The Lost Souls of Angelkov (65 page)

Grisha returns to the manor the next morning. Raisa and Pavel are working in the kitchen. He asks Pavel to fetch Lilya.

“How is she today?” he asks, when Lilya comes into the kitchen.

Lilya ignores his question. “You’ve left the door open. Close it. It’s cold, and look—the snow.” She crosses her arms over her chest, hugging herself and stepping closer to the stove.

Grisha shuts the door firmly. The snow had started in the night, just a dusting at first, but now the wind has picked up. Heavy, wet flakes are coming down so quickly that Grisha’s footsteps are almost covered by the time he reaches the back veranda. It’s only the beginning of November, and yet it appears winter is trying to get its icy grip earlier than usual.

As he turns from the door, he sees, with an unpleasant start, that Lilya is wearing one of Antonina’s gowns.

Raisa is stirring a pot of barley porridge on the stove and Pavel is back at the table, polishing silver: a chafing dish, candlesticks, fish knives.

Grisha recognizes this tea gown: a soft, creamy fabric cut in a fashion that emphasizes the waist. Antonina had been wearing it the last time he saw her, when she came to his house and spoke of Valentin. It had brought out the translucence of her skin. It makes Lilya sallow. The fabric is pulled too tightly, buckling across her hips: Lilya’s body is not shaped like Antonina’s. She also wears Olga’s ring of keys—the housekeeper’s keys—on a thick leather belt, incongruous on the delicate dress. “The countess gives you permission to wear her clothes?”

Lilya looks annoyed. “It’s none of your business what I wear.” There is rouge in careful circles on her cheeks, and a tortoiseshell comb hangs crookedly in her hair.

“I want to see her, as I wanted to see her yesterday.”

“You can’t,” Lilya says.

Grisha still studies Lilya. She’s a little shorter than Antonina, and wears flat boots; Antonina always wears heeled slippers. The hem of the dress drags on the floor; bits of dust and grit are caught on it. The rouge is too livid on her cheeks. “Is she ill?” he asks then. “Is that it? Raisa, is the countess ill, and doesn’t want to see anyone? I’ll fetch the doctor.”

Raisa opens her mouth, frowning, but Lilya says, “She’s not sick.”

Grisha doesn’t want to imagine that Antonina is drinking so heavily this early in the morning. “Then I will see her whether you like it or not,” he says, and starts across the kitchen.

“No!” Lilya cries, and moves towards the doorway that leads into the house.

Grisha pushes away Lilya’s outstretched arm. He walks through the hall, his wet boots hitting the wooden floors with hard, purposeful thuds.

All the doors on the main floor are shut. He opens each one quickly, methodically, looking for Antonina in the dining room, the morning room, the library, the study, the drawing room, the music salon. Each room is dark, the curtains drawn against drafts from the frosty glass, and no stoves or fires burn anywhere. The air is dry and cold. There isn’t enough firewood in the once-huge stacks outside to heat more than a few rooms at a time. They are surrounded by forest, but there are no longer men to cut and cord the timber.

Old Olga is asleep in a corner of the main vestibule on a straight wooden chair with a heavy blanket wrapped around her shoulders, her chin on her chest. She lifts her head as Grisha’s footsteps wake her, blinking in a confused manner, and watches him start up the stairs. Nusha, the last of the young servants to remain at Angelkov, is on her knees, sweeping the carpet with a small, hard brush. She jumps aside as Grisha takes the stairs two at a time.

Lilya follows him.

He stops outside Antonina’s door. “Madam,” he calls, knocking. “Countess. It’s Grisha. May I enter?”

He turns the crystal knob and pushes open the door. “Madam?” he says in a wary voice. But when he steps over the threshold, the room is like the others, the curtains drawn and the fireplace dead. He turns and faces Lilya.

“Where is she? Tell me where she is,” he says, coming close to Lilya, towering over her.

Lilya doesn’t step back, or flinch. She looks up at him. “The countess is gone, Grisha,” she says calmly. “Gone away,” she repeats.

“What do you mean? Where?”

As Grisha’s face has grown agitated, Lilya’s has become serene, unreadable. “She had Lyosha take her to the city, where she was going to hire a carriage and driver.” She’s furious with Lyosha for his silence. That he would show allegiance to Antonina and not to her has caused a further rift between them. They haven’t spoken since the horrible event in Grisha’s house. She’s thinking quickly but speaking slowly. “She’s gone all the way to St. Petersburg,” she finishes, and is rewarded by Grisha’s pupils dilating, the sudden colour in his face.

“St. Petersburg?” he repeats.

Lilya has the upper hand. She was able to get Valentin out of Antonina’s life, and now she will do the same with Grisha.

“Yes, St. Petersburg. She said there was no reason for her to remain at Angelkov at the moment. There’s nothing here for her, she told me.”

Lilya is enjoying this little game, watching Grisha’s face. Her hours are long and dull without Antonina.

T
he snow keeps up, falling fast and heavy. The wind grows steadily colder.

Lyosha is thinking of Antonina alone in the dacha, burning up the wood faster than either of them would have thought. By eleven that morning he goes to the stable, having to push through snow midway up his shins. He saddles the Arabian and starts down the road. It’s more logical, in this weather, to hitch the Orlovs to the troika: they’re bred for pulling the sled through snow at a fast pace. The three of them abreast are fine on the main road, but he knows they couldn’t get through the narrow path in the forest that leads to the dacha. He plans to bring Antonina back with him on the horse, if she’ll come. If not, he’ll chop more wood for her. Maybe he’ll even stay with her, to ensure her safety.

The snow is blinding by the time he reaches the turnoff for the dacha. It’s another half-hour ride through the forest.
The horse struggles, attempting to lift its legs as high as it can, then shies nervously, whinnying. It refuses to go forward, no matter how Lyosha urges it on. He’s so cold he can’t feel his hands on the reins. His
ushanka
is pulled over his eyebrows, and a thick scarf is over his nose. But his eyelashes are coated with ice, his eyes burning from the stinging snow.

Finally, he turns the horse. It slowly picks its way back through the trail it had broken. Lyosha can’t see the road. All is white and blinding. Were it not for the horse’s determination and sense of direction they might have wandered into a field and died of exposure. Lyosha has been gone six hours on a journey that should have taken less than two. Darkness is falling as the horse struggles up the long road to the manor.

But the Arabian is too exhausted to break through the rising drifts to the stable. Lyosha squints, trying to see where they are. All he can make out is the looming square of the house, but the smaller outbuildings have disappeared. He slides off the horse and, taking its bridle, bent in half against the wind, trudges to the manor.

He collapses on the front steps, and it takes him a few moments to gain enough strength to crawl up them. On his knees, he pounds on the locked front door. In a moment it’s opened by Lilya and Grisha, with Pavel, Olga, Raisa, Fyodor and Nusha—the only servants left at Angelkov—crowding behind them.

As Lyosha half falls through the doorway, Grisha brings the horse into the wide, high entry hall. The poor creature has icicles hanging from its nostrils and whiskery jaw, its mane so beaded with ice that it’s hard as stone. It shivers violently.

While the women take Lyosha to the kitchen, Fyodor
brings blankets, and he and Grisha rub the horse vigorously. Grisha leaves Fyodor to finish the job and goes to the kitchen.

Lyosha lies on the floor near the stove, completely spent. A thick blanket covers him. Lilya is kneeling beside him. His boots and socks are off, and she is briskly rubbing his feet.

When Lyosha hadn’t come into the house for his noon meal, Lilya had gone to the servants’ quarters. She looked for him there, then in the stable. She was still angry with him, but seeing the Arabian’s empty stall frightened her. Where would Lyosha go in this snowstorm? She fought her way down to Grisha’s house and told him that Lyosha was missing. They both had the same thought: after what had happened to the musician, he didn’t want to be at Angelkov anymore. He had decided to say nothing to either of them—who would blame him?—and leave. Lilya wondered if he had gone to the home of Anya Fomovna. But wherever he went, he wouldn’t get far in the storm, they also knew.

Grisha had returned to the manor with Lilya and sat at the kitchen table, staring at his knuckles. The servants prayed in front of the icon over the stove for Lyosha’s safe return.

Now, finally, Lyosha stirs. He struggles to sit up. Lilya hands him a steaming cup. Grisha stands over him. “Tell me what you thought you were doing. You know better than to take a horse out in this weather,” he says sharply, hiding his concern over Lyosha by talking about the horse.

“I was trying to get to her. The countess,” Lyosha says. The end of his nose is frostbitten. “I knew she would need more wood, and—”

Lilya interrupts him. “Where is she?”

Grisha looks from Lyosha to Lilya. “But you said she was in St. Petersburg.”

“She’s in a dacha. About six versts from here,” Lyosha says. “It’s in the woods, off the—”

“I know where it is,” Grisha says. “Why did she go there?”

“I don’t know, Grisha. I took her there as she requested.”

Grisha turns to Lilya. “Why did you lie to me?”

“She didn’t know,” Lyosha says. “I wasn’t to tell anyone. Lilya didn’t know,” he repeats.

Lilya shrugs. “What’s the difference? For all I knew, she
had
gone to St. Petersburg.”

Grisha shakes his head in annoyance. “So she’s been there … When did you take her, Lyosha?”

“Early yesterday morning, after …” Lyosha stops, the image of the dead musician still too clear. He can’t shake it away, nor the picture of his sister with her bloody hands. “I tried to go to her today because I’m afraid she doesn’t have enough wood.”

“How long did she tell you she’d stay?”

“She said to come back for her in three or four days. But how could we know about the storm? And I don’t know if she had fuel for the lamps. I wasn’t comfortable leaving her, Grisha, but she insisted.” He covers his eyes with one hand.

“I’ll go to her,” Grisha says.

“But it’s dark, and impossible for a horse right now,” Lyosha murmurs.

Grisha is all too aware he will have to wait until morning.

In the warm, brightly lit kitchen, with a fragrant soup bubbling on the stove, they are all thinking of Countess Mitlovskiya, alone in the middle of the forest, in the dark, and cold. “There are wolves in the forest,” Nusha says.

The storm blows itself out by midnight, and Grisha sets out as soon as there is a glimmer of dawn. The snow sparkles in the rising sun. It’s a struggle for the horse, and the journey is difficult.

When he arrives, there is no smoke from the chimney, and a myriad of wolf prints around the foundation of the dacha. He clears away the deep snow in front of the door to get it open. When he does, he finds Antonina on the floor in front of the fireplace, empty but for a high pile of ashes. She’s under blankets and a mouldering bearskin he knows was nailed to the wall of the small back veranda. As Lyosha predicted, there is no more wood, and it feels colder inside the dacha than out. He can’t see Antonina’s face, but her breath curls into the air above her.

He quietly shuts the door and goes back outside to chop an armload of logs and split kindling. As he comes in with it, Antonina is sitting up, her hand to her throat. There is dried blood on one of her fingers.

“Grisha, is it really you?” she cries, a sob in her voice. “I heard the axe. I’m cold, Grisha, and I was afraid. The wolves … Grisha, they were howling and scratching.”

She is so pale and drawn that Grisha feels a thump of dread. There are dark smudges under her eyes, and her lips are raw-looking.