Heart of Iron (4 page)

Chiang Tse was a better sport than I — he changed the topic to his home city, of which I had only a vague notions in connections to the recent war between China and Britain. He told me Hong Kong was now a free port under British control, and I gathered from his reserved manner that he had no love for the British. He also mentioned the unrest that was starting in the Guangxi Province and the dangers it presented to the travelers.

“When one’s country is so war-torn and ravaged,” he said as he poured another cup of tea, “one cannot help but feel guilt in escaping to a place so peaceful, so… ” his fingers threaded the air, searching for the right word to pluck, “so
northern
. And yet, I am very grateful for being here. Perhaps, here I could learn to live in peace with the West.”

“It’s never an easy peace,” I said. “Why, our emperor fought in the Napoleonic invasion. And as much as Peter the Great wanted us to become westernized, it is always a struggle; Russians have a deep seated mistrust of the West.”

“You do not see yourself as western?”

I thought a little. “My aunt certainly does. My mother and I… I’m not so sure. I am less enamored of the reforms, but I certainly find this train convenient.”

Chiang Tse nodded, pleased — at least, his sparse mustache bristled in a small smile. “You don’t think you’re a part of Europe. And yet you speak English.”

I shook my head, momentarily despairing to explain the national anxiety about being and yet not being European in a few words, when Anastasia, quiet until then, spoke. “The Countess tells me that you can see Europe from St. Petersburg — across the bay just so, on a clear morning. And how can you see something that you’re a part of?”

“Exactly,” I said, relieved.

Chiang Tse nodded with some hesitation. “There seems to be much for me to learn.”

“You will,” Anastasia said generously, and patted his shoulder.

Chiang Tse and I traded a wide-eyed look, and he couldn’t suppress a laugh. I suppose he found being patronized by a servant amusing, and I decided not to scold Anastasia for her treprass.

I dozed off for an hour or two, and woke up due to Anastasia’s soft snoring. Our companion was sleeping as well — in the uncertain light of the dimmed gas lamp, I could see his head pitched back, exposing his dark throat over the white collar of his jacket, his hands folded in his lap. I would not confess my relief to anyone, least of all Chiang Tse, but I thought it was good to know someone — besides the girls who would be in as much distress and confusion as I — who was not like me and yet understood my discomfort.

Most male students hired rooms in the city. Girls, apparently, could not be trusted to find their own rooms, pay the bills, and protect their own virtue, so they were housed in the dormitories. I was quite pleased with my assigned dormitory — it occupied a low building, with each of the apartments containing two bedrooms, a small room with two cots for the maids, a parlor, and a kitchen. Each apartment was supposed to be shared by two women, but since half of us did not show up, we each had an entire apartment to ourselves. There were three on the second floor and three on the first, with one of the apartments on the first floor given to an elderly woman who was charged with making sure that we were accounted for at all times.

I helped a shocked Anastasia prepare our beds and unpack the suitcases. There was no reason for me to play the lady and not be of use. After all, was I not a modern university woman? Soon enough the kitchen was furnished with shining pots, and a kettle bubbled happily over the stove. Anastasia boiled some water and set an enameled tub in front of the kitchen woodstove so I could wash off the grime and fatigue of the road. Afterwards, Anastasia went to the market to procure supper, and I spent the rest of the afternoon unpacking and hanging my clothes and filling the spacious chest of drawers thoughtfully placed in my bedroom with my underthings. By the time Anastasia had returned and cooked our supper, the apartment felt almost homey.

The chaperon, Natalia Sergeevna, stopped by to make sure we had everything we needed, and stayed for tea. She was a kindly, plain woman, who called me “dearie,” and seemed quite pleased to meet Anastasia. I let the two of them babble about the price of wheat that year, and drifted to my bedroom. I had arrived before the rest of the dormitory’s occupants, and felt alone in the mostly empty building, its cheerful wallpaper decorated with cornflowers notwithstanding. I wished my mother or Aunt Eugenia had come with me, to at least help me settle in. I chased away my resentments and reminded myself that I was a grown woman now, and honored to be accepted by the university — what else was there to desire? Masha Golitsyna would of course tell me there was marriage, the route she herself had chosen. And yet, even though I was never opposed to the idea itself, I looked at myself in the mirror and knew I would be foolish to have expectations of attracting someone’s attention with my appearance. There were better things to be than pretty — the advice I had heeded since I was ten to such good effect that I felt no pangs of regret or self-pity.

The steady rising and falling of the voices in the parlor, coupled with the clinking of teacups, lulled me. I sank into a chair by my bed and closed my eyes for a moment, and then the train was swaying and the steam was covering the windows when we stopped at some station, and the tea was poured and I stared into the dark almond-shaped eyes of Chiang Tse. His voice told me of the tall masts and the awkward flights of the airships. Then his face elongated into the sly muzzle of a dragon wearing a red and gold dressing gown. The dragon winked at me, poured tea, and spoke of his ambitions in calculus, and inquired about Miss Chartwell’s availability.

I remember vividly my first day as a student. I remember waking up before dawn and looking out of the window at the rows of linden trees, their leaves already turning the color of gold, and maples so red their branches seemed wrapped in living flames.

I got dressed with excruciating care, accompanied by Anastasia’s constant nagging. I wore a simple two-piece dress in blue and gray plaid, with a crinoline small enough to not impede sitting in narrow auditorium seats. The weather was cool enough to justify kid gloves and a new muff, of the same soft beige fur that trimmed my cloak.

Classes had been selected for the female students by several deans in consultation with the emperor himself. After I looked at the schedule, I became convinced that Eugenia had a hand in it as well — among expected languages and classics and philosophy, there were swaths of natural sciences, physics, and calculus. In the second year, we were supposed to start taking engineering classes and chemistry. I thanked my lucky stars and Miss Chartwell, and headed for the building indicated on my schedule.

One of the other women students joined me. She was someone I had not previously met, and I was pleased when she introduced herself with none of the languor found in most of the young society ladies I had encountered. Her name was Olga Sokolova, and among the women admitted she was the only one who was not from a noble family; she told me as we walked across the island to the university campus that her father was a mere corporal but he had served the emperor well, and now his service was rewarded by making his daughter an oddity — a strangely hostile gesture disguised as kindness, we both agreed. Despite that, Olga expressed great eagerness for learning, and it made me like her immediately.

Arm in arm now, we found our assigned building; it was newer than most of the university’s buildings, and painted bright blue. A copse of poplars surrounded it, and a long flowerbed orange with the last nasturtiums and edged with white stone ran along the path leading to the front door. There were several young men milling outside, and they gave us a few measured and curious looks. Olga blanched and squeezed my arm tighter, and I found myself leaning closer to her. We walked down the path under the veritable assault of the alternately lewd and disapproving gazes directed at us; it felt like running a gauntlet.

“Is it going to be like this every day?” Olga whispered, and her voice shook as if she were about to burst into tears.

“I hope the novelty will wear off after a while,” I answered. “But where’s that chaperon woman when you need her?”

Olga smiled at that, and we found our assigned auditorium. It was still mostly empty, and the professorial lectern towered at the front. Rows and rows of chairs upholstered in red velvet opened amphitheater-style back from the small stage, like petals of an enormous flower.

“Let’s sit in the back,” Olga said.

“Nonsense,” I replied. “They’ll know we are here anyway, but if we sit in the lecturer’s sight, no one would dare direct disrespect.”

Olga smiled gratefully. “How do you know these things?”

“I don’t,” I answered honestly. “I’m just thinking of what my virgin aunt would say in this situation.”

We rustled our skirts and settled in the first row. Both Olga and I had small notebooks tucked into our muffs — unfortunately, our dresses and cloaks lacked any significant pockets. I considered buying a handbag just to carry pens and notebooks; I hoped we were not expected to transport our textbooks anywhere.

Once we had settled, I watched the door. Several Chinese students filed in, and I recognized Chiang Tse among them. He acknowledged me with a small bow, and I inclined my head. The Chinese students, some of whom were dressed in gray suits while others wore more colorful jackets and long robes, stiff with gold embroidery, and black cloth slippers, settled in a row behind Olga and me. It reassured me — I felt as if I were being shielded from the judging eyes of my male compatriots.

Gradually, the auditorium filled with a shuffling and coughing of young men. Some of them smoked, and strolled through the aisles with a leisurely demeanor that I could easily imagine was a mask concealing cruelty. It was deeply disturbing. Most of these men were not noble, only sons of merchants and engineers. I was their better, and yet defenseless and vulnerable if they decided to vent their unhappiness in my direction.

Three other women soon joined us, and introduced themselves — Larisa, Elena, Dasha — before settling next to us. With the bright jackets of the Chinese students and the girls’ dresses standing in such contrast to the prevalent male brown and gray, I felt a part of a small isle of color, and that day my heart chose its allegiance. I turned and smiled at Chiang Tse over my shoulder, and he smiled back — warmly, as a friend would.

The lecturer — a solid, gray-haired and gray-bearded professor — arrived a few minutes late, and he spent a while longer inspecting the front of the auditorium. “Welcome,” he finally said, “to our new students. This is a class on human biology, and we will start by examining the differences between races and genders. I expect you—” his gaze locked with mine for a moment before drifting to the next female student—“to take notes. If you feel scandalized by the material, you may excuse yourself.” He paused while some tittering laughs flitted about the audience. “I still expect you to know the material.”

After the classes were over, I lingered behind, waiting for the auditorium to empty out. Olga and the rest of the girls went ahead, as they chatted in an overly familiar ritual of getting to know one another.

Chiang Tse too split from his companions, and waited for me in the aisle between the empty seats, his profile dark against the golden brilliance of the autumn outside spilling through the open door and tall arched windows.

“That wasn’t too bad,” I said as soon as I was an arm’s length away from him.

He shrugged. “I suppose it could be worse.”

Neither of us acknowledged it explicitly, but I was glad he waited for me — at least I assume it was me for whom he awaited. We walked outside together.

The nasturtiums had grown transparent in the sun, each petal like a tongue of living flame rising from the flowerbeds, and without saying a word both of us stopped to look. It was strange to walk with him like that, without speaking, but moving in unison, in some magically silent accord.

The campus had grown quiet in the few minutes between the end of classes and our delayed exit. Only a few figures moved at a distance, with an occasional staccato of hurried footsteps reverberating on the newly laid blocks of pavement. It was all just as well — without knowing why, I was already feeling our walk, innocent as it was, was somehow illicit.

My feelings were confirmed when we turned around the corner of the lecture hall and came across a group of several young men, their clothes betraying means if not breeding — they all wore long sack jackets with upright collars and wide ascots, and formidably tall hats. The five of them crowded the pavement, and I flustered, stepping right and left, trying to find a way between them. They merely watched, dead-eyed and threatening despite their passive demeanor. Finally, I stepped onto the pavement and cringed as my shoe hit a puddle cunningly hid by a narrow strip of the curb; the water splashed all over the hem of my skirt.

Chiang Tse ignored the snickering of the hoodlums, and joined me in the puddle, without regard for the dirty water seeping into his shoes and trousers. I shook the water out of my skirts and thought woefully that this particular arrangement was likely to become a tangible metaphor for my stay at the university.

Chiang Tse was apparently of the same mind. His fingers touched my elbow gingerly as he said, “I enjoy standing in the puddle with you. It is refreshing, don’t you think?”

And thus my education had begun. I quickly got the impression that even if women students were not admitted solely to prove their inferiority, it was viewed as a desirable outcome.

Professor Ipatiev, the lecturer who had delivered the very first lecture in my student career, proved to be a lasting influence. His class was in turns fascinating and upsetting, and Olga, who had swiftly become my closest friend and something of a confidante, shared my feelings.