Rosa and the Veil of Gold (30 page)

When Elizavetta was finally drawn from her room, Rosa understood. The young woman was very, very ill. Her eyes were glassy, but her gaze was beatific. She seemed wholly unaware of the chaos around her, shuffling on her bony legs down the hallway while resting on Ludmilla’s arm. Rosa wisely stepped out of the way, taking Makhar by the arm and rubbing his shoulder softly.

A sheen of sweat beaded Anatoly’s brow. “The doctor will see her as soon as we get there,” he said to Ludmilla as he slammed down the phone.

“He can’t help,” Elizavetta said.

“I won’t hear it,” Ludmilla said, visibly upset but retaining her irritable tone. “Ilya, help us get her in the car.”

“She’s right,” Anatoly said, running his shaking hands through his hair mournfully.

“All of you, stop it. Let’s just get her in the car and off to the doctor,” Ludmilla snapped.

The agitation drew out of the room as they left, Ludmilla calling over her shoulder that Rosa was to mind Makhar until they returned. Rosa stroked Makhar’s hair as she watched them go. Anatoly seemed much smaller than usual. She thought about the wicked things he had done, and found she couldn’t blame him. Who wouldn’t sacrifice a stranger’s happiness for the happiness of a loved one?

She sat Makhar at the table and pulled out his English book, but he couldn’t concentrate.

“Elizavetta looked very pale, didn’t she?” he said, kicking the underside of the table.

Not just pale: transparent. Rosa smiled. “She’ll be fine. You’re not to worry.” She stroked his fair hair away from his forehead. “The doctor will know what to do.”

“No doctor can make her better, Roshka. Papa said so.”

“You probably misheard.” She tapped the page in front of her. “Come on, you have to fill in these blanks with the right word in English.”

“I can’t concentrate, Rosa. Like you, yesterday.”

“Do you want to walk in the woods again?”

He shook his snowy head. “I want to go and sit by the gate and watch for the car.”

“They’ll be hours.”

“I’ll take my marbles.”

“Do you want me to come?”

Again, he shook his head.

“Okay,” she said, squeezing his hand, “but when Elizavetta comes home, we’ll finish these exercises.”

He shot out of his chair and went clattering out of the house. Rosa stood by the kitchen window and watched him run up the front path and out to the gate.
When Elizavetta comes home.
Rosa knew that if Elizavetta came home, it would be because she was sent home to die. There was nothing left in the girl.

She turned, leaning against the sink, and eyed the hutch. Perhaps the time uninterrupted could be put to good use.

Rosa flipped open Anatoly’s day book, and read as she paced. She could read the tarabarshchina almost as easily as uncoded language by now, and she flicked through quickly, checking every
entry. Most of it was benign information about bees and business deals. When she had reached the beginning of the book, she began to wonder what Anatoly had been up to the previous year, when Nikita had been killed and Ilya had come along.

She sat on the floor in front of the hutch and pulled the bottom doors open. Inside was a confusion of old papers and account books, food-splattered recipe books, Makhar’s drawings and boxes of photographs. Right at the bottom, she found last year’s day book.

The house was very quiet and still. A clock ticked in Anatoly’s room down the end of the hall, and dust motes were suspended in the weak sunlight struggling through the grimy kitchen window. Rosa made herself comfortable on the sticky floorboards, leafing carefully through the book, looking for evidence to incriminate Anatoly. She knew she would find it.

And she did.

Here, just a year ago. Wedged between two mundane spells for water purification and moving bees.
Ilya love Elizavetta. Elizavetta love Ilya.

Anatoly had put them both under a love spell. He must have known the best way to break Nikita’s hold on Elizavetta would be if she gave her heart to another. Because it wasn’t real love—rather, the manufactured love of enchantment—Elizavetta had been unable to let Nikita go and her wedding night had been impossible. She had tired of Ilya. Only he was still under the spell.

Sighing, Rosa slid the book back into place. She couldn’t leave Ilya suffering under the enchantment, and they were easy enough to break. Usually, finding out one had been tricked into love was enough to undo it; she didn’t know if she wanted to be responsible for the family turmoil which would follow.

She slammed the cupboard door, stood and went in search of Makhar. It would all depend on what happened tonight, when she tried to cross the veil again. If she made it, she could sort the Chenchikovs out on her return. If not, then more drastic measures would be called for. And whether or not Ilya ran away from the farm would be the least of anyone’s concerns.

Summer was turning towards her zenith, and the nights were growing very short. Not long after the sun had faded from
the sky Rosa found herself, flashlight in hand, heading for the woods.

The beam picked up the pale remains of her cigarettes, and she tracked them through the still woods to the birch tree which housed her mother’s bracelet. In the dark, its silvery bark appeared ghostly and shadows gathered in the crevice around the knothole. Gingerly, Rosa reached inside for the bracelet, then fastened it around her wrist.

She had no idea how much or how little of her own magic remained in her body, but was certain her mother’s bracelet would help. The sky was still warm, the trees breathed softly around her. Waist-high saplings brushed against her, the uneven ground slowing her pace as she neared the edge of the wood. Then the field opened up, dark and tranquil under the indigo sky. The buzz and snap of the veil was just beyond her senses; she concentrated and brought it into sight.

Rosa crossed the field, stood with her arms above her head and willed her mother’s magic into her body. “Sister moon,” she said, “I beseech you. Tsar air, I beg your aid. On a small green island in the cold sea, the youngest of three sons was born. His name was Daniel, and he fell in love with a rose whose bloom would all too soon fade from this world. She led him far away, and far away. Too far away…” Rosa’s eyes were drawn out across the field into the inky mist of night beyond. “He has crossed the veil from this world to the next. As he has crossed, so may I cross this veil. My word is firm, so it shall be.”

She stepped forward. The veil shuddered and stretched and started to disintegrate.

Then it breathed and re-formed, as elastic and impenetrable as ever.

“Damn!” Rosa muttered, flapping her arms helplessly at her sides. Although she had tried to temper her expectations, she simply couldn’t believe she was still standing on this side of the veil.

Rosa knew now that her mother’s bracelet wasn’t enough. She knew too that her own magic was being sucked out of her by Anatoly. There was simply not enough power in her body to cross the veil. It was like trying to start a car with a nine-volt battery.

She took a moment to compose herself. An owl swooped past and into the field, rose again with a squirming mouse in its beak and took to the sky on starlight grey wings. A soft breeze rippled over the grass, and the veil shifted and settled.

“I’m coming, Daniel,” she said quietly. “I
am
coming.” She turned back towards the Chenchikovs’ farm. She knew what she had to do.

Anatoly had always said he would like to get inside her.

Serious business and sexual feeling repelled each other for Rosa, and so it was that as she watched Ilya, who was unaware of her presence in the shed, he was no longer desirable. The sunlight through the paint-spattered window made a hopeful patch on the unfinished wooden floor. Ilya’s hands were engaged in nailing together a sagging honey frame. He looked very young and very vulnerable.

“Ilya?”

He looked up, and a smile came to his mismatched eyes. “Rosa.” Then he frowned. “Anatoly didn’t see you come out here?”

She shook her head and advanced towards him. “I was careful. I’ve left Makhar with enough sums to keep him busy for a time. I needed to speak with you.”

He wiped his hands on his jeans and folded his arms. “It sounds serious.”

“It is serious.”

“Go on.”

She leaned on the bench, a respectful distance away from him. “Ilya, you have been enchanted.”

His eyebrows twitched, and Rosa could see the spell was already leaving him. His body relaxed, almost imperceptibly, around his shoulders and jaw.

“What do you mean? The impotence spell?”

“Far more powerful. I can read Anatoly’s cipher. I found a note from this time last year. He put you under a zagovor, so that you would love Elizavetta.”

His puzzled expression grew disbelieving. “No!”

“Can you feel it, Ilya? Can you feel it withdrawing from your body? An enchantment like this cannot stand up to truth. You know it’s true.”

“I…” He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I feel so strange.”

“You feel yourself again. Am I right?”

“I feel as though I’m bleeding somewhere. I’m losing something…” His face lost its colour and Rosa hurried over.

“Are you dizzy?” She helped him to sit on the floorboards, crouching next to him. “Take a few moments to catch your breath. It will pass. Your body is so used to the magic pressing on it, you might feel faint or light-headed.”

Under her hand, she could feel his back rising and falling as he breathed deeply. At last, he looked up.

“What’s happening to me, Rosa?”

“Ilya, Anatoly has not treated either of us kindly. You least of all. You’ve been under an enchantment these twelve months, and now you know it.”

“How can this be?”

“Tell me, how do you feel about Elizavetta now? Has the enchantment left you?”

“I feel…” He paused, his lips parted, for a long time. Words wouldn’t come.

“Do you still love her?”

He shook his head. “I did just this morning. When I looked in on her and she was asleep in her bed. She is so ill now, and I felt such a pang of fear. But now…it’s as though I imagined it.”

“Anatoly orchestrated it all. And there’s more.”

He looked into her eyes, his own gaze frightened. “What else has he done to me?”

“You are the seventh son of a seventh son. You were overflowing with magic. He has stolen it all.”

Ilya shook his head. “I had no magic.”

“You had so much magic it gave you fevers and fits as a child. You had so much magic one of your eyes changed colour. You could have been a powerful magician.”

“I never wanted to be a magician.”

“He has taken it without asking. Mine too. He has stranded me here with nothing. He does it to save his daughter, but she won’t be saved. She still loves Nikita, and his spirit draws her. With her permission. She’s beyond saving.”

“She’s near death.”

“She longs for death, which makes Anatoly more desperate.” She touched his knee, but it was a motherly pat, not a lover’s caress. “I think you should leave the farm.”

“Where would I go?”

“You would go to my Uncle Vasily in St Petersburg. He’ll take care of you. He’ll give you a job and help you find somewhere to live. He’ll do all of this if you bring him news of me…I have no good news to give him, but he’ll thank you all the same.”

Ilya touched her fingers, but he too had felt the electricity between them grow cold. “I have no transport.”

“Take Anatoly’s car.”

“Anatoly will need it.”

“Luda can’t drive. Once Anatoly is gone, they will have no use for it.”

“Where is Anatoly going?”

She tilted her head and smiled tightly. “Better if you don’t know.” Rosa stood and helped him to his feet. “Tonight, Ilya. It must all happen tonight.”

Ilya sighed, his eyes fluttered closed for a moment. “I’m afraid of him.”

“Don’t be afraid. Meet me here at eleven. I’ll take care of everything.” She squeezed his hand. “You will be free.”

He gathered his determination, nodding once. “Thank you, Rosa.”

“And I thank you, Ilya.” She stretched up to kiss his cheek. He turned his lips towards her and met her mouth. It wasn’t a passionate kiss, just one human pressing another’s flesh, as anonymous as elbows bumping on a crowded tram.

But Makhar saw it.

“Rosa! Ilya!”

“How long have you been there?” Ilya said, as the little boy was running away, crying.

“I’ll go,” Rosa said, dashing off after him.

Makhar was already disappearing behind the back of the house.

“Makhar! Wait!” she called, doubling her speed.

Too late. Makhar was wailing into Ludmilla’s apron as she stood by the clothesline. Her hands were in his hair, but her gaze was firmly on Rosa.

“Is what the child says true?” she asked, icily.

“I don’t know what he said,” Rosa replied.

Anatoly appeared then, looking like a portly spaceman in his bee suit. “What’s wrong?” he demanded.

“Makhar saw Rosa and Ilya kissing in the shed,” Ludmilla said stonily. “I told you no good would come of having the girl here.”

Rosa advanced towards Makhar, tried to pry him gently away from Ludmilla. “Makhar, sweet boy. You don’t understand.”

“Get away!” he shouted. His face was pink and tear-streaked. “Ilya is married to my sister. You will steal him and then Elizavetta will have no-one.”

“I won’t—”

“Leave my son alone,” said Ludmilla. “You have done enough damage to my daughter.”

Ilya had reluctantly joined them. “Luda, it wasn’t as it seemed…” he started, then trailed off because guilt had made him speechless.

Anatoly stepped in, barking orders. “Ilya, back to the shed. Makhar, Luda, go inside and finish lessons. Rosa, you go to the guesthouse. I will talk to you all in turn.” He caressed Makhar’s hair. “Calm yourself, little one. It isn’t as bad as all that.”

“But Ilya will go away—”

“Ilya is going nowhere.” He fixed Rosa with a stern glance and she could have laughed. Anatoly thought he controlled the situation, still thought she relied upon him. Instead of laughing, she feigned a contrite expression and returned wordlessly to the guesthouse.

She paced—through excitement, not fear—for the half-hour it took Anatoly to arrive. She had deliberately left her mother’s bracelet in the guesthouse, though carefully tucked away in her suitcase, to goad Anatoly’s suspicions.

When he did arrive, he thundered up the stairs and pushed the door open without knocking. He slammed it behind him and
glowered at her. She stood her ground, eyeing him coolly, expressionless.

“What were you thinking?” he demanded.

“I wasn’t thinking. Not of you, anyway,” she said, all innocence.

“How long have you been fucking him?”

“I haven’t. We shared one kiss, this morning. Makhar saw it and that was unfortunate.”

“You’re lying.”

She shrugged. “You are very certain.”

He broke his gaze and paced. The floorboards squeaked under his heavy footsteps. As he approached the bed, with the suitcases lying beneath it, he paused a moment. His eyelids twitched and Rosa knew he had sensed extra magic in the room, though he didn’t mention it.

“Luda is demanding I send you away,” he said. “Today.”

“I believe Luda is probably relieved I was kissing Ilya and not you.”

“She’s furious.”

“I believe you are furious for the same reason that Luda is relieved.”

Anatoly stopped and gave her a black scowl. “You are wrong if you think that I can be so easily led by the pizzle. You have underestimated me.”

“Perhaps I have. In the past.” She smiled. “Come, Anatoly. No harm is done. It was just a little kiss. Ilya is an attractive boy. You can’t blame me. Nor can you blame him. His wife is unlikely to offer her affections and—”

“His wife,” Anatoly roared, “is my daughter. My mortally sick daughter. Do you understand? She will never break free of the revenant if she has nobody else to love.”

Rosa bit her tongue. “I’m sorry, Anatoly. Please don’t send me away.” As if he would. He could smell magic and he wanted it. He wouldn’t let her out of his sight until he’d drained every last drop from her.

“Well,” he rumbled, all fatherly and stern, “we shall have to see about that.”

“Please, let me stay. Soon, perhaps, I’ll be able to cross the veil and then you won’t have to worry about me any more.”

He shrugged and sat on her bed, spreading his hands across his wide knees. “Perhaps I can smooth things over with Luda.”

“Anatoly, sometimes I don’t think I can cross the veil.” She dropped her head so her hair hid her face. “I don’t think anyone can.”

“You need just a little more magic. And it will grow—”

“I don’t think even you can.”

“Of course I can.”

She dropped to her knees beside him, resting her fingers on the backs of his hands. “Then take me across it. Please, I’m begging you. It’s already been so long.”

“Soon, Rosa, you will have the power to do it yourself.”

“Soon? When? I’ve already been here a month.”

“You can’t rush these things—”

“Ah, pish!” she said, standing and walking away from him. “I think Luda is right. I think I should leave.”

“No. Stay,” he said, his voice momentarily betraying his panic. It was quickly smoothed over. “You can’t give up. You’re so close, Rosa. Your lover needs you.”

“If you’re certain. I’d like to stay. I think there’s so much more you can give me.”

He stood. “I’ll speak with Luda.”

“Thank you, Anatoly.”

He left, this time closing the door softly behind him.

“Thank you for nothing,” she muttered in English, and started preparations for her adventure.

Dear Uncle Vasily,

I am deeply sorry to offer you only a flimsy sheet of paper, when I know you long for a far more substantial and human connection. This young man, Ilya Andreev Stepanov, has been a good friend to me. He is a hard worker and a decent person. Please find him a job at one of your developments, and see if someone has a room for him to stay in until he is on his feet. And please, don’t blame him for the contents of this letter. He is only a messenger. It’s me dealing the blow.

I do not think I will ever see you again. I never meant to become so close to your heart: I avoid such closeness for reasons which will
soon become clear. But one’s own blood attracts and binds, and now I regret loving you so much. Loving anybody.

Is all this strange to you, Uncle Vasily, or have you guessed? Of course you have, you are a clever man. You have long been fond of drawing comparisons between my mother and me; you know we are similar. I can’t bear that I must share her fate, and I am determined that nobody else should have to.

I know what you will say. I know you will flap your arms about and roar and tug your lip, but my will is immoveable.

There remain only practical matters. I am taking much from the Chenchikov family. Ilya can give you their address. Could you ensure that a decent amount of money is sent to Ludmilla Chenchikova? A large sum to start, then perhaps some continuing small pension? She has very little and her daughter is dying.

Lastly, do not come looking for me. You won’t find me, and you will serve my memory better to stay in your comfortable home and enjoy your life. Perhaps even find love. Dare I suggest that you may find it somewhere other than where you have, until now, been seeking it?

Do you remember me telling you that bear was a blessing? It seems that I didn’t know the difference between a blessing and a curse. I think I do now.

I am not often frightened, Uncle Vasily. Indeed, I believe you think me almost fearless, but there is one thing of which I am frightened beyond anything, and that is losing myself. I hope to find a place, beyond the veil, where I can remain Rosa; even if it means I am lost to life. Lost to you.

Please understand.

Yours with love and more love,

Roshka.

It was a quarter past eleven, and Rosa had started to think Ilya might not come. He slipped through the door to the shed at last, flushed and jittery.

“Anatoly went to bed very late,” he said. “I wanted to wait until they were asleep.”

“Anatoly rises again at midnight,” Rosa said sharply. “You must be out of here before then.”

Ilya gave her a puzzled look and she waved his curiosity away. “It would do me no good to explain to you now. Here.” She handed him an envelope, with Vasily’s address on the front. “This is where you are going. Give this letter to my uncle, and he’ll take care of you.”

“Are you certain?”

“I am. We have to be very quiet now, quieter than these cobwebs. We can’t start the car, in case they hear the engine. We’ll have to release the brake and push it out onto the track.”

He nodded, slinging his duffel bag over his shoulder. “Let’s do it, then.”

They stole around the shed to the car. With Rosa steering and Ilya pushing, they moved it silently past the house and out the gate, then around onto the overgrown track which eventually led down to the road. When they were a safe distance from the house, Rosa started the car.

“Thank you, Rosa,” Ilya said breathlessly, as they changed places and he slid into the driver’s seat.

“Thank you, Ilya,” she said, brushing her lips lightly across his cheek. “I wish you good luck on your journey.”

“And I wish you good luck on yours.” He pressed his hand over his heart. “I am excited but also afraid. Anatoly might follow me.”

“He won’t,” she said. “I guarantee it.” She tapped the roof of the car. “Go. Remember me.”