The Little Russian

by Susan Sherman

  “And much, much more.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like you must eat your breakfast and get ready to go out.”

  They were sitting at the children’s table near the stove in the nursery. It was an elaborate affair with its own kitchen and music room outfitted with downsized instruments, a schoolroom decorated with maps of the world, several closets full of clothes, and a wall of shelves lined with toys. All this magnificence, this extravagance of color and mechanical contrivances that whirred into life simply by winding a key, were placed there solely for the enjoyment of two children: Sura, a fearful five-year-old with tiny, nervous hands, darting eyes, long brown hair, and a rare smile, and Samuil, a precocious seven-year-old, whose insouciance and careless way of addressing adults made him seem much older.

  “I don’t want to go out, Mameh,” Sura murmured, her large eyes staring out the window at the brilliant sun and its reflection on the billowy mound of snow that leveled the landscape outside their window.

  “But you need fresh air and exercise. It’ll be fun.”

  “It won’t be fun at all. It’s cold out there and I’ll hate it.”

  “Where is your hairbrush, my darling?”

  “Dunno.”

  “Where did you put it?” She hunted around and found it on a bookshelf. “Here, let me brush it out for you.” She stood behind her daughter and began to brush out her thick curls while breathing in the comforting smell of her hair, of soap and starched linen.

  “What if I get lost out there?” Sura fretted, her brow making a furrow under the fringe of hair.

  “You won’t get lost,” Berta told her. “You’re only going out into the yard.”

  “What if they don’t find me and I freeze to death like that squirrel we saw the other day. Ow, Mama!”

  “Sorry.”

  “And what if my hands break off and I melt and become all squishy and turn into a puddle.”

  “Galya won’t let that happen. You say this every day and so far you’re still here and you have hands and feet and you’re not a puddle at all.” Berta looked up when her son came in and watched as he collapsed in the chair opposite his sister.

  “Why do they even come if they don’t like the music?” he said sulkily. He grabbed a roll and began to butter it. Every Thursday Berta hosted a musical salon and Samuil was already anticipating the intrusion.

  “How do you know they won’t like it?” Berta asked.

  “Because I heard them talking the last time they were here, Olga Nikolaevna and that other one, that friend of hers, the one with the big horse teeth.”

  “You mean you were spying on them.”

  “They said what a bore it was. And they wondered when it would end. Stupid women, why do you ask them? I wouldn’t have them, not on a bet. I’d only have you and Tateh and Galya.”

  Sura ignored her brother and went on with her worries. “But Galya is always talking to the maids, Mameh. She could easily lose me and then I’d end up like the squirrel.”

  “No one is getting lost,” Galya said, coming into the room with a basket full of laundry. The nursery was presided over by Galena Okoro-kova, a busty potato of a woman who spent her off days in her room conversing with the dead.

  “See, darling? Galya wouldn’t lose you. She’ll never take her eyes off you.”

  “You don’t know that. You’re not even there. How do you know?”

  “You’re not getting lost, my little chicken,” said Galya with a smile. “Galya is there and she watches you like a hawk. You’re never out of her sight.”

  Samuil went on: “Why do you like them, Mameh? They only come to show off their diamonds and they ’re so boring and never have anything interesting to say.”

  “Then why do you spy on them?”

  “I want to.”

  “You shouldn’t spy on people. It isn’t right and you know it. Nobody likes a spy.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Well, you should care. You have to get along in this world. And anyway, it’s wrong.”

  “I don’t think it’s wrong,” he said, buttering another piece. “I think it’s educational. I learn all sorts of useful things.” He took another bite and washed it down with warm milk.

  “Not for a seven-year-old.”

  “And besides, I’m good at it,” he said, putting down his glass. “It’s my calling. Tateh says it’s important to find your calling early in life and here I am only seven and already I’ve found mine.” He was proud of the fact that he could hide almost anywhere, spy on the servants and guests, and then sell his tidbits to Galya for candy or extra time at the stables.

  Berta held her daughter’s chin in her hand and turned her head first to the left and then to the right. “There now, don’t you look lovely?” She kissed her daughter’s nose and Sura scowled and rubbed it. “Go on now,” Berta said turning her daughter around and giving her a little shove. “It’s time to get your coat and boots on. You’re going out.”

  She watched the children put on their things at the front door. Samuil threw on his coat and hat and stuffed his gloves in his pocket, flung the door open, and, after calling back a halfhearted good-bye, raced down the steps and across the drive. Sura pulled on her gloves, pushing the wool down around each finger until they fit perfectly. She was like Berta in that way, taking her time to do things right. When she was done she put on her hat and followed Galya out the door. Berta stood in the doorway and watched her pick her way through the snow, following in Galya’s footsteps, leaping from footprint to footprint to keep her boots dry. Berta had a sudden urge to run after her and scoop her up into her arms. She was such a small thing in a big world. It was heartbreaking to see her little figure struggling through the frozen expanse of snow and frost.

  When Berta stepped back inside and closed the door, she heard Petr the valet and Vasyl the porter in the breakfast room chatting about a horse race that Petr had bet on and won. Apparently Vasyl hadn’t followed his advice and was kicking himself for being left out of the winnings. She strode in and wished them a good morning. It was hardly morning. The sun was already high in the sky, throwing brilliant shafts of light against the damask wallpaper, washing out the color to a pale yellow.

  Petr bowed slightly. “Good morning, Madame.”

  Vasyl wiped his hands on his pants and gave her a nod in deference, his eyes dropping to a spot on the floor.

  “I see you’ve been busy,” she said, looking around at the room.

  “Yes, Madame,” said Petr in his usual brisk way. “We will need two extra rows at least. Did Vera tell you? We thought we would use the breakfast chairs.”

  She thought for a moment. “Yes, good idea.”

  Since it was Thursday the breakfast room was being transformed into the music room. All the furniture had been cleared out except for the yellow tile stove in the corner and the piano that stood in front of the tall windows. The men had been setting up the chairs and now she could see what it was going to look like with the semicircle of folding chairs filling the room.

  She wandered over to the window and looked out on the little park beside the house. It was blanketed with glittering snow. Galya was sitting on a bench bundled up in a beaver coat, gossiping with the nanny from across the road. The nanny ’s charges were sledding down the baby hill, as Samuil called it. Sura wasn’t playing with them. She was sitting next to Galya, clutching her arm, looking anxious and bored at the same time. Samuil wasn’t in sight and must’ve been around the back sledding down the big hill that led to the frozen pond.

  Across the park on the road she saw a sledge whir by and turn into her drive. It was the boy with the ice sculpture. Once, a rearing horse had been delivered with a melted tail and hooves that were barely more than puddles. It had been delivered too late to send back. Berta thought it had probably been rejected by another house and sent to the Jews as an afterthought. After that she insisted that the sculpture be delivered early and that she inspect it herself.

 
; Preparations had been going on since early morning. The floors had been washed and polished, the rugs swept, cupboards emptied of china and linen, and the chandeliers lowered and dusted. The flowers had been arranged in vases and now stood in the hall waiting to be placed throughout the house. Although the servants bustled from parlor to dining room, from upstairs to downstairs, from breakfast room to library, arms full, faces glistening with sweat, brooms and dusters at the ready, no room was more filled with commotion and anxiety than the kitchen. Berta usually avoided it on Thursdays. The cook was an irritable Slav from Kiev with a ferocious sense of entitlement and tolerated no interference in her domain. Unfortunately the ice sculpture was in the pantry and there was no way to get there except through the kitchen or outside and around the back. So rather than risk disturbing the cook, Berta wrapped a coat around her shoulders, put on her boots, and stepped out the front door.

  The sun had just risen above the tallest trees and was shining down out of a flawless sky. The steps down to the drive had been cleared from last night’s storm, but there were still traces of snow in the corners and a sheen of water over the marble made them slippery. Berta had to hold on to the hand rail, which was still covered with a sharp-edged pile of snow. Her gloved hand cleared it as she went down the steps, the moisture turning the fawn-colored leather a dark brown.

  Berta’s house sat perched on one of the highest points in the Berezina, on a little hill that overlooked the city of Cherkast. From there she could see the smoke from the chimney pots and the steam rising up from the rooftops. Further down she could just make out the ice fishermen’s shanties on the frozen river and a line of moving dots that had to be the ice cutters coming down with their sledges to haul away great blocks of ice.

  These people, along with their brethren in the factories, were peasants of the chernozem, the black earth: illiterate, superstitious; plagued by lice and tuberculosis, often landless, hungry; they came in from the countryside to earn a few rubles a day for ten hours of hard labor. They slept by their machines or on filthy cots in barracks. Most of them were zealous believers in miracle cures and in Russian Orthodoxy. Always their future had lain in a short life of hard work for the good of Mother Russia, but now they were raising their voices against the hard labor, the poverty, and the fines that were levied against them for the smallest infractions. Strikes were breaking out in Moscow and Saint Petersburg, over two thousand of them in 1912 alone. Men in visor caps, black leather jackets, and knee boots had come to Little Russia to organize and the workers were listening.

  Berta came down the last few steps and followed the circular drive around to the side of the house where the snow was deeper and the going more difficult. The ground had been trampled by a jumble of footprints and sledge tracks left by the vendors who had been coming and going all morning. She took advantage of the tracks and walked in them, following them around to the back of the house. While she was making her way she idly examined the confusion of footprints at her feet and out of them identified her son’s small boot print. She could tell they were his by the size, the short stride, and the shallow depression. She tracked them down the drive and was surprised to find that they didn’t lead her to the sledding hill but to the pantry door. She had a knack for picking out her children in a crowd—a glimpse of hair, a brown arm, the back of a head. She could find her children anywhere.

  Vera, the maid, and Zina, the cook’s helper, were busy polishing silver at the harvest table and jumped to their feet when she walked through the door. The delivery boy stood in deference, whipped off his cap, and kept his eyes on his shoes.

  “No, please, it’s all right. I’ve just come to look at the sculpture.”

  Zina said, “It’s over here, Madame. Here, I’ll get it for you.” Zina had a wide, pleasant face with a broad nose and a space between her two front teeth. She often suppressed a smile, pretending to be shy and to know her place despite the spark of mischief in her eyes. Samuil said she occasionally stole away to meet a trolley conductor under the big elms over by the bench. When she would come back and tell Vera all about it, he’d be hiding nearby and listening to every word, which he would then sell to Galya for more time with his horse.

  The ice sculpture was sitting at the other end of table wrapped in burlap to keep it cold. Zina untied the sacks and they fell away, revealing an arch of wheat shafts over a nest of birds. “Ah . . . look at that. So pretty,” Zina said, examining it. “Clever too. And them is ducks, I suppose. Little ducks in a nest.”

  Berta had ordered robins, but she didn’t mind the ducks. She told the delivery boy that she would keep it and that his employers could bill her. He nodded but didn’t leave right away. Instead he glanced at the hot cup of tea that he would soon be leaving.

  “Go ahead. Finish it. Nobody minds.”

  He looked up at her and nodded gratefully. And for a moment nobody moved while they waited for her to leave.

  “Yes, well, that’s it then.” She looked up and addressed the room. “Samuil . . . time to go.”

  The others gaped at her. “He is not here, Madame,” Zina said.

  And then to the shelves that lined the walls, to the dry goods, canned goods, cooking utensils, and the great wheel of cheese that sat up high on the top shelf, she called out again, “Come along, Samuil. I mean it.”

  “If we see him, we will tell him you are looking for him.”

  “That’s just it, you’ll never know he’s here.” This time she tried a different tack. “If you come out right now, I’ll take you to the concert next week.”

  Silence . . . and then a muffled voice from the top shelf, from behind the cheese: “What are they playing?”

  Zina looked at Vera in alarm. She was probably wondering what the boy had heard and more important what he would repeat.

  Berta thought. “I don’t remember.”

  “Then how am I supposed to know if I want to come?”

  “Samuil . . .” she said wearily.

  He peeked out from behind the wheel and then reluctantly climbed out of his corner and down the shelves, jumping the last few feet to the ground.

  THURSDAYS RAN smoothly for the most part, but there were always problems along the way. Sometimes the wrong flowers would arrive, once the poultry man ran out of game hens, and another time there were no quinces in Cherkast. Any number of things could go wrong on Thursday. But nothing as catastrophic as the phone call she received that afternoon.

  “I’m so sorry to be calling this late,” croaked the pianist from the other end of line. “I thought I could play for your guests, but the doctor says I’m not to go out. I have a horrible cold as you can hear. I hope you will forgive me.”

  Berta struggled to hide her annoyance. “Of course,” she muttered. “Don’t give it another thought.” She wanted to say something about canceling this late, but the girl was a rising star in the musical circle and she couldn’t afford to alienate her. So she forced herself to sound solicitous, wished the girl well, and even offered a few home remedies that included teas made of mullein flower and yarrow to draw out the fever.

  During the next hour, Berta telephoned every pianist, violinist, and cellist she knew in Cherkast. There weren’t many. While she pleaded and cajoled, flattered and bribed, she scratched a widening chip of paint off the Chinese lacquer table. It was unusual to have a telephone alcove this elaborate in the Berezina. The houses in the neighborhood were large but nothing compared to the Moscow mansions. The Alshonsky house was the exception. It wasn’t larger than the rest, but it had been furnished at great expense. The house had once been owned by a fish merchant who had lost his business due to bad luck and the high cost of debt. Hershel often reminded Berta that it was about to do the same to them, especially if she didn’t stop throwing money away on furniture and draperies.

  By the end of her fruitless search, she had chipped away a whole corner of the table. She was cleaning the paint out from under her fingernail when Galya happened to walk by carrying a tray for the child
ren. Berta looked up and brightened with a sudden idea. “Galya . . . who is that famous medium you’re always talking about?’

  “Marfa Gorbunova?”

  “Yes. Is she good?”

  “Very good, Madame. The best in all the Russias.”

  “How do I get a hold of her?”

  Galya put down the tray on the hall table. Her lips puckered in thought. “I know a woman who knows her. I could go around and see if she knows where to find her.”

  “Good, could you do that for me?”

  “Of course.”

  “I mean right now. I’m in a bind. I need her to come here tonight.”

  Galya stiffened. “You want her to come to your party?”

  “What’s wrong that? I think she’ll be very entertaining.”

  Galya pulled herself up and cradled her breasts in her arms. “I am very sorry, Madame, but Marfa Gorbunova does not entertain guests. She does not do party tricks. She communicates with those who have passed over to the other side.”

  “Don’t worry. She’ll be treated with the utmost respect. Now go ask your friend where to find her. We don’t have much time.”

  Galya hesitated. “She might not know.”

  “Well, ask her anyway. And when you find this woman tell her that if she comes to us we’ll be very grateful. Tell her we understand money is of little value to a spiritualist of her standing, but still there will be a generous compensation.”

  Galya shook her head doubtfully, picked up the tray, and started up the stairs. She groaned occasionally and stopped frequently to catch her breath. Berta wanted to hurry her along, but knew that if she said anything, there would be a long-winded complaint about aching legs and a weak back, and that would take much longer than if she didn’t say anything at all.

  BERTA REALIZED, with a pang of disappointment, that Hershel wasn’t coming to her party. She was sitting at her dressing table while Vera pinned the last silk rose in her hair. He would be missing another party and she would once again have to make excuses for him and pretend it didn’t matter. A brief spasm of irritation crossed her face as she stared vacantly at the little porcelain box filled with hairpins.