Эльвира Барякина - Russian Treasures

Fomin knew that they had no future and that their little adventure could only end tragically.

Nina took a notebook from her bag and began to calculate something.

“Do you think the current ruble exchange rate will last until winter?” she asked him, meeting his stare. And only then did she realize that Fomin was about to explode.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, worried.

The walls were shaking around him; his whole world was crumbling to dust. Should he kill himself in front of her? Or smother her and then shoot himself?

“Sofia Karlovna told me everything,” he said colorlessly. “While I was away, solving your problem, you had an affair with the prosecutor’s heir.”

Nina put her pencil down. It rolled across the table and fell on her lap.

“Don’t you understand that Sofia Karlovna wants us to fall out?” Nina asked quietly. “She was the one who sent Mr. Rogov to Osinki.”

“He stayed there for three weeks!”

“So what? I owe him twenty-seven thousand. I had to work something out.”

People started looking at them, but Fomin didn’t care. What could Nina possibly “work out” with Rogov? The same arrangement that she had worked out with him?

“Will you at least let me explain to you how we spent those three weeks in Osinki?” Nina asked and began to describe how they had visited her mill and gone mushrooming and how she had refused to go to Argentina with Klim.

“If you don’t believe me, ask Zhora and Elena,” Nina added. “They’ll confirm everything I’ve told you.”

Suddenly, Fomin felt exhausted. His jaw was trembling, and a cold drop of sweat trickled down his temple.

“Why did you refuse to go with Mr. Rogov?” he asked.

Nina opened her notebook in the middle and moved it toward Fomin. “Here’s my balance sheet. As you can see, we’ve had very good results even before we won that state contract.”

She leaned back and crossed her arms. “I had my workers sewing canvas sacks. That is exactly what is in high demand among people who carry flour from the grain-producing regions.”

Fomin looked at her with a wry respectful smile. “You are a crazy woman. Mr. Rogov has offered you beaches and palm trees, and you have turned them down for a pile of canvas sacks.”

“I don’t need someone else’s achievements,” Nina said. “I want mine. Something that I have earned and that no one will take away from me.”

The church was full of people. The flickering reflections of the candles shone in the gilded robes of the priests and the silver frames of the icons. The voices of the choir singing “I Call to You, Lord” flew high up into the dark vault above.

Nina was crossing herself without grasping the meaning of the service. She looked around at the anxious faces—at a young woman kneeling with a black lace veil over her head and an old man trying to light a candle with a shaking hand. Next to him, a portly merchant’s wife dipped her finger into the oil of a sanctuary lamp and anointed her eyelids and the eyelids of her little son.

Nina had got exactly what she wanted: she and Klim had signed all the requisite papers, and her bank account had just received funds from her state loan. And yet she somehow felt deflated and unhappy.

In the past, Nina had always known exactly what she needed to do and diligently pursued her goals in order to never again experience the shameful poverty that had been a permanent feature of her childhood.

Her father had been a skillful tailor and charged up to thirty rubles for a fine dress, but he had also been a gambler, capable of blowing the family’s entire savings in a single night and forcing Nina’s mother to borrow money to feed her children.

If it hadn’t been for a casual acquaintance with Count Vladimir Odintzov, who for some inexplicable reason had fallen in love with her, Nina would have been condemned to the same grinding poverty that had marked her mother’s life. Nina owed Vladimir everything and felt guilty at even thinking about another man. Fomin didn’t count, really—at least that was what she told herself—but after Nina had met Klim, the revered remembrance of her dead husband seemed to have lost all its meaning like an old theater ticket. Nina believed that one day she would answer for this at the seat of judgment, and it struck superstitious fear into her. After all, she had already received much more than a girl of her background could ever dare hope for.

I wish Klim had never come back, Nina thought. He had mistaken her for a housemaid, immediately recognizing her lower social status, and she had immediately recognized him as a “robber.” But in this instance, he was not so much a robber of personal possessions but her personal affections.

The fact that he asked her to go to Argentina with him meant nothing to her. How could she possibly leave her mill and her brother behind? It would be impossible to take Zhora with them—he would never go without Elena. And her parents would never let her go to a foreign country with god knows who.

If only Klim could be persuaded to stay in Nizhny Novgorod! But what could he do here? Nina thought in despair. Work as a reporter for his uncle’s newspaper? Or just be a rich playboy idler?

It didn’t make sense to even dream about it. There was no way Nina could sunder her ties with Fomin. He had told her straight that he would kill Klim if he “allowed himself to take any liberties.”

Nina left the church before the end of the service. The weather was nasty with drizzling rain and a biting wind.

A boy stood in the street with a pile of newspapers. “Read the latest!” he shouted. “Provisional Government deposed!”

Oh, no, Nina thought. That’s all we need.

People gathered around the newsboy. “What are they saying? Is it another war? Who are we fighting with now?”

“There’s been another revolution in Petrograd,” the newsboy said. “The Bolsheviks have taken power.”

Nina didn’t manage to get a newspaper. She looked around anxiously for another news vendor. People were crowding out of the church—rumors about the collapse of the government had spread like wildfire.

Nina noticed a soldier holding a paper. “Damn, I can’t understand a thing,” he grumbled. “Hey, lady!” he called Nina. “Do you know your letters? Could you read this for me, please? What are they saying?”

Nina took the dirty sheet, which smudged her hands black with printing ink.

“To the citizens of Russia,” she started to read loudly. People moved closer to her, listening intently and trying not to miss a single word. “The Provisional Government has been deposed. State power has passed into the hands of the Revolutionary Military Committee, which heads the Petrograd proletariat and the garrison. The cause for which the people have fought—namely, the immediate offer of democratic peace, the abolition of landed ownership, workers’ control over production, and the establishment of Soviet power—this cause has been secured. Long live the revolution of workers, soldiers, and peasants!”

Beneath this Bolshevik manifesto were a number of reports that made it clear there were disturbances in Petrograd and shootings in Moscow.

“The Bolsheviks have made no secret of their intentions,” said a gentleman in a felt bowler hat. “They wanted to seize power, and they have done so. Now, we’ll see a bloodbath.”

The crowd began to disperse.

Nina wondered what the phrases “the abolition of landed ownership” and “workers’ control over production” actually meant. What if the new authorities were about to take her mill away?

I need to see Fomin, she decided. He’s bound to know what’s going on.

She hurried down Pokrovskaya Street. The reflections of the streetlights flickered in the slush on the pavement, their bleary outlines glimmering in the dusty shop windows.

“Nina, wait!”

She turned her head and saw Klim dressed in an elegant gray overcoat, hat, and suede gloves.

“Have you heard about the coup?” she asked and told him what she’d read in the Bolsheviks’ manifesto. “Do you think it’s serious?”

Klim shrugged. “No idea. Are you in a hurry? I’d like to say goodbye before I catch the train tonight. My luggage is already at the station. Can you imagine, I’ve got a whole compartment to myself and will be traveling to Moscow like a state minister, no less.”

He fell silent, smiling sadly at his own thoughts. “Zhora told me you were in the Pokrovskaya Church. I wanted to see you before I leave—in order to perform an important act of gauchada.”

“What does ‘gauchada’ mean?” Nina asked.

“It’s the word that the Argentineans use to describe a deed worthy of a true gaucho. The gauchos are just regular cowboys, but the people believe they have noble souls and a special talent for selfless deeds. Well—here is mine.”

Klim took a white envelope out of his breast pocket and handed it to Nina.

She looked at him, puzzled. “What is it?”

“Your promissory note. I wanted to give you something in memory of our friendship.”

Nina was taken aback. “Are you giving me back my mill? Don’t you need the money anymore?”

“I have more than enough money to travel the world for the next ten years, and then I’ll come back for you. Hopefully, you might have changed your mind about me by that time.”

He looked at her, smiling. “No thanks needed. A true gaucho never asks for any reward for his noble deeds. You could just hang a commemorative plaque with my face on it at the entrance to your mill. But I’m afraid Mr. Fomin might object.”