Regina Saxony

“Comrade Ilya, you look a little worse for wear,” The young man with the slightest tinge of tan observes warm heartedly. “And Mrs. Volkova,” he tips his head in respect. Regina doesn’t heighten her amusement.

“She prefers Regina. Regina, darling, this is Yakov, I’ve spoke of him to you,” Ilya stares down at the woman he has his arm wrapped around, his other hand clutching the crutch he was condemned to walk with.

Regina purses his lips in some kind of fiery defiance, “Mrs. Volkova will do.”

“Alright then.” Yakov uncomfortably smirks. “May I say Mrs. Volkova looks stunning tonight?” Yakov locks eyes with Ilya, an equally uncomfortably cold Ilya.

Regina’s cheeks flush with fury. Along with her essential distaste for clandestine revolutions, she disliked everything this man spoke with fervent, childish passion. “You may, but only if you speak to me and not my husband as if he is my medium, thank you.”

Yakov blushes, his blonde hair contrasting with the utter redness of his face. Ilya’s grip tightens around her hipbone, pressing in, reminding her to stand a little taller, smile a little more, to engage in social normality instead of the ‘artistic mannerisms.’ she was accustomed to. “You might be the most interesting woman I’ve ever spoken to at these events, Mrs. Volkova,” Yakov laughs and Regina’s frown sets further into her perfectly made up face.

“She does have a way with conversation,” Ilya bites.

“Do you care for a drink, Mrs. Volkova? I suppose alcohol could calm your nerves,” Yakov suggests.

Regina studies the meeting area, the food resting on the buffet behind the long table where the men in their trench coats and furs communed. Food piled upon the top of fresh kale and lemons. Her stomach grovels in a primal sense of desire before it is replaced by the ulterior emotion of a strong, strong hatred and disregard for these people and their cause. Complete irrelevance. “I don’t drink.”

“That’s your problem then,” He chuckles alongside Ilya, who only joins because of the conversational clues. Those rugged, fingernails dig into her hip harder, their sandpaper consistency almost felt through the fabric of her dress. She feels it and it makes it all the more real, the detestable situation, the staunch smell of mold and alcohol, cheap cologne, and these unattainable, unsustainable dreams for a broken nation under heaps upon heaps of oppression.

With the bitterness tangible on her thirsty tongue, she does have a soft spot for the man in the crisp, ironed shirt. “Thank you for what you did for my dearest Ilya.”

“What?”

“You helped him with his reading,” Regina grabs his hand in her gloved hand, rubbing them over hers softly in an endearing manner.

Ilya stand still as a statue, trying to refrain from any sort of emotion. “Yes, thank you, Yakov.”

“Not a problem, Ilya was a fast learner.”

Ilya shuffles with that, loosing balance on his left leg. Regina’s eyes instantaneously darts to the stiffened appendage with an urgency unparalleled as she examines every square inch of his body with a doctor’s precision and a mother’s diligence. “I think we should be seated soon,” Ilya proposes softly in a way that only he could deliver in a prompt, polite fashion.

As they sit, servants come in and light the candles, the chairs fill up with questionably influential old men with the younger men’s wives trailing behind them or forming groups to the sides of the hall. Their giggles rattled off of the fine silver laid before them on thick, cloth napkins. Regina smoothed her square mechanically in her lap, keeping this solemn austerity about her to disguise her distaste.

A man sits next to Regina, his hair is wisped around his face in an asymmetric mess. Possessing a short stature, she still found him all the more charming, with dark swarthy eyes and a sweeping gaze that was captivated with every sight and sound, but with this painful reserve that yearned for more and more. “Hello, I’m Luka Kosoglad,” he introduces himself in a gruff suavity.

“I’m Regina Sax… Regina Volkova, sorry.” Regina blushes in the candlelight, realizing the shell of her old persona has been shed and discarded. “I’ve recently married, sometimes I forget,” she giggles, tapping her engaged husband’s shoulder, “Ilya dear, Ilya,” she pesters.
Ilya gestures one finger to show his impatience and she shrugs in annoyance, “Well that’s my husband, Private Ilya Volkov,” she lazily (and moodily) points to him.
His eyebrows draw to a perplexed point. “You look very nice tonight, Mrs. Volkova. Though I bet you tire of hearing that.”

“You’re too flattering,” Regina places her lithe hand lightly on her shoulder with a flirtatious smile. Ilya remains crouched over and chatting intently with Yakov, whose date is rummaging through records alongside another baffled member of the uncharacteristic opulence of the party.

“You’re the artist, Regina Saxony, it just struck me,” a twinkle in his grey eye appalls Regina.
Then it registers with her, he knows of her as an artist, not Ilya’s wife, not the daughter of Emelia Saxony of Dorset, England, not the baker, she is known as Regina Saxony-- the artist. Her flush intensifies, turning the color of her red lips, “That’s the first time I’ve heard that, wow,” Regina struggles to breathe.

“You have a certain freedom about your paintings, I saw one canvas by a dumpster one day and I picked it up. Saw the name Regina Saxony scribbled on the wood frame. I’m enthralled by the swirls,” He speaks in a husk, a similar husk to Pavla’s, but alluring to Regina specifically. “I look at it as I write.”

“You’re an artist in support of the Bolsheviks?” Regina’s mouth forms an ‘o’, trying to fathom his logic.
He nods, picking at the fish limply lying on the porcelain plate, pushing it around in its rosemary sprigs. It’s a quiet moment of wonder and judgment on Regina’s part. “I’m willing to put my wants on the backburner so my children can have a better life,” Luka admits, ducking his head low as to suggest Regina was with child and do the same.

“Well I’m too selfish for that.” She brushes the hallucinated wrinkles off of the dull, gray fabric reeking of a modesty she hated to portray. Give her color, she begged, give her something not so bland and uniform. Verbatim, she yelled, “Ilya, how dare you deprive an artist of color! Your little lark of a bright yellow or your rose from a pink!” earlier in the evening. Dramatically, she fought with Ilya relentlessly, saying she looked like bland, dirty snow that had been downtrodden with boots of working men as she continued sputtering in a grandiose, nearly Shakespearean manner.

And eventually he won. Because she wasn’t selfish enough to not care about his wishes and to not sacrifice something as little as color.

Which isn’t so little, after all.