Strange Are the Ways

by Strange Are the Ways (retail) (epub)

  Meanwhile, as the two sides fought bitterly and with mortal intent for power, and as the Soviet itself was split into Menshevik, Bolshevik and Socialist Revolutionary components who often hated each other quite as much as – if not more than – they hated the opposition, anarchy continued to stalk the streets of the city. The bloodlust of the mob was aroused; there were old scores to settle. And settled they all too often were, with a brutal thoroughness.

  Anna was astonished at how quickly it was possible to become used to living with violence. Not that she ventured out too often in those first few days; Volodya, quiet and unruffled, came and went with news and supplies whilst she spent most of her time in the apartment, caring for her mother, who all too soon had come to appreciate the advantage of having a pair of willing hands to wait upon her. The Bourlovs had never been a family particularly to command loyalty from their staff; many of the servants were gone, and those few who remained did so either from fear or from necessity. The streets were a perilous place for the timid, and lodgings were all but impossible to find in this overcrowded city. But the contagion of the streets could not be avoided and there was a new and resentful edge of insolence in their service, especially that of the younger ones; there were one or two with whom Anna felt positively ill at ease. The kitchen servants had deserted almost en masse; what food was to be had appeared on the table ill-cooked and unappetizing – a fact about which Varya complained loudly, scathingly and incessantly.

  ‘Mama, please! We’re lucky to be eating at all!’

  ‘Lucky? To eat this – this pig swill?’ Varya shovelled a huge spoonful of lumpy potato into her mouth. Anna averted her eyes. ‘In my opinion the cook should be flogged.’

  Anna laid down her knife and fork, pushed her plate away.

  ‘Where’s Volodya?’ Varya eyed Anna’s rejected lunch. ‘Didn’t he say he’d come this morning?’

  ‘He said he’d come when he could,’ Anna said. ‘It’s very difficult for him –’ She stopped talking as, from somewhere in the city, there came a crackling burst of gunfire.

  Varya looked up nervously, clutching her napkin close to her mouth.

  Anna, as always, was touched by her fear. She reached out a reassuring hand. ‘It’s all right, Mama. Nothing to worry about.’

  A sudden tear slid down the plump, pale cheek. ‘Nothing? You call it nothing when we live in constant danger of being murdered in our beds? Or, God save us, of worse?’ She made a hasty sign of the cross. ‘If those fiends should take it into their heads to attack us, who is there to defend us?’

  ‘Mama –’

  ‘No-one. No-one at all.’ Agitatedly she twisted the napkin into a rag.

  ‘Mama, there’s nothing to fear. Why should they attack us? We aren’t aristocrats. No-one knows us. Why should they want to hurt us?’ In actual fact Anna was as aware as was her mother of the danger of living in such an apartment, owned by such a family; Mischa Bourlov might not have been an aristocrat but he was a prominent and wealthy businessman and had made enemies.

  ‘Volodya should stay here. That’s what he should do. He should stay here. To protect us.’ The noise had subsided. Varya was recovering her equilibrium. ‘Aren’t you going to eat that?’

  Anna shook her head, wordlessly passed her plate across the table. She had been here for four days, yet still she was shocked each time she looked at the grotesque figure of her mother. The tiny frame was enveloped in flesh – so much so that she had difficulty in moving. Her days were spent in the armchair by the stove or here at the table, propped by cushions for comfort. For a great part of the time she dozed; when she did not, she ate. At the start of the war Zhenia Bourlova had, in the manner of a man laying down a cellar full of wine as a precaution, hoarded chocolates; boxes and boxes and boxes of them. These were Varya’s stay and comfort. Surrounded by her romances and heaps of battered pre-war magazines, she ate chocolate with unflagging appetite. It had already occurred to Anna to worry about what might happen when the far from inexhaustible supply ran out.

  Varya demolished what was left upon her daughter’s plate. ‘He should stay here,’ she said again, returning to her earlier point with that relentless tenacity that Anna remembered so well. ‘We need a man here.’

  ‘We do very well alone, Mama,’ Anna said, a little shortly. ‘We can hardly demand that Volodya – ah, that must be him –’ The doorbell had shrilled.

  They waited a moment. The bell jangled again. ‘I’ll go,’ Anna said.

  ‘Damned servants!’ Varya muttered. ‘Wait till Mischa comes home. I’ll see to it he dismisses the whole idle bunch of them!’

  Smiling exasperatedly, Anna strode out into the hall. ‘Volodya!’ she said, as she opened the door. ‘Thank goodness! Mama’s acting the dowager duchess again –’ She stopped. There was a startled moment of silence. Then, ‘Lenka,’ she said, faintly. ‘Lenka – is it you?’

  Her sister stood as if rooted to the spot. Her clothes were shabby, an old shawl covered her head. Her wide shoulders were stooped, her body heavy, but her face was unmistakable.

  ‘Lenka!’ Anna said again, and stepped to her, arms outstretched. ‘Oh, I’m so pleased to see you! I was going to come to find you as soon as the streets were safe –’

  Lenka stood rigid within the encircling arms, making not the slightest attempt to return her sister’s kiss. ‘They’re safe enough,’ she said.

  Anna stepped back, rebuffed.

  Lenka walked past her into the apartment. Turned. ‘So you’ve come back at last.’ Pale, acrimonious eyes swept the other woman from head to foot, missing nothing. ‘Very smart,’ she said, drily.

  ‘Lenka – for heaven’s sake!’

  ‘Who is it, Anna?’ Varya’s voice was querulous. ‘Don’t stand out there talking where I can’t hear you!’

  ‘It’s Lenka, Mama.’ Anna watched her sister turn and enter the dining room, fighting a hurt so strong that it surprised her. In all these years Lenka had never answered one of her letters; so why should she be surprised at this fresh rejection? Yet she was; surprised and deeply pained.

  Lenka bent and brushed her lips against her mother’s cheek; a token kiss only. Varya turned her head a little, drawing away slightly, her small mouth tight.

  Anna sighed. Nothing had changed. As always, with Lenka had come into the room a sullen tension that could trigger temper and beget argument as a storm cloud could beget thunder and lightning.

  ‘So.’ Lenka had straightened, was shrugging out of her threadbare coat and shawl, watching Anna over their mother’s head. ‘You’ve picked a fine time to visit. Might I ask to what we owe the honour?’

  Anna controlled a surge of anger; and still the open hostility in her younger sister’s eyes hurt her more than she would have admitted. ‘I was – worried about you all. We had reports in England about the shortages – the difficulties – I thought I might be able to help.’

  ‘Ah, yes. The shortages. The difficulties.’ The twist to Lenka’s mouth was caustic. She strode back to the door, went back out into the hall to throw her coat and shawl onto a chair.

  ‘It’s money she’s come for!’ Varya hissed, too loudly. ‘You mark my words. It’s always money!’

  ‘Mama!’ Anna tried in vain to hush her.

  Lenka came back into the room, walked to the stove, rubbing her hands together. ‘Well, then. Here you are. And life’s treated you well, from the look of it.’

  Anna was silent, looking at her.

  Lenka turned. Her face was bitter. ‘Lucky Anna,’ she said, her voice totally devoid of expression.

  ‘I hope it isn’t money you’ve come for, Lenka,’ Varya said, peevishly. ‘My little nest egg is quite gone – and now the shop is wrecked.’ The easy tears squeezed from her eyes. She dabbed at them delicately with her napkin.

  Lenka had paled.

  ‘That’s absolutely outrageous, Mama!’ Anna said, rapidly. ‘Lenka has obviously come out of concern for you –’

  ‘As a matter of fact,’ Lenka said,
cutting flatly across her sister’s attempt to defend her, ‘I’ve come to tell you the news. The good news. That my pig of a husband is dead.’

  Varya made a small, outraged sound.

  Lenka ignored her. She was watching Anna, her eyes like flint.

  ‘Dead?’ Anna asked, faintly. ‘In – in the war, you mean?’

  ‘No. At the end of a rope. Outside his lair in the Ministry, I gather.’

  The chill of it, the look in her sister’s eyes, made Anna’s stomach roil unpleasantly. ‘You mean – he was –?’ She swallowed a sudden rush of saliva.

  ‘The mob hanged him.’ Lenka let the shocked silence extend; still her eyes had not left Anna’s. And still those eyes held an inimical hostility and now, seeing her sister’s squeamish reaction to her news, a trace of contempt. ‘Justice was done,’ she said. ‘If I’d have been there, I’d have helped them.’

  ‘Lenka!’

  She shook her head fiercely. ‘Don’t “Lenka!” me, Anna! What do you know? What do you know of anything? Ask her –’ she flung out a hand to point a steady, grimy finger at Varya ‘– ask her what kind of man it was you let them hand me over to!’

  Distressed, Anna glanced at her mother. Varya, her face venomous, scowled at her empty plate.

  ‘Ask her if I should be mourning the pig! Do you want the filthy details? Do you want to know what I and others have suffered from this man while you’ve been swanning around with your ancient Prince Charming in your country house in England – playing the fiddle – beguiling the natives – spending your rich old husband’s money?’ There was no mistaking now the depth of loathing in her calm voice.

  ‘Lenka, stop it!’ Anna was appalled. Had her sister been hysterical she might have been able to accept the viciousness; but this cold, deliberate attack – the open desire to inflict pain – had taken her completely by surprise, and she was unable to disguise her shock and hurt.

  Lenka, seeing it, almost smiled. ‘All right,’ she agreed almost affably, ‘I’ll stop.’ She looked from one to the other, grimacing in disgust as her mother continued stubbornly to glare at her plate.

  ‘No need to have worried about you after all, then, Mama,’ she said. ‘With darling Anna here to look after you no doubt you’ll survive better than most.’ She turned on her heel, strode to the door.

  ‘She always was an ungrateful and ill-mannered brat,’ Varya said to the empty air above her plate.

  Anna ran after her sister, caught her in the hall as she buttoned her coat and snatched her shawl from the table. In contrast to her controlled tone throughout the exchange her movements were fierce, and full of anger. ‘Lenka, please! Don’t go like this! Won’t you stay? Won’t you explain what’s wrong between us?’

  Lenka turned, undisguised astonishment in her face. ‘What’s wrong? What’s wrong between us? Are you pretending you don’t know? Are you pretending to forget what you did? Have you so conveniently forgotten? The promises you made and had no intention of keeping? The way you abandoned me to –’ she jerked her head in the direction of the dining room ‘– to them and their plans to be rid of me?’

  ‘Lenka – I didn’t know! I didn’t understand!’

  Her sister stepped very close to her. ‘Oh, yes, Annoushka! You knew! You understood! You knew what you wanted! You understood what was best for you!’ The finger she pointed was like a steady, levelled knife. ‘You could have helped me. You could have stopped them. You always told me you’d look after me, remember? Remember your promises? I’d have done anything, Anna. I’d have come with you – worked for you – anything! But you abandoned me. I tell you this, my dearest sister; you’d have done better to have taken a razor and cut my throat!’ She held her sister’s appalled eyes for one harsh moment before turning abruptly away, pulling the shawl up over her head.

  ‘Lenka, no! Can’t you see? It wasn’t like that! It wasn’t!’ Anna was almost in tears. Even now, all these years later, she knew she would not be able to bring herself to break faith with Andrei and tell this harsh and bitter woman the true reason for her flight. Not now. Not like this. Not when it might be used as a weapon against her. Against Andrei’s memory. ‘It’s – it’s irrational still to think like that!’

  At the door Lenka turned. Her face was implacable. ‘To you perhaps. Not to me.’

  The silence was absolute. Anna stood still as a statue for a long moment. Then she took a shaky breath. ‘I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry. I had no idea how much you hated me.’

  Lenka said nothing, her face as still and cold as ice.

  ‘But please –’ Anna fumbled in the small purse she carried at her waist. ‘Won’t you take this? For the children, at least?’ Tentatively she held out a small sheaf of notes.

  Lenka remained by the door for a moment. Then, calmly, she walked to her sister, took the money from her fingers; tore it to shreds and let the pieces drift like spinning snowflakes to the floor before turning back to the door, where she stopped for a moment, looking back over her shoulder. ‘If you’re so anxious to help,’ she said, the words flat and laced with contempt, ‘go and see Natalia. She’s the one who needs it.’

  Anna nodded. ‘All right, I will. And – Margarita?’ she asked, hesitantly.

  Lenka shrugged. ‘Who knows?’

  ‘She’s still at the same apartment? Mama is so very vague, she doesn’t seem to know what’s –’

  ‘Mama knows nothing,’ Lenka said, heavily sardonic, ‘because Mama doesn’t want to know anything. She never did. She never will.’ She held her sister’s eyes for one long last moment. ‘Hasn’t life taught you anything, stuck in that ivory tower of yours?’ And with no farewell she was gone, her slow, heavy steps echoing upon the wooden flooring before being muffled by the carpet of the sweeping stairs.

  Someone in the street shouted, and a heavy lorry rattled by.

  Anna shut the door and leaned against it, her eyes tight shut.

  * * *

  Volodya acceded to Varya’s request that he move into the apartment with them with an alacrity that, for Anna, was mildly alarming.

  ‘You have no-one else to consider?’ she asked, cautiously.

  He shook his head. ‘No-one.’

  ‘We – wouldn’t want to put you out –’

  ‘Not at all. It’s a sensible suggestion.’ He eyed her with a gleam of humour in his narrow, pleasant face. ‘If you have no objections, of course, Anna Victorovna?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘No. Of course not.’

  ‘Right.’ He pulled himself up from the chair. ‘I’ll have to make a few arrangements. I’ll come tomorrow, if that’s all right.’ He did not wait for her to agree. ‘Have you heard the latest news?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘They’re handing out bulletins in the street. The Soviet is calling for a separate peace.’

  ‘They want to stop the war?’ Anna’s eyes were wide.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Will they be able to, do you think?’

  He shrugged. ‘Who knows? The Duma wants to carry on, but this war’s unpopular enough by any measure. The army is a shambles. They say men are killing their officers rather than go into battle. The troops here in Petrograd are refusing flatly to go to the Front. Discipline’s broken down entirely.’ He pulled on his coat, turned to take her by the shoulders. ‘Anna, make sure you lock the door after me when I go. There have been some bad disturbances in the city again. Don’t take any chances.’

  ‘I – I was going to try to find Natalia today. Lenka said she needed help.’

  He shook his head. ‘Not yet. Leave it for another couple of days. Then I’ll come with you.’

  She nodded, more relieved than she cared to admit. She had not looked forward to walking the streets alone. ‘And you’ll come tomorrow?’

  ‘I’ll come tomorrow.’

  It was not, as it happened, the best of timing. For the soldiers came looking for Mischa Bourlov that very day, just an hour or so after Volodya had left.

 
* * *

  As if by magic that morning the last of the servants had gone, disappeared apparently into thin air and several small pieces of silver and china spirited away with them. It did not occur to Anna to place any sinister interpretation upon that; it had been bound to happen, sooner or later.

  ‘A few mouths less to feed,’ she said, ‘and a couple of stoves less to keep going.’ She was manhandling a bucket of logs into Varya’s sitting room. ‘We’re getting rather low on fuel. I was anyway going to suggest that it might be best if we just heat this room, and perhaps your bedroom – what in the name of God is that?’ Startled, she almost dropped the bucket.

  The crashing at the door came again. No knock, this, but a steady, thumping smash, as of an axe, or a hammer.