Anna had been kept waiting in the cold room for more than two hours. Outside, twilight had darkened into the pitch of night. When she had been shown into the office, a Russian soldier had asked her questions in his language, and she had responded in kind. She had come to be with her dying mother, she told him, showing him her papers. Had she signed with the Confederacy of Targowica? he asked. The question startled her, and she felt her face flushing hot. Yes, she told him, hurting anew to think of it.
“It is good that you have signed, Countess.” He seemed satisfied.
Anna thought the little interview over. She stood to leave.
“Sit down, please, Countess Berezowska-Grawlińska,” he said. “You are to wait here.”
And so she waited. Another hour.
The details of the office in which she was confined—labels on a file, a flag, a man’s sash hanging on a hook—indicated that its owner was a Pole. He collected clocks and sundials, it seemed, for they were present in abundance—gathering dust on the desk in front of her, on tables, and on the walls. The steady ticking and signaling of the clocks began to work on her fragile nerves. This was time being stolen from her, minute by minute.
How had she come to find herself caught up in such a lie? Violating her dead mother’s memory in order to provide a likely excuse for a return to Sochaczew—it made her feel small. Oh, it was true that her name had been affixed to the Confederacy of Targowica, but it was her cousin Zofia who—without consultation—had added their names to those of greedy and misled nobles, men who should have known better than to ask Russia’s Catherine to intercede and overthrow the democratic Third of May Constitution. Aunt Stella had been astute in predicting that Catherine would want more than to help crush the seeds of democracy in Poland, that she would want Poland, as well.
But Anna had to admit to herself that lies might have their place in a truthful world, for the lie about her mother would admit her to her home and a new life with Jan Stelnicki—just as the traitorous placement of her name with the Confederacy had already served her well. Zofia had once told her that lies were more useful than truth. Had she been right? And were such means justified?
The door opened now and the Russian soldier entered, followed by a man in the old-fashioned Polish garb of Eastern influence—a long coat over tight trousers, a colorful sash at a thickening waist and a ruff at a fleshy neck. He seemed to have been taken away from a meal, for he was still chewing and wiping at his grizzled moustache. Anna thought him to be in his mid-fifties. He appeared vaguely familiar.
“This is Countess Berezowska-Grawlińska” the Russian pronounced, failing to introduce the Pole to her. “I am finished with her. You are to question the good countess and make a report. If she does not cooperate, she is to be detained.”
“I understand,” the Pole said.
“Good!” The Russian made his exit, his boot heels hitting hard upon the wooden floor. He left open the door that led to other offices.
“Now, Lady Berezowska-Grawlińska, we will have a nice little chat in our own tongue, yes?” The Pole went to the chair behind the desk and inked a pen.
He avoided calling her countess. Like most of the szlachta, the minor nobility, he did not use titles in direct address, for they thought it too imperious to do so. Anna was buoyed by the thought that they were Poles of the same class and dared to hope she would find an understanding ear and quickly be put on her way home. But there was something about his eyes and deep, gravel-like voice that gave her pause. What was it? And it was odd that a Pole should carry such weight in a town garrisoned by Russians.
“You have been away some time,” he said.
“Yes, I have… and I am hoping to return to my estate as soon as possible.”
“Topolostan—ah, yes. Of course, I understand. This should not take long.”
“That’s very good to hear.” Anna’s reply was all bluster. In reality, his familiarity with her estate’s name unnerved her.
“When did you leave Sochaczew?”
“In July of 1791.”
“A long time.”
“I’ve lived with my aunt in Halicz and more recently in Praga.”
With each of her answers, the man scratched away at a bit of paper. “And what has prompted your return?” The end of the man’s pen tapped one of his upper teeth.
Anna felt a pressure on her heart. This time the lie came with a great uneasiness—still, she could not change her story now. “I’ve… I’ve come to be with my mother.… She’s in ill health.”
One of his bushy eyebrows lifted now and he withdrew the pen from his mouth. “Dying, isn’t that what you told the lieutenant?”
Anna swallowed hard. “Yes.… It is reason enough, I should think.”
“Ah, yes. But these Russians are suspicious souls, are they not?”
Anna felt awkward. She would not allow him to place potentially dangerous words into her mouth. She affected a non-smile, the type her mother had used as a mask for displeasure. What she longed for was the protection of her father, long dead.
The official grew tired of waiting for a verbal reply. “And we Poles are a resourceful lot.”
“I don’t wish to be held up any longer. My servant must be freezing in our carriage. She’s elderly, and I’d like to get her home.”
“It is hard to lose a parent. Myself, I have lost both.”
“I’m sorry. Then you understand—”
“What I don’t understand, Lady Berezowska-Grawlińska,” he said, his small, milky blue eyes boring into hers, “is the reason for your deceit.”
“Deceit?” Anna’s heart tripled in time.
“Come, come, my lady,” he said, his voice taking on gruffness, “you know as well as I that when you left here three years ago, you left your parents stone cold in the ground!”
Anna couldn’t think; she could only stare dumbly at this smug creature who suddenly seemed quite capable of anything.
He was smiling, as if he had just brought down a deer.
“How do you know—”
“How do I know? I am the starosta here in Sochaczew, have been for nearly twenty years.”
“The starosta?”
“Ah, our Russian hosts do not always show good manners. The lieutenant didn’t introduce me. I am Lord Grzegorz Doliński.”
Anna’s back went rigid, but she attempted to maintain her composure. While she had seen him only once, years before, the name now brought home to her his identity. He was indeed the croaky-voiced magistrate of Sochaczew. It was he who had investigated the murder of her father and taken into custody the peasant who had killed him. And it was he who had somehow allowed the murderer to escape. An old wound opened, loosing a bitter poison into Anna’s bloodstream as she recalled how, on her deathbed, her mother had cursed the name of Doliński.
Anna could scarcely believe that she stood before him—and at his mercy.
Doliński laughed. “You’re wondering what I’m doing here, Lady Anna! Here at my old desk with my sundials and clocks—and amidst a contingent of the red devils!”
When Anna merely stared, he smiled. “Captured your thoughts, have I?”
Anna suppressed the bile that rose up within her and nodded.
“We Poles are resourceful, always able to survive, yes? Well, the Russians are clever ones, too, they are. When they take over a town or a country, they don’t replace the old bureaucracy with their own. Oh no, they’re smart enough to keep things and people in place whenever and wherever they can, so that life goes on—or seems to go on—much like it had before their frontier violation. Their invasion appears less invasive, if you take my meaning. People adapt and are less likely to rebel. And so here I am at the desk I came to years ago.” He pushed his eyebrows upward. “Of course, I must answer to them.”
Words failed Anna. She had been caught in a stupid and useless lie. What had prompted her to risk all? It was a foolish gamble. And she had lost to a longtime family enemy. Her arrest was all but certain. Perhaps the best she could look forward to would be a return trip to the capital. And the worst… well, she knew of nobles who had been deported to Siberia. And now, as if to ring out her sentence, the six o’clock bells and chimes on the many clocks began to peal.
“Come here, Lady Anna,” Doliński said, pushing back his chair and moving across the room. “Come quickly and look at this one.”
Reluctantly Anna obeyed.
“It’s a beauty, isn’t it?” Doliński was referring to a cuckoo clock of linden wood hanging upon the wall. The yellow painted bird was just now delivering its final call. “It’s Austrian.”
“It’s ‘cuckoo’ in any language, Lord Doliński.”
He looked at Anna, paused for a moment, and laughed. “Marvelous, Lady Anna! I shall remember that one.”
Anna did not laugh.
“Oh, you needn’t be afraid. You may miss the evening meal at your manor house, but there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be home tonight.”
“Then you won’t—”
“Tell our new Russian landlords of your little lie?” He moved toward a window as he spoke. Was he looking out at her carriage? Anna wanted to curse the man but knew to say nothing. He returned to where she stood. “I must write my report, Lady Berezowska-Grawlińska. It may be dangerous for me to write something other than the truth.”
Anna remained silent, already suspicious of his intent.
“We Poles survive, do we not, Anna? May I call you that?—Oh, not all of us, of course, but the smart ones do. Come… come back to the desk.” He took hold of Anna’s arm to lead her.
Anna smiled and disengaged herself. Walking back to the desk, she felt the bile rising again and imagined herself running from the room. But where would that lead? Certain arrest? Confinement? She thought she would be ill. When they seated themselves again, she welcomed having the desk between them.
“Should I choose to clear you to leave, my dear, you would be in my debt.”
Anna concluded that the man was suggesting a bribe. “I have but little money on my person, but I can request some from Warsaw.”
He waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. “I hear the mint’s been shut down, despite Stanisław’s pleas to his old lover Catherine.—Oh, I have more money than things to spend it on, my dear.” Elbows on his desk, he placed the tips of his fingers of one hand against those of the other. “I appreciate your concern, but I’m not hinting for money, Anna Berezowska-Grawlińska.”
Anna looked into his fleshy face. His eyes—like blue stones—confirmed her suspicion. Her heart swung out over an abyss. What was she to do?
He smiled. “Nonetheless, I am a man who likes to be appreciated.”
Anna stiffened in her chair. “Your favor to me would be much appreciated, Lord Doliński. But if you are a true Pole and a man of conscience, such a favor might redeem you of a past failing.”
Surprise spread over Doliński’s face. “Failing, you say?”
Anna stood. “You were in charge of confining the man who killed my father. Feliks Paduch managed to get away under your watch. I should think you would be glad to have the opportunity of doing Samuel Berezowski’s daughter a good turn.”
“Oh my, you are your father’s daughter!”
“I take that as a compliment!”
“Ah! I like a woman with a bit of spirit.” Then, in a harder voice: “Please sit down, Lady Berezowska-Grawlińska.”
Anna pushed down the rage she feared would spill out in invective. She sat.
He leaned forward over the desk now. “Your eyes are magnificent, Anna.… You see, I can be appreciative, as well.”
“Tell me, Lord Doliński, do you collect women as you do clocks?”
Doliński turned crimson and drew back, as if stung. Was he angry? Or did he still have enough of a sense of decorum to be shamed? Before he could do or say anything to reveal himself, the Russian came clumsily into the room.
“Well?” the lieutenant asked. Doliński coughed and looked down at the paper on which he had scribbled, the nib on his pen long dried up.
Anna felt faint. This man with the stones for eyes had her life in his keeping. What would he say?
The Russian glared at Anna, then at Doliński. “Come, come,” he prodded. “I don’t have all day.”
“I… I have yet to finish the interview, lieutenant.”
“Very well. She’ll have to keep, then. I’ve another for you to question. This one looks more promising… but not nearly so pretty.” The Russian winked at Anna.
When the door closed behind them, Anna heard the lock fall into place.
Zofia was unaware of how many days or weeks had passed in the pitifully tiny cottage. The fever held on tenaciously. She slept constantly, dreamt deeply, allowing herself to come to the surface of awareness when Danuta sponged her body, helped her to eat broth and bread, or aided in the use of the chamber pot. Occasionally Danuta’s father forced foul-tasting herbal potions upon her. Her son—the boy who had rescued Zofia—was not in evidence.
For a long while, Zofia thought she would not live—and often prayed that the end would be quick and painless. Her days of parties, balls, and castle intrigue seemed a lifetime ago. But in time, the fever broke, strength seeped back into her bones and flesh, just as spring carries life to a cold and dead land. Although spring was still months away, it was with a start that Zofia realized she would survive.
As her physical condition improved, so did her spirit. She began to wonder about Anna. Had she made it safely across the bridge? Had she survived?—And Jan? Had he survived the Russian deluge? Most of the time, however, she worried how she would be able to return to Warsaw… and what she would find there.
Wearing a cotton shift, she was sitting in a crude and cushionless chair one day when she heard someone enter the dwelling. Danuta and her father had left for the village not long before, so she was immediately put on guard.
“Mother?” came a gentle voice.
Zofia saw a face appear around the corner, then disappear. “Come in, come in,” she called.
Slowly a figure came into the doorway.
“Your mother’s gone out. You must be Jerzy.”
He nodded uncertainly.
“You fetched me from the river,” Zofia said, marveling at his resemblance to another.
He nodded again.
“Come in. A few days ago I would have scolded you for not letting the river do its work. But today I am able to thank you.”
The boy dared to take two paces. He seemed confused.
“How old are you, Jerzy?”
He cleared his throat. “Sixteen, milady.”
“I see. I think your mother has sent you out of the house, no?” Zofia nodded toward the bed. “Is this yours?” When he colored slightly, she asked where he had been sleeping and eating.
“In the barn, milady.” The boy shifted from one foot to the other. “It’s not so bad.”
“With the chickens and that damn rooster I hear?”
“Yes, milady.”
“And with the goats that go on braying the livelong day?”
“Bleating. It is donkeys that bray.”
Zofia laughed. “You have those, too?”
“No, milady.”
“Sheep?”
“A few.” Jerzy shrugged. “They stay outside except in blizzards or hard rains.”
“And then?”
The boy lifted his blue eyes to the ceiling. “There’s an attic above.”
“Above?—Above me, you mean?”
He nodded. “We have a ramp to the rear of the house.”
“You do?” Zofia asked, imagining a little Noah’s ark overhead. “Hardly a petit palais, to be certain,” Zofia said with a smile, confident he would not understand. She offered her hand. “Thank you, Jerzy.”
The boy stepped forward, unsure what was expected of him. He looked at his own hands, filthy from the morning’s work, then dropped them. It was an awkward moment, and Zofia tried to stifle the giggle that tickled upwards in her throat—to no avail. Of course, he had never kissed a lady’s hand. What was she thinking? He was blushing now.
She dropped her hand and attempted small talk while she studied Jerzy more closely. His clothes were those of a peasant farmer, scarcely more than filthy rags, the boots well-worn and caked with mud. But he was already tall and nicely built. The dusty blonde hair framed a face more aristocratic than peasant. He was a striking boy, with his deep blue eyes, and he would be a handsome man. Here amidst stark poverty and ugliness was this golden child favored by the gods.
Zofia knew she was making him uneasy—as much with her talk as with her eyes. Oddly, the sight of him squirming in discomfort gave her pleasure.
“I must go now,” Jerzy said at last, turning for the door.
“If you must, Jerzy… but come visit again, will you?”
The boy’s blush deepened and he disappeared.
Zofia laughed aloud when she was alone. It felt good to laugh. As if she had only just started to live again. It felt good, too, to enjoy handsome male company. Even one as young as Jerzy.
She returned to her bed with its straw mattress, scarcely believing how the short interchange had sapped her strength. She lay back against the lumpy pillow. The little burst of energy had come and gone. The weakness made her worry that it would still be some time before she could hope to leave this place. How long?
Zofia allowed herself now to reflect on the realization that had come upon her the moment the young boy walked in. A sweet nostalgia filled her as her mind allowed a decade to fall away. She remembered the many trips from her parents’ house at Halicz to the neighboring Stelnicki estate at Uście Zielone where an aristocratic replica of Jerzy had welcomed her. Dog’s Blood!—Jerzy was the very image of Jan Stelnicki!
Count Jan Stelnicki. The nostalgia drained away almost at once, memories quickly turning bitter. She had counted on—plotted—an alliance with Jan to avoid a marriage betrothal to another made by her parents when she was a mere baby. But that was before the arrival of Anna at Halicz. Little Anna Maria with her reddish-brown braids and wide green eyes! How had her cousin won his affection? How had she lost it? The mystery still irked her. Well, she had had the satisfaction of foisting off on Anna the man to whom she had been engaged, Antoni Grawliński. She could not help but smile to herself. What a crafty piece of work that had been!
The smile disappeared. How could she have known the tragic end that marriage would come to?… Well, better her than me, Zofia thought. And yet a little truth that she had always held below the surface rose up now—before Anna came on the scene, Zofia had been interested in Jan mainly as a way of avoiding an arranged marriage, but after Anna seemed to win his affection, her own interest in Jan increased to a white heat. She had been jealous of Anna.
Still, she loved her cousin. A little mystery, that.—Had Anna survived the Russians? Zofia had done what she could to get her safely across the bridge. She hoped—and somehow instinctively felt—that Anna had indeed survived. Zofia had told her to go to Paweł’s Warsaw town house. Is that where she was? The Russians would not harm her, for Zofia had affixed their names to the Confederacy of Targowica.
And Jan. Had he survived? This seemed less likely. He was the foolishly courageous type, willing to go at professional killers with a handsaw. But if both Anna and he survived, how long would it be before they found each other? The thought took hold of her, provoking a kind of panic. She wrestled with the counterpane and turned to the wall. When would she be well enough to return to Warsaw? How was she to get there? How far down river had the current taken her?
And what would she find in the capital? Her thoughts and the helplessness of lying in a sick bed day after day were more than she could bear.
Why must life be so complicated? Her mind came back to Jerzy. How simple life would be if only she were sixteen and a pretty village maid being courted by him. She allowed the pleasurable daydream to play out in her head. She would tend a cottage garden, cultivating rue and rosemary for her bridal wreath and lavender to freshen the linens in her dowry chest. On her wedding night he would remove her wedding cap and take her into his strong, sun-burnished arms… .
But a peasant? Zofia thought again. She looked about the bleak little room, pictured Danuta and her father in their pitiful clothes going about their tedious and grueling tasks. She thought of herself as part of their household, kneading dough, keeping the bigos pot at low heat for hours on end, feeding and killing chickens. And producing children like Lutisha turned out strings of sausages. She laughed aloud. Not in this life, she thought. The old attraction she had for the city, fine clothes, jewels, money, men—and power—sprouted up again, like a plant with intractable roots.
Still, at Jerzy’s image she felt a tickling sort of warmth spreading through her. She stopped laughing. Surely there was some way she could repay the boy.
Jan paced the length of the reception room, fraught with worry. Each time he passed the window he looked out into the bluish night, down the long, curving avenue, high with snow and bordered by parallel rows of poplars and twin ponds.
Midnight had come and gone without a carriage from Warsaw. Had the departure date changed in the time that had passed since the letter came from Paweł? Had Anna been delayed? Turned back by the Russians? Or worse?
By the time most of the candles in the reception room had guttered, he sat in semi-darkness, his body tense with worry. With the homecoming celebration suspended, he had sent the Szrabers home to their cottage for the night. From the rear of the house came the worried whispers of Marta and her daughters. Of course, they loved Anna, but Marta’s mother, Lutisha, was the beloved matriarch of the little family, and their concern for her was great.
Jan Michał had refused to go to bed at midnight when hopes for his mother’s arrival faded. It had been a mistake to tell the boy his mother was expected home, but who could have known? “No bed!” he told a frustrated Emma when she tried to coax him upstairs, “No bed!”
Jan had had to intercede. “Aren’t you a little soldier?” he asked, lifting the brown-eyed youngster into the air.
“Oh, yes!” Jan Michał cried, thrilled by the motion.
“Well, soldiers must go to bed!” Jan said, setting him down. “They need their rest so they can do the king’s work. You don’t want to disappoint the king, do you?”
The boy’s face clouded. “No.”
“Then you’ll let Emma bring you up to bed?”
The boy thought. “You bring me, Jan!”
The bargain was struck. Jan carried the boy upstairs. “Will Matka be here when I wake up?” Jan Michał asked before Jan could snuff the candle.
Jan kissed him on the forehead. “We will hope so… goodnight.”
But his mother had yet to arrive. Jan sat now, despondent and frustrated. What should he do? What could he possibly do? He could not just ride off in the direction of Warsaw. He had no papers to travel, and his service under Kościuszko made him no friend of the interlopers. He looked at the bottle of good Gdańsk vodka that was to have supplied many a toast that night. He vowed not to touch it until Anna was safely home.
Jan struggled to stay awake, but the preparations for Anna’s homecoming had exhausted him so that by two in the morning sleep had overtaken him in the chair where he sat.
The clock was striking three when Jan came awake with a start.
Someone’s hand was on his shoulder. He opened his eyes to find Walek’s face staring down at him. The fire in the grate had gone out, and the room was dark and cold. “What?” Jan asked, asked. “What is it, Walek? News?”
“Yes, milord.”
Jan reared up in his chair, fear taking hold. “For God’s sake, man, tell me!”
“Lady Anna’s carriage has arrived.”
Jan was on his feet in an instant. “Arrived? She’s here?” Pulling on his frock coat, he broke for the front door.
“Wait, milord!”
“What? What is it?”
“The carriage has already been unloaded, milord. Passengers and baggage.”
“Unloaded! Then where… ?”
Walek allowed himself a smile now. “Lady Anna and Lutisha are in the kitchen with my wife and children.”
Jan felt suddenly lightheaded. And shamed that he had fallen asleep, that he was not the first to greet Anna. “What kept them?”
Walek shrugged. “That, Lady Anna can tell you herself.”
Jan started for the kitchen, his heart beating erratically. He could hear the animated talk now.
He saw the back of her head first, the reddish tint of the brown tresses highlighted by the huge kitchen hearth at full heat. Lutisha, sitting across from her, saw him enter. She looked up and grinned. Her daughter and grandchildren fell silent. Anna turned in her chair to see him approaching and stood immediately to greet him. Her dress was gray and creased from traveling. The strain Jan saw in Anna’s face lasted only seconds. She smiled widely. “Jan!” she cried, forgetting any formality.
Speechless, Jan moved forward and swept her into his arms. He was kissing her even before her face could fall into focus. It had been more than two years since he had seen her, two years that fell away in a single embrace. The formality of kisses on either cheek was jettisoned aside as he held her, his mouth hard upon hers. She held tight to him, giving herself over. Forgetting present company, he drew back only to give her space for breath—and then kissed her again.
Pulling back at last, he saw her emerald eyes filling with tears. His heart waxed full. It was only then that they realized how forward their behavior was in the company of servants—and that they held the rapt attention of everyone in the room. Anna’s face flushed red.
“You must forgive us,” Jan said, noticing that Lutisha and Marta were blushing, as well. Marta and Walek’s two girls and young son were trying to suppress their giggles.
It was Lutisha’s turn to surprise the group now. “God be blessed,” she said, “that is the way every Pole should greet his love!”
Everyone laughed and gave assent, diffusing Jan and Anna’s embarrassment.
“I told them not to wake you,” Anna said, looking pointedly at Walek.
“Beggin’ your pardon, milady, we figured he wouldn’t have it that way.”
“Indeed!” Jan cried. “Indeed!” It was all he could manage for fear his own tears would start. He suspected she had wanted their reunion more private.
“I’m sorry, Lord Stelnicki,” Marta offered, “I should have awakened you as soon as Walek went out to direct the carriage into the stable, but I—I was too excited to see my mother, and I forgot. We all rushed outside.”
“I understand, Marta,” Jan said, dividing his smile between her and Lutisha. “Don’t give it a second thought!”
Chairs were brought in, and everyone sat as if they were all of one family, one clan. The occasion seemed to call for it, and no one appeared to mind. Anna told them of the journey home. “The delay at the starosta’s office was tedious and uncomfortable, but Lutisha had the worst of it, having to stay in the cold carriage. Thank God for her strength and patience!”
Lutisha’s large face reddened and her grandchildren chided her for it. She blushed all the more.
Jan sent Walek to the reception room for the bottle of vodka, and toasts were made all around for the health of everyone there, for Poland, for the king.
Later, just before sunrise, Anna and Jan sat facing each other in the reception room, alone for the first time. Jan had lighted the hearth and found fresh candles. He studied Anna in the flickering light. “Why on earth did you tell them not to wake me, Anna?”
“I don’t know. I was afraid, I think. Two years is so long… and your wound—you wrote so little about it—I didn’t know what to expect.”
“A shoulder wound—it’s nothing.” He shrugged. “A lancer nearly knocked me off my horse.”
“Is it painful?”
“No, it’s well healed. I have a bit of a scar, though. He paid for his inaccuracy, I can tell you.” He gave a nervous laugh. “I do hope a little damage doesn’t affect our bargain.”
“Bargain?”
He moved from his chair and sank to his knees near Anna. He took her hand in his. “You will marry me, Anna?”
She nodded. Color was rising in her cheeks. “It’s been so very long… are you certain?”
“Of course, I’m certain!” Jan said, then paused, peering into the green eyes. “Are you?”
Her long-lashed eyelids sank slowly and retracted twice before she could summon speech. “Yes.… Jan, two years ago… at Halicz… you joined Kościuszko’s army before I could tell you… that I love you.”
Jan’s very core—one hardened by soldiering—seemed to melt away. “Oh, Anna, know that I love you.”
“But I wished a thousand times that I had not allowed you to go off to war without having told you.… Had something happened—”
“Anna,” Jan said, pressing her hand, “I knew. I knew! How could you think that I didn’t know? Words weren’t necessary then, and they aren’t now.”
Anna’s eyes assessed him. It seemed that, rather than give herself over to tears, she laughed. “Then my worry was all for nothing.”
He kissed her now, taking her by surprise and feeling her lips yield to his, her mouth to his tongue. He had not given her such a kiss since that day in the forest nearly four years before. Jan opened his eyes slightly to see that Anna’s green eyes were open wide. He pulled back. “You were kissing with your eyes open!”
Anna smiled. “I had to assure myself it was really you, Jan, and no dream.”
Jan returned her smile. “And your verdict?”
It was Anna who kissed him now, without reservation. His arms went around her. Her mouth was warm and sweet.
“We’ll be married as soon as possible,” Jan whispered, drawing back at last. “Next week—”
“Oh, Jan, there are conventions. The banns need to be read at church…” Anna stopped speaking, and her face went as white as a Sunday napkin.
Jan laughed. “I know what you’re thinking. That I’m of the Arian faith. Well, I have a bit of a surprise. I’ve become a Catholic.”
Anna’s deep-set eyes grew large.
“That was your concern, yes?”
“But when… why?”
“Last year, but I made up my mind to do it long before that—just after you asked me to be godfather to your son and I was unable to do so because I was not Catholic. I converted so that it would never be a concern again. But as far as other conventions, Poland has been reduced to nothing, so conventions be damned!”
“Jan, you meant what you wrote, about Jan Michał.”
“About adopting him as my own? Of course. Although two Jans in the house may be confusing. Maybe you should call me Janek.”
“No, I think not.” Anna said. The reply came immediately and with a kind of abruptness.
“You don’t like the diminutive?”
“No,” she responded with a certainty meant to close the matter.
Her peremptory reaction to the diminutive was odd, but the lips that he longed to kiss turned up in a half-smile now, and he put the thought aside and kissed her yet again.
“As for the name,” Anna said after the kiss, “we shall come to some resolution for what is the most happy of problems for me.”
“Well, it’s one you should sleep on. I must go and let you rest.” Jan stood now. He did not want to leave. He wanted desperately to kiss her again—but he was afraid that another kiss would not be enough—
“Go?”
“Yes, I’m staying at the Szraber cottage.”
“But there are two guest-chambers here.” Anna rose from her chair. “Haven’t you been staying here?”
“Yes, but now it’s hardly proper.” Jan felt himself blushing. “Not until we’re married, Anna.” He attempted a laugh. “What would Lutisha say?”
Anna thought a moment. “Sometimes I do think it is the peasant class that sets the moral tone for the szlachta!”
“They do say,” Jan added, “that the lining is sometimes better than the coat!”
They both laughed.
“Anna?”
“Yes?”
“The starosta—he treated you well, did he?”
Anna’s eyes moved away. “Come to the window, Jan.” She spoke as she walked, her hand in his. “Oh, he kept us waiting some time, but all’s well now.… Look, Jan, the sun is just about to break!”
Later, as Jan walked to the Szraber cottage, his eyes fixed on the sky that was becoming tinged with red, but failing to bring it into focus. His thoughts inexplicably came back to Jan Michał and his elation was tempered just a little. He had vowed to adopt Jan Michał as his own, and he had meant it. Why, then, did the promise carry with it a weight that tugged at his heart?
Anna looked in on her son before going to her own room. The blond hair of his babyhood was browner now, but the face was just as angelic. She dared not awaken him. Before retiring, she sat in her old window seat, watching the blue-black of night recede. Below a rabbit skittered across the snow, making for the bare acacia trees near one of the ponds.
Alone now, the memory of Grzegorz Doliński’s face, voice, and touch returned. She had been kept waiting, listening to the ticking and pealing of those clocks for hours on end for no good reason. All on his whim. Then she was allowed to go. “I hope you enjoy your visit, Lady Berezowska-Grawlińska,” he had said as she left. Anna turned around. “It is not a visit,” she said dryly. “I have come home.” Doliński smiled. “All the better.” Those words, delivered in his gravel-like voice chilled her then, chilled her now, but Anna became determined not to permit this man—the man who had allowed the escape of her father’s murderer—to haunt her.
Anna sat a while longer. It was from that window seat in June of 1791 that Anna had watched in horror as peasants brought home the body of her father. Memories of the father she worshipped and that terrible time flooded her. The serfs on her father’s land loved and respected him, all but one: the scoundrel who took his life, Feliks Paduch. The irony was that her father treated the families on his estate well and believed that the Third of May Constitution would bring the country closer to a full democracy.
Her father’s death had seemed to initiate other tragedies.… Anna shook her head, hoping to clear her mind… .As tentacles of light pushed their way into the dark nave of the sky, Anna watched the snowy landscape glow pink, as if lighted from beneath. She forced herself back into the present. She was to be married. She was to have the marriage she should have had four years before. With Jan’s conversion to Catholicism, the last obstacle was set aside. She remembered how Jan had told her years before that he did not disbelieve the gods of the religions, that his was a personal god, one found in essence of the flowers, trees, and sky. He had puzzled her then, but in time she had come to understand. Oh, his conversion did not mean he had not abandoned his iconoclastic beliefs, either, she knew. He had converted for her sake alone.
She smiled, warmed by the thought. He could not have known that his stand on religion would not have kept her from him. Nothing would have kept her from him. Not after all that had happened. And she would never call him Janek. That was a diminutive Zofia had used on occasion as a way of pretending some intimacy existed between her and Jan. Anna knew that Zofia had purposely set out to undermine her relationship with Jan. Oh, she had done her damage. But she would do no more, Anna thought. No more.
Anna willed away her fear of happiness. She would be happy.
A motion outside the window took her attention. She looked out now into the winter dawn to see a white eagle winging its way against a crimson sky.