The Four Winds of Heaven (60 page)

Less than an hour later, feeling battered and unclean, Ossip sat in his love nest, where Natasha had come to him so often, smelling of wildflowers. Stepan lay upon the bed where his young master had made love to Natasha. Pavel had gone for medical supplies, and Ossip waited, wondering if the maître d'hôtel would live or die, as his father had. He, Ossip, had killed two men, and for what? His father had died anyway, and of a heart attack! He leaned forward and wept, bitterly. Suddenly he knew that for all their disagreements, he had loved David very deeply, had respected him although he'd never sought to emulate him. And Mama loved him too, he realized, and he wept for her also.

He did not know where he would go if Stepan survived. Nor did he know how to get word to Natasha, who was his life, his heart, his entire being. He did not think that he was ruined, for there was still plenty of Gunzburg money in the Maison Gunzburg. He simply thought that when all this was over, his uncle would wire him the funds, and later, when the furor would abate, he would be able to return to Petrograd. He had not committed murder, only attempted to save his father's life.

He was so exhausted that he fainted, like a paper doll flitting to the floor in a gust of wind. The gust of wind was the November Revolution.

T
he following day
the Council of the People's Commissars established itself, with Lenin as President and Trotsky as his Commissar for Foreign Affairs. Alexander Kerensky left the city as quickly as possible. The Council issued two proclamations, the first that peace negotiations would be started at once on a separate basis, for the rest of the Allied forces were fighting more than ever for domination of the Central Powers; the second, that the gentry would be deprived of possession of their lands, which would be divided equally among all those who had worked them. Ossip sat, undone, in the little apartment, and sent Pavel with a hurried note to his Uncle Sasha at the bank. In it, he explained that his father had died and would need burial, that he himself would have to flee, that his maître d'hôtel, Stepan, was badly wounded, and that he planned to bring him along with him as soon as he could be moved without peril. He further explained about the looting of the Gunzburg safe, about the Tchomskys, about the family servants. Then he sat on the sofa, unable to think or move. It was there that Natasha found him shortly afterward.

When he saw her, his first words were of concern for her and her daughter, but she sensed at once that something dreadful had happened and, sobbing in her arms, he told her of his father's death. “What a waste of a good man!” he cried repeatedly. “His heart had been weak for years! But he was strong. And then—I killed those two insane drunkards, and he simply collapsed before my eyes! There was nothing to be done. Now there will be no funeral for him as there was for my Grandfather Horace, no chance for the Jews of this city to walk behind the hearse to the cemetery. It was he who obtained the concession for the Jewish cemetery—he who cared for these people as his own family—”

“Do not torture yourself like this, my beloved,” Natasha comforted, wringing her hands. Her own tears fell upon his hair, which she caressed. “You were very brave, Ossip. I am proud of you. Your father would have been proud. I'm sure that he
was
proud, for he saw what you accomplished to save him—”

“And now you must leave this accursed city!” Ossip interrupted, taking her face into his feverish hands. “Go— to the Tambov, anywhere! Come with us.”

Her beautiful features softened, her eyes glowed under their veil of tears. “The Tambov property is no longer ours, nor is Mohilna yours, nor the estates in the Crimea. Didn't Pavel tell you about the Decree of Land issued today? Our property is gone, Ossip. At least for now. Papa believes things will quiet down, that the Bolsheviks will be quelled. He wants to remain here, but Mama wants us to go to France while we still can. The safest way for me and Lara is... to try to find... my husband, at the front. The army will protect us. If we are ever to recapture Petrograd, the army shall have to do it for us.”

“You would do that? Go to him?”

She could not speak. Tears blinded her. At length, she kissed his hands and said, “You must escape to guard your very life, my darling. Already, Stepan will be a burden. Do you honestly wish for Lara and me to add to that? A small child is difficult enough to handle in a large city. Think, Ossip. There is the future—”

“What future, if you go to him, and I go my way?” he exclaimed.

“I shall not live with him. I told you, Ossip, I shall not. After all this is finished, when the war ends, when Petrograd is ours again—”

“But that will never happen!” he cried fiercely.

“Then we shall have to keep in touch, somehow. If things are bad, if we are driven out, we shall go to France. And then we can be together—have our own children—” Her face twisted into a grimace of pain, and she turned away. “I want our own children,” she repeated.

“I don't care! I only want you, you're all I've ever wanted. Until I met you I never cared for anyone except for my sister Sonia. But I lost you once, and that means more to me than having lost life, for I did not love life as I loved—love—you.”

I
t was
a strange sight that greeted Baron Alexander de Gunzburg when he followed Pavel into the apartment and saw his nephew, disheveled, with circles under his eyes, sobbing in the arms of a beautiful young woman whose mass of black hair would not remain in pins above her head. Sasha saw her rear her head proudly, meet his eyes with the brightest eyes he had ever encountered, and hold his gaze without flinching. To draw Ossip's attention, Pavel gently cleared his throat.

Ossip saw his uncle and jumped to his feet. He looked from Sasha to Natasha, pure horror etched upon his features. But it was she who spoke first. She said, calmly, “There is hardly need for protocol during moments such as these.” Her delicate hand, with its long, tapered fingers, waved about the room. “I am Princess Kurdukova, Natalia Nicolaievna Kurdukova. And you… are Ossip's uncle?”

“Yes. Alexander Goratsievitch de Gunzburg. Under different circumstances, I would say that I am most honored to meet you, Princess. But there has been the tragedy, and my manners fail me.” Sasha could not help thinking that his nephew had more in him than he would have assumed, ferreting away this extraordinary beauty, wife of a general and daughter of a well-known senator. For all of Petrograd had heard of this young noblewoman, of her illustrious connections. Then he vaguely recalled that a Tagantsev—wasn't her maiden name Tagantsev?—had been a bitter opponent of his brother, and of his father, and that there had been quite a to-do over the fact that Ossip's best friend at the gymnasium had been this Tagantsev's son. Apparently there had been further entanglements. He wet his lips, admiring Natasha's bravura, but thinking also of David, the brother he had spent a lifetime envying, but who was now dead. Sasha was much distressed at his own lack of ability to fit into this absurd situation, he, a man of the world.

“I must go now, my love,” Natasha murmured. She wound her arms around Ossip's neck and buried her face in the lapels of his waistcoat. Briefly, her full red lips reached to his, and she clung to him with unrestrained passion. He attempted to hold her to him, but suddenly she broke loose and ran, holding up her skirt, her head bent down. She stopped in the doorway, her fingers eloquently placed upon her half-parted lips. Then she hastened down the stairs, out of sight.

“Well,” Sasha stated dully. He sat down beside his nephew on the sofa. “You are not going to hold on to her?” But Ossip's eyes, blue-black, turned toward him with so much unspoken menace that he colored, and changed the position of his crossed legs. He said, “David. My God, Ossip! Why him? The most just of us all…”

“Perhaps because of that,” the young man replied. “To spare him what's to come…”

“Where are you going to go?” his uncle demanded. “And Stepan?”

“Stepan is conscious now. We shall leave within the week, I suppose. I don't know where to go. If we go north, through Sweden, I shall end up in Berlin in the midst of the war. I suppose I can go to Odessa, and attempt to catch a ship to Marseilles. But I shall have to let you know. We will need money.”

“Of course. I shall have to send money to your mother, too, for with this Decree of Land she has lost her Crimean estate. My share is gone too,” he said, smiling wanly. He added, “Will you have sufficient funds for the trip—to Odessa?”

“I think so. If not, I can always pray. I wouldn't know to whom to address my prayers, though.” Ossip smiled back at his uncle.

“You know the Ashkenasys of Odessa? They are relatives, and own a prosperous bank. Should we become cut off, call on them.” Sasha examined his neatly manicured fingers, and bit his lower lip. “Why did David insist upon keeping all that Zionist money in his private safe?” he cried. “From the sale of the Judaica books? Why didn't it go to us, in the bank? Whoever thought of hoarding hundreds of thousands of rubles in his house, for God's sweet sake?”

“Papa was never a businessman, Uncle Sasha. He wanted access to large amounts of money to help the Jews from Poland. No wonder the soldiers came straight to our house! It could not have been hard for them to make some poor frightened Jew talk, and give them Papa's name. It makes sense, doesn't it?”

“Nothing really does, my boy. I only hope the Halperins take good care of Tania and Gorik, in Kiev. And you—be careful, Ossip. Rosa and I—have always cared about you, most of all. Now, with David gone—”

“I know, Uncle Sasha.” He paused, his eyes downcast. “The funeral?”

The big man nodded, heavily. He placed a hand upon Ossip's shoulder, rested it there, and shook his head silently. Neither one could look into the eyes of the other. Here we are, the selfish ones, Ossip thought wryly, while the only one who truly cared is killed. He could not think of Natasha, nor of his mother and Sonia. If only he could go to Gino…

Pavel entered discreetly and spoke up: “The man, Stepan, Monsieur, he tells me that he feels much improved. Do you wish to go in to speak with him? I have changed the dressing on his wound.”

“And I must go,” his uncle declared, rising. The two men now faced each other, and silently embraced. At the door, Sasha called out, “God preserve you, Ossip!” Ossip watched his bulky shoulders disappear down the staircase, and he sighed. Everyone of meaning was gone. There was no haven now but from within. Yet what lay within but hollow sounds? I am a coward, he thought, only now there is no doubt remaining, no doubt to shield me from myself. I have a journey to plan…

L
etters came irregularly to Feodosia
, but reached their destination. So, almost at once, the Gunzburg women learned that the Bolsheviks had seized control of the capital, that David was dead, that the family safe had been robbed, and that Ossip had fled with a wounded Stepan to Odessa. Then they learned from Rosa that the banks had been taken in hand by the new government, and that she and Sasha, destitute (as were Mathilde and her children), had tried to flee the capital northward, but had been turned back at the Swedish border because their papers had not been properly signed by the new authorities. Sasha had been placed in jail, and had only been released when it was discovered that he possessed no hidden reserve of funds. They planned, Rosa wrote, to arrange to have their visas properly attested, and Tania would send them sufficient funds to join her in Kiev. Then they would all leave the country together, somehow. Ossip sent word that he had reached Odessa, not without adventures, but that he had run out of money, and knew that the Maison Gunzburg had been “nationalized” by the Bolsheviks in Petrograd; so he had gone to the family connection in Odessa, the Ashkenasys, and obtained a position in their bank. The Bolshevik system had not yet spread to Odessa.