The lopped ears. As I drew closer she tossed her head against the reins. I ran across the cobblestones and flung my arms about her neck and she turned with a slight neigh.
I ran to the horse barn and burrowed under layers of horse blankets into Jarushka’s tack box and pulled out the package of clothes Luba had hidden there, hurried up into the wagon seat, my rucksack by my side. I turned to see a full cart of linens neatly bundled in brown paper packages marked Sheets and Pillow Covers.
I checked back over my shoulder. It was better to escape and come back later than to be caught.
Jarushka set off with the lightest touch of the reins and I turned and watched the estate grow smaller as we headed toward the gate. Were Varinka’s comrades following me? Surely, she’d told them by now.
Perhaps my parents had already taken Luba and fled to France? Our old townhouse in Petrograd? At least I was free. I would reunite with Max in Paris. With hard work and cleverness, I could do anything.
Jarushka picked up her pace along the road toward the guardhouse, through a tunnel of trees arched across the road. In the early dawn darkness, I could barely make out the gate up ahead. Suddenly Jarushka stopped. I bid her forward and she refused.
So strange for her. What was wrong?
I again asked her to move and she walked on, slowly.
As we drew closer I saw what might have concerned her.
“Go on, girl.” What was it there on top of the fence?
As we neared the guardhouse and the trees gave way, the darkness slowly lifted and I saw the forms atop the fence. Confused, I stood, unable to take in the horror of it all.
I saw Agnessa first, her charred body impaled on two fence spikes above, still wearing the lace dress I’d last seen her in, seared to her skin, one lace-sleeved arm dangling, as if reaching to me. There was a crude sign written in Russian and tied with twine around her neck. Parasite.
Time slowed as I stepped down from the wagon and my whole body shook as I stepped to Father hanging there, his eyeglasses gone, eyes empty holes. His naked body was seared black in patches, small spots of flesh color here and there, his back arched, head thrown back and mouth open with a silent scream.
My gaze continued down the line and could barely look at my dear Luba, burned to the bone, her head hanging like a charred sunflower. My precious sister, so young, with so much promise, impaled there.
I fell to my knees in the road and retched up the little food left in me and then forced myself to stand. In the distance from the estate came a rider on horseback. I would have to escape or else join my family there on that fence. But how would they all have a proper burial?
I glanced at the approaching rider. There was no time.
Numb with the horror of it all, I stepped back up onto the wagon and urged Jarushka on, the tears on my face drying in the air as we picked up speed. I looked back. My dear family. I would have to grieve for them all later. Now it was more important to escape and live to tell of it all. To find Max and Afon.
And seek my revenge in Paris.
CHAPTER
36
Sofya
1918
It took me more than a year to make my way south from Malinov toward Ukraine in hopes of finding Afon. By December Jarushka and I were almost to Krasnodar, a town where Afon and I had spent our first year of marriage. According to his letter he and the last of his regiment were in the area. I pulled from my pocket Afon’s letter, which somehow missed the censors.
My Beloved,
Happy to say Pyotr Wrangel leads us now, more determined than ever. We continue on our way to where our first house was. Hope to rest there a while and regroup. Many good memories of that place.
Where our first house was. He meant Krasnodar of course, where we lived as a newly married couple, while Afon trained for the army.
I pictured our reunion, him picking me up as he always did, squeezing me so tight I could barely breathe. He’d request a temporary furlough and we’d travel on to Paris to find Max. I hoped the army might even provide food and extra guards for protection.