The House by the Dvina (12 page)

Already his mamushka had made a very special cake and only the final decorations remained to be added later. The Christmas tree was still standing. The candles would be lit to celebrate his birthday, as was the custom every year, and on the following day it would be removed. Some days before his sonТs birthday, Aleksandr was driving home from Maimaksa in the early evening. The frost was unusually severe, but the night was clear and peaceful. The sky, a deep sapphire, was lit up by a luminous assembly of stars stretching across the heavens. Aleksandr was well muffled and warmly clad in his sheepskin shuba. A bearskin rug protected his knees.

Behind some cottages to the east, a crimson glow appeared in the sky and fanned out. Fires were common in these timber regions, but too often the distant fire brigade arrived only to find a heap of smouldering ashes. At the onset of a fire, the people themselves had learned to help each other the best way they could. Knowing this custom, Aleksandr turned and, driving fast, arrived at the scene of the outbreak. A church was burning.

Already the flames like giant tongues were greedily licking the walls, threatening to devour them. Men and women had formed a long chain down to the waterhole in the river, and were hurriedly passing buckets to each other. Others were running with ladders, ropes and hatchets. Ikons salvaged from the church lay piled on the snow. A man standing high on a ladder, defying the smoke and flames, was endeavouring to quench the flames which were engulfing a vital part of the wall. Aleksandr joined the chain which was struggling to pass the buckets. The water spilling on the ground was turning to ice. People slid, stumbled, fell and carried on.

Those fighting close to the walls suffered more, for they had to bear the scorching heat, the acrid smoke which stung their eyes and throats and, worst of all, the ice-cold water pouring down their heads and drenching their clothes. Yet, in spite of primitive methods and the appalling subzero temperature, in the end the fire was extinguished and the church saved. The people, too exhausted to express any jubilation, quietly began to disperse. Aleksandr climbed into his sledge. He unwisely refused to avail himself of the kindly offer of a hot meal and a change of clothing.

He was already late and in any case, he explained, the journey was short.

His patient horse once more set off along the familiar road, but soon the intense frost turned his clothing into solid ice and he was attacked by an uncontrollable fit of shivering, followed by a strange lethargy. The reins fell from his hands. The horse, with the reins trailing on the snow, instinctively carried on and ran into the courtyard. Aleksandr was carried into the house and his frozen clothing removed. The restorative treatment, which is common knowledge to those brought up in these regions, was applied to revive him, until he gradually came round and was taken to his bed. All night Yenya anxiously watched over him. In the morning, although still tired, Aleksandr was almost his usual self. The doctor came and after a thorough examination assured them. Through the day Aleksandr remained cheerful. The sun shone through the frosted windows and the children came in with their toys and played in the bedroom. Amelia came and, after hearing her son laughing and joking, went away reassured. Yenya still anxiously watched him. During the night Aleksandr was restless and talked a lot in his sleep, and in the morning Yenya noticed that his face was flushed and the eyes appeared to be heavy. The doctor called again and repeated his examination, but this time said very little. Later to Yenya he admitted privately that he suspected pneumonia was setting in. The house became very quiet. Everyone, even the children, spoke in whispers.

It was as if some unseen presence had entered the house.

In the early morning of 13 January, Aleksandr asked Yenya if she would send for the priest. Swallowing her tears, she obeyed. The old father, who was the priest in the Church of the Assumption and who had christened all her children, came at once. He administered the Last Rites. After the priest left, the children came into the bedroom and stood beside their father. He was unable to say anything. His breathing became more laboured and he lapsed into unconsciousness.

In the afternoon of the day of his sonТs birthday Aleksandr died. In the ballroom where only recently there had been a happy gathering, the Christmas tree was stripped of all decorations and removed to the woodshed.

In its place now stood the coffin. At a small table, an old man dressed in a cassock sat reading the prayers for the dead. His whispering, like the rustling of dry leaves in the autumn, was to be heard in the room for the next two days.

People called and spoke in muted tones. Olga, alone in her room, saw no one. The boys, their young faces bewildered, remained in the nursery with their babushka, Anna. Their paternal babushka arrived with her daughters and son. Amelia, who in the course of three years had lost her husband, her brother Eugene, a son and daughter in the bloom of their youth, now, on seeing her dead son, became distraught with grief. She clung to him, kissing him, stroking his hair and calling him by all the endearing names of his childhood, until Nanny Shalovchikha gently led her away to the nursery. In the evening the first of the funeral services took place. With her children beside her, amidst relatives and friends holding lighted candles, Yenya stood listening to the solemn intonations of the priest, the mournful singing of the responses. Her eyes kept turning to the coffin lit up by the candles in the candelabra. The still face held a serenity and somehow looked young again, recalling the distant scenes of their youth. Their years together had flashed by like the flight of a bird leaving a sense of desolation, the awesome finality of death. According to the laws of the Russian Orthodox Church, on the third and last night after his death, AleksandrТs body was removed from his home and taken to the Church of the Assumption. There he was left alone to spend the last night within the consecrated walls of the church until the following morning, when the final funeral service took place.

The church was packed by relatives, friends, acquaintances and the usual assemblage of curious onlookers. At the end of the lengthy Requiem there was the last homage, the last farewell. One by one each member of the congregation came up to the coffin to kiss the hand which held a small ikon. The coffin was closed and carried to the hearse.

Outside in front of the porch in the bitter frost a procession was forming. The mourners walked behind the hearse drawn by horses in their funeral trappings.

The old priest led the procession. Behind him, long mourning veils hiding their faces, walked young Olga, clutching her motherТs hand, and Amelia.

In their wake, trudging along the frostbound road strewn with conifer branches, contrasting vividly against the snow, was the long dark line of mourners. To reach the cemetery, about an hourТs walk away, they had to endure the subzero temperature, the sudden gusts of bitter wind. Yet faithful to the old tradition they bore their ordeal to the end. Only the very old and weak took to the sledges driving slowly in the rear.

In the cemetery, the frozen earth had been broken for the grave.

AleksandrТs coffin was gently lowered into his resting place close to his father. The priest read a short service and threw a handful of frozen clay on to the coffin and the others followed suit. The choir took up the chanting of “Vechnaya Pamyat” Ч “Eternal Memory”. Their plaintive voices, rising and falling, drifted over the snow-covered mounds and faded into the distance.

Outside the cemetery, sledges had gathered to take the mourners back. One final ritual remained. In the house the table was being prepared for the traditional “Pomeenki”, or wake. Special food was served and a bowl of “kootya” was passed round; each person took a spoonful of the preparation of boiled rice and raisins and made the sign of the cross in memory of the deceased.

The “Pomeenki”, like the wake in Ireland and the comforting cup of tea in Scotland, have one thing in common. This is when relatives and friends, some after a long lapse of time, meet with each other. For a few hours the bereaved will not think on what may await them tomorrow and lay aside their burden of grief and anxiety. They talk about mundane matters, reminisce, laugh and recall incidents long forgotten.

In the early evening the house gradually emptied. The last of the sledges glided through the gates and was swallowed in the darkness.

The dreary winter months went by. An unusual resilience and moral courage, combined with a religious fatalism, maintained Yenya. There was a certain comfort in the knowledge that at least she was spared all the financial difficulties and humiliations that befall less fortunate women. Aleksandr had made sure that she would be well endowed and have no difficulties in running the household in the way she was accustomed to. She was in fact quite wealthy. Each child likewise was well provided for and according to his will and the law of the country, the eldest son would eventually inherit the house and the grounds.

Such then was the position. At the same time the previous shared responsibilities of bringing up the children, the running of the house and garden now fell solely on YenyaТs shoulders. With an energy that allowed no time to sit and weep, she threw herself into all she was committed to do.

Two years went by. Then my grandmother, an attractive woman with a lively personality and in the prime of her life, met and married a well-known surgeon in the town. My memories of my stepgrandfather, Aleksandr Egorovich Popov, are of an unusually tall, broad-shouldered man whose serious face reflected his fine intelligence. The dark eyes were sometimes humorous and sometimes strict. I have no recollection of ever hearing him laughing although at times a broad smile would unexpectedly light up his grave countenance like a flash of bright sunlight. His integrity and entire devotion to his work always commanded respect from all who came in contact with him.

As a child I was given to singing cheerfully to myself when absorbed in some ploy. At times, completely overcome by my own exuberance, I would sing at the top of my voice until suddenly I would hear the familiar authoritative voice: “Jenka, stop your roaring.” Dedushka stood no nonsense. Aleksandr Egorovich was a man of independent means who might have preferred to begin his married life in a home of his own, but because of all the complexities connected with the house and the garden for which Yenya was responsible and, no doubt, after many discussions, he moved into the house of his predecessor.

The three children were sent abroad to boarding school Ч Ghermosha, aged eleven, and Sanya, two years younger, to Riga on the Baltic: Olga, now fourteen, to Germany and later to a finishing school in France. They could only get home in the summer and Christmas vacations. I have often asked myself why this uprooting was necessary. A mere two years earlier, they had lost their father. Now, they were leaving the security and affection of their home, and above all their mother. Perhaps the all-knowing Tyotya Peeka gave the answer when she said to my mother once: “Yenya did not want to burden Aleksandr Egorovich with the children and just packed them off to boarding school.”

A daughter, Margarita, was born of the second marriage: and then two sons, Seryozha and Gheorgie (known as Yura). The young faces of the new “mamkas”

could be seen coming and going between the villages and the house.

Of the three former “mamkas”, only one made a regular appearance.

Seraphima would sit in the kitchen, waiting patiently for the moment when the child she had suckled would be back again, her dark eyes flashing defiance at anyone who might have the temerity to question her presence.

Four years later, having completed her education abroad, Olga returned to her old home. She was now eighteen. Tall, slender with laughing hazel eyes, fine features and dark hair, she had blossomed into an attractive young woman. She was fond of her stepfather, but unlike her two young brothers, who now referred to him as Papa, she always addressed him as Aleksandr Egorovich Ч to her there had only been one father and no one could ever replace him.

One day, in the house of a friend, she was introduced to Oscar Semyonovich Yannooshkovsky, a young man attached to the Civil Service. The following year they were married and later when Oscar was moved to a more important post in Finland, they settled in Helsinki.

When Sanya finished his education, he came back from Riga. He did not join the family business; after a period of indolence he bought an interest in a gold mining company in Siberia and travelled there. Later he sold his share and returned to Archangel. I have no recollections of him being concerned in any other business.

To Gherman, the University of Riga presented a lively contrast to school.

Like many another student living away from home, receiving a regular allowance and being spared the irksome interference by relatives, Ghermosha was a law unto himself. He followed the path where life was gay and free from care. Although intelligent and with a remarkable gift for languages, he was not particularly studious. Olga once paid him an unexpected visit and found him in bed. “Are you ill?” she asked anxiously.

“Yes, ill,” came the whispered reply. Olga placed her cool hand on what appeared to be an equally cool forehead. “Tell me,” she said, settling down on the edge of the bed, “just what, exactly, are you up to?” Olga had a way with her brother. It transpired that Kostya, one of his best friends, was in dire financial difficulties which had culminated in demands and threats. In despair, he went to Ghermosha who, having spent all his allowance for the moment, had nothing to give him. Undaunted, he took off his studentТs uniform and told Kostya to take it to the pawnshop.

Of course, he admitted to Olga, it was not very convenient to be left with only oneТs underwear, but it would only be for another week! Then his next allowance would arrive and all would be well. Needless to say, it was Olga who redeemed his clothes. When Gherman finally returned from Riga, he imagined it would be for good. Then he found himself embarking on another journey, to Scotland. Now he was back, with his Scottish bride.