The Russians Collection

by Michael Phillips

  And yet would the embarrassment be worse than facing Misha on the night after their wedding, having to pretend to him on their first night together that all was well, having to hide from him the inner conflicts of doubt that swirled within her? And perhaps having to hide them from him all their days and years together?

  Nothing, Anna concluded, would be worse than that.

  She could not do that to Misha. She could not do that to herself. She did care far too much for him to enter into a marriage of duplicity.

  If she was to marry him, it would be with her whole self. Whether it took months, or even years, before the doubts were removed, she must be in no more a hurry than God was. All the questions, especially those about Sergei, must be put to rest before she could take such an important step.

  She had no choice if she wanted to be true to her convictions and to herself. She would have to endure the mortification and shame.

  Anna knew what she must do.

  83

  The day after the canceled wedding dawned bright, crisp, and clear. A warming had set in during the night that would not send the frost away permanently, but which, for several days, would give welcome impetus to the approaching arrival of summer.

  Anna lay awake long after slumber had overtaken the rest of the household, reliving in her mind the events of the day. The dread with which she had anticipated it had not even been as bad as having to carry out her resolve. There had been such to-do about everything, such fuss, such talk, so many questions.

  The only two persons whom she knew really understood were her father and Misha. Both had looked deeply into her eyes, then had smiled and conveyed a depth of respect for her courage to do what she had done. Whatever kind of love it was she bore for Misha—whether that of a brother and friend, or someday a husband—his handling of the untoward affair only made that love deeper and richer. He took a great share of the responsibility upon his own shoulders, spent the entire day soothing and explaining and making new arrangements, all so that the brunt of the awkwardness would not have to be borne by Anna alone. Everything about the day confirmed in everyone’s mind what manner of fiber the Cossack was made of. It made Anna’s decision both easier and harder to carry out.

  And yet as she had gone to sleep that night, she sensed a lightening of the tension of uncertainty. She had been carrying it for months, but had only the night before become conscious of it. She slept soundly, and awoke more fresh and optimistic than she had felt in a long while. What the future held, she did not know. But as she walked outside on the new morning and breathed deeply of the unseasonably warm air, her spirit felt like smiling.

  It had been difficult yesterday. Awfully so! She never wanted to face something like that again as long as she lived!

  But now she felt right inside again . . . right with herself, right with God, even right with Misha. They had been such friends before, like brother and sister. Their engagement had subtly changed everything, although neither had spoken of it. Now, Anna hoped, they would be free to be the friends they had been before.

  She also felt right about the future. Now God could do whatever He had planned for her. She would be in no hurry.

  Anna walked outside. It was yet early, though daylight was fully abroad over the land. She walked toward the willow, breathing in deep draughts of the fragrant air—the aromas of wet earth and growing things and life’s renewal . . . the odors of hope and new birth.

  God, oh God, she prayed silently, what do you have for me? What is it you want to teach me, what do you want me to learn from this? Show me, Father, what you would have me do. Make straight the paths of my life, my future. If I am to raise Mariana alone, if I am to return one day to St. Petersburg to serve her father, if I am to marry . . . guide my steps, Lord. Let me not stray the tiniest distance from your hand as you walk beside me. Make clear to the eyes of my heart and my understanding what is your will for me. Do not let me do what my own mind tells me would be best, but let me only seek what YOU would have for me.

  Anna stopped, then sighed deeply. There was another besides Misha in her heart, one whose memory she could never erase. And she knew he was at root the cause of her lingering doubts. She had been so sure of his rightness! She could not take hold of one hand before letting go of the other.

  And, Lord, she went on, give me some sign in the matter of Princess Katrina’s brother. Let me not live forever in doubt. If he is dead . . .

  She could not complete the sentence, even in her silent prayers. A tear formed in her eye and she sent her hand unconsciously after it.

  She walked on and sat down with her back to the tree. For more than an hour she sat, alone with melancholy, nostalgic, dreamy, prayerful thoughts of the man whose eyes she saw reflected in the innocent gaze of a tiny child.

  84

  As the day wore on, a thick sultriness seemed to descend upon Katyk. The sky was yet clear, but it felt like a storm. In his home, Reb Plotnick stirred uneasily. There was not a trace of wind. Yet something was at hand.

  Misha arrived midway through the morning. He had put Polya, Olga, and Mrs. Remington on the train back to St. Petersburg, he said, and would himself return tomorrow, once he was assured all was well with Anna and her family. He commented on the peculiar feel in the air as well.

  The stillness of the spring day seemed too full. Misha came upon Yevno early in the afternoon, standing beside the door of the barn, glancing with an almost bewildered expression this way and that, as if expecting something. Misha shielded his eyes with his hand and followed Yevno’s gaze into the distance. But there was nothing to be seen.

  An empty unsettledness gradually gave way to a vague sense of anticipation, which led to expectation. Before the day was out, Yevno finally declared, storm clouds would appear in the north and a fierce wind would kick up. There could be no other explanation.

  Anna was not so sure the atmosphere was carrying a spring storm toward them, although she had felt the air heavy with premonitions since her time of thought and prayer at the willow tree. As the day had progressed, she had unconsciously begun walking with lighter step. Without even being aware of it, her heart had started to beat faster, and her lips began quietly humming long-forgotten melodies.

  Even the children seemed restless. By the late afternoon all of Katyk had begun to share it. Anna became more and more agitated. Misha was preparing to leave. She did not know when she would see him again. Perhaps that was the cause for her disquiet.

  She walked outside. There was her father, standing with his hand shading his eyes, gazing toward the southeast. She walked toward him.

  A sound of plodding footsteps running toward them turned both of their faces toward the village. There was young Paplanovich hastening toward them, a boy of twelve who lived next to the tavern. He ran straight to Yevno, shouting something Anna could not make out at first.

  “They told me to get you, Yevno Pavlovich. They said he has come back!”

  “Who told you?” said Yevno.

  “The men at the tavern. They said for you to come!”

  “Who has come back?”

  “The man . . . the man from St. Petersburg! You must come!”

  Yevno began to follow as Anna approached.

  “It seems your baby’s father has returned at last,” said Yevno to her. “Paplanovich says he is in the village.”

  “The count?” said Anna, glancing toward the buildings in the distance.

  Whatever her father or young Paplanovich said in answer, Anna heard nothing of it. Suddenly she was running toward the village, strides ahead of either the boy or the old man behind her. The figure on horseback in the distance was small. But she knew Dmitri well enough to recognize in an instant that the regal bearing could not be his any more than it could be any promieshik for many versts around Katyk!

  Her heart beat wildly within her. Tears streamed down her face.

  How could it be? But with every step she knew it could be no other! The horse was plainly visible now, galloping towa
rd her, clumps of dirt flying into the air behind it. On its back the princely rider wielded the reins as he had once swung a great scythe across the very field through which he now flew.

  Even as Anna ran hysterically, joyously, laughing, and sobbing straight toward them, he reined the huge animal in amid a whinnying commotion of dust and hooves and rearing and snorting.

  He was off the beast even before the four wild, skittish legs were stilled, taking three giant strides before scooping her into his arms. At the touch of the face he had dreamed of night and day against his own cheek, suddenly the floodwaters of tears were released and he wept with joy.

  “Sergei . . . Sergei!” Anna cried, tears flowing without restraint. He held her to him, his chest heaving with great sobs of healing, deliverance, and love.

  “Oh, Anna,” he whispered into her ear at length, “how I love you!”

  Time seemed to stand still for the two reunited lovers as they stood blissfully in each other’s arms. All the hundreds of questions would come later. For these few precious moments, there was nothing else in the universe than to drink in the glorious mere presence of the other. What were words alongside the yearned-for, dreamed-of embrace?

  Thus they stood, eyes closed, still breathing heavily from the exertion, weeping freely, unconscious even of Yevno as his lumbering gait caught up with his daughter, unconscious of the cottage now emptying of its inhabitants, all now shouting and running toward them, unaware of Yevno’s boisterous welcome to the nobleman he had once considered his friend and to whom he had agreed to give his daughter’s hand.

  Gradually sounds began to filter into Anna’s and Sergei’s ears. The rest of the world beckoned. They could not ignore it forever.

  Slowly, reluctantly they fell apart, pausing just long enough to hold each other’s eyes for a moment—a gaze which, like the embrace, said everything.

  Then came the voices, the running feet, Yevno’s handshake and slap on the back, Sophia’s tears, Anna’s laughter and more crying, and Sergei’s attempted answers to the fast-flowing questions from the children.

  Last of all, behind the others, walked Misha. He approached Sergei. Their eyes met, then the handshake, an embrace. Misha stepped back. There were tears in his eyes—not tears of loss, but rather of love.

  “Welcome home, my friend,” he said in a soft and somewhat husky voice. “Your Anna, as you see, is well. I pray I have been faithful to you in my care for her.”

  “I’m sure you have been,” replied Sergei.

  “She will tell you all,” rejoined Misha.

  He turned toward Anna, embraced her warmly, then took her hand and placed it in Sergei’s. “Anna,” he said, “you are as fine a woman as it has been my privilege to know. And now . . . I give you your prince.”

  85

  Misha returned to Pskov the same day, and to St. Petersburg the next. If he bore any regrets, it was that his love for Anna had come too late. But for her and her prince, he had only the deepest approbation, knowing true love when he saw it, and glad that dear Anna had found hers. He was honored that her sisterly affection for him was as strong as ever, and he was content to be as her brother and to remain her dearest friend. As for Sergei, Misha counted him as friend and brother also, and would do so all their lives.

  Sergei took up immediate lodgings in his former quarters in the barn. Straw had never felt so soft or the smell of hay and cow flesh so sweet. He was thin, and on the whole fit, though his complete health had not yet quite returned. More than a year of constant travel to Siberia and back had clearly taxed him heavily. He did little for a week other than eat and sleep and drink tea by the gallon. Sophia tended him like a mother caring for her own, and he obeyed her every whim like a compliant son, casting Anna or Yevno a wink every now and then to say he was only going along with the fuss for Sophia’s sake. Anna’s only frustration was that she wanted to have him all to herself for a hundred or two hundred hours so that she could tell him everything she had thought and felt in the nearly two years since she had seen him!

  It all had to come out in pieces, however. Gradually his strength returned, the flesh between his skin and bone thickened, and the fiber of his muscles again became taut. He took to helping Yevno where he could, and walks with Anna became longer and more frequent.

  Sergei grieved for his sister and blew up at his best friend’s irresponsibility, but in the end wept for them both.

  He doted on his infant niece, a look of wistful longing in his eyes when he gazed at her. Anna was gentle in telling him of his mother’s accident and the effect it had on his father. Sergei was quiet, and the sadness he felt seemed genuine and healthy. A remarkable change seemed to have taken place in him; Anna had noticed it almost from the first moment. He was a full-grown man now. His face and eyes carried a settled look. All the old acrimony was gone. When speaking of his father, his tone was deeply filled with compassion rather than bitterness, and he seemed anxious to reconcile with him. He was quieter, and appeared at peace with himself.

  There was more of a change about Sergei than mere maturity could account for. A faraway look would come over him, and it was clear he was reliving some portion of his recent sojourn. Anna knew he would tell her in his own time. Until then, she waited. It was enough just to have him again.

  Anna had changed, too. She was no more a child, but a lovely woman, delicate yet firm and resolved, graceful yet strong. Curiously, she reminded Sergei of Katrina, a fact which was all the more evident whenever she held his little niece in the crook of her arm. More than once, when the mood turned light and gay, they reminded each other of their first day together on the shores of the frozen Neva. But as much as their shared love brought a bounce to their steps, these were days filled with as much melancholy as joy. There was much to be decided. And considering his father’s condition, Sergei wrestled with the new dilemma of his duty to step forward and assume the mantle of leadership in his family.

  Unfortunately, to do so would be no simple matter. It could endanger them all as much as Basil Anickin’s vendetta against them. But whatever he did about his father, Sergei knew he had to speak as soon as possible with Dmitri. They were now related by marriage if not by blood, and his responsibility extended as much to little Mariana and the House of Remizov as it did to the House of Fedorcenko.

  How to live out that responsibility was a question that contained enormous practical difficulties. The predicament of his situation was such that, Sergei now had to admit to himself, might even change everything with Anna.

  “Nothing can alter how I feel about you, Sergei Viktorovich,” said Anna one evening as they walked along through the fields.

  “But don’t you understand, Anna,” he replied. “It is now even worse than when I left before. Now I am a fugitive, an escaped criminal.” He touched the puckered scar on his forehead where his prisoner’s tattoo had been removed. “If I am found, in all likelihood I will be shot.”

  “Sergei, please, don’t speak of such things!”

  “But how can you marry me, knowing that for the rest of my life this cloud will hang over us?”

  “I would marry you if only for a day to be considered your wife,” said Anna. “We will pray that our God will show us what to do. Perhaps someday you will be pardoned. If now you told me you wanted to leave the country, I would not oppose you as I did before, but only hope you wanted me to go with you.”

  “Hope, Anna? Of course I would want you to go with me! But there is also Mariana’s future to consider, and the promise you made my sister . . . and my father.”

  “God will show us what is to be done. I am only so happy that you are here to decide things. It was so awkward suddenly finding myself in the position of making decisions for two noble houses, and caring for a newborn princess, when I was but a lowly peasant maid.”

  “You were never merely a peasant maid, Anna Yevnovna,” said Sergei, smiling. “I saw more in your bearing from the first moment I laid eyes on you. And you will soon be the wife of a prince.”<
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  “Oh, Sergei, I can hardly believe you are really here! Are we finally going to be married, and never have to part again?”

  “Yes, Anna. I promise it this time. You will be the wife of Sergei Viktorovich Fedorcenko, even if I have to change my name and live in hiding. Even if no one ever knows, you will be the wife of a prince!”

  “You make me so happy!”

  “I want to spend the rest of my life making you happy, Anna, love of my heart. And speaking of promises, that is another reason I must return to St. Petersburg soon—besides speaking to Father and Mrs. Remington and setting the house in order and finding Dmitri and knocking some sense into that skull of his.”

  “What other reason?”

  “A promise I made you before I left.”

  The look of confusion on Anna’s face made Sergei laugh.

  “Don’t you remember—the lapis cross. I promised you I would place it back into your hand when I returned. But as you see, I do not have it.”

  “Where is it?” asked Anna.

  “After my trial, when I was convicted, I gave a small package to my father to take home for safekeeping. I knew it would be stolen before I was halfway to Siberia if I tried to take it with me. If what you say of his condition is true, he may remember nothing of it, but I am certain it will be somewhere in the house. And I fully intend to carry out my promise!”

  “You will be careful when you go?” said Anna.

  “I will take every precaution,” insisted Sergei. “I will wear a disguise so that no one will know me—Basil Anickin, Cyril Vlasenko, not even my father himself. But I doubt the house is being watched. I’m certain word of my escape was followed by word of my death. No one returns from Siberia through winter. But to be safe, I will go to Dmitri’s first.”

  “How did you stay alive and make it all this way, Sergei? You still have not told me of your journey. There is a difference in you, and I want to know of it.”