“Stop frightening Nadia,” he said. “Yes, there have been a few incidents. But that’s no different from here or Moscow. At least in the country, we’ll be away from all the radicals.” Papa turned to me. “I received a letter from Yuri yesterday, and he’s seen no signs of trouble.”
On the afternoon we arrived, Elena was waiting at the door with a plate of gingerbread. I pounced on it immediately, while Mama supervised the unpacking. Papa went off to tour the estate with Yuri, and when he returned, Mama and I were reading in the front room, curled on opposite ends of the sofa.
“Everything’s as it should be,” Papa said. “There’s no need to worry.”
Mama nodded slowly, out of politeness rather than agreement. She looked paler than usual, and she hadn’t bothered to change out of her traveling clothes. Perhaps, like me, she’d been affected by the melancholy of the near-empty house. How different it was from the summer of 1914, when every room hummed with laughter and whispered confessions. I thought of Miss Fields and felt a pang of remembered loss. She’d never written, never told me why she left.
“Yuri did ask about the land reforms,” Papa said.
I didn’t know what he was talking about, but Mama suddenly looked more alert.
“I told him I didn’t know any more than he did. That we’d have to wait until the assembly meets in the fall. But I have no doubt things will change.” Papa’s voice softened into the tone he used when Mama got one of her headaches. “I expect we’ll have to break up the estate.”
“But we have so little land as it is!” Mama protested. “Compared to your cousins’, it’s nothing!”
“Compared to most people, we have far more than we need. I don’t know what will happen. But I want you to be prepared.”
“You’re as bad as Sergei,” Mama said. “Do you really believe we’re no better than peasants?”
“The tsar abdicated because Sergei was right. People want an end to the war and a chance to make an honest living. Our duty, now, is to concede graciously. Why shouldn’t I give a good man like Yuri a plot of land to call his own? Isn’t that a fair price for his years of service?”
Mama looked down at her skirt as one hand smoothed the fabric over her knees. “Of course. That’s not what I meant.”
Normally, I wouldn’t have interrupted a grown-up conversation. But Mama looked so sad, and Papa looked so serious, and Priyalko—my refuge, my escape—was being threatened by the same uncertainty that haunted us in Petrograd. It wasn’t fair.
“Doesn’t Mama always say no political talk during the summer?” I asked. “Let’s do a play reading instead. We can pull out the dress-up clothes from that trunk in the yellow bedroom . . .”
Mama shook her head. “I haven’t the heart for it. I’m sorry.”
“Ah, Katenka,” Papa said.
How strange, to hear that girlish nickname coming from my formal father. He’d never used it in front of me. Mama didn’t look up from her lap, and Papa didn’t move from his seat, but I still remember exactly how they looked, more clearly than I remember their far more frequent fights. I’ve clung to that image as proof that, deep down, they loved each other.
Mama was determinedly cheerful at dinner that night as we discussed our plans for the rest of the summer. Vasily would be on leave in June, the first time he’d been home in nearly a year. Without him, our family never felt quite right; we were a wobbly circle of three rather than a solidly balanced foursome. Vasily’s return, I believed, would shake us out of our melancholy.
Until then, I had a few weeks to fill, for the most part on my own. I read and played endless rounds of solitaire; I hung around the kitchen and pestered Elena until she gave me a scrap of leftover dough or apple slices dusted with cinnamon. Most afternoons, I wandered the woods and fields of the estate. There were a few small incidents that struck me as strange, though I didn’t realize their significance at the time. Once, when I was at the river skipping stones, I saw two peasant girls downstream, washing clothes. Normally, the girls would have hurried through their work, anxious to be finished and out of my sight. This time, though, they didn’t sink into respectful bows when they saw me. They stared right back, direct and unafraid, and their upright bodies sent a message I was quick to understand: We have as much right to be here as you.
Another afternoon, I was picking wildflowers when I noticed that the fields were strangely empty. No men stomping through the dirt; no oxen trudging alongside them. All I heard were the rippling calls of songbirds. Was it a religious holiday I’d forgotten? Country people were more pious than my parents, and I assumed everyone must be at church. By the time I returned to the house, carrying enough flowers to fill three vases, I didn’t even think to ask.
While the unsettled political situation had kept a few families in Petrograd, most owners of the estates surrounding ours had proceeded with their usual summer plans. But there were no parties or picnics; people kept to themselves. When Mama received a letter from the Niederhoffs, our closest neighbors, informing her of their impending arrival, she waved it in front of me, smiling with her old exuberance.
“It feels like forever since we’ve seen anyone, doesn’t it? Let’s surprise them. We’ll go over tomorrow afternoon. I’ll have Elena make a treat for the children.”
When we arrived the next day, I was surprised to see Mrs. Niederhoff herself open the door.
“Ekaterina, Nadia—thank God you’re here!”
Mrs. Niederhoff was high-strung at the best of times, with a voice that mirrored her agitation. That day, she sounded particularly shaky.
“The servants are on strike!” she announced. “Can you believe it? All the nonsense in those pamphlets has gone to their heads.”
“What pamphlets?” Mama asked.
“Haven’t you seen them? Those anarchist troublemakers have been handing them out everywhere, telling the peasants to rise up against their oppressors. Oppressors!”
Mrs. Niederhoff’s daughters, ten and eight years old, sat in the front room in matching sailor dresses, their ponytails tied with navy-blue ribbons. I could hear their two younger brothers running in a nearby room, taking advantage of their mother’s distraction. The girls usually would have rushed up to me and asked me to play, but today they only gave me woeful looks.
“They’re all refusing to work,” Mrs. Niederhoff went on. “Here and at the farm. Even my housekeeper, who I thought was as loyal as an old dog! They’re preparing a list of demands, and they’ll present it to Mr. Niederhoff when he arrives on Friday. In the meantime, what am I to do? Prepare all the food myself? With what? They’re picking everything in the garden and keeping it for themselves! I need to tell my husband, but I can’t go to town to send a telegram—I’ve got no driver—and I’m afraid he’ll accuse me of being hysterical and not understand how dreadful things are . . .”
“Hush,” Mama said, patting Mrs. Niederhoff on the arm. “I’ll go home and tell Anton. He can come over and sort it all out.”
“I would be so grateful. You haven’t had any trouble at your place?”
Mama shook her head. “It’s all as usual.”