Free The Lost Souls of Angelkov by Linda Holeman Page B

at the piano,” he said.
    “Misha is extremely musically gifted,” Antonina had argued. “You’re aware of that.”
    Konstantin grunted. “I’m not suggesting the boy give up his musical studies. But I want a son who can ride and hunt with me, not just compose piano trifles. I want him to have a career in the army.”
    “The army?” Antonina was dumbstruck.
    “The training will be good for him. He can join one of the noble cadet schools in St. Petersburg when he’s thirteen. It will guarantee him entrance into an elite branch of the Russian military service. By the time he’s twenty, he could be a lieutenant, and move steadily forward. I have always dreamed of a son who becomes a general.”
    Antonina knew that nothing would be gained by arguing with Konstantin. Mikhail was only seven; she had a number of years to change her husband’s mind. She would not let him give up his musical career for a rifle, no matter what Konstantin said.
    I despise him, Antonina thinks, looking at her husband. For all his self-indulgent life Konstantin has done whateverhe wanted to do, regardless of the cost to others. Even worse than taking Mikhail out against her wishes the day he was kidnapped, he did not obey the Cossacks’ demands, and as a result destroyed the chance of her child’s safe return.
    She dismisses Pavel and takes a pair of nail scissors from the dressing table. She stands over Konstantin, wanting to press the small, sharp blades into his lips, pry them open so that the answers she needs to hear will spill out.
How hard did you fight if only your hand is injured? Would you not fight to the death for your son?
    She will not imagine Mikhail dead. He is not dead. She would know if he was dead. He is her son.
    “Je t’aime, Maman,”
he always told her as she tucked him into his bed. Antonina had encouraged him to speak the second language of Russian nobility since he was a toddler.
“Je veux beaucoup de baisers,”
he would add, and she would answer, “How many? How many kisses do you wish?”
    Sometimes it was five, sometimes ten, sometimes twenty. It was their bedtime ritual. She smothered his cheeks and hands with kisses, and he laughed and told her that her lips tickled.
    She realizes now that it’s not her husband’s lips she wishes to cut open. She wants to puncture his neck, push the blades into the scab already there, into the slowly beating and vital artery. She wants to see a satisfying spurt of thick blood leap into the air, an arc of life that if left to pulse long enough will, eventually, lead to death. She wants to do this so badly her hands tremble.
    But to what end? Yes, it would be vengeance, of course, an absurd and illogical retaliation for Konstantin’s lack of respect, for his stupidity. But Antonina also knows there can be nothing gained from his death. Killing Konstantin wouldbe a mortal sin, sealing her fate in the afterlife. Worse, it would do nothing to return her child.
    Still, she allows herself to slowly press the blades to his neck. His eyes open, as if she has called his name, and he looks up at her. There’s no surprise or fear in his eyes. What she sees is hope.
Do it
, his eyes say.
Kill me, Antonina Leonidovna. I beg of you
.
    And when she understands that this is what he wants, she removes the scissors. Of course, she will not grant his wish. It simply gives her momentary relief to think of something besides Mikhail’s sweet chin, his smooth high forehead, his clear grey-green eyes. Instead, she presses the blade into the skin on the inside of her forearm, just below the lacy edge of her sleeve. She pulls it in a slow, hard line, as though the blade is the nib of a pen and her skin the parchment. As she does this, she continues to watch Konstantin. He stares at her arm, and she looks down as the beads of blood rise up along the slice in her flesh.
    She feels no pain, and yet the cut has brought some hard, dark relief she can’t name. She throws the scissors to the floor