Encore (41 page)

Hypnotized, the crowd had frozen, looking up at the tiny figure in rose with her large eyes. Colonel Senglet took advantage of the sudden calm. He waved to his soldiers, and they, in turn, dispersed the angry bystanders. Louise Dondel took one small step, then another, toward the train. She was the first of the Swiss nurses to climb up the ladder behind Natalia.

When the three A.M. trains had departed, and it was time to return to the Metropole, Natalia noticed that her velvet cape was besmirched with blood. She could not control the nerves that twitched in her hands and shoulders, but, for the first time since Arkady's death, it was the stench on the outside of her that rose to the surface of her brain. The cape, and not her womb. The blood of others, and not of her son. Pressing trembling fingers to her brow, she began to weep.

At the beginning of February the Headquarters of the Division Sauvage was stationed on the outskirts of Tiflis, capital of the Caucasus. The Caucasus constituted a veritable barrier between Europe and Asia: High, steep, and jagged, its mountain range rose like a solid wall, beginning west at the Black Sea and stretching east to the Caspian. Its peaks were abrupt and majestic, their ragged crests like boar tusks on the horizon. Boris Kussov saw this view daily.

He was living at Division Headquarters, attached to the support staff of General Baranov. The men of this Cossack division were all bold and daring, having selected this branch of the army because of its reputation for heroic endeavors and great risks. Boris, too, had found the atmosphere exhilarating in the beginning. In his uniform he appeared particularly distinguished, like a modern swashbuckler. The tunic, with its large trousers stuffed into boots, was black with a silver cartridge belt and white buckles and buttons, unlike the other Cossack uniforms which were red, maroon, or royal blue with black accoutrements. With his tall, slender figure and golden hair, Boris seemed cut out for action—but instead of spending his days on a horse fighting in the mountains he sat behind a desk battling piles of paperwork.

He had been made a major. Baranov was a thickset man of advancing years who had known the old count, Vassily Arkadievitch. The younger soldiers had certainly heard of the gallant, courtly Boris as well. Everyone seemed to know that he had married Natalia Oblonova, and it made Boris smile to think how much her reputation had enhanced his own so close to the front. Any man who could pick for a wife one of the leading ballerinas of the Mariinsky was indeed worthy of the Division Sauvage. And so they drank with him, told him stories, and listened mesmerized to his anecdotes. But still, they were loath to let him near the battlefront.

“Everyone knows you don't know anything about maneuvers and strategy,” Baranov told him one evening over coffee and cigars. Brandy would come later; there were as yet no shortages among this division of wealthy rogues. “Let's face it, you pulled strings to get in, and others have had to sweat through the ranks. Entrusting a mission to you, my dear Boris, would be tantamount to committing suicide. Perhaps next year.”

“I should have stayed with my wife,” Boris said bitterly. “Somehow, there's always been something I could do that was unique—even if it was only to manage the financial aspects of a ballet company. Surely you can find me something besides organizing the filing system.”

Baranov puffed on his cigar and closed his eyes beneath the bushy brows. “You're that restless?” he asked, his rasping voice sympathetic.

“Yes. I'd be elated to go with a company patrol, as an observer—I'm certain the junior officer could give me something to do to help. I could carry the water flasks, maybe? Or sing Wagner to egg the troops on to battle?”

“That isn't funny, Borya. But I do see your point. Perhaps I could work something out. From Headquarters we have been sending out three regiments toward the Turkish border; these regiments web out into twelve battalions, containing forty-eight companies of some two hundred ten men each, with a staff support system of forty per company. Stretching even farther out are small platoons of seventy men, including staff. Our patrols go out by squads of fifteen under a sergeant. The purpose of webbing out this way—”

“—is to make certain that no Turks can invade our frontier. And the small squads are our exploratory force?”

“Yes. Would you like to participate in one of these patrols? I could attach you as an observer to a platoon headquarters, and you'd go out with the men. Hardly a brilliant venture, but necessary and dangerous. And you'd learn, my boy. There's nobody like a sergeant to teach you.”

Boris smiled. “I'd be delighted,” he said. “Thank you, Anton Alexandrovitch.”

But Baranov sighed. “We have problems in the mountains, Boris. Revolting Cossacks. Oh, don't remind me that we're a regiment of Cossacks ourselves, because our being on the same side doesn't seem to matter a damned bit. It isn't that they want to go over to the Turks—it's that they're fierce and proud and refuse to be dominated by anyone. They feel we've been disturbing their life.”

Boris narrowed his eyes and fingered his mustache. “Our men have not always behaved honorably,” he said. “They've raped and plundered villages. The Cossacks are quite naturally angry. Under the best of circumstances, they are an unruly lot. They'd kill a man for looking at a woman that wasn't his. Think how justified they now feel to hate our soldiers! Not every last Sauvage knows how to be a gentleman.”

Baranov set down his cigar and motioned to his orderly for cognac. “The Cossack women are beautiful, indeed,” he murmured. “And now we'll drink to your new activity. And to little Arkady in Switzerland, who may yet join our ranks someday!”

No one at platoon headquarters knew quite what to make of Major Count Kussov. He was a splendid man, graceful and easygoing, with impeccable manners, a charming man who seemed to know how to speak to the lowliest soldier. But did he know how to fight? Did he even know how to protect himself? Doubtful eyes exchanged glances, which were averted when the major appeared on the scene. But worried thoughts continued.

They were encamped some miles to the southwest of Tiflis—seventy men comprising three squads and a support staff. Each of these squads went on an exploratory trail for two days, then was off patrol for four. For the first six days Boris had stayed in camp with the remainder of the staff. He was getting to know the men, the three sergeants and the lieutenant in charge of the platoon, a small muscular man from Kiev by the name of Ivan Outchakov—or Vanya, as he was called. Ivan was suspicious of Boris. Although he was learning to enjoy smokes with the Division major, he still wondered what Boris wanted. Adventure? Color? “And why not, Vanya?” Boris asked easily. “Why should that trouble you?”

“War isn't a game, Boris Vassilievitch. Above all, it's not a parlor game.”

“So I'm told, repeatedly. How the hell am I to prove you right or wrong if I'm forever kept on the periphery of things? I am not a voyeur,
mon cher.”

To Boris's amused surprise, the young lieutenant blushed a deep scarlet. Boris threw back his head and laughed.

The next morning he awoke before Outchakov. A creeping restlessness and dissatisfaction had kept him up most of the night, and now he washed and dressed and wandered out of the tent that he shared with the lieutenant. The panorama, so rugged and lonely, struck him like a blow. In front of him the Elboruz and Kazbek peaks, covered with snow, stretched their jagged tips toward the dawn skies. He felt a burning in his stomach, the old pain reviving. It did so now and then. What was he doing here? Playing “parlor games”? Certainly not what I came here to do, he thought angrily.

Then reveille sounded, and the camp came alive. Boris went to the mess tent and had his breakfast among the enlisted men. Natalia's father had been such a man, he thought, curious about her background. Why had he never insisted on meeting her family? She'd hated them, but still—He had, as usual, done what came easiest.

But Natalia had not been easy. She had come more than halfway. He'd doubted her, over and over, accusing her of seeing Pierre, degrading her, even after Arkady's birth. Suddenly he felt hot with shame. He was a grown man nearly forty years old, still entertaining the silly jealousy of a teen-ager.

In the middle of the morning the rider came with the mail pouch from Tiflis. Natalia hadn't written in an age—what could have happened? His sister Nina hadn't heard from her either and had been concerned. Now there was a letter from Switzerland—but not in her hand. Boris raised the envelope to the light and started. From Pierre? Fear, anger, and remembered pain shot through his chest and stomach, knocking the breath out of him. He regained his composure and strode with casual grace toward the tent to peruse his missive in private. Inwardly his body was churning.

He sat down at the small folding table and put on his spectacles. She's getting a divorce, he thought, his throat constricting, and she's made him write the letter because she can't even face me on paper. Then, outraged, he heaped scorn and contempt upon himself. He must never let her know that his absurd fears still refused to die. He took his letter opener and meticulously inserted it into the corner of the envelope to quiet the snare drum that his heart had become. There it was, short and to the point. He leaned back to read it at leisure.

He read it once, the words making no sense. Then a second time, and a third. He could no longer hear his pounding pulse nor feel his extremities. His mind seemed to float above reality, in a strange amniotic fluid. The first paragraph registered perfectly well—but from there the logic short-circuited.

Boris felt his fingers lose their grip on the flimsy vellum, which dropped to the edge of the table. He looked at his hands with great, detached curiosity: They shook uncontrollably. He opened his mouth to laugh but found that his lips, too, refused to obey his command. Why had lightning pierced his stomach, gashing through his entire body like a tree on a stormy day?

Now he could no longer see, for a thick fog clouded his vision. He remained this way for an indeterminate length of time: It seemed like hours, days. When Outchakov entered the tent, Boris had to blink to make him out, and then he realized that his face was wet, that tears were overflowing into his mustache, onto his trembling fingers.

“My God!” Ivan Outchakov cried. “What's happened, Boris Vassilievitch?”

Boris was surprised at how calm his voice sounded when he attempted to speak. “Nothing yet, Vanya,” he replied. “But tomorrow I shall go on the first patrol. Make the necessary arrangements, will you? I've had enough waiting.”

If it were ever possible to set grief aside, the place to do so would be the Caucasus. The squad with which Boris traveled contained thirteen enlisted men plus a corporal and a sergeant. They rode on horseback, the cold wind in their faces, prickles of anticipation running across their skins. The countryside was stark, and they climbed ridges and patrolled from their flatter tops, looking out toward Turkey. If the enemy traversed the boundaries, they would be able to send back warnings through the elaborate protective system set up by Baranov and the others at Division Headquarters in Tiflis. From platoon to company to battalion to regiment, the Division Sauvage's intricate network would be prepared to receive the Turks and push them back.

The sergeant was older than most men of his rank. He was a dark-faced Georgian with hairy hands, a tall build, and black eyes that reminded Boris of Pierre. He was thirty years old, and his name was Lev Grodin. His corporal, almost a decade his junior, was a young Armenian from Yerevan, with a sweet face and a gentle demeanor. Mikhail Bogdanian was softly unassuming and bore the brunt of Grodin's abuse. Boris wondered at their odd partnership and decided that they complemented each other in their dealings with the men. Grodin issued orders and Bogdanian made certain that the soldiers followed through; morale remained high because the poor corporal received the brunt of Grodin's rage, and not them. Armenians, thought Boris wryly, had never fared well at the hands of Georgians. How had two such different peoples managed to coexist in the Caucasus for so many centuries?

The immensity of the spaces around them touched Boris deeply. He tried not to think of Arkady, but the burning in his stomach reminded him that eventually he would have to deal with his son's death. To Grodin the major appeared a brooding, remote, and handsome man, perhaps imperiously conscious that the men in the squad were below him on the social as well as the military scale. Yet this was strange: At the platoon headquarters, Major Count Kussov had laughed with the soldiers, sat with them, and told them bawdy stories. To be sure, his stories were different from theirs—but still, he had mingled quite charmingly. Now he seemed absorbed in something far away, and the excitement of anticipation was the only point of connection between the noble observer and the rest of the squad.

The top of the mountain range was sharp and barren, offering a panorama of vast loneliness to Boris. No wonder Pierre had always been so sullen, so bristling with rebellion. He had grown up in this open land where man and beast could ride as one, feeling the elements. Boris smothered his pain in the vista below. His own mount pawed the red earth of the hilltop, as nervous as he was himself.

“We're descending now, Major,” Grodin announced. “Time for a watering stop.” He began the single file climb down from the promontory. It was late; they had traveled twenty miles out from platoon headquarters, then patrolled back and forth among the ridges twice already; ten miles in each direction. An orange sun illuminated the peaks of the tallest mountains, dancing over the tips of snow. They would patrol the heights one more time, and then camp overnight on the flank of a hill.

Below them flowed a small river, which had started its trip high above them and would at length hurl itself furiously into the Black Sea. It was an impetuous torrent that roared over the stones and gamboled at the bottom of a deep and narrow gorge. Lev Grodin led the way down to it, and Boris followed, with the men behind him and little Bogdanian making up the tail. “I certainly am thirsty, Excellency,” Grodin said conversationally. His wide shoulders were sagging, from fatigue, Boris thought. Amicably he patted the man's shoulder and reined in his magnificent black stallion to again follow in the leader's tracks. The men didn't know what to call him: Sometimes they stuck to military terms, and at others they reverted to a class-conscious “Excellency.” Boris was amused and a little touched. To the Turks we're one and the same, he thought—the enemy.