One Dragon's Dream

by Catrin Collier

  The headstone he’d paid for had worn well. He ran his fingers over the Hebrew lettering, first his father’s name, Nathan Kharber, and below it his mother’s, Ruth Kharber. The day of her death was the same as his sister’s birth. After his mother had drawn her last breath, his father lost all interest in life. When his shell had died from pneumonia six years later, the carpenter’s only thought, even in delirium, was of being reunited with his wife.

  The white marble pebble he’d placed on the memorial the day he’d left for Paris was still balanced on the grave. He picked it up and gazed at the array that had been placed alongside it since. Tributes from visitors, who’d left stones in the time-honoured tradition to show people had passed, stopped, and prayed for the souls of Nathan and Ruth, taking a moment from their lives to remember his parents.

  He removed his hat and bowed his head. ‘I’m home, Papa. Nothing is as I expected although I am finally a doctor. I returned intending to set up practice so I could earn enough to take care of Uncle Asher and Aunt Leah in their old age to repay them for caring for Ruth. But I work as you did, as a carpenter. All that studying was for nothing. Even worse, Ruth refuses to marry Abraham Goldberg. The son of the wealthiest man in the shtetl … I don’t know what to do …’

  ‘You’ll do what our people have always done, my boy. Wait and hope that something good will come along to end your troubles.’

  His uncle and aunt stood behind him.

  Asher beamed. ‘Yelena Razin has sent for you. Her husband Pavlo has been injured in an accident in the mine.’

  ‘Make him well again and you will have your practice as a doctor,’ Leah added.

  Nathan’s spirits rose along with excitement at the prospect of his first non-Jewish patient. ‘I’ll get my bag.’

  ‘Hurry,’ Asher advised. ‘The messenger has brought a horse for you.’

  ‘Nathan … thank God, you’re still here.’ Breathless Ruth ran through the gate, her friends Miriam and Rivka close on her heels.

  ‘Noise in the cemetery …’

  Ruth cut her uncle short. ‘Miriam said Yelena Razin sent for you. Don’t go.’

  ‘I have to. I’ve sworn an oath to heal the sick wherever and however I can.’

  ‘Praskovia gave the boy who brought the message a note for me. Her father is dying. If he breathes his last after being treated by you the Cossacks will blame you.’

  ‘Ruth is right,’ Leah began to tremble. ‘The Cossacks hate us. If Pavlo dies after you’ve seen him, the Cossacks will bring torches to burn down the shtetl …’

  ‘I’m a doctor. I’ve been sent for. I have to go.’ Nathan strode down the path.

  ‘Please, Nathan, if you won’t think of yourself think of the children in the shtetl. If Pavlo Razin should die …’

  ‘And if he should live?’ He faced Ruth. ‘Pavlo’s recovery will give me everything I’ve worked for. I’ll finally have a practice that will enable me to earn money from treating the Cossacks, and once word spreads the Mujiks and God willing the aristocrats, I’ll be able to care for you, Uncle Asher and Aunt Leah the way you should be cared for.’

  Ruth realised words wouldn’t sway Nathan but she wasn’t going to walk away without trying to protect him. She turned towards the Dower House and started running.

  The Razins’ House, Alexandrovka

  The Donbas region of the Ukraine, April 1869

  A novice rider who’d only ever ridden the old cart horses from the shtetl, Nathan was relieved when they reached the village. He slid from the saddle of the borrowed horse, grateful to be on firm ground. Shaking from more than the effect of the ride, he walked down the steps to the Razins’ front door. Ducking his head he entered.

  The room was crowded with miners and women blackened by coal dust. Pavlo Razin was lying on a cushioned bench, his head in his wife’s lap. Praskovia was kneeling on the floor beside them, bathing her father’s face. Pavlo’s eyes flickered but his breath was laboured, ragged, and the hand Yelena grasped was limp.

  A murmur of voices greeted him. ‘The doctor, the

  Jewish doctor … the doctor … Kharber’s

  son … Paris …’

  Nathan crouched beside Praskovia. She folded back the blanket that covered her father and exposed his chest.

  One glance was enough. Nathan knew why Praskovia had sent Ruth the note. Pavlo’s chest had caved in, his shattered ribs protruded through his blackened skin and blood oozed from the wounds. Dark blood mixed with bright. The major blood vessels had ruptured.

  Although there was nothing he, or any doctor could do for Pavlo Razin, Nathan kneeled beside Praskovia.

  Praskovia leaned close and whispered. ‘At the last breath, people will wail. I’ll lead you to the window. Climb out. There’s a cellar in the ruined monastery below the Christmas candle fir tree. Hide until help comes. Don’t worry about your bag.’

  Chapter Three

  The Beletsky Mansion

  The Donbas region of the Ukraine, April 1869

  ‘Thank you for the excellent dinner, Olga, Nicholas.’

  The gentlemen rose when Catherine Ignatova left the table. She extended her hand to John.

  ‘Please don’t go on my account, Mr Hughes. The second carriage will convey you, Mr Edwards, and Mr Thomas, when you are ready to leave my daughter and son-in-law’s house. I look forward to seeing you at supper in the Dower House.’

  ‘Until then, Mrs Ignatova.’ John had acquired continental manners on his travels and kissed Catherine’s hand.

  ‘Ladies, gentlemen, forgive me for breaking up the party and taking Sonya with me. I trust you will all sleep well and with God this night.’ Catherine went into the hall. Alexei, Sonya, Nicholas, and Olga followed.

  Alexei took his grandmother’s fur from the footman and draped it over her shoulders.

  ‘I wish you would stay, Mother-in-law,’ Nicholas complained. ‘At least until coffee and brandy has been served to our important guests.’

  Catherine knew ‘important’ to her son-in-law meant titled. ‘Thank you for your hospitality, Nicholas, but if Sonya and I remain it will be too late for us to pay our respects to the Razin family.’

  ‘Cossacks, really, Mother-in-law,’ he bristled. ‘It isn’t expected of you. You’ll embarrass the Razin family, who have no idea how to receive a lady of your station.’

  Catherine’s spine stiffened along with her resolve. ‘Have you forgotten Yelena Razin was wet nurse to three of your sons?’

  ‘She was paid,’ Nicholas countered.

  ‘The payment was necessary for Yelena to provide for her own babies. No amount of money could have compensated her for the love she gave your children, which was equal to the love she bore for her own. The least we can do is show Christian sympathy in her time of sorrow. Come, Sonya, Alexei.’

  ‘Alexei!’ His father exclaimed as the footman handed Alexei his and Sonya’s capes.

  ‘Grandmother and Sonya can hardly travel to Alexandrovka without an escort at this time of night, Father. Mother.’ He kissed his mother’s cheek before returning to the open door of the dining room. ‘Your honours, Mr Hughes, Mr Edwards, Mr Thomas, gentlemen, please excuse me.’

  ‘Alexei, you’re being infernally rude to our guests,’ Nicholas snapped. ‘As the son of the host …’

  ‘Precisely, Father. You are the host. I won’t be missed.’

  Catherine interrupted. ‘I hear carriage wheels. Alexei, we mustn’t keep the driver waiting on an evening as cold as this. Goodnight, Nicholas, Olga. I’ll see you tomorrow at luncheon in the Dower House?’

  ‘Until tomorrow, Mother.’ Impassive, tired, and heavy from her advanced pregnancy, Olga kissed her mother and Sonya and returned to the dining room.

  ‘Alexei, if you promise those Cossacks charity or give them one kopek of my money, I will throw you out of my house. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, Father.’

  ‘We need to discuss your behaviour.’

  ‘There will be time to continue this conve
rsation when I return, Father.’

  ‘Depend on it,’ Nicholas threatened.

  Alexei offered his grandmother his arm. She tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow. The footman opened the double doors.

  The oil lamps had been lit sending shadows dancing and flickering beneath the marbled portico and its supporting Corinthian columns. A full moon shone down attended by a litter of surrounding stars, silvering the formal gardens and chestnut-tree-lined drive that led to the main gates.

  The coachman had lowered the steps of the carriage. A groom held the reins of Alexei’s horse, Agripin.

  Nicholas watched his mother-in-law and Sonya climb into the carriage then turned on his heel. His footsteps echoed over the marble floor until the footman closed the doors.

  ‘Your father will die of apoplexy if you continue to goad him, Alexei.’ Catherine made room for Sonya on the seat.

  ‘I don’t deliberately goad him. But neither will I live my life the way he wants me to.’ Alexei closed the cab, took the reins of his horse, and swung himself up on the saddle. He held Agripin in check, content to trot quietly behind the carriage. He glanced back as the driver negotiated the gates.

  The classical sculptures his maternal grandfather had acquired in Italy half a century ago during a youthful “Grand Tour” gleamed, pale transplanted ghosts from another civilization among the manicured glades.

  He could hear his father’s voice.

  “One day, Alexei, this estate will be yours to care for and enhance; a place of beauty created by generations of men who lived their lives according to the edicts of the ancient intellectuals of Greece and Rome. Art is everything. Outside of art, life is low, bestial, and never more so than when tainted by the grime of modern industry with its constant spewing of filth.’

  Alexei continued to gaze at the house and gardens. His father was right, the family house and estate was a place of beauty, but it was also an anachronism peopled by phantoms that had no place in the new world of engineering and progress. The industrial society he burned to enter – John Hughes’s world.

  He looked down the road. The carriage was a speck on the horizon.

  ‘Alexandrovka, Agripin.’ He dug in his heels. His mount lowered his head and quickened from a canter into a gallop.

  The Razins’ house, The Cossack village of Alexandrovka

  April 1869

  Alexei tried not to think how his father would vent his annoyance. The last time Nicholas had discovered he’d visited the Razin household, the servants had been ordered to fumigate every room he’d entered on his return with foul-smelling disinfectant and his allowance had been cut off. If it hadn’t been for his grandmother he would have had a bleak six weeks until his father capitulated to his mother’s pleadings and forgave him.

  It took them twenty minutes to reach the village. The coachman left the rough track on the open steppe and negotiated the narrow lanes between the houses, halting outside the Razin house, blocking the narrow walkway that separated it from its neighbour. At home in the village and with the Razins, Alexei led Agripin around the side of the wooden house to the backyard and the watering trough beside the barn.

  The windows were open despite the cold, and the sonorous sound of religious hymns wafted out as Alexei tethered his horse. He recognised the practised tones of Father Grigor’s baritone leading the Cossacks in a musical version of the Lord’s Prayer.

  Like all Cossack houses, the Razins had been dug in partially underground to lessen the amount of planking needed for the walls. Alexei walked round to the front and was dazzled by a bright light. The coachman had lifted down one of the carriage lamps and was using it to illuminate a path for his grandmother and Sonya.

  ‘Alexei, you know the Razins better than us, so please, go ahead.’ Catherine moved to allow him to pass.

  He ran down the short flight of rickety stones. Someone opened the door before he reached it. He knew why the windows had been thrown wide as soon as he entered. The atmosphere was thick, as warm and humid as a bath house, and so packed with bodies he wondered they were able to make room for him.

  As befitting a house in mourning, the mirror and all the glass objects in the house had been covered by black cloth. Candles had been lit and placed around the open pine coffin on the table that held the corpse of Pavlo Razin. Praskovia sat next to her mother at the head, her slow-witted brother Pyotr curled like a cat at their feet.

  Washed clean of the coal dust that had covered him in later life, dressed in his Sunday best tunic, trousers, and boots, his hair neatly brushed, trimmed, and combed, Pavlo was barely recognisable as the grubby, hard-drinking, foul-tempered man who’d made his wife and children’s lives a misery for the last five years.

  Death had transformed his features, softening them until he was once again the loving and much loved ‘Papa Pavlo’ Alexei remembered from his childhood. The mentor who’d taught him, Sonya, and his brothers and sisters, along with the local children, to ride, fish, aim a pistol and rifle, and hunt without scaring away the game. But most important of all, Pavlo had imparted the single piece of knowledge his father neither knew nor understood. How to enjoy life.

  Yelena, Praskovia, and Pyotr rose to their feet when they saw him, Catherine, and Sonya. Every man in the room bowed, every woman curtsied, which wasn’t easy for those perched precariously on the stairs or hemmed in so tightly they could only move after their neighbours had shifted.

  ‘Please, sit down, good people.’ Catherine removed her gloves. ‘We’ve come to pay our respects to Pavlo Razin.’ She looked around and knew why her grandson spent so much time in the house.

  The downstairs living room was warm, welcoming, typically Cossack, more of a home than any of the rooms in the Beletsky Mansion Nicholas had so lavishly and expensively furnished. The fitted shelves, chests of drawers, cupboards, and chairs, resplendent with carvings, bore testimony to Pavlo Razin’s carpentry skills before drink had destroyed his sure touch. Everything was spotlessly clean, and ornamented by hand-made lace and blue and red embroidered cushions and cloths.

  ‘We are so sorry, Babushka Razin, Praskovia, Pyotr.’ Alexei looked down on the dead, grey-lined face and made the sign of the cross with three fingers in deference to the Cossacks adherence to the old church beliefs as opposed to the new believers who signed using two fingers.

  He stood back while his grandmother and Sonya crossed themselves over the corpse before kissing Yelena, Praskovia, and Pyotr. Alexei drew close to Praskovia.

  She slipped her hand into his. ‘Thank you for coming; I know how difficult it must have been for you to get away.’

  ‘I have my grandmother to protect me.’ He watched Catherine take the chair the priest vacated and offered to her. Father Grigor leaned over Catherine and Yelena and all three began to speak too low for him to hear.

  ‘When is the funeral, Praskovia?’ Sonya asked.

  ‘Dawn, the day after tomorrow. The miners voted to delay their shift. After the ceremony the crosses from the church will be carried down to the river and dipped into the water. Then we’ll return to eat the funeral porridge and meats.’

  ‘We had such fun when we were children. He was a friend to us all …’

  ‘Please,’ Praskovia couldn’t bear to hear more. ‘Those days have long gone, Alexei.’

  ‘What happened?’ Sonya asked.

  ‘The roof of the seam my father was working caved in. His chest was crushed but he was awake and talking when they brought him out. As soon as I saw his injuries I knew he couldn’t survive but my mother insisted on sending for Nathan Kharber.’ Praskovia softened her voice. ‘He came quickly but my father died a few minutes after he arrived. You know how the men are about Jews …’

  ‘Is Nathan all right?’ Alexei clenched his fists. The Cossacks hatred of the Jews frequently led to murder even without provocation. A Jewish doctor’s failed attempt to save a Cossack life could start a pogrom.

  ‘I helped Nathan get away. I told him to hide in your place.’
/>
  Alexei nodded to show he’d understood.

  ‘You’ll …’

  Sonya noticed people staring at Alexei and Praskovia and began talking loudly. ‘I’ll attend the funeral with Aunt Catherine, Praskovia. Is there anything we can do? Perhaps send food for your guests?’

  ‘Food is always a welcome gift at a funeral.’ Praskovia answered Sonya, but continued to look at Alexei. ‘Please, don’t get into trouble with Count Beletsky on our account.’

  ‘We won’t,’ Sonya assured her. ‘Aunt Catherine will want to help your mother.’

  ‘I’ll escort my grandmother and Sonya to the funeral.’

  ‘You’ll be very welcome, Alexei.’ Mindful of the people watching, Praskovia released his hand.

  Father Grigor left the women and stood over the corpse. Swinging an incense burner he began to pray, a moving invocation that culminated in one of the Cossacks’ best-loved hymns, ‘Deliver O God Thy People.’

  Catherine waited until the last note had echoed around the room before rising. ‘Next Sunday is Easter by the Julian Calendar. I will provide a feast for everyone in Alexandrovka at the Dower House to celebrate Christ arisen. There we will eat, drink, and raise a glass to the memory of Pavlo Razin. I will also send food to the shtetl. The Jews may not celebrate Easter but I understand Nathan Kharber came to help Pavlo Razin. I will thank him for you the only way I know.’

  An angry murmur rose from the people crammed into the room.

  ‘That Nathan Kharber could not help Pavlo Razin was God’s will, not Nathan’s. The Jews are our brethren and my friends. We all make use of their skills, none more than me. I ask all of you to join me in looking out for them as the Good Samaritan did the stranger in the Bible. Please, live beside them in peace and remember, he who hurts my friend, hurts me. God Bless all in the house of mourning. God Bless the soul of Pavlo Razin. Father Grigor, escort me to my carriage please.’