Push Not the River

by James Conroyd Martin

  But, before she could speak, before she could unburden her heart, she sensed someone standing behind Jan’s chair. She looked up to see that Antoni had returned.

  A step behind Antoni stood Zofia. She was whispering something in his ear.

  “Oh?” Antoni bellowed. “This is Stelnicki? A bold character it is that will romance a man’s wife under his nose and in a place as prominent as the Royal Castle.”

  “It is no such thing!” Anna said. Both she and Jan were standing now.

  “A cozy picture,” Antoni continued, “don’t you think, Zofia?”

  Zofia looked stunned and for once was wordless.

  “I merely happened to see Anna from across the way, Lord Grawlinski,” Jan said, “and so came over to say hello.”

  “How many times has this little coincidence happened, Anna Maria?” Antoni demanded. “How many times have you met with this man?”

  “Antoni, you know that I don’t leave the house.”

  “I don’t know that, but I shall be more cognizant in the future.” Antoni’s gray eyes narrowed as he appraised Jan. “I know by rights I should call out this man.” His eyes shifted to Anna. “What is he to you, Anna Maria? Zofia tells me he was at the pond last September. Is he responsible for your belly?”

  Anna’s mouth fell open in a silent gasp; she was unable to mask her humiliation.

  “No, I am not, sir.” Jan’s face was reddening. “I was at the pond that day. And I do blame myself for leaving Anna in the care of her careless cousin. I shall blame myself for that until the day I die. But if you wish to pursue this other line of questioning, it is I, sir, who shall call you out . . . now.”

  Antoni stood rigidly silent, and for the first time Anna saw fear in those colorless eyes.

  No one spoke for what seemed a full minute.

  “I will take my leave, Anna,” Jan said at last, “before I cause you further trouble.” He bowed before her, shifting so that his back was to Antoni. He whispered: “Any message sent to the Queen’s Head will find me.”

  She nodded, as if she understood. There was no time to try to understand the riddle: a few seconds were all she had to imprint his image upon her brain and heart. She might never see him again.

  He turned and left the Great Assembly Hall, causing Antoni and Zofia to step aside. He took no notice of Zofia.

  “Anna, how could you— ” Zofia started to say.

  “Never mind!” Antoni shouted. “Leave us, Zofia!”

  Anna knew that Antoni meant to vent his anger and shame at having backed down.

  Zofia started to say something, thought better of it, and retreated.

  Antoni turned on Anna. “Your cousin coaxed me into coming back to talk sense to you, and this is what I find!”

  “Do not waste your words on me, Antoni.”

  “Perhaps there was no rape at the pond. Perhaps there was only mutual consent.”

  “You’re despicable. You have only to ask Lutisha, who cared for me in the days after.”

  “What is this man to you, Anna Maria?”

  Anna tried to catch her breath. Her throat was dry and tight. “He is a man for whom I once cared. It seems a lifetime ago.”

  “And now?”

  Anna thought. Of course, she loved him, ached for him. The strength of her love was so strong that she thought perhaps she and Jan had loved in some previous existence, or that they would love again in a future life. She dared not hope for that in this life. Anna wet her lips and looked into her husband’s eyes. “Now, Antoni, I am married to you. I will honor that commitment. But do not think that you can establish a distillery on my estate, the estate my father lived and died for. And do not think you can strike me. I see the temptation in your eyes. If you dare, you will regret it.”

  “What would you do, Anna Maria? Send Stelnicki after me?”

  “No! I will fight my own battles.”

  “You can fight alone then! I’m leaving for St. Petersburg tonight.”

  “Leaving?”

  “Oh, don’t raise your hopes, Anna Maria. I see that in your eyes. No, you won’t be rid of me as easily as that.” He smiled. “Fate has brought our paths together, yes?”

  Anna stared wordlessly as Antoni left the hall. She slowly sank into her chair.

  The audience had returned to their seats, she suddenly realized. How long had the occupants of the rows all about her been staring?

  Numb, she sat, her face burning, the strains of the violin filling the chamber.

  Well, I have found my voice, Anna thought. But at what cost?

  26

  AS THE CARRIAGE RUMBLED ACROSS the wooden bridge from Warsaw to Praga, Zofia stared at the sullen Anna. She surprised herself with the level of animosity toward her cousin she felt surging within her. She had brought her to the Royal Castle as a reward for having saved the diary from the king’s eyes. What a wretched mistake it had been! But who could have anticipated that doing so would facilitate a reunion with Stelnicki?

  It had been no easy task, either, to keep Antoni from leaving the palace and convince him to return to his wife. Zofia wanted Anna’s marriage to be successful, even if Antoni’s ambition did propel them into a magnate status above her own. She didn’t wish Anna any harm, not really; in fact, she held affection for her cousin.

  Let Antoni and Anna be successful! Zofia had her own lofty ambitions. And she had confidence enough to attain them. But her spine tautened as she thought of the moment at the castle when she came upon Anna and Jan together. That sickening feeling came again in dizzying waves. It was like seeing them together in the forest so many months before. The image filled her with dark, nameless emotions that seemed to make her capable of anything.

  Zofia was heedless of time and the motion of the carriage. She tried to make order out of the myriad feelings that eddied and boiled up within her, tried to measure the strength of one in relation to the next. Though she would not fully acknowledge the hurt to the heart and the affront to her pride, she felt deep anger all over again that her plans the previous September had been foiled by her country cousin. She had assumed that with Anna married to Grawlinski she had permanently severed her cousin’s attachment to Stelnicki. But now, to see them together, her hand in his, revived and inflamed powerful emotions. Is it jealousy, she wondered. Do I love Jan?

  She wanted him, she knew that. Somehow, too, when she saw at the castle the interest that Anna inspired in Jan, she wanted him all the more. And watching him stand up to the pitiful Grawlinski, she realized now, brought her desire to a white-hot heat.

  If only I could have him once, she thought, just once—make him yield—it would be enough to satisfy me. And it would ruin him for Anna—in his own eyes and in hers. Jan and Anna were cut from the same dull cloth of honor.

  With her cousin still on the scene there was no chance of seduction, however. Worse, there was now the very real danger Jan and Anna would reignite their little affair despite Anna’s marriage. Zofia realized she had discounted Anna’s boldness, underestimated their passion. There must be a way to be rid of her.

  Zofia thought herself clever enough. She had been so with Walter that very night. She smiled with self-satisfaction. She was surprised to find her brother at the Royal Castle, but she had expected that he would appear one day, indignant that she had done him out of land and fortune. She also suspected he would resurrect the doings at the quagmire where her father died, attempting blackmail. It was all so predictable. But wasn’t he just as guilty as she? He could not accuse her without implicating himself. She made certain to counter him at every move, for though they were not brother and sister by blood, they were cut from the same cloth, one not nearly so dull.

  Zofia’s smile widened. She was the smarter, however. When the threat of blackmail ricocheted, poor Walter had to settle for the promise of a tiny fraction of the cash trust, money that she would give only to salve his pride and keep him quiet. She was doing him a favor, she reasoned. Despite her parents’ objections, he had had the
ambition to get out and make his own way years before. She was allowing him the opportunity to continue to do so.

  At last, the carriage arrived at the Gronski townhome.

  Zofia watched wordlessly as Anna, who had been seated next to the large Swede named August, stepped down from the carriage, assisted by the dwarf who would see her to the door. Anna made no reply to the goodbyes given her by Charlotte and the two men. Wouldn’t she be surprised, Zofia mused, to know she had been right about Walter’s presence at the castle? But Zofia knew it was best not to bring them together.

  Zofia and Charlotte were sitting on the opposite side with the Russian officer between them. Zofia motioned to Charlotte, who took Anna’s place next to the Swede.

  The carriage retraced its way back to the city proper.

  “Oh, do let’s stop at the fountain in the Market Square,” Zofia said, as the carriage rolled off the bridge and started up the incline toward the city walls.

  “But it is so late already,” Charlotte protested. She was tired, inebriated, and eager to get to the inn where the officer and his companion had rooms.

  “It won’t take long, Charlotte darling,” Zofia said. “Why, if it were summer, we could dunk our toes.” Why had she trusted Charlotte with the secret about the distillery? Well, Zofia thought, I might not be able to vent my anger at Anna right now, but there’s nothing to keep me from avenging myself on Charlotte.

  Momentarily, Zofia called to the driver: “Do as I told you at the fountain!”

  “Oh, you planned this?” Charlotte asked.

  “Hush, Charlotte, it’ll be fun.”

  When the carriage wheeled into the Square and stopped, they prepared to alight.

  The dwarf helped Charlotte onto the footstool and then to the ground.

  Instead of alighting, Zofia reached over and pulled shut the door. “Go!” she screamed at the driver.

  The driver cracked the whip at the team of horses. The wheels turned and the carriage lurched forward, clacking along the cobblestone square, quickly picking up speed.

  “Stop!” Charlotte shrieked. “Stop! Zofia this is not amusing!”

  Zofia put her head out the open window. “Wait there, darling, and we’ll send your carriage back for you.”

  Charlotte’s cries were amplified by the emptiness of the dark plaza. The little man next to her was calling out something, too, in his strangely deep voice. Zofia’s bribe to the driver, however, had been sufficient to deafen him to their plight.

  Zofia laughed, calling out, “Hush, or you’ll wake all of Warsaw!”

  Now she turned in her seat to look at her two quizzical companions. They had been too drunk to offer resistance to her scheme. She giggled at their stupid looks. “Charlotte’s voice certainly does carry, doesn’t it?”

  Zofia settled back into her seat. Her fingers drummed the window sill. “Don’t look so sad, August. I will be able to please you both.”

  The man brightened as he and the officer exchanged glances.

  The officer turned then to Zofia. “What about your cousin? Perhaps it would pick up her mood to make it an even foursome? She’s very beautiful.”

  Zofia turned to him now, not with desire any longer, but with loathing.

  Anna slept little that night and moved through the next day as through a fog-laden fen. The memory of the meeting with Jan was the only thing that carried her along. She still loved him—there was no denying that reality. In fact, separation had deepened her feelings. And he loved her—she knew it, had known it. Thoughts of him lifted her and helped her through the day, if only for minutes at a time.

  Then came the thoughts that numbed the happiness of her heart, as if with ice.

  The thought of Zofia for one. Though Anna and Jan had no time to speak of it, Anna was convinced that Zofia had lied at the pond when she accused Jan of attacking her. Had she also intercepted Jan’s letter? One thing was certain, however: Zofia had engineered Anna’s marriage to Antoni.

  Anna thought how in a strange way the Fates had been kind twice to Zofia while cutting down the lives of others: were it not for Uncle Leo’s death and for the rape at the pond, Zofia would be leading a very different life. She would be married to Antoni and deprived of the independence and power she now enjoyed.

  While it was true that at times Zofia projected what seemed a sisterly bond and looked out for Anna’s interest, something mysterious and dark clouded her behavior, too. Anna vividly recalled how at the Royal Castle Zofia had stared silently at her and Jan. For once the mask that her cousin presented to the world—one of wit, humor, confidence—fell away, revealing . . . what? Jealousy? Hatred?

  Anna wondered if Zofia secretly loved Jan. If that were the case, why had she encouraged Anna in her attraction to him? Was her cousin even capable of loving any one man? Zofia herself had told Anna how she longed to pick all the flowers in the garden. Anna’s head spun. She could make no sense of it.

  What did make sense was to get away from Warsaw, away from Zofia.

  Anna was plagued by thoughts of Antoni, too. His leaving for St. Petersburg had brought an inward sigh of relief, but she knew that the conflict with her husband was very much in the beginning stages. She was all but certain he would not agree to an annulment. Unless, of course, she gave up everything.

  Anna was not about to do that. Her standing among the Polish nobility was modest. Although her father had parlayed the farm into a profitable operation and had invested wisely with the Lubicki family, he had had only the one estate, with no city mansion. He had placed that home and land at Sochaczew above everything. For Anna, no sacrifice was too great to protect it.

  Anna’s stomach tightened now to think that her wretched marriage had put both finances and land in jeopardy. She could not care less that Antoni’s scheme might provide magnate status for them and their heirs. She would die before seeing her family home turned into the site of a distillery.

  Sochaczew! She seized upon the thought. That is where I should go. Home!

  Antoni must be made to relent on this whiskey business. She would write to Duke Józef Lubicki: perhaps she had some legal recourse. If not, she would be there at the estate to fight him to the end.

  But to what end? she wondered. What chance did she truly have to beat Antoni at his own game, a game that men played?

  Women had roles to play, had to wear masks and heavy dresses emblematic of their station in life, like actors in the Greek dramas. Men, with their trousers and age-old license for power, had all the advantages. For once Anna could not blame Russia’s Catherine for seizing opportunities usually forbidden to her gender.

  She chuckled to herself then, suddenly realizing the paradox: in the Greek dramas, even the roles of women were awarded to men. Her moment of humor was laced with bitterness.

  27

  “A DISTILLERY?” COUNTESS GRONSKA LOOKED UP, dumbfounded, her knitting dropping to her lap.

  Anna stood before her. “Yes, Aunt Stella, a distillery. It’s true. And were it not for Princess Charlotte, I might not have found out until after the fact.”

  The countess struggled to compose herself. “And you knew this, Zofia?” Her tone was accusatory even though she knew in recent days her own opinion carried little weight with her daughter.

  Zofia shrugged. “I did.” She stood staring out the French windows.

  “And you said nothing?”

  “I didn’t think it my place.”

  The countess sensed an unpleasant electricity pass between her daughter and niece. “But it does concern Anna Maria’s welfare.”

  “If the venture makes Antoni and Anna rich beyond measure, what can come from it other than good?”

  “I did not raise you to think that money is what constitutes nobility.”

  “It is a sad noble who has none,” Zofia said, turning to face the countess. “Money is the way of the new order, Mother. With the kind of wealth Antoni hopes to acquire, Anna will not have a care in the world. I should be so lucky as Anna.”

/>   “I don’t want that kind of money,” Anna said, displaying an uncharacteristic abruptness.

  Zofia’s gaze shifted to her cousin. “What you want, Anna,” she said, “is impossible.”

  The countess saw some masked tension pass between the cousins. “What is there to do?” she asked, to no one in particular.

  “I plan to go to Sochaczew,” Anna said.

  Zofia’s reaction was quick: “You can’t do that.”

  “I can. I will quite literally stand my ground. It is right, too, that I have my baby at home.”

  “Anna Maria, I, too, must oppose that plan,” the countess heard herself say. “Your husband will no doubt return here and he should find you here.” She paused a moment. “And there is the baby, dearest. Here in Warsaw you have midwives and doctors. Why, even I could provide more expertise with your confinement and delivery than you would find on your estate.”

  As it did in moments of distress, the countess’ heart beat irregularly, surging in rapid little fits, then slowing to skip a beat. Countess Gronska was truly torn. This man that she had encouraged Anna to wed had plans to destroy the Berezowski estate and tarnish the dignity of Anna’s family name and parents’ memory. What’s more, he had left her, running off to his mother in St. Petersburg. And now the countess found herself telling Anna to await her husband’s return. It was the conventional advice, the advice that a noblewoman had been bred to give. But she could not help but wonder: Is it the best advice?

  “And there is that Paduch culprit, too, Anna,” Zofia was saying. “I won’t have you alone on that estate while that man runs free. It’s too dangerous.”

  “Danger,” Anna said, “is not always outside the home.”

  Again, the countess detected a taut current flowing between Anna and Zofia. Again, she didn’t understand.