The Yellow Ticket Read online

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. With the exception of well-known historical figures and events, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Published by River Grove Books

  Austin, TX

  www.rivergrovebooks.com

  Copyright ©2019 Jane Mahlow

  All rights reserved.

  Thank you for purchasing an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright law. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the copyright holder.

  Distributed by River Grove Books

  Design and composition by Greenleaf Book Group

  Cover design by Greenleaf Book Group

  Cover image: Two women ©iStockphoto.com/clu. Old birdcage with open door and passport used under license from Shutterstock.com. Yellow ticket photo courtesy of Altenmann, Wikimedia.

  Cataloging-in-Publication data is available.

  Print ISBN: 978-1-63299-219-2

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-63299-220-8

  First Edition

  NOTE TO READER

  IN 1843, RUSSIA followed the example of continental Europe and regulated prostitution. According to the autocracy’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, males required safe outlets for their natural sexual energy (energy that, in women, was considered depraved). The regulations remained in place until the collapse of the Tsarist regime in 1917.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Note to Reader

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Reading Group Guide

  CHAPTER 1

  September

  1867

  MONSIEUR SHELGUNOV‘S CIGARETTE case is buffing to an elegant shine when I halt my rag in midstroke. I tilt my ear toward the whine of the hinges struggling under the heft of the mahogany front door. Boot heels snap across the marble floor of the foyer.

  No footfalls trail after him. He has come home alone, once again depositing Madame and the children into someone else’s care.

  My throat clamps against the rising nausea. During my early employment at the Shelgunov household, the click of his boots was horrifying. The sound is no longer frightening; it’s merely loathsome.

  The first time he abused me, I had freshly turned sixteen and been living with the family only a few weeks. After the beast took what he wanted, I stripped the soiled sheets from the mattress and retched into them.

  During the past year and a half, the soul-crushing task has become part of my list of unofficial duties in this house built of stone and vanity. But Shelgunov’s lechery no longer paralyzes me with fear and shame. I, Anna Vorontsova, have built a protective wall of hatred around myself.

  The footfalls draw closer until they’re clicking the kitchen’s pine boards behind me. I drop the polishing rag and cigarette case into the pocket of my apron. Nikolai Osipovich Shelgunov grabs my shoulder with one hand. The heel of his other hand slams against the back of my head. He thrusts me forward at the waist, jamming the side of my face into the raw chicken juice that coats the butcher block. My teeth cut into my cheek.

  The hand on my shoulder moves down to the skirt of my servant’s dress, which he tosses up and across my back. As he fiddles with his trousers, I brace for the tearing pain, the feeling of being ripped open.

  He bores into me. My insides feel like they’re being gashed. Oh, Mother of God! The hurt is fearsome! Please make it quick! Quick!

  The cutting pain ebbs to raw chafing as he pounds me like the cur dog that he is. I sink into my trustworthy response of separating myself from the body he defiles. My thoughts focus on my afternoon chores.

  His boots. He wants all nine pairs oiled before the cold sets in. Even as my hands grip the edges of the chopping block, my fingertips rehearse rubbing in the lanolin, then buffing the leather.

  I glance through the French doors to the blue milk-glass vase on the glossy breakfast table. The maroon chrysanthemums are starting to droop. Madame will expect the sagging blooms to be replaced. I wonder which flowers remain in the garden after last night’s hoarfrost.

  As he grinds into me, I call upon every morsel of my imagination to climb the stairs to the twins’ bedrooms and tidy the toy-strewn disarray.

  Nikolai Osipovich Shelgunov humps in earnest, and my thoughts go to this evening’s meal. Before Sveta left for her monthly Sunday afternoon off, she set aside most of tonight’s supper in the larder—crayfish soup, apple bread, preserved dates—leaving me with only the chicken to prepare.

  As my thoughts braise the imaginary chicken, my employer’s breathing becomes ragged. He’s close to finishing.

  “You despicable bastard!” The female screech rattles the freshly polished silverware.

  I bolt upright, pitching Shelgunov off-balance. He grabs the chopping block with one hand and his trousers with the other.

  At the kitchen door, his wife twirls her drawstring reticule above her head. Once it gains full momentum, she cuts the purse loose. Its strands of shiny beads whiz past her husband’s ear and smack into the white Dutch tiling of the new stove.

  I slink toward the safety of the cranny between the cupboard and the pie chest.

  “Rozaliya, I thought …” He grapples with the buttons on his pants. “I thought—”

  “I know exactly what you thought!” Her heaving chest must be close to ripping the hooks and eyes off her beaded silk bodice. “You thought I was securely stashed away at my sister’s while you enjoyed a little afternoon tryst! You thought I was too stupid to figure out what was happening in my own house! You thought—”

  His hands reach out, slowly fanning up and down. “Calm down and allow me to explain.”

  “Shut your filthy, lying, stinking mouth! You promised on your very soul that this would never happen again!” Her eyes blaze as they seek me out in my narrow hideaway. Scanning me from head to toe, she snorts. “At least the last one was pretty!”

  Madame snatches off her blue velvet hat and, with a strong backhand, launches it at her spouse’s head. He ducks, allowing it to soar safely past, its satin ribbons casting fluttering trails. “Tell me,” she snarls, “are you exercising your cock with Sveta also?”

  Shelgunov squares his shoulders. “Certainly not. Sveta is old and fat.”

  Shifting her searing eyes toward me, Madame flings her head like an irate mare. Her hairpiece comes loose from its auburn up-sweep and catches on her silver earring, where it dangles like a one-sided pigtail. “And you, Anna! You’re nothing but a tramp! That’s why your village ousted you to Moscow. To think I allowed an unscrupulous trollop to live in my home and help raise my children!”

  She rears back an open hand and steps in my direction.

  Her husband catches her arm. “Roza, darling, let’s discuss this in private.”

  Madame throws off his hand and brings forth words from deep within her throat. “Never. Touch. Me. Again.”

  Shelgunov grabs both her wrists and brings them to his chest. “I want to talk to you, husband to wife, in a mature fashion.”

  She yanks loose from his grasp and points a menacing finger at me. “And you, you little whore! Out of this house immediately!”

  “Yes, yes, my love, of course.” His voice drops to its most silky, cajoling timbre. “But what’s most important right now is you and me. Come with me, and we’ll sort this out.” He places a hand on the small of her back and presses her toward the French doors and the breakfast room.

  “What if I had brought the children home with me?” she shrieks while being strong-armed from the kitchen, her hairpiece swinging from her ear like a flamboyant jewel.

  He closes the double doors behind them and leads her to one side of the room, away from my line of view. Fierce words filter through the doors.

  In the safety of the cubbyhole, I slide my back down the wall until I’m sitting on the pine planks, knees
at my chest. I use my apron to mop the chicken juice from my cheeks.

  Out of this house immediately!

  Cold, stark despair clutches me. “Oh holy Mary, Mother of God,” I whisper. “I’ve nowhere to go!”

  My pleas are interrupted by a piercing “You scoundrel!”

  I look up to see slender fingers latch onto the blue milk-glass vase on the table. But Madame’s aim is off. Rather than hitting her husband, the vase smashes into one of the French doors. A pane of glass shatters to the floor, mixing with shards from the vase. Water-laden chrysanthemum leaves cling forlornly to the remaining glass below the burst pane.

  Now it’s Monsieur’s turn to fume. “Rozaliya! That vase came from France! Do you have any idea what I paid for it?”

  My forehead drops onto my knees, and my stomach cinches into a nauseated ball. “Sacred Mother of God,” I murmur, “have pity on me, your most humble servant.”

  Madame’s footsteps stomp up the staircase to the second floor.

  “I beg you, Holy Mother.” Tears fall onto my servant’s dress. “No rubles. Nowhere to live.”

  CHAPTER 2

  September

  1867

  THE FADED GRAY eyes want to help, but they have little to offer. “I’m sorry, truly I am, but I don’t know anyone in need of a house girl.”

  Sitting cross-legged in the scattered straw of the stable, I drop my head back against the plank wall. “Oh, Fenechka, what am I to do?”

  Fenechka is the head housekeeper for the family next door to the Shelgunovs. She’s my sole friend, if indeed a friend is someone you wave to across the fence—someone who occasionally offers seasoned advice, such as how to remove India ink from a linen tablecloth or retrieve a marble stuck up a child’s nose. In addition to her domestic duties, Fenechka has a self-appointed responsibility: keeping watch over the comings and goings of the wealthy and almost-wealthy on the north side of Moscow.

  Sitting shoulder to shoulder with me, Fenechka interlaces her fingers atop her broad belly. “When a position comes open, ol’ Fenechka is always the first to know.” The housekeeper’s jolly face lapses into a sober expression. “But you’ll need references.”

  “As Shelgunov was shoving me out the door, he whispered that any employers should contact him directly—that he’d give me a good referral.”

  “Well, I should hope so.” Fenechka’s fleshy finger pokes a springy silver curl back under her starched white cap.

  “Fenechka, I need to ask you something.” My eyes cast about the stable’s dim corners. Assured that the only creature within earshot is the mare, I unbutton my gray coat and reach into my apron’s pocket. “I … I … I didn’t steal it. I really didn’t. You must believe me. It simply slipped my mind.”

  “Untie your tongue and get to the point, child.” Fenechka’s good-natured Slavic face puckers into matronly smile lines.

  “An accident. Truly.” I ease my hand from inside my coat and hold it palm up to Fenechka.

  The woman stretches her double chin to better scrutinize the crumpled object. “A rag? You’re worried you’ll get caught thieving a rag?”

  “No. This.” I peel back the cloth’s edges as tenderly as though I’m removing swaddling from a newborn. “I was polishing it when he came home. You can understand, can’t you, how scared I was when Rozaliya Yakovlevna began hurling things? And then how fast he tossed me out? I’m not a thief, I swear by all the saints.” I fall into my habit of nibbling on my lower lip.

  The big-hearted woman pats my knee. “You’re no more a thief than is an ant that picks up scattered crumbs.” She peers at the item, her forehead furrowed like a ploughed field. “But Anna, darling, I still can’t make out what it is.”

  My thumb and index finger gingerly raise the shiny rectangle from the rag so the flickering light can find it. “A cigarette case. Silver.”

  “Ahhh.”

  “Will it fetch enough rubles to get me back to my village?” Tears sting my eyes. “I must go home. I must!”

  “The case is worth a pocketful of rubles, easily. Let me have a look at it.” As Fenechka takes the rag and its contents, her smile falls away. “Oh. This will bring you next to nothing.”

  “What?” My chest sags as if a hole were punched in it.

  A stout finger directs my attention to the engraving across the lid. “Do you know what it says?”

  I pull my lower lip even farther between my teeth and shake my head.

  “I’m not sure either, but I suspect they’re Shelgunov’s initials. A pawnshop will assume the case is stolen. The initials make it too easy for the owner to identify it, and the shop owner won’t risk his reputation. Plus, who would pay good money for a cigarette case with someone else’s initials on it?”

  A groan rumbles in my throat as my hands go to my temples. “Can the initials be rubbed away somehow?”

  “Don’t know. But I doubt it.”

  I close my eyes and watch my hope grow dark, like a flame smothered.

  Fenechka rewraps the cigarette case. “Put your mind at ease. Just give Fenechka a little time to sniff out a good position for you.” She puts her nose straight up into the air and draws in three rowdy snorts as though she might catch a whiff of something more promising than horse dung.

  Fenechka heaves her girth and stands. I follow suit and fold myself into her staunch arms, aching to linger there, shielded from the world’s harshness. Reluctantly, I pull away. “But you agree, don’t you, that I should sell the case? Even if it’s only worth a couple of rubles?”

  “Personally, I’d sneak up on Shelgunov while he’s sleeping and snap it shut on his balls.”

  My initial gasp is followed by a giggle.

  Fenechka continues, “You might try the pawnshops near Sukharevskaya Square. You’ll be safe enough during daylight. You’ve been there?”

  “Yes, on errands.” I hug Fenechka, then draw back and kiss her three times, alternating cheeks. “You’re my guardian angel.”

  “Then heed this angel’s advice and sleep in the loft. It’s warmer up there. And Petya won’t find you if he comes checking on the horse.”

  Up the steep ladder the housekeeper hauls items she borrowed from her employer: two blankets, a lantern with matches, and a loaf of bread stored in a tin, safe from greedy mice.

  I join her, carrying a tattered pair of felt winter boots, a hand-knitted shawl, a comb, and a pair of gloves with worn-away fingertips—all of which I brought to Moscow from my home village, Petrovo. In addition to these items, I tote a muslin servant’s dress and apron, a sleeping chemise that Madame insisted I wear at night, and galoshes that I bought secondhand after hoarding several months’ wages. I’m wearing the remainder of my possessions: lace-up ankle boots plus a woolen servant’s dress, coat, and stockings.

  Fenechka assures me that life will look better in the morning and bids me good night. I extinguish the lantern and, still in my coat, curl up like a worm in the loft’s straw, the blankets pulled high. Outside, a loose board on the carriage house thumps in the breeze. The leaves piled against the wall crackle with the rooting of some night animal. I know these sounds well. They’re the sounds of my family’s rough-hewn hut, sounds I took for granted all those years.

  I brush back a tear of remorse.

  Oh, Mamasha, I never meant to bring shame on our family. Moscow is so mean and horrible. Please take me back.

  FENECHKA WAS CORRECT. The pawnbroker accuses me of stealing the cigarette case.

  I draw back in mock horror. “That’s altogether not true. It’s from my father. It’s all I received when he passed on. I so hate to part with it.”

  “And what was your father’s name?”

  Incapable of putting a name with each of the three initials, I unwittingly chew on my lower lip.

  “I’ll give you fifty kopeks.”

  My neck arches back. “Your offer is an insult.”

  “The only thing I can do with this cigarette holder is sell it to a silversmith, who’ll melt down the metal.” With a single finger, he pushes it back across the counter to me.

  I stare at the case, loath to pick it back up. “Certainly you can do better than fifty kopeks.”

  The dealer’s eyes shift from indifferent to unfriendly. “I don’t have time to dicker. One ruble. My final offer.”

  The tears well in my eyes as I stuff the paper ruble into my skirt pocket.