The Right Words, an anna karenina fanfic

The Right Words

By Laura Schiller

Based on: Anna Karenina

"Seryozha?"

No answer.

"Seryozha darling, please open this door."

No answer.

"It's only me. It's only your Aunt Dolly. Your Papa sent me to ask after you. He's really quite concerned."

"No, he's not!" came a muffled, childish sob from the other side of the door.

Dolly sighed as she placed her hand against the doorframe. She could easily see how Seryozha might feel this way, after watching his father attend his mother's funeral without so much as shedding a tear. It took an adult's observation to notice the hard, stony cast to Alexey Alexandrovitch's face; the way he turned his hat around and around in his fingers to disguise their shaking; his terse responses to his fellow mourners, as if one word too much would burst a dam. He was downstairs right now, calmly and efficiently hosting the funeral reception, and Dolly wished for nothing more than to get this stubborn man and his equally stubborn son back in the same room.

Merciful heavens! Why must men make everything so difficult? If only Anna were here to exercise her powers of persuasion …

Dolly blinked her tears away and smoothed her black gown. This was not the time to give way to tears; if she missed her sister-in-law, that was nothing to how Alexey and Seryozha must be feeling.

"You know how your father can be," she said softly. "He makes such efforts to conceal what he is feeling. Grown people are like that sometimes, especially grown men. Believe me, at the bottom of his heart, he is grieving just as much as you are. That's why you need each other, don't you see?"

"No!"

The door flew open, so suddenly that Dolly jumped back. Seryozha glared up at her, red-eyed and tear-streaked, the sleeves of his new black suit already damp.

"He's not sorry," said the child. "He didn't care for Mama at all. He made her unhappy. That's why she ran away!"

"Oh, Seryozha," she fluttered. "You mustn't say that, indeed you mustn't - "

"Why not, when it's true?"

Dolly blushed, trapped by her nephew's intelligence like a moth pinned to a card. It was partially true, and they both knew it, but what could she do? Lie to him as Lydia Ivanovna had done and earn his well-deserved contempt, or tell him the whole story and risk breaking his spirit even more?

What would Anna do? whispered a voice in the back of her mind. The one who knew him best in all the world?

"Please let me in," said Dolly. "And I shall try to explain."

Seryozha moved aside, letting her into the nursery, with its sailboat wallpaper and wooden toy chest next to the bed. They had to pick their way past alphabet blocks, tin soldiers, toy ships and several stuffed animals. Dolly's fingers itched to pick them up and clear them away, but the clutter in Seryozha's soul was more important. All she picked up was Mishka, a white stuffed bear so old he was turning yellow, Dolly's own gift and Seryozha's favorite since infancy. In spite of the dignity of his eight years and boarding-school attendance, the boy held his bear very close indeed as he sat down on the bed.

"Tell me, Aunt Dolly," he said. "Please."

Dear God, she thought, taking a deep breath. Please help me find the words.

"You see … " she began, putting her arm around his little shoulders, "They were so very different, your mother and father. Too different, perhaps, with her being so warm and lively and him so cool and stern. They must not have realized how … how difficult it would be to share one's life with a nature opposite to one's own."

She thought of Stiva, who had come to the funeral straight from his club with vodka and oysters still on his breath, and bit down on a familiar flash of anger.

"So you think they shouldn't have been married?" He frowned. "But … but if they hadn't been married, there would be no me!"

"Well, I, for one, thank God that there is a Seryozha," she hurried to reply, kissing the top of his dark-haired head. "So there is one good thing to come out of that marriage, at least. And your parents loved you – oh yes, they loved you very much. It was about the only thing on which they could agree."

Seryozha's chin quivered; his eyes began to overflow again.

"I thought Mama loved me … but then … but then, why didn't she take me with her? Why did she take that baby and not me?"

Dolly hesitated. Explaining to him where babies come from, and how children could share a mother but not a father, was a task she felt to be beyond her.

"Because newborn babies often die without their mothers," she said instead. "She's healthy now – your little sister, that is – but when she was born, she was so small and frail we might have lost her. You're a big boy, aren't you? Strong and clever enough to go to school, eh?" She punched his arm the way Stiva would, making him smile even through his tears. "Besides," she added, "Your mother did not wish to leave your father all alone, with no one to look after him."

"He doesn't want me to look after him," Seryozha scoffed, in a Karenin-esque manner which would have looked comical if not for the gravity of the situation. "He doesn't like me. He almost never talks to me, or even looks at me, and I don't care."

Judging by the lump he had to swallow in his throat, and the way he squeezed his eyes shut several times, he did care very much indeed.

"My darling boy," said Dolly, "You are quite mistaken. I know why it hurts your Papa to look at you … and believe me, it is not because he does not love you. I know he does."

"Then why … ?"

"Because," she continued, as gently as possible, stroking his hair over and over again. "You are so much like your mother. Because he misses her … as do we all."

A great, shuddering sob came over Seryozha's small body, shaking him from head to toe. He leaned into Dolly's lap and cried himself out in the folds of her skirts, as her own children had done so many times over smaller problems. She whispered a string of nonsense words, endearments and snatches of song, all the while running one hand over his hair. How much of this would he remember? When he grew into manhood, when Anna's story became clear to him in all its shame and horror, would it comfort him at all to remember this moment? Would it help him to forgive the parents who had let their marriage fall so thoroughly to pieces?

Well, she told herself, as drained and exhausted as if the child's tears were her own. At least it may help him now.

"Blow your nose," she said, with a somewhat awkward return to manners, as she fished two black-bordered handkerchiefs out of her pockets. "There. Better? No need to give it back, my dear. I always bring a surplus for funerals."

"I can see why," said Seryozha, eyeing his used handkerchief with unchildlike sarcasm, obviously embarrassed to have lost control like this even with his aunt. He was a strange boy sometimes, Dolly noticed; a volatile blend of Oblonsky passion and Karenin reserve. She wondered which side would win out when he was older.

"Now, then. Should I … would you like me to fetch your father so you can speak to him alone?"

He paused to think it over.

"All right," he said. "But first - " He carefully put down his bear on the pillow, jumped down off the bed, headed for the water basin, and splashed his red, sticky face with both hands. "I don't want him to see that I … you know," he explained to Dolly. "It's not manly."

It took all of Dolly's motherly self-control to hold back a smile – or a sigh – at this eight-year-old's earnest efforts to be manly. Especially since that little splash of water did nothing to hide the trace of tears.

To her relief, she came across Alexey in the corridor just outside the room. Lydia Ivanovna, who had been practically glued to his side throughout the funeral, was mercifully absent. It would have been impossible to have an honest conversation with the Countess putting in her two copecks' worth.

"How is he?" were the first words out of Alexey's mouth.

"Better – I hope," Dolly replied. "But he needs you."

"Darya - "

Her powerful, respected brother-in-law turned his face away and blushed.

"He does," she insisted, gesturing to the door behind her. "Go to him."

"I cannot … I do not know how … "

"For heaven's sake, he's your only son, not a committee! You don't need to prepare a speech for him. Only be kind to him, and as honest as you can. Show him that you love him. Is that so difficult?"

Alexey's bright blue eyes, so often cold and forbidding, met hers with an expression every bit as vulnerable as his son's. She had never seen him like this in all the years of their acquaintance, and most likely never would again.

"For me," he said quietly, "It is."

How embarrassed he shall be tomorrow, thought Dolly. In fact, he may never look me in the face again. But if only he takes my advice, it will be worth it.

She signed him with the cross, blessing his endeavor, and he nodded in return.

Sergey Alexeitch Karenin's first impulse at the sight of his father was to stand up straight, smooth his jacket, and make a futile attempt to compose his features. That, he had learned in the past year, was what his father wanted: a son who looked clean and tidy, spoke politely, and asked no questions. The man who had once read the Greek myths aloud to him, taught him to play chess (and let him win), ruffled his hair and called him "Seryozha" seemed to have disappeared. In his place was a tall, shadowy figure who talked over his head with the servants and Countess Lydia, addressed him as "Sergey" or "young man", and never looked him in the eye if he could help it. It all had something to do with his Mama and the reasons she had left, but he did not understand. Even with Aunt Dolly's explanation, it was hard to understand.

Alexey's demeanor, however, was not what his son had become accustomed to seing. He moved to sit on the bed quite slowly, almost cautiously, as if Seryozha were made of glass.

"Good heavens, your new suit! It's all - " Alexey cut himself off, shook his head, then continued in a lower voice. "Have you been up here by yourself all this time?"

Seryozha, who had just gritted his teeth to endure a new round of criticism, was as stunned by the change of tone as if his Uncle Stiva had suddenly become religious.

"Not … not all this time," he stammered. "Aunt Dolly was here."

"Of course." A smile wrinkled the corners of his father's eyes behind their spectacles – not the sarcastic smile he knew, but something altogether different.

"Father … "

"Yes?"

"Is it true, what she said?" A few hours ago, he might never have had the courage to ask this, but in this moment, anything seemed possible. "Is it true that you … that you really loved Mama and never meant to hurt her?"

Alexey was silent for a long time, sitting with his elbows on his knees and his chin in one hand, looking down at the carpet instead of meeting his son's eyes. A shudder went through him, as if … Seryozha's breath caught at the idea.

As if he were crying.

"I've made so many terrible mistakes," he confessed, in a broken, barely audible whisper. "I could not understand her, didn't even try … but as God is my witness, Seryozha, I never stopped loving her. Nor you."

He raised his head and turned to look at his son with tear-wet eyes.

Seryozha did not hesitate. He did exactly what he would have done if his Mama, or Aunt Dolly, or one of his little cousins had looked at him that way. Abandoning all thoughts of manly dignity, respect or new black suits, he flung his arms around his father's neck.

Alexey froze for a moment, but then returned the embrace as warmly and naturally as Anna always had.

Dolly, who could not resist listening at the door, guesses what had happened by the sudden silence and the rustle of cloth. She smiled sadly to herself as she walked away.