LOVELY SPRING DAY Caroline and I were in the kitchen of our apartment pitting plums, the pits to be delivered to the army’s gas defense department to use in making carbon for gas masks, when Mother stepped into the kitchen.
“There’s a Russian woman here, Eliza, claiming you invited her.”
“I may have told Mr. Blandmore he could send a few over. It’s just temporary, dear.”
Mother drew herself up to her full six feet. “Without consulting me?”
“It’s my apartment—”
“I don’t like this.”
“It’s because she’s Russian, isn’t it?” Mother didn’t like the tsar’s treatment of his peasants, but she had another reason to dislike Russians. Though we seldom spoke of it, when Mother was a girl, her parents’ Russian stableman disappeared along with her favorite pony, which caused her to hold a vicious grudge.
“You were fine with the Streshnayvas—”
“Ivan was Henry’s friend.”
“She’s not an escaped convict, Mother.”
The kitchen door swung open and a hunched woman poked her head around the corner. She brought to mind a coutured pullet as she stepped in, dressed in a velvet French coat and gloves, a beaded bag looped over her forearm.
Peg followed through the door. “Sorry, Miz Ferriday. She’s a stubborn one.”
“I’m possessing ears, you know,” the woman said in a thick Russian accent.
I held out my hand. “I am Eliza Ferriday. This is my mother Caroline Woolsey Mitchell and daughter Caroline. How do you do?”
“How do I do? I do terribly. My leg has not stopped hurting since I left Russia and—”
I stood and pulled out a chair. “That was a rhetorical question, actually. In this country, we ask that as a courtesy.”
“Strange to ask question when you don’t care about answer. I am Princess Anna Yurynova Yesipov. From Kiev. You heard of Yesipovs?”
“Won’t you sit down?” I asked.
The princess looked at the chair as if it were a live snake. “In kitchen?” The princess brushed off the chair seat and sat.
“Do you know a Russian family named Streshnayva?” I asked. “They’re from Petrograd and Malinov.”
“No,” Princess Yesipov said.
“Would you inquire with the others back at the building?”
“Building?” Princess Yesipov asked. “That place is insult to buildings. Not fit for animals.”
Peg set teacups on the table. “No self-respecting person will live down there in the Bowery. Smells like a dirty chamber pot most days.”
“Thank you, Peg,” I said. “Perhaps, see about some muffins?”
Mother poured tea into our cups, the steam clouding her spectacles.
“Well, I’m thinking of ways to help,” I said. “Perhaps a party to benefit the Russian émigrés.”
Princess Yesipov sent a dismissive wave my way. “American parties? All jokes and games. Russian parties are dignified, with sad music.”
“How festive,” Mother said.
“If there is an actor, he will recite a poem, maybe everyone’s favorite, ‘The Deep Grave Dug in the Deep Earth.’ ”
“Haven’t heard that since the Civil War,” Mother said.
“You haven’t seen a civil war like the one happening in Russia.”
“My Woolsey ancestors served as nurses at Gettysburg—”
“A few cannonballs? Nothing compared to what Russia is going through, Russian against Russian. Soldiers have turned on their officers.”
A shiver ran through me. Afon?
Peg placed one of Mother’s walnut muffins, the pride of her oven, in front of Princess Yesipov. The princess examined it and then began extracting the walnuts, collecting them in a triangular mound.
Mother stared at the princess as if she’d pulled a switchblade. The steward of good taste, Mother felt it better to ignore a baked good than to plumb its depths with finger and thumb.
“I’d like to ask the displaced in Paris to make dolls—lace, too—and sell them here, at bazaars, or some here at the apartment.”
Mother turned from the stove. “Not sure how the Billingtons will feel about their neighbors opening a thrift shop.”
“Of course, we’d make more money if we had something donated to sell,” I said.
Mother poured the princess more tea. “Bath salts always do well.”
Princess Yesipov tasted her tea, grimaced, and then pushed the cup away. “Bath salts?” She leaned in. “I tell you what really makes money.” She paused. “Russian vodka.”
Mother sat back in her chair. “I don’t—”
“But there is prohibition in Russia,” I said.
“Russians drink samogon. Made from home stills. From grain. Very rare here and not legal, but like drinking nectar.”