The Longest Winter

by Daphne Wright

  ‘My sister was a little hysterical this morning and said many things that she did not mean. One of them – we won’t go into any details of course – might have given you a false idea of her. I can rely on you, I am sure, neither to repeat it to anyone in this frightful town nor to take any kind of advantage of it.’

  When he got no reply, Markham looked at the American and was angry to see his expression of contempt.

  ‘There’s no need to look like that; it’s perfectly obvious from the way you talk to my sister and the way you look at her and try to touch her all the time what you want. As an American, it may not be clear to you that she is in a most invidious position …’

  ‘Shut up, Markham,’ said Bob and, before the boy could express his fury at being addressed in so crude a manner went on, ‘My dealings with your sister are her own affair and no one else’s. I don’t know what you think Americans are but the last thing I would want to do … There’s no point discussing it. I’ll leave you here before either of us loses his temper. Good night.’

  He turned on his heel and strode away towards the sea.

  Later, when he had walked up the Troitski Prospekt and pounded along the shore among the sea wrack for an hour or more, ignoring the ache in his legs as the newly-healed bones reacted to the unaccustomed strain, he found that most of his fury had evaporated. He had derived some satisfaction from rehearsing everything he would have liked to say to Markham, but the boy’s interference had made Bob face the fact that he was going to have to settle his feelings for Evelyn one way or the other. With all the difficulties of living in Archangel and the problems brought by his broken legs, he had tried to ignore what he felt for her. Now it was clear that he would have to do something.

  He had found her desirable from the beginning, but he was old enough and experienced enough to know that desire died with what it fed on. The powerful emotions she had aroused in him were unsought and inconvenient, but he could no longer pretend that they did not exist or did not matter. He had promised Nikolai Alexandrovitch that he would do nothing about them and believed that he would be able to keep the promise, but that was before Archangel. As he had come to know her better and watched her caring for them all in their pathetic apartment, comforting Sasha when he was afraid of the dark or shivering in the cold he hated so much, Bob had slowly begun to understand that there was something about Evelyn that reached right down through all the accumulated layers of defence and disguise to the man he really was: neither the rebel nor the fearless fighting seeker-after-truth; but the shrinking, unprotected, easily damaged man. Until he had accepted his feelings for Evelyn, he had not admitted even to himself the existence of that man or his needs. Having admitted it, he would never now be able to deny it, and if he lost her …

  Bob stopped himself there, refusing even to contemplate the possibility. There would come a time when it seemed possible to tell her, he was sure. Having walked and thought himself back into some kind of rationality, he turned and went back to the flat.

  As soon as he got back, Evelyn looked up. He saw that she was blushing as she searched for words to tell him something. At last she said:

  ‘Bob, I don’t know what he said to you, but if it was anything like the things he said to me this afternoon, I am really very sorry.’ She pushed some loose strands of her untidy hair behind her ears. He looked down into her pale face with its firm cheekbones, delicately arched eyebrows and deep, glowing brown eyes, and wondered how he could ever have thought that he disliked her. Her dark eyes looked into his as a friend’s might, and her beautifully shaped lips, a little cracked by the endless winter, smiled. He forgot what she had said to him and his mouth opened to say all the things he wanted to tell her. Then her expression changed to one of doubt and he was dragged back to the matter in hand. His voice was warm and a little hesitant as he spoke.

  ‘Eve, he made me so angry that I could not answer him properly, but tell me something. You aren’t afraid of anything I might …?’

  ‘No, of course not, Bob. We are friends, aren’t we?’

  ‘Something like that; I told Nick I’d look after you and I’m doing my best to fill his place.’

  ‘I know, and I am grateful, Bob. I’m only sorry that it’s let you in for such a distasteful scene. I tried to explain to him, but he’s just so pigheaded. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be. It’s this place, I think. As soon as we all get out of here we’ll all be more sensible and get everything sorted out.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said grateful for the unemotional way in which he was taking her brother’s embarrassing intervention. ‘Yes, living so cramped like this makes us all a bit peculiar.’

  For the next four days their life was peaceful and relatively easy. Dick came once or twice to the flat but he behaved with some circumspection. He made himself speak politely to Adamson, and as soon as Evelyn realised that her brother was concentrating more on Dindin than on herself she ceased to tense up when she heard his voice calling from the foot of the stairs and watched them both with amusement.

  Then, when she and Dindin were clearing away the remains of breakfast on the morning of the fifth day, she heard Baines’s heavy tread on the stairs. Sasha went to open the door to him and called out:

  ‘Good morning, Mr Baines. And what can we do for you on this fine day?’ a phrase that he had been practising with Dick whenever he came to the flat.

  ‘Morning, Alexander Andreivitch. Miss Evelyn, I came to tell you that the thaw’s started and the river’s breaking up. It’s a sight like no other you’ll ever see. You oughtn’t to miss it.’

  ‘Thank you, Baines. How good of you. Well, shall we all go? Bob, do you feel like an expedition?’

  ‘Why not? Dindin, Tallie?’

  ‘Of course, Bob. Let’s go. And then we can find Dick later and get another lovely cheque out of him.’

  Bob looked surprised and turned as though to ask Dindin what she meant, but the excitement and urgency he could feel in the room was such that it did not seem the right moment. Instead, he helped Sasha exchange his soft felt shoes for the thick outdoor boots he had brought from Shenkursk, and then pulled on his own. Together with Mr Baines they clattered down the steep, twisting wooden stairs and out into the street.

  ‘Yes, it does feel much warmer,’ said Dindin, pulling off her gloves and rubbing the air between finger and thumb. ‘Look, everybody’s going to the river.’

  It was an exaggeration, but the street was certainly full of people all walking in the direction of the Dvina. Evelyn’s face contracted in what looked like a spasm of fear and Bob, who seemed to watch her all the time now, said quite gently:

  ‘What is it, Eve?’

  To his relief, she laughed.

  ‘It was silly of me, but just for a minute or two, it felt like that morning when we went to the Taurida Palace. Do you remember? At the beginning, when the Revolution seemed exciting and full of freedom – and innocence.’

  He said nothing: there was too much that was unresolved between them for him to be able to talk to her freely about his ruined illusions. As they neared the river, they could hear a repeating sound like a series of explosions. Tallie pulled at Baines’s sleeve and when he bent down towards her, she said softly:

  ‘It isn’t guns, is it? Have the Bolsheviki come?’ Baines gave a great bellow of laughter and said:

  ‘No, of course not. It’s the Dvina, bursting out of the ice. Just you wait and see.’

  They hurried forward and reached the river bank just as a chunk of ice nearly eight feet across split off from its parent, and as the churning river swelled underneath it was thrown up into the air between the two opposing sheets of ice. They crunched and growled as they bit into the rearing pillar of ice and then released it to crash back into the swirling water, throwing up a spouting fountain in its place.

  As she watched the elemental straggle between the living water fighting its way out of the grip of the moribund ice, Evelyn felt suddenly exhilarated by its power. She turned to
see if Bob shared her excitement.

  He was staring as though absorbed in the astonishing, violent spectacle in front of them, but she felt that he was trying to tell her something. He was breathing heavily and the hand gripping her own was tight. Not sure how to help him, instead she gave expression to a half-formed thought.

  ‘I’d never understood until today what they meant when they talked about “the forces of Nature”.’

  At that he looked down at her, and there was an extraordinary expression in his eyes, which she had never seen before. His voice was dry as he said:

  ‘Hadn’t you, Eve? No, I suppose not.’ Then, still gripping her wrist, he urged her away from the river bank and all the other people. When they were alone and out of earshot, he took her other wrist and looking down at her lovely puzzled face said, with teeth clenched:

  ‘God knows what Nick would have done to me if he knew what I was about to say to you, Eve.’

  For some reason that she did not quite understand, Evelyn was frightened rather than angry. In order to control the sudden fear, she looked up at him, and said:

  ‘Nikolai Alexandrovitch understood everything.’

  ‘Do you, though? Not quite, I think.’

  ‘Then explain it to me,’ she said, her own breathing irregular and blood coming into her pale cheeks.

  But he was beyond explaining anything to anyone. He dropped her wrists and put both hands on her neck, pushing up her chin, and kissed her full, beautiful mouth.

  She could feel his hands strong at the back of her head, and the soft gentleness of his lips on her own. His body was touching her all over and as the blood began to pound through her and her heart to thud, she was tempted for a moment to put her hands on his head and hold him even closer. But as the impulse formed so did the pictures of Johnnie weeping on her breast; of the man in the Vyborg with his hands at Dindin’s neck. She thought of the way Sergei had made her respond to him and then used that as a weapon. Unaware of her thoughts but alive to the slightest movement of her body, Bob said:

  ‘I want you so much Eve. I hardly dare say it because none of the words is right, but I want you.’

  ‘Don’t touch me!’

  ‘What?’ he said, still reeling from the emotions she had aroused in him.

  ‘Take your hands off me!’ Slowly he recognised that he had failed, and, as he saw horror in her dark eyes, he backed away a little, his hands held out by his sides.

  ‘Eve, don’t. Don’t look at me like that. I’m sorry if I frightened you. You don’t have to be like that. I won’t touch you. Calm down.’ Then as she continued to breathe jerkily, her lips lifting away from her teeth and her eyes accusing, his frustration got the upper hand over his gentler instincts and he almost shouted at her:

  ‘I won’t touch you. Stop it, Evelyn. Jesus, but you’re enough to …’ He shook his head and turned his back on her. Looking out towards the sea, he gathered up the remnants of his patience and said:

  ‘You’ve had a rough time in more ways than one. I do understand that. But for Christ’s sake, I’m not going to rape you. You don’t have to go off the deep end like that: just telling me to stop would have been enough.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, her voice quieter now, but still shaking a little. He turned back, remorse battling with everything else, and looked ruefully at her:

  ‘Well, we do have a problem, don’t we?’

  ‘We?’

  ‘Yes, Eve. We do. Don’t run away from me into that old coldness. I care about you, Eve, and …’ She interrupted before he could get any further.

  ‘And I, you,’ she said. ‘More than I had ever expected I could. But why must that involve such … such beastliness?’

  ‘Jesus!’ he said again, half in supplication, half in anger. ‘Forget it. And don’t look at me like that. I’m not going to leap on you. I won’t so much as touch you.’

  Chapter Eighteen

  As Archangel shed itself of its long-held ice, private dumps of unspeakable debris that had simply been thrown out of the houses during the winter to freeze immediately into inoffensiveness began to melt. Ironside’s army set about moving most of it, but some remained to add to the multifarious smells and germs of the town. They were not helped by the mosquitoes, released by the new wet warmth to prey on inhabitants and invaders alike. At first the bites were merely tiresome, and the swellings they produced painful but not dangerous; but as the heat increased towards the end of May, even before the sea ice had broken up enough to allow any ships down through the White Sea, the danger became acute.

  Evelyn knew nothing of it until she summoned one of the Russian doctors to look at Sasha, who had been fractious for several days and then developed a terrifyingly high fever that made him shudder as though with cold, and cry and mumble in delirium. The doctor looked across the child’s makeshift bed and said with pity in his voice:

  ‘Malaria.’

  ‘I don’t know much about that,’ said Evelyn, desperately trying to sound calm and not let her terror show, ‘but I thought it was a disease of the tropics.’

  ‘It was. But they tell me that it was rife in Salonika and many of General Ironside’s men were serving there and it is in their blood for ever. The mosquitoes have now transferred it to the population of Archangel.’

  Evelyn could not speak, but Bob asked her questions for her:

  ‘What must we do?’

  ‘The first thing is to get nets to put over all the beds. It will be too easy for one of the insects to bite your son and then fly on to you or the others and infect them. Then you should give him quinine. There will soon be a shortage of that like everything else now, so you should try to get your stocks quickly. Keep him warm, restrict his diet to liquids, and wait. He is not in danger if you are sensible. Do you understand?’

  Evelyn nodded, her face showing little of the torment she felt, but Bob had seen her hide other overwhelming feelings and he knew.

  ‘Doctor Samenev, where do I get the quinine?’ he asked, not even bothering to explain that he was not the child’s father.

  ‘Try all the druggists in the town; if they have none, then you must just ask the army. I don’t know if they’re going to let civilians have any, but you will have to ask.’

  Evelyn relaxed infinitesimally as she understood that she could leave the search for quinine to Bob. In spite of their difficulties he was, as he had once promised, doing his best to be like Nikolai Alexandrovitch, and she knew instinctively that she could trust him. Deeply thankful that she did not have to face this anxiety alone, she said goodbye to the doctor and as soon as he had left she helped Bob carry Sasha’s bed into the main room. They put it close to hers and she sat down and picked up the delirious child, cradling him in her arms. Bob watched her for a moment, pity for them both twisting his strong face into an almost harsh-looking mask.

  ‘I’ll take Dindin and Tallie with me. Then they can come back here as soon as we’ve gotten any quinine and I’ll go on to collect all I can find. And some nets.’ Then he put out one of his hands as though to touch her before he remembered and quickly disguised the gesture.

  ‘Don’t be afraid, Eve. We’ll get him right.’

  She lifted her face and the expression in her eyes appalled him.

  ‘Evelyn, what is it? You mustn’t give up hope.’

  ‘I’m not. It’s just – oh, don’t you see? This is what always happens.

  I have only to care for someone and then something terrible happens. If he dies …’

  ‘Stop it, Eve, at once. He won’t die. I have to go now if I’m to get the pills, but I can’t leave you like this. You’ll do him no good. Remember what Nick used to say about guilt?’

  Evelyn took a sharp, deep breath and tamped down the sparks of hysteria.

  ‘I’m sorry. Of course you must go. I won’t do it again.’

  But it was not so easy. While Sasha shivered and sweated in her arms, she could concentrate on trying to cool him. She laid him back on the bed and wiped the s
weat off his broad forehead, murmuring comfort to him. But when he slept and there was nothing she could do for him, she would feel terror gripping her at the thought that he might not live. Watching his pallid face as he moved restlessly from side to side, she was taken ineluctably back to her old fears. She loved the child, had loved him ever since she had been allowed to start teaching him. In her mind she rehearsed all that Bob had said to her about the dead of the Western Front, and tried to remember the anger in his voice in case it would stop her tormenting thoughts. But it did not. The fear that her affection was dangerous lay deeper than thought or memory or reason. Somehow it had become embedded in the very fabric of her self.

  The shivering child relaxed and the sudden stillness terrified her. She put her fingers to the pulse in his wrist. It still beat. She became determined that he would not die; if there were anything she could do to ensure his survival, she would do it no matter the cost. She would not speak of the recurrence of her old fears; she would try not even to to allow herself to think of them.

  Dindin and Natalie came back with the first batch of quinine pills soon after twelve. It seemed a pity to wake Sasha out of his still sleep, but they had to do it. He came back into consciousness and pain, and started to cry even before his eyes opened. But he was no longer delirious and his first words were:

  ‘Evie, Evie, make it stop hurting.’

  She smoothed the tumbled, black hair away from his frighteningly white forehead and said:

  ‘Sashenka, I’ll do my best. Now you must take these three pills.’

  ‘I don’t want to,’ came the petulant answer and he turned his face away from her. Steeling herself, Evelyn said:

  ‘Little Dove, you must if I am to make it stop. Come along. No, darling, don’t cry. Sit up here against me. Look, Tallie has brought you some water. Now try to swallow. That’s right, tip your head back and they’ll just slide down. Now, take a sip of the water. Good boy.’

  But he gagged on the mouthful and spat pills and water out on to the bed. Patiently Evelyn coaxed him to try again and at last he got the pills down.