The White Russian

He dreamed of her, but it was more memory than illusion. He watched the image of her crouched in front of Borodin, wiping the blood from his clothes.

The others were not there. It was just Maria and the revolutionary.

Maria ministered to him slowly, upon her knees, Borodin’s dark head tilted down, his eyes upon her.

He touched her head and stilled her actions.

Ruzsky waited, his heart thumping in his chest. He closed his eyes.

He awoke, bathed in sweat-or at least, so it seemed. It took him a few moments to understand that it was his brother whose skin was clammy with perspiration. Dmitri turned and looked at him with startled eyes. “Sandro?” He stared at Ruzsky, apparently forgetting that his brother was sleeping alongside him. “Is it you?”

“It’s me, Dmitri.”

Dmitri slumped back down, once again turning away from him. “Thank God,” he whispered.

Ruzsky placed his arm over his brother’s shoulder and they lay still in the darkness.

Thoughts of her crowded in upon him. He wondered if his brother was similarly tortured and tightened his grip. Dmitri took hold of his hand. “I’m sorry, Sandro,” he said.

Ruzsky did not respond.

“I don’t know why I didn’t stop him.”

He listened to the sound of Dmitri’s breathing.

“I thought you two were the chosen ones. You and Ilusha. I hated you both, did you know that? I thought Father only cared for you. Why didn’t I stop Ilusha going onto the ice? Do you know, Sandro? Was I jealous? Did I want him to die?”

Dmitri was babbling, still half asleep, so Ruzsky gripped him harder, until fatigue once again overwhelmed all doubts.

42

M aster Sandro?” Katya’s anxious face was close to his. “Master Sandro?” Her hand shook his shoulder.

“Yes? What is it?”

“One of the boys has drawn you a bath.”

Ruzsky stared at her. The unspoken message in Katya’s eyes was that she would like him to wash and then leave, before his presence was detected. “All right,” he said, still full of sleep. “Where’s Michael?”

“He’s gone out.”

“With his mother?”

“No. Mistress Ingrid has taken him to the Summer Gardens.”

Ruzsky forced himself upright and swung his legs off the bunk, rubbing his face with both hands. “Thank you, Katya,” he said. Then, “I’m sorry.”

Her cheeks flushed. She was embarrassed by her reluctance to admit him to the house earlier. Times are hard, her expression suggested. A servant ca

But Ruzsky saw more in her eyes than that. Katya had joined the household staff when he was nine. She had adored his brother Ilusha and treated him as her own son. It was not just his parents who had found it impossible to forget, or forgive.

Ruzsky might not have been there when his brother stepped onto the ice, but everyone thought he should have been. Hadn’t his father asked him to take care of the boy? Hadn’t he been told to make sure Ilusha never played on the ice?

“I’m sorry,” he said again. “I will leave now.”

Katya did not move. As she examined him, her face softened. “You’re not cared for properly.”

“I can care for myself.”

“When did you last eat?”

Ruzsky felt a dull ache in his stomach. When had he? He could not recall.

“Bathe and wash yourself, then come to the kitchen.”

“No.” Ruzsky shook his head. “No,” he repeated, in order to fortify himself. “Better not.”

But he felt awake enough now to weaken at the idea of bread and cheese, or even just bread. He thought he could smell fresh coffee.

“You look thi

“Impossible.”

Katya did not move. She turned her attention to his feet. “Your boots…”

Ruzsky gazed at them, as if noticing the holes for the first time. His socks were still damp and his toes numb from being repeatedly frozen and thawed.

Katya turned and strode purposefully away. She returned a few moments later clutching a pair of tall, black leather boots. “He has finished with these.”

“No.” Ruzsky shook his head.

“Don’t be so proud.” Katya stared at him. It was an admonition that carried a resonance beyond the question of boots, and, knowing that she had strayed too far, she averted her gaze. “A bath has been drawn for you. Come to the kitchen when you’re dressed,” she said, muttering, as she returned to the door. “You need someone to look after you.”

After she had gone, Ruzsky turned the boots upside down. Like all his father’s footwear, they had been beautifully fashioned by Meulenhoff, a German cobbler whose tiny premises had once been squeezed between much grander shops around the back of Gostiny Dvor. The man had been interned in the first days of the war and then sent home.

Ruzsky dropped the boots, yawned, and lay back down on the bed. On the other side of the mattress, he could still see the indentation that marked his brother’s presence alongside him in the night. He covered himself with the blankets and looked at the painted soldier at the end of the bed and the photograph of Ilusha on the shelf.

The house was quiet and the air still. He heard the tinkle of bells on a passing sleigh.

Ruzsky reached for Ilusha’s elephant. Robbed of human affection, it smelled only of mold and dust. He held it up, looking into its one eye. “I see you, Ilusha,” he said.

He hummed to himself. It was a child’s lullaby.

Ruzsky pushed himself upright. He checked his pocket watch. It was eleven o’clock.

He went down to the bathroom on the floor below, where a hot bath had indeed been drawn for him in the large tin tub. Katya or one of the other servants had placed some shaving tackle and pomades on the shelf beneath the mirror.

Ruzsky turned on the tap and felt the heat of the water. It was hardly more than a dribble, but it was a luxury he had not enjoyed since he’d last stayed in this house on the eve of his marriage.

He undressed. The room was dark and cluttered, its walls covered in military prints and photographs depicting generations of Ruzsky men attending the Corps des Pages and serving in the Guards. The line drawings and photographs closest to him were of his father’s younger brother, who had served in Her Majesty’s Life Guard Cuirassier Regiment-the Blue Cuirassiers-at Gatchina, before retiring permanently to Paris with his Belgian mistress.

The only nonmilitary photographs were of the family’s yacht, the Sinitsa, upon which they had once enjoyed holidays in the Gulf of Finland. Ruzsky examined it for a moment, before settling into the bath.

He felt uncomfortable enjoying the luxury that would once have been his by right.

About forty-five minutes later, freshly shaven and with a full stomach for the first time in days, Ruzsky emerged from the kitchen in the basement to find his father standing by the doorway, head bent in thought.

As the old man looked up, his expression softened. “Good morning, Sandro.”

“Good morning.” Ruzsky felt uncomfortably aware of the boots Katya had brought him.

“Did you sleep well?”

“Yes.” Ruzsky nodded. “I’m sorry, I should have told you that-”

“Michael is out in the Summer Gardens. He’s with Ingrid.” The old man was staring at the rectangular pool of light stretching away from the drawing room window.

Ruzsky watched him. “Are you quite all right, Father?”

“Yes.” He turned to his son. “Of course, yes.”

“You look tired.”

The old man attempted a smile. “Yes.”

They heard the sound of horses’ hooves on the cobbles and stepped into the drawing room to watch them pass. It was another detachment of the Chevalier Guard in white and red dress uniforms and blue overcoats, stiff and upright in their saddles. Their mounts were finely groomed, the men’s uniforms spotless.

After they had gone, Ruzsky watched the snowflakes dancing in their wake.