Push Not the River

by James Conroyd Martin

  Anna’s candle, which she set down now, lighted her immediate surroundings. Above her head, spiders’ webs stirred lazily in the heat and smoke of the candle flame. Sausages and hams, swaddled in white cloth, hung from the joists in the floor.

  The floorboards above her creaked and moaned with the weight of many men. Anna could only imagine the chaotic scene above as she listened to people running and screaming, doors slamming, glass breaking. Those Russian oaths she could understand were vile obscenities. She heard, too, what sounded like death cries from some of the women.

  “God help us!” she cried out aloud. She fell to the ground, pressing her hands to her ears as though she could shut out what was happening.

  By the time she removed her hands, she was uncertain how much time had elapsed. From the yard came sharp commands and the sounds of a bugle. Horses neighed restlessly, their hooves stamping on the hard ground.

  The Russians were moving out.

  If she were to hold out just a little longer . . .

  “Anna Maria!” someone shouted.

  Anna held her breath. Walter! He was in the dining room, almost directly above her.

  “Anna!” he called. His steps moved away then, and his cries grew more remote. He was checking the upstairs rooms. He would be insane with anger.

  Anna looked to the light at the end of the passage. Picking up the candle, she crawled in that direction.

  Her dress considerably hindered her progress, and her hands and elbows became scratched and raw. When she had finally moved the twenty or thirty paces, she found only disappointment. The source of light was a small window. Breaking it was of no use because it was barred with a cross-work of iron, allowing no escape.

  She turned around and started to crawl back to her point of entry.

  “Anna! Anna!” Walter’s angry voice was directly overhead again.

  Anna stopped, chilled by the sound. She had to bite down on her finger to suppress the despair that welled up within her.

  There were fewer movements in the house now, fewer noises. The commotion in the yard increased as the men made ready to ride out.

  He doesn’t know of this hiding place, she assured herself. He might even assume she had escaped before today. He would leave with his men. Go! But he would question Boraviecki, Lilka . . .

  Something else then claimed Anna’s attention. She smelled something strong and pungent. Holding the candle up, close to the floor of the dining room, she could see thin wisps of smoke seeping through the floorboards.

  The house had been set afire!

  She had hesitated to get into the cellar out of fear of being trapped. That fear had now become reality. Anna tried to control the panic that rose up within her. Abandoning the candle, she quickly crawled to the spot just below the trap door.

  She reached up and pushed, to no avail. The sack that Lilka had placed there held the door secure. She half stood and put her shoulder to the task. The door moved slightly. She pushed at it, again and again, in little fits of energy. The door budged a little more each time until she had it nearly half out of its frame.

  She extended her hand then in an effort to push the sack aside and it was at the moment that someone locked on to her wrist. Sack and door were pushed aside in one stroke and Anna felt herself being pulled up into the kitchen as if she were a rag doll.

  “Ah, they say the best fish swim near the bottom!”

  It took Anna a moment to take in the voice and face. It was Lieutenant Boraviecki. “Thank God,” she breathed, happy that she had been pulled out, and happy that her fisherman was not Walter.

  “I think he’s given up,” the lieutenant said. “He’s gone outside.”

  “You’re not going to give me over to him?”

  “No, Countess.”

  “What am I to do, Szymon?”

  “If we can get you to the east side of the house, the way should be clear for you to disappear into the garden and then to the wheat fields. You’ll have to run like hell because everything on this estate is going to go up like dry tinder. Let’s go. I’ll get you as far as the door.”

  They turned and Anna nearly tripped over Lilka’s body. She stopped suddenly, then looked at the soldier.

  He nodded. “Walter did it. She wouldn’t tell. But I sensed she knew something. That’s why I came back in here. Come now!”

  As they made for the rear exit, they were checked by the appearance of Walter in the doorway.

  “Isn’t this a pretty sight?” Walter said.

  “Let her go, Walter.”

  “Are you crazy?”

  “Just let her go. She’s been through enough.”

  Walter laughed. “Just like that? I think not.” He started to move toward them, into the kitchen.

  The lieutenant drew his pistol.

  Walter stopped, stunned for a moment.

  “You’ve already fired your pistols outside, Walter.”

  “So I have. But I have my sword.”

  “That you do.” The lieutenant’s blue eyes bespoke his determination. “Draw it and you die. Take a step forward and you die.”

  Walter stood still, uncertainty in his face.

  “Now,” Lieutenant Boraviecki said, “take three steps to your left so the countess may pass.”

  “Why are you doing this, Boraviecki?” Walter grudgingly moved to his left. “Has she wormed her way into your heart? A year of imprisonment has made her quite resourceful. Szymon, you’re prepared to give up everything?”

  “I am. Anna, follow the directions I gave you and Godspeed. Don’t look back.”

  “But—”

  “Do it, Anna! I’m the best marksman in the regiment, not that I need to be at this range. The odds are with me. Go, and consider your troubles from Walter finished. Hurry!”

  Anna looked from Szymon to Walter, then back to Szymon.

  “I’ll see you at the Faro tables,” the lieutenant said. “Now, go!”

  “I need something from my room first.”

  “What?” Szymon cried.

  “A box.”

  “It’s that important?”

  “Yes.”

  “Christ! It’s useless to argue with you. Take the backstairs. The front have burned. Hurry!”

  Anna edged her way past Walter, then ran.

  The upstairs hallway was filled with smoke, but she found the room, the wardrobe, the box. In seconds she was once again in the smoke-filled hallway, then flying down the narrow servants’ stairs. As she ran past the kitchen for the outside door, she heard Szymon admonish her again to hurry.

  She knew, as Walter must have, that Szymon was going to kill him, had to kill him.

  Outside, Anna faced a wall of heat. All the Stelnicki buildings had been set ablaze. A few men ran while others struggled with their horses among the confusion and smoke. She took her chances and made for the east side of the house.

  Heart and head pumping, she ran into the dry and untended garden, toward the wheat field.

  Praying all the while she would not be seen. Praying no one would care to come after her if she were seen.

  Into the field then. On and on, she ran, breathing in the oppressive heat, coughing from the smoke. She stumbled once and fell. When she pulled herself up, she allowed herself the luxury of looking back.

  The house was fully afire now, as if the earth had opened to allow the flames of Tartarus to feast upon it.

  Then came the report of a gun. She stared at the house a full minute. Nothing.

  The undisciplined regiment was moving out.

  The lieutenant had risked his life for her. If only she could go back to assure herself that he was safe and that Walter was indeed dead.

  But Anna knew better. Reluctantly, she turned around now and moved off in the direction of the Gronski estate.

  Szymon Boraviecki had gambled.

  59

  A HOT BREEZE STIRRED THE WHEAT as Anna ran, the sun beating down. By the time she came to a thicket at the side of the road, she was wet wi
th perspiration. The bodice of her dark dress clung to her.

  She set down the hand-carved box. Exhausted, she let herself fall into a little gully of soft, tall grasses. Small trees shaded her.

  She lay there panting. No one had come after her. No human sound could be heard, only the muffled roar and crackle of the fire that was destroying the Stelnicki estate, buildings, and crops. The men and horses seemed to be gone.

  Anna resisted fatigue. She could not rest too long, for the dried fields could very well carry the fire right to her. After she caught her breath, she stood up and climbed atop a tree stump. From this vantage point, she could see that the house had been fully engulfed. Flames shot out of the window of the room in which she had spent the past fifteen months. Tongues of fire were licking at the fields, too, tongues that moved hungrily toward her. The drought had rendered everything fuel for the flames.

  Anna jumped down. She set about removing her full underskirts so that she could move less encumbered.

  Picking up the box, she started toward the Gronski estate, not knowing what she would find. If it were locked, she had no key. What if it, too, were destroyed?

  At first, she attempted to walk through the gully, but the way was so tangled with weeds and briar that she fell twice. She climbed the incline to the road then and hurried along at a quick pace, casting a look back now and then, afraid that she might catch sight of a Russian regiment bearing down on her. She couldn’t see the fire any longer, just the funnels of smoke that poisoned the sky, some black, some white.

  Anna came to the little bridge spanning a tiny tributary of the River Dniestr, a shallow stream that separated the Gronski and Stelnicki estates. She let herself down the ravine to the beckoning water.

  Removing her shoes, she left them with the box at a spot shaded by a willow and waded into the narrow ribbons of water. The muddy bottom was soft, the water cooling. Bending over, she cupped her hands and splashed water on her face, then drank greedily.

  Taking all the stays from her hair, she let it fall to her shoulders, bent, and drew up water to run through it.

  She sat on a large rock, allowing her feet to dangle into the stream. And for a brief time she was transported back to childhood. Happy if just for moments by the most elementary components of life: the sun, a tree, a rock, water. These were the things that were real, that endured, that gave life. For just a few moments, the reality of what was befalling Poland and its people did not exist.

  How is it, she wondered, that men can kill as they do?

  Anna drank again before she left that spot.

  It seemed an hour before she reached the buildings of the Gronski estate. The doors of the barns and stable stood open, empty. The manor house seemed untouched, the back of it closed and shuttered.

  As Anna moved around to the front, an open wagon with a single horse came into view. In it were furniture, statuary, and other items of value from the household.

  Then came the screaming.

  On the other side of the wagon, two women were striking and kicking one another. As Anna moved closer, she saw that one was a servant girl, the other—older, broader, brightly dressed—a peasant of the coarsest character. The girl was unable to provide a contest and fell, only to be mercilessly kicked in the back, stomach, and groin.

  “Stop!” Anna called out. “Stop!” Her voice seemed not to carry.

  Even before Anna could pick up her skirts to run toward them, another servant woman came running from the house. Unnoticed by the others, she raced to the wagon and quickly pulled from it a golden candelabra. Lifting it high into the air, she brought it down on the larger woman, striking her in the back of her head.

  The woman dropped like a stone, and by the time Anna came upon them, lay still, a dark pool forming at her head.

  “What is the meaning of this?” Anna demanded.

  “Countess Berezowska!”

  Anna looked to the blond and buxom woman whose hazel eyes reflected a delighted amazement. The woman who still held the candelabra was Marta.

  “What are you doing here?” Anna asked. “What in God’s name is happening here?”

  “That’s my Marcelina that this one was trying to kill.”

  At that moment a man’s raised voice could be heard calling from within the house.

  Marta’s face clouded instantly. She looked down at the colorfully-clad dead woman.

  “Who’s in the house, Marta?”

  “It’s her husband. They’re looters, parasites. Oh, Madame, what are we to do?”

  “We must hide her, Marta. Come, quickly!”

  Anna placed her box near the wagon. Marta spoke as each of them took an arm and dragged the woman’s body thirty paces where some shrubbery concealed her from the house. “I don’t understand their Russian, Countess, but I know that the woman became furious when her man took notice of my Marcelina. She fought with him in the house and then came out here to kill my daughter. Oh, Countess, I did what any mother would do!”

  Anna said nothing as they rushed back to Marcelina. She had not even recognized the bloodied girl who lay unconscious.

  Suddenly, the man emerged from the house.

  Anna stood tall, her eyes narrowing in assessment even as her heart quickened while he walked toward the wagon with steps that faltered now and again. He had been drinking. His grizzled hair and beard were long and unkempt. He was perhaps forty-five. The expensively tailored clothes were tightly stretched on his thick form. Anna recognized the waistcoat with the gold buttons as belonging to her Uncle Leo.

  “I am the Countess Anna Maria Berezowska,” she said in Russian when he stood towering before her, close enough for his sour breath to reach her. “In the absence of my cousin, Countess Zofia Gronska, this estate is in my custody.”

  He stared blankly through his fog of liquor. “And I am the Czar of Russia,” he mocked in a low Russian dialect. He bowed. “The Czarina, my wife, is about somewhere. Has the good Countess seen her?” His smile revealed gaps between rotting teeth.

  “I have not,” Anna said, even as she spied the dark pool that had been left behind. “I must ask you to leave these grounds immediately,” she said, taking a few steps toward the wagon, as if to examine its contents. She hoped that her dress, though not very full without her underskirts, would hide the bloodstained ground. “You may take what you have here and go.”

  “May I?” He stepped up to Anna and struck her across the face with such force that she nearly fell. His ring slashed her cheek. “Oh, Countess, there is much more to go in the wagon. See how much room I still have?” He noticed Marcelina now. “What is the matter with the young chicken?”

  “She’s ill,” Anna said, wiping at a small trickle of blood that ran down her cheek.

  “Pity. Now you will do her work. I’ll save space for her in the wagon.”

  Realizing that he meant to take Marcelina with him, Anna became indignant. “I am the Countess Anna Berezowska—”

  The man struck her again, propelling her to the ground.

  “You may not look like a countess in your ragged dress, but you have the gall of the aristocracy, I grant you that. Countess or no, you will do as I bid you!”

  Marta helped Anna to stand.

  “Nina!” the man called. “Nina!” His eyes surveyed the landscape.

  Anna made certain her dress once again covered the stain. “Perhaps she’s in the house.”

  He grunted. “Inside, then!” At that moment, he noticed the box on the ground. “Well, what’s this?”

  “It’s mine!” Anna said.

  He held Anna at arm’s length while he opened it and held up the crystal dove to the light. “This will fetch a pretty price,” he said.

  The box fell from his grasp now, and Anna scrambled to retrieve it.

  “What else is in it?”

  “Nothing.” Anna had no sooner gotten the word out of her mouth than the alexandrite ring flew free of its velvet.

  “Nothing?” The man picked it up. “A pretty li
ttle nothing it is, too.” With some difficulty, he put it on his little finger and admired it. Then taking the box from Anna, he replaced the dove and positioned the box in the wagon underneath the seat.

  He prodded Anna and Marta toward the front door. When Marta tried to stoop to see to Marcelina, he kicked her. “Come, you’ve work to do.”

  While Marta did not understand the words, the meaning was clear, and she had to pick herself up, leaving her daughter.

  On the way inside, Anna surreptitiously slid the velvet-wrapped emerald stickpin into the bodice of her dress.

  Anna took in the first floor. It had already been sacked of anything of value. As they walked, Marta whispered to Anna. “If he says he will spare our lives, don’t believe it. He’ll leave no witnesses behind. He desires Marcelina, but when he’s done with her, he’ll kill her, too. You must flee, Countess Anna. I’ll detain him somehow, and you must flee.”

  The man turned about, glowering, as if he understood Polish.

  Anna didn’t dare answer her.

  They followed him upstairs and through several rooms that had already been stripped of most of their furnishings. He touched those things that he wanted them to cart down to the wagon. Anna nodded each time.

  Anna and Marta were told to disassemble the mahogany bed in the guest room Anna had used when she came to Hawthorn House. While they did so, Anna watched the man carry past the room armloads of books from the Gronskis’ tiny upstairs library. A few seconds later there came a great clatter as he dropped her uncle’s most treasured possessions over the railing to the marbled hallway below. To think he treated the cherished Gronski books with such disdain caused Anna’s temples to pulse with anger. These were symbols of the family’s place in Poland and as valuable as the ancestral weapons that hung on the walls of manor homes all across the nation. Anna was glad that the Countess Gronska had at least removed the family weapons when they went to live at the Praga townhome two years earlier. It was a bit puzzling, Anna thought, how these two components—weapons and books—which so defined the nobility were such unlikely bedfellows.

  “You must try to escape,” Marta pressed. “I can detain him.”