The Little Russian (31 page)

Berta could smell her unwashed hair. “Yes, it’s absolutely perfect for you. It looks wonderful.”

“Really? Not too much?” She threw it around her neck and looked at herself in the mirror that hung over the mantel.

“No, it’s very flattering. It even goes with what you’re wearing.”

A moment later her mother walked in and brushed past Berta without a word. “The house Jew is here and no one tells me?” grumbled Pelageia Iakovlevna. She had a pasty face with heavy, mannish features and thick lips that turned down at the corners. “Here, let me see that.” She looked at her daughter and slowly shook her head. “No, no, no, it’s too long. It’s too thick. It’s not at all what you should be wearing.”

“But I like it.”

“It’s not right. I’m telling you it looks terrible on you.” She looked over the choices and picked up a modest one made of chiffon ruffles. “Now here, try this one.” She unwound the offending boa from around her daughter’s neck and replaced it with her choice. She took a step back and studied the effect. “Much better. There, see? What did I tell you? Go have a look.”

The girl looked in the mirror and made a face. “But I like the other one. Why can’t I have that one?”

“Because it’s too big for you. It looks ridiculous. You want to look ridiculous? Now, if you stayed away from the pastries . . .”

The girl took off the chiffon boa and put back the feather one. Then she glanced over at Berta. “The house Jew likes it. Go on, tell her. She said it was perfect.”

“It’s what they’re wearing, Madame,” Berta said, sounding a little bored. She found that an attitude of detachment worked best in these situations, especially with women of this class. They expected to be overlooked and when they weren’t they grew suspicious. In reality she was anything but bored. She was thinking about the extra rubles and the meat it would buy for Sura. She hadn’t been well lately and the doctor said she needed a strong beef broth.

“I sold one just like it to Nadezhna Gerasimovna and she’s a large woman and everybody said how wonderful she looked in it. And besides, everyone knows that when you wear your hair up and your shoulders flat against your sleeves you need something fussy around your neck.”

Pelageia Iakovlevna took a long look at her daughter: “But so fussy?”

“It’s her color and with her eyes and hair . . . it’s what they’re wearing.”

She turned her head to the side and then to the other side and studied her daughter closely. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. It doesn’t look right.”

“Oh, Mother,” the girl said in despair.

“I’m telling you it’s just not right for you. Stop pouting. I know about these things.”

A hard silence.

Berta watched mother and daughter gaze reflectively at the line of boas. She could see that a compromise was eluding them. “It’s terrible about Nadezhna Gerasimovna, isn’t it?” she murmured.

Iakovlevna turned to her with sudden interest. “What is?”

“About her husband, I mean?”

“I haven’t heard a thing.”

“Well, you know, he’s so much younger than she and handsome in his own way. Everyone said it was bound to happen.” Berta let her voice trail off. She looked deliberately at the young girl and said nothing more.

“Maria,” her mother said, “have you completed your lessons?”

“Of course.”

“I think cook baked a cake. Why don’t you go get a piece?”

“You’re always telling me I shouldn’t.”

“I think one piece wouldn’t hurt.”

“What about the boa, Mama?”

“Go have your cake.”

“Not until I know about the boa.”

She paused. “Yes, all right. If it means so much to you.”

“Oh, Mama,” She kissed her mother and danced out of the room with the feather boa still wrapped around her neck.

 

WHEN BERTA left the house that afternoon she tucked the folded rubles in a bag she kept in the inside pocket of her skirt. She had sewn the pocket there for just this reason. It never occurred to her to feel guilty for steering the girl in the wrong direction. She knew her customers relied on her for honest answers, confiding in her, asking her advice on all sorts of matters, but she had children to feed. She glanced up at the darkening clouds blowing in from the north, great primordial monoliths rising up over the sun. It had begun to snow and she still had to go up to the Berezina.

She wrapped her hands in the rags she had used to protect the boa and picked up her bundles. She started up the hill, avoiding the dark icy patches on the sidewalks, hugging the buildings for protection against the wind and taking shortcuts across the courtyards whenever
she could. In one courtyard a maid ran out without a wrap to scoop up an armful of wood. In another the
dvornik
was stacking wood for the night and watched her with suspicion as she walked by. In yet another she could smell three suppers cooking in the three kitchens that bordered it.

Soon she was on Vladimirskaya not far from the Church of the Rising Cross, passing the shops she used to frequent when she lived there. There was a tearoom where she used to take the children for treats. That afternoon it looked deserted. Only the steamy windows and the palm fronds flattened against the sweating glass were proof that it was open. She was just passing when she heard someone calling her name and turned to see Yuvelir pulling up in a motor car. It was an American-made Ford, thick and black like a piece of coal.

“Berta, silly girl, where have you been?” She had not seen him in nearly a year. He didn’t know she had lost her apartment and was living on Dulgaya Street.

“What are you doing out here?” he asked. “It’s brutal. Come and sit in my new motor. What do you think of her? Isn’t she a beauty? She’ll do twenty-five versts an hour, more if the road is good.”

“Where did you get a motor car?”

“My cousin. He’s off killing Germans, so he gave her to me. Of course they’ll requisition her as soon as they see her, but so far I’ve managed to keep her safe. Don’t suppose you have any petrol?”

“What would I be doing with petrol?”

“Just asking. Come along, get in. I’ll take you where you want to go.”

“I can’t, I’m meeting a friend.”

Yuvelir looked genuinely disappointed. “All right, throw me aside. You’ve obviously replaced me with better friends. How come you never ring me up anymore?”

“I’ve been gone.”

“Where?”

“Kiev, if it’s any of your business.”

“Kiev, how boring. Why would you choose somebody from Kiev over me?”

“I haven’t. Look, Misha, I can’t stand here and chat. It’s cold and I’m late.”

“Someone said you were selling things. You’re not poor, are you? Everyone is so poor nowadays.”

She laughed. “I really have to go. I’ll ring you up soon, I promise.”

“Yes, yes, go on with you. Desert me like the disloyal friend you are.” He turned back to the wheel, but saw that a sledge was blocking his way, another one being pulled by its driver. “Oh look at this.” He shouted out the window, “You going to move that thing?”

The driver of the sledge glanced over at him and glowered.

“Like to go on if you don’t mind.”

The driver wasn’t in any hurry. He took his time going around to the front of the sledge. There he picked up the rope with a deliberate motion, and after giving Yuvelir one last look of contempt, pulled his sledge out into the street. The last Berta saw of Yuvelir he was waving to her as he pulled out. He shouted something out the window, but it was lost in the curtain of falling snow.

 

ELIZAVETA SHAPOSNIKOVA was one of Berta’s best customers, not because she was generous or easy to get along with, but because she was no longer young. Her arthritis was always worse in the winter, making it impossible for her to go out and shop on her own. She lived in a gothic mansion on Kropotkin Street. It had been built by her husband, a banker, an old believer, who thought a house should be substantial, made out of stone, and have at least one crenellated tower. This one had three.

It was late afternoon by the time Berta knocked at the side entrance. She stood there in the cold, shivering and waiting for the maid to answer the door. Her stockings were damp because the soles of her boots were starting to give out and water had begun seeping in through a hundred tiny cracks in the leather.

The door was finally opened by the housemaid, a small woman with precise gray hair under a starched cap. “You’re late,” she grumbled, stepping aside to let Berta in. “She doesn’t like it when you’re late. She’s got her nephew in there with her now and I expect she’ll turn you out when she hears you’re here.”

Berta was used to being treated like this by the household staff. Recently she had come to the conclusion that housemaids were a miserable lot. She thought this was probably due to the fact that they had no life apart from their employers, had to be on call twenty-four hours a day, could have no family of their own, and weren’t paid nearly enough. At the same time she noticed that scullery maids seemed happier by comparison. This was odd because scullery maids were at the bottom of the heap; only house Jews and peddlers were below them. She reasoned that this probably had something to do with their proximity to food.

Berta said nothing and followed the woman down a little hallway to an office where Shaposnikova met her tradesmen. There they found a fire in the fireplace, dirty tea things on the desk, and a samovar bubbling in the corner. “Look at this,” the maid grumbled as she gathered up the plates and piled them onto a tray. “Never gets any better. Always up to me. She hires the young ones from the countryside because they’re cheap and then I have to do all the work.”

Berta saw that there were little tea sandwiches left on the silver tray and an unmolested lemon tartlet. The maid picked up the tray and turned to the door. “I’ll tell her you’re here, but she won’t want to see you.”

“Tell her I brought the candlesticks.”

“Won’t make a bit of difference. She’s got her nephew in there. She won’t want to be disturbed.”

“Just tell her about the candlesticks.”

“Yes, yes,” she said impatiently, shifting the weight of the tray to her left hand so she could reach for the door handle. As she did a smoked salmon sandwich slid off the tray and fell to floor. A moment later the lemon tartlet suffered the same fate. Berta looked at them lying on the floor, the meringue flecked with dust but the filling still good and looking firm and sweet in its flaky crust.

The maid said, “Are you going to stand there? Go on, pick it up. Put it on the tray. I haven’t got all day.”

Berta bent to pick it up and tossed it on the tray. It landed in a cup of cold tea. Then she retrieved the sandwich and did the same. After the maid left the room, Berta could hear the purposeful clip of her
retreating footsteps and pictured the lemon tart, soggy with cold tea, sinking to the bottom of the cup.

A few minutes later she heard Elizaveta Shaposnikova’s uneven gait coming down the same hall, the rhythm of her heel on the stone floor punctuated by the dull thud of her cane. The old lady appeared at the door, muttering a greeting as she limped over to the desk to examine the candlesticks.

“This is it? Where are all the others?”

“These were the best I could find, Elizaveta Shaposnikova. They’re Naidenov’s from Petersburg.” The Baranov brothers had given her a good deal on them, because she had threatened to go elsewhere if they didn’t. She had no intention of passing on the savings to Shaposnikova. She picked up the best one and laid it into Shaposnikova’s twisted hand. She was careful not to stare at the old lady’s fingers. They were bent away from the thumb, like the trailing fins of tropical fish. The knuckles and joints were twisted into knots of hard bone. “Here, look at this detail. Isn’t it beautiful? So delicate. All the best families buy their silver from Naidenov.”

Shaposnikova cradled the candlestick between her forearm and claw and stared at the intricate beading and engraving. Then she looked at the others. After a few moments she looked up at Berta. “Go down the hall and fetch my nephew. He’ll know which one to choose.”

Berta nodded and left the room to do as she was told, but she didn’t know the house and didn’t know where to find the parlor. The first door she opened led to the sitting room with a soaring cage of parakeets standing in a corner. Then she found the music room and finally the main parlor. There she saw a young man standing by the French doors watching the snow blanket the little park outside; his back was to her, pale hair curled over his collar, his delicate fingers hung by his side. When he turned she saw it was Yuvelir.

“Berta, what are you doing here?”

Berta forced a smile despite her thumping heart. “I think I’m looking for you. I’ve been sent to find Elizaveta Shaposnikova’s nephew.”

“She sent you?”

“She wants you to look at the candlesticks.”

“What for?”

“She can’t decide and she thinks you have good taste.”

“Of course I have good taste. I have the best. But what are you doing here?”

“I brought them.”

“Why?”

Berta’s face went blank and then she forced a smile. “A charity, why else?”

Yuvelir followed her down to the office. “Don’t you women ever get tired of charities? What would you do if there were no war widows and orphans?”

She laughed and it sounded false to her. “We’d invent them, of course.”

When they got back to the little office they found Elizaveta Shaposnikova still cradling the candlestick. “I think I want this one. What do you think, Misha?”

“I don’t know.” He looked them all over. “I guess I like it.”

“Guess? Misha, I want your opinion.”

“Yes, all right. Get that one.”

The old woman studied it a moment longer. “You’re right, I do like this one. Yes, all right,” she said to Berta, “bring me six of these. And I’ll need them by Saturday. Bring them in the afternoon. Don’t be too late. I’ll need them for dinner.”