Irina

by Philip Warren

  …

  St. Michael lay quiet as heavy flakes began to cover the deep layer of snow already there. The horse made the sleigh’s polished wooden runners glide across the packed surface, and the ride from Poznan went quickly.

  Zuzanna sat snuggled next to Pan Andrezski in a large, thick blanket, and only her little face poked out to meet the wind as the horse pulled them along. Soon, they were in sight of the Kwasniewski farm, and Jerzy could see she had not forgotten her home. “My house! Is Mama there? Papa?”

  Hearing the horse’s bells, Peter and Edouard came running out. Jerzy stayed in the sleigh watching as the brothers hugged and kissed their only link with a family now vanished. All three of them little children again, they ran around making circles in the snow, laughing and crying all at once.

  Jerzy tried to smile, but his feelings were mixed, as he knew his own relationship with Zuzzie would change. In truth, he was jealous, but it had been his own long-ago choice not to marry and have children. He refused to look back.

  All went inside and sipped a boiled chicken broth by the fire. The Kwasniewskis continued their playful reunion and Zuzzie seemed happy to find the crude wooden toys all the children had used, dirty and wet from the weather though they were. Then she seemed to lose herself in her memories, wondering aloud where everyone had gone. Though in her childhood home, she walked the two rooms as a stranger, looking and poking around, but not wishing to return to its emptiness. Though warmed by the fire, she seemed chilled.

  The men pushed melancholy aside and turned to business. It was Eduoard who spoke first. “Peter and I have talked with the others around St. Michael about what you propose. My grandfather told me about the times when summers were long and warm with just enough rain. Those were good times for farmers, but not so much now. The growing months are drier than in times past. Winters have become harsh and long. It’s not the same now. So, for us, your proposition makes sense. We agree on the partnership we discussed, and despite the weather, we will begin the work you want us to do.” Peter nodded.

  “That is good news, indeed,” Jerzy said with a smile. “Will it be alright, then, if I send Pan Wodowicz back next week with a few others to make preparations and give instruction?”

  “That will be fine.” Both brothers laughed. “Felling beech trees will keep us warm! There is little to do here in winter, so the work will fill our days.”

  “Bardzo Dobrze!” Jerzy gave them his broadest smile.

  “The old man Wodowicz and the others can stay with us,” Edouard added. At that, all three men remembered Zuzzie, playing quietly near the fire. The question hung in the air, unspoken.

  “As to little Zuzzie,” Jerzy volunteered, adding a smile to his words, “this might not be a good place for the little one. The nuns will keep her when no one is here to watch over her.”

  “No fear there,” Eduoard said. “When I am here, she will be fine.”

  “And she will grow up soon enough,” Peter added. “Pan Andrezski, I still find it hard to believe what you told us the last time—that our sister, Irina, a wealthy woman with child, can be one and the same.”

  “Peter! Edouard!” Zuzzie called. “Where are Matka i Ojciec? I want to see my brothers and sisters,” she cried plaintively.

  “Ah, little Zuzzie. They are not here,” Peter said truthfully. “They went to heaven.”

  Zuzzie stared at them, thinking. “But not Irina?”

  …

  As a married pair, Comte and Comtesse Brezchwa lived a comfortable but hardly lavish existence in Chateau Fournier—still being renovated—and Irina, for one, knew time was not their true friend.

  When a brief warm spell appeared, the two of them gathered a picnic lunch, and coached the two miles or so to the road on which Antoine Chevalle kept his shambling business. As always, little Stashu was with them. Chevalle did not warm to the boy, they noticed.

  Before then, Jan and Irina had visited with the crusty Chevalle on several occasions, and he always refused their offerings of cheese, bread, and a jug of table wine. Nevertheless, the pair enjoyed seeing the men at their craft. They kept their welcome by buying several pieces of their work.

  Keeping his distance from what he often referred to as “Paris wealth,” Chevalle refused them contact with his men, the blacks who kept his fires going in the steamers, hauled his wood, and performed tasks at an apprentice level. “Don’t want to teach them too much, or let them get the wrong idea,” he had once said.

  At one point in the visit, Jan cleared his throat over the hammering and chiseling, and said, “Monsieur Chevalle, Lady Brezchwa and I believe there may be a possibility for an arrangement of mutual satisfaction were we to partner with you.”

  As if struck, Chevalle took a step backward and shook his head with some vehemence. “What could I possibly gain by an association with the likes of you?”

  “No need to be rude, Chevalle,” Irina said with a brusqueness that shocked her listeners. “My husband and I have been by here seven or eight times since our first meeting, and except for one occasion, we have yet to see anyone here to buy.”

  “You are wrong, Madame. As I told you, my business is my business and it is just fine.”

  “Have it your way, Chevalle, and we will watch you slowly starve. And these men?”

  “They will starve first.”

  “And that will satisfy you?” Irina paused to let her words settle in to the cabinetmaker’s hardwood head. “What should satisfy you will be food on your table, a woman who will put up with you, and more than a few sous in your pocket.”

  “And what would you have to do with what’s in my pocket?” He smirked.

  “When you stop being an ignorant fool, I will tell you.” Irina sat on the only stool within reach, pulled Stashu up to her lap, and waited.

  As if the air had deflated a giant bag, Chevalle shrugged his shoulders and said, “What is it that you want with a poor carpenter?”

  “You are no poor carpenter,” Jan said, looking around his shop. “You are a master at your trade, but no one knows of you.”

  “What we want,” Irina said, “is your skill and your French name.”

  “And what do I get for that?”

  “You get to live a decent life with a full belly in front of a warm fire when winter comes. In trade, Chevalle, my husband and I will sell your work to those who will appreciate it and can afford it.”

  “You will sell my cabinets to royalty?”

  “Don’t be silly, Chevalle! You are good, but not that good—yet. There are many in the nobility who seek fine furnishings at reasonable prices and together, we can satisfy their needs—and our own at the same time.”

  Chevalle found his own place to sit, and as Jan and Irina could see, he slowly thought through the words he heard. Finally, he stood and offered his hand to Count Brezchwa. “I can agree to that.”

  “And you can take my hand as well, Chevalle, because you will have to deal with me just as often as my husband.”

  For a moment, Chevalle didn’t know what to say or do, but then he smiled and said, “For us, it is a new day, then. Are you satisfied, Madame?”

  “Not completely, Monsieur Chevalle. We will have no slaves in our business. You must free them.”

  Chevalle blanched, then inhaled deeply, and finally, shrugged his shoulders, as if in agreement. It was that easy, and Irina wished that all of life’s troubles were so readily settled. Their conversation continued for some time, with few details left at issue.

  As she and Jan rode back to their residence, they spoke of their concerns about Chevalle, but put them aside in the hope that a real business venture, properly played, could make them a good living—at least one good enough to enjoy their lives in a setting like Chateau Fournier. As they strolled on, Irina said, “This will not be as easy as we first thought, my husband.”

  “Why do you thi
nk so?”

  “He will be stubborn about his men, I think—until he has enough money for himself to be comfortable.”

  “That I see—and it is likely true of most of us, I’m afraid.”

  “You are wise to understand that, Jan, but there will be other difficulties as well—though we have many court acquaintances, there are few we know well enough to have them introduce us. Sadly, our best friends went back east. We must think of a way to advance our business without being seen as doing business. Do you see my meaning?”

  “Yes, I think I do.”

  Nearer to Chateau Fournier, she had to admit she wasn’t sure if she was attracted to the venture because of its promise of success or because it offered the opportunity to exact a justice. As for the first, she needed the business to live. As for the second, she needed it to live with herself. For the Jews, for the blacks, for those spat upon everywhere. As she considered much of mankind’s lot in servitude, she vowed to live Madrosh’s commandment. Chevalle’s slaves made her understand natural law, but for her, divine law was a matter of simple accounting: What have you done, God might ask, with what I have given you?

  …

  Two weeks passed with little respite from the storm. Squire Krawcyk made certain the boy cleared a path to the waste pit on a daily basis so that when the denizens of their snow-laden dwelling needed to relieve themselves, it was not impossible. Each morning, he had watched the boy pitchfork the heavy snow over his shoulders, left and right, until the top of the snow cover was chest high.

  It was enough time for his beard and moustache to grow sufficiently thick to nicely mask his appearance. Because woodsy residents often did the same, the old man appeared to think nothing of his guest’s gradually changing appearance.

  When the snow finally came to an end, so did the reserves of food the old man had been hoarding.

  “Well, Josef, that’s a problem, nie?”

  “Indeed, Squire.”

  “As innkeeper here, how do you propose to feed me?”

  “As you see, sir, we have nothing now to feed ourselves.”

  Silence hung heavy in the smoky room.

  “Perhaps we can come to an arrangement?”

  “An arrangement?”

  “Let me buy your inn, and I will let you and the boy have some of what I still have in my saddlebag. It will be little, but it may see us through.”

  The old man remained quiet, though the two men knew there was little choice.

  Krawcyk laid a gleaming silver coin on the hearth, and the old man stared at it.

  Finally, Josef picked it up, his simple action all that was needed to seal the bargain.

  Within days, the sun shone bright and clear, and steadily, the outline of the road began to appear. A few days later, the early afternoon brought a sound none had heard in a while: the rumble of big wooden wheels along with the clink of iron rings and leather, the whinnying of laboring horses and shouts from the drivers.

  Josef and Padasz stepped out of what had become their cave to greet the familiar faces coming up the road.

  “We tarry but briefly,” one of the monks shouted as he and his companion descended from the glass-laden rick. “The weather has delayed us for too long, and with a bit of a repast, we will be on our way.”

  “We have nothing to offer, I am sorry to say, Brother Marcus.”

  “Not to worry, Josef! We have been worried about you and the boy, and have brought a sack of grain and a few potatoes and another with some salted meat.”

  “Ah, you are our saviors once again, Brother.”

  True to their word, the men warmed themselves and enjoyed a bit of food and conversation before relieving themselves and climbing aboard their wagon and waving a farewell.

  Squire Krawcyk appeared and said, “You did well, Josef.”

  “Djenkuje, Squire. As it turns out, sir, the monks have saved us and I do not need to sell my inn. Let me return your silver, sir.”

  “A deal is a deal, Josef. The inn is mine.”

  “But sir!”

  “But nothing, old man. I am not one of the monks who gives you something for nothing. You will adhere to the terms of our arrangement or pay the consequences.”

  “Yes, Squire,” he said, bowing in submission.

  “When will they return?

  “The monks, sir? Uh, perhaps in a week or ten days.”

  “Ah! Now I can make my plans.”

  …

  Irina came to understand that principles of conscience are easy to fashion, to mouth noble words even, but to practice them, often difficult. What she had also come to believe from the moment she and Velka left the Joselewicz house was that luck went to those who made their own, even though the price of luck was sometimes dear.

  Chevalle & Companie was not a success. The parties did not fully understand their roles and what was worse, Jan and Irina did not know the first thing about selling anything to anyone, much less savvy Frenchmen at court. They had no showplace for Chevalle’s skills to be on display in a setting most comfortable to the demanding sorts even at the lower rungs on the royal ladder. They were embarrassed at their own arrogance—and ignorance—and Chevalle snickered his disapproval as only he could do.

  Although Jan proved himself a fine father—and husband—he was not so diligent a man of business. Stashu was his principal interest, and as the months flew by, he spent less and less time furthering the interests of their struggling firm, much to Irina’s disappointment. While she’d have preferred to be the lady of the chateau, she knew the viability of her family—and of the business—would be hers to ensure.

  …

  Cold sunlight threw itself upon the snowy ground day after day, the result being a shrinking mantle of snow everywhere Tomasz Wodowicz cared to cast his eye. He could hear and see tiny rivulets of water etch the bare spaces on the ground, and noted the icicles clinging to every roof edge in what remained of Wozna. The nights remained bitterly cold, and he was grateful for his lodgings and the old man and the boy he’d made his serfs. He owned them just as he owned the inn.

  Out of the frigid, thin breeze, he tried to warm himself where the sun washed the wall against which he leaned. It was a good time to think. Already, he smirked, he’d vastly improved his station in life. When a boy, he had nothing. His mother and the two younger sisters in the family were taken with a bout of plague when he was but six or seven years of age. He had few memories of his childhood, or, he occasionally reminded himself, few that he cared to recall. His father had no interest in him or anything other than his own memories of working with Italian glass men. Whether his father slept at their hovel or elsewhere, Tomasz was left to fend for food, bits of clothing, or sticks for a fire. The assorted rags he’d gathered became a blanket of sorts when he stitched them together using a de-feathered goose quill and yarn he’d stolen.

  Some life, he grunted. Not until he ran away and found work at the castle did things begin to change. He thought he’d done pretty well for himself, having risen to become the duke’s castellan, but posing as Squire Krawcyk with sufficient silver to speak for him was a much better arrangement.

  In the weeks at Wozna, he used the skills of his youth along with cloth scavenged form Wozna’s empty buildings to dye and fashion for himself clothing reasonably akin to what a country squire might wear. Leather boots with hose and a linen tunic topped by a hooded shoulder cape would serve him well in Wozna, but in a city like Poznan, he’d have to secure clothing of a costlier kind, including a soft, felt toque to wear in fairer weather. There would be time to obtain accoutrements more authentic, but for now, his nicely trimmed beard and moustache below a clean face and washed and brushed hair above made Squire Krawcyk’s presence different, but real.

  Wodowicz had been sunning himself for some time when he heard a familiar rumble of wooden wheels slicing their way through the softened earth and
making for the inn. Within a few minutes, an empty rick came into view, the horses pulling it producing plumes of warm air from their nostrils as they panted from their labors. Two monks covered in a brownish grey wool sat above them in full control of their beasts and burden.

  “Whoa, my mares!” one of the monks shouted, pulling to his chest the four long strands of leather knotted in the horses’ bridles. “Where’s our Josef?” he asked, giving his listener a curious smile along with his words.

  “Josef and Padasz are inside warming the good barley soup we have for you, Brothers.”

  “And you are?”

  “I am Squire Krawcyk, and have sheltered here over the winter, Brother. And what’s more, in order to help our two friends inside, I have traded ownership of this humble inn for a piece of silver,” he said smiling with pride for their benefit.

  The monk who had spoken wrinkled his brow, seemingly dubious of the words he’d just heard. “We didn’t know Josef was so much in need,” he ventured, choosing his words.

  “Most certainly, good Brothers,” he said, nodding to both travelers, and changing the subject. “Come inside and warm yourselves.”

  Once seated with his guests around the one table near the fire, but not the door, under and around which the outside air crept in to steal their meager heat, the men talked while Josef and Padasz served them a hearty soup, bread, and warmed ale. The monks ate with gusto, their heads bent to their bowls, and used chunks of bread to soak up what remained.

  “What news of the glassmaking, then?” Squire Krawcyk asked politely.

  “Sire Andrezski does well for us,” said the taller of the two, much too thin and nearly swallowed by his woolen cocoon. “Not only has he found another place suitable for such work, it is nothing less than a miracle that he and the Kwasniewski brothers found each other.”