Natalia’s palms itched to wipe the smirk off Poppy’s face. Either that or to go out and buy another copy of the record and set up the phonograph right outside Poppy’s door. She glared at her father and waited for a reaction.
“Poppy,” her father gently scolded, but his cautious tone made it clear he wouldn’t do anything to offend his beloved wife. “I think the two of you need to try a little harder to get along. Natalia, it would be helpful if you could limit playing the phonograph to hours when Poppy is not in residence. And Poppy—”
Natalia didn’t want to hear what else he had to say. She picked up the two halves of the record and hugged them to her chest. If she had to choose between Brahms or Poppy, Johannes Brahms won every time.
“No need,” she said primly. “I think I have overstayed my welcome in this house.” She could move into a hotel tonight and buy a home of her own somewhere else. She probably should have done it long ago, but she’d worried it would stoke the rumors of a feud between her and Poppy.
Why should she care? Therewasa feud between her and Poppy.
“Now, Natalia,” her father cautioned.
“Too late. I’m leaving tonight, and then we can all be happier.”
She said it breezily, but her sense of triumph didn’t last long in the face of Poppy’s triumphant gloat.
6
At first Dimitri thought the forest was deserted, but by his second night, he started seeing all manner of nocturnal wildlife. There were owls, raccoons, minks, and wolves. His first sight of a wolf terrified him until he threw a tree limb at it and the mangy animal fled.
But it worried him. Where there was one wolf there were others, but there was nothing he could do except pray that God would keep him safe. He couldn’t afford to get lost, so he followed the railroad east. Fear of being spotted by a passing train meant he traveled only under cover of darkness, and then before dawn he slipped a few hundred yards into the forest to sleep during the day. His entire body hurt, the blisters on his feet were bleeding, and he shivered with cold, but he wasn’t hungry.
The peasants of Russia had long survived on cedar nuts, and now so did Dimitri. Pine cones littered the forest floor, and it was easy enough to bash them open and pick out the tiny nuts. His pockets were stuffed with them.
On the fifth day he saw the first sign of bandits. Most of the bandits in the forest were either escaped prisoners from penal colonies, soldiers who had deserted the army, or men who abandoned their agreements to work on the railroad.
All were dangerous.
His first glimpse of them came an hour before sunset as hescavenged for cedar nuts. They were a rowdy group of at least a dozen men, and some of them were drunk. From his hiding place behind a tree, he heard them arguing over how to divide the money from a soldier they had robbed.
Trying to join them would be dangerous. Given his fine coat and custom boots, they might rob him blind rather than share their food or supplies. It also looked like they were heading south, and Dimitri needed to go east. He hid until they were well out of sight before continuing his journey.
Over time, he learned the sounds and smells of the forest. The creak of tree trunks, the rustle of wind, and the thud of his footsteps on the peaty forest floor. He became accustomed to the scent of moldering leaves and damp earth, all mingled with the smell of his own sweat and fear. It was that fear that kept him walking through the endless hours of darkness and solitude.
Forward, forward, forward.
How much longer could he go on? At this rate it would take months to reach the Mongolian border, and then what? With luck he could find a village where his gold coins could be bartered for passage on a river barge, but his feet were in dangerously bad shape. The blisters had broken open and leaked a combination of pus and blood. He could only hope his feet would toughen, and until then, he would suffer. How could three small blisters cause such misery?
He laughed in the darkness. Natalia Blackstone used to tease him about his hypochondria. It started when he complained of a mosquito bite on the side of his lip. He told her how annoying it was when he spoke or ate, and she could not let such whining go unnoticed.
Sir. You are the descendant of proud Russian Cossacks, the people who battled the Golden Horde and defeated Napoleon. I expect you to triumph over a mosquito bite.
Natalia didn’t understand the prowess of the Siberian mosquito. With the greening of springtime came formidable swarmsof mosquitos that descended with blood-sucking enthusiasm on any warm-blooded creature. Each spring his entire body was spotted with their bites, but he only complained to Natalia about that single bite on the corner of his lip that hurt every time he opened his mouth. She spared him no sympathy.
The world will survive if you don’t speak for a few days. It is only a mosquito bite, Dimitri.
He loved that. Crisp. Witty. He started regularly sharing his various maladies, whether it was chapped skin from the blustery climate or muscle aches from the poor mattress, but he wasn’t a hypochondriac.
Well, his mother sometimes accused him of exaggerating his illnesses, but that mosquito bite on the corner of his lip really hurt.
Undeserved charges of hypochondria aside, he adored Natalia’s teasing messages. For three years they were a rare bright spot during his lonely isolation. She was the most obsessively organized person he’d ever met. She routinely wanted his financial projections well before he had completed them. Unbelievably, she wanted him to predict the weather so she could adjust shipments of supplies. He would reply:Natalia, where is your spontaneity? If the weather stops us for a few weeks, in a hundred years no one will remember, so we must batten down the hatches and make the best of it. A little suffering is good for the soul.
He had a long view of history, but like most Americans, Natalia could be impatient. She wanted things donenow. Russians weren’t like that. He was not worried about this week or this year. He thought in terms of this decade or this generation.
Over time he saw beneath Natalia’s prim fustiness to the deeply passionate nature she kept carefully concealed. Her irrational outrage over the tragic outcome inWar and Peacewas proof of that. She still hadn’t forgiven him for Prince Andrei’s death, even though it was Tolstoy’s fault, not his. For weeksshe criticized gloomy Russian authors who killed off fictional characters and caused her to mourn for days. He finally shut her up with seven perfectly chosen words:
It is only a mosquito bite, Natalia.
She immediately understood and quit nattering about Tolstoy’s cruelty. After that, the termmosquito bitebecame their code word. Whether he whined about bad food or she complained about her stepmother, the answer was the same. It was only a mosquito bite.
