The Lost Souls of Angelkov (10 page)

Grisha shrugged. “I’m not a serf. It’s different for me.”

“He treats you like one. I’ve seen it. You want to keep taking it? Eh? Are you in?”

Grisha didn’t respond for a moment, thinking of Tania emerging from his bedroom with the dirtied linen. “It depends,” he finally said. He knew he was drunk, and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “What are you thinking of?”

“I haven’t worked it out yet,” Soso said. “But if I know you’re with me, it will make it easier. And I have some friends … they’d help us.”

Grisha shrugged and rose, leaving the servants’ quarters and walking unsteadily back to his own house down the road.

The next day, his head sore, Grisha remembered the conversation as simply the drunken solidarity of men puffing themselves up with random thoughts of revenge.

But when Soso came to him after emancipation had been declared, and asked if he had been serious about extorting money from the count, Grisha told the man he would have to think about it.

“I told you, I have friends. I can vouch for them—they’re decorated former Cossacks,” Soso said.

Grisha didn’t even know if he could trust Soso, and didn’t know anything about the man’s friends, Edik and Lev. But it appeared Soso already had a plan in place: they would kidnap the count’s son. Kidnap him, demand ransom, get the money, give the boy back. Simple.

Grisha didn’t like it. He told Soso to come up with another plan. Not kidnapping. He didn’t want to think of Mikhail Konstantinovich put into a dangerous situation. He had watched the boy grow up. Misha took after his mother in both appearance and character, and he was a winsome child. Grisha liked him.

He wouldn’t be a part of it if it involved Misha.

Soso assured him that the boy wouldn’t be mistreated, and would be fed and kept warm for the one or two nights he was held. That was all—a few nights, and then, when Grisha brought the money demanded by the ransom note, it would be divided four ways. They would each have more than enough to buy themselves what they needed to start their new lives: a plot of land or a small business. They would never again answer to a master.

Soso said he, Edik and Lev were ready to go forward. Still Grisha refused. But only Grisha could make sure the kidnapping went smoothly, Soso argued. Only he had inside information as to the count’s movements. If Grisha wouldn’t go along with them, they would still carry out the plan, but might have to resort to violence to take the child. There might be bloodshed. Who knew what might happen to the boy? “Lev and Edik won’t wait forever,” Soso added. It was on Grisha’s head now—did he want this guilt?

Guilt. Without knowing it, Soso had chosen the right tactic. And so Grisha agreed that he would alert Soso when the circumstances were right—when there was an opportunity to take the boy. “But,” he told him, “I’m going to make sure you don’t harm Mikhail Konstantinovich.”

He also stressed that while the boy was still a few months from turning eleven years old, he was very clever. And while he wouldn’t recognize the Cossacks, he knew Soso; he was Lilya’s husband. There could not be even the slightest indication that Soso—or of course he—was involved.

Soso told Grisha he understood, and would comply.

“And what of Lilya?” Grisha added. “Will you share this with your wife?” Grisha knew how dedicated the woman
was to her mistress, and to the child. He so often saw the three of them—Antonina, Lilya and Misha—together.

Soso slowly shook his head. “Lilya? I couldn’t trust her with this. She will know nothing.” He wiped his nose with his fingers. “Nothing,” he repeated. “Only the four of us are in on it.”

The actual kidnapping—Grisha had been sitting back, watching through the trees—had not gone as smoothly as Soso had promised. Grisha was angry over the count’s injury. He had been promised, hadn’t he, that no one would be hurt.

After that, it had all grown far worse. When he took the ransom money to Soso and the others a few days later, Mikhail had been there.

It haunted him how the child’s face had lit up when he appeared in the clearing; the old memories from Chita flooded back. “Grisha!” Mikhail had cried out. “Grisha! Take me home!”

Grisha had nodded. “Yes, yes, Mikhail, you will come back to Angelkov with me now.” He had ridden towards Soso, who, like Edik and Lev, had his face hidden.

But when Grisha held out the packet of money, the men surrounded him, dragging him off his horse and beating him. It happened so unexpectedly that he wasn’t prepared. He fought back, hearing Misha calling his name, then crying
Papa
, and then there was nothing more. As he regained consciousness, he found his horse gone and the count on the ground near him, his Arabian nosing about in the half-frozen undergrowth.

He was furious with Soso, and confronted him later that day. Soso, lifting heavy bags of grain in the storehouse, simply shrugged when Grisha demanded to know where Mikhail had been taken.

“You have your money,” Grisha said. “I don’t care if you won’t give me my share—just give me the boy.”

With his take, he’d planned to add a last piece of good land to the versts he had already bought. He had come to understand, many years ago, that he needed to possess something of his own. And now he did. He would build a house and hire some of the former estate serfs to work for him. He’d been training Lyosha to be
his
steward. He planned to leave Angelkov as soon as the wretched business with the kidnapping was over. It wasn’t about the money for him; it was only about his anger towards Konstantin. Now he wondered why he had been so vindictive.

“Give back the boy,” he said, making a fist, although he involuntarily winced. Two of his ribs were broken, and in spite of his bluff, he knew he wouldn’t be able to stand up to Soso.

“The others want more money.”

“More? They got what was agreed upon.”

Soso dropped the bag with a grunt. “It’s not enough.”

“Then send another note and ask for more ransom. But don’t think I’ll deliver it without getting the child back first this time.”

Soso leaned against a stack of filled sacks and lit his pipe. “A bit more money is all they want.”

“And where is Misha?” Grisha asked him again.

“Safe. Get me money, and I’ll get you the boy.”

“Do you think I’ll get you more money if the child is already dead? Am I that much of a fool? Unless I have proof he’s alive, there will be no more money. Get me some proof.”

“I’ll talk to the others,” Soso said, and sucked on his pipe. He crossed his arms over his chest and stared at Grisha. “When I’m ready.”

Grisha knew then that Soso had him in exactly the position he wanted. He saw that it wasn’t only about the money for Soso, just as it hadn’t been for him. It would bring Soso pleasure to make him wait.

A week after the kidnapping, Antonina sits beside Konstantin’s bed.

He is in a deep sleep, his lips cracked and peeling, his cheeks sunken. Antonina wonders what he is capable of thinking, of understanding, in this fevered state. Is he suffering over his son? Of course, he loved his child, even though he was not the son he had dreamed of.

His first marriage had been long and childless. He had wanted the son Antonina gave him to be more robust. He urged the boy to take chances, to ride difficult horses through the meadows and to practise dives, over and over, in the lake on the estate. Konstantin forced Mikhail to skate on that same lake, frozen in winter, until the child’s face was ghostly with exhaustion. He had been proud of the boy for his outstanding musical ability, yes, proud that by the age of five Mikhail could compose melodies. But it wasn’t enough for Konstantin.

“Is that all he’s interested in?” he asked Antonina when Mikhail was seven. “It’s abnormal for a boy to care more for music than the thrill of the hunt, the horses and dogs, rifles and hunting bows. Look at Lilya’s brother from the stables. Lyosha. He’s still a boy, and yet already so accomplished. Grisha told me that only last week he got three grouse and a fox within an hour.”

“Lyosha is much older than Mikhail. Don’t compare him to our son.”

A few years earlier, Konstantin had seen Lyosha kicked by one of the horses. Luckily, it was a small filly, and it was just the edge of her hoof that caught the boy or he might have been seriously injured, even killed. Lyosha was knocked unconscious for a few moments. As he came to, with two of the older stablemen kneeling over him, he grimaced but insisted on getting to his feet. Konstantin later learned that the child’s collarbone and arm had been broken, but he hadn’t made a sound. He had been impressed by the boy’s strength and stoicism.

“Mikhail should spend more time outside, instead of all the hours at his lessons or at the piano,” he said.

“Misha is extremely musically gifted,” Antonina had argued. “You’re aware of that.”

Konstantin grunted. “I’m not suggesting the boy give up his musical studies. But I want a son who can ride and hunt with me, not just compose piano trifles. I want him to have a career in the army.”

“The army?” Antonina was dumbstruck.

“The training will be good for him. He can join one of the noble cadet schools in St. Petersburg when he’s thirteen. It will guarantee him entrance into an elite branch of the Russian military service. By the time he’s twenty, he could be a lieutenant, and move steadily forward. I have always dreamed of a son who becomes a general.”

Antonina knew that nothing would be gained by arguing with Konstantin. Mikhail was only seven; she had a number of years to change her husband’s mind. She would not let him give up his musical career for a rifle, no matter what Konstantin said.

I despise him, Antonina thinks, looking at her husband. For all his self-indulgent life Konstantin has done whatever
he wanted to do, regardless of the cost to others. Even worse than taking Mikhail out against her wishes the day he was kidnapped, he did not obey the Cossacks’ demands, and as a result destroyed the chance of her child’s safe return.

She dismisses Pavel and takes a pair of nail scissors from the dressing table. She stands over Konstantin, wanting to press the small, sharp blades into his lips, pry them open so that the answers she needs to hear will spill out.
How hard did you fight if only your hand is injured? Would you not fight to the death for your son?

She will not imagine Mikhail dead. He is not dead. She would know if he was dead. He is her son.

“Je t’aime, Maman,”
he always told her as she tucked him into his bed. Antonina had encouraged him to speak the second language of Russian nobility since he was a toddler.
“Je veux beaucoup de baisers,”
he would add, and she would answer, “How many? How many kisses do you wish?”

Sometimes it was five, sometimes ten, sometimes twenty. It was their bedtime ritual. She smothered his cheeks and hands with kisses, and he laughed and told her that her lips tickled.

She realizes now that it’s not her husband’s lips she wishes to cut open. She wants to puncture his neck, push the blades into the scab already there, into the slowly beating and vital artery. She wants to see a satisfying spurt of thick blood leap into the air, an arc of life that if left to pulse long enough will, eventually, lead to death. She wants to do this so badly her hands tremble.

But to what end? Yes, it would be vengeance, of course, an absurd and illogical retaliation for Konstantin’s lack of respect, for his stupidity. But Antonina also knows there can be nothing gained from his death. Killing Konstantin would
be a mortal sin, sealing her fate in the afterlife. Worse, it would do nothing to return her child.

Still, she allows herself to slowly press the blades to his neck. His eyes open, as if she has called his name, and he looks up at her. There’s no surprise or fear in his eyes. What she sees is hope.
Do it
, his eyes say.
Kill me, Antonina Leonidovna. I beg of you
.

And when she understands that this is what he wants, she removes the scissors. Of course, she will not grant his wish. It simply gives her momentary relief to think of something besides Mikhail’s sweet chin, his smooth high forehead, his clear grey-green eyes. Instead, she presses the blade into the skin on the inside of her forearm, just below the lacy edge of her sleeve. She pulls it in a slow, hard line, as though the blade is the nib of a pen and her skin the parchment. As she does this, she continues to watch Konstantin. He stares at her arm, and she looks down as the beads of blood rise up along the slice in her flesh.