Eventually, the wounds healed, to a degree. There were still the hideous scars, hidden beneath clothing and jewelry and fine white gloves. The scent of perfume helped as well.
Ivan never found out why Katya truly left.
But some things were easier forgotten. It brought pain to think of her. Like tearing away the scab from a sore lip.
Natasha and Ivan fell into bitter indifference. Natasha did what Natasha did. Ivan did what Ivan did. They worked together when society demanded their partnership. There was no love. No hate. Just nothing. Just two people forced together.
It was easier that way.
Perhaps you could call it making up.
And of course, the children grew.
Andrei, Dmitri and Anna were raised as though they all had the same mother. No one had told them otherwise. The entire affair was folded into a miniscule square and hid beneath one of the many fine rugs occupying the floors of that grand mansion.
This didn't stop Natasha from playing favorites.
When Andrei and Dmitri did not do well in their studies, they were simply told to try harder. They could repeat the lesson. This happened more often with Andrei than Dmitri, but the concept remained the same between the brothers.
Anna was beaten. If she was not beaten, her face at least sustained a generous swat.
If Andrei and Dmitri had accidentally broken something, they were given a mere look of displeasure, and the mother would have cleaned it up.
Anna's ears were wrung.
If Andrei and Dmitri managed to lie, they were sent to their rooms and had dessert taken away from them.
Anna was locked outside for the night. But that stopped shortly after the third or fourth time, when Ivan noticed the distress upon his daughter's visage.
That was what truly saved the girl. Her father never donned such injustice. The love for his children was equal inside his crux. If Andrei and Dmitri got a new outfit, Anna was given a new dress. If Andrei and Dmitri received chocolate, Anna was also given something just as sweet. If Andrei and Dmitri received new toys, Anna was allowed another doll, or perhaps a few bows for her light blond hair, if the mood suited her.
Ivan, unlike Natasha loved his little Annushka. He was even tenderer with her than he was with his sons; not because of an unequal affection, but because Anna was a girl and girls were far different than boys. They could not be treated the same. That sort of fairness was simply unfair.
So they completed their schooling. They all learned mathematics, literature, the sciences, and French, as was customary for all little Russian boys and girls. Of course, they went in their spate directions. Anna became something of an artist-spending countless hours a day painting. Dmitri's interests included poetry and novels, which also consumed hours of his day. And then there was Andrei, who took a glance at the world and attempted to eat the entire thing in one bite.
He learned languages.
It took him to Austria.
The parents were given a long letter and a series of photographs. Natasha, in particular, was offered a heart attack.
"My Andriusha is going to get married?" Natasha's hands shook around one of the pictures her son had sent, the man standing next to a woman far smaller and intensely sweet. She had a kind brow, glowing eyes, and lengthily black hair that fell around her in shapely curls. There were spectacles against the bridge of her nose, and a beauty mark upon her chin.
Ellis Edelstein.
That was her name.
And Andrei loved her.
"Yes, apparently so. She seems like a very kind woman, from the looks of it."
"Kind? Who cares about kind? The girl isn't even Russian! She's Austrian-and on that topic, what sort of name is Ellis for an Austrian girl? I've never heard of an Austrian Ellis in all my life!"
"Well, now you have Natasha. I'm not certain what in the world you're getting so worked up about. Why not simply be happy for a good thing?"
The wife had nothing to say to that. She merely stole away the photograph from the letter's innards and escaped the chamber.
Ivan sighed.
And then, the news spread throughout the mansion. Dmitri heard of his brother's engagement through his mother, when he sat at his writing desk. Anna heard of the news when she was inside her studio, painting a lovely picture of an old cat she had seen upon the streets. Her father told her.
"So, Andrei is going to get married?" A bit of grey created fur. "Why? Did he knock her up?"
The cigarette in her other hand dropped a bit if ash upon the carpet.
"No, Anna. Of course not. He fell in love."
"So, what's her name?"
"Ellis Edelstein."
"An Austrian?" Grey smoke coming from gaping lips. "Well, good for him. I'm not going to hear about this, am I? "Oh Anna. Why aren't you married? You're already twenty-two years old!'"
"I can't stop the things that others say, Annushka."
Pause.
"Aren't you happy?"
"Sure. I'll be happy." The young woman stepped away from her work, showing her father that ragged animal captured so well in colors. "What do you think, Papa? Is this a good painting?"
"You're wearing trousers again."
"Is my painting good?"
"Anna, you know it's fine." The adoring father looked to his daughter, the loss evident about his face. "It's no wonder why everyone gives you a hard time, Anna. How are you supposed to be wed if you're constantly wearing clothing meant for men?"
"Whoever said I wanted to be wed?"
"Oh, Anna."
"What, papa? We've been over this. Now I have to get back to painting." More fur. Shading. "I'm…" Was she sorry?
Anna couldn't decide.
"Hmm."
"You're hmm?"
"I suppose so. I'm not really anything else."
And the father left the room, leaving his daughter to work.
Anna was a strange girl. To begin, she had grown incredibly tall and incredibly thin. In fact, the young woman was so thin; one could see the outline of her ribs. But only slightly, and she was fairly flat chested.
It didn't make much sense, why an aristocrat would be almost thinner than a homeless man-but Anna attributed it to not having enough time to eat. She was so entirely obsessed with painting, sometimes dinner was missed. And lunch. But never breakfast.
Anna was always there when the first meal of the day began, drinking tea and smoking a cigarette, while two happy eggs were placed before her.
Natasha used to glare at her faux daughter as she sucked in her tobacco, but she eventually gave up. It was hopeless.
Just as her strange wardrobe.
And her addiction to paints and canvas.
And her unmarried state.
Well. No one truly gave up on the last topic. Ivan desperately wanted his daughter to be wed. And Natasha desperately wanted Anna out of the house.
And they had tried.
Oh, Lord. They had tried. But Anna sent every last one of her suitors running from the front doors of the Braginski home in an enraged frustration.
Whenever the young Russian was introduced to her possible husbands, the first step was to don some awful comment.
"Is your mustache supposed to be shit brown?"
"How much did you pay for that outfit-no, never mind. No amount would be worth it."
"Do you always smell like a rancid gutter, or is that just my imagination?"
It was brutal.
And if that wasn't enough to deflect them (and it usually wasn't), the woman would behave as frigidly as possible, whether it meant intentionally ignoring her 'fiancé's' questions or avoiding him at a get together. If the man in question went into a room Anna happened to be in, she would go running into the next one.
Sometimes, Anna would behave as if she was drunk and spill wine all over her suitor's fine garments. Then a half hearted apology would be given and the emptied glass would be refilled.
They usually went running at that point.
There was only one man who did not. So Anna took to drawing embarrassing pictures of her stubborn possibility-nude pictures- and posted them all about the house as though they were something to relish and adore.
Anna even showed the victim her work, behaving as though she had fallen madly in love and was so excited to have him.
That was the last straw.
Natasha actually beat the child for that one.
But it was alright. The pain eventually receded. It was worth it anyway.
So that was Anna Ivanovna. And life was about to change drastically for her. For a shrew cannot be a shrew forever.
