The House by the Dvina (23 page)

And as I slept I dreamed that there were some other people moving around the house. Their voices seemed familiar but I could not place them. Then my mother appeared to be standing at the foot of my bed. She was in a crimson dress trimmed with cream lace and was holding an Easter egg. She looked beautiful. I wanted this dream to continue. “I donТt want to go now to the service,” I said. My mother laughed and bent over me. “Khristos Voskryese Ч Christ has risen,” I heard her say in her own accent. I opened my eyes. There she was, kissing me and holding out the Easter egg. My father was standing behind her. “Khristos Voskryese, my darling,” he said and picked me up in his arms. “Where is Ghermosha,” I asked him.

“Ghermosha is sleeping,” he said.

It transpired that Babushka knew all the time that my parents would be arriving, but she wanted to surprise me. It was to be like an Easter present. They were due to arrive on Easter day, but somehow left St Petersburg earlier than they planned and arrived after I was asleep. I had heard nothing and by now the Easter service was over.

My father carried me into the dining-room. It was packed with all our friends and relatives, milling around the table. They were all kissing me and saying “Khristos Voskryese, Jenichka,” and I was answering them as I was taught. “Voistinu Voskryese Ч Truly He has risen.”

Later I was taken back to my bed. In the morning, when I awoke, I found my little brother sitting at the foot of the bed. We both laughed.

On the first Easter day, Marina, Yura, Ghermosha and I set off to our church to ring the bells. During that time children, and anyone who wished to do so, were allowed to climb up to the belfry and ring the bells. I led Ghermosha up the steep steps and found other children were already there, pulling the ropes as hard as they could. When our turn came, Marina joined in and assured us that she could hear the chimes. I spread the good news at home that Marina was not entirely deaf and could hear certain sounds, but Dedushka explained that Marina did not really hear the sound of the bells but only felt their vibration. There was a constant flow of relatives and friends. They all brought Easter eggs and the pile of eggs grew higher with each day. Some were chocolate, some sugared, others of wood or fine porcelain, and many were simply boiled eggs painted in colourful designs. Uncle Volodya, perhaps a little less inebriated than usual, brought to his sister an ordinary egg completely painted over with beautiful wild flowers, minute and perfect in every detail, created with fine artistry and loving patience. Babushka was quite overcome. He partook a little of what was on the table and then as usual slipped away quietly and unnoticed. Uncle Mitya came. “Khristos Voskryes, Jenichka,” he called out to me kissing me thrice and lifting me off my feet. “Voistinu Voskryese,” I rejoined timidly, feeling as if I was being embraced by a great bear, all dressed up in a crimson silk shirt and velvet trousers.

All the mamkas, of course also came from their various villages bringing little gifts to their own particular child. Seraphima, my fatherТs mamka, came and presented Ghermosha and me each with a wooden Easter egg painted in crimson. When opened, it disclosed a succession of eggs in different colours progressively becoming smaller and culminating in one the size of a peanut.

Having handed over to us our presents and exchanged the Easter greetings with all the members of the family, and after enjoying what was offered on the table, Seraphima turned her attention to my father. She spent the rest of her time sitting beside him, calling him her “synok” Ч her little son Ч

asking him many questions, and having a long earnest conversation accompanied by numerous glasses of cherry brandy. She had no eyes for anyone else.

Spring came back. The river lost its pristine whiteness and became tinged with a dull lilac hue. A fast-flowing stream like a dark ribbon appeared in the middle and widened. Suddenly, as if possessed by a wild fury, the river began to shatter her fetters. The broken floes, carried by churning waters, began their journey to the sea. With ever-increasing speed, clambering over each other, rising high on end and crashing down, colliding, sending showers of splintered ice, they rushed ahead carrying everything with them, destroying all obstacles. On their surface could still be seen the tracks of sledges, the discarded debris and circles of small pines surrounding the waterholes where only recently women gathered to rinse their washing.

Gradually the pace slows down. The river, sparkling in the spring sunshine, now flows serenely on her way. A few small isolated floes, like swans, sail in the wake of others and vanish in the Arctic depths.

In the garden, the grass is pushing through the melting snows. Beside the steps of the summer house, clumps of blue Siberian anemones have struggled to the surface and are nodding their dainty heads to the sun. A tender green is intermingling with the black twigs of the birch; the buds of the wild cherry are swelling. Spring is short in the north. One week there are hard frosts and blizzards and the next the thaw arrives and moves swiftly.

Snow on the rooftops begins to slide and crash onto the pavements.

Snowdrifts shrink and vanish. A merry bubbling can be heard coming from the torrents running below the wooden pavements. Everywhere there is slush, and streams hurry down to the river. All the back streets are quagmires, until the sun dries them out.

Inside the house, the inner frames of the windows are removed, and all the outside noises come in. Gone is the deep silence of winter, the gentle creaking of the sleigh runners. The wheels of carts trundle over the cobbled streets. The ears are assailed by a shrill chorus of chirping sparrows, cawing rooks and the excited sounds of dogs who in their joy appear to bark at nothing at all. The crowing of the cock awakens the whole household in the early hours of the morning. He and his hens have been removed from their dark winter quarters to a more congenial habitation and are allowed to stroll in the courtyard. The hens, like fine ladies walking on tiptoe, step carefully, lifting their feet high over the lush grass of the drying green. They blink their amber eyes up to the sun and emit peculiar drawn-out sounds of sweet contentment.

There is an old Russian saying: “Open wide the gates Ч here comes trouble”.

Soon after the arrival of my parents, I noticed that there appeared to be some discord between them. There were disagreements and angry exchanges at the end of which my mother wept bitterly and her eyelids remained swollen for days on end. I didnТt ask any questions. In any case the tragic truth was beyond my understanding and only reached me many years later.

My father was a generous man Ч he was also gullible and a soft touch for anyone who cared to come along to him with a hard-luck story.

Perhaps a year or more earlier my father was introduced to a pleasant gentleman who had arrived from Riga and whose name was Ganneman. My father was always pleased to make new friends and especially with anyone from Riga, where he had spent such a big part of his childhood and youth. Being hospitable he brought him to his house and introduced him to my mother.

She did not take to him.

At that time the timber trade was flourishing. Father, who was in partnership with his uncle, was doing very well. His uncle was a hardheaded businessman with a wide experience in the timber trade so that Father, being young and with very little practical knowledge, had to defer to him.

One evening while sitting in the club with my father over a glass of vodka, Ganneman casually suggested to him that he ought to start up a mill of his own further up the river. To begin with Father paid little attention, but the more he listened the more the idea of being sole owner of a mill appealed to him. Ganneman sounded a very knowledgeable man. He also had contacts with people with whom arrangements could be made at a reasonable price for all the equipment, the buying of the land and building of the new mill. In fact all that was required for the success of this enterprise was money.

Full of this scheme and bright hopes, Father came home and spoke to my mother. Mother was not a very clever woman and was therefore blessed with plain common sense. She firmly believed in the adage that the bird in the hand was worth two in a bush and was perfectly happy with everything as it was. They were comfortably well off, wanted for nothing, and were free from care. Why was this gamble necessary?

Disappointed by this lack of co-operation Father went to his mother.

Babushka threw up her hands in horror. In a matter of a few years, she pointed out to him, his uncle might be retiring and then he would be the senior partner. His future was assured, as was that of his son. There was also this house and grounds and all that they entailed, which was his inheritance. Disappointed with Babushka, Father finally spoke to his uncle. My great-uncle and godfather did not waste any time in idle persuasions. Sternly and in a few words he warned Father that if he embarked on this venture and removed his inheritance he would forfeit the right of partnership left to him by his own father and would be fortunate to have even a minor position in the business.

It is a well-known fact that if anyone is determined on a certain course of action, advice and threats are useless. He will only hear what he desires to hear and if that does not coincide with his own wishes he will go his own way. The details of the catastrophe which followed are lost in the mists of time. I only know that my father withdrew the largest part of his inheritance and by doing so lost his partnership in the business, being replaced by his uncleТs son, Adya. Father was given a minor position in the firm which deprived him of any say in the running of the business.

No mill materialised and only a small part of the fortune was salvaged.

The trickster vanished without a trace.

The results of this tragedy were far-reaching. My father was broken by the betrayal of the man he trusted, by the knowledge of his own foolishness and above all by the loss of his previous position and hopes for the future of his son. His whole personality changed from a man who was good-natured and given to laughter to one who could not joke any more and went about with a permanent frown. There are no more terrible words than “I told you so”. For a time he heard them often, not only from my mother, but from his own as well.

We never went back to the house in Technical Street. All our furniture and belongings were brought to the house in Olonetskaya Street. The various pieces were scattered over the house and all the china, silver and ornaments packed in cases were taken to the garret. Never before had I seen my mother weep as she did that day.

And then there was the time when we watched sadly as the mare Plutovka was being led out the gates. Plutovka was not really needed and had to be sold. She was my motherТs favourite and sometimes when my mother was quite old she liked to talk about her.

My mother was neither ambitious nor covetous. She never wanted more than she had. The big house which my parents might have possessed one day held no attraction for her. Everything was too big, the house, the grounds and garden. The constant coming and going of friends and relatives and the generally expansive way of life was something she could not see herself fitting into or controlling effectively. She preferred her own compact style. Yet she loved the Russian people and followed their customs along with those of Scotland.

To the cleaning and preparations for Easter she added the Scottish “spring cleaning”. Curtains and carpets were taken out into the hard frost, shaken and beaten, and the whole house turned upside down to the astonishment of the servants. She baked scones and Scotch shortbread and bought oranges and made marmalade, a thing unheard of in our arctic regions. During the summer when jam was made from the golden wild Moroshka berry, she followed suit but in the Scottish way, stirring vigorously and breaking down the berries, which horrified Babushka. The Russian method was to boil the syrup first and then gently lower the berries in so that they would remain whole.

The house in Technical Street had been her world and now the bottom had fallen out of it. There was nothing to do in a house where everything ran like clockwork. She began to go out, make new friends and accept all invitations. My parents were drifting apart.

1913

One day Sashenka and I set off for my entrance examination to the Mariyanskaya Gymnasium. In the hall were other girls of my own age, each one accompanied by an adult person. There was an air of nervous expectation. A teacher appeared and, after calling out our names, shepherded us into a spacious classroom. We were placed behind individual desks and the examination began. A dictation was read. I scribbled furiously in my atrocious writing and somehow managed to keep up with the measured pace. The papers were then removed and others placed in front of us. This time it was arithmetic.

I found some of the sums difficult, but with surreptitious help from my ten fingers carried on the best way I could. A bell rang, the papers were removed and we returned to the hall where we were immediately surrounded by our eager escorts. Sashenka bombarded me with questions, but didnТt appear to be enthralled by my answers.

After an interval of some twenty minutes we were escorted upstairs to a large hall for the final examination, on scripture. This time all those who escorted us were admitted to the room and sat together with their charges on chairs lining the walls. At the other end of the hall, sitting behind a long table, was a group of people including a priest and the headmistress. On the table stood a box containing small rolls of paper.

The surname of each girl was called out in alphabetical order. The more I watched, the more apprehensive I became. At last I heard my name being called and walked up to the table. The instructions were to take out one of the slips from the box and read out the questions, loud and clear, so that everyone in the hall could hear it. I did as I was told and read out the question loud and clear. But that was all Ч I had not the faintest idea what the question was about, except that it had something to do with the Virgin Mary. A dead silence followed Ч all eyes were upon me. Suddenly from the back of the hall the black figure of Sashenka stepped forward, her hand raised in a peremptory gesture. In a voice that brooked no opposition, I heard her saying, “This is not a question for a seven-year-old child. No one of her age can possibly understand the meaning behind it.”