The Four Winds of Heaven (18 page)

“Still, I shall not have this sort of behavior taking place in my household. You have set a fine example for Sonia! I would not mind if Ivan spoke for you, even though you know I would have preferred another son-in-law. But not this stealthy visiting, without permission. You are a woman now, Anna, and capable of compromising yourself. I shall not permit you to do this.”

Mother and daughter stared at each other, Mathilde's blue eyes proud and haughty, Anna's brown ones shining with pain and anger. “If you really loved me, Mama, you would understand!” she finally cried out. “You gave me life. If I am deformed, part of the reason must lie in you. I know how much you are ashamed of me, of my face. Ivan—Vanya—does not care. He sees me as a whole person. He does not care, either, that Papa has set aside a dowry for me. You needn't be afraid of that. Besides, his own father is a wealthy man. Vanya would like me even if I were poor, and a nobody.”

Mathilde's right temple began to throb. A migraine was coming on. She clasped the arms of her chair, thinking: Johanna, why have you deserted me now, of all times? And then she recalled that it had been her own decision to instigate this talk with Anna. She had never been physical, nor had she ever struck one of her children. The nursemaids had seen to spankings. Now she rose on an unaccustomed wave of passion and slapped her daughter fully across the face. At once, she collapsed back upon her pillows, nausea gripping her. She, Mathilde, the poised, the calm, the nonviolent, had done this. She regarded Anna with eyes that the girl could not decipher. “I always honored my own mother,” Mathilde said finally.

But Anna stood her ground. “I am only speaking what I have been feeling for years. I love you, Mama. I do not like to hurt you by my words. But I do not wish to spend my life as you do. I know that Vanya likes me, that I like him. I do not wish to be married. Marriage has never seemed, to my eyes, the wondrous thing that it is held to be. Women marry, and their husbands forget them; or they marry and forget their own dreams. Or each leads a life apart, while very respectably sharing the same children and the same roof. I want to paint, and to help people poorer than myself. I do not want to live in St. Petersburg, or Paris, or Vienna, or any other ‘civilized' city. I simply want to be left alone, and perhaps that is what Vanya wants also. I have not discussed it with him. But it would be wrong to involve Papa, and Monsieur Berson, in Vanya's life. Right now we enjoy each other, and that is sufficient to make us happy. If, one day, we find that there is more, perhaps I shall change my mind about marriage.” Anna paused. She was trembling. “But I shall not be regarded as an old maid, who needs to be bound into matrimony at the first sign of male interest. I may not be beautiful, but I am not a crushed hat in the basement of Worth's milliner… something to be disposed of.”

Mathilde looked at her daughter, whose sagging face was now streaked with red from her own fingers. An impulse ran through her, to touch the girl and apologize. But hardness replaced the impulse at Anna's words. “You are a Gunzburg, and have obligations,” she said coldly. She wanted to add: What you say is not untrue, my little one. For what is my life? What was my mother's life? We married the men we were told to marry. At least Mama loved Papa, but what did her love bring her, save shame and misery? And what of my emptiness of feeling for David? Compassion, yes, friendship, yes again. But I could have felt this way about him simply as my cousin, without making him my husband for life. “It is not for us to question the mores of society,” she said, more gently.

But Anna did not know what her mother had been thinking in her silence. Her shoulders hunched forward, she resembled a broken marionette. A pang of pity shot through Mathilde, but Anna, once again, was not aware of it. She lifted her brown eyes to her mother, and they were filled with tears. “I should like to go to my room, Mama,” she murmured.

Mathilde's lips parted, but no sound emerged. She felt as though, somehow, she herself had been the one slapped. She found that she did not possess the strength to rise from her chair. Her daughter turned around, swishing her long skirt of crocheted wool around her ankles, and nearly ran into her own bedroom, grateful that Sonia was not there. Her face contorted with grief, Anna sat down at the small secretary and brought out a sheet of paper, a quilled pen, and an inkwell. She began to write:

S
he began to cry
. What a dry note, how devoid of sentiment! But this was how things had to be. Vanya wanted to change the government. He did not have time to love her. It was not right to ask it of him, to demand any commitments. Besides—she wanted to help, too. What did her personal feelings matter in the grander scale of their ideals?

Anna rang for the little maid who took care of her and Sonia. “Marfa,” she said, “please see that somehow, soon, this message is brought to Ivan Aronovitch Berson. But please, be discreet. I do not want Mademoiselle de Mey to learn of this.”

When Marfa had departed, Anna's head fell forward onto the blotter, and her shoulders began to shake with dry sobs.

I
n St. Petersburg
, matters requiring the highest political finesse were handled by the Secret Police, and the more routine problems of crime and disorder by the local police. Baron David and his father, Baron Horace, had established a pattern of bribing all levels of officials. As Jews, this was the only way that they could hope for the same measure of justice granted to Christian citizens. If a pogrom was brewing, the local police chief would warn David in advance; and in the case of the women and children illegally harbored by the Gunzburgs after the death of the head of the family, the police pretended ignorance. Corruption was rampant.

One of the few truly honest men in the city was Alexei Alexandrovitch Lopukhin. David had first encountered him socially many years before, for the Lopukhins were an old, established Russian family who, for an unknown reason, had shown themselves too proud to accept a title from the Tzars. Lopukhin's wife was also a member of the highest aristocracy. David and Mathilde saw them frequently, and their children also were acquainted with one another. And so, when Alexei Alexandrovitch had been named Chief of the Secret Police, David had felt that at last God had justified his faith in the Russian government. Here was a man above bribery, above manipulation of any sort.

That night, at supper, Alexei Alexandrovitch was seated at Mathilde's right, and on his own right sat Johanna de Mey, resplendent in a mauve taffeta gown, daring in its ruffled bateau collar which displayed her long neck and collarbone usually covered by laces and jabots. Madame Lopukhin was ill, and had not come. The chandelier's refractions bounced off Johanna's golden hair, and Mathilde thought: What infinite style she has, my good, my dear friend. She herself wore a gown of ivory-colored silk, but with a more modest neckline than Johanna's. She sported a “dog collar,” five rows of pearls wound tightly about her throat in the new fashion. With gentle amusement, David had compared her to an elegant poodle. The dinner was small, tinged with the intimacy of friendship and good food.

Johanna de Mey liked Alexei Alexandrovitch. She professed to be fascinated by his work, about which he was discreet. She teased him coyly: “There are rumors of disturbances, of arrests. Is the Tzar truly concerned?”

“My dear, I could be sent to Siberia for discussing matters of state. If the Tzar didn't, the Tzarina would, to punish me for being political in front of you ladies.”

David smiled. “Come now, Johanna, Mathilde is firm about the subjects we are not permitted to approach at her table. Think of it this way: if Alexei were to suggest an after-dinner game of cards, would you not become offended, knowing that at the Gunzburgs no games of chance ever take place?”

“Yes, we all know of your austerity, my dear Baron,” Johanna replied somewhat tartly. Then, ignoring him, she turned once again to the guest of honor. “But tell us simply this—who is stirring up the trouble?”

Alexei Alexandrovitch Lopukhin scratched his dark beard. “You need not be frightened, Johanna Ivanovna. Some students have formed
besedas,
informal conversation groups. They speak of Maxim Gorky, who has inflamed their hearts. We do not like this, but after all, they are merely young people, in the throes of their idealism. Once in a while, reprisals occur, and our police make an arrest. But these arrests are more to scare the youths than to punish them. We do not like secret organizations, especially organizations that believe the Tzar is guilty of mismanagement. But surely, he has nothing to fear from these young dreamers.”

“But the young can be unruly, and need to be stopped before they start to do wrong. Do you not agree?” Johanna said.

“That is a precept for rearing children,” Mathilde inserted with a smile.

“Perhaps. I am not in a position to pass judgment on what I am commanded to do,” Lopukhin said.

David looked kindly at his friend. “For if you were, Alexei, you might be more indulgent. Is that not also a fact? Our young people are an impulsive lot. But hardly evil.”

“The Baron sees innocence everywhere,” Johanna commented.

But David merely shook his head and took a bite of poached salmon
en gelée.
The governess regarded him with her aquamarine eyes, and he caught the expression of brittle disdain which flashed over them. He thought: She truly detests me! and was amazed. Then, as he ate, he came to a second realization: She is the least ingenuous person I know. He wondered why he had never before seen the reptilian form of her slim body. A serpent in our garden.

But Mathilde was gazing lovingly at the golden-haired Dutchwoman, who had evidently finished a clever anecdote. “David and I have been so lucky,” she was saying to their friend, “to be graced by Johanna. A true gem.”

And hard as a diamond, David added in his thoughts. In the face of Mathilde's relaxed air, her tranquil joy, he had a searing realization: He was helpless in his own home, at his own table. “The Baron appears to have lost his appetite,” Johanna de Mey remarked, with teasing concern.

“I intend to finish the last morsel,” David stated. He smiled.

“
I
van Aronovitch is here
to see you, Sofia Davidovna,” Stepan announced after luncheon. Sonia was alone. Johanna had taken a tray into Mathilde's boudoir, for Mathilde was suffering from an acute attack of migraine. Anna had refused to eat, her eyes rimmed with red, and Ossip with his friend Volodia Tagantsev had taken his meal earlier, as usual. Sonia remembered the pounding in her temples when she had crossed the dining room and found Volodia at the table, peeling his apple. He had risen quickly, coloring, and extended his hand. “Good day, Sofia Davidovna,” he had said brightly, shining his smile at her, and she had felt momentarily weak. Yet she had returned his greeting with cool composure. Afterward, she had shared her own meal with her father and brother Gino, but now Papa was being driven back to the city, to one of the Ministries, and Gino was taking his afternoon nap, burying himself surreptitiously in an adventure story.

“Me?” the girl repeated, with disbelief, and tucked a tendril of black hair behind her ear. She began to wonder. Ivan was Anna's special friend, and hardly knew her, Sonia. She liked him, for he was direct and frank, and made her sister's face glow. Anna's acute discomfort in the presence of others always seemed to fade when Ivan stayed to tea. He would tease Sonia, kindly, the way Ossip did. But still, they were not exactly friends. He was seven or eight years older, a law student. What business had he with her? And then she recalled her sister's ghastly appearance that day, her refusal to discuss anything, her silence in the face of gentle looks of inquiry. He has done something offensive, Sonia thought, and her little face stiffened. It is he who has caused Annushka to suffer. And now he is too cowardly to apologize to her directly.