White Blood

by James Fleming

  "Why did it happen? A warning? Is it possible to be too much in love?" she asked.

  "Never."

  "But there may be a natural limit to one's happiness, as there is to the length of the day or how far the tide comes in. Could the heart get filled up and everything after that just spill over and be wasted? Maybe that's where I'd got to."

  "Spill onto the ground for the dogs?"

  "For all the animals. They depend on us for everything else, so why not happiness? One sees happy dogs and horses and cows. They're capable of happiness. I could understand how such a system would fit into God's scheme."

  "Dusha moya, if God's just, suffering will inevitably have good fortune coming along behind it."

  "Inevitably as a mathematician would define it? Like zero at roulette?"

  "Yes. There'll be someone in charge of compensation."

  "Compensation only? You mean, no surplus . . . ? Charlinka, tell me your opinion: does God have a rule that the total of one's happiness in life must exceed the total of one's suffering? I would so like to be sure that He does."

  "Not for peasants. Their means of happiness are small and their possible hardships very great."

  "That's why Nicholas helps them in so many ways. Thinking of their example is another reason why I should accept my disease without complaint."

  She smiled at me, full of repose and dignity. I was sitting in an easy chair by the fire. I'd gone down and fetched a basket of logs. I was resting my jaw on my fingers, listening as she washed the subject through her system. We were at one with each other. These were good moments.

  She said, "If only one could be absolutely certain of being rewarded for suffering, if it was like childbirth, for instance . . . People who are especially religious must have their prayers answered on some occasions or they wouldn't go on praying. We have to believe that God is reasonable. Therefore, can He have any purpose in making someone ill if that person is not to get a benefit from it?"

  "But may He intend some people to be ill from the very start—to shoulder the burden for a hundred others? Another possibility: perhaps God just isn't."

  "Charlinka darling, this is how it must be: either there is no God and my fits are going to get worse and worse and eventually kill me, or He's going to compensate me properly. Not just a hundred roubles and a grumpy handshake, but something that would give me lasting pleasure, like good health for you and our children."

  "Dan Doig is just a fraction of the compensation." I went over and kissed the black pools of her eyes.

  "Mister Doig also," she whispered, stroking the hair back from my brow. "Mister King Doig, the father."

  "You'll have to be patient for the rest," I laughed. "But we're young, and when we get to America—"

  Immediately her face grew pinched again.

  "It's not exile," I said quickly. "We can come back whenever we want."

  "Yow can. But for a woman who's built a home and a family out there—why stir up the pain all over again? You're asking a lot of me, Charlie. You're not a proper Russian. You don't know."

  She was starting to get agitated again, despite the morphine. I wanted to beat my head against the wall. It was so obvious to leave, so stupid to dither and bicker. She and Misha and Nicholas, it was as if they'd formed a conspiracy. Hydrangeas of all things. Hydrangeas. Fucking hydrangeas and the fruit season and duty, which in the case of Nicholas was itself a mountain of granite.

  I poured her another spoonful of Pflob's elixir. It was the last in the bottle. I said, "I'll ride into Smolensk for more as soon as the snow clears a bit."

  She looked at me dully and with reproach.

  The wind had dropped to a hoarse breeze. The shaft was giving off only an occasional rattle. "Tomorrow," I said. "I'll go there tomorrow. A night like this'll blow the roads clear."

  She was ready for sleep. Her travelling clock said it was three in the morning. I got a pile of coats from the vestibule, heaped up the cushions from the daybed and made myself comfortable on the bear skin in front of the embered fire.

  Fifty-eight

  Its colours flickered beneath my eyelids, something to do with the Vikings. Soon my dreams were livid with all things red and black turning into red and a smoke-streaked orange, these being the flares of the landing party from the longship whose beak I could see grimacing on the dark water of the bay. I saw the rush of men, the swinging arc of double-headed axes, blood spurting from the split skulls of the priests under the terrific pressure of their intelligence, and the white thighs of their serving women as they pulled up their skirts to show the red-haired raiders the way.

  But I heard nothing, which was strange.

  An ice floe, painted brilliantly by the leaping flames, came steering past the headland reefs and into the bay. Its leaning mainsail was a sheet of flame and the other little gussety sails that it wore on top like castellations were flickering gas-lamp blue and yellow. A watchman gave the alarm and with both hands raised a brazen ram's horn to his lips. He was broadside on to me. His cheek filled. The horn vibrated with his effort.

  Still I heard nothing.

  The raiders looked up from their pleasures, glanced over their shoulders at the ice floe which was now a warship gliding into the bay under bare masts, finished their women off with frenzied thrusts and ran, leaping like giants over the seaweed-slippery boulders.

  And now the noise was turned on for me.

  Shouts were throughout the air, and farewell laments from the pregnant women, and the mewling of seals and the suck of the black night's tide. A pencil-thin strip of scarlet dawn lay across the horizon like a sarong. I had the notion that a clipper was approaching the bay, toiling in the wake of the warship. I screwed up my eyes. They were gritty with salt—I bathed them in a pannikin of sweet spring water handed to me by Slype, my old headmaster, who was holding ready for my use his black steel binoculars. I trained them on the clipper. It was laden with Franciscan monks who were to beat back the Viking raiders. They were gathered in the rigging, their brown habits doubled and tucked in at the waist—bare legs, alpine calf muscles like those of Goetz. They were speaking, but a language of which I knew nothing.

  And all of a sudden into these dreams of mine, among a hundred sounds of fighting that I was trying to sort into their historical epochs, there tumbled a noise that was completely dissonant from the scene spread out before me: a tumbling rant of church bells, without shape or form, so insistent that it drove out all the sounds of the Vikings and the wailing women. Everything was expelled save for the raging bells and the clipper, whose crew of monks was spread across its rigging like a roost of buzzards, while the ship itself drove silently through a flat sea of ink. They were completely separate, the noise and the vessel. The clangour of the church bells became solid, a heavy violet curtain. Behind it the monks began to fade. They were waving goodbye to me, their brown-sleeved paws growing smudgy.

  I became desperate. I thought, Why are they undertaking this stupid voyage when the Vikings have already left? Do they intend to pursue the longship to the edge of the world and slay them with godliness? Have they enough water on board?

  I thought, Why are they waving to me like that? Which one of us is doomed?

  Next I knew was the wretched light of dawn and I was cold and stiff and Nicholas was kicking me.

  Fifty-nine

  I rolled away from him, onto my knees. I was still in my dream. It was extraordinary that Nicholas should be standing there, a greatcoat over his nightgown, a candle-holder in his hand, shaking and blubbering. I couldn't help looking at his feet. They were six inches away. I hadn't seen them uncovered since we were children. They were white and slabby in the gloom, like a plate of sturgeon fillets, his toenails as long as a mammoth's tusks.

  I said, "Why are you kicking me?"

  "The news . . . it's so terrible ... I couldn't bear to be alone." His cheeks were puffy, his mouth like a child's.

  "You'll get splinters," I said.

  But he just gaped at me, sniv
elling.

  Kicking me awake and tortoiseshell toenails and the man unable to control himself—I said: "I can't help you if you don't speak."

  Behind me Liza stirred in the big bed.

  I rose and shook him by the shoulders. Through his tears he repeated, "It's terrible . . . the end ..." But I didn't want Liza to hear anything that was terrible at this time of the day, and she having had so little sleep. I was dressed except for stockings and boots. I grabbed them and shovelled Nicholas out of the room.

  He was in a bad way. Suicide—or his slippers (he had a new pair, he kept on saying)—or to go back to bed—or church and prayer: he didn't know what he wanted. I got him to settle for his slippers. That quietened him, that and having me around. We went downstairs to the dining room. There were still plates and glasses left from last night.

  I said to him, Where was Louis?, but he didn't respond.

  It was the warmest room in the house, being in the centre and with only one window. We sat down, not moving any of the rubbish.

  He put on his whiney beleaguered voice. "Louis has left."

  When I didn't reply but just looked at him, wondering how he would manage if a real calamity occurred in his life, he said, "Someone must have ridden over from Popovka during the night to warn him. Servants always look after their own skins first."

  "Why not?"

  "A good servant would inform his master first if there was trouble in the offing. It would be his duty. Then he got himself taken into Smolensk—at least he didn't steal one of my horses. That would have been prior to them ringing the bells."

  "I heard them in my sleep. But cousin, is it just about Louis you were kicking me?"

  "The bells woke me up. I thought, there must be a fire at the inn or something. But they have their own water carts for that, and my bed was so warm that I stayed there. Though I was too ashamed of myself to go back to sleep. I should have gone to the village. I know I should. But I just lay there and considered what other reasons there could be to ring the bells."

  He started to blubber again.

  I got angry. "You're behaving like an infant. Tell me the worst and get it over with."

  "On and on went the bells. Then I heard a horse outside the window and one of the peasant farmers calling my name. He even threw a pebble up, while I was putting on my coat. I could only just make him out in the darkness. He shouted it to me, twice. I didn't believe him either time. I ran downstairs and barefoot into the yard, more or less as I was when I came to wake you. He told it to me again. I bad to believe it, there was no alternative. Why would this simple man want to lie? I brought him into the kitchen and poured out a lampachka in the proper way. I felt there should be some formality to our drinking. Though why I should have cared about such a thing in the circumstances, I don't know. We drank together. We cried together, that's why I'm like this. Then this peasant and I, we went outside and got down in the slush and prayed for Russia and for every single one of her people. Then he rode off and I ran upstairs to your room . . . Oh, Charlie, Charlie, what's to become of us all?"

  "Have we surrendered?"

  "Worse! A hundred times worse! A million times, worse than our greatest writer could imagine. They must hate our class in a way we could never begin to understand. To have rejoiced like that can only mean hatred and fear. He thought they loved him everywhere. I expect he consoled himself with that knowledge when he went off to shoot pheasants in his doleful manner or when he leafed through his collection of postcards. He'll have said, 'But they love me, it'll be alright in the end.'"

  "The Tsar?"

  Nicholas went straight on, weeping and sniffing. He turned up the collar of his greatcoat. "Yet even in Popovka, which is by no means progressive if you compare it to Smolensk, they rang the bells for an hour. Under our noses! How they heard of it in the middle of the night—that's another story . . . The fact is that he's gone. Our Little Father has stolen away. That's what all this concerns."

  "Don't be so histrionic. They were saying it's the only way out months ago in Samarkand."

  He said solemnly, "Yesterday or the day before, Tsar Nicholas II of the Romanov dynasty signed a deed of abdication, sitting in a railway carriage at Pskov. Only the other day we were celebrating their three-hundredth anniversary. Now—gone. Took out his pen and signed where some general said to sign. Put it back in his pocket and lit a cigarette."

  "Who gets it?"

  "His brother, the Grand Duke Michael, if he accepts."

  "After him?"

  "God knows. Wherever you look there's chaos and ruin. What I prayed for kneeling in the snow was this: I said, Lord Christ, who suffered and was crucified for us, preserve us from a republic. I didn't say it pathetically. I know I can feel sorry for myself but not this time. I knelt upright, with my fingertips touching the bottom of my beard."

  "Some republics have worked. The United States of America is one."

  "Because they're all refugees, no other reason. Think what a republic usually means: bloodshed, instability and the loss of privilege by the ruling class."

  "Yes, the guillotine took care of many a privilege in its day." The door had opened behind us. It was Misha in his dressing gown—black collar, cuffs and sash, black frogging across his chest on a pink field. He had on his yellow Turk's slippers. He'd watered his hair but his eyes were veined and heavy and his cheeks had a poor colour.

  "So who will be our Robespierre?" He swayed on the balls of his feet, hands rooted in his pockets. "I'll wager we haven't heard his name yet. He'll be hiding behind others, watching and listening, the eyes within a mask. Maybe he's not yet here, but in an attic in—I don't know where, some liberal capital like London ... So the Romanovs have gone. Well, I'm fifty-eight and I'm not going. The rabble can come and find me. First they'll kill my animals and my chickens. Then they'll scratch their heads and say, We'd better polish off old Mikhail Lvovich in case he makes trouble for us. Aim! Fire! It'd take a blind man to miss me. Much less painful than a lump in one's throat or stomach. I've done well. I shan't complain."

  Nicholas looked at him hotly. "That's a typical Baklushin remark. Everyone complains when they die. It's always too soon. What's a million times more important is how we're to live. Will I have to give my land to the peasants? My cattle? Ploughs, horses, everything that I have? How equal will I have to be? What will I live on?"

  "But your debts will disappear," I said.

  "If they take your cattle, Misha, they'll take mine too. What'll I do with the three cases of drench in my office?"

  "Drink them. You'll feel like it."

  "The whole thing ... it just doesn't bear thinking about. . . What sort of constitution is the country to have? Who's to make the decisions?"

  "Not our sort, we may be sure of that," Misha said. "We're to be the new Jews."

  "Exactly, prejudice at every street corner. Ah—but wait a minute—from now on every citizen is to have rights that can't be taken away. Yes, rights! So they won't be able to say, Hey, you're the Jews now and we're going to give you a taste of a pogrom, because if they do we can turn round and say, But we have rights, we demand protection by the courts. That's it, isn't it, that I'm to have the same rights as you or Pashka? . . . No, my worry is this, that every Russian is to have a vote in the new system. That means women too. Dear Christ, Helene with a vote ... She'll use it spitefully, nothing's more certain. A pessimist would say it's the end. Adieu. Done for. Finished." He drew his index finger across his throat.

  "Glebov," I said. "He never came back last night. There's a coincidence for you." But neither of them heard me.

  "There's no need to panic, Nikolai Borisovich. Nothing's going to happen in a rush except for millions and millions of words. You know how it is with us. And then . . . things may change for the better. A glorious victory. Or something no one has thought about. Understand this, the cake's not baked yet. And revolutions never happen in cold weather. History teaches us that. You've got time to do what you want. My own answer to the abdicatio
n is this: I'm going to send for Vasili and go home."

  But his stance, his garb, the manner of his speaking, none of these suggested that he was going to do anything hurriedly. He slapped his cheeks. "That's better, that'll get the blood moving. I'm not used to being awake at this hour of the day. Now, what's left that I can eat . . . ?"

  Nothing was going to stop Nicholas. "No no, we must do something now. Louis has gone. Why? Obviously there's a plan to attack us and he's been tipped off. Where's Kobi and my Mannlicher? Charlie, you're a professional shooter, how should we arrange our forces? Oh God, who ever thought it would come to this ..." An idea came to him. He raised his hand— "The Cossacks! The Smolensk Army Corps! Someone should ride and fetch a detachment—without delay—oh, but the snow ..."

  Slumped muttering in his chair, he dashed his hand across his brow.

  On the table, among the scummed plates and dried bread rinds, was an unfinished bottle of Crimean rose wine. Misha seized it by the neck and poured himself a tumbler. He walked over to the window, had a taste, pulled a face. He surveyed the terrace—half-melted snow, the dinginess of his cannon. He said something—a murmur.

  "What's that? Speak up, Misha. It's important I know what everyone's thinking." Nicholas tapped the table with a spoon for emphasis. When Misha continued to look out of the window, he went over and stood close to him—right at his elbow.

  Misha turned slowly. He looked Nicholas up and down with his heavy eyes. "Why is it important? You're too stupid to know even what you're thinking yourself."

  "I have duties in a crisis like this. I have to act for the good of all the Rykovs of the future. Consider every possibility, chart a path through the hazards, be leader and guide. Our family's been prominent for a century. Mine's the judgement to carry it for another century."

  "Piss and shit." Misha upended his tumbler and slowly wiped his lips down the length of his sleeve. He pushed Nicholas out of his way with the back of his hand and made for the bottle. This time he didn't bother about the glass.