“I am not getting married.”
“You just said you were ready to set about planning your future.”
“Yes, but not as a wife.”
“What else is there for you, my dear girl? Your mother and I…” He stopped, as if struck by an unwelcome thought. In the middle of the room he seemed to swell inside his clothes, and the veins on his cheeks filled with blood. “What is this idea you have for your own future?”
She stood up to face him. “Papa, that’s what I’ve come to tell you. I want to train to become a professional nurse.”
THEY SAT HER DOWN. NOT IN THE STUDY. NOT IN THE drawing room, where serious discussions usually took place. Her parents sat her down in the music room, the room she had poured her hopes into for so many years. They sat her on the piano stool with its tasseled seat that she had frayed and picked at when the music wouldn’t come right. Her mother took a seat on the chair by the window. Though her face was under the usual control, her fingers held a handkerchief screwed into a tight ball in one hand. Her mother’s silence was almost worse than her father’s outburst.
“Valentina,” General Ivanov said, “you must rid your head of this unpleasant notion at once. It astonishes me that you give such an idea even a moment’s serious thought. Look at the education you’ve received, the music lessons. Think about all that it cost us.”
He was striding back and forth in front of her, the edge of his frock coat flapping with agitation. She wanted to put out a hand to quiet it. To quiet him.
“Please try to understand, Papa. I can speak four languages and I can play the piano and I can walk well. What does that fit me for?”
“It fits you for marriage. That’s what all young ladies are groomed for.”
“I’m sorry, Papa, I told you. I don’t wish to marry.”
Her mother’s intake of breath was too much. Valentina turned to face the piano, her back to them, and lifted the lid. Her fingers found a soft chord and then stretched to another, and as always the sound of the notes calmed her. The trembling in her chest grew less. She played a snatch of the Chopin piece and saw a flash of the flame-haired Viking lounging in the corner of her mind. Behind her all movement had ceased, and she imagined her parents exchanging glances.
“You play well, Valentina.”
“Thank you, Mama.”
“Any husband would be proud to have you entertain his guests after dinner with a piece by Beethoven or Tchaikovsky.”
Valentina clamped her fingers together to keep them off the keys. “I want to be a nurse.” She spoke quietly. Patiently. “I want to look after Katya. Nurse Sonya won’t be with us forever.”
A sigh drifted across the room, and suddenly her father’s tall dark figure was standing right behind her. His hand stroked her hair and settled on her shoulder. She didn’t move. He hadn’t touched her in the six months since the bomb at Tesovo, and she feared that if she so much as shifted a muscle, he would retreat and not touch her for another six.
“Valentina, listen to me, my dear child. You know I want the best for you. Nursing is a miserable occupation, full of whores and alcoholics. It is not suitable work for a respectable young lady.”
“Listen to your father,” her mother urged gently.
“They have lice. They have… diseases.” It was clear from the way he spoke that he didn’t mean just smallpox or typhoid.
“But Nurse Sonya isn’t a whore or an alcoholic,” Valentina pointed out. “She doesn’t have a disease. She’s a respectable woman.”
His hand tightened its grip on her shoulder, and she sensed it wanting to tighten its grip on her mind. “There is another way,” he said, “for you to help Katya. A better way to make it up to her.”
“How?”
“It’s not difficult.”
“What is it, Papa? What can I do?”
“Marry well.”
She swung back to the piano, disappointment catching at her throat. She didn’t want to cross her father.
“You heard me, Valentina.” The general’s voice was beginning to rise. “Damn it, girl, you must marry well. You must marry now. I insist on it. For the good of the Ivanov name.”
Seven
EXPLOITATION! DEPRIVATION! STARVATION!”
Mikhail Sergeyev was good. He knew how to work a crowd, how to spark the emotions in men and put fire in their empty bellies. Arkin assessed tonight’s crowd with satisfaction. Most were peasants like himself, simple workmen who had flocked from the rural provinces to find employment in the factories of St. Petersburg. Most couldn’t read. Few could even write their name. Oddly, that fact saddened Arkin even more than the terrible conditions under which they worked in the factories or in the mills. The knowledge that the minds of the masses were being deliberately stunted by depriving them of education was to him the harshest injustice of all. It was why he believed in Leon Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution. He had gone with Sergeyev to hear Trotsky address a meeting, and they had both been so enthralled by this man of vision with his bush of unruly hair and forever-glinting spectacles that they had walked the streets all night, unable to rest. He had shown them a new world. One in which justice and equality weren’t just empty words but were the living, breathing heart of every man’s life. From that moment on, they had started to recruit others to the socialist cause.
“Men of Russia”-Sergeyev was passionate in his urging-“we have to fight for our rights ourselves. The iron fist of tsarism must”-he paused and gazed around the room at his audience-“must be overthrown.”
There were shouts of approval.
“They gave us the Duma to shut us up.” Sergeyev said the words mockingly. “Yet Prime Minister Stolypin treats it with scorn. Instead he puts Stolypin neckties, the hangman’s noose, on all who dissent.” Sergeyev yanked up his own tie as if he were being throttled by a rope, and the crowd roared. Arkin added his voice to theirs.
“Does Stolypin care that there is no bread on the table for your children?”
“No! Nyet! No!”
“Does Stolypin care that you are made to work in conditions that even a dog would bite off his leg to escape?”
“No! No!”
“Does Stolypin care that-”
“Comrade Sergeyev!” The shout came from a whippet of a man who was on his feet, a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth.
“Sit down!” a voice yelled.
Sergeyev held out a hand to demand silence. “Speak, comrade. All have the right to be heard.”
“Comrades,” the man said, raising his voice, “this talk will lead us nowhere. We cannot fight the enemy, we must make treaty with it. The Duma was only a first step. All the time we are working and arguing for more concessions. Alexander Guchkov, leader of the Octobrists in the Duma, is working hard to obtain agreement for better conditions in the mines of-”
“Alexander Guchkov,” Sergeyev thundered, “is nothing more than an instrument of tyranny.”
This delighted the crowd. “Da! Yes!”
Sergeyev drew himself up to his full height. “The only answer is the seizure of power by the workers. Strength to the unions.”
Thunderous applause. Voices clamoring. Hands pushing and pulling at the intruder in their midst until he swore they would all be wearing Stolypin’s neckties before long and stalked out of the hall in defeat.
“Power to the workers!” Sergeyev bellowed.
Against the wall, Arkin lit himself a cigarette and nodded. A dictatorship of the proletariat, Leon Trotsky had called it. It would be a bitter and bloody battle, but it was coming. The only question was when.
THE PRIEST WAS CLEVER. THERE WAS NO QUESTION OF THAT. Father Morozov understood people. He tempted the gnawing bellies into the church hall with a cauldron of hot stew. No meat, of course, just vegetables, but they were pathetically grateful all the same, and it fed more than just their bodies, it fed their anger. That they were reduced to this. It enraged the sense of injustice in them, even before they were funneled into the hall for Sergeyev’s speeches. The only trouble with Father Morozov was that he believed in God and in God’s love for all mankind, however miserable an example of the human race a person might be. That got in the way sometimes.