One week to the day after her conversation with Aunt Stella, Anna was married by a local priest of the parish to Lord Antoni Grawlinski. It was a Sunday, as tradition prescribed.
Lord Antoni was elegantly handsome in his full dress attire. He stood stiffly, as if at attention, his right hand held to his purple sash of Turkish design.
Anna managed to stand during the ceremony in the reception room, holding to the back of a winged chair for support. She wore a pale silken robe and a simple cap. As custom dictated, her hair was unplaited and worn long and loose for the occasion, symbolizing her transition from girl to woman. But because of the nature of the attack at the pond, no joyous ceremony had been made of the unplaiting the night before. In a myriad of other ways, too, the events leading up to the marriage and the ceremony itself were significantly abridged.
There was to be a wedding bread, at least. Aunt Stella herself had taken charge of the baking of the kolacz, seeing to it that only the best wheat flour was used and that the dough was carefully prepared, for if the top of the braided wedding bread cracked, the marriage would not be a good one.
Anna’s white-knuckled hands gripped the chair more and more tightly as the ceremony wore on, the priest’s voice droning interminably. Her own wedding was becoming a torture, not the splendid celebration of her girlhood fantasies.
Anna looked past the priest to Baron Grawlinski who stood near the window, a little apart from the women. Her father-in-law was very old, indeed. The only way Anna could detect that he was still alive was to catch sight of his laces beneath his loose-skinned neck as they stirred slightly under his breath. The baroness, a large and unattractive woman, stood stolidly, her hooded eyes set approvingly on her son.
Zofia, radiant in a rose gown, played at sniffling a little, but it was only Aunt Stella who cried.
Anna was beyond tears. She could not remember a specific point in those days after the proposal when she came to a conscious decision that she would accept. She had been beaten down, by her aunt, by Zofia, by herself. And disillusionment had set in when no word was forthcoming from Jan. Why? Had his attraction cooled? Was he the chameleon Zofia painted him to be? Was it something about herself that suddenly made him lose interest? Or had his interest been merely what Zofia called a dalliance? She regretted her extreme reaction to Zofia’s accusation at the pond—turning on Jan as if in her confusion she trusted Zofia’s word before his. But she felt certain that his anger, however justified, would have eased in time. If he cared for her.
What if he had heard about the attack? Would that have kept him away? She knew many men wanted only virgin brides. Or had the accusations against him on the part of the Gronski family held him at bay? Anna herself was convinced that he was not the guilty one. Yet, why had he disappeared?
As the ceremony drew to a merciful close, she tried to search within herself for some sense of assurance—or at least resignation—that fate now propelled them in different directions, that it was simply out of her hands.
Only the night before, Anna had peered out her window, vacantly watching the rain fill the driveway, walkways, and gullies below. Her father had once told her about the great reverence the Chinese held for water. It was a peaceful and humble entity, water, willing to seek the lowest level, willing to make way for the rock in its path. Always patient. Always surviving.
Anna looked to her husband, and she could not help brooding over her decision. She had for the moment become as meek and fluid as water. What would become of this marriage? She had followed neither her intuition nor her heart.
Outside the rain pattered on relentlessly. When the priest pronounced them married, Anna looked up at Lord Antoni and smiled. The Countess Gronska had told her: “No man, my dear, wants a reluctant bride.”
Later, when Anna received her piece of the kolacz, she lifted the little decorative branch—symbol of fertility—only to see that, underneath it, the bread had cracked in the cooking.
Two days later, Anna was busy preparing for the journey to Warsaw, where she and Antoni would winter with the countess and Zofia. She was carefully wrapping a blanket around the box that held the crystal dove. Impulsively, she unwrapped the box, opened it, and withdrew the bird. She moved a step or two to the window where the sunshine could pierce it with its warm life.
Once, the bird had seemed to be a happy omen of her future and that Warsaw shopkeeper of so many years before, a prophet from a Greek drama. He had told her the bird would carry her anywhere, that it would lead her to her dreams. She would hold it up to the light—as she did now—and imagine Iris, goddess of the rainbow, carrying her forward, ever forward, into the future.
There seemed no hint of Iris in the cold crystal now, no heat in the October sun. The bird was more a relic of the past. It had belonged to a child who had chosen an unlikely gift and who was singular in her passion to have and keep it. What has become of that child, Anna brooded, that passion?
A commotion from below took her attention from the dove. Parting the lace curtains and looking down, she wondered if she could trust her eyes: Jan Stelnicki was just dismounting his horse.
She saw him as her memory had etched him, charismatic even in his movements. And beautiful. No man should be so beautiful, she had thought on that first day.
Anna was already at the stairhead when the knocker sounded, but she stopped suddenly. Zofia had been quick to see his approach, too, and she swept to the front of the house in a blur of movement, throwing open the huge oak door.
Anna could see only her cousin’s back, but she could make out Jan’s face and its serious expression. She hurried down the stairs to the midway landing so that she might hear what was said.
“Good morning, Zofia,” Jan was saying, “I wish to offer my condolences. I’ve been to Kraków and only on my return yesterday did I hear of your father’s death.”
“You are not welcome here, Jan Stelnicki.”
“Ah, straight to the point, as always, Zofia. Well, I’ve not come to speak to you, although allow me to congratulate you on your marriage.”
“Oh,” Zofia exulted, “your servants have gotten the news all wrong. It was not I who married Lord Grawlinski.”
Zofia paused for effect.
Anna could see a quizzical look flash across Jan’s face and with it a sharp pain pierced Anna’s heart.
“It is,” Zofia continued, “Anna who has earned your congratulations!”
Silence.
In the short time she had known him, Anna had never seen Jan at a loss for words, but he was stammering now, groping for some reply, his face screwed into a map of disbelief.
Anna held to the banister. She thought she would faint.
Zofia continued in her solicitous manner. “You wish my cousin well, of course. I shall relay your message. Now you are to leave this house.” The curt voice was rising in volume. “And don’t ever attempt to see Anna again!” Zofia slammed shut the heavy door.
The knocker sounded once more.
The Countess Gronska appeared now, dismissing Zofia and stepping out onto the pillared porch to talk to Jan.
As Zofia turned, she looked up to see Anna on the landing. Their eyes locked for a long moment.
Anna stared at her cousin in mute anger and despair. Zofia’s eyes reflected triumph, but as Anna watched, there did seem to come into the dark eyes a flicker of… what? Regret? Remorse? Anna could not decipher it.
Zofia then averted her gaze and wordlessly continued the business of closing the house. She seemed to be humming.
Anna went back to her room. Humiliation kept her from going down to see Jan. Humiliation and shame that she had not waited. She had not trusted in his love. There had been some reason why Jan had not come before this, she instinctively knew. And she had not waited. She had made the mistake of a lifetime and there would be no taking it back.
Still, she prayed that Jan would insist on seeing her. The countess could not stop him if he so decided.
In a few minutes, though, Anna heard the sound of his horse retreating. She could not bring herself to go to the window. Perhaps it is best this way, she thought. What was there to be said? What’s been done cannot be undone. A priest of the Church had married her to a man she didn’t love. She had pledged her love in a sacred vow.
She ceremoniously took the crystal dove now, holding it as if it were a dead thing, and laid it the velvet of its finely-crafted box.
Later, as the carriage trundled on toward Warsaw, away from Halicz, away from Jan, Anna recalled an exquisite vase her father once owned, a foot high and older than the collective lifetimes of fifty men. Against the azure background were the raised white figures of vines, birds, and an Egyptian woman. It was her father’s most prized possession.
One winter day, her father himself accidentally jarred it from its pedestal. Anna watched that priceless treasure smash into pieces at her feet, pieces smaller than could ever be repaired. It was the only time she had seen her father cry. She had thought her heart would break then; only now did she know just what heartbreak was. And, like her father, she could only blame herself.