The Midwife of St. Petersburg (21 page)

She nearly rushed to Alex’s defense, wanting to explain how he wished to join his troops in Warsaw but could not. Instead, she cut a slice of apple
pie and served it to him. He ate, but his gray eyes were despondent. He put his plate down as he chewed the last bite.

“I was talking to several of the conscripts in the field,” he said finally. “There are stories about Kronstadt. He’s the spoiled son of a wealthy countess.”

“There are always stories. I’m surprised you would listen to them. You know how some men are when they’re being pulled away from their families and forced into the army. I understand, but—”

“Kronstadt’s been in trouble at the officer’s school. He cares about nothing but riches, women, and entertainments. He likes to shoot and ride, and there’s a scandal about a duel, and worse, the military cadets he was with were involved in a pogrom.”

She sat down, her fingers tightening on the arm of the chair. “Those are some despicable charges, Ilya, even if they’re not true.”

He shrugged. “I didn’t make them. They are common talk. And most times, common talk is based on some fact.”

“Some fact,” she said wryly. “Have you met him before?”

“You know I haven’t. Just be careful with him, will you? Such a man is dangerous.”

Uncle Matvey came through the kitchen door. Sergei was not with him.

“He went back to the manor,” Uncle Matvey said when she looked at him for explanation. “Ilya, when you have finished, please find your grandmother, will you? I saw her leave the storage pantry and walk to the chicken coop for eggs. If you can walk her over to the manor, it will be best for her. The colonel will be here soon.”

Ilya looked at Karena and seemed about to say something more, but instead, he went out.

Uncle Matvey watched him leave. “I detect trouble of another kind with Ilya.”

“He doesn’t like Colonel Kronstadt.”

He walked over to her. She expected him to reassure her that matters were not as grim as they appeared. He did not.

“You need to be strong,” he said with a level look. “Grinevich is dead.” She sucked in her breath.

“He died a few hours ago. You know what that means?”

She did not move.

He nodded. “Yes, naturally, you do.” He appeared to have difficulty finding words. “Your father is at the manor. You must prepare yourself, Karena.”

She dampened her dry lips. “What do you mean? What has Papa Josef to do with this? I mean, I know they will interrogate him, but he has done nothing.”

There was muted pain in his eyes. He laid a hand on her shoulder. “There may be more than one arrest.”

More than one?

“Your father will be going to St. Petersburg with Major-General Durnov to answer more questions.”

The surprise came like a fist.

“But—why Papa? He wasn’t there last night. I can swear to that—”

He grabbed her arm, his eyes warning her. “You will say nothing, Karena. Nothing.”

She closed her eyes for a moment to steady her emotions. “Didn’t Sergei explain to the officers that his father wasn’t there? And Mother is a witness. They were home together all evening. Natalia knows that as well.”

“We all know as much. It is Josef himself who states otherwise.”

“Papa? That makes no sense.”

“Karena,” he said, “you must find courage. Josef is confessing that he is a leader of the Bolsheviks here in the village.”

She gasped. “Absurd! He said that? How could he? It isn’t true. Papa
would never be so foolish!” She stared at him and saw the answer in his gaze. She groaned. “Oh no. He’s doing it for Sergei. Did Mother agree to this?”

He nodded. “It was Josef’s idea. It would be, naturally. In return, Sergei has promised him he will leave the Bolshevik Party and become a lawyer.”

She closed her eyes, as if the momentary darkness would make everything unpleasant fade away.

“Yes, I know, my dear child, this is a sickening shock to us all,” he said. “But when we stop to think about it, it’s not so surprising. Not when we remember what Sergei means to Josef. It would hurt Josef far more to see his son arrested than to make this confession in his place.”

Her mind fought its way back from the whirlwind of anguish and grief.

“Such love on Papa’s part,” she said. “He’s willingly going to take Sergei’s punishment.”

Uncle Matvey looked down at her so sharply that for a moment she wondered what she might have said to upset him. Then she saw he was not angry with her, but thinking of something that had suddenly arrested his mind. His distant gaze was directed out the window again, as he absently fingered his pipe.

She stood, curling her fingers along the back of the chair. She shook her head slowly, doubtfully. “But Papa’s arrest may not be enough to satisfy them. Sergei could still be arrested. If Grinevich saw him there last night—if he named Sergei before he died—they could hang both Papa and Sergei, and Papa will have done this for nothing.”

He shook his head. “No, Josef arranged to place the guilt of evidence on himself alone this morning when Policeman Leonovich called on him. By the time Kronstadt talked to him, Josef had already settled his plan. Leonovich agrees with Josef that he was there last night, that he was the
one who arranged for Lenski to speak. Leonovich satisfied Major-General Durnov, at least. Josef has made some kind of bargain. I do not know what it is. Neither does Sergei, but it’s enough to safeguard your brother.”

Karena was horrified. Bargain? What bargain could he make with the Okhrana?

“What of Colonel Kronstadt?” she asked. “Is he privy to it also?” Anger churned in her heart.

“No, I am quite sure he is not, though Ilya thinks differently.”

“Papa Josef, as a zemstvo member, dismissed the extreme notions of Lenin,” she said. “It is most absurd to think he would be the head of the party in the village. Who would believe it? Every Sunday he is at the church. The Bolsheviks are mostly atheists.”

“Josef took Sergei’s incriminating evidence from his room and planted it in his own so they would find it.”

He had planned everything. Sergei must keep silent; he must promise to go to the university and become a lawyer, so that his father would be proud. How this ironic turn of events must be stabbing Sergei’s heart! If he spoke the truth, he would be arrested, and his father would be devastated. And yet, to allow his father to take his place—

Karena’s gaze met her uncle’s. Matvey nodded as he read her question.

“Yes, that was why Yeva wanted Sergei to come back to the house. She knew of Josef’s plan. She wanted to tell Sergei that she had reluctantly agreed to let Josef do this, because he meant so much to his father.” Uncle Matvey added quietly, thoughtfully, “Yeva realizes Josef is more devoted to Sergei than to anyone or anything else in this life. At present, very little matters to him, except that Sergei lives.”

What will we do without Papa Josef? What of the farm? How will we manage?

Karena’s heart might as well have been sawn in two, so divided were her loyalties. Young, reckless Sergei and her sober, quiet papa. How could this be? Was there no way to escape this crushing destiny?

They must lose either Papa or Sergei, and Papa had all but decided the outcome on his own. He had chosen to become the scapegoat.

She turned toward the kitchen door, but Matvey intervened.

“I understand your feelings in this, but it is not for you to decide.”

“Not mine?” she questioned.

“No, it is between Josef and Yeva.” His face was grim, his eyes sympathetic. “You must respect your father’s decision. It’s his alone to make.”

The long moments ticked by. Slowly, she turned away from the door and sat down.

Uncle Matvey watched her with sad approval. “Some things must be borne,” he said. “We must be brave. Yes, be brave. You see? There is no choice. Josef has made up his heart. Yes, I stated it correctly, his heart, not his mind.”

He put his hand on her head as though she were a little girl again. “And if Yeva can let her husband go for his son’s sake, then you and I must release him.”

She slowly lowered her head as her eyes dimmed with warm tears.

“I see you understand,” he said quietly. “These bitterest of decisions leave no pleasant consequences.”

After a moment she blotted her cheeks dry.

“But Sergei!” she said. “Surely he won’t agree. I know him well enough. He argues with Papa Josef. He makes light of his stolid support of the autocracy, but he loves him dearly.”

“Josef left Sergei no choice. We may not agree. We may see the cliff’s edge and desire to rush in to stop one from going over, but ofttimes we are helpless. I suppose there is no pain quite as bad as that. All we can do is share in the heartbreak. Let us hope that Sergei will invest his life at the university. For now, he lives for two men. No,” he said thoughtfully, “Sergei’s life touches all of us. This is not easy for Sergei, believe me. It has cut him to the quick. Perhaps God will use this tragedy to mold him. Sergei finds himself in the Potter’s hand.”

Karena’s throat pinched with pain. She swallowed hard, pushing her hair away from her forehead. Uncle Matvey’s strange words created new footprints across her soul.

“In such situations as these, Karena, we see that God alone is able to move in our lives and reach us. Without knowledge of God, there is no faith, and without faith in a sovereign God who is both Creator and Savior, there is no ground for hope.”

She jerked her head up. She had never seen him more serious, nor his eyes more intense.
Does he believe what he is saying?

“You sound like you’ve changed your mind about the God of the Bible.”

“I am only learning, Karena. I’ve been reading many books, as you know, including the New Testament. I thought it wise to understand about Jesus if I’m to write honestly about Messiah. I can now say the gospel of Matthew, with its many clear references to fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies, has all but convinced me there is to be a personal Deliverer, a Savior, through the royal line of David. Isaiah 53 tells me this person, the greater son of David, will suffer. I cannot read that chapter without the Crucifixion coming before me. I have read it dozens of times, and each time I am more convinced that it is not speaking of Israel’s sufferings, as the rabbis claim, but of Messiah himself. Questions remain, but if the answers keep coming as they have so far, I will see no obstacle to Jesus being the Messiah, or as the Greek language has it in the New Testament writings, the Christ.”

A hundred different thoughts came to her mind, and each one led off to a question of its own. These were things she could not think on now.

She turned to the window and stared helplessly at the manor house.

I
t was nearing four o’clock in the afternoon, and Colonel Aleksandr Kronstadt had not arrived at the bungalow to question them. Karena was emotionally spent and felt that she must take her mind off the situation or go mad.

“Uncle, if you’re not going to use your office now, I’ve some work to do on your manuscript.”

Matvey reached for a book of poetry on the shelf, took out his pipe, and crossed his long legs, wincing. He settled back with his coffee. “My office is yours.”

“Oh! Poor Uncle. I forgot!” She reached into her skirt pocket and brought out the medication Madame Yeva had sent her over with earlier in the day.

“Another horse pill?”

“If we coat it first with butter, it will slide down very nicely.” She smiled and went to the kitchen. She returned with a small dab of butter in a spoon. When she left him, he was looking dubiously at the large tablet he held between thumb and forefinger, while holding the spoon in his other hand.

Karena entered the small room connected to his bedroom and faced the cluttered desk and two chairs, one of them beside his overcrowded bookcase. Several thick research books lay open on the table. His typewriter sat amid a confusion of manuscript papers and other books, several of which Karena knew to be of rabbinical origin: writings on messianic hopes or the refutation of such hopes. The Old Testament, the
Tanach
, was there, along with the Talmud, which was Jewish history and commentaries written by ancient rabbis. Uncle Matvey had noticed that, for some reason, all the Jewish commentaries referred only vaguely to the coming of a personal Messiah.

Why?
she wondered, drumming her fingers. She bowed her head in a short prayer:

God of Abraham, open my eyes, for I want to see. I do not want to be deceived. If Jesus is the promised Messiah, I want to know, and if he is not, I want to know. Amen
.

Beside the Scriptures was a stack of letters from Jewish organizations. A Russian New Testament was there as well, and she saw that Matvey was deeply involved in a study of the gospel of Matthew. She saw a verse underlined: “Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel … God with us.”

The letters from the rabbis were in response to Uncle Matvey’s question, “If the Messiah were to come in 1915, how would you recognize him?” Karena had typed the dozen or so letters that she had then mailed to Basel, London, and New York. Each rabbi had answered, but she was disappointed to see their lukewarm responses. “Do not stir up more trouble for the Jews,” one of them wrote back. And another, “Do you intend to reinforce the teaching that we are ‘Christ killers’?”

Karena shivered with dread.

Out of a dozen or so letters, only one rabbi, an Orthodox Jew, believed in a personal Messiah. And while the rabbi gave his opinion on the matter, he did not refer to even one passage of Scripture.

Karena frowned, glancing up toward the window. Perhaps she shouldn’t be surprised. Even the World Zionist Organization, begun under Theodor Herzl, was secular.

If there was no personal Messiah, then where had the idea come from?

Karena gathered a stack of Uncle Matvey’s handwritten manuscript pages and sorted through them. Her interest was snagged at once. He had painstakingly written out reference after reference of promises and teachings about the coming of the Messiah from the Old Testament, beginning with Genesis, and added his own notes in parentheses: