Russka

by Edward Rutherfurd

  The mellow atmosphere was made softer yet when a little later the village women, all in their wonderful dresses, arrived in front of the house and, standing in a circle, sang those most lovely of all the Russian folk melodies, the ancient Kupala songs.

  It was perfect, Sergei thought. Everything was just right. And as the afternoon’s lengthening shadows stole across the threshold of evening, he waited.

  Misha and the two babies had been put to bed, and the reddening sun was glowing softly over the forest when they all set out to visit the springs.

  Tatiana and Ilya went in a little cart, with one of the serfs driving. Everyone else walked. They took the lane that led through the woods past the old burial mounds, and came out by the monastery. Then they crossed the river under the town. And soon afterwards Tatiana and Ilya had to abandon the cart, to walk along the little path that wound along near the water’s edge towards the site of the springs.

  How quiet it was. Only the faint sound of lapping water disturbed the darkness. High in the starlit summer sky, the three-quarter moon rode to the south.

  They were walking now by twos: Olga and Pinegin in front; then Karpenko and young Arina; then Sergei and old Arina; and slowly bringing up the rear, Ilya and Tatiana.

  The air was warm; there was almost no breeze. Once or twice Sergei smelled the delicate scent of wild strawberries, hidden in the darkness. Once, in a glade, they saw by the moonlight a bank of the blue and yellow flowers the Russians call John and Mary flowers.

  The moon gave light enough to show the wanderers their path; and Sergei watched them all. He saw the way Pinegin, still in white, walked beside Olga: never too far, never too near. He watched Olga’s easy, swinging gait. He saw Karpenko surreptitiously slip his arm round young Arina. He saw Ilya stumble on a root that his mother had entirely avoided. Each of them had their thoughts that night, he supposed: each their secret hopes. But none, surely, like his.

  Sergei had never felt this way before: unless, perhaps, it had always been so, and he had never known it.

  In childhood, she had always been his friend, his confidante – his soul mate. How he had loved her pale and lively face, her long brown hair, her light and gentle laugh. She seemed a part of him, and he of her: they knew each other’s thoughts, always, without speaking. But then, as was to be expected, they had been parted.

  Life had been hard on Sergei. His literary career was slow; money was short. He was often rather lonely. Yet she is there, he always told himself; and his jaunty letters only bore half the tale.

  Night after night, he would sit down to write. His verse came slowly, often he gave up. His hopes for fame seemed dismally far away.

  He invented a method, though, when he composed. Olga became his audience: in his mind’s eye, her image was always, hauntingly, before him. If what he wrote was moving, he had moved her; if gay, it meant that he had made her laugh. And once or twice he saw he made her cry. And so, unknown to Olga, through these years, she was Sergei’s companion in his thoughts. And often alone in his lodgings he would cry: ‘My Olga, you – at least you – will understand.’

  Would it, he had wondered, be a disappointment, living in the family house with her again? Married, then widowed, with children – he imagined she would have changed. Nothing had prepared him, therefore, for what took place in June.

  His discovery was made the first day. It was so overwhelming, so absolute, that at times it made him tremble; and at times he wanted to laugh. It cleaved the whole sky, like a silent flash of lightning. It was so natural, so inevitable: surely it was fated, predestined, fashioned by the gods from the beginning of time, enduring, who knew, even to the end. She filled his thoughts. His entire existence seemed to take place under her blue eyes’ gentle gaze. Everything was for her. The translations of Shakespeare she loved had been written, every word, for her alone. And everything else that he did – the practical jokes, the foolish quarrel with Alexis – was only an insane game, played to distract them both, by a man who must wear a mask because his true love was forbidden.

  Never before, he now understood, had he known passion. And now he could go on no more. Tonight, he had vowed. It must be resolved tonight.

  The springs had not changed in centuries. They still burst out of the high bank in these silvery cascades that drained away to the river. It was fully dark. The stars were out. The small, moonlit glade in front of them made a perfect resting place and, charmed by the spot, the company sat on the grass, while the little waterfalls made a low, splashing sound a few yards away. Then Sergei turned to the old woman: ‘Come now, Arina, my duck,’ he gently said. ‘Tell all your children a story.’

  And so, in a quiet but musical tone, old Arina began to speak. She told them about the sacred springs and the spirits which inhabited them. She told them about the magic ferns and flowers in the forest. She told them about the souls of lovelorn girls – the rusalki – who lived in the river; she recounted the story of the firebird, Ilya of Murom, and several others. And all of them were entranced, grateful to be sharing this most magical night of the Russian year.

  Only when she had done, and everyone was sitting, contented, yet half-hoping for something more, did the little Cossack say: ‘Recite us some of your poems, Sergei. He’s written some wonderful ones recently,’ he added. And when Sergei made a show of reluctance Olga softly chimed in, in a tone that showed she had forgiven him: ‘Yes, Seriozha. Let us hear.’

  He had prepared himself so carefully. The mood of the company was just as he had hoped as quietly he began. The first poem was an old folk tale about Baba Yaga the witch, which made them laugh. The second was a poem to autumn. But the third was a love poem.

  It was not very long – just five short stanzas. But he knew it was the best thing he had ever written. It spoke of the poet meeting a loved friend after a long absence and finding his love had turned to passion.

  I shall remember till my ending

  How I first saw my love, my light;

  Just as the darkness was descending;

  A fleeting angel in the night.

  He told how, in the years of his own unhappy life, when they were parted, it was her memory that sustained him:

  Your spirit calmed me, waking: sleeping

  I saw your face across the night

  And that now, meeting his angel once more, she had awakened a passion; he was born again; and in his heart:

  Divinity and inspiration,

  And life, and tears, and love.

  No one was looking at Olga. They did not realize. When Tatiana, after a pause, asked him who this lady was, he answered: ‘A woman I knew in St Petersburg.’ Everyone was quiet. Then he heard Ilya murmur: ‘Beautiful, my dear Seriozha. Exquisite. What a heart you have.’

  And still, dear God, no one thought to look at Olga.

  She was sitting a little back from Tatiana. She had only to move her face two inches to place it in shadow, and now she had done so, and bowed her head. But he had seen – even in the moonlight – he had seen her blush, then seen the tears upon her cheeks. Dear God, she knew. At last she understood.

  They sat for several moments then Sergei suggested: ‘The night is young. Why don’t we walk to the skit where the monks live!’ The little hermitage lay at the end of the path. Karpenko at once endorsed the idea; Pinegin seemed agreeable. But Ilya and the two older women were disinclined. ‘We’ll go back to the cart and go home,’ Tatiana declared. ‘Let the young people go on.’ And so the party divided.

  Those who continued were led by Sergei along the path. He had young Arina and Pinegin close beside him. Olga, seemingly lost in thought, walked just behind with Karpenko. Sergei moved along briskly, telling Pinegin something of the history of the little hermitage as they went. And so intent on this was he that, it seemed, he was taken by surprise to find after a few turns of the path that the Cossack and Olga had fallen behind so far they were out of sight.

  ‘Walk on,’ he said to Pinegin. ‘I’ll go and hurry them up.’ And a few minu
tes later the little Cossack came up to Pinegin, looking back over his shoulder as if the others were just round the corner, and remarked: ‘Olga’s talking to her brother. They’ll catch us up. This way.’ And he led them forward.

  It was a couple of hundred yards further that the track forked. ‘Sergei said it’s this one,’ the Cossack said firmly. And they had walked on more than half a mile before the track petered out and Karpenko said: ‘Devil take it! I must have made a mistake.’

  They stood together, Sergei and his sister. They had moved just off the path to the river bank, where they could watch the reflection of the moon and stars on the water. How pale she looked, in her long white summer dress. For a time they were silent.

  ‘The poem was for me?’

  ‘Of course.’

  She gazed at the water. ‘I … had no idea.’ She stopped, then seemed to smile. ‘Dear Seriozha. It was very beautiful.’ She paused. ‘But the words … were not for a sister.’

  ‘No.’

  She sighed. She shook her head, gently. ‘Seriozha … your poem spoke of love of the kind …’

  ‘Of passion.’

  She took his hand and looked up at him for a moment, then down again at the water.

  ‘I am your sister.’

  For a moment he did not speak. Then he said simply, ‘I dare say we shall never in our lives speak of this again. But, so that I may know, when I die – could you love me as I love you?’

  She paused so long he thought the moon had moved upon the water. Then she shrugged. ‘What if I could?’ And then: ‘I love you as a brother.’ She squeezed his hand gently and turned her face up to his. ‘What is it you want, Seriozha, my poet of a brother? What is it you want?’

  He smiled a little sadly. ‘I scarcely know. Everything. The universe. You.’

  ‘You want me?’

  ‘The universe, you: for me it’s one and the same.’

  ‘You brought me here, my dearest Seriozha, to seduce me?’ She smiled almost playfully.

  ‘You know that.’

  She blushed. ‘I do now. Impossible – even if I would do such a thing. Not with my brother.’

  ‘Did you know,’ he asked softly, ‘that I’m only your half-brother?’

  ‘Yes, I did.’

  She gave a little laugh that floated across the river.

  ‘Does that make it only half a crime?’

  ‘I don’t know. Perhaps. It’s stronger almost than I am. An impulse.’

  We can resist our impulses.’

  ‘Can we?’ he asked, in genuine surprise.

  She did not move, however, and soon he put his arm around her while they stood and gazed silently at the sparkling night. He did not know how long they stood, but eventually he felt her give a little shiver, and taking his cue said soflty: ‘Let me this only time in my life, kiss you, just once.’

  She looked down at the ground and slowly shook her head, and sighed and then looked up, with a strange, sad smile; then turned and reached up her hands around his neck.

  By the time they got back to the fork in the path, Pinegin was getting irritable.

  ‘We’d better go on towards the skit,’ Karpenko said. ‘They must have passed us.’

  But something – he did not know what – made Pinegin think otherwise.

  ‘I’m going back,’ he said.

  ‘They said to go on this way,’ the Cossack said anxiously.

  But Pinegin took no notice. To Karpenko’s dismay, he went smartly off down the path; and after a minute or two of hesitation, the Cossack said: ‘I suppose we’d better follow.’

  He might not have noticed them through the screen of trees if they had not moved. But suddenly Pinegin caught sight of a swaying shape as the two stood locked in each other’s arms. For a moment, just then, they seemed to draw apart, so that by the moonlight he saw their faces clearly. After a second’s pause, they moved again so that he could not see them.

  For almost a minute he could not move. Olga, for whose hand he was about to ask, was with another man – her cursed brother. Stricken, he waited, and wondered what to do. Then cold anger seized him. Wasn’t she, after all, almost his own? Why should he let this happen? He started to turn off the path and move towards them.

  But then he corrected himself. What was the point? This woman, whom he had loved, was dead to him now. And as he was thinking this, along came Karpenko.

  ‘Pinegin!’ the Cossack called out, so that his voice echoed through the trees. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Let’s go to the springs and wait for them there,’ Karpenko suggested loudly, so that the lovers could hear. And they walked back to the springs. Pinegin was very calm now. Coldly he counted the minutes. So many and Sergei had had her; fewer, and perhaps he had not.

  It was just as he was on the point of deciding that, yes, this horror must have happened, that the two of them came down the path. Olga looked very pale, Sergei a little cautious. ‘We looked for you everywhere,’ he briefly said. And Pinegin nodded slowly.

  ‘It’s late,’ Olga then murmured. ‘Let us go home.’ She came to Pinegin’s side. ‘Arina,’ she ordered the girl, ‘you walk with us. The young men can follow behind.’

  On the long walk home, they did not say much. After a time, Pinegin lit his pipe. Sergei and his friend had fallen far behind. As they came, at last, in sight of the house at Bobrovo, dawn was almost breaking, and Pinegin felt a trace of dew on his face.

  Several thoughts had gone through his mind on the way back. For a short time, he had even considered forgetting the incident. It had been, perhaps, a moment’s madness. But then he had considered: If I were to take Olga now, all my life that young man would be looking at me and thinking … Thinking what? That there was Pinegin, a poor nonentity, acting the husband for his sister and lover. The thought filled his proud nature with icy rage. Whatever Olga’s guilt – and all women, he supposed, were weak – it was Sergei who had made a fool of him. He guessed, Pinegin thought, he saw my interest. Then he did this.

  The simplest course would be to challenge Sergei. But a duel, whatever the outcome, is always talked of: and that would lead to Olga’s complete dishonour.

  And that, he realized, would be beneath me. But something would have to be done. I shall have revenge, he thought coolly.

  For Pinegin was very dangerous.

  As dawn was breaking, young Arina waited.

  After leaving Olga at the house, she had wandered about by herself, unable to sleep. It had been a magical night. She could hardly believe her luck when she and her aunt had been summoned to join the party. Then, when she was left with Olga and the others, she had been ecstatic.

  It seemed to the girl that Olga was the most beautiful creature she had ever seen. As for the two young men, she had been studying them, fascinated, ever since they arrived. They were made in heaven, she thought, not upon earth.

  And now, after this magical night, all her senses were awakened. She could still feel the Cossack’s arm around her. She remembered his kiss, on the verandah at the dance. She had not understood what was passing in the woods that night – it had never occurred to her. All she knew was that she was warm, and sixteen, and that the night had been enchanted.

  She was standing by the bath house. She saw the two men come from the lane and pause at the bottom of the slope. She watched intently. Then they parted, Sergei remaining by the water’s edge while the Cossack started up the slope to the house.

  The girl smiled. It couldn’t have been better. The one she loved – alone.

  It was a few minutes later that Sergei looked up to see the girl walking quietly along the bank towards him. The first rays of the sun were catching her hair. It did not take long for him to understand what she wanted. And a little while afterwards, in a pleasant clearing in the woods above the house, though the girl was not Olga, he managed, almost, to pretend to himself that she was.

  Old Arina was furious. She had seen them, in the early morning, sne
aking down from the woods towards the house. She had not even needed to question her niece to guess at once.

  Now it was noon and the old woman was alone with Sergei on the verandah. She might be a serf, but she had also been his nanny. She was not afraid of him. And she was giving him a piece of her mind.

  ‘You are shameless. You write pretty poems, but you’re a selfish monster. And God will punish you, Sergei Alexandrevich, I swear He will.’ She positively glowered at him. ‘And so He should!’

  ‘I’m sorry, my duck,’ he said with a lame smile. ‘I dare say nothing will come of it.’

  ‘I shall marry her to someone in the village, straight away, just in case,’ old Arina said. ‘I’ll get your mother’s permission and you’ll be lucky if I don’t tell your brother Alexis. I just hope we can find a young man. They’re not so keen to be father to your brats, you know …’ And she went on for some time before she noticed that Sergei’s attention was riveted elsewhere.

  ‘Look,’ he said softly. And she turned.

  The large carriage swept up the track to the house. It pulled up not by the main door, but in front of the stables to one side; Sergei and the old woman could see its occupants getting out. First came his brother Alexis, a look of grim triumph on his face. Then a stern-looking soldier.

  And now. Sergei went completely white.

  For from the back of the carriage, his hands in chains, they were pulling down a grim, bearded figure who, when he finally straightened up, towered over them all.

  They had captured Savva Suvorin.

  And Sergei knew it was his fault.

  That single moment of carelessness in a Moscow street.

  He had been so surprised to see the tall figure of Savva Suvorin that without even thinking he had called out his name. And when it seemed that Savva had not heard him Sergei had foolishly run across to him and taken him by the arm. Only as he did so and felt Suvorin stiffen did he remember – of course, the tall serf was still a runaway.