Strange Are the Ways

by Strange Are the Ways (retail) (epub)

  Varya screamed.

  ‘Mama – calm yourself – Mama!’ Anxiously, her own heart in her mouth, Anna ran to her mother.

  From the direction of the hall came the sound of splintering wood, and a man’s voice, raised. Varya was sobbing, almost choking with fear. ‘Mama, please!’ In her own anxiety Anna nearly shook her. ‘Calm yourself! Here –’ She wrapped a shawl about the shaking shoulders. ‘No-one will hurt you. I promise.’

  There came a last crash from the hall as the door flew back against the wall. ‘Anyone here?’ The voice was rough.

  Varya had subsided, trembling, her eyes upon the door.

  The temper that Anna had believed to be long tamed sprang full-blown and raging to her aid. She was in the hall and facing them before she had had a moment to think.

  ‘How dare you! How dare you! You – you ruffians! The door has a perfectly good bell. If you had rung it I would have opened it! Are you animals that you have to behave so and frighten a poor old lady half to death?’ There were seven or eight of them, all armed, all dressed in a ragtag excuse for a uniform, all with red bands around their arms. One or two hung back, looking at least a little shamefaced. The others were not impressed.

  ‘You’re the Bourlov girl?’ one asked. He was tall and thin with a day’s growth of beard. A fearful array of weaponry was strung about his person.

  ‘No, I am not!’ Anna snapped. ‘I am Mikhail Mikhailovich’s niece, Anna de Fontenay. And, I might add, a British subject. And I warn you I shall protest in the strongest possible terms to the authorities about this outrage!’

  If she had hoped to impress or intimidate, she had failed dismally. ‘Bourlov is here?’ the man asked coldly.

  ‘Of course he isn’t. He hasn’t been here for months. There’s only me, and my mother, Varya Petrovna Shalakova, my uncle’s sister-in-law.’

  The tall man nodded curtly at his men. ‘Search the place.’

  ‘I tell you he isn’t here!’ Anna was forced to step back as the men pushed past her into the apartment. Almost immediately, from the drawing room, came the sound of a crash. Anna turned to run into the room. The tall man’s hand clamped painfully upon her shoulder, preventing her.

  ‘Where is he, your uncle?’

  She struggled to free herself. ‘I don’t know. Let me go!’

  His other hand caught her wrist, bending it backward, the bones grating. She let out a small scream of pain.

  ‘Where is he?’ he asked again, his voice unemotional.

  ‘I tell you I don’t know! How should I? I’ve only been in the city for a week!’

  Doors slammed. There came the crash of splintering china. Varya’s voice quavered, hoarse with terror. ‘Anna? Anna!’

  ‘It’s my mother,’ Anna said. ‘Please, she’s frightened – let me go to her.’

  He held her for a moment longer, then released her, all but throwing her from him. She flew through the apartment to her mother’s sitting room. Varya was trembling, her bloated face chalk-white with fear. ‘Anna? What’s going on?’

  ‘It’s all right, Mama.’ Anna fought to keep her own voice level. ‘They won’t hurt us. They’re looking for Uncle Mischa.’

  ‘Mischa? Mischa? What do they want him for?’

  ‘Because he’s an enemy of the people, Grandma,’ a voice said from the door. The tall man had followed Anna and stood watching them both, scratching his unshaven face. ‘An enemy of the people,’ he repeated, as if the phrase much satisfied him.

  ‘That’s ridiculous,’ Anna said, from beside her mother’s chair.

  He sent her an unfriendly glance.

  ‘He doesn’t seem to be here, Comrade Smolonov.’ One of his henchmen had come into the room. Anna’s eyes widened. The man was quite openly carrying a silver dish, tucked under his arm, and his pockets bulged.

  Smolonov’s eyes narrowed, travelling about the room. He walked to the window, peered behind the curtains. Opened a large cupboard.

  ‘You’ve forgotten to look under the table,’ Anna said tartly, through lips tight with rage. ‘And would you mind asking this – gentleman –’ she sent a withering look at the unconcerned soldier ‘– to put the silver back where it belongs?’

  Smolonov walked to her, stood very close, reached a hard hand to grip her face, tilting it so that he could look directly into her eyes. ‘The silver, Madame de Fontenay,’ he said softly, emphasizing the title mockingly, ‘is where it belongs.’ His grip upon her jaw was cruel. The soldier looked on, entertained. ‘If Bourlov returns,’ Smolonov continued, quietly, ‘advise him to give himself up. We’ll find him. Sooner or later. Tell him that.’

  Anna said nothing, stood rigid, his body pressed against hers. Others of the company were coming to the door now, all reporting no sign of the criminal Bourlov, all quite openly carrying looted pieces of plate, china or jewellery. They lounged about the doorway, enjoying the fun, their comments and advice becoming increasingly salacious and explicit. Smolonov held her for just long enough for real fear to take hold, and despite her efforts to show upon her face. Then, malice in his eyes, he let her go. ‘Not my type,’ he said, dismissively. ‘Thin as a rake and with a head like a carrot? I’d as soon fuck a matchstick.’

  ‘Hand her on, then, Comrade,’ a dirty-faced young man with rotten teeth said eagerly from the door. ‘I like ’em thin – an’ I don’t care what colour, either.’

  ‘You don’t care what bloody species, Barski,’ an older man said, acidly; and there was a sudden, almost good-natured roar of laughter.

  ‘Out,’ Smolonov said.

  They trooped out, clattering across the polished floors in their rough, heavy-nailed boots. One of them, as they went, swept a tall Chinese vase from a table. It smashed noisily upon the floor, and those behind crunched through the pretty, fragile fragments.

  At the door Smolonov turned, sketched a derisive salute. ‘Grandma. Madam Matchstick.’ And then he followed his men. All the doors were left standing open. They heard the clatter of footsteps, the talk and the laughter as they went down the stairs and through the great door out into the street.

  The silence after they had gone was absolute.

  ‘Don’t you think,’ Varya said at last with quite astounding calmness and presence of mind, ‘that you should try to shut the outer door?’

  ‘Yes, Mama. Of course.’

  Anna dragged herself from the room; down the corridor, into the magnificent reception hall. Through open doors she could see the devastation; nothing, it seemed, had escaped. A whirlwind – a hurricane – could not have done more damage. Mirrors and furniture were splintered and smashed. Anything that could be moved had gone. The outer door stood open, its lock demolished. No-one had come to help nor to enquire. Most of the other apartments stood empty; the inhabitants of those that did not knew better than to involve themselves in such matters as this.

  Anna rammed the door shut and dragged a heavy table in front of it. Then she walked into the drawing room, which had always been her favourite.

  It was wrecked. Broken china and glass littered the floor, delicate chairs and tables were overthrown and turned to matchwood. The mindless vandalism had even extended to the pictures; each one was neatly slashed, corner to corner, by the sharp point of a knife.

  No room had escaped. She wandered from one to another, all but stunned by the disaster and by the incredible suddenness of its happening; in the lovely little ballroom at last she stopped. Here again, senseless destruction had been wreaked upon furniture and fittings. Gilded chairs and tables were wrecked, mirrors cracked and splintered, great gouges had been torn even in the polished floor. She wandered, her footsteps echoing, across the ruined room, stood for a moment at the balcony window, looking out onto the canal, her mind a tired and shocked blank. Then she turned, and by a trick of memory she was for a split second back in this room when it was filled with talk and with laughter, with music and with the vivid colour of ball gown and uniform. She had filled this lovely place with her music, and the great
Scriabin himself had listened, rapt. She saw Katya again, laughing as she flitted through her father’s guests, mischief in her eyes. ‘Anna, darling – what on earth are you doing drinking that beastly stuff?’ The shattered room blurred and swam. How long ago? Eight years? Nine? It might have been another life. Another world.

  ‘Anna?’ Her mother’s voice quavered a little, uncertain and edged with temper. ‘Anna, where are you?’

  She used her fingertips to wipe away all trace of tears. ‘I’m here, Mama. Here.’

  It was undeniably comforting to have Volodya move into the apartment with them. The shy, talented and tongue-tied youth that Anna remembered had come through his own trials to emerge a calm and dependable man, still reserved, still undemonstrative but a reassuring and competent companion in such bemusingly unstable times. He rarely spoke of himself. If the leg that had been shattered by a bullet at Tannenberg gave him pain he never complained of it. He was unfailingly good-tempered, even when Varya was at her peevish worst; indeed Volodya seemed the only one who could coax her out of her ill-tempers. After the episode with the soldiers Anna was more than glad to have him there. Together, as best they could, they cleared up the mess.

  ‘So many lovely things,’ Anna said, sadly. ‘Simply smashed. Ruined. Why did they do it? Why?’

  Volodya shook his head. His face was grim. ‘Who knows? It’s a kind of madness, I think. God alone knows where it will end.’

  Anna was kneeling on the floor, in her hands the shards of a Dresden china bowl. She bowed her head, blinking back tears. ‘I could understand, I think, if they wanted to take it – to have it for themselves – but to ruin it, for no reason – to destroy it utterly –’ She could not go on. In trying to control the sudden lift of tired fear and grief that threatened to overcome her she clutched convulsively at the pieces in her hand, felt a small, fierce pain in her finger.

  Very quietly he knelt beside her, took the razor-sharp slivers from her hands. Tears were running down her face. A bright bead of blood stood upon her finger, broke in a scarlet thread across her skin and dripped upon the floor.

  ‘Silly girl,’ he said, gently. ‘Look what you’ve done.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said, helpless to stop the flooding tears. ‘What does it matter?’

  ‘It matters to me,’ he said.

  She lifted her face, thin, tear-stained and dirt-smudged beneath the tangled thatch of hair.

  There was a moment of quiet. Anna it was who broke the odd, still silence. She turned her head away sharply, lifted her bleeding finger to suck the blood away. ‘What will happen,’ she asked quietly after a moment, her voice calmer, ‘if men like those take over the country?’

  His large, pale eyes were still steadily upon her. ‘As I said. God alone knows.’

  She turned to him again, looking at him squarely, searching in that open, honest face for some kind of reassurance. ‘I’m frightened,’ she said, the words spoken before she could prevent it.

  For a moment she thought he would take her in his arms, hold her, comfort her. For a moment she most desperately wanted it. Then he smiled a little, shook his head ruefully. ‘So am I, Anna,’ he admitted, quietly. ‘So am I.’

  ‘Anna?’ Varya’s voice shrilled, echoing across the empty rooms. ‘Anna – where are you?’

  * * *

  It was two days before Varya would consent to being left alone for an hour or so whilst Anna and Volodya went to find Natalia and the children.

  ‘Why can’t one of you stay with me?’ she demanded for the hundredth time. ‘Why must you both go? Supposing they come again? What will I do if they come again?’ Her voice was shrill.

  ‘Mama, please!’ Anna, dressed in her plainest coat, a woollen shawl about her head, dropped to her knees beside her mother’s chair. ‘We’ve been through this so many times. The streets are still dangerous. Volodya won’t let me go alone –’

  ‘Then why can’t he go? Why can’t you stay here?’

  ‘Because I’m hoping to persuade Natalia to bring the children here. It would be so much easier – so much more sensible. But she hardly knows Volodya. I’m not sure she’d trust him. I have to go, Mama, I have to.’ Quite apart from anything else, danger or no, Anna felt she would go entirely mad if she did not get some air and some exercise, to say nothing of a brief respite from her mother’s tongue. Guilt made her brisk. She stood up. ‘You’ll be all right, Mama, I promise. We won’t be gone for long.’

  Determinedly she turned to leave. Varya settled back into her chair, grumbling, reached for a half-empty box of chocolates that stood on the table beside her. Anna wrinkled her nose. The very air smelled, sickly sweet, of chocolate. It sometimes physically nauseated her when she walked into the room. She had reached the door when she heard her mother say, pathetically, ‘Holy Mother, what an inconsiderate child you are! Your poor, martyred father must be turning in his grave to see you leave me here like this, defenceless –’

  Anna fought a temper that was, with confinement, becoming chancier every day. ‘Mama, you know that isn’t fair! I’m going to get Natalia and the children. Think how lovely that will be for you.’

  Her mother poked amongst the chocolates. Paper crackled. ‘I hope you’ll be able to keep them quiet, that’s all,’ she said. ‘Your poor Mama isn’t a well woman, Anna, you know that. Young children can be very noisy – very disruptive.’

  Anna stared at her. ‘Mama, these are Dmitri’s children – your grandchildren! Lenka said that Natalia – Dmitri’s widow! – is in trouble. Are you – you’re surely not? – saying you don’t want them here?’

  The bright, sunken eyes flickered to Anna’s face, faintly defiant. Anna despite all efforts could not control her expression. Her mother’s fat, white face crumpled. ‘Dmitri!’ she wailed. ‘How could you speak your brother’s name so callously? Don’t you know it breaks my heart to hear it? My poor, martyred Dima!’

  Anna gritted her teeth. Closed the door with infinite care and not a sound behind her.

  Volodya took one look at her face as she joined him on the landing outside the apartment and wisely held his tongue.

  * * *

  The streets, carpeted in a new and heavy fall of snow, were, after all, quite calm; no-one paid the slightest attention to Volodya and Anna. And although everywhere about them was evidence of the violence of the past days – burned buildings, broken windows, bullet-pocked walls – some semblance of normality appeared to be returning to the city. People went about their business, wrecked and burned-out trams had been cleared from the streets and some were running again, some brave – and lucky – shopkeepers had even opened their shops. Every wall and fence, even some windows, had been covered with the pasted-up bulletins that had kept the populace informed during this past amazing week. Anna, interested despite herself, stopped to read some of them.

  ‘UPRISING OF THE TROOPS – on 27 February there passed over to the revolutionary people the following military units: Volynian, Preobrajensky, Litovsky, Keksholmsky and Sapper regiments.

  On the side of the revolutionary people are nearly 25,000 from the military ranks.’

  This was followed by an account of a delegation from the said military ranks to the Duma to ‘enquire about the position occupied by the representatives of the people’. Here too was a copy of the telegram dispatched to the headquarters of the Tsar by the Duma three days before the abdication: ‘The situation is serious. In the capital is anarchy. The Government is paralysed. Transportation, the supply of provisions and fuel have come to complete disorder. Dissatisfaction is growing general. On the streets is occurring disorderly shooting –’

  ‘It still doesn’t seem possible,’ Anna said, wondering.

  There were terse accounts of arrests, lists of those arrested or of those representatives of the people in the Duma who had supported the revolution, accounts of battles and of stormy meetings. The incredible pace of the revolution was illustrated by the speed with which key positions in the capital had been taken by t
he people. ‘CAPTURE OF THE ARSENAL AND CHIEF ARTILLERY HEADQUARTERS,’ Anna read. ‘CAPTURE OF ‘‘THE CROSSES” PRISON AND LIBERATION OF POLITICAL PRISONERS. THE FALL OF THE FORTRESS OF PETER AND PAUL.’

  ‘Have you seen this one?’ Volodya asked.

  Anna moved to where he stood, read aloud the bulletin he pointed out. ‘DESTRUCTION OF THE SECURITY DIVISION. The Security Division was destroyed and burned down. All archives and political matters were destroyed. Lenka’s husband?’ she asked.

  He nodded.

  It had begun to snow again. She pulled her shawl closer about her head as they walked on. At a street corner Volodya bought a copy of the newspaper Izvestia and tucked it into the pocket of his overcoat. ‘We can read it when we get home. It helps if you know what’s going on.’

  A column of soldiers tramped by, red armbands flashing as their arms swung in less than perfect unison. They were led by a man dressed as they were, except for a red sash across his chest. No officer rode with them, resplendent in uniform. Anna and Volodya watched them pass as they waited to cross the road. On the opposite pavement a huge queue had formed, snaking along the icy pavement and around a corner out of sight. A sign above the shop showed it to be a bakery. Men and women came from the door hugging the precious bread to them, eyeing their fellow citizens suspiciously, as if they feared robbery at any moment. Anna hesitated. ‘Shouldn’t we try to get a loaf each?’

  Volodya considered the length of the queue. ‘Your mother’s alone. I don’t think we can afford a two-hour wait. She’s likely to get very nervous if we leave her for too long. I’ll come out and see what I can find tomorrow.’

  It was bitterly cold. The people in the queue huddled against the wall or stamped their feet upon the pavement in a vain effort to keep warm. Anna felt a sudden lift of something close to shame. It was the first time it had even occurred to her to think of what Volodya had been going through to keep them supplied with food. ‘We both will,’ she said.