Russka (65 page)

‘Worse. Didn’t you know?’ Nikita involuntarily lowered his voice even to speak of the horror. ‘They cut off the head of their own King, Charles I, not four years ago.’

Andrei looked at him. As a Cossack, he supposed that it was a terrible thing to kill a king though it did not seem so very terrible to him, so long as the king wasn’t Orthodox.

But the effect upon Nikita, even of mentioning this awful deed, was quite extraordinary. His face puckered up into an expression of utter contempt and loathing.

‘They killed their own annointed King,’ he repeated. And then he said something which stayed in Andrei’s mind for a long time afterwards. ‘They are worse than the Poles. Thank God we know that we are the Tsar’s slaves.’

Several times before Andrei had noticed this manner of speaking. The common people would call themselves the Tsar’s orphans, and the official service classes seemed positively proud to call themselves his slaves. So far he had assumed it was a figure of speech; but watching his new friend Nikita now, he was not so sure. It was strange.

It was just after leaving that he caught sight of the younger woman. He had glanced back at the house and seen her face, quite clearly, at an open window.

It belonged to a girl about his own age: a pretty face, lightly freckled, with regular features. He could just see the top part of her body. It was obviously slim. Definitely a handsome girl.

She was watching him. He smiled at her. She smiled back, then, quickly turning her head, ducked back inside the window.

He frowned. How strange. It looked almost as if the girl had a black eye.

Perhaps it was not altogether by chance that he happened to pass near Nikita’s lodgings the next day and strolled about in the little market nearby. If he had been curious to see the girl, he was rewarded, for he had only been there a short time when she and her mother came by. He noticed that the mother, despite what Nikita had said, was hardly limping at all.

They saw him and greeted him politely. And as they came close
he saw clearly that, though it was fading, the girl had certainly had a black eye.

He engaged the older woman in conversation, and she seemed quite happy to talk, but all the while he noticed the girl. There was something about her, a lightness on her feet, a faint humour in her lips, that almost reminded him of Anna. He knew she was staring at him. He tried to listen to what the older woman was saying.

And then suddenly he started. What had the woman said? She had just remarked that they came from the town of Russka. He questioned her more closely. She described the place, where it was; there could be no doubt about it: his young friend’s estate was undoubtedly the place from which his grandfather had run away. Which means, he thought with a smile, that if he hadn’t, I should very likely be a peasant of Nikita’s instead of a Cossack he entertains in his own house.

He was just about to blurt all this out when some instinct for caution held him back. Nikita might yet be useful to him, and who knew how he might feel about the grandson of a runaway? Nonetheless, he supposed he must have relations in the place.

‘Perhaps I shall visit it some day,’ he said lightly.

They talked a little more. He told them about his companions and where they were lodged, then they parted. As they did so, he saw that the girl was looking at him intently.

It was not a complete surprise, therefore, when he met her in the street the next day near his lodgings. She came up to him with a smile. Despite the dark mark around her eye, she looked cheerful, even radiant. She had a light, springing step. ‘Well, Mr Cossack,’ she said, ‘may I walk with you?’

Most of the women one saw in the street moved rather cautiously; even if they wore a headdress, they placed a large scarf over it, tied under the chin; they seldom smiled. But though she wore a scarf and a long, rather threadbare cloak, there was something in this girl’s easy, almost dancing gait that reminded him of the free, self-confident Cossack girls of the south. ‘You should call me Maryushka,’ she said, using the diminutive. ‘Everybody does.’

‘Well, Maryushka,’ he said, ‘tell me about yourself. Why do you have a black eye?’

She laughed. It was a gay little sound, though with a hint of sadness and bravery in it that was very appealing.

‘You never need to ask a married woman that,’ she replied. Then with a sigh she added: ‘They say it’s a fault in my character.’

Her story was simple, though unusual. When she was younger, she had refused to marry.

‘There was a boy in Russka,’ she laughed again. ‘He was so handsome! Slim, and dark like you. But he married someone else. He didn’t want me. And the other boys – well …’ She made a gesture of contempt. ‘My father was dead. My mother goes on at me every day: “Marry this one, marry that one.” I say, “No! He’s too short. No, he’s too tall.” She says I’m a wicked girl. I need training. I’ll get a bad name. So …’ She shrugged.

‘So you married the steward? The man I saw at Bobrov’s?’

‘His wife died. He told my mother he’d tame me. “Give her to me,” he says.’

‘You didn’t refuse?’

‘Yes. But he’s the steward. He could make it very awkward for us. He has the power. So – that’s life. I married. I was old, you know. Nearly twenty.’

‘And he beats you?’

She shrugged.

‘That’s part of being married. He hits with his fist. Sometimes I can get out of his way. But he’s quick.’ She gave a mournful laugh. ‘Oh, yes. He’s quick. So. That’s all.’

Andrei had always heard that these women in north Russia suffered harsh treatment from their husbands. The Cossack girls, he knew, though their husbands often called them weak women and pretended to despise them, would not have put up with much of this kind of treatment.

‘What does your mother say?’

‘At first she says: “Obey him and don’t be headstrong, then he won’t beat you.” Then she says: “You must work to make him love you. Have children.”’ She shrugged, then gave him a little smile. ‘You know what she says now? She says: “Maryushka, all men are the same, to tell you the truth. Obey him, submit, but keep your own council. Men are despicable,” she says, “but there’s nothing you can do about it.” So I say: “Why didn’t you tell me that before?” And she says: “Because I wanted you to get married.”’ She laughed aloud. ‘So I’m married.’

‘And how did you get to Moscow?’

‘Ah, I tricked him. He had to bring the rents to our landlord. So
I say: “Take me to Moscow and I’ll do anything you want.” Then when I get here I say to my mother: “You have to keep me here. I can’t stand it any more. Not this month.” So she pretends to hurt her leg and the landlord’s sent him back to Russka without me!’ She laughed happily.

‘Look,’ she cried suddenly, ‘there’s a church. Let’s go in and pray.’

What a strange, wayward girl she was! But what spirit she had. Before they parted that day, Andrei had already decided: It’s time I had a woman: this will be the one.

Because of business, however, he had to put her out of his mind for a couple of days.

It was on the third day that he saw a strange sight. He was just walking out of the White Town when, turning a corner, he saw a wagon that had been stopped in the middle of the street; and at the same moment he realized to his surprise that it was being attacked by a small mob. Thinking they must be robbers, he was about to rush to the aid of the wagoner when he noticed that the attackers were being led by a pair of priests.

‘What’s this?’ he asked a bystander.

‘Those are zealots,’ the fellow grinned. ‘And they’ve found what they’re looking for.’

To his amazement Andrei now saw the mob pull down from the wagon a lute, a balalaika, and several other musical instruments.

‘A fire!’ he heard one of the priests cry. ‘Burn these iniquities.’

And sure enough, moments later, the wagon itself was set on fire. Not only that, but the gathering crowd of onlookers was roaring its approval. He had been curtly told by a priest the day before not to smoke his Cossack pipe, and he had also seen a drunkard dragged away to be flogged. But what kind of land was this, where priests burned musical instruments? Scarcely thinking what he was doing, he opened his mouth and began to utter a curse of disapproval, when unexpectedly he felt a hand held across his lips.

It was a female hand, and before he could even look down, he heard a familiar voice speaking softly at his shoulder.

‘Take care, Cossack.’

Her hand was a little longer than he had realized; as she took it away, Maryushka gently squeezed his cheeks and then ran the tips of her fingers across his lips.

‘Don’t you realize, Mr Cossack,’ she whispered, ‘there are probably people in the crowd who are listening – they’ll tell the priests if they hear you swearing.’

‘What then?’

She shrugged.

‘Who knows? The knout perhaps.’

The Russian leather-thonged whip was a fearsome instrument.

‘Are these zealots so strict then that they burn musical instruments and give the knout for swearing?’

‘Oh, yes. The Patriarch is for it, and some of the zealots in the Church are even stricter. They are determined to cure us Russians of our whoring and drinking. All sorts of pleasures are forbidden.’ She laughed. ‘You know, the landlord’s even afraid to go home because the priest at Dirty Place preaches such sermons. And Bobrov has a lute from Germany hidden in his house, I know.’

Andrei frowned. Was this dour zealotry the Orthodoxy he was fighting for? Was everything in the Muscovite state so dark, so claustrophobic? The sense of unease he had felt on his journey northwards from the Ukraine seemed to come back to him now with more force.

But Maryushka had reached up and gently touched his lips again.

‘Is there anyone in your lodgings now?’ she asked.

He knew there was not.

He looked at her.

‘What if we’re caught? The knout?’

She smiled.

‘No one will catch us.’

A blue sky appeared the next day, and the spring sun. By noon the thaw had set in. And though, in the succeeding days, the sky was often overcast, it was clear that winter was ending at last.

The streets became sodden, grey and brown. A rich, damp smell began to emanate from the millions of logs of the wooden houses, like a sharp, resinous incense. The wet wooden walls were almost charcoal; icicles, thinning to mere needles, hung from the glistening eaves; and here and there the white walls of a church or the slender shape of a silver birch glimmered above the dull slush and endless puddles of the street. The smoke from the fire in
every house rose to be carried, like the modest sound of the church bells, over the still sombre morass of the city whose high, golden domes alone gave promise of the light and warmth to come.

In this melting season, Andrei made love to the girl Maryushka.

She had a slim, strong body; the light freckles on her legs and breasts petered out to a surprisingly pale whiteness. Her breasts were rather small.

She would visit his lodgings in the afternoon, and they would lie on his bed in the shadowy room that was almost overheated by the big stove at one end. She liked to undress herself and stretch out, luxuriously, to await him. Sometimes, having arched her back with a catlike movement, she would raise one of her strong, slim legs and admire it before asking him, cheerfully: ‘Well, Mr Cossack, what are we going to do today?’

The first day they made love, he noticed that she winced when he first touched her, but when he looked surprised she gave a wry smile and held up her arms.

‘A little reminder from my husband,’ she remarked drily, and Andrei saw that along the side of one arm were ugly dark marks where the steward had obviously punched her. ‘He’s quite strong,’ she said mildly, and then, as though the bruises were not there, pulled him gently to her.

‘You are strong yourself,’ he remarked a little later, ‘like a cat,’ he added.

‘Yes,’ she replied, ‘a cat with teeth.’

And so they passed the time each afternoon while the dull light outside slowly turned to dusk, then darkness, and apart from some occasional footfalls in the street and the faint hiss from the hot stove, the only sound was the slow dripping of melted ice from the overhanging eaves, or the little rustle and soft thud of snow slipping off the roof onto the ground below.

Sometimes, afterwards, she would sigh.

‘You will be gone soon, my Cossack.’

‘Don’t think of it, my little cat.’

‘Ah, easy for you to say. You’re not trapped.’

It was hard for him to reply to this.

‘Sometimes I wish that Ivan would die,’ she would muse. ‘But … what then? I’ve nowhere to go.’ And then she would manage a short, ironic laugh. ‘All dressed up on St George’s Day – but St
George’s Day has been taken away. What do you think of that, Mr Cossack?’

This was a subject to which she often returned in their conversations, and it was one that made Andrei rather uneasy.

For his affair with Maryushka was turning out to be not only a sensual pleasure, but a very important piece of education: and it was an education that was by no means pleasurable.

Only since coming to know her, Andrei now realized, had he truly begun to understand the nature of this powerful Muscovite state. And the more he understood, the more uncomfortable he became. The feature of the state that he disliked above all was one that – though it had been developing for along time – had only recently passed into law. And this was what, nearly every time they talked, Maryushka complained about.

For she was no longer a free peasant. St George’s Day had been abolished.

It was the law code of the present Tsar, Alexis, which had so decreed just four years before. Until that time, though the right had been limited in practice, it was still possible in theory, once a year, for the Russian peasant – technically free since the days of ancient Kiev – to leave one master for another. The old institution of St George’s Day was still in force.

It was the service gentry, the small men with modest estates, who disliked the rule. Invariably short of money, they could never match the terms the Church and magnates could afford to offer for the labour which, thanks to Russia’s endemic famine and plague, was always in short supply.