Anna was told she’d find Zofia in the reception room.
Her cousin lay face up on a fainting couch that had been covered in a fur and placed next to the open French windows so that the sun might warm and lend a pinkness to her skin. She was naked.
“Come in, Anna! Come in, it’s not for you to be shy, if I’m not.”
Anna adjusted her line of vision away from Zofia and toward a table with a plate of roast beef and a hand mirror. Eventually, it was drawn back to her cousin.
“Ohhhh,” Zofia crooned, “isn’t it wonderful to have at last a warm afternoon?”
Anna moved slowly to the sofa opposite Zofia. She sank back into the cushions, still at a loss for words.
“Tell me about the feast day party, dearest. Who was there? Was it terribly boring?”
“No, it was quite nice.” Zofia’s body was perfection itself. What a woman is this, Anna thought, one who lounges unattired and unashamed in the sun, while eating meat from the noon meal or gazing at her reflection in the mirror.
“Imagine, a name day celebration for a woman eighty years old. A farewell party, more likely!”
“Zofia!”
“You know what they say: ‘The young may die, the old will.’ ”
At Zofia’s insistence, Anna described the Mass and reception, as well as the Lubicki home and guests. She watched for a flicker of recognition when she made mention of the French count’s name, but it went unrewarded.
“It sounds tedious to me, Anna. Many of the guests you named are dull and stiff-necked nobles who cling wistfully to a by-gone era. But I’m glad if you were entertained by it.”
“It was lovely, Zofia. But it came to a strange end.”
“What do you mean?”
Anna related then in detail what had gone on in the Lubicki library, what had been said.
Zofia’s interest was fully aroused by the time Anna finished. “The names, Anna, what were the three names?… Do you remember? You must!”
“Yes.”
“Because I hate politics you and mother think I am a dunce. I know what I must know.… Now tell me their names.”
“Potocki and Branicki and Rzewuski.”
“Ah, then the time has come,” Zofia muttered.
“Time? What is it? What’s happened?”
“Oh, Anna,” Zofia sighed, “you act as if you haven’t a clue as to what you’ve just told me.” She was on her feet now, taking short steps about the room.
Anna was uncertain whether her cousin was pleased or agitated. “I don’t understand.”
“Ha!” Zofia laughed, the black eyes appraising Anna. “It is so like you, cousin, to give a flawless account of something you have witnessed firsthand, yet be unable to interpret it. Why, you would be a priceless associate to the king!”
Anna shrugged. “From those little bits of facts, I could hardly—”
But Zofia wasn’t listening. “Lutisha!” she screamed. “Lutisha!”
The servant appeared promptly, opening the double doors. Her eyes bulged at Zofia’s nakedness.
“That letter, Lutisha, the one that came for me this morning! Where is it?”
“I left it in your room, Mademoiselle.”
“Fetch it immediately!”
The servant made for the rear stairwell.
Anna thought she detected a buoyancy in Zofia’s attitude.
But it soured quickly. Through doors that opened into the main hall, Anna could see Marcelina opening the front door to six or seven women who evidently had been sent to help prepare for a midnight supper Zofia was to host that night.
“Good God!” Zofia shrieked as she ran toward the hall. “Doesn’t one of you have a particle of a brain in those piss-pots on your shoulders?”
Already in the vestibule, the maids huddled together like does, their eyes dilated at the sight and sound of Zofia.
“Don’t stand there wiggling like a swarm of maggots! If you can’t enter this house through the servants’ entrance, you can go back to your mistresses.”
The women scurried out the door.
“You should know better,” Zofia chastised Marcelina. “Don’t ever let a servant in through the front again!”
The horrified girl nodded and retreated to the kitchen, her red apron held to her face.
When Zofia returned to the reception room, she glanced at Anna, down at herself, then at Anna again. A smile played on her lips. She seemed to recognize the farcical quality of her little scene: naked and ranting, she had demanded strict decorum from the servant class. Suddenly, she started laughing aloud.
Anna could not help but join in.
Zofia bent to pick up the fur, and she had only just draped it about herself when Countess Gronska came down from her room.
“What is all this shouting?” the countess asked, her gaze catching on Zofia.
“It’s nothing, Mother. Merely stupid servants.”
“Is this some new style of attire?” The countess took her usual chair.
Zofia left the question unanswered. Anna saw that she was surreptitiously picking up some item from a table. Anna hadn’t noticed it before; it was a piece of blue velvet that encased some small article. With her back to her mother, Zofia sidled near to her cousin, placing it in her hands and whispering something about safekeeping.
Lutisha appeared with the letter, flushed in embarrassment about her granddaughter’s gaffe. She was about to make an apology, but Zofia was already hungrily tearing open the letter. Anna winked and waved the servant away. Zofia might flare and fume at such an infraction, but it was usually quickly forgotten.
Zofia devoured the contents of the letter, the impatience giving way to smug satisfaction. “Well! It is done.”
“What is?” Anna asked.
“Potocki and those other nobles you mentioned, Anna, have formed a confederacy at Targowica—with Empress Catherine!”
“No!” the countess cried. “It can’t be true!”
“But it is, Mother.”
“What is the aim of this confederacy?” Anna asked.
Zofia tilted her head arrogantly. “To subjugate the bourgeoisie, destroy the Constitution, and restore the kingdom to what it once was! That is what you failed to grasp, cousin. That is what set those weak-kneed nobles at Lubickis to grumbling.”
“But we stand for the Constitution,” Countess Gronska said, “just as your father did.”
“Father was wrong, Mother. It was one thing Walter was right about. The Constitution is no friend to the nobility. It allows commoners to own land!”
“Is that so bad?”
“Yes, Mother. Through their accumulating wealth, they would finally destroy us. Now, the possessions of the kingdom will remain in rightful hands, in our hands.”
“And all done with her help, I suppose?”
“Catherine’s? Indeed. Hail the Empress of Russia!”
“The Empress-Whore!” the countess spat. “Was it so much to give commoners land, something to sustain them, something in which they could take pride?”
“Yes, Mother, yes. Tell me, what part of our holdings would you wish to part with?”
“If needs be, we could do with less. The constitutional reform will ease the kind of tensions that account for travesties like those occurring in France.”
“Then I am only too glad that I am in charge of the Gronski purse strings. The Constitution created unrest, Mother; it didn’t reduce it.”
The countess had winced at the reference to the disposition of the estate. Nevertheless, she drew in a long breath to sustain her reply: “The unrest has come from nobles who are disgruntled at giving up anything to the lower classes. Zofia, even if the reform would prove to be the means of our demise, as you seem to think, that does not warrant our asking Catherine for assistance. It is like a trapped mouse asking a hulk of a hungry she-cat for help. She may give it… but then what?”
“Then,” Zofia sang, “there will be no Constitution and no Third of May celebration for the rising of the scum. Only feasts and festivities for the true sons and daughters of kings!”
“We will be the cat’s supper,” the countess said, “and she will lap us up like rich cream!”
“Let’s ask Anna her opinion.” Zofia turned to her cousin. “What do you think, Ania?”
“I agree with your mother, Zofia. It’s wrong to rescind the Constitution by force and doubly wrong to employ Catherine in its undoing.”
“You’re a bit of a cretin on the quiet, aren’t you? Well, I can see I’m outnumbered in my own house.”
“And were your father here,” the countess said, “we would lend our support to the Constitution duly enacted by the Polish Sejm and signed by King Stanisław.”
“Ah, but he’s not here, Mother. And I shall lend our support where I see fit.”
Countess Gronska looked as though she had been struck.
Zofia’s face folded into a mask of contriteness. “Forgive me, Mother, but I’m not a political animal like you with your pamphlets, and you, Anna, with your little group of patriots. I am a realist, and a realist casts her fate to the strongest wind.… Now, I should rest before I begin my toilette. Thank you, cousin, for your information, however incomplete. I never would have opened Paweł’s letter detailing the confederacy, and at my supper I would have been the last to know of it. What a pretty pudding on my face!”
Zofia kissed her mother, then Anna, and started for the door, adding flippantly, “I thought Paweł’s note merely another one of his proposals.”
Anna and the countess sat for a while in silence.
Anna excused herself then, kissing her aunt on both cheeks. Upstairs, in her room, she unfolded the blue velvet and stared in wonder at a gold-mounted emerald stickpin.
Jan Michał giggled as Anna twirled his golden hair into curls. She had only just dressed him in his knitted leggings and shirt, each trimmed with blue ribbons.
A knock came at the door. Zofia peeked in. “Anna, may I come in?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Oh, let me see the little man!” Zofia walked over to where Anna lay with him on her bed. “Oh, isn’t he darling in his little clothes? Like a little prince. And the curls are delightful!”
Anna sat up at the side of the bed. “Zofia, why have you given me such a stickpin?”
“Oh, it’s a trifle.”
“Then it’s not genuine?”
“Oh, it’s genuine. It’s just that I would like you to keep it for me.… I’m afraid that I would lose it.”
“Lose it?”
“Or gamble it away, who knows? Must you ask so many questions? Is it too much to ask, that you take care of it?”
“No, I guess not.”
Zofia tempted Jan Michał with her forefinger. When he would reach for the polished nail, she withdrew it and laughed. Her infectious laughter brought him out in giggles.
“Anna, why don’t you hire a wet nurse for your baby and send them off to the country? Your life as an unattached woman here in the city would be so much freer. I have plans for you.”
The suggestion that she send her baby away carried with it the force of a slap. “Zofia, my baby does not clutter my life.”
“I didn’t mean to offend you. It’s just that, well, sooner or later, you will have think about another match.”
“The tradition of my parish is that I must wait a full year.”
“Tradition! What is tradition but some old people telling you what to do. Tradition is meant to be broken.”
“I have no intention of going husband-hunting.”
“Anna?”
“Yes?”
Zofia looked her in the eye now. “Why did you name him Jan?”
It was all Anna could do to return her gaze. “I believe it is an old family name.”
“That won’t wash. There is no one, on your mother’s or father’s side, by that name.”
“Oh, but there is. Your mother says that King Jan Sobieski is an ancestor of the Gronski clan.”
“Ah, yes, Jan Sobieski. A great patriot.”
Anna looked away. Zofia went back to teasing Jan Michał.
Anna felt her temples pulsing. She knew her cousin wasn’t about to drop the subject.
“Anna, when will you give up your infatuation with Jan Stelnicki?”
“I am not infatuated.”
“Oh, very well. You think you are in love with him, don’t you?” Zofia kept her eyes on the child. “And do you think he is in love with you? A man like that? Do you really think he’ll wait even a year?”
Anna said nothing.
“It puzzles me, cousin, why you have named this child so. I think about it sometimes. Why, you don’t think Stelnicki is the father, do you? You claimed another attacked you at the pond.”
“Claimed?”
“Yes, and we accepted that story.”
“It was not a story, Zofia.”
“Well, why would you name him thus, unless…”
“Unless what?”
Zofia’s gaze turned now to hold Anna’s. “Unless you conceived his child before that night at the pond! What with all those meetings in the meadow, there was ample opportunity. And little Jan here was born prematurely. Or so we supposed.”
Anna could not believe what she was hearing.
“And,” Zofia continued, “why would you use the Stelnicki christening gown?”
Anna felt her teeth clench in anger. “Jan is not the father.”
“Ah, no, I suppose not. It was silly of me, I admit. You were too innocent then, weren’t you? Listen to me, Anna. You were hurt, too. I know that. But every young girl has at least one ill-fated romance. Jan was yours.… You must forget him. I shall see that your next is a great success.”
“Like my marriage to Antoni?”
“Touché! No, we’ll do better this time.”
“Zofia, I intend to go to Sochaczew.”
“Oh? When?”
“At the end of the week.”
“I see.” She stood. “Well, that’s that, then, isn’t it?” She moved to the door and paused. “You’ll come winter with us again this year, won’t you?”
“I don’t know.”
“You must.” Zofia turned to face her cousin. “You know I do love you, Ania?”
Anna attempted a smile.
“Perhaps Sochaczew would be a nice respite for my mother, too. What do you think?”
When Anna did not respond, Zofia went back to her room to prepare for the midnight supper.
The Countess Gronska and Anna sat together for breakfast.
“Anna Maria, Zofia tells me you are off to Sochaczew.”
“I had planned to go, and I was going to invite you, but…”
“Yes?”
“Well, I thought if you were going to Halicz for the summer, I might join you.”
“You certainly may. I shall be glad to have you.” The countess smiled. “Tell me, dearest, did the letter you received so early this morning have anything to do with your decision?”
Anna felt chilled. “How did you know?”
“Intuition. It was from him, yes? Jan?”
Anna nodded.
“He’s going to summer in Halicz at his family estate?”
“No, aunt. Politics are moving much too swiftly. He’s tied to the cause now. He’ll be there only for a short time before he rejoins Kościuszko. If we leave at the end of the week, our time at Halicz and his will overlap by just a day or two.”
“Such a long distance to travel for a day or two. I once gave you some very bad advice, my dear. I should never have imposed marriage to Grawlinski on you.” The countess was near tears. “Anna Maria, can you ever forgive me?”
“The decision to marry Antoni was my own.”
“Zofia and I led you into it.”
“No one is to blame. Antoni was not the man he pretended to be.”
“I should have known. I should have seen! The clues were there. But you saw them, didn’t you?”
Anna stretched out her hand across the table. “We all hoped for the best.”
“I only pray that I live long enough to see you happy, Ania.” The countess clasped her niece’s hand, and she blinked back her tears.
“I have Jan Michał. I’ll not be too quick to ask for more.”
“Together we’ll go to Hawthorn House,” the countess said, brightening, “and we’ll forget what goes on here in Praga and have a wonderful summer.” The countess paused, standing abruptly. “Oh, Anna, why wait until the end of the week? We can prepare today and leave in the morning!”
In the afternoon, Anna slipped into Zofia’s room after her cousin had gone out. The diary was still in the hidden compartment of the wardrobe. She could not help but wonder what plans Zofia had for her.
While she found no new mention of her own name, she did discover how Zofia had come across the emerald stickpin and why she thought it safer with Anna.
My experience with the rich beast from The Hague happened thusly: Baron Vahnik was brought to my party by the thin Garbozki, and when he was introduced to me his tiny dark eyes stared boldly. His nose and lips are overly large, but somehow voluptuous just the same. I invited his hungry glare, not because he is so respected for his musical genius as a violinist, but out of admiration for his great wealth and his pinchable round buttocks at the base of a rather hunched back.
His eyes would follow me as I moved among my guests. When I would glance at him, he would be staring at me like a hungry calf eyes its mother. When I went into the dimly lighted music room to get a particular red wine, he followed me. Like a fat moth to a dancing flame. He overtook me from behind, embracing me roughly.
From where we stood, we were in danger of being seen by the other guests in the adjoining reception room, so I pushed the stout man away and walked toward the double doors, saying in a loud voice, “Tell me, Baron Vahnik, what is it that makes The Hague such an important city?”
Click! The doors were closed and he was upon me. Grasping the wine decanter, I pulled away playfully, moving around the piano, past the bookshelves. He caught up to me, of course, and held me tightly. It was only with the greatest effort that I didn’t cry out in pain. Although I was delighted by the whole affair.
“I must bring this wine to my guests,” I said.
“I am a guest,” he replied, pressing me against a cove in the bookshelves.
“Then take a taste” I said.
“I’ll have a taste of your lips instead.”
“It’ll cost you.”
“You like to play too much!” He clutched me then, so tightly that I lost hold of the decanter and it went crashing to the floor.
“Look what you’ve done!” I cried. “That decanter was crystal and over a hundred years old, and the wine was the last of my father’s favorite.”
“You must meet me later,” he said.
“Perhaps… if you bring something to make up for my losses.”
“I will.”
“I believe you will, but to be certain, I’ll hold on to this.” It was then that I withdrew the emerald stickpin from the ruff at his neck.
“But… it was my father’s.”
I slipped it carefully into my bodice. “And a fair bargain for my father’s antique decanter of priceless wine, not to mention the pleasures I have in store for you.”
And so I received a glorious emerald in return for a vintage wine that was mediocre at best and a decanter of mere cut glass. At the conclusion of our rendezvous the next day, he asked about the pin, but I claimed to have lost it. I must make certain that it stays well out of sight.
The Praga townhouse came alive with preparations for the trip to Halicz.
In the afternoon, Anna could not find the countess, so she went down to the kitchen. Despite the frantic buzzing that went on there, Jan Michał, exhausted by the ordeal of his bath ritual, slept soundly in a crib hanging from a rafter near the open door.
“Where is Countess Stella, Lutisha?”
Lutisha was just removing two large loaves of spicy sweet rye. “She’s gone off to the apothecary, Madame.”
“Oh.” Anna could see that Lutisha had been crying. Her heart went out to the servant, who was to remain in Praga to train another support staff for Zofia. Her daughter Marta and grandchildren Marcelina, Katarzyna, and Tomasz were to go to Halicz. Marta’s husband Walek had gone months before to see to the planting.
“Would Madame wish the heel?”
“You know I won’t refuse your bread.… We’ll miss you, Lutisha.”
“The seasons are a circle,” the servant said, smiling bravely. “The fall will come soon enough.”
“So it will.” Anna chewed at the bread. She would not tell her she had no intention of ever returning to Zofia’s townhome. “What business did the countess have at the apothecary?”
“She needed a supply of her medicine to last the summer.”
“What medicine is that?”
“I don’t know, Madame.”
“How long has she been taking it?”
“Only recently. Here, take another heel. My granddaughters always ask for the soft middle slices. They don’t know what’s best.”
As Anna took the bread, she saw the heavy tears in Lutisha’s gray eyes. Before leaving the kitchen, she surprised Lutisha by kissing her on one cheek, then the other.