The Star of Kazan

Annika, meanwhile, took stock. It wasn’t quite true that there was nothing to eat, but there was amazingly little. Hanne usually did the shopping in the village, but Hanne had gone and Annika didn’t have any money to go shopping herself. She found some flour in a jar and half a jug of milk. In the vegetable rack there were a few potatoes and a turnip. In Uncle Oswald’s cold larder two unplucked moorhens with blood on their beaks were hanging on hooks. She shut the door on them and went to the broom cupboard.

She would think about lunch later, but now it was necessary to start on the cleaning, for she could not cook in anything except a clean kitchen, and a clean kitchen meant a clean house. Only where to start? For a moment, as she looked at the tins of polish, the cloths and dusters and brooms, she felt overwhelmed by the task she had set herself. Then she heard Sigrid’s voice as clearly as if she were standing beside her.

Yes, you can do it – you can do it all. Don’t rush it, only think about the one job you’re doing. And make sure to mix the beeswax properly; no one can work with lumpy polish.

She picked up the buckets, the floorcloths, the brooms and feather dusters and made her way to the dining room. Hermann and Gudrun, who had just finished their breakfast, looked at her in amazement.

‘What are you doing?’ said Gudrun as Annika began to sweep the floor. ‘You’ll get your clothes dirty.’

‘Perhaps. But I’ll get the house clean. Some of it. You can help me if you like.’

But Gudrun hurried from the room as though what Annika was doing might be infectious.

Annika dusted the huge carved chairs, she shook out the window curtains, she polished the oak table, and slid across the parquet floor with dusters tied round her shoes.

Presently she found that she was singing; the first time she had done so since she came to her new home.

When she had finished the dining room she started on the hall, wiping the glass cases of the beady-eyed fish, mopping down the flagstones. Then she put away the cleaning things and made her way down to the farm.

‘Zed, I want some eggs. Can you spare some?’

‘There are plenty of eggs – well, there are a dozen, but they’re supposed to be taken into the village and bartered for Hermann’s ammunition.’

Annika stared at him. ‘Is that why there are never any eggs?’

‘Yes. The eggs go so that he can shoot, and the pigs get sold to pay the man who gives him his fencing lessons. It’s been like that for a while.’

‘Well, I don’t care, Zed. I want the eggs. Hermann’s not supposed to shoot anyway while his mother is away.’

Zed shrugged. ‘It’s all right by me. Come on. I’ll help you get them.’

‘There has to be something else I can use.’

He grinned. ‘Well, there are always mangel-wurzels.’

She would have liked to make soufflé omelettes, but it would have to be pancakes if there was to be enough for everyone. She had flour, eggs, milk – then right at the back of the almost empty store cupboard she found a piece of smoked ham. It was a very small piece, but chopped up to fill the pancakes it would do.

The smell brought Gudrun to the kitchen door just before lunchtime, where she hovered sadly.

‘They’ll be ready in a few minutes,’ said Annika, busy turning the pancakes over. ‘You can help me with the filling.’

‘Oh, I couldn’t. Mama never lets me go in the kitchen.’

Annika said nothing, just went on heaping the golden pancakes on to the plate.

‘Well, if you don’t tell her . . .’ said Gudrun presently. ‘What do you want me to do?’

Zed came back then with more wood. ‘My goodness, they smell good.’

‘They’ve come out all right,’ Annika admitted. ‘There’s plenty for all of us.’

She got out four plates and put them round the kitchen table, only to hear Gudrun give a squeak like a terrified mouse.

‘I can’t eat here with the stable boy!’

‘Well, then take your plate through into the dining room, and Hermann’s. I’ll stay here with Zed; I have to watch the stove.’

So once more Gudrun and Hermann sat at the vast oak table in the unheated dining room, while Annika and Zed ate in the warmth and comfort of the old kitchen, and he told her about Bertha.

‘She won’t be back till the end of the week; it’s a long way, and her brother needs her. I’m hoping—’ He broke off. ‘Only I don’t suppose he will . . .’

‘What? What are you hoping?’

‘I thought he might ask her to come and live with him. He’s got quite a big farm and he’ll be lonely.’

‘But wouldn’t you miss her?’

‘No. Because I wouldn’t be here.’

Annika stared at him.

‘I meant to go after the Master died, but I knew he worried about Bertha; she’d been his nurse since he was two weeks old, and I thought I had to stay and see she was all right.’

‘But where would you go? And what about Rocco – and Hector?’

‘Yes. There’d be a lot to think about.’

Annika had put down her fork, feeling suddenly terribly bereft. ‘I’ll miss you.’