The White Russian

by Tom Bradby

  He turned and looked across the corridor toward his own bedroom. The door was shut.

  He hesitated for only a moment before opening it. If his father-or perhaps even his mother when she had been alive-had stripped his brothers’ room, then he was certain they would have done the same to his own.

  He was right, but the disappointment still tugged at something within him.

  There was a blanket at the end of the bed where his toy bear had once slept, and Ruzsky lay down and covered himself with it, his boots hanging over the end of the mattress.

  He closed his eyes.

  All Ruzsky could see and all he could feel was the ice-cold water against his clammy skin, his arms and legs swirling helplessly.

  He was drowning, eyes bulging and lungs empty. He was trying to breathe, but could not.

  They were watching him. His father, mother, Dmitri… they were standing there impassively, watching him die.

  Ruzsky felt the searing, wrenching pain in his chest.

  This was his punishment, and would be for all eternity.

  “Sandro!”

  The slap awoke him, but it was a moment before his surroundings began to coalesce. She was above him; it was her. It was Maria, her face soft and beautiful and etched with concern; Oleg behind her, a candle above his head.

  “Sandro?”

  He felt paralyzed. He became aware that he was soaked in sweat.

  “Sandro?”

  “Yes…”

  “You were screaming.”

  “I was drowning…”

  “Screaming and screaming. We couldn’t wake you.”

  “I’m sorry.” He looked into her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

  Maria turned toward Oleg. “It’s all right, Oleg. I’ll look after him now.”

  Oleg hesitated for a moment and then nodded. He looked at Maria with compassion and then handed her the candle.

  They listened to his footsteps recede.

  Maria put the candle on the side table and then leaned back over him. She put a warm hand against his frozen cheek.

  Ruzsky looked at her. He thought that it might be love he saw in her eyes.

  Maria blew out the candle, then slipped onto the bed, pulling him toward her, cradling his head on her breast.

  They lay still in the darkness.

  “Everything’s going to be all right, Sandro,” she whispered.

  “It will never be all right.”

  “It will. Believe me.”

  She tightened her grip on him.

  “My sister cried out,” Maria said. “But I could not stop her.”

  Ruzsky listened to the sound of her breathing.

  “I could never cry out,” Maria said.

  30

  A s the cold fingers of dawn crept through the shutters, Ruzsky slipped out of bed, crossed to his brothers’ room, and looked out over the gardens.

  Very little had changed. The hedgerows appeared overgrown, but everything was covered in a thick layer of snow, so it was hard to tell. Nothing moved by the lake. The ice seemed intent on squeezing the life out of the island at its center. The rowing boat that they had used as children had been discarded by the jetty.

  Ruzsky watched as the mist cleared, grudgingly making way for the hazy outline of the sun.

  At length, he turned and walked quietly back to his own room. He squatted down and watched her sleeping. She lay on her front, her face to the side and her lips slightly parted, her hair fanned across the pillow.

  He watched the rise and fall of her back.

  He reached forward and brushed a few strands of hair from her cheek. She did not wake.

  Ruzsky slipped along the landing and down the wide stairs.

  Oleg was dusting the busts in the hallway. “You weren’t made for this, old man,” Ruzsky said.

  “Someone has to do it.” Oleg looked up at him. “When the war is over you’ll all be back, and the Colonel will want to know why I’ve let the place go.”

  Ruzsky was moved by the old man’s stubborn hope that the old days would return.

  “I’m sorry,” Ruzsky said. “The horses. I didn’t-”

  “It’s all right,” Oleg snorted. “I’ve not taken leave of my senses.”

  “I’ll… if she wakes, I’ve gone out… just for a walk.”

  “As you wish.”

  Ruzsky opened the big front door and strolled out onto the driveway. It was much lighter now. He could see the decay in the woodwork of the windows.

  Ruzsky made his way slowly down to the stables. The roof here was in much better condition and he recalled Dmitri once telling him it was the last money his father had agreed to spend on the place.

  Ruzsky checked on the horses and then moved down the corridor between the stalls and unlocked the double doors.

  The family’s troika and sledge stood before him, exactly as he remembered them. He ran his hand slowly along the solid wood front of the sledge and then leaned over to feel the leather of the forward seat. The woodwork was painted red and gold. The bells which they had attached to it at Christmas hung on the wall, alongside a couple of spare wheels for the troika and an array of leather harnesses. Ruzsky gave one a tug. The leather was still supple.

  He turned. Oleg was watching him.

  “Still the same,” Ruzsky said.

  “Still the same.”

  Ruzsky leaned back against the sledge. “Do you remember how Dmitri liked to drive it?” He thought of them all in the back as the horses charged down the hill toward the gates.

  “He was a fine horseman, your brother,” Oleg said. “Always was, even as a boy.” He shook his head. “No discipline for learning, but a natural.”

  “We should hitch it up and go down to the village.”

  “We could do that,” Oleg said, but Ruzsky could sense the hesitation in his voice.

  “Well, perhaps we should ride down, anyway.”

  Oleg didn’t answer.

  “You don’t want to go?”

  Oleg avoided his eye.

  “What is it? We’re not welcome? Is that it?”

  “There are a few bad…” Oleg shook his head. “One or two of the young ones. Some of those who used to be employed at the works.”

  “Used to be?”

  “Didn’t get on with the new owner.”

  Ruzsky stepped away from the sledge. “What new owner?”

  “Your father sold the glassworks, Sandro.”

  “When?”

  “Before the war.”

  Ruzsky stared at him. He could scarcely believe it. The employment provided by the factory-and the benevolent way in which the family ran it-had been the bedrock of the social fabric of the entire area.

  “I’m told the man was offered the house as well, but did not want it.”

  “He was offered the house?”

  Oleg was still embarrassed. “So they say.”

  “Who was it?”

  “From Moscow. It’s all changed, Sandro.”

  Ruzsky glanced up at the old muskets along the wall above him. “Have you still got a working rifle?”

  Oleg shook his head. “No good to me. My eyes.”

  “But you’ve got one?”

  “In the house. You never know when the swine will come back.”

  “Come on, then, let’s see if we can find ourselves some lunch.”

  They walked out into the sunshine and Ruzsky waited by the edge of the house for Oleg to get his rifle. When he returned with his old blue hunting coat, they walked down to the end of the drive and turned onto the path that led up the hill.

  Oleg did not ask him why they avoided the much quicker route beside the lake.

  They climbed up through the silent pine forest, the snow on the path so thick in places that they were almost stopped in their tracks. They reached a fork, where the path to their left led directly back to the lake and the garden. Ruzsky stopped and took the rifle from his friend and the three bullets that he offered. “Better shoot straight,” the old man said, g
rinning.

  “Why change the habit of a lifetime?” Ruzsky smiled.

  “Mmm. Always a fine shot.” Oleg raised a bony finger to the sky. He had taught all three boys to hunt. “The best. You’d have made a fine soldier, better than your brother.”

  Ruzsky looked at the sun glinting through the trees. It was much warmer today.

  They walked on and stopped in a clearing a hundred yards farther up. Oleg was short of breath as they looked back down toward the house. Ruzsky pushed a bullet into the breech and closed the bolt.

  They waited.

  The forest was silent.

  “A hare would do,” Ruzsky said.

  He walked on, cresting the hill and emerging into the larger clearing where his father had helped the estate workers build the tree house.

  Ruzsky had secretly hoped that this remnant of their childhood, at least, had survived, and his disappointment was unexpectedly bitter when he saw that it had gone. There were a few fallen pieces of rotting wood, but nothing more.

  He rested the rifle on his shoulder.

  “What happened to the dogs, Oleg?”

  The old man shook his head.

  Ruzsky sighed deeply. He saw movement on the other side of the clearing. “Deer,” he whispered.

  Ruzsky and Oleg stalked the deer for an hour before they got a clear shot. Ruzsky took it through the heart.

  Oleg went back to get one of the horses to drag it home and Ruzsky hunted on alone, roaming through the silent forest, the sun upon his face. An hour or more later, he returned to the tree house clearing, sweating from the exertion. He wiped his brow and looked around him.

  The only sound was the drip of melting snow falling from the pines.

  Ruzsky walked to the far side of the clearing and then back down the path. He stopped a few yards short of the point at which he knew he would get his first glimpse of the house.

  Past and present merged, just as they had in the corridor last night. It was not memory that overpowered him, but the pervasive sense that he was rooted in a place and time that he had never left.

  He began to walk faster and then broke into a run, the sun still bright above him, the house dancing through the trees. Ruzsky took the right-hand fork, running hard through thick snow.

  He reached the garden, breathing heavily. Maria stood on the veranda. Ten yards from the jetty, he stopped. He could see the boat. He could see the island.

  Ruzsky took another step, his feet leaden. He looked at the ice. He turned and walked up the slope, toward the line of trees.

  Ruzsky found himself slowing down again, as if trying to force his way against an invisible wind. He could see the stone.

  He pushed his legs forward until he was standing in front of it, his head bent. He read the name, in gold, and saw the small mound of snow and the dead flowers in the vase.

  Ilya Nikolaevich Ruzsky

  7.6.1882-3.4.1889

  Beloved son

  Ruzsky knelt and prayed. He had an image of his brother’s impish smile and recalled the way they had indulged him and fought for the right to be his protector in any battle.

  He remembered Ilusha’s kindness at Christmas and the thoughtful way in which he would construct his own presents for his brothers with the help of Oleg or one of the other servants.

  Ruzsky fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a tiny wooden snuff box that Ilusha had made for him over that last winter. He kissed it once, rubbed his thumb across its smooth ebony top, and then slipped it back into his pocket.

  He stood, wiping a tear from the corner of his eye.

  He leaned down and touched the gravestone.

  “I miss you.” Ruzsky began to weep gently, hanging his head. “Oh God, how I miss you.”

  He waited until the tears had stopped and then wiped his eyes once more and turned around. He walked back toward the house. Maria watched him, but he did not acknowledge her.

  He crossed the veranda, stepped into the drawing room, and then walked up to Ilusha’s room on the floor above.

  He climbed onto Ilusha’s bed by the window and curled into a ball.

  31

  M aria stood in the doorway. Ruzsky would have found anyone else’s presence grotesquely intrusive, but he straightened and leaned back against the wall.

  Maria sat down on the bed beside him. “What happened?” she asked.

  “It was spring,” he said. He breathed in deeply. He had never recounted or explained any part of this before, not even to Irina. “Father told us not to play on the ice. We used to skate all the time in winter, but we had never been here during spring and he told us that once the weather was warm, the ice became thin, even if the lake still appeared to be frozen. He told all of us, but especially me. I was the oldest and he believed that carried a special responsibility. ‘Make sure that your brothers don’t go on the ice, Sandro.’ ”

  Ruzsky stared at the opposite wall. “My father and some of the estate workers had built us a camp on top of the hill. We’d been there all morning-the three of us-and we were coming back for lunch. We reached the lake. I realized I had forgotten my jacket, so I told them to go on home and I would catch up.”

  Ruzsky breathed in deeply. He stood and walked to the window.

  “I went back to the tree house and I got my jacket. I was running down the hill. The air was quite warm and I noticed that wild strawberries were beginning to emerge from the melting snow. The forest was silent. Completely silent. And then I heard his cry. Just a brief, startled yell. For a moment, I stopped, paralyzed. Then I ran, tearing through the trees as I heard Dmitri’s shout for help.”

  Ruzsky could almost see Dmitri now, standing there beside the lake.

  “I came into the clearing and I saw it all. I didn’t pause. I ran out onto the jetty. Dmitri was paralyzed. I went on my belly and crawled onto the ice. I was shouting at Dmitri to get help. And then Ilusha slipped away and I stood and ran toward him and the ice gave way and it was still so cold and somehow I knew that…” Ruzsky stopped. “Ilusha couldn’t swim, you see.”

  Ruzsky stared at the lake. “It is deep and I dived. It was dark and I held my breath and held it and held it.”

  Ruzsky looked over at his brother’s gravestone.

  “I was tired and cold. So cold.”

  “And there was a moment when you wanted to go with him…”

  Ruzsky did not answer.

  “I could see Father’s hand outstretched toward me,” he said, “and I knew that by taking it, I would never escape.”

  She stood behind him, her arms around his waist, lips soft against the nape of his neck. “Ilusha would not have wanted an older brother who was a coward.”

  “But that is what I am.”

  “No.” She tightened her grip. “No, you’re not.”

  Ruzsky tried to control his breathing.

  “Why did Ilusha go onto the ice?” she asked.

  He remained silent.

  “And why didn’t Dmitri stop him?”

  Ruzsky still did not turn around. “What does it matter?”

  “Because you hold yourself responsible.”

  “Because I am responsible.” He stared at the side of the lake where Dmitri had been standing. “Perhaps Dmitri was doing something else.”

  “What?”

  Ruzsky cast his eyes across the garden to the clearing. “Perhaps he did not think that the ice would break.”

  “But why did Ilusha go onto it if your father had told you not to?”

  Ruzsky shook his head. His mind felt numb. “I don’t know.”

  “Did he often disobey your father?”

  He shook his head once more. “No. Not about something like that. As good as gold, we always used to say.” Ruzsky turned to her. “Why could you not cry out?”

  “For the same reason that you can’t, except in your sleep.”

  “Your parents?”

  “My father was killed in an accident, my mother died of grief. I saw her face in the doorway of my room and I knew.
I knew. And I promised myself I would never allow myself to be hurt again.”

  They were standing inches apart, her eyes upon his. Her breasts rose and fell, her breath warm upon his face. “And I hurt you?”

  She did not answer, but he touched her face, a cold hand against warm cheeks. She pressed it to her, resting her head upon his chest.

  They rode hard against the setting sun that afternoon, weaving through the woods before picking up the road to the house from the village in the gathering darkness.

  Ruzsky brought his horse alongside hers and once again jumped across.

  Maria leaned against him, one hand cupping the back of his head, the skin of her neck soft against his lips.

  Ruzsky curled his arm more tightly around her waist.

  “Hello, my wounded soldier,” she said. She turned around gently and placed her moist, warm mouth against his. She arched her back, a palm against his cheek. “No one has ever loved you before, have they, Sandro?”

  He did not answer.

  Maria turned around again and they rocked with the motion of the horse all the way back to the house, the sunset washing the horizon a blazing red.

  Oleg was waiting for them at the front door to take the horses. Ruzsky could tell from his eyes that he knew, but there was no hint of censure. “A fire is laid in the drawing room, Master Sandro, the venison cooked. I shall leave it to you,” he said. He glanced at Maria. Their faces were flushed with exertion and excitement.

  Inside, they discovered that Oleg had lit a fire in both the drawing and the dining room, where the table was laid as it always had been, groaning with silver, the venison arranged on a giant salver at its center.

  Ruzsky shut the door behind them and then she was in his arms, with sudden, passionate urgency. He lifted her against the door as her lips sought his. She tugged at his belt, one hand around his back, the other seeking him, pulling at his trousers until he was free and then melting into him, her face against his shoulder, her warm breath upon him.

  “God, Sandro,” she said.

  She traced his neck with her fingertips, her mouth warm as he held her, their bodies fused gently together. He walked with her to the great bear rug in front of the roaring hearth and, without parting, he sank to his knees and placed her very carefully onto the ground.