“Well, well,” he said. He opened the collar of my coat with the tip of the knife, so close to my face I could smell the metal of it.
My whole body shook. Could he see?
“I do like emeralds,” he said with a smile.
One look at his teeth, black with decay, caused me to avert my gaze.
He ran the tip of his knife under the heavy platinum, the blade cool against my skin.
“I dug them when I was in prison. So, I guess these belong to me, don’t you agree?”
He dumped his stolen goods into his jacket pocket, replaced his cap, and took my hand in his, surprisingly warm and smooth. “Let’s go, madame. This is your stop.”
I tried to pull free, but he yanked me from my seat.
Behind him, Eliza stood and grabbed his arm. “Let her go.”
The bandit turned, lashed out with his knife and the whole car cried out with terror at what he did to my dear friend.
CHAPTER
3
Varinka
1914
“Boil, damn you!” I shouted at the samovar, stuffing more pinecones down its tin chimney. Right away I was sorry for yelling at the poor water boiler, the last thing we had of Papa’s. It stood on the table next to the giant white oven Papa had forged and I ran one hand down the warm, copper side of the cauldron, our one precious thing. Yelling at it was like ranting at poor, dead Papa. Would I wake Mamka?
Mamka. She slept upon the bench, which ran the length of our one room izba, on her back, mouth agape, still and gray-faced as a cadaver. I stepped to her in the darkness, smoothed her dark hair back off her forehead. How warm she felt, delirious with fever. We’d had a bad night, her up coughing as I held her, willing her to breathe. I brushed oven soot off her coverlet and pressed two fingers to the bones of her wrist.
My gaze flicked to the icons in the holy corner opposite, the golden faces of the tsar and the Black Madonna shining above the rose-scented candles burning there. Would the saints take her from me? How could I live without Mamka? We would bury her next to Papa in the pine grove.
The thought sent me rushing back to the samovar. I touched one finger to the metal side. The water was finally heating and soon it would hiss with steam.
I opened the izba door, shielding my eyes from the blast of sunshine, and with my apron waved out the soot from the oven.
I looked up and my heart banged inside of my chest when I saw two men coming down our front path, one skeleton-skinny with a springy step, leaning on a black cane, the other round and big, both in city clothes. Taxmen. Their carriage rested at the head of the path in the sun, loaded with household items: a brass birdcage, a baby carriage, and a tall clock.
I hurried to the samovar. How to hide it behind the oven? It was too heavy with water for me to carry by the silver handles. I wrapped my arms around the cylinder and lifted it, the heat searing through the linen of my apron and sleeves. The hot water inside sloshed against the metal as I stepped behind the oven and set down the samovar there, my chest and arms on fire.
I rushed back to the open door just as the men arrived.
“Fathers,” I said, using the most reverent form of greeting we all did. I bowed low to the skinny one and stared at his boots. My arms and chest pounded with the burns.
“Don’t kowtow to me,” the skinny one said. “I’m no father of yours. I need to speak with Rafa Rafovich Kozlov immediately on imperial business.”
“My papa’s dead,” I said into the leather. I brushed the water from my eyes. I had to keep my wits about me and, above all, keep my temper down.
The old man pushed by me. “Get up, I said. Why do you live so far from the others in town?”
“It’s just a short walk from Malinov.”
I stood and watched him take in the room, his weasel eyes magnified in his wire-rimmed spectacles. He was a census man from the zemstvo, his face lined and cracked like a dry riverbed, his mustache waxed sharp at both ends: a bureaucrat taxman, the most hated kind in the village.
The other man I recognized as Mr. A., a large man and good-natured, owner of the Malinov general store in town. He brushed the bottoms of his felt boots against the doorjamb and entered. He held a little paper book close to his face and wrote in it with a pencil stub.
The old man walked about the room as he spoke. “One room country dwelling known in the local parlance as izba.” Suddenly the man turned. “Does a person named Taras Walidovich Perminov live here?”
“He once was my Papa’s apprentice.” This was true, after all. Taras’s alcoholic parents had sold him to Papa. I pointed to the far wall. “Sleeps in the toolshed through that door.”
“Back from prison?” Mr. A. asked, writing something in his little book.
The tiny pencil in his big hand made me want to laugh.
“Yes. Back two months now. But he’s not here.”
The old one stepped toward the beautiful corner and eyed the icons. “Where is he? On what business?”
St. Petersburg, of course, but what to say? Since Taras had been back from prison he’d been going to secret meetings there and I’d found pamphlets in his boots.
“Only God knows.”
The two exchanged a look.
The prickles on the back of my neck rose. “He served his time.”
Mr. A. stepped toward me. “I heard he met a bad element there….”
I took a deep breath. “Prison changes a person.”
“Turn around,” the old man said to me.
I stared at him for a long moment, and then quickly turned.
He considered my figure. “Are you and this Taras to be married?”
“No,” I said.
“Unmarried women pay additional tax.” With one hand, he grabbed my jaw and forced open my mouth. “Good teeth. You may be the only unmarried one in Malinov. Most have a passel of brats by your age.”
That was certainly true. Thanks to Taras and the arrangement, I would never marry. Never have children.
The old man bent and peered out our only window. “How much tillable land?”
“We’ve had no harvest since Taras sold the ox.”
“You could pull the plow.” He turned to me and squeezed the top of my arm through my linen sleeve. “You’re strong enough.” My skin burned as I yanked back my arm.
His hand slid across my chest and grazed my breast.
“Old pig,” I said under my breath.
Mr. A. directed his gaze out the door, looking like he’d tasted something sour.
“The tsar has sent people to Siberia for saying less,” the old man said.
“We tried tilling the land. Taras hitched me and Mamka to the plow and we worked the soil until she grew sick.” I waved toward Mamka on the bench. “She lies there ill with the cough, probably from pulling the plow like an animal.”
Both men took a step back.
“Soil quality?” the old man asked.
“Bad. Even with both of us hitched we could grow only beets.”
The old man shook his head. “Decreased harvest? Not good. Household budget?”
“We have no budget. I make peppermint oil I sell in town and use it to buy bread. Groats.” My scalded chest and arms pulsed with heat.
Mr. A. bent to speak to me. “We ask, for we must know to tax you fairly, Varinka.”
Such a kind man. How many times had he given Mamka thread on credit? She always tried to pay him back but he often told her to keep her money.
“Own any household items?” the old one asked.
I nodded toward the wide, tin basin leaning against the bench. “That washbasin there.”
“Things of value. Jewelry? You cannot expect to pay no tax while your neighbors sacrifice. The tsar needs this money to provide famine relief.”
“We are in famine,” I said.
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The old man waved in the direction of town. “You could work at the linen factory.”
“They won’t have me.” I glanced at Mr. A. and he looked at his boots. He knew how those in town shunned us, three odd ducks living out there in the woods. They threw handfuls of dirt at me as I passed on the street. Accused me of being the witch’s daughter and living unmarried with Taras, and they called me bad names. “And if you don’t mind, I need to tend to my mamka.”
The old man bent at the waist, opened the iron oven door and peered inside. “Your father was an artisan? No wonder you’ve been left in this state.”
“Yes. But all we have left of him is this izba he made.”
“Seems fairly well-crafted,” the old man said.
How dare he doubt Papa’s skills? “Papa made every bit himself, sturdy in the old style. Cut his own logs, daubed it with river clay he carried on his back, carved the flowers above the door himself. Even buried a coin in each corner for good—”
I regretted those words even as they came out of my mouth.
“Coins?” The old man hurried to one corner and poked the dirt with his cane.
I hurried to him and pulled him by one bony arm. “It’s bad luck—”
He shook off my grasp, dug deeper, and soon the cane’s silver tip hit metal and he bent to retrieve Papa’s coin. The old man continued to the other corners and murmured happy little grunts as he dug up each of the coins Papa had planted so many years before.
How could I be so stupid? I took deep breaths to control my rage.
The old man stepped to me, leaving deep holes surrounded by horrid little piles of tilled earth. “You now owe the tsar four kopecks less.”
“And you now have years of bad luck for yourself,” I said.
He slid the four coins into his vest pocket and patted them. “Any other items of value?”
“Not a thing.”
All at once from behind the oven came a great hissing sound. At last the samovar water boiled.
The old taxman glanced at me with eyebrows raised and followed the sound behind the oven.
I trailed him. “Please—”
The old man waved Mr. A. over. “Really? You have not a thing?” He pointed with his cane behind the oven. “This seems to be a household item.”
Mr. A. lifted the boiling samovar from my hiding place, holding it by the silver swan-head handles, and placed it back on the table. “Jesus, it’s hot.”
“Well, that’s a start,” the old one said. He ran one finger along the samovar’s sterling silver band, fastened like a belt around a man’s waist, stamped with the seals of winning at every samovar competition Papa entered it in. “Look at all those awards.”
“He was a great artist,” I said.
The old man waved Mr. A. away. “Take it to the wagon.”
I fell to my knees. “Please, no. We need it for my mamka—”
The old man wagged a finger in my face. “It’s better off in a fine home, not here where the roof probably leaks on it.”
Mr. A. wore a weary look as he dumped the steaming water out of the samovar just outside the door and carried it toward the carriage. I covered my face with my hands.
“Get up.” The old one yanked me up by the elbow.
“Please, my mamka sews beautiful things. She can make you a fine sash with silver beads. Or tell your future. She is a seer.”
He pulled me close and I smelled on his breath beets and stale beer. “How old are you?”
“Fourteen. Please don’t take our samovar.”
He smiled and ran one hand down the front of my sarafan, hurting my burned skin. “Why do you girls wear so many layers?”
I tried to move toward Mamka but he pushed me against the hard clay of the tall oven.
He kissed my neck, his greasy hair cold against my throat. “I can bring that samovar back if you cooperate.”
I froze. I’d never kissed anyone, even Taras. I glanced at Mamka, lying there on her bench along the wall, deep in a fever-sleep. Who would know?
“Bring it back, first,” I said.
He laughed. “You’re a smart one. No. But I promise if you give me what I want, then the samovar comes back.”
“On God’s honor?”
He raised his hand to cover his heart. “On God’s honor.” He then dug that hand between my legs, through the folds of my long skirt.
Taras had never done that before, either.
“I can show you a few things,” the old man said in my ear, the point of his waxed mustache pricking my cheek.
He moved his hands to my breasts and squeezed them like a person kneads bread dough. “Do you like that?” he said, sending his sour breath around me like a cloud.
I nodded, though it felt terrible being squeezed that way, my burned skin raw under his hands. Up close, his spectacles were covered with white flecks from his hair. The thought of kissing him made my stomach queasy. “Bring back the samovar and I will do what you want.”
All at once the light coming from the doorway dimmed as a figure stood there. Taller and broader through the shoulders than Mr. A. I recognized the shape of his hunting jacket, his brodni boots that left no sound as he stalked his prey. The leather bag he wore was slung across his chest. The outline of one of his many knives, sheathed at his side. He made those knives himself, sharp enough to slice leather like butter. Taras.
The old taxman took his hands from my chest and turned. He blinked in the light and swallowed hard. Out the door I saw Mr. A. whip his horse as the carriage left with a clatter. Mr. A. knew better than to stay around an angry Taras.
“I think we are certainly done here,” the old man brushed off his pants as he stepped toward Taras. “Your tax bill has been satisfied for now.”
Taras stepped aside and watched the old man scurry by, down the path, and off through the woods toward town without a look back.
I rushed to Mamka and found her still asleep, felt her forehead, cooler, and relief washed over me.
I turned to Taras. “I’m sorry. I know I violated the arrangement.” No contact with other men was one of the first rules.
Taras stepped toward me.
“You are disgusting, letting him paw you that way.” He dropped his leather bag on the floor with a thud. “I can’t trust you.”
“But he took the samovar.” I bit the inside of my cheek to keep the tears away.
“Who cares? It’s just a stupid boiler. We have no tea anyway.”
Taras snatched the washbasin from the bench and pushed it toward me.
I held it to my chest.
“I won’t be long,” he said. “Don’t finish until I’m back.”
I knew what to do with it, of course, as much as I hated it. And I knew where Taras was going. He’d given the old man a head start, for the thrill of the chase. Taras made his way out the door and I poured water in the basin. I unbuttoned my skirt, removed my clothes and prepared to follow the rules of the arrangement, knowing Taras would indeed be quick. The old taxman would not make it even halfway to town.
CHAPTER
4
Eliza
1914
How quickly it all happened, there on the tram. The bandit turned and slashed his blade, remarkably sharp for such a crude-looking knife, down the length of my thumb. I didn’t feel it at first, but the blood came fast and thick and flooded Madame Lamanova’s white brocade coat. What would Grandmother Woolsey do? Apply pressure?
I sat stunned and light-headed as my fellow passengers rose up against the bandit. The driver himself received a wound to the leg as he forced the man’s knife to the floor, where Princess Cantacuzène pounced upon it and held the bandit at bay. The conductor and violinist helped hold the terrible man but he wrestled free.
“Grab him!” the driver shouted as the man melted into the
foggy night just as the Cossacks arrived on their small horses. Though dressed in their dark blue everyday uniform coats lined with red, not their famous scarlet dress coats, they were a rare sight to see, circling the tram, skirts flying. The whole thing was quite exhilarating, almost worth the stitches, and I might have enjoyed it despite my gaping wound had dear Sofya not been traumatized. She hovered over me, face drained of color. How close she’d come to not only losing the emerald necklace, but her life.
The tram driver telephoned Sofya’s house and a gaggle of my fellow passengers accompanied us to the Streshnayva’s townhouse, on the front steps of which every servant and family member stood waiting, lights ablaze. Even Mr. Streshnayva rose from his sickbed.
They lingered while my old friend Dr. Abushkin, his hair fresh from the pillow, still spiked about his head in the German style like hedgehog quills, made a great fuss of cleaning the wound, announcing to all that if not for him I would surely lose the use of my hand.
The next morning the incident was in the newspaper, The Petersburg Sheet, which Sofya translated for me. The headline read AMERICAN HEIRESS STABBED ON TRAM DURING STRIKE, which was surprisingly accurate for the sensationalist newspaper, except for the heiress part, arguably an exaggeration.
* * *
—
THE VIOLENT STRIKES ENDED by July eighteenth, returning St. Petersburg to normal, and I continued to enjoy the city by day with my hand bandaged with a length of gauze that could have reached to the moon and back. Sofya and Luba were excellent tour guides and we spent many lovely nights on their roof deck admiring the stars, but by July’s end I was ready to leave.
I’d spent nearly six weeks with the Streshnayvas and been offered every comfort: the house, with its large, well-appointed rooms and the quantities of flowers and handsome silver, a view of the wide Neva River running by my bedroom window, and my own little Russian maid. But I missed my family and also could not help feeling terribly uneasy. The talk of war escalated and though the tsar had suppressed the strikes, every day the discontent of the people grew, while the Streshnayvas chose not to see it.
Lost Roses Page 4