Push Not the River

by James Conroyd Martin

  “You are certainly not to blame, Witek. I will be fine. I’m only grateful for your intervention . . . and for Antek’s.”

  Witek turned to his son. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ve become a man.” The simplicity and straightforward-ness of the statement made it all the more poignant. “And you’ve already proven your worth,” he said now to Anna, “as a countess and as a woman. Tomorrow, I think, my son Antek will escort you to Częstochowa, where you should be able to find a way back to Warsaw.”

  Anna’s heart raced at the thought. “Oh, thank you,” she said. Later she would wish that she had said so much more to show her appreciation. Witek and his clan had plucked her from certain death in the snow.

  “Were you not mending, I should have done so at the first. It seems I placed too much faith in the priest, too. I’ll see you in the morning, then.”

  “Witek,” Anna piped, putting her hand on his sleeve.

  “Yes, Countess?”

  “Don’t be too hard on Stefan.”

  He studied her for a moment, then smiled. “When you leave us, Countess, it will be our loss.” He turned to leave, and Janka timidly followed suit.

  “Janka,” Anna called softly.

  The old woman turned, her face a composite of curiosity and fear.

  “Thank you,” Anna whispered. She knew that Nelka would not be quick to forget her friend’s betrayal.

  The woman’s oval mouth spread into a thin, toothless smile. She curtsied clumsily and retreated, close upon Witek’s heels.

  40

  Zofia sat complacently in the carriage she had been lucky to hail for her return trip to Wilanów. She looked down and smiled. There in the cup of her hand were the two earrings. The attendant had gone to look for her, or so she said, as soon as she found them. And it may be true, Zofia thought, for she had left the ball almost immediately after stopping in the lounge.

  Just a minor setback, she thought. Now her thoughts returned to Jan. Wouldn’t it be ironic if this little interim allowed him to become more responsive? What kind of lover would he be? The cold air and the exhilaration at losing and finding the rubies had breathed new life into her own desires.

  For the second time that night Zofia dismissed a driver at Jan Stelnicki’s door.

  She was already reaching for the door handle when she realized there was no trace of the mask she had used to keep the door from closing. Heart racing, she pulled at the heavy door.

  Locked!

  Zofia stepped back to look at the windows. They were dark on all three levels. Returning to the door in disbelief, she tried it again, to no avail. She felt her temper rising. What had happened? Had the old woman risen in the middle of the night and found the door wedged open? Or had Jan recovered enough to find his way downstairs?

  She sounded the knocker several times and waited. Nothing. She sounded it again. The old woman had probably locked her out, Zofia decided. Jan couldn’t have done it; he was too drugged. And now she had gone back to her room in the back of the house and gone to sleep. Even if she were awake, Henryk had told Zofia that she was hard of hearing. Damn her!

  Something on the ground flashed in the moonlight. Zofia bent over and picked up the crumpled mask.

  She turned back to the door and knocked again, knowing even as she did so that this little venture had come to an unforeseen end. Angrily, Zofia picked up her skirts and started down the long cobblestone incline winding to the bridge that would take her across the river to Praga. Her temples pulsed in pain at the thought that the propitious evening had come to such ignominy. She could only hope no one she knew would see her walking home. It would be the final humiliation.

  Two days later, when Zofia returned the necklace and earrings, Princess Charlotte Sic told her, between fits of laughter, that the jewels were glass, beautifully colored and faceted, but glass nonetheless.

  41

  ANNA AND ANTEK MADE STEADY progress toward the city of Częstochowa, where it rests on and among the limehills that extend from Kraków to Wielun on the River Warta. Antek told her a great many details about the monastery Jasna Gorna, or Bright Hill, situated on land given to the Pauline Fathers in 1382. The Black Madonna, the icon of the Virgin that Anna so longed to see, found its home there years later, and the site became the place of pilgrimage for generations of Poles.

  “There’s the bell tower!” Antek announced, as the sleigh came to an arc in the road.

  Anna stared in amazement. They were still some distance away, and yet the chapel’s majestic steeple rose out of the white wilderness like a statue sculpted from a mountain.

  “It has over 500 steps should you like to see the bell, Countess.”

  “We haven’t the time. And it is the Black Madonna I want to see.”

  “They say that the icon is a guide for those who have lost their way.”

  “Then I shall be glad to see her.”

  Anna thought back to her parting from the clan that morning. It had been bittersweet and tearful.

  Around her middle, Anna had strapped the goatskin that Lutisha had given her—a lifetime ago, it seemed. The old woman was as shrewd as Owl Eyes, she realized, for the skin had proven a lifesaving device when she stood alone against winter’s harshest elements. Anna dressed then in her brown traveling dress that the women had repaired and restored. Still, she vowed to destroy it upon arriving home because she wanted no such memento of the trip or what happened at the carriage site. Magda and Wera braided Anna’s hair as directed by their mother, encircling the braids around her ears as protection from the cold.

  Lucyna approached Anna during the braiding process, her face a vision of doom.

  “What is it?” Anna pressed. “Tell me!”

  “Oh, Countess,” she moaned, “look what’s become of your lovely boots.” The woman clutched them to her ample bosom. The boots were discolored, misshapen, and shrunken; utterly useless. “Oh, I am so sorry,” she wailed as if she were to blame, “we’ve tried to clean them and oil the leather, but . . . well, you see how they are.” She started to cry now.

  “Ha!” Anna laughed. “Aren’t they a sight? Don’t worry, Lucyna. I didn’t plan to wear them. I’ve always hated those boots.” She laughed now in a conspiratorial tone. “They pinched my toes! If it’s all right, I’ll wear these marvelous fur slippers you’ve fashioned for me.”

  Lucyna blinked back a tear, nodded, and gave a faint smile.

  Anna took one of the boots and held it up to Lucyna’s daughters. “Look, Wera and Magda, it would take a strange foot to fit this now, don’t you think?” Anna and the girls laughed together, and soon Lucyna relaxed and joined in the mirth.

  Anna wished that Nelka’s defenses could be melted as easily, but she was nowhere to be found that morning. Neither was Stefan. Of course, a part of her hated Nelka for the happenings of the previous night, but she would not leave the clan, who had restored her to life, with ill feelings. Nelka had acted out of ignorance, Stefan out of emotion. Anna would not sit in judgment of either.

  After a hearty breakfast, the rest of the clan assembled in the stable area to see Anna on her way. Antek was seeing to the horses and sleigh.

  Anna had broken in pieces the fine gold chain that had held her mother’s cameo; there were six gifts to be given and Anna dared not give up the coins that still might be needed for the trip back to Warsaw. She had decided to present the gifts to the oldest woman of each family.

  The women were astonished at the gesture, refusing at first to accept the little lengths of gold, and Anna had to catch their hidden hands and slap the tokens into their palms. Janka, too, balked at the gift, but Anna succeeded at last in prying open her fingers. When the woman looked down, she stared dumbly at two lengths of chain, then looked to Anna who shushed her with only her eyes. “Take the second length,” Anna whispered, “and after I am gone, give it to Nelka.”

  Janka nodded, her eyes as large as moons.

  Old minds and hearts are di
fficult to change, Anna reasoned, but that should not preclude the attempt.

  When the gifts were given, she approached Owl Eyes. “No amount of gold would be enough to repay you, my friend. I owe you my life.”

  The bushy eyebrows lifted. “Godspeed, Countess. May yours be a happy and healthy life. Above all, above everyone, trust your heart, milady.”

  Anna hugged him.

  “I owe you no less,” she said to Witek as she embraced him in front of his clan.

  His face turned bright red. He shifted from one foot to another, like an anxious horse.

  “Fair is fair,” she said. “If you remember, it was I who nearly died of embarrassment at our first meeting.”

  “Goodbye, Countess.” It was all he could bring himself to say.

  Then it was Anna’s turn to be surprised. When she climbed into the sleigh, Lucyna, Janka, Magda, little Wera, and two other women crowded into the cushioned seats with her. Not understanding their intentions, she could only stare dumbfounded.

  The women giggled at her puzzlement. It was Lucyna who explained: “It is good luck, Countess, for people to crowd themselves into a sleigh or carriage with the traveler. Good sense, too, because on such a cold journey the warmth of the persons will linger.”

  Anna laughed appreciatively while the chattering women enfolded blankets and furs around her. For a moment, it seemed to her that the clanswomen and she were as one, unaware of classes designated by society.

  “It is time,” Antek said, his preparations made.

  Anna disregarded social boundaries now and insisted on kissing the women on both cheeks. Tears were flowing freely down the clanswomen’s faces by the time Antek helped them to alight the sleigh.

  When only Anna was left, Antek climbed in.

  Little Wera looked up at Anna with great sorrowful eyes. “Are you coming back, Countess?” Her tiny voice broke with emotion.

  “I don’t know, little one,” Anna said.

  Suddenly, the great doors were open and the men were pushing the sleigh out to where the snow made the effort unnecessary and the horses started at a lively gait. Anna turned around to wave.

  Years later she would remember the clan huddling there against the cold: men waving, women holding rags to their eyes. “Godspeed!” they cried. “Godspeed the Countess!”

  “I’ll not forget you!” Anna called. “If you ever come to Warsaw, come see me!”

  Anna turned around in her seat. Antek was absorbed for the moment in the horses and pathways. Anna silently called herself a fool to have said such a thing. She knew that it was doubtful that anyone of the clan had ever been to Warsaw or would have reason or inclination to travel to that faraway city in the future. The women, especially, had probably never ventured farther than the huge gardens surrounding the castle. Such limited confines are theirs, she thought, until the earth, which they have tilled, becomes for them the most limited of confines, their graves. Oh, how I envy them, but at the same time I know that I want more out of my life—for me and for my child.

  Now, as they neared Częstochowa, Anna asked a question that had been haunting her. “Antek, how is it that Nelka hates me so?”

  Antek sighed. “It isn’t you, Countess. Really it isn’t.”

  “Oh, you think not?”

  “It’s the whole fabric of the aristocracy she hates. She can’t be rational about it. You see, years ago when she was a young and vital woman there lived a duchess in the next parish who took a fancy to Nelka’s husband—my grandfather. The noblewoman connived with the nobles upon whose estate my grandparents depended and he was made her footman.” Antek shot Anna a meaningful glance. “Of course, her real motive was very different.”

  “What happened?”

  “While he was away, my grandmother gave birth to Witek. My grandfather wanted only to return to his little family, but the duchess wouldn’t hear of it. When he attempted to leave, he met with a riding accident. He died. Nelka never believed it an accident, of course.”

  Anna thought it a wretched story, a throwback to the Dark Ages. “And Nelka’s life was ruined,” she said. “So there lies the explanation.”

  “It was a terrible thing, Countess. But she was a young woman and it needn’t have ruined her life. She might have put her energies into creating a new life. Instead, she allowed the tragedy to harden her, to embitter her. The story may explain her behavior, but it doesn’t excuse it.”

  “One’s first love can be the strongest, Antek. Never to be forgotten, never to be replaced.”

  Antek’s silence seemed to attest to his surprise at Anna’s role of apologist for his grandmother.

  They traveled in silence for a short while. Anna thought that the story of Nelka and the noblewoman might be transformed into a wonderful myth. But what happy ending might she be able to supply?

  Antek broke the silence. “While my grandmother might never forgive, I must tell you that Stefan is sorry he ever listened to her.”

  “Is he?”

  “Most ashamed, Countess. He was too humiliated to come this morning to see us off. He was certain you would not forgive him. He thinks himself unworthy of forgiveness.”

  “I see.”

  “It seems a cowardly thing, I know. But Stefan is not really a coward. We are both joining the Patriots’ Army.”

  Anna’s mouth fell open. “Oh, God be with you, Antek. God be with you both! And you are to tell your brother that I harbor no ill feelings, do you hear?”

  Antek’s appreciative smile told Anna just how much he loved his twin.

  Further talk of the patriots’ cause inevitably led Anna to think of Jan Stelnicki. She wondered if she were to become another Nelka, an old woman bitterly unhappy because her love had been scuttled.

  The sleigh now passed through the gates that led to the chapel. The trip had taken less than a day.

  On the very day after the masquerade, Count Jan Stelnicki became a commissioned officer—a lieutenant in the light cavalry—by the sword of Tadeusz Kościuszko himself. He felt proud and richly honored, but he celebrated little because the effects of the drug—nausea and headache—stayed with him, had done so all day.

  What had been placed in his drink at the masquerade? It certainly wasn’t mere alcohol that had such effects. He remembered nothing of the trip home.

  Of course, he remembered Theodora, the mysterious French guest seated next to him. And his friends told him later of how she had taken control when he appeared ill at the table. She assured everyone she would see that he got safely home. No one knew who she was.

  So, Jan thought now, she took me home, somehow got me to the second floor and into bed. And then disappeared. It was the strangest thing.

  To make it even stranger, all day—even during the ceremony—he kept having a hazy and half-remembered vision of the woman portraying Theodora standing at the end of his bed. The disturbing thing was that the unmasked woman’s visage was Zofia’s. The laughing dark eyes would be hard to duplicate. How was it possible? Had it been she? No, of course not, he decided. It could only have been some drug-induced delusion that caused him to transpose Zofia’s features to the mystery woman’s mask.

  That he should have such a delusion about Zofia, however, disturbed him in no little way.

  “Welcome, pilgrims!” It was a very tall and lean priest who met Anna and Antek at the entrance to the chapel. “I’m sorry, but you’ve missed noon services.”

  “That’s all right, Father,” Antek said. “The Countess would still wish to see the icon of the Black Madonna.”

  The priest seemed surprised at the mention of Anna’s title. He appraised her with skepticism, then glanced at the unpretentious horse and sleigh. “I’ve only just locked up. The next service will be at six.”

  “Oh, but I’ve so longed to see her,” Anna said. “Father, might you give me but a few minutes?”

  “You see,” Antek said, “the Countess is . . . in frail health. She is to have a child.”

  “I see,” the priest
said, glancing at Anna. “And what is the Countess’ name?”

  “Anna Maria Berezowska, Countess of Sochaczew.” Anna answered formally because she suspected he was looking for some proof of her nobility in her speech or manner. She tried to appear assertive. And yet she hoped he didn’t misinterpret for insincerity her nervousness at not using her married name.

  “Sochaczew is not far from Warsaw, is it, Countess?”

  Anna smiled. He was testing her. “A morning’s ride in good weather. I am spending the winter in Warsaw.”

  The priest’s suspicion seemed to abate, and Antek pushed the issue before he could devise another question. “Might the Countess have just a few minutes for a prayer and the lighting of a candle?”

  He studied Anna another moment, then nodded. “Yes, of course, she may.” He turned and unlocked the door. “Go in, Countess Berezowska, and do not feel rushed. I am in no hurry. There are five altars. Follow the main aisle all the way down and you will find her.”

  Anna thanked him and entered the dark and cold chapel, her fur-wrapped feet making her steps eerily silent. She passed through the vestibule and paused at the entrance to the chapel proper, allowing her eyes to adjust to the dimness. An iridescent glow from the stained glass windows and the flickering of many votive candles supplied a magical kind of light.

  Anna could hear Antek conversing with the priest. She heard the mention of Father Florian’s name. She knew Antek was asking about Father Florian and possible plans to restore her to Warsaw. Despite the importance of those things to her, she didn’t attempt to listen further or process the information. The chapel already had a mysterious hold on her and some force drew her forward.

  Anna walked slowly up the aisle. The chapel was quite elaborate. She had never seen anything like it. There was the Cathedral in Warsaw, of course, but it was so huge and grand that within it one felt merely lost or insignificant. It did not have the sense of warmth and immediacy that she felt here. The walls of the chapel were filled with votives—chasubles, tapestries, fabrics, embroideries, weapons, crowns, and precious stones—all given in thanks for the grace and miracles received. And there was some indefinable and mystical presence to the place.