Mariamna laughed harshly. “Do you think I’m afraid of that brute? Do you think that he’s been as ignorant about all this as you’ve been? He doesn’t care what I do, as long as it doesn’t interfere with his own filthy games.”
“He might feel differently if he were to actually catch you together.”
“He won’t come here,” Mariamna insisted.
“We arranged to meet at—”
“Misha was all I ever wanted,” Mariamna said. “Even when I was a little girl. Now I’ve got him. And it’s me he wants – not you. It’s me he loves.”
Why, why, why, did Misha find the strength to speak at last? Why couldn’t he have acted true to character a little longer, just until I had left?
“I … I only went with her because you wouldn’t have me,” Misha told me. “She … she’s your sister, and if I close my eyes I can pretend I’m with you.”
Mariamna’s face flooded with despair. That was how she must have looked when she found us naked in the barn, when she finally realized she’d lost Misha. Despair hadn’t lasted, that day long ago. By the time she leant over the side of the stall to taunt us, she’d channelled her anguish into hatred, into her thirst for vengeance. And that was what she did now!
She leapt from the bed and reached for her purse.
I knew what she was going to do next! “No, Mariamna!” I pleaded. But my own hand was already reaching for my holster.
Mariamna flicked the catch of her purse and pulled out a gun. It was a small, pearl-handled piece, a lady’s weapon. Hand shaking with rage, she raised it and pointed it at me.
“Stop her, Misha!” I shouted.
He was lying on the bed, as still as if he were a statue, as rigid as a corpse.
I looked into my half-sister’s eyes, searching for the brief flicker which would tell me she was about to pull the trigger. Do it first, I told myself. You owe her nothing! Do it first!
The eyes were quite mad. Was any of this really her fault? Was it any more than the work of the puppet-master in the sky, who had caused her to be born as she was, and now was pulling the string which raised her arm?
“It doesn’t have to be! It doesn’t have to end like this!” I screamed.
The eyes flickered and she fired. The bullet whizzed past my cheek and buried itself in the doorpost. I had my own gun raised, but I couldn’t bring myself to pull the trigger.
Mariamna fired again and I felt as if I’d been hit by a giant hammer. I staggered back against the wall, my left shoulder burning. Mariamna was ready to shoot a third time. She was getting the range. Her next bullet would do more than wing me. I pulled the trigger of my pistol.
I wanted merely to disable her. I was a good shot, I should have been able to do it, but my wound was aching and the room was starting to swim before my eyes. My bullet struck her forehead, gouging open a third, obscene, red eye. Her lifeless body collapsed onto the bed, her head striking the chest of a terrified Misha, her long black hair cascading so it brushed both his chin and his stomach.
I was lying on the floor, my back pressed against the wall, and Misha was leaning over me. “Are you all right?” he asked. “Oh, my sweet darling, are you all right?”
“Help me to my feet,” I told him.
He put his hands under my armpits and lifted me up. God, it hurt! I looked around the room – at the window, the bed, dead Mariamna. Waves of pain rippled through my body. The floor and walls wouldn’t stay still.
“We have to get out of here!” Misha said urgently.
“We … we can’t just … leave her,” I managed to gasp.
“We’ll be arrested,” Misha said hysterically. “We have to go.”
“And if … the police find her body … here?” I said with difficulty. “How long do you … think it would take them … to trace it to us?”
“I’ve got to go,” Misha sobbed. “I can’t stay.”
“Then go, for God’s sake!”
It wouldn’t be the first time he’d deserted me, wouldn’t be the first time he’d left me lying there – wounded, bleeding. My hazy mind drifted back to the river bank.
“Will you … will you be all right?” Misha asked.
“Yes,” I said, making no effort to hide my contempt. “It’s only a scratch. Get out while you can.”
He struggled awkwardly into his uniform, not bothering to fasten it properly or even lace up his boots. “Are you sure …?” he asked.
“Go!” I said wearily.
And he was gone.
I walked stiffly over to a chair, and sat down. I looked at my half-sister, still lying there. Poor Mariamna. I’d outstripped her in the schoolroom, I’d defeated her in love – though, God knows, I’d never wanted to. I’d even made better use of our shooting lessons with the Count.
It was ten minutes before I heard the sound I’d been expecting – the key turning in the lock and the heavy footsteps crossing the sitting room. The bedroom door swung open, and Peter walked in. He looked across at his dead wife and smiled, but when he turned and saw me, his jaw dropped and his eyes turned wild.
He rushed to my side, and knelt down. “You’ve been shot!” he gasped. “How the fuck did you … I never thought … You’re more than a match for her.” He saw my injury was little more than a flesh wound, and relaxed. The sardonic smile was back on his lips. “You tried to bloody-well talk her out of it,” he said.
“Yes,” I agreed.
Peter shook his head in wonder.
“Never give your enemy a fair chance,” he said. “Especially when she’s a hard little bitch like Mariamna.”
“You couldn’t have known she’d try to kill me,” I said.
Peter laughed. “I’m a gambler,” he explained. “But I’ve always got a pretty good idea which shell the pea’s under. Put the three of you together and the odds were for things turning out like they did. And of my dear brother-in-law abandoning you when it was all over. Running away like a shit-scared rabbit.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because that’s the way the little arsehole is.”
“I didn’t mean that.”
He feigned surprise. “Oh, you mean why did I get you to kill Mariamna?”
“Yes.”
“To tighten my grip on you, so you don’t go screwing me up like you did this morning. You’re a murderess now – and I can get you arrested any time I want to. How long do you think Misha will be able to stand up to questioning from the Okhrana – or whatever you call the secret police after you take power?”
“And why did you want her dead?”
“Because with the Tsar gone, she’d become more of a liability than an asset. And in my game, you get rid of your liabilities as soon as you possibly can.”
I was sure that everything he’d said was true, but there was more to it than that – there always was with Peter. And in a sudden flash of insight, I knew what that ‘more’ was.
“You wanted her killed because you couldn’t satisfy her in bed,” I said, “but Misha, that scared little rabbit, could.”
“Hah!” Peter replied, but there was unease beneath his contemptuous dismissal.
“And you wanted me here when it happened,” I pressed on, “so that I could see for myself how weak Misha was. You weren’t just worried he could keep Mariamna happier than you could – you were frightened that it might be true with me as well!”
It hit home. I could see it had hit home. But I hadn’t finished with him yet.
“You put my child in danger,” I said.
For a moment, he didn’t understand. “Your child? But Nicky’s not … You’re pregnant!”
“Yes, you bastard,” I said. “I’m pregnant.”
Sasha had been entranced by the news, Peter merely became brisk and businesslike. “You’ll have to move,” he said. “I’ll get you an apartment on this side of the river. When’s it due? Not yet, by the look of you, but we’d better get planning. It’s not as easy to find a good doctor as it used to be.”
/> My wound was throbbing, my judgement gone. I wanted to hurt him, and I didn’t give a damn about the consequences. “The baby may not be yours,” I said.
“Not mine?” he asked, thunderstruck. “Who else is there?”
“Think about it,” I goaded. “Think back to the days in the mir. We were all there. You, me, Mariamna, Misha and …?”
“Sasha!”
“S … Sasha! Poor, earnest Sasha. You broke his Union of Peasants, you defeated again when he organized a strike at your mill. But maybe he’s beaten you, this time.”
His huge hands locked around my throat and began to squeeze. Black spots floated before my eyes, and I gasped for breath. He’d always been powerful, but now his strength was almost superhuman. I couldn’t take much more of this. Soon, I would pass out. There had to be something I could say to make him stop.
“The baby … don’t …” I managed to croak.
His hands relaxed. I gulped in air greedily, then retched. When I looked up again, he had moved away from me.
“One job at a time,” he said, as though he hadn’t been on the point of murdering me. “First we get rid of my ‘dear’ wife. Then I’ll deal with Sasha.”
“If you kill him, I’ll kill you,” I threatened hoarsely, cursing myself for putting Sasha at risk.
Peter laughed. “I won’t kill him,” he said. “That’s too easy. That’s for people who are just an inconvenience – like Mariamna.”
He approached me again, and I shrank back.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he assured me. “I’m just going to look at your wound.”
He swabbed the wound, bandaged it, and made me a rough sling. The hands which had almost strangled me were now remarkably gentle. “You’ll need a doctor later,” he said, “but that should do for now. Can you walk?”
“Yes.”
“Then we’d better get the hell out of here.”
He went into the sitting room room, and when he came back he was carrying a flour sack in his hands. He opened the sack and bundled Mariamna roughly inside. “She’s as much fucking trouble dead as she was when she was alive,” he complained.
He lifted me to my feet and helped me on with my shooba.
“Where are we talking her?” I asked.
“You’ll see,” he said, flinging the sack over his shoulder.
He loaded the body into his Rolls-Royce and we drove out of Petrograd to the marshes near Tsarskoe Selo. As we pulled off the road, the sun was just setting, its dying rays casting a red glow over the water.
Peter pulled the bundle from the car, then wrapped some heavy chains around it. He tested the weight of his load, heaved it above his head and hurled it into the marsh. It hit the water with a tremendous splash, and sank.
“Goodbye for ever, you stuck-up bitch,” he said, as the ripples of water spread out and began to disperse.
“What if they find her?” I asked.
“They won’t, not for a few days, anyway. And by then, even her own mother wouldn’t recognize her.”
“What will you tell her friends? That she’s run away from you?”
“That I’ve sent her away,” Peter said hotly.
What wondrous creatures men are! It bothered him not at all to arrange for his wife to be killed, but he bristled at the idea that people should think she’d left him.
The last of the sun’s rays had disappeared, and darkness was beginning to fall. I shivered.
“Come on,” Peter said. “Let’s go and find you a quack who knows how to keep his mouth shut.”
He reached out his hand. To touch me? To offer me support? I don’t know. I brushed it angrily aside.
He had a weapon now – a real weapon – to use against me. Killing someone, even at that time, was not an act which could be lightly overlooked. Even if I escaped jail, I’d be branded as an aristocratic murderess – the Bloody Princess. The Party would disown me – it would have no choice – and I couldn’t bear the thought of that, not when there was finally a chance of victory. So I’d see to it that Peter met Lenin and I’d work for his success within the Party, though every fibre of Bolshevik feeling in me would cry out against it.
But in some ways, he’d lost his hold over me. Never again would I pant for him like a bitch on heat, never again would I long to be in his arms. In killing Mariamna, I’d killed my yearning for him – and now only my hatred remained. I knew now exactly how Sasha must have felt when he learned Peter had taken his land, had robbed him of something of himself. And one day – one day – Peter would pay for what he’d made me do.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The trees put out sticky fingers, and finding the air to their liking, the fingers opened to clothe the trees in green. Spring had come to Petrograd once more, ending the desperate search for fuel, making standing in the bread queues just a little more bearable.
I remembered the last time I was pregnant. How different life had been then. I was a princess living in a palace. And I had a husband.
“And what am I offering you, Baby?” I asked the swelling in my stomach.
Nicky had been born to a loving father. The new infant had a possibility of two – one I could not love as a wife should and another whom I hated.
“It’ll be all right, Baby,” I assured the tiny life inside me, sending it messages of love in much the same way as my body sent it oxygen. “Nicky and I will look after you.”
I saw little of Peter during those days. Even when he came to Party headquarters, he would immediately disappear into Stalin’s office, where the two men would spend hours closeted together. But still I worried. Peter had said he’d make Sasha suffer, and Peter always kept his word.
“Watch out for him,” I warned Sasha. “He’ll destroy you if he can.”
“W … why?”
“Because he hates you.”
“He’s always h … hated me. W … why should he want to destroy me more now?”
I couldn’t bring myself to tell him – couldn’t stand the thought of the hurt in his eyes. “Just be careful,” I said.
Yet I knew that he was never careful. Sasha, the only muhzik who had ever been brave enough to openly defy the Count, saw the world as straightforward, black and white, and had the simple faith that good would always triumph in the end. He had no idea of the shadows and shades which existed in Peter’s mind, of the twists and turns Peter’s intellect was capable of. No, Sasha would never be able to defeat his rival. If anyone was to protect him, it would have to be me.
Spring turned into early summer. The baby grew bigger and bigger.
“Put your ear to my tummy,” I told Nicky.
He lowered his head gently onto my swollen stomach.
“Do you hear anything?” I asked.
“Yes. A ‘boom, boom’. Like a drum. What is it?”
I took his hand and placed it against his own small chest.
“It’s a heart,” he said excitedly. “It’s our baby’s heart.”
I wanted the baby – whoever its father was – so much. I wanted the Bolsheviks to take power and solve all the country’s problems. And I wanted Peter to fail in his attempt to get revenge on Sasha. I wanted a lot!
It was July 4th – American Independence Day – and as I gazed out of the window of Lenin’s office, I could not help but think about the time, only a few weeks earlier, when I’d seen an angry mob demanding our leader’s arrest. There was a mob there now – Khronstadt sailors, soldiers from the 1st Machine Gun Regiment, workers from the Putilov munitions factory – but the pendulum had swung back again, and once more they were on our side.
“They’ve surrounded the Provisional Government building,” Lenin said. “They want us to stage a coup now.”
“It’s too soon,” I argued. “We’re not strong enough yet.”
Lenin began to pace the room, as he always did when he was agitated. “I know it’s too soon,” he said. “But do we have a choice? Will we keep their support if we don’t lead them when they demand it?”
<
br /> There was a sound of running footsteps down the corridor, and a great deal of shouting. Outside, the mob suddenly seemed very angry. The door burst open and a messenger boy rushed into the room.
“The … the army’s fired on some demonstrators,” he gasped. “Fighting’s starting all over Petrograd.”
Lenin smacked his open left palm with his right fist. “The coup goes ahead,” he said decisively. “By tomorrow, the city will be ours.”
He may have said more – knowing Ilyich, he probably did – but I was no longer listening. Instead, I clutched at his desk. “I have to go home,” I said.
“Now?” Lenin asked. “Just when I need your support?”
How awkward my children were, I thought. One had refused to come until long after his time was due, the other was insisting on arriving early. “The baby,” I explained to Lenin. “I’m going to have the baby.”
A car was commandeered, and I was bundled into the back. We could not go straight home. Some streets were completely empty, as still as if they’d never been walked by a human soul, but others were blocked off and we had to find a diversion round them. The air was filled with rifle fire, some close, some distant, but never entirely absent. The breeze carried with it the smell of cordite.
The journey was a nightmare for me, but it was not the wider world which filled me with dread – it was what was going on inside me. Was it possible, I asked myself, that I’d got my dates wrong? No! The baby was going to be born prematurely. What did that mean? How would that affect it? I didn’t know! I just didn’t know!
At last we reached my lodgings. I fumbled with the key. Shots rang out, somewhere close, perhaps not more than half a verst away. I pushed open the door and my driver helped me up the stairs.
Nicky and Vera were sitting on the floor – well away from the window – playing cards. My entrance startled them.
“Contractions!” I gasped. “Every five minutes.”
Vera – my good, reliable, little maid – allowed herself a second’s shock, then took control. “Have your waters broken, madam?”
“In the car.”
“See if you can find a doctor,” she told my driver. “Although, God knows, anybody with any sense’ll be keeping well out of the way today.”
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