Russka (100 page)

It was three days since they had left the city of Riazan. Tomorrow they would get to Russka. ‘And it would have been tonight, sir, if you could get up in the mornings,’ the grey-bearded serf had remarked. To which Ilya had replied with a smile and a sigh: ‘I dare say you’re right, Suvorin. I don’t know why I find it so hard, I’m sure.’

The sunlight was already tinged with red. The track passed between endless stands of silver birch and larch trees, their leaves now turning to a rustling gold, against the pale blue sky. Soon, as the sun sank lower, the pigeons would come dipping over the tree-tops.

And now the trees opened out, and large fields appeared. Like many in the area, this village grew flax, barley and rye. The harvest was done. Little yellow-brown haystacks dotted the nearest field. Along its boundary, a bank of wormwood and nettles lent a faint, bitter smell to the air. As they approached the first
izba
, they were greeted by a barking dog and a large woman with a basket of mushrooms in her arms. Soon afterwards, they came to an inn.

‘We’ll have to stop here for the night,’ Suvorin remarked gloomily.

The inn was typical of its kind: a large room with tables and benches, a big stove in one corner, and a grumpy tavernkeeper, who immediately became obsequious when he caught sight of Ilya. While Suvorin saw to the horses, Ilya sat down near the stove and called for tea.

It had been a satisfactory journey. He was glad now that Tatiana had at last persuaded him to go with old Suvorin. They had thoroughly inspected the Riazan estate – at least, Suvorin had – taken their rents, sold the crops and some timber, and were returning to Russka with a considerable sum of money. Since the Riazan estate was one day to be his – Alexis would get Russka – he supposed it was as well he should get to know the place. Suvorin
had even induced him to walk about outside so that his colour had improved from its usual pastiness.

Ilya Bobrov was not an invalid; yet thanks to Tatiana’s folly he had grown up genuinely uncertain whether he was well or not. He was no fool. Kept often in bed as a child, he began to read voraciously, and had learned from his father both a love of French literature and enlightened philosophy. Unfortunately, however, and because his father had, ultimately, been defeated by life, he had taken in, without even knowing it, a subconscious sense that everything was useless. Failure and impotence seemed, to Ilya, inevitable. A kind of torpor descended upon him. And though he often had an acute sense that he was wasting his life, that he must shake this torpor off, somehow, because he never had to, he did not. Now, at the age of twenty-eight, he was amiable, lazy, unmarried and decidedly fat. ‘I am too stout,’ he would say apologetically, ‘but I don’t know what’s to be done about it.’

This journey, however, had rather stirred him up. Indeed, it had even given him a new idea, which he had been thinking about all day. So that when Suvorin appeared with his portmanteau, and the landlord with a glass of steaming tea, he just nodded to them both, put his feet up on the travelling chest and, half-closing his eyes while he sipped his tea, he considered: Yes, it’s certainly time I stopped vegetating. I think I shall take a trip abroad. I shall go to France.

It was time for his life to change. And old Suvorin, watching him and thinking of his own son, Savva, in Moscow, concluded: If that fellow had half my son’s energy, he could still make something of himself.

So the time went slowly by, as the sun sank, and the landowner and the elderly serf contemplated their destinies. And the journey might have ended the next day, quite without incident, had it not been for the landlord.

For the little tavern saw only modest business. The landlord did not intend to let an obviously rich gentleman like Ilya slip through his hands too cheaply. As soon as Ilya had his tea, therefore, the fellow had slipped out, hurried off down the street, and did not return for half an hour.

Ilya was delighted with the landlord’s proposal. He had enjoyed a
short catnap and now, stimulated by the journey and the new plans hatching in his brain, felt unusually lively.

‘Stop grumbling, Suvorin,’ he said. ‘It’s a capital idea.’ And then to the landlord, still bowing low: ‘Go and fetch them. And bring wine and vodka too.’

The landlord smiled. It was certainly good luck that those gypsies should have been passing through: if they would entertain the fat gentleman, he had already agreed to split whatever they were paid. As darkness fell, the little inn suddenly became a hive of activity. There was a smell of cooking. Wine and vodka appeared. So, miraculously, did a number of people. And then, with the food, came the gypsies.

There were eight of them, brightly dressed, swarthy skinned and not bad-looking. They sang, two of the women danced. Ilya grinned and tapped his foot. Yes, he felt livelier than he had in years. He did not usually drink much, but tonight … ‘More wine,’ he called to the landlord.

One of the girls was singing now, while the men strummed. What a strange sound the song had. Where did it come from? Was it Asiatic? He had no idea. The girl was about fifteen, he supposed, rather a scrawny little thing really. And yet … he felt a definite stirring. She was coming towards him, almost touching … My God, he thought, I must live, that’s it. I must travel.

By the time the evening finally ended, he had treated everyone in the inn to half a dozen drinks, had danced, ponderously, with the fifteen-year-old girl, and was quite in love – not exactly with her, but with life itself.

And it was well past midnight when, having cleared away some of the debris, the landlord made up a bed for him on one of the benches and Ilya lay down to sleep. ‘For the fact is, dear old Suvorin,’ he muttered, ‘I think I may be rather drunk.’

‘Yes, sir.’ The serf quietly arranged himself on another bench and closed his eyes.

It was five minutes later that, still lying with his eyes open, Ilya was suddenly struck by a thought. The portmanteau on the floor beside him was not locked. It was his own fault. Somehow he had mislaid the key while they were in Riazan; and it would scarcely have mattered except for one thing: all the money was in there.

And now, through the haze of his drunkenness, this idea seemed to grow in importance. It was urgent. The dim awareness
that he had probably made a fool of himself with the gypsies became translated into the idea: They wanted to make a fool out of me. One of those devils, probably the girl, would sneak in there and rob them – with the landlord’s help, no doubt. He sat bolt upright.

‘Suvorin, wake up,’ he hissed. The old man stirred. ‘Come over here and open the portmanteau.’ Suvorin came. ‘Take the money out. The bag and the packet. That’s it.’

The bag contained silver roubles; the packet the banknotes, in use since Catherine’s time, which the Russians called
assignats
.

‘You keep them, Suvorin. They’ll never be able to rob you, I’m sure.’ The old man shrugged, but complied. Then they both lay down again. ‘You’re a capital fellow,’ Ilya said. Then he fell asleep.

It was an hour later that something woke him. Was it a sound or the moonlight outside the window? Scarcely awake, he was vaguely aware that there was something important he had not done. What the devil was it? Ah, yes, the money. Somehow, in the deep recesses of his sleep, the thought had formulated – what if all the gypsies crept up on poor old Suvorin and took the money? They’d get it all. But he’d outwit them.

Slowly, with difficulty, he managed to rise and lurch across the room and shake Suvorin awake. ‘The packet. Give me the packet.’ Unquestioningly, the serf fumbled in his clothing and produced it. Then Ilya lurched back and sat down heavily. Where could he conceal it? He opened the portmanteau and peered inside at the jumble of his possessions. His head fell forward: God he was sleepy. Ah, yes, that would do.

In the bottom of the portmanteau lay a book of Derzhavin’s verses. Unfortunately, the spine had broken and he had tied the book together with a cord. Fighting off sleep, Ilya undid the cord, slipped the packet in the book and tied it up again. I don’t suppose a gypsy would think of looking in a book, he thought as he closed the portmanteau. Suvorin was snoring. ‘I must keep watch,’ he muttered, and instantly fell back into a deep sleep from which he did not awake until well into the morning.

One of Ilya’s first acts, when he was back in his room at home, was to put the volume of Derzhavin’s verse back in his bookshelf. He had no memory whatever of waking up and putting the money there; and so he never gave the book a thought.

He was therefore completely mystified when, after he and old
Suvorin had showed the accounts to his father, half the money was missing.

‘But you’ve got it, Suvorin,’ he said plaintively to the old serf.

‘You took back the notes, sir,’ the other replied with the faintest hint of impatience.

‘Do you swear to that?’ Alexander Bobrov demanded sharply.

‘I do, sir.’

And poor Ilya could only look baffled.

‘I just remember giving it all to you,’ he said.

It was not however until Tatiana herself had gone through his clothes and the portmanteau, and returned puzzled and shaking her head, that Alexander Bobrov made his terrible decision.

‘Suvorin, you have stolen it. I shall decide what to do with you tomorrow.’

In a way, Alexander Bobrov was glad. He had regretted giving way to his wife over the Suvorins, though he would not go back on his word: and now that he had an excuse to think old Suvorin was a thief, he was determined to believe it. ‘Either he’s a liar or your son is,’ he snapped when Tatiana pleaded with him. And when she reminded him that, according to Suvorin, Ilya had been drunk, Bobrov merely remarked: ‘All the easier to steal from him, then. You see,’ he added in justification, ‘if you offer a man like that the chance to buy his freedom, it just tempts him to steal the money to pay you.’

It was nonsense. Tatiana told him so. In his heart of hearts, he perhaps knew it. But the facts seemed unassailable; even Tatiana admitted that. And, it had to be admitted, this turn of events worked out very nicely for the Bobrovs.

For the next day Alexander Bobrov held court. This meant that he summoned Suvorin before him and acted, as was his right, as the serf’s accuser, judge, jury and executioner. Since he judged Suvorin guilty of a serious theft against him, the sentence was harsh.

‘I am sending you to Siberia,’ he announced.

He did not even need to add what the sentence also assumed – that everything the Suvorin family possessed would pass directly into his hands. So whatever money he would have paid for his freedom became Bobrov’s anyway. His son, now penniless, would remain a serf. It was certainly all very convenient.

‘But you can’t,’ Tatiana protested. ‘It’s against the law.’ For the law said that a master could not send a serf of over forty-five to Siberia. And Suvorin was forty-eight.

But the law was not strong, when confronted by a landowner.

‘I’m sending him to the military governor of Vladimir,’ Alexander said bluntly. ‘He’s a friend of mine.’ And though she tried all day, there was nothing Tatiana could say this time to change his mind.

Alexander Bobrov was quietly triumphant. He was within his rights, more or less. He had outmanoeuvred those cunning serfs and decidedly added to the value of the estate. Several small signs had told him recently that he might not have many years left to do that.

In a way, of course, he felt sorry for Suvorin – even though he was determined to believe him guilty. But then, he thought, these sudden and arbitrary reversals of fortune must be expected by any man. After all, it had happened to him, too, when Catherine had thrown him in jail. That was how things were and how they had always been, in Russia.

The very next day, wearing chains, Suvorin was taken to Vladimir from where, quite regularly, little parties set out on the long, long road to Siberia.

And the same day, Tatiana sat down to write a letter.

Savva took the little blackened object in his hands. And for once, he smiled. He had promised himself this treasure for a long time and now at last he felt he could afford it.

For they were home and dry. Two more weeks in Moscow and he would have the money for his and his father’s freedom. All I have to do now, he thought with a grin, is get out of this store.

‘It’s good,’ the grey-bearded seller said simply. ‘Very old. Before Ivan the Terrible, I think.’ Savva nodded. He knew.

It was a little icon – nothing to look at. There were dozens of bigger and brighter ones in the store. As with many ancient icons the paint had grown dark with age, been overpainted, grown dark again. In its long life this icon had probably gone through this process two or three times; and even now, the solemn figures of the Mother of God and Child could only dimly be made out against their darkening amber background. Why then should Savva value it so much?

It was because he knew the art of the icon was only visible to the trained eye, and even then, could only be apprehended by the spiritual sense. The icon was not just a painting, it was a prayer. The intimate little forms in their receding world were revered for their simplicity and grace – and this came from the religious intention of the hand that painted them. Most icons, therefore, were false, impure: only in a few, a very few, did the invisible fire of the spirit – as pure as in the dawn of Christianity in the ancient Greek and Roman world – show through. Painted and over-painted by religious hands, these icons were to be venerated by those who understood. Like Savva.

With a deep sense of satisfaction, Savva paid the old man. And now it was time to leave.

But, as usual, that was not so easy. The old fellow had somehow managed to get between him and the door. Two other younger men, with friendly but solemn faces, had joined him. ‘You would receive a warm welcome, you know,’ the old man reminded him for the twentieth time, ‘if you were to join us.’ And then, very seriously: ‘I would not sell this icon to most men.’

‘I thank you, but no,’ he replied, as he had done so many times before.

‘We can help you buy your freedom,’ one of the younger men remarked. But still Savva did not react. He had no wish to join them.