Berezovo

by A J Allen

  “Does that matter?” asked Oleg Karseneva.

  “Of course it does,” said Usov and Fatiev together.

  “I don’t see why,” said the Menshivik leader. “They are exiles just like us. In fact, assuming they are SPs, they are worse off. They’ll still be freezing out in whatever God forsaken spot they are dumped in when we are safely back in our hometowns. If they are still alive, that is. So what does it matter who they are?”

  “Ask Usov,” suggested Fatiev cryptically. “He knows.”

  Surprised, Oleg Karsenev turned to the head of the Jewish Bund. “Abram?”

  Usov massaged the flesh on the back of his hand.

  “It matters,” he said.

  “But why?”

  “Because it dictates how we respond to them. That much, I am in agreement with Fatiev, though it pains me to say so.”

  Fatiev gave the ghost of a smile.

  “With one exception,” Usov continued, drawing himself up, “the Jewish Socialist Bund is prepared to extend every hospitality and comfort. That exception is the man who calls himself Leon Trotsky. If Trotsky is amongst their number, then we cannot support any general motion of welcome.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” muttered Tamara Karseneva.

  “God has nothing to do with it,” snapped David Landemann.

  “No, David, you’re wrong,” Usov corrected him. “God has everything to do with it. We remember that of all the voices that were raised against us at the Second Congress, both in Brussels and in London, it was Trotsky’s that was the loudest and the most insistent; much louder than Lenin’s. We came expecting to be greeted in the spirit of fraternity and instead we were vilified and shut out because we insisted on following our beliefs. Trotsky made it quite plain: even though the Bund represents by far the largest membership of politically active workers, our faith barred us from participation in the Socialist struggle. Of course, it is a baseless claim, and all the more unforgiveable when it comes from one of your own race. For that, for continuing to divide Jew from gentile even within the movement that preaches the Brotherhood of Man, we can never forgive him.”

  Usov’s voice had sunk to a whisper. Conscious of their gaze, he roused himself.

  “And we never shall!” he declared. “Never, not until he publicly recants. We have suffered in silence for five thousand years; that is long enough. To be told that even when the Socialist Millennium dawns we are condemned to remain outcasts… to suffer further… to be told ‘Get out! You’re not one of us’… That is too much!”

  “Let us see you try and bridge that gap, Tamara,” said Fatiev slyly.

  “As you well know, it’s the Bund that wanted to stay separate from us,” she said wearily. “They wanted to be the only representative body for working class Jews.”

  “Abram, are you saying,” asked Oleg Karsenev, “that if Trotsky is amongst the convoy the Bund will refuse to hold a collection for them or supply the things you have promised?”

  “No,” replied Usov evenly. “That we shall still do. They are as persecuted as we are. As you say, they are still exiles. But just don’t expect us to welcome him as our saviour.”

  “I see,” replied Oleg Karsenev.

  Turing to Fatiev, he asked:

  “What about you, Comrade?”

  “Our position is quite clear,” replied Fatiev firmly. “Ever since the split at the Second Congress, Trotsky has lost no opportunity to attack our leaders… Lenin, even Plekhanov, the founder of our Party. He is an opportunist who only seeks to make a name for himself at the expense of party unity and the revolutionary proletariat. If he is a sincere supporter of the working class struggle against the Autocracy, he would have spoken out in support of the Moscow workers and sent them material help. But, like Krustalyov, and all the rest of them, he was scheming to betray them all the time, in the hope of forcing a counterfeit compromise from the ruling class. Now that he has finally fallen foul of the authorities, we have no intention of extending our support to him. He deserves, and will get, nothing except our contempt. Nevertheless, he is only one among many and we do not wish our distrust of Trotsky to tarnish the others. If they have been misled by his oratory, then they are paying for it now and they should be punished no further. We will welcome them with open arms and show them that, though they are out of the stream of things, we shall not waver in carrying on the struggle on their behalf, strengthened by the example they set before us.”

  “I see,” said Oleg Karsenev politely. “And what does that mean, exactly? I mean, in terms of action.”

  “We shall hold a spontaneous demonstration and call upon the workers, peasants and exiles of Berezovo to march out of the town to greet them. Together, we shall bring the Deputies back to Berezovo, not as prisoners but in their true colours, as heroic victims of the revolutionary struggle!”

  “You’re mad!” whispered Tamara Karseneva. “The Sibirsky will cut you down like dogs.”

  “We are fully aware of the risks,” Fatiev replied calmly. “But if there is any violence, it won’t be us who starts it. Our people are too well disciplined to fall prey to the crude provocations that Steklov’s men might employ.”

  “If there’s any provocation,” said Usov hotly, “it will be the sight of you marching down the middle of Alexei Street waving the bloody Red Flag. Fatiev, I warn you here and now, don’t come running into the Quarter when the fighting starts. Every door will be shut against you.”

  Turning to the Karsenevas, he added firmly:

  “On no account can the Bund have anything to do with such a senseless act that Fatiev proposes.”

  “Then it’s just as well that we have never fooled ourselves that we could rely upon what is nothing more than a party of petit bourgeois shopkeepers!” said the Bolshevick leader. “There, at least, we can agree with Trotsky.”

  “But, Fatiev, isn’t there a flaw in your argument?” asked Tamara Karseneva. “Consider: a few moments ago you said these people had betrayed the proletariat by their tactics within the Soviet. Now you are proposing to stage a demonstration which has every likelihood of ending in a bloodbath, on the pretext that you are greeting them as heroes? You can’t have it both ways. So make your mind up. Which is it to be?”

  “There is no contradiction!” Fatiev told her triumphantly. “The purpose of our demonstration will be quite simply to continue the struggle against the armed might of the State. At the same time, we’ll be showing the Petersburg comrades, by our own example, that not only is the struggle continuing, but that even here we are able to mobilise support from amongst the peasantry for a militant campaign of action on their behalf. And after the demonstration, this campaign will be sustained with meetings and debates for the period that they are with us, in order to drive home to the workers and peasants of Berezovo the essentially oppressive nature of the society in which they live and to expose the fallacy of policies that promote peaceful coexistence or passive resistance, by confronting the forces of the tyrant Nicholas face to face. We have no illusions, Comrades! The prisoners that are soon to arrive are in the position they are in because, when it came to the sticking point, they refused to confront the forces of terror. We, in the vanguard of the revolutionary proletariat, we never deserted them. They deserted us.”

  “Then you intend to turn Berezovo into a bloodbath?” demanded Oleg Karseneva. “A second Moscow?”

  “That is not what I said. Don’t try and misquote me! What I said was that the rev…”

  “Oh come on, Fatiev!” Tamara Karseneva snapped impatiently. “You’re not talking to a bunch of starry-eyed students now! Violent confrontation: yes or no?”

  “I repeat,” Fatiev persisted stubbornly. “We shall hold a mass meeting…”

  “A mass meeting?” she echoed and crowed with laughter. “How many of you are there? Ten? Twelve?”

  “You’ve forgotten Chazowski, haven’t you?” Fatiev reminded her grimly. “Why do you think old Izorov has put a guard on his door and not on yours? It’s becaus
e he is not afraid of you or what this precious Quarter thinks. But with us, he knows he’s walking on a knife edge. He thinks that if the Socialist Revolutionaries are neutralised, he will be able to roll us up and to sleep safely at night. Well, with their help, we are going to prove him wrong.”

  “You’re bluffing, Fatiev. The Essers will never support you,” said Oleg Karsenev. “They hate your guts.”

  Fatiev grinned.

  “That’s as may be,” he conceded. “We have our differences but they won’t want to miss an opportunity to strike a blow against the Izorovs and the Steklovs of this world, even if it means a temporary truce with us.”

  “And with Chazowski under house arrest, they would come under your command?” asked Usov. “That should make them feel safe! Of course, you’ll be putting them in the front line?”

  Fatiev didn’t answer. Glancing at her husband, Tamara Karseneva shook her head resignedly.

  “As far as we are concerned,” Oleg Karsenev said, “we will side with you, Abram. We cannot condone the use of violence when innocent blood will be shed for no practical purpose.”

  “In the revolutionary struggle,” declared Fatiev, “there are no innocents.”

  “You’ll be on your own, Fatiev,” warned Usov.

  “Then so be it!”

  Chapter Twelve

  Saturday 10th February 1907

  Berezovo

  Chevanin awoke with the imprint of Yeliena’s kiss still burning on his lips. Hurriedly he squeezed his eyes shut, unwilling to lose the memory of her embrace; but she was gone. When he opened them again all he saw was the rectangular outline of his bedroom’s window, grey in the morning light. Bereft of her presence, he fought to recapture the dream of her warm body against his. She had seemed so real that his skin was still tingling from the memory of her caress. But, no, she had gone; what remained was the cooling heat of his own excitement.

  Glancing around the room he took in the ice on the windows, the room’s shabby furniture and its bare, unswept floorboards. As an experiment, he exhaled vigorously and saw his breath turn at once to vapour.

  I could never bring her here, he thought.

  The open pages of the script that lay on the floor by his bed caught his eye. Smiling, he retreated further under the bedclothes. There had been a moment earlier in the week, lying to Dr. Tortsov in the surgery, when he thought that events were all going to go catastrophically wrong; but they hadn’t. It had been just as well, he told himself, that he had insisted on accompanying his employer to see the Hospital Administrator. For most of the short interview, the Doctor had only stared murderously at Tolkach, while he, Anton Ivanovich, had done most of the talking. Goat’s Foot’s idea had been sound but it had been his own genius that had turned the opportunity into such a victory. Tolkach had been compliant; it had been simplicity itself to persuade him to accept the more prominent role. Securing the part of the Bear opposite Yeliena – that had been a brilliant manoeuvre; a skilful masterstroke.

  “It’s probably the bravest thing I have ever done,” he said aloud.

  Reaching out from beneath the bedclothes, he picked up the script from the floor. The night before he had read it… how many times? Three? Four? At least three, he recalled. He had read until the flickering light from the oil lamp had made his eyes weary and the words blur on the page. He was not word perfect yet, but he felt he knew his lines well enough to give a convincing rendition at the read through that morning.

  Turning onto his back, he stretched, luxuriating in the knowledge that there was no surgery that morning. The memory of Yeliena Tortsova still vibrated like a finely tuned wire through his mind. She had persuaded the Doctor to loan him an extra blanket, saying that it was vital that her leading man did not catch his death of cold before the performance.

  My leading man, he thought smugly.

  He knew her now to be the first love of his years of manhood; the others had been mere girls. Without her, all the success in the world would count as nothing. And success would come, he was assured of it. He would be an excellent actor, he told himself. An excellent actor and a great doctor. Greater even than Dr. Tortsov, who probably had a larger practice in terms of area than any other medical practitioner in Russia, or Europe or, for that matter, the entire world excepting Africa. Young medical students would cut his photographic portrait out of popular magazines and paste it on the inside covers of their manuscript books; or mount it on the walls of their lodgings behind chipped wooden frames and inscribe below it the legend: “Dr. A. I. CHEVANIN. Father of 20th Century Russian Medicine.” Wealthy magnates, Ministers of State, even members of the Imperial Family itself, would send for him, begging him to attend midnight bedsides. In elegant ante rooms, physicians would stand in huddled groups, saying anxiously to each other: “Thank God he was at home. If anyone can pull her through, it’s Chevanin.” When he was old and in St. Petersburg, people would doff their hats to him as he was driven past in his Benz motor carriage and say to their children: “Look! There goes Dr. Chevanin, the Saviour of Tobolsk.”

  In less time than it took to bat an eyelid, his imagination had taken a leap, passing through half a century, and he saw himself sitting in his spacious and well heated drawing room, smiling sadly at the memory of Yeliena Tortsov while his grandchildren played innocently around his feet upon the richly textured carpet. As he watched their aristocratic faces (he had done well!) it seemed to him that every great man had a secret circumstance upon which his greatness depended. What this circumstance was he found hard to describe, even to himself. It was more than genius or talent or hard work. Often it was an irritant that acted on the man, in the same way that a grain of sand became an oyster pearl. All he knew was that he would never tell of their love: not to his wife, his children, or his children’s children. Only when he died, and after a period of mourning, would his executors be instructed to place in the archives of the Imperial College the single clue he would leave. A letter sealed with blue wax perhaps; a golden locket containing a lock of her hair: a faded and creased playbill of a long forgotten comedy. It would be the final piece of the jigsaw, the human piece, that would enhance and not degrade his memory. Smirking up at the ceiling, he thought of how the academics and official biographers would tut-tut. The students would understand: once, long ago, he too had been young and had loved with a passion that only the young can know; in a world no doubt very different from their own.

  In fifty years’ time he would be seventy-six; that, he reasoned, would be a good time to die. Things were changing faster and faster. Fifty years before, serfdom had been a way of life for millions; now its oppression had gone. Already there was talk of a railway line linking the Ob estuary to Archangel. Imagine! Even ten years ago such a project would have been inconceivable. It seemed that the new century had dawned as the era of the possible. Try as hard as he would, he could not imagine what kind of country Russia would be in 1957. Richer, more liberal and more advanced, certainly, but the inner Russia, the real Russia, that would remain unchanged; if it changed at all, it could only be for the better. It would be a country where professional merit earned its just rewards and his generation would be the first to benefit from it. And he, Anton Ivanovich Chevanin, would be the first amongst his generation.

  But to achieve all that, he chided himself, I would have to start now. Perhaps it’s already too late!

  Suddenly he felt impatient to be up and doing. The bed, only a moment before a dreaming couch to while away the hours, had become a clinging trap. He felt stifled by the weight of the blankets and the stale smell of the sheets. Summoning up his energy, he threw back the bedclothes, sending the script sailing across the room. He was determined to make a new start.

  Planting his feet on the bare floorboards, he stood up quickly. For a second or two his head swam and the room seemed to fade away.

  Was this Love, he wondered, robbing him of his senses when he needed them most?

  He shook his head violently trying to clear his dizziness.<
br />
  “Oh dear! Chevanin the Poet!” he said aloud.

  He had risen too quickly, that was all. The sudden movement had disturbed the canal fluid in the inner ear, exacerbated by an overexcited nervous system.

  Ah! But what was the prime motive for such violent movement, such excitement, he asked himself, if it was not Love?

  Pleased with his reasoning, he stretched again, pulled off his nightshirt and stood naked in the middle of the room, one hand vigorously scratching the sparse hairs on his chest.

  “The perfect man,” he announced to the room, “has the mind of a scientist, and the heart of the artist.”

  The chill of the room enveloped him. Shivering, he dragged the blanket from the bed and wrapped himself in it. Walking quickly over to the room’s single window, he lifted a corner of its ragged curtain and used it to wipe away the film of dust and grime. From what he saw as he peered out, he deduced that it was later than he had thought. Exhausted by their journey so far north, the sun’s beams shone weakly over the uneven roofs of the Jewish Quarter, almost lacking the strength to give colour to the drab buildings. All was grey and black, like a photographic plate that had been rejected as unworthy of tinting. Drawing back the curtain to let in more light, he hurried to the clothes that lay draped over his chair, then changed his mind. He would wear his Sunday suit to the reading and the newly laundered shirt that he had been saving for the Sunday service.

  As he began to dress, he made some rapid calculations. By the position of the sun, it must be at least half past eight o’clock and the first read through of the play was due to commence promptly at ten o’ clock. To arrive at the schoolhouse late would be unforgiveable, yet to arrive too early would make him appear foolish. Feeling too enervated for breakfast, he decided to spend the time shaving instead. Laying the freshly ironed shirt out on his bed, he began to search for the tie that Yeliena had given him for his name day. He would wear it every time they rehearsed together. It would be his signal to her. But where was it?