The Lost Souls of Angelkov (34 page)

The count was thrilled with the recent arrival of his son. At the child’s birth he had provided a celebratory feast for all those on the estate. It lasted for three days, complete with two nights of fireworks. His excitement made him generous, and he also supplied a small flask of vodka and a few kopecks to every one of his souls—over a thousand—who lived in the surrounding villages and worked the land. He carried his son about, showing him to everyone, although not allowing the baby to be touched. The house serfs all agreed they had never witnessed the count smile in this manner.

Mikhail Konstantinovich was only two months old when
Antonina came upon the beating in the flogging yard and reported it to her husband.

“It’s perfectly natural,” Konstantin said. “Surely you grew up seeing this, or at least knowing of it. How else are we to keep our children working diligently?”

“They’re not your children,” she said, holding the baby on her lap and thinking of the serf with the scarlet slice on his already scarred back.

Konstantin, on the settee beside her, shook his head, chucking his son under his tiny chin and smiling at him. “You know what I mean,” he said, not looking at Antonina but picking up one of Mikhail’s hands and gazing at the minute, perfect fingernails. “I must be the father to them, to show them the error of their ways and teach them to never repeat mistakes.”

She vividly remembered her own father’s similar argument. “I don’t like the steward. He’s rude and insubordinate. He treated me with no respect whatsoever. I don’t want him on the estate any longer.” She recalled Gleb’s great shaking belly as he brought down the knout, and the spittle shining on his chin as he yelled at her across the yard.

Finally, Konstantin looked away from his son. “What is it you wish me to do, my angel? A good steward is hard to find. They must be able to read and to do accounts. Gleb is not adept at reading—you know I have no patience for it myself—but he is good with numbers. A steward must command authority over the others, and be honest.”

“That brute is honest? He doesn’t look it to me.” The baby still on her lap, she moved onto Konstantin’s knee. He looked taken aback, but allowed it. “Please, husband,” Antonina said, kissing his cheek, and then Konstantin shifted so that Antonina sat beside him again.

“I
have
been displeased with Gleb for a variety of reasons for quite a while. But it will take some time to find someone to fill his position.”

Antonina pressed her mouth against Mikhail’s soft scalp, feeling the beat of his pulse under her lips. “What about the cooper? The dark one,” she said, without knowing she was going to say it. “Grisha. He’s much younger and stronger than Gleb. I know he can read, because I saw him with a book.”

“He’s good at what he does,” her husband said.

“Wouldn’t a cooper be easier to replace than a steward?”

“He doesn’t say much,” Konstantin said. “Still, there is definitely something powerful about him.” He stood, impatient to leave—he had made an appointment with Tania. “I can’t think it would hurt to at least talk to him.”

Antonina smiled at him. He couldn’t help but be charmed by her smile.

“Thank you, dear husband,” she said, then, “I do believe Misha looks more like you every day. Look at his noble forehead.”

Konstantin’s chest grew visibly broader.

“You’ll speak to Grisha right away?” she asked. Konstantin told her that yes, he would. Then he pulled up his son and held him in the air, beaming.

Mikhail had been born with little fuss; it was only long and painful for Antonina in the way of most first deliveries.

She refused to hand her child to a wet nurse. Instead, she fed him herself, to the annoyance of her husband, who felt it was beneath her. As the wife of a landowner, her only duty was to bear her husband’s children. The care and upbringing
should be left to others: the wet nurses and nannies and governesses and tutors. Parents were only expected to listen to reports of their children’s health and, as they grew, observe newly acquired skills: French and German, the first halting musical attempts, horseback riding, archery and shooting for boys, needlework for girls. And yet Antonina was fascinated with her son. Before Mikhail, she had never held a baby. In the first few weeks of his life, while she learned to feed and care for him, she lost all interest in anything else. Was this normal? she asked Lilya.

Lilya didn’t know. When she held Mikhail, she did remember the feel of her own babies in her arms, but they had both been sickly and endlessly wailing. She’d had to go back to work in the fields with one strapped to her back and the other to her front when they were only days old. At night she was so exhausted that she wept as she fed them, trying to keep them quiet so their cries didn’t wake Soso and anger him. She was grateful to Lyosha; he always helped, holding and jiggling one of the howling infants while she was busy with the other. He also did simple tasks like stirring the kasha on the stove so it didn’t burn, and gathering and bringing in small baskets of dried dung to keep the fire going.

Now she felt something almost like sadness as she watched Antonina’s joy. She wished she could have known some of this gratification with her babies. She had studied their wee faces and wispy hair. The one who had died last had begun to laugh, and Lilya recalled how that had always given her a small start of pleasure. But it had been so difficult for her to keep up with the work in the fields and in the izba, and to make sure Soso was satisfied. After the second little one was buried, she had had her first full night’s sleep in
months. She awoke in the morning with a heavy spirit, but also a quiet relief.

It was so different for Antonina, she knew, as she watched the other woman rest in her wide, clean bed with Tinka at her feet, reading and sipping tea with her baby beside her. She watched Antonina instantly put down her book and teacup when the child made the tiniest squeak, picking him up and covering his small face with kisses. Lilya knew what Antonina would like to hear, and so she told her mistress that yes, this was normal, that Antonina had fallen in love with her baby, as nature meant it to be. “Love for a child is perhaps the only real love a woman knows in life, madam, apart from love for God.”

Antonina looked at her. “Yes, love for your child and for God.” She didn’t want to ask Lilya if she thought it possible to feel such deep love for a man.

Most nights, when Konstantin either was entertaining friends or had gone off, saying he had business on the estate to attend to, Antonina would have Lilya stay with her while she gave Mikhail his last feeding.

Lilya knew, as did all the other staff, that Konstantin spent some of his evenings with the laundress. She wondered if Antonina had any idea what her husband was up to.

One night, when the baby was three months old, Antonina was lying in bed with him in the crook of her arm. He had just been fed and was asleep, his lips still pursed. Antonina was reading, holding a book with her free hand. Lilya sat in a chair nearby, making tiny stitches in a lacy gown of Mikhail’s.

Antonina dropped the book onto the bedcover. “My eyes are tired. I want you to read to me, Lilya.”

Lilya looked up and shrugged. “You know I can’t read.”

“I’ll teach you,” Antonina said. “We will start in a few weeks, when Mishenka is into more of a routine.” She kissed his head.

“As you wish, Tosya,” Lilya answered, going back to her sewing. “I would be happy to learn to read if you wish me to, although in my life I have never seen the need for it.”

“You
should
read, Lilya,” Antonina said matter-of-factly, gesturing at a pile of books on her table.

Lilya glanced up from the baby’s gown again. “My life leaves no time for such things.”

“Then I will give you more time. I’ll have one of the other women take over some of the things you do for me, like that—the sewing—and then you could have time to read. You can find out about so many things in the world when you read.”

Lilya kept stitching. Finally she said, “There’s no need for me to know anything more than what I know.” Antonina leaned forward, but before she could respond, Lilya continued, “What good would it do me to know more, when my world is here, Tosya? Would it not bring me unhappiness to know what there is beyond the mud of the villages, beyond the streams and rivers, beyond the boundaries of the estate, when I will never have more than this?” She met Antonina’s gaze.

The sleeping baby snuffled, his eyebrows twitching, and Antonina sat back. “But Lilya, there might be a time, someday, when there are more opportunities. You know of the talk of proposals for emancipation. If this ever comes about—”

Lilya put up her hand and Antonina stopped. “I prefer that you don’t speak to me of these things, Tosya. I prefer to live my life as it is. I prefer not to …” She frowned as if annoyed with herself, or perhaps with Antonina.

“You prefer not to imagine anything more than what you have today. You have no other dream?” Antonina wondered if Lilya still thought of the convent.

Lilya nipped the thread with her teeth and put the needle back into the pincushion. “
This
is my dream. This is what I dreamed of. And now I have it.” Still holding the little gown, she stared at Antonina. “Do you understand? I have everything I want, here, in this room, Tosya.”

Antonina was unnerved by the intensity of Lilya’s look, but then the baby let out a sudden wail and she turned her attention to him.

Grisha knew it was Antonina he should be grateful to for his new life. When the count ordered him to his study and told him there might be an opportunity to take over Gleb’s position as steward, Grisha had been astounded. It was the most coveted position for a free man with no title and no land.

“My wife feels you would make a more respectful and even-tempered steward than Gleb,” the count said. “Change on the estate is good. The serfs may perform at a higher level with someone new. The salary is much higher than what I pay you as a cooper,” he added. “Are you interested?”

“Yes, Count Mitlovsky. I can assure you I would take such responsibilities with the utmost seriousness.”

Konstantin nodded. “My wife tells me you read.”

“Russian and French.”

“French?”

Grisha wondered if he’d taken it too far. “Only a little,” he lied. “And I will learn accounting skills, should they be necessary.”

“Yes, yes. I won’t find another position for Gleb until you’ve proven you’re worthy of the job. We’ll try you for two weeks.”

Grisha knew the next two weeks would not be easy, with Gleb knowing he and his wife might be moved to another estate in favour of Grisha. Then again, it was Count Mitlovsky who was in charge of Gleb’s future, not Grisha.