The Four Winds of Heaven (63 page)

“Gone, hours ago. But don't feel bad,” the old man added, noticing Gino's downcast expression. “It can't have gotten too far. We've just heard that near Kharkov the rails have been removed for a very long stretch. Everyone going your way will be delayed for quite a few days. Might as well warm yourself with a glass of tea, boy.”

Gino shook his head, bewildered, aghast, and finally amused. A year ago, though no officer's insignia adorned his uniform, this illiterate old station attendant would not have called him “boy.” He would have bowed, and walked away backward, obsequiously, addressing him as “Excellency.” Gino regarded him with sheepishness. “I've been robbed of my bags,” he stated. “I have no money.”

“Ah, well, then I can't help you,” the old man muttered, shaking his head. “Tea's for the ones that can afford it, and a tip for me.”

“
W
e've lost all
but one servant, too,” Nadia Pomerantz said valiantly to Mathilde de Gunzburg. She dipped her spoon into the bowl of steaming soup. “And they've set about nationalizing my business. I have two Bolsheviks in the office, every day, peering over my shoulder. As soon as the girls finish that stenography course, we must go to Simferopol. It is a larger city, and it's not a port, and the Reds haven't taken it yet. Besides, Olga's signed up for some courses at the University…”

“But we've heard nothing from my son Gino,” Mathilde said despondently.

“Ah! The soldier. That is true, my dear. Travel is so precarious these days, and if indeed he's left the army—”

“Yes, I must wait. But, if you go, will you take Sonia with you?”

“I shall wait beside you. Sonia would no sooner leave than would your friend, Johanna Ivanovna. Come now, rest a while, Mathilde.”

But the mention of Johanna had made Mathilde perceptibly shiver. She said nothing, but hugged her shawl more tightly around her shoulders. “Simferopol, capital of the Crimea… Yes,” she stated, “it makes sense. But what about your own funds?”

Nadia Pomerantz smiled. “They do not know it, but I possess a cache in a Simferopol bank. Most convenient.”

“Indeed. We are so grateful to you, Nadia. What would we do without your counsel, and friendship?”

“Nonsense. You have a splendid, resourceful daughter. It's true, our houses are a shambles, but the girls, both of them, have kept them well. Although I'm tired of boiled barley—aren't you?”

The two women began to laugh. “Barley is about all we can afford, or this peasant soup,” Mathilde sighed. “Sometimes, Sonia brings home beans. Creamy white beans. To think of pureed mushrooms, atop a bed of baby peas…”

“I never could waste time on such food,” her friend cut in peremptorily. “But boiled barley… Olga burns the bottom of the pan. Sonia's soup seems a treat.”

“Olga is a charming child,” Mathilde stated. “How she would have enjoyed Petrograd. Was she never betrothed, Nadia?”

“Olga? No, she's only nineteen. Hardly had time for a proper debut. Yes, yes, don't look so at me—I gave her a most proper debut, with trimmings and all. She loved it. But she's adjusted. One of the young Bolshevik supervisors they've sent me at the offices has quite a crush on her, I dare say. She treats him as though he were scum. But who will marry her in this godforsaken country? And Sonia? What is to become of our fine young daughters, Mathilde?”

“Sonia tells me I must concentrate upon the essential task, which is remaining alive and in good health. Madame Zevina, our overseer's wife, lives in Simferopol. Perhaps the Zevins can help us find a place to live—inexpensively. We never did find boarders here, to help us with the rent, and it's created havoc with our savings. But I complain endlessly, my dear. Forgive me?”

“Complaining cleanses the soul,” Nadia Pomerantz asserted. “Besides, it does no harm. It's better for the system than boiled barley.”

Mathilde and Nadia were dining together in what had been the Gunzburg sewing room, but which had been clumsily converted into an all-purpose room by Sonia. Before going with Olga to a stenography lesson at the home of the Rabbi, she had prepared a pot of split pea soup with a hambone to flavor it for her mother and Nadia. There was so little time now, with the marketing and cleaning chores, to attend lessons during the afternoon. From an original class of five, the membership had dwindled to two: Olga Pomerantz and Sonia. But for Olga the necessity was not as pressing as for her friend. Nadia's careful management of her husband's business had included savings in Simferopol, while the Gunzburgs possessed only the remnants of the proceeds of the harvest of ‘17. Sonia attacked stenography as she had once attacked the difficult problem of Russian and French versology, and more recently, the problem of cooking. She had culled from her prodigious memory visions of the cooks at Mohilna preparing their own meals, which were simple but substantial. Soups and cereals, and thick bread, and milk. Anna had always enjoyed this food, heavily laced with garlic and lard (which the girls had not known was forbidden to them); Sonia had found it coarse. Now she found it quite bearable, and added the hambone without compunction: it was practically the only meat she could afford to buy, and her mother had never adhered to Kosher laws. God, Sonia reflected grimly, would simply have to forgive her. But she flinched at the notion of what her father would have said to her, his long, gaunt face saddened by disappointment. Papa, Papa, we must survive, she answered him in her mind.

Each day the single Pomerantz servant would take the coach with the young women to the Rabbi's house in a more modest part of town. But that evening, when they emerged with their books, the servant seemed more agitated than usual, and addressed his young mistress as soon as he saw her approaching. “Olga Arkadievna,” he said hoarsely, “there is news of much danger. A ship is expected tomorrow from Trebizond, where people are dying of the plague. And another one is going to dock, bearing nihilists who have said that they will murder all the
burshuis
in Feodosia.”

“Then we must go home at once and barricade ourselves,” Sonia declared. “Come, Olga. Your mother is at our house. And you, Fedia. It will be better if we all remain together.”

Her eyes, wide and gray, met Olga's, and Sonia squeezed the young girl's hand. The servant cracked his whip, and the coach started to move. Sonia said, “From the height of our hill, we should see the entire harbor. If the ship is carrying the plague victims, you may be certain that the soldiers on board will not go docilely into the quarantine building. They will more likely go on the rampage, and contaminate us all. Juanita has a medical book that I want to scan, for the plague is so uncommon these days that I cannot remember how the doctors handle it now.”

“Johanna Ivanovna is a nurse, isn't she?” Olga asked. Sonia merely nodded. She was thinking of the nihilists and of New Year's Eve, so closely behind them. If only she could be reassured, at least, that Ossip was safe in Odessa, and that Gino was secure in one place, and not on the move… What with Mathilde's weakness and Johanna's hysteria, it was good to know that Nadezhda Pomerantz would be with them.

She and Olga and the servant, Fedia, went resolutely into the Gunzburg house, and called Johanna, who had been in her own quarters. It was Sonia who spoke, and as she did so, her eyes remained riveted to her mother's face, as if daring Mathilde to break down. But her mother merely uttered a single cry, and was silent. Johanna fetched her medical book, and she and Sonia flipped feverishly through its pages to the entry on bubonic plague. Sonia placed cold fingers upon Olga's arm, and sighed. “It's curable,” she murmured, and she saw Nadia nod grimly at Mathilde, whose eyes were dark with fear. “Now please,” she added, “it is essential that we keep our strength, and that you sleep as well as you can tonight. Olga, Fedia, and I shall work on the house. Tomorrow, we shall all need our wits about us.”

Johanna de Mey regarded her with almond-shaped aquamarine eyes, which shone with complete detestation. But Nadia Pomerantz exclaimed, “I have two stalwart arms, and intend to help you. Do you small girls think to treat me like an old lady?” Mathilde half-rose, then sank once again into her chair. Her expression mirrored defeat and exhaustion. I would only be in the way, her eyes told Sonia, and her daughter nodded, uncharitably. They understood each other, and Sonia sighed.

The following evening, the five women and Fedia were as well prepared as they could be. They crouched uncomfortably in the darkness of the living room, fully clothed and ready for flight. They could see the porch before them, then the cultivated garden which had been untended since Marfa's departure, and at the bottom of the hill, the wall with its small gate. There were ten steps leading from the porch to the garden. Below the property stretched the haven. The garden wall was flanked by a wide path which led through the back courtyard to the rear door, which was the principal entrance. If the nihilists came through the garden, Fedia would quickly unbolt the back door, and the Gunzburgs and Pomerantzes could run out through the courtyard path; should the attackers make their way from the back, the women and their servant could escape through the porch and down the hill. Now they huddled together, in total silence, listening.

The panorama of the harbor stretched before their eyes. Late in the afternoon, they had seen a ship dock, and now it was lit up like a festival of lanterns below them. They heard cries, but in the distance. Then the cries came nearer, whoops of celebration common to sailors who had finally arrived in port. The cries died down. Mathilde sat still, her eyes shut to the sight, thinking of David's final moments, of her darling, Ossip, so cynical and delicate, killing the two soldiers. Sonia thought of nothing but the ship in port. Her fingers were laced together, her jaw tightly cemented. Nadia and Olga had their arms about each other, and Johanna de Mey stood near the back door, her body like the blade of a dagger, thin and sharp.

Far off, a church bell tolled, and in the dark living room every pair of ears made out ten chimes. One more hour had passed. Beads of perspiration rolled from Nadia's brow, and Olga touched it with her handkerchief. Then, the five women and the man were startled into suspended animation. Olga's hand remained in midair, poised before her mother's brow as the unmistakable sound of heavy boots reverberated from the porch. Without a word, they raced on tiptoes to the back door where Johanna had been keeping her vigil. But now the boots resounded here, and a knock pierced the sickening silence. Johanna cried out: “Who is there?”

The voice that replied was indistinct, blocked by the heavy wood of the door. “Gino,” it said.

Wide-eyed, Sonia regarded her mother, whose mouth opened. But Johanna reiterated, tersely, “Gino? Gino, Who?”

Now a stranger sound came to their ears, the sound of joyful laughter. “Juanita!” the outdoor voice exclaimed. “Open quickly, it is cold!” Sonia grabbed her mother's arms and shook them, tears of relief and amazement streaming from her eyes. Mathilde uttered a sob, and rushed to the door, which she unbolted, and a young man with a mustache, in khaki uniform, stood before them, tall and broad and empty-handed. His mother threw herself into his arms, and his sister flung her slender form upon his side, clinging to him. He felt himself pushed inside, where no lamps were lit, and where a pretty young girl with short blond curls and an older woman with disheveled black hair were crouched near a middle-aged peasant.

“What on earth is going on?” Gino exclaimed, but his sister clamped her hand over his mouth, and dragged him down. She told him, in as few words as possible, about the ship from Trebizond and the other, full of nihilists, which they had been expecting. Gino shook his head. “But everything's all right,” he told them. “I was in town. Yes, there is a shipload of sailors here, but they are not from where you think, and they are not nihilists. Haven't you noticed that your street is lit? I knew how to come, from your letters, and when I saw no lights in the house, I came to the back. Actually, this was the easy part of my journey. I had to make so many detours, it feels as though I have traveled throughout Russia. I was robbed of all I own, including Grandfather's ring, at the station in Kursk. Then, near Kharkov, the rails had been removed. But Mama, I am so desperately hungry and thirsty!”

“You mean—you are certain that we are safe?” Sonia demanded.

“Yes, yes. For today, at least. But please, I am so hungry, and dirty and smelly—” But his eyes had rested upon Olga, and in his exhaustion he extended his hand to her. “I have forgotten my manners,” he said. “I am Evgeni Davidovitch de Gunzburg.”

“Gino!” Olga said. “We know all about you. My name is Olga Pomerantz, Olga Arkadievna, and this is my mother, Nadezhda Igorovna. We are friends, although naturally you would have no idea who we are.”