“Who is looking after you? I asked Mother and she said no one. Is that true? Is Irene with you or not? You are a lucky dog if you are really on your own. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, and please, please, please, write soon!!
“Did anyone tell you I will be going to business college in September? I’ll be boarding somewhere in Belleville. You should try to come too. Then we could live together. Think of the fun we could have. Please, please think about it. I am very serious.
S.W.A.K.
Margaret
“P.S. I changed my name up here. They call me Margi-Ann. When you write, could you put that on the envelope? Don’t you think it’s smart-looking? It really is my name, you know. Except for the i and the hyphen.”
Good old Margaret. I’d bet anything Fern Pacey didn’t know about the Margi-Ann business.
I wrote back right away. I told her about my job at Savaway and that I was happy for her about business college, but that by September I would probably be working at the Pinkney Mirror.
I’d been going through one of the books in Alex’s collection before falling asleep each night. Reading before sleep had long been a habit in our house, begun in the days when Alex still read aloud to me. We would make a warm nest of pillows on the big bed and travel away to imaginary landscapes together. No matter where the stories took us—through the Looking Glass, to the Back of the North Wind, or into the watery depths with the Water Babies—the sound of my mother’s voice made me feel safe. I would drift into sleep watching her expressive face.
The book I was now reading was about the last Russian royal family. I’d reached the account of the massacre in the cellar of the house in Ekaterinburg, in Siberia, in July 1918, when the Romanovs had been slaughtered. I knew the horror of what was coming, but I kept reading anyway, my heart bumping in my chest as I turned the pages. Again I was stunned by the tragedy, the description of how the entire family, some of their servants, and even the children’s pet dog had met their deaths. I didn’t know these people, hadn’t even been born when they died, but seeing their faces and thinking of my love for my own dog made me terribly sad. I wiped my eyes on the sleeve of my pyjamas.
The Romanovs, I read, were not the only victims of the civil war that followed the Revolution, only the most famous.
According to the account, Anastasia, the youngest Grand Duchess, had been the last to die in the cellar. But what if, as Alex had hinted years ago, Anastasia had not died that night? What if she had somehow, miraculously, managed to escape? Maybe one of the assassins, in spite of the cruelty of his crimes, had a soft spot somewhere and had smuggled the girl out of there. That’s what Alex had told me some people still believed. I smiled to myself, recalling Alex’s vexation at the idea that I, as a small child, might have asked the Countess if she knew Anastasia’s whereabouts. But was it really such an absurd question?
I set the book on the floor and slid down between the sheets to think about it, doing arithmetic in my head. Alex had been born in 1916 and Nan would be maybe twenty years older. Assuming that Nan’s friend, the Countess, was roughly the same age, she’d have been a young woman during the Russian Revolution. What had it been like for her? How, I wondered again, did she end up in Canada? Had Alex asked her these things when she interviewed her for her story? I had been there, but now I couldn’t remember.
Suddenly, I realized how I could find out. I’d never read Alex’s finished article on the Countess, but maybe that was the place to look for answers. I climbed out of bed and hurried downstairs.
On the shelf in the back kitchen were the two heavy cardboard boxes that I’d found the other day. I dragged them into the kitchen, where the light was better, and lifted the lids. Both boxes were packed full of layers of paper, old stories of my mother’s, some with small rejection slips still attached by rusted paper clips. “Unfortunately, this does not suit our requirements at this time.”
Carefully, I lifted out each bundle, scanning them one by one. At the top of a carbon copy of one manuscript: “Accepted,” in Alex’s handwriting. “Liberty Magazine, October, 1948.”
Among the typed manuscripts were rough, handwritten drafts, with little arrows moving sentences to better positions, lines crossed out, more colourful words inserted. I had reached the bottom of the second box before I found a large, accordion-style folder, bulging with columns clipped from the newspaper. If the article about the Countess had been published I was sure it would be here. I took the envelope back up to bed with me.
There was no order to the contents of the folder, but by narrowing my search down to the year I had chicken pox, I was able to eliminate some of the clippings. I was thankful that I didn’t have to go to work that day because the birds had begun their pre-dawn chatter before I was finished sorting and reading.
From Alex’s story I learned that the Countess Galina Balenskaya had been married to a Count, a minister in the last cabinet of Tsar Nicholas II. So she wasn’t, as Alex had supposed before our interview, related to the Romanovs. She had fled Russia in 1919 ahead of the Red Army, going first to Finland to await her husband. The Count, unfortunately, did not survive, and some weeks later his widow came to Canada.
The Countess’ brother, Dimitri Mordkin, had already come to this country with a group of Russian workers and now worked in a mine in northern Ontario. He arranged for his widowed sister to work as a cook at the mine. Eventually, the Countess ended up living in a boarding house in Pinkney Corners, the same one she operated herself in later years.
The focus of Alex’s story was on the woman’s philanthropic work. She worked tirelessly to better the cultural lives of the citizens of Pinkney Corners, arranging for touring artists and performers to visit the town. That wouldn’t have been my focus had I been doing the interview, but it appeared from many of the clippings that Alex, at that time, was writing a series on people who had contributed to Pinkney Corners’ society.
Inspired by the sheer volume of Alex’s writing and knowing this was only a portion of her creative output, I spent the rest of the weekend writing myself. When Sunday night came, I had another finished article for Mr. Thomas.
I biked to town a half-hour early, through a grey morning with rain in the air. Mr. Thomas was just getting out of his station wagon in front of the newspaper office. His wife Marjory had come with him to do her monthly cleaning. I helped her lift her pail and mops out of the back seat.
“And if she doesn’t do a good job,” Mr. Thomas said, unlocking the door and winking at me over his shoulder, “I told her I had someone else who wanted the position.” Marjory gave me an amused look.
Marjory Thomas had a stout figure and a ruddy complexion. Her close-cropped hair was thin and wispy, but the hug she gave me was strong and warm. “Libby, so nice to see you,” she said. “I think of you so much.”
We went inside together and Mr. Thomas flicked on the lights. Marjory took her supplies through to the washroom and began to run some water, while I hung around, hoping her husband and I could talk. “Did you like the piece I wrote about life with Alex?” I asked.
“I did,” said William Thomas, tossing his keys into a drawer of the desk.
“Would you like to use it in the paper?”
“Well, it’s like this, Libby,” he explained. “It’s a bit too personal. I have to print stories that will appeal to the majority of my readers.”
“Oh,” I said, disappointed. “You did say your readers loved my mother.”
“They loved her style of writing, Libby. Now, I’m not saying there isn’t a market for that kind of sentimental story. It’s just not what we print in a weekly.”
“But you keep trying,” Marjory encouraged, smiling from the doorway, where she was drying her hands. “William told me you want to be a writer.”
“Oh, I don’t give up that easily,” I promised, thinking of Alex’s many rejections.
“Good for you,” said Marjory.
“I have another article this morning, as a matter of fact.” I slipped
my sheets of paper onto the pile already on the desk. “Over the weekend I was reading some of the columns Alex wrote.” Mr. Thomas was patting his pockets in search of something. “Do you remember her writing a story about the Russian Countess, the woman who used to run the boarding house down the street?”
“I do, indeed,” said Mr. Thomas. He’d found the fountain pen he’d been looking for.
“I went with her to that interview, you know. Since I got back I’ve been reading some Russian history books that Alex was reading and thinking what an interesting story the Countess must have told. She was married to a minister in the last Tsar’s cabinet, you know.”
Marjory Thomas was spooning coffee into a shiny, electric percolator that sat atop one of the filing cabinets, listening with interest.
“I did know, as a matter of fact,” said Mr. Thomas.
“The Anastasia theory really intrigues me.”
“Oh, me too,” enthused Marjory.
Her husband frowned. “That’s your angle, is it?”
“Don’t you think it’s fascinating?” I persisted.
“If it weren’t so highly unlikely,” Mr. Thomas admitted. “But you’re right. It remains a popular interest.”
I continued. “I was thinking. What if the whole story about the Countess having been married to the cabinet minister was concocted to cover her real identity?”
“Which is?”
“The Grand Duchess, Anastasia!”
I heard Marjory Thomas gasp.
“She’s still alive, you know,” said Mr. Thomas, removing the cover of his typewriter.
“Who is?” I demanded. “Anastasia?”
He laughed and shook his shaggy head. “No, not Anastasia. I don’t subscribe to that theory. The Countess, I mean. I covered a garden party at the nursing home a week or two ago. The Countess’ name was listed among the residents.”
“Did you see her?” I asked eagerly.
“Yes, although I didn’t speak with her.” The water had begun to bubble up to the glass knob in the lid of the percolator.
“Do you think she’d talk to me?” I wondered out loud.
“Can’t see why not,” the man shrugged. “Your mother did a second interview with her just last year. Although I don’t think she ever finished the article.”
That was news to me. I glanced at my watch and saw to my dismay that it was almost nine o’clock. There was so much more I wanted to hear, but I’d run out of time. Promising to join the Thomases at their place for supper sometime soon, I hurried on down the street to Savaway.
I hadn’t known that Alex had done a second interview, years after the first. Could it have been the books she was reading that had rekindled her interest in the Countess? Or something the Countess had told her that piqued her interest in Russian history? Something like Anastasia’s hiding place?
Alex used to take notes in a series of spiral notebooks, the kind stenographers used, and these had always been kept in the top drawer of the oak buffet in the front room at home. I thought the day would never end. I couldn’t wait to get back, dig out her notes and read what Alex had written during her last interview with the Countess. What more had she discovered?
When I was finally free to leave, I pedalled home as fast as my legs would go, splashing through potholes filled with water, oblivious to the steady rain. I dropped my raincoat inside the back kitchen, pushed off my sodden shoes without untying them and hurried through to the front room. Gripping the two metal handles on the front of the buffet, I jerked open the top drawer.
I removed all the notebooks, leaving in the bottom of the drawer a layer of Nan’s forgotten tablecloths. Each notebook was numbered with the period it spanned written on the cover. I chose number eleven, the one with all the blank pages in the back, and took it out to the kitchen. Even before I sat down, I began to read. I was so stunned by the Countess’ revelations that it took Ernie’s persistent nudging of my elbow, reminding me that it was past his suppertime, to drag me back to the present.
Countess Galina Balenskaya had been in the last stage of pregnancy when she arrived in Canada in 1919. The manager of the mining camp had taken one look at her and turned her down flat for the job. Her brother Dimitri was able, just in time, to arrange a room for her in a boarding house in Pinkney Corners. To support herself, she took work at the local canning factory. That was where she must have met my grandmother.
Alone and practically destitute, she gave birth to a baby girl, six weeks after her arrival in this country. She named the child Irina. The biggest shock to me was reading that she had given the baby away, feeling she couldn’t look after it. The adoptive family lived in Pinkney Corners and assured the Countess that she would be able to watch the child grow up.
I twisted the can opener absentmindedly around the tin of dog food while Ernie drooled in anticipation. It was a sad story, but probably not unusual for someone living under such difficult circumstances.
Now that I’d read her notes, I wondered if Alex’s illness had been the only reason that she had never sent the story in. Or had she deliberately sat on it, knowing it might have hurt someone? Could the Countess’ daughter still be living here in Pinkney Corners?
My new telephone shrilled, startling me so that I nearly cut myself on the sharp lid of the tin can. “Aunt Irene!”
“Am I your first caller?”
“Actually, you are,” I said. “This is long distance, you know.”
“I’m not going to talk long. Just wanted to make sure the phone company hooked you up. The operator gave me your number. What’s your new phone like? You didn’t get one of those coloured ones, did you?”
“It’s basic black,” I assured her. “Very sensible.”
“I knew I could count on you, Libby.” I could hear the smile in her voice. “And Libby? I do feel better knowing you can call if you need help.”
“Irene?”
“Yes?”
“Do you remember Nan’s old friend, the Countess?”
She gave a surprised laugh. “Of course. She was my first ballet teacher. Why?”
“Did you know she lives in a nursing home here?”
“Really? I wasn’t sure she was still alive.”
“Do you know very much about her?” I wondered. “Personally, I mean?”
“Not much. She came from Russia. She’d studied ballet over there, as a girl.”
“She’s had a very interesting life, actually. Kind of sad.”
“Well, you can tell me all about it next time. Okay, Libby? Bye for now.”
I set the receiver back in its cradle and stared out at the rain dripping through the holes in the eavestrough over the window.
Each time it rained, the roof on the house seemed to spring another leak. Over the weeks I’d watched, with growing concern, the brown stains on the bedroom ceiling slowly spread from one tile to another. When I went upstairs to get the book I was reading on the Romanovs, I discovered a steady drip hitting the side of my bed. I had to push the bed against the wall and find something to catch the drip.
I’d had no idea there was so much work to keeping a house. No sooner did I solve one problem than another would crop up. How much would a pail of tar cost, I wondered? Was tar something I could put on myself? If I ignored the leaks, would the roof eventually rot and fall in? If it did, Ernie and I would have to move to the lower floor, but how long could we camp out there?
It was dark by the time I fixed my own evening meal. I peeled a couple of hardboiled eggs and ate half a tin of cold baked beans, straight out of the can.
I had difficulty concentrating on my book that evening. My mind kept wandering to Alex’s last interview with the Countess. My mother’s notes had put to rest any notion I had that the Countess might be Anastasia. The Grand Duchess Anastasia had been in her eighteenth year at the time of the murders. Galina Balenskaya was already thirty-five when she arrived in Canada the following year.
But wasn’t it still possible that the Countess knew Ana
stasia’s whereabouts? Since the Countess had been married to a minister in the Tsar’s cabinet, she was probably a monarchist, a sympathizer. As such, she might have been contacted by Anastasia, who would be in hiding from the Bolsheviks. From what I had been reading, it didn’t seem such an outlandish idea. Or was I like a dog worrying an old bone, unable to let go of Anastasia, the little girl from my mother’s stories?
Eight
For quite a while, I’d been after Gloria Hooper to come back with me to my place some evening after work. We worked together all week and got along very well. “If you don’t have a date, you could have supper with me,” I suggested. “I’d walk you back part way afterwards.” That’s what Margaret and I used to do.
But Gloria always had to hurry home to fix a meal for her father. It seemed to me as if she was the parent in that family and he was the child.
I liked Gloria. I knew there were some people who dismissed her as another dizzy blonde because of her Marilyn Monroe looks—the bleached hair, the tiny waist and generous figure. But I liked her warmth and honesty.
“I can’t tell you yet when I’m coming,” she said, when I reminded her of my open invitation.
“Doesn’t matter,” I promised.
“One day I’ll just show up.” And one Sunday she did.
I was sitting out back, working on another story idea for Mr. Thomas, when Ernie suddenly went bounding around to the front and returned in the company of Gloria Hooper.
“Here I am,” she announced happily, her pretty face flushed from the heat. “Just like I said. Hope it’s okay.” She was wearing flaming red pedal pushers, a black cinch belt and a white, peasant-style blouse with an elastic neckline.
“Sure, it’s okay.” I laid my papers on the grass, setting one leg of my chair on top of them to hold them down. “Any time’s okay. I’m glad you came. You want to sit out here with me or go inside?”
Finding My Own Way Page 8