The Four Winds of Heaven (19 page)

Still, her good breeding made her go to the drawing room to greet him. He stood still, hatless, his blond hair falling into his green eyes, his black broadcloth suit creased and worn to a satiny finish. He had forgotten to button his jacket. She frowned at the ill-matched brown waistcoat. Her single objection to Ivan had always been his total lack of care in his personal appearance. She gave him her small white hand, which he gripped firmly. “Ivan Aronovitch,” she greeted him simply.

She did not ask him to be seated, and he made no move to do so. His face appeared as haggard as her sister's, she observed. Suddenly she felt a pang of sympathy for him. “What is wrong?” she asked.

“You are very young,” he said doubtfully. “I myself do not truly understand, and I shall not try to tangle you into it. Evidently, Anna has been frightened out of seeing me here, in your home. She did not explain. But I cannot accept this. I do not know to whom to turn, and so, because you are so kind, I am turning to you. I must see Anna. If she will not allow me to come here openly, then—”

“Surely you do not propose to see her in secret, unchaperoned?” Sonia cried.

Ivan smiled slightly. “Anna is my friend. I would like to talk to her. Tonight some other friends of mine, whom I have wanted her to meet, are gathering near here, on Vassilievsky Island. I shall send my carriage for her at nine o'clock this evening. If she wishes to come, let her meet me downstairs. I shall not be alone, Sofia Davidovna. There will be another young man, and another girl. I would not hurt your sister's reputation. Please believe me. I can read the shock in your eyes, but Anna is not a child anymore. There will be older people at the meeting, too—even a professor from the University. I am not suggesting anything improper. Do not worry. My scandalous sisters will certainly not be around, I assure you. They would find my friends too stuffy.”

Sonia stood speechless before him. She gazed absently at the neat frills of her shirtwaist blouse, with its delicate bishop sleeves that belled out just above the cuff. Waves of blood flowed into her face. For an instant her embarrassment was so overwhelming that she could not breathe. Then, rearing her head up, she met his teasing green eyes with her fine gray ones. “If my sister has cut you off, then she must have good reasons,” she said.

“Ah, you are a sweet child,” Ivan countered. “Anna does not despise me. Would it upset you terribly to know that she loves me?”

“When decent people love each other, they meet openly and declare an engagement, if their parents do not disapprove,” Sonia said hotly. “If Anna loved you, you would have spoken for her, instead of asking to meet her behind everyone's back. Love is sacred. My mother and father love each other. You are impudent, Ivan Aronovitch. I do not like you any longer, for you don't speak of my sister with respect.”

“This is 1903, Sofia Davidovna,” Ivan said softly. “This may surprise you even more, but I would never speak to Baron David Goratsievitch without first having obtained Anna's permission. That is because I do respect her. I respect her judgment. It is not up to your father whether or not Anna should marry; it is, I think, only up to Anna. I would never love a woman who allowed conventions to rule her decisions. I would love only someone capable of knowing her own mind. I have come to love your sister, because she is strong and sometimes stubborn and rebellious. My own sisters want to be carried off on white stallions, and to spend the rest of their lives giving parties and balls and suppers, and ordering gowns from Poiret and Worth. Anna is unique and I will not give her up so easily. I want her to see me. She deserves to make her own decision about tonight. You must give her this opportunity. I could have sent one of our servants, or given Marfa a message—but servants talk. You are loyal, and devoted to your sister. Do her this favor. I can promise you—I shall never tarnish that proud spirit of hers, for it is far too dear to me. Beyond that, my conscience will guide me.”

Sonia's thoughts were spinning: If I turn him away, what will become of Anna? If he were to hurt her, Papa would ruin his father. Ivan would not risk that. He must truly love her. But she knew that she herself could not be a part of this… this
assignation.
She raised her eyes and encountered Ivan's pleading ones. A fleeting image crossed her mind: Volodia, this noon, peeling his apple. “I shall give Anna your message,” she said.

Ivan Berson reached for her hand and impulsively brought it to his lips. “Thank you, little one,” he said. Then, unable to meet her eyes, he turned on his heel and disappeared. Sonia, angry, watched him depart, and then she too turned away. She walked briskly to the corridor which led to the room she shared with Anna. If she were to tell Anna she must do it now, before her sense of honor returned in full force. She felt a surge of hatred well up within her for Ivan Berson. He had compromised her self-respect by involving her in this dreadful thing.

Suddenly, she realized that if her sister were afraid to receive Ivan in this house, it must be, it had to be, because of Juanita. She opened the bedroom door resolutely, grimly recalling Nina Tobias and her own conflict with the governess. After all, she told her worried conscience, Ivan and Anna were merely good friends, as she and Nina were. If there were more to it, Sonia felt confident that Anna, the pure, the just, would ask her friend to speak to their father. Her sister might not love society, but she did possess regard for her family and her own good name.

J
ohanna de Mey
, whose sixth sense always reached out, like a tentacle, to those emotions which, in others, were momentarily out of kilter, felt a keen excitement at supper that evening. Her large slanted eyes moved from person to person, dismissing Mathilde first, for her friend was pale and still struggling with the after effects of her headache; then glossing over Gino, whose ruddy face displayed only enjoyment of his food; passing by Baron David, who was speaking of his meeting that afternoon with a friend of the family, and finally encountering Ossip's deep blue eyes. He was smiling slightly to himself as if he too had caught something in the air, but like Johanna, was uncertain what it was. She looked at Sonia. The girl was terribly white, and her small round mouth was bloodless. She was looking only at her plate, though occasionally, the Dutchwoman observed, she would steal a glance of pure pain at her mother and father. When she raised her gray eyes to her sister, she winced. Had these two argued? No, Johanna had heard no angry voices from the girls' room. Anna sat hunched over her food, her eyes abstracted, thin lines around her lips. Her face flushed when Sonia's bright eyes encountered hers, but that was all. Johanna bit lustily into the succulent lamb. “What a marvelous meal, my dear,” she said to Mathilde. “Cook must be congratulated.”

When supper was over, Johanna de Mey allowed Mathilde to be whisked to her room by a concerned David, who had expected to be followed by his wife's friend. To his relief, the governess merely touched Mathilde's arm with solicitude, and bade him a very agreeable good night. Then, she packed Gino hurriedly into his bed, and watched Ossip enter his father's study, where he always did his homework. She went into her own chamber but left the door ajar, listening…

Anna was sitting on her bed, lacing her sealskin boots with a buttonhook. Suddenly Sonia said, “You are really going?” Her heart was in her trembling voice, full of supplication. Anna rose, and her thick wool skirts fell to her ankles. She looked around, past Sonia's eyes, and saw her cape, lined with dark fur. She threw it over her shoulders with a wild motion. “Yes,” she replied. Her brown eyes, shooting sparks of fire, flew to her sister's. “Do not be angry with me,” she added.

Sonia ran to her and wrapped her arms about Anna's caped body. “I love you, ‘Nushka,” she cried. “Be careful.” Then she released the older girl, who opened the door and peered quickly up and down the corridor. Gay laughter echoed thinly from the kitchen quarters, but that was all. Anna slipped noiselessly out of the room and made her way toward the vestibule. Stepan was eating his own supper with the servants. She opened the wide front door and shut it soundlessly behind her. Sonia had remained by her own bedroom door, her ear cocked for anything unexpected. Tension gripped every muscle in her small body, and she remained behind the door like a rigid guard.

It was not long before her vigil was rewarded. Suddenly, Johanna appeared, fully clothed for the outdoors, and made a dash for the stairs. On tiptoes, her heart in her throat, Sonia followed her. If Johanna had seen Anna, then why had she not cried out to her, stopped her then and there? Something terrible was going to happen, Sonia knew. In her slippers, she followed the governess until Johanna disappeared out the front door, moments after Anna.

Sonia rushed to the drawing room windows. The street was dark under a clouded moon. She saw a carriage pull away, and then, to her amazement, she watched as the slender figure that was Johanna sprang into the coachman's seat of the Baron's victoria, which had not yet been put away for the night. The victoria took off after the first carriage. Sonia stood by the large bay window, her mouth open. Pure agony shot through her, and she bent over, grasping her stomach with pain. My God, my God! she thought, Juanita is going to expose Anna in front of Ivan and his friends. Her sister would be dishonored forever in St. Petersburg. But Sonia could not move, for there was nothing she could do to come to Anna's aid.

Slowly, she pulled herself up and returned to her room, where she tossed herself upon her bed, her heart pounding erratically. Minutes passed. She dared not think, but she bit her lower lip so violently that it began to bleed. Then, she heard the front door open. She threw ajar her own door just in time to see Johanna darting by. Several moments later, the governess reappeared, magnificent in a silken dressing gown, her hair undone and flowing down her back. Sonia was bewildered. Where was Anna? What had been the point of this chase in the bitter cold winter night, if not to bring home a humiliated Anna? Once again, she slipped out of her room and followed the governess.

Johanna was in the hallway between the drawing and dining rooms, under a small light which flickered over a tiny rosewood stand upon which rested a new contraption, the telephone, of which David was so very proud. Sonia watched in mounting dismay as Johanna flipped through the pages of a leather notebook. The Dutchwoman picked up the receiver and spoke softly, asking for a number. There was something dreadfully familiar about this number, Sonia thought, but her mind could not connect it. It did not belong to her Grandfather Horace, nor to her Uncle Sasha. Then to whom would Juanita be speaking?

When she heard the governess speak, she was seized with ghastly awareness. Johanna's well-modulated, crisp inflections were gone. Sonia listened, astounded as the elegant blond woman addressed the receiver in nasal tones, with a distinct Yiddish intonation reminiscent of so many of the pleaders who came to visit David in the mornings. She was saying, “Tell Alexei Alexandrovitch that there is a
beseda
at the address I have just given you, on Vassilievsky Island. Never mind who I am. I am a friend of the Tzar. I tell you, I am certain that this meeting is more than simple talk. Plots and plans. The Tzar does not like for his people to plot and plan.” And then, rapidly, she put down the instrument and closed the leather notebook. Her oval face, under the small flickering lamp, appeared to glow.

She did not see Sonia crouching in the dark, for she was concentrating upon her remarkable coup as she walked back to her own bedroom with a slow, gliding step. But the girl had heard the entire conversation. A violent nausea overpowered her so that, for a few minutes, she had to hold her head between her legs until her vision cleared. She trembled, chilled, and tears streamed down her cheeks. Alexei Alexandrovitch Lopukhin, the Chief of the Secret Police. Juanita had set him after Anna, her sister, and Ivan Berson. Sonia could not believe what she had witnessed. Surely, surely Juanita had not meant to bring Anna to harm, to have her jailed. She, Sonia, must have mistaken her intentions. For no one could hate someone that much, especially not Anna, the innocent. She wanted to cry out, to rush into her parents' bedroom and explain—but no, she could not, for that would be compromising Anna, too.

All at once, in her desperation, Sonia seized upon the one person who might come to Anna's rescue. Blinded by tears, she ran to the servants' quarters where stupefied faces looked up from the kitchen table into her own. She saw only Stepan, who rose and came to her, bending his tall, elegant form to take her hands into his, concern overriding the fact that she was his young mistress. “You must drive me to a certain address,” she sobbed, “and you must do it now, without a word to my parents or Johanna Ivanovna. It is a matter of the utmost importance. We must go to my sister.”

“But Sofia Davidovna, surely Vova will drive you?” the maître d'hôtel said gently.