Jenean McBrearty

Each Man Killing the Thing He Loves

 

 

The doomsday clock keeps ticking,

Repeating with each chime,

What everyman dreads to hear,

“It’s time, sweet life, it’s time.”

 

Lousy poetry or coded message? Dimitri Chernofsky pored over the third intercepted communication between Gavrilo Princip and Marlena Sojcek, both dismissed by Russian agents as lunatics. Dimitri wouldn’t have known about the connection between the Serbian nationalist and the daughter of malcontent Boyar Alexi Uvanov unless he’d kept an attentive eye on her for the last two years, and he wouldn’t have done that if he hadn’t worked for the Uvanov family for most of his life. 

 

“Petra, come here. What do you think?” Dimitri ordered.

 

His wife stopped stirring her turnip soup and came to the table. She peered over his shoulder at the ivory-colored writing paper. “Not again. Poor Marlena. Mother said many young people have caught the melancholy since the Balkan Wars. Her nephew, Gregory, committed suicide when he returned from America. She blamed Edgar Allen Poet.”

 

Dimitri gave her a grin. She loved to tease. “How could Gregory be in America and serve in the Franco-Prussian war at the same time? Are you telling me another family fable, woman?”

 

“No, I’m telling you Marlena Sojcek is a silly girl and probably in love with Gavrilo. And why not? All those young men want to be romantic heroes. It’s more exciting to spend an evening drinking ideology than eating turnip soup with a fat wife like me.”

 

“You’re not fat.”

 

“You have cataracts. Marlena’s a goddess. You’ve been adoring her since she was twelve. I think you spend too much time bathing since she returned from St. Elizabeth’s.”

 

Dimitri shrugged. “Once the Tsar’s men arrest you, you’re done for. I don’t want to go to my execution stinking like a butcher.”

 

“Do you miss being Uvanov’s driver?”

 

It was a difficult question. Living at the Uvanov dacha meant meat and heat in the winter and fruit in the summer just for taking care of his automobiles. Living as a butcher in Vienna meant working a trade and speaking German to testy cooks who complained about price and grizzle.

 

Suddenly, his memories took hold. He was on the Vienna train station platform, waiting to take Marlena home from school. She’d left home a good-natured, curious child and, if the photographs she sent with her letters were accurate, had become a beautiful, accomplished woman. “You must hear me play the violin, Dimitri,” she said as they sped along the road under blossoming cherry trees. The air smelled on wild-flowers. “I didn’t think I’d ever be good at anything except embroidery, but I was forced to practice being a lady every day.”

 

“Forced, Miss Marlena?”

 

“No practice, no food. It was either learn discipline or starve. I can walk with a book on my head, if the need ever arises.”

He could see her dancing eyes in the mirror, her silky hair faming her pale cheeks, her delicate chin tickled by lace at her throat. “I heard you want to study music in America.”

 

“We don’t always get what we want.”

 

Two days later, Martin Uvanov said he was moving to the city and would be doing his own driving. “You and Petra have been loyal, and it pains me to let you go. Marrying a German woman was wise, Dimitri.  You have a skill the government will pay well to employ.”

 

“Dimitri, are you listening?” Petra said.

 

“Yes, yes. Before I relegate the communication to the blather file, I’d better investigate it.”

 

“Why? The Tsar is a friend of the Serbians. It’s the Austrians you’re supposed to be spying on… Unless you think she’s working for them just because she goes to the university here.”

 

“No, but she may be working against the Tsar if she’s taken up with the Bolsheviks. I’d better speak with her.”

 

***

 

He’d seen Marlena with Prince Karl occasionally during the season. They danced together as aristocracy does, and although she didn’t appear smitten, it was believable she could be. No young woman would show her feelings to man with a reputation, and it was rumored Karl had fathered a child with a prostitute. But there were other young men she knew at the university who haunted the cafes and meeting houses and listened to the Marxists rant and rave. These young men concerned him as much as it would her father.

 

“Frauline Uvanov, there’s a man who says he knows you,” the waiter at the Hotel Gruenwald restaurant said with a nod towards the door.

 

“Oh, yes, show him in!” 

 

Marlena offered her hand and Dimitri felt his face getting warm. He was no longer her servant, yet … he would always be her servant. “I saw you come in. Are you staying here?” he said.

 

“I have a small apartment. Nothing so grand as Papa’s apartment in Rostov. I didn’t know you’d moved to Vienna. Sit down, please.”

 

“Petra’s family lives here,” Dimitri explained. “Her mother is getting on. I’m a butcher now. I have my own shop. I have a way with pigs, or so I’m told.” He pulled small box from his pocket. “I had to shop. It’s Petra’s birthday.” He opened it and held up a watch-pin. “She can put it on her blouse and be stylish and know when it’s time to come home. She works for a baker filing eclairs with cream.”

 

“It’s lovely. I’m so glad you found work.”

 

“Tell me about you. Have you found a husband, Marlena? I know your Mama wants a grandbaby.”

 

“She has two from Minka already. That’s enough.”

 

“From the eldest daughter, of course, but you are her heart. There’s no one to your liking?”

 

Her pink-glossed lips parted in a self-conscious smile. “I’ve met so many eligible young men that I don’t remember their names. Two from America. Boys can be so silly.”

 

“Tell me about them all, and I’ll tell you which one is right for you.”

 

They ate fish and vegetables and drank a glass of wine each. Dimitri listened as she related the details of suitable prospects, mostly in jest. Boris should be a priest, she said, Jon a stable-boy. There wasn’t a nationalist or a Marxist among them.

    

“It was wonderful to see you again, Frauline Marlena. The world is such a dark and difficult place, and you make it an eternal spring. You always have.”

 

“Tell Petra I wish her a happy birthday.”  

 

He would tell Petra nothing. He would give her nothing. The watch-pin belonged to an afternoon of dreams when he was no longer a servant, a husband, or even a Russian. The woman he loved rejected every suitor, expressed a desire to stay unmarried, and, perhaps, preferred a man to a university boy. He would not allow that hope to be destroyed by reality. He left not hating the man who would one day possess her body, for he had her virgin soul. 

 

***

 

All Petra had told Dimitri was that Vasyli Tome’ was waiting for him at a riverside hotel bar. “You’re not the only one who is watching Marlena Uvanov, you know. Rolf said he’d intercepted a letter and turned it over to you. But where is it?”

 

“Rolf is a fool. Why would bother you about the pining of an innocent young girl infatuated with a bunch of ignorant rascals? Here, read it for yourself and tell me if this is the plotting of a traitor.”

 

Vasyli read the note quickly, and just as quickly handed it back to the skeptic sitting across from him. “Yet, you met with her today, so you must have some suspicions. What did she say?”

 

“She’s studying Egyptology and is as gay and self-centered as any beautiful girl these days.  Ahhh, youth ...” They never ordered vodka, just beer, and the waiter brought them two mugs of Ottakringer “Danke,” Dimitri said as he pulled out his shillings. Vasyli never spoke in public or paid for anything.

 

“You’re in love, you durachit. Blind and confused by summer heat. While you were interrogating her - and I use the term charitably, I inspected her rooms and found this.” He took a small volume from his coat and put it on the table. “The Communist Manifesto. How does that square with Egyptology, unless it was originally published by the Hebrew slaves?”

 

“People read all sorts of things these days. Women especially love the Romantic novels. Melancholy is back in fashion, Petra tells me. Women take as much pride in their educations as they do in the hair styles.”

 

“Are you willing to risk your career on Marlena’s pride?”

 

“What do you want me to do, arrest her for reading? It’s not a crime in Austria and I don’t believe she’ll return to Russia in any case.”

 

Vasyli took out his pipe and pouch of tobacco. “Did you tell Marlena you know about her poetry?”

 

“And let her know she’s being watched? How stupid do you think I am? Unwittingly, she gave me a list of the names of men she knows as friends and I’ll investigate them thoroughly and shadow her every move. Is that fair?”

 

***

 

Past forty and plump as Petra, Dimitri watched the patrons of the Hotel Gruenwald from behind a buffet table, serving up slices of ham to the brunch crowd. On Saturdays, the young men ate early, famished after a morning of sailing or rowing, getting themselves ready for courting their ladies in the afternoon. There were operas and theater and band concerts in the parks; Vienna was in love with itself and its music, and women like Marlena who were always attended by at least three men swooning over her every time she smiled.  Even when she refused an invitation to dance.

 

There was one man, however, she never refused. 

 

“Who is fellow who enchants every woman he engages in conversation?” Dimitri asked one of the other servers.

“Eric Vogelman. His father’s an army general.”

 

“He seems taken with Frauline Uvanov.”

 

“He wants to marry her, but she’s Russian. Her father will never permit her to marry a German, even a rich one.”

“The Tsarina is German,” Dimitri reminded him. 

 

“It’s a crippling heritage. Damn class parasites. We’ll all be better off without them. It’s time we got rid of them.”

 

***

 

Dimitri awoke around midnight. Beside him, Petra lay sleeping, snoring softly. He needn’t wake her to relieve himself of another Marlena dream, close his eyes and picture the adoring looks she gave Eric as they danced, the stolen kiss they exchanged behind the rotund palm tree to the right of the staircase, the way she glanced at him at discreet intervals.

Such a sweet romance they shared. Yet, Eric would never know her the way he did. How her naked legs hugged her pony when she rode to the garage door to watch him shine the brass headlights. The way she said good-morning with those apple-red lips and how the brim of her straw hat shaded just enough of her eyes to make them seem sleepy. Those were the memories a man couldn’t admit to anyone.  He rolled over and slid his arm around Petra’s hips, buried his face in her hair, and let his hand guide his hardness into her. 

 

This was the raw reality of life. He longed for choice cuts when he dined on pork sausages. Since when did a boyar shake hands and share wine with a peasant in public? Had Marlena lost all reason - did she not realize kindness is a virtue, but class mixing is a confession?   

   

***   

  

“You’ve had her under surveillance for almost three months. Is she a traitor like her father?” Vasyli demanded. Dimitri closed his butcher shop as soon as he read the note summoning him to the Marienhilfe soup kitchen, the Austrian government’s feeble attempt to quell the rumble of discontent in the city. 

 

“Then it’s true? Martin Uvanov has been charged with treason?” Rolf had delivered the news to Dimitri the day before, but he refused to believe it until confirmed by his superior. 

 

“Charged, tried, and hanged. Men like him lost us the war with Japan, and if we have to defend our Slavic allies against the Turks, we can’t afford another defeat.” His words came through clenched teeth. 

 

That was the trouble with treaties. They’re fine until your allies do something stupid. “Don’t worry about Marlena, I’ve taken care of her,” Dimitri said. The aroma of turnip soup competed with the smoke from Vasyli’s pipe. “I am a good Russian butcher. When the blade is sharp, the pig makes no sound when you draw it across its neck.”

 

“Then she was a traitor,” Vasyli whispered and took a long drought of triumphant warm beer.

 

“As you suspected. That’s why you’re in charge and I’m just an insignificant peasant.” Dimitri wiped his dirty hands on his apron. He’d been in such a hurry, he’d put his coat on over it without thinking. “I heard Prince Ferdinand went to Sarajevo last night.”

 

“He was warned not to go, but he’s a true Hapsburg, a lapdog to the Kaiser just like his Uncle.” Vasyli set aside his pipe and grimaced at the bowl in front of him. “I hate turnips.”

 

 Dimitri put a handful of coins on the table. “I have to get back. I can’t afford to lose customers and it’s time for the chefs to shop for their evening menus.”

 

The last days of summer were the best. The afternoon air was cool, and trees glittered with golden sunlight. Reality, no matter how raw, could be beautiful and the reality for Marlena was, better the painless knife in her dark bedroom than the public rope. Better one last act of sacrifice than the Tsar’s justice. As he walked along the Danube, he could hear the strains of a waltz. Already the cafes were readying their tables and wiping the spots off their wine glasses. The fine ladies were donning their gowns and lacing their dancing shoes, and he and the son of a German general were sharing a dream of the belle epoque.

 

 

 

Jenean McBrearty is a graduate of San Diego State University, who taught Political Science and Sociology. Her fiction, poetry, and photographs have been published in over two-hundred print and on-line journals. Her how-to book, Writing Beyond the Self; How to Write Creative Non-fiction that Gets Published was published by Vine Leaves Press in 2018. She won the Eastern Kentucky English Department Award for Graduate Creative Non-fiction in 2011, and a Silver Pen Award in 2015 for her noir short story: Red’s Not Your Color. She lives in Kentucky and writes full time when she’s not watching classic movies and eating chocolate.