The Lost Souls of Angelkov Read online

  Some of Konstantin’s serfs have already left the estate, wanting to start their own lives in the villages. But he can’t believe that Grisha would ever go. What would he have to call his own without Angelkov? Wasn’t he luckier than most, to have the highest position on the estate? Doesn’t Konstantin provide him with a cottage—a warm wooden cottage with blue shutters—that allows him to live on his own, away from the shared servants’ quarters or, worse, the wretched village izbas, little more than hovels? Doesn’t Konstantin himself sometimes seek out Grisha in the blue-shuttered house, bringing Imperial vodka and discussing politics with him, treating him almost as though he were of the same class?

  As they ride, Grisha isn’t thinking of the missing child. He’s thinking of New Year’s Eve, over three months earlier, and how Count Mitlovsky and he had discussed the promise—or threat, depending on the view—of the Tsar possibly issuing an edict to free the serfs.

  “It’s serfdom that holds Russia back,” he had said to his master as they drank a glass of vodka. “Were we not humiliated in the Crimea? We pride ourselves on our military strength, and yet we were no match for the armies of France, or Britain or Turkey. With respect, Count Mitlovsky, feudalism was abandoned in most of Europe centuries ago.”

  The count, straightening his collar, pulling down his waistcoat and smoothing his beard, poured another round of vodka. He lifted his small glass and drank it in one shot. “Holy Russia is a God-inspired nation. Looking at the corrupt nations to the west can teach us nothing.”

  Grisha’s left eye throbbed with the effort of keeping his temper as he was forced, yet again, to have the count use his home for an assignation. He can hear Tania, the laundress at Angelkov, moving about in the bedroom. His bedroom. And while she dresses, he must listen to Mitlovsky’s posturing. He held his glass tightly but didn’t drink. “I beg to differ, Barin. My lord. We can learn much from countries who have allowed their people to determine their own destinies. When men are slaves, there’s no incentive to improve.”

  Konstantin laughed. “Slaves? The peasants are not slaves. I own my land, and the peasants work the land. Only in this way are they bound to me.”

  Grisha had to rise, bowing to the count, and then went to the window. It was black beyond the panes, and he saw his own reflection, his hair a wavy dark mass brushed back from his forehead, his eyes no more than slashes in the paler oval of his face. “Again, with all respect, Count Mitlovsky,” he said to his own image. “You control the lives of the thousands of souls you own. You have the power to deny the peasants the chance to leave your land, and you can, at will, move or sell any soul to another estate, even if that means splitting families.” He turned then, and saw that Konstantin’s eyelids were heavy, his cheeks flushed. He kept his voice low, the tone even. “You may have them beaten, or without cause sent to work in the mines or to end their lives in Siberia. You dictate whom they may marry. Is this not slavery, Barin?”

  Konstantin waved his hand in the air as though Grisha’s words were unimportant, as if he’d heard them too many times to take them seriously. “Don’t talk politics any further. You bore me. The Tsar is appointed by God. He will see sense. He will not carry out his ridiculous threat. Come now, it’s the New Year. We will drink to our health, and to the health of those we love.”

  Grisha joined him, and the first boom of the estate’s fireworks sounded as he drank with his master.

  “Good night, my dear,” Konstantin called through the bedroom door as he stood and set down his empty glass. Grisha heard Tania’s murmured reply.

  The count put a small pile of rubles on Grisha’s mantle, then left to watch the display with his wife and son. Grisha stared into the fire. The vodka burned in his belly. Count Mitlovsky was wrong; Grisha was certain that the Tsar would hand down the Emancipation Manifesto within months. And when it happened, Grisha knew exactly how he would live his life when not under the thumb of Mitlovsky.

  Tania came from the bedroom with an armload of linens. Her auburn hair was tidy, her long face emotionless as she picked up the rubles from the mantle and tucked them away.

  Grisha poured another glass of vodka and held it out. “Toast the New Year with me, Tania.”

  “Thank you, Grigori Sergeyevich,” she said, setting down the used bed linens and taking the glass. The lines between her eyebrows and around her mouth were deep.

  He touched his glass with hers and raised it. “To freedom,” he said, and tipped back his head and swallowed.

  A few hours have passed. Antonina sits on a straight-backed chair in front of the window, leaning forward to stare into the dusk. She hasn’t taken her eyes from the yard.

  She jumps up as horses approach, handing Tinka to Lilya and rushing to the front door. She flings it open, but on the top step of the veranda stops so suddenly that Lilya bumps into her.

  It is only Konstantin and Grisha.

  She runs down the steps to them. “Why are you back? Mikhail—Misha …” She looks at Konstantin, slumped forward on his saddle, his mouth hanging slightly open, then to Grisha. “You didn’t find him?” She knows this, but has to ask.

  Grisha shakes his head. “Not yet, madam, but Lyosha and the others are still searching. They had a good lead while it was still light, as the tracks …” He stops, glancing at Konstantin. “The count was weak from loss of blood. He can hardly remain on his horse. I had to bring him home. But the others … they’ll find him, madam.”

  Antonina clutches the shawl at her chest with one hand as if a sudden cold breeze has swept through the yard. “But it’s been too long. It’s too long, Grisha. And now it’s almost dark.”

  “No, not so long,” he says, dismounting and coming to stand beside her. “Lilya! Call Pavel to help with the count.” He touches Antonina’s hand briefly. “Not long at all. And if he isn’t found tonight, we’ll begin again as soon as it’s light, with fresh horses.”

  Again, his confidence and touch calm her. Konstantin’s manservant, Pavel, arrives, and he and Grisha get Konstantin off his horse. They help him to his bedchamber. Antonina follows, and when her husband is lying on his bed, his good hand over his eyes, she moves to stand beside him.

  “Husband,” she says with authority, looking down at him. Konstantin takes his hand away from his eyes. “Speak to me, Konstantin Nikolevich. Tell me how you last saw Mikhail.” She sees a fresh scab on the sagging skin under his earlobe. “Kostya,” she says, louder this time.

  He looks at her, but his mouth remains closed.

  “Why will you not speak to me?” She grabs his shoulders and shakes him. As if in a dream, she sees herself from above, as wild as a vedma, perhaps Baba Yaga herself.

  Konstantin stares up at her. His helpless expression fills her with rage. Grisha steps behind her and puts his hand on her shoulder, and she stops shaking her husband, ashamed.

  Konstantin’s mouth opens, a black square beneath his thick white moustache, and he whispers, “My son. Tosya, our boy.” His eyes glisten with tears. “He was so brave.”

  Antonina puts her hand to her mouth, and Grisha lets go of Antonina’s shoulder and steps back. She hears the door quietly closing. Pavel remains in place, ready to do her bidding. She hovers near the bed. But instead of Konstantin’s tears invoking sympathy, they arouse even more fury in her. Her own tears come from this anger, and from the terrible fear.

  “Tell me,” she says, quietly this time.

  “They … they just led his horse away. They didn’t hurt him—they didn’t touch him at all. He didn’t make a sound. I told him to be quiet, and he did. He did, Tosya. He’s a good boy. He was always a good boy, wasn’t he?”

  Antonina can’t speak.

  “He is a child of breeding, and of high intelligence. He will act in a noble way, as we have taught him. The Cossacks will see this. They’ll respect him for it.”

  Antonina closes her eyes. Konstantin is a fool. They’ve taken our child, and he talks about respect.

  “He sat so well on the horse, Tosya
. I saw, as he rode away, that he had more control of it than I had imagined. He has the makings of a good horseman. All he needs is more riding—less time at the piano and more in the saddle.”

  Does he think I don’t know my own son? I want to know what will happen next. I want to know when I will have him in my arms again.

  “His head was held high, Tosya. He will not bow it to them. I have taught him well.” At this Konstantin’s voice quavers, and he begins to cry in earnest, sobbing like a boy. Antonina has never seen him like this. She wishes for arms around her, wishes for some kind of comfort, but doesn’t move any nearer to her husband.

  And because there’s nothing more for her to do, she kneels and prays, looking at Konstantin. His eyes are closed and tears run down the sides of his cheeks, towards his ears, but he makes no sound.

  Antonina requests that Pavel fetch the vodka from Konstantin’s rosewood table near the fireplace. Unlike Lilya, Pavel obeys without hesitation. Grabbing the bottle from him, she pours herself a glass and nods at him. He bows and steps outside, although Antonina knows he will remain in the hall near the door.

  She moves to the wide leather chair. Eventually she hears the clock on the landing strike the midnight hour. She pours from the bottle. She drinks through the first night of her son’s disappearance.

  At daybreak, Konstantin calls for Pavel and sends him to fetch Grisha. Antonina hasn’t slept. She paces. She knows there is no news; had there been, Grisha would have come immediately.

  When Grisha tells them that the search party returned near midnight, empty-handed, Konstantin orders them all to be beaten. He doesn’t know how else to deal with his fear and guilt. Grisha nods, but has no intention of carrying out the order.

  “Surely there will be a ransom letter today,” Antonina says to Konstantin as she continues pacing in front of his bed. She wipes her lips with the back of her hand. “It will arrive today, and we’ll know what to do to have Misha returned.”

  Konstantin’s skin is grey. The bandage is crusted with dried blood and blossoming with fresh blotches of scarlet.

  “You should have your hand seen to,” Antonina says. “I’ll send for the doctor.”

  “There’s no time. We’ll go out again,” Konstantin tells her. “Pavel, help me dress.”

  “I’m going as well,” Antonina says, and Konstantin doesn’t argue with her.

  By eight o’clock, they all set out in the overcast, damp April day.

  They return to the clearing where Mikhail was taken. Antonina sees the churned mud and skiffs of hard snow, some of it spattered with Konstantin’s blood. They move out in a spoke-like fashion. Antonina rides with Grisha. They ride slowly, their horses finding paths through the trees. Eventually they come out into a field, and cross it to the village of Tushinsk, owned by Konstantin.

  There they dismount and tie their horses, walking through the few streets. “It’s best if you stay with me, madam,” Grisha says.

  Grisha questions the villagers. They are wary of him, silent, shaking their heads. They bow from the waist to Antonina. She asks them questions as well, but the faces of the men and women, when she orders them to lift their heads, show nothing.

  They ride on; they don’t stop to eat or drink. With each passing hour Antonina feels more desperation. When they question a villager with a handcart on the road and he simply stares up at them, not responding to Grisha’s questions, Antonina raises her voice at the man in frustration. Grisha leans close and lays a hand on her reins.

  “It’s growing late, madam. We should return to the estate. You’re cold, surely.” He looks at her wool cloak, blowing open in the cooling wind.

  “I’m not cold,” she says, pulling it around her. “Let’s keep going.”

  Then a light drizzle begins, and Grisha insists they turn around and ride back to Angelkov.

  “Not yet, Grisha. Let’s keep going. Just another hour,” Antonina says.

  Grisha shakes his head, looking at her horse. The roan Antonina has named Dunia is weary, her head down as she plods on her delicate hooves. “Perhaps the count, or the others … perhaps Mikhail Konstantinovich is home by now,” he says.

  “I pray this is so, Grisha,” Antonina says, and turns Dunia to ride with Grisha back to Angelkov.

  They arrive home before the others to find there has been no word from Mikhail’s captors.

  Antonina goes to her bedchamber and changes out of her mud-spattered clothing. Lilya brings her one then a second glass of vodka, and afterwards Antonina stands on the veranda, shivering, arms wrapped around herself as she looks down the long treed drive, the linden branches still naked in the spring air.

  Eventually she goes back inside, but within half an hour hears the sounds of men and horses, and races out in her slippers and thin woollen dress, running through the patches of dimpled, melting snow and frozen mud to the stable yard. She is willing her son to be sitting in front of his father. But he is not there.

  She stares at her husband, her arms limp at her sides.

  “Did a ransom note come?” Konstantin asks.

  Antonina shakes her head.

  Konstantin looks much older than he did yesterday. When he removes his hat, the shape of his skull, under his sweat-drenched hair, is too apparent in the dying light. He’s sixty-one to her twenty-nine. He dismounts with difficulty, relying on his one good hand. Lyosha leads his horse away.

  “Konstantin? Now what?” Antonina asks, but he doesn’t answer immediately.

  Finally he looks at her. “Tomorrow we begin again. That’s all we can do—search, while we wait for word about our son.”

  She follows him into the house, where the servants have lit the lamps. There is the smell of beef, and the long, polished table in the grand dining room is set for two. Antonina walks past the dining room and up the curving staircase to her bedroom. Konstantin sits at the table and waits to be served, staring at the setting for Antonina, then at the spot where their son would have sat.

  She doesn’t sleep, once again keeping vigil with a bottle of vodka, and she is shaky when, the next morning, Lilya comes to help her get dressed. Antonina’s thick, pale hair falls to her waist, but even her husband has never seen it completely undone. Normally it takes Lilya at least half an hour to brush through it and secure it into its fashionable style with the delicate combs Antonina favours. It’s beautiful hair, Lilya always thinks, the weight of it in her hands a marvel. She loves to wash it as her mistress lies back in the large porcelain bath. Sometimes, alone in Antonina’s room, Lilya tries to create the same style with her own dark hair. But hers is too fine and the combs slide about, unable to find a hold. It doesn’t matter. She could never appear with her hair in anything other than the usual, her braids wound round her head.

  “Do it up quickly, Lilya,” Antonina tells the woman. “I’m going out with them again. I don’t want to waste any time.” She sighs heavily as the brush slides from her scalp to the end of her hair with long, even strokes.

  Lilya meets Antonina’s eye in the mirror. “All the servants are praying for Mikhail’s safe return,” she says. “Even my husband says the Cossacks wouldn’t hurt a child, especially not a child like our Mikhail.”

  There is a moment of silence before Antonina says, “And what does your Soso know of Cossacks and their ways, Lilya? What does he know of my child, of children at all?”

  The brush stops, and Lilya takes a breath as if she is about to defend her husband, but says, “Let us believe, then, that God will care for His lamb.” She lifts the brush again, but Antonina reaches up and grabs it.

  “I will believe in men like Grisha and your brother Lyosha. If anyone can find Mikhail, they will. They will find him and return him, unharmed, to me. This is who I will believe in, Lilya. Not your crude husband. Not my weak husband. Not God.”

  Lilya’s lips tighten. “Still, you should see to the count. Pavel says he’s not well at all.”

  Antonina stares at the mother-of-pearl tray holding her combs.

/>   “Tosya? Did you hear what I said?”

  Antonina looks at Lilya in the oval mirror again. They’re the same age, although Lilya looks much older. She has streaks of grey in her dark hair, and the small lines radiating from the corners of her eyes are visible even when she isn’t smiling.

  “Finish then, please, Lilya.”

  When Lilya is done, Antonina goes down the long, wide hall to her husband’s bedroom. When she enters, she finds Pavel standing over Konstantin, a damp cloth in his hand. Another wet cloth is draped on Konstantin’s forehead.

  “Kostya?” she says. He’s holding the bandaged hand against his chest with his left hand. As well as the old and new blood, there’s ugly yellow matter on the bandage. She leans over him but immediately draws back at the smell of his breath. His dark eyes are flat and yet have a strange glitter. “Let me unwrap your hand and take a look at it.”

  Konstantin shakes his head.

  “Then let me send for the doctor.”

  Konstantin sits up. “I must go out again. Help me, Pavel.”

  “Eat before you go,” Antonina says. “You’re no good to anyone if you let yourself grow ill.”

  Konstantin ignores her and, with Pavel supporting him, slowly stands.

  Antonina leaves his room and goes downstairs to the drawing room and sends for Grisha. When he arrives, he bows.

  “I want you to try and talk Konstantin into having his hand looked after. The wound should have been properly cleaned, and stitched. I’m sending to Pskov for the doctor, but you know how stubborn the count is. Will you speak to him, Grisha? Tell him he’s too ill to ride. He must get better … he must be well to help bring our son back. He listens to you.”