Berezovo: A Revolutionary Russian Epic

So that is how it is, thought Tatyana. She does know, but she wants to fight her corner nevertheless. She wants me to feel that we are friends so that I will recommend her to Olga and the others. She’s lonely and an outsider and knows that Olga has cause to hate her and that none of the wives trust her now after the business with young Dobrovolsky and Captain Steklov. She believes that I am a pushover and thinks that I will be her key to the town’s women. That explains her invitation to lunch, the showing off of her famous boodwah and her buttering up my Lyonya. If she can’t win me over, she wants at least to get the men to protect her.

She saw that Irena was looking at her expectantly, awaiting her response. Unsure of what to say Tatyana rose from the chaise longue and crossed the room to the pair of tall windows, noting the way her shoes sank into the deep pile of the carpet. Moving aside the curtains of intricately webbed Belgian lace, she saw that Irena’s boudoir enjoyed an uninterrupted view of the river bank and the distant snow clad hills.

I shouldn’t feel sorry for her, she reasoned to herself, because I know that it could endanger my standing with my friends, but I do. In her position I would be trying to do very much the same thing. But Olga will never want to be her friend, not in a thousand years, and Lidiya and the others will go along with Olga. And once they get their knives into you, you are done for in this town.

Recognising that the length of the silence between them had become uncomfortable, she turned back to face her hostess.

“May I see your bedroom? It looks lovely,” she asked, gesturing towards the half open door.

“Certainly.”

Irena escorted her into the next room. Walking over to the dressing table, Tatyana looked longingly at the collections of small pots and bottles on its lacquered surface. Picking up a bottle of perfume, she held it up to the light.

“This looks lovely,” she said admiringly. “What’s it called?”

“Apres l’Ondee. It’s made by Guerlain,” said Irena. “Illya brought it back from Paris last year. Would you like to try some?”

“Oh, yes please!”

Reaching down, Irena opened a small drawer in the dressing table and took out a small, neatly-pressed handkerchief trimmed with pink lace. Carefully sprinkling a few drops across the linen, she passed it to Tatyana.

Gingerly Tatyana held it to her nose and took a deep sniff.

“Mmm… it’s lovely,” she said doubtfully. “What’s in it?”

“The scent of orange blossom and violets with a little something extra. It’s meant to smell of a garden in spring after a shower,” explained Irena.

“It smells of no garden I have ever been in. I don’t think my Leonid would like it.”

“Perhaps it’s a French garden,” said Irena thoughtfully. “They are probably nicer than Russian gardens.”

“Has Illya taken you there yet?”

“Where? To France?”

Tatyana nodded.

“No, not yet, but one day I will go,” said Irena emphatically. “I know I will.”

Yes, thought Tatyana, Paris. That is where you belong.

Chapter Twelve

1902

London

Over the next ten months Trotsky had got to know Nadezhda Krupskaya well, and in all that time he never saw her say or do anything that contradicted the first impression he had gathered of her in the kitchen of the lodgings at Holford Square.