The Unmapped Sea (14 page)

“Luck was not with me that day. I spun out of control, and fell. I broke the bone. The leg did not heal straight, as you see.” Roughly, he slapped his thigh, which seemed perfectly straight to Penelope. “Most days it is fine. But when I exert myself, as I did last night, ice-skating . . .” He slapped his leg again, this time in anger. “Ow!” he yelped.

“Perhaps you ought not to strike it so, if it hurts,”
Penelope suggested, but Master Gogolev had not finished his tale.

“After that, no more ballet for me. Unable to dance, with a temperament too, too—what is the word?—
magnificent
for regular employment, I grew lost. I grew bitter. I was near death from hunger, but I spent my last ruble on a poem, for what is life without poetry? Now I am employed as a tutor to this family, this crazy, angry, terrible family. Pity the Babushkinovs! They are mad, all of them, and yet beautiful in their anger and misery.”

This was all a great deal of information to take in. Penelope tried to focus on the parts of his tale that she could most easily understand. “I am sorry to hear about your leg,” she offered. “That is a misfortune.”

He ran his hands through his wild hair. “Yet misfortune is still a kind of fortune, no? The leg, the arm, the head, what does it matter? The soul is what matters. I act the role of tutor, but in my soul I am a poet. I hear the silence in the crash of the waves. The music in the hideous cry of the gulls, screeching.
Caw! Caw!
”

His gull cry was so lifelike that the children looked up, expecting to see birds.
“Caw!”
he said again. “Terrible and beautiful, all of it. And your hair! Never have
I seen such a color. So red, so brown, so light, so dark. It is a symphony of color and light and hair. If I were a painter, I would insist on painting your portrait.”

“You are very kind to say so.” Penelope fell in step with the Incorrigibles; the tutor's remarks made her uneasy, and she was eager for this strange conversation to end. “But I am not the sort of person whose portrait gets painted, I assure you. I am only the children's governess.”

“You may be the governess.” He looked down at the children's hair, and back at her. “But perhaps you are not
only
the governess.”

T
HAT EVENING THE
B
ABUSHKINOVS AGAIN
invited Penelope and her pupils to join them for dinner at the hotel. Penelope said they would, for the Incorrigibles and the Babushkawoos were quickly becoming inseparable; in any case, she was so distracted she hardly knew what to do with herself. A governess in love with a pirate playwright! It was like something out of a play Simon himself might write.

“I
so
am disappointed not to meet Lord and Lady Ashton.” Madame Babushkinov gestured toward the two empty seats at the long table. “I think they are avoiding us.”

“Don't take everything personally, dear wife,” the captain said lightly.

“We are the only other guests here, dear husband. How else am I to take it?” Sharply, she bit into a breadstick. It snapped in her mouth like a bone.

“Papa, we have a question for you!” one of the twins blurted, and elbowed his brother. “
You
say it,” he hissed.

Obligingly, the other one asked, “Papa, would you challenge a megalosaurus to a duel?”

“Of course,” the captain said. “I challenge anyone.”

This made the Babushkawoos laugh, for of course their father had no idea what a megalosaurus was. To be laughed at made the captain scowl, but the children quickly explained about giant extinct lizards from countless years ago, with thighbones the size of the axles on a hay wagon.

“I do not understand,” he said when they were done, but at least he was not angry.

“Nor do I. And I see no point in a museum devoted to strange objects. Surely life is strange enough!” Madame Babushkinov turned to Penelope. “What did you think of the place, Miss Lumley?”

“It was . . . like life, just as you say. Strange and terrible,” she offered, remembering her talk with
Master Gogolev, which she felt had provided valuable insight into the Russian temperament. “Full of happiness and woe.”

Madame Babushkinov lifted a glass. “So wise for one so young! Is that what you learned at the Swanburne Academy?”

Briefly Penelope imagined a small pillow embroidered with the words
Happiness and Woe
, and how it might look tucked in the window seat of Miss Charlotte Mortimer's office at Swanburne. “Not exactly,” she replied. “But there is more to life than what one learns at school.”

“Also true,” the captain said approvingly, and raised his drink as well. As they clinked the glasses together, he and his wife exchanged a look full of meaning.

The doors to the dining room swung open, and a butler announced, “May I present . . . Lord and Lady Ashton.”

Lord Fredrick entered the room with Lady Constance on his arm and led her to the table. “Good evening! Sorry we're late for dinner. Busy afternoon, what?” Waving away a servant, Lord Fredrick himself pulled out a chair for his wife, and introductions were made all around.

“Buona sera!”
Lady Constance chirped, and placed her napkin in her lap.

The Babushkinovs exchanged puzzled looks. “Does your wife speak English?” Madame Babushkinov inquired.

Lord Fredrick gave an embarrassed chuckle. “Yes, certainly! Constance, dear, will you
parlare
in
inglese
, just for tonight?”

“If you insist, Fredrick, but I am keen to practice my Italian!” Lady Constance smiled sweetly at the captain. “Hello, signor!
Dove si trova il negozio di souvenir?
That means, ‘Where is the gift shop?'”

“We are Russian,” the captain said, frowning. “I don't know about gift shop.”

“How nice,” she answered, not paying attention. “Fredrick,
dove si trova
my dinner? I am simply starving!”

“Right away, my dear,” he said, and jumped up to summon the waiter.

I
T WAS A PLEASANT ENOUGH
dinner, at first. Lady Constance's frequent references to Italy puzzled the Babushkinovs, but soon they accepted her preoccupation with that warm, sunny Mediterranean country as just another affectation of the peculiar English. After
the food was served, Lord Fredrick asked the captain polite questions about his business affairs, his land holdings, and so on. The captain shook his head.

“I will be frank, Lord Ashton. My estate in Plinkst is troubled. My crops do not grow. My serfs are unhappy.”

Beowulf, who had guessed that serfs were something like a cross between a servant and a peasant, asked, “Why are they unhappy?”

“Because they are serfs,” the captain said. “Is that not reason enough?”

“What kind of crops?” Lord Fredrick inquired.

“The kind that are failing.”

His wife interjected. “He means beets, Lord Ashton. Beets, beets, and nothing but beets.”

“I tasted some borscht once,” said Lady Constance, naming a type of soup made largely out of beets. “Blech! Dreadful. It is a wonder anyone bothers to grow them at all.”

“Plinkst is beet capital of Russia. But still, they are hard to grow,” the captain explained. “In winter, ground is frozen. Too cold to grow beets. In summer, no rain. Too dry to grow beets.”

“What about spring and fall?” Lord Fredrick asked.

The captain sighed. “Too quick. No time to grow beets.”

Alexander leaned over to Penelope and remarked, “It sounds like beets will go extinct.”

Lord Fredrick offered some noises of sympathy. The captain shrugged. “Life is a struggle; why should mine be different? I sell pieces of land here and there. My estate shrinks, my debt grows. . . .”

His wife put down her fork. “Ivan Victorovich, enough. If you cared so much about the estate, you would spend more time there.” She turned to Lady Constance. “My husband is away with the army half the year. When he is gone, I am unhappy—a woman alone, four children to raise, my inheritance squandered. . . .”

“Let no head go uncovered!” the twins cried on cue. Self-consciously, Master Gogolev ran his hands through his hair.

Madame Babushkinov's lips curled into a sad, rueful smile. “Now we are supposed to be on holiday, and look where we are! Brighton! Who comes to England on holiday, Ivan Victorovich? I ask you, who?”

The captain shoved a chunk of meat in his mouth. “It was cheap,” he said, chewing.

“One tenth of one ruble would still be too much,” she retorted. “Close your mouth when you eat, Ivan. This is not a barracks.”

“The Black Sea,” his mother mumbled from her wheelchair, eyes closed. “Now, that's a nice beach.”

“I like Brighton!” Lady Constance said gaily, buttering her third piece of bread. “It's not Rome, of course, but what is?”

“I for one am glad you came to England, madame,” said Alexander, full of charm. “If you had not, we would not have met the Babushkawoos.”

“The Babushka—whats?” Madame asked, puzzled.

“Yes, why
do
you call us the Babushkawoos?” one of the twins demanded, suddenly cross (perhaps his parents' bad mood was contagious). “Are you mocking us?”

“Mocking us! This insult cannot go unanswered!” the other twin agreed. They had no gloves to throw down as a challenge, and were about to take off their socks and use those, but the Incorrigibles quickly explained that they meant no offense; they had simply been raised by wolves during their early years and had picked up a howling sort of accent along the way.

“Wolves!” Veronika trilled, deliciously afraid. The twins forgot their anger at once and peppered the Incorrigibles with questions: “Did the wolves bite you? Did you have fleas?” and so on.

The Princess Popkinova had dozed off again in her wheelchair. Now she raised her head, her half-opened eyes hooded as an eagle's.

“Did you say wolves?” she asked.

“Yes, Princess,” Penelope replied, for the children looked too frightened of the old woman to answer. “They were very unusual wolves, of course.”

Slowly the princess's eyes opened wide. “There is old Russian story about wolves,” she said tantalizingly. “It is gruesome story, too horrible to repeat. About a bride and groom, on their way home from the wedding . . .”

Madame Babushkinov leaned over to interrupt. “Grandmamma, no! That is a terrible story to tell at the dinner table, with our new friend Lady Ashton in her delicate condition, and so many innocent children present!”

Now all the children wanted to hear the story, of course. They looked to Lady Constance for permission.

“Tell whatever tales you like! I am eating, not listening,” Lady Constance said gaily, and the children turned eagerly to the princess, who tented her gnarled fingers in her lap.

“Are you sure?” she teased. “Bride and groom is only one way to tell story. Could be a teacher and her
students instead.” She gave Penelope a sideways glance. “Could be about an unhappy family, with their crazy old grandmamma!” The old woman laughed, darkly, the way her son did—“Ah, ha, hah!”—but each syllable was no more than a breathy creak, like the sound of wind through dead branches.

“Tell it, tell it!” the children begged.

And so the Princess Popkinova began her tale. “Not so long ago, near a small Russian village, there was a beautiful wedding. Afterward, the groom, the bride, the best man, and some of the guests traveled home together through the woods. They rode on a sleigh, pulled by a good horse, fast and strong. Everyone was singing, happy, full of good food and drink from the wedding feast.”

“Something bad is going to happen,” said one twin to the other.

“How did you know?” said his brother, and punched him in the arm.

“Ow!”

“Shh!” hissed Julia, who wanted to hear the story.

The princess waited for silence, and went on. “Then, out of the dark forest came a pack of wolves. Eyes, yellow. Teeth, like this.” She snarled, demonstrating. “The wolves chase! The horse runs fast, very
fast—what is the word in English?”

“Galloping, my lady,” Master Gogolev said.

“Galloping, yes. The horse, galloping. The wolves galloping more. The wolves biting, like this.” She snapped her jaws. “The mouths are wet. Hungry, you understand? They wish to eat the people!”

“Yum, yum!” Boris and Constantin rubbed their bellies. This time their mother shushed them, for she, too, wanted to hear the tale.

“The wolves are close. Too close! The best man says to the groom, ‘If the wolves catch us, they will kill us all. We must throw someone to the wolves, so the rest can escape.'”

“No!” the Babushkawoos screamed, loving it.

“The groom says, fine. They grab one of the guests and throw him to the wolves. The wolves eat the guest! The people get away! For a while.” She paused for effect. “But then . . . the wolves come again. Closer, closer, snapping, biting . . .”

“Throw someone else!” the Babushkinov children cried. Wide-eyed and white knuckled, the Incorrigibles remained silent.

The princess nodded. “That is what they did. They threw another guest. And another. Each time the wolves ate, they wanted more. One by one, all the
guests were eaten. Now there are only three people left in the sleigh: the groom, the bride, and the best man. Again, the wolves chase! The best man turns to the groom. ‘Throw your bride to the wolves!' he says. Can you imagine it? His beautiful new bride!”

The princess peered through her monocle and pointed a clawlike finger at each of the children in turn. When she got to Alexander, she stopped. “What do
you
think the groom did?”

“Did the groom throw the best man to the wolves?” Alexander guessed uneasily.

“Yes! He grabs his friend and throws him to his death!” she crowed. “But do you think that satisfied the wolves?”