do anything for Taras, their friendship forged by years of protecting each other in prison.
Vladi slept with his face in the hay, the back of his balding head like an abandoned robin’s nest with a giant, fleshy egg in the center. He turned onto his back, surprisingly innocent in sleep, the shiny scar on his cheek facing up at me, the peaked shape of the iron’s tip burned there in his flesh.
How terrible to be burned on the face. At least that scar was better than what Taras told me had been tattooed there. The image forced on him in prison, the man’s private parts tattooed in blue next to his mouth, that terrible badge that told the world of his relationship with another man.
Taras had started the fire so I heated water to make Max’s favorite hot cereal while Taras chopped wood. Images of what I imagined the Streshnayvas were going through bubbled up in front of me. All of them bound and gagged. Had Taras and Vladi mistreated young Luba? The countess would not be enjoying her tea this morning.
I clanked the lid onto the pot.
Vladi roused, running his hand across the top of his fleshy egg. “Good morning.”
“You should go sleep at the estate.”
“Good to see you, too, Varinka.” He stood and scratched his chest, suspenders looped down at his sides. As he lifted his arms to the roof and arched his back, his shirt lifted to reveal a blessedly quick view of his hairy belly. “I’m taking over the linen factory, you know.”
“On whose orders?”
“Orders?” Vladi adjusted the red cloth tied about his upper sleeve. “This is all I need now.”
“You know Mr. Streshnayva works for the Ministry. What if the tsar sends Cossacks?”
“How is anyone to know things are amiss? We’re having the old man write letters to Petrograd as usual. Plus, the tsar’s probably off sailing on the royal yacht. But if any of those imperial idiots send troops, we’re ready to defend ourselves.”
I poured the groats into the pot and watched them roil in the bubbling water. “What will happen to His Excellency and the Streshnayvas?”
Mamka turned to listen.
“Stop calling him that. That old pig means nothing now. They’re just another group we need to eliminate.”
Mamka sat up straighter in the bed. “They’re good people.”
“Good? Working their fellow Russians to death for low wages? We can only be free once all those belaya kost bloodlines are purged. White-boned, ha. They’re already running like rats to Paris and Shanghai.”
I tucked Max’s blanket around him. “Just curious what’s to become of them.”
“They won’t die, if that’s what you’re asking. Not right away anyway. Need the old man to tell us how to run the factory and to keep that Ministry money coming. They’ll stay in the barn closest to the house for now.”
“You think you know it all, don’t you?”
He ran a dirty finger down my hand. “One word from me and you’ll be gutting fish in a work camp, so be nice to me, Inka.”
He stepped closer, his cheek scar shining in the morning light. “Watch yourself, girl. Taras may throw you out and then you’re left with me. There are worse things, you know.” He pulled my hand to his crotch, the fabric hard and damp.
I snatched my hand away.
He glanced in Mamka’s direction and kept his voice low. “And by the way, don’t think I don’t know about you and Taras. He told me all about your arrangement….”
“Quiet, Vladi.”
“I was surprised a nice girl like you would do that with him. Even dogs know better, don’t you think? But I have to say I like the sound of it.” His shiny red tongue darted to the side of his mouth. “I’ll keep it to myself for now, but what would people think if they knew you two were—”
Max cried and startled us both. He sat up next to Mamka and took in his surroundings, his curls flattened down one side of his head from sleep.
Vladi stood. “Whose kid?”
I smoothed one hand down Max’s cheek. “The gamekeeper’s son.”
“Gamekeeper was at least eighty years old with a pecker soft as those groats.”
“His grandson maybe. Everything’s in such a mess now over at the estate.”
Vladi snapped his suspenders onto his shoulders. “You want freedom, you have to crack some eggs.”
Taras rushed in the door, his linen shirt stuck to his chest with sweat. He grabbed his canvas bag and waved Vladi to him. “Hurry.”