Berezovo: A Revolutionary Russian Epic

It was only as she was removing her outdoor coat from its peg on the wall of the lobby that she recalled the original purpose of her visit to the hotel. Clutching the luncheon list, she cautiously opened the door of the dining room and peered inside. The room was almost deserted. At one table sat Sasha and the younger waiter, smoking cigarettes and folding napkins. From the doorway Madame Pobednyeva beckoned to Sasha and waved her list.

“Sasha!” she called out as the head waiter rose obediently from the table and came towards her. “I really can’t wait any longer. Please give this to Fyodor Gregorivich as soon as you see him. He will know what to do with it.”

With an apologetic bow the head waiter took the folded piece of notepaper from her and bade her a good afternoon. Professional courtesy prevented him from suggesting to her that she could speak to the hotel’s proprietor herself if she would but wait until his boss had changed the ensemened sheets in Room Number Four. As he confided to his protégé when he had returned to folding the napkins, tact and discretion were the hallmarks of their calling.

Tatyana Kavelina walked quickly along the raised boardwalk that bordered Menshikov Street. Her visit to Raisa had upset her greatly and she wanted nothing more than to get home, close her front door behind her and shut the world out. The gloom of the winter afternoon was fast fading into the darkness of evening, making figures and the outlines of the buildings indistinct in the ill lit street. A couple passed her, walking arm in arm, and greeted her by her name but Tatyana ignored them, averting her face as if she did not wish to see, or to be seen.

How could Raisa say such rude and hurtful things to me, she thought angrily, or even believe them to be true? Olga Nadnikova and Lidiya Pusnyena, yes, I can believe it of those frustrated old cats, but dear Raisa? Doesn’t she realise how unlikely the idea is that Irena would ever set her cap at Lyonya? The idea is more than ridiculous, it is absurd.

All the same, thought the timber merchant’s wife, Raisa’s point had been well made. Leonid would quickly recognise that these rumours, as insulting as they were, would be as damaging to his commercial interests as they were to his personal reputation. There were plenty of people in the town who would be only too prepared to deny him their trade if he was believed to be an adulterer. She would have to speak with her husband, even if it meant a beating. The risk was negligible. In all probability he would stay his hand. She hoped that he may even join her in laughing at their foolishness. Even if he did hit her, it mattered very little. Poor Lyonya had no talent for cruelty and little skill in violence. He was not quite as tall as she was and, perhaps because of this, in all their married life he had only attacked her three times, mostly with slaps around her head and bruising punches to her arms and legs like a young boy in a school playground. On each occasion she suspected he had been ashamed of himself afterwards. She considered him, in many ways, as being only half a man, for which she was profoundly grateful. It made it all the more unlikely that he would have the courage to attempt to seduce such an attractive and sharp-witted woman such as her friend Irena.

Reaching the alleyway that ran along the northern side of their house, out of habit Tatyana looked up and saw the face of her daughter gazing at her from one of the upper windows. Instinctively she raised her hand. The young girl raised her hand in response, and in that instant a wave of misery and anxiety, so powerful that she almost cried out in anguish, washed over her. The thought that anyone could deliberately wish to destroy the child’s happiness made her falter. Collecting herself she gingerly descended from the boardwalk, crossed the alley and ascended the steps that led to the entrance to the grounds of their house that lay secure behind the high wooden fence.

When she reached the door she was surprised to see her daughter waiting for her, standing in the doorway.

“Hello Mama!”

“Where is Nadya?” she responded irritably as she swept past the child into the warmth of the hallway. “She is paid to open the door, not you.”

“Papa wants a bath and she has been busy boiling water in the copper.”

Tatyana frowned as she removed the pin from her hat and carefully laid the hat on the small console table in their hallway.