Berezovo

by A J Allen

  With great patience, the priest listened as His Excellency contradicted himself once more in his increasingly incoherent account of the matter. Formerly, he had always sworn that the peasant had kept the skin in a box carved from the ivory of one of the beast’s tusks. Now, it transpired the shred of skin was hanging from a small golden chain around the fellow’s neck.

  “But what did it taste like, Anatoli Mihailovich?” he asked dutifully when the Mayor’s story had finally staggered to a finish.

  Putting a consoling hand on the priest’s arm, Pobednyev regarded him pityingly.

  “Father, you will never know,” he said. “It was food fit only for angels, and a few lucky mortals like myself. Let me just say this: the meal that Fyodor Gregorivich has prepared for us, and which we have just eaten, was splendid. I mean no disrespect to him. He has done a marvellous job. But I would give it all for just one spoon of mammoth broth!”

  “It sounds disgusting to me,” announced Madame Pobednyeva.

  Turning to her, the Mayor ponderously shook his head.

  “Woman, you know nothing! The meat was so perfectly preserved that, even after a million years, it tasted as sweet as a suckling pig.”

  “Pah!” she scoffed. “It’s not the millions of years under the ice I object to, Tolly. It’s the quarter century it spent under the mujik’s vest. Ugh!”

  “Forgive her, Father,” Pobednyev said mournfully. “My wife is an uncultured sow. Fyodor Gregorivich! More wine for Father Arkady!”

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Sunday 11th February 1907

  Berezovo

  Because his character did not appear on stage for the first part of the play Yeliena had instructed Chevanin to read the unfamiliar part of Luka, her footman. Now, as Grigory Stepanovich Smirnov, the eponymous “Bear”, he had cast his copy of the script aside and the two of them were growing heated in their row over the debt owed by Madame Popova’s late husband. This was not unreasonable: twelve hundred roubles was a considerable sum of money. As “Madame Popova”, Yeliena Mihailovna was proving a steely opponent, unhesitating in her delivery and without need to refer to her script which now lay neglected on the couch. To his relief Chevanin found that his fear of forgetting his lines diminished as he became caught up in their exchanges. The words were coming more fluently to his tongue so that he was able to temper his blustering character to match “Madame Popova’s” icy reproofs.

  “You don’t know how to behave in the society of ladies!”

  “Yes, I do know how to behave in the society of ladies.”

  “No, you don’t! You are a coarse ill-bred man. Decent people don’t talk like that to ladies.”

  “Oh that’s curious! How do you want me to talk to you? In French, or what? ‘Madame jer vooz pry…’”

  Chevanin faltered, unsure of his pronunciation.

  “Je vous prie,” Yeliena helped him.

  “Je vous prie,” he repeated, nodding his thanks. “How ’appy I am that you are not paying me my money… Ah pardon, for having disturbed you! And it’s such lovely weather today! ’Ow well that mourning becomes you!”

  “That’s rude and not very clever!” Yeliena told him loudly, adding quickly, “That’s very good, Anton Ivanovich, but you must remember not to turn your back to the fireplace. That is the audience, remember. If you face this way,” she told him, pointing towards the sitting room door, “they won’t be able to hear you. Now, when you start your long speech, I shall sit down, so as to be out of the way. That will give you more freedom to move. Don’t be afraid to make gestures and move about.”

  “It’s going well, isn’t it?” he asked eagerly.

  “It’s going very well,” she assured him. “I’m quite enjoying it.”

  When she had taken her place on the sofa, Chevanin launched himself into Smirnov’s longest speech, the one he privately thought of as his “Damn all women!” speech. When they had started rehearsing, he had had reservations about how he should declaim it, fearing that he might risk offending Yeliena Mihailovna by his enthusiasm, but the unspoken harmony they had established between them as their characters traded insults gave him more confidence. It did not matter that “Smirnov” disliked women, calling them “crocodiles” and accusing them of having the tenth of the intelligence of fledgling sparrows: these were not his own sentiments, but those of the character he was playing.

  It was neither the content nor the length of the speech that worried him now, but the fact that he had to do it solo. In the exchanges that preceded and followed it, he could rely upon the support of Yeliena Mihailovna’s presence, guiding him as together they negotiated the pot holes and pitfalls of the printed page. Left alone, he felt himself once more becoming increasingly self-conscious. Standing awkwardly in the middle of the sitting room Chevanin heard himself begin to flounder. The words were coming out flat; they sounded unconvincing; as if he were a schoolboy again, reciting a piece of set text. When at last, after half a dozen promptings, he had finally reached the end of his speech, he found that he was perspiring.

  Wiping his brow, he apologised for his poor performance.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Yeliena said kindly. “It is only the first time you have spoken without a script. It will get better as we go on, although you must learn not to speak so fast. Take the lines slower, so that the audience has time to digest them.”

  Seeing his crestfallen expression, she relented and patted the cushion beside her.

  “Come and sit here. We will read the rest together.”

  Side by side, they continued to recite their lines. Once again Chevanin felt the strange web being woven between the four of them: Smirnov and Madame Popova; Yeliena Mihailovna and himself.

  “We’ll fight it out,” he roared. “I’m not going to be insulted by anybody, and I don’t care if you are a woman. One of the softer sex indeed!”

  “Bear!” taunted Yeliena Mihailovna. “Bear! Bear!”

  “It’s about time to abandon the prejudice that only men must pay for their insults!” he shouted back. “If there is to be damned equality then let us have damned equality. I challenge you!”

  Yeliena leapt to her feet.

  “You want a duel? Very well!” she declared.

  Chevanin looked up at her from his place on the sofa.

  She is magnificent, glorious, he thought happily.

  “Right now!” he exclaimed aloud.

  “Right now!” confirmed Yeliena. “My husband had some pistols. I shall fetch them here. Then I go off and get them and Luka begs you not to kill me.”

  There was a knock at the sitting room door and, with a flicker of annoyance, Yeliena called out:

  “Enter!”

  It was Katya. Did Madame wish to take some tea now and how many cups should be brought?

  Surprised, Yeliena Mihailovna glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece.

  “Goodness! Look at the time!” she exclaimed. “Yes, you had better serve tea now Katya. Just two cups, I think.”

  Pausing only to smile shyly at Chevanin, the maid withdrew but her appearance had broken the spell. Chevanin rose from his place on the sofa and stretched his legs.

  “What time do you expect Vasili Semionovich to return?” he asked.

  “Oh, he will be some time yet, I think,” replied Yeliena vaguely. “He is probably having a drink with Colonel Izorov. I was just trying to remember… Wait a moment!”

  To his surprise, she hurried from the room. A moment later he heard her opening and closing the drawers of the bureau in the Doctor’s study across the hallway. In the time it took him to bend down and place another log on the fire from the neat pile by the hearth, she had returned, waving a large revolver in triumph.

  “Look what I’ve found,” she said. “Vasili’s protector!”

  Curious, Anton Ivanovich asked if he could examine the weapon. The gun’s weight surprised him and he was conscious of the obvious unfamiliarity with which he was handling it. When he had finished his inspection, he gave
it back to her.

  “Is it loaded?” he asked.

  “I hope not,” she said fervently. “Let us see.”

  Expertly breaking the gun, she examined the six empty chambers of the magazine, snapping the gun closed in a business-like manner.

  “Horrid thing,” she said, pulling a face.

  “Is it very old?”

  Yeliena shrugged.

  “Vasili said he bought it ten years ago from a veteran. I don’t know how long he had had it. I suppose, strictly speaking, it is still army property, but it is of more use where it is.”

  “Does he really use it to shoot wolves?”

  “Yes, and virgins,” she teased him.

  “I hope it doesn’t shoot hopeless actors as well.”

  “It would have done,” she replied quietly, “if he had insisted on Modest Tolkach playing the Bear.”

  A few seconds before they had been laughing. Now she searched his face earnestly, the play and the joking forgotten.

  “Anton, can you tell me why my husband changed his mind?”

  Chevanin gave an embarrassed shrug. He had rehearsed several plausible answers to her question better than he had rehearsed his lines, but now that she had asked him he could only mumble that he did not know. Yeliena took a step towards him and instinctively he retreated from her. She took another step.

  “I think you do know,” she insisted. “And I think also that you know you owe me an explanation.”

  “You were so unhappy at the prospect,” he said hurriedly, “that I thought you would prefer to play the part with anyone except him. Even with me.”

  “Yes?” she prompted.

  “So I told Vasili Semionovich that people were saying that Tolkach wasn’t suitable for the part,” he lied, averting his eyes. “I said that he was too old, and too unpopular, to appear opposite you.”

  “Is that all? Look at me, Anton.”

  Taking hold of his chin, Yeliena Mihailovna gently lifted his head until he was forced to look her in the eye.

  “I couldn’t bear the idea of you having to embrace him,” he confessed miserably.

  “That was very considerate of you,” she murmured. “Thank you.”

  “You mean everything to me… I love you, Yeliena Mihailovna.”

  Reaching out, she caressed his cheek affectionately and then moved away and stood looking down into the flames that licked the logs in the hearth. The gun hung loosely in her hand.

  “Do you want me to go now?” he asked.

  “No,” she replied dully, still looking into the flames. “That isn’t necessary. Let us finish our rehearsal and then we shall take some tea together.”

  Her voice sounded inexpressibly weary.

  Still dazed by his admission, Chevanin picked up the script and fumbled with the loose pages.

  “Where were we?” he asked.

  She did not reply. Looking up, he saw that she was standing motionless, one hand laid against her brow. She had gone deathly pale.

  “Are you feeling unwell?” he asked anxiously.

  “Yes… I mean, no,” she said with an effort as she began to collect herself. “Let us start with Luka’s exit and with your examining the duelling pistols. Your cue is: You see, there are several sorts of pistols…”

  He stood up and began to recite his lines blindly, not daring to look at her full in the face.

  “You see, there are several sorts of pistols. There are special duelling pistols, the Mortimer pattern with capsules…”

  He found himself unable to continue.

  “Go on!” she said quietly.

  “But yours are the Smith and Wesson make, triple action, with extractor…”

  Chevanin paused again. His voice seemed oddly distant to him, as if someone else was speaking his lines for him.

  He heard himself say:

  “These are fine pistols. They are worth at least ninety roubles the brace. You have to hold the revolver like this…”

  He made a vague gesture with his hand, as he whispered his stage aside.

  “What eyes! What eyes! What a ravishing woman!”

  Looking up at him, Yeliena slowly raised her right arm until it was level with her shoulder and pointed the heavy revolver in the direction of her husband’s study.

  “Is that right?” she asked quietly.

  Obeying the directions in his script, Chevanin went to her side. Supporting her outstretched arm with his, he moved carefully around her still frame until he was standing behind her.

  “Yes, that’s right,” he said softly into her ear.

  He breathed in her perfume as slowly his right hand closed around hers, so that they were now both holding the gun. Hesitantly, ready to withdraw it the instant that he felt her resist, he slipped his other arm around her slender waist.

  “Then you raise the cock…” he whispered.

  He felt a shiver run through her. With amazement he realised that she was not resisting his embrace.

  “Take aim like this…”

  Her free hand sought his and, finding it, pressed it firmly to her stomach. A few stray strands of hair tickled his lips and the tip of his nose.

  “Put your head back a little,” he commanded.

  She obeyed him, leaning the whole length of her trembling body against his.

  “Stretch out your arm full length – that’s it,” he went on.

  Bending his head, he kissed her tenderly behind her ear and heard Yeliena respond with a soft, “Oh!”

  “Then with this finger you press on that little thing…”

  He gave the finger that was curled around the trigger a gentle squeeze.

  “And that’s all.”

  Slowly his free hand disengaged itself from hers and rose to cup her breast. As it closed lovingly around it, Yeliena let out a long drawn out sigh.

  “No, Anton,” she moaned, “Please, you must stop.”

  Holding her close, Chevanin began to rain gentle kisses along the curve of her throat and jawline.

  With a crash the door to the hallway flew open and Katya entered backwards carrying the tray full of the tea things. Turning around, she was startled to see her mistress and her employer’s assistant standing as one, their faces contorted into what she took to be masks of fear and loathing. They were pointing a gun at her.

  Showing great presence of mind, she let go of the tray at once and fled howling to the safety of the small back scullery, accompanying her retreat with a series of piercing screams delivered at full volume with the aid of her not insubstantial lungs.

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Sunday 11th February 1907

  Berezovo

  High in the fire tower and far from the light and warmth of the Hotel New Century, the guard narrowed his eyes as he peered out into the growing darkness.

  There it was again, the flicker of a lamp’s light. He was certain of it.

  No sooner had the light appeared than it vanished, entering another bend in the road.

  If it is them, he thought, it means that the leading sleigh is less than three or four versts away. But where are the lights of the others?

  It was unlikely, even in the afternoon’s fading sunlight, that the convoy of forty sleighs he had been told to look out for would be guided by only the lights of the leading sleigh. For a moment he wavered, uncertain what to do.

  If only I had Ivan Nikiforivich here to ask, he thought, or even Sergeant Grednyin. Anyone, just as long as they could give me my orders.

  The light appeared again, coming out of the bend, moving at breakneck speed.

  What if the convoy has been ambushed, he wondered, and I do nothing?

  Taking a deep breath, he raised his rifle and, pointing it safely at the western horizon, pulled the trigger.

  Illya Moiseyevich Kuibyshev, fur merchant of Berezovo, rummaged between the heavy folds of his malitsa travelling coat, searching for his watch. Through the window of his carriage the sun was low on the horizon. He could hazard a guess that it was nearing fo
ur in the afternoon, but he preferred certainty. Effort and attention to detail were, he maintained, the chief prerequisites for a secure and well-ordered life. His elegant fingers closed upon the engraved cover of the watch case and he extracted it from his waist coat pocket. It was a beautiful timepiece, the relic of an Austrian barine of impeccable taste with whom he had once been intimate. After the young man’s suicide, his family had sent every one of his personal effects to the Dorotheum in Vienna for auction, whence Kuibyshev had retrieved the watch. It had been a characteristically heartless gesture by the young man’s relatives; a deliberate riddance of the evidence of genuine love and deep affection that he had aroused in his friends.

  He pressed the catch release and held the watch face up close to his eyes in the fading light. Its gold tipped hands told him that it was approaching a quarter to four. Frowning, he snapped the watch shut. The demonstration they had encountered by the roadside a few moments before had unnerved him. For all its drawbacks he was now impatient to reach Berezovo. He leant forward and, lowering the carriage window, called up to his driver.

  “Osip! How long before we reach home?”

  “Only another ten minutes or so now, your Excellency, don’t you worry,” his driver assured him, adding, “We shall soon see the town’s lights.”

  He cracked his whip for emphasis above the heads of the straining team of ponies.

  Closing the window Kuibyshev settled back against the carriage’s comfortable upholstery, and began to compose himself. It was time, once again, to slip on the mask of small town living and adopt the role of being a married man, successful merchant, town councillor and public benefactor; all of which he was in law, if not in spirit. But his sense of unease at the recent interruption would not leave him. He had had, he told himself, a lucky escape. The gang of ruffians gathered around a brazier had tried to flag down his carriage and for a moment Osip had even begun to rein in his team. One glance at the crudely printed scarlet banners that lay spread out against the drifts of snow beside the road had been sufficient to reveal their sinister purpose and Kuibyshev had ordered his man to use his horsewhip on the ragged band. How very different from how one travelled in Europe, with its well-run, and well-guarded, railways. Why, there one could travel to even the smallest towns and villages, mere flyspecks on the map, with ease and comfort but never, it seems, within the Russian Empire or in what the young English diplomat in Paris had sneeringly referred to as “North Asia”.