Under the circumstances—Kitty being his best friend’s wife, and the certainty of losing the campaign ominously real—that sort of intemperate desire should be repressed rather than encouraged. In the desperate, frantic hedonism prevailing in the wartime atmosphere of South Russia, Apollo decided pragmatically, if disgruntledly, that if he was going to eat, drink, and be merry, he’d damn well better pick some female who could be easily forgotten.
Consequently, on the afternoon Peotr went off to spend Christmas with his mistress, Apollo, very begrudgingly, for reasons not altogether familiar to him, gave up the idea of passing the holidays in bed with Kitty. It was, as a matter of fact, the first action in his life concerning a woman that was undertaken with prudence, and, had he known it, the most useless.
With sensible concepts now perfectly balanced against flighty hedonism, Apollo was easily persuaded by several of his fellow officers to join them at a party in the Red Cross train parked four tracks east of them. The nurses had several gallons of high-quality alcohol, transformed into vodka, while Prince Ghivi, resourceful soul that he was, had managed to trade his diamond watch to some profiteer for eight cases of champagne. There was enough liquor, Apollo was assured, to keep everyone drunk for the entire four days of Christmas furlough.
To Apollo, four days of drunken oblivion sounded decidedly appealing. As it turned out, he managed to reach that stage very rapidly and maintain it for the prescribed period—although the pretty young Red Cross nurse who marked him out as hers the minute his tall frame crossed the threshold of their lounge car with that careful, indolent tread produced by consuming half a bottle of cognac never realized her companion was quite so inebriated. When drunk, Apollo neither staggered nor slurred his words; the only indication was the vaguely abstracted way he exercised his charm, and none but his closest friends could recognize the subtlety. How was Sophia Feodovna to know that the soft-spoken, casually teasing young prince who drank with her, called her “my darling,” “my angel,” and made love to her for four days was so into his cups that he wouldn’t recognize her if he ever met her again?
Someone had found two gypsies to play, and the sound of music and laughter cascaded through the parlor car. Dinner had been formal that evening in honor of the Christmas season, so the carriage sparkled with jewels and decorations, saber hilts, gilded epaulets, shimmering silk, and Painted mouths. Later, a balalaika playing Russian folksongs, its softly strummed chords joined by voices here and there, wove music and memories through the dim, candlelit car. Heavy with food and wine, warm and weakened by the season’s nostalgia, the hour advanced, conversation and laughter fell to a mellow buzz.
Much later, when even the balalaika had ceased, Apollo eased his long, lean body over the nurse whose name he couldn’t remember and thought of Kitty. Much to Sophia’s sensual pleasure, she was made love to with infinite care and patience because Apollo in his drunkenness was intent on pleasing a golden-haired countess with laughing eyes the color of spring.
The next morning when slivers of sun filtered through the slats in the blinds of the sleeping compartment, Apollo lazily turned his head, glanced down at the girl in his arms, and felt a brief moment of melancholy when he beheld dark curls resting on his shoulder. His next movement remained fairly constant in the following three days. He reached for the vodka bottle resting on the frosty windowsill.
In the closing days of the White Army’s defeat, the population of South Russia was not just living for the day and disregarding tomorrow, they were living for the moment … only the moment.8 When the tide of Bolshevism washed over the land, no one’s future was assured for longer than it took a bullet to snuff out the breath of life. Of course, that was assuming you were fortunate enough to be shot rather than bludgeoned to death, hung to expire in a slow gasping death on some makeshift gallows, or doomed to die agonizingly at the hands of some psychotic Cheka interrogator.
So while Apollo saw Christmas through an alcohol haze, Kitty spent the holidays quietly. Many of the neighbors had emigrated over the course of the last two years and those who remained were too disheartened to celebrate. There wasn’t a home, whether aristocratic or peasant, that hadn’t lost at least one son, husband, father, or brother in the last five years, and there were many that had lost all the male members of their family. Princess Davidov had been especially hard hit when her last son had been killed in the summer campaigning. Kitty tried to visit her regularly, making a special effort to be with her on Christmas Day, but only a shell of the woman remained. The princess still held herself ramrod straight and spoke in the same quiet, refined way, but her spirit had deserted her body, drained away by a torrent of tears.
The silence of the house was oppressive, and one’s nostrils were immediately struck by the musty smell of patchouli, dust, old age, and death. The princess’s plain black dress, with the deep mourning white pleureuses around neck and cuffs, seemed to hang on nothing. All the clocks in the house were stopped; the princess had never again wound them after her last and favorite son Ghigi had died last August 18 at Tsaritsyn. She had lighted candles framing a large photo of him on the north wall of the drawing room, and Maria Alexandrovna spent most of her time before this memorial to her son, talking to him. When Kitty came for tea, the princess would, out of courtesy, attempt to respond, but before long her eyes would stray to the dark brooding glance of her son in the candlelit portrait and Kitty would be forgotten.
Many of the Davidov servants had fled, superstitious of the lonely old woman who spoke to her son although he had been dead since August. A few remained out of loyalty and love, caring for the bereft mother.
If Christmas hadn’t been disheartening enough, Kitty’s call on Princess Davidov dampened her mood beyond redemption. Maria Alexandrovna had insisted that Kitty visit Ghigi’s room, where all was exactly as he had left it. The princess had pointed to the narrow campbed and said, “Ghigi liked the austerity of the campaign bed. Now I sleep here and imagine I sleep with him as I used to when he was a baby and felt sick in the middle of the night.” Princess Davidov had sunk to her knees before a lighted icon near the bed and had begun talking in soft tones to “mon enfant,” once again oblivious to her guest.
Kitty had slipped away and returned home. After a solitary supper in her room that evening, she’d cried herself to sleep.
Life had been lonely before, but with Apollo’s departure the word had taken on new meaning. Before, she had been ignorant of her deprivation. Now, she attacked the problem in the only way she knew: by throwing herself into the routine duties of Aladino with intemperate fury, hoping to distract her thoughts from the all-too-frequent images of Apollo.
The servants passed knowing glances behind her back. The countess was driving herself mercilessly, and they were all close enough to the earth to know why.
Late one afternoon, after totaling a column of numbers in the estate ledger for the third time and arriving at the third different sum, Kitty threw the pen in her hand clear across the room, then burst into tears.
Once her composure was restored she decided perhaps she should slacken her pace a bit. Her determined efforts to overwork must be causing these frequent bouts of weeping, and the depressing reports of the war didn’t help, either. Whatever the cause, it was distracting. Never prone to tears in the past, she, of late, had been curiously inclined to cry at the smallest provocation.
The instability of her temperament was not helped, either, by the astonishingly persistent thoughts of Apollo. Kitty chastised herself not only for her inexcusable behavior on those days almost three weeks ago now, but also for the unfaithfulness of her mind, which dwelt with increasing frequency on vivid recollections of an elegant young captain with gilded hair and a tongue like sweet nectar. And hands … such perfect hands, her body would sigh, hands that stroked with the delicacy of baby’s breath. The yearning sensations were so real that at times Kitty found herself crying aloud in her sleep. In the light of day, she rigorously forced herself to dismiss such disturbing d
reams, forced herself to remember she was a married woman, tried to recall Peotr with the same blaze of reality, the same stark hunger that memories of Apollo engendered.
Peotr refused to appear on cue, refused to be drawn into the center of her consciousness, and the terrible recollection of her willing tumble from faithfulness haunted her, confused her, tumultuously perplexed a straightforward innocence that had, until three weeks ago, never even contemplated infidelity. Now she not only contemplated it subconsciously, if her dreams were any indication, but, she had to admit, consciously as well. Quite often she longed to be held in Apollo’s arms once again. Like a trickle of water sliding over a flooding reservoir, the memory of him invaded her, and like the merciless slippery liquid she could not push it back. Somewhere deep in her heart, she had been keeping alive a small hope … that he would come again when he could. At Christmas that small hope had become something more; somehow, someway, she’d felt he’d appear.
What had happened, she had asked herself a hundred times, in only three short days? How could one’s life be changed so incredibly by the passing of a few transient hours? The full effects of those three days were disturbing, incalculable and … irrevocable. Somehow her life had changed, and Apollo had been the catalyst.
Not that it mattered now in the least. In this bloody caldron of war neither wishes nor dreams and hopes counted as much as two candles in the fires of hell. Not even Kitty’s blind, eager longing for Apollo could change the hundreds of miles and unknown days, weeks—perhaps a lifetime—that separated them. There was no guarantee, either, that her chrysalis loving of him, if she dare put a name to her fledgling feeling, would be reciprocated even if the distance could be broached. Perhaps that explained her tears. She had had no experience in seduction, while Apollo, she knew, was a favorite of the ladies, and men like Apollo, with their capacity for pleasing women, never put the same emphasis on pleasant bedtime diversions as did the recipients of their wooing. Apollo was, in fact, according to Peotr, notorious for a kind of warding-off politeness which prevented the long and lovely parade of women in his life from detaining him when he no longer cared to be detained. The dreary speculation served to further lower Kitty’s spirits.
Her dream that Apollo would come at Christmas proved to be another stupid illusion. What with her solitude, the disheartening news of the war, and her trembling new, terribly wicked heartache over Apollo, Kitty gave in to her depression, feeling she had a right to cry. With desolation washing over her, she did, with fresh hot tears.
6
Peotr returned to Taganrog on schedule four days later, bursting with happiness and glowing reports of his lovely mistress and children.
For some reason this joie de vivre caused an unfavorable reaction in Apollo. Certainly not prudishness at this late stage, Apollo decided. Probably resentment that Peotr had done as he’d pleased without regard for practicality or decorum, while he himself had decided against pursuing his desire for what now appeared totally incomprehensible reasons. The last four days of continuous drinking and mouthing insincere pleasantries had done nothing to improve his disposition. The net result had made him extremely touchy.
“Tone it down, will you,” Apollo sullenly retorted as Peotr unpacked his saddlebag in the compartment they shared.
No rude retort could dispel Peotr’s ebullient mood. He only turned and grinned at his roommate sprawled on the opposite sofa. “Sore head, Apollo?” Peotr commiserated. “Too much wine, women, and song?” Every line of Apollo spoke of dissipation. The black mountain clothes he preferred, oriental and rich, were vaguely slovenly; his skin seemed pallid under the sun-glazed surface; his fine eyes were half-lidded over a world-weary ennui; his mouth insolent and self-indulgent. And, Peotr observed, the captain had less than steady hands. He’d been drinking seriously for a long time.
“Maybe not enough,” Apollo grumpily replied. Damn Peotr’s soul. Why did he deserve to be so happy when Apollo’s Christmas had been so wretchedly dismal? Since those days with Kitty, making love to other women had become a perfunctory perfonnance, physically orgasmic but for the first time in his life unsatisfying. He had only made love with his nerve endings. All the time his brain had been scheming, planning, analyzing, drunkenly fantasizing about Kitty.
Perhaps because of his huge burden of resentment, Apollo snappishly inquired, “Ever think of your wife at Christmas?”
Peotr turned from the closet where he was tossing in his boots. Standing there in stocking feet, he searched his friend’s face with bewildered eyes. Sullen contempt met his reflective stare. “Kitty?” he said slowly. Scanning his friend spread across the sofabed, he decided Apollo was magnificently drunk. Lifting his broad shoulders in a shrug, he said evenly, “Don’t worry about Kitty. She always manages just fine. Competent woman, there.”
“And how,” said Apollo precisely, “do you know whether Kitty’s competent or not? You haven’t spent more than four consecutive days at Aladino since your marriage.” Apollo instantly muzzled his white-hot flash of resentment. Drunk he may be, but not about to become ingenuous.
Peotr, buttressed within by the potent happiness of his own contentment, failed to see the brief blaze of Apollo’s anger. He gave another lithe, indifferent shrug. “She seems to manage on her own well enough.”
Staunchly in control once again, Apollo muttered, “Amen to that.”
“What?”
“I said, I hope you’re right.”
There was a pause and Peotr’s blue eyes narrowed, but Apollo’s face was closed, offering nothing to Peotr’s scrutiny.
“Say … didn’t things go well here?” Peotr’s voice expressed genuine concern, for Apollo was rarely churlish.
Apollo gave a hoot of derisive laughter and, stretching like a cat, reached for the vodka bottle resting on the sill above his head. “Of course things went well. I hardly left my bed. The Red Crosses were entertaining. Mostly a black-haired one. Occasionally someone different slipped in, I think. It’s not entirely clear, actually.”
“And that wasn’t to your liking?” Peotr was vaguely be mused, since this pattern had been common for years without any apparent distaste on Apollo’s part.
Apollo replied without emotion. “Why was I born? To eat, sleep, fight, make love, spend money. What else does anyone do?” Saluting Peotr with the bottle, Apollo raised it to his mouth and drained a large draught. “I wish to God, though,” he went on suddenly with mild exasperation, suddenly bored with the self-indulgence of casual bedpartners, “that just once I could remember their names.” A disgruntled edge was undisguised in his velvet voice.
It startled and confounded Peotr momentarily, since Apollo’s practice had always been to indiscriminately refer to all women as “darling.” Then Peotr’s face brightened perceptibly as an idea formed in his mind. “Merde,” he said. “Do you know what we should have done? We should have gone to Aladino first. You could have come along.”
“Now that shows a little more concern,” Apollo said, relenting somewhat in his opinion of Peotr’s treatment of Kitty.
“Christ, yes,” Peotr emphatically declared. “That’s what we should have done. Since there was nothing going on here you cared about, I could have dropped you off at the village and you could have entertained Kitty over Christmas. Could have picked you up again on my way back from Baku. Kitty wouldn’t have ever known I was anywhere in the vicinity.”
Apollo’s mollification changed instantly. Astonishment and anger at Peotr’s casual offer of his wife’s company mingled with seething rage at the opportunity missed.
Peotr’s mouth pursed under his black cavalry mustache. “How irritating not to have considered the possibility sooner. You would have been perfect company for Kitty.”
Apollo responded in a casual drawl tinged with disdain, “Aren’t you concerned about your wife alone with me—well schooled as I am in all manner of vice?”
“Kitty?” Peotr’s brows raised in surprise. “Are you serious?” Peotr now appeared as astonis
hed as Apollo had been earlier. “She wouldn’t even know what you were after if you tried to make love to her.”
“So sure, Peotr?” The drawl was insolently bland.
Peotr’s image of his wife was quite fixed, and Apollo’s hidden sarcasm escaped him. He laughed a short, gruff bark. “Positive, mon ami, absolutely positive. Look, I’ve been married to her for three years. She has nothing but farm accounts and crop production on her mind. Passion, sensuality, romance?” He snorted in disbelief. “Not my Kitty. On second thought, you probably would have been quite as bored there as here. Just as well you didn’t go.”
And at that remark, if it was possible, Apollo sank even deeper into gloomy brooding. Contrary to her husband’s perception, Apollo knew very well exactly how damnably sensual Countess Kitty could be. A surge of desire burned through him at the memory. Damn and bloody blast! Not only could he have avoided this misery and spent Christmas with Kitty, he could have done so with her husband’s blessing. Fresh resentment and frustration swept through Apollo’s mind, his ready temper mounting dangerously. “Don’t say another word, Peotr,” he snapped, justifiably riled, feeling like the man bluffed out of straight flush by two pair. His deep, resonant voice was stripped—as was his whole bearing—of his customary pleasant negligence.
Peotr looked both pained and inexpressibly sympathetic. “Sacristi, mon ami. Has some woman put you out of sorts?” This behavior was quite unlike Apollo, who rarely indulged in fits of temper.
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