The Little Russian (14 page)

After a while he let his mind wander back to the Kovel terminal, to the man with all the children. He saw him picking up a child in one arm and an array of suitcases in the other . . . suitcases of all sizes and colors, suitcases like his own, stuffing them under his arm and in his hand, striding through the platform archway, while trailing his brood behind him. Then just before he disappeared under the arch, Pavel remembered that he turned back and glanced at him. At the time it barely registered. But now Pavel realized that it was more than just a random glance in his direction: It was a look of gratitude for a job well done.

December 1913

 

“IT’S TIME to begin,
maideleh
,” she called out. “I’m waiting.”

Berta broke an egg on the edge of the bowl and dropped the contents into a hollowed-out onion full of water. She swirled the mixture around with her finger while chanting a spell she made up on the spot.

“What is it, Mameh? What do you see?” asked Sura, running over and peering into the onion beside her mother.

“I see a long life,
maideleh
. A long life with a handsome husband and lots of children.”

“I don’t want children. I want horses.”

“And lots of horses.”

“Arabians?”

“Of course. A whole pasture full of them.”

“Where?” said the child, peering into the onion.

“There,” she said pointing. “Where the yolk swirls into the water.”

“It tells you all that?”

“And much, much more.”

“Like what?”

“Like you must eat your breakfast and get ready to go out.”

They were sitting at the children’s table near the stove in the nursery. It was an elaborate affair with its own kitchen and music room outfitted with downsized instruments, a schoolroom decorated with maps of the world, several closets full of clothes, and a wall of shelves lined with toys. All this magnificence, this extravagance of color and mechanical contrivances that whirred into life simply by winding a key, were placed there solely for the enjoyment of two children: Sura, a fearful five-year-old with tiny, nervous hands, darting eyes, long
brown hair, and a rare smile, and Samuil, a precocious seven-year-old, whose insouciance and careless way of addressing adults made him seem much older.

“I don’t want to go out, Mameh,” Sura murmured, her large eyes staring out the window at the brilliant sun and its reflection on the billowy mound of snow that leveled the landscape outside their window.

“But you need fresh air and exercise. It’ll be fun.”

“It won’t be fun at all. It’s cold out there and I’ll hate it.”

“Where is your hairbrush, my darling?”

“Dunno.”

“Where did you put it?” She hunted around and found it on a bookshelf. “Here, let me brush it out for you.” She stood behind her daughter and began to brush out her thick curls while breathing in the comforting smell of her hair, of soap and starched linen.

“What if I get lost out there?” Sura fretted, her brow making a furrow under the fringe of hair.

“You won’t get lost,” Berta told her. “You’re only going out into the yard.”

“What if they don’t find me and I freeze to death like that squirrel we saw the other day. Ow, Mama!”

“Sorry.”

“And what if my hands break off and I melt and become all squishy and turn into a puddle.”

“Galya won’t let that happen. You say this every day and so far you’re still here and you have hands and feet and you’re not a puddle at all.” Berta looked up when her son came in and watched as he collapsed in the chair opposite his sister.

“Why do they even come if they don’t like the music?” he said sulkily. He grabbed a roll and began to butter it. Every Thursday Berta hosted a musical salon and Samuil was already anticipating the intrusion.

“How do you know they won’t like it?” Berta asked.

“Because I heard them talking the last time they were here, Olga Nikolaevna and that other one, that friend of hers, the one with the big horse teeth.”

“You mean you were spying on them.”

“They said what a bore it was. And they wondered when it would end. Stupid women, why do you ask them? I wouldn’t have them, not on a bet. I’d only have you and Tateh and Galya.”

Sura ignored her brother and went on with her worries. “But Galya is always talking to the maids, Mameh. She could easily lose me and then I’d end up like the squirrel.”

“No one is getting lost,” Galya said, coming into the room with a basket full of laundry. The nursery was presided over by Galena Okoro-kova, a busty potato of a woman who spent her off days in her room conversing with the dead.

“See, darling? Galya wouldn’t lose you. She’ll never take her eyes off you.”

“You don’t know that. You’re not even there. How do you know?”

“You’re not getting lost, my little chicken,” said Galya with a smile. “Galya is there and she watches you like a hawk. You’re never out of her sight.”

Samuil went on: “Why do you like them, Mameh? They only come to show off their diamonds and they ’re so boring and never have anything interesting to say.”

“Then why do you spy on them?”

“I want to.”

“You shouldn’t spy on people. It isn’t right and you know it. Nobody likes a spy.”

“I don’t care.”

“Well, you should care. You have to get along in this world. And anyway, it’s wrong.”

“I don’t think it’s wrong,” he said, buttering another piece. “I think it’s educational. I learn all sorts of useful things.” He took another bite and washed it down with warm milk.

“Not for a seven-year-old.”

“And besides, I’m good at it,” he said, putting down his glass. “It’s my calling. Tateh says it’s important to find your calling early in life and here I am only seven and already I’ve found mine.” He was proud of the fact that he could hide almost anywhere, spy on the servants and guests, and then sell his tidbits to Galya for candy or extra time at the stables.

Berta held her daughter’s chin in her hand and turned her head first to the left and then to the right. “There now, don’t you look lovely?” She kissed her daughter’s nose and Sura scowled and rubbed it. “Go on now,” Berta said turning her daughter around and giving her a little shove. “It’s time to get your coat and boots on. You’re going out.”

She watched the children put on their things at the front door. Samuil threw on his coat and hat and stuffed his gloves in his pocket, flung the door open, and, after calling back a halfhearted good-bye, raced down the steps and across the drive. Sura pulled on her gloves, pushing the wool down around each finger until they fit perfectly. She was like Berta in that way, taking her time to do things right. When she was done she put on her hat and followed Galya out the door. Berta stood in the doorway and watched her pick her way through the snow, following in Galya’s footsteps, leaping from footprint to footprint to keep her boots dry. Berta had a sudden urge to run after her and scoop her up into her arms. She was such a small thing in a big world. It was heartbreaking to see her little figure struggling through the frozen expanse of snow and frost.

When Berta stepped back inside and closed the door, she heard Petr the valet and Vasyl the porter in the breakfast room chatting about a horse race that Petr had bet on and won. Apparently Vasyl hadn’t followed his advice and was kicking himself for being left out of the winnings. She strode in and wished them a good morning. It was hardly morning. The sun was already high in the sky, throwing brilliant shafts of light against the damask wallpaper, washing out the color to a pale yellow.

Petr bowed slightly. “Good morning, Madame.”

Vasyl wiped his hands on his pants and gave her a nod in deference, his eyes dropping to a spot on the floor.

“I see you’ve been busy,” she said, looking around at the room.

“Yes, Madame,” said Petr in his usual brisk way. “We will need two extra rows at least. Did Vera tell you? We thought we would use the breakfast chairs.”

She thought for a moment. “Yes, good idea.”

Since it was Thursday the breakfast room was being transformed into the music room. All the furniture had been cleared out except for
the yellow tile stove in the corner and the piano that stood in front of the tall windows. The men had been setting up the chairs and now she could see what it was going to look like with the semicircle of folding chairs filling the room.

She wandered over to the window and looked out on the little park beside the house. It was blanketed with glittering snow. Galya was sitting on a bench bundled up in a beaver coat, gossiping with the nanny from across the road. The nanny ’s charges were sledding down the baby hill, as Samuil called it. Sura wasn’t playing with them. She was sitting next to Galya, clutching her arm, looking anxious and bored at the same time. Samuil wasn’t in sight and must’ve been around the back sledding down the big hill that led to the frozen pond.

Across the park on the road she saw a sledge whir by and turn into her drive. It was the boy with the ice sculpture. Once, a rearing horse had been delivered with a melted tail and hooves that were barely more than puddles. It had been delivered too late to send back. Berta thought it had probably been rejected by another house and sent to the Jews as an afterthought. After that she insisted that the sculpture be delivered early and that she inspect it herself.

Preparations had been going on since early morning. The floors had been washed and polished, the rugs swept, cupboards emptied of china and linen, and the chandeliers lowered and dusted. The flowers had been arranged in vases and now stood in the hall waiting to be placed throughout the house. Although the servants bustled from parlor to dining room, from upstairs to downstairs, from breakfast room to library, arms full, faces glistening with sweat, brooms and dusters at the ready, no room was more filled with commotion and anxiety than the kitchen. Berta usually avoided it on Thursdays. The cook was an irritable Slav from Kiev with a ferocious sense of entitlement and tolerated no interference in her domain. Unfortunately the ice sculpture was in the pantry and there was no way to get there except through the kitchen or outside and around the back. So rather than risk disturbing the cook, Berta wrapped a coat around her shoulders, put on her boots, and stepped out the front door.

The sun had just risen above the tallest trees and was shining down
out of a flawless sky. The steps down to the drive had been cleared from last night’s storm, but there were still traces of snow in the corners and a sheen of water over the marble made them slippery. Berta had to hold on to the hand rail, which was still covered with a sharp-edged pile of snow. Her gloved hand cleared it as she went down the steps, the moisture turning the fawn-colored leather a dark brown.

Berta’s house sat perched on one of the highest points in the Berezina, on a little hill that overlooked the city of Cherkast. From there she could see the smoke from the chimney pots and the steam rising up from the rooftops. Further down she could just make out the ice fishermen’s shanties on the frozen river and a line of moving dots that had to be the ice cutters coming down with their sledges to haul away great blocks of ice.

These people, along with their brethren in the factories, were peasants of the
chernozem
, the black earth: illiterate, superstitious; plagued by lice and tuberculosis, often landless, hungry; they came in from the countryside to earn a few rubles a day for ten hours of hard labor. They slept by their machines or on filthy cots in barracks. Most of them were zealous believers in miracle cures and in Russian Orthodoxy. Always their future had lain in a short life of hard work for the good of Mother Russia, but now they were raising their voices against the hard labor, the poverty, and the fines that were levied against them for the smallest infractions. Strikes were breaking out in Moscow and Saint Petersburg, over two thousand of them in 1912 alone. Men in visor caps, black leather jackets, and knee boots had come to Little Russia to organize and the workers were listening.

Berta came down the last few steps and followed the circular drive around to the side of the house where the snow was deeper and the going more difficult. The ground had been trampled by a jumble of footprints and sledge tracks left by the vendors who had been coming and going all morning. She took advantage of the tracks and walked in them, following them around to the back of the house. While she was making her way she idly examined the confusion of footprints at her feet and out of them identified her son’s small boot print. She could tell they were his by the size, the short stride, and the shallow depression.
She tracked them down the drive and was surprised to find that they didn’t lead her to the sledding hill but to the pantry door. She had a knack for picking out her children in a crowd—a glimpse of hair, a brown arm, the back of a head. She could find her children anywhere.

Vera, the maid, and Zina, the cook’s helper, were busy polishing silver at the harvest table and jumped to their feet when she walked through the door. The delivery boy stood in deference, whipped off his cap, and kept his eyes on his shoes.

“No, please, it’s all right. I’ve just come to look at the sculpture.”

Zina said, “It’s over here, Madame. Here, I’ll get it for you.” Zina had a wide, pleasant face with a broad nose and a space between her two front teeth. She often suppressed a smile, pretending to be shy and to know her place despite the spark of mischief in her eyes. Samuil said she occasionally stole away to meet a trolley conductor under the big elms over by the bench. When she would come back and tell Vera all about it, he’d be hiding nearby and listening to every word, which he would then sell to Galya for more time with his horse.

The ice sculpture was sitting at the other end of table wrapped in burlap to keep it cold. Zina untied the sacks and they fell away, revealing an arch of wheat shafts over a nest of birds. “Ah . . . look at that. So pretty,” Zina said, examining it. “Clever too. And them is ducks, I suppose. Little ducks in a nest.”