To Kill a Tsar

by Andrew Williams

Ryabovsky gave a careless shrug: ‘Perhaps no one knows what to do with them, Your Honour.’

  Frightened faces, empty faces, hollow faces, half-dressed, bare chilblained feet, some with dirty bandages or undressed bed sores, some curled tightly into whimpering balls like children, others defiant. Hadfield stepped among them, stopping to examine those with symptoms of a condition he was qualified to treat, but most were beyond his help. Perhaps they were lucky not to have been shot. He had read enough of these strange war injuries to know there was precious little sympathy in the army for casualties like these. He knew what Anna and Evgenia would say: ‘Fool! See how the tsar treats his most loyal servants.’

  ‘And is it the same in the other hut?’

  ‘A few less, Your Honour.’

  ‘This is a disgrace!’ Hadfield spat the words at Ryabovsky. But the old man merely shrugged again.

  Hadfield was still shaking with rage five minutes later as he stood among the brambles in the boiler-house garden, the June sun warming his back. Cross with the army for neglecting the men, and with the hospital authorities, but cross most of all with his medical colleagues for making a joke of such a place. But he knew too that if he confronted them they would give him a very Russian shrug of resignation. ‘How can you be surprised?’ they would ask. ‘Such places exist in Russia. What would you have us do?’

  The superintendent’s suite was on a bright first-floor corridor above the main entrance. It was the one place in the hospital that did not smell of ammonia or boiled cabbage but of floor polish and gentleman’s cologne. Military clerks in immaculate green uniforms glided from panelled room to panelled room through perfectly weighted mahogany doors that swung silently to behind them. It was as remote from the day to day business of the hospital as his uncle’s ministry.

  ‘Have you an appointment?’ the superintendent’s secretary asked. ‘As you can see, Doctor, there are others waiting.’ He turned to indicate two uniformed public servants and an elderly man in a frock coat whom Hadfield had seen in the corridors of the hospital and knew to be a surgeon.

  ‘It is a matter of great urgency,’ Hadfield replied calmly. ‘One that affects the reputation of the hospital.’

  The secretary frowned. ‘May I suggest you go through the usual channels, Doctor, and speak to your head of department?’ This was clearly meant to be his final word on the matter. Turning to the surgeon, he opened his leather-bound file and was on the point of handing him an official-looking letter when Hadfield gripped him firmly by his upper arm.

  ‘I really think you should speak to him,’ he said, tugging him to one side. ‘Believe me, you’ll regret it if you don’t.’

  ‘Why will I regret it, Doctor?’

  ‘You know, of course, that my uncle, General Glen, is a good friend of the superintendent’s?’

  He had promised himself he would never use his uncle’s name for advantage but he had to admit to a quiet satisfaction as the supercilious expression on the secretary’s face changed in the blink of an eye.

  ‘Of course, of course. I understand.’ The secretary’s words pattered like gentle rain.

  ‘And did reason prevail?’ Dobson asked.

  Exhausted, Hadfield had collapsed into one of the leather smoking chairs in the correspondent’s office at a little after six o’clock that evening. He was still angry, but satisfied too that a day of frantic activity, of threats, flattery and cajoling, promised to make a difference to the lives of seventy very sick men.

  ‘Not reason. Nepotism and naked self-interest. And you know, George,’ he said, as Dobson pressed a glass into his hand, ‘I was surprised by my own mendacity.’

  Dobson laughed. ‘You’re an educated man, Hadfield. You used the weapons available to you for the benefit of those men. Besides, there is nothing you can teach a public servant in Russia about lying he doesn’t already know. ’

  ‘But where does one draw the line?’ Hadfield had spoken to the superintendent of public scandal, of a friend on the St Petersburg Gazette who was pursuing a story on the treatment of casualties in the recent war. He had mentioned a confidential visit his uncle was hoping to make to the hospital with other members of the government. And he had told the bucolic old superintendent that the general had told him a prominent member of the royal family had expressed his concern.

  ‘I even mentioned the foreign press and my friend on The Times.’

  ‘You snake,’ said Dobson with a short barking laugh. He took a cigarette from a silver box on his desk, lit it then flopped into the armchair opposite Hadfield. ‘And what is going to happen to Department 10?’

  The superintendent had promised beds and nursing care, that he would gradually transfer the men to the body of the hospital and contact their families. ‘And those who do not recover will be moved to an asylum – although I suppose that will be like jumping from the frying pan into the fire.’

  ‘But you’ve done what you can,’ Dobson replied, leaning forward with the wine bottle to fill Hadfield’s glass. ‘And risked a good deal to do so.’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Well, what about good relations with General Glen? It would be unwise to rub him up the wrong way. You will forgive me for saying so, I hope, but your uncle is not a man to cross.’

  It was rumoured the general was pursuing newspapers that had the temerity to criticise his stewardship of the empire’s finances and that the censor was on the point of stepping in to suppress further adverse comment. ‘At least the general has helped you do a good turn, even if he is threatening to put the rest of us out of our jobs,’ he said with a cheerful twinkle.

  It was entirely typical of Dobson to find humour and the kernel of something positive in even the grimmest of situations. In a relatively short time, he and Hadfield had become friends. They were much the same age, Englishmen who considered Russia to be home, they shared a passion for the language and a fascination with the people and their customs. Dobson had taught himself Russian, then persuaded The Times to accredit him as a war correspondent, and had reported with distinction on the recent conflict with Turkey. His father owned a small cotton mill in one of the new manufacturing towns in the Midlands. Less fortunate in his education than Hadfield, he had more than made up for his shortcomings by becoming a ruthless autodidact. He was a little on the plump side, but his flabby good-humoured face and high forehead leant him a certain ageless quality. One of the second secretaries at the embassy had likened him cruelly to Mr Pickwick. But anyone who took Dobson for a gull was a poor judge of character. He was not only resourceful but determined, with a reputation at the embassy for clinging to a story like a ferret to a rabbit. In politics, he was a new town liberal, in favour of universal suffrage for men but not for women, an admirer of Mr Gladstone and a passionate supporter of a free press. In his column for The Times, he was a discreet critic of Russia’s despotic government but had no time for ‘nihilists’ or ‘socialist revolutionaries’. As they sat in the correspondent’s comfortable study, surrounded by piles of Russian newspapers, books and maps, and his prints of Petersburg, Hadfield wondered what his friend would say if he knew the sort of people he had been consorting with at the clinic. A little heady after two glasses of wine on an empty stomach, he was almost tempted to confide in him, but Dobson would speak sharply to him of the risk he was running, would advise having nothing further to do with Anna and the Figners and might even suggest reporting Goldenberg to the police: in the end he chose to keep his counsel.

  ‘Let me ask you again, Dobson, where does one draw the line beyond which the means cannot be justified by the ends?’

  Easing his heavy frame from the chair, the correspondent reached across the desk for another cigarette, lit it and inhaled a long thoughtful stream of smoke: ‘Are you suggesting one is obliged to draw a different line in Russia?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose I am.’

  ‘Of course one has to be guided by conscience . . .’ Dobson paused to flick a little ash from his cigarette, ‘but perhaps we can be forgive
n for taking a few more liberties with the truth in this country. It would be quite impossible to change anything for the better otherwise.’

  When Hadfield visited Department 10 the following day, things had already changed markedly for the better. Most of the men had been moved to other wards, but those that remained were in beds, the floors were clean, the rooms well lit and workmen were fitting glass to the windows. Warder Ryabovsky had been replaced by two large and efficient-looking middle-aged women in blue uniforms who were dispensing Hadfield’s prescription of potassium bromide and morphine to the patients. Some of the men were sitting on benches in the sunshine, watching a work gang cutting back the brambles and burdock in the garden. The story of the ‘English doctor’s’ triumph was already known throughout the hospital and military doctors he had never met stopped him in the corridors to offer their congratulations. He took particular care to ensure a favourable report reached his uncle by visiting his aunt and cousin during the day when the general was at his ministry. ‘But he will want to hear all about it,’ his aunt said, holding his hand between hers. ‘How on earth did you manage to persuade the hospital?’ In reply, Hadfield was fulsome in his praise for the superintendent – ‘a most reasonable and caring man’.

  His aunt pressed him to join the family for a carriage ride into the countryside on the Sunday, but he made his excuses. Although he had resolved more than once not to go to the clinic, he went to some lengths to be sure he had no other commitments. He was still debating the wisdom of his promise to Anna in the droshky that afternoon as it rattled and swayed across the Nikolaevsky Bridge, and even while he stood in the fine summer rain before St Boris and St Gleb, waiting for his guide. The boy with red hair who had met him on his first visit was his silent companion again. After twenty minutes weaving through the streets of the district, they reached the clinic at last to find a crowd gathered about the entrance. His guide drew him by the sleeve round the throng to where Anna was standing a little apart. She glanced up at him as he approached, then away without a word, the intense frown that never left her for long troubling her brow. A frosty sort of welcome, Hadfield thought, and particularly galling after a week in which she had often been in his thoughts. He stared at her for a moment, hoping she would register the frustration in his face, but her attention was fixed on the circle of men. Turning to follow her gaze, he caught a glimpse of what he took to be a man kneeling, crumpled forward at their feet, and he pushed forward, parting the shoulders of the men in front of him: ‘I’m a doctor.’ The circle began to close, heads straining to see what the gentleman was doing. A woman was shouting at them to step back and as he sank beside the slumped figure he was conscious of Anna standing above him.

  ‘Can you hear me?’ he asked, and he shook the man gently. But it took only a few seconds for Hadfield to realise he was never going to hear anything in this world again. By a quirk of fate the man had collapsed to his knees as if in prayer. Too late for that, Hadfield thought, lifting his head to look into his lifeless brown eyes. Early forties, grizzled beard, florid face, his mouth a little open, revealing black and broken teeth, a dribble of blood at the corner. A broad man reduced in death to a malodorous ball.

  ‘No one wants to touch him,’ said Anna in a low voice.

  Hadfield looked up to find her bending close. ‘Do you know who he is?’

  ‘They say he’s a drunk, a vagrant,’ she said hesitantly. ‘He’s been seen loitering in the district, sleeping rough.’

  ‘Well, why on earth doesn’t someone move him or call the police?’ He realised at once that this was a foolish question to ask.

  ‘It’s bad luck.’

  There was a murmur of assent from those close by.

  ‘For God’s sake! Do you believe that?’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Anna. The colour rising in her neck and cheeks suggested this was a half truth.

  ‘We can’t leave him here for people to step over. You and you,’ said Hadfield, pointing at two men in the crowd, ‘help me, will you?’

  It took an hour of bullying and coaxing in equal measure before they were able to persuade willing souls to help them move the body into the school. And in that hour a waiting room packed with the sick and anxious began to empty.

  ‘It’s him,’ said Anna when they were alone, and she nodded at the corpse on the table before them. ‘It’s bad luck to be in the same building.’

  ‘Superstitious nonsense. I’m going to look at him. He wasn’t struck down by a devil.’

  ‘Does it matter what he died of?’

  The wariness in her voice surprised him: ‘Well, for one thing it’s important to know if it was something infectious. You can leave this to me if you like?’

  ‘No,’ she said firmly.

  ‘Here . . .’ He tossed her a surgical mask.

  It took only a few minutes for Hadfield to be sure they were in no danger of catching a disease. Beneath the dead man’s jacket, his shirt was stained with a ragged circle of congealed blood. A thin blade had been driven into his heart.

  ‘Murdered,’ Hadfield muttered, ‘and by someone who knew what he was doing.’ He turned to look at Anna: ‘Are you all right?’

  Her gaze was fixed on the seeping wound in the vagrant’s chest. He watched her lift a trembling hand to her lips where it hovered uncertainly. She looked pale, her eyes large and glittering, the pupils dilated.

  ‘You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.’ He touched her elbow gently. ‘Do you recognise him?’

  She turned quickly, suddenly aware of his hand on her arm. ‘No. No.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘I’ve never seen him before.’

  ‘I’m sorry. It was crass of me to ask you to help . . .’

  ‘No, it’s quite all right,’ she said. ‘I am used to the dead.’ She was her brisk matter-of-fact self again.

  There were precious few patients left to see, and within an hour the waiting room was empty but for the school dvornik dozing on a bench, his shoulders wedged into the angle between two walls.

  ‘Did the crowd know our man was murdered?’ Hadfield asked as he slipped back into his jacket.

  ‘Yes,’ she said simply. ‘The waiting room will be full again next week.’

  They covered the body with a dirty blanket and left it in the surgery for the priests. Tearing a leaf of paper from his journal, Hadfield began writing a note. ‘I’m going to tell them he was murdered. I’ll leave my address. I don’t expect the police will bother to contact me but they may want . . .’

  ‘No.’ She took an urgent step towards him and snatched at the paper.

  ‘What on earth—’

  She stood over him tugging at the top edge of the note, but he had it firmly anchored to the table with his fist and after a few seconds she let go.

  ‘Let me have it!’ Her jaw was set, the colour high in her cheeks, that same deep, stubborn frown on her face. ‘Please.’

  ‘Certainly not,’ he said quietly. ‘Not until you explain yourself, Miss Kovalenko.’

  She took a deep breath and turned reluctantly away. ‘Isn’t it obvious?’

  ‘Not to me.’

  ‘The police would want to know what a smart foreign doctor was doing in Peski on a Sunday afternoon. And they would want to know who was with you,’ she said. ‘Leave it to the dvornik. He will say he found the body outside.’

  ‘I see. But why didn’t you say so? Why throw a tantrum?’

  ‘Wasn’t it ladylike?’ she said with something close to a sneer in her voice.

  ‘It was ill-mannered.’

  Her shoulders seemed to drop a little, and she closed her eyes, the anger and tension draining from her: ‘Yes, perhaps. You won’t leave your name?’

  ‘No. If it’s so important, no, I won’t.’ He picked up the paper, ripped it in half and offered her the pieces: ‘Here.’

  Anna took them without making eye contact and tore them in half again: ‘I’ll speak to the dvornik.’

  Hadfield waited beside th
e body. He was astonished by her outburst. After a few minutes she returned and began clearing away the things they had used for the surgery in silence, at pains to avoid his gaze. She was clearly a little embarrassed and would probably have welcomed an excuse to soften the atmosphere that lingered in the room like the smell of formaldehyde. But Hadfield was content to watch her, enjoying her discomfort.

  ‘I will take you to the church,’ she said, turning to look at him at last.

  ‘Thank you.’

  Standing awkwardly at the school door, Hadfield could not suppress an acute sense of disappointment and frustration. This was not how the day was supposed to be, and he fought to extinguish the ember of resentment that was still glowing inside. Anna was in conversation with the dvornik who was leaning against the door jamb, a sullen look on his face. Hadfield cleared his throat and was on the point of addressing her when she turned sharply to look at him: ‘Do you have a few kopeks you can give him?’

  ‘Of course. Twenty?’ He gave them to the dvornik, who counted them laboriously then held out his greasy palm for more.

  ‘That’s enough,’ said Anna sharply, but the grizzled old yard keeper stood there unmoved, his hand held flat like a Russian Buddha.

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, take this!’ Hadfield handed him twenty kopeks more. ‘Satisfied?’

  The dvornik gave a broad toothless grin.

  ‘The old devil!’ Anna said as the door closed behind him.

  ‘What did I buy?’

  ‘The right story, of course. He found the body. We weren’t here.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘This way.’ She set off down the street at a brisk pace, passing from sunlight into the shadow of the four-storey lodging house opposite. From every open window, from the doorways and the yards on that hot summer Sunday, the restless sound of humanity packed cheek-by-jowl into single rooms and corners. He watched her stride purposefully on as if careless whether he followed or not: past a little group of children, barefoot, in rags, racing sticks across a puddle of dirty water, and on a little further to where three immodestly-dressed young women were gossiping in a doorway – one of whom directed a remark at Anna then burst into a peal of raucous tipsy laughter. He caught up with her at the end of the street.