Berezovo

by A J Allen

  “Yes. I remember,” repeated Madame Wrenskaya quietly.

  “Well,” said Olga with an inward sigh of relief, “I have never asked to redeem that pledge until now. Now, I both need and expect you to keep your word and to give me that help.”

  The old woman nodded her assent and Olga handed her back her handbell.

  “Ring for Mariya and ask her to bring pen, ink and paper,” instructed Olga. “Together we compose a letter that will rid this town of its pestilence.”

  Madame Wrenskaya rang the bell.

  “What is it you expect me to write?” she asked as they sat waiting for the maid to come from the back of the house.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Saturday 17th February

  Berezovo, Northern Siberia

  Ordinarily Colonel Izorov did not work on a Saturday morning but the bad dream he had had the night before had shaken him. It was not one of his usual dreams that repeated themselves at times of stress, where he was looking down into the shallow grave to see the little girl’s torso, white as ivory against the dark Siberian soil, cuffed and collared in red and brown, the murderers having hacked off her head and hands to prevent identification; nor the dream about one of his own men kneeling in the watchtower, propped up by the rifle in his mouth and the back of his blown clean away; or the memory of the woman’s body hanging from the rafters of her gornitsa, purple of face and tongue protruding, and where had the ladder she must have climbed got to? No, this was a new dream, and all the more alarming for its ordinariness and matter-of-fact depiction of his own death.

  He had been crossing a street, he did not know where; it was a big street with people on the board walks but nowhere he recognised, and a figure dressed in dark robes with a veiled face like in pictures of the Prophet had approached him from his right hand side. Dimly aware that the figure posed a threat to him he had turned to face it but he had been too slow and it had produced a gun, and fired at him. He had felt the punch of the bullet in his chest knocking him off his feet. As he lay upon the ground trying to loosen the button on his holster, watched by an audience of silent onlookers he saw the figure approach with what seemed agonising slowness. Lifting the weapon again so that he could see the perfect circle of the end of its gun barrel, the figure had shouted, “Mama!” and fired directly into his face. He had been aware of everything, the flame and smoke and the heat of the bullet as it met his cheek and the red then black flashes as the bullet entered his brain. Cursing and shaking he had woken himself, rolling out of bed and cowering kneeling on the floor protected by the bedroom’s darkness as he gathered his wits. So convincing had the dream been that it had taken a minute for him to accept that he had not genuinely been attacked.

  The dream had upset him and after relieving himself and washing his face he had spent a fruitless half hour lying beside his gently snoring wife, trying to fathom what it had meant. Who was the assassin, what make of gun had they been carrying and why had they shouted “Mama”? Where was the street? And why, and this he realised was the most worrying question – why had no one come to his aid?

  Eventually he fell asleep again but when he awoke hours later he was still haunted by the memory of his nightmare and perturbed by his failure to divine either its significance or its cause. With the exception of the continued presence of the prisoner Trotsky, the town had return to normal after the excitement of convoy’s presence. There had been no riots or bloodshed; Skyralenko had reported that all the prisoners were now safely back in their cells in the prison, Dr Tortsov’s threat to declare a quarantine had come to nothing and even the Kavelin/ Kuibysheva scandal seemed to have been settled in a civilised fashion. The previous evening he had not eaten any rotting fish or drunk bad liquor, so what was ailing him?

  At length, finding that he could not settle at home and knowing instinctively that work offered an effective escape he dressed and set off for the uchastok, determined to shake off the dream’s clammy hold on his spirit. His unexpected appearance in the Charge Room sent ripples of consternation through the policemen on duty, and gave birth to rumours of an imminent wave of arrests. These rumours ultimately spread as far as the public bar of the Black Cock where the news that the Chief of Police was at work in his lair caused unease in more than one guilty breast, and reinforced his reputation for dangerous unpredictability.

  Collecting the charge sheets and duty book from the sergeant’s desk, Colonel Izorov pushed open the door to his office. Its familiar dowdy appearance had a calming and restorative effect and he felt his spirits began to rise. Once he had caught up with the remaining paperwork, he told himself, there would be little else to keep him at his desk; he could go home having shaken free the fears of the night. Removing his belt, he sat down at his desk, and made himself comfortable as he started to leaf through the most recent entries in the Duty Book. Friday nights at the Black Cock were usually rowdy and the previous evening had been no exception. Two of Belinsky’s workmen and the blacksmith Chirikov had become involved in a drunken brawl. As could be expected, the blacksmith had emerged unscathed from the melee but the arresting officer had received a black eye during the course of restoring order and arresting the two workmen. Which of the two culprits was responsible it was unclear: they were both still lying insensible on the floor of the detention cell into which they had been flung during the night. Picking up his pen, he dipped it in his inkwell and added “Obstructing a Police Officer in the Course of his Duties” to the imaginative and wide ranging catalogue of offences already listed on their charge sheets.

  The next entry caught his attention. The Widow Golitsyna had visited the police station to report the theft of a malitsa from her drying pole. The coat had belonged to her husband who had vanished several years before. To save her feelings, she was popularly referred to as the “Widow” Golitsyna, although not eight months previously someone had reported spotting her errant husband boarding a southbound ferry at Sverdlovsk. Izorov saw that she was blaming her neighbour, Ludmilla Alexandrovna Gretyena, whom she also was accusing of being a witch and a sorceress.

  According to the Widow, Madame Gretyena had stolen the malitsa out of revenge and intended to use the coat to weave a spell over her husband’s ghost because he had reputedly spurned her advances during his brief sojourn on earth. Colonel Izorov discounted the likelihood of this being a plausible motive: not because he didn’t believe in witches – in this world all things are possible – but because to his knowledge Golitsyn had never spurned any woman’s advances, whether married or single. He made a note beneath the entry for a search to be carried out on the following Monday of the pawnbrokers in the Quarter. The coat itself was worth probably ten or twelve roubles only, but the theft had to be dealt with and it was in the Quarter that he would most likely find his criminal.

  Turning the page of the duty book he discovered a single sheaf of paper, folded and addressed to him by name. The blob of grey candle wax that sealed the note was unbroken. Carefully, he broke the seal and smoothed out the paper. It was a report from the dvornik at the hospital who was under orders to keep an eye on the movements of the prisoner Trotsky. The young man had left the hospital for an hour in the morning of the previous day for a visit to the library. He had received no visitors. None of the exile community had attempted to communicate with him in any way. The trays of food which had been sent over to him from the Hotel New Century (and who was paying for those, the Colonel was curious to know) had been carefully examined and had contained no hidden messages. All was in order. The dvornik would continue his watch.

  Colonel Izorov sat back on his chair and frowned. Despite Dr. Tortsov’s insistence, he found it hard to believe that the prisoner was not malingering. He was too young, too sharp and agile, to be the long term sufferer from sciatica he claimed to be. The man was shamming, but why? If he was hoping that he would be rescued by his exiles in the Quarter, then he would be disappointed. The order that had been circulated to all the groups of exiles had been explicit: keep away from the
hospital. The Colonel considered the possibility that the newcomer wanted a few more days of relative comfort before the rigours of Obdorsk, but dismissed it as unlikely. Trotsky’s type, he felt, prided themselves on keeping up a stoic exterior in the face of adversity. It was more likely he just want to be awkward; to give the authorities in Berezovo the run-around.

  It doesn’t matter if they are Communists or courtiers, thought the Colonel. These St. Petersburg types look down their noses at everyone, even Muscovites who are renowned for their superciliousness.

  Colonel Izorov fought down the rage he felt building up within him. The idea that he could be messed around by some obnoxious loud mouth Jew was not enjoyable, he told himself, but anger would only cloud his judgement and obscure the true purpose of Trotsky delaying his departure.

  He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. Why was Trotsky still here? What did he think about as he lay in his hospital room? What was he waiting for? Who was he waiting for? The road had been empty for days; few people risked travelling in such treacherous weather. He made a mental note to ask Captain Steklov whether his soldiers had seen anyone new while they were out on patrol or on fire watch duty. The mail sleigh, the only public means of carriage, was not due for another four days. Was it carrying instructions for the prisoner Trotsky?

  The hospital was becoming a storehouse of unfathomable problems, for Trotsky was not its only inhabitant that concerned him. He had not been surprised by the news that its Administrator Modest Tolkach had been elected to the Town Council. His sources had reported the whispered conversations, the chance meetings, the private suppers which had disguised the Mayor’s clumsy lobbying. Now that he had become Councillor Tolkach, he had achieved a certain sense of immunity, and that irked Colonel Izorov.

  There is no doubt that Tolkach is a crook, he thought sourly. His elevation to the Town Council proves it. But what are they up to?

  He shook his head at the folly of the Mayor’s choice. Was Trotsky’s presence at the hospital somehow all wrapped up in this? For the life of him, he could not see how. No matter at which end of town he looked, there was criminality. Already the relief of being on what he felt to be safe ground had faded; his morning had been ruined by doubts. Instead of going home or visiting the hotel for a pleasant drink, he had no choice but to go to the hospital and see for things for himself. Getting up from his desk he called out to the duty officer ordering him to arrange a carriage to drive him to the hospital; he did not feel like walking today.

  As things turned out the Chief of Police was to be disappointed in the purpose of his visit, for his prisoner was not at the hospital. At that time, the dvornik explained, the special prisoner would be taking his morning coffee at the Hotel New Century. He could be expected to return within the hour, the man added nervously, if the Colonel should care to wait.

  * * *

  Trotsky had taken pains to establish a daily routine in full view of the town that provided him both with exercise and an excuse to reconnoitre his escape route. Sitting at what had become his usual table by the wall of the dining room he was at that moment drinking his coffee and reviewing the arrangements that had been made for his escape that night. Everything, he felt, depended on when the dvornik left his post at the end of the day and at what time the hospital’s attendants fell asleep. These were unknowns, but the known problems – the stairs that creaked and the noise he would make opening the hospital’s heavy outer door – were equally challenging. And once he was outside, he would still have to evade passing patrols and be watchful for honest citizens that might raise the alarm as he made his way towards the church. The rendezvous was fixed: the south wall of the church at midnight. The rascally peasant Goat’s Foot would meet him there and he would be taken by sleigh to an outlying izba where his driver, this “Nikivor” would be waiting with the team of reindeer he had paid for.

  The bastard had better be there, he thought. Leaving the hospital, waiting at the church and meeting this Nikivor character – those are the danger points. If all goes well at those times I stand a chance. If they don’t, I am finished.

  A feeling of faintness swept over him and he quickly took another sip of his coffee, the lukewarm liquid tasting brackish on his tongue. Beside his cup the newspaper that he had not yet returned to the library lay folded on the table. Picking it up, he stared unseeing at its columns.

  Your greatest enemy is panic, he told himself. Keep calm and maintain your external appearance. You have already committed yourself to this course of action and burned all the bridges behind you. You cannot turn back now, you have no choice but to go on. Be confident and think of Natalya and Baby Lev and the story you will have to tell them when you next see them. You have taken pains to plan and make your preparations. All you have to do now is to see them through. You have escaped successfully before and will succeed this time. Remember who you are, and how blessed you are! Even the problem of the hospital door isn’t difficult, if you think about it…

  Surprised by this last notion that he felt had sprung unbidden from somewhere at the back of his mind, Trotsky lowered the newspaper and removed his pince nez.

  What am I trying to tell myself? he wondered. I have forgotten something… some detail that might help me. But what is it?

  The sole of his right food began to ache and beneath the table he moved his foot to a more comfortable position. The small stone he had picked up from the market square and secreted inside his boot to remind him to limp had bruised his step. It had served its purpose. When he returned to his room at the hospital he would remove it and throw it away. That night he had to be able to run, should it become necessary. He lit a cigarette and tried to unpick the puzzle of how he could get through the outer door of the hospital without rousing the hospital attendants who, he hoped, would be sleeping in their room off the vestibule, but his attention was diverted by the arrival of a fourth woman at a table a few yards away. Like the three women who had arrived separately while he had been drinking his coffee, the newcomer was dressed in sombre dark colours.

  Together, he thought, they look like a flock of crows gathering on a telegraph wire.

  He watched the woman greet the other women in a perfunctory fashion and draw from her bag a folded sheet of notepaper. As she began speaking she passed the notepaper to one of the crows who unfolded it and the other two crows craned their necks to read what it said.

  That, comrade, Trotsky told himself, is a caucus. A caucus of cawing crows. But what is the motion under discussion, I wonder? And who will be the carrion?

  * * *

  “To whom it may concern,” Lidiya Pusnyena read out quietly. “We the undersigned, mindful of the importance of maintaining public morality and the protection of our homes and our families, give notice that we will not purchase goods or services from any trading establishment that provides its custom to Madame Irena Kuibysheva of Berezovo and that we will maintain this resolve until she has made full restitution to those she has wronged or has departed from our midst. Signed by Anna Christianovna Wrenskaya and Olga Nadnikova.”

  There was a deathly hush.

  “Oh Olga!” said Raisa.

  “Anna Christianovna knows what needs to be done,” declared Olga, “and so do I. We can no longer tolerate this viper in our midst – she must be driven out.”

  “But what does this mean?” asked Lidiya.

  “This means that we will be telling the shopkeepers and merchants that we patronise that we will not do business with them if they continue to entertain her as a customer. For example, we will not buy our cakes from Gvordyen’s or our meat from Svortsov if she does.”

  “So we cannot meet here for coffee and cakes either?” asked Lidiya, disappointed.

  “Certainly not. Let us see how Fyodor Gregorivich enjoys the loss of trade.”

  “What about the bank?” queried Raisa. “The bank has a legal duty to provide access to depositors’ money. I don’t think my husband will countenance any obstruction to that.”

  Olga nod
ded her agreement.

  “Anna Christianovna and I have anticipated that,” she said. “The letter is quite specific: ‘We will not purchase goods or services from any trading establishment.’ The bank is excepted, as are certain professions. We both felt that Dr. Tortsov, for example, and the hospital could not be included in our ban, whereas the library is included.”

  “Why say ‘or’?” asked Tatyana.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You have written ‘that we will maintain this resolve until she has made full restitution to those she has wronged or has departed from our midst.’ We should be demanding that she leaves town, not allow her the option of staying.”

  This time their leader shook her head.

  “Anna Christianovna and I fought over that,” Olga assured her. “She thinks that we will not get enough people to sign if we openly also insisted Kuibysheva left town, and that we may also be liable to legal proceedings. She believes that the shame will be sufficient.”

  This was not the truth. Unlike Tatyana Kavelina, both women had instinctively recognised where the limits of their power lay, and so had settled for ‘or’.

  “But do we know where she shops?” Lidiya asked.

  “Oh yes, I have compiled a list already.”

  Raisa looked at the letter doubtfully.

  “Do you think anybody will support this?” she asked.

  “Oh yes,” replied Olga confidently, “once they have been provided with an example. I know from the enquiries I have been making over the past week that feelings in the town about this shameful woman are running very high.”