Strange Are the Ways

by Strange Are the Ways (retail) (epub)

  ‘What’s the imbecile saying?’ the cavalryman asked.

  Sasha listened. The guard was making his way up the train, scrunching through the knee-deep snow by the side of the line, shouting. Windows were opening, and then doors, as men climbed from the hot train into the bitter cold of the night and stood shivering, huddled into their coats, breath steaming about them.

  ‘What is it?’ Sasha called.

  The guard glanced up. ‘We’ve run out of fuel, Excellency,’ he said, brusquely. ‘All able-bodied men into the forest. We need logs.’

  ‘What we need,’ someone said, very clearly from behind Sasha, ‘is some sort of bloody organization in this bloody stinking war.’

  Sasha shrugged into his greatcoat, jammed his hat on his head, jumped onto the track, flexed his tingling legs, and along with almost every other of the men who had left the train at the guard’s call, relieved himself upon the bank, shielding himself carefully from the cold. The one-eyed cavalryman had jumped down beside him, joined him companionably at the bank. The urine hissed and steamed into the snow. ‘If you ran a brothel the way they’re running this war,’ the one-eyed man said, mildly, ‘we’d all be on our backs and the girls –’ The rest of the sentence was lost as the engine expired finally in an anguished shriek of steam. The guard plodded back past them. ‘Hatchets and saws in the tender, hatchets and saws in the tender. Form groups of four. One torch to each group. Meet at the front of the train.’

  Sasha muttered a vague reply to his companion and turned away, hunching against the cold, collar turned up around his face. He had come this far with safety, further than, in those first desperate hours, he had ever believed he could possibly make it. His initial flight had been an instinctive, animal thing. A need to escape. There had been neither logic nor hope attached to it. But God – or the devil – had been with him and now, unbelievably, Petrograd lay only a few tantalizing hours away. He was really beginning to believe he had a hope of reaching the city. Once there he could disappear; the place was crawling with deserters, was a seething antheap of refugees and displaced people. In Petrograd he would be safe. They’d never find him. They’d never be able to force him to go back. He would not jeopardize his chances now by an offhand exchange, the possibility, however remote, of recognition.

  He picked up his hatchet, trudged off into the forest with the other men. The still winter silence was shattered. For three hours they worked like fiends. Sasha found himself hauling the makeshift sledges of cut wood back to the train, stacking it in the tender. He was hungry and he was cold. But in an odd way the unexpected physical work soothed him. When at last he climbed wearily back into his carriage and dropped into his seat his closed eyes and steady breathing were no sham. As the train pulled slowly away, wheels moving rhythmically along the tracks, Sasha slept.

  His last thoughts were of Valentina. But his uneasy dreams, oddly, were of a raging and implacable Margarita.

  * * *

  Margarita was out when her brother-in-law Donovalov first called upon her. ‘Said it was most important, he did.’ Petra shuffled her feet, cuffed her nose.

  Margarita winced. ‘For goodness’ sake, girl! How often must I tell you not to do that? What did he want?’

  ‘Didn’t say.’ The girl, as always, was surly. She knew no other defence for her own shortcomings. ‘Said he’d be back this afternoon.’

  Margarita turned to the mirror, lifted her arms with the practised grace that could deceive the most knowing watcher into believing it to be natural, removed the pin from her hat, handed the pretty, feathered thing to the girl who stood behind her. ‘When this afternoon?’

  ‘Didn’t say. Just this afternoon.’

  Margarita tutted. She had not enjoyed her day. The city had become impossible. Queues and shortages. Filthy, squalid streets. And, too, an odd feeling of menace about the city that had once been so graceful, so light-hearted. As she had passed along the Liteini a man – a ruffian – had stepped into her way and thrust a leaflet at her. When she had refused to take it he had muttered to her, as she had pushed past him, words that had only some seconds later registered in her brain. ‘Take it, bitch. See what’s in store for you.’ Her skin crawled now, as it had then, at the thought of it. Why didn’t they clear such scum from the streets? Why weren’t they where they belonged, in the army, fighting for their country? How had it happened that Petrograd – oh, how she hated the name! – had become, it seemed, the midden of the nation, attracting to itself the thousands, the hundreds of thousands, of displaced, malcontent, desperate people that this dreadful war had produced?

  ‘Tea, Petra, please’ she said. ‘And in God’s name don’t tell me we have no sugar.’

  Her brother-in-law came to the little apartment as the early winter twilight was closing in. Margarita was reading a magazine. She looked up as Donovalov was announced by a Petra who scuttled, the moment the words were pronounced, back into the cupboard of a kitchen, which was her refuge.

  ‘Pavel Petrovich.’ Gracefully Margarita extended her small hand. ‘You came earlier, I believe. I’m sorry I was away from home. Please, won’t you sit down? And would you care for tea?’

  Donovalov hesitated. This was an interview to be savoured. A pretty butterfly, laid upon the board, the long pin poised above it. The thought amused him. Aroused him. He lingered upon it in his mind. ‘Thank you, Margarita Victorovna, no. And I’ll stand –’ he hesitated for a fraction of a second ‘ – if you don’t mind?’

  ‘Of course not. Why should I mind?’

  She did mind. She did not know why, but she minded very much indeed. Something about the man’s face, the intent and secretive eyes sent a small chill through her body; yet the room was warm, perhaps overly so. Margarita could no more bring herself to preserve fuel than she could conserve those other bodily comforts that were becoming more and more difficult to obtain. A box of chocolates, bestowed by a sympathetic – inevitably male – friend, must be eaten at once. Two spoonfuls of sugar must sweeten her tea; it must be two, or none. Now was all she understood. Tomorrow was a concept, had little reality as time. ‘Why should I mind?’ she asked again, and tilted her head to look at him, aware that the lamp upon the table glared too fully upon her, casting unflattering shadows.

  He stood, tall and narrow-shouldered, his back to the warm stove. His face was in shadow, yet oddly that very fact emphasized its character; and its character was cruelty, pure and simple. Cruelty not simply in the slanting black eyes, nor in the sharp, rodent-like features – warmth, humour, would have softened that face, would have brought it to humanity; even, perhaps, made it attractive – but in the underlying character of the man, which suddenly and undisguisedly confronted her. For one, small, uncharacteristically selfless moment the woman in her found herself thinking; in God’s sweet name, how was Yelena wed to this man?

  She cleared her throat delicately, straightened her back, hands clasped in her lap. ‘You’re well, Pavel Petrovich?’ The words dropped into the silence like stones thrown, tentatively, by a child.

  He ignored them. When he spoke his voice was gentle, intimate, almost caressing. ‘Where is Sasha, Margarita? Is he here?’

  She stared at him. Laughed a little. Shook her head. ‘Sasha? Here?’ The dread was growing. ‘Why – why should he be here?’

  Donovalov was the master of the small silence. ‘Because he’s deserted, Margarita,’ he said at last, his tone very soft, very reasonable. ‘He has deserted his men and his command. He has disgraced himself, and you. He has run away. And he’s here. In Petrograd.’

  She looked at him for a very long time. Even breath seemed suspended. Then, ‘No,’ she said, quietly and positively. ‘No, Pavel Petrovich. That can’t be so. You’ve made a mistake.’

  ‘No mistake, my dear.’ Never had his address been so personal, never his menace so obvious. ‘Where is he, Margarita? You know? Surely, you know?’

  ‘It’s a mistake,’ she said again, woodenly.

  He took a slow, overly patie
nt breath. Let the quiet deepen about them.

  Margarita’s hands, clasped as they had been upon her lap, were fused together, white-knuckled, white-nailed, the tendons standing clear of the smooth skin. ‘It’s a mistake,’ she said again, purposefully, stubbornly. And the self-deception almost worked. She lifted her head defiantly, met his eyes.

  They did not waver. ‘No mistake,’ he repeated. ‘Your husband was engaged in action near Mogil’ov. His men were cut off. He left them. It was his bad luck that enough of them survived to report it. He ran away, Margarita. We’ve had reports since. There’s no doubt that he’s in Petrograd. He’s a coward and a traitor. An officer who has deserted his men.’

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ she said. She stood, agitatedly, facing him. ‘I don’t believe you!’

  ‘Believe me, my dear. It’s true.’

  In her heart, suddenly, she did not doubt it. She stared at him, mute.

  ‘He’s here. In Petrograd.’ He stepped towards her, drawing her to him with that fearful, reptilian attraction that lured even as it repelled. ‘You’re sure you don’t know where?’

  ‘No,’ she said.

  He spread mock-apologetic hands. ‘Do you mind if I look around the apartment?’ His smile was as unpleasant as it had been in the whole of the interview. ‘A formality, you understand. We know he isn’t here.’

  Humiliation sickened her. ‘Look if you like.’

  Cursorily he pushed open doors. Surveyed rooms. Insultingly neither opened cupboards nor searched for any kind of secret place. Came back into the sitting room. ‘Where is he, Margarita?’

  Her mind was a complete, shocked blank. She felt as she had felt when, as a child, she had been thrown from a sledge and hit her head upon a log. She remembered now the daze, the odd, disembodied feel of it. She could not think. She said nothing.

  He knew his victims well. Satisfied, he could leave her. It was more than a strong possibility that she did not in fact know where her despicable, handsome, aristocratic bastard of a husband was. But if she knew – if she suspected – sooner or later she would tell him.

  He had already noted the brand new instrument that hung upon the wall by the door. ‘You have a telephone, I see?’

  ‘Yes.’ The look she cast was defiant, challenging him to ask how she had come by such an expensive toy.

  He did not bother to pass comment. He took a notebook and the stub of a pencil from his pocket, scribbled a number upon a page, tore it from the book. Laid it upon the table. ‘If you think of anything, remember anything, that might help us?’ He glanced at her. She avoided his eyes. Her face was as cold and as still as an icefield. ‘Just telephone me on this number. You’ll get no-one but me, I promise. And – of course – anything you might have to tell me will be considered as absolutely confidential.’

  She said nothing.

  He turned to go. Stopped by the sideboard that stood next to the door. The miniature, brilliant-coloured, pasteboard theatre stood where it always had. He surveyed it in silence. Behind him, Margarita made not a sound. She might herself have been one of those stiffly-poised cardboard figures.

  He reached a finger, flicked sharply at the small, bright prince who smiled so emptily at his two-dimensional princess. The figure teetered, then fell, face down, upon the stage. ‘A pity,’ Donovalov said. ‘A very great pity.’

  For a very long time after he had gone Margarita barely moved. Then, with a sudden brisk step and a swirl of skirts she walked into the bedroom. At the dressing table she bent, pulling open a small drawer, rummaging impatiently through the contents, straightening at last with a small, folded scrap of paper in her hand.

  She turned, walked back into the sitting room and over to the table, where she laid the paper beside that other, which Donovalov had left, smoothing them both flat.

  On the one, a telephone number. And on the other an address. An address supplied by an urchin, bought for a few roubles.

  She sat carefully upon one of the chairs that was pulled to the table, arranging her skirts fastidiously. Drew the pieces of paper towards her. Smoothed them again, meticulously, carefully.

  An address. A telephone number.

  Of course I’m sure – I made him up – I invented him.

  A pity. A very great pity.

  A little under two hours later, Margarita picked up the telephone.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The news in England, during that spring of 1916, was dominated not by events in Russia but by the fighting at Verdun. After an autumn and winter of stalemate the Germans had launched an offensive at the end of February callously designed literally to bleed the battered and battle-weary French forces to death. The Allies were caught by surprise, and the punishment was devastating. Yet, incredibly, the French did not, as the Germans had so confidently expected, break. For week after week and then for month after exhausted month they stubbornly held the line, despite catastrophic losses in men and arms. By early March the landscape around Verdun had been reduced to a lunar nightmare; no tree stood, no building survived, the very structure of the earth was destroyed. Men fought knee-deep in mud and filth, the wounded died in shellholes flooded with melted ice-water. Attack and counter-attack was mounted. The fighting was ferocious, through two months, three months and then four. Land was captured, almost yard by yard, and lost again within hours. Thousands upon thousands of men died in a vicious struggle that gained nothing for either side. One hundred thousand shells filled with phosgene gas rained upon the defenders; the poisoned fog seeped across the land, sinking into cellars and dugouts; men choked and died and were buried where they lay. Yet still the French held and still it continued.

  Aware that their allies could not sustain such savage punishment for much longer, the British High Command conceived a plan to divert at least some of the pressure from the wounded and weary French. They planned a campaign on the Somme, to be launched at the beginning of July, and to be preceded by the greatest bombardment the world had ever seen.

  Unfortunately for the planners, and far more so for the men who were to be involved in the attack, this massive bombardment was not the only dreadful record that would be set in those first days on the battlefields of the Somme.

  Very little of this was reported in the newspapers that Anna read to her husband each day. The casualty lists grew, the Zeppelins raided with apparent impunity, the public were exhorted to greater and greater endeavours to support the war effort; but on the whole the really bad news was kept from them. It was not considered to be in the public interest – perhaps it truly was not in the public interest – to tell the tragic truth.

  Guy was dying. Anna knew it; was sadly certain that he knew it too. By the early spring of 1916 they had moved, at Anna’s own insistence, from the country, and from Sythings, the house they both so much loved, to London, to a house in Portland Place, to be near Guy’s specialist. But it could only be a matter of time, and there was little anyone could do. Her husband was an old man, and his heart was tired. She devoted her days to his comfort and happiness. She had much to thank him for, and these were her thanks.

  She had also, as she had written to Margarita, begun to take an active interest in the business. Though for obvious reasons it was less profitable than it had been in peacetime yet still it prospered, quietly. Even in times such as these there was a place for music. The Portland Place house was just around the corner from the shop, which was in Wigmore Street, and, during the walks that Guy very sensibly insisted that she took, she quite often called in. Horace Parker, the manager who had taken over from the younger man who had been conscripted into the forces, was a dull but competent man; it amused her to see how he scurried to meet her each time she arrived. She was also astute enough to realize that he was a man who needed a guiding hand. With an interest that quite surprised her, she took it upon herself to guide him, with Guy’s solid and sensible advice behind her.

  Guy watched, and smiled tiredly, satisfied.

  Anna went, too, to the workshop in S
oho. And, as she stood unnoticed in the doorway at the top of a long, narrow flight of steps, was utterly taken aback at the fierce surge of homesickness that flooded her; an emotion she was to experience in the same degree and with as much surprise on each subsequent visit. She was looking into a scene that was as familiar to her as her own face in the mirror. Here were the padded workbenches, set beneath the windows as they were in her father’s workshop, though in scale this was much greater. Here were the tools, the rows of bottles, the half-made instruments, the polishing cloths, the shavings upon the floor and the racks of violins and violas, finished and half-finished, hanging from the ceiling. Instruments were propped against the wall, or lay upon the benches and tables. Small boxes were set upon the benches full of bits and pieces of pegs and bridges, carved scrolls and tiny slivers of wood that could have been anything; here was the controlled chaos of creativity that she remembered so well. And above all, here was the smell; the elusive smell of the wood, the varnish, the polish, that was utterly unmistakable. Had she been blindfolded she would have known the nature of the place in which she stood. And had she been blindfolded she would, against all sense, have expected to hear Andrei’s voice, the sound of his laughter.

  ‘Mrs de Fontenay –’ An elderly man looked up and saw her standing in the doorway, laid aside the instrument upon which he was working, came towards her, wiping his hands upon his canvas apron. This was Albert Thompson, craftsman and longtime manager of the workshop. He knew his own worth. He was not too discomposed at this unexpected visit. ‘–Good afternoon. I’m sorry, I didn’t know –’

  Anna shook her head. ‘No, no, Albert. Don’t worry. To be truthful I didn’t know I was coming myself. An impulse, you understand?’

  ‘Of course. Of course. You know young Peter, here?’ Anna nodded, smiling. ‘Young’ Peter was a good couple of years older than she was herself. Indeed most of the men who awkwardly acknowledged her greetings were far from young. The young men were at war, their skilled hands being put to other less peaceable pursuits than these. ‘And this is Harry Stewart. A good lad, is Harry. Got good hands.’