The Four Winds of Heaven (76 page)

“And I am pleased to meet you, too,” Sonia replied, smiling at the girl. She could not look at the mother, but knew that for an inexplicable reason Natasha wished to hold her there. Surely not for the past? Finally she raised her gray eyes and said, “My mother and I are sailing for Constantinople on the twenty-third. I was searching for my brother, Gino, who is serving under General Kutepov. I had so hoped he might be right here, in Sevastopol…”

But Sonia realized that Natasha had stopped listening to her, that she had bitten her lower lip at the mention of the word “brother.” It was a word that hung between them. Now Natasha murmured, “And... Ossip?”

“We haven't heard from him in several years. He had gone to Odessa—”

“Yes,” Natasha said. Sonia stopped, and regarded her once more, wondering. Natasha hesitated, then added nothing. Sonia waited. For a moment, intense discomfort gnawed at both of them, and each stood on the verge of exchanging confidences, on the brink of understanding, but held back. Finally Natasha broke the awkward silence and said, with infinite gentleness, “My husband, Prince Kurdukov, is stationed here with his troops. I shall ask him about your… about Evgeni Davidovitch. If I hear any news, where shall I come?”

Sonia's austere, alabaster features relaxed, and a tint of pink rose to her cheekbones. “That is most generous of your time and effort, Natalia Nicolaievna,” she replied. She gave the address of the family with whom the Gunzburgs were staying, and said good-bye to the woman and her daughter. When she returned home she could not shake off the odd sensation that had enveloped her and Natasha that afternoon. She kept fighting the desire to weep.

The evening before their scheduled departure, their hostess told them that a lady had come to speak with them, a Princess Kurdukova. Sonia's face lit up, and she clutched her mother's hand. “That is Natalia Nicolaievna,” she said. “Perhaps she has located Gino!” The desperate hope in her voice filled the room.

But when Natasha entered, her lovely eyes were opaque, and she was not smiling. Sonia's heart plummeted. Natasha went toward Mathilde, took her hand, and said, “It is good to see you, Mathilde Yureyevna. But I have not found your son. However, my husband is on the lookout for him, and if we hear the slightest news...”

“You are so kind,” Mathilde answered. She motioned for Natasha to take a seat on the small divan, and the young woman did so. The family had retired to other rooms in order to leave their guests alone with their visitor. Mathilde gazed upon Natasha and declared, “You are still as lovely as when we knew you. How are your parents? Maria Efimovna?”

Now Natasha's eyes filled with tears, which she brushed away quickly. “They are gone,” she murmured. “It was a dreadful tragedy. My daughter and I are the only ones alive today—and my husband, of course.” She looked away, then back to Mathilde, and said, intensely, “You do not know whether Ossip is safe?”

Sonia cleared her throat, and all at once her features glazed with frost. She was remembering Ossip before his baccalaureate exams, telling her that his life was over, that Natasha would not be his wife. She spoke, startling her mother with the curtness of her words. “Natalia Nicolaievna,” she said, “why should it matter to you? Ossip has meant less than nothing to your existence. He was a despised Jew, to be hurt and eventually discarded.”

The face that stared back at Sonia was red, and bathed in tears. “You have no idea,” Natasha whispered. “No idea at all... How could you, Sofia Davidovna? I, at least, gave Ossip what I could. Small gifts indeed, compared to what he should have been given. But I did not let him kill himself in a reckless ambush, at the end of a crazy war. You may be able to live with your upright purity, but there are only venial sins on my own conscience. I am sorry that it was Jesus who said, ‘He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.' I wish it had been Moses or David. Then you would not accuse me of prejudice…”

“I did what I thought best, for both of us,” Sonia replied quietly.

“Ah, yes. We each do what it is in our nature to let us do. It was Ossip who taught me to stop hating you, Sofia Davidovna. But I cannot hate you, for after all, you are his sister.”

“This is no time for hatred, in any event,” Sonia commented tersely. Her own eyes had filled with tears, and she clasped her hands in her lap.

“No. But... if you see him... when you see him... would you give him a message? I want him to know— that—” Natasha stood up suddenly, her face distorted. She looked at Mathilde who sat uncomprehending of the scene that had so shaken her daughter and the Princess, and now Natasha could not continue. She went toward Mathilde, took her hand once again, and whispered, “It was so good to see you, to know that you are well. Good-bye, Mathilde Yureyevna.” She walked hastily to the door.

On the threshold, Sonia caught up with her, placing a hand upon the other's arm. “What is the message?” she murmured.

Natasha saw the earnest expression of the gray eyes, the stillness of delicate features. She replied, her voice low, “I am going to ask my husband to grant me a divorce, when this is over. Even if it means that he will take Larissa from me—”

But Sonia shook her head. “Wait,” she said softly. “Let us see where life takes you, where it may take Ossip, and your husband. I would not raise my brother's hopes—nor indeed should you raise your own. Good luck, Natalia Nicolaievna.”

Sonia did not speak to her mother after Natasha's departure. She finished the packing, and left Mathilde to wonder at the cold, hard passion she had seen surface in her frail, beautiful daughter, whose back seemed so fragile as she bent over the luggage. And Mathilde thought: I do not know my children. She thought of Riri, a searing vision; then her mind lit upon Natasha, and she sighed. She remembered Johanna, and her agony in the end. Some of us love forever, she reflected, and this love devours us until it has decimated our existence. She worried about her sons. Where were they now, and were they safe? Would their lives ever be normal again?

“Sleep, Mama,” Sonia told her, and obediently Mathilde lay down and closed her eyes upon the pain and the lack of answers.

On the following morning, the twenty-third of August, Zevin's peasant guide drove Sonia to the port, where she found their ship and climbed aboard to assume possession of the cabin she and her mother were to share with three other women. In the meantime, Mathilde made her rounds with the remnant of her Russian money, finishing with the peasant himself whom she tipped lavishly with their last rubles. He was now ready to return to Simferopol, his mission accomplished. In the late afternoon, he made his final stop, taking Mathilde to the ship with all the sacks of luggage. She found Sonia in the cabin, and then, together, they climbed on deck.

When the ship lifted anchor, it was early evening, and by the docks an immense crowd stood watching as the ship began to move. Dusk had settled over Sevastopol. Sonia watched as Russia receded to a thin line on the horizon. Salt spray tingled upon her face. A strange tranquility had seeped into her soul, had settled there as a thick quilt upon a bed. It seemed fitting that her last memory of Russia should be of the south, as was her first, of Mohilna. She was burying Russia, as once she had buried Volodia Tagantsev. “We each do what it is in our own nature to let us do.” Or, thought Sonia, what must be done.

T
he next day
the sea grew rough and rain came. Between the showers, bursts of sunshine appeared to relieve the darkness. The Gunzburgs ate their provisions. In the early morning the ship entered the Bosporus, and at noon it dropped anchor in a shaded cove between some wooded hills near Kavaca. Officials—Senegalese soldiers—stepped on board, rounded up the passengers, and divided the men and women. Each group was made to line up in twos, and the men went off in one direction while the women were sent off the ship into a hot waiting room with bars upon its windows.

Later, two Turkish women ordered the women to undress, and all but their hats, boots, corsets, coats, and change purses were taken out to be disinfected. Then, in groups of four, they were taken to four small shower stalls where, for the first time in days, Sonia and Mathilde washed away the soot and grime of their travels. In the next room they redressed, feeling rehabilitated by their cleansing, and at two thirty in the afternoon men and women were reunited and allowed to reboard the ship. It was time for the crew to be disinfected.

They arrived in Constantinople at four thirty. A commission of Allied representatives—French, English, Italian, Greek and Turkish—came at once on board to examine the entrance visas. When they were done, dock officials arrived, offering to find rooms for those who were disembarking. But Sonia heard one of them telling a lady that he would obtain a room for “a mere twenty-five Turkish pounds” for her and her small son. Sonia turned to her mother, horror-struck. The two women only possessed a total of thirty pounds, with which they also needed to wire Misha de Gunzburg in Paris. Sonia could not move. They could hardly afford a porter, but if they left the ship without all their bags, they would never be permitted back on board to claim the rest at a later time. And Sonia intended to hold on to the few valued books and functional clothes which represented their only possessions. These bags, which now stood upon the deck, were Russia and their past, as well as their link with the future.

A dock official was telling Mathilde that they were the last ones, that they needed to disembark at once. Quickly Sonia stated, “Please. We are expecting friends. Give us a few more moments.” When he moved away, doubtful, she whispered to her mother, “This will give me time to think up something. I don't know what, though…”

But the official had gone to fetch a companion, who said to Sonia, “We know how it is. You have very little money. Maybe we can help you. I know of a place where you can sleep for only three Turkish pounds a night. Come with me.”

Three pounds! One-tenth the asking price of the other officials. As they followed the man off the ship, Sonia visualized a rat-infested cellar or a sordid attic. But they were almost beggars and had no choice. He had offered them their only way off the ship.

A truck came onto the pier, and the official helped the driver load the Gunzburg bags onto it. Then he helped the two women inside. Slowly the vehicle began to climb from Galata Avenue to Pera, the most elegant thoroughfare of Constantinople. To Sonia's astonishment, the driver halted in front of the once splendid Hotel d'Angleterre. “Our hotels can no longer feed their guests,” the official explained, helping them step down. “This one possesses an enormous dining room which is no longer in use. I know the manager. He will let you sleep there for only three pounds.”

Sonia's eyes flew to the kind face of the stranger, and she placed a hand upon his arm. “However can we thank you?” she whispered tremulously. “God alone can understand how desperate our situation would be without your efforts!”

“It's quite all right,” the official replied. He was clearly embarrassed by the intensity of Sonia's gratitude.

They were escorted to a large room where two iron beds had been set up in a corner. The women were told that they could place their clothing inside the sideboard drawers. The manager brought in a portable sink and a wooden table, and Sonia paid him for several days in advance and tipped the official. These transactions left the Gunzburgs with sufficient funds for frugal meals and their telegram.

Alone, mother and daughter looked around them, their odyssey ended, if only until Misha's response. Sonia's dark hair shone above her clear white brow, and her gray eyes were calm yet firm. Bolshevism was behind them, out of their life. Only the diamond crab had come with them from Petrograd, from another existence. As Sonia unpinned it from her undergarment to go to sleep, she said to her mother, “One day my daughter will wear this jewel, and imagine spires and cupolas that her eyes may never see. To think that a man nearly murdered us for it...”

But Mathilde was thinking of something quite different. She wondered at Sonia's absurd confidence that she would one day marry to produce such a daughter. Now that they had nothing, would there be a David to claim her?

B
aron Mikhail de Gunzburg
wired sufficient money to his niece and sister-in-law for them to make proper reservations to travel to Paris on the Orient Express. It would be their first time on this noted train, and Misha had sent them enough funds for a wagon-lit. This incredible luxury loomed magnificent in Mathilde's head, but Sonia had other reasons for rejoicing. Misha had made her a proposal, in answer to her request for help in finding a position in Paris. His son, Sergei, who knew little of Russia and was called by his French name of Serge, was now ten, and needed the firm hand of an excellent governess. Would Sonia consent to come to him and her Aunt Clara, in their mansion on rue de Lubeck, near the Place d'Iena, to care for Serge?

Sonia did not hesitate in accepting. Although her mother balked at the notion of her daughter's being placed “in a false situation,” Sonia expressed astonishment. “Your best friend was a governess in your own household,” she chided her mother.

But Mathilde thought of how Rosa had slighted Johanna, and of others who had treated her as hardly a step up from a servant. “Eight years ago you spent time with Misha and Clara,” she admonished her daughter, “and you were their guest. Now you would be returning, in a very different situation, as a salaried employee. Could you endure that, Sonia?”

“I endured the Crimea for three years, and I endured being rejected by Kolya for another woman,” Sonia declared quietly. “I need to earn a living, and Uncle Misha is a good man. Also—I love children.”

Ah, thought Mathilde, wincing. Anna too loved them, loved her own child, caring for him as though he were another woman's. Suddenly, the serene Mathilde was furious, furious with Kolya Saxe for what he had done: if he had not abandoned Sonia, she would not now be planning to serve in her uncle's house. But Sonia refused to reconsider her decision. Mathilde said, “You cannot accept without informing Misha of your condition. Your ribs are showing, Sonia. We shall need time, six or eight weeks' worth, to recuperate here.”

Mikhail de Gunzburg replied that he and Clara were willing to wait. In the meanwhile, the two women walked about the city of Constantinople, meeting acquaintances from Petrograd and the Crimea who had similarly sought refuge there from the destructive forces of the Red Army. Then came a letter from Paris, and Sonia recognized the handwriting with a lurch of her heart: it came from Ossip! The first news in two years. She opened the envelope and scanned its contents, growing pale. “Mama,” she said, “Ossip is married! He married a woman called Lizette Dietrich, from the Baltic provinces, and they are in Paris. Uncle Misha told him we were here. Ossip is working at the Franco-Asian Bank, which is owned by a cousin, and he is going to be sent to Tokyo. Lizette has a daughter by a former marriage—” She stopped, simply handing the missive to her mother, who awaited it with trembling hands. News of her favorite son. Stunned, hopeful, also frightened, Mathilde had let her daughter read the smooth handwriting first. But now she could not concentrate on Ossip's own words. Visions of Natalia Kurdukova printed themselves upon her memory, and she compressed her lips.

Sonia knew what was in her mother's mind, but she remembered more: those last few phrases uttered by Natasha about a divorce. Sonia knew her brother. But she did not sense joy in this letter, certainly no personal joy. She remembered Natasha in Ossip's arms, in the Tambov, by the lake. Fool, she thought suddenly, weak fool. But who was she to decide now in favor of Natasha, she who had so ardently sought to make her brother give her up?

W
hile Sonia
and Mathilde grew stronger in Constantinople, the White Army was dying, unsung, in the Crimean peninsula. General Wrangel, admitting defeat, began to send convoys of troops to the Bosporus, and to evacuate the wounded and the families of soldiers as well. The communists had finally, unquestionably, won, both in government and in strength of battle. The seventy thousand remaining Whites began to depart, on ships, though some had been retained for one last stand on the Isthmus of Perekop in the north of the Crimea.

Master Sergeant Gino de Gunzburg was given orders, in early October, to board the convoy ship
Don,
en route to Gallipoli. Eighty-five hundred others received the same command. The seventh regiment of the cavalry was being evacuated. The young man was cold and tired, especially in his heart. He and his companions were herded together in the third story hold, where their horses were likewise accommodated. He was leaving his country for life, and, turning to Afanassiev, a young sergeant who had fought alongside him, Gino said, “This is truly exile and orphanage. I know only of one of my sisters, in Switzerland, who has survived. She is ten years my senior and I haven't seen her for a long time. My brother has disappeared, I have heard nothing of my mother and my other sister. Papa is dead, our fortune is gone—and we are quitting Russia in abject defeat. Somehow, this seems too much to accept.”

“I was counting on your customary heartiness to sweeten the dregs,” Afanassiev remonstrated. But he knew that his friend had not been himself for many months.

Gino did not smile. He was feeling the weight of his youth, more strenuous to bear than old age. Regeneration had always taken place for him with a new dawn. Nothing that had occurred yesterday haunted Gino today. But since Olga's death, his beliefs had been, if not shattered, at least shaken loose. He did not feel self-pity, but rather the absence of hope.

There was a freezing wind moving through the troop carrier
Don,
and the men hugged their clothing tightly around them. A strong gust blew away Gino's cap, and he was not quick enough to retrieve it. He pressed his hands to his ears, aching with cold. Afanassiev said, “Put your head inside your cloak.”

But try as he might, Gino could not hide from the icy wind of the Black Sea. Soon he was shivering, and his teeth chattered. His cheeks rapidly grew red with fever, and he lay down, breathing raspily. “It's going to be all right,” Afanassiev soothed, lying down beside him. “They say we are to stop in Constantinople. We can disembark if we can find someone there to take us off the ship, officially. Your family was in the diplomatic corps—don't you have any connections in Constantinople?”

Huddling inside his coat, perspiring profusely, Gino replied, “Yes, the former Ambassador to Turkey, Tcharykov. His wife was a friend of my mother. She is deceased now, but he is still in Constantinople—as head of the Red Cross delegation. I have no idea of his address, however.”

“Someone that important can always be found,” Afanassiev said.

A storm had swept out of the sea, but Gino was hardly aware of it, for a high fever shook him and made him delirious. Afanassiev bent over him, fearing pneumonia. But it had come on so suddenly! He covered Gino with his own coat, but soon he too began to shiver, and he crawled beside his friend, hoping to warm him with the heat of his own body. Hours passed. Finally there was an announcement that the ship was docking at Constantinople. It was the middle of the night. Afanassiev tapped Gino on the shoulder and said, “Tell me your message for this Tcharykov. I can write the letter for you.”

“Thank you, Boris,” Gino breathed. He knew now how the young German officer, von Falkenhayn, must have felt, dictating his last message. Such gloomy thoughts would normally have elicited mirth in himself, at his own absurdity. Now he merely allowed his head to clear before composing the words to the former Ambassador of the Tzar.

He could not sign, for he had lost consciousness when Afanassiev finished writing on the small, creased notepaper which he found in Gino's coat pocket. He added himself, for the benefit of Tcharykov, “Baron de Gunzburg has lost his cap, and may have caught pneumonia resulting from a severe chill. I have written these words under his dictation. Sergeant Boris Ivanovitch Afanassiev, Seventh Regiment.” He gave the note to one of the men going ashore, begging him to attempt to locate this well-known Russian in Constantinople.

Ex-Ambassador Anatoly Tcharykov was widowed, and lived in a sumptuous mansion on the Pera road. He felt, however, that the climate in Turkey was turning to
sympathy with the communists, and had decided that since he could not reintegrate his own country, he would go to Rome. When the note arrived from Gino, he was in his study with his secretary, his wife's nephew Yenudinia, packing the remainder of his collection of books. Georgi Yenudinia had long known the Gunzburgs, and was of the same age as the Gunzburg children. He had danced with Sonia at balls, had spent many evenings playing chess with Ossip during their school days. He was older than Gino, but remembered him warmly. When his uncle read the dirty, weather-beaten note, and handed it to Yenudinia, the latter exclaimed, “We must fetch him right now. He must be very badly off to appeal to us in such manner.”

But Anatoly Tcharykov shook his head. He had never particularly liked the Gunzburgs. His wife, Vera, had befriended Mathilde years ago, when Baron David had worked under Vera's father, Ivanov, at the Ministry of Education. Tcharykov had always felt excluded by the intimacy between his wife's family and the Gunzburgs. Now he declared, “It is the middle of the night, and you and I are planning a departure. There is much to do. Tomorrow morning, you can go to the boy's mother. She and his sister are residing in one of the hotels nearby. They can do more for Gino than we can.”

“I could go to find them now,” Yenudinia offered.

“I am paying you a salary,” his uncle replied coldly, “and it is late. I want you here, with me, and not out in the streets. The ladies are sleeping now, in any event, and would not wish to be disturbed until the morning. What is the rush? He will not die overnight. We have numerous problems to contend with; Gino de Gunzburg is only one of many. Do not argue a moot point, my boy.”

Georgi Yenudinia remembered the quiet evenings when Mathilde Yureyevna would calmly listen to his plans, would encourage his ambitions. He thought of pretty little Sonia, a woman of thirty today, who would not even have considered him as a suitor, for his parents had not left him rich. He had gone to work for his Uncle Anatoly, and was accustomed to his sour moods and tightness of spirit. He missed the gentleness of his Aunt Vera, and of friends of hers such as the Gunzburgs, in whose house he had been treated graciously and kindly. But his uncle regarded him with his piercing black eyes, demanding submission. Yenudinia folded Gino's note and placed it neatly upon his uncle's desk, reminding himself to bring it to his uncle's attention right after breakfast. Then, sighing, he resumed his packing of the leather-bound volumes into padded crates.

In the troop carrier
Don,
filled with men and horses, Gino shivered and perspired, next to Afanassiev. During his moments of clear-headedness, the old glow of hope and life came to his brown eyes, and he would stir at each new sound, hoping that the soldier who had promised to deliver the message would be bringing back Tcharykov. At length, toward morning, the man did return, but alone. He told Gino that he had located Tcharykov's house and had brought him the note in person. Yet no one had ventured to come back with him to the transport. “He will come in the morning,” the soldier said, afraid of the look in Gino's eyes. The rich mahogany tint had faded from them, and he stared at the messenger as though he were invisible.

When the sky became golden with the rising of the sun, an officer appeared among the men in the third hold, and announced that the
Don
was about to lift anchor toward Gallipoli. He made a tour of his passengers, and halted by the moaning form of Gino lying supine on the cold wooden planks, his breath a loud, troubled rasping. “This man needs immediate care,” the officer declared, and sent for a gurney. They lifted Gino upon it, and the officer stated, “The
Dobrovòletz
is docked in this harbor, and is bearing Cossacks to the island of Lemnos. Take him there, and tell the authorities that he is to go to the French Hospital at Lemnos. He suffers from pneumonia, and cannot survive in such cramped quarters, adjacent to beasts.” Afanassiev could not bid his friend farewell, for the young Baron was not sufficiently conscious of his surroundings. But Afanassiev thought, grimly, if that bastard Tcharykov arrives now, searching for him, he will know how to find me, because of the few words I added, identifying myself. But if he comes later, the
Don
will be gone. He looked at the sun, white gold in the sky of the Bosporus, as Gino's gurney was carried out of sight.