Russka - Edward Rutherfurd [142]
The company sat down to the wedding banquet with the bride and groom put in a place of honour. At once, before the meal properly began, wine was served. Boris drank some and quickly felt a renewed surge of warmth. He had some more, looked at his bride with a little frisson of excitement, and smiled at those around him.
All was well. Almost. For though he had no great love for Dimitri Ivanov, there was only one person in the room that he hated, and for some reason he had been seated opposite him.
This was Elena’s brother Feodor. He was a strange creature. While the elder of her two brothers closely resembled his stocky red-headed father, Feodor, aged nineteen, was slim and fair-haired like Elena. His beard was clipped very short and was curled. The rumour was that he had had all his body hair plucked out. Sometimes his face was lightly powdered, but in honour of the occasion he had restrained himself that day; however, it was clear that his face had been massaged and patted with some unguent, and even across the table Boris could pick up the heavy smell of his scent.
There were many such dandies in Moscow: they were quite fashionable, despite the stern Orthodoxy of the Tsar. Many, though not all, were homosexual. But as Feodor had informed him at their first meeting: ‘I love what is beautiful, Boris: boys or girls. And I take whatever I want.’
‘Sheep and horses too, no doubt,’ Boris had replied drily. The practices of some of Feodor’s friends were said to be varied.
But Feodor had not been at all abashed. He had fixed his hard, shining eyes on Boris.
‘Have you tried them?’ he had asked in mock seriousness and then, with a harsh laugh, ‘Perhaps you should.’
Boris did not care for this, coming from the brother of his bride. There was something harsh and cruel in Feodor, despite his wit and occasional humour, and he had avoided him since.
For some reason Elena was fond of him. She did not seem to think that his nature was truly vicious – unless, which God forbid, she condoned him? Boris had tried not to think about this possibility.
But this was the wedding feast. He must try to love them all. Dutifully therefore he raised his glass and smiled when Feodor proposed a toast to him.
The blow, when it came, was completely unexpected.
It was halfway through the meal that Feodor, eyeing him calmly, remarked: ‘How nice you two look together.’ And then, before Boris could think of any reply: ‘You should enjoy sitting in your place, Boris. After this, I’m afraid, you’ll be sitting much further down the table from any of us.’ It was said, apparently, with ironic humour, but loud enough for many people to hear.
Boris started violently.
‘I do not think so. The Bobrovs are at least on a level with the Ivanovs.’
But Feodor only laughed.
‘My dear Boris, surely you realize, no one here could ever serve under you.’
It was an insult: the greatest and most calculated that could have been given. But it was not an idle taunt, as if he had said: ‘Let a dog puke on your mother.’ Boris could not get up and strike him for it. Feodor had made a highly technical statement about his family that could be verified in a book. And it was possible, Boris feared, that what he had said might be true.
For the entire upper class of Russia, even down to an impoverished little gentleman like himself, was recorded in an enormous and hotly disputed table of precedence. This was the all-important mestnichestvo. It was not a simple system though, like that still existing in England, where a clearly defined structure of office, rank and title allows, to all intents and purposes, the entire upper and official classes to be assigned a place about which there can be no reasonable argument. For the Russian system did not depend upon the position of the individual but of all his ancestors vis-à-vis the ancestors of another man. Thus a man might refuse to sit lower down the table than another at a banquet,