The Jewel of St Petersburg (10 page)

S
HE KNOCKED ON THE DOOR OF HER FATHER’S STUDY. IT was time to tell him of her decision.

“Come in.
Vkhodite.”

She pushed open the door. Her father was seated at his broad leather-topped desk and raised his head from the papers he was studying.

“You asked to see me?” he said. He didn’t look pleased about the interruption.

“Yes.”

He folded his arms. An unlit cigar flicked impatiently between two fingers. He was still a good-looking man, though a little heavy now from too many banquets at the Winter Palace, but she remembered him lean and fit when he served as a general in the Russian army. He wore his hair swept back from his face, with thick eyebrows over shrewd deep-set eyes. Dark as her own. They assessed her now.

“Sit down,” he said.

She sat on the chair in front of the desk and tucked her hands neatly in her lap. “Papa, I wish to apologize for taking Katya down to the Rzhevka district yesterday. I was trying to keep her safe from the strikers who—”

“I accept your apology.” He brushed a hand over his dark whiskers, as though he could brush away his thoughts. “What you did,” he said, “was foolish, but I realize you were trying to protect your sister.”

She had expected worse.

“Is that all?” he asked. “I am busy.”

“No,” she said. “That’s not all.”

He placed his cigar in an ashtray, then lined it up precisely beside a pen and a red pencil in front of him. His eyes lingered on the cigar as if he preferred to smoke it in peace. Her father had an orderly mind, which was why he worked where he did. Valentina didn’t know exactly what he did as a government minister, but she knew it had something to do with finance. She used to imagine him in his office at the Chancellery counting the tsar’s money, tall stacks of roubles right up to the ceiling.

Finally he grew tired of her silence and glanced up.

“What else?” he asked with a touch of impatience. “I have work to do.”

“Papa, I don’t want to return to school when the new term starts.”

He stared at her, surprised. No hint of the anger she had expected.

Then he smiled.

“I hope you approve, Papa,” she added quickly.

“I do indeed. Your mother and I have discussed the situation and we are convinced that schooling can do nothing more for you. It’s time to think about your future.”

It was only tiny, that first prickle of unease. She gave it no thought.

“I agree, Papa. I’m so pleased you think so too. That’s what I’ve been planning. I have an idea.”

He sat back in his chair and picked up the cigar on his desk with pleasure. He dispensed with its band, clipped one end, and smelled its fragrant leaves before taking his time lighting it. She had the feeling he was already celebrating something.

“So, Valentina,” he said, “for once we agree. You are a good daughter now.”

Now. Even so. It was a first step.

She tried to hold the moment, to not let it trickle through her fingers. “This idea of yours, have you discussed it with your mother?”

“Not yet, Papa. I wanted to discuss it with you first.”

“Foolish girl.” He smiled and exhaled a twisting string of smoke in her direction. “What do I care for dresses?”

“Dresses?”

“Yes, the dresses you have an idea about. You must discuss them with your mother. Mothers are the ones who deal with such matters.”

She inhaled quickly. Tasted the smoke. “Papa, I didn’t mention dresses.”

“Well, don’t worry, I’m certain your mother will want to talk about them.” He nodded indulgently. “I know what ladies are like when it comes to gowns.”

He rose from his seat and marched across the room, his body thick-waisted inside his frock coat. He was making a lot of noise, his sleeves rustling, his feet striding over the polished boards, his fingers tapping his shirt front. She knew these signs, recognized them as indications that he was exceedingly pleased. What was happening here? This conversation was not going right.

“I won’t need more than a few dresses,” she pointed out warily.

“No, my dear. If you’re to make a catch you’ll need at least thirty or forty gowns, I imagine. But I leave all that to your mother. The important thing is that the decision is made and we have already compiled a list of names for you to consider.”

“Papa, what do you mean,
make a catch?”

He looked at his elder daughter fondly. “Find a husband, of course.”

“A husband?” Her hands fell off her lap.

“Yes, of course. Isn’t that what we’re talking about? Leaving school and finding a husband.” He drew on his cigar with obvious pleasure, paced the room, and flicked away stray strands of tobacco from his shirt front. “You’ll soon be eighteen, Valentina. Time to behave responsibly. Find a suitable husband this season and get married. Plenty of fine strong officers out there from good families.”

“I am not getting married, Papa.”

“Let’s have no foolishness, Valentina. What are you going on about now?”

“I am not getting married.”

“You just said you were ready to set about planning your future.”

“Yes, but not as a wife.”

“What else is there for you, my dear girl? Your mother and I ...” He stopped, as if struck by an unwelcome thought. In the middle of the room he seemed to swell inside his clothes, and the veins on his cheeks filled with blood. “What is this idea you have for your own future?”

She stood up to face him. “Papa, that’s what I’ve come to tell you. I want to train to become a professional nurse.”

T
HEY SAT HER DOWN. NOT IN THE STUDY. NOT IN THE drawing room, where serious discussions usually took place. Her parents sat her down in the music room, the room she had poured her hopes into for so many years. They sat her on the piano stool with its tasseled seat that she had frayed and picked at when the music wouldn’t come right. Her mother took a seat on the chair by the window. Though her face was under the usual control, her fingers held a handkerchief screwed into a tight ball in one hand. Her mother’s silence was almost worse than her father’s outburst.

“Valentina,” General Ivanov said, “you must rid your head of this unpleasant notion at once. It astonishes me that you give such an idea even a moment’s serious thought. Look at the education you’ve received, the music lessons. Think about all that it cost us.”

He was striding back and forth in front of her, the edge of his frock coat flapping with agitation. She wanted to put out a hand to quiet it. To quiet him.

“Please try to understand, Papa. I can speak four languages and I can play the piano and I can walk well. What does that fit me for?”

“It fits you for marriage. That’s what all young ladies are groomed for.”

“I’m sorry, Papa, I told you. I don’t wish to marry.”

Her mother’s intake of breath was too much. Valentina turned to face the piano, her back to them, and lifted the lid. Her fingers found a soft chord and then stretched to another, and as always the sound of the notes calmed her. The trembling in her chest grew less. She played a snatch of the Chopin piece and saw a flash of the flame-haired Viking lounging in the corner of her mind. Behind her all movement had ceased, and she imagined her parents exchanging glances.

“You play well, Valentina.”

“Thank you, Mama.”

“Any husband would be proud to have you entertain his guests after dinner with a piece by Beethoven or Tchaikovsky.”

Valentina clamped her fingers together to keep them off the keys. “I want to be a nurse.” She spoke quietly. Patiently. “I want to look after Katya. Nurse Sonya won’t be with us forever.”

A sigh drifted across the room, and suddenly her father’s tall dark figure was standing right behind her. His hand stroked her hair and settled on her shoulder. She didn’t move. He hadn’t touched her in the six months since the bomb at Tesovo, and she feared that if she so much as shifted a muscle, he would retreat and not touch her for another six.

“Valentina, listen to me, my dear child. You know I want the best for you. Nursing is a miserable occupation, full of whores and alcoholics. It is not suitable work for a respectable young lady.”

“Listen to your father,” her mother urged gently.

“They have lice. They have... diseases.” It was clear from the way he spoke that he didn’t mean just smallpox or typhoid.

“But Nurse Sonya isn’t a whore or an alcoholic,” Valentina pointed out. “She doesn’t have a disease. She’s a respectable woman.”

His hand tightened its grip on her shoulder, and she sensed it wanting to tighten its grip on her mind. “There is another way,” he said, “for you to help Katya. A better way to make it up to her.”

“How?”

“It’s not difficult.”

“What is it, Papa? What can I do?”

“Marry well.”

She swung back to the piano, disappointment catching at her throat. She didn’t want to cross her father.

“You heard me, Valentina.” The general’s voice was beginning to rise. “Damn it, girl, you must marry well. You must marry now. I insist on it. For the good of the Ivanov name.”

Seven

E
XPLOITATION! DEPRIVATION! STARVATION!”

Mikhail Sergeyev was good. He knew how to work a crowd, how to spark the emotions in men and put fire in their empty bellies. Arkin assessed tonight’s crowd with satisfaction. Most were peasants like himself, simple workmen who had flocked from the rural provinces to find employment in the factories of St. Petersburg. Most couldn’t read. Few could even write their name. Oddly, that fact saddened Arkin even more than the terrible conditions under which they worked in the factories or in the mills. The knowledge that the minds of the masses were being deliberately stunted by depriving them of education was to him the harshest injustice of all. It was why he believed in Leon Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution. He had gone with Sergeyev to hear Trotsky address a meeting, and they had both been so enthralled by this man of vision with his bush of unruly hair and forever-glinting spectacles that they had walked the streets all night, unable to rest. He had shown them a new world. One in which justice and equality weren’t just empty words but were the living, breathing heart of every man’s life. From that moment on, they had started to recruit others to the socialist cause.

“Men of Russia”—Sergeyev was passionate in his urging—“we have to fight for our rights ourselves. The iron fist of tsarism must”—he paused and gazed around the room at his audience—
“must
be overthrown.”

There were shouts of approval.

“They gave us the Duma to shut us up.” Sergeyev said the words mockingly. “Yet Prime Minister Stolypin treats it with scorn. Instead he puts Stolypin neckties, the hangman’s noose, on all who dissent.” Sergeyev yanked up his own tie as if he were being throttled by a rope, and the crowd roared. Arkin added his voice to theirs.

“Does Stolypin care that there is no bread on the table for your children?”

“No!
Nyet!
No!”

“Does Stolypin care that you are made to work in conditions that even a dog would bite off his leg to escape?”

“No
^!
No!”

“Does Stolypin care that—”

“Comrade Sergeyev!” The shout came from a whippet of a man who was on his feet, a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth.

“Sit down!” a voice yelled.

Sergeyev held out a hand to demand silence. “Speak, comrade. All have the right to be heard.”

“Comrades,” the man said, raising his voice, “this talk will lead us nowhere. We cannot fight the enemy, we must make treaty with it. The Duma was only a first step. All the time we are working and arguing for more concessions. Alexander Guchkov, leader of the Octobrists in the Duma, is working hard to obtain agreement for better conditions in the mines of—”

“Alexander Guchkov,” Sergeyev thundered, “is nothing more than an instrument of tyranny.”

This delighted the crowd.
“Da!
Yes!”

Sergeyev drew himself up to his full height. “The
only
answer is the seizure of power by the workers. Strength to the unions.”

Thunderous applause. Voices clamoring. Hands pushing and pulling at the intruder in their midst until he swore they would all be wearing Stolypin’s neckties before long and stalked out of the hall in defeat.

“Power to the workers!” Sergeyev bellowed.

Against the wall, Arkin lit himself a cigarette and nodded.
A dictatorship of the proletariat,
Leon Trotsky had called it. It would be a bitter and bloody battle, but it was coming. The only question was when.