The Beginning of Spring

by Penelope Fitzgerald

  ‘You don’t have all these servants, then?’ asked Charlie.

  ‘No, the relationship seems to me a false one.’

  ‘Well, our Dolly seems to be very handy in the kitchen.’ Selwyn explained to him what Tolstoy had told him; if grown men and women live simply, and do tasks of which the need is obvious, the children will soon wish to share them.

  ‘Do you think Nellie lived simply?’ Charlie asked.

  After Dolly had seen to the tea she sat down and said abruptly: ‘Uncle Charlie wants to take us back with him to Norbury. How he got such an idea into his head I can’t think.’

  ‘Now, my dear,’ said Charlie, ‘you’re speaking more sharply than you intend, I’m sure. I made the offer to your father, as I told you, in all good faith. I was only surprised that it upset him so much.’

  ‘I think I understand it,’ said Selwyn leaning forward, all interest and concern. ‘Dolly doesn’t want to leave her father.’

  ‘We don’t want to leave Russia,’ said Dolly. ‘It’s the beginning of spring. We want to go to the dacha.’

  Sucking the last slice of lemon, sitting in the tender lamplight, she looked at them tolerantly.

  ‘We don’t want to leave Lisa Ivanovna.’

  21

  That evening Charlie, to Frank’s amazement, repeated his offer.

  ‘You’re not going to start on about that again?’

  ‘Yes, Frank, I am, because it’s come to me that you were against the whole idea because you thought I wouldn’t be able to manage on my own on the journey, and it’s true, I haven’t much experience of looking after kiddies. But now I can see a way round that, and it’ll have another benefit too, because I mentioned to you that I was rather lonely at times in Longfellow Road. Now how would it be if I got Miss Lisa to come with me? I mean at the same wages you’re paying her here, which I take it are fair ones.’

  Frank stared at him, but saw that he was obliged to believe him. ‘I don’t know, Charlie,’ he said. ‘How would it be? Have you asked her?’

  ‘You’re forgetting that I can’t make myself understood in Russian. The thing, naturally, would be for you to speak to her on my behalf.’

  In silence, Frank set himself to compose a short speech. ‘Dear Lisa, please consider the following three possibilities, which I’ve been asked to put before you by my brother-in-law. First, Karl Karlovich wants you, although he doesn’t know it himself. He would like you to go to England with him to look after the children on the journey, at the same wages I pay you (which he takes it are fair ones), and then later, when he realizes what he really feels, to go to bed with him, to the disgust, disapproval, and envy of all his neighbours in Norbury. Second possibility: Karl Karlovich wants you, &c. &c., but he’s sharper than I thought, and he does know it himself. The results would be the same, and at the same wages I pay you, (which he takes it are fair ones), but would take place a good deal sooner. A third possibility: Karl Karlovich doesn’t want you, but he suspects that I do. This distresses him, partly on his sister’s account, partly, I think, on mine, as I’m sure he has my moral welfare at heart, and it’s come to him that if he can get you away to England (still at the same wages), he’ll deliver me from temptation.’

  ‘I don’t quite know how I’d explain it to her,’ he said aloud. ‘But are you sure the children want to go to Norbury?’

  Charlie looked disheartened. ‘Not quite sure,’ he said.

  Frank decided that after all his brother-in-law was a more honourable man than himself, but he also realized that he didn’t care, and the relief of admitting this combined, to some extent, with the relief of seeing Charlie off with his hold-all, his portmanteau, the presents which he had bought with Dolly in the Rows and the dozen bottles of vodka and fifty cakes of green tea which Kuriatin, at the last moment, had sent to the station. Although it was only ten days since he’d arrived, Charlie seemed largely to have forgotten the practical details of the journey. Customs regulations, time zones, warning bells, were all scattered in his mind, all muddled. Certainly he seemed to have forgotten the main object of his visit. Nellie wasn’t mentioned between them.

  ‘I’ll let you know when I get back safely, Frank, you can count on that. I feel I haven’t thanked you half enough. And I’m more than sorry if I’ve caused any unpleasantness by suggesting … I mean, if you think there’s any kind of cloud between us, I’m quite prepared to tear up the return half of my ticket here and now and go straight back to Lipka Street with you.’

  To emphasize what he meant he took out his wallet, but the return ticket was not there. A search followed, Frank going through Charlie’s coat, feeling like an amateur pick-pocket, and finding the ticket at last, after all, in the wallet. The third bell rang. Charlie clambered up the high steps of the carriage and, as the train moved out of the station, tried to look back out of the window, but too many of the other passengers crowded in front of him and he was lost to sight.

  ‘Has he gone?’ asked Dolly.

  The same room, the same soup, the same bread, but no Charlie. It seemed as they all sat down together, as though a threat had been removed. The day settled down, once again, without a ripple. Lisa still chewed energetically, and still spoke only when she was spoken to, she still created a sense of repose without tedium, as though the natural condition of life was peace. I’ve got to disturb her, Frank thought, at all costs.

  ‘I don’t think I shall ever get married,’ Dolly went on. ‘Lisa, too, probably won’t ever get married.’

  ‘Lisa, why did you tell Dolly that?’ Frank asked.

  ‘What I told her was that once, perhaps even ten years ago, it was considered a terrible thing in the villages for a woman to be single.’

  ‘That’s not the same thing at all.’

  ‘No, not the same.’

  ‘My teacher isn’t married,’ said Dolly. ‘Miss Kinsman wasn’t married.’

  ‘None of you children ever met Miss Kinsman,’ said Frank. ‘I didn’t know you’d ever heard of her. Lisa, I give you my permission to reprove Dolly if she oppresses me, as all women, without exception, seem to be impelled to do.’

  ‘Why is it better now for women than it was ten years ago?’ asked Ben.

  ‘It is better,’ said Frank. ‘But perhaps Lisa would explain why.’

  Lisa never changed colour, but now she put down her spoon and said, ‘I haven’t much practice in explaining. It’s unkind to ask anyone for more than they have to give.’

  ‘Unkind!’ said Frank, aghast.

  Next day, at Reidka’s, as soon as Bernov was out of the way, he asked Selwyn whether he’d ever thought of him as an unkind or inhuman person. While Selwyn, instead of denying it immediately, was thinking the question over in his gentle, irritating way, Frank said, ‘You told me it was my duty to try to understand Lisa Ivanovna.’

  ‘I don’t know that I used the word “duty”,’ said Selwyn, recalled to himself. ‘That necessarily suggests something that you don’t want to do. I envisaged a moment somewhat like entering the warmest room of the bath house, the steam room, where desire and duty become one. Do you follow me?’

  ‘Quite well, as a matter of fact,’ said Frank. ‘But the trouble is that I can’t do much when there’s so little time. I only see her in the morning and again in the evening.’

  ‘That’s more, to be honest with you, than I should have expected. I don’t think you ought to reproach yourself on that score. It’s possible, though, that Lisa Ivanovna’s life is, to some extent, joyless. If that is so, I’m quite prepared to take her out some evening, as I did your brother-in-law. All large meetings are banned, of course, particularly for young people, but we might try a Temperance group, or a gathering of the Russian Pilgrims of the Way of Humility, or a literary circle. All these events are free, or cost very little, and all, as long as the numbers are kept small, are approved by the political police.’

  Frank let this pass. ‘When she first came – you know, when you brought her to the house – I noticed how quiet
she was.’

  ‘Certainly she was quiet. One would hardly notice she was in the room.’

  ‘I do notice when she’s in the room. But I’d thought that when she’d been with us a little longer, she’d talk more.’

  ‘Of course, as I understood it, she was never expected to stay with you very long.’

  ‘That’s my point. I think I ought to know what she intends to do when she leaves here, and whether she has anywhere to go.’

  ‘One could ask her about that, of course. But, Frank, why not leave that task to me? I was responsible, I own, for bringing Lisa to your notice, as I have brought so many unfortunates before her, in the quest for material help. This time, perhaps, you don’t feel inclined to thank me.’

  ‘I’m not sure yet whether I do or not,’ said Frank. ‘I’ll tell you later.’

  ‘To return to what you asked me in the first place: do I consider you to be unkind, or to have the potentiality for unkindness? That, Frank, must be a question of the imagination, I mean of picturing the sufferings of others. Now, you’re not an imaginative man, Frank. If you have a fault, it’s that you don’t grasp the importance of what is beyond sense or reason. And yet that is a world in itself. “Where is the stream,” we cry, with tears. But look up, and lo! there is the blue stream flowing gently over our heads.’

  ‘I’m not sure whether she trusts me,’ said Frank. ‘On the whole, I hope not.’

  22

  On the eve of Palm Sunday the servants, in preparation for their Easter confession, went round the house and to the neighbours’ to ask forgiveness for any sins they had committed, knowingly or unknowingly, against them. There was no need to specify the sins.

  Frank was taken aback when Lisa told him that she also needed forgiveness from him, for actions, for words, and for unspoken thoughts.

  ‘What could you possibly have done wrong?’ he asked. ‘I don’t know what your unspoken thoughts are, but I’ve got no complaints about what you do.’

  ‘Who is there who can go through a single day without doing wrong?’

  ‘Well, if it’s going to be a competition, my conscience isn’t clear either.’ She waited silently. ‘I forgive you, Lisa,’ he said.

  On Palm Sunday she put on her black shawl and took the children out to see the crowds. ‘I’ll join you later, I’ll look out for you,’ he told them. Almost as soon as they were gone, he was wanted on the telephone. It was the Ministry of Defence, political division, or more precisely, the Security police.

  ‘We are holding Vladimir Semyonich Grigoriev, a student, who has confessed that he broke into your premises on the night of the 16th of March. Can you identify this man?’

  ‘There are six thousand students in the University,’ said Frank.

  ‘But only one of them broke into Reid’s Press on the night of the 16th of March, with the aim either of printing subversive matter or of stealing type and other materials in order to print it elsewhere.’

  ‘Nothing was stolen.’

  ‘Why did he go there then? He had the whole of Moscow to choose from. In any case, we are requesting you to come round to Nikitskaya 210, and fetch him away.’

  ‘Fetch him away! It’s Palm Sunday: I don’t want him!’ Frank said. ‘I’m always being asked to fetch something or somebody. I’m a printer, not a common carrier.’

  ‘The streets are crowded. You won’t be able to get a taxi today. We’ll send one for you in six minutes.’

  Frank had never been before to the security headquarters on the Nikitskaya, which had nothing to distinguish it from the other four-storey blocks on either side of it. On the third floor, which had none of the carpet-slippered, tobacco-stinking ease of the district police station, he found three men, of whom one did the talking, one took down shorthand notes, and one remained standing by the door. Volodya, looking pitiable, was sitting the wrong way round on a wooden chair, his chin resting on the back. He was wearing his crumpled dark green student’s uniform.

  Asked to identify the detainee, Frank said he’d never known his surname or his address.

  ‘Well, we do know it,’ said the interrogator. ‘Can you confirm that your household at 22 Lipka Street consists of yourself and your three legitimate children, a general manservant in charge of opening the door, a cook, an assistant to the cook, a temporary nursery governess whose native village is Vladimir, a yardman, and a boy who formerly cleaned the lamps but now that electricity has been installed, cleans the shoes and does odd jobs of various kinds?’ Frank did confirm it, wanting to protest that in spite of the enormity of the list he didn’t live as grandly as all that. But it was the way he was expected to live, otherwise he’d be falling short as an employer, just as he was when he shaved himself, instead of going to the barber on the corner of Lipka Street. The interrogator, who had been reading from a card, turned it over and added: ‘Your wife Elena Karlovna, has temporarily left you.’

  ‘I don’t contest any of this,’ said Frank.

  The man made a mark on the card, and went on, ‘When Grigoriev intruded on your premises, what was it that he intended to print?’

  ‘I don’t think it existed, except possibly in his mind.’

  ‘My mind is my own,’ cried Volodya, lifting his head from the chair-back. ‘You can’t touch it.’

  No one paid him the slightest attention, a disappointment to Frank, who’d hoped he might be taken away for good.

  ‘Frank Albertovich Reid, we know that you’re trying to dispose of your business with the intention of returning to England. During the past eighteen months you have acquired a declaration, made before a notary, that you have no outstanding debts, a police permit declaring that there is no obstacle to your leaving the empire, and a special permit from the Governor General covering the sale of a printing establishment. These documents have been translated into English and you have paid the specified charges for certifying the correctness of the translation and for attesting that it was made by someone authorized by the law of the land to translate it.’

  ‘I don’t contest any of that either,’ said Frank. ‘I’m not leaving Russia at the moment, but I think it’s right to be ready to go. All these documents were legally obtained and paid for.’

  ‘And they can be legally invalidated. It won’t be so easy to get them a second time.’

  ‘I trust that won’t be necessary,’ said Frank.

  ‘We are making you a surety for the good behaviour of Vladimir Semyonich Grigoriev. He will be under our surveillance, naturally, but it will be your responsibility to see that he doesn’t become involved in any subversive or politically objectionable activity.’

  ‘You haven’t forgotten that he broke into my premises?’ asked Frank. ‘I hadn’t pictured myself providing a reference for him.’

  ‘You told me you wished me well,’ said Volodya, in a broken voice.

  ‘We shall notify you if Grigoriev changes his address. To recapitulate, if there is any further scandal we shall have to see about the withdrawal of your exit permits, and in any case while Grigoriev is still at the University you will not be in a position to leave Moscow. If you have no further questions, you’re free to go now.’

  The third officer, who seemed to be there only to open and shut the door, opened it.

  23

  No one had suggested providing a taxi to take them away again, and they walked together through the streets which, after the morning Mass, were emptying themselves towards Red Square. High up and on the edges of the horizon the mists, born of the last snows, became transparent and vanished. The bells rang the entry of Christ into Jerusalem. Frank looked far and near for a sight of Lisa’s black shawl. There were hundreds, perhaps thousands of black shawls, and a great many young women in charge of children. She must be there, but she was lost to him.

  ‘Why I didn’t turn you in to the police in the first place, I don’t know,’ he said. ‘You’ve caused me an amazing amount of inconvenience. By the way, who gave you away in the end?’

  ‘I don’
t understand you,’ said Volodya. ‘I went to the police myself, I confessed myself, I made a clean breast of it and told them I had broken into your premises.’

  Among the crowds, the pedlars of pussy-willow, up from the country, traversed every street, or stood at every street-corner. By tradition they said nothing to their customers, and, as they held out the red-stalked willows, named no price. These were grave confrontations. Frank thought it unlikely that Volodya had any money, and bought willows for both of them. There was no question of their going any farther without them.

  ‘Let us forgive each other!’ cried Volodya.

  ‘I assure you I’m doing my best,’ said Frank.

  ‘You think I’m cracked, perhaps.’

  ‘No, I don’t think you’re cracked.’ Volodya, however, seemed unwilling to give up the idea. ‘At your age, you were cracked like me.’

  ‘I didn’t have time to be cracked,’ Frank said. ‘It would be awkward if I were to start now.’

  Along the Kremlin wall there were trestle tables, set out in rows and covered with white cloths. The stall-holders offered plenty, but not variety. All of them were selling the same things, and the crowds pressed on, apparently in amazement at the repetition of barrels and jugs of kvass, strings of bread rolls, kvass, rolls, rolls, kvass. Frank bought a string of rolls and, not feeling at all hungry, gave them to Volodya, who began to eat, dangling them from the forefinger of his left hand. He suggested once again that they ought to forgive each other.

  ‘I only want you to remember that to some extent I’m dependent on your behaviour,’ said Frank. ‘Let’s leave it at that. I don’t think you’re dangerous. I’m sure, for example, that you didn’t mean to kill me the other night at my office.’

  ‘Oh, but there you’re quite wrong, Frank Albertovich,’ said Volodya eagerly. He was still young enough to speak clearly with his mouth full. ‘I did mean to kill you. That’s what I hadn’t explained. I meant to shoot you, but unfortunately there was something wrong with the automatic.’