“Cook woman. No let me come in day.” She made a spitting noise over her hunched shoulder to ward off the devil. “My night secret.”
There was a rivalry Svetlana had no desire to get caught in the middle of. Perhaps Mrs. Varjensky needed her own kitchen. The old gardener’s cottage would be the perfect place for her to set up housekeeping, and as far as Svetlana knew there was no stove to taint the food with evil spirits.
“What are you making?”
“Vareniki.”
A dumpling with vegetables or in this case—Svetlana sniffed at the boiling pot—fruit. “My nanny growing up used to bring them from her village where her mother made them. She would go to visit twice a year, and Marina and I were so eager for her to return with the sweets.”
“Twice year? That lucky. Most visit once every ten year. Or never.”
Svetlana’s memory had always seemed so quaint of tearing into brown paper–covered treats and devouring them without thought beyond the sweetness in her mouth. Peasant delicacies were never eaten among the rich soups and savory meats on nobles’ dining tables. Her childish eyes never noticed the puffiness of her nanny’s eyes or the sad smile holding back tears when Svetlana demanded to know why she had taken so long in returning—not to the poor woman’s village home but to the Blue Palace that was anything but her home. How selfish she’d been as a child.
Mrs. Varjensky banged her wooden spoon on the pot and came over to the table. “You help.”
“Me? I know nothing about baking.”
“Two hands, da? You learn. Listen babushka. She show.” With that, she proceeded to demonstrate how to knead the dough, dust it with flour to prevent it from sticking, and roll it flat. Using a thin, round piece of metal, they cut the dough into circles and filled them with the sugared berries stewing in the pot. Cook wasn’t going to be pleased to find half of her sugar ration depleted come morning.
Once the first batch of vareniki was placed in the oven, Mrs. Varjensky spit over the closed door to ward off the devil from the suspicious contraption and loudly complained about its inferiority to the brick ovens her people back home had used for generations. She made a quick pot of tea, squinting disapprovingly at it though thankfully avoiding spit this time, and poured a cup for each of them.
“Tell troubles.”
Standing so Mrs. Varjensky could have the lone stool, Svetlana took a sip of her tea. A bit strong, but a spoonful of the sweetened berries softened the taste. “I have no troubles.”
“Mama push away, other family dead, old suitor arrive, Reds still hunt, and husband gone. You troubled, rebyonok.”
Svetlana choked at the bluntness and put her cup down. Plain white with a chip on the rim, this teacup was not from the set served upstairs. “When you put it like that, I suppose I do have troubles. Not one of them easily solved.”
“Suitor banished. One solved.” The wrinkles in the old woman’s face burgeoned as she grinned.
When Svetlana had arrived home after the meeting at the schoolhouse, Sergey was already gone. She’d managed to avoid an explanation to Constance, Marina, and Mama so far, but they would want to know of his sudden departure soon enough.
Mama. That was a whole other tempest waiting to whip itself into a storm. Svetlana tired of weathering them. The damage proved too painful and the broken pieces irretrievable.
“My mother, well, we both know that’s an impossibility. She is who she is, and our relationship will never be more than a passing acceptance that we share the same blood and not much more.”
“Fear make walls. Only strongest flower bloom over tallest wall. No stop climbing. Look at Reds. Build wall of fear and hate. Hate never win.”
“Rumors circulated in Paris of the Bolsheviks coming after those fleeing to drag them back to Russia. I saw where they met in the back rooms. What if they find us here?”
“We kill them. My father butcher. I know use knife.”
Well, that was terrifying and not the answer Svetlana had expected from the sweet old lady she’d come to see as a grandmother.
Mrs. Varjensky slurped her tea. “Now. Husband. That bigger problem.” A bigger problem than wielding a butcher’s knife? “Why you no with him?”
Svetlana stared down into her brew. Maybe if she stared hard enough an easy answer would bubble to the surface. “I . . . He has official medical business to see to.”
“No care. Why you no go with him? Husband wife together. Always.”
“It’s not always possible to be together. Sometimes circumstances force you apart. Circumstances you didn’t expect, and once they’ve come you have no idea how to recover what was lost.”
“Nothing lost to those wishing in finding it.”
“It’s not that I do not wish to find it. Rather, I do not know if I can.” Perhaps it was the warmth of the fire, or the smell of baking bread. Perhaps it was the comfort of the Russian tea, or the old woman’s kind voice, but Svetlana could no longer suppress the well of hurt in her heart. A tear slipped down her cheek. “He lied to me, babushka.”
“How?”
“Something happened to him that he decided I was better off not knowing. I only discovered the truth by accident. He claims he was going to tell me before and that he only sought to protect me. He wanted to try to right the wrong first. The trust between us has been broken by his betrayal.”
Mrs. Varjensky let out a long cackle until tears wedged into the creases on her face. An unexpected response for the second time that evening. Were the midnight kitchen vapors upsetting her mental faculties? She swiped at the tears with the edge of her shawl. Wynn’s matryoshka doll brooch was pinned above her heart. “Pride is stubbornness of youth.”
“Trust is paramount in a relationship.”
“So forgiveness.” Pushing her cup aside, she laid a wrinkled hand over Svetlana’s. It was worn with blue veins crisscrossing the tissue-thin skin, yet it pulsed with warmth. “Why he lie? Protect you. This come from love. Men none smart in proving love, but love all same.”
“He should have told me his troubles from the beginning. I could have helped him. Supported him so that he wouldn’t be forced to carry the burden alone.” More tears came. “I’ve never been one for trusting. Trusting involves relying on others, and more times than not they prove unequal to the task. Then Wynn came along. He softens me in ways I never believed existed. Until him, I was buried under the misunderstanding that I am difficult to love, but he’s made it appear effortless. I can simply be with him.”
“One time he let down, you cut him out.” Mrs. Varjensky made a ratcheting sound like ice breaking. “You have mistake. He have mistake. All us make mistake. Holding on to mistake is pride. Pride enemy to love.”
Love. A four-letter notion allotted to poetry and music, yet its substance poured through the very threads of human existence. The poets dreamed of it, the scholars philosophized on its merits, the operas sang of it, and kingdoms rose and fell for it. She didn’t want it to be a concept touted onstage for the amusement of audiences; she wanted it to reside within her. Within Wynn. Perhaps these threads were divided among lovers so that when they met the cords might become whole. If she were to look inside herself, would she find the cord whole? Yes, she believed she would. But she might also find it dangerously close to unraveling.