Midnight in St. Petersburg (8 page)

He knocked on her door, but he was inside before she answered. He only stopped when he saw the red-rimmed eyes in the tight white face she turned towards him. The brittle pride she'd displayed downstairs hadn't lasted once she was alone. She'd been crying.

Appalled, he muttered, ‘Oh…'

She was sitting on the bed, with her back to him. Only her neck and head moved. She had a flowery shawl wrapped around her shoulders, over a night robe. The tears were in the past, at least, though only the very recent past. When he'd come in, he realized, she'd had her dark head down, concentrating on something in her lap.

As soon as she'd understood who was standing there, having broken into her privacy, her face had gone cold, though her eyes were flashing.

‘Oh …
you
,' she said, quickly looking away. She put all the scorn she could into the formal word
vy –
his choice, earlier, he recalled, ashamed. He heard something small drop as she got up, carefully, standing cautiously behind the bed, with her hands behind her back. With exaggerated unconcern, she bent and quickly picked up whatever the small item was that she'd dropped, putting it, and the hand holding it, quickly into the pocket of her gown.

She was hiding something.

‘I didn't mean to startle you,' he said. Calling her
ty
now was the closest he could get to an apology.

His cheeks were hot again. She must think he'd come to gloat. It wasn't an unreasonable thing for her to think, either, given how he'd been. Shame at his outburst earlier made his heart thump so hard he couldn't bring himself to speak. All the flood of other things he'd so wanted to say, while he was hastening upstairs – to tell her he'd guessed about the letter, and about how his parents must have left her – just faded away.

‘I've brought you some food,' he tried again in a penitent tone.

‘Thanks,' she said, shortly, looking down.

‘And I wanted to say that Madame L. says it's all right for you…' He corrected himself. ‘… that she'd be happy for you to stay till the end of the week. You can help us out in the workshop to earn your keep.'

For a moment, he thought he caught the green gleam of relief he'd hoped for in her eyes, but then her face tightened again. She wasn't grateful to
him
. She still didn't want him near her.

‘That's kind of them,' she told her feet. ‘I'd like that.' She paused. ‘Just put the food on the floor. I'll come for it in a minute. I was just…' She didn't want to pick up the food, he now realized, because she didn't want him to see that hand.

He put down the bowl on the floor, as she'd told him to, but as he straightened up he looked more closely.

She'd put her other hand to the shawl at her throat.

It had a handkerchief wrapped around it, which hadn't been there when she was playing downstairs.

‘You've hurt yourself,' he said, concerned. As he spoke, her hand shifted on the shawl. He could see spots of blood, from her palm, coming through the hanky. ‘Are you all right?'

He couldn't stop himself stepping forward. He so wanted to take her hand; to see for himself. He only just managed to stop himself.

‘I'm fine.' She bit off the word.

‘But what's wrong with your hand?'

She didn't answer at once, though she did at least look at him. She took the other hand out of her pocket and held it out, as if daring him to be shocked. There was a knife lying in the palm, the kind you take on train journeys to cut up your bread and sausage with. There was blood on the blade, and a mess of blood, some fresh, some congealing, in the line of small cuts across the palm it lay on.

Yasha recoiled. Shutting his eyes, he fumbled in his pockets for the clean hanky he knew was there.

‘I've got a hanky, thank you,' he heard, still in that bitten-off, brazening-it-out tone.

‘But what…' he muttered, still not able to look at her or that accusing gash, ‘… what the Hell are you doing to yourself?'

She stepped forward, using the same trick as before, and he retreated. It was only when she was closing the door that she answered. But the door had clicked shut, leaving him in the dark outside with a fuzzy, glowing image of her on his retina – this time uplit by the little lamp, with her fragile dignity and her wounded, defiant green eyes – before the words sank in.

‘I was cutting myself a better lifeline,' she'd said.

 

CHAPTER FIVE

The next morning, Inna went straight out, without breakfast. She was pale. She had her hands in a muff.

Why had she been such a fool? she now wondered, mortified by the spots of rusty blood staining the sheets that she'd woken up to this morning. It wasn't as if she actually believed that gypsy's prophecy. She wasn't superstitious.

It was clear now that, after last night, Yasha would have nothing more to do with her. She'd seen that from the bewildered, shocked distaste with which he'd shrunk back, the look that signified: But that's not how things are done here. She'd been acting like someone from down there, someone so desperate she'd stopped being able to think. Someone alone.

But she wasn't helpless. She wouldn't just give in. And she wasn't alone, either, or at least not quite alone. There might not be anything she could do, by herself, to get papers, but there was at least one person she knew whom she could ask to help her get what she wanted.

The idea she woke up with was to go and see her friend the peasant. She'd ask for an introduction to his friend Simanovich, the one who could get residence papers for Jews. She'd ask
him
what it would cost to get her a permit. She still had some money. It would be well spent, on that.

If Monsieur Leman wanted to keep her, and would train her (which he'd sounded genuine enough about), but just didn't know how to get documents (which she could imagine he didn't), well, there was nothing for it but to organize it herself.

*   *   *

Half an hour later, she was in the dark stairwell of Nikolayevskaya 70, feet clattering on worn tiles.

A gaggle of rumpled youngish men were lounging on the doorstep outside, standing on discarded cigarette ends. They didn't frighten her. They weren't in uniform. They barely looked at her, either, as she slid among them.

Inside, the doorman looked wearily up at her from behind a dusty arrangement of dried flowers. ‘I'm looking for…' she hesitated. She didn't like just to say, ‘the peasant'.

‘The peasant,' the man said, scratching his ear. ‘First floor, door on the left.' Gratefully, she flew upstairs.

The door opened a crack. Eyes looked out: eyes half hidden in deeply lined flesh above a straggly beard; unfriendly eyes.

Suddenly the eyes opened wide, and Inna was relieved to see that pale-blue blaze of recognition, the kindness dawning again in his face.

‘Why, it's my young friend from the train!' he exclaimed warmly. Then a slight frown crossed his face.

‘I was passing…' she stammered. ‘And there was something I wanted to ask you…'

Her voice died away as he glanced back into the dark vestibule behind him. His eyelids lowered till his gaze was lost in deeply lined flesh.

‘I'd ask you in. It's just that these fools have all turned up.' He sounded vexed.

Inna's heart sank. He hadn't really meant it when he'd invited her to visit him. He'd just been saying something polite. Her cheeks flamed. She was about to whisper, ‘If it's a bad time,' and flee, when he shrugged.

‘Well, let them share,' he said, almost to himself. Then, looking directly at Inna, he added, with a determination she couldn't doubt: ‘Come in, come in.'

The room she followed him into was very basic: a big window curtained in cheap yellowing lace, a table and stools on one side and a screen hiding a bed on the other. But it was full of people. There must have been a dozen of them sitting at the table, murmuring together.

There were no other peasants: no apple-cheeked Dunyas or little ragamuffins giggling under the table. All these guests were in city clothes. Very good dark clothes, too, with none of the darns and patches she'd seen on the Leman children's elbows (though with none of the Lemans' arty dash either).

For an instant, Inna was appalled. She'd never be able to talk privately to the peasant with them here. She'd walked uninvited into a party.

But, almost at once, she began to wonder who they were. Almost all were women (although there was a stout, pompous young man in a dark morning coat hovering behind the stool of a young, pretty woman with a flower of a face and the most beautiful oyster-coloured silk blouse Inna had ever seen). And, grand though they clearly were, almost all had a look in their eyes that suggested life hadn't treated them as kindly as they might have hoped.

They should have been intimidating to a provincial schoolgirl. But they looked so helpless that Inna couldn't find it in herself to be scared.

When they became aware of her, the buzz of talk stopped.

It wasn't quite a party after all, Inna realized. They were all staring at her, furtively, jealously, as if each one was privately assessing a potential rival.

The only exception was a middle-aged lady in a feathered hat above her modest robe, who was at the samovar, pouring out tea.

‘Father Grigory, may I offer your guest some tea?' she asked.

Father Grigory? So he
was
some sort of religious man? The peasant didn't seem pleased by the honorific, and just nodded.

Handing Inna a glass, the lady said, ‘I'm Lyubov Vassilievna Golovina, my dear … and that's my daughter, Munya.' She indicated a girl scarcely older than Inna, with timid blue eyes, a sweet, plain face and a shawl.

Inna felt tempted to bob a curtsey in gratitude for Madame Golovina's well-bred graciousness. ‘My name is Inna.' She paused and then added, ‘Feldman,' omitting her Jewish patronymic. The Golovinas were clearly nobility even if their clothes weren't grand; and if ‘Munya' were enough of a name for the daughter to go by, then ‘Inna' without ‘Venyaminovna' would do for her.

‘How do you know each other?' Inna asked Munya, indicating the peasant with a nod.

‘Oh, I was introduced to him by my cousin's wife – Sana, over there,' Munya replied, nodding at the pretty young lady in the expensive oyster-silk blouse. ‘Sana thought he would help me come to terms with my tragedy…'

In the renewed silence, Inna noticed how oddly the table was set. Around the big samovar there was an incongruous feast: sumptuous tortes, laden with cream and cherries, and crystal bowls of fruit, exotic items which wouldn't have been out of place at Yeliseyevsky's (as Inna imagined it) but looked odd in this plain room; but also little piles of home-made peppermint gingersnaps and heaps of large crude rolls. There were two smeary jars of jam, with teaspoons propped against the saucers. A luxurious sturgeon in aspic lay on a platter next to a rough basket of plain black bread and a deep bowl of hard-boiled eggs.

The peasant, too, was a little different from how she'd remembered. Had he been wearing those luxurious clothes in the train yesterday: peasant trousers made of black velvet? His knee-high boots gleamed – patent leather? His shirt was definitely made of silk. Perhaps the clothes and the food were gifts from these anxious-looking gentlefolk who called him ‘Father' and gazed at him silently with those hungry eyes?

Inna hoped they weren't about to pray. Yet there was nothing religious in his room – just a photo, propped up against the window, of St. Isaac's Cathedral, with white ribbons tied to the frame.

She didn't understand, but it didn't matter. Excitement was replacing her embarrassment. She'd find a way to talk to him before she left, she was sure. And meanwhile this was an adventure.

She did wish they would eat, though. It was still only ten in the morning, but Inna was hungry, and the food looked delicious.

The peasant caught her eyeing the food, and grinned. Loudly, to the room at large, he said: ‘Drink your tea, dear guests. Eat.'

A few guests sipped. Still no one touched the food. He shook his head, seeming irritated; then he stood and took a handful of the eggs from the bowl himself. The women's eyes lit up. Inna heard a rapturous murmur of, ‘Father, an egg!' from all sides. He rolled his eyes and almost snorted. But he walked around the table, presenting them to his guests, one by one, on an outstretched palm, with a solemnity so exaggerated it looked to Inna almost like mockery.

‘There …
now
eat, for God's sake,' he growled. He sat down, crossed himself, and started eating a piece of bread with a pickle on it.

Inna caught herself staring again – not at him, because, after all, he was just sitting there chewing; but at his guests, who were still not touching the food but, instead, silently watching the dark bread disappear into his mouth.

Well, more fool them, Inna thought. She put some of the magnificent dill-perfumed sturgeon on a plate and took a modest mouthful. Finishing his sandwich, the peasant looked approvingly at Inna. ‘You're hungry, so you eat,' he said. Then, ‘They're all so rich and educated, but sometimes these fools don't understand the simplest things.' There was a sting in his voice. Yet the eyes all swivelled back to him again with that same rapt look as if he'd made a sacred pronouncement. On Inna's right, Munya even made a genteel little grab for the notebook Inna could see lying on the table, and scribbled an urgent note.

Contemptuously, the peasant told the ladies beside Inna, who were looking anxiously at their eggs: ‘Look, you won't dirty your hands with simple honest food. Take those eggs and roll them on the table. They'll crack. Then you take the shells off. Then you can eat them. Even a fool should know that.'

Wincing as if they were being asked to humiliate themselves – which, Inna felt uncomfortably, they were – the pair cast their eyes down and set to rolling the eggs around on the table until the shells cracked. Fastidiously, they picked bits off. One even put her white egg to her mouth and nibbled.