The Lost Souls of Angelkov

by Linda Holeman

  Today, Antonina doesn’t react with quite the same alertness as previously. She slowly sits up in her bed after the message has been delivered to her bedroom. Lilya opens the window; it’s mid-afternoon, and the room, in the growing heat, smells musty.

  “Did he come to the house?” Antonina asks. “Did he come specifically to speak to me?”

  “No,” Lilya tells her. “Apparently he came across the fields, and took the back road to the stables.”

  “I must go out to him,” Antonina says, swinging her bare feet to the floor. “Help me, Lilya.” She reaches to the end of the bed for her gauzy robe.

  “Tosya,” Lilya says, “I will go and see what he wants. You wait here.”

  “No. No, I must go out. Perhaps he’s one of the kidnappers, with another ransom note.” Even as she says the words, Antonina feels no hope. She has given up on hope. She simply waits for each day to pass.

  Some days, she drinks tea with lemon, or eats a piece of bread and jam. Mostly she lies on her side, facing the window, watching as the leaves unfurl from the trees. She sits up periodically, to sip from the glass on the table beside the bed. She has grown tired of the thick, heavy wine and now drinks only vodka. Although Konstantin had shut down his distillery the previous year, saying it no longer brought in enough profit, there is a storehouse full of his own special brand, waiting to be sold. There are many, many bottles in the cellar of the manor. The vodka is clear and crisp.

  Sometimes a small nightingale comes to the branches of the tree outside her window, calling in a whistling crescendo.

  “Antonina Leonidovna,” Lilya says, as if speaking to a child who has been ill a long time, “you mustn’t overexcite yourself. And if you do choose to go downstairs, please, let me help you dress properly. It isn’t good for the servants to see you this way … Please, let me help you dress, and … your hair.” The last word pulses in the air. “Let me attend to your hair.”

  “There isn’t time,” Antonina says, but as she stands, she has to shut her eyes and hold on to the bed.

  Lilya puts her arm around Antonina’s back, feeling her ribs just under her skin. “You must put on a warm gown. And at least cover your head.”

  Antonina, with Lilya following, makes her way across the sunny yard, where she sees Grisha talking to a stranger. Unable to wait until she reaches them, Antonina calls out Grisha’s name, and he turns, a startled look on his face.

  He glances at Antonina’s velvet hat, pulled low on her forehead. The collar of her soft wool coat is turned up around her face. It’s a warm day, and yet she’s dressed as though the air has a chill. Her skin has an unhealthy opaqueness. He hasn’t seen her in the last ten days; every time he sent word that he had estate issues to discuss, he was told she was resting and didn’t wish to be disturbed, that he should deal with it himself.

  “What is it, Grisha?” Antonina says, having closed the gap between them. She looks up into his face, and then into the face of the other man. He is very broad, with a grizzled grey beard. He takes off his cap and bows to her; his grey hair stands up in greasy spikes. “What does he want? Why is he here?” She looks back at Grisha, studying the expression in his dark eyes.

  The man lifts his head and stares at her boldly.

  “He brings a message,” Grisha tells her.

  “A message?” Antonina repeats, as if the word is unfamiliar.

  “From your son. He brings something from Mikhail.”

  Antonina doesn’t move or speak or even blink. Grisha realizes how ill she is. He wonders if she understood what was just said.

  “Madam?” he says softly. “Countess Mitlovskiya? Did you hear? It is a message from Mikhail Konstantinovich.”

  Antonina straightens and grabs the stranger’s arm. “You have him? You have my son?”

  “No, no, madam. I only came to give proof. I’m not involved in any way, countess, but simply a messenger. Would I come here, and put myself at risk, if I was involved?” He glances at Grisha.

  “Have you seen him?” Antonina’s voice is louder than it has been in weeks. “Was he well? Where is he?” She whirls back to Grisha. “Go with him and find him. Get my boy back, Grisha.”

  Grisha speaks sharply to the man. “Well, Lev? Have you anything more to tell us? Can you tell us where we can find the child?”

  When the man Grisha calls Lev doesn’t speak, Antonina cries out, “Did you come for money? I can give it to you. Come to the house, and I will give you more money, and then Grisha will go with you to my son. Please, oh, please.” She’s crying, moving from Grisha to Lev, tugging on their sleeves, the fronts of their jackets, their hands. “Please,” she cries again.

  Lev looks from Grisha to Antonina. “Yes, I came for more money. Once they have more money, they will return the child. You should know he is alive by what I brought,” he says, gesturing to Grisha.

  “What did he bring, Grisha?”

  “I’ll show it to you, madam, but please, calm yourself. We’ll go to the house and I’ll show you there.”

  “Show me now,” Antonina begs. Demands. “Give it to me, Grisha.”

  Grisha reaches inside his tunic and pulls out a folded paper. He hands it to Antonina. She studies the music score on one side and then reads the short note on the other. She drops to her knees in the mud and kisses the creased page over and over, rocking back and forth as she holds it to her breast. Her lips move; she is praying. Tears run down her cheeks, and finally she grows still. “He’s alive,” she whispers. “My Misha is alive.”

  Lilya helps her to her feet.

  Antonina takes a deep breath, wiping her cheeks. She straightens her shoulders and faces the man called Lev again. “You will tell me where you got this.” She holds up the page. “You will tell me immediately.”

  Lilya sees the old flash in Antonina’s eyes, a look that hasn’t been there for so long. Her voice is once again that of the countess, not a broken, grieving woman. She even appears taller.

  Lev glances at Grisha. “Countess, I am not directly involved. I am the messenger,” he repeats, “and I receive my instructions by written notes. I do not see anyone.”

  “I don’t believe you. Grisha, do you believe this man? And who is he, anyway? Where has he come from?”

  In the silence, a crow croaks from the branches of a linden.

  “We have little recourse but to do as he asks, madam,” Grisha says. “We will give him the money. I won’t let him go until I make sure he has nothing more to tell us. That he speaks the truth. Do you speak the truth?” Grisha asks. Then, his hands flat on the man’s chest, he gives him a shove.

  Lev falls onto his bottom, looking up, undignified and yet defiant.

  “I think I can persuade him to tell us more,” Grisha says, and this time he puts a foot on Lev’s chest and pushes him flat.

  Lev lies in the mud with Grisha’s foot on his chest, his eyes narrowed as he stares up at Grisha until the steward hauls him up by one arm. “Don’t worry, madam. If there is anything more to learn, I’ll beat it out of him.”

  “What of the money?” Lev says, uncowed.

  “What is the demand this time?” she asks him.

  “It is the same as the first amount, countess,” he answers after a moment’s hesitation.

  “And when will my son be returned?”

  Lev shrugs. “I am only the messenger,” he says, strangely calm in spite of Grisha’s threats.

  At that, Grisha drags him towards the stable. He looks back at Antonina. “Go to the house, madam. I will have him beaten until he tells me what he knows, and then report to you.”

  Clutching her son’s message to her chest, Antonina walks firmly and purposefully back to the house and into Konstantin’s study. She takes out his strongbox and fits the key into the lock. She carelessly counts out a stack of rubles, seeing—but not caring—that the box is almost empty. She wraps the pile of bills in her handkerchief and gives it to Lilya, who hurries out to the stable with it.

  She hands it to Gri
sha. He stands in front of Lev, who is leaning against the wall of a stall.

  “Leave us, Lilya,” Grisha says, and the woman hurries off.

  When Lev unexpectedly rode into the yard and produced the letter from Mikhail, written on the back of the Glinka musical score, Grisha had felt an overwhelming sense of relief. The boy wasn’t dead. Soso had made him wait all this time, punishing him.

  He hadn’t expected the countess to come to the yard when Lev was there; she rarely ventures out of the house. It confused matters, her joy at the letter from her son.

  “I will hold the money,” he tells Lev now. “You don’t suppose I will just give it to you.”

  “But you have proof the boy’s alive.”

  “Yes, but you don’t get the money until you bring the child back. Do you understand? There will be no money unless Mikhail Konstantinovich is returned.”

  Lev looks at him with such venom that Grisha wonders if he has just sealed the child’s fate.

  “It will take a while,” Lev finally says. “If you don’t give me the money, it only means you will wait again. Who knows how long this time.”

  Grisha knows Lev is acting on Soso’s commands. “Where is Misha?”

  “He’s alive, I tell you. That’s all that matters, isn’t it?” When Grisha doesn’t answer, Lev says, “I’ll send word when and where to bring the money, and when you do, I’ll exchange it for the boy.”

  Grisha steps closer. “I’m to believe you?”

  “What choice do you have?” Lev asks, and then turns and leaves the stable. Grisha watches him mount his horse and ride away. Surely the boy is becoming a nuisance. How long will they want to keep him?

  Antonina sits behind Konstantin’s desk and looks at Mikhail’s note again. The page is from Misha’s composition notebook, the one he grabbed as he ran from the music salon the day he was taken.

  The note is written in charcoal and has some words scratched out in Mikhail’s usual style. As she runs her fingers over the writing, Lev, unhurt, is galloping away from the estate through the newly planted fields.

  My dear Mama and Papa,

  I am sorry for what happened in the forest because I couldn’t turn my horse around. Are you angry with me, Papa? Will I still get a puppy for my birthday, Mama? You promised I would get a dog when the weather was fine. I pray every day that I will come home for my birthday at the end of this month. This is all I am allowed to write.

  Misha

  Mikhail’s birthday is June 28.

  “June the twenty-eighth,” Antonina whispers.

  Antonina goes to Konstantin’s room and shows her husband the note.

  He swats it away. “It’s a ruse. He’s dead.”

  “Konstantin. It’s his handwriting, on a page from his own music notebook.”

  “It could have been written long ago.”

  “No. He says—look—I pray every day that I will come home for my birthday at the end of this month. His birthday is at the end of the month, Kostya. He wrote it in the last few days. He’s coming back to us, Kostya. I gave the man more money, and now he will be returned.”

  “Are you an idiot?” Konstantin stands and hits Antonina across the face with the back of his only hand. He loses his balance but manages to remain standing.

  The unexpected blow is painful, but she says, defiantly, “He’s coming home.” Then she leaves her husband, going to her room to put a cold cloth on her cut and swelling lip.

  The day after Antonina received Mikhail’s note, she rises from her rumpled bed with purpose. She has hope—real hope—and suddenly wants to go to church. She wants to thank God for listening to her prayers.

  She dresses and slips from the house and across the yard; she doesn’t want even Lilya to come with her. She walks through the small copse of trees near the estate and arrives at Angelkov’s Church of the Redeemer. Behind the church is a cemetery where lilies of the valley flower profusely, and the lilacs are beginning to bloom, their hanging cones of mauve and white blossoms swaying in a soft breeze. There is warbling from the taller oaks. Even with the beautiful weather and the blossoming trees and flowers, the cemetery looks melancholy. There is a sense of disorder, perhaps even chaos. Many of the headstones are listing after the wet spring, the uneven earth humped and dipping, nettles and weedy grass overtaking the graves. It’s clear that no one tends to the graveyard anymore. The serf who once looked after it must be one of those who has left the estate; Father Cyril has not come to her to ask that someone else be assigned. Or perhaps he has, on one of the occasions she refused to see him.

  Because it’s a balmy day, the church door is open. There are only a few benches along the back wall for the oldest or infirm to sit on during the two- to three-hour sermons. All the other worshippers stand or kneel. The stained glass windows of saints and the Madonna and Child, which Konstantin had imported from Italy, glow, throwing their prisms onto the floor. The rows and rows of little red glass candle holders are serenely comforting, although only one candle flickers this morning. Antonina dips a taper into its flame and lights a candle for her son.

  The church brings her an immediate comfort. She lights more candles, watching the flames flare briefly and then burn with a steady pulse. Antonina has the small church to herself, apart from a man in dusty overalls above her on some scaffolding, repainting the trim around the edge of the high domed ceiling. The only sound he makes is a slight shuffling as his boots move along the rough board that supports him.

  Antonina forgets him once she’s prostrate on the floor, arms spread wide and forehead pressed onto the cold stone. She lies there for much of an hour, thanking God for keeping her son alive. And then she has a vision. It may be brought on by her lack of food and proper sleep, but she sees, on the darkness of her closed eyelids, something soft and white.

  It is a comforting, floating vision.

  Yes, it could be another bird, not like the one she saw when she’d taken too much laudanum and bromide. This is a white bird, its feathers delicate, its eyes kind. It could also be an angel, couldn’t it? Antonina wants to think that an angel hovers over her.

  The vision is so beautiful that she feels uplifted in tandem with the angel or bird. A warm, lovely calm comes over her. She hasn’t felt this sense of calm for so long, not even before Mikhail was taken. When has Antonina ever felt such peace? Maybe not since she was an innocent child on her father’s estate. It may be that she is only falling into a natural deep sleep; it’s been so long since she slept peacefully. But whatever it is, the clarity of the vision makes her cry. Her tears fall onto the stone floor. In her head she watches the angel, or bird, swoop back and forth, back and forth, in a peaceful rhythm. Finally it comes to rest over her, motionless. It is as if the winged figure is caught on an updraft of fragrant air from the lit candles.

  It hangs over her for an indescribable length of time: seconds, minutes, Antonina can’t know. Then it slowly, almost languorously, moves its wings.

  Antonina doesn’t want it to fly away. She wants it to stay over her, blessing her. But the wings move faster and faster, and she hears them fluttering, and strangely, now, it’s outside her head, not inside. Without warning, she’s pulled back to reality. There’s a harsh human cry, which makes Antonina open her eyes, confused, and in the same moment a crash. Something glances off the back of her hand. She winces, her shoulders tensing, and in the silence that follows, lies there, stunned.

  “I’m sorry, countess, my deepest apologies,” she hears from above her. “A swallow … there’s a nest here. It startled me, and I almost fell. I grabbed … the panel broke off … I’m so sorry, countess.” The man’s voice is threaded with panic.

  Antonina pushes herself to her knees. To her right is a pile of white and gold plaster, broken into jagged pieces. Among them is a little golden cherub, perhaps three inches long. Surely it was this that hit her hand. It lies there, undamaged apart from a tiny chip at the end of one gleaming wing.

  She picks it up and stands, craning her h
ead to see the man in overalls leaning out over the scaffolding. “I’m so sorry, countess,” he calls down again.

  Antonina nods at him, but holds the cherub tightly. She knows what it means—this baby angel falling from the skies to her. She’s been waiting and watching for any small sign, anything she can cling to. First was the note from Misha, then the vision, and now this. It’s more than enough. Her prayers have been answered.

  Just as the cherub has fallen to her from out of the skies, one wing only slightly marred, Antonina is now certain that her son will be returned to her.

  She passes Olga on the stairs to her room.

  “How are you this morning, madam?” Olga asks, peering at Antonina’s split lip.

  “I’m fine,” Antonina says. She keeps her hand with the cherub in it hidden in the folds of her skirt. She wants to go to her room and think about what has happened, but when she gets there, she finds her husband.

  “What are you doing?” she asks.

  He’s hunched over her writing desk. The drawers are opened and papers are strewn on the floor. An inkwell has been spilled. Tinka is quaking behind the chair by the fireplace.

  “I’m looking for my money. You’re stealing from me,” he says harshly. His sleeve is pinned up over the missing arm.

  “Konstantin, stop it. Of course I’m not stealing—I’m your wife.” She’s careful to stay where she is, near the door.

  “Everyone is stealing. I dismissed Pavel, the useless bastard. I found him wearing my riding boots.”

  Antonina glances at his feet; they’re bare. “Konstantin,” she says softly. “Wait here. I’m going to—”

  But he rushes towards her, his face so dark it’s almost plum-coloured. She’s frozen with shock for a second, and then she runs into the hall, shouting for Pavel, for Lilya, for anyone to help her. Konstantin comes after her, grabbing her by the shoulder. His breath is foul, his pupils huge and black. There is noise and confusion, servants screaming, thundering footsteps on the stairs, Tinka’s frantic barking. And then Grisha is there, encircling Konstantin with his arms so that the old man lets go of Antonina, struggling, still trying to kick her with his bare feet.