A Russian Sister

by Caroline Adderson

This cooling of his interest in her perplexed, then hurt, Masha. When she managed to seize hold of him, he battled his way out of her arms. After a day, she began to take offence and punished him by leaving him in the cage. An hour later, when she returned, he chirred happily at the sight of her. But as soon as he was free, he ran off again.

  One afternoon they were playing at croquet, happily swinging mallets—the Kiseliov children, who’d grown wild by then too, and given up wearing shoes, Misha, Antosha, Ivan, and strapping, laughing Natalia.

  The Kiseliov girl dropped her mallet and screamed, “Snake!”

  They cleared the area. Nearby, Dr. Wagner was hunting for spiders. All summer they’d joked that he was merely counting their legs. “Eight again, Dr. Wagner?” they asked when they met him on the grounds. Now he raced over to where Antosha was scanning their makeshift court.

  “There. Vipera berus. Female.”

  Diamonds lined the snake’s back. She was frozen on the spot, the full length of her stretched out in the grass, a necklace on a jeweller’s tray.

  Misha went and fetched the mongoose. Once released from his cage, Svoloch immediately sensed his natural enemy nearby. His eyes lit up, and he inflated himself into a threatening ball. The snake gathered up her coils. For a full minute they faced each other, mutually hypnotized, until deep in Svoloch’s throat, a burble sounded. He began circling. The snake lunged; Svoloch retreated. Each time she came close to striking, the balletic mongoose took a gravity-defying leap. Then, faster than the eye could perceive, he clamped his teeth into her head and lashed her against the ground until she fell limp. Dragging this lifeless whip, Svoloch disappeared into the trees.

  The scientifically curious—Dr. Wagner and Antosha—followed, and Masha, so she could take the conquering hero home. When Dr. Wagner drew aside the foliage, Svoloch looked up at them and hissed. More than the battle, that was the moment that stayed with Masha. Svoloch curling back his lips to show them his merciless needles stained pink.

  After he had killed, he was completely uncontrollable. They endured him for the rest of the holidays, took him back to Moscow, but his behaviour only worsened there.

  And now there was this emptiness inside Masha and a ravenous urge to fill it, obscene under the circumstances, for the summer heat they’d enjoyed at Bogimovo had given way first to a crop-withering autumn, then record-breaking cold. The papers were reporting widespread starvation, which Antosha confirmed. He headed one of the famine relief committees.

  Mariushka brought another plate of snacks. Masha picked up the next letter—from Ivan, not the one she dreaded from the animal graveyard—and guiltily popped another pirozhok in.

  Why did she keep eating them? Pirozhki reminded her of the Taganrog market. Selling the birds, then rushing off with the coins to buy something to eat. Pirozhki because, stuffed with humiliation as well as meat, it sat in their stomachs the longest.

  She dipped her fingers in a saucer of lemon water and wiped them, so as not to stain the paper. Across from her, Antosha chewed with a clear conscience, thanks to his good works. He was so good. She respected him more than she was angry with him.

  “For the Levitan file.” He coughed and tossed a page across to her. “Read it if you want.”

  Meaning he wanted her to.

  Isaac’s letters were as immaculately formed as Antosha’s, but they slanted on the page.

  Everything on earth, from the air I breathe to the most insignificant bug I accidentally squash, is imbued with the divine Lika! She doesn’t love you, pale cerebral author. She loves me, the volcanic, swarthy painter. It hurts you to read this, I know, but my devotion to the truth prevents me from hiding this fact. She’s joining Sophia and me.

  There was a postscript in a different hand. Sophia’s, accusing Antosha of jealousy.

  “How ridiculous,” Masha said.

  “Am I pale?” Antosha asked.

  Mariushka was pretending to dust the photographs, but now she drew closer, as though she could actually read the letter over Masha’s shoulder.

  “What’s it say?”

  “Gossip needs no carriage when there’s an old woman in the house.”

  Mariushka’s glower multiplied her wrinkles. She stumped off.

  Antosha’s pride was hurt too, the way it had been when The Wood Demon failed. He was accustomed to success; he expected it. He’d probably never been passed over by a woman either. Lika had not returned to Bogimovo; instead another triangle had formed without him: Sophia, Isaac, Lika. Pale cerebrals unwelcome.

  Masha still remembered Lika’s tears while strawberry picking and her adamant claim that Isaac was just a friend. She couldn’t help wondering aloud how Lika had ended up with the two painters.

  Antosha clearly wanted her to know the details. Lika, he said, had gone to the country to stay with her aunt. Isaac and Sophia, instead of taking their usual Volga River excursion, had found a dacha nearby and settled in.

  “Which was when he sent me that letter. Then I found out from the little brother that Sophia went back to Moscow a few weeks later. On her own.”

  So not a triangle. Isaac had won over Lika.

  Antosha looked across at her, waiting for her outrage. More than anything, Masha felt disappointed in Lika. How she blew with the wind. Granny’s entreaty came to mind. Watch out for her. Masha had failed. As for Isaac, it was a sad situation. He was like family, their closest living connection to Kolia. How many times had Isaac, just like Antosha, picked their drunken brother off the street? Isaac and Antosha had enjoyed vying for Lika, but now that she’d made a choice, surprising as it was, things were different.

  “It’s too bad,” Masha said. “You’re such old friends.”

  “Isaac’s a friend? What sort of friend sends such a letter?”

  She remembered then the complicating factor. The one thing that could explain Lika’s behaviour.

  “You took Lika into the woods and made her cry, brother. Did that have anything to do with her ending up with Isaac?”

  He drew back, either offended or pretending to be, she couldn’t tell. “If so, she’s a child. I certainly made it up to her with my begging letters.” He reached for the last pirozhki on the plate, so he wouldn’t have to meet Masha’s eye when he asked, “What did she tell you?”

  “Nothing,” Masha said.

  “I thought you women told all.”

  “You’re mistaken.”

  He hadn’t been pretending offence. His tone cut the air now. “You assume I’m in the wrong. Why? I wasn’t the one hurling accusations that day.”

  “What accusations?” Masha asked.

  He put the gentle in “gentleman,” but his words were barbed. “That I play with her feelings. That I’m not serious. That I talk nonsense. Me?” He pressed his hand to his chest in mock affront. “I suppose she would have preferred that I lie. That I ask her to marry me. Does she want me to marry her?”

  Now they were openly discussing this thing she’d so dreaded last summer. All the remaining threat went out of it. She’d been silly to worry. Yet his outburst perplexed Masha.

  “I’m sure she does want to marry you.”

  “Then why doesn’t she propose? I’ve been waiting long enough. And what does she tell Isaac, who is undoubtedly flinging these same accusations at her? Mariushka? Are there any more pirozhki? I just ate the last one.”

  The crone had been listening behind the door. Now she popped her head in. “Better to marry than to burn!”

  He laughed, but Masha didn’t. She felt vaguely sick from the greasy dough and his ungentle tone.

  “Anyway,” Antosha said, “they’ve given me the plot for a story. I can thank them for that. I have more important things to occupy me at the moment. Peasants starve while they frolic.”

  It wasn’t like him to mention his charity work. Masha took note of how he was sitting in his chair. If he was shifting from side to side, it would mean his downstairs complaint was back. She glanced under the table. He appeared solidly seated.<
br />
  He picked an envelope off the pile and flapped it in disgust. “The King of Persia, yet he writes like a fishmonger.”

  Sighing, Masha took up another letter too. One glance at the return address sent a current through her. The Garden Ring Road. The Zoological Gardens. The reply to Antosha’s offer of the mongoose. A spasm of resentment seized her. They came in waves like this, like cramping when she bled. She shut her eyes and forced a picture of the croquet incident, the revelation of Svoloch’s teeth.

  “You’ll have to go,” Antosha said.

  She opened her eyes. “Pardon? Go where?”

  “To Ukraine. Sister, I have to write continually. I can’t afford to stop. Not with the rent I pay here.” He glanced irritably around the dining parlour. “And it’s too small.”

  Too small for him. For her too, brimming with memories. Antosha supine on the divan, soul-seething. Svoloch capering. Yes, they should move.

  “This excess scribbling is playing villain with my health.”

  Masha said, “Your health is the most important thing.”

  “Agreed. I asked Smagin to help find an estate. He’s come through for me, but I have to go to Nizhni Novgorod to meet the governor and see if they’re actually supplying relief with this money we’re sending.”

  It sank in what he was asking. “You want me to drive around with Mr. Smagin?”

  “He’s an excellent driver with excellent horses. Every one named after a member of the royal family.”

  A WINTER TRAIN JOURNEY TO UKRAINE WAS LESS PICTURESQUE than a summer one, the countryside doubly lost under snow and behind a rimed window. She placed the flat of her palm against the frost and melted it with her angry heat. A peephole to look out. Snow was the hardest thing to paint.

  She dreaded most seeing Georgi, who had been away during Masha’s brief visit to Luka in the summer. But he was there now and would be shooting her pitying looks, lugubriously accompanied, until her rescuer showed up. The buffoonish King of Persia. Antosha knew that Smagin was interested in her. Why had he put her in this awkward position? Did he want Smagin to propose? Why? So he could say no again?

  Natalia was waiting on the platform, waving her arm. At first Masha failed to recognize Georgi standing beside her, staring off at nothing. Despite his furs and Cossack hat, he seemed slighter, hands in his pockets instead of playing the air.

  “You’re growing your beard again,” Masha said.

  Georgi touched his face, still not meeting her eye. “I forgot to shave.” Then he went ahead to tell the driver to unbutton the sledge cover.

  If Masha had been worried that her feelings for Georgi would inconveniently reignite, she needn’t have. He clearly despised her. Her impulse was to return the sentiment.

  The Ukrainian cold lashed out as she and Natalia left the station. Frost sugared the horses’ muzzles and clung to their tails. Natalia tucked the furs around them. Masha was in the middle, trying to put a space between her and Georgi. They’d given her the warmest place, yet already her eyelashes were freezing together.

  Finally Natalia stopped fussing. “I have to warn you, Masha. We’re living strangely these days.”

  Zinaida had died more than three months ago, in October. Their mother still couldn’t be comforted, Natalia said, not even by Schopenhauer. Elena seemed to be trying to join her sister by working herself to death.

  “At night she wanders about muttering. At first I thought she was reciting a poem. But when I asked, she said it was the names of all the patients she’s lost. She’s kept a list, and Zinaida’s on it now. And Georgi? Tell her what you’ve gone and done.”

  “I cancelled my concerts.”

  “He practised so hard!”

  How stupid Masha felt then. Georgi’s behaviour had nothing to do with her. Couldn’t she distinguish grief from animosity? For the rest of the ride, she shivered with cold and inward blame.

  When the sledge drove up to Luka, evidence of the promised strangeness came into view. The fir branches that signified their bereavement still hung above the door. They should have been burned ages ago.

  Entering the house, they tracked the desiccated needles inside with them. Elena and Mrs. Lintvariova came to greet Masha. Behind them stood the Borzois, their lovely heads hanging, as though they too were heartbroken. Georgi disappeared.

  Elena asked Masha to thank Antosha for the obituary. “‘In her presence everyone was reminded not of her approaching death, but of our foolish unawareness of our own.’ So true.”

  She wished Masha and Natalia a safe journey the next day, and taking her mother’s arm, led her away. Mrs. Lintvariova hadn’t said a word. The corners of her mouth looked crusty, and her dress gaped at the bosom where a button was missing.

  Later, after Masha had washed up, she joined Natalia in the drawing room. It was dark by then, the lamps lit. She’d expected Georgi to be playing, had steeled herself for it, but he wasn’t there.

  “Do you see how it is?” Natalia asked, handing Masha tea.

  “Yes. I’m sorry Antosha made me come.” The angry spasm again. “The last thing you need is a guest.”

  “Honestly, Masha? Your presence is irrelevant. Don’t take offence. An army could descend on us and they’d take no notice.”

  “Still. I’m annoyed with Antosha.”

  Natalia dipped two fingers into her glass, fished out the sugar nugget and dropped it on the tray for later. Still no Georgi. Finally a sad event, but no musical accompaniment.

  “Masha? I wish I’d been a better friend to you when Kolia died. I had no idea what you were going through.”

  Masha’s memories seemed so anguished, but now she remembered the numbness too. Going through the rites, she’d felt like a china figurine being moved about on a shelf.

  The piano stared at her. Georgi really wasn’t coming.

  Natalia said, “I’m going to show you something. I wasn’t going to, but now I think I will.” She exchanged her glass for the lamp and gestured for Masha to follow.

  They went down the hall, stopping at Zinaida’s room. Lit from below, Natalia’s brow became a shadow. She seemed to be bracing herself before she opened the door. Trepidation seized Masha, as though she feared that Zinaida’s body was still laid out. It was a horrible thought, but it gave way to something worse: Kolia. She saw herself kissing the icon on his chest. Antosha had run away the day before, gone to Smagin, where Masha would go tomorrow. What had Antosha written in the obituary? That they were all foolishly unaware of their own deaths. It was a lie. Antosha did realize it. Kolia’s blood-soaked end was his too.

  Her anger over Svoloch she’d directed at her sick brother all these months. Her dying brother. How long did Antosha have left?

  Natalia opened the door on a narrow room. No decorations. Even if Zinaida hadn’t been blind, Masha doubted there would have been anything on the walls but icons and strings of medicinal plants.

  Natalia turned up the wick. “Be careful where you step.”

  Masha saw the glasses then. Starting the day Zinaida died and continuing for forty nights while her soul still roamed the earth, they’d laid a place at the table for her, poured her a glass of water, and covered it with a piece of bread. Now forty glasses with bread lids lined the windowsill and crowded the bureau and the floor. In some the water was green; in others, a strange tangle of white threads hung down, a beard of mould reaching for the clouded water. Alive, though Zinaida no longer was.

  Natalia said, “I only discovered it yesterday because we were short of glasses. Every night Mother brought Zinaida’s here after we’d left the table. I think she must be mad.”

  Masha had never seen Natalia cry before. She was so strong. She identified with the peasants, liked to slap her big arms and say, “I am a peasant!” Desperate as Masha was to escape the room and its implications, she hugged Natalia.

  “You don’t have to come with me tomorrow,” she said.

  “Of course I do.” Natalia pulled back to say. “If I don’t, Smagin will pro
pose for sure.”

  THAT NIGHT MASHA LAY AWAKE LISTENING FOR ELENA’S wandering recitation, the way she used to lie awake listening for Svoloch as he followed her trail of delights. Svoloch. How was he handling his imprisonment? She couldn’t bear to go and see him. Couldn’t they have put him in his cage and kept him?

  She forced him from her mind by picturing those glasses and their swampy contents. Svoloch was just a creature, not a sister or a brother. It was wrong to mourn him. She forgave Antosha, would forgive him anything if only he wouldn’t die.

  In the morning there was kasha on the table and the sound of weeping coming from another room. Smagin was due any moment. He’d spent the night on a neighbouring estate and was going to take Masha, with Natalia as her chaperone, to see the properties that interested Antosha. After her tormenting night, instead of dreading Smagin, Masha found she couldn’t wait for him to take her away from this stifling grief.

  As though summoned by her thoughts, his looming bulk appeared in the doorway. He’d forgotten to give his hat to the maid and now clutched it to his chest. The boot brush still bristled on his face. His odd eyes darted all around, avoiding Masha’s.

  “Please sit, Mr. Smagin,” she said. “Natalia’s not ready yet. Tea?”

  He set down the hat and noisily pulled out a chair, jarring the table when he sat, so that Masha’s tea slopped into her saucer.

  “It must be very cold out,” she said.

  He stared at the mound of fur before him. “The birds freeze in flight. But don’t worry. I have extra sheepskins. I’ll keep you warm. It’s a promise.”

  In came Natalia. Seeing her glittery eyes and swollen face, Masha realized she’d been the one crying. Natalia feigned cheer and clasped Smagin’s hands in welcome. Natalia he looked at, but then his emotions overwhelmed him. He tore free his hands, thumped his elbows on the table. The tea already in Masha’s saucer sloshed out, reminding her of something Antosha once said. The sign of good character isn’t not spilling on the tablecloth, but not noticing when someone else does.

  “Aleksander, please,” Natalia begged.

  He couldn’t stop. His shoulders heaved. “I can’t bear that she’s not here. That she suffered so, and you’re all suffering still.”