It was in this cautious frame of mind that he arrived at the stout, two-storey wooden house with its broad outside staircase, and was shown into the large main room where Boris was waiting for him.
He seemed a little pale, held himself rather tensely; he did not waste time.
‘As you will know, the income from Dirty Place will go up sharply this year. But in the meantime, I need a loan.’
‘I am glad you came to me,’ Lev answered politely, as though he were not aware that Boris had already approached two other lesser merchants who had offered him terms he did not like.
‘I think I need five roubles.’
Lev nodded. It was quite a modest sum.
‘I can lend it to you. Your estate, of course, is ample security. The interest rate would, on this loan, be one rouble for every five.’
Twenty per cent. Boris’s mouth opened in astonishment. These were lenient terms indeed – less than half what the others had offered; that very winter in Moscow he had even heard of one fellow who had been charged one per cent a day!
Lev smiled.
‘My calculation is that I prefer friends to enemies, lord,’ he said disarmingly. ‘I trust the lady Elena Dimitreva is well?’ he added politely.
‘Yes, indeed.’ Did he see a faint look of strain appear on the young face which, a moment before, had been flooded with relief? He was not sure. The reports in the town were that Boris’s young wife was a kindly, gentle creature. Few people in Russka saw her besides the two servants and the priest’s wife who called upon her. She did not go out in public and, quite rightly, Boris summoned the priest to say the service to her rather than subject her to the prying eyes of ordinary people in church.
After a few more polite expressions Lev withdrew, and soon afterwards was crossing the market place again.
And it was when he was halfway across that he stopped in surprise, seeing two large sleds, pulled by handsome horses, come jingling into the square and make towards the house he had just left. Something about the cries of the driver and the rich furs he detected within told him that they had come from Moscow.
Life at Russka had seemed strange to Elena. It was so quiet. Yet she hardly knew herself what she had expected.
The priest’s wife who called on her was a pleasant young woman of twenty called Anna with two children of her own. She was a little plump, had a pointed nose and slightly red face, and when she spoke of her husband it was with a little smile that let you know she was entirely happy with the tall man’s physical attentions.
Boris did not seem to mind her visits, and she would often sit with Elena in the upstairs room as the afternoons closed in. From her Elena soon got a good picture of the local community and was even able to reassure Boris that he need not be quite so suspicious of the priest, who in fact wished him well.
But it was so quiet. Somehow she had supposed that being married, sharing a house with her husband, she would find her days occupied. And there were things for her to do, managing the house. Yet with Boris often out at the estate or in Russka, time hung heavily on her hands. She had paid three visits to the monastery her husband’s family had founded. She had been warmly and respectfully received by the monks. She had also gone with Boris to look at Dirty Place. She had been welcomed with low bows and a few small gifts. But it was obvious that the inhabitants of the stout huts in the hamlet regarded her as the cause of their new obligations, and she had not been anxious to go there again.
And that was all. How far away the bustle of Moscow seemed, and the busy life with her family. Why did he not take her back there? Surely he must have finished his business in Russka now: what could he do here anyway, in mid-winter?
Boris still puzzled her. She was used to her father’s often dark moods, when he would become withdrawn and sullen. She knew that most men were subject to sudden changes of temper which one must accept, and even admire. Her own mother had often said of her husband, with some pride: ‘He can throw such rages!’ as though this were an athletic accomplishment. She would not have been shocked if Boris had exhibited these features, or even if he had beaten her occasionally. That was to be expected. Lev the merchant, she now knew, beat his wife, on principle, once a week. ‘And look how many children they have,’ Anna had remarked to her, with a wry laugh.
But Boris’s moods were quite different. He was always kind. If he grew gloomy, he would retire to the stove or the window by himself; if she asked what was the matter, he would only smile wanly. When she tried to characterize his behaviour to herself, she could only think: It’s as though he is waiting.
That was it: he was waiting, always waiting. But for what? For something wonderful, or something terrible? She knew that he was waiting for her to be his perfect bride, the Anastasia to his Ivan. Yet what did that mean? She did all she could please him; she would put her arms round him when she saw him troubled. Secretly, though she did not tell him this, she even planned to go to her father and ask for extra money to help him, as soon as they got back to Moscow.
But something about her, it seemed, disappointed him, and he would not let her close enough to discover what he wanted. She was not sure if he knew himself.
And then he was waiting for disaster too – for things to go badly at Dirty Place, or for some trickery from the monastery, or some other trouble. True, when things went well, he would return home elated, full of great plans for the future, confident of the Tsar’s favour. But then hours later, he would be expecting ruin or betrayal again. It was as though the spectre of his father kept rising up before him – encouraging him one moment, then exhibiting his own slow ruin the next.
Some time after mid-winter, disturbing news had come from the east. The city of Kazan had been left with too small a garrison and now all the territory around the conquered Tatar city was in a state of revolt. ‘Tsar Ivan has called the boyar duma together, but they won’t act,’ a merchant from the capital had told Boris. ‘Half of them never wanted to take Kazan in the first place.’
It was this event that had caused the first friction between Boris and his wife.
‘Those damned boyars,’ he had cursed. ‘Those magnates. I wish the Tsar would crush them all.’
‘But not all the boyars are bad,’ she had protested. Her father had friends and patrons in those circles. Indeed Dimitri Ivanov himself did not altogether approve of the vigorous young Tsar, and had taught his daughters to be cautious of him too.
‘Yes, they are,’ Boris had snapped defiantly. ‘And we’ll teach them their place one day.’ He knew there was a covert insult to her father in these words, but he could not help himself, and when Elena looked down at the ground sadly, it only irritated him.
After this however, several weeks had passed with no definite news and she supposed the incident had passed from his mind. And now only one question obsessed her: how much longer before they returned to Moscow?
It was strange that, despite her understanding his financial position fairly well, she did not realize that the real reason he delayed was expense. He never told her, because he did not want to discuss his finances with her; and for her part, living in her father’s comfortable house in Moscow, she had never realized what a burden the social life of the capital might be to a man of modest means like Boris. As January ended and February began, she knew only one thing: that she was still at Russka and that she was lonely.