The Master of Rain (45 page)
Read The Master of Rain Online
Authors: Tom Bradby
“What do you mean?”
“You don’t think a Russian girl has a right to say no?”
Field stubbed his cigarette out in the ashtray in front of her. “What have you done with all the photographs?”
She looked at him, and even in this light he could see the depth of her annoyance. “I do not understand.”
“The bookshelf in the living room. I just wondered what had happened to all your photographs.”
“Which photographs?”
“When I came around the other day, your bookshelf was covered in photographs.”
“I took them down.”
“What did you do with them?”
“It is not your business.”
“Can I see them again?”
“Why do you ask this?”
“Just . . . interest.”
“No. You cannot.”
She sat up, moved to the side of the bed, and picked up her gown. She slipped into it and tied the knot around her waist. “I’m sorry, this has been unfair of me. I said to you that I am weak.”
“Stop.”
She turned to him. “What do you mean?”
“I mean don’t go down that road. I mean stop.”
“Stop what?”
“I know what you are going to say and I don’t want you to say it.”
Natasha sighed, closing her eyes.
He knelt on the bed. “Everything has changed.”
“Richard—”
“No. You said, ‘Everyone needs to dream.’ So let’s dream. Longer. No more questions.” He stood. “Let’s . . . do something. Let’s get out of here. Now. We can go for a walk.”
She was still looking at him, confused and uncertain, and for a moment he thought that she would reject him again.
She stood and began quietly to dress. She pulled on her stockings first, unselfconsciously, knowing his eyes were upon her. She indicated with the tap of a finger that he should button her dress, and as he did so, he wanted to kiss the curve of her back.
They did not speak as they walked down the stairs and, outside, she led the way, as if this had been her suggestion and she had a destination in mind. It was cooler this morning. A light breeze rustled the leaves of the sycamore trees.
A barge honked on the river, but the street was quiet save for the hiss of the gas lamps and their footsteps on the pavement. She wore a simple blue dress, a string of pearls around her neck, her hair untidy. She looked as if she had just got out of bed, and for some reason this pleased him.
Natasha took his hand, her own warm in his. She squeezed harder and he responded and then, as he was becoming used to this public display of affection, she let go.
She clasped her other hand around her waist.
“Where are we going?” he asked.
“We’re walking.”
“Anywhere in particular?”
“I thought perhaps a coffee at the French Club, then I want you to meet a friend.”
“You’re a member?”
She looked at him, without emotion. “They tolerate me.”
“Tell me about your house,” he said after a moment. “In Russia.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m interested.”
“So long ago.”
“Not so long ago.” Field tried to take her hand again. “Natasha, tell me about your home.”
She held his hand briefly, then let it slip away. She sighed. “It was not a grand house. Not like Lena’s.”
“In Kazan itself?”
“It was a farm. Quite far from Kazan. Closer to Chistopol, on the other side of the river.” Natasha smiled. “It was a beautiful place.”
“Your father was a farmer?”
“For many years, we . . .” She hesitated. “Papa was an officer in the army, like Lena’s father. He was away so much, and when Mama died, we had to run the farm.”
“You and your sister?”
“Yes.”
“She was older or younger?”
“Older. Four years. I told you. She looked after me after Mama died.”
“What was her name?”
Natasha hesitated. “It is not important.”
“You had help on the farm?”
“Of course.” She smiled again, gently. “But the workers were happy. Papa was always generous. It was a simple life.”
They had reached the French Club, the Cercle Sportif, and Natasha led him through the wrought-iron gates and across the neatly clipped lawn, past the cedar trees and crafted bushes. Light spray from the fountains settled onto their faces. Field thought this the most elegant building in Shanghai—long and low, with a curved awning in the middle, beneath which a liveried doorman was stamping his feet, as though trying to keep out the cold. He nodded at Natasha as she led Field through the hall to the terrace. They took a table close to the garden and looked down toward the pavilion, now fringed by the dawn light. They were the only customers.
“They open early,” Field said.
“They never close.”
“I thought you said you were not a member.”
“I’m not, but they tolerate me.”
A waiter stood before them, smiling, his white linen coat so starched it looked as if it could walk on its own.
“Café, s’il vous plaît,”
she said quietly.
she said quietly.
“Moi aussi,”
Field added.
Field added.
“A manger?”
They both shook their heads.
“You speak French?” she asked after the waiter had gone.
“A little.” He leaned forward. “Your father must have fought in the Great War.”
“Do not hold my hand here, Richard.”
“I—”
“It is early, so it is safe, and, whatever you think, I don’t want to live in fear. You have encouraged me. But if we were seen, it would be dangerous.”
Field nodded. He swallowed, his throat dry.
“What I have to do, I do, but he does not control me. He does not own me.”
Field nodded again, not trusting his voice.
“But we must be careful,” she said, her expression a mixture of defiance and fear.
He let the silence stretch between them.
“It must have been hellish. The war, I mean,” Field said.
Natasha smiled again. “Papa sometimes seemed so stiff to others. So formal. But he was just a bear. That’s what we called him.”
“He came home as soon as the war was finished?”
“He was in St. Petersburg with his regiment during the revolution. He escaped home and told people what he had seen, but no one believed him. Everyone thought he was exaggerating. He was frightened and silent and we did not know what to think or do. You know?”
“I understand.”
“When the Bolsheviks arrived, the killings began in Kazan. They rounded up people of consequence—many friends. Landowners, army officers, university teachers—they put them into basements and shot them, or forced them onto barges on the river and blew them up.”
Her face had gone white. “Papa did not want to go, but he knew there was no choice.” Natasha closed her eyes. “So far. You have no idea. No one can ever imagine. By camel, across the Steppes, for months. Huddled up as we crossed Lake Baikal by sledge, the air so cold. No money, no food, no kindness. And after all that he had seen, Papa so . . .” Her voice trailed off, her eyes tight shut.
“You reached Vladivostok?”
“It had fallen to our side, but we knew it could not last. There were so many rumors. We had to force father to leave. We had to convince him it was hopeless and we must flee while we still could.” She shut her eyes again.
The waiter came with two cups and a jug of coffee on a silver tray. As Natasha opened her eyes, Field examined the figure on the bill and pulled some money from his pocket.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “it is expensive.”
“It is no matter. I’m no longer poor.”
“You don’t have to apologize, Richard. I do not—”
“Yes, but—”
“It is not important.”
The coffee was in a silver jug and Field poured it, spilling some on the white linen tablecloth. He handed a cup to her. “Did you leave with Lena? You were friends?”
“We were at school together in Kazan and then St. Petersburg, but I had come home to help on the farm.”
“They say St. Petersburg is beautiful.”
“Of course, it was . . .”
“What kind of girl was Lena?”
She did not answer immediately. “Lena liked to laugh. At school she was very funny. She always tried to make a joke of everything. She was popular, quite forward with boys. Not intimidated, but . . .” Natasha stopped again in midsentence.
“You traveled here together?”
“No.” Her voice was firmer now. “I said people thought Papa was stiff, but he was the kindest man I knew, gentle, and he left for us. He did not want to go, could not imagine a life without Russia, but he could see that there was no future for us—so many friends being killed, so brutal. What could we do? But it was so hard for him to leave. Lena’s father was prouder and more stubborn. He was really a stiff man, inflexible, and he would not leave until the last moment. They had a big house, very beautiful, with gardens that had taken so many years to build and a long lawn that ran along the banks of the river. They were quite rich and the father would not go. Papa went to see him. On our way, after we’d left, we went to the house, but Lena was playing in the woods and Papa would not let us come in. I remember Papa walking out, across the snow, back to the sledge, still in his uniform boots, shaking his head. Lena’s father was standing on the steps of the veranda and I could see all the way down to the frozen river and it was a clear day, blue sky, sharp and beautiful. I saw Lena’s mother in the window, looking out at us. She was so frightened and I felt afraid all over again.”
There was another long silence. “But they left?” Field asked. “In the end.”
“Only just in time. They were warned by a friend from Kazan that a mob was coming, and we later heard that the Bolsheviks burned the house down an hour after they had gone. But they left in such a hurry, and the father would not believe it would be for long. He did not want to escape, just hide for a few days, he thought, because the White Army was coming. And it was true: the Whites were close and the city was freed by General Kappel a week later. We knew about this and asked Papa, but he wouldn’t turn back. He understood. He did not want to go, could not bear to leave, but he understood. It was finished. He knew that it was all finished and our life was gone forever.
“Lena’s family lost everything. They came back to the house, but there was nothing left. The Bolsheviks had stolen so much and burned, and they had attacked some of the servants who tried to defend the house. Lena and her family were left with nothing, and then they had to go. The journey was even harder for them. Her father . . . he killed himself on the Steppes. Her mother died also on the journey, and the brothers turned back. She had to fend for herself and her sister. She was a brave woman.”
“And it—”
“When she got here—a long time after us—she was different, as though a light had gone out, do you understand?”
Field nodded.
“She was never the same. There was no laughter.” Natasha stared at him. Field wasn’t sure what she expected him to say.
“I won’t be like that, Richard. I won’t lie down and die.”
“Lena believed she could escape.”
Natasha sighed. “The last few weeks, she was more like her old self, just a little. It is hard to say what I mean, because there was so much we did not—could not—talk about. The past—you think it binds us, but it’s not like that. It seems black, do you see? It all seems black. What we have lost—it is so terrible, and the present so bleak, that we can never talk about it. Sometimes with others, if they had lived in Moscow or somewhere else, then it is possible to discuss the past or talk about the revolution. But not to Lena, because we had known each other too well.”
“Because there is no escape?”
“Of course. But Lena believed. And—”
“You think it was a mistake?”
Natasha didn’t answer. She was staring out of the window.
“Your father died in Russia?”
For a split second he saw the uncertainty in her eyes as she turned to face him and tried to recall what she had previously said. He wished immediately that he had not spoken. “On the ship,” she said.
“You buried him at sea.”
“No, in Harbin.”
Field wanted to ask if she ever went up to see the grave but thought it a subject best left alone.
She smiled at him. “You are a good listener.”
He shrugged.
“Few men know how to listen.” She paused. “It is strange. Once, I would have been your equal. Now, if you took me to one of your clubs, you would be thrown out in disgrace.”
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