The White Terror and The Red: A Novel of Revolutionary Russia

by Abraham Cahan

  CHAPTER XXX.

  THE MYSTERY OF A SHOP.

  A tall man with a reddish beard called at one of the police stations ofthe capital about a cheese store which he was going to open on LittleGarden Street. He gave his name as Koboseff. When he had gone theCaptain of the station said to one of his roundsmen:

  "That fellow doesn't talk like a tradesman. I asked him a few questions,and his answers were rather too polished for a cheese dealer." Andtaking up his pen, he added, with a preoccupied air, "Keep an eye onhim, will you?"

  Little Garden Street was part of a route which the Emperor often took onhis way to or from his niece's residence, the Michail Palace, andreceived the special attention of the police.

  The roundsman spoke to the agent of the house where Koboseff had renteda basement for his projected shop and dwelling room; whereupon the agentrecalled that cheesemonger's handwriting had struck him as being toogood for a man of his class. Inquiry at the town at which Koboseff'spassport was dated brought the information that a document correspondingin every detail to the one in question had actually been issued by thelocal authorities. Koboseff was thus no invented name, and as thedescription in the passport agreed with the appearance of the man whohad rented the basement, the St. Petersburg police saw no ground forfurther suspicion.

  The cheese shop was opened in the early part of January, Koboseff havingmoved in with a fair-complexioned woman whom he introduced as his wife.Some three or four weeks later the head porter of the house notified thepolice that Koboseff had boasted of the flourishing state of hisbusiness, whereas in reality his shop attracted but very scant custom.At the same time it was pointed out that there was a well-establishedand prosperous cheese store close by, that the basement occupied by theKoboseffs was scarcely the place one would naturally select for thepurpose, and that the rent was strikingly too high for the amount ofbusiness Koboseff could expect to do there. To cap the climax, there wassome lively gossip among the neighbours about Mme. Koboseff, who hadbeen seen smoking cigarettes--a habit quite unusual for a woman of thelower classes--and who often stayed out all night.

  "Koboseff" was Uric Bogdanovich, Pavel's "Godfather," and "Mme.Koboseff" was Baska, formerly "housewife" of the dynamite shop and ayear previous to that in charge of a house in the south near whichZachar and others attempted to blow up an imperial train.

  The cheese shop was often visited by Zachar, Purring Cat, the reticentstalwart man with the Tartarian features, Pavel and otherrevolutionists. The police kept close watch on the place, but, accordingto all reports, no suspicious persons were ever seen to enter it. Uponthe whole the Koboseffs seemed to be real tradesmen, and as theinformation concerning their passport was satisfactory, they were notdisturbed. A slim little man named Kurilloff who had played the part oferrand boy at the cheese shop had been arrested, but his detention hadnothing to do with the Koboseffs, and the police of Little GardenStreet had no idea of the arrest, while the officers who had made itwere unaware of the prisoner's connection with a suspicious shop.

  "If I were you I'd make missus behave," the head porter of the houseonce said to Koboseff, speaking of his "wife."

  "Right you are," the cheesemonger replied. "Only my old woman is a toughcustomer to handle, you know. I do tell her she had better mind thehouse and ought to be ashamed of herself to smoke cigarettes, but shedoesn't care a rap, not she."

  "I would teach her if she was _my_ wife."

  The cheesemonger made a gesture of despair, and the porter said tohimself that there was nothing suspicious about him; that he was simplya fellow without backbone and a fool, qualities which seemed to accountfor Koboseff's incompetence as a business man.

  * * * * *

  "Well, Clanya," Pavel said to Mlle. Yavner, lazily addressing her in thediminutive of his own coining. "I am afraid I shall have to exile youfor some time."

  "Exile me?" she asked absently without lifting her eyes from a heap oftype she was sorting and putting up in packages. She sat across thetable from the sofa upon which he was cuddling himself drowsily as a catdoes before a fireside.

  "Yes, that's what I'll have to do--pack you off, put you in a box, nailyou up tight, stick a label on it and ship you somewhere. 'To places notso very distant,'" he added, mocking the official phrase used intransporting people to eastern Siberia.

  She raised her eyes from her work, her fingers stiff and black with leaddust. "What are you driving at, Pasha? Anything up? Or is it merely oneof those jokes under which one must write in big letters: 'This is ajoke?'"

  "Is _that_ a joke?" he asked, and burst into laughter.

  She resumed her work. The type she was sorting was intended for arevolutionary printing office, having been sent to St. Petersburg byMasha Safonoff, who had bought it of the foreman of the government'sprinting office in Miroslav.

  "Oh, to all the diabolical devils with that type of yours, Clanya. Can'tyou sit down by a fellow's side for a minute or two?"

  She got up, washed her hands and complied with his wish. As she playedwith his hand she noticed the trace of blisters on his palm. Her facedarkened; but she asked no questions. After a little she demanded: "Whatdid you mean by 'exiling' me?"

  "Oh dash it all, Clanya. It's something serious. I'll tell it to yousome other time. I'm too lazy to be serious." He would have preferred tobe sprawling like this with her hands in his; luxuriating in the gleamof her intelligent blue eyes and in the feminine atmosphere of herperson; but his excuse that it was "too serious" only sharpened herdetermination to know what it was without delay.

  "What is it, Pasha?"

  "There you are," he said peevishly. "One can't have a minute's rest frombusiness, not a minute's rest."

  "Why did you hasten to speak of 'exiling' me, then?" she retortedtartly. "Why didn't you keep it to yourself until you were again in amood for 'business'?"

  He had not kept it to himself simply because it was not easy for him tokeep anything from her. He was more apt to fly into a temper with herthan she with him, but in their mutual relations she was the strongervessel of the two and, in an imperceptible, unformulated way, he wasconsiderably under her thumb. When he heard or saw something new,received some new impression, his first impulse was to share it withher. If an opinion was formed in his mind he wondered, sometimestimidly, whether she would concur with it. Timidly, because in manyinstances, when he came bubbling over with enthusiasm over some schemeof his own, she had cruelly dampened his fervour by merely extricatingthe vital point of his argument from a surrounding tangle of roseatephraseology. His great intellectual feast was to be in her room,discussing theories, books, people with her. These discussions, whichsometimes lasted for hours, often called forth a snappish, bitter toneon both sides, but they were at once an expression and a fosteringagency of that spiritual unity which was one of the chief sources oftheir happiness in one another.

  "Well, there is very little to tell about," he said at last. "Somethingis under way, and it has been decided to notify all illegals not in itto vacate St. Petersburg until it's all over."

  The lines of her fresh-tinted face hardened into an expression ofextreme gravity and her fingers grew limp in his grasp. She withdrewthem.

  "Look at her!" he squeaked in a burst of merriment.

  "There is nothing to look at. I am not going." She dropped her glance.She divined that his blisters had something to do with the digging of amine in which he took part.

  "Is it all settled?"

  "Oh, Pasha! Your jesting is so out of place," she returned sullenly. "Iam not going."

  "But the air is getting hot in St. Petersburg. Whew! The police aresuspicious, of course; they won't leave a stone unturned."

  He took hold of her tender girlish hand, but she withdrew it again, witha gesture of impatience.

  "There will be something to do for you too later on," he comforted her,guiltily. "It's going to be a big thing, the biggest of all. You'll comeback in a month or so."

  She made no answer.

 
The two intersecting streets outside reeked and creaked and glitteredwith the crispness of a typical St. Petersburg frost. It was about tenin the morning, in the early part of January. The little parlour wasdelightfully warm, with a dim consciousness of sleigh-furs, hack driversin absurd winter caps, pedestrians huddling themselves and wriggling andgrunting for an effeminating background to one's sense of shelter. Theeven heat of the white glazed oven seemed to be gleaming and stirringover the surface of the tiles like something animate, giving them aneffect of creamy mellowness that went to one's heart together with thedelicious warmth they radiated. Ever and anon a sleigh bell would tinklepast and sink into Pavel's mood. There was a rhythm to the warmstillness of the room. But Clara's silence tormented him.

  "We'll discuss it later on, Clanya. I'm too tired now. My brain won'twork. Let us play school," he pleaded fawningly, in burlesque Russian,mimicking the accent of the Czech who taught Latin at the Miroslavgymnasium.

  "Stop that, pray."

  He made a sorry effort to obey her, and finally she yielded, with asmile and a Jewish shrug. He played a gymnasium teacher and she a pupil.He made her conjugate his name as she would a verb; made puns onClanya, which is an unfinished Russian word meaning to bow, to greet, toconvey one's regards; mocked and laughed at her enunciation till hiseyes watered. Gradually he drifted into an impersonation of old Pievakinand flew into a passion because her hearty laughter marred the illusionof the performance.

  "You do need rest, poor thing," she said, looking at his haggard, wornface.

  "Well, another few weeks and we shall be able to get all the rest wewant, if not in a cell, or in a quieter place still, in some foreignresort, perhaps. I really feel confident we are going to win this time."

  "It's about time the party did."

  "It will this time, you may be sure of it. And then--by George, the verysky will feel hot. Everything seems ready for a general uprising. Allthat is needed is the signal. I can see the barricades going up in thestreets." He gnashed his teeth and shook her by the shouldersexultantly. "Yes, ma'am. And then, Clanya, why, then we won't have to goabroad for our vacation. One will be able to breathe in Russia then.Won't we give ourselves a spree, eh? But whether here or abroad, I musttake you for a rest somewhere. Will you marry your love-lorn Pashkathen? I dare you to say no."

  "But I don't want to say no," she answered radiantly.

  They went to dinner together and then they parted. As they shook handshe peered into her face with a rush of tenderness, as though trying toinhale as deep an impression of her as possible in case either of themwas arrested before they met again. And, indeed, there was quite aneventful day in store for her.

  One of the persons she was to see later in the afternoon was a man witha Greek name. As she approached the house in which he had his lodgings,she recognised in the gas-lit distance the high forehead and the boyishface of Sophia, the ex-Governor's daughter. Sophia, or Sonia, as she wasfondly called, was bearing down upon her at a brisk, preoccupied walk.As she swept past Clara, without greeting her, she whispered:

  "A trap."

  The lodging of the man with the queer name had been raided, then, andwas now held by officers in the hope of ensnaring some of his friends.Clara had been at the place several times and she was afraid that theporter of the house, in case he stood at his post in the gateway at thisminute, might recognise her.

  The dim opening of the gate loomed as a sickly quadrangular holeexhaling nightmare and ruin. Turning sharply back, however, might haveattracted notice; so Clara entered the first gate on her way, four orfive houses this side of her destination, and when she reappeared aminute or two later, she took the opposite direction. As she turned thenext corner she found herself abreast of a man she had noticed in thestreets before. He was fixed in her mind by his height and carriage.Extremely tall and narrow-shouldered, he walked like a man with a soreneck, swinging one of his long arms to and fro as he moved stifflyalong. The look he gave her made a very unpleasant impression on her. Helet her gain on him a little and then she heard his soft rubber-shodfootsteps behind her.

  It is a terrible experience, this sense of being dogged as you walkalong. It is tantalising enough when your desire to take a look at theman at your heels is only a matter of curiosity which for some reason orother you cannot gratify. Imagine, then, the mental condition of an"illegal" shadowed by a spy or by a man he suspects of being one. Hetingles with a desire to quicken pace, yet he must walk on with the sameeven, calm step; every minute or two he is seized with an impulse toturn on the fellow behind him, yet he must not show the least sign ofconsciousness as to his existence. It is the highest form of torture,yet it was the daily experience of every active man or woman of thesecret organisation; for if the political detectives were spying uponpedestrians right and left, the revolutionists, on their part, were aptto be suspicious with equal promiscuity. Small wonder that some of them,upon being arrested, hailed their prison cell as a welcome place ofrest, as a relief from the enervating strain of liberty under theharrowing conditions of underground life. As a matter of fact thiswholesale shadowing seldom results in the arrest of a revolutionist.Thousands of innocent people were snuffed to one Nihilist, and theNihilists profited by the triviality of suspicion. Most arrests were theresult of accident.

  At the corner of the next large thoroughfare she paused and looked upthe street for a tram-car. While doing so Clara glanced around her. Thetall man had disappeared. A tram-car came along shortly and she wasabout to board it when she heard Sonia's voice once more.

  "You're being shadowed. Follow me."

  Sonia entered a crowded sausage shop, and led the way to the far end ofit in the rear of an impatient throng. Pending her turn to be waited on,she took off her broad-brimmed hat, asking Clara to hold it for her,while she adjusted her hair.

  "Put it on, and let me have your fur cap," she gestured.

  The homely broad-brimmed hat transformed Clara's appearanceconsiderably. It made her look shorter and her face seemed larger andolder.

  "I saw a tall fellow turn you over to one with a ruddy mug. The red manis waiting for you outside now, but I don't think he had a good look atyour face. There is a back door over there."

  Clara regained the street through the yard, and sure enough, a man witha florid face was leisurely smoking a cigarette at the gate post. Heonly gave her a superficial glance and went on watching the street doorof the shop. She took a public sleigh, ordered the driver to take her tothe Liteyny Bridge, changed her destination in the middle of thejourney, and soon after she got off she took another sleigh for quiteanother section of the city. In short, she was "circling," and when shethought her trail completely "swept away," she went home on foot.