Father paced the entryway, waiting each day for his documents from the Ministry, which would allow us to leave Malinov. I tried to stay busy packing and sent more letters to Eliza and Afon by Father’s Ministry mail pickup.
Father decided to hold his weekly choir practice as usual, to avoid arousing suspicion that we were leaving. He also planned a stop at the general store, since his shipment of fresh tobacco had failed to arrive and I was low on ink.
I loved the general store. Through the wide front windows of the tidy place one could see walls stacked with soap powder and stationery, anything one could need. Mr. Astronavich, whom we called Mr. A., was Father’s only tenor, a burly, doughy-faced former ploughman in charge of the tobacco, pipes, and cigars. He would lift the little glass doors for Luba and me to breathe in the heavenly scents of tobaccos from places like Sumatra and Malawi.
Mrs. A., thin as Mr. A. was stout, managed stationery and sweets. Pads of paper stacked in neat blocks. Fountain pens and nibs. Caramels of every flavor sorted in her prized Venetian glass jars. India ink in blues and blacks and red.
I stepped up into the carriage holding a potted geranium, Mrs. A.’s favorite. Dressed in his best linen sailor shorts and top and Venetian straw hat, little Max stood on his knees next to Father ready to watch the woods for animals.
“May we bring a rabbit home?” he asked.
“They are very fast,” Father said. “We’d have to shoot it.”
Max gasped at that, causing Father to throw his head back and laugh. How rare that was in those days.
I could have left Max with the peasant girl Varinka we’d hired for extra help. She was nice enough and seemed more skilled at the day-to-day mothering than I was, but I took no chances. Agnessa planted doubt about her, harping at me to speak to the laundry about reassigning her there. It was hard not to look at our attendants and wonder of their loyalty.
Though it was a cool fall day, Father chose the open carriage and the coachman, David, set off with a great deal of shouting, standing dressed in his country uniform, a long coat and flat cap topped with a circle of peacock feathers. Come winter he would wear so many coats he would have to be lifted up onto his seat. Not that we would still be in Russia to see it. We would be long gone by winter.
Jarushka pulled us at a nice trot as we left Aleks and Ulad at attention at the gates and we soon came over a small rise to see the distant village of Malinov, the trees splashed with oranges and reds. From afar the village looked as it always had, but as we drew closer, Jarushka’s hooves beating a rhythm on the hard-packed road, it was clear something was wrong.
Father and I exchanged worried looks as we passed the izbas, their window frames ornately carved with the most charming flowers and animals shuttered up tight. And where was everyone? Usually women were out chattering to one another, carrying flax to Father’s linen factory.
We rode by the Malinov Inn. The little school. The music store. All closed.
We passed the bakery, the shop’s front window smashed out. The baker’s wife paced out front. Jarushka slowed and stopped in front of the general store. Next door, the barn where army provisions were stored, usually locked up, lay open, the door smashed in. Hay and empty wooden crates trailed out of the gaping doorway and a chalk-white milk block sat melting in the sawdust.
Father jumped out of the carriage and bounded up the steps. I followed, leading Max by the hand, to find Father speaking with Mr. A. as his wife tried to sweep up her broken candy jars in the dark store. The place had been ransacked, crates overturned, glass shards glittered across the place, all colors of ink splashed about the walls and floor. The tobacco cases stood empty, their glass cracked.
Mrs. A. spotted Father and hurried to him, bowing at the waist. “Excellency, we knew you’d come.”
“Only God knows why they did this,” Mr. A. said.
Mrs. A. stood, resting on her broom handle, her hair bun down one side of her head like a fried egg that had slipped off a plate. “Everyone is hungry, that’s why. And the tsar expects us to give all we have to the army?”