The Silent Land Page 6

  How absurd men – all men – are. So proud of their physical prowess that they’ll brag about it even in times of crisis – even to little children.

  I led him up the wide staircase.

  “Where are we g … going?”

  To the most precious place in my small world, to my Aladdin’s cave – the schoolroom.

  I opened the door and motioned him inside. “You’ll be safe here. When we don’t have lessons, I’m the only one who visits it.”

  I closed the door again and crept downstairs. I had only just returned to my bed when I heard the heavy knocking on the front door.

  There were six dragoons in the party. They’d followed the trail of a fugitive barn burner. They were sure he was in the house, and they wanted to search every room.

  “How can he be here?” I heard the Count demand. “Ever since you arrived, I’ve made sure that every window, every door, was locked. If he’d broken in, there would be some evidence of it.”

  “It is the only place he can be, Your Excellency. And it is on your behalf that we’re acting.”

  “Very well, search. But start with the servants’ rooms. I do not want my family disturbed unless it is absolutely necessary.”

  They searched our room while Natulia and Tassaya, sleepy-eyed and clutching their night-dresses tightly to themselves, looked on and giggled. They checked the bakery and the carpentry workshop. Then they moved upstairs.

  Sasha was trapped. There was no way out but the window, and it would have been suicidal to jump from that. There was nothing for him to do but wait while they searched the first floor, checking the Count’s bedroom and the Countess’s, looking under the dining table and behind the chairs in the ballroom. He could only hope that by some miracle they would decide not to check the second floor. They did, of course, and there he was, caught like a rat in a trap. Nose pressed against the dormitory window, competing with the maids for space, I saw him led away in chains.

  I didn’t dare cry until I was once more alone, shrouded in my blanket, but then the tears flowed freely. I sobbed quietly for most of the night and it was with a puffy face that I reluctantly dragged myself up to family breakfast the next morning.

  No one noticed me at first, all eyes were on the Count, who looked as grim as I ever remember seeing him. “Someone let that man in last night,” he said. “I don’t expect loyalty from the muhziks …”

  “Animals are never grateful,” the Countess commented.

  “… but I do insist on it from my servants. Whoever is guilty will be punished.”

  “None of them would have the nerve,” Countess Olga said, tossing her head imperiously. “They have too much respect for you. Too much fear of me.”

  Misha turned to look at me. “What is the matter with your face, Anna?” he asked worriedly. “Have you been crying?”

  “Her!” the Countess screamed, pointing a finger at me. “She did it. She’s a swill-guzzling peasant just as he is. She let him in through the window of the maids’ bedroom. Well, now we can finally send her back to her hovel.”

  “I’m sure Anna wouldn’t—” Miss Eunice began.

  “Do you deny it, you little guttersnipe?” the Countess demanded.

  “She did it, Mama,” Mariamna chanted. “She did it. You can see it on her face.”

  I was not ashamed of what I’d done. I wouldn’t deny it, whatever the punishment. “I—” I began.

  “Hush, Anna,” Misha said quickly. “I let him in.”

  “You!” the Countess said, incredulously. “Why would you let a pig into our house?

  “I … I couldn’t sleep. I saw him from my window – outside. He looked so afraid. I let him in through the front door. I must have woken Anna. She saw us. That is why she’s been crying.”

  “I don’t believe you,” the Countess said contemptuously.

  “It’s true.”

  The Count looked squarely into my eyes. “Is it, Anna? Is it true what Misha says?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can’t you see what he’s doing?” the Countess asked. “He’s covering up for that little sow.”

  “I choose to believe my son when he confesses to a crime,” the Count said with dignity.

  “Do you? Do you? Then punish him. Punish him as you said the guilty party should be punished.”

  “How?”

  The Countess picked up her husband’s riding crop, which he never kept far from him, and waved it in front of his eyes. “Tell the servants to stay outside – and beat him.”

  The heavy silence which descended on the room seemed to last for ever. I didn’t want to look at any of the others, but my body betrayed me, turning my head even as I tried to resist the movement.

  Mariamna had a wicked grin on her face, a grin which said that she was confident, one way another, that she was going to enjoy herself. Countess Olga was looking steely and determined, watching first Misha, and then me, waiting for one of us to break. Miss Eunice had suddenly found her hands very interesting. Misha was trying not to cry.

  And the Count? He gazed at his wife with pure loathing, and if he’d thought he could get away with it, I’m sure he’d have killed her then and there.

  “Well, are you going to punish the boy yourself?” the Countess demanded finally. “Or must I call for one of the grooms?”

  The Count rose heavily to his feet. “I’ll do it,” he said.

  I heard a gasp, and realized that I’d made it myself. Though I hadn’t even known I was doing it, I must have been holding my breath.

  “Don’t come in until I tell you to!” the Count called to the butler and upstairs maids who were waiting outside the door. He turned to his son. “Bend over, my boy. And remember that you’re a Mikloshevsky. Whatever happens, keep quiet.”

  Misha bent, his hands resting on his knees, his slim legs trembling. The Count raised his crop and brought it down with a heavy thwack across Misha’s behind. I remembered what no fiercer a blow had done to Sasha’s face, and I shuddered.

  “Harder!” Countess Olga demanded.

  The Count raised his crop again, and landed it with a blow which sounded like the splintering of bones. He lifted it for a third time, and was just about to strike when the Countess shouted, “Stop!”

  Relief engulfed me like a tidal wave. I’d felt Misha’s pain like it was my own, and now I offered up a silent prayer of thanks that his mother had chosen to show mercy.

  Misha started to return stiffly to an upright position.

  “I didn’t tell you to rise,” the Countess said, her voice as cold as the winter frost. “Bend over again.” She walked across the room until she was standing in front of him, grabbed his hair in her hand, and lifted his head. “Who let the filthy peasant in? Was it you? Or was it that little bitch?”

  “Me, mother.”

  She released his hair and his head flopped down. “Beat him again! Harder!”

  At the third blow, Misha’s knees began to buckle, yet somehow he managed to hold his position.

  “Who let him in? You or her?”

  “Me, mother. It was me.”

  “Hit him again! Harder!”

  How many times did that wicked crop slash through the air? How many times did Misha wince and gasp with pain before his mother finally gave up and called for the servants to carry him to his room? Ten? Fifteen? I have no idea. After the third blow I no longer counted, no longer thought. I saw the scene, but only through a red madness brought on by anger and shame and sorrow.

  I’d wanted to confess. To spare Misha the pain and take it on myself. But I couldn’t. When the Count had asked me if I’d let Sasha in, I’d seen a look in his eyes which overpowered me. He was a proud man from a proud family. He’d never openly begged for anything in his life. Yet his eyes were begging then. Begging me to let Misha take the blame. Begging me not to say anything which would give the Countess the excuse she’d so long sought to send me back to the mir. I couldn’t refuse him then, and if I were to live it all through again, I wouldn
’t be able to refuse him now.

  How easy it must have been, in a peasants’ court over which the Count presided as Land Commandant, to find Sasha guilty of burning down the barn. There were witnesses, men who worked for Peter, who swore that they had seen Sasha do it, but even without them the case was a foregone conclusion. He was sentenced to katorga – hard labour – in Siberia. The sentence was twenty years, but it might as well have been a hundred. Those who used katorga workers knew the authorities would never complain about the way they were treated, nor inspect the conditions under which they were living. Long before his twenty years was up, Sasha would be dead.

  The strike crumbled. Almost as soon as the trial was over, the muhziks went back to work in the Count’s fields. Through solidarity there is strength, but who was prepared to be the next martyr to that solidarity? Who else was prepared to suffer Sasha’s fate? No one!

  The dragoons took Sasha away the next morning. I stood at the edge of the mir and watched them go. He didn’t have a horse – why waste one animal by having it carry another? – so his chains were fastened to the saddle of one of the soldier’s mounts. They set off at a trot, and he was forced to run desperately behind. If he’d fallen, I don’t think they’d even have bothered to stop so he could struggle back to his feet. After a few miles of being dragged, he’d probably be dead – but so what? Now or later – did it really matter when he died?

  I ran back to the Big House, knowing what I had to do. Though I’d never dared face up to the Count before, I had no choice now. I climbed the stairs to the first floor, turned the handle of the study door and marched in, feet stamping, arms swinging, chin jutting forward defiantly.

  The Count was working on his papers. I came to a halt directly opposite his table, my eyes only just able to see over the edge. The Count put down his pen and looked at me. “Yes, Anna?”

  “You must have Sasha brought back. He didn’t burn the barn.”

  The Count looked at me oddly, as if he didn’t know quite how to react. For a moment, I thought he was going to order me out of the room. But I wouldn’t go! I wouldn’t! Not until he had promised to save Sasha. Then he smiled, and the smile was strange, too. If I’d had the vocabulary, I would probably have called it wearily cynical. “I know Sasha didn’t burn down the barn,” he admitted. “It was Peter.”

  “Then how could you—”

  The Count pointed to a footstool.

  “Sit down, little Anna and I’ll tell you a part of your history that you’ll not have learned from Miss Eunice.”

  I put my hands on my hips and stamped a small, angry foot. “I don’t want a history lesson. I want to talk about Sasha.”

  “This is about Sasha,” the Count assured me.

  “How can it be?”

  “Sit down,” the Count told me, “and you’ll find out.”

  I sat, uncomfortably and aggressively, on the edge of the footstool.

  “Many years ago,” the Count began, “long before your grandfather’s grandfather’s time, the people of Uglich were called to the town square by the frantic ringing of the cathedral bell. Prince Dmitri, the Tsar’s half-brother and heir, was staying in the town at the time, and the bell was to announce his sudden death.”

  “How does Sasha—”

  “You’ll soon see. A rumour spread that Dmitri had been killed on the orders of the Regent, Boris Godunov, so that Godunov could rule once the Tsar was dead. The townspeople went mad. They killed the Prince’s alleged murderers and looted houses. Are you following this, Anna?”

  “Most of it.”

  “A commission was sent to Uglich to investigate—”

  “What’s a commission?”

  The Count smiled, warmly this time. “You’re so clever that I sometimes forget just how young you are,” he said. “A commission is a number of wise men who meet to decide certain things. This particular commission was sent to Uglich to find out how Prince Dmitri died. And do you know what they discovered?”

  “No.”

  “That he hadn’t been murdered at all. He’d died during a fit. The townspeople felt very foolish. And the Regent was faced with a problem, just as I was with the muhziks.”

  “What problem?”

  “He didn’t want to punish the townspeople. He badly wanted their support. But the death of his servants had to be avenged. So he sent orders to the commission – which is not so different from a court – as to where the blame should lie. Can you guess what those orders said?”

  “No.”

  “Think! Who, or what, started the rioting?”

  The townspeople came to the square because they had heard the bell ringing and once they were there … “The bell!” I said.

  “Exactly. The bell. It called them to the square in the first place, so it was to blame. It was sentenced to transportation to Siberia. It’s still there. Do you understand the story, Anna?”

  I did, but I struggled desperately to find the right words to express myself.

  “It was more con … con …”

  “Convenient?”

  “… convenient to punish the bell than to punish the townspeople.”

  “And that’s just what happened here. Peter is guilty. He took advantage of muzhik unrest to burn down my barn because he thought it would put me more in his power. And his plan has worked. I’ve lost equipment and livestock and I’ve no money to replace them. I must borrow from him – there is no one else who would lend to me. And how could I do that if he was in Siberia?”

  “You could just take his money.”

  The Count laughed. “He’s not foolish enough to keep his money in the mir. Besides, I understand Peter. He’s a greedy man, and I can deal with greed. But Sasha? Sasha’s too honest. He’s a man who works for the benefit of all, a great bell who rallies the people. I don’t want him here, and neither does Peter, who will soon own the whole village now that Sasha can no longer protect it. So you see, it is far better for both of us that Sasha should be the one to go.”

  My heart was thumping and my face burned red. “It’s not fair!” I screamed.

  “Of course it’s not fair. Life is not fair.”

  “I hate you!” I told him. “I want to go home. I want to go back to the mir.”

  The Count sprang to his feet. He was going to hit me like he’d hit Sasha, but I didn’t care. I wanted to be hurt. I wanted to suffer as Sasha suffered. And I would fight back, kicking with small feet, scratching with small nails.

  He didn’t strike me. Instead, he grabbed my hand in his and dragged me roughly out of his study, along the corridor and down the stairs. Servants stood open-mouthed as we rushed past, but I don’t think he even saw them. Only when we had reached the veranda did we stop. Even then the Count did not release my hand, and though he was squeezing it so tightly that it hurt, I refused to show my pain, refused to ask him for anything.

  “The mir is over there,” he said, pointing. “But where is London, Anna?”

  “In England,” I replied, mystified. “It’s the capital city.”

  He let go of my hand at last. “Write ‘London’ in the air for me, Anna?”

  “Why should I?”

  “Just do it!”

  “In English or in Russian?”

  “English.”

  I traced out the letters with my finger.

  “How far is London from here?” the Count asked. “Thirty versts?”

  I laughed, in spite of myself. “Of course not. It’s thousands of versts.”

  “Does your mother know that?”

  “My mother doesn’t even know there is a place called London.”

  “No, she doesn’t, does she? Go back to the mir if you want to, Anna, I won’t stop you. But if you do go, you can never come back here again. There’ll be no Miss Eunice for you. No schoolroom. Nothing. You’ll be as much an exile as Sasha is.”

  Just two days earlier he had begged me with his eyes not to give his wife cause to send me back to the village. Now he didn’t need to beg. Now he wa
s confident that I wouldn’t – couldn’t – give up the great treasure which he had made possible. And I knew that he was right. I felt tears of shame and humiliation running down my face. I took one last look in the direction of the mir, then turned and fled back into the house.

  Chapter Six

  By ten o’clock, I am ready to face the world. Leaning on my stick, I open the front door and make my way painfully towards Ali’s grocery store. Today the narrow sky of London is almost clear. Frost has formed a smooth, glittering skin on the pavement and the cold stings my cheeks. Careful, old woman! Don’t slip now. Don’t shatter any of your already crumbling bones. Once you let yourself be taken to hospital, you’ll never again be allowed to return to your ‘residence’ in Matlock Road.

  I reach Ali’s shop and open the door. Ali gives me a gap-toothed smile. “Earlier today, Princess.”

  Am I? Was my ancient body a little more efficient this morning? Another small victory. Making my way over to the freezer chest, I’m already starting to feel better.

  “I am sick and tired of the bloody weather in this bloody country,” Ali tells Winston, his dreadlocked assistant. “I will sell the shop and go back to Pakistan.”

  “Got any beaches there?” Winston asks.

  “Very fine beaches,” Ali says defensively, as if Winston had meant to cast a slur. “Very fine beaches indeed. All around Karachi.”

  “We got beautiful beaches in Jamaica. Miles and miles of ’em.”

  “Miles and miles in Pakistan, too.”

  The conversation continues as I search through the freezer, unable to decide which is best value – pork chops or mince.

  “… and the end of Ramadan is a big party, not like the bloody poor affairs they have round here.”

  “… should see a Jamaican carnival, man. Leave Notting Hill standin’. Steel bands? Let me tell you …”

  It’s only talk. They’ll never go home, either of them. And it’s strange to me how this talk seems to focus on landmarks – special times like festivals and celebrations – as if the rest of their lives were merely journeys between these mountain tops and had no significance of their own.