Mrs. Niederhoff pushed her hair back from her face in a dramatic gesture of defiance. “I know why they’re doing it. A German family—who will stand up for us?”
Mama managed a weak murmur of disagreement, but Mrs. Niederhoff shook her head. “No matter what we do, we’re the enemy.”
The war had made things difficult for families like the Niederhoffs, whose names proclaimed their foreign ancestry. I knew Mrs. Niederhoff had been born in Moscow—she made a point of telling everyone—but her parents had emigrated from Germany, as had her husband’s. Given the terrible things we’d heard about Germans since war was declared, was it any wonder people questioned the Niederhoffs’ loyalty? Mrs. Niederhoff once told Mama, weeping, that she wished her boys were old enough to fight, so they could clear the family’s name.
I smiled at the Niederhoff girls, but they remained stone-faced.
“You can’t stay here, with all this going on,” Mama declared. “Why don’t you come back with us?”
“Oh, you’re so kind,” said Mrs. Niederhoff. “Are you sure?”
“Of course. Fetch what you need, and we’ll go right now.”
After Mrs. Niederhoff bustled off with her daughters, I muttered to Mama that we couldn’t possibly take them all. The car was useless on the muddy country roads, so we’d driven over in our smallest carriage, designed to seat four people. With all the Niederhoffs, we’d have a total of seven passengers.
“The little ones can sit on our laps,” Mama said. “We can’t leave her here—she’s close to hysterics.”
On the drive back to the house, I remembered the empty fields I’d walked past a few days before. The eerie silence. Had our farmers gone on strike? Did Papa know? I tried to ask him when we arrived home, but he was too distracted by Mama and Mrs. Niederhoff. Soon after, he left to talk to the Niederhoffs’ overseer, and Mama instructed Elena to double that night’s dinner and get rooms prepared for our guests.
Papa returned while Mama and I were helping settle the children upstairs. When we came down, he escorted Mama and Mrs. Niederhoff to the sitting room. I followed shortly after and sat at a card table near the window, half-heartedly working on a sketch I’d started earlier. It was obvious I’d come to eavesdrop, but Papa didn’t object. Perhaps he’d decided I was old enough to hear the truth.
Papa’s face sagged in surrender as he addressed Mrs. Niederhoff. “I’m afraid I wasn’t able to settle anything. A man came from Petrograd—a workers’ activist—and convinced everyone the estate belongs to them.”
“An activist!” Mrs. Niederhoff scoffed. “A criminal, more like it, if he’s encouraging others to steal! We must find him and have him arrested. That will put an end to it.”
“Who will arrest him?” Papa asked. “The tsar’s police force? There are no policemen, practically speaking. Not in Petrograd, and certainly not out here. If you object to the will of the people, you’re asking for trouble.”
“The will of the people? Which people?”
“Not us, I’m afraid. I’ve arranged to send my driver for the rest of your bags, tomorrow morning. Then you can catch the late train back to the city.”
“I’ll go with him,” said Mrs. Niederhoff. “Your driver won’t know what needs to be packed—”
Papa interrupted. “No. It wouldn’t be safe.”
I watched as Mrs. Niederhoff’s anger wilted into resignation. There was a painful pause, and then she stood. “Thank you. Please excuse me—it’s been a long day.”
Mama rose, too, asking if there was any way she could help, but Mrs. Niederhoff brushed her off. Afterward, Mama sank down on the sofa next to Papa and gently asked, “Was it terrible?”
“Their demands were quite clear. They’d been told the land belonged to whoever worked it. I tried to tell the overseer there was no such law, but you can imagine how far that got me. He wasn’t rude, exactly—more uninterested. As if nothing I said was of the slightest importance. It came out that he had a son who’d died at the front, and a nephew, and that led to the usual idiotic conspiracy theories about German spies. The Niederhoffs have lost their workers’ loyalty, and there’s nothing to be done about it.”
Mama tsk-tsked, but without her usual indignation.
“Nadia!” Papa called out.
Gingerly, I approached the sofa, expecting to be sent away. Instead, Papa reached out for my hand and pulled me closer, until I was sitting between him and Mama.
“I don’t want you to worry,” Papa told me. “We will work things out with our people calmly and fairly. But as long as these agitators are stirring up trouble, I don’t want you going off on your own anymore. Especially not in the woods. Yuri has spotted smoke from fires; they may be camping out there.”
I felt Mama stiffen, but she squeezed my hand and managed a grim smile. At first, it was soothing to feel my parents so close. Guarding me from the dangers that hovered outside our windows. I thought of the paths and clearings I was no longer allowed to roam. The dull, droning hours I’d have to spend under my parents’ oppressive protection. I felt their arms against mine, holding me in place. The heat glowing from their skin. My blouse was stuck flat against my sweat-speckled chest, and I suddenly felt nauseous.
I pulled myself free and stood up. “I’m going to bed.”
I stomped up the stairs, my feet proclaiming the frustration I couldn’t put into words. Mama believed tantrums should be ignored, so it was Papa who knocked on my door a few minutes later and asked if we could talk.
“Why?” I called out.
“Everything will turn out all right. Don’t worry.”
The same thing he always said, ever since the war had started. Did he even believe it? I didn’t respond, and after a long, weighted silence, Papa walked away.
The Niederhoffs left the next afternoon in a cacophony of shrieks and overstuffed bags. Papa escorted them on the train back to Petrograd and wasn’t expected home until evening. The house felt even quieter than usual after they’d gone. Mama pulled out her watercolors and set up an easel on the front porch, and I joined her there soon after, laying an oversized piece of paper on the floor and sitting cross-legged with my pens. I waited for Mama to criticize my posture—“That’s not appropriate for a young lady” was a particular favorite—but she was lost in the distractions of creation. I began drawing a map of an imaginary land; if I couldn’t explore our forest, I’d invent one. Swirling lines became branches and trunks, then roads and mountains and streams. An entire world, conjured from ink.
Papa was home in time for a late supper. Petrograd, he told us, was awash in revolutionary posters. He’d even brought back a souvenir, a red star overlaid with the word “Peace” that he wore pinned to his jacket. Mama harrumphed in disapproval, but I thought it was funny. Who’d have believed it: Count Shulkin, a revolutionary!
“I dropped in on Sergei,” Papa said to Mama. “Looks like he hasn’t slept in days. The magazine is selling double what it used to.”
“At least the revolution has benefitted someone in this family,” Mama said dryly.