I tried not to show my surprise at the gift. I had thought Raisa had gotten over her infatuation with my brother months ago. Raisa was so sure of everything that she couldn’t comprehend Miles wouldn’t return her regard. She didn’t seem to realize he barely noticed her, and I didn’t want to hurt her by pointing that out.
“How is he?” she asked. “He looked fine when I saw him, but I know that doesn’t mean much.”
“When did you see him?” He hadn’t mentioned it to me.
“I … I ran into him on Nevsky.”
“Oh,” I said. That was an odd place for Miles to frequent. Nevsky Prospekt was Petrograd’s main shopping street, and I couldn’t imagine Miles actually shopping. He expected most things to appear before him as if by actual magic. “He’s been better this winter than last, at least.”
“I’m glad.” She looked around before she spoke again, even though we were all alone. “When revolution comes and my father is let out, Miles can come work for the newspaper. He’s such a good writer, and I’m sure his health will improve when he can do something he likes.”
Raisa sounded so sure about revolution, but I didn’t know what to believe. It felt like we were in limbo, where just one act could tip us one way or the other. If she and I had had more time, I would have asked her what rumors she’d heard about the political situation. Even stuck at her uncle’s, she seemed to hear far more than I ever did.
“Thank you again for the medicine,” I said, taking off one glove to get the bundle of rubles out of it.
As I handed the money to her, a voice called, “You there. What are you doing out here?”
I turned around, trying to block the view of whoever it was so Raisa could put the money away. At first the man’s black uniform blended into the night so that his white face was like a specter hovering toward us. As he got closer to us, I realized he was a policeman, one of the regular force, not the secret one.
My heart sped up. I wished there were more people around, even though I doubted anyone would be brave enough to intervene if he decided he wanted to arrest us.
He came too close, towering over me. I forced myself to stand still, though the smell of him made me want to gag. He stank of bad teeth and pickled fish.
“What are you girls doing out here this late?” I knew he was trying to figure out where we ranked in the hierarchy of Petrograd society. If he noticed Raisa’s threadbare coat, he might very well haul us in. A certain class of not-too-poor people often found themselves in holding cells, bargaining to be let out, under the threat that they’d be charged as nihilists agitating against the czar if they couldn’t pay a small bribe. The police knew those people wouldn’t go to anyone higher up to complain, so the officers could pocket the money themselves.
I didn’t want him to notice the bag, either. The laudanum wasn’t illegal, but if he saw the bottles, it would only lead to more questions. The police were always on the lookout for any signs of black-market activities.
I needed a distraction to hide the bag. It would have been a good time to pull a rabbit out of my dress, but since I didn’t have a bunny handy, I did the only thing I could think of.
I took a step back and then acted as if I’d lost my footing on the slippery snow, dropping the book and flailing my arms. The book fell down by my feet and I screeched as loudly as I could, pretending I was in incredible distress at having dropped it. The sound of the bottles knocking against one another was so faint compared to my other noises that even I couldn’t hear it as I reached down to pick the book up, stuffing the bag in the top of one of my boots at the same time. The boots were the traditional Russian felt ones that were big enough for a dozen bottles.
I straightened up and brushed the snow off the book. “I don’t think it’s damaged,” I said, hugging it to my chest. “But how clumsy of me.”
“You didn’t answer my question,” the man said, his tone a bit more menacing. “Who are you?”
I stuck my nose in the air and tried to sound snobbish. “I’m Charlotte Mason, General Cherkassky’s stepdaughter. My mother founded this hospital, and my friend and I are stopping in to check on a patient.”
The man contemplated that as if weighing whether or not to believe me. “English?” he asked.
“No, American.”
“Your Russian is very good for an American.” I heard the suspicion in his voice.
“I’ve lived here a long time.”
“I’ve heard that name…” His voice trailed off.
“Of course you have. General Cherkassky is a war hero,” Raisa said.
“No.” He stared at me. “Something in a report about a redheaded girl named Mason.”
My breath stopped. It was extremely unlikely there were any other redheaded girls named Mason in Petrograd. I couldn’t be on a police report. The only people who knew about my various black-market arrangements would never tell. He had to be bluffing, to try to scare me into paying him a bribe to forget he’d seen me. I clenched my teeth together, determined not to let him see my fear.
“You say this is a hospital?” The policeman looked up at the building. “It doesn’t have a sign on it. It looks like a house to me.”
“It’s a small hospital,” I said. “There’s a plaque by the door. It was a house, but my mother turned it into a hospital.” I decided I had to take some action to get rid of him. The longer he talked to us, the more likely we were to say the wrong thing.
“Good night,” I said. “We need to get inside.” I put my arm in Raisa’s and pulled her up the steps, my shoulders tensing as I waited to hear if the policeman would call for us to stop.
He didn’t, and when I pushed open the door, I felt the tension ease. I didn’t look back to see what he was doing, and once I shut the door, I leaned against it in relief.
“I’ll just tell the night nurse I’m here so she knows it’s not a new patient,” I said to Raisa, “and then we can go out the back door, but now that we’re in, you can at least stay for a minute. The fire will be lit in the sitting room, and it will be warmer in there.”
She nodded, so I took the bottles to the night nurse and gave them to her to log in. The nurses were used to me coming and going at all hours bringing various supplies, and we were in such desperate need that they never asked questions.
When I went into the sitting room, I got a look at Raisa in a stronger light and was shocked at how thin she’d gotten. Her cheeks seemed almost caved in, her neck too fragile to hold up her head.
“You can’t save all your food for your father,” I scolded. “You have to eat too! He wouldn’t want you to starve yourself.”
“I know. Don’t lecture, please. Every time I take a bite, I think of how hungry he must be, and that spoils the food for me.” She sighed and leaned her head back against the chair. “Two years ago, I never imagined how much I’d think about bread. Now I think about it every day, how to get it and how to hide it.” Her fingers moved up and down on the arm of the chair as if she were playing the piano. “Back then if I thought about the future it was to imagine I’d be getting ready to perform my first public concert, and you would be in medical school, already on your way to making great discoveries.”