I should have expected this. No one grants freedom—it has to be won. Our revolution had taught us that much. “That’s right. I went to see him. He’s not going to disappear. I’ll leave if you want me to, but I won’t be a prisoner.”

He fiddled with his tobacco pouch, packed the bowl of his pipe. His delicate fingers scrabbled, uncertain, in the curly threads. “Don’t I have enough to do without you running around the city like a bitch in heat? It’s disgusting. I should have left you at Maryino.”

Although I told myself I cared not at all what he thought, this characterization struck me with force, and my tears came. As if it was his right, as if he owned me. “Is that your answer? Move the women to the country, your son to military school?”

I noticed a subtle shift in his expression, a slight smile. He could see he had landed his blow. But there was something more. “Sorry to disappoint you, but in fact your brother is adjusting quite well.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“He’s made friends. He even won a prize in mathematics.” He opened the right-hand drawer of his heavy desk and took out a small packet of letters, set them on the leather desktop. He tipped his chair back, clasped his hands behind his head.

The letters were addressed in Seryozha’s handwriting, although I did notice the flourishes had been subdued. Already changing. The postmark was Moscow. I wiped my eyes on the back of my hand, and opened one of them.

My bunkmate’s name is Pyotr Gagarin. He’s from Suzdal. He’s pretty funny. I’m learning to fence. It’s strict but not impossible. And nobody compares me to Volodya. I miss Petrograd, but Moscow’s impressive. They let us out in the afternoons. I love how old it is. The bells are incredible.

Another letter. I let my eyes drift down the page. He was playing poker and had not lost his spending money yet, had even won a few rubles.

Though I make sure to lose some afterward so the others won’t think I’m a shark. I won a prize in geometry, if you can believe it. They’re sure my draftsmanship will get me into the engineers. I’m starting to think that’s not such a bad idea.

He was learning to ride. They had given him a horse named Flea with three white stockings, “a most intelligent fellow.” I couldn’t put any of this together with the boy I knew as well as I knew any human being on earth. A horse? He’d always been terrified of anything bigger than our mother’s dog. And here were drawings: a quizzical bay, presumably Flea. Moscow, the church domes of every shape and size. A little crooked lane, a marketplace. Boys at meals, sitting very straight, their backs not touching the chairs.

I folded the letters into their envelopes, trying not to show any emotion. It couldn’t be real. “He’s faking. He’s just trying to please you.”

“Why don’t you want to believe that your brother is doing fine without you? That while you’re making a mess of your life he’s actually straightening himself out?”

Doing all right. Making friends. Doing all the things boys do. Trying to be the boy our father wanted him to be. Doubt shook me by the neck, like a terrier with a rat. If Father was right about Seryozha, what else was he right about? He thoughtfully cradled his pipe in his palm. “I called you here because I’ve made a decision. About your future.” He made me wait while he lit up again—his lawyer’s trick. “I will send you to England to complete your education.”

He caught me so off guard that I couldn’t formulate a response. I had just gotten home a few hours ago.

“Miss Haddon-Finch will accompany you,” he continued in a puff of fragrant smoke. “Some of my contacts have already made the arrangements.” Just like when he sent Seryozha to Moscow. It’s all been arranged. “You’ll stay with Mrs. Sibley’s sister in London this fall, take some time to get to know the city. Then in the spring you’ll apply to St. Hilda’s.”

Oxford. I’d dreamed about it ever since the year we spent in England, when he was lecturing at Christ Church. Clever, clever Father. He was offering me Oxford in exchange for the revolution, in exchange for Genya. My father hadn’t forgotten about university at all. He’d just made it impossible for me to attend here while offering an attractive alternative.

How different life would be if I took him up on this offer. I pictured myself moving through the cloisters of Oxford, talking about Shakespeare and Keats. Tea with the dons, rowing on the Thames with those shining girls. It all seemed so retrograde to me now. Could I really see myself going off to Oxford to study dead English poets when there were living poets here in Russia I called by their first names? My country was transforming itself beyond anything England ever hoped for. St. Hilda’s had been the dream of a ten-year-old girl. I was a Russian poet, a woman. I would make my own life, to suit myself, and my future was here. “You still don’t see—I’m not your pawn, to be moved here and there to your liking. I believe in the revolution, and I intend to be part of it.”

My father’s face flushed dark against his curly reddish-brown beard. “Just because you’re here doesn’t mean you’re part of it, and just because you’re running around with a loudmouthed hooligan doesn’t make you a revolutionary. Only a trollop. And an idiot to boot.”

I was surprised how little it stung. “Go ahead, call me names. But I’ll continue to see that so-called hooligan. He’s an artist and a revolutionary and we’re very much in love.”

“The triple disaster,” my father said. He sighed, pressing his hands to his eyes.

As we glared at each other across the broad expanse of the desk, locked in that showdown, I saw we were exactly the same—our stubbornness the same, our brown eyes, his reddish-brown hair concentrated into my flaming red. I was more his child than he knew. But my womanhood had put a permanent barrier between us. He didn’t know how to be the father of a woman, and womanhood could not be undone. The future already a fact.

I left dry-eyed and gracefully, without so much as slamming the door. I felt strangely that I had won and yet lost.

My room already felt different to me, as if it belonged to someone else, someone who treasured trinkets and keepsakes and pictures in silver frames, a girl with lace-collared dresses. I had always loved the salmon-pink walls, but now they were cloying. I knew that whatever happened to me, to us, I would not be here long. Whoever this woman was that I was becoming, she would not live in a room like this.


September 1917. A crispness in the air, frost at night. In Mother’s era, this would have been my season. I would be preparing for balls, having gowns made, fitting my dancing shoes. Instead, with no classes to attend, I wandered the city streets with my poet’s notebook, my poet’s ears and eyes, breathing the living city. I watched the fishmongers of Haymarket Square, the freight haulers, the cabmen and the shopgirls, and wrote about them, wrote about the city, imagining my way into its secrets. My time with Genya only inspired me to dig deeper into the life around me.

One afternoon I turned a corner to find Varvara standing on a crate opposite a bread shop, making a speech to the women in the queue. “Far from improving the situation of the common people, the revolution in February has only increased your suffering,” she said from atop her rickety crate, which probably had held bottles of beer. So she had finally made it, a crate of her own. I hung back so as not to interrupt her. “The situation is worse than ever. The government is powerless to do anything but argue and pass resolutions in favor of the captains of industry.” She saw me, and the hint of a smile crossed her impassioned mouth, before she plunged back into her fierce harangue. “And still the war keeps grinding on! They say we have to stay in to seem strong to the imperialist allies! We, the Bolshevik Party, say down with the imperialists! Winter is coming, and it’s time to end the war! It’s time to bring the food and the soldiers home!”

“About time,” the women murmured.

“What did we have this revolution for?” she shouted. “To keep dying? To keep starving? We asked for bread and peace, and what did we get?”

“Just a bunch of yak,” a woman who had almost made it to the doors called out. In a bread queue, the closer to the head of the line, the more irritable and aggressive people became.

“It’s always the same,” grumbled a stout woman with a big mole on her cheek. “Whoever gets in, they pad their own nests and the hell with you.”

“Who wants this war?” Varvara called out. “You?” she pointed to the woman with the mole. “You?” She pointed to an old man.

“It’ll bury us all,” the old man said.

“Not if the Soviet has any say in it. All power to the Soviets!” She finished, got off her beer crate, and hurried over to hug me. “I thought we were going to have to go out to the hinterlands and drag you home.” She began handing out pamphlets down the line. It was wonderful to see her again, her messy black hair, her long stride.

“So you’re a Bolshevik now.”

She handed me a stack of pamphlets. “All the revolution has done is allow people to complain without being arrested,” she said. “The Provisional Government’s a joke. Look at this.” She tilted her chin at the queue. “They’re actually sleeping in line now.” What that woman joked about last year had come true. “You are the source of all power,” she told the women. “The Soviet represents you.” The pamphlet’s damp ink stained my gloves: All Power to the Soviets. “The Soviet is the future of Russia. Stand with the Bolsheviks. Get out of this war.”