The Lost Souls of Angelkov (62 page)

“You don’t look well.”

“I’m fine.”

“Have you ever heard of such a thing? Of music creating colour in someone’s vision?”

Grisha makes a sound as if he’s clearing his throat, or perhaps his breath is caught there. “What colour does he see when he plays his violin?” he asks, surprising her.

Her mouth is lovely, and as the muted light falls across her in streams, Grisha grows strangely weak in her presence. It’s deeply confusing, the two elements coming together. As he’s filled with desire for her, she’s fitting in the final piece of something he hasn’t allowed himself to believe.

He knows the colour before she says it.

“He sees gold when he plays. Certain tones make the gold shimmer, he said, like the sun through autumn leaves.” She looks quizzically at Grisha. “Are you really quite well, Grisha? You appear … Perhaps you’re falling ill?”

“No,” he says, and straightens his shoulders. “I have work. The accounts …”

Antonina doesn’t see any sign of the account books. “The letter, then, Grisha. Do you have the letter for me?”

“Yes,” Grisha says in a vague way, as though he’s suddenly very weary, or deeply distracted. He looks around, shaking his head ever so slightly, then pulls the letter from beside a small painting on his mantle and hands it to her. “Here it is. Good day,” he tells her, making it clear it’s time for her to leave.

Once she’s gone, he sits, heavily, on the settee. He stares at the
svirel
. And then he rises, slowly, and goes to his desk and opens it. He takes paper, a pen and a bottle of ink. He
stares at the paper for a moment, and then writes:
Dear Valentin Vladimirovitch Kropotkin
.

He stops, as if unsure of what he’s about to say. It takes him a long time to compose three simple lines.

Antonina reads what Valentin had written to her two days earlier. His words tell her how much he had enjoyed her company. He would come to see her one more time, the following evening, but after that he would write to her from wherever he settled. That perhaps, whether in St. Petersburg or Moscow, she could one day come and hear him play again. “When you have your son back,” she reads, “I would like to meet him. Please bring him with you.”

Mikhail.
Is this why I wanted to be with you, Valentin—because you remind me so much of him?

It’s late in the afternoon when Antonina goes to the kitchen. She tells Raisa that she will ask Lyosha to bring in a barn cat for the mice. Raisa has asked if they should throw out the flour, and Antonina asked if there was any alternative. “We could sift it, madam, to get rid of the droppings. But it will take some time.”

“I’ll help,” Antonina tells her. It feels wrong to sit, waiting to be served, when she sees how much Raisa and the others have to do.

Raisa tells her, as they work together, that Lyosha has ridden out to hunt rabbits. If he has luck, they will have rabbit stew the next day, Raisa says, smiling.

Neither Antonina nor Raisa know that Lyosha has already
returned with two large hares and dropped them outside the servants’ quarters. Lilya is there now, skinning and gutting them.

Lyosha’s rifle is leaning against the front of the house. He’s in the stables rubbing down his horse.

Antonina is in the pantry, taking another sack of flour from a shelf, when she hears the dogs barking. She assumes it’s Lyosha returning. She takes the flour into the kitchen and begins sifting again.

Lilya looks up from the skinned carcass as the rider gallops past the servants’ quarters, down the road towards Grisha’s house.

It’s Valentin.

She throws down the rabbit, her hands bloody, and grabs the rifle from where it leans against the door frame.

The two men are inside Grisha’s house. Valentin clutches the letter from Grisha.
Please come to my home when you get this. We must talk. I remember you
.

Grisha is holding the
svirel
. “What does this flute mean to you, Kropotkin?” he asks, handing it to him.

Valentin stuffs the letter into his pocket and runs his fingers over the carved name. “I played it when I left the letter for the countess with you,” he says.

“But does it mean anything? From another time?”

“Another time? I don’t know what you’re asking. What are you saying, Naryshkin?”

Grisha swallows, gently taking the
svirel
from Valentin’s hand. “I carried this with me when I left home. When I left Chita.”

“I don’t know Chita.”

“It’s in Siberia, far east of Irkutsk.”

Valentin’s face shows nothing.

“My little brother gave this to me,” Grisha says. “He carved my name into it, and gave it to me for my name day. He was barely eight, and already played the violin as if he had learned in the heavens.” Grisha’s face is pale. “He saw gold when he played his violin. He was taken away, to become a musician.”

Valentin’s chest is rising and falling. “I don’t remember my childhood.”

“Nothing?”

“Bells.” He swallows. “Church bells. And other sounds. Gongs, I think.”

“Tibetan gongs.”

Valentin wipes his forehead with his hand. “A glass of water, Naryshkin.”

“You remember the gongs from the temple we attended with our mother.”

“Our mother?”

“Yes, Kolya.”

Valentin sits down, staring up at Grisha.

Grisha nods. “Kolya. You were Kolya. I was Tima. I am Tima. Your brother, Tima.”

Valentin’s mouth is open as he stares at Grisha. His breathing is erratic, and his face flushes. “You’re … wait. Wait,” he says, standing, putting out both his hands as if wanting to stop time.

The door is thrown open with such force that it hits the wall. It’s Lilya with Lyosha’s rifle. She aims it at Valentin.

Valentin looks from her to Grisha, and back to Lilya,
confusion on his face. Grisha sees what is happening, but before he can react, an explosion rips through the room.

Valentin, his chest blown open, flies backwards. He hits the settee and then the floor.

Antonina hears the muffled report of a rifle. She glances at the window. It’s dusk. Surely Lyosha isn’t still hunting, she thinks. It’s far too dark to be assured of a kill.

When Lyosha arrives at Grisha’s house, panting from running down the road at the sound of the shot, Grisha is on his knees, holding the musician in his arms. He is pressing a blood-soaked blanket over the man’s chest. Lilya is slumped against the open door as if thrown there. Her eyes are wide with shock. The rifle, sticky with rabbit blood, is beside her on the floor. She is crossing herself compulsively, whispering prayers as she stares at the injured man.

Lyosha puts his hands to his head. There’s so much blood. It looks like … it seems as if Lilya shot the musician. And Grisha … why is he holding the other man so closely, as if they’re lovers? He’s murmuring, pressing the dying man’s head against his chest, his own face contorted in something frightening to behold.

Lilya is shaking violently, and as Lyosha looks at her, she whispers to him, “I heard an owl hooting last night. I knew something terrible would happen today.” She says this as if she’s telling him a secret. And then she continues crossing herself and muttering frantic prayers:
Forgive me, God in Heaven forgive me, forgive me Heavenly Father, forgive me
.

Lyosha drops to his knees. His hands are still on his head. Holy Mother of God. He has never seen a man dying like this. The musician is choking, a bubbling sound bursting from his throat. The blanket is saturated with crimson. Grisha is covered in it.

“You came,” he hears the musician gasp. “You came, Tima.”

Grisha tries to speak. He can’t. He tries again. “Yes, Kolya, I came for you.” His voice is hoarse, the words slow, fractured.

“As I dreamed you would. I knew you would come for me.” The bubbling grows louder. Valentin coughs up a mouthful of blood and his lips move in what could be a smile.

After a long silence, Grisha looks up at Lilya and Lyosha. “He’s dead,” he says, slowly making the sign of the cross over the other man three times. His eyes are wet.

Lyosha has never seen Grisha sign the cross before. He looks at his sister, then back at Grisha. “Did you … do you know him so well, then, Grisha?” Lyosha asks, his voice sounding as though his throat has been burned. His hands shake violently.

“No,” Grisha tells him. “I don’t know him at all. But I could have.”