The Lost Souls of Angelkov (58 page)

“No, thank you.” Valentin is still standing very close to her. “I’ve had more than enough.” He puts one hand on her waist.

“Shall we go to the drawing room?” She moves away, picking up her wineglass and finishing the burgundy. “I’ve asked Lilya to make sure the stoves and fire are kept going. It will be warm.”

“Yes,” Valentin says. “I’d like that.”

In the drawing room, Antonina opens the front of a cabinet. She pours two glasses of vodka and holds one out to Valentin.

He shakes his head. “No, thank you, countess.”

“You won’t drink with me? You mean there is a man in Russia who says no to a glass of vodka?” She takes her own glass and slowly, unsteadily, walks towards him.

Valentin again holds her arm, this time to support her. “I’m sorry, but if I am going to play—if you wish me to, later—I perform better with a clear head.”

“Not even one glass?” Antonina asks.

He shakes his head, smiling.

“I would like to hear of your childhood,” she says, wanting the heaviness that has followed them from the music salon to the drawing room to lift.

Valentin looks towards the window, clearing his throat.

“If you don’t wish to, I—”

“Certainly I will tell you, if that’s your desire. But would you think me terribly bold if I troubled you for a cup of tea?”

She calls for Pavel, who waits outside, and asks him to bring tea. “Please. While we wait, let’s sit by the fire.” When she is settled in the deep velvet chair across from him, sipping her vodka, he sits as well.

“I was trained under the tutorship of a well-respected maestro, a man named Desyatnikov,” he begins, with no preamble. “I have few recollections of my childhood before that time.” The way he opens the story is as if he’s reading the lines. Antonina suspects he’s told his tale many times, to many women; men surely didn’t share their pasts in this easy way. “I only know I was very young when I was taken from my
family. My age remains a mystery.” He smiles. “I was young enough—and perhaps frightened or confused enough—to forget the time before.” He looks into the fire. “I only realized later, seeing the new boys come in, that we were given different names as we arrived. I had another, but that’s gone from my memory as well.”

After a moment of silence, Antonina asks, “Was it very awful for you? To be taken from your family? I think of … I worry for my son.”

“Countess, that time—”

“Please. Please call me Antonina,” she interrupts. It feels ridiculous, to be addressed by a title when Valentin is revealing the intimate tale of his former life.

“As you wish, Antonina.” He smiles, and suddenly the air is lighter.

Her glass is empty. She thinks of the one she poured for Valentin, sitting on the cabinet shelf.

“While I don’t remember my family or village, or how I came to be chosen, I later witnessed the procedure when I was older and travelled with Desyatnikov. Surely you know the process.”

Antonina nods and clears her throat, then rises and goes to the cabinet and replaces her empty glass with the full one. She doesn’t know why, but she would have felt closer to Valentin if he had accepted her offer of vodka, and touched his glass to hers. When she turns around, he’s crouching in front of the fire, fanning the flames with the bellows.

After Antonina is again sitting, Valentin remains standing with one foot on the brass rail in front of the fireplace. “Every time I watched the maestro choose another boy, I tried to remember it happening to me: a man in fine clothes,
the clean shirt and striped waistcoat and shiny boots, carefully looking at my face or hands. But I couldn’t. I haven’t even a faint memory of anything before practising for hours under Desyatnikov’s tutelage.”

She thinks of Mikhail. Surely he would remember this life, his life, at Angelkov. Would he ever really forget his name? Or her face?

“One of the other musicians, a boy I practised with for a number of years, told me that I didn’t speak for a long time. I may have turned inward; I saw it with others, especially the youngest ones.

“My only comfort—and this I do remember—was the certainty that one day someone big and strong would save me. I was thinking of my father, I suppose, a little boy’s dream that I would be rescued and taken home. Because I couldn’t remember my home, I naturally made it the most wonderful place one can envision.” He smiles ruefully. “Of course, nobody came. I became accustomed to the life, and grew up.

“Now you know the rather uninspiring story of my life.” He gives a flourish of his hand and smiles at her. “I became Valentin Vladimirovitch Kropotkin. The little boy I was no longer exists, Antonina.” Her name feels delicious in his mouth. He rolls it around as though it were a sweet cherry.

Pavel arrives with the tea tray. When he’s gone, Antonina asks Valentin how long he remained with Desyatnikov.

“When I was fourteen years old, he sold me into an orchestra owned by Prince Yablonsky in the Smolensk province. We played at his musical evenings, and he rented us to friends and estates throughout the province and beyond.” He drinks his tea. “As we came to be at your name day fete.”

“It’s terribly sad, Valentin.”

“Not when you look at the lives of the villagers. Without the serf orchestra, I might have been nothing more than another labourer bent over in the fields, living a life of deprivation, never knowing the joy of music.”

“Yes, I suppose so. And now you may play for whom you wish—where and when.”

Valentin tries to keep the pleasant look on his face as he sets down the delicate teacup. Of course, he won’t tell her what his life is really like: the struggle to find work, to hope he will be able to afford new strings and resin as needed. What of Madame Golitsyna—has she replaced him by now? Will he have anywhere to live when he returns to St. Petersburg after his job with the Bakanevs is over? “Would you feel comfortable telling me about your son?”

Antonina inhales and holds it. Can she talk about Misha? Valentin is sitting so still, and yet in a posture of waiting.

“If you can, Antonina.” He says her name softly.

“He … he turned eleven in June. He’s a musician. Like you,” she says, trying to smile. “He’s a truly gifted pianist—he’s played since he was three years old. Like an angel.” She thinks of the cherub that fell from the church roof.

“I’m sure he inherited this brilliance from his mother.”

She smiles. “Actually, Valentin, you remind me of him.” As she says this, she’s surprised. Had she seen it on his first visit?

“Because I’m a musician?”

“Well, yes, but also because of your fineness of features, and the expressiveness of your face. When did you understand that you felt music within you?”

Valentin gives Antonina a rueful look. “That’s gone as well. I only remember playing with the other boys under Desyatnikov. But I do know that I always had an odd quality,
related to music: I see colour when I hear music. I know I must have always, because occasionally a shade is like a whisper from something in my past.”

“I don’t understand.”

Valentin’s face is animated. “Earlier in my life, I thought everyone saw it the way I did. When I hear certain sounds, I see colours. For example, when the cello plays, I see red. Depending on the ability of the cellist, the colour is clear and vibrant or in varying shades down to a rather dark and muddy burgundy. The colour pulses in the air or, if I close my eyes, inside my head.” He continues to tell her about the colours he sees for each instrument.

“How strange and wonderful.”

“Yes. Of course, I don’t often speak of it—it would be seen as too odd by some, those who don’t understand the power of music, and what it does to the mind. To the soul.”

“I know that Mikhail, even as a very little boy, felt music more deeply than I have ever done,” Antonina says, and Valentin sits back.

“How did he come to be taken?” he asks now, and Antonina blinks rapidly. Suddenly the objects in the room are too bright; they hurt her eyes. “I’m sorry. I see that I shouldn’t have asked you.”

“Valentin,” she says. “What if Misha forgets, like you did? You said the child you were no longer exists.”

“I’m sure I was younger than your Mikhail.”

“Yes. Mikhail is eleven now. He won’t forget me.” Tears fill her eyes as she stands. “Will he?” She has trouble keeping her balance, and holds on to the arm of the chair.

Valentin steps close to her, taking her hands and raising them to his lips and kissing them. “Of course he won’t.
He’ll remember every lovely detail of your face. He knows his name, and the name of his estate. He will find his way back to you.”

Antonina is moved by the compassion in his face, in his voice, and so dizzy. She holds on to him.

“He will be found,” Valentin murmurs, putting his arms around her. “A child like yours—of the noble class, recognizable by his breeding and upbringing and talent—can’t simply disappear. He’s waiting somewhere, Antonina, perhaps playing his music.” He kisses her. His lips are warm and soft.

But Valentin’s lips make her think of Grisha and her immorality. She is drunk again, behaving abominably. She puts her hands on his chest and pulls her face away from his.

His arms are still around her, loosely. “I’m sorry,” he says. “Please accept my apologies. You’re so beautiful, and so sad. I want … please, I so want to alleviate your pain. I have no excuse for my behaviour but that I was carried away. By you.”

She puts her fingers to her lips, then her throat. “I … I am not blameless. It’s a confusing time for me. All I can think of is my son,” she says, knowing this isn’t entirely true. When she thinks of Grisha, there are moments when she isn’t thinking of Mikhail. Grisha takes up so much space when he enters a room, and fills her head in the same way.

Valentin still has his arms around her. Antonina knows she should move away.

“I don’t know of anyone who has the power to find my boy,” she says. Again she thinks of Grisha. He has had the only contact with the kidnappers, although the last time was months ago. “Whoever returns my son, Valentin, would have my love and gratitude for life.”

There is a muffled thump.

Antonina pulls away from Valentin to see Lilya standing in the doorway. Three logs are at her feet; she still holds two.

Lilya has been in the doorway long enough to see Valentin Vladimirovitch with his arms around Antonina. Did she see the kiss? She has heard what Antonina just told him.

“Excuse me, madam,” she says, kneeling to pick up the logs.

Whoever returns my son would have my love and gratitude
, Lilya repeats in her head.
For life
.

This is what Lilya has always wanted from Antonina.

T
he next day, Lilya again sends for Grisha. This time there is no vodka, no plate of delicacies. As soon as he steps in the back entrance, she beckons with her head towards the pantry. In the alcove, she says, “We must do something.”

“Tell me what happened last night,” Grisha says. Without waiting for her answer, he adds, “He stayed?”

“The Bakanevs’ coachman spent the evening in the kitchen, waiting to drive Kropotkin back,” she tells him. “Kropotkin couldn’t use the excuse of the cold to stay.” She looks for something on Grisha’s face, but it shows nothing. “Anyway, he told me that Kropotkin’s position could go on indefinitely.” She leans against a shelf and crosses her arms.

Grisha notices Lilya’s hair. She’s pinned it up at the back, and has cut wisps that hang around her face. She’s trying to wear her hair as Antonina does. “Go on,” he says.

“The princess’s sister has decided she’ll spend the winter with them. This means that Kropotkin will stay on as music tutor to the children.”

“Until spring?”

Lilya shrugs. “Who knows? Maybe even into the summer. You know these people—they do as they choose.” She reaches up to touch her hair. “You can see that Kropotkin has already become a regular visitor to Angelkov. And now it looks like he won’t be leaving the province for a long time. Long enough, if you know what I’m suggesting.”

Grisha is watching her face as if reading the words as they come from her lips.

“If only …” she says.