“You’re just angry I’ve moved on,” he said. “Thought I’d pine for you forever.”
“No.” I tried to pull my foot away but he held it fast.
“That’s it. You’re regretting casting me aside so thoughtlessly—now that Henry’s gone.”
I set the basin aside and stood. “You should go—”
He pushed himself up off the love seat and turned to me. “How does it feel to be lonely, Eliza?”
He smelled of brandy and pipe tobacco and pine. How long had it been since I’d been that close to a man?
“No one asked you to come in here, Merrill.”
“I’m sorry I did.”
Was he sorry? He made no motion toward the door. How strange I wanted to lean in to Merrill. Feel his arms around me just for a moment. I swayed a bit, dizzy and hot near the fire. How disloyal that thought was to Henry.
“You should have left him home that night,” I said.
Merrill leaned closer and pulled a glass shard from my hair. “You don’t know the whole story.” Was that shine in his eyes from tears? “Eliza. I never told you—”
A knock came at the door and Merrill and I hurried apart. Julia entered and Merrill stepped toward the door.
“What in heaven’s name?” Julia asked.
I rushed to the wet part of the rug, my foot free of pain, the glass splinters gone. “The French doors blew open. Ruined the rug here, I’m afraid.”
Julia followed me. “You poor dear. We’ll move you down the hall this minute.”
“I’m fine. Merrill came to the rescue. Pulled half a pane of glass out of my foot. Isn’t that right, Merrill?”
I turned toward him, but found only the door closing behind him.
CHAPTER
22
Sofya
1916
The following afternoon, as a light rain fell, the barn door rolled open and the bandit Vladi appeared there.
“Get out here, pigs,” he said. “It’s your lucky day, for you won’t be dying, at least not today.”
I helped Agnessa and Father to their feet. Father had spent the morning in the house being interrogated by Taras and had just returned with bruises on his face, telling us Taras had forced him to write to the Ministry.
I prayed they would not find the rucksack Luba secreted under the nursery floorboards.
Vladi waved his gun toward the barn door. “Line up outside. Let’s make this orderly, comrades.”
He shoved us out into the courtyard and lined us up near the fountain, Cook at the end closest to the woods.
“If you haven’t heard of me, I am Vladi, and I’ve come to liberate this place.” He cocked his gun. “Sorry to be distrustful but in case any of you get any heroic ideas about escaping, remember I shoot to kill.”
How to distract him? Perhaps he would engage in conversation?
“This is a great day,” Vladi said, waving his gun toward the house. “This estate now belongs to the people.”
“So, you are the one all Malinov is talking about,” I said.
He smiled, the burn on his face wrinkling. “The people need a leader.” Vladi turned his face to one side, but kept his gaze on me. “I know you from somewhere.”
How could he remember me from the tram, with all the Persian makeup I wore that night? “If we are all equal now, should we not be treated as any Russians, with a fair trial?”
Vladi stepped closer. “No trial for parasites. You must be cut at the root or the people will never be free.”
A shiver ran through me. Did they know Max was my son? Would they kill a sweet child?
All at once Luba fell to the ground, clutching her belly. “The pain! Holy Fathers, it’s back.”
I knelt to her, almost believing it myself. “It’s her appendix again.”
Vladi watched her roll on the ground for a few moments. “She’s fine.”
I stepped to him. “We’ll need the doctor.”
“You’ll heal on your own like the rest of us for a change.”
“If she dies it’s on your hands.”
“You’re all weak, you bourgeois. Get her up.”
It wasn’t until Luba stopped crying and I helped her stand that I realized Cook was gone. What a stealthy runner he’d been.
A few moments later Vladi called out. “Taras! One of them escaped.”
Taras came at a run from the horse barn. “How?”
I turned and, deep in the forest, saw the brown of Cook’s jacket blending with the dense trees and thick underbrush.
Taras ran into the barn for his rifle and shot into the woods. The burst of the shell echoed through the forest and sent a shudder through us all.
I held Luba. Had Cook fallen?
“You got him,” Vladi said.
Luba took my hand. The horror of it, poor Cook shot.
“Just a wound.” Taras mounted his horse and rode off down the road at great speed.
I prayed Cook would evade Taras and come back with imperial guards and defeat these thieves. Or else I would break out of that place myself.
Nothing would keep me from my son.
CHAPTER
23
Sofya
1917
By winter’s end the mob of villagers who’d taken the estate gathered out by the poultry houses and roasted and ate the peacocks. They captured the screaming birds, built a fire, and soon the scent of roasting bird wafted to us. Our stomachs growled at the smell of it as the villagers, some waving peacock feathers, vodka bottles in hand, shouted up threats to us until they wandered back to the house. I was sad for the poor birds, but happy for the blessed quiet.
After a long winter in captivity, spring finally dragged herself to Malinov. Once, spring held the promise of Easter celebrations and coming summer, but that year it held only another day of hoping Vladi didn’t kill Father.
The morning things finally changed, we waited for Father in the room Vladi had moved us to, Bogdan’s old room over the former servants’ quarters, out near the horse barn. It contained one saggy cot and a cast-iron woodstove, which smoked badly; and there was an opening in the roof the size of a dinner plate, which leaked rain and sleet on us. Vladi had given us strict orders not to make a sound up there and nailed our one window shut, though Luba had pried it open.
On the walls hung framed photos of old Bogdan, standing, rifle in hand, next to a mound of dead birds, a sad reminder of our beloved gamekeeper whom Vladi often bragged about murdering the night we were attacked.
I paced the room as Luba sat next to Agnessa on the cot and rubbed her back. Tum-Tum lay curled near his mistress, a pitiful little sack of bones, ever faithful. How far poor Agnessa had fallen. Before we’d ended up here she’d never once laced her own shoes nor wore the same pair of white cotton gloves twice. Now it took all of us to help her to the filthy chamber pot.
The count slept in his usual spot on the floor near the stove, not well himself. He rarely spoke, a sharp contrast to his old self.
Would Father again come back bloodied and bruised? Vladi had kept him all night.
It had been a terrible winter, filled with constant snowfall, which often covered our one window. It was hard to know what was worse: the fear, the boredom, or the crushing longing for my son and husband.
Half the village of Malinov had moved into the estate, and Varinka, her mamka, and Taras were clearly living there as well, for we saw them from our window; and Luba had seen the briefest glimpse of Max. Did he wonder where his mother had gone? Did Afon know our fate? Why had he not sent help? All winter Luba and I had watched the door for our chance to escape and felt a glimmer of hope, for Vladi’s vigilant ways had relaxed as time went on, as if he’d tired of dealing with us.
We fretted about Cook, too. Had Taras killed him?
All at once, the door banged
open and Vladi pushed Father into the room.
“Shut up, old man. If we don’t get replies from those letters soon, I have no reason to keep you all around.”
Father fell onto the floor and Vladi closed the door and bolted it.
Luba and I rushed to Father and helped him to the cot. Dried blood splotched the front of his white shirt, the edges of his cuffs and collar black. How could I even look at his face, his cheek swollen and another tooth missing, his glasses cracked?
“Did they have you write more letters?” I asked.
Father massaged his knee, lost in thought. “Yes, but the Ministry no longer answers.”
“Have they smelled foul play?” I asked.
Father removed his spectacles with a shaking hand. “Difficult to say. God only knows what’s going on in the city.”
I hurried to the window to retrieve the wet piece of Agnessa’s underskirt we kept there frozen, brought it back, and held it cold to his cheek.
“Any sign of Max?” I asked.
Father looked up at me, water welling in his eyes. “No, my dear. There are many people living there in the house now. Thank the Holy Fathers your mother can’t see it like this.”
Luba loosened Father’s collar. “They can’t hold us here forever.”
My sister had been our rock, more convinced every day that the Ministry would see through Vladi’s scheme. His was a brilliant if devious one: First he had Father write the Ministry saying he no longer needed the travel documents, then had Father pen his usual monthly letters pretending all was well, to keep money coming. It had worked for almost seven months.
Father turned his attention to Agnessa and smoothed the hair back from her forehead. She wore the same beige lace dress she wore the night of our capture, now dirty and gray, loose all over, for as hope faded, she’d stopped eating. I touched her back, careful not to wake her, and felt the bones of her rib cage.
Still breathing.
Luba sat on the cot next to Agnessa and I joined her. “I want to fill you in on the progress of my project.”
My sister had grown so thin herself, giving half of her bread to Father when I wasn’t looking, claiming she was full.
How many escape plans had she been through? Start a fire as a diversion. Code Father’s letters. Hunger strike. “They say one has to come up with at least fifty ideas before you get to the best ones,” she said. “And this is number fifty.”
But this time it was a more practical plan. All month, she’d been collecting lengths of material to make a rope we could use to slide down from the window. Father’s coat lining. My holey sock. Part of Agnessa’s petticoat. At night she tied them together with sturdy knots and lowered it down to see how much more length we needed. When not in use, Tum-Tum slept atop the coiled rope in the corner near the door.
“Our escape rope is almost long enough,” Luba whispered. “And I’ve been watching through our hole in the roof here. Soon the Cassiopeia constellation will be directly overhead and there will be no moon that night. I will climb down our rope, come back up and release you all, and we’ll be on our way.”
“Certainly Taras will track us,” Father said.
“Harder for him if we have a four-hour head start.”
“But Agnessa can’t be moved,” Father said. He rested one hand on her back.
Once I’d thought he only married her to have a female in the house, but how wrong I was. Over our months in captivity I’d seen his true devotion to her.
“We can’t just accept this, Father. It’s only a matter of time before Vladi tires of all this and we’re his next victims. We have to risk it. Agnessa is light as can be. Sofya and I can take her on our backs.”
All at once the sound of a key in the door lock echoed around the little room, the door opened and Mrs. A. stood there, a tray in her hands. As she did every day, she set it down inside, next to the door, and then emptied the latrine bucket over the side of the steps.
“Hope you’re not too attached to winter,” she said. “Seems like spring is finally coming.”
She picked up the tray and set it on our one table. “And look what the chef made specially for you all.”
How I wished she would come up with something better to say every time she brought our tray, the same single tin bowl of groats we shared twice a day.
She took a book from the tray and tossed it into the room, where it landed with a dusty thump. “Here’s that book you wanted. Don’t let Vladi see it.”
I hurried to the book and picked it up. Eliza’s Five Weeks in a Balloon, a hot-air balloon basket on the cover. Jules Verne. I held it to my chest. How smart Luba had been to ask Mrs. A. for it.
Tum-Tum rose from his little bed in the corner to greet Mrs. A., dislodging the towel that covered Luba’s rope. I stifled a gasp as Luba noted the problem and started toward the corner.
Mrs. A. reached down and picked up Luba’s coiled rope. “Somebody thinks I’m stupid. After all the things I’ve done for this family.”
She held our one hope in her hand and shook it. “I’m taking this out of here and lucky for you I’ll not tell Vladi, for there’d be hell to pay for all of us.”
The weight of the defeat was a crushing blow and as Mrs. A. left, bolting the door behind her, I glanced at Luba, expecting a tear perhaps, a downtrodden look. Instead, she pulled at her lower lip as she often did when thinking, already on to idea number fifty-one.
* * *
—
I WOKE AT DAYLIGHT the next morning to read my precious new book. How good Eliza had been to send it, back in the good times. I ran two fingers down the illustrated cover, which featured a castaway trapped in a hot-air balloon basket, tethered to a desert island. How good it would be to just float out of that terrible little room.
I opened the first page to find three four-leaf clovers, pressed flat, resting in the book’s gutter.
Eliza.
Tears came to my eyes. Such a good friend. Did she fear the worst at this point? If only I could get word to her. Tell her how clearly the good-luck clovers were not working for us.
Luba woke, came, and sat next to me. “I have a new plan, sister.”
I sat up on the cold floor and rubbed my back. “It’s early, Luba.”
“This one’s foolproof. But it means giving up Mother’s necklace.”
I felt for it, still heavy there, sewn in my travel coat pocket lining. “We’ve been over this. Once Vladi knows we have it, he’ll just take it.”
“Yes, but what about Mrs. A.? She likes me, I can tell. She brought your book when I asked. And Father was good to her. What if I tell her she needs to release you, just temporarily? To get medicine for Agnessa. Offer her the necklace as payment for her kindness.”
I felt for the hole in the silk lining and pulled out the necklace. Not exactly a model of thoroughness, Vladi had searched us that first day and missed it. Even in the dim light of Bogdan’s room the emeralds glowed and diamonds shot prisms of light against the walls. I glanced toward Father as he pressed the cool cloth against Agnessa’s forehead.
“Vladi would shoot her if he found out she let me go,” I said.
“I can cover for you. I’ll say you’re still here, sick and resting there under the coats. Plus, she has all of us as hostages. I’ll tell her she gets the necklace once you’re on your way.”
“What if she tells Vladi?”
“She’s smart enough to know he’d take it from her.”
I considered her plan. What could it hurt to try? I handed her the necklace. “And when I get out I will go to the house and retrieve Max.”
“No,” Luba said. “First you must go to Alexander Palace and get help from the tsarina. Then you can get him.”
“I haven’t walked more than six steps a day since last fall.”
“Even with frequent rests you can w
alk there in one day—”
“Perhaps you’ve forgotten the snow is three feet deep.”
“It’s packed down on the roads and it’ll get slushier by the day. Perhaps you’ve forgotten I put away winter clothes for you in the horse barn.”
Though I was loath to tell her, she truly was a genius.
“So, if I make it to Alexander Palace, I just walk right in?”
“The chapel is always unlocked. Go. Tell the tsarina what is happening. Come back with imperial guards.”
She made it all sound so simple, but we’d spent a year with no newspapers. Who knew the status of the monarchy? “I don’t know, Luba. I have no food, money.”
“Take our bread for today.”
“How can I leave you here alone? What if another mob comes for you all? They would have killed Father if Taras hadn’t stepped in. What if Taras leaves?”
“You have a better plan? The alternative is we die here. Besides, I have plans of my own.”
Soon the door opened, letting in a freezing draft, and Mrs. A. stood silhouetted against the weak light of day. She set a tray down on the table, took our latrine bucket by the handle and tossed its contents.
As Mrs. A. replaced the bucket and started to close the door, Luba hurried to her and spoke in a hushed voice. “Thank you, Mrs. A. You are most kind. May I have a word? I have a proposition for you.”
“What could you propose to me?”
“Agnessa needs medicine. My sister can get it for her if you let her go.”
Mrs. A. sent a quick look my way. “I can do nothing of the sort.”
“She knows where she can find it, but she must get out. She promises to come back as soon as she has it.”
“Why should I do such a thing?”
“Father was always so good to you,” I said.
“If you call not paying your bill good. Do you know how much pineapple and fancy sardines your cook ordered? The tobacco bill alone almost broke us. Your father’s man of affairs never paid us close to the full amount.”
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