The Four Winds of Heaven (47 page)

“What is there to understand?” Anna said with disdain. She bit her lower lip and applied herself to her work. All at once she hurled her brush to the ground, where it splashed bright purple. “What is it you want?” she cried. “Confessions of guilt?”

“No,” Sonia answered. Her eyes were limpid with tears. “But it's true, isn't it? Then why does he think he is Dalia's son? How can you stand it when he calls her ‘Mama'?”

“It is very simple,” Anna said suddenly, quiet. She sat down at Sonia's feet, and folded her hands in her lap. “Dalia came to Switzerland to have her baby, because she had already miscarried once. She miscarried again. I was pregnant. I had my child in the clinic that was expecting Dalia, and since they had not met her, I registered in her name. The boy was born with her name as mother, and her deceased husband's as father. Nobody ever thought to question us. Why you? I believed you were the last of the innocents, that the truth would never occur to you—or I would never have allowed you to come here.”

“I am not a fool,” Sonia said. “He looks like Ivan. And I would not betray you. Do you take me for a heartless prude?”

“A prude, yes. But not a heartless one.” Anna's eyes sparkled for a moment, and she smiled briefly. “That is why I never wanted the family to come here. Papa and Mama would not have guessed. It is not their nature. But Ossip—even Gino—and of all people, Juanita! I could not permit it. Because Riri must never know! Dalia convinced me, for his sake! Do you think it has been easy all these years, rearing him as hers, when he is mine? She is an admirable mother, but it is I who take care of him more. I changed his diapers when he was a baby—she did too, but I got up at night to feed him at my breast—and I have taught him so much, Sonia, so much! He is all that matters in my life. I did not even mind rearing him a Moslem—for what difference does religion make? Life is love, and care. Riri is my life and my love. I wanted him and I had him. And I gave him up out of love. Can you understand that? For I loved his father, Vanya, and once I gave him up too, because my love was stronger than convention. He—Riri— is happier here, freer, with Dalia and me, than he would have been as the grandson of Baron David de Gunzburg and the banker Aron Berson. And I could not have survived Petersburg, married to Vanya and tied to a life such as Mama leads.”

“That is beyond my comprehension,” Sonia said. “Because, you see, I want to be married, to run a household, to go to the theater with my husband, to entertain our friends. Kolya—it was so difficult, letting go of the dream. I wanted to wake up beside him every morning. I wanted to face him at breakfast. I even wanted to wear perfume, to go out into the world with him. If Ivan wanted you—I cannot understand why you felt you had to give him up. I had no choice!”

“We are different people,” Anna said. “I do not mock your dream. I can understand it.”

“But not share it?”

“No.” She laid her hand over the left side of her face. The gesture was eloquent and clear. The sisters sat side by side on the chaise longue, and they were silent now. Sonia's small oval face reflected misery. It was pinched and drawn. Anna's was flushed, and her eyes were deep and mellow, like brown velvet. Then Anna raised her face and asked, “How does it feel to be an aunt? For I am glad that you know. I am proud of him.”

“I am proud of him, also,” Sonia replied quietly. Her hand stretched toward her sister, and pulled her to herself. Their arms went about each other, and Anna drew Sonia's head to her chest, stroking the soft black hair. Sonia began to weep, then to sob. Anna rocked her, singing, and the words formed an old Russian peasant lullaby from their childhood at Mohilna. Her own eyes filled with tears, which flowed easily from her lids down her cheeks, and onto Sonia's head. They remained like this for several minutes, while the dusk set outside the glass panes of the gallery.

Neither knew that Mathilde, frozen in horror, stood on the other side of the door, where she had come to join her daughters after a gust of wind had disturbed her reading in the garden. Revulsion overcame her. She clutched at the wall. My God, it is my fault, she said to herself. All this is my fault. I allowed this to happen to my own child, my daughter! Then she listened to the soft melody from Anna's lips and made out Sonia's sobs—the first since Misha's visit—and a sort of relief came to her.

It is not true, not true, Mathilde told herself over and over. She stood still, her eyes clenched shut, denying what she'd heard. Not Anna. Not true. Not Anna. And then she heard sounds of childish laughter, and knew that Dalia and Riri had arrived downstairs. “Aunt Anna!” the little boy was crying. “Look, Mama has bought you some paints!” Aunt Anna, Mama. Pretend. Pretend not to have heard. Pretend not to know. Her daughter was Aunt Anna, that was all. She turned and faced the boy as he ran up the steps. “Well,” she declared, “it seems that you had quite a day, young man!”

His large green eyes looked up at her, and she touched his cheek. It was going to be all right. All right. As long as she forgot Ivan Berson. Something tugged at her insides. She bent down and kissed the boy.

“I like you,” he said. “You are a nice lady, and you smell good. Will you let me come to Russia to visit you one day, when I am older?”

Mathilde felt her eyes fill with tears. She turned aside. “That would be fun,” she replied. “But it is up to your mother.” She bit her lip and clasped her hands together wretchedly. But the child had not noticed, for he had opened the door and was calling out to the two young women within.

S
onia's cure
took a long time, and so, during the summer, when Gino had passed his examinations and obtained his diploma from the school of commerce in Hanover, Mathilde went alone to see him. He had become a stalwart young man, no longer a boy, and his broad shoulders, his vivid brown eyes, his ruddy complexion somewhat startled his mother, who had not seen him for a year. Her baby was no more. Gino was eighteen, fluent in German, and confident about his future. It was he who took her around the city, dining in its more elegant restaurants. He was tall, and tipped his hat to some of the young girls who passed his way in horse carriages. But he was not entirely sure about the direction he wished his life to take. “I have received several offers from good firms here,” he told his mother. “But the truth is, I miss the family.” She pressed his hand and smiled at his words, so reassuring to her ears.

Then, unexpectedly, a letter came from David, and the young man read it over breakfast one morning, his features lightening into a broad smile when he scanned its contents. “Oh, Mama!” he cried, “Papa has found a way to get me into the University in Petersburg! I don't know how he went around my silver medal, but I don't care. I shall have to pack, and return home at once.” His eyes gleamed with pleasure and excitement, and she breathed deeply with the relief that her younger son would be following in the steps of his brother, that he would assume the position which should be his as a Gunzburg Baron.

Mathilde sent her son off, and left her daughter in Anna's care while she joined Johanna de Mey in France for several months. From Normandy, Mathilde had received pleading letters from the Dutchwoman. Could she not join her now at Anna's? Hadn't her exile lasted long enough? But Mathilde had not allowed her friend to come to Switzerland. She had feared that Johanna would see traces of Ivan Berson in Riri Hadjani; and she did not want to impede Sonia's progress, which depended so heavily upon Anna's frame of mind. The easy atmosphere of the house where the two women painted and sculpted, where the boy played and cavorted, seemed to bring peace to Sonia. Johanna's presence would only create havoc, and, with a pinch at her heart, Mathilde was forced to admit that her friend had worsened her own relationship with Anna, and had not allowed Sonia's brief engagement the smooth course that it might have had.

Later in the year, when Sonia was suitably recovered and her kidney was once more functioning properly, she came to her mother in France and they traveled together. Sonia was still vehement about not wanting to return to the city of her birth. They took a health cure at Vichy, where the baths restored them. They visited the Scandinavian countries. There was an exhibition in Malmö featuring handicrafts, arts, costumes, and furniture from Norway, Denmark, Finland, and Sweden. Then while Johanna stayed with her own mother, Sonia and Mathilde spent some time with Baron Yuri, who was not well, and with Baroness Ida. In spite of his many years of philandering, Yuri had given his wife more than fifty years of marriage, and the elderly couple seemed more united now than ever. Ida's bitterness had abated with her husband's age, and his lust for the fairer sex had likewise been toned down by ill health. And so, 1913 became 1914, and the months wove into one another like a tapestry.

In St. Petersburg, Tatiana de Gunzburg, the belle of her society, was growing frenzied. She had not found the foreign husband of her choice. Her heart still ached for Jean, but she would toss her head in defiance and dance the more frantically to prove that she no longer cared. Ossip would watch her, his blue eyes perceptive, and he merely shrugged when friends told him that his cousin claimed that he had proposed marriage to her, and that she had rejected him. “He is too Russian,” she would say, and he smiled and shook his head at the words when they were reported to him. There were others who said that Tatiana Alexandrovna had alluded to Ossip's dark moods of previous years, widely attributed to the conclusion of a secret romance; and she had raised her fine golden brows, adding, “But of course, I would not humiliate him by revealing the name of his beloved. I know it well, as I know my own name.” Ossip frankly laughed at this but he said nothing to Tania about it. He did not care about anything at all.

In the summer of 1913, Sioma Halperin, who had so importuned Sonia during her visit to Kiev several months before, arrived in St. Petersburg. He was over thirty, and had heard that there was another Baroness Gunzburg in the capital, with whom he might try his luck. He saw Tania at a reception just before her departure for the holidays, where she would again seek a match abroad. He had only to see the golden girl before his palms began to perspire, and he came to her with flowers and sweets, his watery eyes aglow with love. Yes, he had wished to take a Gunzburg as wife in order to enhance his position in Kiev society, which shunned his family as
nouveau riche.
But now he was in love with Tania, and the proposal he made was from the heart.

She laughed, her head flung back attractively, her pink throat exposed, her bright eyes half-closed. It was always agreeable to be courted, even by this country bumpkin with his pockmarked skin and his sour breath. She did not shrink from him as Sonia had, for he was very rich, and among the boxes of kirsch-filled chocolates he brought baubles of pearls and rubies. Rosa and Sasha were somewhat appalled, but they were not the sort to interfere. Let the girl amuse herself!

Sioma returned to St. Petersburg after the sugar campaign was over in January 1914. By June, she had not refused him. He would come to her with his small gifts and she would feverishly tear open the wrapping. Ah… another enamel brooch. Another Calville apple. She accepted his compliments but laughed at him. “Surely you don't suppose I shall marry the boor?” she said to one of her friends. But her mother and father began to feel uneasy. Too many baubles, too many visits. Tania would have to resolve the situation one way or another, for she was twenty-three and no longer a girl. At her age, in her position, she could only tease a man so long before her reputation would begin to suffer.

I
n July
, Sonia and Mathilde returned to Switzerland, and this time Johanna de Mey came along, for they were not visiting Anna but going to Grindelwald, a lovely resort area. Baron Yuri de Gunzburg, whose strength had left him, called for his physician, who ordered that he travel to the German spa of Badenweiler for a water cure. He and his wife lived frugally in their manor in Saint-Germain-en-Laye. The old Baroness scrimped and saved, while her husband continued his extravagances, but only when his health permitted the appreciation of a luxury. He had squandered his fortune years ago, and lived mostly on a stipend from his son-in-law, David. Now, at the thought of traveling to the elegant resort of Badenweiler, Baron Yuri called for his tailor and ordered twelve new silk shirts to dazzle the ladies taking the waters. In spite of his paunch and his seventy-four years, he liked to be noticed for his dapper dress. Baroness Ida quaked at the cost, but could only protest. He had long since ceased to hear her.