The Midwife of St. Petersburg

by Linda Lee Chaikin

  Karena wondered if Countess Shashenka would also be in Kazan. She was a friend of Madame Zofia and known as a world traveler. Since Tatiana hadn’t mentioned the countess as a guest, it was likely she was spending the summer and fall at her residence in the Crimea until she returned to St. Petersburg for the Christmas and New Year’s celebrations.

  I, too, will be in St. Petersburg to attend Aunt Zofia and Tatiana’s winter entertainments, Karena thought, if I’m accepted into the medical college. I should like to attend a skating party and afterward return to Tatiana’s house for refreshments by the fire.

  Natalia shaded her brown eyes with a cupped hand, squinting at the colorful houses that came into view as they neared the dock. June breezes, still chilly, tossed her light brown hair.

  She laughed. “Oh look! A chocolate brown house with yellow window shutters and a green roof! I’ll tell Boris those are the colors I want on the guest bungalow in the wheat fields. We’ll live there when we marry, until Papa builds us a bigger house.”

  “Uncle Matvey’s coming to stay the summer. If he hears the bungalow’s been painted brown, yellow, and green, he’ll disappoint us and remain in St. Petersburg,” Karena said with a laugh.

  “Dear Uncle Matvey. It must be his dull research books that have sobered his mood. He used to be such fun, telling us stories about his childhood in Poland. He seems worried lately. Perhaps it’s the looming war.”

  The looming war. Everything from poor crops to poor health was blamed on the rising war clouds over Europe. Karena’s brother Sergei joked about the tired phrase. When Aunt Marta had a crick in her joints or Papa Josef had to stay up late grading school papers, Sergei would blame on the looming war.

  As for Uncle Matvey’s dull research books, Karena didn’t agree.

  “We ought to know history, Natalia. I’ve volunteered to help Uncle Matvey this summer with his new book.”

  “Oh? What’s it about this time?”

  “The Jewish Messiah.”

  Natalia’s eyes widened. “Does Uncle actually believe a future Messiah is coming?”

  “I don’t know. He has a dozen books that he ordered from London and America. He had to go into Finland to pick them up from an associate’s house because he was uneasy about having them sent to his apartment. I’m going to find my research intriguing, if nothing else.”

  “He’ll have arrived by the time we get back to Kiev,” Natalia said. “Sergei’s traveling back with him on the train from St. Petersburg.”

  “At least Papa will be there to greet them both.”

  Karena felt a gust of cool wind, but the sun was bright and hot on her fair skin. That morning, she’d wound her golden hair into braids and coiled them at the back of her neck. Now, as the steamer came into port, she put on her red sun hat, hoping it looked fashionably perky against her common blue traveling skirt and white blouse. She held her hat in place with one hand, irritated with herself for failing to sew on new ribbon ties as she’d intended.

  A tugboat chugged down the river, towing a string of black barges, followed by a massive timber raft that looked to be at least five hundred feet long. It carried a cargo of ready-made wooden bungalows with fancy carved gables to be sold in the regions along the lower Volga, which had no forest.

  Another massive barge floated by, carrying people—a floating settlement of peasants. The men all wore cherry-red shirts and the women, long blue skirts and dark tuniclike blouses with colorful embroidery. As the steamer slipped past, Karena saw the peasants gathered around a large campfire built near one end of the raft, drinking hot tea or perhaps coffee.

  The steamship was slowly secured to the dock at Kazan. An hour inched by while Karena and Natalia waited on the crowded deck, until at last they were permitted to depart. Karena arranged to have their trunks sent to the Roskov residence, and with only their portmanteaus to carry, she and Natalia descended the gangway. Her footsteps echoed on weathered wooden planks, and Karena heard the ringing of bells, a shrill ship’s whistle, and a cacophony of voices in strange dialects and languages. She smelled stale fish and oil mingled with the scent of the river.

  Beyond the riverbank sat a row of wooden shops and loading-houses, all painted bright colors like the houses Natalia had seen earlier. There was a lavender house with a gleaming tin roof, a crimson one with an emerald roof, one sky blue and red, and even an orange house with an olive green roof. One very large building seemed to display every color available on its three stories.

  They made their way through the crowded dock toward the horse-drawn taxis and carriages lining the street, awaiting passengers.

  “Aunt Zofia and Tatiana should be waiting for us by now,” Natalia said. “I wonder if the ball is tonight or tomorrow?”

  “I hope tomorrow. Our gowns will be terribly wrinkled.”

  “You forget we have maids here,” Natalia said cheerfully. “They’ll wait on us hand and foot. Even steam the creases out of our clothes. You heard Mother. She’ll never be able to live with us again, we’ll be so spoiled.”

  Karena smiled. “Just like Tatiana.”

  “Hah! No one could be as spoiled as she.”

  “Don’t be an old cat,” Karena scolded lightly. She scanned the carriages. “I don’t see the Roskov coach. Suppose they forgot we were arriving?”

  “Tatiana might forget, but not Aunt Zofia. Ah! Here comes the coach now.”

  Karena followed her sister’s gaze. Two soldiers on horseback rode ahead of a large, black coach, an R on the red- and gold-fringed flag, being pulled by two white horses.

  Karena let her gaze slide past the coach to one of the soldiers, who wore the uniform of an officer in the elite Imperial Cavalry. She admired the effortless and disciplined way in which he sat on the horse and guided its movements, her interest sparked by his masculine manner. As he rode nearer, she realized who he was.

  Natalia, too, recognized him from the photograph Tatiana had sent last New Year’s. “Isn’t that Captain Aleksandr Kronstadt?” she asked.

  “I couldn’t say …” Karena kept her voice indifferent. “Yes, perhaps he’s the one in the skating photograph. We know he’s staying with her family.”

  “I’m surprised she’d have us here now.”

  Karena glanced at her sister. “Why do you say that?”

  Natalia pursed her lips. “She seems self-absorbed.”

  “Don’t be unfair. She and Aunt Zofia both have asked us here, and they are expending themselves for our benefit. We should show gratitude. She’s beautiful, and she’d be naive not to realize it. And she has nothing to fear from us.”

  “Not from me anyway. I love Boris and always will.” She looked at Karena.

  Karena fussed with her hat and looked away from her sister’s sympathetic gaze. She was not in love with Ilya Jilinsky, the young man her family hoped she would marry. Natalia understood that she did not wish to marry for some years in order to pursue medicine.

  “Tatiana mentioned another officer she’s been entertaining in St. Petersburg,” Natalia said, changing the subject. “I believe his name is Captain Yevgenyev.”

  “Well, it looks as though Captain Kronstadt has won. Do you wonder that he did?” Karena tucked the corners of her mouth into a smile.

  “No, but I wonder if that other soldier is Yevgenyev. He looks rather put out about things, don’t you think?”

  “Well, if it is Captain Yevgenyev,” Karena said wryly, “Tatiana is either very brave in having them here together, or most unwise. I wouldn’t think there’d be a moment of peace in such a triangle.”

  “Why would she have them both here unless she enjoys perpetual competition? It may be exciting, but it’s also dangerous.”

  “It all seems rather silly.” Karena took hold of her sister’s arm, pulling her forward. “Come along, there she is now. Do be nice.”

  “Karena! Natalia! Over here!” Tatiana called as she opened the coach door. She was smiling and waving her white-gloved hand. Beneath the glove there would be diamonds
; Tatiana was fixated on the glittering gems from South Africa.

  Karena smiled and returned her wave, hurrying forward. The wind played with the hem of her skirt, and she had to hold her hat in place.

  Captain Kronstadt lifted Tatiana down from the coach step onto the planks lining the street, and for a moment she looked up at him, laughing. Karena thought it an endearing scene. The only thing missing was snow or perhaps the statue of Peter the Great on his horse in the background.

  “Cousin Karena, Natalia,” Tatiana said with a laugh, hugging first one, then the other. “How delightful to see you both again.”

  “It’s been much too long,” Karena said. She held Tatiana’s hands in hers and looked her over, still smiling. “And how lovely you are.”

  “And you! I can hardly believe you’ve not been snatched up by some country gent in Kiev.”

  Some country gent. “You know me, Cousin. My first love waits in St. Petersburg,” Karena teased, referring to her well-known passion for the medical college. She became aware of Captain Kronstadt standing nearby, but she didn’t look at him. “Where’s Aunt Zofia?”

  “Mother stayed at the house. She’s in turmoil. We just learned an hour ago that we’ve a very special but very unexpected guest coming tonight. Mother is trying to rearrange the seating order for dinner from thirteen to fourteen.”

  A gust of wind whipped Karena’s red hat off her head. It skipped along the wooden planks, rolling as if bent on escape. She could imagine the wind laughing mischievously in her ears.

  Tatiana gave a feminine squeak and held to her own fashionable, periwinkle blue hat, though it was firmly tied beneath her chin and could not have come off. “I’d better hold on to mine. It’s from Paris, designed by Macquinet-Dushane-Hudson and well worth its fashion in gold.”

  Natalia turned to Karena. “I’ll see if I can find it.”

  “I think it’s too late. It may have gone off the edge into the water.”

  “It is just as well it did.” Tatiana laughed and tugged at Karena’s coil of golden braids. “How quaintly stylish. I must have my maid do mine like that sometime. You do so well, and without a maid too. Now don’t frown over your lost hat. I’ve the perfect one for you. A black one that will be stunning with your fair hair and blue eyes. Oh, I envy you … just like your mother. How you and Madame Yeva can be so fair when she’s Jewish—”

  Tatiana’s voice trailed away. She stared at something behind Karena. Her expression made Karena strangely uneasy. She turned to see Captain Aleksandr Kronstadt approaching with her red hat.

  “Your hat, Miss Peshkova.” He smiled and bowed lightly.

  There was no way to avoid eye contact with him.

  The photograph did not do him justice. She fought against her reaction to his handsome features—the strong jaw line, the nicely shaped mouth, the dark wavy hair, the intense green-gray eyes under straight brows. She sensed powerful shoulders beneath his uniform. He affected her in a far different way than Ilya Jilinsky.

  From his extended hand, she took her hat. “Yes … thank you very much, Captain.”

  Captain Kronstadt studied her face with no apparent embarrassment and smiled. “My pleasure,” he assured her.

  Karena blushed. She saw him look at Tatiana but could read nothing in his eyes. Perhaps they were deliberately incomprehensible.

  Karena turned toward her cousin, relieved to break the heated gaze, only to meet the calculating eyes of Tatiana, which moved from her to Captain Kronstadt. Then the moment passed; Tatiana smiled, and she slipped an arm around Karena’s waist.

  “This is Alex,” she said. “Colonel Aleksandr Kronstadt. He’s on my father’s private staff. Alex, meet my cousins from Kiev, Karena and Natalia Peshkova. My mother, Zofia, is their aunt.”

  He bowed. “Ladies.”

  “My apologies for calling you a captain,” Karena said, chagrined.

  “Officially, I remain a captain until the end of June. Then much agonizing pomp and ceremony await me in St. Petersburg.”

  Karena smiled. “Then perhaps I should offer my sympathies.”

  “That might be more in keeping with my feelings just now.”

  Whatever his feelings, they did not appear to coincide with Tatiana’s as she looped her arm through his.

  “I’m relieved you’ll be in St. Petersburg where I’ll see you often,” Tatiana said to Kronstadt. “The countess will be pleased too. She must come back to St. Petersburg for the Christmas and New Year’s holidays when we announce our engagement.” She released his arm and turned to Karena and Natalia. “The wind is dreadful today. Let’s get inside the coach before we’re blown into the Volga.”

  With another small bow, Kronstadt walked back to his waiting horse. Karena’s eyes followed him.

  Tatiana grabbed her hand. “Come along, Karena, Natalia. Alex has business elsewhere for the day. We won’t see him until the ball tonight. I wonder if you and Natalia have everything you need in your wardrobe …”

  As Tatiana and Natalia discussed what they would wear to the ball, Karena wondered if she had imagined tension between her cousin and Kronstadt. Why did Kronstadt’s face harden when Tatiana mentioned how delighted she was that he would be stationed in St. Petersburg?

  When they reached the coach, Natalia noticed a flower cart down the street and impulsively dug into her coin case. “Gardenias! Aren’t they wonderful? I shall buy some for Aunt Zofia. Maybe they’ll soothe her spirits. I won’t be long.”

  Natalia hurried off as the Roskov driver settled their portmanteaus in the back of the coach. Karena was left alone for a moment with Tatiana.

  “You’ll be elated to know who else will be here tonight,” Tatiana said. “Arranged by the good fortune of fate, of course.”

  Karena looked at her animated face.

  “Dr. Dmitri Zinnovy,” Tatiana announced.

  “Dr. Zinnovy!” Karena was unable to keep the excitement from her voice. She stared at her cousin. Dr. Zinnovy had been one of the chief physicians at the Imperial Medical College and held a great deal of sway over the admissions department. Karena had written to him on several occasions, seeking his assistance on her quest to enter the school, but she had received not so much as an impersonal response from his secretarial assistants.

  “I knew you’d be thrilled when I told you of my accomplishment,” Tatiana said. “Tonight you shall meet him!”

  Karena laughed. “To think I’ve spent months writing letters to no avail, and you, within my very reach, knew him all along.”

  Tatiana smiled. “There’s hardly anything I can’t get for you, Cousin.”

  Then her eyes hardened, or perhaps it was a shadow as they walked nearer the coach that made them seem to darken. Karena followed the direction of her gaze to Colonel Aleksandr Kronstadt mounting his horse.

  “Alex, however, is forbidden,” Tatiana warned. “He belongs to me. Remember that.”

  Karena felt as though she’d been slapped. “That’s preposterous, Tatiana,” she said. “You’re beautiful and socially powerful. What man wouldn’t choose you above all others?”

  Tatiana continued to smile. “That’s exactly what I intend, so we must not want the same thing. I’m afraid if we did, we would become enemies.”

  “Enemies? Why, we’re family.”

  “Yes, and families must not undermine one another. We must keep it that way.”

  Karena’s clasped hands tightened. “Of course.”

  “Good. Now let’s forget that. Are you wondering how I arranged for fate to bring Dr. Zinnovy here this evening?”

  Karena nodded, shaken by the confrontation. Tatiana’s ability to jump emotionally into a new mood and topic of conversation was disturbing. This was a facet of her cousin that she’d not seen until now. She listened in strained silence as Tatiana explained how she’d wrangled Dr. Zinnovy’s son Fyodor into bringing his father to the ball and all she’d had to go through to flatter Fyodor and gain his help.

  “Fyodor still doesn’t know why I wante
d his father to come tonight,” she said. “I never mentioned your name, so don’t worry about that. When Fyodor and Dr. Zinnovy meet you, they will only think of your family relationship to me. Then I shall arrange for you to waltz with Dr. Zinnovy, and the rest will be in your hands.”

  Karena made the correct response of gratitude and surprise over how it had all come about, but the excitement she’d felt earlier was dampened. She was all the more troubled as her beautiful cousin, whom she’d often admired, continued talking and smiling at her. If anyone had been watching them, they might appear to be discussing nothing more serious than what gown they’d wear to the ball.

  Everything appeared normal, but things were not as they seemed.

  TWO

  The Promised Guest

  As the driver maneuvered the Roskov coach through the busy streets, Karena noticed many Byzantine-style churches. “Kazan once flourished as the capital of the Islamic kingdom of the Tartars until Ivan the Terrible sacked the city in 1552 and made it a part of Russia,” Karena mentioned to Tatiana and Natalia.

  The two young women looked at each other and laughed.

  Karena smiled at them. “Ha, ha,” she said dryly.

  “Don’t allow my ignorance to trouble you, Karena,” Tatiana said. “I failed history in school.”

  “You probably failed more than history,” Natalia goaded with a wicked grin.

  Tatiana made a face at her.

  “Now, if you’d care to discuss history with Alex, you might find a willing audience,” Tatiana continued to Karena. “He loves to debate theology, as well. He has this awful seminary cousin in America who bombards him with letters full of theological discussions. I told Alex he ought to discuss Christianity with Rasputin, but he only gave me a look. Alex is absolutely wonderful and maddening, all at the same time.”

  Alex again. Is she baiting me? Karena wondered. From the corner of her eye, she saw Natalia’s warning glance. Karena needed no additional warning.

  “I should know more about the Bible by the end of summer,” Karena said.

  “The end of summer? Why is that?” Tatiana looked genuinely interested.