From the kitchen, an urgent whisper called out, “Here!”
I dashed inside, clutching Mama like a rag doll. Elena gestured frantically for us to follow her. I caught only disjointed images of the kitchen’s near destruction: cabinet doors torn off, drawers emptied, the larder picked bare. Chicken bones, apple cores, and other bits and pieces were scattered across the floor, as if whoever had done this wanted to defile every surface.
Elena led us out the back door, across the kitchen garden, toward a wooden door that lay flush with the ground. The root cellar. Mama was burbling incoherently, but I didn’t even try to understand what she was saying. Elena pulled up the door, and all I could see was the top of a narrow wooden staircase. It looked like the entrance to a tomb.
Elena nudged me forward. “I’ll come back for you when I can.”
There’d been no time to fetch a lantern or candle. When we climbed inside and Elena shut the door over us, the darkness was impenetrable. My legs shook as I felt my way down, extending one arm behind me to support Mama. I could tell I’d reached the bottom only when the wobbly boards gave way to packed-down dirt. I shuffled ahead, trying to get my bearings, but everywhere I turned, my legs collided with barrels of stored food. Eventually, I sank to the floor, exhausted and despairing. Mama collapsed next to me.
“What are we to do?” she mumbled. “What are we to do?”
God help me, I nearly slapped her. I was only fifteen—how could I possibly answer such a question? She was the adult; she was the one who was supposed to take care of me. But like a freshly lit matchstick, my anger surged hot and bright for only a few seconds. Mama had always been delicate, bred for beauty and charm. I was the one who’d known, instinctively, to run.
An image of Papa flashed before me—the shot, the blood. My mind felt as numb as my body, entirely drained of the fervor that had propelled me out of the house. I’d seen it happen, yet it didn’t seem real. Just one more impossible image to add to all the rest.
“Elena will get help,” I told Mama. In the dark, it was easier to fake a confidence I didn’t feel. “All we can do is wait until she comes back.”
We must have been down there for hours, though time had no meaning in such a place. At some point, we lay down, pressed up against each other like kittens. I don’t know if Mama slept; I certainly didn’t. I thought of Papa, of what was happening at Priyalko, unable to stop the remembered unfolding of each horror. When Elena finally lifted the door, the sky was reddening into dawn. Mama and I climbed out, into the silent kitchen yard. I looked at Mama’s dirt-streaked dress and tangled hair and wanted to cry.
“You’re safe for now,” Elena said. “The troublemakers are sleeping off the effects of last night. But you have to go, right away. Yuri will drive you to the station. There’s a train in an hour.”
“We need to fetch our things . . .”
Elena gave a quick shake of her head, her expression making clear what she wasn’t prepared to say out loud: You have no things. Everything’s gone.
“Count Shulkin,” Mama whimpered. “I can’t leave him.”
“Yuri will take care of him, I promise.” As if Papa needed help dressing, or a boot polish. I thought of Papa’s body, lying alone in the hall, and felt weak with grief.
Elena ushered us to her quarters, off the kitchen. She brought a basin of water so we could wash up and urged us to eat some bread, though neither of us was hungry. From underneath her bed, Elena pulled out the box where she kept the household accounts and gave Mama the bag of money she’d hidden inside. We heard horses approaching from the stables, and Elena checked to see that the way was clear before leading us outside. Yuri was seated on top of the carriage, his face gray with exhaustion. Mama pressed a handful of bills into Elena’s hand.
“We owe you our lives,” Mama said. “Thank God for you and Yuri. I can’t believe everyone else, all the rest of our people . . .” Her voice shook. “I can’t believe they hate us so much.”
“Gregor’s always been trouble, but the others were tricked. Fed lies by that man.”
“What man?”
“The one who was here before. He’s been spreading lies all over, turning everyone’s heads with false promises . . .”
“I don’t understand. The one who was here before?”
“That friend of your brother’s. The one called Alek.”
The faces of our many houseguests had faded with time, into a mostly indistinguishable mass. But Alek I remembered clearly. Alek, who’d always been listening, always been watching. That summer, Mama had been surrounded by flamboyant friends, yet she’d always seemed to be looking for Alek.
“He’s been visiting all the estates in this area,” Elena continued. “Telling people to take the revolution into their own hands and that any nobleman’s property could be confiscated. I only heard about it from Gregor’s wife last night, otherwise I would have warned you.”
Mama’s face had gone slack with horror. “Alek was here?”
Elena shook her head. “He left before the trouble started. That kind never takes the blame.”
Mama’s composure, already fragile, shattered completely once we entered the carriage. She sagged against me, too appalled to even cry. Scenes I’d found bewildering at twelve years old became clearer now that I was fifteen. Mama had openly flirted with Alek. She’d acted half-besotted with him. He’d basked in her attention, even encouraged it, and all the while he’d been sneering at our card games and picnics and five-course dinners. We had welcomed Alek into our family, and he repaid us in blood.
Hate surged through me like a scorching summer wind. Papa was gone; Priyalko was gone. But I was too tired and heartsick for the anger to take root. For Mama’s sake, I’d have to take on all the miserable duties that lay ahead. There were telegrams to send, and a funeral to be arranged. The green silk party dress had marked my transition from child to young woman, but it was the ride away from Priyalko that carried me, unwillingly, into adulthood. With Papa gone and Vasily off fighting, I was the only one who could take care of Mama. Present a brave face to the world. You’re a Shulkin, I could imagine Papa chiding me. Act like one.
And so began my next act of transformation.
LONDON
1938
To: Director, SIS
My sources in France have confirmed the suspicions we discussed last week in the matter of “Marie Duvall.” After our stationery expert stated the passport was likely a Soviet forgery, I made inquiries to my contacts in the French Security Services, two of whom verified “Marie Duvall” was an alias used by a known Soviet agent, code-named “Red Mistress.” She was involved in a notorious murder (see attached documents) and is considered extremely dangerous.
It goes without saying that this information must remain strictly confidential. One can imagine the outcry that would ensue were it known that this woman was able to travel to England undetected.
I suggest the body be cremated and buried as soon as possible. No doubt you know of someone who can handle such a matter discreetly.
—Roger
PETROGRAD
1917
A family can be obliterated suddenly, by fire or flood. For us, the end came in a series of humiliations and losses. There was enough time in between to adapt, to believe the worst had passed. Then another cataclysm would descend. I learned to inoculate myself against hope, growing sturdier with each new blow. Softness and innocence were stripped away, leaving only the primal impulse to stay alive. Like my country, I was both destroyed and reborn through revolution.