by Jerry Sacher
SERGEI STOOD on the steps in front of the Carter mansion. He rang the bell that sounded loudly through the house, and a few minutes later, the same peasant woman opened the door, her pale gray eyes scrutinizing him.
“What do you want at this hour?” Her voice sounded like the crone in fairy tales.
“I’ve come to see Mrs. Carter and her son Benjamin. Are they at home?” Sergei said, moving into the light.
When the old woman saw the red armband on Sergei’s worn khaki Army coat, she showed off her own red band before she spoke again. “No, they ain’t home, and won’t be back until late. Perhaps not until dawn,” she said in a voice that showed no concern.
“I see. Please tell them Captain Breselov stopped by to see them.”
“I’ll give them the message, Comrade.” She smiled and closed the door.
The shuffling footsteps died away, and Sergei was left standing alone on the steps.
A CRACK of gunfire followed by footsteps and shouts jolted Benjamin awake. He went over to the window and drew back the curtain. A crowd of men and women gathered on the street in front of the house. Some brandished weapons and others waved red banners. Someone fired another gunshot; this one hit inches away from his window.
Benjamin threw on his Army uniform and raced downstairs. He found his mother in the drawing room with her lady’s maid, both of them peering through the heavy draperies. The maid jabbered away excitedly in French, and his mother looked strangely calm as she kept repeating in French, “Bettine, please calm yourself. We’re perfectly safe here.”
“Mother, stay away from the windows!” Benjamin repeated it in French for the maid. He closed the heavy curtains just as another gunshot exploded.
“I’m afraid the revolution has started, Benjamin—your father just telephoned from the embassy. The Nevsky Prospekt is jammed with people marching and carrying weapons. Your father says that the Army refuses to fire on them. He saw hundreds of soldiers and police lay down their weapons to join them.”
Benjamin led his mother to the settee, and he walked back to the window and cautiously lifted a tiny crack in the drapes. As the mob moved past the house, Benjamin removed his revolver from its holster and turned around to his mother and her maid.
“Go upstairs to your room, Mother, and lock the door until I come up to find you.”
Hazel Carter hesitated. It was apparent she wanted to stay with her son, and as he moved to escort them both up the stairs to her dressing room, Hazel stood her ground. “I’m going to stay down here, Benjamin. We’d be safer with you.”
“Very well, Mother, but keep away from the windows.” His mother and her maid sat on the sofa by the fireplace, and Benjamin went to the window and drew aside the curtain. Outside, the street in front of the house was empty. The crowds had moved farther down the street, and the shouts were growing faint. Benjamin let the curtain drop. He strode through the drawing room and across the hall to his father’s study, and returned a few moments later with a heavy overcoat and one of his father’s guns.
“What are you doing? You surely aren’t going out in this?” his mother asked, still with that strange air of calm that amazed Benjamin.
“I’ll be fine, Mother. I can take care of myself. It looks like the crowds have moved on, but just in case….” Benjamin took his father’s gun and handed it to her.
“I’m not happy about you leaving in the absence of your father, but I can take care of myself.”
Benjamin was surprised to see the way his mother handled the gun. He wouldn’t have to worry about leaving.
“You will take care of yourself, won’t you? Promise me,” Hazel said as they walked to the door.
Benjamin kissed his mother and smiled confidently at her. “Lock the door behind me.”
On the front step, Hazel touched his arm. “I pray that you find Sergei,” she said quietly.
Benjamin nodded and she shut the door behind him. He heard the lock slide into place as he rushed down the steps.
SERGEI ROSE well before dawn—not by choice, but because Petr shook him rudely awake.
“Come on, Comrade, it’s starting, and we’ll have a front-row seat to history!” Petr sounded like a child on his first day of school.
Sergei, meanwhile, was less than excited. “If I may ask, what’s starting?”
“Today is International Women’s Day. Hundreds of thousands of us are walking off the job to support them, and who knows where it may lead? We’ll see the real revolution now, Comrade Sergei.” Petr seemed hardly able to contain the excitement in his voice.
Sergei rubbed his eyes and got dressed to join him. He threw on his heavy coat while Petr paced the room, anxious to join the demonstration. He practically shoved Sergei down the stairs when he was finally ready.
As they opened the door and stepped outside, the bitter cold hit them in the face like a slap. When they finally arrived at the Nevsky Prospekt, Sergei and Petr found the street packed with people and red banners, nothing Sergei hadn’t seen before. He reached deep into the lining of his pocket; yes, his revolver was ready and loaded, just in case.
His height gave Sergei one advantage—at six feet three inches tall, he could see over the heads of the crowd moving slowly down the Nevsky. Some distance away, he saw mounted Cossacks and soldiers, their bayonets and rifles ready.
BENJAMIN REACHED a corner of the Nevsky, pressed himself flat against the cold limestone of a building, and watched the people move past him. There didn’t appear to be any way to get across and access the bridges leading to the factory districts, and even if he could, how would he find the hotel? Someone next to him shouted and pointed upward, and Benjamin saw soldiers stationed on the roof of a building across the street, guns angled downward. Someone fired.
SERGEI SAW the soldiers above them, and over the noise of the people, he heard a loud crack followed by a puff of smoke. Then a succession of shots came from the rooftops. Everyone ran, and Sergei felt himself moved along with the human tide trying to escape.
He became separated from Petr, who was being moved in the opposite direction. When Sergei could stand his ground at last, he saw a wall of soldiers on horseback moving through the crowds, mowing them out of the way. He managed to reach a doorway and ducked inside with a dozen others just as the soldiers passed them.
A BULLET narrowly missed Benjamin as the soldiers fired into the crowd. The mass moved him along, and he found himself in the center of the Nevsky as the men on horseback began riding through. They were only twenty feet away, when someone charged out of the crowd, up to the soldiers, and faced them down. The man spoke urgently to the soldier who rode at the head of the group. Benjamin didn’t hear the exchange, but he witnessed the outcome as the soldiers holstered their weapons and joined the people.
THE STREET had cleared enough so Sergei could move again. He stopped, almost falling over an abandoned crate. A few feet away from him, he thought he saw Benjamin looking up at the roof where the soldiers had been. Sergei called out, then stepped around the debris in his way.
“Benjamin…!” he called again, and it looked for an instant as though Benjamin heard him and turned in his direction. Sergei saw him hesitate, but the movement of the crowd pushed him farther away until Sergei could no longer see him.
BENJAMIN MOVED out into the street at last. In the center, he halted as a large group of people pointed up at the rooftop of the building opposite. Benjamin followed their gaze upward where a few remaining Imperial soldiers had guns fixed on the crowds below. The shouts of people calling up to them were deafening, and Benjamin pushed his way through until he reached an almost empty side alley.
It was getting dark when Benjamin finally came home and let the heavy door slam shut behind him. He found the hall filled with trunks and suitcases piled everywhere, and the muffled voices of his parents and someone else coming from the drawing room. He went in.
“What’s going on?”
His mother came over to him. “Thank God you are home safe,�
� she said, laying her hand on his arm.
His father threw some papers into the fireplace and looked toward Benjamin and his mother. “You can explain why you left your mother in the house alone at a later date, but right now, we’re leaving. There’s a ship waiting to take all British nationals to safety,” his father said solemnly, throwing more papers into the flames.
“The revolution looks like it will transition peacefully. I can understand sending Mother away, but you can’t leave now, Father, not while you’re needed,” Benjamin said to him, but it fell on deaf ears.
“There is a provisional government taking power now. My work here for the tsar is done.”
His father sounded defeated, something Benjamin had never heard from him before.
Simon left the room, and Benjamin remained alone with his mother and Bettine. Hazel sent the maid upstairs to retrieve something for her, and when they were alone, she and Benjamin stood, watching the flames in the fireplace.
“I take it you didn’t find Sergei, did you?”
“No. I didn’t get very far with the crowds. I thought for a moment that I heard his voice calling my name, but I wasn’t sure of it.”
His mother put a hand on his arm. “I wish I could find the words that would give you some comfort, Benjamin,” she said, then stretched out her hands to the fire.
He smiled at her. “It’s enough that you care, Mother.”
“It goes beyond caring, Benjamin. I know I’m supposed to be a typical woman and pretend I don’t know about such things—the relationship between you and Sergei, the revolution taking place outside on the streets of Petrograd—I only know that you are my son, and I love you, no matter who you love. As for your father, he would never understand. I’m afraid that the comfortable world he knew is gone forever, smothered by the war and revolution.”
Her voice trailed off when her maid returned to the drawing room, and she sent Bettine away again as soon as possible.
Alone once more in front of the fire, Benjamin said, “Thank you, Mother. What you said means a lot to me. I know that sounds like something from a servant’s penny novelette, but I mean it.”
She nodded but didn’t speak.
SERGEI SAT back and watched Petr down another swallow of vodka, remove the bottle from his lips, and hold it out toward Sergei. Petr fell back on the bed, almost striking his head against the wall. The bottle slipped from his sweaty fingers and clunked on the floor. He held out his arms to Sergei, his eyes begging Sergei to join him in bed, but Sergei declined.
“Now we have a provisional government—that means the end of your tsar, and your noble young man, like all the rest, will be swept away. Comrade, I want to make you forget him.”
He grinned, and Sergei lowered his head. “I thought I saw him today in the crowds on the Nevsky, but there were too many people in the way.”
“What if it wasn’t him, only some other shaven, pomaded nancy boy like the rest?”
Petr lay down on his back, looking over at Sergei with bloodshot eyes, avoiding mention of the fact that he and Sergei were just as much nancy boys as Benjamin.
“You can say what you like about me, but say nothing about Benjamin, do you hear me? Say nothing, or else!”
Petr laughed. “Or else what? Comrade Sergei Breselov, you look like a lovesick schoolboy, but I would advise you to turn your energies to helping the revolution instead, or else you could be swept away with the rest of our enemies,” Petr threatened.
Sergei remained impassive, not giving in to Petr’s taunts, but toying with the brim of his hat. “I don’t like your tone. I deserted the Army on the battlefield, I’ve attended your workers’ meetings, so if that doesn’t make me a revolutionary—”
“If you still cling to that foreigner, go to his house, and then dream about him when you make love to me, then no, you are no revolutionary. A true follower has the revolution in his mind and his heart always.” Petr tapped his head and chest to prove his point.
“You’re nobody to talk, Petr. What have you done but drink vodka and sleep it off?”
Petr didn’t make any response, but his eyes suddenly became cold.
Sergei sat back, still toying with the brim of his cap before he looked at Petr lying on the bed, arms behind his head. “What can I say? I guess I’m not a revolutionary at heart. If I deserted the Army, it was because a man can only fight so long without ammunition or food before he says ‘enough.’ I had more than my share of watching Mother Russia’s sons falling in the snow and mud, so I left and came back here to Petrograd. Why? I don’t know.”
“You came to make known the condition our armies have to fight under. I guess that does make you one of us after all.” Petr smirked.
Sergei pulling at a loose thread on his cap until it unraveled. “I only spoke once, Petr. You were there, but that means nothing at all. I talked about what I saw at the front. Nobody listened. All they did was argue Marx’s theories among themselves. That doesn’t qualify for anything at all.”
Petr moved the blanket aside and invited Sergei to get in bed with him.
Instead, Sergei stood up. “Sorry to disappoint you, Petr, but I just can’t do it with you.” Sergei turned, left the room, and shut the door behind him.
He could hear Petr calling his name from behind the door, but he ignored Petr and went downstairs.
Sergei sat in the hotel dining room with a glass of tea and some black bread that the cook had obtained from somewhere. He heard the familiar clomp of Petr’s boots on the stairs and saw him storming out, past the cracked, dirty window, and then he disappeared.
Chapter 13
THREE LONG blasts on the boat whistle signaled immediate departure, and Benjamin stepped onto the shore just as the crew lifted the gangplank, separating ship and shore. He looked upward and saw his parents in the crowd along the rail. His father appeared devoid of expression, but his mother looked as though she were departing on holiday.
The previous night, she and Benjamin had conversed until dawn. He couldn’t leave, he’d told her, until he found Sergei and got him out of Russia.
“I hope you know what you’re doing, Benjamin. I only found him by chance, and if you do find him, what if he doesn’t want to leave?”
“Then I shall return to England at the end of my leave—alone.” The word alone echoed through Benjamin’s brain like the chords of a popular song. He hoped he wouldn’t return alone.
His father’s face only expressed sorrow over leaving Russia after so many years. He’d not uttered a word of comfort to Benjamin, only a stern reminder. “The house is closed now, so you’ll have to stay at a hotel until the end of your leave. Return to France as soon as possible—you’re needed there more than here.”
He and Benjamin had shaken hands and separated.
Another sharp blast on the whistle pierced the cold air and distracted Benjamin as the space between the snow-covered dock and the ship increased. Then the propellers began to revolve, churning the ice and water. He remained on the dock until the dropping darkness swallowed the ship from sight, then returned to his new quarters at the Hotel Europe.
THE FOLLOWING day as Benjamin crossed the street to his parents’ house, a truck rumbled around the corner and pulled up in front of the building. The tread of heavy boots on the sidewalk and stone steps reverberated down the street as several Bolsheviks, dressed as policemen, stomped up the stairs to the mansion. They pounded on the doors for some time before one of the men pulled a gun from his belt and shot the lock. The gang stormed into the dark hallway.
Moving in closer and keeping in the shadows Benjamin could hear their weighty shoes echoing in the darkened rooms where the furniture was covered with sheets. He was relieved they would find the house vacant, and they gave up, at least for now. The last man out slammed the door behind him. One of them shouted an order to the men gathered at the foot of the steps, and they walked off.
Concealed by a high wall, Benjamin watched from the corner as the men left the house. He hun
g back until the truck turned and disappeared at the end of the block and remained standing there until they were out of sight. Then Benjamin returned to the hotel empty-handed.
Later that evening, he sat in the dining room with several British Army officers and their wives. Over brandy and cigars, he told two of the officers about what he had seen. One of the men, an older man with a heavy gray mustache, said between puffs on a cigar, “I say, that’s a bit of rotten luck. You didn’t find out what these soldiers wanted? Your father’s papers, perhaps?”
“No, I didn’t see them bring anything out, at least from where I was standing, but if they were soldiers of the tsar or the new provisional government, then they weren’t very well disciplined. They looked like a mob of hooligans. Thank God my parents returned to England.” Benjamin spoke gruffly, remembering the sight of the men around the house.
The other officer, a handsome younger man with bright blue eyes, patted the arm of his chair. “Nothing in Russia is normal right now. Yesterday’s events are only the beginning. I hear that this man Lenin is returning as soon as transport can be arranged. Then we’ll see the real revolution.”
All three shook their heads in unison.
In bed that night, Benjamin got no sleep. All night he thought about the rough men he had seen around his parents’ former home. They were obviously revolutionaries in disguise, but what did they want?
Where can I possibly start looking for Sergei?
These thoughts and more tortured him through the night, until he finally fell into a deep sleep.