CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE ANGEL ON THE SQUARE
Spring–Fall 1918
Mama and I ate as little as possible, but Stepan urged, “Eat up. I’m planting on your land; why shouldn’t you eat our bread?” Since The Oaks had been destroyed, Stepan and the other peasants who had lived on the estate had gradually taken over its fields. “There is talk the Bolsheviks want the land,” Stepan said, “but for now we’ll make the most of it.”
Stepan and Nina refused to allow us to help them. After watching them plowing and digging from dawn to dusk on the first day, I told them the story of the Tsar chopping wood and the Grand Duchesses and me planting our garden. “A hundred heads of cabbage,” I boasted. After that Mama and I were allowed to help.
“Katya,” Stepan said, “I’ll leave the feeding of old Dunka to you. The horse will appreciate your gentle touch. All the poor soul gets from me is the stick.”
Having at last been given a task, I was too ashamed to tell Stepan I was terrified of horses. Pulling an armful of straw from the roof and carrying a small bag of oats entrusted to me by Stepan, I went to the shed where Dunka was stabled. He rolled his eyes at me so that the whites showed. He lifted his head and snorted a terrible snort. I cringed in a corner of the stable. We looked at each other. He was truly a poor specimen of horse, with a mangy coat, a swayback, and all his ribs showing. In spite of myself I began to feel sorry for him.
Gingerly I reached up to run a hand over his shoulder. He shivered. Keeping as far from him as I could, I stretched out my arm, holding the bag of oats beneath his nose. He eagerly snuffed them in. The straw followed. Hanging from the wall was an old currycomb lacking several teeth. I began to comb Dunka’s matted coat, keeping well away from his mouth. He stood perfectly still, making contented noises deep in his throat.
There were sore spots where his halter had bitten into his flesh.
When Stepan and Nina came into the stable, I asked, “Is there anything I could rub on Dunka’s sores?”
Stepan stared at me. “With all we have to worry about, why should we worry about a broken-down horse?”
But Nina said, “Ah, Katya, you are tenderhearted. I’ll make up a little poultice.”
The next day Stepan let me lead Dunka while he held the plow. I trembled a little as I reached up close to the horse’s mouth to grasp the halter. Dunka gave a small snort but soon was clopping along behind me.
Back and forth we went with the plow, my bare feet sinking into the soft earth. As we worked, I couldn’t help but feel proud of the rows of black loam in our wake. Stepan was a different person in the field. The anger and bitterness left him. He even sang songs. At the end of the day’s plowing he said reluctantly, “Dunka has never done so well. You may make a peasant yet.” I grinned, for I considered that high praise coming from Stepan.
When I looked at Mama, my pleasure disappeared, for her expression was gloomy. When we were alone, she said, “What have we come to, Katya? Are we to be peasants the rest of our lives?”
“Mama, at least we are alive, and we have each other.” But Mama would not be comforted.
We were both eager for news of the imperial family. I walked to the village post office to send a letter from Mama to the Empress in care of Pierre. Using the Empress’s name would have given us away. No answer came back.
We did not know where to write Misha. In the evenings, when our work was finished, I wandered off to the small stream. With the croaking of the frogs and the song of a distant nightingale for company, I would tell Misha all my troubles, for I believed that somehow, wherever he was, he would hear me.
I knew that Mama and I could not continue to live on Nina and Stepan’s charity. Secretly I began returning to The Oaks. The shed that had been the smithy was still standing. The forge had been carried away, but otherwise the shed was undamaged. The walls and the roof were sound. Each evening when the work was finished, I made some excuse and hurried to the shed. I bundled twigs into a broom and swept the shed out. I polished the windows to let in light. The stove that had furnished the fire for the forge was still there and would warm us when the weather turned cold.
I began to explore the ruins of The Oaks. At first it was painful to wander through the rooms where I had been so happy—the dining room, the kitchen, the parlor were nothing more than a jumble of burned wreckage. I tried to put my memories behind me. I was looking for anything that might be of use. In the kitchen I discovered a kettle and a few pans. Their handles were twisted, but they were still useful. I uncovered two chairs in the parlor. They were a little blackened, and mice had made a home in their stuffing, but otherwise they would do. I took needle and thread to the shed and cut curtains from bits of draperies that had not been entirely consumed by the fire. I salvaged a scrap of carpet for the floor and dragged an iron bedstead to the shed. One evening I dug up a bed of daisies and lilies still blooming in the garden of The Oaks and planted them at either side of the shed door.
My rummaging became an obsession. I could not wait to get away in the evenings. When Stepan wanted to know where I was going, Nina excused me, saying, “Let her be. See how much better she looks since she started her walks.”
It was true. As the shed was transformed into a cottage, I began to have hope. When Stepan prophesied a good harvest, I believed we could survive the year. Beyond that, time was an endless ocean I could not see across.
Finally I told Nina my secret, for the one thing I could not find was a covering for the bed. Nina gave me a quilt, and I smuggled it into the cottage. When two of the chickens got into a fight and did each other in, we cooked them, and I stuffed two pillows with their feathers. Even Stepan was let in on the secret. He plowed a small square of land next to the cottage and gave me some seeds so that I could plant a vegetable garden.
At last it was time to take Mama to the cottage. When she first saw it, she began to cry. A moment later she was laughing. Through her laughter and tears she said, “Katya, you have created a chudo, a miracle. How strange, though, to see the bits and pieces of The Oaks put together.” She looked about. For the first time since we had left Siberia, her eyes lit up. “There must be other things left,” she said. “I’ll just look around, and then we must get peas and lettuce planted in the garden while the weather is still cool.” She gave me a hug.
After we moved into the cottage, Nina came every day to see how Mama was. She tidied the tiny cottage, lingering over each broken chair or damaged table as if she were caring for the old rooms of The Oaks. Often she would bring some little treat for Mama—a jar of wild strawberry jam or a basket of wild greens she had gathered for a salad. While I was trying to put the past out of my mind, and to live like Stepan, only from one task to another, Mama and Nina seemed always to be living in the past. In Nina’s eyes Mama was still the Countess Baronova. In Mama’s eyes Nina was still a faithful servant.
With Mama busy with the cottage and the garden, I gave all my time to the fields. By the end of June Stepan and I had planted oats and millet and buckwheat. We put in cabbage and turnips and planted potatoes so shriveled, I could hardly believe the green sprouts that came up.
Because Dunka had taken a liking to me, I was asked to accompany him to a nearby farm, where the peasant had no horse for plowing. Stepan warned, “Pyotr is a hard master, Katya. Keep an eye on him, or he will kill poor Dunka with his beatings.”
Pyotr was a square, heavily muscled man with no patience. When he first raised a stick to hit Dunka, who was too slow for him, I grabbed at his hand. The stick grazed my shoulder. I did not know where the strength came from, but in my rage I tore the stick from his hand, grabbed Dunka, and began to run away with the horse, with Pyotr after us.
“Where do you think you are going with that horse?” he bellowed.
“You can beat me all you like,” I snarled back at him, “but you’re not to lay a hand on Dunka. You must treat him kindly.”
At that he burst out laughing. “You’re a wild one. That’s to my tast
e. Very well. You make the creature trot along with your kindness, and I’ll hold back the stick.”
When noontime came, I brought Dunka water and a little hay. Pyotr and I settled beneath the shade of a tree. He proceeded to wolf down a loaf of bread and a large hunk of cheese, while I made do with the bit of bread and the hard-boiled egg Nina had sent with me.
“I know all about you,” Pyotr said, eyeing me suspiciously. “You had something to do with the aristocrats. We’ll soon be rid of them, and a good thing. They’ve sucked enough of our blood.”
“What do you mean?”
“My father and grandfather were serfs on The Oaks, owned like slaves.”
“But that is all over. Tsar Alexander the Second freed the serfs years ago. You can’t blame Tsar Nikolai for that.”
“There is plenty to blame your Tsar Nikolai for. He levied a heavy tax on us so he could pay for his palaces. If there was drought or a late freeze and we had a poor year with no money for the Tsar’s taxes, they put us in jail. They auctioned off our livestock at low prices so the rich landowners like that Countess who owned The Oaks could buy them cheaply. If we pawned our clothes to get enough money to buy back one of our pigs or cows, the rich landowner sold it back to us at twice the price it was worth.”
“I don’t believe you,” I said. “The Countess wouldn’t do such a thing.”
He eyed me suspiciously. “What do you know about countesses?”
“Nothing,” I said hastily.
That afternoon, when I was in the field with Stepan, I told him what Pyotr had said. Stepan only shrugged. “Yes, that’s all true.”
“Mama would never have wanted to make it so hard for the peasants,” I said.
“Ah, Katya, what did your mama know? You came here once a year and sat on the porch and drank tea and had your little dinner parties; then you went away.”
Later, when I repeated his words to Mama, she said, “I demanded what my papa had always asked, and his papa before him. The mansion in St. Petersburg and all the servants there took money. Papa said if you weren’t strict with the peasants, they would cheat and steal from you.” She looked down, not wanting to meet my eyes. “I was very foolish, Katya. I never thought of what the peasants suffered. How was I to know what hunger was? I only urged Vitya to send more money. I never asked how he was to get it.”
June’s white nights were followed by July’s scorching sun. With as much excitement as I had once watched the court ball with Stana at the Winter Palace, I now watched the white blossoms of the buckwheat plants unfold and the soft green rye and millet wave in the gentle summer breeze. In our own small garden we pulled radishes to slice and eat on bread I had made myself. I often thought of Sergeant Yuri from the hospital at the Catherine Palace, who longed only to see the wheat turn golden and the buckwheat flower. I hoped he had found a place in the country.
My life fell into the simple pattern of the life peasants had always lived. I rose with the dawn, ate a crust of bread, and drank my tea. I worked in the fields until dusk with only a pause for a simple lunch. While it was still light, I fell exhausted into bed. All I knew was that I was alive. The land that made the buckwheat plants blossom and sent up a sea of grain to wave in the breeze was now our life and would be forever. I tried to put away my longing for my city of St. Petersburg. I made no plans for the future. I got up and worked and went to bed.
Our troubles were the troubles that peasants had struggled with for hundreds of years. Once a plague of grasshoppers chewed their way through part of our wheat field. Another day a hailstorm battered the rye.
There were rare days of perfect blue skies and sometimes a discovery, like the nest of a dove I found cradled in a pine tree. Tucked inside the nest were five perfect white eggs. At the end of each day I visited the nest hoping for a peek at the fledglings.
On the first day of August Mama and I celebrated my eighteenth birthday with a handful of wild blackberries on our morning bowls of kasha. After Mama gave me a kiss and her blessing, I hurried out to the field, anxious to begin work in the cool hours of the morning. As the day went on, a scorching sun filled the sky. I was hoeing a field of buckwheat, the sleeves of my blouse rolled up against the heat and my skirts hiked up for the same reason. My feet were bare. A dirty kerchief kept the dust from my hair.
On the flat land I could see a figure approaching from a great distance. Warily I put down my hoe and watched as a man made his way toward me. Strangers were rare. The man had a cap pulled down over his forehead, and his jacket was slung over his shoulder. I knew the walk. I couldn’t move.
As he came closer, Misha called out, “I’m looking for The Oaks. Can you tell me if I’m on the right road?” His look was pleasant but impersonal. I felt as if I had disappeared from the face of the earth. I began to cry. Misha looked startled, then apologetic.
“I’m sorry, Miss. Have I said something to disturb you?”
“Oh, Misha, how can you not know me?”
“Katya! Can it be true?” He pulled away my kerchief and gathered me into his arms. “I came for your birthday.” He handed me a wilted bouquet of field daisies.
I couldn’t stop crying. All the misery of the last months came pouring out in my tears.
At the sight of me in a stranger’s arms, Stepan, Nina, and Mama had all come running. No more work was done that day. Misha walked about the ruins of The Oaks shaking his head. “In the old days at the university, when we talked of revolution, I never dreamed it would be like this.” He picked up a piece of burned timber and shook his head as if the blackened and destroyed wood were the whole of the revolution.
When I showed him the cottage and the garden, he looked at me with amazement and exclaimed, “Katya, you are a wonder.”
Teasing him, I said, “You no longer call me a spoiled child?”
He reached for my hand. “Katya, don’t torture me with my own words.”
I didn’t want to worry Mama, so I waited until I had a moment alone with Misha before I dared ask, “What have you heard from Ekaterinburg? Is the imperial family well?”
The bitter look on Misha’s face I had seen as he walked about the burned ruins of The Oaks returned. “You’ve heard nothing?” he asked. His voice was a whisper, though no one was near.
“We hear no news,” I told him. “We might as well be a thousand kilometers from St. Petersburg.” I was studying Misha’s face. “Something has happened, hasn’t it?”
He put his hand on mine. “Lenin ordered the Tsar executed.”
“It can’t be! How could anyone be so cruel?” After a moment I managed to ask, “The Empress and Alexei and the girls? Are they safe?”
Misha shook his head. “No one has heard, and no one has seen them. I must tell you there is little doubt that they were executed as well. Lenin wants the Romanov family wiped out. All the Grand Dukes have been arrested and sentenced to be executed.”
I left him and walked out into the field. Misha understood and did not follow me. I had lost two fathers and now my sisters as well. I sank down in the wheat and cried for the Tsar and the Empress, for Alexei, for Olga and Tatiana, for Marie and my beloved Stana, and for Russia. I cried until I had no tears left.
Days later, when I could trust myself to talk about it, I asked Misha, “How could they do such a thing?”
We were walking beside the little stream. A pale moon shone in the eastern sky, while the sun was still a circle of gold in the west. With the quiet beauty of the countryside all around us, such deeds seemed impossible.
“They are evil people, Katya. They trust no one. Lenin and his crew are like the insects that eat their own young. The very people who worked hardest for the revolution are being arrested. Kerensky had to flee the country. I was lucky to get out of St. Petersburg with my life. I thought I understood what was best for Russia. I knew too little and believed too soon.”
“It’s the same for me, Misha.” I sighed. “I see how empty-headed I was. I understand now how hard it has been for the peasan
ts. And remember how I turned up my nose at the poor people in St. Petersburg because they were dirty? And you said they had no water. Now we are lucky to have a bath once a week, and Mama and I share the water. There had to be changes.”
I began to cry, as I did whenever I thought of the girls. “But Misha, we have traded thoughtlessness for evil.”
Misha said, “As soon as I’ve helped you and Stepan with the harvest, I mean to go back to St. Petersburg, Katya. I know a family who will put me up. There are still a few of us left to fight against this government, in secret if we must. For however many years it takes, we will fight, until we get real freedom in Russia. If we die in the attempt, others will come after us.”
As Misha spoke I began to feel a longing for my city, which was now in so much trouble. For the first time in months I let myself think of the crowds on the Nevsky, the clanging tram cars, and the reflection of the Winter Palace shimmering in the Neva. I sighed, and Misha took my hand. “Come with me,” he said.
I did not ever want to be separated again from Misha. I had lost so much. I couldn’t bear to lose him too. Looking at him now, holding his hand, the only future I could imagine was one we would share. Yet I shook my head. I was afraid. At least here I was safe.
As we walked by the pine tree with the nest, I heard faint peeps. The dove’s eggs had hatched. Five fledglings poked up their tiny beaks. After that I hardly let the nest out of my sight. I was resolved that no fox would steal the fledglings. I could not help but remember how the Tsar had called the girls, shorn of their curls, his fledglings. I was there at dawn, and all day long I ran in from the fields to stand watch. The last thing I did before I went to bed at night was to check the nest. But I could not be up all night. In the darkness a raccoon came, leaving behind an empty nest.
I saw that there was as little safety here as there was in St. Petersburg. I could not hide for the rest of my life. More than anything, I wanted to be with Misha. The next morning I took Misha aside. “Once Mama is settled for the winter, I’ll go with you. I’ve talked to Stepan and Nina. Nina adores Mama, and she and Stepan have promised to watch over her. Most of the crops have done well. There will be food enough for the winter.” Together we made our plans.