*
A single bell tolled, but the sound seemed to travel all over St Petersburg. Every day’s report was worse than the last. Every day’s rumour was more horrifying than the last. Following the disaster at Tannenburg, the Government had attempted to put the best possible face on things, pointing out that the offensive against Austria in Galicia had been a great success, that the huge fortress of Premszyl was besieged and surely about to fall. Premszyl had indeed fallen, but everyone had expected to be able to beat the Austrians, an antiquated army in which officers and men spoke differently languages, literally. It was the Germans who mattered, and Tannenburg had been followed by yet more disasters, fought out in the winter snows.
It had in any event been a grim winter, quite apart from the news from the front. There had been shortages of food and fuel. Again the Government had pointed out that Russia was the wealthiest country in the world, in terms of food and fuel. The difficulty was getting those essentials of life into the cities, where so much of the available transport, from trains to carts and wagons, was being used for conveying men and materiel towards the front. But such explanations did not prevent people from feeling any the less cold or hungry, or discontented with the way things were going. The Russian people, Sonia knew, had always been discontented. But they had responded to the call to arms against Germany with tremendous enthusiasm. Now that enthusiasm was gone, and the discontent was back, more strongly than ever.
Now there were mutterings that the so-called defeat by Japan had been a colonial war which had not been taken seriously enough. These continuing defeats, these unending shortages, could only be caused by treason. Petrograd, it was remembered, was filled with Germans; it had even had a German name, which was why it had been changed to Petrograd. And top of the list of Germans resident in the capital was the Tsaritsa herself. Useless to point out that she had an English mother, and that her grandmother was the most famous Englishwoman of all time.
Equally did people mutter about her continuing relations with Rasputin. Once upon a time the muzhiks had been proud of the staretz, as a man of the people who had risen to be courted in the salons of the great. Now, too many of them had seen with their own eyes some of his drunken excesses, which overflowed into the restaurants and streets, and as the tales of his sexual excesses grew, there were even those who whispered that he too must be in the pay of the Germans. But the coming of spring had brought a lift in everyone’s spirits; it always did. At least the question of heating one’s house was no longer a perpetual worry. It had almost been possible to smile. Until that cursed bell had started tolling again.
Sonia was downstairs to greet Antonina on her return from the shops. “Well?” she demanded.
“A loaf of bread, madame. And some coffee. Look!” Her tone indicated, haven’t I done well?
“But no meat.”
“There is no meat, madame. I have a paper.”
Sonia took it. “What is the news? Why is the bell ringing?”
“The Germans are advancing again. They have recaptured Premszyl.”
“Oh, my God!” Sonia sat down with the newspaper, but she hardly read the words. She knew there would be nothing about what she wanted to know. There had been no word of either Alexei or Paul since the Battle of Tannenburg. She had read the speculation that Alexei was probably dead. No one had done any speculating about the possible fate of a major in the Actirski Hussars., there were too many other majors who had simply disappeared, with their entire commands. She wondered what Trotsky thought about it all? Or Lenin? How they must be chuckling at the misfortunes of the countrymen who had thrown them out. Never had she felt so utterly alone.
But, if Alexei were dead, then Colin was Prince Bolugayevski. That was a quite tremendous thought. It had grown on her slowly during the winter, but as it had not been possible to travel anywhere because of the winter, she had put the thought away of the back of her mind. Now the sun was shining and the snow had gone. And not all the trains were filled with soldiers.
To be on Bolugayen, where she knew there would he food, wine and warmth, and above all else, security! Did she dare? Obviously Alexei and this new wife of his would have denigrated her as much as possible to the children. But yet, they were her children. They could not, surely, turn their own mother away? She did not seek any kind of role. She asked only an apartment and the privilege of seeing them from time to time. Surely...But supposing they did reject her, why not take up Trishka’s invitation? She had, in fact, received the letter before Christmas, but that too she had put away for the winter. For all her misfortunes, Sonia yet loved Russia, considered it her home, considered herself a Russian. To run away in the middle of a war, even when no one seemed to want to know her, was somehow cowardly.
But now, what did she have to lose? If Alexei was dead she had nothing left to dream about, and if Paul was also dead, she had no companionship to look forward to. Only another winter, now again only a few months away, in which there would be even more shortages and more grumbling. And more hatred of the Germans, and those associated with the Germans — the Jews. To be free of anxiety was certainly a dream. Patricia did not suffer from anxiety. She never had. But a good deal had happened since her oldest friend had extended her invitation. For one thing, leaving via Sevastopol was out, since Turkey had joined the German side: the Dardanelles were closed. She would have to go via the trans-Siberian railway to Vladivostock and then across the Pacific to America, an immense journey. It certainly made more sense to try Bolugayen first.
She wrote Patricia a letter, apologising for not having replied before, telling her how sorry she was about Alexei, giving her some idea how miserable conditions were in Russia, and asking if she was serious about the invitation, and if so promising to come as soon as she could.
‘To be with you is like a dream,’ she wrote. ‘We have so much to talk about, and perhaps, even to do, together.’
She knew Patricia had been on her side over the divorce. With Alexei dead, she thought, Patricia might even be willing to help her get back to Bolugayen — if her initial attempt failed.
The letter mailed, she went to her bank and drew out some money. She asked if it might be possible to convert some of it, and was told no. Nor could she withdraw as much as she wanted, however substantial her balance remained. There were restrictions. But she obtained enough to get her down to the south. She would have to take things as they came; she still had several valuable pieces of jewellery, which she was prepared to use, if necessary. Even as she thought, what a topsy-turvy world it is that I, a wealthy woman by any standards, should have to contemplate selling my jewellery to escape from Russia. But then, she supposed, looked at objectively, her life had always been topsy-turvy. “I am leaving Petrograd,” she told Antonina that evening. Antonina’s eyebrows went up and down like yo-yos. “In the first instance, I am travelling to the south, to Poltava,” Sonia said. “I may be staying there. If not, I shall be leaving Russia and travelling to England.”
“England, madame?” It might have been the moon.
“I have a friend there, who has asked me to visit with her,” Sonia explained. She did not wish to get involved in explaining relationships to her maid at that moment. “Now, I should very much like you to accompany me, Antonina. But I shall not hold it against you if you decide you cannot do this.”
“Madame is selling this house?”
“No, no. I propose merely to shut the house up for a. while. I shall be coming back to it. I shall be leaving most of my clothes and all of my books, in any event.”
“Will madame not require someone to look after the house for her?”
“You would prefer to do that?”
Antonina shuffled her feet. “Petrograd is my home, madame.”
“I understand that. Very good. You may remain here as caretaker. I will arrange with my bank for you to be able to draw money every month, both for your salary and for any expenses regarding the house. But I cannot travel without a maid.”
“I
will find one for you, madame.”
“I would appreciate that. But, Antonina, she must not know anything of my plans. When we interview, we will merely say that I intend to leave Petrograd, and that therefore whoever gets the post must be prepared to travel.”
It was a great relief actually to be doing something. Running away! The last time she had run away, it had been from Bolugayen, seeking to escape meeting Paul. That had been a disaster, and Paul had still wound up in her bed. This time...in any event, the decision was taken, and she could only wait for a reply from Patricia. She knew this would take several weeks, if not months, but as long as she was out of Petrograd by the end of September she felt she would be all right. And there was a great deal to be done. She consulted train timetables and shipping schedules. She sorted through her wardrobe, determining what she could take — she wanted to travel as lightly as possible. She interviewed the various women Antonina produced without finding anyone she really wanted to travel with. And she began to worry as the weeks went by and she did not hear from Patricia. She kept reminding herself that in time of war, letters were obviously going to take a long time, but she either had to leave in September or sit out another winter.
It was a much better summer than anyone had dared hope. The Grand Duke Nicholas, the Tsar’s uncle, who was Commander-in-Chief of the Army, finally brought the German offensive to a halt, even if in doing so he had had to yield virtually all Poland. This brought praise and condemnation in equal proportion, but everyone was taken aback when it was announced that the Grand Duke was being removed from his command and sent to the Caucasus to confront the Turks; his place as Commander-in-Chief in the field was to be taken by none other than the Commander-in-Chief, the Tsar himself. Opinion was divided about this as well. The Tsar had absolutely no military experience, and would therefore be entirely at the mercy of the advice of his staff. What worried people even more was that he announced his intention of leaving the Tsaritsa in command at home as his regent. The question was immediately asked, is this to be government by Rasputin?
Sonia was more than ever convinced she was doing the right thing. There had still been no letter from Patricia, but she had found herself a lady’s maid, a young woman named Irina, who came from a good lower middle-class family. Irina was small and dark and intense. She was also inquisitive, according to Antonina, always asking questions about madame’s affairs, about her past, and certainly curious about where she was intending to travel. However, she was clean and efficient. Sonia went to the bank to make the necessary arrangements to enable Antonina to be able to draw sufficient money to manage the housekeeping, and was shown into the manager’s office. “May I ask where you are going, Madame Bolugayevska?” he enquired.
“You may. But that is surely my business. Are my affairs not in order?”
“Certainly. Oh, certainly. It’s just, ah...” He looked at the door, which was half open, got up, and closed it. Sonia raised her eyebrows. “What I have to say must remain entirely confidential, Madame Bolugayevska.”
“I shall respect your confidence, Monsieur Ragosin. You have something to tell me?”
“Well...” He drummed on the desk with his fingers. “When last month, you withdrew a fairly large amount of money, and at the same time enquired as to the possibility of converting that money into English pounds, well...I was required to inform the authorities.”
Sonia frowned. “Is that not against all banking practice?”
“In normal circumstances, yes. But these are not normal circumstances. We are at war. Besides, when I say the authorities...”
“You really mean the Okhrana.”
“It is their business to maintain the internal stability of the Motherland.”
“And by withdrawing my own money, I am endangering the Motherland?”
“I am required to advise the Okhrana of any unusual banking business I may observe. In the circumstances, you understand, madame.”
“Oh, I understand,” Sonia said. “So now you are required to inform them that I am planning to leave Petrograd, is that it?”
“I am afraid so. You realise that I am not supposed to tell you this, that I am taking a great risk. If it were ever to come out...”
“I have said that I will respect your confidence, monsieur. I am grateful for learning this.”
“May I ask you to be careful, madame?”
“You may, and I shall. However, if it will put your mind at rest, and the minds of your masters in the Okhrana, you may inform them that I am travelling to Bolugayen, to see my son. You understand, monsieur, that if, as seems likely, my husband...my ex-husband, is dead, then my son is the Prince Bolugayevski. He wishes to see me,” she lied. “And thus I am going there, and I do not know how soon I will be able to return.”
“Ah!” Ragosin smiled. “Well, then, that is a perfectly reasonable explanation. Of course. I thank you, madame, for being so co-operative.”
Sonia went to the central station herself and bought the tickets for Kharkov. “There is no first-class available, madame,” said the clerk.
“You are saying there is no first-class carriage on the train to Kharkov?”
“I did not say that, madame. There is a first-class carriage, of course. But it is entirely reserved for military personnel. Senior military personnel.”
“Going to Kharkov,” Sonia remarked, beginning to get annoyed. “Are the Germans invading the Don Basin?”
“I do not know why these gentlemen are going, madame. I only know that all first-class carriages are fully booked. I can give you seats in a second-class carriage.”
“That will have to do. Yes, I will have a second-class compartment.”
“I am sorry, madame. I cannot give you a compartment to yourself. I can give you a seat.”
Sonia could not believe her ears. “It is two days from St Petersburg to Kharkov, is it not?”
“No, madame, it is nearer three nowadays. There are many delays, you understand.”
“And you expect me to share a compartment with strangers, for three days? And nights?” she added.
“Perhaps madame has an alternative means of transport.”
I am the mother of the Prince of Bolugayen! Sonia wanted to shout. But she kept her temper. She was back where she had been so often before, where only survival mattered. “Very well,” she said. “But I will need two seats.” The man raised his eyebrows. “I am travelling with my maid,” Sonia snapped.
She stepped outside, and had to stand very still for several seconds to allow her blood pressure to decline from its near explosion level, and realised she was holding the two tickets in her hand. She opened her bag, put them in, and looked up, at two men, one to either side of her. They were very well dressed, in silk hats and frock coats and spats, while each sported a gold watch chain.
Yet her stomach was suddenly filled with lead. “Madame Bolugayevska?” asked one of the men.
Sonia looked from one to the other. Again she wanted to shout that she was the mother of the Prince Bolugayevski. But as they knew her name, they would know that. Indeed, they would know everything about her. “That is my name,” she said, relieved that her voice was so steady.
“Will you come with us, please?”
Again she looked from face to face. “Are you arresting me?”
“We are inviting you to come with us, madame.”
“And suppose I do not wish to come with you? Do you have a warrant?”
“We do have a warrant, madame. But I am sure you do not wish to make a scene.”
Did it matter? she wondered. Everyone on the platform was looking at them. Even a train which had just pulled into the station seemed to be delaying its departure again, while people looked out of the windows. There was no one in Russia unable to recognise Okhrana agents. And if I do not make a scene, am I just to be led away like a lamb to the slaughter? She could remember her last arrest, twenty-one years ago, as if it had been yesterday. The utter savagery of it. These men did not look like savages,
but she was not yet alone with them. And yet, she was already moving with them, between them, to the gate. Princesses, even ex-princesses, did not make scenes on railway platforms.
There was an automobile waiting. A door was held open for her, and Sonia bowed her head so as not to dislodge her hat as she got in, expecting every moment to feel their hands on her hips and legs, to be thrown forward as they sought to beat her, rape her, terrify her, to make her their slave. But neither of them touched her. One sat beside her, the other faced her in a jump seat. They both actually looked vaguely embarrassed. And, now that she looked past the carefully waxed moustaches, terribly young. Perhaps they did not know how to begin raping a thirty-eight-year-old ex-princess? “Where are you taking me?” she asked. As if she did not know.
The man facing her smiled at her, nervously. “There is someone wishing to speak with you, madame. An old friend.”
Sonia was surprised at how little the building had changed. She had of course passed it often enough, but always had looked away. Most people did, when they passed the Okhrana headquarters, even while noting that the facade remained always the same. But she would have expected more differences inside the building, if only a change in decor. But the only differences were in faces, and manners.
When she had been dragged in here, beside a panting Patricia, incoherent with outrage, as a seventeen-year-old girl, everyone had been older than they were. Now everyone seemed younger. Save for the Tsar, staring down at them from huge framed photographs, clearly taken just before the start of the war. The other difference was that she was not being dragged, but rather, invited, to move forward. She knew that should be reassuring, but it wasn’t. There was always the threat of what was coming next: she knew only one member of the Okhrana who might be described as an old acquaintance.
And there he was, standing at the top of the stairs up which she was being taken, smiling at her. She remembered above all else the monocle. But she remembered too being forced to stand naked before his desk, and his slow rising and coming round the desk. Suddenly she could go no further, and checked, so suddenly that the man behind her humped into her, and muttered an apology. “Will you not come in, Madame Bolugayevska?” Michaelin invited. “Or should I call you, Sonia, after all these years?”
The Red Tide Page 18