Lost Roses

by Martha Hall Kelly

  From the look in Mamka’s eyes she liked hearing my stories of the estate, of the ladies’ fine dresses and shoes—and of baby Max. I couldn’t tell Taras, though. He would only say those pigs kept all the animals in the forest for themselves and how much better off we’d be without them. Was that true? It was just by accident of birth that we didn’t have fine carriages and silk stockings, too.

  I emerged from the forest onto the main dirt road, not far from the estate gates, and spied, nestled in the grass by the side of the road, something round and orange. I observed it for a moment, then picked it up and turned it in my fingers. It was an orange—a fruit I’d seen in Mamka’s encyclopedia. Things like that happened to me a lot, especially on happy days like that one. Four-leaf clovers. Unexpected presents. It was a gift from Papa, I knew. I tucked it into my dress pocket.

  “Hello, Inka.”

  I jumped at the sound of a voice behind me and turned. Taras and his friend Vladi. Taras was dressed in his hunting clothes, a sealskin vest and leather brodni, knee-length hunter’s boots, covered in tar. No wonder they nicknamed those boots “stalkers,” for they allowed hunters to silently follow their prey.

  Vladi stood at his side, so much smaller, that terrible burn down his face shining in the sun.

  “It isn’t polite to sneak up on a person,” I said.

  I took a step backward and looked about. Where had they even come from? Taras had better trails than the deer, and certainly knew the woods as well. How many times had I watched Taras scanning the forest, head cocked sideways, reading animal tracks and looking for broken spiderwebs?

  “Good to see you, Inka,” Vladi said, his shiny, red tongue flicking to the sides of his mouth. I tried not to stare at his burn.

  “We’ve been looking for you,” Taras said.

  “I need to get to the estate.”

  “Too fancy now to say hello to Vladi? He has moved to Malinov.”

  “Good for him.”

  “He has the villagers on his side. Things are changing quickly, Inka. Very good for the cause. We have friends in high places in Petrograd now.”

  “Good. Go there and stay.”

  Vladi tossed a pebble into the woods. “The city is full of the news. A movement to take back what’s due us.”

  “Each week brings a new movement.”

  “This time we’ll win. You should see the crowds.”

  “I must be going. I have the Streshnayvas—”

  Taras grabbed my wrist, sending a jolt of fire up my arm. “You promised to tell me about them.”

  “Don’t ruin this for me, Taras. I won’t spy for you.”

  “I brought venison.”

  “Cook gives us pheasant.” I pulled away and walked ahead. “I thought you were enlisting.”

  Taras followed me. “The whole army is deserting.”

  So, he hadn’t enlisted after all. Mamka had predicted it, saying he was only going to Petrograd to watch films at the cinema.

  “The people are starving in Petrograd. Growing angrier by the day. Our time has come and you need to help.”

  “The estate is boarded up tight,” I said. “You’ll never get in there.”

  Taras came at me from behind, spun me to him, his hands gripping my throat. “How many manservants in the house?”

  I tried to answer but his fingers choked off my air.

  “I want you to leave the kitchen door unlocked tonight.”

  “No,” I whispered.

  “We’ll never be free with those parasites in charge.” He squeezed harder and the blood pounded in my head. “Tonight, leave the rear door unlocked and wave a white towel through the nursery window as a sign you’ve done it.”

  A jolt of fear ran through me. How did he know the estate layout? He’d most likely been all over the grounds in his mysterious way. I grew dizzy, my air cut off, and nodded.

  Vladi stepped to us. “Taras. Stop.”

  Taras released me. “If you care about me, you’ll do it.”

  I bent at the waist, sucking in air.

  How could I care about a person like him? I rubbed my throat. Would Taras’s fingers leave bruises the countess would see? Would he hurt Sofya? Surely, he would not hurt the child.

  I walked on. “Stay in the woods tonight, Taras,” I called over my shoulder. “Mamka can’t eat when you’re at home.”

  I turned, but they were gone.

  CHAPTER

  13

  Sofya

  1916

  Father paced the entryway, waiting each day for his documents from the Ministry, which would allow us to leave Malinov. I tried to stay busy packing and sent more letters to Eliza and Afon by Father’s Ministry mail pickup.

  Father decided to hold his weekly choir practice as usual, to avoid arousing suspicion that we were leaving. He also planned a stop at the general store, since his shipment of fresh tobacco had failed to arrive and I was low on ink.

  I loved the general store. Through the wide front windows of the tidy place one could see walls stacked with soap powder and stationery, anything one could need. Mr. Astronavich, whom we called Mr. A., was Father’s only tenor, a burly, doughy-faced former ploughman in charge of the tobacco, pipes, and cigars. He would lift the little glass doors for Luba and me to breathe in the heavenly scents of tobaccos from places like Sumatra and Malawi.

  Mrs. A., thin as Mr. A. was stout, managed stationery and sweets. Pads of paper stacked in neat blocks. Fountain pens and nibs. Caramels of every flavor sorted in her prized Venetian glass jars. India ink in blues and blacks and red.

  I stepped up into the carriage holding a potted geranium, Mrs. A.’s favorite. Dressed in his best linen sailor shorts and top and Venetian straw hat, little Max stood on his knees next to Father ready to watch the woods for animals.

  “May we bring a rabbit home?” he asked.

  “They are very fast,” Father said. “We’d have to shoot it.”

  Max gasped at that, causing Father to throw his head back and laugh. How rare that was in those days.

  I could have left Max with the peasant girl Varinka we’d hired for extra help. She was nice enough and seemed more skilled at the day-to-day mothering than I was, but I took no chances. Agnessa planted doubt about her, harping at me to speak to the laundry about reassigning her there. It was hard not to look at our attendants and wonder of their loyalty.

  Though it was a cool fall day, Father chose the open carriage and the coachman, David, set off with a great deal of shouting, standing dressed in his country uniform, a long coat and flat cap topped with a circle of peacock feathers. Come winter he would wear so many coats he would have to be lifted up onto his seat. Not that we would still be in Russia to see it. We would be long gone by winter.

  Jarushka pulled us at a nice trot as we left Aleks and Ulad at attention at the gates and we soon came over a small rise to see the distant village of Malinov, the trees splashed with oranges and reds. From afar the village looked as it always had, but as we drew closer, Jarushka’s hooves beating a rhythm on the hard-packed road, it was clear something was wrong.

  Father and I exchanged worried looks as we passed the izbas, their window frames ornately carved with the most charming flowers and animals shuttered up tight. And where was everyone? Usually women were out chattering to one another, carrying flax to Father’s linen factory.

  We rode by the Malinov Inn. The little school. The music store. All closed.

  We passed the bakery, the shop’s front window smashed out. The baker’s wife paced out front. Jarushka slowed and stopped in front of the general store. Next door, the barn where army provisions were stored, usually locked up, lay open, the door smashed in. Hay and empty wooden crates trailed out of the gaping doorway and a chalk-white milk block sat melting in the sawdust.

  Father jumped out of the carriage and bounded u
p the steps. I followed, leading Max by the hand, to find Father speaking with Mr. A. as his wife tried to sweep up her broken candy jars in the dark store. The place had been ransacked, crates overturned, glass shards glittered across the place, all colors of ink splashed about the walls and floor. The tobacco cases stood empty, their glass cracked.

  Mrs. A. spotted Father and hurried to him, bowing at the waist. “Excellency, we knew you’d come.”

  “Only God knows why they did this,” Mr. A. said.

  Mrs. A. stood, resting on her broom handle, her hair bun down one side of her head like a fried egg that had slipped off a plate. “Everyone is hungry, that’s why. And the tsar expects us to give all we have to the army?”

  A food riot! In our little Malinov.

  I set my geranium on the desk and stepped to Mrs. A. “You’ve been through a serious trauma. You must sit.”

  “How can I sit with this place such a mess?”

  I took the broom from her and swept glass shards into a pile. “How did it start?”

  “They got the warehouse first,” Mr. A. said. “Imperial stores for troop provisions.”

  “Who?”

  “Villagers, mostly. And some others from the city.”

  “Did they take the flax?” Father asked.

  “Everything, Excellency. Milk blocks. Hams. It was all in there. Then they came here. The baker was up early heating the ovens.”

  “Knocked him senseless,” Mrs. A. said. “Took every loaf he had. Then Lucya Popov came in here with a few of her ladies. Said the price of our flour must be lowered by sixty kopecks. When I said ‘I pay twice as much myself,’ she grabbed a sack and shouted, ‘Drag it off, girls!’ ”

  “Then the others helped themselves to our tobacco,” Mr. A. said. “Nicked the wife’s chinchilla hat, too, bastards.”

  Mrs. A. pulled a biscuit from a yellow tin of Max’s favorite McVitie & Price biscuits, then knelt and handed it to him.

  Max grasped the biscuit.

  “Say thank you,” I said.

  He brought the biscuit to his mouth, with no reply at all. Mrs. A. raised her eyebrows and I felt my cheeks burn. Why did he not listen to his own mother?

  “How could villagers do this?” Father asked.

  “Some of my best customers, but one fellow has them worked up,” Mr. A. said. “A criminal sort named Vladi. New to town.”

  “What of the police?” I asked.

  “Old Jaska stepped in, but they took his gun and beat him up, though not too bad.”

  Father waved toward the telephone on the counter. “I can call Petrograd.”

  “Lines are down.”

  Mr. A. handed Father a pouch of tobacco. “Here’s the last of it.”

  Father nodded a little bow and slipped the pouch in his pocket. He didn’t mention the price, for that would be very bad taste and Father never carried money of any kind.

  “Any word about the linen factory?” he asked.

  “Some are talking about leaving their stations,” Mr. A. said.

  “I’ve heard nothing of this from my foreman.”

  Mr. A. shrugged. “Vladi makes a good speech. Spoke of low wages. ‘The factory should belong to the people.’ ‘Down with the tsar.’ The usual.”

  “I pay a good wage. Someone’s always trying to raise trouble.”

  “Pardon me, Excellency, but this feels different. We are barely growing enough food now to feed ourselves. Half the village has been conscripted. I may be next.”

  Mrs. A. came to stand near her husband. “And if the government doesn’t stop just printing more money we’ll all starve.”

  Father glanced my way. “I think I know how the Ministry works, thank you. Let’s not scare the girl.”

  I kissed Mrs. A. on both cheeks. “You’re not alone. We’ll catch those who did this.”

  “Of course,” Mr. A. said. “Uprisings come and go. You two should get home now or God will have no way of helping. Who knows when they’ll come back?”

  Father shook Mr. A.’s hand. “Put the tobacco on my account.”

  “That account is mounting up, Excellency,” Mrs. A. said.

  Mr. A. sent her a pointed look.

  Father turned to her. “My man of affairs will see to it. God will get us through this.”

  Mrs. A. looked down at her ink-stained floor and shook her head as Mr. A. spread his arms wide and shepherded Father and me out the shop door.

  Father and I took Max and checked on a shaken Father Paul at the rectory, who blessed us all, then we hurried back to the estate. There would be no choir practice that day.

  * * *

  —

  BACK AT THE ESTATE I helped Cook harvest what was left of the fall vegetables in the garden plot at the far part of the estate property, near the poultry houses. We tugged dusky, purple beets and bouquets of pink radishes from the earth as the count’s peacocks paraded about the lawn pecking at the ground for bugs and discharging an unnerving scream now and then.

  Cook wore his usual gardening uniform: an old flannel shirt and khaki trousers. Taller than Afon and broader across the chest, his long hair tied back with a piece of twine, he looked good tanned from his outdoor work. The sun caught the diamond in his ring and sent a shower of prisms across the dark earth. Why wasn’t he married? Bogdan had whispered he might not like women at all.

  “Are you packed?”

  “For days now. I’m headed out for a ride soon.”

  “We should be gone already.” He stopped digging, rested one arm on his spade handle, and surveyed the woods. “I have a bad feeling, Sofya.”

  “Father told the count he can only bring two trunks. He may take all day, repacking.”

  “From my kitchen help I hear things. The pantry boys say there’s talk of another revolution.”

  “The tsar—”

  “The tsar’s a fool. He’s handing this country to the Reds. And this time they’re organized. Targeting the peasants with radio broadcasts. They can’t read but they can listen. Posters with no words, to sway the illiterate. If Lenin comes back the first thing he’ll do is ban the newspapers that oppose him, mark my words.”

  “We’re leaving tomorrow, for goodness’ sake.”

  “It may already be too late.”

  “If you stop making them that apple cake we’ll be on our way. The count lives for it.”

  “There’s a bad element here now. I don’t like it. I would have left a long time ago.”

  “What is stopping you?”

  “You’re not safe here. If the documents come today we should go tonight.”

  “They wouldn’t have threatened my mother if she were still here. She threw a party for the villagers every year on her name day in June. They all slept out here and she held a lottery for them, baked them special cakes herself.”

  Cook scanned the distant forest. “You don’t understand, Sofya. No one is safe anymore.”

  * * *

  —

  LATE THAT AFTERNOON I rode off the property, my last ride with Jarushka for some time. I needed to get away from Agnessa so I could sit in a bower, think, and tend to last-minute details. She interrupted me so often, barking at the servants to pack with care and sew jewels into the linings of our traveling coats. I was assigned the emerald necklace Father had given our mother on their honeymoon. I felt the hem of my jacket, the platinum heavy there.

  All day Agnessa had sat in the zala trying to calm the count, plying him with Father’s best brandy.

  The count swirled the brandy in his glass. “The Bolsheviks hate us. How many revolutions do we need to understand that? I hope you’re taking all the silver. It may not be here when you get back.”

  “Bogdan will watch the house while we’re gone,” Agnessa said.

  Settled on a mossy mound in the woods, I ate some
brown bread and cheese Cook gave me for the ride, wrote a letter to Eliza, and pulled Afon’s latest, most precious letter from my rucksack. Mail service was spotty and even Father’s couriered Ministry packets had dwindled to one per week.

  Even if your parents are reluctant, Afon wrote, take Luba and Max away from Malinov immediately.

  Afon wrote that the fighting was intense, but the details were censored in black ink. How I hated those black streaks. We knew from the newspapers that the worst fighting was in Verdun, France, on the western front, at the crossroads of Belgium, Luxemburg, and Germany. Where was Afon’s regiment? He hinted they were close to Poland.

  I willed him far from Verdun.

  On the ride back to the house, I bent low over Jarushka’s neck, tearing through the brush. Cook’s five o’clock dinner bell tolled in the distance proclaiming my tardiness.

  Darkness descended as I rode, my jacket unbuttoned, the cool wind dancing around the inside of my linen shirt. As I neared the house Jarushka slowed, then startled and sidled. Something moved near the far barn, darkened figures. Surely, I was imagining things. Without Afon at home, how I jumped at every little thing.

  As the lights of the house came into view I calmed. Agnessa and Father would be worried about me, but I was ready to go, my trunks already reduced to necessities only.

  Dismounting in the barn, I hugged Jarushka about the neck and she nuzzled my side. It was the last time I would ride until she was sent along to meet us in Paris. I left her with her nose in a bucket of oats and stepped to the back door of the house, brushing dust from my jodhpurs as I walked.

  I barely tapped the back door with my crop and Raisa unlocked it and bobbed a little curtsey.

  I held out my hand and Raisa removed my one glove, then the other. “What a ride that was. Is Varinka here?”

  “Yes.” Raisa leaned close and whispered. “And your father asked me three times where you were. I told him out for a walk, may God bless me.” She crossed herself.