The Four Winds of Heaven (66 page)

“There is another matter, in regard to the ladies, which I must bring to your attention,” Stepan said gently. “It appears that you… that when you were ill, you were delirious, and told the child that you were planning to... marry her mother. And Madame Dietrich... well, took this proposal seriously. It seemed to make her very happy, Ossip Davidovitch.”

The young man bolted upright, his blue eyes blazing. “Is this an attempt at humor?” he demanded. When Stepan did not reply, he uttered a low moan and struck his forehead with his fist. “My God!” he cried. “Stepan—fetch Elizaveta Adolfovna for me, please. I must discuss it with her at once—explain that it is all a grave mistake, some kind of unconscious blabber—”

Deft on his feet, Stepan disappeared immediately and did not return. Moments later, the door swung open and a tall, thin form blew into the apartment. Ossip sat staring at Elizaveta Adolfovna, as if for the first time. She wore her hair short and straight, with bangs, and her lips were rouged—sensuous, perhaps. Her bony figure was anything but enticing, yet it touched him strangely. The meager breast was proud, showing its vulnerability, its poverty, yet demonstrating by the carriage of her shoulders that she was a lady of good breeding in spite of appearances. He shuddered slightly, finding her most unappealing—and yet, as an afterthought, he felt shame, for this was a woman who had sacrificed her own well-being to restore him to health. She stood before him, her prominent cheekbones with spots of color, her black eyes moist. He had found her hard; now, watching the smile that trembled on her thin lips, he was not so sure of his initial appraisal. “Sit down, please, Elizaveta Adolfovna,” he said, courteously. “I beg you to forgive me for not rising. I still feel—weak.”

She sat, not across from him on the chair to which he had beckoned somewhat carelessly, but right next to him on the battered sofa. He could smell clean skin, a female odor, rouge, perhaps pressed powder. She murmured in a low voice, “Do not call me ‘Elizaveta Adolfovna.' Please, call me as my friends do: ‘Lizette.' For—are we not friends, after what we've suffered through together?”

“I cannot express to you my gratitude. I... words...” Indeed, Ossip could not complete his sentence, so overwhelmed was he by solitude, and by the certain knowledge, suddenly, that Natasha was truly dead, that there was no hope. Tears came to his eyes, and he turned aside in embarrassment. Now that he was well, he finally understood all that her death entailed. This woman, here beside him, expressed his bereavement by her presence, which was Natasha's absence. He detested Lizette for not being Natasha, yet felt sorry for her because of his rudeness, because he did not like her in spite of her sacrifice.

But she simply took his hand, and brought it to her lips, and kissed his emaciated fingers. “My poor dear man,” she said. “My poor dear Ossip. So tired, so alone. Stepan told me that you had lost touch with your entire family, that perhaps your mother and sister and brother have died. But surely, your relations in Paris will help you, and will do all they can to make you comfortable. Come, you must cheer up.”

“Yes. Yes,” he said, bewildered by her words, which had no bearing on the depths of his sorrow. Then, piteously, she began to weep. “I, too, am so desperately alone. My husband was—a horror. He—had other women, and deceived me ignobly. Poor Verotchka! She needed her father, and had to be deprived of him… Yes, I understand loneliness. It is worse than death.”

He regarded her with widened eyes. “Yes,” he said again, this time in true agreement. He thought of the small blond girl, Vera, who had helped nurse him. “How is your daughter?” he asked.

“Verotchka is so fond of you. That is why I am begging you to allow us to accompany you in your escape. We, too, must not be found by the Reds, for we are
burshuis.
But we would truly not be an encumbrance. We can make ourselves very tiny indeed.”

Ossip looked at her and was touched. He had always detested himself for being a coward at heart. This was his chance to help another person, another lonely person. “Yes, we shall be glad to take you and Vera,” he assented.

Then, the most extraordinary thing occurred. Lizette Dietrich threw her long, bony self at his feet, and laid her head upon his lap and kissed the cloth of his trousers at the knees. He attempted to end this silly gesture, to raise her, and she fell heavily into his arms, and began to kiss his face, his lips, his arms, his hair. He was so surprised that for an instant he could not breathe. But her lips pressed themselves against his, and her smell was in his nostrils, and he did not know how to be rid of her. He did what came most easily, for he was still weak and tired: he did not fight her, but allowed her to envelop him with her arms and hands and face and body. Blurred images passed through his mind. He saw her black hair, felt her warmth, remembered that Natasha was gone. Then, with a sob, he returned the kiss of this strange woman, drowning his sorrow in her embrace, clutching the memory of Natasha in the presence of this other woman. He made love to that unfamiliar, angular body, covered it with caresses meant for another, rounder, beloved form, one that would be his no longer. He paid this final tribute to the woman he loved, loving another in an effort not to release Natasha to the grave.

Hours later Lizette whispered, “Oh, Ossip, how I adore you! How we both adore you, my Vera and I. Stepan told me that you have often wished for a daughter, but one that would not have to be diapered, and breast-fed. Let Vera think of you as a... dear friend, a special protector.”

He regarded her with momentary horror, suddenly aware of what had taken place, of what he had done. No, he would never marry this woman, who did not even appeal to him. Although, it was true, she was experienced in the art of giving pleasure to a man, this was undeniable. But he did not love her, not one bit! He wet his lips. Natasha was gone, and so was his purpose in living. This woman liked him, needed a protector for herself and her daughter. Did she love him? No, she could not possibly be in love with him. Stepan had told her of his family, of his title, of his rich relatives in Paris. Ossip thought: She is not stupid, this Lizette. Now I understand. But still, to have risked her life, when I could just as easily have left her behind, and contaminated her child... He looked at her, and her face softened, and she took his hand with infinite gentleness. “I do love you, my silly fool,” she said, and kissed him. He drew back, wondering.

Then she burst into tears. “You have taken me lightly!” she cried. “You do not love me, will never marry me. And I took you for an honorable man, a gentleman, a fine human being...”

He recalled Natasha, angry with him for not helping her captured father, and then thought of how frequently he had detested himself for his pleasure with her, a married woman with a daughter. This woman, too, was a mother. She might mean it, she might not, but suddenly his sense of self-esteem was at stake, that much he knew for certain. She was a lady and could do him no harm—for who indeed could harm a dead man whose senses had been completely dulled? He felt infinitely sorry for this person who had risked so much for a man who could not offer love, who would never love again. Perhaps, because of this, he owed her the only thing he could offer, his name.

Oh, Natasha, he cried within his heart, I have never loved you more than now, never felt so incapable of making decisions, for you will never leave my being, my consciousness. And he looked at Lizette Dietrich, and thought: She is clever, more clever than Nina Tobias, whom I would have married but for that Abelson. And she is not a child, such as Tania was. She is a woman of substance, and there is no time to waste. The Reds are coming.

“Do not think so harshly of me,” he murmured softly, touching Lizette's short, coarse hair. A deep feeling of protectiveness came over him, a feeling of importance such as he had felt when defending his father. Not even Natasha had been so dependent upon him: she had had a father, a husband. Silently, he looked at Lizette, saw the hurt in her eyes. Since I do not and cannot love you, since you will never be one with me because I am still one with
her,
then I shall do my utmost to make it up to you.

“Tell Verotchka that she will have to accept me as more than a ‘friend,'” he said somewhat ironically. As she raised herself upon an elbow, he laughed tentatively. “Lizette,” he intoned, saying her name for the first time. “Get dressed, Lizette. Russia has new laws now, communist laws, and we can be married at once, simply by placing both our signatures upon a sheet of paper in front of the first available official.”

But he could not stand the sight of her face contracting into tears, and turned aside.

I
f Stepan was surprised
at the sudden wedding, which was accomplished in five minutes at the City Hall of Odessa, not even a lift of his fine white eyebrows demonstrated this. He had already looked through Ossip's and Lizette's apartments and ascertained that since the Reds were already on the edge of town, it would not be worthwhile to burden their escape with unnecessary luggage. Lizette and Vera possessed nothing of value, and neither did Ossip.

So, papers in hand, they hastened to the house of a man known to ferry passengers across the Dniester River to the Rumanian shore. Ossip paid him what he could, and the man brought them to a large cornfield, where he told them to stay hidden among the ripening ears while he surveyed the area and chose the proper moment for the trip. He left, and Stepan unwrapped the sandwiches which he had made before leaving the apartment. The Baron and his new Baroness sat on the bare earth with their daughter and servant, listening to rifle shots coming closer and closer. Lizette's black eyes gleamed with fear, and she pressed her spare body to her husband. Slowly, the sun began to go down, and then Lizette said, “He has gone off with our money, and will leave us here for the crows and the buzzards.” The little blond girl patted her mother's hand, and Ossip murmured something reassuring which he did not believe. Only Stepan, white and dignified, was silent.

All at once, from somewhere near them, a burst of fire was heard, and the ferryman came toward them from out of nowhere, motioning wildly. “Quick!” he muttered under his breath. “The Bolsheviks have just fired at a small boat going to Rumania, and have killed the oarsman and his passengers, a father, a mother, and their baby. They never shoot twice in a row. This is our chance!” He pushed the Gunzburgs, Vera, and Stepan into his wooden boat. It was now night, and the man paddled furiously, dipping his oars expertly into the river without making a sound. Bats shrieked above them. A thud indicated that they had docked, and Stepan stepped out first, momentarily losing his footing. He leaned over, giving his hand to his new mistress. Then came the nimble child, and finally Ossip and the oarsman. Lizette threw herself upon her husband, moaning slightly, and quietly he held her to him while the ferryman spoke. “I have risked my life!” the ferryman was saying. “You have not paid me sufficiently. I need more money.”

“But I told you earlier,” Ossip stated succinctly, “that I have no more. I cannot help you any further.”

“Then I can return, and alert the Reds,” the man threatened, shaking his fist in Ossip's face.

“We cannot have that,” the young man replied smoothly. He began to remove his jacket, and now his wife, Lizette, whispered angrily: “What are you doing? Are you mad? You will catch your death, Ossip!” But he quelled her hysteria with his blue gaze, and said simply; “There are many ways to die, my dear.” He handed the ferryman his well-made jacket from Petrograd, and declared, “I have nothing left to offer you.”

The four refugees began to walk through the night, until Lizette and Vera could no longer go on. Then, in a field, Stepan laid down his own coat and made a blanket of it for the ladies to sleep on. The following day, he produced raisins, and dried apricots, and lemons, and the family ate their breakfast. They stopped at a farm farther on and drank some hot milk they could not pay for. Then they resumed their journey, loaded down with some fresh fruits and vegetables that the farmer had graciously given them after their milk. They walked, Ossip wearing a hole in the sole of his shoe, and sharing the warmth of Stepan's coat, since he no longer had one. Lizette retained a grim silence as she walked, and Vera panted. But Ossip was proud of their resistance, and patted their shoulders amicably. After his bout with the typhus, his own head was swimming with the strain of endurance, and he knew that he stank of cold perspiration. They halted here and there at small farms, receiving crusts of bread and asking to sleep in haylofts or in barns. They headed for Kishinev, capital of Bessarabia. It was the nearest city, and from there, with hope, they could raise enough money to wire Ossip's Uncle Misha de Gunzburg in Paris.

On the outskirts of the city, at dusk, the bedraggled travelers spotted a rather large, well-kept farmhouse, and they directed their steps toward its front door. Lizette's hair clung in limp strands to her temples, and there were circles under her eyes. She resembled a skeleton more than she did a woman. Stepan, who was certainly sixty years of age, appeared the freshest of all with his thick white hair and his tall, elegant demeanor. Ossip was pale and haggard, his eyes bloodshot. Little Vera had lost weight and was no longer red-cheeked and comely. To their knock, the heavy wooden door opened to reveal a man of Stepan's age, a leathery peasant with gray hair and beard, who regarded them with astonishment. “What may I do for you?” he asked. His Rumanian was heavily accented, and in fact Ossip had found that everyone they had encountered on this side of the border spoke passable Russian, since at one time this territory had been Russian soil. But this man's accent was more familiar to him than that of other farmers. He regarded the man with his sapphire eyes, and wondered.