Lilya stares at Antonina as she climbs off the other side of the bed. Her face looks as if she’s been struck.
“And don’t come back unless I ask for you.” Antonina looks at her dress and Lilya’s belt on the end of the bed. She picks up the belt and unhooks the ring of keys. “You are my servant,” she says, folding her fingers over them. “Never forget that.” She throws the belt onto the floor.
Lilya is weeping now, tears running down her cheeks. “Tosya,” she says softly. “Please. Are we not friends? More than friends, after all we’ve been through together. Don’t treat me like this. After what happened to Lyosha, and to me, so long ago, how can you—”
Antonina won’t let Lilya play that old game. “I demand that you leave,” she interrupts. “We’ll talk about this tomorrow, in daylight.”
Lilya wipes her cheeks with her palms. “Yes, tomorrow. We’ll talk tomorrow. It’s been a long and difficult day, Tosya. You’re not thinking clearly.” She picks up her belt and boots and, in her petticoat, goes to the door, then looks over her shoulder. “You’re making a mistake,” she says. “Soon you will see your mistake and beg for my forgiveness. And I will forgive you. I will forgive you,” she repeats, and then is gone, in her stocking feet, into the dark hall.
Antonina walks to the door. She shuts it, turning the lock, then collapses against it, breathing hard. She doesn’t care what Grisha said, she must dismiss Lilya immediately. The woman is dangerous, she thinks, recalling Lilya’s face as she stared into hers on the bed. Dangerous.
Early the next morning, while Antonina is still asleep behind her locked door, Grisha comes to the house.
“It’s time, Lilya,” he tells her. Her face is blotchy, her eyelids swollen and red. “Today you’ll take me to Soso, and then we’ll get Mikhail Konstantinovich. Today he will be reunited with his mother.”
Lilya blinks, studying Grisha. Then she says, slowly, “No. We’ll do it tomorrow.”
“Why tomorrow?”
“I must have time to tell Soso we’re coming. There are things he will have to do—he and the others …” She pauses. “It must be tomorrow. And Lyosha will come with us.”
“No. Don’t involve Lyosha in this. He knows nothing, and need know nothing.”
Lilya’s lips grow even thinner. “I don’t go without Lyosha.”
Grisha grabs her arm. “First thing tomorrow morning, then. No later.”
“Yes. First thing,” she says.
When he’s gone, she listens at the foot of the stairs to make sure Antonina is still in her room. Then she goes into Konstantin’s study, quietly closing the door behind her. She sits at the broad desk, opening a drawer and taking out a pen and sheet of paper with the Mitlovsky crest at the top. She lifts the lid of the inkwell.
It takes her a long time to compose the simple letter; twice she crumples up the page and takes a fresh one. When she is done, she waits for the ink to dry, then folds the paper and ties it tightly with the fine twine from a spool in the drawer.
She replaces everything with care. In the kitchen she burns the two ruined sheets of paper in the stove. She puts on her cloak and trudges across the yard to the stable.
“Lyosha, there are some errands you must do.”
He puts down the curry comb and looks at Lilya.
“First,” she tells him, “ride to Borzik. As you enter the village, you will see an izba with a donkey tied outside. This is where you will find Soso.”
“Soso is living in Borzik?”
“Yes. Tell him that we will come for him—Grisha, you and me—tomorrow, mid-morning. Tell him the plan is finalized.”
“Plan? What do you mean?”
“Don’t question me, Lyosha. Just do as I say. If Soso doesn’t agree about tomorrow, or you can’t find him, then come back to me. But if he is there, and says he will wait for us tomorrow morning, then ride on, into Pskov.” Lilya pulls the tied letter from inside her cloak and holds it out to him. “You will take this letter to the authorities on Fedosovoy Prospekt. You must not tell anyone.”
Lyosha looks at the letter she holds out to him. All these secrets. He doesn’t like it. “Sister, I don’t—”
“It is to help us get Mikhail Konstantinovich back to his mother,” she says sternly. “Do you not want this?”
Lyosha remembers the chilling statements Lilya made after killing the musician: Kill me and you won’t find the boy. Kill me and you kill Mikhail Konstantinovich. “Of course I do, Lilya. But why must everything be done with such stealth? How is Soso involved?”
“This is all I can tell you. Should you not do as I ask of you, the countess will never see her son again. Do you understand?”
Lyosha nods, and takes the letter.
“No one can know,” Lilya repeats. “The letter must go directly into the hands of the authorities.” Her face is blank. “I can trust you, can I not?”
“Yes. You know that, Lilya.”
Lilya knocks on Antonina’s door and the countess tells her she doesn’t wish to see her.
“But last night you told me we would talk today,” Lilya says, her lips against the door.
“Send Nusha with warm water for me to bathe,” Antonina says, “and tea. Do as I say,” she orders, and Lilya leaves.
Later, after she has bathed and dressed and done her hair as best she can, Antonina goes downstairs. Wrapped in a warm cloak, she walks up and down the veranda. The yard is empty and still, the snow beaten down by horses’ hooves. The sky is a pale blue, streaked with cirrus clouds. She goes down the steps. Halfway across the yard she sees Fyodor. “Is Grisha in the stable?” she calls.
The man shakes his head. “I saw him earlier, but I don’t know where he is now.”
Surely Grisha has gone to get Mikhail, as he said he would. Antonina returns to her room. The waiting is so difficult. Once, she goes to the wardrobe. She knows there is nothing there—she threw the last bottle into the fire—but it makes her feel better to see nothing but her dresses and hats and slippers. She drinks many glasses of water, and manages to eat a few bites of the now-cold breakfast Nusha brought. She pins up a few loose strands of hair. She tries to rub a little colour into her cheeks. When Misha comes to her, she wants to look as well as she can.
The day passes. Grisha does not bring her son to her.
She refuses to give in to despair. She comforts herself with thoughts of Grisha coming to her with Misha the next day.
It’s all she has to hold on to.
Lilya is waiting for Grisha early the next morning, and as soon as he comes to the back door, she silently changes from her house work boots into her warm felt valenkis. She puts a heavy cloak over her shawl and ties her kerchief more tightly under her chin. “Show me the rubles,” she says.
“I have them. Just take me to Soso.”
They go to the stables. Fyodor and Lyosha are there.
Lyosha had done as his sister instructed. He looks from her to Grisha. There is such a terrible feeling surrounding his sister now, and it’s clear that things are very bad between her and Grisha. He can feel the tension hovering in the air, so tight it’s almost vibrating, like a thin wire in the wind.
“Fyodor,” Grisha calls. “Hitch the three Orlovs to the troika.”
On the way to Borzik, Lilya demands the money from Grisha. He’s brought his own money from the sale of his land, as well as the packet of rubles that belong to the countess—the amount he didn’t hand over to Lev in Tushinsk. He’d divided the rubles, and now takes out a small amount and hands it to Lilya. She sits alone on the back seat of the troika; Lyosha is driving. She opens the packet and looks through it. “This is all?”
Grisha doesn’t answer. He’s hoping that she and Soso and the others will take what they can get. This is their last chance: they will take it, because they want to leave Pskov. They don’t want to keep on hiding the boy. Better to take something than nothing.
“I know this can’t be all. I know you had land.”
Lyosha’s head tu
rns towards Grisha, his lips slightly parted. “Grisha?” he says, but Grisha is looking at Lilya.
“Land without serfs to work it is useless,” he says. “Take the money before I change my mind and tell the countess.”
“If Soso doesn’t see enough money, he won’t take us to Mikhail. I know you must have more. Give it to me,” Lilya says again.
“Why should I trust you? Do you think I haven’t thought this out? Don’t I know you might simply take the money and leave with Soso? No, Lilya. I hold anything more until I have the boy.”
Lyosha looks at Grisha again, then over his shoulder at Lilya. “Sister, what—”
Lilya is staring fiercely at Grisha. “Just drive,” she tells her brother, and he and Grisha turn to face the road ahead.
Lyosha steers the troika with the four reins, one for each outside trace horse and two for the centre horse in the shaft, under the duga. The duga—a semicircular wooden bar that connects the main shafts over the centre horse—is decorated with blue rosettes and hung with the traditional one hundred bells. The bells and fresh winter air remind Lyosha of happier times. His face is flushed slightly from the cold, but more from his concern about the conversation between his sister and Grisha.
Forty minutes later, they arrive in Borzik. Grisha and Lyosha wait outside while Lilya goes into the low hovel. A pig snuffles around its foundation. The donkey brays at it crankily, lips drawn back over its long yellow teeth. Soso comes out with Lilya after a few minutes. There is dried food in his beard, and his hair is sticking out at all angles, as though he’s been asleep. He looks up at Grisha. “You have the money?”
“I have it. Hurry up before I lose my patience.”
Soso looks at Lilya. “You saw it?”
“Yes,” she tells him. “Here is some of it.” She opens the packet and Soso looks at the rubles. “What of Lev and Edik?”
“I’ll divide the money with them later,” he says after a brief hesitation. And with that, Lilya knows that Soso doesn’t intend to share the money with anyone. They don’t know about this transaction. They may even have left the province. “Why is he here?” Soso asks, raising his chin at Lyosha.
“I wanted him with me.” Lilya is holding Soso’s bearskin coat.
Soso grabs it from her and shoves his arms into it. He kicks at the pig. It squeals and lumbers away. “We go towards Pskov,” he says, glancing at Lilya again, and something about the look Soso and Lilya exchange triggers a warning in Grisha.
“That’s where Mikhail Konstantinovich is held?” he asks.
“Why else would we go there?” Soso climbs into the front of the troika and pushes Lyosha out of the way, taking the reins. Lyosha moves into the back and sits beside Lilya.
As they pull away from the izba, Grisha takes out the loaded pistol he put inside his tunic before they left Angelkov. He has had it since he came to Angelkov from Moscow, but has never used it. He sits sideways on the front seat, facing Soso, and can also see Lilya, behind Soso. He holds the pistol low, aimed at Soso. Soso glances at it. “Just so that you understand, Soso,” Grisha says. “We are going to the boy.”
Soso shouts at the horses and they break into a trot.
After forty-five minutes, when the city is only a few versts away, Soso sharply turns the troika onto a narrow road leading into the forest. The horses have to make their way slowly, the trace horses swatted or scratched by encroaching branches. Nobody has spoken since they left Borzik.
They painstakingly travel through the scrubby forest. Grisha can smell Soso; the coat is filthy and matted. He doesn’t want to think it’s another trap: is Soso actually taking them to the other two men, to be robbed and beaten, or worse? He grips the pistol more tightly. He’s prepared to use it the instant he feels a threat. He can only hope—pray, as he did earlier—that they will see Mikhail Konstantinovich.
He can see Lilya looking into the trees and occasionally behind the troika. The anxiety is thick in the air. He wants the boy to be alive so badly, wants to return him to Antonina. What if Mikhail is not where Soso is taking them? Grisha’s worst fear is that he will die without knowing what happened to the boy or if he is ever reunited with his mother.
Grisha can’t bear to think of Antonina’s face should he not be returned. Instead, he envisions her expression when she sees her son. He knows that he will do anything for this to happen: he will give his life if it comes to that. And as they travel through the forest, he feels an unexpected and surprising exhilaration. It’s not just that he’s unafraid, but he’s actually anticipating what will happen next. Knowing that this will be the end of the whole mess brings its own relief. And he will accept death graciously if it means Mikhail can be returned to Antonina.
There is a wooden cross nailed on a tree to the right, with a rough sign announcing the Ubenovo Monastyr, and a track that looks like no more than a path for mushroom or berry picking. Soso pulls on the reins to stop the horses.
“They can’t go any farther,” he says, and climbs down.
Lyosha harnesses the horses to the trees. Then he and Grisha and Lilya follow Soso along the tiny rutted track, frozen and snowy. Within a few minutes they arrive at a clearing. The trees here have been cut back in a wide swath. There is a low round chapel with a small domed roof. The outbuildings have padlocks on the doors. It’s quiet, apart from the tinny calls of the hooded crows hunched against the cold in the bare birch and aspen.
Grisha still holds the pistol on Soso, glancing around the eerie place. Lilya too is looking around as if expecting to see someone.
“Father Saavich,” Soso calls into the still air, then again, louder. “Slava Saavich!”
A middle-aged priest in a threadbare cassock and crude boots, a wooden cross on a leather strip around his neck, opens the door of the chapel. His long grey hair and beard are greasy and stringy, his skin yellowed as if he suffers from a liver disorder.
“We’re here for him,” Soso says, and the priest looks from him to Grisha. His eyes rest on the pistol. “Did you hear me?” Soso asks. “We’re here for the boy. Bring him out.”
The priest is frowning at Soso as if he doesn’t recognize him.
“Saavich,” Soso says, his voice gruff, “are you deaf? Get the boy.”
Finally, the priest steps back inside the chapel. They all wait, heralded by the crows. It is a lonely and desolate place, the buildings ancient and rundown, the whitewash flaking.
“What kind of monastery is this?” Lyosha asks, his voice low.
Nobody answers.
“Soso, what kind of place is this?” Lyosha repeats.
“It’s for peasant boys, to train them into the monkhood so they can return to their villages as priests.”
“And they must be locked in?” Lyosha gestures to the huts.
As he finishes the sentence, the priest reappears, his hand clutching a boy’s shoulder.
At the sight of the boy, a deep pain grips Grisha’s throat, and he moves the pistol behind his back so as not to frighten him. He doesn’t know if, until this moment, he really believed he would ever see Mikhail Konstantinovich alive.
It is Mikhail, but not the vivacious child he remembers. This boy is taller, his wrists knobby as they protrude from the sleeves of the black robe, his hands red and chapped in the cold. His jaw is sharp, his chin pointed. His hair is a golden stubble.
His expression … it’s unfamiliar, stiff. But as Mikhail sees them—sees Grisha, and Lyosha, and Lilya—everything on the rigid face changes. It softens and loses the tightness, and he is once more Misha. He jerks forward as if to run to them as voices ring in the air, him calling them, them calling him, but the priest keeps his hold on the boy’s shoulder. His fingernails are long and dirty.
Silence again falls. Soso moves to stand in front of the priest and Misha.
Mikhail moves his head, trying to see around the bulky bear coat, staring at Grisha. Misha’s eyes glint, but he doesn’t cry. He straightens his shoulders and lifts his chin, and in spite of the ragge
d black robe with a rope around the waist, the shorn hair, he is once more the child of nobility. Grisha sees he wears only bark shoes; there are chilblains on the boy’s thin bare ankles. He feels a rush of pride, as if the boy were his. For the first time in his life, he wishes he had a son, a child of his own. “Mikhail Konstantinovich,” he says.
“Yes, Grisha. It’s me,” Mikhail says, his voice sure, but the words are heartbreaking, as if they all might have forgotten who he is. He breathes in short, shaky puffs, white in the frosty air.
Grisha understands that the boy is fighting to stay in control. Soso is between Mikhail and Grisha. The boy has learned to fear, and he understands this is a pivotal moment, that he mustn’t ruin what is so important. He is only eleven, but he is a child of good breeding. He understands this, Grisha thinks, in spite of what he must have been through.
“Now,” Soso says, looking back at Grisha. “You see for yourself that the boy is alive. Give me the money.”
“We have come for you, Mikhail Konstantinovich,” Grisha says, ignoring Soso, holding out his free hand, the other, with the pistol, still behind his back. “Come.”
“Not without the money,” Soso says.
Grisha takes out the packets of rubles, but at the same time he brings the pistol in front of him. He can’t point it at Soso; Mikhail is too near. He throws the packages on the ground.
Soso is looking behind Grisha. There is surprise, perhaps incredulity, on his face, and this makes Grisha turn to see what he’s looking at.
Lilya is holding a pistol at chest height with both hands. She points it at her husband. Soso reaches inside his bearskin coat, frowning. He takes one step. “Give me that, you fool woman.”
“Stay there, Soso,” Lilya says.
Soso stops, but shows his teeth at Lilya. “Lilyanka,” he says, drawing out the pet name. “Come. It’s me, Soso. We’re in this together, sweetheart. Are we not?”
The Lost Souls of Angelkov Page 43
