She watches Grisha’s face when he brings Kropotkin to the door, and she now believes that what she had begun to suspect a few weeks earlier is true. Grisha has strong feelings for the countess. But she knows the countess can’t possibly care about Grisha; he is only her steward. So she will use Grisha to derail Valentin.
Nobody will come between her and Antonina.
On the afternoon of one of Valentin’s visits, Grisha has, as usual, escorted him to the front door. But as he’s going back down the veranda steps, Lilya calls his name. She’s right behind him: where did she come from?
“Lilya! Why are you creeping up behind me?”
“I must talk to you.”
He can almost swear she’s being coy. “What do you want?”
“Not here. We have to speak privately. I’ll come to your house.”
“No. Say what you wish right here.”
Lilya looks over her shoulder. “Tonight, after she’s in bed, then. Come to the kitchen.”
He’s annoyed with her heavy-handed attempt at intrigue. “What is it, Lilya?”
“It’s about Misha,” she says, and his annoyance falls away. He thought she knew nothing about the kidnapping, nothing about Soso’s or his own involvement. And yet looking at her now, he wonders if he was wrong.
“What do you mean?”
She lowers her eyelids, still staring at him in that odd, sly way. “We’ll talk about Misha later, in the kitchen.”
Since the violinist had started coming to visit the countess, and Lilya had seen Grisha’s reaction, she had acted quickly. She is now ready to talk to Grisha.
Because she recognized Soso’s writing on the wood around the horse’s neck, Lilya knew that he had to be somewhere in the vicinity of Angelkov. While the realization of what he had done to the horse chilled her, it brought back old thoughts. For a few troubling days last April, Lilya wondered if Soso had, in some way, been involved in the kidnapping of Mikhail. When he’d left the estate shortly after the boy had been taken, she’d been glad to be rid of him, and convinced herself it wouldn’t have been him. Everyone had called the kidnappers Cossacks, and Soso wasn’t a Cossack.
But after Felya’s murder, she thought about it again: just because the men were dressed as Cossacks, and carrying Cossack sabres, it didn’t mean they actually were Cossacks.
She turned it over and over in her mind. Why did Soso brutally kill the horse Grisha loved? Why? Lilya thought long and hard about why he would want to anger Grisha. The more she thought about what was written on the board—This is what happens. You don’t do what we say—the more she thought that if Soso had been involved in the kidnapping, maybe Grisha was involved as well.
She needed to find Soso, and confront him.
It didn’t take her long. Soso was clever in some ways, but not quite clever enough for her.
She had Lyosha hitch up one of the Orlov Trotters to a cart, and drove, alone, to the village of Borzik, halfway between the Angelkov estate and the city of Pskov. Borzik wasn’t the village where Soso and Lilya had lived before moving to the estate, but the village of Soso’s grandmother. Although she was long dead, he had loved his grandmother, and had often spoken to Lilya of visiting her in her izba on the edge of town. He had also fairly regularly visited cousins who lived there after he and Lilya were married. He told her he was always welcome: whenever he stopped by, there was a bed and vodka waiting for him.
As she entered Borzik, Lilya almost immediately spotted Soso, lumbering down the muddy street in his bearskin coat. She knew he liked to wear it because it made him look bigger. She called his name, and he didn’t look either happy or displeased to see her, merely surprised. “What are you doing in Borzik, Lilya?”
“I thought you might be here. I want to talk to you, Soso.”
“I’m not coming back to Angelkov.”
“That’s not what I want to talk about. Where are you living?”
Soso gestured to an izba down the street. A downcast donkey was tethered at one side. “At my cousin Max’s.”
“Take me there so the street doesn’t hear our business,” Lilya told him, and he walked ahead of her, dipping his head under the low lintel as he went inside.
Holding the sack she’d brought, Lilya glanced at the dirty knife and spoon on the table, the pot stuck with dried buckwheat porridge, the scattered blankets on pallets on the floor. She heard the rustle of cockroaches in the filthy straw packed between the walls and the floor to keep out the draft. The donkey brayed outside the door. “Just you and Max are here?”
“His wife is tending her mother in the next village.”
“Holy Mother of God, Soso, what a swine you’ve become.”
He laughed and looked pleased, as if she’d given him a compliment.
“I’ve brought you something,” she said then, pulling out the bottle of good vodka she’d taken from the cellar at Angelkov. “And sausage and bread. Salted milk mushrooms, too.” The mushrooms were a favourite of Soso’s to eat while drinking vodka. “Sit down,” she told him, and he threw his coat on the floor and sat on the bench on one side of the table. She sat on the other side, wiped the knife on her skirt, and sliced the sausage and put it between thick slabs of Raisa’s high, light bread. She handed it to him along with the open jar of mushrooms, then pulled the stopper out of the vodka with her teeth and pushed the bottle across the table. He looked at her and she smiled.
“What do you want?” he asked, taking a big bite.
“I’ve missed you, Soso. My bed is cold,” she said, then was quiet as he ate. He turned away once, to spit something onto the floor. She took one mouthful of the vodka but let him drink the rest of it. She had time.
When the bottle was empty and the mushrooms were gone and he looked at her across the table with the bleary look she knew so well, she went to him and took his hand. “I missed you, Soselo,” she again said, nodding at the pile of blankets. “Come.”
He followed her. Lilya murmured encouragement, pulling up her skirt as she lay down. Although Soso was drunk, he wasn’t too drunk. Later, she rested her head on his chest and let him fall into a snoring sleep for half an hour. Then she gently shook him out of his stupor, her head still on his chest.
“You should hear how the countess still cries over the boy,” she said. “It’s hard to be near her.”
Soso breathed loudly through his mouth, then smacked his lips and swallowed.
“Whoever took Mikhail Konstantinovich—those Cossacks—are real men, afraid of nothing. And they taught Grisha a lesson when they beat him,” she said, hearing Soso’s stomach digesting the food. “It serves him right. You’d think he owns the estate, the way he swaggers around, so boastful.”
She waited for Soso to speak. When he didn’t, she gave a low laugh. “The countess has turned into a stuck-up tsarina now that she’s the landowner. She and Grisha are making life impossible for those of us left. I hope God punishes them.” She crossed herself.
“If not God, we’ll do it,” Soso said, and Lilya waited a heartbeat. “Just like we showed the old bastard.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, her hand on Soso’s chest. “Don’t tell me … Soso,” she breathed, “was it really you? Did you have something to do with the kidnapping?” She leaned on her elbow and widened her eyes at him, a proud wife.
Soso’s chest expanded under Lilya’s hand as he nodded.
“Now what, my darling, my brave man? Now what?” she asked.
“We’ll get more money for the boy.”
“Were the other two really Cossacks?”
“You don’t know them.”
“Not from Angelkov?”
“No.”
Lilya ran her fingers through Soso’s beard. “He’s still alive, then? Mikhail?” she asked casually.
“He’s alive,” he agreed. “Until we get more money, he stays alive.”
“You’ll go to the countess again?”
“No. We’re waiting on Grisha to bring it to us. He’s taki
ng too long.”
“Grisha?”
“He was in on it.”
Lilya jumped to her knees, putting her hands on Soso’s shoulders. “Grisha was part of the kidnapping?”
Soso pushed her hands away. His eyes were closing, and he verged on sleep.
“Soso, sweetheart. Stay awake. I can’t stay long. Talk to me. What has it to do with Grisha?”
Soso rubbed his eyes as he struggled to a half-sitting position, leaning against the rough wooden wall behind him. He looked at her, his eyelids heavy. “You want to help?”
Lilya licked her lips. “I see him—the bastard—every day. There might be some way. As long as I get some of the ransom.”
Soso shrugged. “Lev—one of the Cossacks—and I have decided Grisha must now provide even more money than what he holds from the countess. We want more—much more.” His eyes closed. “The first ransom has already been spent. We need him to get us more now.” The last words faded.
“But Soso,” Lilya said, a little louder, and he opened his eyes again, “if Grisha was in on it, why is he paying you?”
“We just used him as we needed him. But I showed him I meant business with the horse. He didn’t even get his share from the ransom he brought to us in the forest.” He snorted. “I never thought he was such a fool.”
Grisha is not a fool. Her suspicions were right, then. She knew with certainty, at that moment, why he was trying so hard to get Misha back for Antonina.
“But it better be soon. The priest doesn’t want the boy much longer. He’s hard to control, and stirs up the other boys.”
“Yes,” she agreed, her thoughts tumbling. “Mikhail Konstantinovich is too strong-willed.” He is in a church, then, or some sort of monastery. “What priest?”
Soso burped. “Remember Slava Saavich, from our village?”
“Yes,” Lilya said again. Slava Saavich was little more than a wandering pilgrim, his burlap robe tied with string, everything he owned in a sack on his shoulder, begging across the province. He had stopped in their village, where their priest had recently succumbed to typhus and the church needed someone. Soso appealed to the count and Father Saavich had stayed.
“But Saavich left the village, didn’t he?”
Soso spoke slowly, pausing a long time between sentences. “He’s taken over a monastery, training orphaned boys to be village priests. He owes me—I saved his neck more than once. He was persuaded to help me with flasks of vodka and sacks of dried beef and sunflower seeds I took from the Angelkov stores.” He rubbed one hand over his eyes. “Right now, Misha is just another village boy in a poor hermitage. But Saavich knows that if the boy escapes and tells where he’s been, it will be on his head. So he’s very careful. But he’s sick of the Mitlovsky brat now. So are we. With one more payment—and Grisha must provide a big one—that’ll be the end of it. We’ll all have it good, Lilya.”
“You’re so clever, my sweet,” Lilya murmured. “So with the final payment Misha will be returned?”
Soso made a sound that was almost a laugh. “And tell his mama all about the bad men who took him? He’s seen me, Lilya, and of course he knows Saavich. No, once Grisha brings the last of the money, the boy is gone. For good.” He reached out and touched his bearskin coat, in a heap near the bed. He dragged it closer and fumbled in it for a moment, and then pulled out a pistol. “He’s gone, and the same for Grisha. The finest of Cossack pistols,” he said, waving the weapon about. “Lev gave it to me. Look at the leather on the stock,” he boasted, more awake now, running his hand over it. “So then we’ll all have what we want.” He cocked the hammer and aimed the pistol at the stove. “Boom,” he said, and then clicked the hammer back in place. “I always keep it loaded and ready.”
Lilya looked at the pistol and smiled at Soso, but her mouth was dry. She wouldn’t let Misha be killed; he was a sweet boy, so like his mother. And it would destroy Antonina further. She wanted it to be like before—Misha, the countess, and her. With Konstantin dead and the violinist driven away by Grisha—and Grisha himself dead, as Soso promised—it would be perfect. Perfect. “Put it away, Soso,” she said. “You’re scaring me.”
He smiled proudly and stuck the pistol back in the pocket of the coat.
“How can I help you, sweetheart?” Lilya asked. “I want to be part of this, with you. Let me help you punish that bitch,” she said slowly. “I hate the way she treats me now.”
“Work on Grisha, then. Tell him to hurry up and get the money. Not just what he holds from the countess. It must be hundreds of rubles more. You tell him that.”
“Yes. Yes. I’ll bring him to you with the money, all right?”
Soso pointed a dirty finger at the icon over the stove. “Behind there is a letter from the boy. I got him to write it last week. Lev told me I had to get proof for Naryshkin or he won’t give us any more money. It’s there,” he repeated, pointing at the icon.
Lilya nodded. “I’ll show it to Grisha, and he’ll trust me. And then, Soso, we’ll have enough money to do whatever we want. Where is the boy, then, my darling? He must be nearby, if you saw him last week.”
Soso’s eyelids were heavy again. “You and me, eh, Lilya?” he said finally. “We’re worth more than them up at the estate.”
“Yes. Where is Saavich’s monastery?” Lilya repeated, but gently, in a soothing tone. “Far from here?”
Soso’s eyes were closed. “No. It’s on the outskirts of Pskov city. Ubenovo Monastyr, a godforsaken place.”
Lilya looked down at Soso. It was so easy to see into his mind, especially when he was drunk. She knew she might as well put the pistol to her own head once Soso had the money. Of course he wasn’t going to share it with her.
Soso unexpectedly opened his eyes and gave her a wink. His teeth were mossy. In the next moment he was snoring.
“This way,” Lilya orders Grisha when he comes into the kitchen that evening. She leads him past Raisa and Olga and Nusha, cleaning up from dinner and preparing for the morning.
She takes him into the pantry. It’s a long, high room lined with shelves containing foodstuffs: jars of pickled cucumbers and mushrooms and tomatoes stewed with herbs, bags of flour and oats and bran, sacks of potatoes and onions, sugar cones wrapped in gauze, and canisters of tea.
With no preamble, she says, “I’ve seen Soso. I know he killed Felya—as you do. And I know why. He told me about waiting for the money from you.”
She’s glad to see Grisha swallow, although that’s his only reaction.
“You know where he is, then?”
“Yes,” she says firmly.
“Does he have Mikhail with him?”
“No. But he knows where he’s being kept. And they’re ready to return him, Grisha. They don’t want to keep him through the winter. He’s become nasty and hard to control.”
Grisha doesn’t want Lilya to see how keen he is for her to tell him more. There’s something about her, lately, that troubles him. “How do we get the boy back?”
“You know it’s all about money. But because you’ve held them up, now they want more—a lot more. Soso says, if we bring him enough, he’ll take us to Mikhail.”
Grisha slams his fist onto a shelf so hard the jars rattle. “No. It’s the same story. I’ve attempted to follow their orders, but they don’t hold up their end. Do you even know with certainty that Mikhail is alive?”
“He’s alive.”
“Because the husband you despise says so? And you believe him?”
Lilya pulls the folded note from the boy from within her blouse. She hands it to Grisha. He opens it. Like the others, it’s in charcoal on the back of a page of music Antonina has transposed.
Mama, I miss you so. They told me Papa is dead. I’m sad. I pray every day. I still have the rest of my notes to Glinka. Please keep this one for me until I return to you, dear Mamushka. I will look after you now. Misha.
“Have you shown this to Anto—to the countess?” he asks.
“No. I don’t think
it’s wise, just yet.”
Grisha studies the woman’s face. “You don’t think it will bring her comfort to know that her child is alive?”
“And how would I explain that I have it, Grisha? Anyway, it’s just one more payment. Soso has promised me.”
“I’ve been promised the same thing before.”
“But like I told you, Soso says they’re sick of keeping the boy. And they want to leave Pskov for another province. Perhaps to Voronezh, or farther, where they can start new lives.” Soso hasn’t said any of this, but she feels it makes the story stronger. She takes the note back from Grisha, refolding it and putting it inside her blouse. “Apparently Misha isn’t well.”
“What do you mean?”
“Soso says he’s fallen ill.” She’s deep into the lie, trying to make Grisha more desperate to get the boy back. “He can’t survive much longer under harsh conditions, not a delicate boy like Mikhail Konstantinovich.” She watches his face. “Misha didn’t see you, did he? When he was taken from the count?”
Grisha shakes his head. The boy had only seen him as his rescuer.
“Then you will be his hero, his and the countess’s. You will bring the boy back to his mother. She will be forever grateful to you.”
Grisha doesn’t trust Lilya. “What do you mean?”
Lilya smiles, an odd, dark smile, and as she lifts her hand to scratch her neck, he smells attar of roses. Antonina’s scent. “She’ll be so grateful she may even decide she doesn’t have to hide what’s happened between her and you. She may invite you into the manor to stay with her.” This is a long shot, but Lilya is willing to take it. She’s convinced herself that something occurred between Grisha and Antonina the September night they were away together; it was after that night that Grisha’s attitude towards the countess changed slightly. But nothing further has happened between them. Lilya has made sure of it: she knows where Antonina is night and day.
She’s rewarded by Grisha’s reaction. “She told you?” he asks, looking startled.
The Lost Souls of Angelkov Page 35