The White Russian

43

T he house was silent. The servants were gathered in the hallway, facing the study door. Inside, the old man’s body lay in the middle of the rug, his head, or what remained of it, twisted to one side. He had a revolver in his hand.

There was a pool of blood on the desk, and wide smears upon the chair and across the rug where Dmitri must have dragged the body in his vain attempt to find some sign of life.

Ruzsky’s brother sat in the corner, pushed up against one of the bookcases, his face and shirt front also covered in blood.

On the mantelpiece, a clock still marked the time of their father’s ordered, certain world.

The old man stared up at the ceiling with lifeless gray eyes, his skin a pallid, ghostly white.

Ruzsky knelt beside him. “Father…”

The old man’s face was almost untouched, but his brains spilled from the back of his skull.

“Oh, Father…”

Ruzsky bent down. He put his arm beneath his father’s neck and lifted his head to his chest. He tightened his grip, his body rocking gently. Tears burned his cheeks.

The smell of blood and gunpowder caught in his throat.

“Oh Papa, Papa…”

Ruzsky wept.

“Papa, I’m sorry.”

He had used the same words on the night of Ilusha’s death. It was the last time he had called his father Papa.

“I’m sorry…”

Ruzsky half turned to see Michael standing in the doorway.

“Is Grandfather all right?”

Ruzsky did not respond.

“Is he all right?”

Ruzsky screwed his eyes tight shut and rocked harder.

“Papa, is he all right? Is Grandfather all right?”

The fear in Michael’s voice dragged Ruzsky back to reality. He lowered his father’s head, his face and hands covered with the old man’s blood.

He knelt before his son.

“He’s had an accident,” Ruzsky said. He straightened and nudged Michael gently back toward Ingrid, pulling the study door closed behind him. “Grandfather has had an accident.” Ruzsky wiped his nose, smearing his face with his father’s blood as he tried to compose himself in front of his son. “Your uncle Dmitri and I will try to wake him; can you go with Ingrid while we do that?”

“Is he going to wake up, Father?”

Ruzsky tried to take the boy in his arms, but Michael recoiled, pushing past Ingrid.

“I don’t know,” Ruzsky said. His voice shook. “Perhaps it is time for him to go to another place.”

“The same place they sent Uncle Ilusha?”

Ruzsky tried to still the fear in his son’s eyes, but Michael retreated once more. Ingrid took his hand and led him away.

As he watched them go, Ruzsky realized that the servants were staring at him. He tried to wipe the blood from his face and found that his hand was shaking uncontrollably. “Go to the city police headquarters in Ofitserskaya Ulitsa,” he snapped at the young man who had run to tell them the news. “Ask for Deputy Chief Investigator Pavel Miliutin and tell him to come here with Dr. Sarlov. Do not speak to anyone else.”

The man was almost hopping from one foot to another.

“Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

Ruzsky returned to the study and closed the door. He tried to stop his body shaking, but could not. He knelt before his father, clasping both hands in front of him like a supplicant offering a prayer.

Ruzsky straightened the old man’s black tie. He brushed the thick mane of white hair back from his forehead.

Outside, he could hear the murmur of conversation.

Ruzsky looked across at Dmitri. He was sitting on the floor, his head bent and face obscured. His arm rested upon the leather chair where they had once sat to discuss their reports from the Corps des Pages, or been sent by their mother to await punishment.

Ruzsky listened to the sound of the clock. It had always seemed to him that the rhythm of the pendulum altered to fit the mood of the occasion: quick, suspenseful beats back then, and slow, lingering strokes now, marking out his guilt.

Ruzsky placed the flat of his hand against his father’s still-warm cheek. The skin hung from his cheekbones, leaving no sign of the soft smile he had witnessed in the hallway this morning.

Had he known he was saying goodbye?

Had he been hoping his son would stay?

He remembered his father coming up to the attic to help fix the train track. The old man had been reaching out to him, and he had given him nothing of substance in return.

Ruzsky kissed his forehead. He whispered his apology once more, overcome as he did so by a sense of profound hopelessness, of the finality of death and the futility of regret.

“Don’t blame yourself,” Dmitri said.

Ruzsky sat back and wiped his eyes. He did not answer, and they sat together in silence, each unwilling to intrude upon the other’s grief.

Voices rose and fell outside. Once or twice they heard the noise of a sled or automobile from the street. But inside the room, only the sound of the clock marched time onward.

Dmitri came closer and they hugged each other.

When they parted, they sat together, side by side, in front of the old man. “It’s the two of us now,” Dmitri said. His face was puffed up, his eyes red with tears.

Ruzsky did not answer. His eyes had been drawn to a group of photographs on the wall by his father’s desk. There were four of them: his mother, Ilya, Dmitri, and himself.

Ruzsky stared at his own image. In his mind’s eye, this picture had been removed-stored or destroyed-a blank space on the wall where the eldest son had once gazed down upon his father.

But he was here.

They heard a knock, but neither man answered. This was the last time the three of them would be alone together, and neither of them wanted to bring it to a close.