by Gill Paul
Maria felt close to tears. “I need this,” she said. “I need something good and true to help me replace the awful memories of the last weeks.” As she spoke, she was picturing Bolotov’s attack on her in the bathroom two months earlier, rather than the massacre. “I know you are a good man, and I am asking—no, begging you to make love to me.” Her voice quavered.
Peter paced around, without looking at her.
“I think your father would say it was the right thing to do,” she added softly.
At last he came and sat by her again, cupping her face in his strong fingers and looking into her eyes. “I will do as you wish, but tell me straightaway if you want me to stop.” He began to caress her slowly, his mouth on her neck, the inside of her wrist, the swell of her breast. It was glorious to feel such sensations and soon she was completely caught up in the moment.
Only when he raised the hem of her skirt did she freeze for a second, thinking of the pain of Bolotov’s assault. Would this feel the same? Peter sensed her hesitation and stopped immediately, but she urged him on: “No—please. I want you to.” She was scared but very sure.
Gently he placed his fingers on her private parts and she gave a sob of joy and wriggled her hips toward him. By the time he entered her, she felt as if her entire body had turned to liquid. It hurt a lot, but was exquisite at the same time. She felt they were bound together, made of one flesh, just as she had always dreamed it would be with a man.
“I love you,” she whispered in his ear. When it was finished and she lay in his arms, with tree branches waving against the brilliant, almost-full moon, she repeated the words, then said, “I wish we could be married. I don’t want any other man. Just you: Peter Vasnetsov.”
He hugged her tighter, kissed her brow, the tip of her nose. “I love you too,” he said, his voice cracking with emotion. “You have no idea how much I love you!”
“Really?” She was amazed at this. “Why do you love me?”
He stroked her hair slowly and rhythmically as he replied. “Many of the guards in the house dreamed of marrying one of the Romanov girls, but I never dared to think such thoughts. I just liked you very much. From the newspapers I had expected you to be haughty and conceited, but you were utterly natural and friendly and you won my heart in an instant. It meant so much to me that you had tears in your eyes when I told you of my father dying. And since we have been here, your courage has taken my breath away. I love your intelligence, your beauty, but most of all I love the strength I can feel in you.”
Maria blinked. She didn’t feel strong at all. “That is sweet of you to say, but I am worried you are only staying with me because you feel a sense of obligation, having rescued me. When we leave here, if you want, you can take me somewhere safe and leave me. You need not feel you have to stay with me because of what has happened between us tonight.” She held her breath.
“Never!” he cried with passion. “I would never leave you. Not as long as you want me, at any rate.” He paused. “But perhaps you only think you have fallen in love with me because I saved you? Once you are back in society, I will be a misfit and you will not wish to know me anymore.”
Maria wrapped her arms around him and clung to him, her face pressed against his. She could feel his eyelashes brushing her cheek. “I have watched you these last weeks and have grown to know and love your character. I pray with all my heart that we will never be parted again.”
She placed her lips on his and kissed him hard, trying to communicate the strength of her love without any further words.
Chapter 16
Ural Mountains, September 1918
WHEN MARIA OPENED HER EYES THE NEXT MORNING, she curled her body against the back of the sleeping Peter, all the delicious sensations of the previous night coming back to her. He stirred and she pulled him to face her, ready for more lovemaking.
When at last he rose to light a fire and prepare breakfast, she watched in a reverie, her skin tingling, already planning how she would tempt him to lie down with her again after they had eaten. She loved the way he touched her, the way their bodies fitted together. Was it wrong to do this when they were not wed? She couldn’t believe God would condemn them.
The next days passed in a haze. Now that they were lovers, she wanted to make love all the time. She couldn’t look at Peter without feeling a tug of lust in her belly. When he went hunting for an hour or two, she hugged herself, feeling bereft without his presence. Lovemaking connected her to life again and distracted her from the rawness of her vast grief, preventing it from rising up and engulfing her. It was still there—she cried every day—but now she had something wonderful to occupy her thoughts as well.
Peter whistled as he worked around their little encampment, and seemed to have a permanent grin on his face. He brought her tiny bouquets of forest flowers and arranged blooms in her hair. He teased her when she slipped into what he called her “grand duchess ways”—correcting his grammar or wiping his beard when specks of food caught in it.
“Look how straight you sit!” He mimicked her position. “As if you are a piece of furniture.”
“My mother taught us to sit straight.” She smiled. She liked the gentleness of his humor; this man could never be cruel.
“What age are you?” she asked one day, and was surprised when he said, “Nineteen.” The same age as her. He seemed so much more mature.
Were they fooling themselves? Could a marriage between them work? He had less education than her but vastly more knowledge of the skills necessary for survival, and that seemed more important now. Was she not in her right mind, as Peter had worried? Perhaps not, but she felt as if she had changed fundamentally and would never be the old Maria again. There was no reason why the new Maria could not be the wife of Peter Vasnetsov. She knew with certainty that she wanted to be with him for the rest of her life.
* * *
The weather was changeable now, going from warm sunshine to gusty rain then back again, all within the hour. More worryingly, the temperature was plummeting at night. Peter put extra moss and leaves on the roof, creating a thick layer to trap any heat, but still Maria woke shivering in the early hours and had to cling to him for warmth.
“We can’t stay here over the winter,” Peter told her. “You know that, don’t you? I’ve been waiting as long as possible for your wounds to heal, but we must be on the move soon.”
Maria’s insides twisted in anxiety. “But where shall we go?”
“I need to find out if the Bolsheviks are still in power and which way the civil war is turning. Rather than head east toward Ekaterinburg, where we might be recognized, I think the western side of the mountains is safest.”
Maria felt a lurch of hope. “Aunt Ella, my mother’s sister, lives in Perm. Tatiana might be there.”
Peter gave her a strange look she could not decipher and seemed about to say something, then stopped. “All right.” He nodded. “We will go to Perm. But we will have to disguise ourselves, and we will need new clothes.”
“I have the jewels that were hidden in my garments. We could sell those.” She had removed them and now kept them in a cloth bag fashioned from one of her bandages.
He shook his head. “Any buyer will ask where they came from. Let’s bring them with us but keep them hidden, my love. In civil wars, the safest rule is to trust no one.”
They set off one sunny morning and headed toward a mountain pass Peter knew, which cut through the peaks without forcing them to climb too high. Maria felt anxious about leaving their sanctuary, worried about what lay ahead, but comforted herself that all would be well while she had Peter by her side.
Before long her wounded leg ached, and by the end of the first day her feet were covered in painful blisters because her buckled leather shoes were not designed for a mountain trek. Peter found a weed he called plantain and squeezed the sticky juice from its leaves directly onto her poor feet.
“It will soothe and heal the blisters,” he said, and she could feel the sting ease
straightaway.
Next morning he presented her with some new shoes he had made during the night from birch bark. “They’re called lapti,” he told her. “This is what peasants wear. I’ve put some plantain leaves inside to protect your feet as you walk.”
The lapti were comfortable; they gripped the earth firmly yet did not chafe. Was there anything this man couldn’t do?
Her grief seemed stronger now they were on the move, but at the same time she pictured her joy if they found Tatiana at her aunt Ella’s house. They could all three comfort each other. What would they make of Peter? She remembered Tatiana chastising her for consorting with the guards, but she must change her mind in the face of this courageous man who had carried her on his back for three days. He would be Tatiana’s brother-in-law once they wed, and she thought he had many qualities in common with her sister’s sweetheart Dmitri Malama, who had been decorated in the war. They might have been born into different classes, but like Malama, Peter was a man of great courage.
The rain grew more persistent as they reached the western side of the mountain range, and Peter explained that moisture was drawn in the atmosphere all the way from the Atlantic Ocean then trapped by these rocky peaks. “That’s why it rains more in Perm than in Ekaterinburg,” he said. Maria hadn’t known that before.
He told her that you could predict the weather by watching the behavior of animals. “If birds are flying high, there is good weather ahead, but when they come in low it’s to avoid a storm. Sheep and cattle will get skittish and spiders will leave their webs and seek shelter just before rain arrives.”
Maria was enchanted by this folk wisdom, so he told her all the signs he had noticed that indicated it would be a cold winter that year. “The pine trees make larger cones when there’s a rough winter ahead, and squirrels build thicker nests.”
“How do they know?” she asked, wide-eyed.
“They just do.” He shrugged.
Each day he would point to a landmark on the horizon and suggest they try to reach it by sundown, but Maria struggled to keep up with his pace. Sometimes he put her on his back and carried her for a while, as he had when he had rescued her, but the going was steep and he couldn’t manage it for more than an hour at a time.
They reached a small hamlet of a few houses, but did not stop because Peter said strangers would be remarked upon there. It was only when they arrived at the outskirts of Perm that he decided they could rest. He spotted an abandoned shed in the remote reaches of a farm and they stayed there for a day, eating strips of dried meat he had brought for nourishment and bathing their feet in a trough full of rainwater.
The next morning, Peter left Maria for an hour to look for some clothes, and she cowered behind an abandoned tractor, startled by every slight noise. She knew she must get used to being alone, because the following day they had agreed that he would travel into the city to call upon her aunt Ella. There might be Bolshevik guards posted around the house, who would no doubt recognize Maria, so he would go alone to see how the land lay.
When he returned, he was carrying armfuls of clothes. “I stole them from a washing line. I feel bad, but at least I chose a house where they seemed reasonably wealthy.”
Maria held a skirt against herself. It looked about her size, but when she tried it on she could not get all the buttons to fasten. A blouse would not close across her chest. Even the petticoat was tight.
“I think the excellent food you served in the Ural Mountains has caused me to put on weight,” she said, patting her belly. “I have become fat little bow-wow again—that’s the name my sisters used to call me.” She became aware that Peter was giving her a strange look. “What is it?”
“Don’t you know what’s happening?” he asked softly. She shook her head, mystified. “You are with child.”
Maria sat down, feeling unsteady on her feet. “But how do you know?” she asked, still ignorant of such women’s matters. Then, after a moment’s thought, she muttered, “Yes, of course. That’s exactly the kind of thing you would know.”
She placed a hand on her belly, trying to decide how she felt about the news, and was filled to the brim with a wave of protectiveness for the tiny creature growing inside her. She looked up and saw that Peter had tears in his eyes.
* * *
He returned from Perm the following day with disappointing news: Aunt Ella’s house was empty and barricaded. Some neighbors told him she had not been seen since the early weeks of July.
“They know that the Tsar—your father—has been executed but seem to think the rest of the family have been sent elsewhere for safekeeping. If only that were true.” Peter looked grim.
Maria felt crushed. She had pinned her hopes on her aunt being there. “Is there no word of Tatiana?” she asked, anxiety bubbling inside.
He shook his head. “I’m sorry, but it seems we have been fleeing in the wrong direction. The White Army of Admiral Kolchak has taken Ekaterinburg from the Bolsheviks and established a new government in Omsk. But here, in Perm, the soviets still rule and we are not safe. All we can do is hunker down for winter and hope the Whites advance across the Urals before too long.”
“Where will we live? What will we do?” Sometimes it was hard to contain her panic.
“I will find work without too much trouble. The Red Army has been conscripting farmhands, so many farms are short-staffed. They have also been requisitioning all the grain except what is needed by the farmers’ immediate family, but I can find food for us.”
Maria nodded. She didn’t doubt it.
“I have a question for you,” he continued. “I met a man on the road who says he can provide us with false identity papers. There is a brisk trade at the moment among bourgeoisie trying to pose as ordinary workers. The man I met will take jewelry as payment without asking any questions. Would you allow me to give him one of your diamonds?”
“False papers?” This was a whole new world for Maria. “What names will we take?”
“I suggest we keep our first names but change our patronymics, matronymics, and places of birth. I couldn’t learn to call you Ludmilla or Valeriya without tripping myself up sometimes.” He smiled.
“You said that in times of civil war we should trust no one.”
“Yes, but this man has nothing to gain by betraying us. He would lose his business and his profits. I think he can be trusted.”
Maria marveled that Peter seemed so calm about this, as if it were an everyday occurrence to change names. “If you’re sure,” she said. She selected a small diamond from her cloth bag.
Later that night, when she was dressed in the stolen clothes, with a peasant woman’s scarf on her head, Peter burned her old ripped gown. It was far too grand for “Citizen Dubova,” a farm worker’s wife, and the bayonet slash on the bodice would arouse suspicion. She wasn’t sorry to see the last of it; it held too many nightmarish memories within its expensive threads.
* * *
“Have you traveled a long way?” the farmer’s wife asked Maria, looking her up and down. “You seem worn out, and your lapti are so battered there is scarcely anything left. My name’s Svetlana. Here—take some bread. Your baby needs you to eat for two. When is he due, by the way?”
Maria made a quick calculation in her head. “June, I think.”
“A June baby is lucky,” Svetlana continued. “He will look after you in your old age, or so the saying goes.”
“It might be a girl . . .”
Svetlana shook her head. “I can tell it’s a boy from the shape of your belly. I’m never wrong about that. You’ve come to the right place; I can help you through the labor.”
Maria paled. She had not given much thought to childbirth and found the prospect terrifying. Her bump was so big already she could not imagine how its contents would ever emerge.
“Don’t worry.” Svetlana smiled. “I’ve delivered four of my neighbors’ babies, as well as umpteen calves.”
That was vaguely reassuring, although Maria wondere
d if calves were born the same way as humans. She couldn’t see how, given that they had four legs not two.
“Do you have children?” she asked, but Svetlana shook her head.
“It never happened for us, sadly. It wasn’t God’s will.”
All the same, she looked as though she had given birth, with a huge sagging bosom and ample hips. Maria guessed her age to be around forty.
Svetlana continued. “I hope you will be able to help me with the tasks the men leave to us women—you know, weaving, milking, feeding the animals, pickling, baking, and so forth. We’ll be company for each other.”
Maria paled. She had no knowledge of the tasks Svetlana would expect the wife of an itinerant farm worker to be familiar with.
Her ignorance was soon revealed when they went to the shed to do the afternoon milking and she did not know which part of the cow to grab hold of. She tried to copy Svetlana, but no milk came out. The farmer’s wife regarded her thoughtfully.
“You’re a kulak, aren’t you? Makes sense. I had my suspicions from your accent and the fancy way you sit on a chair.”
“What’s a kulak?” Maria wondered if it was something like a Cossack, but it seemed not.
“Bourgeoisie; born to wealthy parents. We shouldn’t be hiring kulaks, but my husband, Joe, likes your husband and thinks he will be an asset to the farm.”
“Peter is not a kulak,” Maria said quickly. “My parents were bourgeoisie but they are . . .” She couldn’t bring herself to say the word “dead” and sought alternatives. “They are gone now.” Tears came. They always did when she talked about them.
Svetlana put an arm around her. “Don’t cry, my dear,” she soothed, rubbing Maria’s shoulder. “There, there. Too much grief will infect the child in your womb so he will have a melancholy soul.”
Maria thought there was no chance the child could avoid infection because grief filled every cell of her body, even if she was able to control it a little better now than she had a few weeks ago.