The Lost Souls of Angelkov (66 page)

“Are the wolves gone?” she asks, and he nods, stepping over her and setting down the wood. Kneeling, he clears the heavy ash from the fireplace and looks back at her.

“Are you all right, Antonina?” Of course she’s not. It’s more than being cold and afraid. It’s something else, something that has taken hold of her.

Her teeth are chattering. “Lyosha told you I was here?”

Grisha nods again, turning away to start the fire. As the kindling catches, he sits back on his heels, watching the flames as they tentatively lap and sizzle around the damp wood. “He tried to come to you yesterday, but couldn’t get through.”

“And so you came,” Antonina states. There is snow, like tiny melting gems, in his dark hair. It sits on his wide shoulders.

“You’re ill, Antonina,” he says, looking back at her. “What is it?” Her lips are torn, as if she’s been fiercely biting them.

How to tell him without humiliating herself? There is no way but the simple truth. “I came here to do penance, Grisha, and to be away from … from … temptation.”

“Temptation?”

“The drink, Grisha. The wine. The vodka.” She tries to lick her lips, but her tongue is so dry. “I can’t … not anymore. I can’t use it to make my life bearable, because it doesn’t. It doesn’t make it more bearable. It only makes it worse. What it did to me … how it made me weak. I told myself it made me strong.”

Suddenly she’s shivering fiercely, bending forward and clutching her abdomen. She lies on her side again, her knees up to her chest, closing her eyes with an almost imperceptible groan.

As the fire grows stronger, Grisha watches her. She seems to have fallen into something like sleep, although she’s twitchy and stiff.

She opens her eyes again, crying out when she sees him. “I forgot … I thought you were a dream. I dreamed you would come and rescue me.”

Grisha has to turn away so that Antonina can’t see how her words affect him. Did his own brother not say this same thing,
only days ago, as he lay dying? But Antonina is not dying. Is she? He
can
still help her, as he couldn’t help his brother.

“Yes. I’m here. I’m here,” he says, looking at her again, picking up one of her hands. It’s icy, although the palm is damp. Her fingers feel boneless. “Are you growing warmer?”

She nods, but her teeth are still chattering.

As he pushes aside the blankets, he sees that the front of her dress is stained where she’s been sick. He also sees his vest; she’s been sleeping holding his vest. This gives him a surge of emotion. He gathers her to him and holds her tightly. She rests her head against his chest as though she were a trusting child.

Then he stands, carrying her to the settee. She is even lighter than he remembers. He lays her down, wrapping a blanket around her. She pushes it aside, fretful, and sits up.

“Lie down, Antonina,” he says. “Try to sleep.”

“I can’t. Every time I close my eyes, I see terrible things. They’re like nightmares, but I don’t think I’m asleep.”

“They’ll stop.”

“Sometimes my eyes are open and the nightmares come, too. I’m frightened, Grisha,” she says, and again he puts his arms around her. “When will I feel better?”

“Soon,” he says. “I know it will be soon.” He doesn’t know with certainty, but surely the alcohol is gone from her body—this is the third day. Her body is only remembering it, and wanting it. He knows how long his own body wants what it had once, with her. How long the memory holds.

He brushes back her hair. It’s tangled, combs sticking out at all angles.

She reaches up and begins to pull them out. He sits beside her, watching. When the last long strands of her hair fall
down her back to her waist, he takes a deep breath. He runs his fingers through it. It is so fine, and yet it has such weight.

He knows what she’s doing: she’s letting him see her in a state of complete weakness. No, perhaps it’s not weakness, but strength. It’s her way of telling him she trusts him. She is giving the last of herself to him, which takes strength.

“I’ll make you some tea.”

As he stands to go to the kitchen, she grabs his hand. “Don’t leave me. Don’t go, Grisha.”

“Only to the kitchen, Antonina.”

She’s trembling again, biting her chapped lips, opening a tiny crack in the bottom one. A bead of blood appears.

Grisha wants to lick it away, and curses himself for such a thought when she is so clearly ill and vulnerable. In the kitchen he sees the untouched food Antonina has brought. He lights the stove and fills the kettle, then comes back to stand in the doorway, looking across the room at her.

“I tried to stay brave by reciting poetry last night,” Antonina says. “Do you know Pushkin’s ‘Winter Evening’?”

He nods.

“Isn’t it odd? As I spoke it aloud, I realized it was about my life.
The storm wind covers the sky
,” she recites,

“Whirling the fleecy snowdrifts
.

Now it howls like a wolf
,

Now it is crying, like a lost child
.

‘Let us drink, dearest friend
,

‘To my poor wasted youth
.

‘Let us drink from grief—where’s the glass?

‘Our hearts at least will be lightened.’ ”

Antonina makes a faltering attempt at a smile. “Even Pushkin is urging me to drink. A poem about winter and
wolves and lost children and drinking. Ha,” she says bitterly. “It’s a difficult thing, is it not? Here I have no choice. The vodka is not here. But when I return to Angelkov … can I do it, Grisha?” The kettle is making slow popping sounds. “It must be for always. It must.”

He looks at her for another minute, then goes to prepare the tea and a plate of bread and slices of sausage.

The tea is steaming in the glass, sweet with chunks of sugar he’s broken off the cone. He gestures at the bread. She looks at it, then picks it up and takes a tiny bite. She chews, but struggles to swallow, gagging, and then covers her mouth as she empties the half-chewed bread into her hand.

“I’m sorry. I can’t eat yet, Grisha. My stomach … I’ve been so sick.”

“Bread is too hard, and the sausage … Of course not. Drink the tea.”

She manages a few mouthfuls.

“I’ll make you some soup,” he says. “Soup is the best thing for you now.”

“You know how to make soup?”

He puts a hand on her shoulder. “Sleep now, and later, when you wake, there will be hot soup.”

After she has fallen into what appears to be a restless sleep, Grisha uses the sausage and potatoes and cabbage Antonina brought with her to make a thick soup. He looks around the kitchen, knowing the dacha is no longer his. It again belongs to Prince Bakanev; it is on the land Grisha had owned, so briefly. He doesn’t let himself dwell on what he’s lost. He goes out to chop more wood, making sure the fire is burning
fiercely, keeping the sitting room warm. Sparks fly up the chimney and the wood crackles. He sits on a chair beside the settee, watching how Antonina’s body twitches. Her face and throat are damp. She frowns and moans and at one point cries out. He takes her hand. “Sleep, Tosya,” he murmurs, wiping her forehead and neck.

It’s late afternoon when she finally sits up. “My head,” she says. “It doesn’t stop throbbing.” Her pupils are slightly dilated.

“It will help if you eat. Can you try some soup?”

She nods, and he holds the bowl while she puts the spoon into it, but her hand is too unsteady. He feeds her four spoonfuls, then she shakes her head.

“It’s a good start. You’ll have more later.” He carries the bowl to the kitchen.

“Grisha?” she calls. “Could you bring me a glass of water?”

When he hands her the glass, she looks at it. “This is what I will drink from now on, Grigori Sergeyevich. I have made a pact with God.”

“Good.”

“Do you believe me? Do you believe
in
me?”

“I believe in you, Antonina Leonidovna,” he says, feeling such a rush of tenderness for her—her expression and voice so earnest—that he can’t stop himself. He cups the side of her face in his palm.

She leans into his palm, putting her own hand on top of his. They stay like this for a long moment. “I need a bath,” she says finally.

He warms water in two cauldrons, bringing in the big tin tub that hangs on a hook in the back veranda. He puts it in front of the stove, which is radiating its heat into the kitchen.

“I’ll come and get you in a moment, Antonina,” he calls as he’s pouring the warm water into the tub. But she comes on her own, slowly, holding on to the door frame for support. She looks at the steaming water, and then, as if very old, or very weak, unbuttons her dress and slides her arms out of it, letting it drop in a heap behind her. She peels off her stockings and pantalets, and then pulls her chemise over her head. She is looking at him the whole time. Her top lip quivers.

She is far too thin, a slender, pale flower suddenly unsheathed, her abdomen concave, her hip and collar bones jutting.

He holds out his hand. She takes it and steps into the tub, then sits down, her knees up. He moves behind her, bending over to gather up her hair with one hand, scooping water in a dipper with the other and pouring it over her shoulders. She rounds her back and drops her head. The back of her neck is so white, so susceptible. He can see all her vertebrae. He wants to press his lips to each one. Instead, he takes a flannel and wets it, passing it over her back as though her skin were the thinnest paper.

He gently washes her neck, her shoulders, her upper arms.

Antonina leans her forehead on her knees, wrapping her arms around her legs. Her body is still, finally, her breathing soft and even, and Grisha wonders if she’s fallen asleep again. He puts down the flannel and slowly lets go of her hair and picks up the clean blanket he’s left warming over a chair near the stove. “Come,” he says, spreading it wide, and she lifts her head and looks at him. Her pupils are still slightly
enlarged. With his hand for support again, she steps out of the tub. He wraps the warm blanket around her and holds her against him.

He recalls Lilya’s words to him in the kitchen:
She deserves love
.

“I want to love you, Antonina,” he says, so quietly she has to move her head, lifting it so that her ear is near his mouth.

She doesn’t answer. Did she hear him? He has never said this to a woman. He doesn’t know what he means: make love to her, or love her? Suddenly it’s the same thing. She’s so small in his arms, so fragile. How did he take her, in September, without hurting her?

“Can we go back to the sitting room?” she asks, and he picks her up as he did earlier. Again she leans against him, into him, in such a trusting way that he feels stronger than he’s ever felt. He can carry her forever.

He puts her down on the settee, and builds up the fire again.

“Grisha?” she says, and he turns. “Please. Come and sit with me.”

He does, and she takes his hand—this time she takes
his
hand—and says, “You mustn’t love me, Grisha.”

She heard him, then.

“And I mustn’t love you.”

“You wanted me once before, Antonina. You wanted me, and then you didn’t. Is it because I’m a steward?” He feels the old confusion, the first beat of anger. “It didn’t stop you with Valentin Vladimirovitch. You gave yourself to him, in spite of his class.” He works very hard to keep his voice even.

A line appears between her eyebrows. “Gave myself to him? No, I didn’t. He kissed me, once. It meant nothing.”
She squeezes her eyes closed, then opens them. “Poor, poor man,” she says, and Grisha knows Lilya has told her that Valentin is dead. He’s not surprised. “But why do you think there was anything more between us?”

“Because Lilya—” He stops. “Ah,” he says, understanding coming. In his mind he sees the grave behind the stand of fir. Once this is all over—once everything has come out—he will put up a headstone. He will give his brother the burial rites he deserves. “Yes. Poor Valentin,” he says, and something in his voice makes Antonina sit very still.

“But … 
you
didn’t hurt him? You didn’t, did you? Lilya said …”

Grisha stares at the fire. “Of course I didn’t hurt him. Why would I? Lilya is not to be believed, Antonina. She has her own reasons for creating lies, for turning us against each other.”