The Lieutenant’s Lover. Harry Bingham
emotions turned at once from worry to hospitality.
‘Good! Then come up! I didn’t know you were coming, or I’d have found some meat for you somehow. I’ve got a beef stock, though. I could make soup, and—’
Misha brushed away her words as if he were clearing snow from a woodpile.
‘I can’t stay. I told you. I’ve got to go and get this valve. But listen. There’s a hospital at Petrozavodsk. It’s small and not very good, but it needs staff. I’ve made friends with a doctor there – a real doctor, a proper old bourgeois like myself – and he can get you a position there as a nurse. Just three days a week, mind you. For the winter only. Pavel is old enough to take care of himself for that time.’
‘There’s Babba, too. I couldn’t…’
‘So get Pavel to pull his weight. He’s easily old enough and he only does so little because you let him. Or Rodyon. He’s always offered to do more.’
Other objections rose to Tonya’s lips, but they got no further. Tonya knew that she was seeing problems only because she was scared, because she didn’t believe in luck when it came, because she distrusted the world most of all when it seemed to promise something. But being with Misha changed things somewhat. His outlook was so different from her own, so boundlessly optimistic, that she couldn’t help but doubt her own first instincts.
He saw the struggle in her face and held her gently to him.
‘It’ll be all right. Just say yes. I’ll sort everything else out.’
She looked up at him – his earnest face, long and pale in the twilight. She nodded dumbly.
‘Yes? Is that a yes? Good for you, comrade Lensky. Good for you.’ He kissed her. ‘Listen. I mean it. I do need to go. The hospital will be in touch. It’s a Dr Zurabov. He’s nice.’
And with that he was gone. The yard was empty again and only the pile of logs at Tonya’s feet gave any sign that the conversation had happened. She picked up the fallen logs and began to carry them upstairs.
8
Just ten days passed, then Tonya was ordered in to see her hospital supervisor.
‘Bad news for you, Antonina Kirylovna,’ he said, tossing a paper at her. ‘Some awful hospital out in the sticks needs a nurse. They’ve requested you. Don’t know why. I’d say no if I could, but the request has come through Party channels. I can’t say no. It’s only three days a week, if that’s any—’
Tonya didn’t hear any more, but felt a surge of joy at the news. It was almost as though Misha’s magic had somehow found a way to penetrate the remorselessly grinding machinery of the state. Tonya made her arrangements and two days later she was in Petrozavodsk. The snow had already come up there, and lay like a clean white mantle over town and countryside alike. When she finished work at the hospital that evening, Misha was there to meet her. But he didn’t take her back to his room, a space so tiny there was barely enough space for one. Instead he took her out of town, three miles down a track to a little wooden hut on the edge of the forest.
‘It’s an old hunting lodge. Run down, but fine. No one uses it.’
‘Don’t we need to …? Shouldn’t we get authorisation?’
Misha stood up to his knees in the snow, bright-eyed and exultant. ‘Yes, comrade. You are right. You raise an important point.’ He opened his arms wide and said in a loud voice, ‘I claim this house on behalf of the ultra-bourgeois family Malevich.’ There was a low cliff not too far distant, and his voice bounced off the grey rocks in a series of echoes. He turned back to her with a widening grin. ‘To hell with comrade Lenin,’ he shouted. ‘To hell with the revolution. Long live the bourgeoisie!’
Tonya was shocked to begin with. Shocked, because she’d never heard anyone say anything so daring for months now – let alone shout it at the top of their voice. And shocked too, because she was torn. She knew that the revolution was riven with too many little men: driven by fear, anxiety, power, greed. But there were also the Rodyon Kornikovs: good, hard-working idealistic men, who had pledged their lives to the service of their fellow men. She wasn’t as quick as Misha to condemn the changes.
‘You say it,’ he said. ‘Down with Lenin.’
She smiled and shook her head.
‘Ah, pardon me, comrade worker, you should be saying “Up with Lenin! Power to the people!” Go on. Say it.’
She laughed, and again shook her head. But this time her denial went only skin-deep. It was a game.
‘Comrade Lensky, the revolution will fail if you don’t shout.’
They looked at each other, grinning, then they both began to shout.
‘Up with the revolution!’
‘Down with the Bolsheviks!’
‘Power to the people!’
‘Bring back the Tsar!’
‘Up with Lenin!’
‘Down with Lenin!’
They shouted as loud as they were able, till the rocks boomed back with the sound of their voices: ‘Lenin… Lenin… Lenin…’ Then, because Misha had the louder voice, Tonya jumped at him and pushed him backwards into the snow. He grabbed her leg and pulled her after him, and they rolled over and over together, as though the snow were the softest of white feather beds. They could hardly breathe for laughter.
They grew a little more serious. They stood up and brushed themselves down. The hunting lodge stood ready for them.
Misha bowed. ‘Mademoiselle Lensky, je te presente le chateau Malevich.’
Until he’d been seven, Misha, like many Russians of his class, had spoken French with his mother, and he spoke it now with a kind of careless elegance, which Tonya secretly found daunting. But she curtsied low and gave Misha her hand so that he could escort her, like a grande dame, across the heaped up snow to the lodge itself.
The interior was bleak, dark and cold. It had an intimidating, depressing feel and Tonya’s heart sank. But there was a stove and the wooden walls were mostly draught-proof and there were no vermin of any kind. Misha dug a lamp out from somewhere, lit it and got to work straight away on lighting a fire. The red spit and crackle of the kindling immediately lifted Tonya’s spirits again. She took the lamp and bustled around the hut, exploring her new domain. There was a bed with an old feather mattress, some store cupboards full of bits of old harness or hunting gear whose use she didn’t know. There was a sackful of potatoes that Misha had brought out; also a stack of logs, oil for the lamp, some cooking pots, and, in one cupboard, a small store of tea and sugar which made Tonya gasp for joy. She came back to Misha, whose fire was now beginning to blaze.
‘What do you think?’ he asked.
‘I love it.’
Misha stood up, smiling. ‘Bugger Lenin. And bugger the whole blasted lot of them.’
‘Apart from Rodya.’
‘Yes, good old Rodyon, apart from him.’
Tonya stepped into Misha’s arms and by a shared understanding they began a slow dance around their new room; a waltz again, but not a fast one; slow and deliberately graceful. For almost the first time, Tonya didn’t just dance the steps correctly, she gave herself to them and her upturned face seemed shot through with something grave, almost spiritual. Misha didn’t try to break into her mood. He just danced in silence, making sure not to disturb her rhythm.
And then, after a while, she changed posture and grinned. Misha suddenly speeded up, and they shot around the room, whirling and stamping, until they spun apart laughing. That night, though they heard wolves howling outside, they slept in bed