Free The Russlander by Sandra Birdsell Page B

her worry. But their apology had not eased the moodiness Katya had felt gathering in her father for weeks. He sat now with back too straight, eyes fixed above the horses’ heads, and unswerving. Moths fluttered about the lanterns hanging on each side of the wagon, keeping up with them as they travelled towards a thin rim of watery light on the horizon.
    â€œ
Ja, ja
, you’re just going to have to wait and see,” her father said suddenly, and then, realizing he had spoken aloud, he grinned at them, looking sheepish, his shoulders relaxing into a slouch. He reached behind him in the wagon for woollen shawls, which he dropped into Greta’s lap and hers. As Katya huddled into her shawl, its scent brought to mind the bright clean rooms of her house, and she thought of Sophie, sleeping on a bench, or the floor, along with all the others, including a goat and pig in winter.
    â€œOpen your hand,” her father said to Greta as he fished about in the pocket on the bib of his overall. He dropped an object the size of a thimble into it. Greta held it near to the lantern’s light, and Katya saw the glint of gold. Greta gave the object to Katya, a tiny head of a woman, a sharp-featured woman whose hair was braided and hung in loops at the sides of a crown.
    â€œI found it over there,” her father said. He pointed to a dark loaf of land where the ground dipped into a gully overgrown with stunted trees and shrubs, and then headed towards it. When they had come as close to the mound as the growth would allow, he stopped the team. The silence filled with chirping crickets, a vibrating hum of insects, a hum that seemed to come from beneath the earth.
    â€œI was kneeling one day to take a stone from a horse’s shoe, and I saw something shining on the ground. There it was,” her father said. “I thought this would be a good chance to bring it back.”
    He took a lantern and went round to the back of the wagon for a spade. He chopped at the hard earth again and again, but failed to break it. Then he tried cutting through the grass with the spade, stepping on it with his whole weight, finally throwing the spade aside, and gathering the long grass in his arms, grunting as he wrestled the roots from the ground. Almost brought to cursing, Katya thought as her father began to dig furiously, the earth flying from his shovel.
    He held up his hand to receive the figure and she gave it to him, its presence lingering in the heat it left on her skin as he went to the shallow hole he’d dug and put the figure gently down, covering it with earth.
    When they got back onto the wagon, the night closed in and the lanterns seemed to eat up the darkness, but when she turned, she saw the darkness behind them, a black smudge hanging above the trail.
    They came near to the sprawl of buildings that made up Privol’noye, the rhythmic clop of the horses’ hooves along the road growing faster as the animals anticipated the gates and horse barns beyond.
    â€œWhat the devil,” her father said. The presence of light in Abram’s office brought him out of his slouch. He urged the horses into a gallop, but as they came near to the service road he slowed the team, as though needing time to think. Then they went past the service road and turned at the avenue of chestnuts towards the house, the wagon wheels throwing off sparks against the cobblestone drive. There was movement at a window in Abram’s office, a shadow, and moments later light spilled out from the vestibule door and onto the steps as Abram came outside.
    The wagon came to a standstill beside the rondel, whose clipped symmetrical hedges appeared to have been carved from stone. At the centre of the rondel was a fountain, made up of tiers of bowl-shaped marble, cascading water, which meant that the master of the house was home. In the dusky light, the water looked like silvery banners of silk. When Abram went away Aganetha had the gardener turn