Rosa and the Veil of Gold (18 page)

Anatoly didn’t respond. He continued leafing through the mail. Ludmilla arrived with an empty laundry basket under her arm, and Ilya gave Rosa a sympathetic smile. She tucked Vasily’s letter into her waistband and touched Makhar’s snowy hair.

“All done for the day,” she said.

“Time for lunch,” he said.

“Set the table, Rosa,” Ludmilla said.

Rosa’s lungs filled with frustration. “I won’t be having lunch today,” she said, rising and going to the door. “I’m going to have some time to myself.” She resisted slamming the door as she left.

Shortly after dinner, when the sun was still low in the sky to the west but night had already come to the east, there was a hesitant knocking at the door of Rosa’s guesthouse.

“Ilya,” she said, surprised to see him there on her top step.

He glanced around nervously. “Can I come in?”

“Of course.”

He had something under his coat, which he had folded both his arms over. She showed him in and closed the door.

“Would you like coffee?”

Ilya shook his head. “No, no. I shouldn’t stay. Anatoly thinks I’m washing out the honey drums.” He pulled open his coat and
handed Rosa a package, wrapped in brown paper. “This came for you in the mail today.”

Rosa took it gently. “It’s from Vasily. Why did you…?”

“I know what he’s like. I knew that if he saw it he would open it. I’m sorry I didn’t find your letter before he did, or I would have set that aside too.”

Rosa eyed the package. “Thank you so much, Ilya. I’m in your debt.”

“You can repay me by not saying anything to Anatoly.”

“I certainly wouldn’t tell.” She took his hand firmly. “You must stay and drink coffee with me. I have sugar and milk now, and fresh coffee.”

He hesitated, watching her fingers. She withdrew them. “Please.”

“Yes…all right.”

“Sit down,” she said, throwing the package onto her bed. “I need to talk to you about something.”

As she boiled the kettle, the breeze freshened overhead making the trees whisper and hiss. From the corner of her eye, Rosa saw Ilya stiffen. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’m sure it’s just an evening breeze.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She turned to him. “I’m talking about Nikita. You know that.”

He looked down and away, picking at the worn upholstery on the arm of the chair. “Nikita is dead.”

“How did he die?”

“An accident in the woods.”

“A death not-his-own,” she said, then finished making the coffee in silence. She handed him a mug and sat on the end of the bed, her legs pulled up underneath her. “Ilya, I know. His spirit is still out there, isn’t it? Anatoly can’t banish him.”

Ilya was very still. He closed his eyes and drew a deep breath, speaking almost inaudibly. “He will though.”

“Nikita is making Elizavetta sick.”

Ilya opened his eyes, and Rosa was struck again by the oddness of them. One was dark, and seemed warm and soft; the other was light, and seemed flinty and cool. As if he could not decide to be either open or closed to her. “Some nights, Nikita pulls Elizavetta’s spirit from her body—”

“I know, I saw.”

“The separation of spirit and flesh weakens her. We haven’t been able to stop it yet. I sometimes think we never will. I sometimes think she’ll die.”

Rosa thought about all the photos of Nikita in Elizavetta’s room, and wondered what Ilya made of them. “How long have you been married?”

“Nearly a year.” He was staring into his coffee cup. Rosa sensed he left much unsaid, but she reminded herself to be patient, that intense curiosity would have him running out the door in twenty seconds.

“Ilya!” Anatoly’s voice, outside, near the hives.

Ilya jumped from his chair. “I have to go.”

Rosa pushed him back down. “Don’t be silly. He’ll see you if you leave now.” She climbed onto the bed and opened the window. Anatoly was in a long overcoat, calling for Ilya by the hives. The evening had deepened, and he was nearly all in shadow.

“Anatoly!” she called. “Have you lost something?”

He turned, peered towards her. “Some
one
, Rosa. Have you seen Ilya?”

“No,” she said guilelessly. “Maybe he’s gone for a walk in the woods.”

Anatoly hesitated a moment, and she could feel the needling pressure of his mind seeking out hers, scouring it for the truth. But nobody kept secrets better than Rosa. “You’re right,” he said. “He likes to walk in the woods on windy nights.”

He turned and set off around the garden. Rosa closed the window.

Ilya smiled at her nervously. “You’re not afraid of him.”

Rosa thought about Anatoly as she’d just seen him outside, all in black, a bear of a man with shadowy eyes and a grizzled beard. “No. Not really.”

“It’s good for me to see somebody who isn’t afraid of him. Luda is afraid of him. Makhar is afraid of him. I see that you are not and it gives me heart.”

“He hasn’t done anything to frighten me.” She settled on the bed, arranging her pillow behind her back and stretching out her legs, and wondered if this was true. Today, when he’d opened
her mail, that had frightened her. The ease, the confidence with which he violated her simple right to privacy. Such a small act, really, but so telling. “What has he done to frighten you?”

Ilya shrugged and didn’t say anything further. Although he seemed uncomfortable, he wasn’t hurrying to run away. He stared into the middle distance, occasionally sipping his coffee. Rosa found herself admiring his profile, imagining her fingers slipping around the back of his warm neck and up into his hair. What beautiful hands he had: long, tanned fingers, strong and square.

“We can look after each other,” she said. “You and me.”

“That would be nice,” he said. “This family is…claustrophobic. I’m glad you came.” He wouldn’t meet her eye, and she felt a keen stab of desire for him. She wanted to climb across his lap and crush his mouth with hers.

“How did you meet Elizavetta?” she asked instead, crossing her ankles demurely.

“I met Anatoly first. He knew my father. He needed somebody to help with the last summer harvest and my father owed him money. A deal was struck. If I came to work for three months, Anatoly would cancel my father’s debt.” The wind rattled over the roof and Ilya’s eyes went up, his shoulders tensed.

“It’s okay,” she said. “It’s just wind. Go on.”

“The moment I saw Elizavetta I knew I didn’t want to return to my own family,” he said. Then he chuckled. “It was already getting very crowded. I have six brothers.”

“Are you the eldest?”

“The youngest. None of them have left home. I blame my mother’s cooking.”

Rosa leaned forward. “You’re the seventh son?”

“Of a seventh son, actually,” he said, smiling self-consciously. “I know. I’m supposed to be—”

“Overflowing with magic,” she finished for him. “Yet you say you’ve never felt anything?”

“No.”

“It may be latent. You may need to grow it.”

“Anatoly expressed the same astonishment, but he tested me and said there’s definitely nothing there.” He waved a dismissive hand. “I don’t mind. I don’t want such a burden.”

Rosa turned this over in her head.

“Anyway,” he said, “I met Elizavetta and we fell madly in love and were married very soon after.”

“Madly in love,” Rosa said, keeping the scepticism out of her voice. “That’s nice. You’re still madly in love?”

“Yes,” he said quickly, then, “I mean…”

Rosa let the silence sit for a moment, then said, “What do you mean?”

“Her illness has taken its toll. We aren’t close. We haven’t…we don’t share a marital bed.”

“And she has eleven pictures of Nikita on her dresser,” Rosa added. “Don’t forget that.”

“I never expected to replace Nikita,” he said with a downward turn of his mouth. “She feels a lot of guilt over his death.”

“Then it was her fault?”

A long pause. Rosa waited it out. If he answered, then a new intimacy would have been forged between them.

It was worth waiting for. “She shot him accidentally,” he said. “Nikita was hiding in the woods—sulking by all accounts—and Anatoly handed her the gun while he tied his shoelace. The safety catch was off, she bumped her elbow, the bullet left the barrel. Sixteen feet away, Nikita was sitting behind a tree. The bullet passed through a knothole, cracked through the other side and lodged in his brain. He died on the way back to the farm.”

Ilya knotted his right hand into his left and sent his gaze towards the window. Did he regret telling her the family secret? It was impossible to tell.

Rosa slid off the bed. “I might put the heater on,” she said. “Will you stay for another coffee?”

“I haven’t finished this one.”

She found the heater and plugged it in. “It’s because I can’t smoke. I drink coffee instead. Nine or ten cups a day.”

“How do you sleep at night?”

“That certainly hasn’t been a problem,” she said, switching the kettle on again. “I sleep like the dead. I wake up tired.”

“I do too,” he said. “I think maybe it’s the quiet out here, so far from the traffic.”

Rosa finished making her coffee then sat on the floor in front of the heater, her feet stretched towards the bars. “I don’t know if I trust Anatoly,” she said.

“I think he’s worth trusting.”

“Do you think he liked Nikita?”

“I know he didn’t. Elizavetta told me that they fought all the time.”

“I don’t trust him,” she muttered again, but Ilya didn’t respond.

The wind picked up outside, and Ilya pulled himself to his feet. “I’m going out to the woods.”

“It will do you no good. If Anatoly can’t get rid of him—”

“I feel better if I do something. Besides, Anatoly is looking for me.”

She saw him to the door, taking his arm gently just before he left. “Ilya,” she said, dropping her voice to a whisper, “you say you’ve been married to Elizavetta a year. How long since you’ve shared a bed?”

His eyes met hers, and he looked bewildered and ashamed. “I’ve…we haven’t…” He shook his head and peeled her hand from his arm. “That’s not a question to ask me, Rosa,” he said. “I have to go.”

She closed the door after him regretfully. She had rather hoped to peel all his clothes off him and tumble him into her bed. Her desire for him grew stronger the more annoyed she became with Anatoly. A few hot bouts of lovemaking would certainly make being stuck at the farm more bearable. Instead, she returned to the heater, picking up her package. It was long and flat and silent, where she had been expecting a rattling box of objects. She tore off the paper and found inside three exercise books and a note from Vasily.

Rosa, this is all I could find. I hope it holds what you’re looking for, but I can’t understand a word of it. V.

Rosa put the letter aside and opened the first book, immediately seeing what Vasily meant. The letters were familiar, but it was another language. Not a single word jumped out at her as being recognisable.

“Damn,” she said, quickly flicking through the other books. They were all equally useless to her. Her mother had written everything in a secret code.

Rosa had the car keys in her pocket as she left her guesthouse later that night, but still didn’t know whether she intended to use them.
Her nerves and thoughts were ringing and jangling against each other, and she didn’t yet want to succumb to sleep. Ilya’s visit had made her feel many things, mostly desire and suspicion. So, as she left to have a cigarette in the woods, she still wasn’t sure why she was going to the car. Perhaps to hide it, to try her magic once again. Perhaps to drive it, to leave the Chenchikovs behind.

Two steps outside the gate, and a shadow on the edge of her vision caught her attention. Anatoly himself. He sat with his back against the brick wall, gazing into the woods. He hadn’t seen Rosa yet, and in this unguarded instant, she saw all the weight of his despair sitting heavily on his shoulders.

She shrank back into the shadows, watching him for a few moments. It wasn’t possible for her to pass without him seeing her, yet she didn’t want to return to her guesthouse. Anatoly was unaware of her presence. Rosa’s gaze divested him of his usual power. Here was a sad fat man, with a bulbous nose and a straggly beard. Not the spark-eyed magic creature she normally saw.

Boldly, she approached him. “Anatoly,” she called.

He started, then when he recognised Rosa in the dark, he gathered himself, ran a hand through his beard, but made no move to stand up. “What are you doing out here?” he said sternly. “You should stay in your guesthouse, you should—”

“I’m having a cigarette and, anyway, there are no secrets now.” She crouched next to him and lifted his left hand, which was lacerated and still bleeding from the zagovor. “I know what you’re doing out here. I’ve already seen what you don’t want me to see.” Gently, she traced her fingertip through the blood. A man never seemed more alive than when he bled, when it was made evident that he was not a machine of moulded parts.

The wind rose in the trees and whipped her hair across her face. He sucked in his breath in response to her touch. “I would do anything to make my daughter well again,” he said softly.

She dropped his hand, and sucked the blood off her fingers. It fizzed like sherbet on her tongue. “I know that,” she said. “I believe it.”

Long seconds passed as they gazed at each other. Shadows crawled across his skin as the trees moved around them.

“I need a cigarette,” she said, rising.

“Rosa, don’t be out too late. It isn’t safe. You have lessons with Makhar in the morning.”

“Don’t worry about me,” she called. Her lighter flared into life and she exhaled into the sky. “I’m the least of your problems.”

As she headed into the woods, she thought about Anatoly. A man of power and magic, a man with the ability to fulfil his will through force. How little trouble it would be for such a man to hand his daughter a loaded gun, then make certain the trigger jumped. How little trouble to find another, more suitable, son-in-law and then drain him of his precious latent magic. More than that: how little trouble for him to convince Rosa he was helping her, and then siphon off her magic to help only himself.