Margarita was surprised but not particularly disturbed the first time her brother-in-law Donovalov called upon her. He was not the only man to use what she perfectly well perceived to be the feeble excuse of having been in the area – of ‘all but passing the front door’ – and of being overcome by a pressing urge to check that Sasha’s pretty but presumably unavoidably neglected young wife was not in dire need of assistance or company. Her husband’s unattached fellow-officers – indeed even one or two of the indisputably attached ones – remarkably often had the same charitable thought; far be it from Margarita to discourage such gentlemanly instincts. Never in the habit of looking beneath the surface of her own or others’ actions and long accustomed to taking for granted the attentions of the opposite sex, it did not occur to her to think it strange that a man who though related to her by marriage had barely bothered to pass the time of day before should suddenly take it into his head to call upon her.
Donovalov perched upon her pretty chintz chair, his tea glass balanced upon his knee. They discussed the weather – there had been a sudden unseasonal thaw in the city and the streets ran unpleasantly with mud and slush, making any but the shortest of journeys all but impossible – and the dying but still delightfully spicy scandal of Katya’s elopement. He mentioned neither Lenka nor the children; Margarita, never more than marginally interested in the affairs of her older sisters, barely noticed the omission. Generalities over, and a second glass of tea offered and accepted, he enquired politely and interestedly, if a little unexpectedly, about the possibility that Margarita and her husband might be visiting the estate at Drovenskoye this summer. It was a question that Margarita found a little disconcerting since she always found some difficulty in treading the fine line between her delight at being able to speak in casual vein of her husband’s landed background – after all who but she was to know of the impoverished land and the strange, dilapidated house? – and avoiding any direct commitment to going back to a place to which she had no intention of returning except as undisputed mistress. She answered his apparently aimless questions about the family and the estate vaguely and with charming if assumed diffidence. Donovalov, a skilled interrogator, did not bother to pursue the subject too far. He had learned enough; certainly just such a background had bred more than one earnest, pseudo-intellectual would-be revolutionary. As for this silly child – she’d be easy enough to break if the necessity ever arose. He allowed himself one intriguing moment to savour the thought of that before getting up and walking to the sideboard where the little toy theatre stood. ‘Charming! How charming! It’s yours?’
‘Yes.’ The odd, veiled and speculative look, indefinably unpleasant, that Margarita had surprised in his eyes had discomposed her; she found herself, for no discernible reason, drawing her lace-trimmed collar a little closer about the low-cut neckline of her dress. The movement drew his eyes and she flushed. ‘Sasha bought it for me. I – I make up plays –’ The words sounded ridiculously childish in her own ears. Her colour heightened further. Her brother-in-law apparently noticed nothing. ‘Charming,’ he said again, absently, reaching in through the curtained proscenium arch to touch the tiny figure of the princess, dressed on this occasion in ruby red and sequined gold. ‘You mean you write these little plays yourself?’ He managed to inject just exactly the right shade of admiration into the words.
‘Yes.’ Her defensiveness was gone. Eagerly she joined him. ‘Mostly, anyway. Fairy stories, you see – often I take fairy stories – embroider them a little, if you see what I mean? – Cinderella – The Sleeping Beauty – but not always. I write my own too.’
‘How very clever.’
She shook her head, pleased. Surely she must have mistaken that strange, fearful moment of threat? ‘Oh no, not really. But I do love it. I make up plays for Sasha and his friends –’
‘Which I’m sure they enjoy immensely,’ he interrupted smoothly. ‘Sasha must be very proud of you.’
She laughed, the special, pretty laugh that she no longer had to practise. ‘Oh I’m sure that half the time he must be bored to death – they all must! But of course they’re far too gallant to admit it!’
‘Surely not?’ He was looking at her directly now, and again she was suddenly aware of that odd frisson of fear. ‘Surely nothing you could say or do would bore your handsome husband?’ The words were exaggerated, heavily playful; yet strangely she sensed a question; a disturbing question to which she was not certain she knew the answer. ‘A man who has someone as lovely – as talented – as you to come home to couldn’t possibly be bored.’ He left a small, deliberate silence. ‘Could he?’
‘No.’ She laughed a little, annoyed with herself that the sound was uneasy. ‘Of course not.’
‘And he comes home often, of course?’ He had turned back to the theatre, was apparently absorbed in the brilliantly-coloured cardboard figures.
‘Yes. Whenever he can.’
‘Ah. Yes. Whenever he can.’ He nodded. Turned. ‘Might I trespass upon your good nature and ask for another cup of tea?’
‘Oh – but of course.’
He stayed by the theatre whilst she poured it, watched her as she carried it to him, thanked her pleasantly as he took it. ‘Sasha’s friends,’ he said, turning back to the theatre, ‘for whom you perform your little plays – they’re his military friends, I take it?’
‘Why, certainly.’ Margarita looked at him in surprise. ‘Sasha doesn’t have any other friends. Heavens – he doesn’t have time!’
‘Of course not.’ She was utterly and transparently guileless – in this at least. He allowed himself to acknowledge for a moment what a pity that was. Certainly he would have to look elsewhere for his informant; and for his information. He’d leave this soft-skinned little chicken alone. For the moment, at least. Patently Margarita was not the author of the obliquely-worded note that had brought him here. He could not, however, resist a last sly shaft. He had long ago discovered that a little mischief could sometimes go a very long way. He turned back to the theatre, picked up the tiny figure of the prince, aware of and amused by Margarita’s small start of annoyance as he did so. ‘A handsome lad,’ he said, thoughtfully, and lifted dark, sardonic eyes to hers. ‘But something of a scallawag from the look of him. Tell me – does he mistreat his poor little princess? Does he love her truly?’ He smiled, gently. ‘Dare I ask it – is he faithful to her?’
She was affronted. And, again, indefinably uneasy. She stepped forward and took the tiny figure from him. ‘Faithful? Yes. He’s utterly faithful.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Of course I’m sure. I made him up. I invented him.’
‘Why, so you did.’ The words were mild. ‘So you did.’
He left a few minutes later, bowing over her hand.
When he had gone she went to the window, looking down, waiting for him to appear in the street below. Something about the man – something about his quiet, probing questions – had been infinitely unsettling. She heard her own voice, clear and sharp: ‘Of course I’m sure. I made him up. I invented him’, and then his: ‘Why, so you did. So you did.’
Her brother-in-law had stepped out into the filthy slush of the street below. He looked up. She drew back sharply, but not before he had seen her. He lifted his hat in an exaggeratedly, almost mockingly chivalrous gesture. She turned from the window, stood leaning upon the sill, looking at the tiny figure in her hand, the figure with a small, dashing scar upon the left side of his jawbone. Of course I’m sure. I made him up. I invented him.
They had had the most dreadful row again last night. About the same wretched thing; the lack of a child. It seemed to her that Sasha had become positively and unhealthily obsessed with the idea, and she had said so. He had stormed out, gone back to the barracks. At least – that was where she had assumed he had gone.
‘Does he love her truly? Is he faithful to her?’
Ridiculous. Absurd. But yet?
She replaced the cardboard prince upon the stage, for once did not stand and rearrange the figures, nor carefully redrape the pretty curtains as usually she would. Very thoughtfully she moved to the chair by the stove, dropped into it, fingers drumming a faint abstracted rhythm on the arm. If she for a moment could be brought to believe that Sasha was anything but totally and utterly devoted to her she would, quite simply and quite coldly, wish him dead, she knew it. She would if necessary kill him herself with no hesitation and no compunction. Except that of course there could not for a moment be any truth in such silly speculation, so there was no need to think such nonsense. She was uncomfortably aware that it made much more sense to think about this abominable business of the baby, which was causing so much trouble between them. She had to face it; Sasha was absolutely set upon it. Not for the first time the thought occurred – if Sasha so much wanted a beastly child, then why not have one? She supposed that sooner or later she would have to give in, why not now? Of all things, this was the one that would be guaranteed to tie him irrevocably to her. How remorseful he would be as she suffered bravely to produce the child he wanted so much. She saw herself, beautiful, great with child, valiantly hiding her pain and discomfort; saw Sasha beside himself with guilt and worry, dancing attendance on her, telling everyone of her gallant, self-sacrificing courage. She felt a stir of excitement at the idea. It couldn’t be that bad, could it? Everybody did it, after all – even Mama had managed it, and four times at that! And Sasha, then, would truly be hers. She would have his child and he would adore her for it, slavishly and for ever. Cinderella would indeed live happily ever after.
Suddenly bright, she stood, and in a swirl of skirts went back to the sideboard, where carefully and with utter concentration she took out all of the bright characters from the stage of the toy theatre and set about rearranging them in a significant and complicated pattern that meant nothing to anyone but herself.
It was a hard winter at Pikku Kulda. The small house, not much more than a log cabin with a large verandah, scarcely suited to and certainly not intended for winter living, stood on the shores of a lake deep in the forests south of Kuopio. Above all things the memory of those strange months for Katya carried with it the memory of silence; the waters of the lake, which in the summer would ripple and lap against the shores, were petrified to solid, snow-covered ice, the forests were shrouded and carpeted in white. Except when the storms came, whipping the wind and snow through the darkness, battering door and window and wooden wall, the trees themselves stood in glacial silence; no bird sang. They saw tracks – of fox, hare and occasionally of wolf or moose – but those creatures that made them did so soundlessly. Only when Kaarlo took his axe into the woods for firewood did the quiet bowl of the sky ring with noise; even their voices sounded small, lost in the winter stillness.
The cabin had three rooms, the smallest of which, upon arrival, was immediately allocated to Katya by Jussi. It was tiny and all but bare, its furnishings consisting of a simple, low wooden bed, a chest of drawers, a table and a rickety chair. There was a small oil-lamp and a paraffin stove that smelled abominably but without which the room would have been untenable. The furs that served as bed clothes were far from clean but welcome for all that. Not for the first time Katya found herself reflecting upon the bizarre change in her circumstances and the perhaps not so surprising change in values that had accompanied it. A couple of months before she would have thrown a fit rather than sleep in such a room; now it seemed a haven, and above all things she was thankful to Jussi for preserving her privacy.
The rest of the house consisted of a large room which Jussi, Heimo and Kaarlo shared as a bedroom and an equally large kitchen which served as living room and dining room as well. Obviously in the summer most if not all of the living was done on the huge verandah, almost as big again as the house itself, that faced the lake. At this time of the year such a prospect seemed improbable to the point of absurdity; all that the verandah was used for was to stack the wood for the stove and to shelter a battered sledge and several pairs of elderly-looking skis and skates. There were outhouses, including servant’s rooms, two water closets, unused in the winter, and, at the lakeside, the inevitable sauna. The main source of warmth was the wood-burning range in the kitchen, and since wood was the most readily available fuel that was where they spent most of their time.
Katya’s first problem might, under other circumstances, have struck even her as being funny; it became apparent within a very short time of the party’s arrival that here, unlike in the Heikkala house in Kuopio, she was expected to work her passage. And since, after all, she was a woman it seemed natural to the three men to expect her to cook.
‘I can’t,’ she said, flatly.
Jussi’s lips twitched. Kaarlo frowned. Heimo paused, a half-open sack on the table in front of him from which he had been pulling cheeses, salted fish and a ham, bread, a bag full of root vegetables. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean exactly what I say. I can’t. Cook. I wouldn’t know where to start.’ She looked at the ancient iron range. ‘I’ve never so much as boiled a saucepan of water.’
‘And she’s proud of it,’ Kaarlo muttered behind her.
She swung on him. ‘I’m not proud of it. But I’m not ashamed either. Why should I be? It’s a simple fact. Can you play the piano?’
Kaarlo scowled.
Heimo laughed. ‘Fair enough, Kaarlo – answer her.’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘Don’t be so damned smart.’
Katya smiled, very sweetly. ‘Because you never learned. Exactly. So if you want to eat the equivalent of boiled bootleather and stewed socks then force me to cook.’
‘We’ll eat it to the accompaniment of Kaarlo’s piano,’ Jussi said, soberly.
‘I’ll cook,’ Heimo said, returning to his sack. ‘I’m actually quite good –’
‘And modest,’ Katya said, carried away by her success against Kaarlo.
‘– and Katya can clean,’ Heimo continued, placidly. ‘How’s that for a bargain?’
Jussi could not contain his laughter at the outraged look on Katya’s face. ‘We can always hope,’ he said.
In fact Heimo did indeed turn out to be a more than passable cook, though the fare he provided was on the whole unfamiliar to Katya. When she and her family had summered in their Finnish dacha they had eaten Russian food prepared by Russian servants; now she was introduced to traditional Finnish dishes – mashed potato or turnip baked in the wood-burning oven for a long slow time until it became sweet as a pudding, an egg and fish dish, a favourite of Jussi’s, called ‘kalalaatikko’, the salted Baltic herring that was a staple diet of the people. She began too to notice other things; the difference, for instance, between Jussi’s accent and the accents of Kaarlo and Heimo. Questioned, Jussi grinned, and Heimo, good-humoured as always, laughed aloud.
‘He speaks Russian with a Finnish accent and Finnish with a Swedish one,’ he said. ‘Isn’t that so, Jussi?’
‘That’s right.’ Jussi was undisturbed.
‘Why? Why don’t you speak the same as the others?’
Jussi shrugged.
‘Because he’s an aristocrat,’ Heimo said, solemnly. ‘Eh, Jussi? And our little aristocrats are brought up to speak Swedish, not Finnish.’
‘Were,’ Jussi said, through a mouthful of sweet potato. ‘Were brought up like that. Not any more. You’ll see.’
‘When Suomi is free,’ Kaarlo said, ‘no-one will be brought up like that. Our language will be our own again.’
Jussi rolled his eyes. ‘Perhaps in sympathy with coming generations I’ll give up the fight after all now I come to think about it.’ He grinned. ‘All those damned verbs! Words as long as a dictionary! What a language! And the Kalevala, Kaarlo – you’ll have all the poor little beggars chanting that from beginning to end, will you?’
Kaarlo slanted a dark look at him. ‘It isn’t funny, Jussi.’
‘Everything’s funny, Kaarlo.’ Jussi was mild as a lamb. ‘To one degree or another. Or life isn’t worth living.’ In that moment his eyes touched Katya’s and he smiled; and for one instant she saw that the Jussi Lavola with whom she sat now under such strange circumstances was not so far removed after all from the Jussi she had known in St Petersburg. He believed what he had just said; it was his philosophy. She smiled back. At least they shared something.
Later she asked him about the conversation. ‘What was it you said? About a Kaleva-something? Kaarlo seemed quite angry.’
‘Kaarlo’s always angry, you’ve surely noticed that?’ He was easy. They were washing and wiping dishes. Kaarlo had taken his gun into the woods, Heimo was off on an errand of his own. ‘The Kalevala,’ Jussi said, ‘is our national folk epic. Fragments of it have been handed down, orally, through many centuries. In the last century a man called Elias Lonnrot collected the fragments together and published it as an epic poem. It came at a time when Finns needed inspiration, needed an identity. The Kalevala gave them what they needed. To someone like Kaarlo to joke about the Kalevala is to commit the worst of blasphemies.’
She had stopped wiping, was watching him in open curiosity. ‘And to someone like you?’
He appeared not to be disconcerted by her interest. ‘As I said: not to joke is the blasphemy to me. It doesn’t mean, you understand, that I take things less seriously –’ he carefully balanced a plate on the board to drain, flicked her an innocent blue glance ‘– it just means I get to laugh more.’
That surprised a small gurgle of laughter from her. He grinned approvingly. ‘You see? And others get to laugh more too. It’s surely better?’
‘It’s better,’ she said.
He turned, leaned against the wooden sink, still favouring his wounded shoulder. ‘Why? Why do you ask?’
She reached for a plate. ‘Just being a good wife,’ she said. ‘Isn’t that what a good woman’s supposed to do? Whither thou goest –’ She stopped, hearing the distinct and bitter failure of the attempt at light-heartedness. She ducked her head and would not look at him, rubbing at the plate as if her life depended upon it.
The silence was long, and significant. ‘Katya,’ he said at last, and his voice was deadly serious, ‘I’m sorry. I’m more sorry than I can say. Believe me, if there had been another way – another possibility – I’d have taken it. It was just such damned bad luck your walking in just when you did – I had to do something.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said, tensely.
‘It matters. It matters to you and it matters to me.’
She lifted her head and turned to look at him. In the past weeks she had lost weight, her face had thinned, her body lost some of its softly-rounded curves. Her soft brown eyes were shadowed, palely ringed from all but sleepless nights and the fair hair that was such a contrast to those dark eyes was loosely pinned away from her face, dirty and untidy as an urchin’s. ‘It matters to the others too,’ she said. ‘They don’t like me.’
His eyes remained riveted to her face for a strange, long moment before he said with a small shake of his head, ‘It isn’t that. They don’t trust you. You’re a Russian.’
‘That isn’t my fault.’
‘No.’
‘I’m afraid.’ The words came from nowhere, unheralded and unsought, the voice that spoke them small and shaky. ‘Jussi. I’m afraid! What’s going to happen to me?’
‘Nothing. Nothing! I promise you.’ He had stepped towards her and she towards him with no thought. He caught her to him, hugging her hard and comfortingly, heedless of his damaged shoulder. ‘I promise you,’ he said again, fiercely.
Silence fell. She trembled against him. Felt his face brush the top of her head. Then, in a single movement, as if at an unheard signal, his arms dropped from around her and she stepped away from him, turning, nearly running across the room to the window where she stopped, gripping the sill, looking through the misted glass to the quiet, magical winter landscape beyond. ‘I know it’s hard,’ he said after a moment. He had not moved to follow her. ‘But try not to worry. I’ll think of something.’
She nodded, shakily. Knowing that he no more believed it than did she.
The weeks moved on. Kaarlo mysteriously disappeared and just as mysteriously returned a few days later with supplies and two newcomers, who stayed for a couple of days, slept a lot, spoke hardly at all except to Jussi in low, secretive tones and then left.
This was the first of many such comings and goings; sometimes it was Kaarlo that guided the fugitives to them – for that certainly was what Katya felt them to be – and sometimes Heimo. She was not slow to note that those who came with Kaarlo regarded her with rather more suspicion and hostility than did those who arrived with the more affable Heimo. Jussi remained at Pikku Kulda and now day by day his strength was returning.
But spring was coming. There was time yet, the snow still lay deep, the ice thick, the trees bare of green, yet coming it must be. And with it, Katya sensed, a decision would have to be taken, a decision that concerned her above all others and over which she had no control whatsoever. She had served her purpose. With the spring she could become nothing but a liability; her parents, who had not tried the impossible task of pursuing the runaways into the frozen depths of a Finnish winter, would surely question now if no word came. And questions were dangerous. Sometimes she would catch the eye of Kaarlo as he sat, wrapped still in the filthy sheepskin jacket, picking his teeth with the long and wicked-looking knife with which he had threatened Katya in the sledge what seemed a lifetime ago on the bridge at St Petersburg; and more and more often he would look away, unable it seemed to meet her eyes.
Nothing yet had frightened her as much.
It was on a grey day in March as she walked along the frozen lakeside that she overheard a furious argument between Jussi and Kaarlo. They spoke their own language; she could not understand a word, except her own name, repeated more than once by both of them. She drew back into the shadowed woodland as they passed. Gesticulating, intent upon their quarrel, they did not notice her. She saw and heard the fierce anger in Jussi’s face and voice, saw too the lack of conviction on Kaarlo’s as he listened. At last he threw up a hand, shook his head and said something very short and very sharp. Again, Katya heard her name, understood too the single adjective, that Kaarlo spat as he might have spoken the name of the devil – ‘Russian’. Jussi stood tight-lipped and silent before turning swiftly on his heel and striding away towards the house. Kaarlo slouched, watching him go, then turned, shrugging, to make his own way down towards the lake.
A bitter wind blew across the ice-bound countryside. Katya, chilled suddenly to the bone, turned and hurried after Jussi towards the warmth and shelter of Pikku Kulda.
Margarita’s last hope – that she would find it difficult to become pregnant – failed signally to be fulfilled. Within three weeks of her reluctant decision she knew herself to be with child.
Predictably Sasha was delighted; equally predictably Margarita took almost at once to her bed. ‘I feel so ill, Sasha! You simply don’t understand.’ He hired a girl to come each day – the last one having left in a flurry of tears and high-tempered recriminations when Margarita had slapped her for knocking the theatre scenery askew when she dusted – petted and cosseted her as if she had been an ailing child. She did indeed suffer from morning sickness, a misfortune which was excuse enough to make her pettish for the rest of the day.
Sasha complained not at all; it was enough that she was bearing his child. To Valentina he sent a brooding and heartfelt letter, explaining why he could not see her again; he was unexpectedly mortified when his high-minded impulse came to nothing, the letter being returned, unopened, by Nikita, who had recognized his handwriting and who explained that Valentina had gone from the apartment and had left no forwarding address. So the break was mutual and, he told himself sternly, for the best. Now he must make it up to the suffering, unsuspecting Margarita.
Margarita, actually suffering very little though she would have died before admitting it, settled herself in to enjoy the attention; it seemed to her that given the circumstances it was no more, after all, than she deserved. She was secretly pleased to see how her pale skin glowed, how the initial loss of weight suited her, how her hair shone as she brushed it. Sasha told her she had never looked so beautiful and she knew it to be the truth. Of the birth itself and what might come after she tried not to think. She entertained her mother and her aunt, and various of her friends, declaring herself far too delicate to venture out into the city; others must needs come to see her. Sasha spent every available moment with her, though as influenza struck the barracks he was on duty rather more often than not. For two or three weeks she was almost content. It was a full month before the novelty of this new role started to wear off and boredom began to set in. Another virtually unprovoked loss of control saw the new servant girl leave, sullenly forgoing a month’s pay rather than stay a moment longer.
‘Good riddance, you lazy little cat!’ Margarita was scarlet with temper. ‘Go! See if I care! Starve on the streets – that’s all you’re good for! Be sure you’ll get no reference from me!’
The girl gone, the apartment seemed still to echo the sound of the angry voices, the air strung with tension and ill humour. Restlessly Margarita roamed from room to room, picking things up, putting them down, plumping cushions, kicking bad-temperedly at a ruckled rug. In the bedroom she paused in front of a long mirror, eyeing herself, turning sideways, sucking in her stomach. Her breasts were fuller, her belly rounded. She suddenly remembered seeing Lenka pregnant; lumpish and slovenly, dragging her bulk about the house, hand to her aching back. What had she done? What in God’s name had she done? A wave of self-pity engulfed her. She didn’t want this child. She was afraid. She was most terribly afraid.
It was as if the thought opened a floodgate of tenor. All the distorted stories she had ever heard, whispered old wives’ tales repeated with salacious and lovingly-embroidered horror by girls who in fact knew no better than she did herself, suddenly were there to haunt her. Blood and agony. Death in childbirth. She heard a whimper, pressed her hand to her mouth in case it had been she that had made that small, animal sound. She looked into the eyes of the white-faced image in the mirror; looked away, hating what she saw. A shawl lay tossed across a chair, where she had thrown it the night before. That damned girl! She’d dared to leave before she’d cleared up the bedroom!
She snatched the shawl from the chair, flung open the wardrobe door. The big cupboard was packed with clothes.
She ground her teeth in rage. Rags! Just look at them! All rags! She wouldn’t be seen dead in most of them! Just wait – after this – this thing was born – Sasha would have to buy her a whole new wardrobe. Everything! Simply everything!
She had to vent her fear and her temper upon something; she reached in to the deep wardrobe and snatched from its hanger a pale blue dress, ruched and dainty, decked in rosebuds. She tossed it onto the bed. That could go! And so could the red. God Almighty, how had she allowed herself to be seen in some of these?
In a sudden irrational frenzy she began to drag the clothes from the cupboard, tossing them in a sprawl of crumpled colour on the bed. A fine blouse tore as she pulled at it; in rage she ripped it, flung the two pieces upon the pile. All her pretty clothes; was this all they had been? Tawdry rubbish? Sasha would have to pay – oh, yes! She savoured the phrase – Sasha would have to pay for a suitable wardrobe for his wife. Mistress of the Drovenskoye Estate. Mother of its heir. She paused for a moment at that, lifted her head; saw a tall, handsome son, who smiled possessively and proudly as he bent to his beautiful mother’s hand –
She took a long, slow breath, the fierce fit of energy dying. She pulled another dress from the wardrobe, looked at it, held it to her, pulled a face, tossed it on the heap on the bed. Her side of the deep cupboard was all but cleared. There were still the hats, of course, and the shoes. She would tell Sasha when he came home tonight – it must all go. She pulled the other door. Compared to hers, Sasha’s side of the wardrobe was militarily ordered. Two dress suits, two dress uniforms, his slightly shabby and well-worn English tweed jacket, a couple of pairs of trousers, precisely hung. Beneath them, shining shoes and boots, neatly paired, stood as if on parade. And behind them, tucked in the shadows at the back, the battered old leather bag that sometimes he carried when he went to and from the barracks. The catch had been snapped shut awkwardly; a piece of dark, rough material showed. Her curiosity aroused, with not the slightest compunction she reached for it, dragged the heavy bag out onto the carpet, snapped it open. Frowned, puzzled, at what she saw.
A cheap, heavy, worker’s jacket. A rough, homespun shirt. Shabby trousers. A pair of well-worn boots. A flat, navy-blue peaked cap. And a creased letter, tucked into the folds of these strange clothes that had no possible place in her husband’s bag, in her wardrobe, in her bedroom.
She picked the letter up. It was addressed to Sasha, at the Preobrajensky barracks, in a sharp, impatient-looking hand, and it had been opened. She shook the envelope, pulled out the single sheet of paper, opened it.
Sasha – the new address – I’m sorry, my love – I swore to myself and to the God in which we both know that I don’t believe that I wouldn’t send it. But you knew I would. Didn’t you? Why, oh why do I love you so much? Valentina.
She sat back upon her heels and stayed very still for a very long time. Then, shockingly, she made one small noise, wordless, a savage sound of rage, and smashed her clenched fist painfully upon the floor before silence fell once more.
Sasha got away early that evening. He bought flowers, and a magazine that he knew Margarita liked. Though the evening was dark and the air still cold, spring was in the air; the ice was moving, the first breakers had been upriver. During the day there had been a faint sunshine. He had to go back on duty later that evening, but from the day after tomorrow he had a twenty-four-hour pass. Perhaps he could persuade Margarita to come out for a walk with him – she had no need to be embarrassed – she really didn’t show yet.
Whistling, he took the last few steps two at a time, let himself into the apartment. ‘Rita? Margarita? Are you there?’
The apartment was apparently empty, and cold. Puzzled, he dropped flowers and magazine onto the table in the hall. The stoves had burned low. There was no light except for a faint lamp light that came from the bedroom. Suddenly apprehensive, he flung open the door. ‘Rita? Are you there?’ He stopped. She had stood as he entered. Her face was in shadow. It was expressionless, utterly still.
‘Margarita? What in the world is wrong?’
She had sat in that room for nearly three hours, waiting. Long enough for cold hatred to fill the vacuum when the fires of fury and pain had died. ‘Who’s Valentina?’ she asked, her voice quiet and firm, as she had planned it. And then, when he did not answer, ‘Sasha?’ Her control was not as absolute as she had thought; she could not contain her rage. Her voice rose, shrilly accusing. ‘Did you hear me? I asked – who’s Valentina?’
The words had hit like a hammer blow. He stood, shocked and silenced, knowing his guilt to be written upon his face, utterly unable to disguise it.
She advanced upon him. In her hand she held a crumpled and grubby piece of paper. He recognized it; closed his eyes for a second in an agony of self-castigation. In the name of God! Why hadn’t he thrown the damned thing away? Once only had he used it, once only since it had arrived. He had gone one day to see the run-down apartment house where she now lived – where she had moved, he knew, to escape him, despite the later weakening of her resolve. He had gone simply to see it; he had not been able to bear the thought of not knowing where she was, of not being able, in those secret times when he could not keep her from his mind, to fit her into her surroundings, however squalid they might be. He had to know where she was. Like a stupid, love-lorn boy he had stood outside the dismal, dilapidated building, almost the twin of the other, for five, perhaps ten minutes; then he had left. He had not communicated with Valentina.
‘Answer me!’ Margarita stood very close to him, glaring up at him, face taut and fine-drawn with rage. ‘Answer me, damn you!’
‘Margarita –’
‘Who is Valentina?’
He did not, could not, answer.
She stepped back from him. ‘You pig,’ she said, suddenly unnaturally calm. ‘You disgusting animal. No! Get away from me – don’t touch me. Don’t dare!’ He had stepped towards her, hand outstretched. He stopped as she recoiled from his touch. She shuddered theatrically, white-faced. ‘Get away from me,’ she said. ‘Go to your whore. Do whatever filthy things you do with her.’ She saw the flinch of pain in his face that he could not hide, and laughed. ‘Filthy!’ she spat again. Quite suddenly and absolutely silently tears were coursing down her cheeks. With an oddly abrupt movement she sat down on the bed. For the first time he noticed the chaos around them; the torn and crumpled clothes, the shards of a broken mirror upon the floor. ‘I’ll never forgive you,’ she said. ‘Never. Not for as long as I live.’
‘Margarita, please – listen to me.’ All too aware of her condition, he was frightened by the look of her. Careful not to touch her, he went down on one knee beside her. She turned her head away, refusing to look at him.
‘Valentina is – is just a girl I met – a working girl – she means nothing to me – believe me, Margarita – nothing.’ He heard the words and he despised himself; an emotion he saw reflected in his young wife’s face. Whatever else she was, Margarita was no-one’s fool.
She turned, looked coldly into his face that was on a level with hers. ‘Oh?’ She lifted the paper she still held clutched in her hand. ‘Yet she doesn’t seem to feel the same way?’ She had read it so often in the past hours she did not have to look at it. She kept her eyes steadily and fiercely upon his face. ‘Sasha,’ she said, ‘The new address – I’m sorry my love – I swore to myself and to the God in which we both know I don’t believe that I wouldn’t send it. But you knew I would. Didn’t you?’ She stopped, watching him. ‘DIDN’T YOU?’
He said nothing.
‘This is – just a girl you met? A girl who means nothing to you? A little whore you visit, use and leave? Leave to come home to me – to lie to me – to force me into your bed – to risk my life to have your child?’ Her voice was bitter, full of malice.
He did not guard his face. He let her hurt him, let her see she hurt him, in the hope of placating her; in the comfortless hope of absolving himself.
‘Then “why, oh why does she love you so much”, Sasha?’ The words were unnaturally quiet, totally at odds with the blaze of her eyes and the trembling of the pale, small-boned hand that clutched the note. ‘Why, when she means nothing to you? That is what you said, isn’t it?’
He tried to preserve his refuge of silence.
‘Sasha? That is what you said?’
‘Yes.’
‘Say it again.’ She leaned to him, her low voice savage. ‘Sasha. Look at me and say it.’
He sat back on his heels. Lifted his dark head. In both movements there was an odd submission, a surrender. ‘She means nothing to me,’ he said.
‘But you’ve – you’ve known her. Known her body.’ It was not a question. ‘You’ve rutted with her. Like the animal you are.’
He bowed his head.
‘Sasha?’
He knew what she wanted, knew what she was doing. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’ve known her.’
‘So. It’s as I thought. She is a whore, this “girl you met” – this Valentina?’
After a long moment he lifted his head again and met her eyes. ‘Yes.’
‘Say it,’ she said, softly; mercilessly.
‘She’s a whore.’ In the few heartbeats of silence before he spoke her face had hardened further.
‘A filthy whore,’ she said.
He shook his head, flinching from the words.
‘Say it!’
He turned his face from her.
With raging strength she buried her fingers in his hair and dragged him back to face her. Face wrenched in pain, he made no attempt to defend himself. ‘Say it!’ she screamed.
‘She’s a filthy whore.’ The words, deservedly, almost choked him.
She twisted her hand in his hair once more, deliberately cruel, before letting him go. ‘And what,’ she asked then, once more savagely quiet, ‘does that make you?’
A coward. As I have always been. As I have always known. A coward. You cannot shame me more than I shame myself. He said nothing.
She stood, moved past him to the door. ‘A brute,’ she said. ‘That’s what it makes you. A worthless, faithless, disgusting brute. Get out. Leave me alone.’
‘Margarita!’ He came to his feet, took a step towards her.
She turned from him, walked from the room across the hall and into the sitting room. He followed, stood by the door, watching her. She walked to the sideboard, swept the small theatre from it with one fierce motion of her hand. The little structure splintered, the tiny cardboard figures flying in all directions. ‘Get out,’ she said again, her voice rising, a dangerous edge of hysteria in it. ‘Do you hear me? Leave me alone! Go and play your squalid games with your – disgusting – Valentina –’ She was sobbing now, yet managed to invest the word with a grotesque mimicry of passion.
He stood helpless. A step towards her brought another piercing shriek. ‘Get out, I say! Get away from me!’
He went. He stood for a long time, tensely, outside the door listening to the sounds of destruction within; the smashing of glass, the fierce, emotional sobbing. Then he moved slowly down the stairs, shoulders hunched, and out into the chill night air.
It was a very long time before Margarita’s passion spent itself. She smashed everything she could pick up, throwing glasses and ornaments at walls and mirrors, stamping upon the remains of her precious theatre, flinging herself down like a child in a paroxysm of rage to beat her fists upon the floor. At last she ran back into the bedroom, threw herself upon the bed amongst the pile of ruined clothes and abandoned herself to loud and ugly sobbing, crying as if she would never stop.
Later, at last, she calmed. She stood for a long while in front of the tall, cracked mirror, looking at her distorted reflection.
A voice sounded in her head, mocking, insinuating. ‘Does he love her truly? Is he faithful to her?’
And: ‘Of course I’m sure. I made him up. I invented him.’
Her eyes were puffed and swollen, her face blotched and unsightly with crying, her hair dull and tangled. She looked with loathing at the swell of her breasts, the firm lift of her belly. She thought of Sasha.
He must be punished for this. Punished and punished and punished again.
In the building next door, in the basement apartment with its discreet side door and its eerie, darkly-curtained rooms lived the woman who had been so understanding – so very understanding – about Margarita’s reluctance to become pregnant. She had, so rumour had it, many other skills.
With firm and determined movements Margarita went to her dressing table, opened a drawer, took out a key, unlocked with it another, smaller drawer and extracted a small, chinking bag of coins.
She miscarried three days later. Sasha, sent for by his worried parents-in-law, flew home to the apartment to find Margarita abed; beautiful, transparently pale, patently and appallingly ill, and terrified. His fault. He knew it. Saw it in her eyes as she looked at him, flinched from him, turned away from him eyes from which all fire had flown, driven out by the terror of the moment. She was bleeding badly. The doctor tutted and sent him from the room.
‘In God’s name, lad.’ Victor, waiting in the sitting room, feet astride, stocky form bristling with anxiety and indignation, was gruff. ‘What’s been going on here?’ All the best efforts of Varya and her daughter-in-law Natalia had not been able to eliminate the signs of violence from the room. A broken picture was propped against the wall. A bucket of shattered glass and porcelain stood by the door. The pathetic wreckage of Margarita’s theatre was stacked in a cardboard box.
Sasha dropped to his knees beside it, sorting through it, handling the silly, brightly-coloured cardboard pieces as if they had been spun glass. ‘We – we had an argument, Victor Valerievich –’
‘An argument? Indeed?’ His father-in-law looked with lifted eyebrows about the room.
Sasha stood up. ‘Margarita was – very upset – distraught –’ He stopped as he heard the bedroom door open, the doctor’s voice in the small hallway. Both men waited.
‘She’s to rest.’ Quiet Natalia slipped into the room.
‘But – she’ll be all right?’ Anxiously Sasha stepped forward.
His sister-in-law moved a little away from him. The look she sent him was wary. Natalia was not used to the kind of passions that produced a near-wrecked apartment and – it surely had to be deduced? – a miscarriage. She was uncomfortable with them. ‘Yes. The danger is past. She’s lost a great deal of blood and she requires careful nursing, but the doctor thinks she’ll be all right.’
‘May I see her?’ Sasha was humble.
She cast a small, sideways glance at him. ‘I’ll ask Varya Petrovna.’
Margarita lay exhausted upon her pillows. Had she known the terrors of the trial she had brought upon herself she would never have dared to undertake it; but it was done, and triumph was hers. With a small sigh she turned her head from Sasha’s desperate and guilt-ridden face and settled herself to sleep, the sound of her mother’s voice in her ears.
Sasha Kolashki spent the following few weeks neglecting his duties in order to scour St Petersburg for the best designed, most splendid and beautiful toy theatre that the city could produce. On the day that, not without qualms, he presented it to his recuperating wife, the same day that she offered him the first ghost of a smile since Valentina’s name had fallen between them like a sword, he swore, with every best intention, never to see Valentina again.
‘Why Pikku Kulda?’ Katya and Jussi were sitting on the verandah, well wrapped but appreciating the pale sunshine. ‘What does it mean?’ Through the trees the still ice-fringed lake glimmered.
‘It means –’ he thought for a moment ‘– “little darling” – “sweetheart” – literally, “little gold one”. It was my grandfather’s nickname for my grandmother. He built this place for her. It was their retreat. She loved it.’
Something in his voice drew her eyes to him. ‘What happened to them? Your grandparents?’
‘My grandfather was exiled to Siberia, and died there. My grandmother was never strong. Grief killed her.’ He spoke with little emotion, but she did not miss the narrowing of his eyes as he looked out across the quiet vista of lake and forest.
‘I’m sorry.’
He shrugged. ‘There’s no need to be. It’s hardly your fault.’
‘Kaarlo would say it was. I’m Russian.’ She turned on the bench to look at him. ‘Or am I? I am, after all, married to a Finn.’ Her voice was very quiet.
He turned his head. The silence that fell between them was neither inconsequential nor empty. Neither looked away from the other. In these past, strange weeks a friendship – a companionship – had grown between them that neither would deny, and that the others, even Kaarlo, had come to accept. What had begun as an enforced intimacy had grown into a true enjoyment of each other’s company. They joked and they argued, she had asked to be told more of this unknown struggle in which she had found herself so unexpectedly embroiled, and with quiet and unexpected passion – and the unasked help of Heimo and Kaarlo – he had told her. Despite the odd circumstances – perhaps even because of them – a camaraderie had grown between the four of them, marred only by Kaarlo’s obviously ingrainedat least now marginally less obvious distrust of her.
And then, yesterday, all had changed.
She had seen him naked, and with a shock that had been like a blow she had wanted him. And he had known it.
The three young men had gone to the sauna – a habit that Katya, in this still freezing weather, had resolutely refused to acquire. Her bathing was done, amidst much on the whole good-natured grumbling, in decent privacy and warmth before the big stove in the living room, the men excluded firmly for the duration. The Finnish passion for steaming themselves into a stupor in order to shock themselves awake by plunging through the broken ice into the bitterly cold waters of the lake struck her as being mildly demented, to say nothing of masochistic, and nothing the others could say would persuade her. Usually she stayed within the house whilst the peculiar communal ritual took place; yesterday however, in the first of the springlike sunshine, she had been walking on the lakeshore, delighting in the fresh green that showed where the snow had melted, the amazing delicacy of growth that in defiance of the still freezing temperatures was beginning to appear. In a few weeks, she knew, the lakeside would be a tangle of wild flowers – coltsfoot, buttercup, harebell and clover, marguerites turning their pretty faces to the sun. Later there would be lilies on the lake and the tall spikes of Rose Bay waist-high beside the water. And where, as these flowers greeted the summer beside the stretch of water she had come to know so well, would she be? Deep in her own thoughts she had hardly heard the shouts, the splashing, the strong male voices of the others as with whoops and laughter they had fled like high-spirited boys the small, log-built sauna and leapt naked into the waters of the lake. Some minutes later, still thoughtful she had come from the trees and there he had been – tall, slender, winter-white as marble, the pucker of the healed scar dark and still a little inflamed upon his smooth shoulder, his skin slick with water, fair head glittering as he laughed in the sunshine. As the others had splashed and shouted in horseplay in the water he had seen her. And had known, she was certain of it, the almost frightening shock of physical desire that had jolted through her at the sight of that bright body. She had turned and all but run from him. Neither had mentioned the incident. Yet now, eyes locked, it was in both their minds, and both knew it.
‘Married to a Finn,’ he repeated, softly, as if testing the words.
‘And yet – not married at all,’ she said.
He smiled.
She was finding it oddly difficult to breathe normally.
‘This isn’t the time,’ he said.
‘No. I know.’
‘I have nothing to offer.’ He waved a hand, encompassing the cabin, the lake, the countryside surrounding it. ‘I’m committed.’
‘I know that too,’ she said. And then, ‘But so am I, aren’t I? You married me, after all – it was legal, I assume?’
‘It was legal.’
‘The winter’s over.’
‘Yes.’
‘Something has to happen. Something has to change.’
‘Yes.’
‘Would you let me leave?’
The silence was a thoughtful one. ‘Yes.’
‘You trust me? Not to betray you all?’
‘Should I?’ His eyes were very bright.
‘Yes.’
‘Then I do.’
‘And –’ She could sustain that clear blue gaze no longer. She looked down at her clasped hands. ‘– And – if I don’t want to go?’
This time the quiet lasted so long that she was forced to lift her eyes to his again. He was watching her intently. ‘You don’t have to be afraid of Kaarlo,’ he said, carefully.
‘I’m not afraid of Kaarlo.’
He smiled. Put out a hand.
She took it. ‘One thing.’
‘Yes?’ The other two were coming. They could see them toiling along the track from the lake, fishing tackle in hand, the enticing gleam of silver glinting from the basket Heimo carried.
‘That night – in St Petersburg – when I came –’ She stopped, blundered painfully on. ‘You know – you can guess? – what had happened to me – what I’d – what I’d done?’
He nodded. ‘It isn’t important.’
‘It is.’ She had been struggling with this ever since yesterday, ever since that strange, irrevocable turning point had been reached. She had to say it. ‘Jussi, I may not be a wife. But I’m not a virgin either.’
He grinned then, half at her, half at the other two as they called from the edge of the clearing. His hand was hard and warm and reassuring upon hers. ‘It’s a wicked world we live in, my Katya,’ he said. ‘Who is?’
She was still laughing as Kaarlo heaved a basket full of small fish onto the wooden verandah. ‘Come on, woman,’ he said, unsmiling, but with a glint in his dark eyes that was not altogether unfriendly, ‘you’ve shown us often enough that you’ve got a fishwife’s tongue – let’s see what you can do with these.’
That afternoon the soldiers came.
Almost they were taken by surprise, for so long in this winter fastness had they felt themselves secure. One moment the peace of the forest was undisturbed; the next there came the faint jingling of harness, the equally faint but unmistakable crunch of feet upon the still-frozen mud of the track that led to Pikku Kulda.
‘Jesus! Russians!’ Kaarlo, sitting upon the verandah whittling at a piece of wood with his lethal-looking knife, leapt to his feet. Through the tall bare trunks of the woodland distantly a flicker of colour showed, and the dull glimmer of metal. As Kaarlo spoke Heimo appeared, running, gesticulating as he came.
‘In! Get in!’ His low voice was urgent.
Kaarlo had grabbed Katya’s arm, was dragging her with no ceremony through the door to the darkened interior of the house. Jussi grabbed the chairs in which they had been sitting, all but threw them after them, frantically scraped with his boot at the fresh woodchips Kaarlo had left on the boarded floor.
‘Russian soldiers!’ Heimo was holding onto the verandah rail, gasping for breath after his sprint through the forest.
‘How many?’ Jussi was still clearing the verandah of the all too obvious signs of life – the ancient book Katya had been reading, culled from a shelf in the living room, his own fishing tackle that he had been mending.
‘Not many. But enough. And armed to the teeth. What in God’s name are we going to do?’
‘Get inside. Shut the door.’
They stumbled into the darkness, slammed the door behind them. Katya stood like a statue in the centre of the room, Kaarlo’s arm about her waist, his knife at her throat.
‘For Christ’s sake, Kaarlo!’
‘She’s a Russian,’ Kaarlo said, and did not move.
There was a moment of tense silence. Jussi tensed; his hands came up.
‘Jussi, no!’ Heimo moved between them. ‘God Almighty, are we to kill each other before they even get here?’ He jerked his head at the door.
They all heard the sharp call, the whinny of a horse.
‘Kaarlo, let me go.’ It was Katya, her voice very quiet, very reasonable. ‘I can talk with them. I can make them go away.’ Only the faintest tremor betrayed her fear.
The knife pricked her throat.
‘Kaarlo!’ The warning in Jussi’s voice was fierce.
‘Hello? Hello the house? Anyone there?’
‘We’ll fight them off,’ Kaarlo said.
‘We can try.’ Heimo’s voice was grim.
‘Please! Kaarlo, believe me – I can get rid of them. At least I can try!’ Braving the knife, Katya turned her head.
‘Let her go, Kaarlo.’ Jussi’s voice was flat, totally devoid of emotion. ‘Harm her and I’ll kill you.’
Kaarlo lifted a bitter face. ‘Well you would, wouldn’t you? You’re besotted. You have been from the start. You think I haven’t known?’
Katya threw a swift, startled glance at Jussi. His face had not changed. ‘Let her go.’
‘She’s a Russian! She’ll betray us without a thought –’
Jussi launched himself. Katya, seeing it coming, threw herself to one side. The two men went down.
‘For God’s sake, you two!’ Heimo reached for the struggling men.
Katya slipped past him to the door, opened it and stepped through, shutting it firmly behind her. She blinked in the light, pushed a hand through her dishevelled hair, straightened her bodice a little, smoothed her skirts.
The silence that her appearance had imposed upon the gathered men in the clearing lasted for a full and valuable minute. Long enough for her to gather her thoughts, to take in the scene before her. An officer, young, fresh-faced, inexperienced-looking, sitting his horse, fur-lined cape draping its flanks. Perhaps a dozen fierce-looking, moustachioed soldiers, booted, great-coated, fur-hatted, stamping their feet, pulling off gloves, blowing upon their hands. A sense of impatience and of boredom. A great many weapons, slung across shoulders, tucked under arms. The young officer carried a pistol, unholstered. ‘Goodness, Captain,’ she said, laughing a little, yet keeping a little hauteur in her voice and in her level glance. ‘I don’t think you’ll need that.’
The sound of her unmistakably educated and equally unmistakably Russian voice threw him completely. He stared. Coloured. Hefted the weapon uncomfortably in his hand.
Katya laughed again. Behind her, through the door, she felt rather than heard a crash. Brightly and briskly, chin high, she stepped forward, offering her hand. ‘Yekaterina Mikhailovna –’ she allowed herself to hesitate a little, willed a blush ‘– Lavola. How may I help you?’ She was as composed as if it had been a St Petersburg salon.
The young man scrambled from his horse, removed his heavy gauntlet. Took her hand, bowed over it. ‘Stasski. Captain Branislav Stasski. At your service, Madam.’
‘Captain.’ She inclined her head gracefully. Almost she could have laughed at the look on his face. Almost. She waited, politely enquiring.
‘Yekaterina Mikhailovna – forgive the intrusion.’ The young captain glanced around him, bemused. ‘We have information –’
She allowed her eyebrows to climb a little.
‘– information concerning a certain nationalist terrorist group –’
‘I beg your pardon?’ She allowed a chill to creep into her voice.
‘Of course I realize –’ His voice tailed off. One of the soldiers nearby coughed, none too delicately, swung his hands across his torso, thumping them to restore the circulation of his blood. As Katya glanced at him he hawked, and spat. Here was one who was not impressed by a gentle voice and an upper-crust accent.
Katya made a small, impatient gesture with her hand, ‘Captain, I appreciate that you have a job to do – but terrorists? Do I understand you to mean –’ she paused, as if searching for the word ‘– assassins? Here? At Pikku Kulda?’
‘N-no. Of course not. That is – not here, especially. But in the area. We were told to check, to discover if there might be anywhere where fugitives might be sheltered. Some have been traced to hereabouts.’
This time Katya allowed her laughter to peal into the cold quiet. ‘Shelter fugitives? At Pikku Kulda? Why, Captain, look for yourself – there is scarce room for the two of us, let alone for –’ she laughed again ‘– for fugitives? By all means, search the outhouses if you wish. Climb the trees. Drag the lake. Who knows what you might find? Fugitives indeed! Captain, I may be married to a Finn, but I am a true Russian, as is he. Long live the Tsar! You’ll find none of your fugitives here.’
Still he looked uncertain. The soldier hawked again. Spat again. His eyes roved the clearing.
‘Now,’ Katya said, glinting a sudden laughing glance, moving a little further away from the cabin as she did so, ‘if you were to abandon this silly story of terrorists and tell me that you were in the pay of my papa – then I’d believe you!’
The young captain showed every reasonable sign of bewilderment.
‘Tell me, have you been in Petersburg this winter?’
‘Why yes. At Christmas.’
‘And had the scandal already died?’ Again her look was arch, laughing. ‘The Bourlov heiress and her Finnish Count?’ She waited.
He thought for a moment. Then, ‘Oh, good lord! You’re –’
‘Yekaterina Mikhailovna Lavola,’ she murmured and dropped a sketchy, mocking curtsey. ‘As I said. And truly, Captain, do you think my husband and I have had nothing better to do this winter than to shelter fugitives?’
He laughed with her, his acceptance of her story instant and unreserved. ‘Many apologies Countess. If I had known –’
‘If you had known you might have told my father,’ she said. ‘But now it is too late, for we plan to return to the fold anyway. So – you have uncovered one set of fugitives, but sadly I cannot help you with your more important task. Now, may I offer you and your men tea? You have time, I think, before getting back to the village? Though –’ she lifted her head, sniffed the air ‘– the weather is far from settled. Even at this time of the year a blizzard can set in with very little warning.’
He lifted a hand. ‘No. We won’t impose upon you. We have good billets in the village, but it’s a long march. The sooner we get back, the sooner the men will be satisfied. I apologize, Countess, for the intrusion.’
She nodded her head politely. Her knees felt absurdly weak.
He pulled on his gauntlets, walked to his horse, took the reins from the waiting soldier.
‘And, Captain?’
‘Countess?’
She smiled beguilingly. ‘I can trust you to keep our little secret? In a month or so we’ll be back in Petersburg. I should like to keep our whereabouts a surprise until then?’
‘Of course, Countess. Of course.’
His very expression belied his words. Katya had every confidence that within days the world would know the whereabouts of Jussi Lavola and his impulsive bride. Safe. She was safe. It was an extraordinarily odd feeling. She smiled. ‘Thank you, Captain.’
She watched them out of the clearing, the men shuffling behind their well-mounted officer. At the edge of the clearing he turned, lifted a hand. She waved brightly back. When the last man had disappeared from view she turned to the house.
The door stood open.
Suddenly trembling, she walked slowly to the steps, climbed them, went on into the shadowed room, walked unthinking into Jussi’s arms, open and waiting for her, hugging her, fiercely and possessively. For a very long time no-one spoke.
‘We have, I think, another fighter for Finland,’ Jussi said at last, over her head.
‘For Suomi,’ Kaarlo corrected him. His nose was bleeding.
‘I had quite forgotten,’ Katya said, her voice muffled by Jussi’s none-too-clean sleeveless sheepskin jacket, ’that I had become a Countess. It seems after all that I must be my father’s daughter. I find I rather like the idea. You’ll not get rid of me now, Jussi. Don’t dare try.’