Before us bloomed an image on the white page—the first line of marchers, the empty cobbled street ahead of them, their dark figures entering from the right, as if from the past, walking onstage, their mass dividing the sheet in half. I could see history’s footprint in that moment. I had been there.

11 The Two Mariyas

TWO DAYS LATER, I sat with Mother at a table for six at the Hotel Europa, a spacious room decorated in the art nouveau fashion. All around us, soignée women lunched, well-dressed families fussed over pretty children, and business associates tucked into steaks and roasted chickens. At the end of the long room, a string quartet stitched a Bach concerto onto the fragrant air, while not five hundred yards away on Nevsky Prospect, strikers milled behind a cordon of soldiers. How ridiculous to be waiting here for the appearance of Great-Aunt Mariya Grigorievna and elderly Cousin Masha, visiting from Moscow.

Mother removed her gloves, slowly and beautifully, a small performance in itself, glancing about to see if she knew anyone, and of course she did. We ordered tea, which came in traditional glasses with silver holders. I studied the waiter, a somber long-faced man who resembled Pasternak. He looked like he’d been born old, as if joy had never crossed that masklike face. Did he hate us? Did he secretly hope we would all choke on our sturgeon in cherry sauce? This dumb show of privilege—the quartet, the stylized flowers of stained glass, the illumination of the skylights. Yet it was beautiful. Did beauty have to be shameful? I wished there was someone I could ask. But who? Not Mother. Certainly not Great-Aunt Mariya Grigorievna, whom I could see approaching, regal in an old-fashioned hat decorated with a crow’s wing, followed by dour, sharp-faced Cousin Masha in a purple velvet beret.

We exchanged obligatory kisses, for which I had to hold my breath—my great-aunt smelled of roses kept in a box with dried bones and vinegar. Masha smelled of violet eau de toilette and an illicit cigarette. The host seated my great-aunt and placed her snuffling pug in her lap. “What is happening to this place?” she spluttered. “Your local orators have been holding forth all morning. We’ve almost converted to Bolshevism and it’s not even lunchtime.”

Mother laughed. The traitor! She supported Father’s dreams of a constitutional monarchy, but when she visited her family, sometimes her politics grew hazy.

Cousin Masha, a small homely woman with the rabid self-righteousness of someone who’d taken up plainness as a cause, thrust out her sharp chin. “Don’t laugh, it’s perfectly horrid. ‘We demand a Workers’ Soviet. We demand ice cream on Tuesdays and an automobile for every scrubwoman.’ Our nerves are worn to a thread. To a thread!” Now I couldn’t help laughing, and she glared at me, as if it had been me protesting under her window. I was glad we had a seat between us. Cousin Masha was a pincher and a tattletale, eager to spot one’s sensitivities and air them in public.

The waiter handed us menus, large and tied with a golden cord and tassel. Mother turned pages. “Mitya hopes the unrest will pressure the emperor to agree to parliamentary concessions.”

Good for her. She hadn’t forgotten us entirely. Great-Aunt Mariya snorted. “Dmitry Ivanovich won’t be satisfied until the Union Jack flies over the Winter Palace.” She set her dog on the chair between herself and Mother and opened her menu. “Thank God it’s still Russia—or at least it was the last time I heard. It is Russia, isn’t it, Masha?”

“One might wonder,” Masha said, scowling at a fat businessman who was laughing too loudly behind her.

“The emperor’s father would know what to do with those demonstrators,” said my great-aunt. “They’d be on their way to Siberia by now.”

Why was I here, dressed up in navy silk like a fool to flatter the vanity of this old party? Just because she was a rich relation without children? It was intolerable. Only the day before, I’d helped lead a walkout at school. How exciting it had been to speak out for freedom, for the eight-hour day and the end of labor militarization, instead of suffering through geometry and Milton. The teachers either sympathized with us or retreated in the face of our agitation, and in afternoon history class, Varvara led a vote to strike. It passed unanimously. Even Mina, when she saw that it was inevitable, voted yes. News spread like a fire from classroom to classroom that the senior girls were walking out. The junior girls voted to join us, even the lower school. It was hardly a tools-down strike at Putilov, but we felt part of the great upheaval.

And now, I had to listen to what the emperor’s father would do to the strikers. My freckles felt like they would burst into flame.

“Would you like some tea?” Mother asked her aunt. “Or wine? Mitya and Seryozha should be along soon, but we should go ahead and order.” She summoned the long-faced waiter with a nod.

“Tea. Ceylon.” My great-aunt petted the snuffling Potemkin. “And some milk in a dish.”

“And a little Madeira,” Masha added, smoothing her curled collar. “I think I’ve earned it, don’t you?” I imagined she must secretly dream of Spain. A scarf tied gypsy style over her forehead, guitars in a star-filled night. I imagined her drunk and humming the “Malagueña” in their big dark apartment in the Arbat.

“Really, we’re grateful the police have kept their heads so far,” Mother said. “The Kadets are cautiously confident that the emperor will come around, as long as no violence occurs.” She stroked her napkin as if it were a nervous cat. “If he doesn’t feel it’s a defeat.”

“The Kadets should come to my hotel room,” said Masha. “They could listen to the speeches without waiting for the newspaper.”

“They’re calling for abdication.” Mariya Grigorievna’s jowls trembled. “Fifty yards from the Winter Palace. It’s treason.”

Abdication? That hadn’t been among the demands of the International Women’s Day march. My God, how far things had come since Thursday. I writhed with impatience to finish this visit and find out what was going on in the street. The collar of my dress rubbed against my skin, making it itch.

Where were Father and Seryozha? They had decided to walk, but it was taking longer than it should. Or rather Father had wanted to walk and invited Seryozha along. The truth was, he didn’t want to spend too much time with the two Mariyas. “Too nice a day to ride,” he’d said. Seryozha had been pleased but wary, like a boy befriended by a bear.

They didn’t appear until we were finishing the soup, Seryozha trailing behind Father with a head-down sulky look. They must have quarreled. My brother let himself be kissed and dropped into the empty chair between me and Cousin Masha, his mood dense and volatile, like the atmosphere on a hot, cloudy planet. Father greeted the old ladies with false heartiness, taking the chair between Mother and Mariya Grigorievna after my aunt removed Potemkin. Though Father despised the bug-eyed dog, he disliked Cousin Masha even more. “You’re both looking well. Quite hale and hearty. Sorry we’re late. Ran into a bit of trouble on the way.”

Mother glanced over at her gloomy son with alarm. “The strikers? You should have come with us.”

“Just some hooligans. It was nothing.” Father glared at my brother, who pretended to study the menu. His lips trembled, I could tell he was trying not to cry. “If it had been Marina, there would have been a bloody nose or two now.”

Now I noticed the dust on Seryozha’s school jacket, the torn sleeve. He’d gotten into a fight—how could that have happened with Father right there? Were they boys he knew? Or just street boys attracted to his long poet’s locks and vulnerable, dreamy face? He must have been dawdling, looking in a shop window. Father would have had to go break it up—how furious he would have been at having to rescue his son from little toughs. Nobody’s going to fight your battles for you, son… yes, I could see the clench of his jaw under his red-brown beard.

“Was he in a brawl?” asked Mariya Grigorievna, pressing her hand to her throat, as if Seryozha were a dangerous thug instead of an artistic fifteen-year-old.

“Hardly,” Father said drily. “But he attracts it. Walking around like that. He might as well have a sign around his neck.”

Mother glanced across me, sympathetic but helpless. “But you’re all right?”

My brother wouldn’t look at her. His nose was red. He stared down at his menu. “Just fantastic,” he replied.

Mother wiped her mouth, sipped her Riesling, and nervously rearranged her silverware. Father ordered a glass of vodka and veal cutlets and took up his charming self like an actor stepping into a familiar role. He asked the old ladies whether they had anything special planned for their stay and how things were in Moscow. Meanwhile, Seryozha took out his notebook and began to caricature them—Masha with her cunning face, sipping her wine, her hat like a dripping egg. Father with his pipe. Jowly Mariya Grigorievna and her jowly dog—as they talked about the wisdom of sending money out of the country.

Father allowed himself the passion of his disapproval. “You can’t be serious. It’s unpatriotic. In the middle of a war.”

“I’m as patriotic as you are,” my great-aunt said, stiffening. She, who had wanted the strikers sent to Siberia. In Seryozha’s drawing, her hat looked ready to fly away with her. “But one must also be practical.” My brother wrote that as a caption below, One must be practical.

We were all relieved when the main course arrived. As I thought of the strikers, the sturgeon stuck in my throat—too fatty, too sweet, and the quartet sounded treacly, like putting lip rouge on Bach. The diners tucking into their meals seemed repellent, callous and greedy. Now Cousin Masha launched into a critique of modern child rearing, which started as an excoriation of my brother but ended as a rant about Mother and Uncle Vadim and how spoiled they’d been. Her spite hung in the air like oily smoke. “My parents said nothing good would come of it. That it would come back to haunt you in the end.”