The House by the Dvina (11 page)

It all sounded very simple. Now her confidence had vanished and the thought of risking her daughterТs life terrified her.

After seven days of hard driving, the troika approached the last station before Archangel on the morning of 12 January. They were met by a strange sight. Moving towards them was a long train of sledges, pulled by single or double horses or the inevitable troikas. There was the sound of laughing, singing and someone playing a concertina. As they drew nearer, each sledge moved to the side of the road and waited. When the kibitka approached and passed the row of sledges, loud cheering rent the air.

Passengers and drivers were waving and throwing up their hats. Then all the sledges turned round and escorted the kibitka. In this manner the whole cavalcade, accompanied by the jingling of bells, music and singing, arrived at the station. A great reception awaited them in a hall booked by YenyaТs father-in- law. In his expansive way, he had ordered food and drink to be brought from Archangel. A lavish table was spread for all the guests. Midst laughter and cheering, Stepan and Pavel Mikhailovich were regaled with the old time-honoured custom of being tossed several times up in the air and carried shoulder high inside the hall.

The success of the mission was celebrated in the traditional manner by eating and drinking, singing and dancing, until finally the kibitka Ч

still followed by her lively retinue Ч set off on her last lap of some eight miles to Archangel.

The short day was drawing to a close when the horses approached the river.

The winter sun was vanishing fast behind the dark line in the west, but the slanting rays still splashed the sky in crimson and gold. From the east could be seen the sombre kibitka and her troika in the midst of the picturesque entourage racing across the river bathed in the rosy glow of the sunset. In gathering darkness the wearied horses and passengers were nearing their journeyТs end. A few sledges still followed the kibitka as it glided slowly through the gates and halted beside the front entrance.

Not waiting to be assisted, ignoring her condition, the pain in her cramped limbs, Yenya scrambled out and struggling up the staircase the best way she could, entered the hall. They were all there waiting for her.

In their midst stood Amelia holding her little granddaughter. Yenya took her child and held her close to herself. She carried her through to the dining-room and sat down at the table.

A second reception was being prepared. Friends and relatives kept arriving and more places had to be found. Chairs were carried from other rooms, extra food from the kitchen. Stepan and Pavel Mikhailovich were given the honour of sitting at the top of the table. It was a happy but a more contained gathering. Those who had traversed the long distance were exhausted. The hollowed eyes, the white, drawn faces told their own story.

The impetus which drove them on regardless of their own well-being was no longer there. The men had suffered most. They had slept in short snatches, at times exchanging the reins and dozing fitfully in their seats, while exposed to the bitter elements. They had achieved what they set out to do, but now reaction was setting in leaving no desire for any further celebrations Gradually the house emptied. Only those staying overnight remained.Earlier in the day orders had been given to clear the path to the banya, or bath-house, lying in the far corner of the garden. The banya was heated, brass basins polished, small wooden tubs scrubbed white andbundles of birch twigs laid out beside the folded sheets on the benches.

Yenya, her mother and Babushka Feodosiya, accompanied by a young servant girl, crossed into the garden and walked along the avenue between the sleeping snow-clad birches. After undressing in the small anteroom of the banya, they entered the adjoining chamber where they were immediately enveloped in steam and heat. No bathing in Russia is complete without the ritual of beating the body with the birch twigs, to promote the circulation and a sense of well-being. This was followed by scrubbing, sluicing and massaging until all weariness was shed and they lay relaxed on the benches. Back in the house there was the welcome purring of the samovar, tea and cloudberry jam, soft lamplight and all-pervading peace.

For a whole week Yenya and her mother had been denied the comfort of a bed. Now, in her own bedroom, lying between fine sheets, sleep eluded Yenya. She still heard the monotonous jingling of the bells and felt the swaying of the kibitka. On the other side of the wide double-bed Anna slept soundly. Finally Yenya also drifted into a dreamless sleep. She was awakened in the early hours of the morning by a painful stabbing in her back. “Mamushka,” she called softly to her mother. Anna immediately sat up. “Thank God we are back in time,” were her first words. The whole house became alive. Lamps were lit, footsteps hurried across the hall and down to the kitchen. Someone ran out into the courtyard to arouse the coachman.

His sledge rushed out through the gates and soon returned, bringing the midwife. The doctor followed. YenyaТs labour continued throughout the whole of the day and into the late evening of 13 January, when my father was born. He was a small baby. Smaller than usual with finely chiselled features. His arrival was earlier than Yenya expected. The clothing prepared for him was too large and smaller garments had to be made in a hurry. Many years later Babushka gave them to me and I was able to dress my doll in them. Yenya named her son Gherman after St Gherman of the Solovetsky Monastery. He was the first saintly man to inhabit the holy island of Solovets on the White Sea. Throughout his childhood and even later my father was known to his relatives and friends as Ghermosha, the diminutive of his name. At the last minute, for some reason, the pleasant and healthy young woman engaged as a wet mother was not available. Another nurse had to be urgently found, for although Yenya was only too willing to nurse her own child, she was unable to do so. The new nurse was known as Seraphima.

I remember Seraphima. A tall, gaunt woman with harsh features, deep-set dark eyes and iron-grey hair. She was deeply attached to my father, but had no time for my mother nor yet us children. My great-aunt Tyotya Peeka once, in a burst of confidence, informed my mother that Seraphima tippled, but by the time this unfortunate trait had been discovered it was too late. Seraphima had the quaint habit of hiding somewhere inside her numerous petticoats a bottle of vodka. Often while suckling little Ghermosha, and possibly feeling bored with life, she would take a swig from the bottle.

As her own child was left in the village, she became deeply attached to her small charge, was untiring in her devotion and fiercely jealous of any interference.

In spite of her many strange ways, the loud harsh voice resounding through the house when she sung her lullabies, she was accepted by Yenya.

Seraphima loved much Ч therefore much was forgiven.

The baby thrived. His thin little legs and arms filled out and he became an attractive child.

One day in late February, when already there was a faint promise of spring, a hired sledge drove up to the back entrance. A tall, thin man, shabby and pale-faced, stepped out and after paying off the driver and collecting a few belongings walked through the passage into the kitchen.

Aleksandr had returned.

Nanny Shalovchikha, assisting in some task in the kitchen, threw up her hands and hurried to embrace him. “At last God has answered my prayers,”

she exclaimed, overcome by emotion. The homely faces he knew so well encircled him with their affection. Everything was just as it was. The scrubbed deal table, the kitchen chairs, the copper pots, the food cooking on the range and the warm smell of the bread baking in the great stove. A young servant, eager to be the bearer of glad tidings to the barynya, ran towards the door leading upstairs, but Aleksandr stopped her.

He climbed the back stairs and opened the door of the nursery. In this sunlit room, Yenya, engrossed in her embroidery, was sitting beside the children. She raised her head and saw Aleksandr framed in the doorway.

Bursting into tears, she rushed across the room and threw herself into his arms.

Olga, recognising her father, was overjoyed and yet bewildered. Her papa, the loving man whom she associated with toys and sweets and many happy times, had one day suddenly vanished and now just as suddenly had appeared again and to her delight was throwing her up and kissing her just as he did before. The baby, wide awake, was lying peacefully in his cot.

Aleksandr lifted him gently and held the small bundle against his breast.

To Yenya it seemed as if from a long distance away the words, never to be forgotten, were echoing back “I give you my word your child will have bis father.”

The christening of the baby took place a few days after AleksandrТs return. The font was brought from the church and placed in the drawing room.

The following day the horrifying news of the TsarТs assassination reached Archangel. The whole of Russia was shaken.

Every Sunday it was the TsarТs custom to attend a cavalry parade in the grounds of the Mikhailovo Palace and occasionally pay a call on his cousin the Grand Duchess Catherina. For weeks the assassins had watched the TsarТs movements and were now stationed on the street where the Tsar and his retinue were due to pass. Soon the carriage, flanked on either side by cossacks in scarlet Circassian coats, mounted on black horses, came into view, followed closely by sledges carrying the Chief of Police and uniformed functionaries.

The first bomb exploded under the back axle of the carriage, killing two guards, horses and an innocent young bakerТs boy delivering bread. The Tsar was unharmed. Disregarding the advice that he should hurry back to the Palace, he stepped out of the carriage and walked over to see what assistance could be given to those lying on the snow. Seeing they were beyond help he turned back to his carriage and was heard to say, “God has spared me again, but what of the wounded?” At this moment another of the assassins cried, “You are mistaken, Aleksandr,” and threw the second bomb.

It landed at the TsarТs feet. When the smoke cleared the Tsar was seen lying with one of his legs torn off and his body terribly injured. He was alive and still had enough strength to say, “Take me home.” Then he lapsed into unconsciousness. He was rushed to the Palace and carried into his study. Princess Yurievskaya, his former mistress and since the death of the Empress his morganatic wife, threw herself in utter despair over the blood-soaked body calling out his name, but the Tsar was now beyond all hearing. He died soon after. Such was the reward of the “Tsar Liberator”, the man who lived by his resolve to do good for his people, who freed the serfs and planned to further their lot, who abolished corporal punishment, instituted the jury system and established equality for all before the law. On the very morning of his death he was working on a charter which would have set Russia on the road to a Parliamentary Government.

No one of all the sorrowing subjects grieved more than my grandmother. A mere few weeks earlier she had seen him alive and well. In the packed cathedral where the Requiem was held, she knelt beside the weeping congregation and prayed with all her heart for the soul of the martyred Tsar. In the years to come, on each anniversary of his death, she would light a candle to his memory.

A public hanging of the murderers took place in St Petersburg. During the course of his reign Aleksandr II was subjected to many attempts on his life and each time miraculously escaped the fate which in the end overtook him. Had the assassins succeeded earlier than they did in killing the Tsar, the journey my grandmother undertook to St Petersburg would never have taken place. Aleksandr III, in his bitter anger over the death of his father, would have been most unlikely to consider any amnesty. As it happened, during that short period before the fatal Sunday, 13 March 1881, luck favoured Yenya. Aleksandr III was a man totally opposite in character to that of his murdered father. Renowned for his size and physical strength, who with perfect ease could bend a fork or a coin, tear a pack of cards in two halves with his bare hands, he was also a man who refused to tolerate anything that might remotely endanger the security and order of the state. One of his first decrees was to cancel many of the reforms granted by his father. The universities were especially affected and all those who spread revolutionary ideas were promptly expelled or banished to Siberia. Those who were caught plotting further assassinations were summarily executed. Among them was Alexsandr Ulyanoff, the brother of Lenin.

A second son was born to Yenya and Aleksandr. They named him Aleksandr, but he was known as Sanya, one of the several diminutives of his full name. Blue-eyed, fair-haired, he was a sturdier child than his elder brother.

Not long after SanyaТs birth, died Margaretha Caroline, the proud matriarch of the family. She was followed by her contemporary, Babushka Feodosiya, the teller of fine tales from Kaluga. Only Nanny Shalovchikha, their other contemporary, lived on. Like a small but sturdy old tree she weathered all storms.

One day when Ghermosha was five years old, and she in her eighties, he asked her if she would take him for a walk in the garden. It was a beautiful spring day. Not a trace of snow remained on the lawns and paths, but the pond shimmered like a white saucer under a thin layer of snow and ice. They were walking slowly along the winding paths when, unexpectedly, in the manner of all children, Ghermosha darted ahead and leaped on to the pond. There was an ominous crack as the child vanished below the ice.

Never hesitating, the old woman threw herself after him. Breaking the ice all round her she succeeded in grasping Ghermosha and dragging him back to the safety of the bank. From there, holding the half-conscious child to her breast, she ran stumbling and weeping to the house where, refusing all assistance to herself, she did not rest until she saw her charge revived, warm and safe in bed. Then and only then did she retreat downstairs to her own small room where she proceeded to doctor herself with her various herbal cures. She slept soundly all night in her feathered bed. The following morning neither she nor little Ghermosha were any the worse for their experience. The winter of 1889-90 was remembered for a long time for its severity. It abounded with terrible frosts and blizzards. Many a man, setting off for the opposite shore of the river, would suddenly find himself in the grip of a blizzard. It would engulf and blind him, until, walking in circles and losing all sense of direction, he would lie down to die, overcome by exhaustion. That winter, in the beginning of the new year, Ghermosha was approaching his ninth birthday. The past year had been especially exciting and happy. In the early autumn he had been accepted at the boysТ gymnasium named after Mikhail Lomonosov Ч the great genius of the north. Ghermosha loved the school, the black uniform and silver buttons, the long trousers, the strong leather belt and silver buckle engraved with the initials of the school. Above all he loved the companionship of his school friends, all the fun and noise that went with it. On 13 January it would be GhermoshaТs birthday. He was allowed to have a party. A few of his cousins and favourite schoolfriends were coming.