Sergei had not returned to the home of his youth in twenty years. He had not even ventured near the place for a brief look. Perhaps, instead of dwelling on the past like his father, he had been guilty of trying to ignore it.
But memories of that final day were still painful to him. His last words to his father were as vivid to him now as when he had bitterly leveled them:
“Goodbye, Father. You are finally rid of me. . . . If you are lucky, I will catch a Tatar bullet and not return!”
He could still feel his father’s stunned silence. If only he had bothered to look into the man’s eyes then, he might have perceived the awful inner pain that had contributed, as much as anything, to his father’s mental breakdown. Would Sergei have embraced the man as his heart had longed to do? Probably not. Sergei had been far too stubborn and proud then; it took a severe breaking of his own to bring him to repentance. And by then, it had been too late to help his father. Sergei would always carry with him the scars from that failure.
Sergei had shaved off his beard, hoping his father was not too far gone to recognize him. He had decided to enter the house by the front door, in full view of the desperate man holed up inside. He reached the door unscathed. If Viktor was watching, he must have recognized him. Twenty years of aging were undoubtedly carved upon Sergei’s face, but without the full peasant beard, he looked more youthful, more like the young man who had walked away from this house in bitter anger.
Before setting his hand on the latch, Sergei instinctively glanced over his shoulder. He couldn’t see Anna, who was seated in a carriage with Mrs. Remington just outside the gates, but it was reassuring at least to know she was near and praying for him. He tried not to think of the police and Vlasenko, who were also waiting outside the gates. But, if he were recognized, then so be it. His father’s welfare came first.
He turned the latch.
“Papa!” he called as he entered. Sergei had not called his father papa since he was ten years old, when Viktor informed him that soldiers did not use such childish words.
He walked through the entryway, the musty smells of long disuse hovering all around. But Sergei barely noticed the cold, damp air. Instead, he recalled the smells and warmth and sounds of the past. Katrina’s lively vitality and hearty laugh . . . his mother’s fragile grace and gentle voice . . . himself, as a boy, playing hide-and-seek in the wide corridors. Memories surged around him like wraiths; he felt as if he had stepped out of reality and entered Viktor’s fantasy world.
“Papa, it’s me, Sergei!” he called as he mounted the wide, curving stairway.
He looked in the rooms that fronted the house, thinking that Viktor would have been keeping watch for intruders. They were empty of human inhabitants, but filled with more haunting memories. In one room, he found a pistol lying on the floor; leaving it where he found it, he continued his search.
He should have gone to his mother’s room first, but that only occurred to him as logic failed. Sergei found Viktor sitting on Natalia’s pink divan, holding in his hands a ruffled pillow covered with satin and lace.
“Papa.”
Viktor’s head jerked up, a frown twitching his brow.
“Sergei, you are back. We must tell your mother. She’ll be so glad.”
“Papa, we can’t—”
“Nonsense. Why, she would never forgive us if we didn’t. Come along.” He jumped up, sending a cloud of dust into the air. “Confound that Nina for not keeping up her duties.”
Still holding the pillow, Viktor hurried out of the room. Sergei followed him. At Katrina’s room, Viktor paused, then went in, muttering that Natalia was probably visiting their daughter. The room was as still and dusty as Natalia’s pink and rose boudoir. Sergei was about to attempt to reason with his father again when it occurred to him just to watch.
“Natalia, are you here?” Viktor called. When no answer came, he ambled about the room as if he were waiting for a summons. Every now and then he would pause, look at something, smile or frown, then move on. He picked up a doll sitting with several others on a shelf. Sergei remembered Anna’s story of how Katrina, in a frenzied attempt to grow up, had redecorated her room, hurting many feelings as she thoughtlessly crated up all signs of her childhood. Such impulsiveness was so like Katrina, but she had later repented—also so like his sister.
Viktor moved on to another shelf. He picked up a book, an ornately bound Bible, and blew a layer of dust from its surface.
“She thought the maid had taken it,” Viktor muttered. “She felt so bad when she found out I had it all along. I wonder if she ever knew how much it hurt me that she’d tossed it in a box of cast-offs. I chose it myself and gave it to her for Easter when she was six years old. She always wanted me to read to her from it. I did sometimes, but often I was too busy. . . .” He hugged the book to his chest, along with Natalia’s pillow. “I’m sorry I didn’t find more time. . . .”
“No one blames you, Papa,” said Sergei, his voice choking with emotion.
Viktor looked at Sergei as if seeing him for the first time. “How can that be?”
“Because we love you, Papa.” Tears welled up in Sergei’s eyes.
“I will apologize to them. It’s not too late—”
“Papa—”
“No! There’s still a chance—” Viktor rushed out of the room. “Natalia . . . Natalia!”
For a moment Sergei was frozen in place, unable to move because of the burden of pain he bore for his father. The echoing of Viktor’s pathetic shouts in the hall seared Sergei’s mind and soul. Oh, God! he cried within himself. But when he tried to form a more complete prayer, his mind would not focus—all he could hear was the melancholy voice of his once-strong, once-idolized father.
“Natalia . . . Katrina . . . Sergei . . .”
Sergei feared the man had finally gone over that terrible precipice that had been looming before him for the last twenty years. It had been too much for him to face the past. Maybe it was better ignored.
God, is there no hope for my papa? Sergei wept.
“Natalia . . .”
Woodenly, Sergei left Katrina’s sitting room. He was afraid to continue following his father, but he knew he must. He went in the direction of the ghastly echo. But as he rounded a corridor he heard a crash, and Viktor’s cries stopped.
Sergei found his father crumpled on the floor, a table knocked over and the shards of a broken vase scattered around him. At first Sergei thought that Viktor, in his blind irrationality, had merely bumped into a table. Then Sergei’s eyes strayed to the wall behind Viktor and saw what must have disturbed his father—a family portrait.
Sergei vividly recalled the time they had spent sitting for it. He had been fourteen, and though having to sit still for hours was sheer misery, he had anticipated the three days spent on the project because it had meant rare uninterrupted time with his busy father.
As if reading his thoughts, Viktor said, “They won’t answer me . . . they won’t forgive me.”
“That’s not true,” said Sergei. “We forgive you.” He dropped on his knees beside his father and grasped his shoulders in his hands. “I forgive you, Papa.” He looked deep into Viktor’s haunted eyes. “Do you hear? I forgive you!”
Slowly Viktor’s eyes focused. And for the first time in years those eyes saw, not a bitter twenty-four-year-old youth languishing in cruel exile, but a man of forty-three, whose own eyes were filled with love and mercy and forgiveness.
“Dear God! Sergei, my son.”
“Papa!”
They fell into each other’s arms, weeping and sobbing. Neither could speak for some time.
At last Viktor said in a raw, shaky voice, “They’re dead, Sergei. My Natalia is dead . . . my Katrina is dead.”
“I know, Papa.”
“What am I going to do?”
“You’ve just done the hardest part, Papa. Now you can grieve for them—we can grieve together.” Sergei picked up the Bible and the pillow and placed them before Viktor. “We can remember them . . . remember how much they loved us.”
“The pain . . . I don’t know if I can stand the pain,” said Viktor.
“I’ll be here to help you. And Papa, there are others, too. You have grandchildren, and Mrs. Remington, and Anna. You won’t be alone.”
“I never was alone, Sergei . . . was I?”
“Would you like to see them now?”
Viktor looked down at his disheveled appearance, felt his reddened eyes and tear-streaked face, and experienced momentary shame. “I—I don’t think I ought to . . . not like this—” Then he stopped and shook his head with a frightening violence. “My pride will someday be the death of me. I have already put them off for too long. Take me to them, Sergei. Let them see the man I really am.”
“Papa, that’s the only man we have ever wanted to see!”
Father and son helped each other up, and together they walked down the corridor and outside into the sunlit day.