The Lost Souls of Angelkov (39 page)

Grisha had studied her expression. He was very sure she knew nothing about Mikhail’s disappearance. Soso had said he wouldn’t tell her, and Grisha knew he was right; she was too close to the countess. “You really have no idea where he is?”

“I told you, no. Why do you care?”

Grisha didn’t answer, walking away. Lilya was his only thread to Soso, who in turn was his only connection to Mikhail. Lev had disappeared. Grisha had Fyodor and Lyosha follow him the day the man had come to the estate with the letter from Misha, demanding more ransom money. They had watched the village hut he went to, all night, but in the morning discovered he had somehow disappeared.

Grisha had already been to all the villages, looking for Soso. He again searched, this time for Lev, but with no luck. Although he sometimes feared that they’d killed the child and left the province, he also knew the depth of their greed. He told himself they would keep the child as long as they believed they could extort more money.

He had trouble being around Countess Mitlovskiya, and slept little, thinking of it all: the count’s worsening health, the countess a ruin, Mikhail’s face in the clearing.

He had suffered his own silent remorse until today. Upon awakening, he found a note under his door. He was to bring the second payment to an izba in Tushinsk the next afternoon. Mikhail Konstantinovich would be waiting.

He looks at Antonina in the scuffed servant’s boots, the basket on her arm. “I believe today will be a good day, countess,” he finally says, wanting to tell her the news but knowing he mustn’t, not until he has the boy.

“Will it, Grisha? Will it?”

He smiles, nodding at her basket and knife. “You will have fresh mushrooms.”

One side of her mouth lifts in a wry smile. “Yes,” she agrees. “I will have fresh mushrooms.”

Grisha reaches up one more time, trying to tame his hair.

In the forest, Antonina smells the wet, musty odour of the fallen leaves and remembers the pleasure she had as a child, hunting for mushrooms with one of her brothers or her governess.

She picks her way through swampy thickets, looking for the tiny curve of a cap in the midst of the leaf litter and broken branches and moss that cover the ground. When she spots one, she bends, scraping away damp earth with her fingers, cutting the mushrooms: orange milk mushrooms and perfect red saffron milk caps. From time to time she finds the special
veshenka
mushrooms growing on the base of a tree.

When she returns to the house a few hours later, her basket full, the front door is locked. They no longer have a footman at Angelkov, standing in the vestibule to attend to the door, to usher in guests, accept calling cards, and take wraps and coats. There are no visitors anyway.

She goes around the house and enters the kitchen through the servants’ entrance. She leaves the basket of mushrooms on the table. Raisa isn’t there, but a large vat of water bubbles on the stove, and there are potatoes cut on a board.

Walking and kneeling and digging have tired her out; she is unused to exercise now. She doesn’t even have the energy to unhook and pull off the boots in the hot kitchen. As she slowly climbs the winding staircase, she notices the layer of dust on the edges of each step, as well as a rip in the thick Persian runner. The brass rail of the banister is turning green. There simply aren’t enough servants to look after the house. Olga has stayed, although Antonina has recently noticed that Lilya now wears the housekeeper’s ring of keys on her belt. She hasn’t asked her when this happened, or why.

In her bedroom, Antonina sits in the tufted armchair near the dead fireplace and laboriously unhooks the boots. She kicks them off, leaving them where they drop. Her stockings are stuck to her heels with spots of blood where the skin has been rubbed raw. She lies down, staring at the ceiling. There’s no air in the room; it’s sultry and smells stale. Everything is as she left it: the bed a rumpled mess, the towel thrown beside the basin of now scummy water, her nightdress on the floor beside the wardrobe.

She gets up and opens the window. The air outside is warmer than in the room—probably the last real heat of fall. She drinks a few mouthfuls of vodka from the flask in her
wardrobe and again lies down on the unmade bed. She studies her fingernails: they’re broken and rimmed with dirt from picking the mushrooms. One fly then another have come into the bedroom through the open window, and buzz angrily in the hot, still air. After a while she turns onto her side, closing her eyes, hoping for a few moments of sleep. She puts her hand under the lace pillow. She spreads her fingers, savouring that tiny bit of cooler linen. The tip of one finger touches the little velvet bag she keeps there.

She pulls out the bag and opens it, taking out the cherub that fell to her from the church ceiling back in June. She runs her dirty fingers gently over the small gilded body, the wings and tiny feet. Grisha had expertly glued the wing back on; the seam is almost invisible.

Through the long, hot summer, she has kept her hope alive for Mikhail. She goes to the church every day and prays for at least an hour, although never again has she had a vision or received a sign.

There’s low thunder in the distance now. Antonina closes both hands around the cherub and presses it to her chest, closing her eyes.

The air changes overnight. The next day is crisp and fresh, although the sun still shines.

Antonina is on the front veranda in the afternoon, looking at the crows in the pines and noticing that the birches have suddenly turned, their yellow leaves twirling on their stems in the slight breeze. She doesn’t want to be inside: even though Pavel is attempting to soothe him with the chloroform, Konstantin is shouting.

She sees Grisha mounting his horse, and she calls to him. “Where do you go, Grisha?”

“I have business in Tushinsk.” The sun is glinting off his hair. Antonina notices the depth of colour, so black it shines blue in the sunlight.

“Could you wait, please? I’ll ride with you.” As soon as the words are out of her mouth, Antonina realizes how much she wants to ride. She went out on Dunia just once all summer, and only rode for half an hour. There seemed to be no reason for an aimless ride. But now she wants to be away from Konstantin and the sad decay of the estate.

“Countess, as I said, I have business. I’ll ride at top speed, and then turn around and come straight back. It’s not meant to be a pleasure ride.”

“I will accompany you at any rate,” Antonina says, starting back up the steps. “I’ll change into my riding clothes, and be back in ten minutes.”

“I’d rather you didn’t …” Grisha’s words trail off. He curses under his breath.

He doesn’t know how to refuse her.

“I’ve heard from the lawyer Yakovlev,” Antonina tells Grisha as they ride side by side at a leisurely pace down the wide drive that runs from the house to the main road. “He’ll bring all of Konstantin’s papers from Pskov in two days, and review them with me. I must find out how to collect Konstantin’s funds.”

“This is good, madam,” Grisha says, and with that Antonina remembers that Grisha needs to be paid. She knows Konstantin paid Grisha his salary every four months; she hasn’t given him anything since Mikhail was taken.

“Would you like me to speak to him as well?” Grisha asks. “I often had dealings with him and the count.”

“You may be present. Your input will be valuable to me. I have given you too much responsibility. It isn’t fair that I’ve leaned so heavily on you without …” She stares straight ahead as she speaks to Grisha. “I know you are past due your salary.”

“I am honoured by your trust, madam,” is all he says.

“You’ve been so understanding since the spring. But I’m finding my strength again, and will now take charge. Konstantin Nikolevich, as you know, is unable to be of any use in these matters. In any matters.”

Grisha doesn’t comment.

“Does your silence mean you think me incapable, Grisha?” Antonina asks, turning slightly in her saddle so she can look into his face. “I can learn. You can be assured that I’ll learn how to run the estate.”

Grisha nods. “I have no doubt you will understand the financial aspects, once you have ample time to study them. But are you aware, madam, of how many of the serfs have left the estate?”

Antonina looks over at him again. “I do know that many are gone, but they won’t all go.” She says this with forced confidence.

“The house serfs usually return to family,” Grisha goes on. “Those on the land, the former serfs in the villages, are organizing
mirs
now, madam—a form of collective farming. The community will own the land, but individual families will create their own harvests. Everyone works for the good of the community—this is the new law. You will be forced to sell much of your land to them, the former serfs, so that they can farm it in this manner. They’ll work it and all share
in the profit. As they once gave you their shares, now they’ll divide those shares evenly.”

Antonina is silent for a moment. Her father and then Konstantin had been completely against the emancipation manifesto. Giving the peasants freedom, they ranted, would leave the landowners without the huge, cheap labour force they needed to maintain their estates. She realizes now that she hasn’t asked enough questions; she can hold no one responsible for her lack of knowledge. She had always hated the way she saw her father and husband treat serfs, and had thought no further.

“Wait,” she says. “The new law is that I
must
sell my land to them? But … is it not my choice?”

“Well, yes, it’s partly a choice, but the government will charge you such high taxes for your land that it’s unlikely you’ll be able to sustain it. Without the peasants, it will be of no use to you anyway. You can’t receive the yearly taxes the serfs had to pay you, and with no one to work it, there won’t be any harvest to feed yourself and all those you must continue to feed at the estate.”

“I’ll sell some tracts of my land to them, then. And with the payments I receive, I can continue to run Angelkov, and feed and clothe everyone I’m responsible for, as before,” she states.

Grisha utters a sharp laugh that rings in the still autumn air. “That’s what the Tsar envisioned.”

“What do you mean?”

Grisha pulls his horse to a stop, and Antonina turns Dunia to face him. The horses snicker gently at each other, their noses touching. “Countess Mitlovskiya. Where do you suppose the former serfs will find money to purchase land?”

“Where, Grisha?”

Grisha, for the first time, shows annoyance with her. “They
have
no money, countess.” His voice is harsh. “Surely you know this. They have nothing but the rags on their backs. Even the leaking roofs over their heads are not their own. There will be no payment to you—or to any landowners. Not now. There will be forms distributed. Each former soul will put his mark where he is directed. The form ties him to future payment. But he will never be able to pay off the land. Ever. He will never save enough money. And so he will live in the same way as always, except now he works for the good of his village, and not for the good of the landowner.”