The Lost Souls of Angelkov (48 page)

When he went back to question the father of the deaf child, he’d said, “Tell me the truth.” He knew, by the younger man’s blinking and swallowing, that he was hiding something. “Do you remember when I came to Tushinsk in the spring, looking for the landowner’s child?”

The man nodded.

“So you know who I am.”

The man nodded again.

“Then you have nothing to fear. All I want is to find the child and return him to his mother.”

The man looked over Grisha’s shoulder at Antonina.

“You will not be punished. You have my word. Tell me what you know.”

At this, the younger man, his arm around his wife, told him that they had been forced to hide the boy during the summer, a few months after Grisha had come to Tushinsk looking for him. The boy was brought by three men. This was sometime in early July; the barley was already high. They had come to his door in the night. He remembered that it was a hot night, and the boy carried his coat. He held it tightly—it was all he had. The man told Grisha he had been chosen to hide the boy because his wife and son were deaf and mute; they could communicate with no one except him, and no one paid them any heed. He was told that should he disclose that he was hiding the boy, or allow the child to leave their izba, his own child would be killed.

“I knew he was the landowner’s kidnapped son. But what was I to do?” he said to Grisha. “I wouldn’t risk my own son’s life for another’s.”

Grisha looked at the deaf boy, his head pressed against his mother’s arm. “Was Mikhail—was the boy in good health?”

“He was thin and dirty, his clothes tattered and his hair long. He had a few bruises on his arms and legs. He didn’t talk except to ask me to help him escape. He told me his father would pay me hundreds of rubles.” The villager took a deep breath. “I told him his father was powerless now, and the boy tried to hit me. I saw he was scared, but I knew he wouldn’t be easy to keep. I had to make sure he didn’t do something to get my own boy killed.” He put his hand on his son’s head, and his voice grew bolder. “I taught him a lesson, and he quieted down. I had to keep him tied, because I was afraid he’d still try to escape, even after the beating. And then a
week later the men took him away, again in the middle of the night. He had been asleep when they untied him and dragged him out, and he left his coat behind.” The man looked closely at Grisha. “Are you a father?”

Grisha shook his head. There was a steady tick in his right cheek.

“If you were, you’d know why I did what I did.” The younger man’s expression was defiant.

Grisha looked at the man’s dirty child. “As the countess said, a new coat will be sent for your son. And also a small reward—for your honesty.” He turned and went back to Antonina, slumped on her horse.

Now, riding back to Angelkov, Grisha thinks of the villager’s casual mention of beating the boy and keeping him tied up. He wonders how Mikhail is surviving. If he’s surviving.

In Mikhail’s favour is that he is his mother’s son. The boy takes after her in all ways: bright and curious, with sensitivity as well as a mischievous side. He is winning, like she is. Should he have been like his father, imperious and self-absorbed, it might go worse for him. Grisha tries to comfort himself by remembering his own youth: he was less than five years older than Mikhail when he set out on his own, and he’d survived.

But the boy is not like Grisha. No, with his fine bones and clever fingers and instincts, he is more like another boy Grisha once knew. Mikhail reminds him, he has to admit, of the little brother he hasn’t seen in twenty years. Kolya.

Since the kidnapping, Grisha has berated himself daily for putting Mikhail into danger and nearly destroying the countess, all because of his contempt for the count. He hadn’t prayed since he left his home in Chita, but after Mikhail was
not returned as promised, he needed to pray. And so he went to the church on the estate, late at night when Father Cyril slept, and prayed that the child not be harmed.

But prayer does not assuage his old guilt. He has betrayed a second boy.

As they ride into Angelkov, Lilya runs from the house. She gasps and covers her mouth as she looks up at Antonina’s bruised face, the bloodied bodice under her open cloak. She glares at Grisha as if he is responsible.

“Hurry, madam,” Lilya says then, still looking at Grisha. “It’s the count. He … It’s bad.”

Antonina slides off her horse, clutching Mikhail’s coat. “What happened?”

Lilya touches the sleeve of the
talmochka
. “Where were you last night? What happened to your face? And where did you find Misha’s—”

Antonina walks towards the house. “Tell me about the count.” She doesn’t look back at Grisha.

But Lilya does, and sees that he is watching Antonina intently.

“After the count had his chloroform last night, Pavel fell asleep,” Lilya tells her. “Then, just before dawn, when Pavel awoke, he saw that the count’s bed was empty. He thought maybe he had gone to your room. So he went there, but … there was only me, sitting up waiting for you. How could I sleep when you hadn’t come home?”

Antonina is crossing the veranda, Lilya following, talking quickly. “Pavel told me your husband was missing. I went to the servants’ quarters and woke Lyosha and he got all the
servants up to search for you both. We thought the count might have done something to you. We were all so worried, Tosya.” She bumps into Antonina as the other woman stops and turns to her.

“So he was found?”

“Yes. Yes, Lyosha found him in the cemetery, soaked through and shivering, lying on an old grave. When he was brought home, he said he was sleeping with his son. He’s very ill, Tosya, even worse than before.”

Tinka is dancing about Antonina’s feet as she goes down the long hall and into Konstantin’s bedroom. Pavel, sitting beside the bed, jumps up as she enters.

“How is he?” she asks. Her husband’s breathing is laboured.

“It appears he has succumbed to fever again, madam. I don’t know how long he was out in the rain and cold. Madam, I’m sorry, I thought he would sleep all night, I—”

“It’s not your fault, Pavel. Has the doctor been sent for?”

“No, madam. There was no one to give the order. You were not here. We went to Grisha’s house. He was also not at Angelkov.” Pavel looks at her for a few seconds too long.

“Send Lyosha for Dr. Molov. I am back, and I am ordering it.”

Already God is punishing her for her behaviour in the dacha. Already He is letting her know that for her sin, there must be a reckoning.

Lilya follows her to her room, but Antonina picks up Tinka and tells her she wants to be alone. She locks her door and sets Misha’s coat on the window seat. She washes herself and puts on fresh clothing. She sits with the coat in her lap, stroking it, Tinka falling asleep beside her.

Antonina finally leaves the window seat and looks in the
mirror at her blackened eyes and swollen nose. Full of shame for sharing her body while her husband wandered in the night—while she should have been thinking only of finding her son—she kneels in her prayer corner. In front of the table decorated with her icons, she confesses to God and the Holy Mother that she is guilty of breaking one of the commandments, and of committing one of the deadly sins. She begs for forgiveness for her adultery and lust.

That evening, Antonina is again sitting on the window seat when Lilya comes in.

“Good evening, Tosya,” she says, glancing at Mikhail’s coat, still smeared with grease and soot and dried blood, in Antonina’s lap. “I’ve brought your hot chocolate.” She sets down the silver tray with its tall, steaming mug, and then goes to the bed to turn down the coverlet. “Did the doctor give you something to help with the pain from your nose?”

“How do I appear to you, Lilya?” Antonina asks, ignoring the question.

“Why, you will soon look fine, Tosya.” Lilya is straightening the pillows on the bed. “Your nose will heal well. The plaster the doctor put on it will hold it in place so that it retains its shape, and …” She stops as she finally turns to face Antonina. She draws in a breath. “Tosya, what is it? You look … different.”

In spite of the thin strips of plaster over the bridge of Antonina’s nose and the evidence of trauma to her face, there’s something else. It’s similar, Lilya realizes, to the way Antonina looked the first few days after Mikhail was taken—as if she’s had some sort of shock.

“Different?” Antonina says. She covers her face with her hands.

Lilya is confused. She had been sick with worry when Antonina hadn’t come home the night before. When the doctor was with Konstantin, Antonina told her about seeing the child wearing Misha’s coat, and how she had hurt her nose. She told Lilya that because they were nearer to the home of the Prince and Princess Bakanev, she had asked Grisha to take her there. The rain started and the Bakanevs persuaded her to stay for the night.

“Tosya,” Lilya persists, “what is it? What are you not telling me?”

Antonina lifts her face from her hands but doesn’t speak.

Lilya drops to her knees and grabs Antonina’s hands. “Is it about Misha?” she breathes. “Is there something more, more than his coat, and his notes?” Only fresh distress over her son, Lilya thinks, could give Antonina this odd expression of fear. And there’s something else.

Antonina’s face closes, and she pulls her hands from Lilya’s. “No. There’s nothing more about Misha.” She turns to the window to stare out at the blackness beyond.

Lilya is still kneeling. “Would you like me to take Misha’s coat and clean it?” she asks.

Antonina murmurs her consent.

Lilya knows something important has happened, but she can’t figure out what it is.

Early the next morning, Antonina is still in bed when Olga knocks quietly, announcing that Fyodor must speak to her.

Antonina hasn’t been able to sleep, thinking of what
happened in the village and what happened in the dacha. The doctor told her Konstantin had been badly affected by his night outside, and that he would return today to see how he was faring.

There’s so much guilt.

She throws a shawl over her nightdress and shuts Tinka in the bedroom. She goes down the stairs, her feet bare. Her hair is in one long plait she’s pinned loosely around her head, her face a darkened horror. She no longer cares that the servants see her like this. What does it matter?

As she descends the staircase, she’s aware of stiffness in her inner thighs—another reminder of what she’s done with Grisha.

In the vestibule, Fyodor turns his cap in his hands. His face is pale and drawn. Antonina doesn’t understand his expression.

“Countess,” he says. “There is … It is bad news, I’m afraid.”

What more could go wrong? “Mother of God,” she murmurs. “Please. It isn’t … Is it Mikhail? What is it? Tell me, Fyodor,” she says, panic in her voice.

He looks at the floor, turning his cap more quickly. “I’m sorry, countess. One of the horses …”

Antonina draws in a deep breath of relief. It’s not Mikhail. “Dunia? Is she ill?”

“No. It’s Felya, Grisha’s horse. It’s dead. I’m sorry, madam.”

She takes a moment to absorb this. She knows Grisha loves the horse. “But there was nothing wrong with him. Grisha rode him yesterday.” She brushes past Fyodor to go to the stables, to see for herself what’s happened, but the man reaches out and catches her arm. She looks down at his thick
fingers on the delicate cambric of her sleeve. His knuckles are dark, as if slightly bruised. There is a deep, freshly scabbed scratch on the back of his hand, running to his wrist. He looks at Antonina and removes his hand.