The Lost Souls of Angelkov (36 page)

“I know she’s a peasant. I didn’t raise you to marry a peasant.” Lilya’s voice is louder, angry.

“What do you mean?
We’re
peasants, Lilya. Who do you expect me to marry?”

Lilya’s voice drops, the anger gone as quickly as it had flared up. “I just … I haven’t thought of you marrying.”

“You still think of me as your little brother, but I’m coming twenty. It’s time for me to start my own life, my own family.”

At that, Lilya grabs hold of him. “I’m your family.
Me
, Lyosha.”

Lyosha takes her hands and smiles. “We’ll always be family, Lilya. You’re my sister, and you know how grateful I am to you. But it’s time for me to have a wife. You have Soso. He’ll surely send for you soon, won’t he?”

Lilya stares back at him. “Soso? Good riddance to him. But … have you already set a date? Has the wedding been arranged behind my back?”

Lyosha lets go of her hands. “You won’t go to your husband when he’s ready for you?”

“I hope never to see that pig again. This is my home. The countess needs me. But I asked you—is the wedding arranged?”

“No. But I’ve been to visit Anya at her family’s izba many times over the last year, and she’s happy to have me as a husband, Lilya. I’ve also spoken to her father about marrying her. All I ask from you now is your blessing, and then I’ll speak to the countess, and ask for her permission that Anya come and live with me in the married servants’ quarters. Perhaps she can help Raisa in the kitchen for the next little while.”

“What do you mean—the next little while?”

“Until we leave.”

Lilya swallows. “Leave Angelkov? To go where?”

“We’ll go with Grisha.”

“Grisha?” Lilya knows she is echoing her brother, but such is her surprise—perhaps shock—that she’s having trouble keeping up.

“He’s going to have his own place, and I’ll be his steward.”

“Grisha, a landowner? And how will this happen?”

“He already owns land,” Lyosha says calmly. He has no reason not to tell his sister these facts. Grisha has spoken to him about this since February and the announcement of the emancipation.

Lilya’s mind races. “He owns land? Where?”

“He bought a small parcel from Prince Bakanev.”

“How could he do this?”

“Lilya, you know that Grigori Sergeyevich has worked for the count for many years in a salaried position. He has no wife, no family—he saved what he earned.”

Lilya takes Lyosha’s hands in her own. “Don’t do anything yet, little brother. Please, I beg of you. Don’t speak to the countess, and don’t talk any more of leaving. Not yet.”

Lyosha sees panic in her face, hears it in her voice. And there’s something else, something troubling. She’s too desperate, her grip on his hands fierce and possessive. He feels sorrow for her. She’s been working too hard, he thinks.

Antonina has managed to not fall back into the deep blackness of the first few months after Mikhail disappeared. She never stops thinking about him, but now it’s with numbness. She won’t believe he’s dead, even though there’s been no more word from him, no further visit from Lev.

It’s also as though she’s a widow. Konstantin grows ever more confused, lurching about the dark house at night, his empty nightshirt sleeve swinging. Occasionally she opens her eyes and sees him standing beside her bed, looking down at her. The first time this happened, she cried out, and Pavel came running and led the old man back to his bedroom. The next times it happened, she simply told her husband to go away, and he did.

She has seen Pavel feeding him from a spoon, as if he were a small, weak child. He still needs the chloroform tincture, Pavel insists, although she wonders that he has pain after four months.

Antonina gets through every day as best she can. Because Angelkov now needs her help in a way it didn’t when there were serfs—sometimes too many—to do every job, she has something she has never before known: a sense of purpose.

And as long as she has enough vodka, she manages two or three hours of sleep a night, and can carry on.

Antonina receives an invitation to a musical evening at the home of Prince and Princess Bakanev. She plans to decline. They will understand. It’s only been five months. To Antonina if feels like five years. She can’t remember exactly what her life felt like before, although she can recall so much happiness with Mikhail: hearing the stories he read aloud in both Russian and French, his excitement as he talked of his zoology lessons and the wonderful animals he had discovered on all the continents, his growing understanding of the earth through his geography lessons, his attempts at art with his tutor, and always, always, listening to him play the piano.

There is Lilya to talk to, but Antonina has begun to find her old friend a little tedious. Try as she might, she has not been able to persuade Lilya to go to her own room in the servants’ quarters at night. Lilya likes sitting quietly by the fire in Antonina’s bedroom, making intricate lace. At Antonina’s urging, she learned to read and write when Misha was a baby, although she undertook both slowly and haltingly. Occasionally she reads the Psalter.

She could be a quiet comfort to Antonina, yes, but Antonina doesn’t like the way she has to tell Lilya when she wishes to be alone. She doesn’t like Lilya’s faint but distinct look of betrayal, as if Antonina should never forget what happened so long ago on the Olonov estate.

There is nothing left of that former life. Her father died of heart disease two years after Mikhail’s birth, and the estate was sold. Antonina’s mother moved to Paris with a French lover shortly afterwards. She wrote infrequently to Antonina, and then the letters stopped altogether; she doesn’t know if her mother is still alive. Viktor died after suffering a debilitating injury at the battle of Alma in the Crimean, and her
youngest brother, Dimitri, from what she could find out, had disappeared into a haze of alcohol and a life of debauchery. The middle brother, Marik, still lives on his own small estate in northern Pskov with his wife and four children, but he and Konstantin argued a number of years ago at a family celebration. Neither would apologize, and Marik has broken ties with his brother-in-law—and his sister too.

In spite of the loss of her family—or perhaps because of it—before her son was stolen from her, Antonina knew she was fortunate to have her own home, a husband and a child, and berated herself for not being thankful enough. She could fill her hours with the usual pursuits of women of her class: there were endless reasons to visit other estates and stay for a few days or weeks, there was adult company she could invite to Angelkov for afternoons of walks through the gardens, of boating in the summer and troika rides over the shimmering snow in the winter. There could be evenings of whist and musical recitals. But being with crowds of people had never appealed to Antonina. Although she recognized that she had usually been content on her own, or with Misha, she felt a nagging sense of disquiet, as if life was passing by. That she was being swept along in the current, with no real sense of direction or power, looking for something to hold on to. Or perhaps someone.

Lilya encourages Antonina to accept the Bakanevs’ invitation. “You haven’t been to a social function since …” She pauses. “… for some time. Perhaps it would help you to see old friends.”

Antonina studies the vanilla-coloured card that has been
delivered to her by Pavel. She is sitting at the piano. “Friends?” she says, looking at Lilya. “They’re not my friends. They’re Konstantin’s friends.”

“Still, Tosya,” Lilya says, “wouldn’t it be lovely to dress in one of your gowns—perhaps the maroon silk? You look so beautiful in it.”

Antonina takes another drink of vodka before playing an arpeggio. Her fingers trip on the keys, the arpeggio ruined. She tries it again, then starts a Haydn sonata rondo instead. She thinks of the crush of bodies clad in satin and silk and velvet in an overheated room, bright with candelabras and smoking oil lamps. Of the smell of perfume and cigars. The faces gazing at her with pity, the sighs, the pressing of her hand in sympathy. And then the well-meaning people will turn away from her, relieved to have done their duty with the poor thing, free to go on to their glasses of champagne, the silver trays of hors d’oeuvres of sturgeon and caviar, the anticipation of the music recital.

Then Antonina thinks of the long evening ahead of her at Angelkov. She’ll have her light dinner and retire to her bedroom. She will have to tell Lilya she prefers to be alone. She’ll read, sipping from her glass until her eyes burn and the vodka has made her drowsy, and then she’ll pray for sleep, pray for relief from nightmares about Mikhail.

She doesn’t want to think of it anymore. The Haydn doesn’t feel right. She stops, and begins Chopin’s Prelude in B Minor. After the first ten bars she can’t bear it, remembering the pleasure it always brought her to listen to beautiful music, the musical evenings she has loved.

She reaches for her glass but knocks it over. Fortunately, the vodka runs down the side of the piano and not onto the
keys. “I’ll get Nusha to clean it up,” Lilya says, picking up the empty glass.

Antonina looks down at the keys. She knows that what Lilya has said is true: she’s alone too much. She needs to get away from Angelkov, away from Konstantin and his distressing behaviour, away from the mindless glasses of vodka.

“Perhaps I’ll go after all, Lilya,” Antonina calls out. “Not the maroon silk. Take out my black taffeta.”

W
ithin the first few minutes in the Bakanevs’ drawing room, Antonina knows that it’s a mistake to be away from Angelkov.

She has never fit in at such parties, never knowing what to talk about apart from answering questions about her husband or recounting the antics of her son. Now, as she joins each small knot of men and women, it’s painfully clear that nobody will mention Konstantin or Mikhail. Evenings of this sort are not the place to bring up such unpleasant topics.

So she smiles and nods, accepting, with as much grace as possible, the comments from all those who tell her that they are glad to see her. She’s looking well, she hears over and over, although she knows this isn’t true. She is self-conscious in her black taffeta, the black feathers in her hair. She has dressed as if she is really a widow—another mistake.