The Girl Who Fought Napoleon: A Novel of the Russian Empire Read Free Page B

girl.

    One afternoon during a bivouac, I lay on my blanket near the picket lines, the horses’ swishing tails lacerating the air. My father ordered naps for me whenever possible, for I was a still a young child.
    That particular afternoon, I felt sick to my stomach and my head throbbed. Astakhov came to wake me but instead looked sternly at my face.
    “What is it, Astakhov?” I asked. “Why do you look at me this way?”
    His hand swept over my forehead, he looked into my eyes.
    “Open your mouth, Nadya.”
    I found my jaw slow to unhinge. His hand, smelling of leather and horses, lifted my chin gently.
    “That is a good girl. Open as wide as you can, dorogaya .”
    I loved him when he called me sweetheart.
    He examined my mouth and found ulcerations. He called gruffly to a Cossack near him.
    “Call Captain Durov to come, immediately!”
    He smoothed his rough hand over my forehead and temples.
    “Can you see me?” he asked. “Can you hear me, Nadezhda?”
    “Yes, I hear. But you are—smoky,” I said.
    “She cannot focus her eyes,” he muttered to someone near us.
    “I am so sore,” I said. “My stomach aches. My head . . .”
    Within minutes my father appeared, dismounting and handing the reins to the Cossack.
    “What is it, Corporal?”
    He whispered a word I had never heard before. I would never forget after.
    “Smallpox.”
    My father sucked in his breath. “She must be quarantined immediately. Requisition a house. No, two. One for my wife and other children. One for Nadya and . . .”
    He opened his hands, supplicating the heavens. He could not assign our one maid to take care of both houses. She had to remain with my younger siblings and mother.
    Astakhov answered. “I will take her into quarantine and remain by her side, Captain Durov. I will make all the arrangements. If Nadezhda has smallpox, surely others in the regiment do as well.”
    At that time we were in the new Lithuanian lands near Vilna, seized for the Russian Empire by Catherine the Great. The Lithuanians despised the Russians, their oppressors. To requisition a house—in this case, two—meant not only that the families who lived in them were thrown out, but also that the one that served as quarantine would have to be burned when we left.
    A cavalry must march. Although an extra day’s bivouac was ordered to make quarantine arrangements for me and four soldiers also stricken with the disease, my father would have to leave us to our destiny come the following sunrise.
    I remember little of the wooden house where I was sequestered, except for a traditional Lithuanian adornment. Over the top of the gable were two white flying horses, a blessing to all who lived under its roof.
    The old withered grandmother, the matriarch of the requisitioned house, spat at Astakhov, cursing him in poor Russian flecked with Polish and Lithuanian.
    “You filthy Russian pigs bring disease into the house. Can you not leave us to starve alone under this roof? You have taken everything we have, killed our men, raped our women!”
    The babushkarushed for him to scratch his eyes, but her grandson stopped her, dragging her away.
    “Grandmother, they will kill us. Please, Grandmother!”
    The woman continued to scream. “Russian pigs!”
    Astakhov raised his hand, signaling a soldier. “Show her Nadezhda.”
    I was in the shadows and the old woman was nearsighted. When she realized that there was a little girl being brought into the house, she stopped her tirade, wiping the spittle from her lips. I could hear her rasping breath as she approached me, looking at the red pox that covered my face. Her hand shook as she held it inches above my face, in a sweeping caress. I felt that hovering power as if she had pressed my face with kisses.
    The babushka pointed to a small room—the only other room—in the house. There were the warm embers of a fire there, a folding cavalry bed, and a coverlet. She spread the blanket over my body, tucking the corners