Gracious! I almost choked with fury, but Tanya leapt up and pushed Christina forward. She curtseyed clumsily to Vassily and licked her lips. ‘My lord. Big houses need many servants. I’m telling you, my lord, no one works as hard, no one is as skilful, as my Christina. Look at her, my lord, isn’t she an angel?’ She tugged at her daughter’s plait until her blonde hair fell loose over her shoulders. ‘Her delicate skin . . . and such beautiful teeth!’
She forced open Christina’s narrow jaw to reveal her teeth, like at the cattle market in spring! It was so revolting even the monk raised his eyebrows. My father turned his face to the wall. Vassily seized Christina’s wrist, where the veins shimmered blue through her pale skin. He shook his head.
‘She’ll die after a single winter. I can’t afford to feed useless mouths.’ He pinched her narrow hips, making her wince. ‘She’s no good for childbearing either.’ The monk stroked his matted beard. ‘No, I want that one. She’s healthy and strong as a horse.’ He pointed at me. I felt faint.
Tanya cut in again: ‘She has bad blood and she’s stupid and lazy to boot.’ She didn’t mean to give up that easily.
‘Shut your mouth.’ Vassily reached into the leather pouch that hung on his belt beside a dagger and pistol. With a cart full of wares, any journey was long and dangerous. He gave the monk a few coins. Tanya pushed herself forward one last time. ‘And what about us? We lose a worker if she goes!’ She held out her hand. My father’s face darkened. Vassily hesitated, but the monk shrugged, so he gave Tanya one silver coin. She bit it quickly and pocketed it.
Vassily turned to me. ‘Pack your things, girl. My cart’s already outside. We’re leaving right away.’
Tanya nudged me along. I was wearing my good linen tunic, its collar embroidered with a floral pattern, over a clean sarafan. Walk was about a three-day ride away; my clothes would be ruined on the journey. When I undid my belt, the monk turned away. Vassily, however, appraised me from top to bottom as I slipped out of my under-dress and put on my simple, long-sleeved day dress with an old tunic on top. My cheeks burned with shame as I wound my braid into a knot and tied my scarf tight around my head. I swore to myself that I wouldn’t make it easy for him.
‘I’m ready,’ I said.
My father hugged me, for the very first time. ‘Look after yourself, my child. Your mother was a good woman. We’ll see each other in the next life, God willing,’ he whispered in my ear.
‘What am I to God?’ I hissed, to stem my tears. Vassily seized me by the wrist. Maggie started to wail. Tanya slapped her face, which only made her cry even more. The monk made the Sign of the Cross over me and I snarled at him. Then I was out of the door and sitting beside Vassily on the driver’s seat. His three men, who hadn’t even dismounted, eyed me briefly. They must have known beforehand that the deal would not take long. I felt sick with humiliation.
Most of the journey to Walk I spent crying beside Vassily. He didn’t say a word to me, but clicked his tongue at the horses that were bridled in single file, driving them at a fast trot along narrow roads between fields where the clods of earth were already dry and gleaming. In the flat, open countryside his companions rode in front of and behind the cart, so that from afar we must have looked like a skein of wild geese in the sky. In the forest, though, they shielded the cart with their horses’ bodies to ward off thieves and wolves. I hardly dared to look around. I knew nothing beyond our mir. In the guesthouse where we spent a night, I was given my own room. Vassily locked me in. I had never been in a room alone before. The straw bed was more comfortable than the hard oven I slept on at home. One of his men settled outside my door, while the other two guarded the cart. Was Vassily afraid I would run away? But where would I go? There was no way back.
4
The first sight of Walk was overwhelming to me. Noise and smoke rose up into the dense blue of the sky and the houses here were much bigger than the ones in our mir. Most were crowded inside the town’s walls, while others sprawled over wide plots of land between the road and the river, built on stilts against the yearly flooding during the ottepel, like the houses in my mir that stood too close to the Dvina. I tried to count all of Walk’s chimneys but gave up as we trundled through the town gates.
I had never seen so many people at once before: the bustle on the streets reminded me of the anthills we used to smoke out in autumn; the insects would flee, running in all directions, which always made me laugh. Farmers were carrying cages of geese and chickens on their shoulders, or driving calves and pigs before them. It must have been market day. Well-dressed gentlefolk placed their shiny leather shoes carefully, avoiding the muck on the streets. Women hurried home with their purchases from the market and red-cheeked boys hawked fresh bread and pastries from laden trays hanging around their necks. Beggars and riff-raff hung about furtively; I had seen their like before on the fairground, probably ready to pilfer an apple here, a bulging purse there. Dogs fought, barking and yelping, over the rubbish thrown in front of the houses; coachmen on other carriages cracked their whips and cursed one another.
This scene beat Master Lampert’s Tent of Wonders hands down, even though my nose was already numbed by the stench. In our mir all smells – slops, stray cattle, rotting vegetables – were lost in the vastness of the plain. Here, the midday sun was trapped by the alleyways, its heat hanging in suffocating clouds. The people of Walk, I later discovered, simply emptied their chamber pots out of windows, right onto the heads of passers-by. But mercifully the smell of human waste was masked by the alluring scent of delicious foods: soups and sauerkraut, cabbage- and meat-filled pierogi, roast chicken, fresh flatbreads, and many, many more things that I, in my poverty, was unable to name but would get to know in the weeks to come.
Vassily saw me staring at a group of men with dark hair and slanting eyes above high cheekbones: ‘Those are Tatars from the East. Bloodthirsty, lazy scoundrels, all of them.’ They frightened me with their bold gazes and the rough animal pelts they wore, wrapped even around their calves. ‘Those fellows over there,’ he said, pointing to fairer-skinned men in tight knee-length breeches, silver-buckled shoes and narrow jackets, ‘they’re Poles.’ The tall, blond soldiers were Swedes from the town’s small garrison; they winked at me before eyeing up the good German girls going from stall to stall with their mothers and maids. Their hair was worn neatly tucked under stiff, puffy bonnets, yet the bodices of their high-necked dresses were laced almost indecently tight, moulding their bosoms and slim waists. I felt like a savage beside them.
A group of Orthodox priests greeted Vassily, and I saw other Russians, too, in their trailing, belted robes with wide collars, their matted beards still sticky from their lunchtime soup. They grinned at me brazenly. I stuck out my tongue at them behind their backs.
‘Is it far?’ I finally dared to ask as I had lost all sense of direction. The sky above us was a mere square, concealed by the towering buildings. Where was the horizon, where a forest or a river? How should I ever find my bearings in such a place? I was wondering when Vassily abruptly pulled on the reins. He whistled and a gate opened in a long, high wall. With a clattering of hooves, the horses turned into a cobbled yard.