Berezovo: A Revolutionary Russian Epic

“I am still your husband,” he retorted, taking another step backwards, “and I have the rights of a husband to take you in whatever way I want. That is in the contract.”

Straightening up Irena regarded him shrewdly. Her husband’s meaning was clear to her and she considered her options. If she killed him now or later she would end on the scaffold. If she sent a message to Karol Domic to have one of his cut-throats do it, it would undoubtedly be at the cost of her going back into criminal servitude. Better to be buggered and to bide her time than adopt either of those courses. It was not as if other men hadn’t taken that avenue before.

Reversing the knife in her hand she dove its blade into the polished veneer of the supper table, saying offhandedly, “I wish you would, then I wouldn’t need to go with oafs like Leonid Kavelin.”

Relieved that the moment of danger had passed but pained by the damage to the table Illya returned to his chair. Picking up his knife and fork, he resumed eating his supper.

“What was Kavelin like in bed?” he asked casually.

Smiling at his attempt at sangfroid Irena pulled her chair nearer to the table and sat down. Her immediate task she told herself as she retrieved her fork, was to rebuild Illya’s pride and to get him to come first and shorten the ordeal before her.

“Insignificant,” she said, pulling her knife free of the table and wiping it with her napkin. “All huff and puff and over in a flash. Not at all thorough. And tiny with it, not like you, you horse!”

He grunted in response and for a moment they ate in companionable silence.

“Where are my presents?” enquired Irena after a while.

“Do you really think that you deserve presents?” he asked.

“Do you?”

Kuibyshev considered the question seriously.

“No, probably not.”

“Well, it is just as well that life is unfair, isn’t it,” she replied with a smile, “and that we don’t get what we deserve?”

Bending down she reached beneath the table and brought out the wrapped nightshirt. She carried it to him and laid it in his arms as if it was a sleeping baby.

“You see. I do think of you while you are away.”

Looking down at the package he shook his head.

“This does not wash away your guilt.”

Lifting his chin with her hand she gave him a tender smile.

“There was not guilt,” she assured him softly. “This was made weeks before I went with Kavelin. Open it!”

Obediently he undid the parcel of cloth and took the nightshirt out of its tissue wrapping. Holding up the nightshirt at arm’s length he examined it.

“And this is for me?” he asked.

In reply she punched his arm gently.

“Look at the embroidery. Polezhayev’s girl worked on the stitch work for a fortnight.”

Bringing the embroidered breast pocket closer he looked approvingly at the girl’s work. He could, he realised, use the same design to cover the repairs to his carriage, and at the same time confirm the truth of Irena’s story, Polezhayev’s daughter being the second of his three spies in Berezovo.

Taking the nightshirt from his grasp Irena held it to her bosom and sank to the floor beside his chair.

“She has also made one for me, with the same initial,” she informed him, adding submissively, “Would you like to see it on me?”

Despite himself Illya Kuibyshev smiled at her change in manner.

“Is this how you want me, when you do it to me?” she coaxed him. “Virginal? You will have to show me what you like and how to do it. I might not be very good the first time.”

“You really are a slut,” he repeated, “such a slut.”

She began to stroke his thigh. Throwing his head back her husband laughed heartily.

* * *

As the Kuibyshevs prepared themselves with differing degrees of enthusiasm to honour their conjugal obligations, the cause of their difficulties was being comforted in the dining room of the Hotel New Century. Pouring his friend another drink Nikita Shiminski, owner of Berezovo’s principal general store, listened sympathetically to Leonid Kavelin’s admission that three days had now passed since he had last received a communication from his wife. There was no forgetting the event: the occasion had been memorable (Kavelin’s return home, drunken and dishevelled, from the debacle of waiting to greet the prison convoy) and the medium of communication carefully chosen: a single resounding slap across his face.

“I consider myself a fair man,” Leonid Sergeivich was saying sadly. “I realise that there is a case to be made that I deserved a slap but this… this…”

“Froideur?” suggested Shiminski.

“Yeah, froideur. It’s disproportionate, excessive and ultimately self-defeating.”

It was, the timber merchant protested, typical of the incapacity of women to think and act logically. To be upset that he had been with another woman was fair enough, but to make life so unpleasant for him at home that he was driven to seek society elsewhere, made no sense whatsoever.