I set my geranium on the desk and stepped to Mrs. A. “You’ve been through a serious trauma. You must sit.”
“How can I sit with this place such a mess?”
I took the broom from her and swept glass shards into a pile. “How did it start?”
“They got the warehouse first,” Mr. A. said. “Imperial stores for troop provisions.”
“Who?”
“Villagers, mostly. And some others from the city.”
“Did they take the flax?” Father asked.
“Everything, Excellency. Milk blocks. Hams. It was all in there. Then they came here. The baker was up early heating the ovens.”
“Knocked him senseless,” Mrs. A. said. “Took every loaf he had. Then Lucya Popov came in here with a few of her ladies. Said the price of our flour must be lowered by sixty kopecks. When I said ‘I pay twice as much myself,’ she grabbed a sack and shouted, ‘Drag it off, girls!’ ”
“Then the others helped themselves to our tobacco,” Mr. A. said. “Nicked the wife’s chinchilla hat, too, bastards.”
Mrs. A. pulled a biscuit from a yellow tin of Max’s favorite McVitie & Price biscuits, then knelt and handed it to him.
Max grasped the biscuit.
“Say thank you,” I said.
He brought the biscuit to his mouth, with no reply at all. Mrs. A. raised her eyebrows and I felt my cheeks burn. Why did he not listen to his own mother?
“How could villagers do this?” Father asked.
“Some of my best customers, but one fellow has them worked up,” Mr. A. said. “A criminal sort named Vladi. New to town.”
“What of the police?” I asked.
“Old Jaska stepped in, but they took his gun and beat him up, though not too bad.”
Father waved toward the telephone on the counter. “I can call Petrograd.”
“Lines are down.”
Mr. A. handed Father a pouch of tobacco. “Here’s the last of it.”
Father nodded a little bow and slipped the pouch in his pocket. He didn’t mention the price, for that would be very bad taste and Father never carried money of any kind.
“Any word about the linen factory?” he asked.
“Some are talking about leaving their stations,” Mr. A. said.
“I’ve heard nothing of this from my foreman.”
Mr. A. shrugged. “Vladi makes a good speech. Spoke of low wages. ‘The factory should belong to the people.’ ‘Down with the tsar.’ The usual.”
“I pay a good wage. Someone’s always trying to raise trouble.”
“Pardon me, Excellency, but this feels different. We are barely growing enough food now to feed ourselves. Half the village has been conscripted. I may be next.”
Mrs. A. came to stand near her husband. “And if the government doesn’t stop just printing more money we’ll all starve.”
Father glanced my way. “I think I know how the Ministry works, thank you. Let’s not scare the girl.”
I kissed Mrs. A. on both cheeks. “You’re not alone. We’ll catch those who did this.”
“Of course,” Mr. A. said. “Uprisings come and go. You two should get home now or God will have no way of helping. Who knows when they’ll come back?”
Father shook Mr. A.’s hand. “Put the tobacco on my account.”
“That account is mounting up, Excellency,” Mrs. A. said.
Mr. A. sent her a pointed look.
Father turned to her. “My man of affairs will see to it. God will get us through this.”
Mrs. A. looked down at her ink-stained floor and shook her head as Mr. A. spread his arms wide and shepherded Father and me out the shop door.
Father and I took Max and checked on a shaken Father Paul at the rectory, who blessed us all, then we hurried back to the estate. There would be no choir practice that day.
* * *
—
BACK AT THE ESTATE I helped Cook harvest what was left of the fall vegetables in the garden plot at the far part of the estate property, near the poultry houses. We tugged dusky, purple beets and bouquets of pink radishes from the earth as the count’s peacocks paraded about the lawn pecking at the ground for bugs and discharging an unnerving scream now and then.
Cook wore his usual gardening uniform: an old flannel shirt and khaki trousers. Taller than Afon and broader across the chest, his long hair tied back with a piece of twine, he looked good tanned from his outdoor work. The sun caught the diamond in his ring and sent a shower of prisms across the dark earth. Why wasn’t he married? Bogdan had whispered he might not like women at all.
“Are you packed?”
“For days now. I’m headed out for a ride soon.”
“We should be gone already.” He stopped digging, rested one