The frozen Gulf stretched about them, empty, an icy wasteland swept by those probing fingers of light. At least it seemed that the ice was safe. Or was it? Even as the thought occurred Katya fancied she felt a small movement, heard the faintest of sounds. She caught her breath.
‘Katya?’ Jussi’s voice, calm and cool in the darkness. She could not see his face.
She swallowed. ‘Yes?’
‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes,’ she said again.
He said no more. But the small contact had been a comfort. Beside her she sensed movement, saw a faint shift in the darkness as Kaarlo lifted the bottle again and drank.
She was having difficulty in breathing – each small breath sounded so loudly that she was sure it must be heard for miles. Yet any attempt to control it made her feel as if she were suffocating. She fought down a lift of panic.
The light swept around again, an impersonal finger, probing, arrogant in its assumption that the ice was its own domain, that no-one would dare defy or try to evade it. They were level with the forts – they were slipping past them – the light swept again, and again, baffled by the wall of mist. Katya waited for the challenge, the burst of gunfire.
Nothing happened.
Slowly, slowly, led on by Heimo and the driver they moved through the line and on towards the distant coastline of Finland, that its people called Suomi. The sweeping lights were swallowed by the fog behind them. The driver climbed back up onto the seat and clucked confidingly to the horses. They picked up speed, running smoothly and quickly now. Kaarlo chuckled. Jussi laughed, too, relief clear in the sound.
‘We’ve done it,’ Heimo said, almost reverently. ‘By God and all his angels, we’ve done it!’
‘Not quite.’ Jussi had sobered. ‘There’s half of occupied Finland between us and Kuopio, remember.’
‘Where’s Kuopio?’ Katya asked and was rewarded with a silence that was suddenly thick with hostility.
‘Bloody Russian,’ Kaarlo said.
* * *
They met up with the other sledge and its occupants at a prearranged spot when they made landfall at a small fishing village on the Finnish side of the Gulf, near the little port of Kotka. Katya was exhausted. She huddled into a blanket, hearing the murmur of voices, unable to understand what they said, hardly caring. Her head drooped; she slept, fitfully, a flawed sleep of dreams and terrors. She jumped awake, frightened half to death, as a hand touched her.
‘It’s all right. It’s me.’ The late dawn of winter had not yet found them; but at least the fog had lifted. In the cold winter darkness Jussi looked drawn and ill, but his faint smile cheered her a little. ‘We’re going to have to move on. The others are going to Helsinki. You’ll come to Kuopio with me, Kaarlo and Heimo. For now we need some rest.’ He smiled again, obstinately, a ghost of his usual cheerful grin. ‘Have you ever slept in a barn before?’
Her eyes widened. She pulled the blanket to her chin. ‘In this weather?’ she asked, appalled.
He shook his head. ‘It’s all right. This is no ordinary barn. It’s been –’ he hesitated ‘– adapted. It’s warm and it’s as safe as we’ll be until we get to Kuopio. And I can get some first aid.’
She bit her lip, her eyes searching his face. He looked awful, the blue eyes shadowed, the wide mouth a straight line of pain. ‘How is it?’
‘It’s all right. It’ll be all right. Don’t worry. Katya –’ He stopped.
She waited.
He was unsmiling now, his eyes held hers, and at the look in them fear stirred again. ‘I’m sorry. Truly sorry. I never in the world intended to get you mixed up in this. I’ll never forgive myself if –’ The words tailed away abruptly.
Katya had had time to think on the long cold journey across the Gulf. ‘It’s not your fault,’ she said, bleakly. ‘Not entirely, anyway.’
He put his good hand on her shoulder. The small, kindly gesture all but destroyed what composure she was managing to maintain. She looked away quickly, unwilling for him to see her sudden, frightened tears.
‘One thing,’ he said, very quietly.
‘Yes?’ Still she did not look at him.
‘Stay close to me. All the time. You understand?’
‘Yes.’ She understood all too well. She had already registered the unwelcome news that Kaarlo of the pungent breath, the filthy sheepskin coat and the too-ready knife would be a companion on their journey to the unknown Kuopio, was in no doubt at all what the man thought of their uninvited passenger and what his solution to the problem she posed would be.
‘Good.’ Jussi swayed a little, caught the side of the sledge to steady himself.
Katya closed her eyes. The man did not look capable of protecting himself, let alone her. ‘Jussi?’
‘Yes?’
‘What’s at Kuopio?’
‘Friends,’ he said, and clambered into the sledge beside her, laying his head back tiredly on the worn upholstery. ‘Friends.’
* * *
The journey to the small town of Kuopio, in the north-eastern part of the country, through almost two hundred miles of all but trackless forest took days. It was bitterly cold. They travelled through blizzards or under leaden skies on the ice of the lakes and rivers that laced the flat forest lands and were at this time of the year the only passable highways. They moved from village to village, were passed from guide to guide. Katya could not help but notice that everyone, from the local mayor to the smallest child, seemed to know Jussi. Whenever they could stop for long enough his wound was dressed; but nothing could hide his rising fever or the steady erosion of his strength. Yet he would not stop. Where they could they avoided villages; in the one in which they did stop, a pretty place of painted wooden houses and small, snow-covered barns, Katya saw Russian soldiers, huge and arrogant in their greatcoats and fur hats, patrolling the streets, guns slung across their shoulders, and understood, a little, Kaarlo’s hostility, Heimo’s reserve. She watched Jussi worriedly, for her own sake as well as his. God alone knew what would happen to her if he should die. She did not dare think of it. The sight of his wound, when Heimo dressed it, sickened her; she turned away, unable to watch – but not before she had seen and smelled the putrescence, registered the flicker of agony in his eyes, the contempt upon the faces of his companions at her squeamishness.
The time came when Heimo said, ‘You have to stop, Jussi. You’re killing yourself.’
Jussi’s eyes flickered to Katya. ‘No. One more push. One more day and we’re there.’ His face was thin and flushed, his eyes sunken. Numb, exhausted, frightened, Katya could not believe he would find the strength to survive.
But he did, if only just. And when they reached the haven towards which he had pushed himself so ruthlessly, Katya understood why he had so determinedly persevered. In a blessedly solid, cream and white painted house that smelled of polish and the smoke of pine and birch logs, competent but gentle hands received and tended him. With a minimum of fuss and a maximum of efficiency there was food, drink, hot water, clean clothes. It was the house of a doctor and his wife, sympathizers to the cause and old friends of Jussi’s family. It stood in a respectable street that ran down, as did almost all of Kuopio’s straight, criss-crossed streets, to the water that nearly surrounded the town, frozen solid now and drifted with snow, island windmills dotted across it like so many scarecrows etched against the winter sky. Jussi held grimly to slipping consciousness for long enough to issue a few urgent orders. Then, gratefully, he abandoned the struggle and the grinding pain and slid into insensibility.
‘You’ll come with me, please?’ The doctor’s wife, plump, brisk, not unkindly-looking, took Katya’s arm. Wordless, Katya followed her, scarcely capable of putting one foot in front of the other. She thought she might well die of tiredness. Even the fear that dogged her still was distanced by her exhaustion. All she wanted to do was sleep.
The woman led her along a corridor to a solid wooden door. Opened, it revealed heaven; a warm and pretty room, lam
plit and cosy, containing bed, chairs, a table. The shutters were up against the weather, a stove was set in a corner that was lined from floor to ceiling with shining blue and white tiles. Everything else was wood; floor, walls, ceiling, warm and lovingly polished. There was a scent of fresh herbs in the air. Katya stood for a moment, speechless.
‘I’ll get you some night clothes,’ the woman said, gently. ‘You’re exhausted, I think. Jussi says you are to be treated as his guest.’ Curiosity flickered for a moment in the faded blue eyes, and was gone. ‘Please – make yourself at home. You’re quite safe here.’
‘Thank you. Th-thank you so much.’ Katya reached out to the bed. It looked soft and infinitely inviting.
‘I’ll bring warm water. You’ll want to wash.’
‘Yes. Thank you.’
The woman turned and bustled from the room. Katya turned, fell back onto the bed, arms spread. She closed her eyes.
Very clearly, very sharply, she heard the key click in the lock.
That she should be treated as his guest was obviously not the only order Jussi had given.
Chapter Fourteen
‘There’s a child, of course. You mark my words.’ Varya, eyes bright with malice and something close to satisfaction, stirred her tea. ‘There can be no other reason for such foolishness.’
‘It certainly seems strange.’ Margarita was standing by the window looking down into the snowy street. It was bitterly cold. People hurried past, muffled against the icy wind. The small sitting room was cosy and warm. She turned. ‘How have Uncle Mischa and Aunt Zhenia taken it?’
‘My dear, Mischa is positively furious. And as for Zhenia – she simply refuses to discuss it. Well, after all, it makes them look so very silly, doesn’t it?’
Margarita returned her mother’s smile. ‘Yes. It does rather. And I must say that I’m surprised. I mean, when you think of the wedding Katya could have had –’
‘There’s a child,’ Varya repeated, with sanctimonious certainty. ‘It’s the only possible explanation.’
‘What did Katya say in her note, do you know?’
Varya shook her head. ‘Not exactly. Some rubbish about it being more romantic to elope, I believe.’
‘Where are they, do you know?’
‘Somewhere in Finland is all anyone knows. Mischa has set investigations in train, of course, but at the moment I don’t think he’s trying all that hard to find the young people.’
‘In case your theory turns out to be true?’ Margarita’s face was lit with the same malicious mischief as her mother’s.
‘My dear, it isn’t just my theory. Everyone’s saying it. Just everyone.’
Margarita laughed. ‘Then it must be true, mustn’t it?’ She came back to the table upon which the samovar stood. ‘More tea?’
They settled back into their chairs. Margarita enjoyed these afternoons when her mother came to call. They shared a love of gossip that could be indulged to the full and would talk for hours – as they had this afternoon – dissecting other people’s lives, affairs and motives with the kind of absorption and interest that others might expend on politics or the more arcane and intricate facets of religion. Neither had been able, nor indeed had felt the need, to disguise her mildly spiteful satisfaction at Katya’s not unexpectedly disgraceful behaviour and the consequent embarrassment to her parents. Both safely ensconced in complacent respectability, they had tutted and shaken their heads, delightedly scandalized; Katya, they had assured each other, had always been a hoyden, and a spoiled one at that – who could be surprised at what she did?
‘Mama thinks Katya is having a baby,’ Margarita said, later that evening, to Sasha, who was home for the first time in several days. ‘What a scandal! I wonder if it’s so? It would certainly explain her running away, wouldn’t it?’
‘I suppose it would, yes.’ Sasha’s reply was absent. He was watching his wife as she busied herself arranging a bunch of dried flowers. She looked quite remarkably pretty as she stood back to survey her efforts. The time had come. He would have to say something. Tonight. He pushed the thought of Valentina from him. This was his wife. His life was here. A family – he needed a family, to hold to and to protect. To keep him from what he knew to be madness. ‘They’re very nice.’
‘Mama bought them for me this afternoon. But how wonderfully wicked if it’s true! Katya, I mean, and the baby. Goodness, I should never be able to hold my head up again if it were me.’ Margarita, he noted ruefully, had long ago affected to forget their afternoon together in the dacha on the shores of the Gulf.
‘Rita –’
‘And to think of the wedding she could have had! Can you imagine what Uncle Mischa would have been prepared to pay? Mama says he’s absolutely furious –’
Sasha stood, came up behind her, turned her to face him. ‘Margarita, I’m not in the least bit interested in what your cousin Katya has or hasn’t done –’
‘Oh, but I am!’ Laughing, she stood on tiptoe to kiss his nose, then ducked beneath his arm, slipping from him. ‘Most certainly I am. There hasn’t been anything half so much fun to talk about for years! Oh, by the way, Mama asked us over to dinner at the weekend. Will you be here?’
He shook his head, still watching her. ‘I’m on duty.’
‘Oh, bother!’ She did not, in fact, sound bothered at all. ‘Oh, well, I suppose I shall just have to go alone.’ She had gone into the kitchen. He heard the sound of running water. He followed, stood by the door. She stood at the sink, her back to him, still talking. ‘Mama tried to persuade Lenka to come, but she wouldn’t. Since this last baby she really has been very strange. She doesn’t seem to want anything to do with anyone. Mama said she was quite sharp with her the other day when she called; more or less told her to mind her own business, when Mama really was only trying to help.’
Sasha made a small, wry face that Rita, perhaps fortunately, did not see.
‘Lenka’s marriage really does seem a strange one, doesn’t it? But then – I never did like Pavel Petrovich very much. I don’t envy poor Lenka a bit –’
‘Not even her two children? You don’t envy her those?’ The words were very quiet, but given their effect they might have been shouted. Margarita’s movements stilled. She did not turn. Silence fell.
‘Margarita? I said –’
‘I heard what you said.’ Margarita’s voice was clipped and cold. ‘And really, Sasha, it’s most indelicate of you to –’
‘Margarita!’ He cleared the space between them in a stride, took her by the shoulders, forced her to face him. ‘I know,’ he said, his voice very quiet, ‘I know that you take – precautions. I know you are preventing us from having a child.’
‘Stop it!’ She had flushed a fiery red. Angrily she wrenched herself free of his hands. ‘Stop it! You’re disgusting!’
‘It’s true, though. Isn’t it?’ A child. He wanted a child. Margarita’s child. His child. A bond between them that would be unbreakable, that would split him for ever from Valentina whom he knew now he loved and to whom he could do nothing but harm. A child was the answer, he had told himself in desperation, a child was the only answer. The only way to make sense of this suddenly senseless marriage. ‘Isn’t it?’ he asked again.
She would not reply.
‘Margarita, please – don’t you want a child? Our child?’
‘Of course I do.’ The words were stiff, her soft mouth was set in a straight, sullen line. ‘What do you take me for – some kind of unfeeling monster?’
‘Of course not! But Rita, I’m right, aren’t I? You are – preventing it from happening?’
She lifted her chin, stalked past him. ‘I don’t have to listen to this. I’m going to bed.’
He caught her arm, not gently, as she passed. ‘Margarita, I am your husband. I have the right to expect that you bear my child –’
She stood quite still in his grasp, her face cold. ‘I don’t have to listen to this filthy talk,’ she said, with dignity. ‘Really, Sasha, I’m surpris
ed at you. You aren’t in the barrack room now, you know.’
‘But we have to talk about it, don’t we? We have to sort it out.’
‘There’s nothing to sort out. If I have a child it will be in God’s good time. And there’s plenty of that.’
‘You deny that you’re taking precautions?’
She turned her head, looked him straight and coldly in the eye, and lied, as only she could. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I do.’ Then, straight-backed and offended, she left him. He heard the bedroom door slam, the key turn in the lock.
He reached into a cupboard, brought out a bottle of vodka, splashed a large amount into a glass and returned to the sitting room. Margarita’s treasured theatre was standing upon the sideboard. She had carefully arranged the tiny figures into a tableau depicting a royal party; the prince and his princess stood at the top of a flight of cardboard stairs, their courtiers beneath them. With a sharp movement Sasha shook the thing; the bright figures tumbled, lay with fixedly smiling expressions in a tangled heap upon the stage. ‘God damn it,’ he said, quietly and bitterly. ‘God damn it!’ He tilted his head, tossed his drink back, strode out into the kitchen for more.
* * *
Rumours of war; they trembled in the air of Europe, rumbled in the distant Balkans like the echo of gunfire. In the quiet winter peace of the English countryside Anna heard them and tried to dismiss them; it was easy to do so as gentle day followed gentle day, days full of music, laughter and quiet content. News of Katya’s escapade reached her through a letter from her mother, and explained the lack of communication from Katya herself. She shook her head, affectionately exasperated. ‘Wouldn’t you know that Katya would do something as outrageous as this? Whatever possessed her?’
Strange Are the Ways Page 31
