Ice Trilogy Read Online Free Page B

shavings” out of our home. This word was “the Duma.” Like fat Patsiuk from Gogol’s Christmas story, it had entered our parlor and settled in for the duration. Along with it, Papa’s new friends began to come by and sit until late at night. Almost all of them were outwardly identical and entirely different from my tall, gaunt father: they were short, lively, sturdily built, with shaved wide necks, clipped beards, and curled mustaches; they smoked a lot and argued incessantly. Then, once they’d had enough arguing and smoked until they were hoarse, they would write something, dictating to one another at the same time, then father would drink wine with them and they’d go off to dine at Ernest or the new Donon’s. Now father was involved only in politics; he would go to meetings of the mighty, mysterious Duma, and in conversations with Mama often talked about some kind of abscess that was “just about to burst” and how “we must seize the moment.”
    After the beginning of the war, the banker Riabov became Father’s best friend in Petrograd. He was also in the Duma.
    I fell in love for the first time in my life with the Riabovs’ eleven-year-old daughter, Nika. It was Christmas morning and we children were acting out the Christmas story. The Riabovs’ older son, Riurik, played Herod; Nastya, the angel of the Lord bringing good tidings; Vanya, Ilya, and Arisha, the three kings; Vasilisa, the Mother Mary; and some overgrown high-school student was Joseph. Children we didn’t know well played angels, devils, and slaughtered infants. Nika and I each played two parts: first, Herod’s soldiers searching for male children; and then the ass and the ox who warmed the Christ child in the manger with their breath. The Christ child was played by the Riabovs’ youngest son, Vanyusha, who was five. When he was successfully born in the second act, and Nika and I fastened on the cow and donkey papier-mâché masks and readily poked our muzzles forward to warm him with our breath, Vanyusha burst into tears. We looked at each other through the cutout eyes and giggled quietly. Nika’s brightly sparkling black eyes framed by the donkey’s enormous eyelashes, her soft laughter, and the fragrance of some saccharine-sweet perfume elicited an unexpected rush of tenderness in me. I took her moist hand and didn’t let go until the end of the act.
    I sat next to her at dinner, crowding out a little girl. My feelings for Nika grew with every dish that was served. I chatted with her, talking all kinds of nonsense. While we ate crepes with caviar, I pinched her on the elbow in nervous gaiety; over tea and biscuits, I stuck her finger in my dish of apricot preserves.
    Nika laughed.
    And there was understanding in her laugh. It seemed she liked me too. After dinner a children’s masquerade and dance was held around the Christmas tree. And when the men set off upstairs to smoke and play cards, and the ladies headed to the veranda in the winter garden to trade news, it was proposed that the children play charades. Two lovely English governesses helped us.
    “Whaaat to due wiss ziss pepper?” the redheaded, incredibly freckled governess asked, painstakingly pronouncing the Russian words as she pulled little slips of paper with our names out of a box pasted with stars.
    “Bark at Nika!” I shouted louder than the others.
    We barked at her, sprayed her with water, and carried her around the Christmas tre e...
    Nika laughed for me with her black eyes. I wanted terribly to do something with her so that everyone else around would disappear. The scene I had witnessed in the hut had nothing to do with this feeling. Nika, being the older of us, understood me. She suddenly decided she wanted to switch her wolf mask for the Baba Yaga witch mask.
    “Sasha, let’s go, you can help me,” she said, running up the stairs to her room.
    Once in her room, she ignored me, but her face burned with excitement as she fell on her knees and began to