Mary Nichols - The Kirilov Star

‘And the other? Who is she?’

He was about to say their governess when he realised that admitting the children had a governess was not a good idea; it branded them as aristocrats. ‘A friend of the family. They were going to stay with her in Perekop while their parents went to Kiev. They have been summoned to appear at some enquiry or other. I don’t know the details.’ The sight of Andrei, brave, foolish Andrei, had brought him near to tears himself and he could only mutter these untruths. ‘Let me take them on, comrades. We are no danger to you. We have nothing you want. The boy did not mean any harm and he didn’t hit anyone.’

The leader at last dismounted and came to look at Andrei, who was most certainly dead of a head wound. It had been a superb shot considering the smallness of the target and the fact that the droshky was travelling in a far from straight line; more of an accident than deliberate, if he were honest. ‘You should have stopped him.’

‘I couldn’t. I was driving. Tonya Ratsina tried to stop him and she is badly wounded. Let us go, comrade. The little girl is terrified, can’t you see?’

Lydia was no longer sobbing. She was staring with wide unblinking eyes at Ivan, who held her brother’s body across his hands as if in supplication. Andrei’s head lolled down one side, his legs down the other, unnaturally arched. She had always thought when people died they shut their eyes but Andrei’s were wide open. Could he see her still? The man leant forward and closed the dead eyes with one hand and turned towards her. She opened her mouth to scream, but he quickly put his hand over her mouth. ‘Silence, child! Your noise will not bring him back. I want to see the woman.’ He reached down into the vehicle and lifted Tonya’s chin. ‘No beauty by any standards.’ He let it fall, then picked up the picnic basket from the floor and flicked open the lid. ‘Food, comrades,’ he said, flinging chicken legs at them. They caught them deftly and began eating, obviously very hungry.

‘Take it,’ Ivan said. ‘Take it, with pleasure. And the pancakes. And the cold tea. Take it all. Just let us go.’

‘We might. But who are you? Give us a name.’

‘Ivan Karlov, cousin to Grigori Stefanovich, the Chairman of the Workers’ Committee of the Petrovsk Soviet.’ It was said without hesitation; he had had a few minutes to realise telling his own name would not help and could lead to his wife and children. He hoped using Grigori’s name might influence the men for the good.

Tonya started to groan and cry out with the pain of her wound and both men turned to look at her. ‘She needs help,’ Ivan said.

‘It’s my view she is beyond help, but we do not make war on children. If the boy had not fired, you would be well on your way by now.’

‘Why did you want to stop us?’

The man laughed. ‘Our horses are spent, we thought we would requisition yours, but now we have seen that great carthorse, we have changed our minds. An unfortunate occurrence, comrade, but not our fault.’ He reached into the carriage and picked up Tonya’s purse. ‘We will have this instead. Now, on your way.’

Ivan did not need telling twice. He laid Andrei on the floor the other side of Tonya and covered them both with rugs, then picked Lydia up and set her up in front of him, wrapping a fur round both their legs. It was done without speaking, without looking back at the horsemen, though he knew they were still watching him.

Lydia did not scream, or even cry; neither did she speak. Her whole mind was numb, unable to absorb what had happened. The fur that wrapped her was warm, but she shivered uncontrollably. Not even when they left the forest behind, and came out onto open countryside again, did she come out of her lethargic state. It was better that way, Ivan decided; he could not cope with sobs and screams. The sun, rising over the snowy fields, bathed them in a rose-white glow, hiding the barrenness of the ground beneath them. They crossed a river and entered a small village, where Ivan stopped to ask if there was a doctor in the vicinity.

‘No, comrade, no doctor,’ the man returned. ‘There’s a midwife.’

‘What would I want with a midwife? It’s death not new life I’m concerned with.’

The man peered into the carriage. ‘What happened?’

‘We were attacked by Reds or bandits, hard to tell which these days.’

‘Reds? Here?’ He crossed himself fervently. ‘Has the war come to Ukraine?’

‘It is not far behind me.’

Tonya suddenly gave a huge sigh and then there was a gurgling in her throat, and an eerie silence replaced her rasping struggle for breath. There was a finality about it that was indisputable. The man looked into the carriage. ‘It’s a priest and a gravedigger you need, comrade,’ he said, ‘not a doctor.’

‘Then direct me to the priest.’

The man gave him directions, though he did not need them; the church dome was clearly to be seen at the far end of the street. ‘The child?’ the man queried. ‘Is she wounded?’

‘No, shocked that’s all. And can you wonder at it?’

‘No.’

Lydia did not speak while the arrangements for a double funeral went on around her. She did not hear, much less respond, to the sympathetic enquiries of the women of the village and shook her head dumbly when they offered her food. One of the older women tried to take off her bloodstained dress and petticoat, but she resisted silently and fiercely, with a surprising show of strength, and the woman gave up and went to fetch Ivan who was busy helping to dig the graves.

He came to Lydia and squatted down beside her. ‘Let the babushka have the dress, little one. She will wash it for you. You have another in your bag, don’t you?’ When she nodded, he fetched the bag and handed it to the old lady. ‘Change the dress. Leave the petticoat on. She needs its warmth.’

Lydia did not utter a sound as this was accomplished, nor later when she stood by the open graves and earth was scattered on the coffins of her brother and their governess. She watched with vacant eyes as the gravediggers began filling in the dark hole, hearing, but not hearing, the clump of the clods of cold earth as they landed on the wood. Ivan paid for the funeral with one of the jewels taken from Andrei’s tunic, the rest he put in his pocket, then he picked Lydia up and took her back to the droshky which the villagers had scrubbed out. The bloodstains were muted, not so glaringly fresh, but the smell had defied all attempts to eradicate it. She fought silently against returning to it, kicking and struggling in his arms.

‘Little one, we have to go on,’ he said. ‘I must take you to Simferopol. Your mama and papa will be there. You want to see them again, don’t you?’

She nodded, her eyes full of tears, but she clung to him, hiding her face in his shoulder. He climbed onto his own seat, set her between his knees again and, encircling her with his arms, picked up the reins. ‘Try to sleep, little one,’ he murmured.

He was not an articulate man, did not know what to say to comfort her, and he did not try. Instead he sang an old Ukrainian lullaby, softly, liltingly, while the snow turned to rain and drummed on the vehicle, washing away the last of the blood. Exhausted by everything that had happened, she put her head back against his rough tunic, while the horse plodded forward.

They travelled in silence; Lydia sat leaning against his chest, her little brain so numb it had ceased to function. Perhaps it was just as well, he thought; he was finding it hard enough to come to terms with what had happened himself. He had been fond of Andrei; the boy had been intelligent and lively and had not adopted the imperiousness of some aristocrats, believing themselves superior beings. That was down to the count, who was a man he could respect and trust. A man he had failed.

What would he say when he learnt of this terrible tragedy? His son and heir butchered by Reds or bandits, it did not make any difference which it had been. He would blame him and he would be right. It should never have happened. He should not have left a loaded shotgun where the boy could reach it. Now what was he to do? The count had given instructions for them to stay at a hotel, but how could he do that? A man and a little girl, not even a relation. It wouldn’t be right. He could not leave her in a room alone, not in the state she was in, and sharing a room was out of the question. Besides, they were well behind schedule, so he had better keep going all night. The count and countess would be there before him and be anxious about them.

The sun came up as they made their way down out of the hills and now it held more warmth. The snow had disappeared. The fields became fields again and the roads more clearly defined. Villages came and went. He bought food at one place, but Lydia would not eat; his efforts to make her speak failed miserably and he fell to talking to himself.

They arrived at Perekop in the early afternoon and by then the heat in the sun was fierce, making him sweat in his thick clothes. He stopped at a café which had tables under an awning, hitched up the horse and lifted Lydia down. She stood silently while he bought food and drink and took it to one of the tables in the shade. ‘Eat,’ he commanded. But she refused to open her mouth. It worried him. She had been twenty-four hours without food or drink of any kind and that surely was not good. After half an hour they set off again and arrived at Simferopol in the evening. The air had a salty tang and was redolent with the scent of rosemary and pine, but he hardly noticed it. He was dog-weary and worried. He had met the Ratsins only once when they had visited Tonya and he was unsure of his reception. He had to tell them of their daughter’s death and then ask them to look after Lydia until the count arrived, if he had not already done so.

Finding the house was not easy, and then it turned out to be little more than a hovel on the edge of a village a couple of versts from the town, a log-built izba, with a dirt floor and a stove in one corner. There was a table in the middle of the room with a couple of benches. The beds were on the stove.

Lydia had never been in such a place before, but she was so numb she hardly took it in. Tonya’s parents welcomed her with hugs and kisses and brought out the bread and salt to bid them welcome. They had not seen the count and countess, they said. Ivan wondered whether to keep their daughter’s death from them, but that would be cowardly, and so he told them what had happened in his gruff, straightforward way.

They wept, of course they did, and when the weeping stopped, they began to question him. What had happened, who were the horsemen, why were the count and countess visiting them? Were the Reds coming? He answered as best he could, anxious to be on his way back. If those horsemen had been Reds, forerunners of the army, then they would soon be at Petrovsk, and he had left his wife and children there. He had obeyed his instructions in so far as he had brought Lydia Mikhailovna to Simferopol, now his duty was to his family.

He looked across the room, where Lydia sat silent and blank-faced. Poor little mite. ‘May I leave the little one with you, Stepan Gregorovich?’ he asked. ‘The count and countess will be here soon, God willing. I am surprised they are not here ahead of us, but no doubt the weather in the hills delayed them. I have to return.’

The couple were alarmed at the prospect and would have liked to refuse; if the Reds were getting close, harbouring an aristocrat would cost them their lives. On the other hand, the money the big man was offering was more than they had ever seen at one time before and would enable them to move into better accommodation. And it was only for a few hours. They agreed and, having shared a meal of boiled mullet and fish soup with them, Ivan set off back to Petrovsk, leaving behind a child so traumatised, she was barely alive.

‘I don’t know how to entertain a countess,’ Marya Ratsina said between sobs for her dead daughter. ‘What would a countess expect? Where can I get food good enough for them?’ She looked at the money Ivan had given her. It was made up of gold and silver coins, not Kerensky’s paper money. Spending it would invite questions and they had to think of a good reason for having it. ‘Should I go and buy some food? And plates. You cannot expect them to eat out of wooden bowls.’ She went over to Lydia and peered into her face. ‘You, girl, what shall I do to make your mother and father welcome?’