Two satchels, trunks, a medical box, and a book package were unloaded from the droshky and carted in a hand wagon by the apartment dvornik, where Uncle Matvey was staying, near Tverskoy Boulevard. Karena could see the river Neva as well as the spiral of the Kazan Cathedral on the Nevsky Prospekt. Across the bridge, guards rode majestic horses at the Winter Palace. She vaguely wondered where Colonel Kronstadt was stationed.
She turned to Madame Yeva, who leaned against the seat, slumping weakly inside her hooded fur coat. The snow flittered down softly. Karena took hold of her mother and carefully helped her down to the snowy court. Madame Yeva’s body felt cold, and she started to shiver uncontrollably.
The L-shaped building, not a large one, faced a small, quiet square with a security gate, bushes, and trees, some of which were pine, and the others, summer shade trees, now skeletons in winter.
Karena worried that the last remnants of Yeva’s strength were ebbing. She tightened her arm around her mother’s waist, urging her onward through the apartment door into a dim hall. In the midst of a small, square entry room, a stairway branched in two directions.
“Soon now,” Karena encouraged.
They started up the stairs, but Madame Yeva crumpled, and Karena tried to brace her on the banister. Her mother slid down, her breath raspy, and closed her eyes.
Karena rushed up the stairs, turned left, and met the dvornik coming out of an apartment. Just behind came Uncle Matvey Menkin with a smile on his bearded face that departed with one look at Karena. She realized she must look dreadful.
“Karena!”
“Uncle Matvey,” her voice broke with emotion. She half ran, half fell into his fatherly embrace.
“Karena, my child, what has happened to you? Have you been in an accident?” He looked around. “Where is Yeva?”
“She’s on the stairs, very ill. I think it’s pneumonia. Everything has gone wrong, Uncle. We must get her to bed.”
“Go inside, Karena. The porter will help me bring her up.”
Karena entered a lighted room with books, stacks of paper, and a familiar, comforting typewriter on a desk.
Madame Yeva was carried into the small second bedroom at the end of a narrow hallway, and Karena put her straight to bed. Her own head was throbbing. At last the world had ceased to sway. She drew the blankets up to her mother’s chin. She was sure the clean sheets were welcomed, but waves of chills swept over her mother as her teeth chattered.
Karena turned as Uncle Matvey came to the doorway. He held an extra blanket and drew near the bed, looking at his sister. He added the blanket to the ones already on her. He stood watching her with such soberness that Yeva noticed him and tried to smile.
“Matvey,” she rasped, “I’m … all right.” Then her eyes closed as she drifted into sleep.
“What are those bruise marks on her throat? and on your face, Karena? What evils have befallen you?”
Karena fought the desire to weep. He had burdens enough and would have more with their arrival.
I must stay calm. Strength of soul and purpose must be cultivated.
“There’s much I should tell you, Uncle. Give me a few minutes to get settled and make myself more presentable; then I’ll come out to the kitchen. I’d give almost anything for a hot cup of tea or coffee.” She tried to smile.
Uncle Matvey remained grave, apparently seeing through her brave attempt to hold together. He laid his palm on Madame Yeva’s forehead. “She’s very ill. She must have a doctor, some medicine. I’m going out, Karena. I’ll find one—”
“Uncle—wait,” Karena’s voice came with urgency. “It’s not wise.”
“Not wise?” came his incredulous voice; then he hesitated. “What’s happened? That bruise on your cheek—”
“I’ll explain everything. I must first tell you about something else that took place at Kiev before we left.”
His intense dark eyes studied her face. “Something else?”
“Yes, Uncle—” Her voice caught for a moment.
He paused and then nodded his head. “I’ll wait for you in the kitchen. I’ll put the coffeepot on.”
He went out, closing the door quietly. Karena stood still for a moment, trying to adjust to the silence after all the noise of the boxcar travel. She went to the washstand and, with shaking hands, poured water from the pitcher to clean her face.
One look at herself in the mirror above the stand and she winced. She sank down on a chair and rested her head against the back, closing her eyes, trying to ready herself to tell Uncle Matvey about that horrible night. Her eyes flicked open as a certain masculine face emerged in her mind—a face with gray-green eyes that held her captive.
What if he came here?
Professor Matvey Menkin waited in his kitchen. When Karena joined him, he was much moved to see his favorite niece in such condition. She has been through trauma. It is written in her eyes. First, I must calm her, he thought. His voice was reassuring. “Come and sit at the table while I pour the coffee, Karena. I admit to missing Grandmother Jilinsky—although I am thankful she is safe with Natalia and Sergei at the Roskov house. There is not a better cook anywhere to be found. Here, try a few slices of this apple and cheese. They are very good together. The cheese is from Finland. A friend from there travels frequently across the border. When he does, he always brings my favorite cheese.”
“It is delicious. We had nothing to eat or drink on the train but what we could bring with us.”
He suspected far worse where the trains were concerned but thought it wise to minimize those worries for now. He noticed that Karena was tense. She was seldom this way, and he was more worried than he had been since the arrest of Josef. Harassment of Jews had escalated in the past weeks. He had written Yeva a few days ago asking that they not travel here alone. It was clear they had left Kiev before receiving his letter.
“How was the train?” he asked, deliberately calm. “I’m surprised you found seats.”
“Oh, Uncle, it was horrible.” She set her cup down with a nervous clatter.
He reached across the table and took her hand. “What happened?”
By the time she had told her story of hopeless roads, of being denied seats on the train, of conditions in the boxcar, she was calmer, as if sharing these things enabled her to accept them.
“And not only that, but just as we reached St. Petersburg Station, exhausted, with Mother growing more ill by the hour, we had the misfortune of arriving at the very moment a czarist official was assassinated. We had the double misfortune of running into Alex—Colonel Kronstadt—and what’s more, he saw me. He may still be investigating.”
Aleksandr Kronstadt. An intelligent young man who had treated him respectfully. Even now, the young colonel was still in possession of the important first draft of his manuscript, with all of his notes. Matvey had received a short correspondence from him last week telling him that he expected to return everything shortly.
Matvey frowned, reaching for his pipe. So there’d been yet another assassination. He doubted if Karena knew who’d been attacked and did not burden her with questions. That Colonel Kronstadt was there also complicated matters for Karena and Sergei. The colonel already suspected it was Sergei, not Josef, at the Kiev meeting that night. If anyone were involved with the revolutionaries at Kiev, it would more naturally be Sergei.
There was still no word on Josef’s prison sentence. Matvey was growing more concerned for the outcome. Sergei had stopped by only yesterday, coming over from the Roskov house to visit him, pacing the floor over his father’s future, and blaming himself. Time and again, he’d wanted to inform the police, but Matvey counseled him it would only make matters worse. No matter what Sergei did, the authorities would keep his father under arrest for concealing the truth. Matvey did his best to illuminate the evils of the communist/socialist/Marxist system of beliefs, pointing out that it attacked the core of human belief in a God to whom all must answer. Sergei listened but kept silent, and he’d not been antagonistic. There yet remained hope for the young man.
“We managed to escape Kronstadt,” Karena was explaining. “I’d never have come here, Uncle, but with Mother as she is, I had no one else to turn to. She didn’t feel comfortable going to the Roskovs.”
Matvey looked up sharply over his old pipe. “Escape? Why did you feel you needed to escape Colonel Kronstadt?”
She fumbled with her cup and saucer.
Matvey watched her alertly. “He permitted you and Yeva to avoid further questioning by Major-General Durnov. If he’d been of a mind to do so, he could have hauled you both in to Petrograd. He let you walk away. He met you in Kazan, did he not?”
She nodded, staring into her cup.
“Is there an attraction between the two of you?”
She pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. She nodded. “More so on my part.”
“I don’t think so. Not after risking himself as he has to shield you.”
She remained silent.
“Is there something more, Karena? about your escape, I mean?”
“It’s Leonovich,” she said with a burst of emotion. “He’s dead.”
Matvey listened in dismay as she explained the repulsive details. An appalling silence settled over the room. It was some time before he could gather his voice to speak.
“You should have sent me a wire at once, Karena. I could have come to meet you. Does anyone else know of this? General Roskov?”
“No one.”
“You did well to come here. It will give us time to decide the best way to handle this. I must think.” He got up from the chair and walked about the kitchen. Leonovich—he knew little about the man but remembered seeing him a few times during his visits in Kiev. An odious wretch, a prowler—
“I wanted to go to the police,” Karena said, “but Mother didn’t think it wise.”
“After Grinevich? It’s understandable.”
“They wouldn’t have believed me,” Karena said, resting her forehead against her palm. “Not even the marks on Mother’s throat would have convinced them. The marks are still there—you saw them—but they were even worse.”
“I agree they would not have wanted to believe you. Still …” He shook his head, fearing the concealing of such facts. “Getting rid of Leonovich’s body will only strengthen their suspicions of guilt. The facts must be given to someone who will listen to the truth. Kronstadt, perhaps.”
Her head jerked up. “No, Uncle.”
Matvey struck a match and absently lit his pipe. He could understand why she wished to avoid Kronstadt at the station; arriving on the heels of yet another political assassination could go badly for her. He let the matter pass for the present.
“We hope Leonovich’s death will be blamed on a robbery along the road,” Karena said. “The best thing would be if his body isn’t discovered at all. We planned to contact you secretly and explain to the family. Natalia, of course, was the biggest worry in that regard, and Sergei.”
“My dear, things don’t work so simply in life. I think you know that. If the authorities wish to convict you both of murder, they will. We’ll need to help one another, and by that I mean we Jews and those who befriend us. First, there is someone I must see. Please trust me in this.”
“I trust your judgment, Uncle, but—you’re not going to Colonel Kronstadt?”
Dismay covered her face, and he laid a steadying hand on her shoulder. “No, not yet.”
“Not yet?”
“There’s someone visiting in town, a lawyer friend from Finland. I’ve known him for several years. His knowledge is most valuable.”
“We can trust him?”
“Yes, we can. Others have.” He was thinking of those his friend had helped across the Finnish border into safety, yet he did not wish to alarm her now with the possibility that they must flee Russia. “After I’ve talked with him and others,” he said gently, “we’ll discuss matters.” If escape were necessary, it would be wiser to move with as little disturbance as possible. Agents of Durnov may be watching the Roskov residence, and they may even have this apartment under surveillance. Yeva’s illness made matters worse. It would be difficult for her to travel, especially across the border.
Matvey tried to conceal his fear from Karena. There was only one man in the Okhrana who might aid them. If Kronstadt did have a developing interest in her, he could be trusted.
Matvey made up his mind. He could only hide them for a short time. Karena was against contacting Kronstadt, but he must use his own judgment.
He thought of his Messianic studies. Many of his Jewish friends would be appalled to discover that he had become a believer in Jesus the Messiah. In his heart, he turned to his Savior and Redeemer for divine wisdom. For their sakes, he prayed, may they, too, come to put their faith in Jesus, the Messiah.
“We will make no further decisions just yet,” he told Karena. “You need food and rest, just as Yeva does. While you see to that, I’ll be going out. I need to make a few calls. I will return this evening. If I’m not back by supper, there are eggs and more cheese in the icebox and bread on the pantry shelf.”
She followed him into the hall. He opened the bedroom door, and they stood looking at Madame Yeva. Matvey’s anger was roused, as he understood the reason for the bruises on his sister’s throat and the cuts and swelling on Karena. Lord, I entrust this to you. There are so many trials in life that just can’t be solved until your reign. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven!
Karena walked quickly to the bed. “Her brow is damp,” she whispered to him. “She’s flushed. Her breathing is heavy and troubled.”
She came back out of the small bedroom and closed the door behind her. “Uncle, I don’t think I should wait any longer to find a doctor.”
He nodded. But now that he knew the truth, he was no longer comfortable with calling the doctor he’d first had in mind. The man might be trustworthy, but caution must prevail.
“She does need medical care,” he said. “I thought so the moment I saw her. You’ve nothing, Karena, in her medical bag?”
“We brought little besides birthing supplies and some headache tonic. If I had mother’s quinine tablets … But I’ve already looked, and she hasn’t any. She either ran out or overlooked bringing them. But I am thinking of a woman she knows here in St. Petersburg. She knew her years ago at the medical college. She’s a doctor now—Dr. Lenski.”
The name jolted him. “Lenski’s mother? It would be a mistake to bring her here. If the apartment is being watched, the Okhrana will move in the moment they recognize her.”
“But they know where she is. She works freely out of the college—she and her daughter, Ivanna. If the Okhrana wanted to arrest them, they could have by now. Uncle, please. I’m sure it’s safe. I will call on her myself. There are several matters I need to discuss with her.”
“Then I’ll leave the doctor business to you, and I’ll make arrangements in town to see my lawyer friend. I should be back in time for supper.” From a drawer he removed a spare key and handed it to her.
“Better get something to eat and rest an hour. Matters will work out, Karena. We need to believe that there are greater purposes at work in the world and in our lives than most people acknowledge. We ignore those purposes to our peril.”
He saw a responsive flicker in her blue eyes and the beginning of a smile that tried to encourage him of her trust. He thought she might be close to believing in the Messiah. He patted her head, thinking of her as the little girl in braids he remembered from years ago.
“I wouldn’t assume too quickly that Colonel Kronstadt should be feared.”
Karena watched Uncle Matvey leave through the front door of the apartment. She stood for a moment, considering his suggestion, and then went into the kitchen to find food for her mother.
She found a piece of cooked lamb and set about to make a broth. While the meat simmered, she wet some hand towels, cooled them in the icebox for a few minutes, and with a small bowl of water, went to attend her mother’s fever.
Her mother’s eyes fluttered open. Karena watched her with concern. Yeva tried to reach for Karena’s hand.
Karena leaned closer, laying the cool cloth on her forehead. “Mother, you’re burning up with fever. A few days more like this, and you will waste away to nothing. There’s no choice but to go for a doctor. I’m going to try to get Dr. Lenski to prescribe medication. Or perhaps even Dr. Zinnovy. I never told you this, but he was kind to me at Kiev and—”
Her mother’s face turned rigid with protest. The reaction was so harsh that it surprised Karena.
“No,” Yeva whispered in a croaky voice. Her head fell back against the damp pillow with exhaustion, and her breath rattled in her lungs. She felt her mother’s fingers tighten on her hand.
“Dr. Zinnovy may not be able to come, Mother. But if he does, I am most confident he can be trusted now. He protected me from the police after Grinevich was attacked. He was there at the meeting too. I saw him.”
Karena does not understand. She thinks I don’t want Dmitri here because I fear he’ll go to the police. Poor Karena, my poor little girl. She will never know he’s her father, and I cannot tell her.
“I must do something or I’ll lose you, Mother. I don’t want to lose you—”
Don’t want to lose you. Those words came journeying back from the past in the emotional voice of Dmitri. Yeva had not seen him in years, and she did not want to see him now. The old ember of resentment burst into raw fire again. She looked up into Karena’s face, young yet wise beyond her years—wiser than she herself had been at that age when she’d met the handsome Dr. Dmitri Zinnovy. She closed her eyes again. She was tired—so very tired—as her mind turned and began walking backward in time to when she was pregnant with her child and his …
Yeva had fled the Imperial College of Medicine and Midwifery, devastated with her predicament and Dmitri’s response to the news. With tears in her eyes and a heart squeezed with pain, she packed her bags in a rush. The door opened quickly, and footsteps sounded behind her. She whirled defensively. It was not Dmitri, but her colleague and friend, Fayina Lenski, in her second year of medical studies.
“Yeva, you cannot go away.”
“But, Fayina, I must. You know the regulations.” Any woman pregnant out of wedlock was dismissed. That was not the only reason she was leaving; she was running from Dmitri and his heartless betrayal. He had recommended an abortion.
“I know this hurts and shocks you, Yeva, but it is an answer that will safeguard us both,” he had told her.
“Safeguard,” she had cried as they met secretly and walked through the falling snow down Tverskoy Boulevard. It was ten o’clock at night, and the telega was parked a block behind where they’d gotten out to talk.
“Yes, we must safeguard your life and opportunity to go on with your medical studies, even as my position as head instructor must be guarded. I cannot leave the countess, divorce, and remarry. I’ve always said that.”
Countess Katya Zinnovy of the great Rezanov family. Yeva realized she’d been a fool. Dmitri would never leave the countess, though he’d told Yeva he did not love Katya and that Katya had an incurable disease of the kidneys that would take her life within a year. Then, she and Dmitri would marry. There had been reasons to become Dmitri’s mistress—all the wrong and selfish reasons that had seemed entirely logical and practical. She had compromised so much in the name of “love.”
She turned from Dmitri and hurried back toward the telega.
In the medical dormitory, Fayina walked up beside her bunk. “Where will you go? What will you do, Yeva?”
“I cannot go home to Warsaw.” There’d been a recent pogrom there, but she did not want to mention it. “There is an area of St. Petersburg where I can find an affordable room. I shall work among the poor peasant women. They will pay in food and commodities. I’ll not destroy my baby, no matter what.”
“You can stay with me. I have room. And if it’s work you are worried about, I know a doctor who can use you in deliveries. He works with peasants, prostitutes, and Gypsies.”
Yeva had been indebted to Fayina Lenski from that day forward. She’d moved to her inexpensive flat and was there only a week when Dr. Zinnovy unexpectedly arrived.
“Who told you I was here?”
“Fayina.”
She felt betrayed, but Dmitri said he had elicited Yeva’s whereabouts by threatening her medical studies.
“I am desperate. Forgive me, Yeva. Forgive me. No, wait. Please, let me talk.”
And talk he did, pleading with her that, if she must keep their baby, she should marry to spare herself and the baby from shame. He knew the perfect man, desperate for an arranged marriage with a wise woman. He was a gentile, but one who looked upon the seed of Jacob with favor. He was a schoolmaster and a farmer, and his family had been favored by Czar Alexander I. His wife had died, and he had a small boy named Sergei. If she would accept this marriage to Josef Peshkov, whom he knew to be a kind and decent man, Dmitri would see to everything. He then produced a bag of silver coins to tide her over. He would make sure she had a dowry in order to enter the Peshkov family with respect. And when the child became a young adult, he would pay for the education.
Madame Yeva was staring up at Karena’s lovely face, not seeing the bruises, but the past—her own struggle for love, meaning, and purpose in life. She had thought she had found it in Dr. Zinnovy, and for years afterward, she had grieved for him late at night while Josef slept beside her. Tears filled Yeva’s eyes. Now it was Josef she missed, longed for, and had so many regrets about. Josef was not the handsome man Dmitri had been, but his character made him a giant among men. She missed him and worried about his health and whether he was getting enough food.
“Josef, Josef, if only you were here.”
“Mother.” Karena bent her head and rested it a moment on her bosom. Yeva smoothed the damp hair from Karena’s neck as they cried together.
I do not regret having borne you, my dearest one. I thank God I did not get rid of you as they’d suggested—how precious you are.
Karena raised her head. Her mother’s eyes flickered open again, tried to focus, and then closed. “Not Zinnovy. Lenski … Dr. Fayina Lenski … at the college now … go there to her …” Yeva gave a shuddering breath that sent a dart of fear through Karena. She stood, clasping her slim fingers and gazing down at her mother.
She recalled her mother’s alarm when she mentioned writing to Dr. Lenski about her admission to the medical school. It was a relief to see she knew she was in need of help, but why not Dr. Zinnovy?
Karena left the bedroom and looked back at her sleeping mother before closing the door. She stood there for a moment, thinking. She’d better understand what she was getting into. Dr. Lenski would ask about their bruises, as well as treat her mother’s illness. She would want to know what they were doing here in St. Petersburg with Yeva’s brother.
There would be no need to explain everything. Karena went to the kitchen and set the broth aside on the back of the stove.
She could explain their stay here with Uncle Matvey with little difficulty, but other questions could lead to problems, as he had warned.
She made up her mind. She had to trust her mother’s old college roommate.
She slipped into her fur coat and went to Matvey’s desk to write a note in case he returned before she did. As she was about to turn for the front door, her eyes caught sight of his Bible sitting open on his desk. While she pulled on her gloves, she leaned over and glanced at the page. Some of the words were underlined, and there were notes written along the margins. It was the book of the prophet Isaiah, chapter 53. “He (God) shall see the labor of His (Messiah’s) soul, and be satisfied.” In the margin Uncle had written: “The Suffering Messiah: Jesus on the cross.” On a sheet of paper he’d written: “This prophecy of the promised Messiah is fulfilled, as is most of chapter 53. The sin debt is fully paid. We now have redemption through our true Passover Lamb, the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Karena’s tired mind responded in simple trust and faith. Her eyes moistened. Yes, I believe it. Jesus is my Passover Lamb. God, forgive me for what happened to Leonovich.
She left the apartment using her key. Her feet were still weary, her mind tired, and her earthly problems remained. But a peace calmed her troubled heart with an assurance that she now possessed peace with the Holy God.