The Four Winds of Heaven (56 page)

Sonia braced herself for her first encounter with her married cousin, but the woman who appeared before her took her breath away. It was Tania, the blond, cornflower-eyed Tania, but with sunken cheeks, pale lips, and bone-thin arms, a Tania carrying her child in front, with nothing, it seemed, on the hips. Sonia's set lips, her erect back, slackened. She opened her arms and closed them about her poor cousin, and wanted to cry. Instead, she said, “I have missed you, my love. Tell me all about yourself. Letters, you know, are never sufficient.”

Tania sighed, and this heartfelt sigh pierced Sonia's flesh like an arrow. They sat down together in the sitting room, and Tania ordered tea. It was Sonia who poured it, and while she did so, Tania's eyes jumped all about the room, taking in its elegant blue upholstery, its oil canvases. She came alive. “I could not stand the idea of giving birth anywhere but here!” she cried.

“But your home—surely you like it?” Sonia asked with care.

“Oh, that! Sioma's mother changed it all during our honeymoon. If you thought that Svetlana Yakovlievna was a tasteless provincial, you never met my—” Tania clapped her hand to her mouth, and blushed a deep, unhealthy crimson. “I'm sorry,” she said.

Sonia smiled, and regarded her cousin levelly. “There is nothing to feel sorry about. First of all, I never thought anything of the kind. Let us be clear on this point. I admired and respected Kolya's mother. It was Juanita who felt that she was… shall we say, not quite the cosmopolitan gem she wished to display to our society. I was staunchly opposed to her treatment of Svetlana Yakovlievna. If she felt insulted, I cannot blame her. Living in Kiev, it is normal that you would hear things there that are passed around as gossip. But I do not wish to hear them. I know that Kolya has a wife, and stepdaughter, too. I am pleased for him. As for me—if I am to remain a spinster, don't worry, I shan't be a bored one. Now tell me more about you.”

Tania seemed subdued. “Sioma spends much time at his mother's. He wishes me to come there often, too. But I don't like her, Sonia. She is... vulgar, and possessive. A young married man should spend his evenings with his wife, shouldn't he? Shouldn't he?”

“He can spend time with both,” Sonia said gently. She passed her cousin a cake, but Tania pushed the silver platter aside. At that moment, a tall man entered the room, and Sonia turned to face him pleasantly. It was Sioma, stooped, pockmarked, with watery eyes. He, at least, was little changed. He bowed over Sonia's hand, then sat and gulped down a glass of tea, his Adam's apple making vulgar throat noises. Tania watched him with wide-eyed dismay, and Sonia's compassion grew. They spoke about little things, about the trip, about the child that was about to come. Sioma's eyes brightened in anticipation, but Tania's grew fearful. Sonia squeezed her hand. “June will come and go before we know it,” she said with too much cheer. And thought: But what do I know of childbirth?

That evening, at supper, Sonia said to her brother, “You must make it a point of duty to go there and tell her your jokes—you could always reach her better than the rest of us. Please, Ossip! Whatever takes up your precious time, you must set some aside for Tania.”

“You will cease your insinuations,” he replied tartly. She looked at him, surprised and hurt, but his face registered only aloofness.

A week later, Mathilde gave a formal dinner for the Halperins. As it was the custom to place fiancés next to each other at the table but not married couples, Sioma and Tania were seated far apart, across an expanse of tablecloth and silver. In 1908, Mathilde and David had celebrated their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, and her mother, Baroness Ida, had given her a magnificent set of floral-painted dishes from Saxony. The flat plates lay before each guest, and the servants were placing filled soup bowls on top of them, when suddenly Sioma raised his flat dish and examined it carefully, reading the back label. His face quickened, and, leaning forward, he cried out, “Tania! Did you see? It's real! Genuine Meissen!” A stunned silence answered him, as guest turned to guest in consternation. But Ossip said brightly, “Let us pray that the food, too, will be genuine!” Whereupon Tania began to laugh, a high-pitched, tense laughter which spread to the other guests. Sonia smiled at her brother, and bit her lip.

After supper, they moved to the sitting room for coffee. Now that she was not only a married woman, but an expectant mother, Tania sank gratefully into an armchair, for it was unseemly for a mere girl to take up so much room. Lovingly, Sioma went to her, and sat on the arm of her chair. He slipped his arm around the back of his wife's shoulders, but Tania, with a grimace, bent slightly forward so that his arm should not touch her. Nobody but Sonia noticed this gesture, as the guests were busy turning their spoons in their fine cups, and watching the sugar dissolve and the cream blend in.

In June, Tania was put to bed with labor pains, and all the Gunzburgs congregated at the home of Rosa and Sasha. The delivery was delayed by hours of pain and complications; three doctors and a midwife sat in attendance upon the mother-to-be. At long length, a boy was born to Tania and Sioma, and the exhausted mother announced that he would be known as “Horace Boris.”

To Sonia's relief, Gorik, as the boy was surnamed (for the name “Horace” in Russian was “Goratsy”), resembled his beautiful mother. His healthy cries filled the nursery where once Tania's own cries had resounded, but she could not feed him. In fact, she hovered between life and death for several weeks, during which her cousins came frequently to hold her hand. One afternoon, thinking she would surely soon die, she whispered to Sonia, “It is better this way. You will take Gorik? I do not want Sioma's mother to have him, ever! And this way, you see, I shan't have to return to Kiev at all!” A horrified Sonia could find nothing to reply, but she nodded dumbly.

Tatiana, however, did grow stronger, and after almost three weeks was even permitted to take her baby to bed with her, where she held him tenderly. Sonia thought: If she does love the child, she cannot hate its father… And in fact, though she was still convinced of their mismatch, Tania's period of illness had persuaded her of Sioma's total devotion toward his beautiful young wife.

A
fter Tania's
confinement and recovery, the Gunzburgs faced one another, drained and tired, and decided that this was no time for going abroad. Besides, having summoned any extra energy she might have possessed after her grueling schedule by the side of Baroness Ivanov, and having employed this energy to aid in the nursing of Tania, Sonia was showing signs of exhaustion which distressed Mathilde. And Gino was in Russia, Gino for whom they had braved the
Haakon VII,
Gino who had put off his leave for so long, in order that he might prepare for the onslaught against the Austrians on the Southwestern front.

“I shall take Sonia to Pavlovsk,” Mathilde declared. This was the resort closest to Tsarskoe Selo, where the Imperial family resided during the summer. It was very lovely, with parks and outdoor concerts, and was also near the capital, so that Gino might visit his mother and sister there just as easily as in Petrograd. And Mathilde would be able to keep her eye on her husband, whose heart problem was not improving. Rosa, Tania, and Gorik joined them, but Sioma returned to his sugar plantations in Kiev. To avoid the annoying presence of Rosa, her long-time foe, Johanna went to France to visit her elderly mother.

On June 4, the Russian army, under General Alexei Brusilov, overwhelmed the Austrians, and Gino wrote that he was coming home. First, he stopped in Petrograd, where his father's poor color troubled him and his brother's apparent glow baffled him. Then he took the train to Pavlovsk. His mother and sister had only recently arrived, and he burst into the inn where they were staying, his mustache turned up, his hair shining mahogany, his eyes glistening with the victory which had exhilarated everyone connected with the Southwestern campaign staff. He lifted Sonia from her chaise longue, twirled her in the air, and deposited her, gasping for air, in a bed of pansies. Then he hugged his mother so that she thought the breath had been crushed out of her for good. He even succeeded in embracing his Aunt Rosa, who had never really noticed him before. Tania, holding the baby, gave him her cheek, and he thought: She is better disposed toward me, although her bloom has faded.

The young soldier admired everything around him at the agreeable resort. His eyes followed the women in their muslins and cottons, and when his cousin made a wry remark, he turned to her in all innocence, and said, “I had nearly forgotten what a lady looked like. Oh, sometimes we see milkmaids, in formless clothing. But never… such as this!” He motioned with his chin to a young woman with gay curls entering the lobby. But Tania stopped teasing when she noticed that the ladies, too, regarded Gino from lowered lids, surreptitiously admiring the man in uniform. He'd be perfect to be seen with, if only he were an officer, she thought.

When he entered the dining room and saw the tables with their white linen cloths, he nearly clapped with delight. “Oh, Mama!” he exclaimed. “Look at this! Can you imagine—being served upon this large clean sheet, in such luxury?”

His mother and sister started to laugh, and soon even Tania and Rosa were rocking back and forth in hilarity. “What have I said?” Gino cried.

“My love, you have been gone too long,” Sonia declared. “Had you indeed forgotten that these ‘sheets' are called ‘tablecloths'?”

He kissed his mother, and said sheepishly, “You should eat in the trenches from a can. No, no, I did not really mean that. I would not wish it upon you, ever!” He blushed with embarrassment.

Sitting outside, in the warm sun, at a long table laden with freshly churned butter, loaves of newly baked bread, and jams and jellies, he told them of the campaigns, of his men, of Vassya in particular. He recounted how he had won the Cross of St. George, so proudly displayed upon his breast, suspended from a black and orange ribbon. “You know,” he stated, munching with relish, “there must be something to faith.” And he explained about the colonel who crossed himself before each battle, who had never been wounded.

But this brought grief to his young, ardent face. He pointed angrily to his sleeve, devoid of red stripes. “Look!” he exclaimed. “It would seem as though I were a coward. Men receive stripes each time that they are hit. But I—never! Yet I have participated in many battles, and have fought in the midst of the fray.”

“I, for one, am gladdened by your virgin sleeve,” his mother chided him. How he had filled out, how muscular, how healthy he looked. She smiled, and shook her head, remembering the day of his birth, almost twenty-one years before, at Mohilna.

“Tell us,” Sonia demanded, leaning toward him, her gray eyes alive, “are you afraid, really, or is it true that brave men feel no fear?”

He laughed, gently. “My dear innocent,” he replied. “Of course I am frightened! I am terrified, as is, I am certain, the greatest general. The fear comes when I jump upon my horse to go to the line of fire. But once caught up in the action, shots ringing about my ears, I cease to think of fear or of anything at all. I simply keep going.”

One evening, in bitterness, he said, “My captain has attempted three times to have me promoted. But the order was rescinded each time, because of my religion.” He did not see that his mother stiffened, that revulsion transformed her full, lovely face. She was thinking: Both my sons. Such waste, such hurt...

Another morning, he came downstairs for breakfast carrying a sheaf of music sheets, which he placed before Sonia. “These are for you,” he told her. “I took them from an abandoned house in the outlands.”

“But that is theft, Gino!” she cried in dismay.

His lips pressed to a grim line. “I merely retrieved them, because I knew you would appreciate and use them. But you should witness the pillage that occurs on both sides! Had I not saved these sheets, my men would have burned them, or used them for notepaper. In any case, you may be certain that they would not have left them alone.”

He spoke with exuberance of the Russian army, which was being revitalized in strength and in supplies. “We shall defeat the Central Powers next year,” he stated proudly.

But Mathilde's brow knit, and she asked, “What about the socialist conferences in Switzerland, the ones your father so often talks about? He claims that those men want an end to war... but not an honorable one.”

Gino's face tightened with rage, and he hit the table with his fist. “They are maniacs, determined to undermine our nation!” he cried. “Anna has sent me letters. She says that all they care about is revolution.”

“Revolution?” Sonia echoed, and her lips parted. Her cousin's eyes encountered hers, and there was fear in their blue irises. She looked at her aunt, nervously biting the inside of her cheek, and at her mother, whose features displayed vague shock. But her brother stared at her with fierce passion. “Let them only try!” he exclaimed. The baby, Gorik, began to wail.

I
n the fall
Sonia resumed her work for the prisoners of war, who had, in the meantime, greatly multiplied, as had the number of camps. She also continued to go to the Winter Palace to cut bandages. Petrograd, under gray skies, grimly attempted to deal with economic pressures and with the two million refugees which had to be relocated from the evacuated areas. Rumania had joined the Triple Entente, and suffered total defeat, and now Gino wrote that he was being sent to the Black Sea to help the Rumanians. The gallant warriors hardly paused from battle to battle, she thought proudly.

In December 1916, the illiterate peasant-monk, Rasputin, was murdered by three prominent men, of whom one, Prince Felix Yussupov, was a member of the Tzar's own family. For a long time now, able politicians such as Baron David had shaken their heads with disbelief at the thought that this strange, half-crazed, lecherous mujik wielded unlimited influence upon the Tzarina Alexandra, who was herself the power behind the Tzar. No political decision had been made without Rasputin's consultation over the past year. Now the horrible murder of this dreadful man shook the capital, and Mathilde whispered, “Has Russia gone mad?”

Baron David, his lips blue, went to his wife, and taking her plump hands in his own lean ones, said quietly, “I do not know what is going to happen. But you and Sonitchka must leave Petrograd, for if anything does happen, it will happen here. I am fine, and I have Ossip with me and Sasha nearby. We have survived the revolts of 1905, and we shall of course survive this, too. But look at our daughter: she weighs less than ninety pounds, and this time she will not wait till summer. She is about to collapse, Mathilde. Take her to the Crimea, where you can simply live off the revenues of our land until things quiet down and I can begin to send you money on a regular basis. And do not worry so about my heart. It has pumped for sixty years, and will continue to do so for many more.”

Mathilde regarded the blue-veined hands that held her, and suddenly she bent to kiss them. “You are a good man, David,” she murmured. Tears moistened her cheeks. “Make the arrangements for us. Give us two months, so that the estate manager, Zevin, can reserve rooms for us in a pleasant town, since we have no suitable house there. We can take our time, setting up the house here, for you and Ossip to get by in comfort during our absence. I do not want to leave in a hurry.”

She announced her decision to Sonia, expecting opposition. But her daughter, her cheekbones drained of all color, simply sighed and shook her head. It was not a negation of her mother's words, but a negation of strength. She would make herself endure till February, for the sake of all those men who needed her services so desperately. But already, her right arm could hardly lift itself without nearly superhuman effort. She certainly possessed no reserves with which to oppose her mother, or anybody, for that matter. Tania had left for Kiev in the fall, her cheeks their usual apricot hue, and Ossip was hardly home at all. She and Nina Abelson worked together, but there was no need to talk there either, for Nina, though more stalwart than her friend, was also weary to the bone. Sonia therefore had been living as an automaton, working, sleeping, working, sleeping, each day blurring into the next. Her only moments of life came with letters from Gino or Anna, or when she worried over her father.

During the two months that Mathilde took to put her house in order, Baron David came to a decision. He would sell the Judaica now. Life in Petrograd was becoming too complicated to put off the moment of resolution, and the war having cut off his communication with the University of Pennsylvania, he made up his mind to sell to Hillel Zlatopolsky, now residing in Moscow. “It is right,” he stated, “for the Jews of Palestine to gain primary access to this collection, for it is their history that is recorded here. Hillel Israelovitch made a good point, one that is irrefutable. If the books must leave Russia, let them go to Palestine. Though I do not believe that the Jews shall ever need to create this special state to shield them from their foe...”

Hillel Zlatopolsky came alone this time, to sign the necessary papers. He had only one brief encounter with Sonia, as she was preparing to go to the Winter Palace. She was frailer than ever, her oval face drawn with lines of exhaustion, but her gray eyes regarded him with warmth. “I am trying to hang on,” she told him, smiling in self-deprecation. “Silly of me, isn't it? I'm young, and should be working twice as hard. But always I seem to give out. Last summer, I was merely tired, but in Geneva I came down with enteritis. You must deem me a veritable Milquetoast, compared to your energetic daughter.”

“You are possessed of different qualities, my dear,” Hillel Zlatopolsky replied. “Strength is not measured by the loudness of one's orders nor by one's physical volume. You are like the geranium, which cannot be destroyed.”

“Remember me to your son,” she said, and as she mouthed the words a surge of heat flowed over her. Hillel Zlatopolsky bowed, and went into the sitting room to meet David. Sonia walked down the outer staircase, and shook her head as if to clear it. What an odd sensation had taken hold of her! But there was no time to analyze it, or anything else, for that matter. Baroness Sokolova was waiting.