The Ice Swan by J’nell Ciesielski

Svetlana padded along the corridor, the stone floor cold beneath her satin slippers. All of Thornhill was fast asleep as she found uncertainties troubling her mind after having received a reply from Mrs. Roscoe along with a sealed report from St. Matthew’s. She would need to send it by special messenger to Glasgow first thing in the morning if it was to have any hope of reaching Wynn’s trial in time.

Steering clear of the Grand Hall and its ghostly memories of dancing in Wynn’s arms, she wandered into the far back reaches of the house where the floors and walls turned into a more contemporary wood style. Contemporary, at least, in comparison to the hodge-podge sixteenth- and seventeenth-century parts of the castle.

Descending a short flight of stairs, she followed the scent of baking bread to the kitchen. A large, rectangular room, its brick walls were warmed by cream paint and shining copper pots hanging from an iron rack over the worn worktable. Mrs. Varjensky stood in front of the enormous hearth stirring a black pot dangling over the fire. She refused to use a proper stove, claiming the old ways were better. Purer with no modern vapors to taint the food.

“No sleep?” the old woman said without turning around.

“Nyet.”

“Sit. Sit.”

Svetlana perched on the only wooden stool next to the table. Apparently not much sitting was done in a kitchen. Bits of floured dough spotted the counter. “Midnight baking?”

“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.

“Him you love?”

The truth refused denial under the old woman’s probing gaze. Svetlana nodded, gaining strength with the small admission. “Yes.”

“He love you?”

“He’s told me so.” From the very beginning of their marriage he’d told her how much he cared for her. He’d given her honesty when she craved it yet was too scared to accept it.

“All that matters. Love not something happens. Love builds little each day. Must care for, put effort. If no, love burn out. Let me tell wisdom: nothing colder than ashes after fire of love gone. We Russians too long cold.”

Laughing, Svetlana dabbed the tears from her cheeks with her robe’s lacey cuff. “I thought we were proud of that fact.”

“Shh. No one need know truth. Secret we all cold. This why we need men keep us warm. Where yours?”

“Glasgow.”

“That where you need be.”

“But what if—”

“If, if, if. Questions for fools. You no fool. You kind heart admit or no.” Wriggling off the stool, Mrs. Varjensky pulled the tray of baked vareniki out of the oven and set it on the table. A delicious whiff steamed off the golden puffs.

“You’re wrong, babushka. My heart is mine no longer. Wynn took it long ago. I just didn’t realize it until now.” He had taken her heart over so completely that Svetlana was almost afraid to look further into herself lest she discover how little of herself was still joined to it.

“Go where heart is.”

And with those words, she was free. Why had it taken so long? Svetlana hugged the old woman, kissing her soft cheek. “Spasibo.”

Taking a square of linen, Mrs. Varjensky scooped up a handful of the puffs and bundled them into the makeshift sack. “Take. Take and give golubchik. He need eat more.”

A bell sounded in the adjoining servant’s hall. Svetlana ducked through the door and looked at the mounted board where the bell for the front door was rocking back and forth on its spring. Who would call at this late hour?

Svetlana handed the wrapped pastries back to Mrs. Varjensky. “Keep them warm for me. I’ll fetch them in the morning before I leave for the train.”

Hurrying to the Stone Hall, she was met by Glasby, dressed in his customary uniform of black coat and starched shirt. Either he never slept or he went to bed fully dressed, otherwise he could not have beaten her to the door.

Unaffected by the ungodly hour of the surprise visitor, he notched his chin up and opened the door. “May I help you?”

Icy air swept past the opened door and swirled around Svetlana. She drew her robe closer about her and tried to peer past Glasby’s shoulder from where she waited in the shadows. It wouldn’t do to have the visitor spot the lady of the house in a state of dishabille.

The man outside was thick with a fine coat buttoned about him and a hat shadowing his face. He spoke too low for Svetlana to hear him.

“We have no lady here by the name of Angel, if a lady she be,” Glasby intoned. “There is a place one village over where you might have better luck.”

The man tried to push his way inside. “Mac!”

Svetlana rushed from her hiding place. “Leonid? What are you doing here?”

Leonid Sheremetev, looking more wan than when she’d last seen him in Paris, brushed past Glasby and grabbed her by the shoulders. “Blessed holy God, you alive, Angel! I come tell you. You and Mac in danger.”