Berezovo

by A J Allen

  By chance, Nicolai had also been in Paris, invited by a group of emigre professors at the Higher School to give a series of lectures on the Agrarian Question and as a matter of course he had been included in their party. Just before they had left, the question of dress had arisen. It was the general view that Trotsky was in dire need of a new pair of shoes; his present ones were a disgrace. Obligingly, Nicolai had lent him a pair he had just bought, remarking as he handed them over that he himself had found them a little tight. And so they had set off to walk to the Opera: Natalya and himself, Jules Martov, one or two others; and Nicolai still obstinately clutching the briefcase that contained his lecture notes.

  To begin with, everything had seemed fine. The shoes felt strange; perhaps a little uncomfortable, but nothing more. By the time they had reached the Opera and had climbed the seemingly endless flights of stairs to reach their seats it was clear that the shoes were at least one, if not two, sizes too small for his feet. The upper circle had been surprisingly warm and by the time they had sat through the first act he was in agony and had been barely able to limp as far as the bar during the interval. From then on, the evening became one long torment. He had never imagined such pain was possible. At one point on their way back to their rooms, with Natalya ecstatic about the opera (“But can’t you see, Lev? I am ‘Louise’ and you are ‘Julien’! Isn’t it wonderful? And the music!”) and with Nicolai teasing him unmercifully about his suffering, he had seriously considered risking arrest for vagrancy and walking barefoot back to their rooms.

  It was only later that he had come to regard the episode with suspicion. Nicolai, he realized, had known that the shoes would pain him and had enjoyed the cruel joke. The whole point of lending them had been to show Trotsky that he literally could not walk in his shoes, or ever hope to steal them. Well, he had proved Nicolai wrong on one account. On his own chosen ground – journalism – he had beaten Nicolai hands down. The success of his 1905 newssheet Nachelo had put the Bolshevick’s Novaya Zhizn to shame.

  It was Natalya who had seen the problem most clearly.

  “You’re looking for a hero and he’s the wrong man,” she had said. “He’s too unkind. You are much better than him. Anyway, Nicolai’s an old goat.”

  Sweet Natalya! he thought. She is so beautiful, so finely featured – both physically and intellectually. How she had enjoyed that opera!

  Often, when he was busy working on an article, he would hear her sing snatches from the aria Depuis le jour ou je me suis donnee. “Our opera,” she had called it. He had long since given up pointing out the discrepancies. That Natalya’s family was wealthy and not poor and that her relationship with her father was extremely cordial, considering that she had been expelled from her school. That he himself was not a poet like “Julien”. That they had not met on the stairs outside her room but that she had picked him up in a bar. Whatever argument he had used, her reaction was always the same: a swift pinch on the arm and the accusation that he was “an unfeeling lout”. Then she would giggle and start whistling tunelessly. It was a lover’s joke. When Madame Alexandrovna had first asked her how the new comrade was settling in, she had reported that he seemed to whistle a lot.

  “Tell him he’s here to work for the Revolution, not to whistle!” the old woman had barked, forgetting that sometimes there was more to be gained by whistling than by working.

  Trotsky opened his eyes. Onstage the Doctor’s wife was receiving a lesson from the “Bear” in how to hold and cock a gun.

  I mustn’t think of Natalya any more, he told himself. It’s pointless. What is done is done. The fact is, if I fail to get away from here I will probably never see Natalya or Baby Lev again.

  A rush of self pity that made his heart ache and his eyes and nose prick with tears suddenly overwhelmed him and he was grateful for the semi-darkness of the barracks hall.

  This is no time for weakness, he warned himself. All the same, to have gone through what I have gone through to finally find love, only to risk being parted from her forever… It’s hard.

  Chapter Twenty Four

  Sunday 18th February 1907

  Berezovo, Northern Siberia

  Backstage, Skyralenko was hurriedly trying to repair his whiskers as the first play rolled to its close. One half of the beard had come adrift and he had made his last entrance onstage holding it to his cheek as if he was suffering from toothache. His efforts were hampered by the lack of a mirror. He could hear that Chevanin was nearing the end of his speech. Without warning he felt someone shove him in the small of his back, pushing him off balance so that he fell against the scenery. Turning, he saw that it was Maslov. The librarian thrust a small axe into his hands.

  “It’s your cue!” he hissed urgently. “Quickly! The window!”

  Still trying to fix his beard back into place, Skyralenko peeked through the scenery window and saw Chevanin holding the struggling heroine in his arms. The crowd was cheering as Yeliena screamed her protests.

  “Get away from me! Take your hand away! I hate you! Let’s go and fight!”

  Abandoning the beard, Skyralenko clambered gingerly across the sill of the window. The scenery swayed dangerously under his weight. Catching sight of the pair engaged in a prolonged kiss, he waved the axe in the air crying:

  “Little Fathers! Little Fathers!”

  The fringe of grey horse hair swung freely beneath his chin and the outburst of laughter from the audience drowned the play’s last line.

  Yeliena disentangled quickly herself from Anton Ivanovich’s arms as the curtain was drawn and her husband hurried onstage to embrace her.

  “Lenochka, you were a triumph!” cried Dr Tortsov, shouldering his assistant to one side. “Now line up everybody and be ready to take a bow.”

  The curtain opened again. One or two of the audience had risen to their feet. Seeing the actors and their director on the stage they resumed their applause. More people began to follow their example, until most of the audience were standing applauding the success of their play.

  As the curtain closed, Dr. Tortsov hugged his wife again and then turning, wrung the hands of Chevanin and Skyralenko.

  “Marvellous! Marvellous! Thank you! Thank you!” he exclaimed. “Dimitri, you were marvellous, word perfect! And what do you think of my protégé?” he added, putting his arm around Chevanin’s shoulders. “Wasn’t he superb?”

  “He’s certainly a consummate actor,” agreed the Prison Director wryly.

  “I think he was marvellous! And that business with the chairs – absolutely perfect! Couldn’t have done it better myself.”

  Chevanin smiled bashfully.

  “Thank you, Vasili Semionovich!” he replied. “But you did all the hard work. You should take all the credit. Will you excuse me if I go and change now? I am being baked alive in this costume!”

  “Certainly, my boy!” the Doctor agreed jovially. “You cut along. I still have another play to look after.”

  The four of them made way for the scene changers who had already begun removing some of the furniture and sweeping up the fragments of Averbuch’s cunning joinery.

  * * *

  At the foot of the stage, Alexandra Dresnyakova nodded to the two violinists and the trio launched into a discordant polka. Queues had begun forming at the refreshment tables in the main body of the barrack hall, while behind the stage curtains the transformation from Madame Popova’s drawing room to Murashkin’s study was being engineered unseen. Conversations held sotto voce throughout the performance now broke out into the open, with Madame Pobednyeva’s pained voice rising high above the din.

  “No, Tolly! That isn’t good enough,” she said, berating her husband. “You should go and see the Colonel immediately. It’s a disgrace to allow them to get away with it.”

  Hearing his name, Colonel Izorov edged his way towards her through the crowd.

  “What is the matter, Madame Pobednyeva?”

  The Mayor’s wife pushed her husband aside fussily.

  �
�Colonel, I demand that you take action against these exiles. I have been told by Madame Pusnyena that not one of them stood up when the National Anthem was being played.”

  “That’s right,” said Lidiya Pusnyena, coming to Madame Pobednyeva’s support. “They just sat there, muttering to themselves. It’s an outrage.”

  “They probably didn’t recognise it,” suggested Dresnyakov, joining the small group. “That piano can’t have been tuned since the day it left the factory.”

  “I’m surprised you find it so amusing, Nicolai Alexeyevich,” retorted Madame Pobednyeva. “As a schoolmaster, I expected you to show a more responsible attitude. At least Colonel Izorov here has the sense to recognise a political demonstration when he sees one.”

  “There’s not much I can do now,” answered Colonel Izorov good-naturedly. “This is Captain Steklov’s barracks. Perhaps he is the person you should speak to? Excuse me.”

  He began to move away but Madame Pusnyena placed herself in his path.

  “Do you mean that you intend to stand by and let the Tsar be insulted without doing a thing about it?”

  “No of course not,” he said patiently. “First I will go and collect a drink and then I will go and speak to them. Will that satisfy you?”

  “That’s the very least you can do,” grumbled Madame Pobednyeva. “It’s too bad! A touch of the knout would teach them some manners.”

  The little group broke up. All around them snatches of conversation filled the air as the queue for the refreshments lengthened.

  “I believe she describes it as ‘creme’. But really it’s off white.”

  “Very off white.”

  “Her maid said her body is a mass of bruises.”

  “I’d give her more than bruises if she ever made a play for my Pyotr!”

  “Oh really? Then why didn’t you?”

  * * *

  “I hear one of the soldiers threw a boot at him during the rehearsal.”

  “It should have been a knife!”

  “That poor woman…”

  “They’ll never catch him now. Not now he’s a Councillor.”

  * * *

  “Did you see the way they held each other?”

  “Mmmm.”

  “I suppose there is nothing between those two?”

  “Surely not…”

  “Still…”

  * * *

  “Are you feeling cold?”

  “Freezing!”

  “Here, share my coat…”

  “No, I couldn’t…”

  * * *

  “Well, I enjoyed it! Especially when Skyralenko’s beard fell off!”

  “It was hanging from his ear like a dead rat!”

  “What about those oats, eh?”

  “‘Tell them in the stables that Toby isn’t to have any oats today’. Ha!”

  “Poor old Toby!”

  “Are you going for another drink? Here, see if you can get a bottle. We’ll split it.”

  * * *

  Their rendition of a polka concluded, the trio of musicians at the side of stage struck up an unsteady gavotte. In the middle of the exiles, Trotsky sat talking to Tamara Karseneva. They became aware by the sudden fall in the level of conversation that Colonel Izorov was making his way towards them. Automatically, Tamara Karseneva began to rise, but Trotsky held her back down in her seat.

  “Good evening, Madame Karseneva, Trotsky,” Izorov greeted them affably. “Are you enjoying the play?”

  “Yes, thank you, Colonel,” replied Trotsky.

  “Good, good. And how are you feeling tonight?”

  “As a matter of fact,” Trotsky informed him, “I believe that I am recovering faster than the Doctor expected.”

  “Are you now?” said Colonel Izorov, his eyebrows raised in feigned surprise.

  “Yes. I should be fit to travel in a day or so.”

  “In a day or so?” repeated the Colonel thoughtfully. “I see. You mean by Tuesday?”

  “Yes, by Tuesday,” agreed Trotsky, adding quickly, “Provided that I am left alone to complete my convalescence in peace.”

  Colonel Izorov inclined his head in agreement.

  “Then we must see to it that you are not disturbed,” he said and began moving away.

  Remembering Madame Pobednyev’s complaint, he paused and turned back to address Tamara Karseneva.

  “In future, Karseneva,” he announced stiffly, “you and your friends will stand for the National Anthem.”

  Tamara’s reply was brusque and to the point.

  “Certainly not, Colonel.”

  “In that case, you will be banned from attending future performances.”

  “Is that meant to be a punishment?” she challenged him.

  Colonel Izorov allowed a small smile to crease his lips.

  “That rather depends on the actors, surely?”

  His duty done, he turned on his heel and walked back towards the crowd at the bar.

  Tamara Karseneva stuck out her tongue at his retreating back.

  “Does he give you much trouble?” asked Trotsky.

  “No, not really. But he can be a right bastard if he chooses.”

  Her husband returned from the melee around the bar carrying three glasses of wine.

  “What did old Izorov have to say for himself?” he asked as he distributed the drinks.

  “He wants us to stand and sing ‘Hail to the Tsar’,” she said, taking the glass he was offering her.

  “Hah!” scoffed her husband as he passed a glass to Trotsky. “When he sings the ‘La Marseillaise’ first. I did hear that he is saying that he regrets that the deputies with families were not allowed to remain in Berezovo, for the sake of the children.”

  “He’s not all bad,” Tamara conceded.

  The three of them lifted their glasses and toasted each other.

  “What difference would it make?” asked Trotsky as he sipped his wine. “He told me himself that it’s impossible to escape from here. Is that true?”

  Oleg Karsenev pulled a face.

  “Let’s say it’s an exaggeration,” he replied. “People are still being brought here, therefore it must be possible for them to leave. The trick is how. He has spies everywhere.”

  “Wait until spring,” advised Tamara Karseneva confidently. “That is the time to make your move.”

  People were beginning to drift back to their seats. Taking his seat next to his wife, Colonel Izorov stared thoughtfully at the painted curtain that hid the stage.

  So, he thought, it is to be Tuesday, the day the post sleigh arrives. Very well. I will wait. Whatever instructions Trotsky’s superiors have sent him will make interesting reading. And to catch him red-handed receiving illegal communications, that would be a real coup.

  His thoughts were interrupted by a gentle nudge in his ribs.

  “Enjoying it?” his wife asked.

  “The evening couldn’t be better,” he assured her.

  * * *

  With a last ragged flourish, the musical trio drew the interval to its conclusion. There was a polite muffled applause from the gloved hands at the front of the hall. Towards the back the audience continued their conversation as loudly as ever. Only when the curtains began jerkily to part were they gradually subdued into an attentive hush.

  Trotsky lit the cigarette Oleg Karseneva had offered him and sat back in his seat. Beneath his prison tunic, he could feel his heart beating wildly.

  When I have smoked the cigarette, he decided, I will leave.

  He watched dispassionately as the curtains revealed the librarian Maslov sitting at a desk in what appeared to be the study of a St. Petersburg apartment. A second man entered through the door at the top of the stage, staggering beneath a mountain of hat boxes, parcels, and various household goods. Reaching the centre of the stage he put them down clumsily. There was the unmistakeable sound of breaking glass which drew a ripple of laughter. When the man straightened up, Trotsky saw to his surprise that it was the Hospital’s Administ
rator. Despite the chill in the hall, he was dressed in a straw hat and a summer jacket.

  “How do you do, Ivan Ivanovich?” the other actor greeted him. “Delighted to see you! What brings you here?”

  Trotsky drew on his cigarette, savouring the harsh tobacco. Number 2 Ostermann Street, he repeated to himself.

  Shutting his eyes, he tried to visualise the map he had studied in the town library. Roshkovsky had said that it was the northernmost street, so it was somewhere beyond Alexander III Boulevard. Assuming the church and the Town Hall formed the East–West axis, then there were only two streets north of that. If the first was Menshikov Street, then the second had to be Ostermann Street. It should take no more than five minutes to walk there; ten at the very most.

  He became aware that the feeling in the hall had changed. If the skit was meant to be a comedy there were fewer people laughing. On stage, the Hospital Administrator was shouting and waving his hands about in desperation.

  “Let your neighbours hear!” he cried. “It’s all the same to me! If you don’t give me a revolver someone else will and there will be an end of me anyway. I’ve made up my mind!”

  From the rear of the hall came a chorus of cheers and drunken shouts of encouragement.

  The glowing tip of the cigarette was nearing his fingers. Trotsky took a last puff and then dropped the stub onto the floor; grinding it into the wooden boards beneath his heavy boots. It was time to go. A familiar feeling of faintness swept over him. He knew that if he stood up now, he risked stumbling and attracting attention to himself. Leaning down, he carefully picked up a copy of the programme, soiled and marked by numerous footprints. Opening it, his eyes fell upon the title page.