The Lost Season of Love and Snow Read online

  My eldest brother, Dmitry, bounded down the stairs, late to breakfast as usual. He gave Mother a peck on the cheek and prepared to take his customary seat. Before lowering himself onto the chair, he leaned over her shoulder to view the calling card.

  “Alexander Pushkin!” Dmitry had always been hard of hearing and spoke as though everyone else suffered from the affliction as well. “Who in this house knows a poet?” He gave a hearty laugh and stabbed one of the sausages on a platter in the center of the table. “Sergey can hardly write his own name.” He looked over at Ivan, who was fussing with his hair, trying to push it forward to better cover his high forehead. “Was it you? Are you trying your hand at poetry? Trying to get a damsel to roll in the hay with a choice word or two.”

  Ekaterina gasped loudly while I felt vexed Dmitry would not even consider a man so famous might be here to visit me. “That’s enough,” Mother said, but handsome Dmitry had always been her favorite and could say whatever he liked in her presence. She was still frowning at the card, apparently saving her disapproval for someone more deserving.

  “Natalya, breakfast is nearly over. I believe you will be more comfortable upstairs. You are far too young to receive a gentleman so early in the morning.”

  My gaze shifted to the calling card. Last night before falling asleep, I had thought of more questions I wanted to ask Alexander about Onegin, questions I hadn’t the presence of mind to ask during our private conversation at the ball and I had hoped, somehow, the fates would conspire to bring him to me again.

  I remembered what Mother had said about the importance of finding a practical man—someone like our Goncharov ancestor who provided the sails that set Peter the Great’s Russian naval forces to sea. And then I thought of my grandfather, Afansy, still responsible for our family factories in the countryside south of Moscow. I wondered what he might make of Russia’s greatest poet calling on his granddaughter.

  These thoughts occurred to me in quick succession, but I did not yet possess the strength to oppose Mother.

  She gave our footman a stiff smile, rose to her feet, and returned the card to his gloved hand. “After waiting up for the girls last night, I feel fatigued. I believe I made a mistake in rising so early. Please tell Alexander Pushkin that if he wishes to call, he needs to make his way to my home at a more appropriate hour.” Mother followed the footman out of the dining room. I listened to the heavy trod of her footfall on the squeaky stairs, and then the meow and tapping paws of her tabby as he followed her up to her room.

  She was trusting me to leave of my own accord, testing my loyalty.

  Ekaterina gave me a sideways glance. “Aren’t you supposed to go upstairs as well?”

  I stared at the sausages and took another sip of the sweet cocoa. Perhaps I should have, but I was not about to do so at my sister’s behest.

  If I had been quicker to heed my sister’s nagging or follow Mother’s lead, everything might have been easier in the end, for myself and for my family. The memory of Alexander Pushkin would have been condensed to one magical night, a charming encounter but with no more impact on my future than the decorative tree the dance master had procured for his ball.

  Instead, I remained firmly fixed to my chair. Then I heard his voice, the silky tone I recalled from the previous night sending a delicious shiver dancing lightly across my shoulders. “Surely if they are enjoying breakfast, I might keep them company.”

  “The lady of the house is in bed. I’m not sure it’s appropriate for you—”

  Alexander bounded past the footman and into the doorway, scanning the faces around the table and quickly finding mine. In an instant, the room lost its chill. He wore a dark frock coat with long tails that flared out at his hips, a matching waistcoat, and a loose green cravat about his neck. Snow had flecked his unkempt black curls. In one hand he held his silver-topped walking stick with the little bear cub and in the other, his floppy top hat. I remembered how badly I wished to kiss him last night. As though he could read my mind, he gifted me with a lavish smile and wink.

  Every sensible thought fled my brain. I couldn’t even find it in me to say hello, but only stared at his face, which now seemed to me the most blissful sight in this world.

  Thankfully, Ivan spoke first. “Alexander Pushkin! My mother isn’t here to greet you in person, but you’re considered a friend of this family, dear fellow. I believe we are both acquainted with Tolstoy the American, that rascal.”

  I had not realized Ivan fashioned himself a dandy. His tone had the rakish offhandedness favored by that set and Alexander responded to it well enough. “Indeed! Why the American can be long-winded, but a good sort all around, wouldn’t you say?”

  “A daredevil!” Ivan declared. “But it seems you have a bit of the revolutionary in your soul as well. Are you a supporter of Simón Bolívar?” Ivan indicated the hat in Alexander’s hand, which I remembered now had been dubbed chapeau Bolívar and was said to be all the rage in Paris. Evgeny Onegin himself had worn one. I thought it bold of Ivan to ask Alexander about politics, but I was curious to hear Alexander’s answer.

  Alexander tossed his top hat in the air and snatched it back in his hand. His relaxed air put me at ease and I giggled at this show of dexterity, but our footman pressed his lips together and straightened his back. Perhaps in Mother’s absence he felt someone needed to play the role of disapproving adult.

  “I believe in the sovereignty of independent states in the Spanish empire. Why shouldn’t these republics follow the lead of their neighbor? Surely North Americans have no monopoly on personal liberty.”

  “A poet and a politician. This is an honor.” Dmitry stood and introduced us all, except when my turn came, he said, “I believe you had the pleasure of meeting our little Natalya.”

  Alexander clicked his heels together in a raffish manner. “Mademoiselle Natalie.” His gaze intensified when his eyes met mine and a pleasant giddiness stirred in my chest.

  Of course Ekaterina could not let any moment pass without commentary. “You shared many dances with my sister last night. I wish you had found time to chat with Azya and myself.” She gestured toward Azya, who appeared embarrassed to be included in the complaint.

  “An oversight I hope to remedy this morning,” Alexander said.

  Ekaterina tilted her chin in Alexander’s direction. Really, if my chin was large as a melon I would take care to tuck it in close to my throat, but Ekaterina had no shame. “You said you were in favor of sovereignty for the nations of the New World. I understand you take an interest in such matters in our land as well. For example, the Decembrist traitors who attempted to overthrow our tsar? Such men were your friends, were they not?”

  Sergey chose that moment to loudly slurp the last of his cocoa, but the rest of us remained silent. Ekaterina had been unspeakably rude. I would have kicked her shin except she sat out of foot’s reach. No one could think of anything further to say.

  Three years earlier, a group of elite officers had attempted to defy the presumed heir to the throne, then Grand Duke Nicholas. Tsar Alexander was on his deathbed and had no sons. The Decembrists, as they were called, supported Constantine, the brother of the dying tsar, who was said to hold liberal ideas regarding governance. Ultimately, however, Constantine refused the throne and Nicholas stood next in the royal line.

  Nicholas held far different political views than Constantine and favored strong autocratic rule. This did not sit well with Constantine’s supporters, and in December, the officers gathered three thousand men to oppose Nicholas’s accession to the throne. Safe in Moscow, I heard of the confusion in St. Petersburg only through whispered conversations between adults in the parlor. From what I gathered, the rebellion had been immediately suppressed, the leaders publicly hanged, and countless others exiled to Siberia. Even now, every so often, another officer was found guilty of complicity in the revolt, and people gathered on the street to watch him, pretty wife at his side, taken by the police and escorted out of the city to the frozen hinterl
ands.

  I knew Alexander had been a friend of the Decembrists. It was even rumored his poetry inspired the rebellion. The old tsar had found Alexander’s poetry subversive and prior to the revolt, Alexander had been forced from both Moscow and St. Petersburg for a few years, though exiled to the south rather than a work camp in the harsh north.

  I expected Mother might dredge up this ancient history, but how dare Ekaterina be so boorish as to raise the subject now, while Alexander was a visitor in our home. My cheeks burned with resentment. I resolved to get her back by tying all her hair ribbons in knots while she slept.

  Alexander managed to hold his smile. “Tsar Nicholas spoke with me personally to ask if I supported the revolt and I gave him an honest answer. I was not in the capital at the time.”

  “If you had been?” my sister asked.

  Alexander punched the hat in his hand. “I would have supported the Decembrists. He asked me to speak plainly and I told him as much.”

  At the sound of those words, my stomach soured. The sausages that had smelled so appealing when first set before us were now revolting. I admired Alexander’s passion, but to speak so frankly in our presence, considering he had already been exiled once for seditious language, seemed rash at best.

  “I find it hard to believe the tsar let such impudence slip through his fingers.”

  “What impudence?” Alexander tilted his head playfully, but Ekaterina remained immune to his charms.

  “A poet inspiring his friends to rebellion,” my sister said.

  Dark purple splotches blossomed on Alexander’s cheeks and around his whiskers.

  “The tsar accepted your answer?” Dmitry cut into the conversation, his voice so loud I was certain Mother could hear from upstairs.

  “He asked me to reconsider my politics and I told him I would do so,” Alexander said. “Since then, I have shown him nothing but allegiance. Though I understand their way of thinking, I now believe the Decembrists were merely a misguided lot, poor devils. Hearts in the right place but heads in the muck and mire.”

  “Surely the tsar keeps you under close watch,” Ekaterina said.

  “He has assured me he does not. He only asks to read my work before it is published.”

  “Perhaps he is looking for something to serve as an excuse to send you away.”

  I bit my lip so hard it grew numb, wishing my sister would shut her rude mouth but understanding the sense of her words. I had not thought it fair of Mother to deny Alexander based on his financial prospects, nor past clashes with a long dead tsar, but neither had I realized he had been so bold with our new tsar, the man who held power over our very lives. I could end up like one of the pretty Decembrist wives, following my husband to exile in Siberia. My family, already on the precipice of financial devastation, would be ruined.

  My hands trembled, but I dabbed my napkin to my lips before I rose from my chair. “Excuse me. It’s quite early and I don’t believe it appropriate for me to receive a caller.”

  The stiff sound of my own words made my heart plummet, and yet I didn’t know what else to do except remove myself from Alexander’s presence as artfully as possible. To leave the room, I needed to pass him. I drew a deep breath and kept my gaze fixed on the floor. I caught the warm scent of Alexander’s sandalwood cologne and sweet tobacco and saw his boots, damp with wet snow. The footman moved aside, but Alexander stood his ground. I was forced to look up, to face the misery in his eyes. The heaviness of his gaze entranced me and for a moment I forgot my siblings and only wanted to melt into his arms and beg him to take me from here.

  “I hope I have not offended you, mademoiselle.” His words were innocent enough but his voice felt like silk on bare skin. “I only thought you had taken such an interest in the fate of Onegin that you might be compelled to further our conversation.”

  Nothing would have pleased me more. I met his gaze and opened my mouth to pose a question about how Tatiana’s feelings for Onegin might shift after the duel. But I felt the burning stares of my siblings. At this distance, their expressions were fuzzy, but I saw Ekaterina’s disapproval and an anxious twitch in Dmitry’s handsome face. Life had been difficult enough since Father had taken to drink, and I could not further jeopardize our family’s already precarious circumstances.

  “Good day, sir,” I said, snatching my spectacles from the writing table before I ascended the creaking staircase.

  Once I made my way to the bedroom I shared with my sisters, I sat down hard on the divan near the window and ran my fingers over the threadbare patch where the tabby had clawed the cushions. Stinging tears threatened, but I forced them back. I was behaving like a fool. I barely knew Alexander. How could I imagine we shared a magical connection?

  I placed my spectacles on the bridge of my nose, adjusting them under the tips of my ears. They fit poorly and since Mother refused to “waste” money on a new pair, I centered them as best I could. Suddenly, the world came into focus. Outside, snow fell gently, clinging to the birch trees that edged the small park across from our house. I tried to take pleasure in the sharp contrast between the white snow and the jewel-toned buildings on either side of the park, but the day had been ruined.

  Alexander’s carriage was parked just below my window, a closed coach with the wheels converted to sleigh runners to better navigate the winter streets. His horses pawed the snowy ground, breaths fogging over their halters. My heart caught as I spotted Alexander approaching the carriage, his chapeau Bolívar pulled so low over his forehead it covered his eyes. He strode deliberately, pounding his walking stick against the icy cobblestones. He seemed angry and I was deeply sorry, but his bruised ego could not be helped.

  He turned and seemed to know exactly where he might find my window. Mother would have insisted I remove my spectacles in the presence of a potential suitor, not that she considered Alexander as such. But hadn’t Catherine the Great herself suffered from myopia? It was nothing of which to be ashamed.

  Alexander quickly located my face. If the spectacles were off-putting, nothing about his features betrayed this fact. When he spotted me watching him, he smiled broadly, removed the hat, and gave a low bow. Then he made his way inside, and the coachman snapped a whip, calling his team of horses to attention. They trotted off, the sound of jingle bells on their harnesses slowly fading to nothing.

  I remained at the window for the rest of the morning. No matter how prudent my behavior with Alexander might have been, I couldn’t shake the sense that I’d held something wonderfully precious in my hands and then allowed it to slip away. I felt like a foolish maiden or prince in a fairy tale who captures the elusive firebird but cannot manage to keep it and is left with only a sparkling feather in hand.

  * * *

  As it turned out, Alexander was less willing to abandon his pursuit of me than I supposed. Each morning that week, he attempted to call. Each morning, Mother sent me up to my room and allowed for no more than a passing word with him. As the evenings progressed—and my sisters went about their usual bedtime routine of cleaning and scrubbing and lathering their faces with rose-scented cold cream—I could scarcely summon the will to change into my nightclothes. Even the strong smell of their cream offended my senses.

  I opened one of the rattling drawers of our bureau and withdrew the latest installment of Evgeny Onegin. If I re-read the last passage, I might conjure Alexander.

  As I settled into our canopied bed and opened the thin pages of the journal, Ekaterina scowled. “Don’t tell me you’re still moping over the rebel poet? He’s not even handsome!”

  “That’s most unkind,” Azya said. “I think he has a certain charm about him.”

  “He’s little as a dormouse.” Ekaterina finished braiding her hair and slapped a gigantic white blob of cream on her jawline. I thought to say something catty about how she might save some of the cream for me, but my mind was too dulled to summon a jibe. Alexander might not have been tall, and he might not have had the classic good looks we were taught to admire
, but anyone with half a brain could sense the passion in him, the depth of emotion in his eyes.

  I remembered the sensation of his hand on the small of my back, the spark at his slightest touch. Yet surely it did not mean more than the welfare of my mother and siblings.

  Surely not.

  “Are we even certain he’s in so much trouble with Tsar Nicholas?” I mused.

  Azya turned to me, eyes wide as those of a peasant waif in a staged tableau. Ekaterina had turned her attention from her face to her large hands and smoothed lotion over her palms.

  “His work is put through the censor. He said as much. I’d wager he’s being followed by the tsar’s secret police. Reasonable, given his history with the traitors.”

  “Not that you were obliged to raise the topic at all.” I loathed the petulance in my voice, but if Ekaterina hadn’t brought up this issue, it might never have occurred to me to do so. “Certainly not on his first visit to our home.”

  “Mother wasn’t present, so I simply acted as she would expect me to act.”

  “You have no idea how Mother would have acted.”

  “She wanted you to leave the room before the poet even made it through the door. Should I have carried you out over my shoulder like the insolent child you are?”

  “You’re just mad because you didn’t dance as much as I did at the ball.”

  “And you’re just lucky Azya guides you around so you don’t bump into every table and pillar. I’d like to see how many partners you’d attract if you wore those ridiculous spectacles.”

  “I’ll likely never see you attract even one aging fool.” My voice sounded high and disturbingly shrill. Azya motioned for us to quiet down. Mother probably could hear our row, but I was quickly ceasing to care what Mother or anyone else might think.