The Four Winds of Heaven

by Monique Raphel High

  “Yet you waited so long,” she chided him, tears in her eyes.

  “I was certain you would refuse me.”

  She could not resist then, and left her seat. She went to him and placed her arms about his neck, her laughter tumbling about him like joyous confetti. She kissed him. “You are a wonderful fool,” she told him. “I want all that is you: your earnest look, your intense love of life, your generosity and impulsiveness, your loathsome past, even your domineering Zionist sister! I want to give you babies, to wake with you in the mornings. How could you have doubted me?”

  “We must go at once to Saint-Germain,” he interrupted her, “to tell your mother that I have ceased to bring you dishonor.”

  He stood and circled her frailty with his strong arm.

  Sonia de Gunzburg sat at the outdoor cafe on the Champs Elysées, a string of the finest pearls around her neck, a matching pearl ring on the third finger of her left hand. “You would like him, Natalia Nicolaievna,” she declared, and her gray eyes sparkled with small lights like diamond chips. “He is like Volodia—strong and steady, and yet he feels most deeply. He is completely Russian, a man of simple virtues and also of simple vices.” She smiled. “You see, I already know him well.”

  Natasha said, “I am so pleased for you, Sofia Davidovna. You have suffered so, and deserve happiness. And I am glad that you compared him to Volodia—for my brother was very much in love with you, and would have sacrificed everything to become your husband.”

  Sonia bit her lower lip, pensively. The light spring breeze kissed her cheeks and neck. Natasha sat opposite her, tall and graceful, wisps of black hair escaping at the nape of her slender neck. “Mossia would never want me to forget Volodia,” Sonia said softly.

  “Not if he truly understands you, which is apparent,” Natasha replied. A sad smile painted itself over her lovely features. She said, “But I must forget Ossip, for I too understand him. He is a man who needs peace, which is one thing I cannot bring him. You must not tell him I am here, and a widow. Let him enjoy Japan with his new family. She deserves to try to make him happy. I have wrought sufficient havoc in his life. He is fragile, unlike you, Sofia Davidovna, and unlike myself. Do not blame her for her dominance of him: she is unsure of herself as his wife, as a Gunzburg. And if she loves him, she must know that Ossip will need guidance, that his own suffering has deprived him of a certain will. Forgive your brother, Sofia Davidovna.”

  “You will not attend my wedding?” Sonia asked.

  “No,” Natasha replied. “For many reasons.” She smiled at the pretty girl her brother had loved, whose father had been her own father’s fiercest opponent. She saw a girl who had alternately hated and liked her, who had lost and won and lost as she had. But Sofia Davidovna de Gunzburg was winning again. Volodia would have wanted that, she thought fondly, and then she sighed. Her own exile was more bitter, and she would win no more. She had to disappear from the lives of the Gunzburgs, forever. She did not belong to them. Regarding Sonia, she thought: But we have all changed, we are in our thirties. We shall never see Russia again. It is silly, and weak, to want to cling to the past. For it was the past that destroyed the Romanovs, when the present might have saved their dynasty…

  Natasha rose, and behind her Sonia could see the Etoile, where her great-grandfather, the patriarch Ossip, had built his magnificent Parisian house, where her mother Mathilde had been born. There was great beauty in the sight of the noble Russian Princess outlined against the Arc de Triomphe. Sonia stood, too, and embraced Natasha wordlessly. No, she would not tell her brother.

  After Natasha Tagantseva Kurdukova walked away, Sonia remained in place, feeling the sunshine upon her bare arms. Suddenly she knew that she had been right, long ago, to have questioned God’s purpose in taking Kolya’s love away from her. She had not understood it then, but now she did. God had known that, nine years later, she would find greater, more lasting happiness with Mossia Zlatopolsky. While she had grieved and sickened, God had planned. He had taken care of her, his daughter. She closed her eyes, overwhelmed with her joy, a joy she felt with every fiber of her body. She did not need to struggle any more, to wrestle with survival. She could afford to grow soft contours, to laugh freely. For she knew that she was loved.

  Sonia de Gunzburg awakened on the day before her wedding with a calm feeling of plenitude. This was her last full day as an unmarried woman. She had never minded solitude and wondered sadly if she would miss it. She was marrying Mossia because she loved him, felt whole beside him; also because in many ways he represented all that she knew that she could never be: impulsive, generous to excess, a gambler. Still, she wondered. Her life had been as Sonia de Gunzburg, and it would be strange to become somebody’s wife.

  She did not want to speak with anyone that morning, wanting instead to be alone with her thoughts. This was one time in her life when she did not apologize for wishing to be selfish. Anna had arrived, and was staying in the house at Saint-Germain, along with Dalia and Riri. Now Sonia slipped noiselessly down the stairs and took the train into Paris.

  First she had errands to take care of, going to various couturiers to try on items of a new wardrobe which Fanny Aronovna was purchasing for her as a wedding gift. At Dobbs on Avenue Victor Hugo there was a navy suit and several blouses; at Jeanne Lanvin a pink ball gown, its skirt composed of four floor-length pleats. Finally there was Worth, where she had her last fitting for her wedding gown. She departed carrying a large box in which lay a mantle of white velvet, trimmed with fur and lined with satin, for wearing to the synagogue. At a street corner Sonia undid the wrapping and removed the coat. It was sumptuous, a thing of true beauty, worthy... of St. Petersburg. Laughing, Sonia put the garment over her frail shoulders and walked off in the sunshine, a white princess among commoners, a snow queen among dribbles of rain. She felt good, wonderful in fact. And she was not ashamed. The Crimea was at last behind her.

  Afterward, Sonia went to the temple for her ritual prenuptial bath. This was a ceremony which was important to Mossia’s mother, and, strangely enough, to her own. At this crucial time Mathilde was holding onto rituals with ferocity. There was the bath, and also the matter of being married by the Grand-Rabbin of France. The Grand-Rabbin of Paris, a great friend of Sonia, would simply not do for her mother: for since Mathilde’s own wedding, all the Gunzburg women had been married by a Chief Rabbi of France, and anyone else would mar tradition.

  When she arrived for supper at the home of her Aunt Clara, Sonia had spent the entire day walking and thinking, and was elated in her own quiet way. She went to bed early. Misha and Clara had thought it made more sense to have her sleep at their city residence the night before the great day, rather than let her return to Saint-Germain. But this time, when she slipped between the familiar covers, she was once again the young niece, the guest, and not the hired governess.

  Before going to sleep, Sonia summoned two men from the past: her father, and Volodia Tagantsev. I have made a good decision, she said to them in her thoughts. You see, Volodia, I am too much a Jew to ever give up my faith. I am too much my father’s daughter. But Mossia is real, as you were. He is of this earth, as I am. Somehow this make-believe conversation settled her last doubts. There was no pretense, no courtly dance about this wedding. Nobody would leave her at the altar.

  But in the morning she awakened trembling. She was afraid. Kolya had thought fit to leave her. Had he not, too, loved her deeply? Was she meant not to marry, that one man should die and the other marry another woman? Mossia would not be there today; he would send her his excuses, and leave her standing alone, forever. Her heart was beating erratically, and there was a lump in her throat. All her ghosts had come rushing from their graves to invade her spirit.

  With the enormous willpower upon which she could count to get her through the dire moments of her life, Sonia passed the time until ten thirty in the morning. Then her Uncle Misha came to take her to the city hall of the sixteenth district of Paris. She was going to be married there for
the state, before her religious wedding. She donned a new champagne-colored dress, and put on her new hat, all of smart black osprey feathers. She was very pale. “What’s the matter with you?” Misha teased her. But she felt so close to tears, so ridiculously afraid of rejection that she could not answer. She felt at once so foolish and so right that it would have been useless to discuss the black hole into which she had fallen that dawn. Not even Misha, whom she loved, would understand.

  This was hardly an important ceremony for Sonia, and only Misha and his son, Serge, accompanied her. On the steps of city hall stood Mossia, with his two friends, Willner and Schneerson. When she saw him, Sonia nearly fainted. She saw her father-in-law, Hillel, waiting for them in a taxi, and began to laugh somewhat hysterically: whoever waited for the end of a wedding in a hired car? Sonia and Mossia were routinely married by the civil servant; and her uncle and small cousin, and Mossia’s friends, signed the wedding forms as witnesses. In the street Misha’s chauffeur jumped out to greet her: “Best wishes, Madame!” Then, and only then, did Sonia truly look into her new husband’s face. He was laughing.

  “Madame?” she repeated. “But we weren’t really married yet, you know.”

  “No,” Mossia said. “I suppose not. Although in the legal sense we are. We would have to divorce now to break our union.”

  Her gray eyes rested lightly on his mischievous features. But she did not respond. He might still leave her before the afternoon ceremony at the synagogue.

  When Sonia returned to the house, the wedding gown had arrived from Worth, and now chaos reigned in the apartments of Clara de Gunzburg. Mathilde, in her pearl-gray gown, stood calmly by while seamstresses fussed around her daughter, and the hairdresser sent by Dondel, who had coiffed and curled the hair of every Gunzburg bride since Mathilde, combed and set the heads of Sonia’s bridesmaids. There was Anna, in green; Tania, in pink, freshly arrived from Switzerland, and happily chatting to everyone; and Nina Abelson, in yellow. All three gowns had been made by Worth, and were cut in the same fashion, but Sonia had thought that the three women deserved to wear the color most suited to their hair and their complexions.

  At last Sonia was dressed, and her magnificent black hair was loosely curled into a small chignon at the back, and coiled into two macaroons at the sides. The long white veil was pinned above the pompadour, and a small headband of orange flowers was placed over her forehead. Mossia had sent the bridal bouquet: three interwoven stems, the tallest a sprig of lilac, the second a fleur-de-lis, and the last a flurry of sweet-smelling lily-of-the-valley.

  At the synagogue, Sonia saw Mossia, towering over his parents and his sister, Shoshana Persitz. Sonia took in her husband’s gray striped trousers, black frock coat, and top hat. He was truly there, waiting to line up for the procession. His eyes held hers: I am here, they were saying. But she could not speak to him. They were being separated for the entrance. It was two o’clock.

  As the organ music resounded in the Temple Chasseloup-Laubat, the various children, Gunzburg cousins and second cousins, walked in couples to the nuptial dais at the front. Serge was among them, and Riri. Then came the bridesmaids: Anna, Tatiana, Nina. Finally it was Sonia’s turn. “Remember that I love you,” Misha whispered. David would have said it just so. Sonia nodded, overcome; she stepped onto the heavy carpet, and behind her two tiny girls held her long trail. A suitable distance behind this billow of white, Mossia walked with his mother, Fanny; then Hillel with Mathilde.

  The Grand-Rabbin of France spoke eloquently for twenty minutes. His discourse concerned the great Gunzburg name, allied as it was today with the Zlatopolskys. Sonia found herself listening to him with all her heart. It did matter, somehow, what was said at her own wedding. She had never thought to pay attention to the speeches at other weddings, but now she was hungry for the feeling of belonging to a venerable tradition. Someday a child of hers would want to know about the families from which he had come. A child. Hers and Mossia’s…

  She was so entranced by the magnificent words, by the mystical importance of the surroundings, by the music so noble in its strength, that when it came time for the vows she felt uplifted, above it all. Mossia placed the ring upon her finger, and said, “In the name of Abraham, Jacob, Isaac, and Moses, you are my wife.” The Rabbi had bent to whisper the sentence to him, but he already knew it by heart. She smiled then, a smile which radiated from her entire body.

  They were married now, man and woman united. The Rabbi blessed them, read them the marriage act in Hebrew, and Sonia and her husband drank wine together from the silver chalice. Then a young boy brought Mossia the small glass to break. Sonia watched in dismay as her beloved, suddenly afraid to miss his throw, stepped back and, with all the force of his enormously powerful body, hurled the fragile object upon the floor. It shattered, its myriad shards flying in all directions, making the bridesmaids move back to avoid the glass. A noise bubbled, then grew in volume: and Sonia Zlatopolskaya turned to see the smiling, laughing faces of her friends and family. She looked at Mossia: helplessly, he made a charming gesture admitting his clumsiness. She pressed a gloved hand to her mouth and giggled, a girl again.

  In high spirits, they proceeded to the reception at Clara’s home. It was a moment for mirth and champagne. Mathilde, however, sat down on a small bench with Riri, and passed a hand through the fine gold of his hair. He was a young man now, and she said, seriously, “What plans do you have, Reza Hadjani? Tell me about them. You know, I have never known how to handle rebellion. But if you feel at odds with the world I shall listen. I think that I could learn to listen, to you.”

  In front of the fireplace, extinguished now because it was spring, Tatiana raised her periwinkle eyes to a face she had not seen for many years. Jean de Gunzburg had sought to avoid her at the synagogue, and she him. Now, by chance, as groups of wedding guests moved about, they found themselves side by side. “You are lovely,” he said to her quietly, without preamble. “Maturity becomes you.”

  “But I don’t always like it,” she retorted. Weddings were not for tears of pain, only for tears of catharsis. She looked away, her throat constricting. “It is not fair,” she said. “Leave me alone.”

  “You are not happy?”

  Slowly then, with dignity, she met his gaze. “Who knows? But it’s the way I am, anyway. I am happier than you, for I have three handsome sons, and you are alone.”

  “They told me that one of your children is called ‘Jean,’” he said softly.

  “Yes... I have always liked the name. Forgive me now, I must circulate among the guests.” Casually, with the tips of her fingers, she brushed his cheek, then turned on her heel. He watched the small, voluptuous shape disappear into the crowd, and sighed. Somebody spoke to him. He looked up and smiled pleasantly. The music played all around him and he was alone, as she had said.

  Enveloped in clouds of white lace, Sonia too heard the celebration of the string quartet. There were, she knew, no guarantees: perhaps the symphony of her life would not always retain the frenzied joy that was hers today, but there was a grandeur to the music, a grandeur to simply being alive. Sonia had survived, in her body and her heart. Pressing Mossia’s arm, she whispered, “Why don’t we leave now?”

  That night, in the bridal suite of the Trianon Palace in Versailles, where he had bared his past to her, Sonia looked at her husband’s reflection in the vast gilt mirror. She knew then why she had chosen to love him. He was broad and tall, like the vastness of Russia; poignant and vulnerable, a surging force like the four winds of heaven. In his sea-green eyes shone the soaring spires and onion-domed cupolas of her youth, a reflection of a paradise lost. There was no turning back, and perhaps there should be none; but she could never have shared her future with a man who did not, in himself, also contain her past. She smiled at him in the mirror, but her gray eyes were grave.

  Before coming to him she went to the small table where she had laid her bridal bouquet, and she extracted from it a small sprig of lilac. She inhaled its scent, t
hen with strong fingers she opened her gilt-edged Bible, a Bible that had belonged to generations of Gunzburgs, to Baron David before her—and she carefully placed the white flower between two pages. “For Gino,” she said. “When he returns he will know that we have waited for him, that this day did not go by without a thought of him.”

  When Mossia nodded, she walked to him on the tips of her toes, the better to reach him. She kissed him fully on the lips, and said, “This is my dowry, beloved.”

  About the Author

  Monique Raphel High is a Franco-American author. She was born in New York City to French parents who met in the expatriate community where each had taken refuge during the Nazi Occupation of France. When she was only a few months old, her parents returned to Europe, where she was reared in Paris, Rome and Amsterdam.

  Monique graduated from high school in Paris at 16, and was admitted to Barnard College of Columbia University as a foreign student. She graduated with a double major in Renaissance Studies and English literature.

  Monique taught writing at UCLA in the 1990s, and was such a popular teacher that her students asked her to take them beyond what was available at the university. She formed her own workshops and seminars, entitled WriteHigh, which eventually turned into a literary agency in the early 2000s with offices in Beverly Hills, New York, Paris and London. She discovered a number of writers who have since become well-known, such as Jill Smolinski and Janis Thomas, and nonfiction authors Candy Deemer and Nancy Fredericks. Monique’s writing methods involved pairing authors to write scenes involving characters from both their books, having group therapy with a licensed therapist for the book characters, and outlining detailed plot lines and the emotional development of each book character on elaborate, colored charts.