The Russians Collection

by Michael Phillips

  “And no less than the tsar himself is the blame for that flaw. Nicholas I set the precedent on that one.”

  “Really? This is news to me, but then history has not exactly been my forte, either. You must tell me how this came to be.”

  “My father loves that story. It seems old Nick One decided his advisors were more interested in personal profit than the welfare of the state, so when he was consulted about the proposed route for the St. Petersburg to Moscow line, he took a ruler and drew a straight line between the capital and Moscow. And, because the ruler’s whim reigns supreme, that is just how it was built—straight as a plumb line. Only the town of Tver lies on the line, and that by sheer chance.”

  “Most interesting.”

  Daniel couldn’t tell if the count was truly interested or if he was simply as bored as Daniel. But Daniel decided that as employer he would exercise his own prerogative of authority—in the true Russian style!—by keeping up the conversation. He needed the distraction.

  “I understand that I’d better brace myself for the culture shock of a totalitarian form of government. I would imagine that even a foreigner might be scrutinized for voicing anti-government sentiments. My father’s parting words were to warn me to be careful. He said they couldn’t imprison me for it, but they could deport me, or . . . I don’t know what else.”

  “Fear not, Daniel! Boiling in oil is outmoded, even in Russia! You don’t have as much to fear as the Russian citizens themselves. I had a dear friend who was exiled simply for writing a book that criticized the tsar.”

  “As a writer myself, I can empathize with him. And I suppose I could also be caught in the web of state censorship. But I won’t compromise the truth, even if it means a trip to Siberia.”

  Dmitri chuckled benignly. “Ah, the idealism of youth! Keep it as long as you can, Daniel.”

  Daniel shrugged. He had no plans on any extended stay in the far east of the Russian territories. There were ways of getting the truth out even if one had to submit to censors; he just had to be more inventive than they were. This job was going to be a challenge in more ways than one.

  Near the German frontier, at Verzhbolovo, they had to change trains before progressing into Russian domain because of the difference in track gauge. Russian rails were built at a different width than European rails because, Daniel had learned from his father, of a persistent Russian fear of invasion.

  Here he met with his first taste of the police state. Police inspectors carefully examined every passport and plied every passenger with a barrage of questions: What destination? Where are you staying? Name and address of hotel? Occupation? and many more.

  When the train finally did heave forward, it labored as if time were, indeed, an unknown commodity. But the meandering pace gave Daniel ample time to begin to absorb this enigmatic country. His first impressions were shielded at first by the thick curtain of forest that shrouded the railway. He remembered the many stories his father had to tell about the building of the Union Pacific Railroad over the uninhabited plains. But Russia, with all its provinces, was well over twice the size of the United States! When he thought of the task of uniting the nation with railroads, the comparison was staggering.

  Then with the abruptness of an unexpected blow, the terrain opened out into the swampy plain where the country’s capital, St. Petersburg, stood, now covered with snow.

  The beauty of this city, built by Peter the Great to emulate the West, was for the moment lost on Daniel as his whirling senses were overwhelmed with a single thought: I have arrived!

  He felt like a soldier engaging in combat for the first time, knowing that only moments away with the first clash of steel, his true mettle would be revealed. He was poised, he was certain, on the first great battlefield of his life.

  23

  There was little about the Christmas season to recommend itself to a man like Cyril Vlasenko except, perhaps, that it ushered in the St. Petersburg social season. But his wife had dragged him away from the capital to spend the holiday on their country estate. He had good reason to be especially morose and sour this particular Christmas.

  If one must get away from the city, Vlasenko thought bitterly to himself, at least one should be able to go to the Crimea, where the winters are not so harsh. But, of course, the Vlasenkos had no Crimean estate.

  So, here he was languishing away in this forsaken place, elbow deep in snow and ice. Their only son had just returned from touring Europe, so his wife had wanted a little family reunion.

  “Why couldn’t we have it in the city?” Cyril asked.

  “Oh, it would be so much more nostalgic to have it in the house where he grew up,” she replied.

  From the time he was eight, the boy had spent all his years in boarding schools, and when he had come home, it had almost always been to some other place. Vlasenko himself had spent as little time as possible in the Akulin region over the years. But occasionally the wife must be indulged, even if her demands were completely ridiculous. They would get back to St. Petersburg, she said, soon enough to take in some of the social season. Vlasenko was not appeased. Now that he was accepted in some of the best social circles, society was everything to him.

  There was one redeeming factor in this excursion to the country. His wife had planned a gala soiree on Christmas Eve. A hundred guests had been invited—all the local gentry, and gentry and officials from as far away as Pskov. He had spent hundreds, perhaps thousands, of rubles on the event. The house looked almost impressive with huge bouquets of flowers shipped in from the south, a twenty-foot Christmas tree, and food fine enough for a king, or even a tsar. He had spared nothing to make a grand show of it. And, from his vantage point at the head of the main banquet table, he decided he had succeeded.

  The mayor of Pskov was there, along with the governor-general of the district. In the past, only a fraction of these people would have condescended to darken his door. But, since his old school friend Dmitri Sipiagin had been elevated to Minister of the Interior, with the resignation of that bleeding-heart Goremykin, Vlasenko had become an important man in the capital. Sipiagin had made Vlasenko his first assistant, and now no one dared to turn down his invitations. He had become a vital stepping stone, a person whose favor was to be curried by men looking for advancement. The feeling was enormously satisfying!

  His son was another matter. Vlasenko was not in the least satisfied with how he had turned out. Vlasenko wondered how they could be of the same blood. He was a pale, pasty-looking boy, and even at twenty-two he still could not induce more than a few paltry tufts of a beard to grow on his plain, round, unhandsome face. After years of the best schools, and thousands of rubles poured into an education and an aristocratic upbringing, young Karl Cyrilovich had grown into a dull and utterly spineless creature. A mild club foot resulting in a slight limp had rendered him unfit for military service—a far greater blow to the father than to the son.

  Karl still could have made something of himself. But he had scored consistently mediocre marks in school, and he had no drive or ambition. But even Karl realized he must make some career for himself—at least that is what must have spurred his newest occupational choice—the latest of many. He had told his parents just before the party that he wanted to be a doctor.

  His mother was thrilled, but Vlasenko was appalled. What kind of puerile occupation was that? It was for do-gooders and pushovers. A real man didn’t spend his life giving pills to pampered ladies. And what was especially appalling about Karl’s decision was that he had absolutely no aptitude for such a career. He had failed miserably in the sciences in school. How did he expect to even get into medical school, much less remain? Vlasenko had no doubt how he hoped to do it—he expected his father to bribe and cajole officials, as he had done all the boy’s life.

  But perhaps there was something to the idea after all. Karl was apparently not intellectually equipped to get ahead any other way, and he was certainly not physically fit for many other occupations. Maybe this was just the tic
ket.

  Still, Vlasenko continued to harbor hope that he might somehow turn his son into a man in his own right. He thought a woman might help, but Karl, probably because of his handicap, was extremely reserved around females. Vlasenko had heard from Karl’s companions on the tour that Karl had shied away from all the foreign women as well. They had even tried to take him to a brothel without success.

  Then Vlasenko began to consider the possibility of making use of one of the local peasant girls. Society women could be intimidating, especially to a poltroon like Karl. But he could hardly feel overwhelmed by a plain country bumpkin. Once he was initiated, as it were, once he saw he could have some success, and that being a cripple didn’t necessarily emasculate him, he could move on to more fertile pastures. Hopefully, making a good marriage would be his salvation.

  Vlasenko, never one to pass a prime opportunity, decided to use his wife’s Christmas event to get some of the peasants into the house and have a look at the wares. One dark-haired girl serving dinner caught his eye immediately. Now, if a man couldn’t respond to a pretty little thing like that, he was no man at all.

  Even better, the girl was the granddaughter of that arrogant peasant, Burenin. That ought to put the old moujik in his place. However, down deep Vlasenko believed, along with countless others of the gentry, that a peasant girl ought to feel honored to be chosen to service a gentleman.

  When dinner was over and the guests had filtered out of the dining room to hear the harpist Madame Vlasenko had engaged for the evening, Vlasenko tarried in the dining room where the girls were clearing the table. Unobtrusively, he drew the girl aside.

  “I noticed your work tonight, girl,” he said. “You acquitted yourself well.”

  “Thank you, Your Excellency.”

  “What is your name?”

  “Mariana Sergeievna.”

  “I wish you to stay here tonight. There is other work I need to have done. You will be paid extra.”

  Mariana hesitated a moment before she found the courage to make a mild protest. “Your Excellency, my family expects me to attend Midnight Mass with them. We were told that we would be done in time.”

  Her response irked Vlasenko, reminding him of old man Burenin’s arrogance. “Are the Burenins so wealthy they can refuse a few extra kopecks?” he asked caustically. “Are they so secure in their position they have the nerve to reject their master’s requests?”

  The implication of his words was clear, and the girl, young and innocent as she was, would not dare place her family in jeopardy by refusing.

  “I—I will stay, Your Excellency. But may I send home a message explaining my absence?”

  “Yes, of course.” He certainly couldn’t have the family snooping around looking for the girl, now could he? “Finish your work here, and do whatever else the cook tells you. I will send for you when I return from Mass tonight.”

  “You, sir?”

  “It’s not kitchen work I have for you. Something else . . . one of the other servants will instruct you. You just be ready when I call, you hear?”

  “Yes, Your Excellency.”

  “All right, be off with you then.”

  She bowed slightly, a graceful attempt for a peasant, then backed away as quickly as she could. Vlasenko remained to watch her for a moment, then turned and rejoined his guests.

  24

  Stephan was working in the stables which, with so many guests at the Vlasenko estate, was a busy place indeed. It was bitterly cold, and when Mariana found him a few minutes after her conversation with Count Vlasenko, he was standing with several other workers around an iron drum in which a fire had been built to ward off the frigid winter night.

  Weaving this way and that among the many carriages and sleighs, Mariana made her way toward Stephan. He smiled brightly at first sight of her; then his cheerful expression dimmed when he noted the more serious one she wore.

  “Is everything all right, Mariana?”

  “Oh, I suppose.” She held her gloved hands over the fire and rubbed them together. “It’s cold out here, but I think I’d rather be here than inside.”

  “Are you sure nothing’s wrong?”

  “Can you come away from here for a minute?”

  “Yes, of course. We’re just waiting around now until the guests are ready to leave for Mass.” He took her arm in his and led her back through the maze of vehicles, pausing before a particularly well-appointed brougham carriage. Bowing gallantly, he opened the door and said, “If you will, madam!” He grinned.

  “Is it all right?”

  “Who will know? It is warm and comfortable—of course it ought to be, since it belongs to the governor-general.”

  “Oh, Stephan!”

  Mariana climbed inside and gazed with awe at the plush interior. Wine red velvet drapes hung from the windows and lined the entire inside. The seats were of leather, covered with sheepskin cushions, and thick woolen rugs to cover the passengers were folded to one side. She ran her hand along the soft velvet and, without thinking, unfolded one of the rugs and spread it across her lap and Stephan’s.

  “I have not been this warm in months,” she said, snuggling closer to Stephan.

  “Yes, imagine how many peasant lives a few of these rugs might save this winter, and how many peasants had to break their backs to put such warmth in the governor’s coach.”

  “Oh, Stephan, don’t talk politics now. Let’s just enjoy this.”

  “You didn’t seem in a state to enjoy anything a few minutes ago.”

  “Yes, that!” Mariana sighed as she remembered what had brought her out to the stables. “I have to stay here at the estate, probably until tomorrow. The count has more work for me to do.”

  “More work? But it’s Christmas Eve, and there is Mass to attend. It is a time to spend with your family—and me. He can’t do that!”

  “Well, he has, and I can’t very well refuse. You know the barin has never liked my grandfather, and I am afraid if I refuse, he will make things difficult for him.”

  “This is outrageous!” Stephan’s face turned white as all his usual intensity combined with the passionate side of his nature. “You are not a serf to have to grovel before his whims. You are free, and you have a right to refuse!”

  “Calm down, please, Stephan! You will be heard and we’ll get in trouble. It’s just a little work, and he is going to pay me extra; there is no need to make trouble over it—”

  “That is why change is so sluggish in Russia. No one wants to make trouble. Everyone is afraid—”

  “I am not afraid!” snapped Mariana defensively. “And if it were just me, I’d tell that Count Vlasenko just what I thought. But I won’t get my family in trouble. And maybe you should think of such things yourself.”

  “There has to come a time when we are willing to throw aside such cautions, Mariana. We all must be ready to take risks.”

  “Well, now is not the time.”

  She spoke with such flat resolution that Stephan had no ready response. They fell silent for a moment. Finally Mariana turned to him and smiled.

  “I am sorry for shouting at you.”

  “It is my fault,” said Stephan. “I should know you better than to say you don’t care and are afraid. But I don’t like to see those I love being so used by a man like Vlasenko.”

  “It will be all right. It is only one evening of work. By next week the Vlasenkos will return to St. Petersburg. No harm done.”

  “What kind of work can it be that you must stay late and miss Mass? Why can’t you just come back in the morning?”

  “The housekeeper said they probably want some extra help tonight to help get the overnight guests settled in. Thirty or forty people live too far away to return to their homes after Mass. I expect it will be chaotic here until they are all settled. You know, wanting extra blankets, a midnight snack, or a washbasin, or whatever.”

  “Your parents will be disappointed.”

  “Will you please stop there on your way home to tell th
em?”

  He nodded reluctantly.

  “Thank you, Stephan. Now I must return.” She lifted the rug from her lap and folded it while Stephan opened the door and climbed out of the carriage. As he took her hand to help her out, she paused and quickly, almost surreptitiously, kissed him on the lips.

  He was obviously caught by surprise and simply stared dumbly. A moment passed before he finally found his voice. But when he opened his mouth to speak, another voice interrupted harshly.

  “There you are, Kaminsky. What are you doing with that coach?”

  “I . . . I—”

  But the head groom didn’t give him a chance to reply. “Get on with you, now, before you catch it good.”

  Stephan looked from the groom to Mariana.

  “Goodbye, Stephan. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  He nodded and tried to smile in spite of the groom’s disapproving scowl. Mariana stepped lightly from the coach and hurried away, glancing once over her shoulder to make sure Stephan wasn’t in too much trouble. Stephan and the groom were already walking away, involved in a conversation that appeared fairly congenial. Satisfied, she returned to the house.

  25

  By the time Midnight Mass was over, Cyril was in high spirits indeed. The governor-general had been playing up to him all evening, doing everything he could to win Cyril’s favor short of actually fawning. Cyril was quite certain, however, that if given half a chance the governor would have done that also. But Cyril decided to be generous and allowed the man to state his case before it went that far. The fellow felt his talents exceeded the position he now occupied and that his years of experience in the provinces had made him a prime candidate for a ministry position in the capital. Cyril let the man go on for half an hour, sniveling and groveling, before he said he’d speak to Count Sipiagin of him.