“Did he often disobey your father?”
He shook his head once more. “No. Not about something like that. As good as gold, we always used to say.” Ruzsky turned to her. “Why could you not cry out?”
“For the same reason that you can’t, except in your sleep.”
“Your parents?”
“My father was killed in an accident, my mother died of grief. I saw her face in the doorway of my room and I knew. I knew. And I promised myself I would never allow myself to be hurt again.”
They were standing inches apart, her eyes upon his. Her breasts rose and fell, her breath warm upon his face. “And I hurt you?”
She did not answer, but he touched her face, a cold hand against warm cheeks. She pressed it to her, resting her head upon his chest.
They rode hard against the setting sun that afternoon, weaving through the woods before picking up the road to the house from the village in the gathering darkness.
Ruzsky brought his horse alongside hers and once again jumped across.
Maria leaned against him, one hand cupping the back of his head, the skin of her neck soft against his lips.
Ruzsky curled his arm more tightly around her waist.
“Hello, my wounded soldier,” she said. She turned around gently and placed her moist, warm mouth against his. She arched her back, a palm against his cheek. “No one has ever loved you before, have they, Sandro?”
He did not answer.
Maria turned around again and they rocked with the motion of the horse all the way back to the house, the sunset washing the horizon a blazing red.
Oleg was waiting for them at the front door to take the horses. Ruzsky could tell from his eyes that he knew, but there was no hint of censure. “A fire is laid in the drawing room, Master Sandro, the venison cooked. I shall leave it to you,” he said. He glanced at Maria. Their faces were flushed with exertion and excitement.
Inside, they discovered that Oleg had lit a fire in both the drawing and the dining room, where the table was laid as it always had been, groaning with silver, the venison arranged on a giant salver at its center.
Ruzsky shut the door behind them and then she was in his arms, with sudden, passionate urgency. He lifted her against the door as her lips sought his. She tugged at his belt, one hand around his back, the other seeking him, pulling at his trousers until he was free and then melting into him, her face against his shoulder, her warm breath upon him.
“God, Sandro,” she said.
She traced his neck with her fingertips, her mouth warm as he held her, their bodies fused gently together. He walked with her to the great bear rug in front of the roaring hearth and, without parting, he sank to his knees and placed her very carefully onto the ground.
He moved over her, his face inches from her own.
Her eyes melted as she watched him.
Ruzsky reached down and ran a hand across the top of one of her silk stockings, tugging at her suspender belt and then feeling the smoothness of her skin.
Maria pushed him gently onto his back.
Ruzsky began to unbutton her dress and she helped him, then shrugged it off, raising herself up, her knees either side of his waist, her hair brushing his face as she bent over him.
Never taking her eyes from his, Maria lowered herself against him, straightening her legs. She kissed him gently, as his hands reached for the curve at the top of her long legs. He pushed gently against her clenching muscles and lay back.
Her back arched, her hair dusting his knees, her breasts high and proud. In the firelight, her skin seemed luminous.
Ruzsky ran his hands gently up her thighs, over her hips, and across the flat, muscular plain of her belly.
She lifted herself up, waiting as she looked into his eyes. She was smiling at him.
Then she lowered herself down again gently, slowly, almost agonizingly. Ruzsky shut his eyes as the pleasure threatened to burst within him.
They lay that night in front of the fire, wrapped in the bearskin rug. Ruzsky did not sleep, reluctant to concede a moment to the dawn. He listened to the sound of her breathing, her long, warm body half across his. He was as content as he had ever been.
Fatigue stalked him and he slowly succumbed, until the sleep of a few hours gave way to the day of their leaving.
Ruzsky listened to the birds as the light crept into the room and the shadows shortened. He would not move until she stirred.
32
R uzsky stood before Ilusha’s stone one last time. He thought of his brother’s smile and prayed for his happiness. “Rest in peace,” he said, and even as did so, against his best intentions, he found a tear once again rolling down his cheek.
He turned away and walked toward the house. On the veranda, he glanced back one last time and raised his hand, before stepping into the drawing room. “Goodbye,” he whispered. “I’m not sure we will see each other again.”
Inside, Ruzsky composed himself for a moment and then strode on into the hallway. Through a window, he could see Maria and Oleg with the horses.
He glanced up at the banners and balustrades above him, his breath visible on the air even in here. For a last moment, he tried to recapture something of the happier memories of those past summers, but they proved elusive.
He walked out of the front door without looking back.
Oleg saw that his eyes were red, but made no comment. Ruzsky put a foot into one of the stirrups and swung himself up onto his horse. “You’ll look after him, won’t you, Oleg?”
“Always, sir.”
“Perhaps the rest of my family will be down this summer?”
“Perhaps. The Colonel will let me know well in advance, I’m sure. There’s work to be done. You’ve seen that.”
Ruzsky reached down to shake the old man’s hand and he saw that there were tears in his eyes, too. He took hold of Oleg’s shoulder. “They will be down before too long, whatever happens,” Ruzsky said.
“Of course, Master Sandro. As soon as the war ends.”
Ruzsky straightened and nudged the horse forward. “Good luck, Oleg.”
“And to you, sir,” he shouted. “And to your lady friend!”
Ruzsky set the horse down the snow-covered drive. He rode her hard up the hill beside the house and only stopped as he reached the top of the path. He turned for one last look.
Oleg stood on the veranda, a tiny figure against the house’s grand facade. Ruzsky thought he saw the old man raise his hand once and he responded, only to be left wondering if it was just his imagination.
Ruzsky swung back. Maria was looking at him with an intensity that seemed to him to be something like love. She smiled faintly in response to his gaze.
“To a new beginning,” he said, “for both of us. You agree?”
She gazed at her horse’s mane.
Ruzsky fired his horse up the hill with a shout, determined not to look back again. He reached the crest and slowed the horse to a walk on the icy descent, only glancing over his shoulder when he was sure that the house was out of view.
Maria was behind him, deep in thought, her long hair and much of her face concealed in a wide fur hat.
As he headed down the hill, he tried to keep the past at bay. Sandro the protector, Dmitri had always called him. The guilt, when it returned, was like lead in the pit of his stomach.
33
T hroughout the journey, Ruzsky had watched the excitement building in Maria’s eyes, but as they crossed the Crimean isthmus under a clear blue sky, she seemed more than ever like a little girl on the final leg of a long journey home. Her bag was packed and she gazed endlessly out of the open train window, the warm breeze of Russia ’s subtropical paradise on both their faces.
The night had transported them to another world. The previous evening, they had pulled down the blinds on sleeting rain and mile upon mile of bare brown fields, fringed by straggling birch trees. This morning, they had opened them to a flood of sunshine, fruit trees in full blossom, and a bay as blue as fallen aquamarine.
Below, the town of Sevastopol stood perched on a barren rock, narrow streets leading down to a wide harbor. Overhead, black and white gulls circled. Out in the still waters of the bay, two gray battleships lay at anchor, the Russian national flag twisting lazily from their sterns.
Ruzsky had his own memories of holidays here. They’d come twice to see an aunt who had a modest palace not far from the Tsar’s own in Yalta, but his recollections, though warm, were vague and misted by time.
The conductor knocked and poked his head around the door. “Everything all right, mademoiselle?” He looked at Ruzsky suspiciously, as he had throughout the journey.
“Yes.”
“A couple more minutes. You’ll arrange your own transportation on to Yalta?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
The conductor eyed Ruzsky again. “You don’t wish me to arrange it for you?”
“No. Thank you.”
The conductor retreated.
The train wound slowly down the last hill. Ruzsky glanced at Maria, but she did not respond. If her excitement had grown as the journey had progressed, so too had the distance between them. Her manner was still warm, but the farther south they had traveled, the more she’d retreated into herself.
He told himself it was the natural melancholy of a return to her own past.
“You will go straight to the sanatorium?” Ruzsky asked.
She continued to stare out of the window.
“What is it called?”
Maria looked at him. The distance between them was solidifying, but he could not tell why. Once again, he suppressed a momentary sense of alarm. “The Tatyana Committee Convalescent Home.” She turned back to the window.
The train jerked twice as the brakes were suddenly applied and then pulled very slowly into the station, the porters waiting on the platform disappearing in a huge cloud of steam. Maria was instantly on her feet, her small leather case in her hand until Ruzsky wrested it from her.
He followed her down onto the platform, a warm breeze on their faces. She disappeared into the cloud of steam too, and he hurried after her.
The platform was busier and bigger than he remembered. A large group swarmed forward in front of him to greet a friend or relative disembarking from the train and Ruzsky lost sight of her again.
He halted. He could not see her ahead, so he looked back and, just for a second, as the steam floated down the length of the platform, he saw a man standing at the far end whom he could have sworn was Ivan Prokopiev. Ruzsky took a step toward him, but the man appeared to realize that he had been seen and slipped from view, into the crowd. Ruzsky looked about him once more and saw Maria emerging into the sunlight by the exit.
When he caught up with her, she looked startled and, for a split second, examined him strangely, as if she had no idea who he was, just as she had done outside the theater in Petersburg. “Sandro,” she said.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. Why?”
He shook his head. “Can you wait a moment?”
Maria was squinting.
“There is something I need to check,” he said.
She didn’t respond.
Ruzsky retraced his steps back to the platform. It was still crowded with passengers and porters, escaping steam and the hubbub of voices.
Ruzsky wove his way through the crowd. An elderly man selling lemonade in old bottles sat next to a group of conductors talking in a small circle. There were a couple of soldiers, but the atmosphere was different from that in the big cities farther north. The air was warm, sunlight filtering through the glass roof onto the platform. Some people around him were in shirtsleeves.
Ruzsky reached the point at which he thought he’d seen Prokopiev, but there was no sign of anyone. He walked through the exit, squinting too as he stepped out into the sunshine. A fly landed on his cheek and he waved it away. A group of small boys leaned against the station wall, playing a game with what looked like primitive musket balls instead of marbles. He asked them if they had seen a tall man with short hair leaving the station by this exit, but they looked at him uncomprehendingly. Perhaps it was his accent.
Ruzsky went back onto the platform and returned to the relative shade of its central section. Shafts of sunlight illuminated the dust in the hazy air. Ruzsky gave a brief description of Prokopiev, but although the men at least appeared to understand him, they all shook their heads.
Ruzsky gave up. He scoured the platform as he returned to where he’d left Maria.
But when he reached the road, she wasn’t there. He waited for a few minutes and concluded she had probably gone to excuse herself.
Ruzsky took out his cigarette case, then returned it to his pocket. He closed his eyes and enjoyed the feel of sunlight upon his face.
Time stretched out. He waited ten minutes or more, then checked his pocket watch. Confusion gave way to very mild irritation.
Ruzsky returned to survey the platform once more and then came back out into the sunshine. Almost all of the passengers had gone.
He tried to relax, but a tiny kernel of doubt had entered his mind.
On the far side of the road, a lone troika driver was still waiting for his passengers. Ruzsky wandered slowly over and asked him whether he had seen a tall and beautiful dark-haired woman carrying a simple leather case. Although the man’s accent was thick, Ruzsky understood from his answer that he was certain he had. She’d climbed onto a car with two men and driven up the hill, in the direction of Yalta.
Ruzsky argued with him, but the man was emphatic and then curtly dismissive. Ruzsky turned around. There were two more automobiles waiting in a rank outside the station-no doubt to ferry rich bankers from Moscow to their homes on the coast. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a wad of money, and began to count it.