Lost Roses

by Martha Hall Kelly

  Cook entered and stood near the doorway, his shirt unbuttoned at the throat, and sent me a quick glance.

  The count took a crystal glass of brandy from Father and held it upon his knee. “Well I could not sit idly by any longer. With His Excellency away at the front the tsarina is surrounded by despots.”

  Agnessa leaned in. “Rasputin?”

  “That dirty prophet is the least of it. Madame Wiroboff is the real snake. Has all those German spies at her beck and call.”

  Cook and I exchanged glances. Certainly round, clumsy Madame Wiroboff was not clever enough to instigate all this?

  The count stood and paced the room. “How did we underestimate that woman’s power over the empress? She sits at her mistress’s feet, addressing her as ‘The Sun and the Moon.’ Now we are done for. She allows only her German friends access.”

  “What proof do we have there are Germans at court?” Father asked. “I’ve never met any.”

  “My own two eyes. They speak the language. Exchange German gold coins. They have removed the tsarina from everything of importance and spread poisonous stories. The latest is the tsarina and Rasputin are, well, romantic.”

  “Nowadays it seems the bigger the lie the better people swallow it,” Father said.

  The count sipped his brandy. “Well, she does write him flowery letters, Ivan. And with the tsar off at the front she does anything that madman says. It’s a disaster. The kaiser will end up just waltzing in here.”

  “They may have her drugged,” Agnessa said.

  The count waved us closer, wide-eyed. “And here is the worst of it. They have been doing something most despicable and I caught them, red-handed.”

  Agnessa glanced at Father, sensitive to his limited tolerance for gossip, especially about the imperial family. “Perhaps we should talk later. You must be tired—”

  “I called on Madame Wiroboff and being left waiting, happened to spy upon her writing table, whereupon sat a half-finished letter I just happened to glance upon and you will not believe me when I tell you what was written there. A faked letter, written in the false pen of Madame Wiroboff herself, but pretending to be a peasant, with misspellings and atrocious grammar, attesting to this supposed peasant’s continued fidelity to the tsarina.”

  Agnessa frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  “Madame Wiroboff is writing fake letters to the tsarina,” I said.

  “To what end?”

  Cook stepped to my side, his shoulder against mine, so close I could smell the yeasty scent of bread in his hair. “So the tsarina will think the policies of those surrounding her are working. And to trick her into believing the people still love her despite the bad decisions her counselors force her into.”

  The count drained his glass. “There were stacks of letters, all written in the same counterfeit hand, faked to look like they were from different soldiers and peasants. I approached Madame Wiroboff’s assistant about it and he so much as admitted agents post them from all parts of the country to make the ruse seem real.”

  “We must tell the tsarina,” Agnessa said.

  “I did, in a most delicate way. I told Her Highness that this entourage is not letting the truth through. She answered with such violence, defending Madame Wiroboff and Rasputin and their political program. And I am now banished to Siberia for my concern. Not to return under any circumstances. Anyone liberal is treated the same.”

  Father removed his spectacles and rubbed his eyes. “She will reconsider.”

  “The tsar has completely surrendered to his wife and her evil friends. Perhaps it will be better to have Germany overtake us. Teach us a lesson.”

  “Be that it happens quickly,” Cook said. “And saves us from ourselves.”

  * * *

  —

  THE FOLLOWING NIGHT AFTER DINNER, while Agnessa let the count win a game of mahjong, Father waved Luba and me into his study with great urgency. We hurried into that wood-paneled room, our fortress, cool and dark even on the hottest summer days, more the den of a college professor than finance minister.

  Luba and I took our seats in the worn leather chairs as Father lit a kerosene lamp and rushed about the room, pulling papers from a cabinet under the watchful eye of a red clay bust of Benjamin Franklin, who wore Father’s Cambridge University mortarboard. How many nights had Mother sat with us in this room, as Father read aloud, her gazing at him in the lamplight, so in love.

  We spoke in Russian, as Father always did when Agnessa was not with us.

  Father walked behind his desk, his face serious “I must be quick—there is much to do for the Ministry before we go. You know I don’t like to worry you with these things, but…”

  He stopped. Tears shone in his eyes. Through the closed door came the muffled sound of the count and Agnessa talking and the distant clack of mahjong tiles.

  Father crying? I’d only seen that twice. First, the happy day Luba was born. And second, the morning Mother died.

  He reached into another drawer and pulled out the worn, chestnut leather holster for the revolver issued him by the Ministry and a paper box of bullet shells. He slid an ordinary-looking gun from the holster, one of his many Nagant pistols, standard military issue with a wooden handle.

  “You two are smart girls. If anything happens—”

  I sat up straighter. “We can put more guards at the gate.”

  Father kept his gaze on his work. “It may be too late for that.” His hand shook as he reached into the box and removed one shell. Light grabbed the brass casing as he opened the loading gate and slipped the bullet into the chamber.

  “You can tell us, Father,” Luba said. “I’ve read the Ministry letters.”

  He turned to Luba with a weary look. “Is nothing private, Luba?”

  I stepped to his desk and set my fingertips on his paper desk blotter. “It’s bad, isn’t it?” My gaze went to Father’s paneled gun closet, his hunting rifles locked in there.

  He replaced the gun in the drawer. “We are still safer here than in any of the big cities. I’ve moved up our timetable. You need to be prepared.”

  “And Agnessa?” Luba asked.

  He looked down at his hands. “She’ll be fine. But I want you two to have a plan in case we’re separated.”

  Luba listened, her face looked drained of color but for two red spots on her cheekbones.

  Father unlocked his desk drawer and lifted out his green metal box. “In my Ministry position I have great responsibility.” He opened the lid and, like a priest handling a holy chalice, removed a deep blue ledger. “On a single page in here you will find the bank account numbers and passwords for the entities whose money I am entrusted with.”

  I swallowed hard. “What banks?”

  “It is all noted here,” Father said, two fingers on the leather volume. “Swiss. Italian. All over Europe.”

  Luba reached for the ledger. “I know the perfect hiding spot.”

  Father looked at her with a wan smile and handed her the book. “I have kept a copy hidden, as well. My colleagues in Petrograd have been instructed to destroy theirs if the Ministry is threatened. If anything happens to me, take it to Paris. There will be people there who need it, though bad people will want it, too.”

  “Who?” I asked.

  “This growing unrest among the underclasses is not a new thing, but they are gaining traction. Bolsheviks. Mensheviks. Left-wingers. Their talk is increasingly negative about the ruling class, calling us the Whites and themselves the Reds. Referring to us as parasites.”

  “But that’s not true,” Luba said. “You built Fena’s House for them, the linen factory—”

  “Sadly, today authority, not truth, makes law,” Father said. “They want to erase any trace of the tsar’s bloodline—which includes us, of course. This list is the only access to the fortunes we’ll need to
fight the forces that want us gone. Guard it well.”

  “Should we gather personal things, too?” I asked.

  “Only essentials for the trip to Paris. I’m working on details now. Travel documents are coming from the city. These days it’s infinitely easier to get into Russia than out.”

  “Will we take Cook?” I asked.

  Father nodded. “If he wishes.”

  “Servants?” Luba asked.

  “We’ll have to make do with hotel staff. I’ve written to Afon of our intentions.” Father pulled off his spectacles and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Without Afon here, little Max will be…” He paused, overcome.

  Luba went to him and smoothed his back. “We’ll protect him, Father.”

  He took her hand in his. “While I breathe, I hope.”

  “I’ve been hiding some things in the perfect spot in case we must leave quickly,” Luba said.

  Father smiled up at her. “Of course you have. But we’ll leave soon. Be packed and ready to go. Tell no one.” He stood and opened his arms to us and held us close. “We are stronger as a unit and no one will harm you girls if I have a breath left.”

  * * *

  —

  LATER THAT NIGHT, BEFORE BED, Luba and I amused Max on the nursery floor. Varinka was home with her Mamka and it was wonderful to be alone with Max and Luba. We spread a few coverlets and featherbeds on the floor to do what Luba called “camping out,” to sleep there, which Max enjoyed immensely. He lay between us paging through his picture books, every now and then straying to bring back a favorite toy. Luba lay on her belly, marking calculations in a tiny notebook. The room seemed smaller in the darkness, lit by a candle and a kerosene lamp.

  “He’s going to ruin his eyes in this low light,” I said.

  “So take them away. You’re the parent.”

  “Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if Mother had lived and I’d been able to work with Professor Bartell.”

  “At Brillantmont? You’d be somewhere in Switzerland dressed in a white lab coat mating pea plants.”

  “She said I could be the next Gregor Mendel.”

  “It was a terrible thing having to come home to help Father after Mother died but you never would have met Afon. Or had Max. Or broken Cook’s heart.”

  “I was fine until Agnessa started wearing Mother’s coat.”

  “How could she? It still had Mother’s name in it. Let’s be honest, that woman is our hair shirt.”

  Luba was quiet for a moment. “Remember Mother’s story about the two sisters bound by a silver thread so strong they could never be apart? Sometimes I feel like that’s us.” Luba took my hand in hers. “Promise we’ll never be apart? Even if Afon wants to move away someday? I couldn’t bear it.”

  I kissed the back of her hand. “Promise. So where is this perfect hiding spot of yours?”

  “There,” Luba pointed to the floor at the corner. “Under the floorboard.”

  “What is so perfect about that? Servants are in and out of here all day. We should put our supplies in my room. No one goes there. In a bottom drawer.”

  “Think, sister. If we are overrun by bandits—which is a high probability the more time we spend out here in the woods—what’s the first place they’ll look? The main bedrooms, of course. Under mattresses. In bureau drawers. No one will think to look under nursery floorboards.”

  “We should include money,” I said.

  “Jewelry is a better choice. If the tsar is overthrown—”

  “Unlikely. He already beat down one revolution.”

  “Father said that if the tsar is overthrown, money may become worthless and that gold and gemstones are always good currency. I asked Agnessa for one of her brooches and she said she’s taking them herself, so I took this instead.” Luba pulled from her pocket a bracelet. It was one of Agnessa’s favorites, a Moghul-era gold armlet, with two makara dragonhead terminals, which met at their ferocious-looking, toothy, open mouths. It was enameled in deep indigo and the dragonheads set with ruby and onyx eyes.

  “Luba. If she knew—”

  “Agnessa will never miss it and we can hide Father’s list in here.”

  Luba opened Father’s ledger and ripped the first page from it.

  I grasped her wrist. “Are you insane?”

  Nimbly as a spider wraps her victim in silk, Luba rolled the paper tight and threaded it into one of the dragons’ mouths. “There. Who would dream this was in here?”

  “You should work for the secret police.”

  “I also packed my sextant, of course.”

  “If you get the sextant I want my rose clippers.”

  Luba tilted her head down and looked up at me as though I were a child. “With a sextant we can navigate. Flowers serve no purpose in survival.”

  “I would need my Montessori books—”

  “You don’t need a book to raise Max. Just get away from Agnessa and trust yourself. You were born a good mother, Sofya. Just like our own.”

  “Better than Varinka?”

  “That doesn’t deserve a reply.”

  “She seems to know his every thought even before he does. Puts me to shame.”

  “Keep an eye on her, Sofya.”

  “You sound like Cook and Agnessa. She’s just a girl.”

  “A girl who carries Max everywhere. Barely lets him walk on his own.”

  “We’re leaving and she’s staying behind, problem solved. What else did you pack?”

  “One of Father’s old guns he’ll never miss, loaded of course, a length of rope, scent-killing petroleum jelly to cover our skin with in case we’re followed, and one week’s worth of jerky. I’ve also added balls of cotton wool to dip in the petroleum jelly, which Bogdan says are good fire starters. It all fits in one bag, in case I must carry you, too.”

  “I’ll not need carrying, thank you, and that sextant won’t even fit in there.”

  “It does. I’ve already tried it.” She stood and pulled up one board to reveal a hole the size of a small breadbox under the floor. “The sextant folds, you see? And it all fits in this canvas sack.”

  “Well, that leaves me no space.”

  “Your things take little room. A month’s supply of biscuits for the baby, powdered milk, and a sheepskin cask for water. It’s all in there. We’ll use our jewelry to barter for things once we’re there.”

  “And what of clothes?”

  “I’ve hidden warm traveling clothing and boots for all three of us in the stable, deep in Jarushka’s tack box. Pants for you, you’ll be happy to know. We’ll be headed south to Paris. Weather permitting, by horse that would take us just under three weeks, with stops for rest and recuperation.”

  “Recuperation from what?”

  “Exhaustion. Possible starvation.”

  “Three weeks? Impossible.”

  “We’ll do our best not to travel in winter, though we may have no say in the matter.” She unfolded a map and smoothed it onto the floor. “The way I see it, we’re 1,340 miles from Paris. On horseback at fifty miles per day, with three hours of grazing time it would take us—”

  “Twenty-six-point-eight days to get there,” I said.

  “Very good, sister. Not accounting for travel, prohibitive weather, or an unusual number of wolves.”

  “This unrest will all blow over. You’ll see we are worrying for nothing. We’ll be on a train tomorrow night.”

  Luba stuffed the map and bracelet in the rucksack and tamped the floorboard down over it with the toe of her boot.

  “I hope you’re right, but now I have a surprise for you, Sofya—for Max as well.”

  “What, Luba?”

  Luba stepped to the kerosene lamp. She blew out the flame, left one small candle burning, then rejoined us there on the floor.

  My eyes adju
sted and I reached for her hand, there in the inky darkness. “I don’t see anything.”

  “Look up,” she said, a smile in her voice.

  I looked to the ceiling and saw the glow from points of silver light arranged in a familiar pattern. If we were not inside I would have sworn we lay under a constellation in the starry night sky.

  The breath caught in my throat. “Luba.” So, this was her secret project. “It’s exquisite.”

  “It’s Max’s special constellation. I stood upon Bogdan’s ladder and glued it up there.”

  “Oh, Luba—”

  “It’s Taurus—the bull, the sign under which he was born. If Max wakes at night he won’t be afraid.”

  Luba rested her head on my shoulder. I held her close in the darkness and took in her young scent of glue and lavender toilet water and hope.

  “Taurus sits in the sky right between your sign, Gemini, and Aries, which is Afon’s.”

  Tears blurred my gaze and the silver stars swam above us.

  “Do you like it?” Luba asked.

  “It’s the most precious gift, sister.”

  The three of us lay there in the darkness watching that sky and felt the enormous weight of the world slowly turning, as if there was some master plan for us. We would have to be ready, for it was stronger than any of us and would take us wherever it pleased.

  CHAPTER

  12

  Varinka

  1916

  I left Mamka at the izba and took my new shortcut to work at the estate, scanning the forest floor for mushrooms and herbs. Autumn had come to the forest and some of the best treasures hid under the bright leaves. I brushed them away as I walked, looking one way then the other for Cook’s favorites, an old pillowcase for my finds tied at my waist.

  I’d become an important part of things at the estate. If I stayed clear of the countess, most everyone else liked me very much. Raisa had a cake planned for me, for she’d asked me twice what flavor icing I liked and I said lemon. There was to be a grand dinner that night, celebrating the countess’s friend’s visit, and three geese were to be served. Goose was Mamka’s favorite and there was bound to be some left over.