The Four Winds of Heaven (15 page)

Johanna herself, looking somewhat pinched and haggard, noticed the girl's smooth posture, saw the firm young chin and the penetrating gray eyes, and thought to herself: Where is her self-respect? How can she face me as if nothing has happened? She could not comprehend that Sonia's self-respect lay in her sense of self, and that that sense of self would not allow its own destruction.

It was shortly after this episode that Sonia made the acquaintance of Nina Tobias. Mathilde's friend, Irina Tobias, had two children, Akim, a ten-year-old boy, and Nina, who was one year older than Sonia. Generally, when Sonia participated in her mother's teas, Madame Tobias came alone, although sometimes she would bring Akim under the pretext that the boy might play with Gino. Sonia frequently wondered why Akim's sister, who was supposed to be so close to her own age, never accompanied her mother. But she knew that such matters were not her business, and so she would sit quietly at her own mother's feet, on the ottoman, once in a while rising to pass the petits fours to the ladies. Akim, she thought, was pleasant enough—he was neither ugly nor handsome, neither bright nor stupid. But he was of a good disposition, and did not condescend to Gino who was younger by two years.

Yet one cold day in February, Stepan announced Madame Tobias and her daughter, Nina Mikhailovna. As Mathilde greeted her friend, Sonia walked over to the rather tall girl who stood shyly by the entrance to the drawing room, her nose red from the wind. Nina was not pretty, but she was attractive, Sonia thought, in a friendly fashion. She had auburn hair and brown eyes flecked with gold. Her chin was too strong and her nose too wide, but her figure had already started to develop, and, in her trim gray suit, she looked healthy and well bred. Sonia said, “I have heard much about you. You are Nina, aren't you? My name is Sonia—I am thirteen.”

The girl smiled, and suddenly her face was bright, and she became pretty. “It is wonderful to meet you,” she said, sounding breathless. “I have wanted to see you for a long time. As it happened, Mama was taking me shopping when she remembered that it was your Mama's receiving day—and that is why I'm here,” she added, coloring with embarrassment.

“I am glad you are. Come, let us help Mama with the tea.” Sonia took her new friend by the arm and gently propelled her into the room.

Madame Tobias did not seem to notice her daughter's entrance, but Mathilde looked kindly at the girl and said, “We have not seen you for a long time, my dear. How grown up you have become! You must be proud of her, Irina, for she is a girl in bloom.”

“I had forgotten what day it was,” Madame Tobias replied, “or I should have brought my Akim. He will be furious with me for letting him miss Gino. How he looks ahead to our visits! Besides, for me, they are also a treat. How often does a mother get to show off her heart's delight?”

Mathilde was embarrassed, and Sonia felt a surge of blood come into her cheeks. She looked quickly at Nina, but the girl was merely smiling. “Yes, Akim is a wonderful boy,” she commented softly.

“You must not speak out of turn,” her mother said sharply. And for the first time, Madame Tobias regarded her daughter. Sonia was dumbstruck, for in her eyes was the same hard glint that she had often caught in the aquamarine stare of her governess, Johanna de Mey. Nina bit her lip, and Sonia, impulsively, reached out and grasped her hand. The girl turned to her, and for an instant Sonia caught her expression of pure pain. She felt a sharp blow in her own stomach, and she squeezed Nina's cold little hand in her own. Suddenly, Sonia thought that she knew a blind hatred—and it was directed, she saw with horror at her own lack of justice, toward the absent Akim. At least, she said to herself, Juanita loves none of us. And then she was ashamed once more, and guilty about her evil thoughts concerning her governess. Juanita was bad tempered, that was a fact, but she did not dislike the children; no, she did not feel this lack of affection so apparent in Nina's mother toward Nina. And yet there was a similarity that insinuated itself into Sonia's thoughts, in spite of her good intentions.

When Nina Tobias left with her mother, Johanna had joined the group, and Mathilde, sipping a final glass of tea, said to her daughter, “You behaved nicely toward Nina.”

“Too nicely, if you ask me,” Johanna de Mey remarked. “The girl is vapid and empty. Her nose is too large, and she is awkward. Sonia bested her in every way.”

But Sonia was not pleased at the compliment. She reddened, and looked at Mathilde. “Please, Mama, I should like to see more of Nina. Might I visit her sometime?” she asked.

Mathilde regarded the severe profile of her friend, and hesitated. But Sonia's eagerness touched her. “Naturally. Nina is charming, even if not yet as distinguished as Johanna would hope she will become… For after all, she is only fourteen, hardly out of childhood. I was quite pleased with her. She is well behaved, and of course her family is impeccable. There is no reason for you not to choose her as a friend.”

Sonia's face shone with happiness. She had found a friend of her own. Since Ossip's friendship with Volodia Tagantsev, she had felt a lack in her life. True, she and her brother were as close as ever—but did not men also need men friends, and women, other women? Certainly this was apparent in the lives of her parents. “Ossip too will like Nina,” she asserted.

Mathilde was gazing down at her, with the half-smile which gave her the expression of the Mona Lisa, or of a Renaissance Madonna. But Johanna de Mey cut in. “Is the Tobias family truly worthy of you, my dear?” Mathilde regarded her friend with a startled look. “Do not feel offended, my sweet,” Johanna remarked soothingly. “But seriously, her father—Irina Markovna's—was a furrier from the Pale of Settlement. Sometimes I have found her to be... surely not coarse, for any friend of yours would never be that—but a little nouveau riche. Nina is not of Sonia's caliber. She is not fine, nor dainty.”

Mathilde placed her hand over Johanna's. “Do not worry so, Johanna. You are always looking to protect me and my children, and that is why you are so precious to me. But please, do not be concerned. I was touched by little Nina. It is so clear that—” she glanced toward Sonia and was silent.

Sonia felt the silence and stood up. “Thank you for letting me help with the tea,” she said. She walked out of the room, and behind her, her mother's voice resumed its comforting tone directed at Johanna de Mey. “Irina favors the boy far too much,” Sonia caught as she stepped away from her range of hearing.

That evening, Sonia said excitedly to Ossip, “I have met a wonderful girl. You will like her, too. Her name is Nina Mikhailovna Tobias—Madame Tobias is her mother, and Akim is her little brother. She is not beautiful, but she is well groomed and is quite nice to look at, and she has the heart of a gracious queen. Why, her mother does not like her at all—but Nina looks at her with love, and speaks highly of Akim who is the mother's favorite. There is not a drop of jealousy inside her.”

“I am glad for you, Sonitchka,” Ossip said warmly.

Once a week, in the month that followed, the coachman would drive Sonia to visit Nina Tobias. They discovered that they enjoyed the same books, that they both played the same pieces on the piano. It was a dreadful shock to everyone when word came that little Akim had been struck with appendicitis. Then news arrived that he had died on the operating table. Sonia rushed to the home of her friend, and found Nina prostrate on her bed, unable to eat, her face haggard, and splotched with patches raw from tears. “Oh, Sonitchka, Sonitchka,” she wailed. “I prayed to God to let me die instead. This is so unfair, so unfair to Papa and Mama, who adored him so. I wish, how I wish I had been the one to die.”

Sonia, shocked, held Nina at arms' length and spoke to her solemnly. “How can you speak such blasphemy, Ninotchka? You? Why, now you are more needed than ever. Now that Akim is gone, you are the only comfort remaining to your Mama and Papa. Think a little through your grief: you are their only child, their only daughter. Now they will love you more than ever, for they have only you.”

“But they do not care whether they have me or not,” Nina said softly. “Papa also said that he was sorry it had been Akim. He was… special. I am just ordinary. My poor parents! How sad I am for them.”

When Sonia returned to the Gunzburg residence, her face was white and drawn, and she refused to take supper with the family. She could not utter a single word. Silently, her body taut, she removed her gown and slipped into a flannel nightshirt, and combed her hair and braided it for bed. Then, in the dark, she slipped into her cot. But in the blackness she lay wide awake, her hands rigidly clutching the coverlet. When the door swung open and Johanna entered the room, she turned on her side to face the wall. The governess sat down at the foot of the bed, and for several moments neither spoke.

Then Johanna de Mey, in her clear, crisp tones, said, “You are causing us all to worry, and only because of that gawking girl, Nina Tobias. What is she to you that you should make her mourning your own? I shall not permit this to continue. What you are doing is tantamount to Anna's rebellions. Not coming to supper! From now on, you will limit your visits to that Tobias child. You see entirely too much of her, and she offers you nothing in return. Can she teach you any art? Can she teach you a language? Can she improve your deportment as a lady?”

“She is my friend, and I love her. She is lonely, and she needs me. I shall not stop my visits to her, no, not now and not ever. I shall not let those visits interfere in any way with my work, nor with my family life. You will not suffer from them. But I shall go each day, for right now Nina needs me more than I am afraid of you. Even if you punish me, I shall go. And Papa will not disapprove, for he has taught us to take care of those who depend on us for help.”

Johanna de Mey allowed her mouth to form a speechless “o.” She saw the slim form of the young girl outlined on the bed. She felt no anger, only total bereavement of her intellectual resources. Her mind, always so quick, was completely blank. Suddenly a vision of David passed through her memory, and she said, with amazement, “You have dared to insult me and threaten me. You—a child of thirteen!” But she could not continue, for she felt in her very bowels that Sonia had spoken the truth. In this case, she would dare to go to her father. And, this time, the Baron would support his daughter. A wave of rage and loathing filled her heart, and she left the room, banging the door shut behind her.

But the object of her hatred was not the young girl who had defied her. “That damned Jew!” she muttered, tears rising and stinging her lashes. “He will pay dearly for this.” And she shut her eyes against a blinding vision of the Baron.

I
n her sorrow
for her friend, Irina Tobias, Mathilde had all but forgotten her indirect invitation to Volodia Tagantsev. But less than a week after the incident with Krinitsky, while brushing out the long, thick coils of her black hair, Mathilde gave a sudden start. “David,” she said, “we were all so relieved about Ossip, and so distressed for the Tobias family—that I did not remember to tell you what I said to our son.” She turned to her husband, ready for the night, and told him what had occurred.

David ran his fingers through his thinning red hair and bit his lower lip.

“Let us hope that Volodia did not relay the message,” he finally said. “Think what his father could make of it. He could voice it to his comrades. He could tell Ministers. What kind of
shtadlan
would I be then, Mathilde?”

But he caught her expression as she gazed at him through the gilded mirror on her vanity. At thirty-nine, she was still so lovely, even after four children. There was not a white thread in the blue-black mass of her hair, and not a wrinkle around her mouth or eyes. Not a glimmer of response. Her silence made a wave of anger crest inside him. “Are you never aware of my position, of what I believe in, of what I am attempting to achieve? For God's sweet sake, you are my wife!” he cried.

She lifted her chin a fraction of an inch higher, and her eyes shone with distaste. He shrugged. “They are only children,” his wife said. “But I shall not renege, should the Tagantsevs accept my offer.”

David came up to her and pressed her gently into his arms, burying his face in the cascade of raven hair, smelling her lavender scent. She may as well expect the Tzar himself to come to her bedside, he thought wryly, as the Tagantsevs to acknowledge her at all.

But the following day, when Ossip returned from the gymnasium, he could barely wait to greet his mother with his news: “Mama,” he said, “Volodia has the most wonderful news! He told his mother of our offer, and she has sent you a reply. Not only do the Tagantsevs accept your luncheon invitations, but they wish you to know how grateful they are. You see, they have not liked for Volodia to have to stay at school for meals. They actually are relieved that you are going to have him here! He can start coming whenever you wish.”