If any redeeming aspect could be found to being so suddenly discharged from his prestigious Guard Regiment, it was that Sergei would be under the command of the Cossack White General, whose bravery and elan he had so admired in the Balkans.
Yet, like the character in his condemned and belatedly censored book, Sergei wondered how he could possibly take up arms again. The thought of entering into battle sickened, revolted him. His stomach lurched at the very thought. He could not do it! He could never kill again . . . he would never kill again!
Desertion . . .
Once the idea began to form in his mind, it tried to obsess him beyond all reason.
It would not be too difficult to carry out!
He could take Anna with him. Tonight, perhaps! Dressed in country attire, under cover of darkness, they could take the train westward rather than south, slip out of the country, and live thereafter very happily in England. There he could write—military journals or fairy tales about princes and peasant girls!—and they could read Byron and Wordsworth together, and grow old in a small country cottage. All his dilemmas with his father, all the secrecy and uncertainty which had surrounded his relationship with his sister’s maid—everything would be solved at once. They would be free!
But was it too easy?
Sergei Viktorovich Fedorcenko might be an aristocratic dissident, but he was a noble one. And that nobility existed not merely by virtue of the blue blood of generations that flowed through his veins.
Sergei was far too much a man of honor to run away. He would face the consequences of what he had done squarely, like a man of principle, like a man of integrity. What kind of husband could he be to Anna if their marriage was rooted in the supreme act of cowardice—running away from his own fate in the dead of night! How would he be able to look anyone in the eye again . . . how would he be able to look himself in the eye again!
Moreover, although it would have been difficult to admit it, Sergei still desired his father’s approval too much to crush and humiliate him further. The book and the public reproach brought on by his reassignment would be belittling enough. But how could he add to the indignity by allowing his father to wake up and find his only son gone without a trace? Besides, running away would only confirm in Viktor’s mind what Sergei thought the man probably already believed about him, that he was an ill-conceived blight on the distinguished family name. The last thing Sergei wanted to do was to prove his father right.
Sergei knew he had to face what awaited him—destiny, fate, God’s will . . . or doom. But still he wondered if there might not be some other way, some alternative, some middle ground.
In the end, the thought of leaving Anna again, and his concern over her happiness, even more than his distaste for battle, compelled him to swallow his pride and make one final attempt at reprieve. If he was too proud to run, he was not too proud to make the effort to humble himself before the man who had, for better or worse, made him what he was.
Viktor received his son in the study.
It was appropriate that father and son met in a businesslike setting, Viktor’s large desk, like a strong battlement, separating them.
“Father, I ask only that you intercede with the tsar on my behalf,” said Sergei after opening formalities had been stiffly exchanged on both sides. He kept his tone steady and calm, all hint of pleading absent.
“You ask a great deal,” replied Viktor. Oddly, elder prince and young soldier sounded uncannily alike as they tried to mask all emotion in their voices.
“Do I?” Sergei did not care if his bitterness showed. “I forgot, I am only your son.”
Viktor winced. “I have already spoken to the tsar,” he said.
“On my behalf?” Sergei’s tone revealed a ray of hope. Had he misjudged his father? Had he already pleaded for his son? What was the result? Was the situation hopeless after all? Had the tsar spurned his longtime friend?
“His Majesty interrogated me about your activities,” Viktor replied in the same stoic tone. “Imagine my surprise when I learned, from the emperor no less, of my own son’s literary bent. In front of the tsar himself I had to confess my ignorance of your points of view. Here, I thought for the last year you had been off wasting your life away, when instead you were writing a book designed to humiliate the very man to whose service I have given my entire life.”
“That was never my intent, Father.”
“Perhaps not. But it surely has been the result. In any case, my mortification was all the greater in that I was the last to know.”
“I would have told you—”
“It is obvious why you chose to keep silent about your seditious, might I even call them treasonous writings.”
“Yes, Father, you have assumed correctly,” Sergei replied coldly. “I wanted to avoid a confrontation with you. It did me little good.”
“I am only surprised that you would have the nerve now to come and beg a favor of me.”
“I beg for nothing!” Sergei’s voice shook, his composure crumbling. He was not as experienced as his father in stoicism. “I was a fool to think I would get anything like mercy, much less forgiveness, from my own father.”
“I have not yet heard you ask for my forgiveness.”
“I suppose that is because I feel no remorse. I wrote nothing but the truth, at least as I saw it and felt it in my heart. If that is a crime in this country, then I deserve my punishment. If you read my words, I have little doubt you would agree with much of what I said. You were there—you saw the same things I did.”
Viktor was silent. Sergei’s words were beside the point. Both men knew he would never read the book.
“But one thing, Father,” Sergei added, his voice softening. “I should have told you what I was doing.”
“Yes, you should have.”
“I do regret my silence now. I am sorry.”
“I doubt that my knowing about it earlier would have avoided the confrontation anyway. We cannot seem to avoid such differences.”
Viktor paused. His expression revealed the barest hint of melancholy, though it would have been difficult to discern regret in his tone.
“The fact remains, Sergei,” he went on, “I cannot approach the tsar again regarding this matter. It is likely more rebellious literature has escaped imperial scrutiny, but seldom anything more personal. You must understand how deeply His Majesty was offended in that the book came from the hand of a family whose trust and loyalty he has always counted on. It was no less than a slap in the imperial face.”
“I did not intend it so.”
“Perhaps not. But that is how it was taken.”
“I suppose, then, it is fortunate you were not also punished.”
“It is.”
“I am sorry, Father, that you should have been thus affected by my views. But I cannot change how I feel.”
“I did not expect that you would.”
If only his father could for one moment let down the wall of his cool imperturbability. Anna had tried to assure Sergei that his father loved him, but all he could see at this moment was a solid wall of ice. Why could not his father unlock for a moment the heart of emotion deep within him? Why couldn’t he at least meet him halfway in this stumbling effort at reconciliation and understanding? Was it so impossible for the man to show even a hint of that love Anna said he supposedly felt?
Yet . . . Sergei too was hemmed in by a wall of silence. Whatever charges and questions he wanted to scream at his father, he could not.
“Then there is nothing more to say,” Sergei could only manage, everything else catching in the tight knot in his chest.
“Central Asia is not the end of the world, you know,” said Viktor.
Is this some inept attempt at appeasement? Sergei wondered. Or is he merely trying to assuage his own guilt by making light of the sentence?
“In the service of one’s country, a soldier is often called upon to do what might not be to his liking,” Viktor continued. “But I have no doubt as to your abil
ity to distinguish yourself there, and thus regain your commission and regiment.”
“You mean if I am a good child, the tsar may allow me back in the yard one day?”
“You need not be impudent, Sergei. It will only harm your position further.”
“From where I stand, it could hardly get worse,” snapped Sergei. “Though I could do better in trying to improve it by speaking to a stone wall!”
Sergei turned briskly to make his exit, but a sharp retort from the opposite side of the desk forced him to stop.
“I will not be spoken to in such a manner!” said Viktor, rising to his feet. It was the first show of emotion Sergei’s father had yet revealed.
Sergei opened his mouth to shout an angry rebuttal, but no words came. He had spoken as boldly, even disrespectfully, to his father as he had ever dared, and to further ignore years of conditioning would have been impossible for him. If he said anything more, the wounds might be fatal—if they were not already.
“I’m sorry, Father,” was all he said. By his tone it was impossible to tell how much he meant the words.
Sergei strode from the room in quick retreat.
6
Viktor slumped back in his chair the moment the door closed behind his son. All his carefully guarded military reserve fled from him in an instant.
It was always this way. No matter how hard he tried to communicate with Sergei, they always managed to part in anger.
He was reasonable enough to admit the fault was partially his. He could never seem to say what he wanted, or say it how he wanted to. And no matter how his words finally did come out, Sergei invariably took them wrong. He simply could not seem to win where Sergei was concerned.
Was it possible that now he had lost him altogether? He had finally come back after his year’s wanderings. As much as Viktor had been unable to demonstrate it, he had rejoiced in Sergei’s return. But this time, under the circumstances, it was entirely possible he had been driven away for good.
Viktor’s hope leaped when he heard the soft knock on his study door. Perhaps Sergei had a change of heart!
But it was only Natalia. Her delicate features were taut with strain. Viktor knew this was no frivolous visit.
“I just saw Sergei,” she said. “He said he asked you to speak to the tsar.”
“Yes. And I told him I have already spoken to him, but to no avail.”
“Viktor, I do not mean to contradict you, but when you told me of the incident, you said it was the tsar who spoke to you—that you made little argument.”
“Argue with the tsar, Natalia? Is that what you both expect me to do?”
“I never took you for a coward, Viktor.”
The prince’s eyebrows shot up. He had never heard such impertinence from his wife. Nor had he ever known her to come so quickly to her point. He was shocked but a little awestruck as well.
“Natalia, I could not have changed his mind even had I begged on hands and knees. He was deeply hurt and annoyed by the things our son wrote about the government and, by implication, about himself. Someone he had supposed a loyal subject. We are fortunate the whole family was not shipped off to Siberia.”
“Viktor, there must be something that can be done!”
“I fear not.”
“I almost lost him in one war. I do not think I could bear the possibility of losing him again.”
“Calm yourself, Natalia,” interposed Viktor firmly as if rebuking a child.
“I am desperate for him, Viktor. I will go to the emperor myself if I have to.”
“I believe you are making too much out of this.”
“Too much! With our son’s life at stake?”
“Sergei is not going to war. The troops are there mainly to keep peace. A few minor border skirmishes, nothing more.”
“I don’t care, Viktor.” For a brief moment Natalia took on some color and almost resembled her daughter. “It should at least bother you that he has been disgraced—for doing nothing more than putting his feelings on paper. Maybe the intelligentsia is right. It is a sorry country when a man cannot even do that.”
Good heavens! thought Viktor. Has the revolutionary fervor spread to my own placid wife?
“You don’t know what you are talking about, Natalia,” he said.
“Well, perhaps I don’t. I only know—”
Her voice suddenly broke and tears rose in her pale eyes. “I only know I cannot stand to see my son treated in this way. Even by you. It is all so unfair!”
The tears began to flow freely, and great helpless sobs broke from her as she stood before him in all her emotional confusion and vulnerability.
As usual, Viktor had not the slightest idea what to do. He never did when his wife took on like this. At length, he rose, and in a gesture almost resembling sensitivity, left the protection of his desk and walked to his wife, laying a hand on her trembling shoulder.
“Natalia, dear . . .” he said gently. “I do not like to see this all happen to our son any more than you do. But what he did was wrong.”
“Should he have to pay such a price for a small mistake?” sobbed the princess.
“I don’t know . . . publishing a book hardly seems a small matter.” Even as he said the words, his tone revealed the surfacing of many of Viktor’s own repressed uncertainties.
“Please, Viktor! I beg you . . . do something to help him!”
He had never been much good at refusing his wife anything—especially when she was in tears.
“I will try,” he said.
“Oh, thank you, Viktor!” She took his hand in hers and gratefully kissed it. “You will never regret this, Viktor.”
“Even if I do, I suppose it must be done,” sighed Viktor.
“Will you tell Sergei? It will make him so happy.”
“I am sure he is gone by now.”
“I asked him to wait.” Natalia sniffed, then dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief. “I believe I saw him walking toward the garden.”
“Why raise his hopes?” said Viktor. It was a mere excuse. He did not much relish the idea of seeing his son again so soon.
“He is terribly distraught, Viktor. He needs to know you have changed your mind.”
“Why don’t you tell him?”
“It must come from you, Viktor.”
The prince shrugged in defeat. He supposed his wife was smarter than anyone gave her credit for. At least she knew how to get her way with him. Perhaps more of Katrina’s high color came from beneath her mother’s usually pale skin than people realized.
7
Sergei had sent a message for Anna to meet him in the garden. She already knew of the reassignment. He had hoped to tell her of his success with his father. He should have known better!
He immediately took her in his arms. Anna did not pull back. She sensed that it must have gone badly with his father, that the rift between them had widened. She knew how deeply hurt and crushed he must feel by yet another rejection. So she held him too, as tightly as she could. And as she let him talk, although she could not see his face, she could hear the tears in his voice.
“Anna, I’ve decided to leave the country,” he said with more desperation than resolve. “I cannot serve a nation I no longer believe in.”
“Sergei,” she said softly, “don’t talk that way.”
“I mean it.”
“But you are distraught now. I’m sure you will feel differently in another day or two.”
“No, Anna. I am through with it all—through with fruitlessly trying to please my father and my emperor and . . . everyone but myself. Now it is our turn, Anna—our turn to be happy. I will not say goodbye to you again. I want you to come with me! We will leave tonight.”
“Sergei . . . I don’t know,” Anna said hesitantly.
“I know it is sudden, but it is the only way!”
“But, Sergei . . . you could never be happy that way. It would eat away at you that you had left Russia in disgrace.”
“That might ha
ve been true at one time, but no longer.”
“I couldn’t let you do it, Sergei. Not because I am afraid for myself. I would go with you anywhere. But I know the decision would only torment you in the end.”
“I tell you, I am through with it all! I spit in the faces of all those who oppose me.”
“In my face also, Sergei?”
“What are you saying?” He let go of her and turned away. “I had hoped you would want to be with me, Anna. Are you saying that you oppose me too, that you take my father’s side?” His voice was cold, as it had never before been with her.
“Of course I don’t oppose you, in the way of who you are and what you stand for. And I do want to be with you! But not like this.”
She walked around to face him. “I only oppose your wanting to flee in the middle of the night. Nothing more. You would be miserable if you did such a thing. We would both be miserable. It would be no way to begin our life together.”
He turned away again and covered his face with his hands. A long silence followed.
“Always the voice of reason, aren’t you, Anna?” he sighed at length. He shook his head sadly. “Sometimes I hate reason altogether!”
She lifted his trembling hands from in front of his face and brought them to her lips. “I’m sure the assignment in the south is a temporary one,” she said. “It is the best way, Sergei.”
A long, thoughtful silence followed.
“You are right,” he replied morosely at length. “I suppose I knew it all along.” He embraced her once more. “But how can I bear to leave you again?”
“It will not be for long.”
“Perhaps my father is right when he says I will be able to win back my favor.”
“In that I do agree with him!” Anna smiled.
Sergei chuckled. “It is not easy to admit he is right.”
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