The Midwife of St. Petersburg

by Linda Lee Chaikin

  “After last night, do you make light of such a matter?”

  His grin faded, and a furrow appeared between his brows as he glanced toward the road.

  “Yes … last night. Not good, Sister. Not good at all.”

  “What happened to Lenski? And did Ivanna come?”

  “She’s here and safe. She had nothing to do with what happened last night. They are both in hiding. For my safety as well as theirs, I wasn’t told where they are. Nor do I care to know right now. The secret police have their ways of making most any man tell all.”

  “If Ivanna’s in hiding with Lenski, his reputation with the Okhrana will place her in danger too. You haven’t told me whether she’s also a revolutionary.”

  He looked away and shrugged, pulling the stopper from his canteen of water. “They would question her most severely if they thought she had information.” He scowled. “If they associate you with me and Lenski, they could do the same to you. Ilya was right. I was a fool to bring you there.” He drank thirstily.

  Karena glanced toward the road uneasily. “Mama sent me to call you back to the house. There may be serious trouble. Officers in the secret police are in town asking questions. One of them is Tatiana’s fiancé, Colonel Kronstadt.” She explained the message from their father. Sergei listened, shifting his sickle as he looked toward the village.

  “Yes, I saw the soldiers ride in early this morning. As for trouble, there’s always a cauldron brewing somewhere. If it’s not terror from the autocrats, then it’s terror from the corrupt police, or war with Germany, or famine and death.” He looked toward the horizon, as if he could see German and Austrian troops. “There is no hope for this life, Sister.”

  “I’ve never heard you so pessimistic. If you believe there’s no hope, why risk so much for a revolution?”

  “Sometimes I wonder why I bother. If it weren’t for Papa, I’d leave Russia tonight. I mean it. I’d go to London and try to emigrate to New York. Freedom is already planted there.”

  “Uncle Matvey believes in hope for this life, and even afterward. I’m finding the research he’s doing most interesting. God has a plan to reveal himself to mankind, a Messiah who will be a Redeemer. He hasn’t wound up his universe like a clock and gone off and left us. Maybe you should talk more seriously to Uncle about what he’s discovering.”

  One corner of his mouth tipped. “I’ll read his book when it comes out—if it doesn’t bore me to death.”

  She folded her arms. “You sound just like Tatiana. Sometimes you see nothing but what’s before your eyes. Uncle says God’s dealt with every generation of the past, and we’ve many lessons to learn from them. We’re not the smartest generation that ever lived.”

  He smiled affectionately. “Lectures, lectures. My sister the preacher.”

  “Well, we must have hope, Sergei. People cannot live without hope—a cause to live for and even to die for, if need be. But the sacrifice must be worthy of the cause.”

  “You are whistling in the dark, as the Americans say.” He popped the stopper back into his canteen. “Think about it, Karena. There is little hope for us. Russia’s army is not ready for war. We will be defeated. Then what?”

  “To say such a thing borders on treason.”

  “You remember what Uncle Viktor said? It was months ago when he came to visit, but it still holds true. Did he not say what I’m saying now? His words were softer, more palatable, but the truth comes out the same.”

  “Boris received papers this morning to report for military duty,” she said dully. “Natalia is most unhappy. You are likely to be called too. If not today, tomorrow.”

  He shook his head. “Uncle Viktor will see that I am not conscripted. Papa told me so this morning.”

  She wondered how Papa could be so confident. Were they not all depending too much on the position and authority of General Viktor Roskov?

  “I am to be pressed back into the university to become the family lawyer. The bourgeois!” he scorned. “And I ask you, Sister, this war with Germany and Austria, why should Russians fight for France? Tell me that! Napoleon hurled his might against us, did he not? Had it not been for Russia’s glorious winter—”

  “France is now Russia’s friend. You know that. What will you do about last night?”

  “Do not speak of the matter. You were not there, remember?”

  “The officers will ask questions,” she warned. “You must be ready. Papa has a plan to protect you.”

  His eyes narrowed. “A plan?”

  “Mama did not explain. She’s worried. You’d best go home quickly.”

  He frowned. “Papa is not a Bolshevik. He should not get involved.”

  “He is already involved, as am I. Nothing could go wrong, you told Ilya, remember? And now look. You see what happens when we associate with rebels?”

  “Right now, I’m only wondering why the person watching Grinevich failed to warn Lenski in time. Perhaps he turned traitor. Am I to blame because that jackal Grinevich hurls himself into the meeting? A goat among starving lions will be pounced on every time. Still, I had nothing to do with Grinevich’s black eye.”

  “He has more than a black eye. His ribs are broken. He has a concussion.”

  His mouth hardened. “I’ll lose no sleep over him. He’s a spy for the czar.”

  “For the czar! Grinevich? How do you know that?”

  “I know. That’s all.”

  “He doesn’t seem wise enough for that.”

  “Spies watch us all the time. ‘Shadow people,’ Lenski calls them. They set traps. They join our ranks. The czar’s police are all alike, sworn to our demise, to our silence. And that includes Tatiana’s man, Kronstadt. The autocrats have nothing on me. Even so, I’ll go back to the house. I want to know what Papa wrote in that message.”

  Sergei flicked her braid, grinned bravely, and left her on the harvest path holding his sickle. She watched him walk briskly across the field toward the manor.

  Heaviness weighed upon her. She didn’t share his confidence.

  She took in the bountiful scene of harvest, and a sadness descended upon her. It was carried on the wind that rushed through the sea of grain, in the leaves turning from green to sienna, and in the call of a solitary bird escaping the approaching winter.

  She remembered a verse Uncle Matvey had underlined in his Bible, and the words struck her now with their sudden, personal meaning.

  “The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved,” she murmured.

  Karena neared her uncle’s bungalow and saw that the window curtains were down. Most likely being washed again. Grandmother Jilinsky complained the blowing dust made them impossible to care for properly.

  Nostalgia stirred as her gaze stopped on the apple tree growing close to the side of the bungalow. In summer it cast a pleasant shade over the porch, and in winter it stood strong in a world of limitless white. When the snow arrived this year, only Grandmother Jilinsky would be living there. Uncle Matvey would be gone, and Ilya would be on the front lines in Poland. There’d be no time on the battlefield for his favorite pastime of reading Tolstoy and Dostoevsky and writing poetry.

  “Karena?”

  She turned. Ilya walked toward her, the wind flapping his sweat-stained shirt. She was disturbed, for as much as she’d tried in the last few years to think of him as her love, somehow the feelings were not there. She’d known him since they were children, and he was more like a brother. She sighed, trying to shut out the image of Alex on the road that morning. She’d deliberately kept him out of her mind all summer, but it seemed he could walk in anytime he wished and unsettle her heart for days.

  She waited for Ilya, another reluctant farmer. She forced a smile, seeing the dust rise from under his heels. His hair glinted with reds and golds, and his eyes made her think of pools of water—silent, still. He was tall and lean, strong from his years of working the land.

  Ilya, too, had met disappointment this summer. He’d finally given up pursuing po
etry and writing at Warsaw University, where once Uncle Matvey had held his professorship. He had resigned himself to the family’s expectation of managing the land and said he was grateful to Josef for the opportunity.

  Her heart sympathized with him; he would fit better into the world of literature and opera than a life of growing wheat for the government. She imagined him as he wished himself to be, an aristocrat, discussing the works of Russian and Polish writers while the classical music of the Russian grand master Tchaikovsky was playing in the background. But ethnicity, social class, money, and war brought the inevitable defeat of dreams. Ilya’s parents had both been Jewish.

  As he walked up, a thoughtful frown on his face, she assumed he did not know about last night.

  “Where is Sergei going in such a hurry? To keep the noon meal with Anna?”

  “Have you seen her this morning?” she asked.

  “Yes, I saw her about. Is anything the matter?”

  Relieved, she shook her head. “Not if you saw her this morning. But I need to tell you about Sergei. He’s in trouble. For that matter, we all are. Something happened last night.”

  He took her hands between his calloused ones. They looked at each other, any pretense of happy times ahead shed like autumn’s leaves.

  His voice dropped. “Grinevich, last night?”

  She nodded. “You know what happened?”

  “Sergei mentioned it when he arrived this morning.” His fingers tightened around hers. “I warned you to not go. Why did you not listen to me, Karena?”

  “I told you. I expected assistance from Lenski’s sister at the medical college. Now that no longer matters. I was told this morning I will not be going to St. Petersburg with Uncle Matvey next month. There are no finances to spare for this year.”

  “I am sorry. You would make a good doctor, Karena. But do not despair, you will also make the best of midwives.” He smiled wistfully. “Even now, with Anna, you feel more compassion than scorn. I know about her and Sergei. That is what I find so beautiful about you. You wish to help her.”

  “Ilya, you make me feel worthy. I wish—” She stopped. What good was wishing to love someone romantically?

  “Then listen to me. Even if you don’t graduate from the Imperial College, Madame Yeva has taught you what she knows. What you bring to the peasants is a gift of mercy. It’s more than most will ever receive.”

  They heard horses coming and looked toward the road, squinting against the noon glare.

  “Soldiers,” he warned. “Many of them.”

  So soon! Their horses could be seen farther down the road. Had Sergei had time to reach the manor?

  Ilya released her hand. “Go inside and warn Uncle. I’ll talk to them.”

  Heart racing, Karena rushed to the porch steps. Was Alex with the soldiers? She paused, her hand on the rail. She heard the horses on the wagon road and smelled the rise of dust.

  The front door opened, and Uncle Matvey Menkin stepped out onto the porch—tall, of comfortable weight, with sharp, clear eyes that held a glimmer of good humor just below the surface. His face was pleasant, and smiles came more easily in the last year. The wind blew his jaw-length gray hair and stirred the hem on his embroidered, tan peasant tunic with loose sleeves gathered at the wrists in a wide hem of blue. He wore a calf-length brown boot, but his right foot was wrapped in a woolen sock, swollen from the painful effects of gout. He used a cane today as he came down the porch steps.

  It struck her unexpectedly that her uncle was the only one who hadn’t experienced a summer of discontent. He had sought escape from the noise of the city and striking factory workers, to bask in the sound of the wind rushing through the grain fields and the sight of clear nights with gleaming stars. “A perfect environment to study the Torah,” he’d said.

  Karena waited below, holding the rail as she looked up at him, knowing alarm must show on her face. He came down the steps slowly but made not a grumble for better days.

  Karena met him, and he took hold of her arm. He patted her hand, as if to assure her he was not afraid, and so neither should she be. “This is a time for dignity,” he often told them. “If the Torah is accurate, we are made in the image of Elohim. We will keep our dignity in the face of injustice.”

  Those words now resounded in her soul. Perhaps she ought to tell him that she was there at the meeting last night, but it might obligate him to his own harm, for he would not betray her.

  “The czar’s soldiers are asking for Sergei, are they?” he inquired.

  She moistened her lips and nodded.

  “Where is he now?”

  “At the manor.” She quickly explained the details of Josef’s message.

  He nodded. “I will hear what they have to say for myself. Go inside, Karena. Grandmother Jilinsky is most upset. See if you can calm her.”

  He left her on the steps and worked his way slowly toward the wagon road and the group of approaching soldiers.

  Karena went up on the porch and watched until he came up and stood beside Ilya. There remained an Old World charm about Uncle Matvey that lent a dignity to his posture. She was proud of the Jewish side of her family in Warsaw that he represented, despite their being hated in Poland and throughout Russia. Was it the same in other countries? Some bishops called them “Christ killers,” providing propaganda for persecution, also saying that God was through with Israel. Uncle Matvey, however, had told her, “Though Israel has been set aside for not recognizing their Messiah, if we believe the Scriptures, we must believe the many wonderful unconditional promises God made specifically to Israel that are still to be fulfilled.”

  Does Uncle Matvey believe Jesus is the Messiah? Perhaps that was why, even now, he had more peace and enthusiasm for life than ever.

  TWELVE

  Okhrana’s Arrival

  Colonel Aleksandr Kronstadt drew his horse alongside Major-General Durnov. Farther ahead, the road split off toward the land managed by the local zemstvo representative, Josef Peshkov.

  The large manor house of wood and brick came into view. In front of the manor, the wide lawn suffered from summer’s end, and beneath a willow tree, a man-made pond beside a small creek offered white and brown ducks a refuge from the sun.

  Off to the side of the wagon road stood a medium-sized bungalow with a large roofed porch with chairs and a table. Several shade trees loomed over the bungalow, which gave Alex the impression of an island in the middle of the sea. If his research over the past few days since arriving in Kiev was accurate, Professor Matvey Menkin’s bungalow was indeed an island, an isolated oasis of ideas in a sea of political and religious struggles. How long before the bungalow would be swallowed by the waves? Alex and Durnov drew up beneath the freckled shade of a linden tree while the contingent of conscripts moved farther to select an area to set up their gear. In the morning, Captain Suslov’s soldiers would travel on toward Warsaw to join up with Russia’s main forces.

  Alex lowered his hat against the sun’s glare and peered toward distant plains. He took a moment to watch the shadow play of clouds upon the steppes. The sight evoked a vague longing in his heart. The waves of wheat, swaying in the breeze, hypnotized him. The rushing sound filled his ears, drowning out his soul’s troubled thoughts.

  Land—magnificent land. He could congratulate the Bolsheviks on one thing: they knew how to bait the heart-longings of the peasant.

  “Bread, peace with Germany, and land!”

  The revolutionaries’ rallying call appealed to restless masses. To the common Russian, the arguments for war between various thrones were merely disagreements over which autocrat was awarded desirable lands and peasants to enlarge their rule. Royal cousins maneuvered within their grand palaces, deciding how many of their peasant-pawns they could afford to lose on the battlefield to achieve their gains.

  But the peasant-pawns were stirring, wondering why they should spill their blood for the czar, the kaiser, the president of France, or the king of England. The peasant masses were hungry, weary, a
nd angry.

  All around him, he saw an uneducated mass without rights, who moved in lockstep.

  Major-General Durnov removed his military headgear and wiped a hand over his bald head, his tufted gray brows lowering as he replaced his cap. He sighed, sounding like a disgruntled bear.

  “How does the chief of secret police expect us to arrest the nephew of the wife of General Roskov?”

  “I also wonder, sir. After what happened to Grinevich last night, he’ll demand his head.”

  Durnov spat in the dust. “Grinevich will demand nothing.”

  Alex looked at him for explanation.

  “Grinevich will not be reaping his pound of flesh,” Durnov said. “He’s dead.”

  The silence that followed was filled with the rush of the wind. Alex hid his groan. The charge of beating Grinevich would be changed to murder.

  Durnov hunched his shoulders as he slouched forward, resting his forearm on the horn of his saddle. “My back will be the death of me yet … Well, Kronstadt, it is going to be worse for these Bolsheviks than I had first thought. I am most certain one of them will be made to talk. The Okhrana is adept at that.”

  Alex tightened his jaw and remained silent. Not even Durnov knew that he had gone to the meeting last night disguised as one of the peasants.

  “Peshkov’s son should cast dust on his head,” Durnov went on.

  “There were several involved in the beating. Grinevich was hated by many in this village. More than one landed a good kick.”

  “He had a bull head. I warned him in his younger years he was the sort of bully to die by a mob. I was right! But I tell you, the revolutionary leaders will hang for his murder. That will be Lenski and young Peshkov.”

  “Why Sergei Peshkov? I have found nothing yet to prove he was behind the organized demonstration. It was Lenski who arranged to speak in the college square last night and Lenski’s rhetoric against the czar that fired up the peasants. And, sir, it is Lenski who is in hiding. Sergei Peshkov hasn’t made a run for it. He must feel he has nothing to hide.”