‘Far away from here, Georgy,’ she said, placing a finger carefully into the foam of the bubbling mixture and tasting it. ‘But people don’t live there like they live here.’
‘They don’t?’ I asked, unable even to imagine a different manner of existence. ‘Then how do they live?’
‘Well, some are poor, of course, like we are,’ she conceded in an almost apologetic tone, as if our circumstances were something of which we should all have been ashamed. ‘But many more live in great splendour. These are the people who make our country great, Georgy. Their houses are built from stone, not wood like this place. They eat whenever they want to eat, from plates encrusted with jewels. Food which is specially prepared by cooks who have spent all their lives mastering their art. And the ladies, they travel only by carriage.’
‘Carriage?’ I asked, crinkling my nose as I turned to look at her, unsure what the word could possibly mean. ‘What is this carriage?’
‘The horses carry them along,’ she explained with a sigh, as if my ignorance had been designed for no other reason than to frustrate her. ‘They are like … oh, how can I put this? Imagine a hut with wheels that people can sit inside and be transported in comfort. Can you picture that, Georgy?’
‘No,’ I said firmly, for the idea seemed both preposterous and frightening. I looked away from her and felt my stomach start to ache with hunger, and wondered whether she would allow me a spoon or two of this broth before our parents returned.
‘One day I shall travel in such a carriage,’ she added quietly, staring into the fire beneath the pot and poking at it with a stick, hoping perhaps to find some small coal or twig that had not yet caught flame and which could be cajoled into providing us with just a few more minutes of heat. ‘I don’t intend to stay in Kashin for ever.’
I shook my head in admiration for her. She was the most intelligent person I knew, for her awareness of these other worlds and lives was astonishing to me. I think that it was Asya’s thirst for knowledge which fuelled my own growing imagination and desire to learn more of the world. How she had come to know of such things I did not know, but it saddened me to think that Asya might be taken from me one day. I felt wounded that she should even want to seek a life outside of the one that we shared together. Kashin was a dark, miserable, fetid, unhealthy, squalid, depressing wreck of a village; of course it was. But until now I had never imagined that there might be anywhere better to live. I had never stepped more than a few miles from its boundaries, after all.
‘You can’t tell anyone about this, Georgy,’ she said after a moment, leaning forward in excitement as if she was about to reveal her most intimate secret. ‘But when I am older, I am going to St Petersburg. I’ve decided to make my life there.’ Her voice became more animated and breathless as she said this, her fantasies making their way from the solitude of her private thoughts towards the reality of the spoken word.
‘But you can’t,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘You would be alone there. You know no one in St Petersburg.’
‘At first, perhaps,’ she admitted, laughing and putting a hand over her mouth to contain her mirth. ‘But I shall meet a wealthy man soon enough. A prince, perhaps. And he will fall in love with me and we will live together in a palace and I will have all the servants that I require and wardrobes filled with beautiful dresses. I’ll wear different jewellery every day – opals, sapphires, rubies, diamonds – and during the season we will dance together in the throne room of the Winter Palace, and everyone will look at me from morning till night and admire me and wish that they could stand in my place.’
I stared at her, this unrecognizable girl with her fantastical plans. Was this the sister who lay on the moss-and-pine floor beside me every night and woke up with the imprint of the grainy branches upon her cheeks? I could scarcely comprehend a single word of which she spoke. Princes, servants, jewellery. Such concepts were entirely alien to my young mind. And as for love. What was that, after all? How did that concern any of us? She caught my look of incomprehension, of course, and burst out laughing as she tousled my hair.
‘Oh, Georgy,’ she said, kissing me now on either cheek and then once on the lips for luck. ‘You don’t understand a thing I’m saying, do you?’
‘Yes,’ I insisted quickly, for I hated her to think of me as ignorant. ‘Of course I do.’
‘You’ve heard of the Winter Palace, haven’t you?’
I hesitated. I wanted to say yes, but if I did, then she might not explain it in further detail and the words were already holding a certain allure. ‘I think I have,’ I said finally. ‘I can’t remember exactly. Remind me, Asya.’
‘The Winter Palace is where the Tsar lives,’ she explained. ‘With the Tsaritsa, of course, and the Imperial Family. You know who they are, don’t you?’
‘Yes, yes,’ I said quickly, for His Majesty’s name, and that of his family, was invoked before every meal as we offered a prayer for his continued health, generosity and wisdom. The prayers themselves often lasted longer than the eating. ‘I’m not stupid, you know.’
‘Well then you should know where the Tsar makes his home. Or one of his homes, anyway. He has many. Tsarskoe Selo. Livadia. The Standart.’
I raised an eyebrow and now it was my turn to laugh. The notion of more than one home seemed ridiculous to me. Why would anyone need such a thing? Of course, I knew that Tsar Nicholas had been appointed to his glorious position by God himself, that his powers and autocracy were infinite and absolute, but was he possessed of magical qualities also? Could he be in more than one place simultaneously? The idea was absurd and yet somehow possible. He was the Tsar, after all. He could be anything. He could do anything. He was as much a god as God himself.
‘Will you take me to St Petersburg with you?’ I asked a few moments later, my voice sinking almost to a whisper, as if I was afraid that she might deny me this ultimate honour. ‘When you go, Asya. You won’t leave me behind, will you?’
‘I could try,’ she said magnanimously, considering it. ‘Or perhaps you could come and visit the prince and me when we are established in our new home. You can have a wing of our palace entirely for yourself and a team of butlers to assist you. And we will have children, of course, too. Beautiful children, many of them, boys and girls. You will be an uncle to them, Georgy. Would you like that?’
‘Certainly,’ I agreed, although I found myself growing jealous at the idea of sharing my beautiful sister with anyone else, even a prince of the royal blood.
‘One day …’ she said with a sigh, staring into the fire as if she could see depictions of her glorious future flickering and bursting into life within the flames. Of course, she was only a child herself at the time. I wonder whether it was Kashin that she hated or just a better life that she longed for.
It saddens me to recall that conversation from such a distance of time. My heart aches to think that she never achieved her ambitions. For it was not Asya who found her way to St Petersburg and the Winter Palace. It was not she who ever knew how it felt to be surrounded by the seductive power of wealth and luxury.
It was me. It was little Georgy.
The closest friend of my youth was a boy named Kolek Boryavich Tanksy, whose family had lived in Kashin for as many generations as my own. We had many things in common, Kolek and I. We were born only a few weeks apart, during the late spring of 1899. We spent our childhood playing in the mud together, exploring every corner of our small village, blaming each other when our escapades went wrong. We both came from a family of sisters. I, of course, was blessed with only three, while Kolek was cursed with twice that number.