Russka - Edward Rutherfurd [449]
It was not his fault. The zemstvo had organized grain stores; it had carefully monitored food allocations; Misha and others had toured the area continuously. But nothing could alter the fact that supplies were running low. ‘In another eight weeks, all the grain will have gone,’ Misha told his son. ‘After that – God knows. We’ve been trying to buy grain from other provinces not so badly hit. But …’ He spread his hands. ‘Nothing.’
While they themselves were not short of food, it was clear to Nicolai that the strain of the famine around them had been too much for his parents. His father looked grey and sunken, his usual optimism entirely gone. Anna, usually so decisive, seemed wan and hesitant. But she did take him aside and tell him firmly: ‘Nicolai, you must take over. Your father can’t go on.’
He toured the village. It was always the same. To his delight he found that Arina was still alive – a small, shrivelled little babushka, but with eyes as keen as ever. Timofei Romanov and his wife gave him a warm welcome. Their daughter, baby Arina as Nicolai thought of her, was now a pleasant, rather square-faced girl of seventeen. Only Boris seemed cold towards him; but Nicolai did not place great importance on that. Throughout the village, he found a calm resignation. The elder saw to it that each family had a little bread. There was still salted meat in some izbas. And most families went out each day to try to catch fish through holes in the ice. ‘But,’ as Timofei remarked, ‘I dare say you’ll bury us, Nicolai Mikhailovich.’
At the monastery, which had grain stores, the monks had taken over the feeding of the nearby peasants, giving them flour each day. ‘We have nine weeks’ supply,’ they told him.
‘But the man upon whom everything now depends is at Russka,’ his father told him. ‘And that’s Vladimir Suvorin.’
Vladimir: the elder grandson of that old terror Savva, and the brother of the unfortunate Peter Suvorin. Back at the time, deeming it unwise, Misha had never told his son about the incriminating letter of Peter’s and how he had used it to blackmail old Savva. Since then he had preferred to keep the incident closed. Of Peter therefore, Nicolai knew only that he had run away, and appeared again some time later. ‘I believe he’s a professor in Moscow,’ Misha told him. ‘He never comes here.’ Of Vladimir Suvorin, on the other hand, Nicolai had heard more. The powerful industrialist ran his factories firmly in Moscow and Russka, but fairly. His workers never laboured more than ten hours a day; no children were used; there were numerous safety precautions and both work and living quarters were clean; there were no cruel fines for minor infractions. And unlike some of Russia’s leading industrialists, he had never suffered from a strike. In Moscow, Nicolai had heard, Vladimir had a huge house; but he came to Russka often. Having been away so much himself, however, Nicolai had never met him. ‘What’s he like?’ he asked.
‘Huge. And impressive,’ his father had replied, so that Nicolai had a vision of some tall and forbidding figure like old Savva.
It was on the second morning that Vladimir Suvorin arrived at the Bobrov house. He was huge, all right. But not as Nicolai had supposed. In fact, he was unlike anyone Nicolai had seen before.
Vladimir Suvorin was six feet tall and built like a bear; but there