Encore (36 page)

“You've taken so much on yourself,” Pierre commented, his brow furrowed.

“I have no choice,” she said dryly. They were sitting in his drawing room, on the dark chairs. Looking at him carefully, she added: “And you? Are you going to last the war hiding out in Darmstadt?”

His nostrils quivered slightly, and color rose to his cheeks. “You were going to do the same,” he retorted.

He got up and began to pace the room, a panther on the prowl. She saw his strong thighs bristling beneath the broadcloth. Once she had loved him. Now she could hardly remember a life before Arkady, before this wretched war and his growing illness. She had no time for feelings or recriminations. Not even time to think of Boris, to consider him while making her plans.

Pierre stopped abruptly. “I'm glad you're leaving, Natalia,” he said. “Maybe I'll have to go as well. The Baroness von Baylen is not happy with me. I—” He stopped. His stupidity was not worth revealing; she would only despise him all the more. Instead, he came to her and took her hand. “When do you leave?” he asked.

“Tomorrow.”

She did not withdraw her hand, and he began to caress it rhythmically. Such a small hand, such a small woman. Yet not a helpless one. Nonetheless…“Good luck, Pierre,” she said. She stood on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek. “Think of us?”

“I won't promise to pray,” he said, trying to be facetious. “I know you don't believe in God.”

“No. Only in myself. I hope that belief isn't misguided.” She smiled and prepared to depart. She did not know that he had been painting her portrait, a third one since the Sugar Plum nine years before, nor that this one also included her son, Arkady. He did not tell her because he intended to keep this picture himself. Instead, he held her coat out for her and walked her to the buggy. Olga, the mare, was waiting.

He knew then what he had to do and was unafraid.

The neat Hessian station was stark in the predawn bleakness. Troops stood about, exhausted from waiting for the train to load, their trim uniforms a sharp contrast to their apprehensive faces. Natalia stood on the platform to the far right of the men, holding Arkady in her arms. She was dressed in a simple woolen coat and a small felt hat. Her furs and jewels had been packed away, and the bags were even now being hoisted onto the train.

Men all resemble babies before they go to war, she thought ironically. She leaned against a pole and shut her eyes. Within the week this would be over. From Switzerland she would write to Nina and her father-in-law, and they in turn would be able to send a message to Boris, to inform him of where she and the boy had gone. He, too, would be relieved to know they were in neutral territory, near a specialist in children's diseases.

She did not see a tall, dark-haired man in a nondescript gabardine coat weaving his way toward the station house. There were so many people on the platform that no one noticed him at all. Unobtrusively he entered the small terminal and looked about him. A small group of engineers, brakemen, and conductors sat drinking coffee and playing cards. He watched them from his position near a rear door by the wall and waited.

Presently one of the brakemen rose from the table and ambled toward the men's lavatory. The man in the gabardine coat followed him. In the small antechamber he stopped the brakeman and said to him: “I am a Swiss citizen, but I've lost my papers. I need to get on this train without anyone's finding out. If you can help me—” He withdrew from his pocket a pair of gold cufflinks with ruby studs, a stick pin encrusted with an enormous black pearl, and a wad of bills.

The brakeman blinked in astonishment. He appraised the man in the gabardine coat: His eyes were black, the pupils merging with the irises. He was swarthy and strongly built, but unquestionably a gentleman. The jewels were magnificent and the wad a thick one. He scratched his head, wondering. If the man were mad, he might kill him with his bare hands; from the look of him he was a veritable bull. But if he were simply a wealthy refugee …Wartime had not yet made the Germans prosperous. He coughed. “Maybe,” he said grudgingly. “Wait here.”

Pierre was left standing in the antechamber. Perhaps, thought the young painter, I am going to be delivered posthaste to the general in charge of this convoy. But I've got to risk it. Besides,
la
von Baylen could hurtle into hysteria and have me arrested. She's hated Natalia because she touched Boris, and why shouldn't she now hate me for in some way touching Natalia's life? He sank against the wall, anxiety penetrating to his very entrails.

But the brakeman was returning, carrying a knapsack. “Here is my change of clothing,” he whispered tersely, withdrawing a railroad uniform from the bag. “Change into this, and give me your clothes.”

There was no choice. Pierre hastily undressed, handing the man his coat, his shirt, his trousers—and the pocket watch. Clearly this was to be part of the bargain. But when the brakeman was about to pack his things away, Pierre put a hand out to stop him. “There's something I'd like to keep,” he said. He fumbled with the inside pocket of his coat and took out the small miniature of Natalia and Arkady Kussov. Unframed, barely finished, it had fit into the pocket without causing him too much discomfort, for it was only five by seven inches. It had been a stroke of luck to make it such a small painting, a private memento.

The brakeman shrugged: This was a madman, all right, hanging onto a reproduction in the midst of a crisis. Madmen came in all shapes and sizes, but some of them had means and could be indulged. The danger was not that great. If someone—a soldier—were to find the man in the railroad uniform, he, Geiser, would simply say his knapsack had been stolen. The only problem lay in getting the man aboard. But he had an idea.

Going out the back door with Pierre in his uniform, Geiser walked to the front of the train under everyone's eyes. Nobody paid attention to these two crew members. Geiser and Pierre climbed aboard. “The fellows would've been the only ones to know you're not one of us,” he whispered to Pierre, “and they're still playing cards.” They had reached a small door, and now the brakeman opened it, and Pierre saw a cramped men's toilet. “You're going to have to live in here for the next few days,” Geiser said. “Now get in. I'm going to find you some food, because once the train starts I won't be able to bring you anything. Too risky.”

Pierre walked in, and Geiser shut the door on him and locked it. The crude accommodations stank, and he could hardly stand up because the ceiling was so low. He sat down on the commode and tried to stretch his legs, but could not. Yet, he felt strangely elated. An incongruous vision of himself as a lad in Georgia passed through his mind: of himself on a stallion, riding the winds. Actually, the memory was not so incongruous. This was his life: not the dull propriety of Marguerite's cottage, or even the dinner parties at Boris's flat. He was not a member of the
jeunesse dorée,
but of the Caucasian wilds. This, at least, was a ride to freedom, a risk.

When he heard a key turn in the lock, Pierre reared his head quickly, his adrenaline flowing freely. But it was only Geiser, bringing raisins, water, two lemons, and some dry beef—a paltry supply. “That's all I can get without rousing suspicions,” the brakeman said defiantly, as if reading Pierre's mind. “Now listen here: I've put up the ‘Out of Order' sign, and I'm going to tell the fellows that we have a backed-up toilet. We're going to have our hands full with this convoy, so I know no one will try to fix it before we reach France. Just don't make any noise.”

This time when the door locked, Pierre thought: When I get out, we'll be in the war zone. How will I find out if she's all right? He added to himself: Only in the midst of such a conflict would the meticulous German army accept the fact of a non-functioning toilet. When men are about to offer their lives for their country, the indignity of backed-up facilities recedes to a mere inconvenience. He began to laugh, soundlessly.

Boris would have enjoyed the irony of Pierre's predicament. But he, Boris, did not live life, he dabbled in it. It was a game for him, a charade. But for me, Pierre thought grimly, it is simply life.

The train was filled to the brim. Soldiers and officers jostled one another in the hallways and crowded the compartments. At least cattle are incapable of feeling or thinking in their boxcars, Natalia thought with bitterness. With her special military dispensation, she sat in the officers' car, the only woman among a company of two hundred fifty men off to the front in eastern France. Heinrich Püder, next to her, had explained to his comrades that his cousin, Frau Hildegard Mannteuffel, was going to Switzerland to consult a doctor for her child, and so no one bothered her, a concerned, exhausted young mother on a mission of pain and anguish. She was grateful.

There had been a single instant of panic. Püder's own colonel had unexpectedly remained behind, and another, not normally attached to the group going westward, was now at the head of this company for the duration of the voyage. He traveled in a private car, but Natalia had seen him at the station in Darmstadt: a tall, thickset man some forty-five years old, with wiry black hair and small blue eyes like marbles. A paunch struggled beneath the trim uniform. Natalia had seen Püder's surprise and been frozen with terror when the senior officer approached her, clicking his heels and bowing over her hand, his hard eyes glittering at her. He had said: “What a rare pleasure,
gnädige Frau,
to meet you at last! I much admired your father, the great general.”

“I could not have known that they would send Lothar Ballhausen,” Püder told her afterward in a frantic whisper. “But he can't hurt you if you stay away and don't hold lengthy conversations with him. I knew him in Berlin, and he served for a while under my uncle. He has the reputation of being a highly skilled combat technician.”

Damn, she thought. The regular colonel had known nothing personal about von Wedekind, whose exploits had taken him far from this branch of the army, and Püder, her benefactor, had not found it necessary to brief her in particulars concerning her “father.” But Heinrich Püder could not always remain by her side. He had to keep an eye on his platoons and report to Ballhausen. It was up to her.

Now she was too numb to feel horror. Fear was such a part of her existence that she could only think one step at a time, one minute at a time. Every nerve ending was alert, every muscle taut. When Püder left, she fell into a kind of stupor and closed her eyes, hoping that the other officers would witness her distress and leave her tactfully alone, without attempting to engage her in dangerous conversation. Why hadn't Püder been a simple lieutenant with undistinguished relatives, instead of a man whose uncle had been a well-known general? She hoped that these men were too young to have known von Wedekind.

Truly, she thought, Püder was a good man. If anyone were to learn of the deception, not only would his career come to an abrupt stop, but he might even be accused of treason. Why was he helping her? He was certainly behaving properly. She decided that this must be the first time a woman in distress had appealed to him—and that few men, especially among those who led lives of rigid conformity, could resist being cast in the role of Sir Galahad. She smiled then, amused in spite of the danger.

Arkady lay asleep in her arms, a restless sleep punctuated by small gasps. The fingers that touched her shoulder startled her, and she looked up, expecting Püder. To her surprise, it was Colonel Ballhausen. Her hand reached out to Arkady's head and remained there, protectively.

“The babe is well?” Ballhausen asked.

Natalia could not speak. Why had Püder allowed Ballhausen to come without accompanying him? She tried to smile. “He just slept for an hour,” she replied.

“Then let us step outside for a moment, Frau Mannteuffel. Enlisted men don't crowd the area outside the officers' compartment. We could talk for a while.”

Uncertainly, with Arkady in her arms, Natalia rose to follow him into the corridor. His face was square, uncompromising. He leaned against the window and looked at her. A sergeant walked by and she had to move to make way for him, brushing next to Ballhausen in the process. When he had gone, she stepped back, avoiding body contact.

“Heinrich is a fine officer,” Ballhausen said pleasantly. “I am lucky to have him so conveniently on board.”

“He is a fine man in every way,” Natalia said warmly.

Ballhausen smiled. “Ah, yes, of course you would think that, being his cousin. What was it like growing up with him?”

“He was good and kind to me, like an older brother.” Natalia spoke calmly, but her throat was constricted with fear, a wild, animal apprehension.

You must have grieved a long time for your revered father, Ballhausen continued. “General von Wedekind's heart attack shocked everyone.”

This time, Natalia turned her face to him and allowed the tears to rise to the surface of her large brown eyes. “Please,” she said with genuine pleading, “I would prefer not to discuss it. It is still too painful.”

“Naturally,
gnädige Frau.
I am a boor.” Ballhausen was silent for a while, and for Natalia, these minutes ticked off into hours, the hours before a certain execution. “The babe is going to Lausanne to see a specialist?” he said at length.

“Yes. It was so kind of you to let us onto the train, Colonel.”

“It was a pleasure. Beautiful women adorn a convoy, Frau Mannteuffel.”

She smiled wanly, and then, to her infinite relief, Arkady started to toss about in her arms and began to cry. “I'll have to sit down again,” she said, holding him tightly and looking nervously at Ballhausen. “It was nice to chat.”

“I have a comfortable car. Next time you must allow me to offer you a small collation there. It is less crowded. I take my meals there, with one or two other officers. Do you drink cognac,
gnädige Frau?”