The Four Winds of Heaven (71 page)

When dawn broke, the guards came back and propelled the prisoners to a nearby clearing filled with rocks and sand. They were given gruel and water to eat. It was then that Mossia saw the spot of brown at his feet. He kicked at it, horrified: it was caked blood. Mesmerized, his senses in abeyance, he started to walk among the rocks until he spotted the bits of bone and gristle. Mass murder would be difficult to conceal, but systematic shootings of small groups? He clenched his fists against the sides of his thick, strong body: somehow, some way, he would emerge from this place alive. But how?

Less than a week later, when the guards entered the enclosure in the middle of the night, his name was called among those summoned for clean-up detail. Then and there he decided what he must do. Unobtrusively, he removed the identification tag from his chest and stood his ground. “Go find the scum!” the commissar told one of his men, and the soldier, a short, lithe man, darted inside the group of hostages and began shining his light upon breast after breast.

Mossia stood totally still. At last the soldier reached his row. A horrid taste filled Mossia's mouth, and he closed his eyes. The light shone on his face, over his tagless breast— and he heard the soldier's breath below him. Then, miraculously, the man moved on! He heard him call out to the commissar, “I don't know where he could have gone, Excellency. I beg pardon—‘Comrade.'”

It was this strange exchange that caught Mossia's attention. He had heard that voice before, somewhere—but where? And then he remembered! Vassya, Gino de Gunzburg's companion, at the jail in Feodosia. Little Vassya, with whom he had shared his food. At last he understood. In these days of tumult and danger, it was difficult for young men to evade the communists when they entered a village in search of conscripts. Or perhaps the young cowherd had at last become imbued with anger at the classes that had oppressed his kind for so long. Whatever the reason, Vassya had saved Mossia's life.

Somehow, when the French burst through the camp only hours later and liberated all the hostages, it was an anticlimax for Mossia Zlatopolsky. He returned to the house, and there his mother fell upon him with sobs of relief. Elena—Lialia—kissed him on the lips. But he could not concentrate his thoughts upon her. He was thinking of Vassya, and the Gunzburgs.

I
n Simferopol
, the news had suddenly grown alarming. The Red Army was threatening to invade the peninsula, and the scant White troops were not strong enough to hold them off. Convoys of Red Cross workers began to evacuate the city toward Dzhankoi, an important railway point near Perekop. It was there that the road from the north branched off, its main trunk continuing due south toward Simferopol and Sevastopol, while a fork led to Kerch and Feodosia in the southeast.

On the sixth of April, which dawned clear and sunny after a night of spring showers, total confusion erupted in Simferopol. Various news bulletins made contradictory statements that found their way to the ears of Sonia, Mathilde, and Johanna. First they heard that Perekop had not fallen to the Reds; then that both Perekop and Dzhankoi were in enemy hands. The White officer who lived in the Solovéichik house panicked, and bundled his family into a cart, for the White headquarters and its military press were being evacuated. Then Olga burst in, disheveled: she had just come from the Hotel de l'Europe where chaos reigned in the officers' canteen. All the ladies were gone, and the men were cutting their own bread and washing the dishes themselves. Her mother was in Feodosia and Olga had come to the Gunzburgs for advice and comfort. What were they to do?

They put Olga to bed, for she had become hysterical, and during the night Sonia watched over her, thinking of her brother. Before going to sleep, Olga had wanted to flee from Simferopol as fast as it could be arranged, but Sonia wished first to consult Alexander Zevin. The next morning, when she learned that the banks had closed down at two o'clock and that their managers had left town with all the money and the account books, she sent a small boy to the Zevin house with a note. “Please help us to make arrangements,” she wrote. “Once again we need your wisdom and guidance.” But when Olga heard about the defection of the bankers, she began to laugh. “It is nothing,” she said, shaking with spasms of hysteria. “Only a joke between me and Gino. He still has his title, but we are ruined, you see.”

The citizens were afraid that the communists of the city would form an uprising: they armed three hundred men and posted them in front of the prison and at other strategic points throughout the town with orders to kill any Red sympathizers on the rampage.

The streets were filled with vehicles. The families of White officers as well as some civilians were leaving in droves, bound for Sevastopol or Kerch, Coachmen demanded exorbitant prices to take frightened people to the station. In the midst of this, Zevin arrived, his features drawn, and explained that the communists had prepared a blacklist of all the suspect citizens of Simferopol, to be shot as soon as the Red troops entered the city. At the head of the list stood the names of the ladies who had served at the White canteen. “It is best for you three to flee,” he urged them, “and take Olga Arkadievna with you.”

But the young blond woman shook her head, claiming that she had to remain for her mother and for Gino to find her. Sonia attempted to reason with her, but Olga, who the night before had wanted to escape at all cost, was now set against the plan, and her eyes blazed with determination. Johanna de Mey shrugged. Placing a firm and gentle hand upon Mathilde's shoulder, she insisted that a baroness would never survive the blacklist, that Alexander Zevin was a friend to whom they could turn.

“If you do not come with us,” Sonia said somewhat roughly to Olga, “my brother will never forgive us. You are my sister. We are not cowards, who take the first flight. But we are not idiots either.”

There were no newspapers that day, but word came that electricity would be left running the entire night, so that the streets could be lit until dawn, in case of trouble. Zevin told the Gunzburgs about a little town, actually a large village, to the west, inland from Feodosia, called Stary Krym. It was known for its pure air and there were many rooming houses there to accommodate the people who visited the town for health reasons. “Go there, for you shall surely find a place to stay, and you will be far from Simferopol,” the former manager advised.

Stary Krym lay roughly sixty miles from Simferopol. The Tartar bootmaker, Saïd-Bekir, would take them there the following morning at five o'clock. Zevin brought the Gunzburgs some money, and took them, with Johanna and Olga, to the bootmaker's house after supper. Their driver would be their host for the night. His house was meticulously clean, but, as all Tartar homes, nearly devoid of furniture. A thick carpet covered the ground, and large cushions of velvet and silk lined the walls. Saïd-Bekir's wife brought mats and covers which she placed upon the floor of the large room. The women shook Zevin's hand, and he left them to lie down, fully clothed.

It was a most uncomfortable night. Fearing robbery on the way to Stary Krym, the women had put on many layers of clothing. Sonia wore two sets of undergarments, topped by two dresses, an overblouse, and two tailored suits. She could hardly breathe, and did not sleep much before Saïd-Bekir's wife awakened them before sunrise, with thick Turkish coffee. Her husband had gone to feed and hitch up the horses.

At the last minute, when she saw the vehicle that would take them away, Olga shook her head vehemently and clung to the young Tartar woman. “No,” she murmured, “I can't go. Gino and Mama will come here to find me.”

“Zevin will tell them where we are, and we'll try to leave word along the way,” Sonia remonstrated, losing patience. “If you love my brother, you will protect yourself for his sake.” She examined the
lineika
to which the horses were attached. It consisted of a large cushioned plank of wood set upon springs over the four wheels. She climbed on, and her mother sat beside her. Johanna de Mey took the third seat, her back touching Mathilde's. There were two strips of wood for their feet, and at one end of the
lineika
a small seat had been made for the driver, followed by the horses' beam. Sonia stretched her hand to Olga, and the young girl climbed next to the Dutchwoman. Saïd-Bekir took his own seat, and the journey began.

It was six in the morning. The sky was gray and the air was cold. Huddled together, the four women spoke little on the way to Beshterek. They traveled the same stretch of road that Gino had covered, half-dead from his beatings at the farm of Madame Solovéichik, and it felt as though his specter hung over them as they traced his path. Suddenly Olga said to Johanna, in a trembling voice, “But Sonia is right, Johanna Ivanovna. Gino would want me with his own people.”

A gust of wind came up, blowing a wisp of hair into Sonia's face, and she did not quite make out the governess's reply. But Olga stammered, “There is nothing indecent about it. Gino considers me his fiancée.”

Suddenly the
ìineika
came upon a column of the White Army. There were battalions on foot, squadrons on horseback, cannons and supply carts. Saïd-Bekir methodically attempted to reach ahead of the column, driving alongside it, while the passengers ate their apples and raisins in the
Iineika,
not stopping to eat at Zuia as they had planned. Instead, they waited for the larger city of Karasúbazar, where Saïd-Bekir left the ladies at the Cafe du Commerce to have another bite to eat and to order tea. The wind had grown stronger and, in spite of the layers of clothing, the four women needed to be revived by a hot beverage.

The bootmaker told them that he would not pick them up until two in the afternoon, and so Sonia and Olga took the time to write a short note each for Gino, should he pass through this city, and the younger girl wrote a similar one to her mother. It was highly likely that if either Gino or Nadezhda Igorovna learned from the Zevins of the Gunzburgs' destination, they would make a stop at the Hotel de l'Ancre d'Or, a common stopping place. Olga took the notes to bring to the front desk of the hotel and the others awaited her return, savoring their tea.

Olga Arkadievna walked out into the cold street, drawing her coat tightly around her. As she walked, she thought of Johanna de Mey's cruel insinuations, and she shuddered with annoyance. Of course Gino means to marry me, she intoned reassuringly. But Johanna had told her that Gino was planning to marry a girl from Petrograd. Surely she was lying, Olga thought, remembering Gino, his face, his promises. But a new, nagging doubt filled her. She would have to speak with Sonia.

It is this war, it is his absence, and my worry about his safety, she reasoned, that are making me insecure, that are shaking my serenity. Breathing deeply to calm herself, she stepped into the lobby of the Hotel de l'Ancre d'Or, and crossed the lobby to the desk. She handed the two envelopes to a young clerk. “These are for a Baron Evgeni de Gunzburg,” Olga said, and her voice shook slightly. She passed him the third letter, for her mother. “And this one is for Madame Nadezhda Pomerantz. I do not know for certain whether these two people shall stop here, on their way to Stary Krym or Simferopol—”

She did not continue, for his face, across the desk, peered at her with a rude insistence. She blushed, looked down at her boots. Suddenly she felt something at her elbow. “Mademoiselle,” the clerk declared, and he was right next to her, “I'm sure that I can help you, but you will have to step in here and describe these people to me. They may not know that letters await them.” He placed his hand upon her arm, and closed his fingers about her skin and bones. She turned to look into his face, saw the lewd glint in his black eyes, and drew back. His complexion was pockmarked, his breath slightly rank. She tried to shake him off with dignity, and his hand dropped down like a dead fly. Reassured, she almost laughed at her own lack of poise, and went ahead of him into the antechamber off the main lobby. She opened her mouth to begin a description of Gino, when she felt a hand clamp over her lips, and realized with horror that he had locked the door behind him.

Olga began to struggle, but the clerk, although lanky, was a strong man, and she could not move. The room was small and close and dark, and she felt him stuff a cloth into her mouth so that she could not even utter a cry for help. He was tying her hands behind her back, and a terrible panic seized her, a claustrophobia so great that beads of thick sweat clung to her hair and dripped into her eyes.
“Burshui
whore,” he hissed. “I've had your kind tramp over me my entire life!” She shook her head: No, not I, I have never hurt you—but he was pulling at her stockings, parting her legs, and then, to her horror, he was undressing, fumbling with his trousers. It was the first time she had ever seen a naked man, and so deep was her mortification and her shock that she did not flinch from the awful searing pain, nor from the sight of her own blood. She thought only: Gino, Gino! But she could not cry, could not move.