None of the images did move, and again Alexei had the creeping feeling that he’d been abandoned. It is a good thing, he told himself. The old soldier was hardly a benign, helpful ghost. But…what if Konstantin could help his sister?
Alexei rubbed his whiskers and thought. The spirit could easily travel to Moskva; in fact, he was familiar with it. He could find this Bogdan Chichikov, could perhaps come to him in a dream…Alexei closed the display on his laptop while he thought about this. If there were no other way to bring Cat here to the States, then he would make sure Konstantin understood how important it was. The ghost might be angry at him for Saturday night, but here was a child in danger. How could a soldier say no to that?
At midnight, he tried to call Rozalina, and she didn’t answer. Perhaps she was out today, or getting in late. He set his alarm for five-thirty. He would try again when he woke up.
Chapter 16
The more I grew to know Mariya Frolova, the more I admired her inner beauty, which matched the outer. She had the ability to melt the hardest heart with a smile, to right any wrong with a word, to lift the darkest spirit with but a touch of her sleek brown paw.
I do not know how she came about that gift, for it was not present in any of her family. Those noble foxes sat on many councils and held grand dinner parties, and took great pride in the nobility of their company and their exhaustive knowledge of every rule of etiquette. My rough manner and experience shocked my neighbors at the first dinner I attended, but Mariya, without scolding, told them I had lived a difficult life and had known little but soldiers. She guided me through those social engagements with a gentle paw, pointing out which painting I should compliment and why, which bright silver utensil I should pick up, when I should let the servants bring me food and drink, when I should talk and when I should be silent. Often, she had to remind me that not every complaint about the government was a cry of treason against the Tsar.
It was difficult for me to adapt to these evenings. Vasily hated them and would have nothing to do with them, leaving me alone. Without Mariya’s guiding paw, I should have given up after the first awkward silence. I felt more comfortable on the field, where I had risen to a rank of Lieutenant and was partly responsible for training new recruits, along with my assigned Colonel. There, my unyielding style earned praise from my superiors and respect from my trainees.
I was not, of course, assigned to train the Tsarevich, who would become Nicholas the Second. Then, he was only Nicholas, a young tiger well-liked by all the other soldiers. He showed none of the battle-readiness of his father; rather, he took after his mother with his charm and sociability. I envied him that. Even at the age of ten, he fit more neatly into formal dinners and dances than I, nearly ten years his senior. So I joined the crowds around him and talked with him when I could. Anxious as I was to be accepted by the Frolovs, I found myself captivated by the young prince’s charm.
One day, Mariya came to see me on the practice field. She did not understand the necessities of the exercises we practiced relentlessly, and I admit that I faltered in my instruction, worried that she might see me as harsh. But Nicholas, with all the charm of a young cub, approached her when he saw her watching me, and told her that I was such an excellent soldier that I would surely have been one of the Tsar’s personal guards, had I had the good fortune to be born a tiger. Mariya asked him why we needed to scold the soldiers so, and he assured her that to prepare them to defend the Tsar and country, soldiers needed to be prepared to instantly respond to any command given on the field, that they had the honor of being the force wielded by the tigers whose experience and intellect gave shape to Siberia’s defense.
She repeated his words to me as I escorted her from the barracks area, and with a sparkle in her eye and the warmest love in her voice, she said that she was proud of me. I had no appropriate response except to thank her for her confidence, and to bolster again in my heart my unwavering devotion to the Tsar and his line. I believe it was that moment that made our marriage possible, for her parents had always been somewhat distant toward me, as though I were a passing fancy to tide their daughter over until a more suitable candidate presented himself. The week following Nicholas’s conversation with Mariya, her father approached me and asked me what I would need to start a family with Mariya.
My officer’s pay was adequate for my purposes, and though I did not feel comfortable discussing the details of it with him, he seemed to know approximately how much I made. He assured me that they would stand by me and keep our family comfortable. After that, we discussed the unrest in the country, the foreign wars and the news from abroad that Siberia’s way of life was out of date. Peasants rarely toiled for landowners in other countries, but in Siberia, that was how we had always done it. I came of peasant stock, which Mariya’s father
had mentioned often prior to that week, but I had improved myself through diligent work and dedication to my country, which he spoke of more often in the weeks following.
We were married in a small ceremony in Petrograd with many nobles and officers in attendance. The few I counted as friends were vastly outnumbered; my adopted father’s presence made it important to be seen, and the Frolov household was not without importance in the area. I heard whispers that the marriage benefited me far more than Mariya, but I paid them no more mind than she did as our eyes met and we spoke the words that would join us.
Once we were married, there were few changes in our lives, as we had already begun to attend the same functions. I moved out of the quarters I shared with two other lieutenants, and Mariya moved out of her family’s home. The house we shared was modest: a brick building near the edge of Petrograd, with a small columned porch and a stable in back. Modest it might have been, but sufficient for both of us, and affordable on my pay (nonetheless, her father insisted on paying for half of it, and though it rankled me, I allowed him). Mariya brought carpets and wall hangings, curtains and chairs and couches, pictures and silverware, but above all, she brought herself. From the first, that little house became our home, completely naturally.
Tradition dictated that we should go away to spend time as newlyweds, but Mariya had little desire to travel, and I had my duties. My colonel had given me leave, but I knew that would place him under undue strain, and as Mariya preferred to remain in Petrograd, I did not take advantage of his offer. Instead, Mariya and I set immediately to the joyful task of establishing ourselves as a family.
We attended dinners together, at which I still needed her guidance; still, my confidence in social situations grew with each week. With her at my side I felt worthy of the noblest audience. Marriage into her family brought me access to other meetings, groups of male foxes and wolves and reindeer and rats who discussed the country’s situation while their wives spoke of other matters in the other room (Mariya would tell me the talk was all of the faithfulness of husbands and wives, the success of husbands and children, and some sophisticated conversation that rivaled the males’ on the subjects of government and aristocracy). At these meetings, I listened more than I spoke, reminding myself that these nobles wished the best for this country and that their dissatisfaction did not mean they were treasonous.
They had much to complain about. The Emperor at the time, Alexander, had far fewer social graces than his wife or son. He was known to pass gas in public, and laugh raucously after the disruptive noise. He valued loyalty over thought, and indeed one of the grievances often echoed in those rooms was that some flawed or destructive policy had been passed into law because the creator was a favorite of the Emperor. He rarely attended social events, and when he did, did so always in uniform, a giant of a tiger barely contained by his navy blue coat, his gold epaulets and medals seeming as impermanent as clouds on a mountain.
And yet, when it came to the state of the country and its prestige, in Petrograd and Moskva as well as abroad, Alexander kept a firm grasp of what needed to be done and what he wished for Siberia. Even the dissatisfied nobles could not dispute that the country under his rule appeared stronger to its enemies, both internal and external. We had lost a small amount of prestige in a foreign war near the end of his father’s life, but Alexander’s strength united the country. He was, in effect, Siberia. When the nobles talked of discontent with policies and practices, they rarely criticized the Emperor directly, preferring to talk of his underlings, as one criticizes parents by discussing the children. I inferred the criticism of the Emperor, but a lieutenant, even one in the Semenovsky guards, could not speak up against these nobles, for fear of exclusion from their society.
I could not risk that; I would not have minded for my own sake, and my adopted father cared as little as I did, but the company of her friends and family was Mariya’s lifeblood. But she loved my passion as well, and when we had left the great marble-floored halls and velvet chairs, the rarefied conversation and the lifted
muzzles, we both of us looked forward to the ride home in our carriage, where we laughed together over the people who thought themselves wiser than the Tsar. The work is easiest for he who watches it being done, my father used to say. Though Mariya did not always understand a soldier’s life, she respected the effort I made, and my dedication to guards and country.
After a year of marriage, Mariya announced that we were expecting a cub, and our lives filled with delight. She left the house more rarely after that, and I stayed with her; even had I wished to attend more tedious social events, I would have missed them for her sake. A few of her friends visited her regularly, and with that and my company she seemed quite content. I have rarely felt joy as I did during those few months, watching her grow larger and more beautiful with impending motherhood, and making preparations for our cub to arrive. All my fellows took to slapping me on the shoulder or shaking my paw, even the ones who thought me too harsh, too disciplined. Family, they said, sets all of us right in the end, and with a wife and cub, my life would be complete.
On a cool spring morning, the sun shone, flowers bloomed, and little Tatya was delivered to us. She was a delicate little thing, with thin charcoal fur and paper-thin ears, a tail barely longer than one of my fingers. Her eyes, when they opened, would be blue, Mariya said, but they would change as she grew, becoming perhaps brown like mine or green like her own.
I did not care what color her eyes were, nor whether her tail would bear my thick white tip or Mariya’s smaller one, nor what shape the shadow on her muzzle took. I knew she would be beautiful. I stood at my wife’s bedside, looking down at my daughter, and I promised I would keep her safe and protect her for all of her life.
And within two weeks I was forsworn. She developed a cough, which wracked her weak body. The nurse could do nothing to stop it. By the time the doctor arrived, he was too late.
She never even opened her eyes.
Chapter 17
Tombstones face away from Alexei in rows that stretch too far ahead of him to count. They are of all shapes and sizes, but like kinds are grouped in families. His paws rest on cold, polished white marble. Near him, the tombstones are all like the one he stands beside: large, elaborate monuments in rose, white, and grey. Farther away, brown clusters of small, plain sandstone markers dot the field. Clouds roil overhead, but the wind that blows is not the biting cold he remembers from earlier dreams. The smell is the same: broad, Siberian, empty.
Around him, regular plots below the stones mark graves. He wonders whether this is a vision of a real cemetery or simply a spiritual resting place for ghosts, and the thought makes his fur prickle and his tail wind tightly around his leg.
He looks around at the front of the tombstone he is resting on and sees a tiger’s head and the name, in Siberian characters: Princess Yekaterina Orlov 1845–1898. On each surrounding tombstone, the interred person’s name and species are recorded, some in standard characters, others in individually designed images that may or may not actually represent the person buried below them.
There is no evidence of anyone else in the cemetery, but Alexei has the feeling of being watched. He walks around to another tombstone, and another, his steps leading him toward one stone in particular. There is nothing distinct about this stone; it is rose granite, polished on the front and rough on the back, but there are other rose granite stones and red sandstone. There are other square markers, others with flowery reliefs along the edges. But each time Alexei steps forward a row, or around a stone, this rose granite stone is closer.
When he stands in front of it, he reaches out to brush the letters. They read: “Tatya Galitzin, 1879,” below the picture of an infant fox.
I have no more help to give you
, comes Konstantin’s voice, soft steel across the wind of the boneyard.
You have to help me
, Alexei calls. He turns, trying to see the fox, but he is still alone amidst the rows and rows of the signs of death.
I summoned you. You have to help me!
I will not be a party to your perversion of nature
.
It is unsettling, talking to a disembodied voice, but Alexei pictures Cat and stands tall, though the breeze grows colder.
I need you to save my sister
.
The Tsar is the land, the servant of God. His servants must follow God’s plan.
Konstantin’s voice grows louder.
Marry a vixen, start a family. Your family joins the other families, your children grow up to have children, and the world continues on and you are part of it. This twisting of God’s gift, placing you outside the world, it is an affront to the fur you bear, the parents that bore you. I am disgusted to be talking to you, ashamed to have been a party to this sickness.
The words burrow into him, curl his fingers, toes, and tail. He knows them too well, and knows the answer, that he is as God made him, but the words fail when he tries to speak them. The image of his sister gives him strength, and those words he can speak.
My sister is in danger! She needs to reach someone in Moskva.
Row upon row of silent stones give him no answer. He turns, and turns again, but they stretch away from him in every direction, unbroken by a red tail or a blue coat. He falls to his knees, the ground hard and dusty and cold.
Please,
Alexei cries
. Listen to me!
For agonizing moments, eternities, only the wind hisses against his ears. He reaches out a paw to the rose granite stone. Cat’s image, hazy and translucent, takes shape atop it, her tail swinging back and forth through the stone. Her face is indistinct, save for her smile, which is the brightest thing as far as he can see. He whispers,
They will kill her
.
Konstantin’s voice comes softly, very close to him
. Why can your parents not protect her from any danger?
The image of Cat on the tombstone wavers and vanishes.
My parents are the danger,
Alexei says.
They care nothing for their children. Cat, she is so smart, she could be a teacher, but my mother says she must marry, cannot go to university…once they beat her so badly I had to help her walk to school for a month.
He does not talk of the time his father heard the rumor that he liked boys, the time he broke a bottle over Alexei’s back, his mother screaming that they would send him away to be cured, his father’s shouting: I’ll see him at the bottom of the river first. His fear now is like his fear then, only for Cat rather than himself.
We looked out for each other
, he said,
and she helped me escape. But now she has no-one.
He turns, and Konstantin is there, crouching beside him, the red collar flat against his shoulders and chest, blue coat defining his stiff, squared shoulders, his ears splayed so that Alexei cannot see the notch in the right one. The fox’s eyes, dark and brown, bore into Alexei’s, and the younger fox thinks Konstantin can see those memories he is hiding.
A parent who puts their cub in danger,
he says, and then stops
. But to beat a daughter…
His paw rests on the rose granite tombstone. Alexei holds his breath, trying to peer into Konstantin the way he feels Konstantin is looking into him, but he sees only darkness there. He wishes he had Konstantin’s confidence to meet the older fox
. Will you help me?
he says timidly.
The soldier holds his eyes. Finally, he speaks, his voice low and gravelly.
If you wish my help, you will have to abandon this unnatural way of life.
It—it is not unnatural,
Alexei says
. Not any longer. In your time—
If you wish my help.
Silence hangs over the stone markers and stretches on and on, out into the horizon. Alexei feels unmoored, floating in the dreamworld, even though in the dream his feet are solidly on the ground. The stone beneath his fingers feels very real, the smell of earth and desolation in his nostrils just as solid.
What Konstantin is asking of him feels like returning to Samorodka, to the rot and ruin and the hiding of his nature. He sits down with his back against the granite marker and it is like being back in his bed at home, tail curled around himself, desperately spinning through the cycle of desire and denial. He’d escaped that for good, he thought. But for Cat…
He closes his eyes, which in the dreamworld has little effect; he is still acutely aware of the clouds, the granite, the earth, and Konstantin, waiting.
It is my life,
he says, and his voice is small, not very confident at all.
Konstantin comes back to him, soft and firm.
Your life is not simply your own. It is the contract you make with those around you. What you feel in your heart sometimes must be denied for the good of all.
The earth is cold below him. Its grit is in the fur of his tail. He brushes at it with his paws, but it simply spreads to his fingers, to his palms, working into the creases between the pads and the fur, a maddening itch.
Will you help Cat? Find the person she is looking for? Tell him to call her?
The older fox stands, arms folded over medals glinting on his chest. Konstantin’s ears are flat and his eyes stare down the length of his muzzle.
Will you live a proper life?
Alexei takes a breath and feels fine grey dust on his tongue.
Yes.
Konstantin does not speak, but his ears rise and he smiles. And Alexei is again in his bedroom, listening to Cat tell him there is nothing wrong with him; he is at the Samorodka schoolhouse feeling again the oppressive fear digging claws into his chest, looking every day at the other boys and wondering if any of them were like him; he is in Midland writing the letter to Sol, the first time he had confessed to being gay to anyone but Cat; he is outside the school as Sol comes out to him, and he has just thrown all this away.
Wait! I need—I can’t do what you ask—
But Konstantin is gone.