There were final details to manage to ensure the czar’s public affirmation was printed in newspapers across the land, but then he would begin working on a way to correct this intolerable situation with Natalia.
The day after his triumph with the czar, Dimitri escorted Ilya Komarov and his family to the train station in Saint Petersburg. True to his promise, Dimitri was paying for the entire family to emigrate to America. It would begin with a three-day ride to the port of Hamburg, then a steamship bound for New York. All their belongings fit into a single trunk and two threadbarecarpetbags. It occurred to Dimitri that Poppy Blackstone’s hat boxes took up more space than all the Komarov family’s worldly goods.
As they waited on the train station platform, Ilya’s two adolescent boys sulked about leaving home, but Ilya and his wife brimmed with a combination of hope and nervous anxiety. Typical sounds of a train station surrounded them. Peddlers hawked goods, and the hiss of steam began building in the train. A loud-mouthed malcontent carping about revolution was trying to pass out leaflets, but most of the bystanders ignored him.
“That one won’t last long,” Ilya said with a nod to the rabble-rouser. “The authorities will get him before much longer.”
Probably, but Dimitri paid no attention to the malcontent as he followed the Komarovs to the train. Just before boarding, Dimitri pressed an envelope into Ilya’s hands.
“This is a letter of introduction to Maxim Tachenko,” he said. “He has a dacha north of New York City that is in terrible shape. He could use a good carpenter.”
At last he saw a smile from Ilya Komarov, who nodded in gratitude, touched the brim of his hat in genuine respect, and then ushered his family aboard. Ilya paused in the doorway to lift his hat in farewell, and Dimitri was inexplicably moved. It took courage to head off into the unknown with little but a few clothes and a letter of introduction, but Ilya would do well in America.
Why did he envy Ilya? The gray metropolis of New York was going to be a difficult transition for this rural family, but still, the envy persisted.
It would be a few more minutes until the train departed, and Dimitri limped to a bench, setting his crutches aside as he lowered himself to sit. His ankle hurt, his lungs were still congested, and the rest of his body seemed inexplicably old, but he would stay until the train left. He’d neglected to bring anything to read, so he looked for a newspaper boy but saw only the loudmouthed revolutionary handing out pamphlets and yammering about doom.
A peasant girl selling matches wandered through the crowd. Her arms and ankles were so thin that they looked birdlike, and on her feet she wore a pair of lapti shoes. His feet itched just looking at them. Lapti shoes were uncomfortable in the best of times and not warm enough for this time of year.
He summoned the girl, and she came over, offering a box of matches for ten kopeks. He shook his head and pressed fifty rubles into her hand. “Buy a pair of winter shoes.”
Her eyes widened in stunned surprise, but she clutched the money and ran to the front of the station, where her mother was clustered with other children. Fifty rubles ought to buy them all new shoes, but he didn’t feel good about the transaction. The station was filled with equally threadbare children. Why had he never noticed the poverty in this station before?
The stationmaster walked along the platform, closing train doors and making the final calls. The cylinders and pistons creaked as the wheels began moving. Dimitri stood to raise his hand in farewell to the Komarovs, wondering once again at this strange sense of longing that came from nowhere as he watched the train round the bend and disappear into the distance.
He adjusted his crutches and prepared to head back toward the stable yard. The matchgirl showed her mother the rubles from Dimitri. The malcontent revolutionary was louder than ever, but he wasn’t passing out leaflets anymore. He had something dark and round in his hand. He threw it toward the station, then turned to run as if his life depended on it.
Understanding came quickly.
“No!” Dimitri bellowed, hobbling toward the matchgirl. Others started running the other way.
He didn’t hear anything, only saw the explosion of flying wood, bricks, and metal. A flash of fire. The matchgirl was blown across the station, and a wall of wreckage came flying at him.
Then everything went black.
Dimitri’s condition steadily worsened in the days after the explosion. The gashes on his face made speaking painful, and his concussion throbbed like a sledgehammer, but the worst was his lungs. The chest cold had morphed into a crippling case of pneumonia that made it impossible to draw a full breath. Sweat poured off his body, and he shivered with unending chills no matter how many blankets his mother piled on top of him.
Anna constantly hovered, her face white with grief ever since Dr. Sopin told them Dimitri was unlikely to survive the week. Anna tried to fend off visitors, but Dimitri insisted on seeing Sergei Antonovich, the only lawyer in the valley, to draft a new will. It needed to be completed today. He’d already done everything to ensure his mother would have Mirosa and its land, but he wanted Pavel to have the cider mill. His mother didn’t need the mill’s income, but it would mean the world to Pavel. Maybe Pavel wasn’t the smartest man in the valley, but he’d always loved the mill and the orchard and would take care of them.
“Allot ten acres of the apple orchard to Pavel,” he rasped to the lawyer. “Give him the mill in perpetuity.” The scratching of Sergei’s pencil sounded unnaturally loud as he scribbled the instruction. Dimitri was propped up in bed because it was easier on his lungs and his wheezing didn’t sound so bubbly.
He was too tired to think clearly, but he still needed to do something for Temujin. The newspapers had just announced the affirmation of the Treaty of Aigun, and Temujin deserved to know that they’d succeeded in their quest. The treaty reaffirmation had been Dimitri’s cause, but Temujin still cared and would want to know.
“Mama,” he whispered. “The newspaper about the treaty ... send it to Temujin. Along with a gold coin.”
“That man is a thief and a heathen,” she sputtered. “Why should you waste good money on such a man?”
His eyes drifted closed in exhaustion. “You’re right. For a man of Temujin’s worth... fifty gold coins. Put a bible in the package.” His lips quivered a little in humor, because on longwinter nights, Temujin’s curious mind would probably crack it open.
Sergei and his mother both grumbled in disapproval. No one here in the valley understood him anymore. He missed Temujin. He missed Natalia. As difficult as Ilya Komarov had been, at least they understood each other. They were fighters. People who laid everything on the line day after day, year after year. This was a struggle Dimitri understood and appreciated. He rarely saw it among the wealthy aristocrats of the valley. He loved them all, but he respected the fighters more.
Sergei fussed over how to get the bequest to Temujin. “We don’t even know where this man lives,” he said. “We can’t send a fortune in gold through the post and expect it to arrive at its destination. We don’t even have an address.”
It was a problem. Temujin planned to stay in Chita, but Dimitri had no idea if he’d bought a farm.
“Hire someone to take it to Chita,” he said. “Ask for directions to a man named Temujin who is missing his right foot and has only two toes on the other. There will only be one such man.”
Thinking of his unlikely friend coaxed a smile despite the searing pain on his cheek. He probably just split the scab open, but he’d suffered worse.
