‘’Noushka?’
At the door Anna turned.
‘Ask Papa soon? Please?’
‘I will.’
As so often, as she hurried down the stairs, she found herself thinking that if only her sister would smile like that more often the world would perhaps think differently of her.
* * *
Andrei lived on the ground floor in two rooms, one of which was his work room. The door as always was on the latch. Anna opened it and peered around it. ‘Uncle Andrei?’
The work room was still and quiet. A large and serviceable black stove occupied one corner and the air was warm. A single lamp burned above a narrow, padded workbench. Andrei’s canvas apron was tossed across the bench, upon which rested a few long, straight batons of wood, neatly piled, and a selection of small planes and other tools. A second workbench, unlit, was clear except for some shavings and a few pieces of discarded wood and a lidless, all but empty varnish pot. From the ceiling hung a rack upon which were hooked several violins in various states of manufacture and repair. Above the bench still in use hung perhaps half a dozen bows, some finished, some not, and four or five hooks from which hung long hanks of horse hair.
‘Uncle Andrei? Are you there?’ Anna hesitated for a moment then walked through the work room and pushed open the door to the living room. ‘Uncle Andrei? Mama asked me to bring you upstairs for tea.’
This room too was empty. A lamp burned upon the table and another before the icon that hung in the eastern corner of the room. In another corner a round table stood, covered with a long fringed cloth and upon it a samovar, empty and cold, and a small tray with tea glasses neatly ranged upon it. Upon a sideboard were set several photographs, and the wall behind the bed was lined with shelves that were neatly packed with books. More books were stacked beside a large armchair that stood comfortably beside the enamelled stove. There were several pictures upon the walls, and a rack of bows hung above the sideboard. The whole room was as tidy as the most virtuous housewife could have wished.
Anna had been in the work room before but never in here. On inquisitive impulse she slipped into the room, half-closing the door behind her, and walked to the sideboard. Several large silver frames were arranged upon the shining surface; and all of them but one contained a photograph of the same person, a wide-eyed girl, dark-haired, neatly pretty and in every picture laughing. Andrei’s wife Galina. Courted at eighteen, married at nineteen and tragically dead before her twenty-third birthday. Much loved, never forgotten, never replaced. Anna picked up one of the smaller pictures and held it to the light of the lamp. The girl’s dark eyes smiled into hers from a bright, suspended moment when life and love were all and the future stretched endlessly ahead. This smiling girl had died, Anna remembered, just a couple of weeks before the baby she had been carrying would have come to term. The child had died with her. Anna replaced the photograph very carefully, picked up the only picture that was not of Galina. A tall, elderly, distinguished-looking man in formal dress, cane in hand, looked out upon the world with faint, quizzical amusement. The narrow face was deeply lined, there was a hint of humour about the eyes and the long, narrow mouth that Anna immediately liked. She wondered who he was; obviously he must be someone of whom her uncle was very fond. Replacing the frame she noticed for the first time that lying along the back of the sideboard almost hidden in shadow was a bow, unhaired, the glowing polish of the wood almost lost against the surface upon which it lay. She picked it up; and in the instant her violinist’s hands told her what she held. Even unhaired the thing was a wonder; perfectly balanced, perfectly weighted. Silver mounted and ornamented with mother of pearl, as were all of Andrei’s bows – he dismissed with unusual vehemence the showy extravagances of gold and precious stones – yet everything about it from the smooth, polished curve of the wood to the shining ebony and silver frogs and the delicately opaque beauty of the mother of pearl ornament spoke of the genius of a true craftsman. Yet, oddly, for all its beauty and balance the thing was dead; no – she ran gentle fingers along the curve of the stick – no, not dead; but without the smooth tension of the hair to complete it, it did not yet live. She lifted it, hand delicately bent, as if to draw music from imaginary strings.
The soft closing of the door behind her made her jump so violently that she almost dropped the bow.
‘Anna, I’m sorry – you were looking for me?’ Her uncle stood by the door, smiling.
‘I – yes.’ The fair, freckled skin of her face warmed with embarrassment. ‘Mama sent me to fetch you for tea. You weren’t in the workshop; I came in to see –’ She stopped, swamped in confusion. ‘I’m sorry. I suppose I really shouldn’t have –’
‘Oh, don’t be silly.’ Still smiling, he dropped the bag he carried onto the bed. ‘I’ve been over at the Nevsky, settling young Volodya into the new workshop. You haven’t met him yet, have you?’
Anna shook her head.
‘You should. He’s a very nice young man. He shows enormous promise.’ Her uncle sent her a sly, smiling glance. ‘He’s about your age I think. And you have a lot in common. I’m quite sure you’d like each other.’
The detested blush deepened.
He came to her, touched the bow lightly, without taking it from her. ‘You like it?’
‘Oh, yes! It’s just marvellous! Why haven’t you finished it?’
There was a fleeting moment of silence that drew her eyes to his face. The flash of pain, instantly hidden, was so fierce it was as if she herself had been struck by it. Then, easily and naturally, he reached with his undamaged hand and took the unfinished bow from her, running his fingers with capable competence along the length of it. ‘It’s the bow I was making when Galina died. For obvious reasons I couldn’t at the time finish it. When I could –’ He laid the thing down, carefully, amongst the photographs, shrugged, smiling. ‘I didn’t. That’s all.’
The desire to avoid this difficult subject at all costs warred with a sudden and human desire to know how that girl, so charming, so happy, so much loved, married when she was only a year or so older than herself, had died. Varya would never speak of it, shuddering with theatrical horror if the subject were raised. ‘It must have been terrible,’ she found herself saying. ‘The accident, I mean.’
‘Yes.’
‘What happened?’ She hesitated. ‘Can you speak of it? I don’t mean to intrude.’
Andrei turned from her, took off the heavy canvas working coat he was wearing and reached for a battered velvet jacket that hung behind the door. For a moment Anna thought that he would not answer, or would brush her curiosity aside, as she supposed it deserved. Then, still carrying the jacket, he came to the sideboard, picked up the small picture she had been looking at earlier. ‘We had been for a trip on the river,’ he said. ‘Galina and I. A pleasure boat – with music, and a bar – you know the kind? It was a wonderful day – early spring, still cold, but the thaw was well under way. The river was turbulent, very high, very fast, full of the melted snows and ice of winter. Full of the new life of spring.’ He stopped for a moment, put down the picture, slipped his arm into his jacket. Anna, in an instinctive movement born of serving her father, moved behind him to help him shrug into it. ‘Galina was heavy with child, clumsy, dressed still in winter clothing against the cold. As she stepped onto the plank to disembark she slipped, and fell between the landing stage and the boat. I reached for her. She caught my hand.’ A moment of quiet fell. Anna, behind him, brushed with sudden busy concentration at the dust upon the shoulders of the shabby jacket. ‘There was nothing anyone could do. I held on – for as long as I could – but she was trapped – and my hand –’ She felt the narrow shoulders beneath her hands hunch very slightly; the right hand, the maimed hand, slipped into the pocket of the jacket. ‘There was nothing anyone could do,’ he repeated.
Anna nibbled her lip; why in the world had she ever brought up the subject? ‘It must have been awful for you,’ she mumbled.
He turned, the untidy silver thatc
h of his hair shining in the lamp light. ‘Yes it was. Of course it was. But it was a long time ago, Anna. And the world lives on. It would be wrong to mourn for ever.’
‘I suppose so.’ With a suddenly necessary but she hoped unobtrusive sniff she moved past him, looked again at the pictures on the sideboard. ‘Who’s this? The old gentleman?’ Her voice was much too bright, much too obviously intent upon changing the subject. She winced a little. Honestly, little Rita would have handled this better!
Andrei gave a quite genuine snort of laughter. ‘‘The old gentleman”! Oh, I shall tell him that, indeed I shall!’
‘Well? Who is he? I must say he really looks rather nice.’
‘I’ll tell him that too.’ Andrei was grinning like a boy. ‘He’s a very good friend of mine. Guy de Fontenay. He runs a most prestigious business in London, making and selling fine instruments.’
‘Like you and Papa?’
He grinned. ‘A little, yes. But rather better established and rather more splendid. The greatest players in the world go to Guy.’
‘What’s he like?’
The smile lit his face again. ‘Guy’s just about the best friend I ever had. He’s a charming man, believe me – the most civilized man I know – the perfect English gentleman.’
‘English? With a name like that? He surely must be French?’
‘Half of him is. His father’s half. But the important half,’ he grinned again, ‘his mother’s half, is English. Believe me you’ll never meet a more English English gentleman than M’sieu Guy de Fontenay.’
‘How do you know him so well?’
Andrei bent to pick up the books that were stacked beside the armchair, carried them to the shelf and began to slot them neatly into their spaces. ‘We met in Paris, while I was a student – seventeen? – no, eighteen years ago.’ He shook his head, smiling. ‘Half a lifetime!’
‘All of mine,’ Anna said.
He laughed aloud. ‘Why yes, so it is! I was studying violin making, of course – I hadn’t then become interested in bow making – but not, I’m ashamed to say, half as enthusiastically as I was studying the night-life of Paris! When first I met Guy my pockets were emptier than my head. He lent me money, watched whilst I squandered it then offered me more in payment for tuition in the Russian language.’ He came back to the sideboard, with one hand and quick fingers rearranged the photographs, then walked to the table where burned the lamp. ‘So, I taught him Russian and in return he taught me – oh, all manner of things.’ His voice, and his laughter, were warm. ‘That was how it started. As I said, Guy is the best and closest friend I ever had. I respect him more than anyone else I’ve ever known.’ He turned down the lamp, pinched the wick to stop it smoking, stood looking down at it for a thoughtful moment. ‘He’s a very wise man,’ he said, soberly. ‘There aren’t so very many people you can say that about.’
He ushered her out onto the stairs. The cold swept around them. Hunched against it they ran breathlessly up to the door of the Shalakov apartment. Anna rang the bell. Nothing happened. She leaned hard upon it, hearing it sound, shrill and insistent in the apartment. ‘Honestly, Seraphima is so slow!’
The landing was chill. A single gas flare flickered in the gloom. Andrei was watching her. ‘It was a pity,’ he said quietly, and utterly unexpectedly, ‘about the scholarship.’
Anna turned her head from him, pressed the bell again.
He would not allow her to ignore him. ‘I haven’t heard you play,’ he said.
‘No.’
‘I should very much like to. You have an instrument?’
Still she would not meet his eyes. Beyond the door came the sound of shuffling feet. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Papa gave me one of grandfather’s violins. A very beautiful one actually.’ She let a small, cold silence develop. ‘A consolation prize, I think.’
‘But you don’t play it?’
She shook her head.
‘You should,’ he said. ‘A great instrument lives only if it is played.’
She sucked her lip for a moment, turned to meet his eyes. He had, after all, shown no resentment of her questions; the least she could do was to return the compliment. To tell the truth she had desperately missed her music in these past weeks; it had been the stubborn resentment she still nursed against her father that had kept her from it. ‘I know.’
The door opened. Plump Seraphima, breathing heavily, acknowledged their greetings in harassed fashion and scurried back into the apartment.
Andrei shut the door. They could hear voices in the parlour. ‘You have a bow?’ he asked. ‘A good one?’
She shook her head. ‘I have one, yes. But not one worthy of grandfather’s violin.’
‘Then what more appropriate than that I should make you one?’ His voice was light, but his eyes were intent and serious on hers. ‘Would you play then?’
‘I –’ She looked away. ‘I suppose so, yes. Except – the apartment is so very crowded, there’s never any peace.’
‘Come downstairs to me,’ he said, promptly. ‘I’ve room and more than room. The workshop’s always warm, and often empty.’
She had never had a place of her own to practise, away from Margarita’s noise and Lenka’s clinging presence. It was temptation beyond resisting. ‘I shouldn’t want to disturb you –’
‘You won’t disturb me. You’ll come?’
She nodded. It was not, after all, that lovely violin’s fault that her father had refused her the scholarship. Why should the poor thing suffer such silence?
He smiled, detained her as she turned away. ‘Don’t be too hard on your father, Anna. Life plays strange tricks sometimes. Perhaps – who knows? – it will all turn out for the best.’
Anna laughed. ‘Oh, Uncle Andrei, no! You’ve been listening to Nanny Irisha again.’ She lifted mocking eyes to the ceiling. ‘“Strange are the ways of God!”’ She turned to the parlour door.
They walked into the light and warmth of the room. The samovar hissed in the corner. Heavy velvet curtains were drawn against the early evening darkness. Varya, fragile and pretty in velvet and lace, her fair hair piled upon her head, perched straight-backed upon a gracefully fretted wooden chair. ‘Andrei, tea! And cakes of course. Margarita, bring your Uncle Andrei a glass. Anna, where ever have you been? Dima, come away now, let Uncle Andrei feel the warmth of the stove.’
Anna stood back, watching as her uncle was drawn immediately into the small, intimate circle of her mother’s attention, aware that between one second and another she had lost him. It was Varya’s talent to make almost any man who approached her a part of that charming, private world of hers. Anna, for a moment, could not suppress a surge of envy. Only recently, with the burgeoning of womanhood, had she begun to understand her mother. And, in part, to understand herself. This would never be her way, much as she might wish it otherwise. Yet Margarita, laughing and talking beside her mother, looking up teasingly into her uncle’s face, already and effortlessly was a part of this female conspiracy. Uncle Andrei seemed to be enjoying it, as any man would.
Anna accepted her glass of tea from Seraphima with a smile and a suddenly heavy heart. The pleasure of the last half hour had all but fled. The world seemed, all at once, a confusing and oddly lonely place again.
The doorbell rang.
‘Seraphima – for the good Lord’s sake! – don’t just stand there!’
At the sound of Victor’s voice in the hall a small constraint fell upon the gathering. Varya looked up, anxious.
Victor appeared in the doorway, face flushed from the cold, dark moustache gleaming with moisture.
‘Victor, my dear.’ Varya stood.
‘Vasha.’ The endearing private diminutive, so little used, and usually only in the most intimate of circumstances, stopped her in her tracks. Her eyes widened. ‘And Andrei! Well met! I have news for you all.’ Victor beamed about him. Had Anna not known better she might have suspected that he had been drinking. ‘I have news. I have news twice over! The shop will open on sc
hedule the week after Easter –’
Margarita clapped prettily. ‘Bravo.’
For once everyone ignored her. The air of excitement that trembled about Victor was so unprecedented as to be riveting. No-one moved an eye from his face.
‘And –’ Victor paused for further and quite unnecessary effect ‘– I have just been informed that it is virtually certain that Shalakov and Sons have landed a five-year contract for the supply and maintenance of all stringed instruments to the Imperial Ballet School, the Music School and the Imperial Theatres both in St Petersburg and in Moscow.’ He stopped, run out of breath. There was a small silence.
‘Mother of God,’ Andrei said, reverently.
‘How lovely,’ Varya said.
‘The Imperial?’ Anna stopped.
Strange Are the Ways Page 5