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Motorbike school
Though I was tied up in these meetings a few days a week, first in New York, then in Boston where general Wilde set up his headquarters, I had other matters to deal with. We were all in military mode, or at least that frame of mind for the next few months. I was still in charge of Jack and Greg and their three hundred bikers, whom I promised to keep employed and out of trouble. I sent Jack and his men to the southern states, to round up all the bikers that would join his crew on our next expedition. I kept Greg and his men close by, on all sorts of little missions, keeping an eye on the Russian territory by sending them in small groups as recruiters, stopping in the little towns, showing off their bikes and asking if anyone would like to learn how to ride and join, as they would soon be spearheading an expeditionary force deep into center of the continent.
I knew that some of these Russians would never be content as farmers, especially the young wild ones who’d only known war. This was a chance to siphon off those with ‘Hell’s Angels’ mentalities. And it worked. They kept Greg’s riders busy as teachers, not only in riding but in learning each other’s language. As for guns and knives and slicing throats they needed no instructions. They were natural born killers and I wanted them on the front lines, the dogs of war unleashed against the savages that would be out there, the more casualties on both sides the better, as these brutes had no place in a peaceful society. Wilde agreed.
We gave them the town near my destroyed estate as a center. I rode with Greg and a truck on one final visit to that sad field of memories, because there was one bunker left, unopened. It was my armory, still full of guns and ammo. There were a dozen Uzis and many rare rifles and scopes. We emptied it out and Greg was pleased to have first choice from such class weapons. He divided a few others with his close friends but put the rest on display as incentives, prizes for contests of skill, which gave the training program just the carrot it needed to keep everyone busy over the next month learning new skills, after which the campaign would begin.
Sheila and I were able to spend half our time in Montreal, with the children. The household was joyous with the war over, the hospital slowly emptying of the wounded. Jim was able to spend more time with Jane. Even Tom was there with Myra, as often as we were, all enjoying the children together and they delighted to see us.
John, the patriarch of the family, had received his package of tobacco and we spent hours in his den smoking our pipes together in the afternoons, discussing books. Sheila would join in too. She would immerse herself in some volume so deeply our conversations were silent to her, as if we weren’t there. Yet we were, all three of us enjoying the warmth of each other’s presence. We grew much closer over those weeks, Sheila and I. We were more intimate than ever and began to know and respect each other’s body language, the slightest looks and gestures, like married couples of many years, so that without a word we lived in harmony, guessing each other’s desires and meeting them.
One other new development, which took us all aback and were trying to fathom with the politeness of civilized beings, we had a new tenant in the house, occupying the bedroom first given to Jeff. He wasn’t there. A week before he enrolled in the army and was stationed with a regiment near Boston, having barely missed both battles.
The bed in that room wasn’t single. Miranda’s would-be lover Ron had disappeared. But no one dared bring up that matter. She had a new lover, a passionate one. They were hand in hand all day and more than that all night. They walked gazing into each other’s eyes, and we stepped out of their way as they glided by like ghosts. They sat with us at dinner but said little beyond ‘thank you’ beaming smiles at all of us. Even the children didn’t interrupt their golden looks and silence.
It was the Russian girl I first saw in the hospital at Barre. She was transferred a day later to Montreal and Miranda travelled with her, her personal nurse and now her lover. A few days later she was recovered enough to move into the house. She had jet-black, mid-length hair, large green eyes, a small, pointed nose and the fairest complexion. She was slender, with thin hands and painted fingernails, eating like a bird, with a delicacy in movement so feminine I wondered how she was ever recruited into the army. She had a shy nobility about her not at all Russian. She spoke a little English and was as tall as Miranda but in no way a soldier. Her name was Anya.
I couldn’t help but ask in my antiquated Russian where she was from, as I knew many place names from pouring over maps. She surprised me right away, recognizing a phrase I used and saying I must be familiar with Chekhov, one of her favorites. This was above everyone at the table except Sheila, but it was such a wonder that the three of us continued the Russian conversation over coffee, the rest leaving us except Miranda, holding her hand, and proud of her making such a fine impression upon us. She said her family was from St. Petersburg, not Petrograd or Leningrad as they renamed it. Her parents died of the plague when she was seven and she was sent to a small village in the Urals to live with an aunt she’d never met, who taught her manners by day and literature from books hidden under a floorboard, by the light of a fireplace in a thatch cottage. Her uncle tended sheep.
Miranda herself had learned a bit of Russian when I was studying it, what seemed like an eternity ago, when Nancy was still alive, often peeking over her book like the curious child she was, to see what I was reading, always full of questions. I’d show her and translate a few sentences, pointing at the words, mangling the Russian pronunciation. But it was enough to give her a start. Now she was learning by leaps and bounds as they conversed with each other all day long.
That scene flooded back to me that night as Sheila and I talked of this young girl. It almost brought me to tears, the irony that Miranda would meet such a similar creature as herself, while I was studying Russian, perhaps reading the very same play Anya was leafing through on the other side of the world, before the war. But it was the thought of Nancy that made me weep. Sheila could only hold me. There was nothing to say.
I suppose it was their refined knowledge that drew them together. It was a rare thing in this battered and crude and depraved age. My mansion in the woods was the exception, an oasis of culture in a fragmented land. And this Anya must have found a similar cocoon in her land. They were completely in love, so much so, everyone in the house just stood back in wonder, even the children, whom they both played with at times, always together. They acted much like the children in their own wonder world, self-obsessed, one suddenly pulling the other behind a curtain to kiss. It was a rare sight to behold. Sophie started kissing Louie in a similar way, Louie having no idea why, and we told her to stop, till they were older.
This development freed my mind of one worry, Miranda’s safety. They came to our bedroom one evening and asked me for a few minutes of private talk in the study. I think Miranda just wanted my blessing. Sheila and I were packing for Boston, and I insisted she join us. I told them I was happy they’d found each other, and happier still if they stayed under this roof until peace was restored, because we’d have to be away quite a bit, sometimes far away, so I couldn’t watch over them as much as I’d like to. I told them what tasks we faced to integrate our former foes into our society, settle them in this new land and at the same time recover the interior of this vast continent. Space was the lubricant that would make it all work smoothly. Neighbors with miles and miles between them and all the wealth they desired never argued. It would be a new world for everyone with peace and order restored.
Sheila kindly added that when this was accomplished, or well under way, perhaps in six months, she and I would choose a new home, a mansion, and they’d be more than welcome to come live with us and Louie, and hopefully Jane and Jim and Sophie too, if not in the same house one nearby. We hadn’t gotten that far yet. But it wouldn't include farming, just raising our children, pursuing our interests, a leisurely life with every comfort provided, a payment for all we’d done for the country.
General Wilde had already promised us any estate we might like. He told us there were beautiful ones in Virginia, along the Potomac. They could live like southern belles. Miranda seemed delighted at this proposition and turned to Anya with gleaming eyes. She kissed Sheila and me on the cheek and Anya followed suit. The arrangement was sealed. They had a future to look forward to hand in hand, the sanctity of their union acknowledged by us, which Miranda knew meant a whole new world.
Here is a link to the beginning of the book.
Chapter One ...
