The Lost Souls of Angelkov

by Linda Holeman

  “What do you mean—the next little while?”

  “Until we leave.”

  Lilya swallows. “Leave Angelkov? To go where?”

  “We’ll go with Grisha.”

  “Grisha?” Lilya knows she is echoing her brother, but such is her surprise—perhaps shock—that she’s having trouble keeping up.

  “He’s going to have his own place, and I’ll be his steward.”

  “Grisha, a landowner? And how will this happen?”

  “He already owns land,” Lyosha says calmly. He has no reason not to tell his sister these facts. Grisha has spoken to him about this since February and the announcement of the emancipation.

  Lilya’s mind races. “He owns land? Where?”

  “He bought a small parcel from Prince Bakanev.”

  “How could he do this?”

  “Lilya, you know that Grigori Sergeyevich has worked for the count for many years in a salaried position. He has no wife, no family—he saved what he earned.”

  Lilya takes Lyosha’s hands in her own. “Don’t do anything yet, little brother. Please, I beg of you. Don’t speak to the countess, and don’t talk any more of leaving. Not yet.”

  Lyosha sees panic in her face, hears it in her voice. And there’s something else, something troubling. She’s too desperate, her grip on his hands fierce and possessive. He feels sorrow for her. She’s been working too hard, he thinks.

  Antonina has managed to not fall back into the deep blackness of the first few months after Mikhail disappeared. She never stops thinking about him, but now it’s with numbness. She won’t believe he’s dead, even though there’s been no more word from him, no further visit from Lev.

  It’s also as though she’s a widow. Konstantin grows ever more confused, lurching about the dark house at night, his empty nightshirt sleeve swinging. Occasionally she opens her eyes and sees him standing beside her bed, looking down at her. The first time this happened, she cried out, and Pavel came running and led the old man back to his bedroom. The next times it happened, she simply told her husband to go away, and he did.

  She has seen Pavel feeding him from a spoon, as if he were a small, weak child. He still needs the chloroform tincture, Pavel insists, although she wonders that he has pain after four months.

  Antonina gets through every day as best she can. Because Angelkov now needs her help in a way it didn’t when there were serfs—sometimes too many—to do every job, she has something she has never before known: a sense of purpose.

  And as long as she has enough vodka, she manages two or three hours of sleep a night, and can carry on.

  Antonina receives an invitation to a musical evening at the home of Prince and Princess Bakanev. She plans to decline. They will understand. It’s only been five months. To Antonina if feels like five years. She can’t remember exactly what her life felt like before, although she can recall so much happiness with Mikhail: hearing the stories he read aloud in both Russian and French, his excitement as he talked of his zoology lessons and the wonderful animals he had discovered on all the continents, his growing understanding of the earth through his geography lessons, his attempts at art with his tutor, and always, always, listening to him play the piano.

  There is Lilya to talk to, but Antonina has begun to find her old friend a little tedious. Try as she might, she has not been able to persuade Lilya to go to her own room in the servants’ quarters at night. Lilya likes sitting quietly by the fire in Antonina’s bedroom, making intricate lace. At Antonina’s urging, she learned to read and write when Misha was a baby, although she undertook both slowly and haltingly. Occasionally she reads the Psalter.

  She could be a quiet comfort to Antonina, yes, but Antonina doesn’t like the way she has to tell Lilya when she wishes to be alone. She doesn’t like Lilya’s faint but distinct look of betrayal, as if Antonina should never forget what happened so long ago on the Olonov estate.

  There is nothing left of that former life. Her father died of heart disease two years after Mikhail’s birth, and the estate was sold. Antonina’s mother moved to Paris with a French lover shortly afterwards. She wrote infrequently to Antonina, and then the letters stopped altogether; she doesn’t know if her mother is still alive. Viktor died after suffering a debilitating injury at the battle of Alma in the Crimean, and her youngest brother, Dimitri, from what she could find out, had disappeared into a haze of alcohol and a life of debauchery. The middle brother, Marik, still lives on his own small estate in northern Pskov with his wife and four children, but he and Konstantin argued a number of years ago at a family celebration. Neither would apologize, and Marik has broken ties with his brother-in-law—and his sister too.

  In spite of the loss of her family—or perhaps because of it—before her son was stolen from her, Antonina knew she was fortunate to have her own home, a husband and a child, and berated herself for not being thankful enough. She could fill her hours with the usual pursuits of women of her class: there were endless reasons to visit other estates and stay for a few days or weeks, there was adult company she could invite to Angelkov for afternoons of walks through the gardens, of boating in the summer and troika rides over the shimmering snow in the winter. There could be evenings of whist and musical recitals. But being with crowds of people had never appealed to Antonina. Although she recognized that she had usually been content on her own, or with Misha, she felt a nagging sense of disquiet, as if life was passing by. That she was being swept along in the current, with no real sense of direction or power, looking for something to hold on to. Or perhaps someone.

  Lilya encourages Antonina to accept the Bakanevs’ invitation. “You haven’t been to a social function since …” She pauses. “… for some time. Perhaps it would help you to see old friends.”

  Antonina studies the vanilla-coloured card that has been delivered to her by Pavel. She is sitting at the piano. “Friends?” she says, looking at Lilya. “They’re not my friends. They’re Konstantin’s friends.”

  “Still, Tosya,” Lilya says, “wouldn’t it be lovely to dress in one of your gowns—perhaps the maroon silk? You look so beautiful in it.”

  Antonina takes another drink of vodka before playing an arpeggio. Her fingers trip on the keys, the arpeggio ruined. She tries it again, then starts a Haydn sonata rondo instead. She thinks of the crush of bodies clad in satin and silk and velvet in an overheated room, bright with candelabras and smoking oil lamps. Of the smell of perfume and cigars. The faces gazing at her with pity, the sighs, the pressing of her hand in sympathy. And then the well-meaning people will turn away from her, relieved to have done their duty with the poor thing, free to go on to their glasses of champagne, the silver trays of hors d’oeuvres of sturgeon and caviar, the anticipation of the music recital.

  Then Antonina thinks of the long evening ahead of her at Angelkov. She’ll have her light dinner and retire to her bedroom. She will have to tell Lilya she prefers to be alone. She’ll read, sipping from her glass until her eyes burn and the vodka has made her drowsy, and then she’ll pray for sleep, pray for relief from nightmares about Mikhail.

  She doesn’t want to think of it anymore. The Haydn doesn’t feel right. She stops, and begins Chopin’s Prelude in B Minor. After the first ten bars she can’t bear it, remembering the pleasure it always brought her to listen to beautiful music, the musical evenings she has loved.

  She reaches for her glass but knocks it over. Fortunately, the vodka runs down the side of the piano and not onto the keys. “I’ll get Nusha to clean it up,” Lilya says, picking up the empty glass.

  Antonina looks down at the keys. She knows that what Lilya has said is true: she’s alone too much. She needs to get away from Angelkov, away from Konstantin and his distressing behaviour, away from the mindless glasses of vodka.

  “Perhaps I’ll go after all, Lilya,” Antonina calls out. “Not the maroon silk. Take out my black taffeta.”

  Within the first few minutes in the Bakanevs’ drawing room, Antonina knows that it’s a
mistake to be away from Angelkov.

  She has never fit in at such parties, never knowing what to talk about apart from answering questions about her husband or recounting the antics of her son. Now, as she joins each small knot of men and women, it’s painfully clear that nobody will mention Konstantin or Mikhail. Evenings of this sort are not the place to bring up such unpleasant topics.

  So she smiles and nods, accepting, with as much grace as possible, the comments from all those who tell her that they are glad to see her. She’s looking well, she hears over and over, although she knows this isn’t true. She is self-conscious in her black taffeta, the black feathers in her hair. She has dressed as if she is really a widow—another mistake.

  She answers simple questions about the estate, the flight of the serfs, and agrees about the relief of the fall’s coolness after the heat of summer.

  She drinks the glasses of champagne she’s offered, although she declines the food. Throughout the musical performance she stands at the back of the room. She enjoys the music, watching the eight men without seeing them: they are like a flock of moving black birds making beautiful sounds. But at the end of their last set, when the pianist plays the first chords of Glinka’s Separation in F Minor, she feels as though she’s been thrown into a pond of icy water.

  She sees Mikhail, clutching his little composition booklet as he runs after his father.

  Setting down her glass with a shaking hand, she stares at the violinist. She is once more in her father’s home, listening to Valentin Vladimirovitch accompany the pianist after he had made love to her mother.

  He knows he last saw the woman in black at one of the grand estates that dot the countryside of northern Pskov. When Valentin had been owned by the wealthy Prince Sergius Denisovich Yablonsky, the prince dictated when, what and to whom his carefully chosen orchestra would play. To the audiences in the various opulent salons and ballrooms, the serf orchestra was an evening’s pleasant entertainment. To Valentin, it was his life: the soaring freedom of the music combined with the imprisonment of being owned by Yablonsky.

  Now, all that is changed. He’s a free man, and can choose where he wishes to play, with whom and for whom. Yes, everything in Russia has changed since the emancipation.

  And she—the woman—is changed as well. Her face is thinner, almost translucent in its paleness, and there’s something about the eyes … She looks older, Valentin decides, but not older in the natural way of the passage of time, of the—what is it, a decade or more? since he saw her. No, this is something deeper. He’s seen this look before, although not usually on the faces of nobility. He’s seen it on the faces of the peasants, those who were so recently serfs, those whose lives have been altered without their control. So something has happened to her, something more than time. All in black, she’s a dark shadow in this room of vibrant colour, though the gown sets off her pale skin so that her neck and hands glow.

  Valentin shifts his gaze in her direction for brief seconds as the orchestra members lift their instruments and begin. He lowers his bow as the viola picks up and carries the melody, and stares openly at her, finally remembering. It was at the Olonov estate, her name day fete; she stood at the back of the room. It’s the same today: she stays back, unlike the other women, who politely fight their way for the best seats in the first rows.

  At her own celebration, she’d appeared uninterested while the orchestra played, staring at the baroque border around the high ceiling as if intrigued with the detail of the sumptuous room. And yet he also recalls the occasional movement of her eyebrows, the way her head moved like an animal’s that hears an unexpected sound nearby. It had given her away. Unlike the cool, detached exterior she displayed, she was listening with the utmost concentration. He knows music—he has known music all his life—and he recognizes those who also know it. The other young women in their rustling gowns had gazed at the players in front of them with languorous expressions. They kept their heads tilted sweetly to one side, lips wet, slightly parted, as if waiting to hear their names whispered by the strings of the violins and cellos, or blown softly from the mouthpieces of the wind instruments. They thought only of themselves; they weren’t part of the music. It didn’t enter their blood, rushing through them to create the sensation of a sudden, dizzying fever, too hot and then too cold.

  Now, Valentin looks at the woman at the back of the room, trying to remember what he had seen on her face so long ago. Valentin loves women—all women—and has a wonderful memory for them. He has slept with too many to count, but he remembers details about each.

  This one he hadn’t made love to, but … Ah. It had been her mother, the Princess Olonova. The daughter … what did he remember about her? There was longing on her face, but not the longing of the beautiful, shallow devushkas. Hers wasn’t the need for flirtation and an enviable marriage; hers was for something entirely different. There had been no guile there, in spite of the intelligence in her eyes. Were they blue or green? Possibly grey? They were a changeable, irregular colour, which he sensed would shift from one shade to another, depending on whether viewed in candlelight or sunlight, whether she was excited or weary or sad. He had seen eyes like hers before, although only once, in the face of an old woman. He didn’t know if she was his grandmother or his nyanya or simply a stranger who had cared for him at some point in his childhood. Like so many of his memories from his earliest days, the old woman was like something from a dream.

  The last time he had seen this woman, she had, finally, stared into his eyes as he played, and while he knew he should feel shame for how she had seen him with her mother, he didn’t. After that final evening, when they had spoken—he does remember speaking to her—Valentin had lain on a narrow cot in the dank room he shared with the first flautist and the cellist in the servants’ quarters, and thought of her.

  He liked having a woman to think of when he played. It filled him with desire as he leaned his jaw more deeply onto his violin and shut his eyes. He would feel the desire come through in his playing. The hunger created a passion that ran down his arms and into his fingers and onto the bow. And then it—the bow—slid smoothly, as if slick with lust, over the strings. His blood ran warm through his veins, along his limbs and into his groin, and he grew aroused as he played, but it was an arousal of the emotions, not the body. As he played, thinking of a particular woman, it was as if his heart grew larger, firmer, pulsing as it waited for … for what? Fulfillment? Some sort of release? Release from what was never clear to him. Sometimes his closed eyes burned with a yearning for what he didn’t recognize.

  He had known he would think of her, the Olonova princess. And he did, for the next few weeks, as he closed his eyes and played for rooms of strangers, although she had never again been in the audience.

  And after all this time, here she is. What was her name? It was a beautiful name, something elegant, but he can’t remember.

  Valentin is weary. He travelled for three days in a drafty britchka from St. Petersburg to the small capital city of Pskov, where he played with a group at the afternoon birthday celebration of a baroness. Then he had spent another three hours getting here—the home of Prince and Princess Bakanev. He only had time to eat a bowl of fish soup with a piece of dark bread and gulp some bitter, lukewarm tea in the kitchen of the servants’ quarters before the two-hour rehearsal, leaving time to change into his evening clothes. The soiree began at eight. Now it was after midnight. Tomorrow, though, he would take up a new position in the household of the prince and princess: he would be music instructor to their two nieces, who were visiting with their parents from Smolensk until at least the New Year.

  Is his life much different as a free man than it had been as a serf musician? When the emancipation was announced, Prince Yablonsky had allowed his musicians to take their instruments and musical scores as he dismissed them. Others were not as lucky; many had to leave their beloved instruments and precious scores behind when they were set free from their former owners.

  In St.
Petersburg, it is easier for Valentin than for some: he has the patronage of Madame Golitsyna, a wealthy émigré from France who had been married to a Russian count. The widow—older than Valentin by twelve years—has taken him under her wing. In exchange for his company and certain favours, she allows him to stay with her when he is in the city, and buys him the clothing he needs for performing.

  Valentin learned young—during his first year in Yablonsky’s orchestra, when he was fifteen—that he had something to offer to women. That he could use that gift to get some of what he wanted from life. Since the first gloriously dressed and scented woman took him to a curtained carriage after a performance and showed him how to please her, giving him a small purse of rubles afterwards, Valentin has used his charm. It made his life as a serf musician more interesting, and the occasional payments in the form of rubles or a fine piece of clothing or expensive cigars allowed him a more pleasurable existence.

  Now a free man, Valentin plays when he can at soirees in St. Petersburg, but when work is scarce, he has to take country jobs. These mean uncomfortable travel and longer hours—all without the comfort of coming home to a warm meal and a warm bed with Madame Golitsyna.

  Yes, he is now paid for his work, but it’s a pittance.

  Nevertheless, he kneels every morning and evening and thanks God that he is a young man in this auspicious time. Now he answers to no one, and no longer lives in fear that his violin will be taken from him on a whim by Prince Yablonsky. He doesn’t have to worry that he will be sent to the fields, never again to feel the satin of the chin rest, the lightness of the bow.

  Yes, Valentin Vladimirovitch is grateful to God and Tsar Alexander II, but he now has to live entirely by his wits. He is always watching for the next opportunity—or for the next woman—to create a better life for himself.

  Tonight, Valentin sees that the woman who was a girl on the Olonov estate comes in after the orchestra has warmed up. She slides into the back of the music salon lightly, as if her bones are porous and fragile, just at the moment when the pianist lifts his fingers over the keys and bows hover over strings. She moves like a feather falling from the breast of a mourning dove. He knows that when she walks, her footsteps make no sound. After all, hadn’t she entered her mother’s bedroom so noiselessly that her presence startled him?