tonight. How did you find me?”
“Everyone in Petrograd knows where the Rasputins live. It’s no secret.”
“Tell me honestly-do you mean us harm?”
“Dear God, no!” He hesitated, then added, “Maria, trust me, please trust me, when I say I’ve never stopped thinking about you.”
Nothing could have surprised me more. I refused, however, to show my own wound and the pain that burned even now. Instead, I turned away.
“We’ll talk later, Sasha,” I said sternly. “First we have to take care of your arm.”
I pulled his coat from his left shoulder, slid it down his arm, and pulled it brusquely past the wound and over his hand. It hurt him, I know-he winced terribly-but I didn’t care. What did he know about confusion and pain? What did he care about the suffering of others?
Although I was surprised by the amount of blood, the wound itself wasn’t so horrible, a deep gash through his shirt and up his forearm. With blood still readily flowing, however, it was no wonder Sasha was weak. What had happened and who had done this? Was he a deserter; had the military police chased him down? I was no stranger to gore, having helped Mama deliver countless foals and calves. Not only that, but in the fields surrounding our village, laborers and workhorses alike were always getting injured. It struck me, staring down at Sasha’s wound, that this wasn’t nearly as bad as some of the things I had witnessed.
“You’re lucky,” I said, as I turned on the faucet and began rinsing the wound. “It looks like the knife didn’t cut down to the bone.”
He said nothing, only winced. I carefully ran the water up and over his arm, rinsing away blood and grime and tiny bits of his shirt. His forearm, which was thick and strong and covered with a haze of dark hair, now lay weak and limp in my hands. I knew so little about him-and doubted everything he had ever said. Whether or not he was from Novgorod, whether or not he had attended university in Moscow -things he had told me that day on the riverboat-I didn’t know, and yet despite his strength it was obvious he had never worked the fields. I could tell his fingers were not those of a peasant, for they were not calloused but soft.
Once I had flushed his arm, I realized the main problem was not the gash but Sasha’s loss of blood. How long ago had this happened? How much blood had he already lost?
“Sasha, you’re going to have to see a doctor to get this sewn up.”
“Can’t you-”
“Absolutely not. The only thing I can do now is wrap it up in a bandage. If I get it tight enough, it should slow the blood. But the sooner you get to a doctor, the better. Besides, it needs to be thoroughly disinfected.”
He shrugged.
I reached to the side for a clean white tea towel, which I wrapped almost as tightly as a tourniquet around his forearm. Although the towel blossomed immediately with blood, I was sure it would help. I then took his good hand and placed it on the towel.
“Press down good and hard and don’t let go,” I commanded. “I’ll be right back.”
Hurrying from the kitchen, I passed through our dining room to the darkened salon. Papa’s most regular visitors were society ladies who came three or four times a week for tea and to hear Papa’s religious convictions. These well-bred women had been taught the evilness of idle hands, so as they drank their tea and listened to my father, they picked up knitting needles and worked away. And since the outbreak of war, of course, they’d made only one thing: bandages from string. Scattered around our salon were no less than six wicker baskets, in each of which sat a set of fine knitting needles, a ball of string, and bandages in varying lengths of completion, all just waiting for a lady’s busy hands. From one pile I snatched a bandage and its attached ball of string.
As I was turning back to the kitchen, however, I heard a faint noise, a voice or a moan coming from somewhere. There couldn’t be someone else in here, could there? I listened for one more second but heard nothing. Worried, I went to the front door and pulled on it, but it was still locked.
Returning to the kitchen, I worked quickly, cutting the bandage free from the ball of string and tying the loose end. The bandage itself was good and dense and long, and with Sasha’s help I wrapped it around his arm no less than three times. I then tore another towel in half and tied it around his arm to hold everything in place.
And then…again I thought I heard something. Standing quite still, I listened for more sounds, either from the street out front or from somewhere in our apartment. Why was I so sure it was the latter? Why was I suddenly so afraid?
I knew I should be making Sasha tea or soup. I knew I should be looking for some fish or, better yet, a jar of caviar, which was so rich and healthful. Instead, I ordered him from the stool.
“You need to lie down,” I told him.
Escorting him across the kitchen, I pulled aside the curtain and led him into the nook were Dunya’s cot was tucked. Gripping him tightly, I lowered him onto the edge of the bed and eased him onto his back. Finally, I slipped off his filthy, worn leather boots and lifted up his feet. As I tucked a small pillow behind the curls of his hair, he gazed up at me and offered the slightest of smiles. I couldn’t help but blush.
“Just keep your arm raised,” I said. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
Before I could escape, however, Sasha grabbed my hand and raised it to his lips. “Spasibo.” Thank you, he said, kissing me just as tenderly as he had done two years ago. “I’m sorry. I’m very sorry.”
I had believed him before. I had trusted him before. Did I dare do so again?
“Just don’t move,” I said, frightened of the softness in my voice.
“I don’t think I can.”
I stroked his brow. “I don’t either.”
I wanted to stay right there, on the edge of the cot, and hold his hand and talk as we had done on the boat. But I didn’t dare, not on this strange night. Stepping away, I shut the curtain and started out of the kitchen. No sooner had I passed into the hall than I heard it again, a faint noise emanating, I realized, from one of the bedrooms.
CHAPTER 5
I poked my head into my room first, only to see Varya still sleeping soundly. Moving on, I approached Papa’s bedroom. As I neared the partially opened door, I saw the faint light of a lamp leaking out, and for a bizarre moment everything seemed normal. It was almost as if my father were home, studying the Scriptures or on his knees, praying in the corner before his favorite icon, the Kazanskaya, the Virgin of Kazan. It was almost as if he were right there in that room, ever so slowly scrawling the little notes to hand out the following day to his devotees, little notes that would open doors all over the country: My friend, see that this gets done. Grigori. Plus the little cross, always the little cross, at the bottom. But of course Papa wasn’t home, and I wasn’t coming to bid him good night.
Someone, I realized, was in my father’s bedroom who shouldn’t be there. It could be someone harmless like Countess Olga or someone as dangerous as an assassin.
I should have rushed right then and there to the telephone. But I wasn’t scared, not really, for exhaustion was taking over now, drugging my mind and body like a narcotic. Quite determined, I brazenly pushed open the door. But instead of finding someone with a gun pointed at me, or even someone rifling through Papa’s belongings, there was no one carousing about. Instead my eyes traveled through warm, reddish light emanating from an oil lamp hanging before Papa’s icon. And eventually my eyes fell upon a heap of unfamiliar clothes thrown on a chair. Turning to the narrow bed, I saw that someone was curled up beneath the bright patchwork quilt.
I wasn’t that surprised, not really, for women were always throwing themselves at Papa. Last year I had been in my room when I heard a terrible scream coming from the salon.
“Chri-i-ist is ri-i-isen!”
When I went running in, I had found Madame Lokhtina, wearing a bizarre white dress decorated all over with little ribbons, lunging at Papa. The force of this woman, a former society lioness who had abandoned her family and become Father’s most rabid devotee, was so great, her determination so devilish, that she had ripped open Papa’s pants and was hanging on to his member.
“You are Christ, I am your ewe, take me!” the woman screamed. “Take me, dear Chri-i-ist!”
