by A J Allen
The post sleigh had already arrived, she had learned, bringing new magazines to the General Store. Katya had told her of a supply of freshly slaughtered meats at Svortsov’s, and Maslov had sent her a card advising her that the printed notelets she had ordered were ready for collection. Only one thing cast a shadow over her morning: the necessity for her to visit the surgery. Having promised to lend Nina Roshkovskaya a novel when he paid his next house call, Vasili had forgotten to take the book with him when he had left their home that morning. Taking it to her husband at his surgery in order that he would not have to make a second journey meant that she would also have to see Anton Chevanin. She had placed the volume resolutely in her shopping basket, determined not to be deterred by the awkwardness of her situation.
Making her way to the corner of Ostermann Street she turned south towards Alexei Street. As she neared Gvordyen’s, she spied a group of children gathered around the confectionary shop’s small side window. From their strange clothes and unfamiliar appearance she guessed that they belonged to the convoy of exiles that had arrived two days before. Seeing their wan pinched faces, she could not help exclaiming aloud but so intense was their vigil that not one of the children took notice of her. All their attention was focussed upon a tray of cakes displayed behind the glass pane. As she drew level with them a collective groan of disappointment rose from the group. From inside the shop a pair of well-scrubbed hands had reached into the window and removed the large cake covered in marzipan and sugar icing that had been its centrepiece. She heard one of the smaller girls giggle nervously and watched as the child pressed her face against the pane.
Moved by pity, Yeliena stopped and began fumbling in her basket for her purse, intending to give the children a few copecks to spend on sweets. But just as her fingers were closing around the coins, the children left the window with a sudden rush and ran past her, their little boots thundering on the wooden boards of the raised side walk. Following them around the corner to the front of the shop, she watched as they noisily surrounded a serious looking woman who had emerged from the store carrying a box which undoubtedly contained the cake they had been admiring. Yeliena heard the woman gently rebuke them and at once their clamour died away. She watched as the woman moved off in the direction of the police headquarters, the children linking arms obediently and falling in behind her in pairs. The last pair, a boy and a girl, she guessed were brother and sister. The boy, the younger of the two, began to skip; jostling the girl who pulled disapprovingly at his arm. Turning to face her, he saw Yeliena watching him and waved at her shyly. Yeliena waved back. The boy gave a mischievous grin and then walked on, still unable to resist the occasional hop.
Yeliena felt a sudden stab of sadness. They are all so young, mere babies, she thought.
Stepping down from the boardwalk she began making her way across Alexei Street. She tried hard not to think of the hell towards which the children were being carried, but the vision of the little boy haunted her. He could have been her own son, or even Anton Ivanovich as he had been as a child, she thought to herself. The same harum-scarum smile, the same irrepressible enjoyment of life was there.
The thought of Anton brought her up short. Angrily, she chided herself; hadn’t she resolved to put an end to this foolishness once and for all? The young man’s embrace was to be erased from her memory, not put away like a pressed flower in a prayer book. But she knew that it had not been the thought of his embrace that had so unsettled her as much as the same impetuosity and warmth that had been present in the boy’s wave. Since marrying Vasili, no man had come as close to her as Anton had. She had certainly not permitted a man to show her the same degree of affection. Why, then, had she changed?
Determined to put such thoughts from her mind, she forced herself to concentrate upon the multiple objectives of her morning excursion. But, leaving the library an hour later, she was once more reminded of the exiled children while she stood watching a train of reindeer sleighs being taken across the market square towards the gates of the barracks. Lashed together in batches of four, the empty sleighs made slow progress, and as they passed her, she noted the newly varnished wood and the way the freshly oiled runners hissed cleanly over the packed snow. With a shock, she realised that these were the same vehicles in which the new prisoners were to be transported under guard to their place of exile within the Polar Circle. When next she saw the sleighs return to Berezovo, some of the children she had watched outside the baker’s window would already have begun to die.
Sitting beside the driver of one of the teams of straining horses, she saw Gleb Pirogov. Yeliena inwardly flinched as the carpenter respectfully touched his cap as he passed by. How can a man with a new born baby, she wondered, knowingly help send other men’s children to their deaths?
There seemed little hope for the children. Waiting until the last sleigh had jolted past her, she made the sign of the cross against her breast and began walking towards the surgery. With all her shopping done, it only remained for her to take the book to Vasili and then she could go home. If there were patients there, she reasoned, she need stay only long enough to deliver the book into her husband’s hands. Reaching the surgery door she straightened her shoulders and let herself into the outer outwaiting room.
The room was empty; the Doctor was not there. Walking on through to the consulting room, she found herself alone once more with her husband’s young assistant. As if nothing untoward had happened between them Anton Chevanin greeted her politely and ushered her towards a chair. Busying himself with tidying away the equipment that had been used during the morning’s clinic hestepped briskly around her as if she was an obstacle. Yeliena watched him as he carried the sterilising pan from the stove to the sink and poured its water away and then began locking the cupboards in the dispensary.
He is ashamed and doesn’t know what to do, she thought. He is not experienced enough in the ways of the world to carry off this situation.
She looked away as he came back into the consulting room and sat down behind his desk. He began to explain the reason for her husband’s absence from the surgery.
“Really, Vasili Semionovich should have let me examine the convoy yesterday,” he was saying. “I did offer, but he preferred to do it himself.”
Yeliena turned to face him and said nothing. Chevanin fell silent, absorbed in his new task of adding up the sums of money the practice had taken that morning and entering them in the account ledger. Looking around the consulting room she noted that little had changed in the surgery: she still felt as much an intruder as ever. Turning back to look at Chevanin she thought again of the little boy who had waved to her in the street. It seemed that the hunger and longing that she had seen in the children’s’ faces as they stared into Gvordyen’s window did not die with adulthood, nor the impossibility of fulfilment. It was merely hidden away. Is this what becomes of the fortunate ones? she wondered.
Drawing a line under his total, Chevanin laid down his pen and carefully pressed a piece of blotting paper over the wet figures.
“So when am I to expect the Doctor home again?” she asked. “Did he leave no message before he went?”
“He will be some time yet,” Chevanin replied. “Not only are there the prisoners to be examined, but also their escort and the drivers.”
He closed the ledger.
“I did offer to help him,” he repeated, “but he refused.”
“Of course he refused,” she told him curtly. “If he had found a case of typhus then he would want you to keep clear, while he put the rest in quarantine. As long as one of you is isolated from infection, my husband’s practice can continue to function.”
“I didn’t think of that,” said Chevanin humbly. “I just thought he did not trust me to do the right thing.”
Yeliena stood up, agitated by being there.
“He thinks more highly of you and I than either of us deserve,” she said abruptly.
Wounded by her words, Chevanin bowed his head.
&nbs
p; “I suppose I shouldn’t expect him home for lunch then?” she continued. “Do you know if he has arranged to call upon any patients this afternoon?”
Chevanin got to his feet and began to tidy his desk. “Only Nina Roshkovskaya,” he answered sulkily, “and there’s nothing much he can do there.”
“He can give comfort,” Yeliena reminded him.
Looking up, Chevanin gave her a bleak smile.
“It is you who needs comforting, Yeliena Mihailovna,” he said, coming out from behind his desk.
“Anton Ivanovich, that is enough!” she said sharply, backing away from him.
He advanced towards her, his arms outstretched, his hands seeking hers as she sought to elude him. For a moment they almost wrestled, she fending him off as best she could, refusing to listen as he began urgently whispering endearments, until at last he had trapped her, forcing her into a corner by the doorway into the dispensary. Grasping her by her wrists, he brought her fingers to his lips and began covering them with quick frantic kisses interspersed with protestations of love. When she had caught her breath, she tried again to free herself but he held her firm.
“If you really loved me,” she told him angrily, “you would let me go.”
Immediately, Chevanin released her wrists, and allowed her to move away out of his reach. Turning away from her he leant against the wall of the consulting room, he gave a deep sigh of despair.
“You see, it’s true,” he said dully. “I do love you. I would rather die than ever hurt you, but I just cannot bear not to hold you when you are near. You don’t understand.”
“Yes I do,” she replied. “All too well. But this must stop, Anton. It isn’t right.”
“Right? But how can it be wrong?”
Cautiously, she approached him again.
“Look at me, Anton.”
Slowly he turned his head and gazed beseechingly at her.
“What do you see? A married childless woman of thirty-five, who spends her days alone in her house and her nights listening to her husband telling her all about the different aches and pains people bring to him. Your love isn’t for me. At best it’s based on pity, and pity is the first thing that flies out of the window when two people get to know each other. You should be pursuing younger women, girls your own age, not unhappy housewives. Can’t you see what a shameful mockery all this is?”
“No, I can’t,” he retorted fiercely. “All I can see is that you don’t love me as much as I love you.”
A stray lock of hair had fallen over his forehead. Stretching out her hand, Yeliena smoothed it carefully back into place.
“You are still so young,” she said. “One day you will understand that I would not speak to you in this way if I didn’t care for you.”
“Care?” he echoed. “My father had a dog once which he used to ‘care’ for. I thought… I thought that I meant more to you than that. Is that all I am then? A pet?”
Moved by his unhappiness, she took one of his hands in hers and squeezed it.
“Of course not, Anton! But before you are very much older, you will see that there are many other ways of loving someone besides the way you feel for me.”
“Never! I will always love you, Yeliena Mihailovna,” he vowed. “Always! And the difference in our ages doesn’t matter a damn. Look at you and Vasili… I’m nearer your age than he is.”
“It’s not a matter of mathematics,” she replied wearily. “Just as you saw things differently as a child than now, so you will change your opinions. You will come to realise that, despite how much you want something, sometimes you just can’t have it. All the wishing in the world cannot change that.”
Pushing himself away from the wall, Chevanin returned to his desk still keeping his back towards Yeliena.
“I’m sorry. I’ve been so stupid,” he mumbled pathetically. “You see, I thought you wanted me as well.”
Going to him, Yeliena took him by the arm. Beneath his jacket, she could feel his young muscles tense as she pulled him round to face her.
“Anton, I am not made of wood,” she said gently. “But it doesn’t matter how I feel about you. I can’t have you, and that is an end to it.”
“But you can!” he insisted, slipping his arms around her waist.
She tried to twist away, but he held her tight, determined that she would listen to what he had to say.
“It’s very simple. I love you and you love me. But,” he explained, punctuating his words with quick darting kisses at her face and throat, “because of the external factors affecting our situation, we can never be together. That doesn’t mean that we may not hold each other and steal the occasional kiss, does it?”
Turning her head this way and that, Yeliena tried to evade his lips but the strength of his arms and the determination of his assault both frightened and excited her, weakening her resolve.
“Please, Anton, stop this…”
“Just one last kiss,” he demanded.
“No, I…”
“Just one little kiss?”
She became aware of the warmth of Chevanin’s body against hers.
“Do you promise? And then you’ll let me go?”
“I promise. Trust me.”
Slowly she raised her mouth to his.
Chapter Six
Tuesday 13th February 1907
Berezovo, Northern Siberia
Still dressed in her morning gown, Nina Roshkovskaya lay on the chaise longue, staring disconsolately at the hands of the ornate cloak on the bureau. It was a quarter to two in the afternoon, and still Dr. Tortsov had not called.
With a sigh, she glanced across at her husband who was occupied poring over the book of giant maps that lay open upon the heavy tea table. The table, like the bureau and the chaise longue, like all the good furniture in the house, was an heirloom of her grandmother’s estate.
Getting no reaction, she picked up the magazine she had been reading and started to leaf through it once again. Less than a month old, the magazine was a gift from Irena Kuibysheva, who regularly supplied her with any light reading matter that her husband might bring back with him when he returned from his travels. Usually Irena Alexandrovna brought such things herself, but this time she had sent it via her maid, with the explanation that her mistress was indisposed and was not making house calls at present.
If she had not been so irritated by the Doctor’s tardiness, Nina Roshkovskaya would have found room in her heart to be concerned for her benefactress’s safety. Unlike some of the other wives who visited her, she found Irena Kuibysheva to be an agreeable companion and between the two women there existed, if not a closeness, then at least an amicable understanding. Once they were alone together, all Irena Alexandrovna’s brassiness disappeared and, safe in the knowledge that it would go no further she openly confessed her unhappiness. She was not the only woman to confide in Madame Roshkovskaya; many of Nina Vassilyevna’s visitors felt the same urge to bring their troubles to her and to ask her advice. It was something that exasperated her, but there seemed little she could do about it. As she had often remarked to her husband, it appeared that just as the most urgent jobs were given to the busiest person, so the problems and anxieties of her acquaintances were placed on the frailest of shoulders.
Listlessly, she turned the pages of the magazine. There was little there to claim her attention: an account of a ball given at Archduke Michael’s palace; a series of first night reviews of plays and ballets that she would never see in the capital that she would never visit. Articles on modern dress fashions copied from the Parisian designers of haute couture; costumes for women who could walk without the aid of sticks. Resting her head back on the pillows behind her, she let the magazine slip from her fingers. When it slid off her lap onto the floor, she did not trouble herself to try to pick it up again.
Hearing the magazine fall, Andrey Vladimovich looked up, then returned to his task. He knew better than to try to talk with his wife when she was in this mood. It was the same every time the Doct
or visited, for Nina did not bother to pretend any more that the old man’s ministrations served any practical purpose. There was simply nothing that could be done for her. Once, perhaps, they had shared a glimmer of hope: Tortsov had told them of clinical experiments that were being carried out in St. Petersburg but the results had been inconclusive and his wife had refused to be experimented on. That had been over a year ago. The most the Doctor could do now was to monitor her deterioration and prescribe increasingly stronger drugs to alleviate her pain. The reason for her agitation now was only that the delay in the Doctor’s arrival was prolonging her anticipation of the discomfort she would have to endure during his examination. They both knew that, once the Doctor had left his medicine and she had rested in her bedroom, his wife’s mood would lift and her good spirits would be restored.
He returned his perusal of the large green leather bound book of maps in front of him. Upon its cover was embossed the Imperial Insignia, showing it to be the 1900 library edition of the atlas that had been published to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Tsar’s accession to the throne. A gift from Nina on the occasion of his name day in that year, it was one of the few tangible links he had with the time they had shared before the disease had struck, and he treasured it as much for that as for the large plates of carefully engraved maps that described every part of the Russian Empire.
Yet, as with his own domestic situation, the maps had been surpassed by events. They were already out of date. They did not show, for example, the full extent of the railway constructed by Count Witte (if such an undertaking could be said to be the work of one man) that now linked West to East. He had drawn in the line in himself, annotating his symbols in the margin of the pages with a neatness and accuracy that did not disgrace the work of the imperial cartographers. Now he was occupied with repeating the exercise, this time sketching in the route of Baron Tol’s proposed railway eastward from Archangel. Momentarily distracted by the memory of his conversation with the three exiles the previous day, he turned his attention northwards and looked for the convoy’s final destination. Finding the approximate location for Obdorskoye he discovered that, as large as the scale of the map was, the cartographers had not deemed so small a settlement fit for inclusion. With a frown, he printed the word “OBDORSKOYE” in faint letters at what he judged to be the appropriate place, then sat back to admire his handiwork.