. I couldn’t imagine a life without the dogs.

I was about to kiss the icon again when Papa entered through the front door, carrying a tray painted in flowery reds and golds against a shiny black background, courtesy of the Count’s kitchen. Set within it was Mama’s midday meal: a bowl of cabbage soup, a lump of buckwheat
kasha
slathered in butter, a glass of black
chai
, and a clay jug of honey to sweeten the porridge.

Papa scowled at Zar like he was rat poop in Mama’s cabbage soup. “With the baby coming so close, we can’t have Zar in the house anymore.” He opened the door and ordered Zar outside.

Zar looked confused, but left.

“Tyatya, nyet!”
I expected Papa to notice the bandage around Zar’s neck, not kick him outside.

“Enough, Lara. You shouldn’t be here, either. Your mama needs her rest for when the baby comes.” Papa’s voice was laced with genuine worry. Ever since Mama announced she was with child, he treated her like a delicate rose from Countess Vorontsova’s greenhouse garden that no one was allowed to touch.

Not even me.

“No harm’s come,” Mama reassured him. “Lara got to feel the baby move.”

Papa’s goose-gray eyes brightened. He bent down on both knees and clutched the gold cross that hung around
his neck, just like the one Mama wore. With his eyes on the icon, he kissed the pendant. “God pray this one’s a healthy boy.”

“He’s a kicker just like his sister. That’s worth more to me than a bag of gold rubles.” It warmed my heart whenever Mama spoke of me, too—and not just of the baby.

“What’s this?” Papa pointed to Mama’s sewing basket.

Mama’s face turned to one of guilt. “The work isn’t strenuous, and it keeps my mind free from worry, dear husband.”

Papa shook his head. “I thought we agreed. No more work until after the birth.”

“I can’t sit and do nothing,” Mama said. “The Countess must be dressed in the very finest.”

Before Mama’s meal turned cold, I scraped the last of the honey from the clay jug and let it dribble off the wooden spoon into a thin golden stream over the
kasha
. With the honey I drew a silhouette of a borzoi running. Slowly the image melted away into the hot brown porridge. As I stirred to even out the sweet taste, vapors of steam rose and the scent of linden flowers wafted in the air.

“Mmmm … looks tasty!” Mama licked her lips, and then opened her mouth wide.

Papa grabbed the spoon from my hands and wagged it at me. “I’ll take care of your mama. You’ve got chores
to do and Zola needs your attention. The other dogs are stealing her food.”

Papa surprised me. Ever since Zar took it upon himself to breed with Zola, Papa paid her less attention. He had wanted to breed her with Borei and she had refused him. So when Papa stepped away, I didn’t stop Zar from mating with Zola. And just as I had seen it in a vision, Zola took to him right away. Papa was furious when he returned to see Zar mounted on Zola and complained that her litter wouldn’t amount to much. Sometimes I wondered what Papa had against Zar. The way Papa ignored Zar seemed as if he went out of his way to do so, like Zar was some kind of threat.

Under a darkening, late-afternoon sky, I collected Zar, who had been patiently waiting for me outside the door. Along our way to the kennel we passed by the bell tower. Some of the church bells were centuries old, covered in motifs of icons and other saintly images. Underneath the bells stood the Count’s official bell-ringer, cloaked in a priestly black robe, busy polishing and readying the bells for Sunday mass. Through the orchestrated peals and the clanging of the bells’ clappers, field-workers easily followed mass during a busy harvest when every set of hands was needed.

“Our only hope is to light a prayer candle before it’s too late,” I said to Zar, and headed into the old wooden
chapel. I hated to make Zola wait and resolved to give her extra meat to wipe away my guilt.

Hundreds of candles glowed against the gold-leaf background of the icons that covered the walls. I approached the Virgin Mary, bent down on both knees, and crossed my chest. A sea of candles, cradled in glass perched on iron stands, surrounded her. I lighted one more candle.

Please, I prayed, give me a baby sister.

Footsteps, heavy and hurried, came from the direction of the Count’s private sitting room. With his hands at his hips in a smock covered in paint stood the artist the Count had commissioned to paint a mural of iconic images for his wife. His eyes were glued on Zar. “This must be a borzoi. Is it true they can catch a wolf? He looks so thin and small.”

“Oh, yes.” I glided my hand along Zar’s side. “His brother, Borei, has pinned plenty of them. He’s the Count’s top dog.”

The painter took a step closer, wiped his hand clean against his trousers, and then extended it to me. “Name’s Ruslan Sergeyevich Savin.”

“With pleasure.” I shook his hand. “I’m the kennel steward’s daughter, Lara Ivanovna Bogdanova.”

Ruslan squatted in front of Zar and reached out to him, his palm up, for Zar to sniff. Playfully, Zar nudged Ruslan’s hand, and then frisked around him with his
front paws splayed, his head down, his rump in the air, and his tail carried low in the shape of a sickle.

“Zar likes you,” I said.

Ruslan patted Zar on the head. “Such a regal dog. Look how much he resembles the Count, with his long, aristocratic nose. And the way he moves is with the grace of a ballerina dancing for the Tsar.”

I nodded in full agreement and added, “A borzoi is to dogs what Pushkin is to poetry.” I didn’t need to know how to read to appreciate Pushkin. His rhythmic lyrics made it easy to memorize my favorite lines.

“That says something about borzoi,” Ruslan said. “Pushkin lies at the soul of every Russian.”

“Like your icons.” My eyes wandered from one icon to the next. “Which ones are yours?”

“Nearly all of them. My specialty is faces.”

“There must be hundreds.”

Ruslan smiled. “One hundred and sixty-nine, to be exact. But I’ve never done a mural so grand in scale as this one.” He pointed to the mural on the far wall. “I wanted to understand the way the natural light would fall on it. So here I am.”

I took in the details of each face he had sketched out so far. What impressed me most were the eyes. They captured the emotional essence of each figure, such innocence in the child, such compassion in the mother. My eyes returned to the Virgin. Hers was the image I liked
best. I could feel the motherly bond she had for the child in the expression Ruslan had created on her face. “The Countess will be pleased, of that I’m certain.”

“Let’s hope,” he said. “Hers is a critical eye.”

“I could never paint the way you do. I’m all thumbs,” I said.

“With the right training you could be taught how to paint iconic images just like these,” Ruslan said. “Of course, you’d have to cut off your braid,” he added. “And wear trousers.”

“Everything would be simpler if I were a boy,” I said.

“Be careful what you wish for, especially for things that shall never be,” Ruslan said. “We all have hardships we must bear. Artists, for one, never know where they’ll find work. Most of us travel too much, moving from project to project, chapel to chapel, church to church … and we never spend much time with our families. Some of us don’t even bother to start one.…”

His voice trailed off.

“I’d dislike anything that took me away from my family. That’s why I want to become the next kennel steward, but my papa won’t permit it if my mama gives birth to a baby boy.” My voice rose with each word.

“Maybe this is God’s way of steering you down a different path.”

I sat a little taller. “The dogs are just what God intended for me. I know it, as I know my own name.”

Zar lifted his head from the floor and let out a soft cry.

“Looks like Zar thinks so, too,” Ruslan said.

“He knows so,” I corrected. I reached into my pocket, touched the golden borzoi running across the handle of the knife Alexander had given to me, and carried my chin higher.

CHAPTER FOUR