The Lost Souls of Angelkov

by Linda Holeman

  “I believe in you, Antonina Leonidovna,” he says, feeling such a rush of tenderness for her—her expression and voice so earnest—that he can’t stop himself. He cups the side of her face in his palm.

  She leans into his palm, putting her own hand on top of his. They stay like this for a long moment. “I need a bath,” she says finally.

  He warms water in two cauldrons, bringing in the big tin tub that hangs on a hook in the back veranda. He puts it in front of the stove, which is radiating its heat into the kitchen.

  “I’ll come and get you in a moment, Antonina,” he calls as he’s pouring the warm water into the tub. But she comes on her own, slowly, holding on to the door frame for support. She looks at the steaming water, and then, as if very old, or very weak, unbuttons her dress and slides her arms out of it, letting it drop in a heap behind her. She peels off her stockings and pantalets, and then pulls her chemise over her head. She is looking at him the whole time. Her top lip quivers.

  She is far too thin, a slender, pale flower suddenly unsheathed, her abdomen concave, her hip and collar bones jutting.

  He holds out his hand. She takes it and steps into the tub, then sits down, her knees up. He moves behind her, bending over to gather up her hair with one hand, scooping water in a dipper with the other and pouring it over her shoulders. She rounds her back and drops her head. The back of her neck is so white, so susceptible. He can see all her vertebrae. He wants to press his lips to each one. Instead, he takes a flannel and wets it, passing it over her back as though her skin were the thinnest paper.

  He gently washes her neck, her shoulders, her upper arms.

  Antonina leans her forehead on her knees, wrapping her arms around her legs. Her body is still, finally, her breathing soft and even, and Grisha wonders if she’s fallen asleep again. He puts down the flannel and slowly lets go of her hair and picks up the clean blanket he’s left warming over a chair near the stove. “Come,” he says, spreading it wide, and she lifts her head and looks at him. Her pupils are still slightly enlarged. With his hand for support again, she steps out of the tub. He wraps the warm blanket around her and holds her against him.

  He recalls Lilya’s words to him in the kitchen: She deserves love.

  “I want to love you, Antonina,” he says, so quietly she has to move her head, lifting it so that her ear is near his mouth.

  She doesn’t answer. Did she hear him? He has never said this to a woman. He doesn’t know what he means: make love to her, or love her? Suddenly it’s the same thing. She’s so small in his arms, so fragile. How did he take her, in September, without hurting her?

  “Can we go back to the sitting room?” she asks, and he picks her up as he did earlier. Again she leans against him, into him, in such a trusting way that he feels stronger than he’s ever felt. He can carry her forever.

  He puts her down on the settee, and builds up the fire again.

  “Grisha?” she says, and he turns. “Please. Come and sit with me.”

  He does, and she takes his hand—this time she takes his hand—and says, “You mustn’t love me, Grisha.”

  She heard him, then.

  “And I mustn’t love you.”

  “You wanted me once before, Antonina. You wanted me, and then you didn’t. Is it because I’m a steward?” He feels the old confusion, the first beat of anger. “It didn’t stop you with Valentin Vladimirovitch. You gave yourself to him, in spite of his class.” He works very hard to keep his voice even.

  A line appears between her eyebrows. “Gave myself to him? No, I didn’t. He kissed me, once. It meant nothing.” She squeezes her eyes closed, then opens them. “Poor, poor man,” she says, and Grisha knows Lilya has told her that Valentin is dead. He’s not surprised. “But why do you think there was anything more between us?”

  “Because Lilya—” He stops. “Ah,” he says, understanding coming. In his mind he sees the grave behind the stand of fir. Once this is all over—once everything has come out—he will put up a headstone. He will give his brother the burial rites he deserves. “Yes. Poor Valentin,” he says, and something in his voice makes Antonina sit very still.

  “But … you didn’t hurt him? You didn’t, did you? Lilya said …”

  Grisha stares at the fire. “Of course I didn’t hurt him. Why would I? Lilya is not to be believed, Antonina. She has her own reasons for creating lies, for turning us against each other.”

  “It was just a robbery, then? A terrible crime, as she told me? But the fact is that Valentin was coming to see me,” she says, without waiting for his answer. “If he hadn’t been coming to see me, he wouldn’t have been killed.”

  “He wasn’t coming to see you, Antonina.” The flames are pulsing gold. It’s almost as though Grisha hears something, a faint melody in the quiet dacha.

  Antonina frowns. “Of course he was. And for that I can never forgive myself.”

  Grisha looks back at her. “You can’t hold yourself accountable for Valentin’s death, Antonina. You shouldn’t feel blame, or guilt.”

  “Don’t you see? I am guilty. Everything terrible that has happened at Angelkov is my fault. Everything. Any man who comes near to me is punished. Konstantin. Valentin. Even my own son. It’s because … whenever I drink, I am not myself. And then bad things happen.”

  Grisha closes his eyes.

  “I came to the dacha to be alone, to make atonement for my evilness.”

  “Do you think you were evil when you were here with me, before? Are you saying it was a bad thing, us together?”

  “It was adultery.” She is silent then. “But it felt right, Grisha. It felt too good. It made me want you more.”

  “And now?”

  “If I am with you again, bad things will happen to you. If I let you touch me, Grisha, you will be poisoned.”

  He wants so badly to tell her that nothing is her fault. The kidnapping was waiting to happen: if not the day it did, it would have been another day. Soso and his men had nothing but time. Valentin came back to Angelkov because Grisha wrote the letter telling him to come. It had nothing to do with Antonina. But how can he tell her this without telling her that he was involved in the kidnapping? Without telling her that Valentin was his brother?

  “I think you should forgive yourself for all the trouble you believe you have brought, Antonina. You are a good woman. A good person.” It’s all he can say.

  She doesn’t answer for a moment. “Have you ever done things you can’t stop thinking about, things you wish you could change?”

  “Yes.” His voice is low. “I have.”

  “Things you could never go back and make right.”

  He nods.

  “And did you forgive yourself?”

  He thinks of Valentin’s face, of his words. You came as I dreamed you would. I knew you would come for me. “No. I haven’t been able to forgive myself.”

  “Not yet?” she asks. “Or ever?”

  He envisions Mikhail’s face when he rode into the clearing with the ransom money. It haunts him—Misha’s pale little face, so like Antonina’s. He remembers the vision of his own brother’s face like this, a child in the back of the tarantass.

  He’s done the same thing to two little boys who trusted and loved him: he betrayed them.

  It’s too late for one of them, but he must make it right with the other.

  He gets up and goes to his jacket and reaches into the pocket. He brings her Mikhail’s last letter—the one Soso gave to Lilya. Before he left Angelkov to come to the dacha, he forced Lilya to give it to him. He’s ashamed that he used physical force, twisting her wrist until she cried out, saying, All right, let me go. I’ll give it to you. But he knew he would need Antonina to have hope. To believe him when he tells her he will get her son back for her.

  “What is it?” she asks, looking at the folded paper in Grisha’s hand. But she knows. Her face shows that she knows. She recognizes her notes to Glinka. This one is newer, not so wrinkled and worn.

  She reach
es for it. The trembling has begun again, but this time not from the last traces of alcohol leaving her body. This time it is from both fear and hope.

  “Read it, Tosya,” Grisha says. “It came only recently.” He hopes she doesn’t ask how.

  Antonina slowly unfolds the page. “Mama, I miss you so. They told me Papa is dead,” she reads aloud, and draws in a deep breath. “I’m sad. I pray every day.” Now she is shredding the bits of skin on her bottom lip. Grisha fights not to pull her fingers away. “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.”

  She looks up at Grisha, her eyes full of tears. “Is it really happening? Is God forgiving me? Has He seen how much I want to change, and is already rewarding me?” She thinks of the cherub falling from the church ceiling. “Can it be true that He loves me enough to do this for me?”

  Grisha doesn’t want to hear about God. For him, God plays no role in the evils of man. In the evils of a man like himself. “I will get Misha back for you, Tosya. In the next few days I will know where he is. I will bring your son to you.”

  Antonina is weeping. “Grisha, oh, Grisha, let this be a real, true thing. Tell me I’m not asleep.”

  He puts his arms around her. “You’re not asleep, Tosya. You can feel my arms, can’t you?” He holds her more tightly, stroking her hair.

  They sit like this for a few moments, as her crying slows and then stops. She takes a deep, shuddering breath, but before she lifts her head, he speaks against it, into her hair.

  “I must tell you something, Antonina. I will bring back your son, but you need to know something of great importance. I have to tell it to you now, before you feel you are grateful to me in any way.” He wasn’t going to speak of this today, but he can’t commit the sin of omission, or pretend to himself that his own guilt and remorse have countered the wrong he has done. He knows that once he says the words—I too am responsible for your son’s kidnapping—she will turn from him, and never want anything to do with him again. He knows with such certainty that she will hate him that he’s filled with a deep, deep dread he has never before felt, even when he held his dying brother in his arms. He knows that once she has her son, she has every right to tell the authorities. And he will be imprisoned. Tortured, or sent to Siberia. He may never see her again. He knows all of this. But it doesn’t matter; nothing that might happen to him matters. The important thing is that Antonina has her son back. He never again wants to think of her as she is right now. He wants to think of her laughing at the piano, with her son.

  “Antonina, please. Listen to me. When Mikhail was kidnapped, I—”

  She puts both her hands on his arm, looking up at him. “Please, Grisha. Don’t spoil this moment. Don’t talk of that terrible day. Right now I feel something wonderful. Don’t spoil it,” she repeats. “Please, Grisha.”

  “But I need to tell you that I—”

  “You can tell me another time, later, when I hold my son. You can tell me whatever you must tell me then. Do you understand?”

  What is she saying? Is this some kind of acknowledgment, something that indicates she suspects he was involved?

  She reaches up and puts her arms around his neck. The blanket falls away. He sees the pulse beating in her neck. He sees her chest rising as she breathes. He knows what her breast feels like in his mouth. He knows the smoothness of her skin, the scent of her.

  Grisha pulls her arms from his neck and stands. “Are you well enough to ride back to Angelkov before night falls? You should be in your own bed, in your own warm room, tonight.”

  He looks down at her. Her face is open: she sees only a good man. He will not be free to love her, and to take her love, until she knows and accepts the truth about him.

  Antonina sits on the horse in front of Grisha as they slowly ride back to Angelkov through the snow, blue in the waning light. She leans against him, feeling his comforting width and the warmth of his arms around her as he holds the reins. The air is crisp; with each deep breath the ache in her head dissipates a little more.

  As the manor comes into view at the end of the long drive, Antonina says, “I don’t think I should keep Lilya any longer. I’ve been thinking for a while now that it would be better—for both her and me—if she was no longer on the estate. She’s changed so much, and she almost …” She stops. She was about to say frightens me, but that’s not it. Lilya doesn’t frighten her, but there’s something about her now that is overbearing. Almost possessive. “Life changed her. Life has changed us all,” she finishes. “Nusha can learn her position.”

  “Yes,” Grisha says. “I think this would be the best thing. Lilya should have her own life, somewhere away from you.”

  “I would help her,” Antonina says, watching the lowering afternoon sun glint off the windows of the big house. “I still have a few good pieces of jewellery left. She could sell them, and perhaps buy into a small business in Pskov or one of the bigger towns. She’s an excellent seamstress, and makes lace of the highest quality. I don’t want to leave her with nothing. She deserves to have a good life. Just not near me.”

  “Don’t speak to her about this today. Not until …” He stops.

  “Until what, Grisha?”

  Until she takes me to Soso, Grisha thinks. He doesn’t want any problems between Lilya and Antonina until Misha is safe with his mother. Once the child is back at Angelkov, Lilya can go. And then he will confess everything to Antonina.

  “Please don’t say anything to her just yet,” he requests.

  She looks over her shoulder and up at him. “Why?”

  “Please. Just trust me.”

  She stares at him a moment longer. “All right,” she says, and faces ahead again. “There is no hurry, I suppose. But she won’t go easily.”

  After a moment, Grisha says, “Remember, Antonina, that no matter what she says—or does—you are the countess. Angelkov is yours. You are the one who holds power over your land, your life. Not Lilya.”

  Lilya hears a whinny and runs to the front door. She opens it to see Grisha swing down from his horse and then help Antonina. She sees how Antonina clings to him. Antonina can’t see Grisha’s expression, but Lilya can. Lilya suspects they have shared more than this ride on the horse. No, she thinks, God, no. Don’t let it have happened again.

  Lilya is still wearing Antonina’s tea gown. She folds her arms over her chest, rocking slightly, watching Grisha put his arm around Antonina’s back as they slowly walk towards the front veranda.

  Antonina has taken off her cloak and hat and is propped against the pillows on her bed with a light blanket over her legs. Grisha sits on the edge of the bed, holding her hand, when Lilya comes to the open doorway. She’d waited, out of sight, until they were upstairs.

  “You can leave now, Grisha. I will care for her,” she says from the doorway. They didn’t even have the decency to close the door, leaving it open as if they have nothing to be ashamed of. Her stomach roils at the way Antonina’s fingers curl over Grisha’s. She now can see that Antonina’s dress is stained, and her hair … her hair is completely loose, falling over her shoulders to her waist. Antonina has never let anyone see her with her hair down. Even when she had given birth to Misha, and Konstantin waited to come into the bedroom to see his son, Antonina had insisted that Lilya pin up her hair before he was allowed in.

  Antonina hadn’t shown her hair to her husband. Only Lilya has seen it in its true beauty. The sickness in her stomach rises, thick and sour, into her throat. “Go, Grisha,” she says, louder. “I know what the countess needs.”

  “No,” Antonina says. “I want Grisha here. He’s getting Misha back, Lilya, perhaps as soon as tomorrow. Leave us alone. I’m fine.”

  Lilya doesn’t move from the doorway, and Antonina studies her.

  “Why are you wearing my dress, Lilya?” she asks, frowning. When Lilya doesn’t respond, she shakes her head and tells her, “Go and put on your own clothes and
take that to the laundry. I’m surprised at you. Please leave. Now.”

  “All right, Tosya,” Lilya finally says. Before she leaves, she stares at Grisha. We need each other right now, she thinks. But just wait. You have no idea what is about to happen to you.

  Lilya stands in the shadows of the upstairs hall until she hears Grisha’s footsteps going down the stairs. It’s after eight o’clock. The front door closes. He’s so bold he doesn’t even go through the servants’ entrance in the kitchen, she notices.

  She goes into Antonina’s room. There is one lamp glowing softly, and the fire is well built up. Antonina is in a deep sleep. Lilya takes off her boots, then Antonina’s dress and the belt with the keys, and puts them at the foot of the bed. She lies beside Antonina in her cotton petticoat. As the mattress dips with her weight, Antonina stirs and reaches out, her hand touching Lilya’s bare arm.

  Lilya holds her breath. She sees Antonina’s mouth move in a smile. “You’re still here, Grisha?” she murmurs. Her eyelids flutter but stay closed. The smile fades, and she sleeps again. Lilya lies still, taking in Antonina’s peacefulness.

  Eventually, Antonina moves, opening her eyes, and gasps at the sight of Lilya’s face, almost touching hers. She struggles to sit up, moving away from her.

  “Shhh, shhh,” Lilya says, trying to stroke Antonina’s cheek. “Shhh, my darling, it’s just me. I’ve come to be with you, to help you sleep through the night. I’ll stay with you.”

  Antonina blinks, pushing back her hair. In the lamplight, her eyes are too wide, and her mouth trembles.

  “Why do you look so distressed? Don’t be upset, my lovely. It’s all right. Once you feel better, I’m going to show you that I can love you more than he’ll ever know how.” Lilya picks up a strand of Antonina’s hair and brings it to her face. She closes her eyes and inhales.

  Antonina slides off the bed, holding on to the headboard. “Get out, Lilya,” she says, her voice low. “Don’t speak of love to me in this manner. You shame yourself. Do you hear me?” She points at the door. “Get off my bed and leave my room at once.”