Russka - Edward Rutherfurd [523]
He looked at her curiously. ‘Perhaps you should be more polite to a People’s Commissar. But then, you do not like me.’
She shrugged. She had said too much already and it would be madness to say more. But because she knew she was leaving, she foolishly gave way to her feelings.
‘I’m sure you are a thief. I imagine you are a murderer. And you tried to steal my mother from my father, who is an angel. Why should I do anything but despise you?’
For nearly half a minute, Popov said nothing. Why was it, he wondered, that the bourgeoisie so often lived a lie? Why should this impertinent girl, who was old enough to be someone’s wife, continue in complete ignorance of the simple truth? So he told her about Vladimir.
After all, it wasn’t so important. Then he left.
For a long time, Nadezhda did not move. Her mouth had fallen wide open in shock, and as she sat, very pale in her chair, an onlooker might have supposed that she had died.
Surely it could not be true. She had heard of such things, of course. There was a rumour that had been whispered to her, a year ago, about Tchaikovsky. But her father – the angel she had adored and looked up to all her life! She was too shocked even to weep.
And still she had told herself it was not true until, early that evening, Dimitri had looked in, and she had said, with calculated lightness – ‘So, Dimitri, do you know about my father and Karpenko?’ And poor Dimitri, caught offguard, had gone bright crimson and asked hoarsely: ‘How the devil did you know?’
It was evening. To lessen the risk of detection, they did not enter the ornate Bemsky station all together.
Vladimir, as he strode along the platform dressed in his peasant’s shirt and belt, his heavy hand holding a bag on his shoulder, looked exactly the Russian muzhik his grandfather Savva had been. Some minutes later, a bashful young peasant couple, the boy dark and handsome, boarded another part of the train. Nobody particularly remembered them.
Karpenko was elated. Firstly, the business was an adventure; secondly, he was going to see his family for the first time in a year; and thirdly, he was returning to his beloved Ukraine.
It was time to go home. The revolution was all very well, of course. He had supported it like everyone else. ‘And who knows?’ he had remarked that spring to Dimitri. ‘If I were a Russian, I might still be a Bolshevik.’ But how could he tolerate the way they were treating his homeland? The Bolsheviks had no love of the Ukrainian nation or its language. Earlier in the year, the Cheka chief in Kiev had shot people in the street if he heard them speaking Ukrainian. How could a Karpenko stand for that? Since the Germans had come in, the Ukrainians had been allowed to elect a Cossack Hetman, just as in the old days. And already, he had heard, Ukrainian texts were coming back into the schools, and the poet Karpenko was occupying a place of honour again. Yes, this Russian revolution had been exciting; but it was time to go home.
He noticed that Nadezhda seemed tense and preoccupied, but thought little of it. Nor did it disturb him when, as he went forward from their carriage to let Vladimir know they were safely aboard, she asked him to remain up front with her father. ‘I just want to be alone tonight,’ she said. As she liked.
He was entirely unaware, therefore, that a few minutes before it was due to leave, Nadezhda stepped off the train.
Popov was in a hurry. He had commandeered a military car to take him to the Suvorin house; now he drove swiftly away again.
How could he have been so stupid? He should have guessed. Why would Nadezhda take the risk of insulting him, unless she knew very well that she would not be seeing him again? As he drove, his face set. There were only two obvious ways for the