Anna and Marta carried the feathered mattress to the top of the stairs, but before they could descend, the man appeared with more books that he threw over the railing. He seized hold of the mattress from them now and hurled it over, too, so that it fell atop the small hill of books.
“There!” he said, laughing stupidly at his antics—until he noticed the women staring at him. “Go back to work!”
“Is he the only one around?” Anna asked, once they were back in the bedroom.
“There were others yesterday, but they left, taking much. Only he and his woman remained.”
“What in heaven’s name are you and Marcelina doing here?”
“Somehow, Countess Zofia knew that the house would be lost. We were sent to salvage those things that we could carry back to Warsaw. The two men she had hired to assist us were killed by the others. But it was that one,” she hissed, nodding toward the hallway, “who killed harmless Stanisław.”
“Old Stanisław! Your father-in-law . . . my God!”
“You must run for it, Countess! I can’t leave Marcelina. He’ll not have her while I’m alive. And it’s only a matter of time before he discovers his wife’s body.”
Anna and Marta carried the bedposts downstairs and out to the wagon. They both could have run, had it not been for Marcelina, who still lay motionless.
“Get a move on with your work!” the man growled as Anna and Marta came back into the house. He was lounging on the mattress where it had fallen upon the pile of books. In one hand he had a book that was opened to an engraving. In the other, he held a liquor decanter from which he had been drinking. It was this hand he used to gesture above. “And don’t forget the eagle,” he cautioned.
As Anna and Marta walked up the stairs, he called to his woman. “Nina! Ni-na. Ni-na.” He went on calling her name, each time in a different pitch, as if enchanted by the various sounds the name of the dead woman could produce.
At the stairhead, Anna examined the three-foot stone eagle that rested on the newel post. He was thief enough to cart away the symbol of Poland.
The two women quickly found that the statue was too heavy for them to lift. Anna wondered if he had been joking about taking it. If he had any idea how heavy it was. Anna peered over the railing. She could see him there, mumbling to himself as he turned the pages in search of more engravings.
It was then that it came to her.
Using only her eyes, she motioned for Marta to help slide the eagle along the upper railing. When Marta saw Anna’s intent, her eyes waxed like two moons, but she wasted no time in following directions.
They pulled at the eagle. Slowly it moved, a thumb’s width at a time. It slipped from the newel post to the railing with a little jolt that made it teeter there for a moment before it was steadied. Then Anna and Marta moved it along the railing while struggling to maintain its delicate balance. Their foreheads beaded with sweat and their fingers on the stone tore and bled with the strain.
At last, Anna saw that it was in position. She looked down to see the Russian ripping an engraving from a gold-edged book.
“Now!” she sharply whispered.
The two released the eagle.
With amazing speed and force the stone bird plummeted to the first floor in search of its prey.
The mattress muffled the bone-crushing sound of the impact.
The man had managed the shortest possible outcry. Had he seen it coming?
Marta galloped down the staircase. “Who is to say that women are helpless?” she sang out in hysterics as she went to kick the lifeless form. “Who says?”
“Yes,” Anna said, following her down, “women can kill, too. Let him be, Marta. You can’t do anything more to a dead man.”
“But I would like to,” Marta said. “To kill poor Stanisław! This one’s death was too quick.”
The looter lay face up, his open eyes bulging, blood streaming from his mouth. His neck and chest had been crushed like a bunch of red berries.
Anna walked over to him and stooped to pull the ring off his finger. It took some doing.
She hoped that he had had a moment to make his peace with his God. As for the stone eagle that weighted him to the mattress like paper to a desk, it was unscathed.
Anna and Marta hurried out to Marcelina and managed to revive her. Removing a few bulky items from the wagon, they laid her in it, assuring her that the looters were gone.
They made several trips back to the house to rescue the Gronski books. By the time this task was finished, the Gronski fields and outbuildings were afire.
“Let’s go,” Anna said, making ready to board the wagon.
“Wait, Countess.” Marta turned and ran into the house.
Anna waited impatiently for what seemed a long time. “Marta, hurry, or we’ll all be roasted like pigs on a spit!” Smoke and ash were flying through the hot winds.
At last the servant appeared at the door, rolling the stone eagle before her.
“What in God’s name are you doing, Marta?” Anna screamed, running to her.
“The rear of the house is afire!”
“And we will be, too, if we don’t get the wagon moving.”
“We must take the eagle.” Marta stopped at the top of the short staircase. She looked Anna in the eye. “It is the symbol of Poland and this great house. We cannot leave it to destruction.”
“Leave it be, Marta! Do you want to forfeit our lives for a bit of stone?”
“We can’t, Madame. Bad fortune will follow us all the days of our lives if we do not take it.”
“I think she’s already been doing that, Marta.”
There came the sound of glass exploding as the rear rooms of the house yielded to the fire. Anna looked at the servant, who was not about to give up her task.
“All right, I’ll help. Let’s lift it together from the porch.” Once the eagle was on the ground, they rolled it out to the wagon. It took every effort then to get it lifted and aboard.
Breathless, the two climbed up onto the bench. Anna took the reins and slapped the old horse. The wagon began to rattle slowly forward down the long drive, toward the river.
“Of course,” Marta said, “we’ll have to scrub the blood off the eagle before Countess Gronska sees it.”
“I doubt that it will come off, Marta.”
Before they reached the road, Anna halted the wagon and turned around. The fire was eating up the rooms of the house that had so impressed her . . . was it only two years ago?
The Gronski house served for the moment as a great lamp to offset imminent twilight. The entire estate was going up in flames as though it were tinder which had been dried for a hundred summers. The thief takes only something; the flame takes all.
A way of life was dying. Paradoxically, along with the pain of loss and death, the fire held a strange and beautiful power, too. It was both magnificent and terrible to watch.
Anna slapped the horse again, and the heavily-laden wagon made for the road that ran along the River Dniestr.
Within the hour, a faint orange glow behind them was all that lighted the moonless night. Anna could not actually see the road in front of them, but the horse’s instinct seemed a good compass. They moved slowly. Except for the mournful croaking of frogs near the river, the night was as still as death.
Sensing that the two peasants were afraid of the night’s spirits, Anna initiated conversation. Marta told her that Jan Michał was a robust and cheerful child who kept the Gronski household busy and entertained. Anna found it hard to imagine him now; she had not seen him in well over a year.
“Have you heard anything of your husband, Marta?”
“No, Madame Walek stood with General Kościuszko. We hope for the best. Of course, he cannot write.”
“Have there . . . have there been any letters from Count Stelnicki?” In other times, in other circumstances, she would not have dared such a question of a servant.
“Not that I know of, Countess Anna.”
“No wor
d whatsoever?”
“No, Countess.”
Marta and Marcelina soon fell into a fatigued sleep. In the pitch of night, Anna dared not hurry the horse.
60
AT DAYBREAK THE TRAVELERS CAME upon a cluster of peasant dwellings. The inhabitants were receptive, recognizing at once the Gronski name.
“Take the candelabra, Marta,” Anna said, “and give it to these people. We will need food and water for our journey to Warsaw. And try to bargain for a fresh horse.”
The three were received into one of the little cottages where they washed and ate a tasty breakfast of kasza, cakes, and chicory. Anna and Marta were pleased to see Marcelina eat a fair amount. She would be fine in a few days.
As they stood thanking their hosts, Anna thought how different these Poles were from the peasants of France. She knew there were some abused and bitter peasants to be found in Poland, but it was hard to imagine these good people, who were saddened by the losses of the Stelnicki and Gronski estates, taking up pitchforks and scythes against the Polish aristocracy. On the contrary, it was people just like these, from border to border, who had taken up their farm implements against the foreign influx, as they had for centuries. Such was the essence of being Polish.
The three had just climbed into the wagon when Anna noticed that the candelabra had been returned to its place behind the seat. “I told you to give them the candelabra, Marta,” Anna said.
“They would not take it, Countess.”
Before Anna could question further or insist that they accept the payment, a force of Russians arrived in a long caravan of a hundred mounted soldiers, several well-appointed carriages, and assortment of supply vehicles.
The sun played on the gold braiding of the captain’s long red coat as he directed his stallion toward the wagon. Neither his demeanor nor that of his mounted men indicated that this regiment was anything other than rigid and disciplined. His face was clean-shaven and sternly set. “Who are you?” he asked. He removed the three-cornered hat but did not introduce himself.
“I am Countess Anna Berezowska-Grawlinska of Sochaczew.” Anna was careful to use the name Zofia had used in writing to her.
“You are of the nobility?”
“I think I just made that clear, Captain. Is it captain?”
“Yes, Captain Krestyanov.” He was eyeing her dress and the modest wagon.
Anna told him about the burning of the estates, avoiding mention of Walter’s regiment.
“You were fortunate to have escaped, Countess.”
Anna nodded. His words rang hollow.
“Tell me, Countess, are you allied with the Empress?”
Anna swallowed hard. “My name has been attached to the Confederacy of Targowica.”
The captain made a show of calling for a list from his lieutenant. Anna thought he still doubted her nobility.
“The name again, Countess?”
Once she told him, he began searching the list which went on for pages. “And your destination?” he asked even as he looked.
“Warsaw—or rather, Praga.”
“Ah, here it is, Countess Anna Maria Berezowska-Grawlinska.”
Anna had been right in suspecting Zofia had registered both her surnames with the Confederacy.
“Why is it you do not use your husband’s name exclusively?”
“I’m a widow, Captain Krestyanov,” she said, pronouncing his name with precision. “I plan to start using my maiden name exclusively.”
“Isn’t that unusual?”
“My marriage was unusual. Captain, are we to be allowed to continue?”
He held her gaze. “Listed here also is a son, Jan Michał Grawlinski.”
“Yes. He was too young to travel. He is in Praga, at the home of my aunt, Countess Stella Gronska. She, too, is allied, if you would care to look.” Anna knew that while something sweet usually catches the fly, here a little condescension and irritability might go a long way toward convincing him of her station.
“That’s all right.” He would not be manipulated into looking for the name. “You have the sanction of Catherine, Empress of Russia. We, too, are going to Warsaw and we ask the honor of your company along the way. We will afford you protection. I’ll see to it that the Countess is accommodated in a better vehicle. One of my men will take charge of your wagon.”
Anna sensed Marta stiffen. She attempted to refuse his offer, but her objections fell on deaf ears. She soon found herself being helped into a luxurious carriage.
The owner of the vehicle was a prosperous Polish physician, a rotund man with a full beard and thinning gray hair. When he grumbled his greeting, Anna assumed he had been given no choice in sharing his capacious coach.
They were soon underway.
As they passed through tiny hamlets, Anna became aware of the slow, mournful tolling of church bells. “Is our country mourning the invasion of the Russians?” she whispered.
“It’s more likely funerals,” the physician said. “All the Polish patriots who were foolish enough to go against the Russian tide have been slaughtered like deer.”
Later, Anna caught sight of a funeral procession, watching as men and women lifted their voices in a sorrowful song for those who had died and for those who were left behind to face the devastation of the country. Anna sighted then a group of peasants following a dung cart laden with a pine box, its crudely-drawn coffin portrait a testament to the youth of its inhabitant. For the survivors, masses of peasants—people who knew little, but whose hearts were big—the world had betrayed them. Their lords, their nobility, their king had all failed them. The Prussians, Austrians, and Russians would sit at Polish tables and drink Polish blood.
Anna felt at one with these people. Yet, she was part of the aristocracy Catherine had chosen to spare. At what cost was the aristocracy saved? She felt traitorous toward those faceless thousands gathering in every Polish village, town, and city across the length and breadth of the country.
Anna realized that her nobility itself meant little to her. What truly mattered was the safety and well-being of her loved ones and the plight of the whole nation. She prayed for Aunt Stella and little Jan Michał. She prayed for Jan Stelnicki—where in the flow of blood was he to be found? And, yes, she prayed for Zofia. Jan Michał would be in Walter’s hands were it not for her aunt, her cousin, and the emerald stickpin. As for herself—where would she be, sadly, had not Zofia affixed her name to the Confederacy?
At one point, the carriage was halted briefly to allow for another funeral procession. “Why is it,” the physician muttered, “we must be delayed? These patriots have nothing but time left to them to bury the dead!”
“Then you don’t support the cause?”
“I am my own cause. I’ve learned well at the hands of the nobility.”
“That is a sweeping statement, Doctor. In fact, the selfish nobles are those who invited Catherine in. There are so many other nobles worthy of respect.”
He grunted.
Anna persisted. “The patriots’ cause has united all Poles, whether they are of the aristocracy, the landed gentry, the merchant class, or the peasants.”
The physician shrugged. “The cause has failed, nonetheless.”
“Do you intend to remain in Poland?”
“I do. Oh, I have an eye to my main chance, Countess. I’ll cater to the Russians, if need be. I expect to grow quite rich.”
“You can do that? Without a care that Poland is being torn into strips like a sheet?”
“I’ll take those strips and make them into bandages and charge the Russians for them!” The thick black brow above his left eye lifted, his forehead furrowing. He smiled, revealing small, yellowed teeth. “What about you, Countess? You, who have been so careful to ally yourself with the evil Empress? Do you care?”
I do, Anna wanted to scream. But she realized that the doctor had removed her line of defense, as surely as if he had removed her heart.
Part Six
Through bravery you may win
a war,
and through bravery
you may lose.
—POLISH PROVERB
61
THE FIRST SIGN OF THE retinue’s coming into the city came with the sound of children at play in the streets. Dusk was just starting to settle. The air was stiflingly warm. Anna raised the shade just as the carriage set upon the cobbled streets of Praga.
At Anna’s urging, the physician had his coachman halt and relay to the Russian captain that Anna wished to leave the procession at this point.
Turning to the physician before alighting, Anna thanked him for his hospitality.
He nodded perfunctorily. “Goodbye, Countess.”
Anna hoped never to see him again.
The captain himself helped Anna from the carriage. “I’ll have two soldiers escort your wagon to your aunt’s. Which street is hers?”
“It’s on that bluff overlooking the river, to our left. But an escort is not at all necessary, Captain.”
“Just the same, it will be done. These streets can be dangerous.”
“Praga streets? Since when?” Anna suddenly realized that the children she had heard were not playing; they were begging, their voices chanting, “Bread! Bread! We are hungry, please!”
This, in a wealthy section of the city?
The little ones pressed close to Anna as she was escorted to the wagon in which Marta and Marcelina waited. The oldest boy, dark and gaunt, ran ahead of her. “Bread, milady? Coins?” He was no more than seven years old. The others followed, taking up the cry, “Bread, milady?” A tiny girl came last, her blond hair a nest of tangles, her dress torn.
Anna stopped and faced the little band. She was certain that these children had only recently taken to begging. They were not the usual street urchins. “Why is it that you beg?” she asked the boy. He stared wide-eyed, amazed that he was being interviewed. The girl took his hand.
“Is this your sister?”
He nodded.
“You are a very pretty little girl,” Anna said, kneeling down. “Look at those dimples!” She could not help but be reminded of Louis and Babette, yet she held her composure. She would do something for these waifs who crowded around her. “Would you like bread for your sister and for yourself?”
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