by A J Allen
“If you will just allow me to observe,” he continued, “the great dramatic theorist and director Stanislavsky says that Chekhov presents his characters from within, or rather…”
“Yes, thank you, Alexander Vissarionovich!” repeated Dresnyakov.
“Or rather,” persisted the librarian, “he allows us to see the inner compulsions which activate his people, whilst letting the exterior actions or…”
“THANK YOU, ALEXANDER VISSARIONOVICH!”
This time there was no mistaking the schoolmaster’s determination to uphold the authority of the Chair. So loud had his voice been that it sent the little man scurrying back to his seat, twitching apologetically as he looked around him.
“Really, gentlemen!” said Dresnyakov with mock severity. “If we are to get through our business we must learn to limit our contributions to the subject in hand, otherwise, we shall never be finished. Now, if we may proceed,” he continued, pointedly overlooking Maslov’s upraised hand. “I shall now call upon Andrey Vladimirovich to tell us of the progress he has made regarding acquiring the venue for the production.”
“Certainly, Nikolai Alexeyevich,” responded Roshkovsky easily.
Unlike the previous speaker, the land surveyor did not rise from his seat but contented himself with leaning forward and ticking off the points of his report on the fingers of one elegant hand as he dealt with them.
“I have spoken with Captain Steklov. Once again he has kindly allowed us the use of the barracks for our production. Incidentally,” he added, turning to Belinsky, “the captain told me that you could take the measurements for the stage area any time you like, but that he would be obliged if you could restrict the construction of the scenery itself until the Wednesday before the performance.”
“That’s damned tight,” growled the builder. “I might not be able to get it all done; not without cutting into day work.”
“Captain Steklov is happy to lend you a squad of men to help,” the land surveyor assured him. “And we could easily borrow a wagon to transport any finished pieces from your yard.”
“I hope that the captain has made a note of when the play is to take place,” said Dresnyakov. “It would be most unfortunate if it conflicted with a visit from the general or someone.”
“Don’t worry,” replied Roshkovsky. “I saw him ring the date on his calendar myself. Sunday the eleventh of February, for one night only. I have also spoken to Lev Polezhayev. He is prepared to alter any existing costumes, or even run up new ones, at a discount. Without seeing the scripts, I couldn’t give him an idea of what might be needed, but his rates are usually reasonable.”
There was a general buzz of agreement.
“Finally, I have calculated that, if we did not use more than a third of the total area for the stage this year, we should be able to seat between a hundred and fifty and two hundred people in some degree of comfort. As to where we get the seating from, I shall let the committee determine that.”
Notwithstanding the problem with locating the necessary chairs and benches, this last piece of news was greeted with approval.
“Two hundred people!” cried Maslov. “What a production!”
Normally taciturn, even Doctor Tortsov was moved to express his enthusiasm and it was some moments before their chairman was able to restore order once more. When at last he had done so, he thanked the land surveyor for his report and called upon the doctor to furnish them with the last piece of intelligence they required: namely the date upon which the roles would be cast.
“Wednesday evening, the thirty-first of January,” announced Dr. Tortsov crisply.
“Then I declare this meeting closed, gentlemen. Our next meeting will be next Wednesday evening.”
As the five men rose to stretch their legs, Belinsky asked, “Who is this Chekhov then?”
Ignoring Maslov’s snigger of disbelief, Dr. Tortsov provided the answer.
“He is, or rather was, a playwright from Yalta who also wrote some excellent short stories. He died only recently; about two or three years ago, I believe.”
“Huh! I knew it!” growled Belinsky. “A soft southerner. I suppose the plays will be full of all sorts of rubbish glorifying queers and terrorists and such like.”
“On the contrary,” the doctor corrected him genially, “one of Chekhov’s most admirable qualities, and the reason for his enduring popularity, is that he touches upon only the more conventional subjects. Isn’t that so, Nikolai Alexeyevich?”
“Certainly,” agreed the schoolmaster. “Besides, both Father Arkady and Colonel Izorov have fully endorsed the doctor’s choice. I, for one, would not countenance any production that could be considered difficult or offensive.”
“All the same, nothing good ever came out of Yalta. I’m not working on anything that risks being closed down by the police, and that’s flat.”
“Yuli Nikitavich does have a point,” Maslov broke in nervously. “After all, it doesn’t matter what the script says, it’s the interpretation that you put on it. Remember that actor last year, the one playing the English detective Sherlock Holmes at the Moscow Theatre? He appeared to make a joke about the futility of siege law. They gave him three months for that. Our own Chaliapin was fined for refusing to sing patriotic songs as an encore. He had to pay over a hundred roubles in fines. Then there were those two sisters…”
“Oh, don’t be so melodramatic, Alexander Vissarionovich!” scoffed Roshkovsky. “There won’t be any singing in the barracks. Besides, the sooner you let us have the scripts, the sooner our friend Yuli here can sleep soundly in his bed.”
As the wrangling threatened to grow more heated, Nikolai Dresnyakov retreated once more to the safety of his chair by the fire. There was not the least doubt in his mind that the director’s choice had been based upon sound reasoning since much of it has been supplied by himself. He began mentally computing the profit that could be expected to accrue from their efforts.
“Two hundred souls,” he mused. “Hmm… Eighty seats at one rouble each and a hundred and twenty bench seats at 40 copecks. No, let us say 70 benchers just to be on the safe side. How much will Polezhayev want for the costumes and alterations? No more than ten, surely? Twelve perhaps… no, ten roubles or the Jew can go hang himself. Then there’s Belinsky, of course. He will bump up his prices the moment work begins, complaining that his men are being kept from more profitable labour. Allow at least twenty roubles for him. Scripts, programmes, posters, advertisements and extras… another twelve. Now, if everybody brought their own chairs like last year… And we could persuade Fyodor Gregorivich to provide seating from the hotel for free in exchange for the sole licence to sell refreshments… And perhaps a full case… no, half a case of wine to the good captain for the use of the barracks… that would leave how much? Sixty roubles at the very least. Probably more, if we include standing tickets at ten copecks each. All in all, a very respectable profit for one night’s work.”
Rubbing the palms of his hand together with satisfaction, he turned his attention back to the four men standing arguing in the centre of the room. Despite the assurances of Dr. Tortsov and Roshkovsky, Belinsky – who quite possibly was by now a little drunk – had not been persuaded that ‘this Chekhov fellow’ was not a propagandist for revolution and criminal outrage.
“But that is ridiculous!” Roshkovsky was saying, waving his hands above his head. “How can you be so prejudiced? Just because he was born in the South it doesn’t follow that he supports terrorism.”
“Andrey Vladimirovich is right!” Maslov broke in excitedly. “Do you think Colonel Izorov would have allowed us to proceed with this production if the plays were not of the highest moral calibre?”
It was fortunate for Belinsky, who was no admirer of the colonel, that the unflattering retort already forming in his mind died before it reached his lips. For at that precise moment, the double doors that separated the lounge from the landing outside were thrown back with a crash, revealing the stocky figure of the Chief o
f Police himself standing in the doorway.
For a second or two there was an embarrassed silence, then Dresnyakov gave a mirthless chuckle.
“Welcome, Colonel. We were hoping that you would be able to attend our little meeting.”
Standing sandwiched between Roshkovsky and Belinsky, Maslov felt himself quail as Colonel Izorov took a few steps into the room and closed the doors softly behind him. The policeman seemed not to have heard Dresnyakov’s greeting or, if he had, he had chosen to ignore it. Instead, he was glaring accusingly at each of them in turn, as if committing their faces to memory. Involuntarily, the librarian gave a low groan of despair. The colonel looked as if, for two copecks, he would arrest them all. One never knew with Izorov. Almost certainly the Chief of Police must have heard him mention his name.
But there is nothing wrong with that, surely? Maslov told himself. I said nothing wrong. It was all perfectly innocent.
Unless… Unless Chekhov had become a proscribed writer. The librarian’s head began to swim as the silence lengthened. He had no fewer than a dozen scripts sitting on his office desk at that very moment; more than sufficient to land him in trouble.
Perhaps he is not angry about the play at all, he thought. Maybe something else is bothering him.
But this hope was dashed to the ground the moment the policeman spoke.
“This play… When do you intend to perform it?”
Dresnyakov, to whom the question had been addressed, glanced warily at the other men and then back at the colonel.
“Actually, the doctor is in charge of the production,” he replied, “but I think we had all agreed upon Sunday the eleventh of next month.”
The unsmiling features of the Chief of Police betrayed nothing as he digested this piece of intelligence.
“Impossible,” he said at last.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I said impossible. The play is cancelled.”
Dresnyakov opened his mouth to speak but the policeman had already turned to go, leaving the other members of the committee to regard each other with dismay. Only Belinsky did not seem unduly surprised at this sudden reversal of their plans. Advancing once more towards the half empty flask on the small wall table, the builder laughed softly.
“Ha! Yalta! I told you.”
Chapter Two
Monday 29th January 1907
Great Tobolsk Highway
It’s two days now since we left Tobolsk. Our escort consists of thirty soldiers under an NCO’s command. We left in huge troikas but after the second halt the number of horses pulling each sleigh was reduced from three to two. It was a marvellous morning, clear bright and frosty. Forest all around, still and white with frost against the clear sky. A fairy tale setting. The horses galloped at a mad pace – the usual Siberian rhythm.
As we were leaving the town (the prison is on the outskirts) a crowd of local exiles, forty or fifty persons, stood awaiting us… but we were driven away at great speed. The people here have already made up legends about us. Some say that five generals and two provincial governors are being taken into exile; other, that it is a count with his family; still others that we are members of the State Duma. And the woman in whose house we stopped last night asked the doctor:
“Are you ‘politicals’ too?”
“Yes, we’re ‘politicals’ too.”
“But then you’re surely the chiefs of all the ‘politicals’!”
Laying down his pen carefully upon the chipped edge of the saucer that served as an inkwell, Trotsky blew vigorously upon his fingers. The temperature in the room was barely above freezing point. The prison authorities in Petersburg had allowed them to keep only their overcoats, underclothes and footwear: all their other street clothes had been taken from them. In their place they had been issued with loose fitting grey prison uniforms that chafed the skin and did little to keep out the cold. Beneath these threadbare clothes his young body was gripped with spasms of uncontrollable shivering.
Wrapping his arms around himself, Trotsky thrust his fingers under his armpits, seeking the last vestiges of his body’s warmth as he read through what he had written. The cold made concentration difficult. He had lost nearly all sense of feeling in his toes. He considered whether or not he should remove his boots. His greatest anxiety was that during the night they would be stolen, either by one of the soldiers or by the man who owned the house in which they had been billeted. He knew that some of his fellow exiles thought him vain for wearing boots more suitable for strolling along the Nevsky Prospekt than for a sentence of enforced settlement within the Arctic Circle. Already his footwear had entered the vernacular of the journey. Someone had only to say, “As smart as Trotsky’s boots!” to raise a laugh. Their mockery didn’t bother him, but the boots undoubtedly were tight and his feet were now numb. He decided that he would take the boots off tonight and sleep with them under his pillow.
Re-reading his description of their passage through the forest, he nodded to himself. Natalya would appreciate that. She was always accusing him of only noticing what she called the ‘material dimensions of matter’. (“LD, a good socialist should be worldly enough to recognise both the value and the cost of such intangibles as nature and art.”) Objectively, much of the landscape through which he had been transported had been beautiful, with the clean ridges of snow taking the shapes and textures of freshly whipped meringue. Lifting his eyes from the letter, he gazed at the patterns on the darkened glass of the window in front of him. Little beads of ice swirled and spread, like ferns pressed flat against the pane.
If Natalya was here instead of me, he thought, she would have drawn that. She would not have needed to write.
Truly there were other modes of expression that could be used. Alas, he was only skilled in the written word and, as poor as it was, it had to suffice.
Re-reading the end of his last paragraph he wondered if she would appreciate the truth of what the old crone had said, for surely they were the ‘chiefs of all the politicals’ now. One could not count Nicolai Lenin’s criminally manipulative leadership of the Moscow workers.
Now there, he thought, was a man who saw life in only one dimension if ever there was.
A muffled snore from one of the bodies asleep on the hard wooden floor made him turn his head and gaze down upon the figures around him. In the centre of the floor lay Dr. Feit. Seeing him there, Trotsky smiled. He had grown fond of the old man during the weeks since the trial had ended. Within hours of the commencement of their journey into exile, the doctor had assumed the role of leader with the tacit but unanimous approval of the group. Without friction or rancour, he had succeeded in organising the families who had chosen to follow their men into exile and had sat for hours during the seemingly endless train journey telling the children folk tales to keep them amused. All the ‘privileges’ they had wrung from their guards had been due to the doctor’s skill as a negotiator. Each meal they had eaten on the train he had cooked personally and had often managed to provide a choice of dishes. In return, the affection that the exiles felt for him was the greater for not being blind gratitude. They all recognised that, by becoming both master and servant, the doctor was merely reacting to the circumstances in which he found himself. This was his method of coping. There was nothing like the hardship and uncertainties of exile to bring out the true nature of a man and Dr. Feit was a good man.
“What a pathetic lot,” Trotsky muttered aloud.
As if in answer, another man murmured and turned uneasily in his sleep. Moving the oil lamp nearer to the piece of paper, Trotsky turned up its wick. Then, picking up his pen, he dipped the nib into the shallow pool of ink and wrote:
Tonight we are staying in a large clean room with papered walls, American cloth on the table, a painted floor, large windows, two lamps. All this is very pleasant after those other filthy places. But we have to sleep on the floor because there are nine of us in the room. They changed our escort in Tobolsk and the new escort turned out to be as rude and as mean as
the Tiumeni one had been courteous and well disposed towards us. This is due to an absence of any officers. The soldiers feel responsible for everything that might go wrong, But I must add that after only two days they have thawed considerably and we are establishing excellent relations with them, which is far from being a mere detail on such a journey.
Laying down the pen again, he held his hands close to the bowl of the lamp, trying to coax some warmth back into his chilled fingers as he thought of what else he could tell Natalya. Whatever happened after they arrived in Obdorskoye, he knew it would be different from his first exile. Now he was unencumbered; then he had been shackled to his wife and had had to waste two years doing odd jobs to feed the babies.
No, he corrected himself, not wasted. He had found time to read and had even written his first articles for the Eastern Review in Irkutsk. At the time how proud he had been of them! Now they seemed as amateur as the purple inked broadsheets he and Alexandra had produced for circulation amongst the bemused workers of Nikolayev and Odessa. As early as his days in Odessa at the St Paul Realschule, he had yearned to write. Even though old Krizhnovsky had marked him out from the first as an outstanding pupil in Russian, nobody had encouraged his gift for words. Pointing to his gift for mathematics, they had been assured that his future was secure. But what could he have become? An accountant? A professor? No – rather a thousand Obdorskoyes than that! He had taken the alternative. Rather than acceptable exile by his own academic talent to some dreary provincial academy, he had followed his heart and had become Pero – ‘The Pen’ – using every nib now as a scalpel and now as a dagger to lay bare and skewer the rotten society in which he lived. Instead of a provincial accountant he had become internationally known as a revolutionary writer; for so the historical record would regard him.
Staring into the lamp, he thought of Alexandra, Grigory, Illya and Ziv. Sitting in this freezing and ill-smelling room he found himself a long way from that sunny nursery garden where the five of them used to meet to discuss politics and to plan subversion. Frowning he tried to recall the name of the old peasant who had let them use his hut as their ‘hideout’. What was he called? Shipansky? Shibilsky?