by A J Allen
“Then why aren’t you out there with them?” Goat’s Foot enquired.
“That’s just it,” Blonski said, pointing an accusing finger at Goat’s Foot. “I was yesterday, and I nearly froze to death in my saddle for all the good it did me. But then, just as we were coming back into barracks for the last time, the platoon sergeant’s horse went shy and threw the bastard.”
“Is he the one with the red beard?”
“That’s him,” confirmed the corporal. “Anyway, so he goes sick and the Captain, bless his boots, has to find someone else to take his place, doesn’t he?”
Goat’s Foot settled himself more comfortably on the bench and looked at the corporal. His business had nothing to do with parades or sergeants but he was in no hurry.
“So?”
“So he only chooses Grednyin, who’s above me in the Commissariat, to take his place. Seeing as how he’s a sergeant and all. Because,” added the corporal scornfully as he took another swig of beer, “it’s a terrible responsibility, taking a platoon down to the other end of town and back. It takes at least a sergeant, otherwise the poor lambs might get lost.”
“In the blow we had yesterday, I wouldn’t doubt it,” observed Goat’s Foot. “I didn’t step outside all day.”
Lavrov appeared with the glasses of tea. Passing one over to his friend, Goat’s Foot took the other.
“Go on,” he urged.
“So,” said Blonski with a shrug, “when Grednyin was ordered to take his place, I thought everything was sweet and tidy, didn’t I? Because they still need someone to look after the Commissariat while the Company is out fighting the snow. And sure enough, the sergeant gives me the keys and tells me I’m excused parade.”
Goat’s Foot was puzzled.
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing,” said Blonski bitterly. “Except that the bastard orders me to count everything in the Commissariat and give him a complete inventory of all the equipment by tonight. And I mean everything.”
Leaning over the table, he glared malevolently at Goat’s Foot.
“Have you any idea,” he demanded, “how many boots, spurs, tins of polish – leather and metal – cap badges, buckles, buttons and belts and God know what else there is in there? That’s not to mention all the stuff for the horses: the blankets, bridles, stirrup straps and so on. It will take me until Easter to count them all.”
“But surely this Grednyin can’t be interested in how many tins of boot polish you’ve got?”
“Course he isn’t!” snorted Blonski scornfully. “He couldn’t care less. But it’s the same the whole world over. The General kicks the Colonel; the Colonel kicks the Captain; the Captain kicks the Sergeant and the Sergeant kicks me. It’s what’s called Military Law.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
“Course I am.”
The two men drank silently and considered the situation.
“I’m sorry to hear what you say, Yfem,” Goat’s Foot said, “because I’ve come to add to your problems.”
“Can’t do it,” the corporal replied promptly.
“Now don’t be hasty…”
“I’m sorry, Goat’s Foot, but whatever it is, I can’t spare it. Grednyin is bound to have checked some of the stuff before I do and if anything is missing he will have my back for it.”
“You don’t understand,” Goat’s Foot said with a pained expression. “I don’t want anything. I’ve just come to pass on some news, that’s all.”
“What news?” the corporal asked suspiciously.
“I was just about to tell you,” the peasant said plaintively as he took a sip from his tea. “I had a visitor last night. A carrier. He turned up too late for the livery stables so he spent the night at my place. He’s got some things for the barracks.”
“What sort of things?”
“I think he mentioned something about blankets.”
“Blankets, blankets,” the corporal repeated thoughtfully. “What sort of blankets? For men or horse?”
Goat’s Foot hesitated. It had not occurred to him that the blankets might be for horses.
“I don’t know, he didn’t say,” he admitted ruefully.
“Blankets,” Blonski muttered again to himself. His brow cleared.
“Holy Christ, we ordered them ten months ago,” he told Goat’s Foot. “Last spring sometime. Typical bloody Army. I remember now. I wrote the order out myself. Ten horse blankets for summer manoeuvres. Oh well, better late than never, I suppose. Where are they now?”
“Still with him, and he’s sleeping it off at my place. He’ll be along shortly.”
Glumly, he took another sip of tea. The hopes that had risen within him were now dashed. He had intended to offer the corporal a price for the old bed blankets that the new ones were replacing and resell them elsewhere. It seemed as if the major reason for his coming to town no longer existed. Nevertheless, there was still a glimmer of hope. He debated whether he could get back to his shack and intercept the carrier before he left. It was doubtful. The blankets were probably already on their way into town.
“Horse blankets, eh?” he said genially.
“That’s right.”
“Ten, you say?”
“Ten. Wrote the order myself.”
“Dear, dear. You see, there’s a slight problem. The carrier is bringing sixteen blankets.”
Blonski looked at him. A sly smile crept slowly across his face.
“Ah! Well now,” he said, “that’s different.”
Chapter Four
Tuesday 6th February 1907
Berezovo
A half hour later, having sealed his contract with the corporal with another drink and a handshake, Goat’s Foot left the Black Cock and crossed the Market Square. His hangover much reduced, there was a new jauntiness to his step. He had every reason to be satisfied with their compact although the corporal had driven a hard bargain: a rouble each, cash on the nail and the half dozen unordered blankets to disappear quickly and forever. All the same, he foresaw no problems with the transaction. Nothing could be easier than to alter the carrier’s receipt from 16 to 10. A slip of the pen, a smudge of ink and it was done. Lepishinsky at the livery stables would give him two roubles eighty copecks, possibly even three roubles for each blanket. The peasant began chortling happily to himself. Ten, maybe twelve roubles profit, just for carrying them from the barracks to the stable! It would not be quite as easy as that, he told himself. First, the blankets would have to be dyed, so that they were not recognisable as regimental property. Still, ten roubles at least for a morning’s work was not at all bad.
Halfway across the square, he paused to inspect a pile of potatoes on one of the stalls. He shook his head discouragingly at the stall holder who had hopefully left the small group of men standing huddled around a glowing brazier. Moving on, he passed the well and went and stood by the window of the town’s library, which overlooked the eastern end of the market square. Behind its clouded pane of glass, Maslov had erected a board upon which was pinned an amateurishly drawn notice advertising the drama committee’s forthcoming production. In one corner of the poster, the librarian had pasted an engraving of the plays’ author that had been cut out from a magazine. To Goat’s Foot’s unlettered eye, the playbill meant nothing, although he thought that the slight man in the engraving did bear a resemblance to the merchant Shiminski. With a contemptuous sniff, he left the window and made his way out of the square in the direction of Hospital Street. By the time the bell of The Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary had finished striking the hour of twelve, he had taken up his station in the doorway of the empty shop opposite Doctor Tortsov’s surgery.
He did not have long to wait. Soon a sleigh drew up outside the surgery door, the Doctor appeared at the door, and in less than a minute he had departed. Goat’s Foot kept his eyes fixed on the light in the consulting room window. When it was extinguished, he left the doorway and crossed the road. He let Chevanin close and lock the door and take hi
s first step towards the hospital before he hurried up behind him.
“Good morning, Doctor!”
Startled by his appearance at his elbow, Chevanin curtly returned his greeting and continued walking.
“It’s lucky that I saw you, Doctor,” said Goat’s Foot, falling in step beside him. “I wanted to thank you once again for coming to see the wife and to make sure you got home safely, what with the blizzard and all.”
“It’s my duty,” Chevanin said haughtily. “Think nothing of it.”
Unabashed, the peasant warmed to his theme.
“We had a fine old talk, you and I, didn’t we? What with one thing and another.”
“Did we?”
“Mmm. I should say!”
“And,” Chevanin demanded, “did our conversation include the possibility of your paying your bill, by any chance?”
“My bill, Doctor?”
“Yes. The sixty copecks visitation fee. Don’t tell me that you’ve forgotten, because Doctor Tortsov hasn’t.”
Goat’s Foot stopped in his tracks and caught the young man by the arm.
“But sir,” he protested, “we’ve already paid our bill!”
“Oh? When?”
“Why, as you were going,” the peasant told him in injured tones. “Don’t you remember? You were a little unsteady, what with the drink and all, so I dropped the money into your gloves. I told you at the time it was there, and you just nodded.”
His expression did not waver under Chevanin’s scrutiny.
“All right, Pyatkonov,” the Doctor’s assistant said at last and resumed his journey along Hospital Street.
Still protesting, Goat’s Foot hurried along beside him.
“As God is my witness, sir! A poor man like myself can’t afford to make mistakes about things like that, especially not with a medical man like yourself. You understand?”
“Oh, I understand all too well,” replied Chevanin with some feeling.
“Only, you and I had a few drinks and I thought, ‘Well, I’d better pay up now rather than tomorrow, what with things being as they are…’”
“I said all right!” said the young doctor testily.
Trying to distance himself from the creature that was dogging his footsteps, Chevanin quickened his pace as he crossed the street in front of the hospital, but Goat’s Foot was ready for this and stuck to him like glue. Resigned to the peasant’s company the Doctor’s assistant turned abruptly to his right and began striking towards the intersection with Tower Street.
“I was also thinking about your problem with the play,” announced Goat’s Foot.
Chevanin’s face coloured slightly.
“My problem?” he echoed.
“Yes. I think I’ve got the solution. Just what the Doctor ordered, you might say.”
“And what is the solution?”
Goat’s Foot tapped the side of his nose.
“Ah, now, that’s another thing.”
The meaning of the gesture was not lost on Chevanin. Reaching the end of the street where he lived, he stopped and, digging his hand into his pocket, produced a fifty copeck coin. Goat’s Foot looked at the coin and frowned.
“Well, sir,” he said, “considering it involves the honour of a lady, the answer’s bound to cost a bit more than that, isn’t it? What with my wife still being tender and needing special foods and all.”
“How much more?”
The peasant rubbed his chin judiciously.
“Well now. It must be worth at least a rouble, I’d say.”
“A rouble!” exclaimed Chevanin.
Nevertheless, he dug his hand into his pocket again and produced a second fifty copeck piece.
“This had better be worth it,” warned Chevanin.
“It is,” Goat’s Foot promised him, holding out his palm.
Chevanin hesitated.
“What if it doesn’t work?”
“That’s the chance you’ve got to take,” the peasant informed him, adding confidently, “but it will.”
Reluctantly, Chevanin dropped the coins into his outstretched palm. As he pocketed them, Goat’s Foot grinned conspiratorially.
“First things first,” he said. “The Doctor didn’t want to give our friend the part at all, only the Mayor forced him to. The way I hear it, Pobednyev boxed him into a corner and he had no choice. But that’s by the way. The thing now is, what are we going to do about it?”
Edging nearer, the peasant lowered his voice.
“As I see it,” he went on, “there are two plays, right?”
Chevanin nodded disdainfully, his nostrils wrinkling at the peasant’s proximity.
“Well, what of it?” he demanded.
“Simply that you get your man Tolkach to act in the other play. From what I’ve heard, your librarian Maslov doesn’t want to do it at all. And Svortsov was pushed into it by his old woman, just because Kuzma Gvordyen did it last year. The Doctor tells Tolkach that the part he’s got now isn’t important enough for him. It doesn’t do him justice. See?”
“But how do I persuade Dr. Tortsov to move him to the other play? He’s in charge of the production, not me.”
“That’s easy,” Goat’s Foot told him. “You tell the Doctor that your man Tolkach is after his missus.”
The enormity of the idea made Chevanin gasp aloud.
“It’ll never work!” said Chevanin with a shake of his head, dazed by the peasant’s suggestion.
“Oh, it’ll work,” Goat’s Foot assured him, adding with a leer, “I’m sure the lady concerned will be ever so grateful.”
“But… but I couldn’t!”
“Yes you can, if you try,” advised the peasant. “Try really hard.”
Leaving the Doctor’s assistant, and with Chevanin’s two fifty copeck coins secure in his pocket, Goat’s Foot hummed happily to himself as he made his way southwards. As he had been standing on the corner of Tower Street talking with Chevanin, another idea had come to him; an inspiration of such dazzling brilliance that he wondered why it had not occurred to him before. He had debated whether he should not turn back, but instead had thought better of it. He would stick to his original schedule of calls.
One hen at a time, as the poacher said, he told himself.
He walked on, past Pirogov’s workshop where a baby’s hungry cries rose above the noise of weary sawing. A few minutes later, he turned to the left and, bracing himself, entered Jew Alley.
Ever since the township of Berezovo had been established, a part of the southernmost section had been specifically reserved for the Jews. Farthest from the river and nearest to the Highway, Berezovo’s Jewish Quarter lay hidden behind the shop fronts of the poorer merchants and shopkeepers. Disqualified from eligibility for municipal services but protected historically by an Imperial decree of the Empress Catherine, its inhabitants survived as best they could. The Quarter had its own markets, its own fire service, its own temples, even its own shadow council to administer the day-to-day affairs of the neighbourhood. Despite these liberties, disease, poverty and crime – the natural results of overcrowding and segregation – had long been a way of life for its population and its reputation was notorious throughout the adjoining town.
Over the centuries, time and custom had succeeded in blurring the exact boundaries of the Quarter. In some of the streets bordering its edge Jews and gentiles were uneasy neighbours. Strengthened by generations of fear, mistrust and loathing, the citizens of Berezovo had regularly addressed the source of this spillage and it was well within the bounds of living memory that the last pogrom had taken place, the gendarmerie of the day playing a particularly active role in putting one fifth of the Quarter’s population to the sword. That had been before Colonel Izorov’s time. Since his arrival, no further outrages had occurred, a fact that led to much speculation as to where the Chief of Police’s loyalties lay. It was rumoured that he was a Freemason; even that he was secretly a Jew himself. Ignoring the unspoken criticism of the older policemen under his com
mand, the Colonel had kept a stern and watchful eye over events in the Quarter as it had risen once again from its ashes. The old, ordered town plan had long since vanished, a victim both of the arsonists’ torch and the speculative builder. Now ramshackle buildings clustered together in semi-distinct streets. Only Jew Alley remained as it had always been, the crooked spine around which the Quarter gathered to bicker, scheme and trade.
Goat’s Foot loathed the Jews, and he feared Jew Alley. On every street corner, greasy locked men stood watching him, muttering to each other in their own language as he passed, making him feel a stranger in his own land. High above the open sewer that ran down the centre of the Alley, shop signs jutted out bearing strange cabbalistic script. Some of them he knew by heart: “L.D. Polezhayev. Quality Tailor.”; “Isaac Averbuch. Fine Furniture Made To Order”; “Menachaim Goldstein. Money Lender To The Gentry.” Their insolence made him want to spew. He believed without question the truth behind the builder Belinsky’s maxim that the coldest part of Berezovo was not to be found in the north (which would be natural as it was nearer the top of the world), nor the east (where the damp from the riverbank could penetrate even the thickest wall) but here in the south, because here there was no love, only money. The Jews had made money their religion. Money above everything, except Jewish blood, and even then they were prepared to make exceptions. Hadn’t they sold their Messiah for thirty pieces of silver (silver mind, not even gold!)? The proof (if proof were needed) that Jews owed no loyalty to either Tsar or Motherland, only to each other, was there for all to see. Was not the very man he was on his way to visit the head of the Jewish Bund exiles in Berezovo, working and living safely in the midst of them, protected by his blood? Meanwhile, the poor misguided devils who had listened to him and his like were shivering and slowly starving in their yurts out in the snowfields beyond the town’s boundaries.
Goat’s Foot readily accepted what was preached in the back room of the Black Cock Inn was true: that there was a secret bond of brotherhood between the fat Jewish bankers and the ragged, wild eyed socialist agitators; a conspiracy dedicated to destroying the Empire. Yet what could one do? Even the builder Belinsky, for all his talk of ignoring the “Jew lover Izorov” and “taking a scourge to the vermin once and for all” had to do business with their tradespeople if they gave the cheapest prices.