Berezovo

by A J Allen

The three exiles looked at each other in astonishment.

  “A railway station at Obdorskoye?” Sverchkov said.

  “It’s not quite that simple,” apologised Roshkovsky with a smile. “All sorts of studies have to be made. The track will have to be laid across what is arguably the worst terrain on Earth. Even if money was available, it would take at least eight or nine, possibly ten years to survey and build.”

  “A long time to wait for a train,” joked Dr. Feit, “even in this country.”

  “As I was saying,” persisted Trotsky, “the rivers that constitute the Ob flow from a land where there is no water to an estuary which is closed to traffic for most of the year due to ice. What we would do is take the water from the upper reaches and feed it back into the land. Use it to irrigate those barren wastes, by way of a series of locks and canals or reservoirs perhaps, while still allowing sufficient water to flow downstream to maintain its present course. That way, we can open up a whole new area previously closed to us by the forces of nature and increase our agricultural base by who knows how much.”

  “Bravo, Lev Davidovich!” crowed Sverchkov. “A brilliant example of Socialist ingenuity.”

  “It’s just a thought,” said Trotsky modestly.

  Dr. Feit looked sceptical. Not for the first time he thought that Trotsky had over-reached himself and had spoken foolishly, pronouncing plans beyond his field of expertise.

  “Is it possible, Roshkovsky?” he asked the land surveyor, pointing at the glasses that Trotsky had been arranging to illustrate his scheme. “Could it be done?”

  “I don’t know,” replied Roshkovsky. “It is an intriguing idea, but the gradients involved are formidable. It would require millions of roubles, of course, and as many man hours. I doubt whether we yet have the technical expertise in this country. Even without the problems of labour and capital, the natural obstacles alone would be immense.”

  “Don’t you mean impossible, Andrey Vladimovich?” asked Maslov. “Turning society upside down is one thing. Making the Ob flow the other way is something altogether different. For a start, who would pay for it?”

  “Under Socialism, the State would pay,” Trotsky explained.

  “You mean the taxpayer! I’ve got better things to do with my money than waste it on crazy schemes like making rivers run up hill.”

  “It’s about as crazy,” declared Sverchkov hotly, rising to his comrade’s defence, “as… as… draining the Neva marshes and building Petersburg.”

  “And how many thousands of your precious workers died doing that, do you know?” retorted the librarian.

  “Thousands of workers are dying anyway,” Dr. Feit reproved him gently, “and only because they ask for bread and justice. Socialism offers them the world. Perhaps our young friend is right about his plan and perhaps he’s mistaken. I don’t know; I’m not an engineer. But it makes more sense to me to use Man’s energies, all his aggressive instincts, to fight his oldest enemy, Nature, than turning it upon himself.”

  “But what if his oldest enemy is himself?” Roshkovsky wanted to know.

  Dr. Feit threw up his hands in surrender.

  “Now that is a question!” he admitted with a sigh.

  Pushing back his chair, he stood up.

  “Come on comrades! It’s time we found our clothes and returned to our own hotel. We don’t want to give Colonel Izorov the bother of having to come looking for us. We’ll let the Ob stay where it is for now.”

  After each of the exiles had shaken hands with their two hosts and the bill had been discreetly settled, the small party made its way to the vestibule where Dr Feit and Sverchkov went off in search of their laundry. Pointedly ignoring the librarian, Trotsky announced that he wished to take a short walk to stretch his legs before he returned to his cell and asked Roshkovsky if he would mind acting as his escort for a few moments more.

  “I don’t want to give the guards the wrong idea,” he explained.

  Roshkovsky consulted his watch.

  “I don’t mind in the slightest,” he replied. “But it will have to be quick. It has already gone half past three.”

  Bidding the librarian farewell, the two men left the hotel and set off at a brisk pace.

  As every step took him further away from the hotel, Trotsky turned the problem that now confronted him over in his mind. The man walking beside him was genuine, but not one of the Party. A bourgeois certainly, a Liberal probably, at the very worst a Kadet; yet he rang true. Out of nowhere a phrase Nicolai was fond of using suddenly sprang to his mind: “the supreme importance of the correct analysis.”

  There is no time for such imponderables now, he thought. Is Roshkovsky the right man to try or isn’t he? That is the question.

  As he drew nearer to the intersection with Hospital Street – the point at which he had already decided he either would or would not ask Roshkovsky for help – Trotsky knew that his decision would have to be made almost entirely on instinct. He had made mistakes, misjudgements, about people in the past but years of experience in the underground had sharpened his instincts, and his inner voice was telling him that he could trust Roshkovsky. There was nothing that the land surveyor had said that could have been construed as active encouragement, yet in everything he did, in the very way he was walking beside him now, spoke of willing complicity.

  There is something else also, something almost electrical between us. It as if Roshkovsky is only waiting for me to make the first move.

  He looked down at his neatly shod feet as they trod the wooden boardwalk.

  It is a gamble. If I am right about him, If I go all the way and put myself in Roshkovsky’s hands, there is a chance I could regain my freedom within days. But if I am wrong, if I have read him wrongly and he betrays me, it won’t only be the additional punishment that I will have to bear. My misjudgement, following on so quickly from Nicolai’s refusal to help, will inflict serious damage to my spirit and impair my capacity to plan and think clearly.

  He was much more afraid, he realised, of this depression in his morale than of enduring physical hardship or threats of violence. Suffering a second defeat, he would become inert and fall deeper into the frozen pit that he had dug for himself; possibly never to see Natalya and Baby Lev again. He knew that he could expect no help from his fellow exiles. Once the convoy had reached its destination it would be every man for himself. Even Dr Feit would eventually give up on him. Obdorskoye would become his oubliette; he would die there, deliberately forgotten by comrade and Tsar alike and unmissed by his son.

  They had reached the intersection. Pairs of soldiers stood at each corner, watching them keenly.

  “We had better turn back,” warned Roshkovsky.

  Trotsky turned and began to retrace his steps, deliberately slowing the pace as he did so.

  I’ve held the dice for long enough, he thought. Now is the time to throw them or forever regret it.

  “Andrey Vladimovich…”

  “Hmmm?”

  “Any chance of getting out of here?”

  In his mind’s eye he imagined two dice tumbling onto a green baize table.

  “In springtime it’s easy.”

  “What about now?”

  “Not so easy. But it should be possible.”

  Two sixes.

  “Mind you,” Roshkovsky added, “no one has ever tried it.”

  Instinctively falling into step, the two men walked on. As they passed another soldier standing in the lengthening shadows of Well Lane, Trotsky frowned. He had missed spotting the guard the first time. But there was no immediate risk: their voices had not carried that far.

  All the same, he thought, I will have to be more careful.

  “I see,” he said casually. “Well, there’s always a first time, eh?”

  Roshkovsky shrugged noncommittally. When he next spoke, it was in the same matter-of-fact manner. Every step was now taking them nearer to the uchastok and the group of waiting policeman standing outside it. But the land surveyor did not hurry.<
br />
  “First, you would have to have an excuse to stop here for some time. If you go with the others as far as Obdorsk, you will have added another four hundred and eighty versts to your journey.”

  Keeping his eyes on the ground, Trotsky nodded to show that he understood.

  “We have been talking about the Ob, in case anyone asks,” he said in reply.

  “Naturally,” responded Roshkovsky drily.

  They had reached the uchastok door. A few of the exiles were still crossing from the Hotel, deep in conversation; seemingly oblivious to the shouted commands of the sergeant who beside the doorway.

  “Well, then,” Trotsky said and stuck out his hand. “Goodbye Roshkovsky, and thank you very much for the meal.”

  The land surveyor took the proffered hand and shook it warmly.

  “Goodbye Trotsky.”

  Trotsky held onto his hand a mite longer than was strictly necessary, then let it go.

  “I’m a long way from home,” he said simply.

  Roshkovsky nodded understandingly.

  “We all are,” he said.

  With a final nod of farewell, Trotsky turned and joined the last of the exiles pushing their way into the uchastok to be checked off before they passed through to the prison. Nothing in his face betrayed the sense of relief and of renewed hope that was beginning to well up within him. The rules for conspiratorial living that Nicolai had drummed into him, he realised, had become second nature after all. Never run when you are scared: never hum when you are happy. When you are on Party work, the only two expressions allowed are ones of positive optimism or of thoughtful deliberation. Above all, hide your feelings: from the police and from your comrades. The flicker of an eyelid may betray a comrade; a sudden pallor or flush of irritation may betray yourself. Even in the shadows, such as these in the narrow alleyway between the uchastok and the prison compound, one could not relax in case a chance light illuminated an unguarded expression. (“Sergeant, why is that man smiling?”) Once you accepted the Revolution, you accepted the Mask. For the rest of your useful Party life you must live and, if the Party required it, die with it firmly in place.

  How he longed to be free of it!

  Impassively, he followed his comrades into the prison house and a few moments later heard the heavy iron door slam shut behind him and the key grate in the lock. The sound produced a barrage of whistles above which someone began to sing a song about the Putilov Steel workers’ strike. Several of the others had managed to smuggle in unfinished bottles of wine or vodka from the hotel and, in the larger cells, the chorus was quickly taken up as the bottles began to be passed around.

  Trotsky pushed his way through the crush of bodies at the bottom of the staircase and began to climb the stairs. Sverchkov appeared above him, going the other way, and as they passed each other, he grabbed Trotsky’s arm.

  Waving the half-finished bottle of brandy he had filched from their lunch table he said, “Aren’t you coming to the party, Lev? Come on, there’s plenty for everyone.”

  “No thanks, Dimitri, I think not.”

  “Oh come on!” Sverchkov urged. “We have to drink to your brilliant plan to divert the Ob and make the deserts bloom.”

  “No!” Trotsky insisted. “I am not feeling at all well. You go on. Is the Doctor upstairs?”

  “Dr. Feit? Yes, I think so.”

  Still blocking his way, Sverchkov drunkenly put his arm across Trotsky’s shoulder.

  “Oh come on, Lev! You’ll feel much better after you’ve helped me finish off this brandy.”

  Trotsky shook himself free.

  “No. I think I’ve had enough. You go and enjoy yourself.”

  “Suit yourself,” said Sverchkov with a shrug and continued on his way, calling out as he reached the bottom of the stairs, “Don’t wait up.”

  When Trotsky had reached the upper landing, he saw that the door to the first cell was pushed to. Opening it silently, he looked inside. The Doctor was lying on his back, reading a newspaper by the dim light of an oil-lamp. On the opposite bed, three small children lay asleep under a single blanket, their faces strained with exhaustion. Looking up, the old man held a finger to his lips.

  As silently as he could, Trotsky entered the cell and closed the door behind him. One of the children, a boy of four years old, stirred in his sleep. The movement touched Trotsky, reminding him of his disturbing dream earlier that day.

  Tiptoeing over to the Doctor’s bed Trotsky knelt down beside it.

  “Doctor,” he whispered softly. “I think I’m going to be ill.”

  Chapter Five

  Tuesday 13th February 1907

  Berezovo, Northern Siberia

  Colonel Izorov stood in the doorway of the cell and watched closely as Dr. Tortsov completed his lengthy examination of the half-naked prisoner on the bed. At last, the Doctor straightened up and, with a final noncommittal grunt, motioned to the young man to get dressed.

  “Well?” Colonel Izorov asked impatiently.

  Although he felt oppressed by the cell’s stale air the Doctor was not to be hurried. Picking up his battered medical bag from the bedside table he pushed past the Chief of Police and walked out onto the landing. Colonel Izorov joined him and together they made their way past the open doors of the cells, where a few of the exiles were anxiously waiting to learn his verdict. When they had reached the top of the staircase Dr. Tortsov turned and fixed the policeman with an uncompromising look.

  “We are lucky this time, Colonel,” he said. “As far as I can tell, Feit’s diagnosis is correct. It’s nothing worse than an acute case of sciatica.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “As sure as I can be. The patient reports a history of it and he complains of all the classic symptoms. Pains in the buttocks, and the backs of his thighs, spreading to the outside and front of his legs. He feels faint and has experienced muscular lock. Of course, it could be an incipient spinal tumour, but I doubt it.”

  Annoyed, Colonel Izorov looked back along the corridor.

  “I thought that it was at least typhus by the time you were taking,” he grumbled.

  “You can’t be too careful, Colonel,” warned the Doctor. “To be frank, I won’t be happy until I have examined each and every one of them, especially the children. They are the most vulnerable. As it is, I have already been derelict in my responsibility by not having seen them before. Now I must insist that I check them all before I leave here.”

  “All of them!” exclaimed Colonel Izorov. “Some have already gone out into the town.”

  “Then get them back.”

  “How long will it take?”

  “All morning, I’d say,” replied the Doctor. “Longer if I find any positive signs.”

  The policeman jerked his thumb back towards the cell they had just left.

  “What about him in there?”

  “Don’t worry, he is clear, but he won’t be fit to travel for at least another three or four days, probably longer. The best thing would be to leave him here until the end of the week.”

  Turning on his heel Colonel Izorov began to walk down the steps, declaring as he descended, “Impossible! The cells will be needed again. We have prisoners of our own.”

  “Then have him transferred under guard to the hospital for convalescence,” suggested the Doctor following him.

  “Why? There’s nothing wrong with him, only a few aches and pains. You can’t die of sciatica, can you?”

  “No,” agreed the Doctor as they reached the ground floor, “but if sciatica is not treated properly, one can certainly become crippled, and that is as good as a death sentence in a place like Obdorsk. As he is now, I doubt if he would last a month; possibly less.”

  “I can’t split them up,” the Colonel told him, “and I can’t keep the rest of them here until he chooses to get better. It’s not up to me. These people have a timetable to keep to.”

  “Colonel, this isn’t a matter of choice,” insisted the Doctor. “You asked me to examine a sick
prisoner. I have done so. The medical record will show my diagnosis and the treatment I have prescribed. What you do with him is your responsibility. If he dies the first week out there, and then the new Duma grants them amnesty and these people are brought back on reprieve, there will be questions asked. Questions that you will have to answer. I wash my hands of the whole matter.”

  “Doctor, be reasonable!” pleaded the Chief of Police. “Consider my position. The sooner we pack them off the better.”

  “I can only repeat what I have told you,” replied the Doctor stubbornly. “The prisoner Trotsky should be allowed time to recover. If the others have a clean bill of health, they may proceed. But as far as he is concerned, he needs a warm, dry room and plenty of gentle exercise for a week.”

  “For a week, you say?”

  “Probably less. Certainly no more, unless there are complications.”

  “God keep me from complications!” Izorov muttered under his breath.

  “Well?” demanded Dr. Tortsov.

  “All right, Doctor,” agreed the Colonel unwillingly. “A week, but no longer. The rest will leave tomorrow as arranged.”

  “Allow me to be the judge of that, Colonel, will you?” replied the Doctor, beckoning to Prison Director Dimitri Skyralenko who was hovering nearby.

  As Dr Tortsov set to examining the rest of the prisoners, Skyralenko, remembering his promise to the prisoner Arkov, attempted to persuade the Chief of Police to change his mind on another matter. Arkov was an old man, he argued. Let his remaining sentence be commuted to one of house arrest and the revolutionist Trotsky could be safely kept behind bars until he had recovered. But the Colonel, irritated at having had his authority challenged once that morning, brushed the Prison Director aside, and strode angrily back to his lair to give orders that the remaining “visitors” were to be rounded up at once and marched back to the jail.

  * * *

  At about the same time that Colonel Izorov was entering through the rear door of the Police headquarters, Yeliena Tortsova was passing out through the front door of No. 8 Ostermann Street. With the exception of her attendance at the Sunday service it was the first time she had stepped out of the house for over two days and she was looking forward to enjoying her morning’s shopping excursion.