The Four Winds of Heaven (79 page)

Several weeks later, Baroness Wrangel returned, and wrote to Sonia, asking her to tea. She told Sonia that she had gone through innumerable lists of disembarked Russian soldiers at Lemnos with the help of a capable colonel. Gino's name, in spite of Natasha's confirmation, had not appeared on any of them. But she explained that the Russians, during that time, had been taking the island over from the British, and that for some ten days confusion had prevailed and files had been misplaced. Camps had had to be set up, the evacuated men housed and fed. If Gino's name had not come up later, when order had been restored, it had to mean that in the meantime he had passed away. Baroness Wrangel could not look at Sonia as she said, “You must face reality, Sofia Davidovna. The colonel saw no other answer. I am truly sorry, my dear.”

Sonia was too stunned to react. In a way, she had expected this news, but now it seemed impossible, a violation of her brother's spirit. Of course he was still alive! She thanked the Baroness, and left the hotel. Then she wrote a letter to the grave keeper of the cemetery in Lemnos, and sadly awaited his reply. She felt as though someone had hammered her forehead with a blunt instrument, and she could not touch food for three days. A dizzy pain slashed through her right temple.

When the answer arrived from the cemetery keeper, it relieved her misery. There was no tomb in Lemnos bearing Gino's name. Sonia thought: Then there is no proof that he is dead, and we can still hope. There was nothing more to be done, and she wished for no actual confirmation. She could more readily face a veiled truth than stark reality, in spite of the Baroness's words. But she was moved that so important a lady had gone through such pains to secure information for her, a total stranger. Exile and defeat had brought many together.

Some days later a bizarre letter came to Misha de Gunzburg from a friend in Leipzig. There was a man in that city claiming to be Baron Evgeni Davidovitch de Gunzburg, of Petrograd. He spoke French, Russian, and German fluently and was tall, with dark brown eyes and hair. Sonia's heart leapt with incredible hope, but her uncle said, “Read the rest, Sonia. This man claims to possess degrees in law and economics from the University of Petrograd, says that the Reds had seized him and sent him to Cheliabinsk, from which he escaped and came to Leipzig. He is forty-two, has lost all trace of his wife and child, has had no news of his mother and brother. He is without funds and wishes help in finding his family.” Misha sent a telegram to his friend, asking him to obtain the signature and a photograph of this Gino. But the man disappeared before Misha's friend was able to prove that he was not the young Baron. The friend had already given him two hundred marks, which Mathilde insisted on reimbursing him.

When this story was revealed, the Gunzburgs' lawyer, Henri Sliosberg, who had been a great friend of both Baron Horace and Baron David, announced that another pseudo-Gino had appeared in Berlin, demanding money of the attorney. Sliosberg, who had known Gino since infancy, had sent the impostor packing, and had not told the family of this occurrence in order to spare them added pain; but now Mathilde, Sonia, and their relatives needed to know, in order not to waste their hopes in vain pursuits. It seemed that Natasha Kurdukova had been the last person known to have seen the real Gino before his probable demise. What other explanation was there?

None of the Gunzburgs acknowledged the death of the young soldier. They did not mourn him, or don dark clothing. Anna painted a large portrait of her brother, from a photograph of him in uniform right after he had been granted the Cross of Saint George. The face, flesh tinted, seemed as real as the deep brown eyes with their glow of mahogany, as the rippling brown hair and the khaki uniform. Mathilde kept this memento in her room in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, and when she traveled to Switzerland the painting went with her. But in Sonia's heart the small dark head of a baby in a cradle trimmed with Brussels lace remained uppermost when she thought of Gino. She would not brook defeat, nor yield him to eternity. Somewhere, she repeated to herself at night with passionate verve, he lives. To deny this would be an affront to Gino himself, the simplest, the best, the most courageous of the Gunzburgs.

W
hile this drama was unfolding
, leaf by curling leaf, Sonia's own existence had taken a turn that caused her great anxiety. True, it came about largely through her own doing, but Sonia had always placed duty above self-interest. She was very fond of young Serge, and noticed, early on in 1921, that he was frequently pale, grew quickly tired, and caught cold more than was the norm for boys of his age. She spoke to her Aunt Clara, and suggested that she consider placing her son in a Swiss boarding school, where the pure mountain air would strengthen his unsturdy health. During the summer, while visiting her mother and sister and grandmother in Lausanne, Sonia found the ideal school in nearby Rolle. Clara went there, approved of its setup, and decided that Serge could begin in the fall.

With her pupil gone, however, Sonia's job would disappear, and now she went to everyone with whom she was acquainted, asking whether they knew of any position for which she might apply. But Misha and her other relatives placed boundaries around her search. As a secretary in an office, she might be subject to rudeness and improprieties from men; and she should not respond to newspaper advertisements, for there had been incidents of white slavery, young girls being kidnapped and sent to Brazil. Certain offers to become governess to other children came her way, but Sonia was advised to refuse, because of reputations of miserliness or eccentricity on the part of the ladies, or of lechery on the part of the gentlemen. Sonia did not know what to do, and by summer she had grown frantic.

At that point, however, Mathilde's first cousin, Louise Halphen, whose daughter Germaine had married Baron Edouard de Rothschild, suggested that Sonia submit an application to the Hebrew Consistory, which was situated in the very building which housed the great Paris Synagogue, and which was, in effect, the synagogue's administrative annex. Sonia went for her interview with Albert Manuel, Secretary General of the Consistory, and at once admitted the negative aspects of her suitability. She had never worked in an office, had only performed volunteer work as a patroness. Monsieur Manuel smiled: “You shall learn,” he reassured her.

So, in the fall, she began her new employment, a bit apprehensively. She would be the lowliest employee there, earning a salary of five thousand francs per year. That came to less than four hundred twenty francs per month. Where to find a cheap room? But her Uncle Misha came to her rescue. She could remain in the room she had been occupying as Serge's governess, eating breakfast and supper with the family as before. Her measly salary would then stretch much farther, and to Sonia, who had been economizing since the harvest of 1917, it then loomed as a veritable fortune.

She found that the Consistory was a friendly place, and that what was required of her varied from day to day. She had been hired as assistant to the accountant, although she had told him miserably, “But I know nothing of accounting...” She was, first off, seated at a large table and told to copy receipts of donations for the Rothschild Hospital from a long ledger, yet later that morning she delivered papers to the cashier on the first floor: these were her main tasks on the first day. She also performed secretarial jobs for Monsieur Manuel, dealt with Rabbis, orphanages, and schools, and kept minutes for various meetings. She enjoyed what she was doing, and felt that as an infinitesimal cog in the large wheel of patronage to the Paris Jewry, she was performing a needed service.

She ate her luncheons in a small but clean restaurant on the rue Caumartin, a frugal meal to suit her budget. But she had been accustomed to taking tea with Serge, and had to bring with her a buttered roll to eat at four, so that she would not be hungry before closing time at six. She traveled to and from her work by underground subway, and sometimes it would be so crowded that she would have to stand all the way to her uncle's house, a distance of some forty minutes. She did not mind. It seemed a privilege to have found work at all, she who had never been trained except for her lessons in stenography and typing in Feodosia.

Although she ranked as the most unimportant person in the Consistory, the other staff members knew that she belonged to an illustrious family and that her father had been a well-known scholar and diplomat. They all called her, fondly, “Mademoiselle Sonia.” In spite of her thirty-one years, she was the only unmarried person there under the age of forty.

She had heard from Clara that Aunt Guitele Brodsky and Maxik, who had once wished to make her his wife in 1912, had emigrated to Paris from Kiev, and she called upon the old lady in her hotel. They had not lost their money, having left Russia early enough to take it with them, and Max was unchanged. Sonia treated him with casual friendship, and when she departed, she wondered whether she might have found happiness with him after all.

It would be so easy to rekindle his interest… But, unlike her cousin Tania, Sonia did not consider marriage a practical matter when it reached the final consideration. She had not loved Max, and did not think that she ever would. When her Aunt Clara upbraided her roughly, exclaiming, “You would keep your petty job, remain a spinster forever, when a wealthy man might make a lady of you?” Sonia replied, simply and softly, “But I
am
a lady, Aunt Clara. My work does not devalue me in my own eyes.”

“You were always a fool,” her aunt retorted. “Once, you chose Kolya Saxe over Maxik Brodsky. He abandoned you shamefully, and I have heard that he has gone to North America, with no fortune to speak of, so that if you had become his wife after all, you would still be poor. One does not live on exalted principles when one has nothing, Sonia.”

Hurt to the quick, the young woman did not reply. But tears came to her eyes, and she bit her lower lip. She had ceased to care for Kolya, but it had been gratuitous on Clara's part to bring up the humiliation of the past. She chose to ignore this unkind thrust. For more important than money or status was her own self-respect, which had remained intact. And equally essential was the fact that she was still a Gunzburg, impoverished though she was.

A
mong her many
jobs at the Consistory, Sonia was in charge of donations to the poor. In her office were boxes of clothing, linens, shoes, toys, even canes and umbrellas, which the unfortunate would sort through to find whatever they might be able to use. The Consistory worked with volunteer organizations, but did not have a poor box, and Sonia herself possessed no money save her meager salary. But she took pride in being a Gunzburg, daughter and granddaughter of
shtadlanim
of renown, and could not have allowed a man in trouble to depart without having made a gesture to console him. She had three ways of helping such people: she could hand out used clothing, recommend a position, or send the person to someone or some institution which might better help him.

Having to deliver receipts for gifts and donations to the philanthropies of which the Consistory was in charge, Sonia frequently met with highly placed executives in the Rothschild, Rueff, Kohn, and Leven organizations, and sometimes with members of these exalted families themselves. She was received politely by all, for she was a Gunzburg, though destitute. So people, both rich and poor, came to learn that Sonia de Gunzburg was now an employee at the Hebrew Consistory.

So it was that still in 1921, Sonia received a letter at her office, and was amazed to discover that it came from Hillel Zlatopolsky. “Please forgive me for getting in touch with you at your place of employment, and not with Mathilde Yureyevna,” he noted, ‘‘but I had no idea you were in Paris until recently, and did not know where to reach you at home. I would appreciate your coming to my place of business at your convenience, 63 rue de Rome.” Sonia was much intrigued and went there. The offices were in a luxurious building on the corner of Boulevard Haussmann, and when she was admitted, she found herself in spacious rooms with tasteful furnishings. She waited, curious.

Soon Hillel Zlatopolsky, elegant as in Petrograd, appeared, and greeted her warmly. She did not want to ask about his apparent opulence, but he volunteered the information graciously. He and his son, Mossia, had succeeded in bringing to France five bags of sugar beets, and had sold some immediately upon their arrival more than two years ago. The Russian sugar beet was superior to the French, and with the profits from the sales, the Zlatopolskys had purchased sugar refineries in the Nord and the Oise sectors of the country. Hillel and Mossia's sugar was so much better than the French that Hillel had been awarded the Legion of Honor for having improved the quality of the French beet. Then, with these profits, father and son had founded a metallurgical factory, the Société des Travaux Métalliques, which built garages, depots, and hangars. Soon they bought a sardine cannery in Brittany, a factory that made foie gras near Bordeaux, a hosiery manufactory in Troyes, and a paper factory in yet another part of France. In two years they had become solidly settled, and, as in Russia, money now seemed to flow steadily in their direction. Hillel spoke softly, without boastfulness, almost in a self-deprecating manner. But he held Sonia captivated in her chair.

“However, I did not ask you to come simply to brag of my success,” the middle-aged businessman concluded. “There was a matter which deeply perturbed me concerning the Judaica. Among my papers, when I looked them over in Moscow before leaving for the south of Russia, I discovered that an error had been made in the payments to your family. I still owe your mother a small sum of money —not sufficient for her to have noticed the discrepancy at the time, but large enough to have caused my conscience to bother me. Please accept this check for five thousand francs outstanding in this transaction, on behalf of Mathilde Yureyevna.”

Five thousand francs! Sonia was amazed, and thought: But that is an entire year's salary. She shook her head, uncomprehending, but Hillel Zlatopolsky was firm. “The books never even arrived in Palestine,” Sonia demurred. “Therefore, you are paying us for something you will never be able to use.”

“Nevertheless a deal was made, in good faith,” Zlatopolsky insisted.

Sonia considered the matter, then accepted. But in her heart she thought: Something here is not right. Is Hillel Israelovitch attempting to help us, by telling us a complicated story of unfinished payments? Surely he knows that Mama and I are without funds. But if in fact there
had
been a debt, to refuse the money would be silly. She thanked him, and asked, “How is Mossia Gillelovitch, and his wife, Elena Lvovna?”

Hillel smiled. “Mossia is fine, fine. He manages most of my enterprises. And he is a bachelor again. Yes, his marriage to Lialia, the ‘Polish doll,' has ended. Their divorce became final some months ago. My son succumbed to wartime foolishness, but since there was no child, no major damage was accomplished. Lialia and her mother are here, and Mossia feels obligated to support them. But that is the extent of his involvement.”

“I see,” Sonia replied, but she did not, and wondered why such an elaborate answer had been necessary. Hillel rose and saw her to the door, and she left, somewhat bewildered by the entire interview. She wrote to her mother in Lausanne, enclosing the check. Then, in the flurry of her work, she forgot Hillel Zlatopolsky.

She was receiving many “clients” in her office at the Consistory, and they came to her as the Jewish petitioners had once come to her father in Petrograd. Generally they left quite satisfied, or at least with hope. But there was one man who was causing her no end of trouble. His name was Fuchs, a Russian Jew, and he was vigorous and well-bred. Once he had managed the largest metallurgical factory in Russia. Now he and his entire family had taken refuge in Paris, and not knowing French he was having problems obtaining employment. Sonia had already found him jobs as assistant gardener, salesman in a perfume shop, night watchman in a bank. But each time something occurred to prevent his taking these positions. She continued to try to locate something new, and he came frequently to hear whether she had made any progress. His small sum of savings had dwindled considerably, and matters had become drastic. His wife was knitting on commission, and this was their single source of income. Fuchs represented Sonia's only failure: she had even managed to find free hospital rooms for tuberculars, and sponsors to pay room and board for clients who were crippled. Only the Fuchs matter glared at her in its insoluble state.

During the final days of December 1921, Sonia received a letter addressed to Mathilde from a Rabbi Schneerson. She remembered that in 1909 there had been a Congress of Rabbis in Petersburg, to which her father had been invited. The young secretary of that convention had been named Rabbi Schneerson, and Baron David had brought him to their home several times. This letter was from the same Schneerson, who declared that he was no longer a Rabbi but now worked in metallurgy and resided in Paris, and wished to renew contact with his old acquaintances. He signed his letter after the phrase: “Always ready to be of service.”

Sonia answered the letter in her mother's absence, but when she reached the end, she could not help adding a message concerning Fuchs. “Since you have so kindly offered to help us,” she wrote mischievously, “I am going to put you to the test. You are now in the field of metal work. I know a Russian metallurgist who is starving. Could you not find him some form of employment?” She had been so young when she had met Schneerson, surely he did not remember her, and would be shocked at her nerve. But poor Monsieur Fuchs had a family to feed and was in dire straits.

Sonia waited, three days, a fourth. By that time she knew she had offended him. But on the third of January, Schneerson telephoned her at the Consistory: he had been absent over the holidays, but this evening, after work, he would pick her up and bring her home, and on the way they would discuss Fuchs. Sonia was overjoyed.

At six, his car was waiting for her. Schneerson was a middle-aged man, who politely explained to her that he was only the manager of the Travaux Métalliques, but that the owner's son, Mossia Zlatopolsky, would surely grant her an interview concerning Fuchs. “I know Mossia Gillelovitch,” Sonia said in surprise, “although not well. I should have thought of it myself. Of course I shall go.”

Thereupon, Schneerson asked her if she went often to the theater. He was waiting for his family to come to him from abroad, and wanted some recommendations for entertainment in the meantime. Sonia shook her head, smiling slightly. “I am afraid that my salary is too small to permit me such luxuries,” she replied.

“Would you accept an invitation from me, in memory of the kind hospitality which your father extended to me, years ago?” the former Rabbi asked.

Sonia blushed. “Oh, no,” she answered. “I may be very free, but I could not go out in public with a man I do not know, alone.”

“I assure you, my intentions are more than honorable,” Schneerson demurred. “However, I understand. If there were several of us, would that make a difference?”

“Yes,” Sonia declared. “That is a different matter altogether.”

“Then, if you are free next Sunday, it is settled,” Schneerson stated. “I shall also invite Mossia Zlatopolsky, who is my great friend, and another man, Vladimir Willner, who is dear to us both. Which play would you care to attend?”

Sonia's gray eyes suddenly sparkled.
“The Blue Bird”
she replied without hesitation. “I have dreamed of seeing it for months.”

She hardly had time to thank him before his chauffeur reached Misha's house. The next morning she made an appointment to see Mossia Zlatopolsky at his office after her workday ended.

Wearing a modest little suit of navy wool, Sonia was admitted to the small, comfortable room where Mossia Zlatopolsky met her. He came to her with an eager, brisk step, unusual for such a massive man, and she smiled, warmth spreading within her. They smiled with the knowledge of many small memories, the dinner at Misha's in Kiev, their encounters in the jail of Feodosia, his sister Shoshana's brusque manners. They also smiled in mutual embarrassment over the situation with his wife. But all this took place in less than a minute, and Sonia explained to him the reason she had come.

“Yes,” he concluded, “I think that we can help Fuchs. We are building a factory in the Aisne department of France, and since this man is accustomed to leadership, we can place him in charge of the construction crew. This will be the perfect method to have him learn French, from his workers.”

Sonia was astounded, and terribly grateful. She quickly sent a letter by special delivery to Fuchs, and the next day he came to see her at the Consistory. He was overjoyed. But a cloud seemed to pass over his happiness, and he suddenly asked, “How will I be able to work in the Aisne, if my house is in Paris? Will I have to pay rent for both places?” Sonia nodded. She would have to ask the question for him, make another appointment to see Zlatopolsky.

She deliberately wore the same suit that she had worn for her first interview, not wishing Mossia to think her arrogant or vain. Her visit was short, direct, and rapidly resolved. “Naturally we shall lodge him for free, and on Sundays he can see his family in Paris,” Zlatopolsky stated.

She did not waste time in wiring Fuchs, who arrived promptly. But this time he bit his lip and murmured, “There is something else. I have no money left. If the Zlatopolskys pay me next month, how shall my family live these thirty days?”

Sonia knit her brow, disconcerted. She did not want to have to disturb Mossia again, despite his graciousness. But how could she fault Fuchs for thinking of his wife and children? Still, she was annoyed and rather embarrassed. She returned to the Zlatopolskys, once again in the same outfit, and explained the situation. It was becoming painful to sit under Mossia's scrutiny, to look into his blue-green eyes and reiterate her intercession for this third party. How had her father done it, day after day in some cases, with powerful ministers?

“I shall give him an advance of two months,” Mossia declared, and Sonia felt a rivulet of perspiration moisten her back under her cotton blouse. Relief flooded her. She telegraphed Fuchs, for she knew that time was of the essence if he were to avoid eviction. This time, when he posed a fourth objection, she became angry, and stood up, tiny and frail. “I shall not plead for you!” she cried vehemently. “You are exaggerating, and will probably make Mossia Gillelovitch rescind his kind offer. But I shall go to him and let him make his own decision.” Sonia did not know why she added the latter, since she did not find Fuchs's last objection the least bit reasonable. Heat reddened her cheeks at the idea of returning to Zlatopolsky: why, then, go back to humiliate herself and risk his anger? Yet she found herself promising, and was surprised and none too pleased with herself.

She returned, and could hardly look at Mossia Zlatopolsky. But the young man said gently, “Of course I shall accommodate Monsieur Fuchs. And the trouble, Sofia Davidovna, was all yours, I'm afraid. You have brought us, I am sure, a valuable foreman. It is I who thank you.”

She stared at him, her doe eyes widened with disbelief. He was amused, and laughed outright. She swallowed her confusion, and with dignity went home.

On Sunday morning, Sonia awakened with laryngitis, but she had a visit to pay in the afternoon to Brévannes, some hours from Paris, where one of her tubercular patients was hospitalized. No one else ever came to see this unfortunate man, and Sonia had “adopted” him. Her Aunt Clara declared that if she took this trip she would surely be too ill for the theater that evening. But Sonia had a dreadful thought: Neither Zlatopolsky nor Schneerson was listed at home in the telephone book, and she would be unable to reach them to cancel the date. And if she went to the country and to the theater, she would also have to go to work that morning, as Consistory employees were required to put in three hours on Sunday mornings. It was a point of honor not to miss work and then go out the same night. Deprived of her voice, she arrived at the office and insisted upon finishing a batch of correspondence that she had begun Friday. Albert Manuel was unable to convince her to return home.