Granny Dan (5 page)

“Do you like poetry?” he asked cautiously, not wanting to seem foolish and pedantic to her, but it was one of his passions.

“Very much.” She nodded.

“I'll bring some tomorrow. I'm especially fond of the works of Pushkin. Perhaps you'd like him.” She had read a little of him years before, and would be happy to read more of his work, since she had the time now. “I'll come and see you tomorrow after I see Alexei. Perhaps I can have lunch here, so you won't be too solitary.” And with that, he stood up, but he seemed reluctant to leave her. “You'll be all right tonight, won't you?” He was worried about her, he didn't want her to be unhappy.

“I'll be fine,” she said with a warm smile. “I promise. Now go home to your family or they'll think I'm a dreadful nuisance.”

“They understand what it is to live with a doctor. I'll see you tomorrow then,” he said from the doorway, and she waved from her bed, thinking again how kind he was and how lucky she was to know him.

Chapter 3

T
he book that Dr. Obrajensky brought the next day was so beautiful it brought tears to her eyes as he read some of it to her. He was slowly opening a door to a world she had never known or dreamed of, a world of intellectual pursuits and cerebral interests. Only that morning, she had begun reading one of the novels he had left her. And over lunch, they discussed it. Like the poetry he had brought, it was among his favorites. And the time she spent talking to him seemed to pass like minutes.

They were both surprised to discover that it was four o'clock in the afternoon when he left, and he hated to admit, she looked exhausted.

“I should not be the one tiring you,” he said, looking remorseful. “I of all people should know better.”

“I'm fine,” she promised him, having thoroughly enjoyed the time they spent talking. She had eaten lunch in bed, and he had sat at a small table near her.

“I want you to sleep now,” he said gently, helping her settle deeper into her bed and rearranging her pillows for her. It was a job the nurse could do, but he liked doing it for her. “Sleep for as long as you can. I am dining at the palace tonight, and I'll check on you on my way home, if that's all right with you.” It was what he had done the night before, and she had loved it. It had blown away the cobwebs of loneliness she had been feeling.

“I'd like that,” she said, already looking sleepy. He turned off the lights next to her, and walked quietly out of the room, and turned to look at her from the doorway. Her eyes were already closed, and by the time he left the little house, she was sleeping. And she slept peacefully until dinner.

When she woke up she found a drawing next to her bed. Alexei had come to visit her that afternoon, and the nurse had told him she was sleeping. He had left a drawing for her, of her trying to swim the previous summer. Like most boys his age, he loved to tease her. And he felt particularly comfortable with her, as she was the same age as his sisters.

She had soup for dinner that night, and she was sipping tea when Dr. Obrajensky came back to see her on his way home from the Alexander Palace. He seemed to be in a lighthearted mood, and told her all about his dinner. He dined with the Imperial family several times a week, in fact more often than he did not.

“They are wonderful people,” he said warmly. He was a great admirer of both the Czar and the Czarina. “They have so much responsibility, so many burdens. It's a hard time in the world, especially now with the war. And there has been a great deal of unrest in the cities. And of course, Alexei's health is always a great worry to them.” His hemophilia was a constant problem, which necessitated the presence of a doctor near him at every instant. It was why the doctor spent as much time as he did with them, although he shared the responsibility with Dr. Botkin.

“It must be hard for you too,” Danina said quietly, “having to be away from your family so much, and your own children.” Danina knew that his wife was English and that they had two boys, twelve and fourteen.

“The Czar and Czarina seem to understand it, and they're very kind about inviting Marie. But she never comes. She hates social occasions. She prefers to be at home with the boys, or just sitting quietly and sewing. She has no interest whatsoever in my work or the people I work for.”

It was hard for Danina to believe, particularly given who they were. They were hardly ordinary employers. And she couldn't help wondering if in some way his wife was jealous of him. It was hard to believe she was that antisocial. Perhaps she was shy, or awkward in some way.

“Her Russian is poor, too, which makes it difficult for her. She's really never taken the time to learn it.” It was a long-standing bone of contention between them, although he didn't say that to Danina. It would have seemed disloyal to complain about Marie to her, and yet it intrigued him that the two women seemed so different. The one so filled with vitality, the other so tired, so unhappy, so bored, so constantly disenchanted about something.

Even after her illness, Danina's energy and excitement about life was contagious. And her conversations with him were a new experience for her as well. Other than the boys she danced with at the ballet, she had never had men friends, been courted by anyone, or had a romance. Her only relationship with men had been with her brothers as a child, and now she seldom saw them anymore. They were always too busy to come to visit. They came to St. Petersburg to see her dance about once a year, and her father came scarcely more often. They were deeply involved with their responsibilities to the army.

But with Nikolai Obrajensky, it was all so different. He was becoming her friend, someone she could really talk to. She said so now, and he looked pleased to hear it. He loved talking to her, sharing his books and his views and the poetry he loved. In fact, there was a great deal he loved about her, and he also told himself that theirs was a comfortable friendship. He had almost mentioned her to Marie before she arrived, and had when she was very, very ill, but only in passing. He said he had been called to the ballet for one of the dancers who had a lethal case of influenza. But she had never asked him about it again, and once he knew Danina better, he had decided not to say anything more about her. In some ways, it was easier keeping their friendship a secret.

Years ago, he wouldn't have done that, but now, after fifteen years, he found that he had little or no desire to tell Marie about his life. She seemed completely uninterested in it. She had nothing to say to him most of the time. They had gone through a hard patch for a while, a few years before, when she wanted to go back to England. Or at least send their sons to school there. But he had objected to it. He wanted them close to him, where he could see them. But now she wasn't even angry about it. She was completely indifferent to him. But she never missed an opportunity to tell him how much she hated Russia, and living there. In contrast, the time he spent with Danina was so easy. She had no complaints about her life. She loved everything about it, and she was basically a happy person.

“Do your boys look like you?” she asked casually.

“People say they do.” He smiled. “I don't really see it. I think they look more like their mother. They're fine children. They're actually growing up to be young men now. I think of them as little boys, and I have to remind myself they no longer are. They get very angry at me about it. They're very independent. They'll be men soon, and probably going off to the army to serve the Czar.” Thinking about it reminded her of her brothers, and made her long for them. She worried about them a lot more now, ever since war had been declared the previous summer.

She told him about them then, and he smiled, listening. She was regaling him with tales of them, when she referred to him as “doctor,” and he looked at her sadly. It made him feel so old, and distant from her, not the friends they had become in the short time they'd known each other.

Although she'd met him the previous summer at Livadia, it was only now, since she'd been ill, that she really came to know him. And their friendship was strong and growing.

“Can't you call me Nikolai?” he asked. “It seems much simpler somehow.” And very personal, but she didn't think anything of it. She liked him. He asked it so humbly that, like so many other things he said, it touched her, and she smiled at him, looking more like a child than a young woman. Their friendship was so innocent and so harmless.

“Of course, if you prefer it. I can still address you more formally in front of others.” It seemed more respectful, and she was sensitive both to his position and the difference in age between them. He was twenty years older than she was.

“That sounds reasonable.” He seemed pleased with the agreement.

“Will I meet your wife while I'm here?” Danina asked, curious about her, and his children.

“I doubt it,” he said honestly. “She comes to the palace as little as possible. As I said, she hates going out, and declines all the Czarina's invitations, except perhaps once a year, when she feels obliged to.”

“Will it hurt you with the Imperial family?” Danina asked openly. “Does the Czarina get angry about it?”

“Not that I'm aware of. If she does, she is far too discreet to say so. And I think she realizes that my wife is not an easy person.” It was the first real glimpse she'd had into his home life. In truth, although they had spoken of many things, she knew nothing personal about him. And she had envisioned him with a warm family, and a happy home life.

“Your wife must be very shy,” Danina said generously.

“No, I don't think so.” He smiled sadly. Unlike Danina, there were so many differences between them. “She doesn't like wearing fancy clothes and evening gowns. She's very English. She likes to ride and to hunt, she likes being at her father's estate in Hampshire. And anything other than that is boring to her.” He didn't say “including me,” but he would have liked to, to Danina. For a long time now, their marriage had been a disappointment to both of them, but mainly to him, except for the existence of their children. But they were very different. She was cool and aloof, and indifferent in many ways. And he was warm and open. She was bored by the life he led, and in angry moments called him the Czar's lapdog. And Nikolai was sick to death of her complaining about it. It was easy to understand why she had no friends here, she was so cold and so jealous. Even their sons were tired of her complaints. All she really wanted was to go back to England. And she expected him to drop everything, all his responsibilities here, and come with her, which wasn't even remotely likely. If she ever went back permanently, he had warned her, she would have to do so without him.

“Why does she dislike it so much here?” Danina asked with open curiosity.

“The winters, or so she says. The weather is hardly more pleasant in England, although here it's colder. She doesn't like the people, or the country. She even hates the food.” He smiled. It was an ancient litany between them.

“She'd like it better if she learned Russian,” Danina said simply.

“I've tried to explain that to her. It's her way of not committing herself to staying here. As long as she doesn't speak Russian, she's not really here, or so she thinks. But it doesn't make life easy for her.” It had been a long fifteen years for him, particularly for the past few years, but he didn't go so far as to explain all of that to Danina. Or how lonely he was. Or how glad he was to sit here talking to her, or share his books with her. If it wasn't for the boys, he would have let Marie go back to England years before. There was nothing between them now, except their children. “Her father is frightening her now about the war. And he thinks that one day there will be a revolution. He says the country is too big to control, and Nicholas is too weak to do it, which is ridiculous. But she believes that. Her father has always been something of a hysteric.”

Danina listened with worried eyes. She knew nothing about politics. She was normally much too busy dancing to know what went on in the world. “Do you believe that as well?” she asked solemnly. “About a revolution?” She trusted his judgment completely.

“Not for a moment,” Nikolai answered her. “I don't think there is the remotest chance of a revolution here. Russia is too powerful for something like that to happen. And so is the Czar. It's just another excuse to complain about being here. She says I'm risking the lives of our children. She's always been very influenced by her father.” He smiled at her then. She had such fresh ideas, and such an open mind. She had been exposed to so little, other than the ballet, that it was like watching her discover the world around her. A world he found he loved sharing with her. Compared to her, Marie seemed so tired, and so angry, and so bitter. Living in Russia had not improved her disposition.

Marie had been pretty once, and interested in things. They had shared a lot of common views and interests. She had been fascinated by medicine, and his career. But she resented his position in the Imperial family, and she seemed to resent a lot of things about him. But there was none of that in Danina. But then again, Marie was seventeen years older than Danina. He was thirty-nine, and his wife was three years his junior. Danina was still a baby. And she was relieved by what he had said about the revolution.

“Do you think the war will end soon?” she asked him innocently, and he smiled at her reassuringly, although the number of casualties and men lost to it thus far had been enormous. Everyone had expected it to end months ago, and to everyone's amazement, it hadn't.

“I hope so,” he said simply.

“I worry about my father and brothers,” she admitted to him.

“They'll be all right. We all will.” Talking to him made her feel so much better. He sat with her for a long time and then finally he got up to leave. She looked tired again, and he had to get home. He couldn't avoid it forever. “I'll see you tomorrow,” he promised her when he left, and she listened to his sled disappear into the darkness.

She was thinking about the things he had said about his wife, and the fact that he hadn't looked happy when he said them. He seemed to be trapped in a difficult situation, and she couldn't help wondering if there was anything he could do to improve it. Perhaps insist that his wife learn Russian, or travel back to England with her from time to time. It shocked her that she didn't seem to want to share his alliance with the Imperial family. It was hard to understand his wife's reactions. And then she found herself wondering if he was being unnecessarily gloomy about it. Maybe he was just tired, she thought to herself, as she lay in bed, thinking about him. The war was depressing everyone these days. Perhaps his comments about his wife were born of that, and other worries he hadn't mentioned.

It never occurred to her for an instant that he might want more from her, or have an interest in her other than as her doctor. He was married, after all, and he had a family. And even if he had some complaints about his wife, surely it wasn't as bad as it sounded. To Danina, looking at the world through the tiniest of telescopes, from her small world at the ballet, it all seemed very simple to her, and marriage was sacred. She was sure he was happier with Marie than he appeared or admitted.