The Lost Souls of Angelkov (33 page)

Antonina looks up at him, her eyes wet.

“It can be easily fixed, madam,” he says. His voice is comforting, and suddenly Antonina wants to rest her cheek on
his outstretched palm. She has known Grisha since she first came to Angelkov. Grisha is trustworthy, and capable. As he stands in front of her, there is something in his dark eyes that Antonina hasn’t seen before. As if he feels pain. For her?

“Grisha,” she says, giving him back the cherub.

He waits.

“Grisha,” she repeats, and this time he says, softly, “Yes, madam?”

“I don’t know what to do anymore.”

Rubbing his thumb over the cherub, he says, “I know, countess.”

“Will you help me? You already run Angelkov. But Konstantin …” She touches trembling fingers to her forehead. “Finding Misha. I don’t know who else …”

Grisha moves closer and puts his hand on Antonina’s shoulder.

Lilya comes in with Tinka. She clears her throat loudly.

Grisha removes his hand. “I will do all I can, Countess Mitlovskiya.” He bows and leaves.

Antonina watches his back, his straight shoulders, as he leaves her.

Lilya watches her mistress.

W
hen he arrived in Moscow in 1844, Grisha was a much different person than the boy who had ridden away from Chita. He was almost two years older, and he had no patience with self-pity or regrets. He had learned that if you face your worst fears and survive, there is never anything to fear again. As a result, he was not afraid of anything. And because he was afraid of nothing, he thought of himself as untouchable.

Nothing made him feel elation or sorrow.

He found a job in a cooperage on the outskirts of Moscow, building perfect barrels as he had learned to do as an apprentice under his father. After a year he heard of a better-paying position and moved on to a cooperage in St. Petersburg. But he was still restless. When another opportunity arose, this one on a private estate in the province of Pskov, he thought it might be what he wanted. With a good recommendation
from his employer, wearing new clothing and with a horse he’d managed to buy from his saved wages—he called the horse Felya, as he called every horse he owned from then on—he went to the estate known then as Polnokove and, in 1846, was hired by Count Mitlovsky.

From the start, he despised the count, as he had despised any man—apart from his father—who gave him orders. The count and his pockmarked wife acted as though they were imparting gold to their staff when they lined them up at Christmas and gave them each a flask of vodka—the very vodka Grisha made the barrels for. They were also given a small purse of kopecks, the men a strip of leather for a new vest or belts, and the women a bolt of fabric. At Easter, Grisha stood, his fists clenched, as the staff were again lined up as if they were children and given dyed eggs and
paskhi
, the tall cakes of sweetened curds, butter and raisins. And for this they were to bow gratefully and pretend undying faithfulness. His cake under one arm, Grisha fought memories of Easter in Chita, celebrating the Mass with his father and little brother in the green-domed Decembrist Orthodox Church. It had always been his favourite feast day.

Now it was spoiled.

A year after Grisha arrived, the count’s wife died. It took only a few months for the widower to take up with the laundress Tania, who resembled the countess right down to the pockmarks on her cheeks. In another year Mitlovsky remarried. The second wife was little more than a girl, Grisha saw as she stepped out of the carriage holding a tiny dog with a bright pink ribbon around its neck. The house and yard staff of over sixty had been called into the front yard, and lined
the walk that led from the oval driveway to the steps of the manor. They all bowed from the waist.

The count led the girl along the drive, the cinders crunching under their feet, to the top step of the manor. “I present the new Countess Mitlovskiya,” he announced. “Rise and look upon her.”

The staff obeyed.

“To welcome her to her new home, I have changed the name of the estate from Polnokove to Angelkov.”

The staff remained still.

The new wife began her greetings by kissing the icon of the Blessed Virgin Mary held by the housekeeper, and smiling and nodding at the servant holding the welcoming bread and salt. And although she appeared outwardly calm as she greeted the staff of the estate, passing in front of each, repeating his or her name and position in a light but respectful tone, Grisha saw, just before he bowed his head and heard her say,
Grisha, cooper
, the uncertainty in her eyes.

He assumed the count would now leave the laundress alone, but he soon realized he was wrong.

The new wife brought freshness to the atmosphere, and when she gave birth to Mitlovsky’s son, Grisha’s life also changed.

He had talked to the second Countess Mitlovskiya a few times in her first year at Angelkov. Once, she came into the cooperage and asked him to fashion a bed for Tinka, her dog. “She has a velvet bed, but it’s quite worn. I thought that perhaps you could fashion a little wooden one. Grisha, isn’t it?”
she added. She requested that he make it out of planed, varnished staves, telling him she would line it with padding.

“Yes, countess,” he said, bowing, noticing that she was pregnant. Did she really remember his name, or had she asked another servant? “Do you have a particular kind of wood in mind?”

“Whatever wood you think would be best.” She looked around at the finished barrels, picking up a planed stave and holding it to her nose. “I like the smell here.” She put down the stave and laughed then, as if slightly embarrassed by her statement. She had a high, pretty laugh. Grisha felt strangely pleased, even though he knew, by the way she unconsciously rested a hand on the mound under her flowing gown, that most likely she was simply happy about the expected child.

He made the dog bed and had it delivered to the manor, not expecting to see her again. But a week later she was back. “I came to tell you how much Tinka loves her little bed,” she said, the dog held against her. “You love it, don’t you, Tinka?” She kissed its nose. “Thank you for your expertise, Grisha,” she said, looking from the dog to him.

“It was an honour, Countess Mitlovskiya,” he said, bowing.

But she didn’t leave immediately, looking around the cooperage, touching various staves and tools as if she didn’t have anywhere else to be. She picked up
The Stationmaster’s Daughter
he’d left on a stool. “Is this yours?”

Grisha cursed his foolishness at leaving the book in full view. Would she assume he wasn’t working when he should be, and have him punished? “Yes. I read when I eat my midday meal.”

“Do many of the serfs at Angelkov read?” she asked, looking surprised.

“I am not a serf, madam. I am a free man.”

“Oh. I read
The Stationmaster’s Daughter
last year,” she went on. “It’s very sad, isn’t it? But I was glad that Dunia defies her father and runs away with the man she loves.” She immediately put her hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry. Have I spoiled it for you?”

Grisha shook his head. “I’ve read it before. I’ve read all of Pushkin’s works at least twice.”

“I love that he wrote so many of his books right here, in our province, when he was exiled from St. Petersburg. And I just named my new filly after her—Dunia, the girl in the novel,” she added. “You like to read, then?”

“Yes, madam.”

“The library at Angelkov is sadly lacking, but I’m trying to fill the shelves. I brought a lot of my own books from home, and I buy more whenever we journey into Pskov city.”

Grisha made a polite sound. The countess made him strangely anxious, chattering in such a friendly manner. He hoped Mitlovsky wouldn’t come looking for his wife.

She turned away from him then. “Goodbye,” she said, “and thank you again.” As she left, the sun caught in the intricate weave of her fair hair, and Grisha thought about her and the count. For one moment he tried to imagine the girl laughing her carefree laugh with the old man.

And knew that money truly could buy anything one wanted in this world.

The next time he saw her was after the birth of the heir to the Mitlovsky fortune.

The new mother had taken a walk through the yard, the
nanny following with the well-wrapped baby. The countess had come to the stables to see a new foal. But after looking in on the leggy black Arabian, smiling and making encouraging noises to it, she took an unexpected detour. Instead of leaving by the main front doors, she went out the doors at the back into the yard that held the flogging bench.

She appeared at the moment the steward, a bullish man named Gleb, was lifting his knout. He was about to whip a serf who had displeased the count by castrating a bull clumsily. The unfortunate man was shirtless and tied face down on the bench, which was propped vertically against the wall of an outbuilding. Grisha was present in the yard quite by accident, on his way to the blacksmith shed with a broken adze to be soldered.

Grisha was often angry that the count paid no attention to the way Gleb handled his job. The steward was allowed to live in a small but tidy wooden house with a front garden; Grisha sometimes saw Gleb’s stout wife bent over the rows of vegetables there. In the two-storey stone servants’ house, Grisha shared a room with three men from the cattle sheds and the ever-present smell of manure that seemed ingrained in their skin.

Gleb brought the moistened strap with its strips of leather, each tied with a metal ball on the end, down on the bare back of the serf. The serf shrieked in a high and terrible way, and as his cry died away, those watching heard another cry. They were all shocked to see the new little countess, her face drained of colour, her hand to her throat.

For unknown reasons, she turned to the nanny and snatched the baby from her arms, pressing it against her as if the infant were next in line for punishment. “Stop!” she
shouted to Gleb, who had the knout raised over his head for the second blow. “Stop, I said,” she repeated. “I demand that you untie that serf.”

Gleb lowered the knout and glared at Antonina. “No disrespect, countess, but I don’t answer to you. It’s your husband who gives me my orders, and it’s your husband I’ve worked for over nine long years. He has never had a complaint with me. My suggestion to you, countess, is that you take care not to come into the flogging yard.”

Antonina looked around as if for support. She saw Grisha and opened her mouth.

He gave a small, almost imperceptible shake of his head, and was grateful that she had enough intelligence to understand that it would be wrong to pull him into this altercation. “Fine,” she said, looking back at Gleb. “I will report your rudeness towards me to the count. Of that you may be sure.” She raised her chin, and then turned abruptly and left.

Grisha saw the baby’s small, solemn face over her shoulder.