The Russians Collection

by Michael Phillips

  “You look as though you could use something to eat,” Paul pressed once more.

  Still there was no verbal response.

  A voice spoke from behind Paul. “You’re wasting your time with that one.”

  “What do you mean?” Paul asked, turning around.

  “Why, he’s been—” The newcomer suddenly broke off his response as recognition dawned on him. At the same moment Paul also realized that the man was no stranger.

  “Stepniak!” Paul exclaimed.

  “Well, Pavlikov, they got you too, did they?”

  “Yes, but where have you been . . . why have I not seen you?”

  “Up in front of the lines. You’ve been back here, I take it?”

  Paul nodded.

  “So—what happened?”

  “Nothing but what was bound to come to us all eventually.”

  “Recently?”

  “A couple of months.”

  “Then tell me, are the rumors we hear true?”

  “What rumors?”

  “The tsar . . . is the tsar dead?”

  “It is true,” answered Paul.

  “Then we have succeeded! Why so downcast, Pavlikov? Our imprisonment is a small price to pay.”

  “Because Zhelyabov, Perovskaya, Remiga, and Griggovski were all hanged for it.”

  Stepniak grimaced. “Poor Remiga,” he said. “He was so young.”

  Paul did not comment on the fact that the martyred medical student was at least three years older than himself. But Stepniak continued. “If I had not been arrested, it would have been me instead of him. How did you escape the noose, Pavlikov?”

  All their previous differences over the leadership and direction of The People’s Will grew pale in light of the tsar’s assassination, their friends’ deaths, and their own banishment. For whatever good it would do them, they were comrades again.

  “Only luck, I suppose,” answered Paul.

  “How so?”

  “Wrong place, wrong time . . . right place, right time—however you want to look at it. But why are you only now being transported? You were arrested months ago?”

  “True,” replied Stepniak. “I should by now be more than halfway to the mines. But fate—or as you put it, dumb luck—interceded. A typhus epidemic struck the prison back there. That’s how I came to be acquainted with that one—”

  He jerked his head toward the man sitting against the tree who had shown no interest whatever in the little reunion taking place only a few paces away from him. He continued to stare vacantly into space, absorbed in his own morose and silent world.

  “Does he ever talk?” asked Paul.

  “He knows how, if that’s what you mean. I heard him talk enough in his delirium.”

  “Delirium?”

  “He caught typhus also. We were in the hospital together. He almost didn’t make it. Even before he got the typhus, he was in pretty bad shape.”

  “From the journey here?”

  “No. He’d attempted suicide.”

  “What a tragedy. He looks as if he was once a fine man.”

  “I feel sorry for him too. But then I have to remind myself that he is an aristocrat. Or rather, was. He is a dead man now, just like all of us. Though I suppose it is worse for those who have something in the first place to have had their rights and property and positions taken from them.”

  “No more than most of them deserve,” said Paul, the bitterness of his political leanings showing through again.

  “Maybe you’re right. Now the miserable fellow doesn’t even exist except as chattel on a convict gang. Poetic justice, I’d say.”

  “Come on, let’s move away from him,” said Paul, feeling awkward talking about the man as if he truly were already dead. Aristocrat or not, the fellow was indeed a pitiful specimen of humanity. Feeling something akin to compassion even for one of the hated nobility, Paul broke off half his hunk of bread and laid it down at the man’s side.

  He and Stepniak moved slowly away. The other man took no more notice of their leaving than he had of their arrival. Neither did he seem to note the food that had been laid beside his leg.

  “You say he is an aristocrat,” Paul said at length.

  “A prince—from St. Petersburg.”

  “Do you know who he is?”

  “Fedorcenko’s his name.”

  Paul’s surprise registered in his sharply raised brow.

  “You’ve no doubt heard of him,” said Stepniak.

  “One of the capital’s important families—of course I have.” Paul deemed it best even now to say nothing about his sister’s relationship with the Fedorcenko household. “What could he have done that even his family could not have interceded for him?” he added.

  “A good question. I’ve known noblemen to murder their brothers and not even be jailed. The entire family must be out of imperial favor.”

  “Do you know what he did?”

  “Shot his commanding officer—in battle. I know no details. He says nothing about it. Most of what I heard is nothing more than rumor. You know how the low-lifes in a place like this love to spread gossip about one of higher rank than themselves. Not to mention rebels like you and me. Everyone loves to see a high, proud man fall. It’s not often we get someone of his stature in the midst of a convict gang, his legs in irons, his head shaved, and bound for a life in exile.”

  “Ironic in a way,” mused Paul.

  “But like you said, probably no more than he deserves.”

  Paul glanced back at the pitiful object of their conversation. He still hadn’t moved, other than to pick up the piece of bread Paul had left. At least he still knew how to eat, although he chewed on the hard crust so absently that it seemed he hardly knew what he was doing, nor cared.

  After the brief hint of recognition when Paul had spoken to him, the face had shown no more sign of life. Paul recalled one or two of Anna’s letters mentioning the prince. He must have known Anna, even if only in passing. And now here they were, sharing bread together a thousand miles away en route to Siberia. Paul, however, gave no consideration to reasons beyond coincidence. Even if, in some dormant corner of his being, the faith of his father still resided, Paul could never have imagined that someone’s prayers could have drawn the two unlikely rebel brothers together. The very notion would strike him as ludicrous that he could be a tool in the hand of that Higher Power he had, in his rebellion, repudiated.

  His interest in the poor nobleman who might at one time have known his sister was suddenly diverted. The convicts were roused by the guards from their short rest, followed by the shout of the captain: “March!”

  Paul and Stepniak fell in stride together. The crisp air of the budding spring meadow was filled with groans and curses and the rattling of chains. The party heaved forward slowly once more, and for the rest of the day, and indeed most of the rest of that first week, he lost sight of the condemned prince of the House of Fedorcenko. Sometimes it was all he could do to keep himself going, sloshing and trudging through the grass and mud and what snow yet remained.

  Days passed, then a week, then two weeks. They would be many months on the road together. There would be plenty of time to resolve any further curiosity Paul may have had about the son of his sister’s employer. The fact that he was here, and in chains, meant that he was as powerless as Paul himself to help in the danger that even now might be drawing its net closer and closer to the sisters of them both.

  What did it matter that they were here together? They could not help the princess or Anna. Neither could they help each other.

  What did anything matter now?

  45

  There seemed no end to the heartbreak and loss coming to the St. Petersburg House of Fedorcenko. Whatever the reasons, fate seemed to possess cruel designs of destruction, bent on claiming both generations of princes.

  Anna had read the scriptures in which King Solomon wrote: To everything there is a season. She knew there must be wisdom in the words, because God himself had spok
en them through his king. However, as she read on, it was more difficult to understand: . . . a time to mourn and a time to dance . . .

  She would never cease grieving for Sergei. How could she ever put aside her mourning to dance again with joy? There would always be an empty ache in her heart that could only heal itself by his nearness. How could she ever be loved, or feel love so deeply again?

  Despite such feelings within the quietness of her own breast, she could not help being glad when the princess and her parents began to emerge from the grief over Sergei’s exile and enter back into the routine of their lives. There would, after all, very soon be a new member of the family, and no one wanted Katrina’s baby to be born into a somber house of mourning.

  The Princesses Fedorcenko and Remizov gradually began to socialize again. Though their spirits were halfhearted in the attempt at first, with increasing frequency they began to appear in the circles of the nobility as St. Petersburg society celebrated spring and the coming of summer. A new tsar was on the throne. The troublemakers had been hanged. And once again the streets of the city were safe and, as if life and the world existed merely for the pleasures of the nobility, its ballrooms festive.

  Katrina’s father, however, was considerably slower to take up the social duties of his position. He used his declining position at the court of the Winter Palace as an excuse. Whatever disfavor he had sunk to with the old tsar, his esteem was even lower in the eyes of Alexander III. And yet it was clear that this was not the true source of Viktor’s trouble. His was a man’s most bitter sorrow—finding himself rejected by his only son, then finding the convictions of fatherhood coming upon him too late. Now his son was bound for Siberia, having written seditious treason against the Crown, and having shot his regimental commander. Everything he had given his life to preserve—the authority of the tsar and his military—Sergei had tried to destroy. And yet . . . and yet . . . for the first time, Viktor realized that he loved his son!

  He should hate him for what he had done. But he could not. He had been proud and high too long. At last his heart was ready to love. But the very one upon whom that love now yearned to expend itself was gone . . . exiled . . . never to be seen again!

  The mortification he felt over the loss of Sergei was dreadful enough to drive him to the bottle more than was good for him. Yet the outer humiliation and disgrace were nearly as painful. He had to walk among his colleagues knowing that the very name Fedorcenko had brought a double mark against the throne, and that Sergei Viktorovich was viewed by many as no better than the scum that had been hanged for Alexander’s assassination.

  With the gossiping tongues of St. Petersburg wagging against him, and the demon of guilt gnawing and scraping against the inner cavities of his soul, it was little wonder that Viktor Fedorcenko shrank from the peering eyes and probing questions of his fellows. No longer could he walk among them with his head held high. He was plagued with tormenting visions of his own ineptitude, for which repentance had now come too late and for which restitution would never be possible. The man who had walked beside the tsar had shrunk to a tragic shadow of his former self.

  Even Katrina, who had loved her father as had no other, said he seemed to lack vitality. In truth, he had lost more than vitality—he had lost the very heart to live. His uniform hung loosely upon his shoulders, just as the pale and thinning skin sagged from his high and once-majestic cheekbones.

  When he drank, which he did more and more, he tended toward a surly sullenness, quiet and morose, apt to burst out in a temper at any moment. No longer was he the stable rock of a man that both Natalia and Katrina had always known and depended upon.

  When Viktor agreed to accompany his wife and daughter to the ballet, therefore, the whole family rejoiced. Perhaps, they hoped, he was at last taking the final steps through the dark passage of his guilt-stricken grief, and was ready to begin living his life once more.

  46

  The carriage came around for Prince and Princess Fedorcenko at five minutes before six in the evening.

  Viktor had braced himself for the outing with two or three glasses of Scotch. Or had it been four? He had lost count. The strong amber brew made from the barley in the north of the despised British Isles was one of his chief comforts of late. It helped dull the harsh realities that pressed upon him wherever he turned. He had almost come to feel as though the only way life could go on was by maintaining a low-level stupor, a condition of mind and spirit considerably facilitated by the golden whiskey. And if nothing else, at least a little drunkenness now and then provided a convenient reason for his mood swings and for the temper that, along with the silence, dominated his personality.

  The fact of the matter was, Viktor was angry with no one but himself—angry, and possessed by self-reproach and remorse. But even when directed inwardly, anger and guilt are the red-hot fuels for passionate outbursts of indignation; combined with alcohol they turn rancorous and hostile. Viktor knew the truth, even if he would not acknowledge it—he had come to hate himself, and thus it was impossible for him not to treat others with the kind of abuse he believed he himself deserved.

  He should have known it had gone too far the other day when he actually flared up at Natalia. He had nearly struck her, in fact, for nothing more than misplacing a book he had been dabbling in, pretending to read. Oddly, he hadn’t been drinking excessively at the time. The incident should have revealed to him that the problem went deeper than the bottom of the crystal decanter on the sideboard. But he ignored his relative sobriety, and in fact considered the entire incident as a fluke of temperamental vicissitude.

  The look of horror and shock and hurt on poor Natalia’s face was difficult to ignore. But a few glasses of Scotch from the nearby decanter dimmed the ugly vision in his mind well enough.

  Making amends to Natalia, though he had hardly summoned the gumption to admit to having wronged her, had been the motivation behind his sudden desire to attend the ballet. She was not the kind of woman to be cooped up in her misery for long. Melancholy was too weighty a burden for her lovely, simple mind. She might not be able to hold her own in a ponderous drawing room discussion; but, perhaps now, in this dark hour of their family’s travail, her true strength could at last rise to the fore and see her husband through. The flighty personality which seemed made for the social rounds that had so bored Viktor in the past now gave him something outside himself to hold on to.

  Thus, in his despondent state, she pulled him up and—as she danced and laughed and breezed through one crowded room after another, delighting everyone with her coquettish banter—added to his reason to live. Though neither of them realized it, Natalia was gradually transferring an inner strength to her husband that neither had known she possessed. On the surface of it, Viktor told himself that for her sake he would force himself to face the merry St. Petersburg society. But he could not do it cold sober.

  When a footman announced that the carriage was ready, Viktor helped his wife on with her fur wrap, slipped his arm around hers, even managing a smile of sorts, and escorted her to their waiting carriage. She made no comment about the strong fumes on his breath. But then Natalia, with all her strengths and weaknesses, was too self-absorbed to be a nag. Besides, she had grown used to it, and loved Viktor too much to say anything. If she did not apprehend the full depth of his mental turmoil, she was at least cognizant enough of his suffering to know she did not want to annoy him by adding herself to his list of burdens.

  “Good evening, Your Highnesses!” said the coachman as he opened the carriage door.

  “Where is Vanka?” asked Viktor gruffly. “Or what about Moskalev?” he added, nettled that a new man had been assigned to drive him instead of the head coachman or his experienced assistant.

  “Many pardons, Your Excellency,” apologized the driver effusively. “I know it is an honor too high for one such as myself to drive you, sir, but Vanka felt I warranted the experience. If you are dissatisfied, I will fetch—”

  “Never mind,” interrupt
ed Viktor, still crusty but somewhat placated, “we’ll be late. But next time I expect to be notified about such changes. Do you know the route?”

  “Very well, Your Highness. I have traveled it many times.”

  “Then let us be gone.” Viktor followed Natalia into the carriage and sat down with a grunt.

  “Now, dear,” said Natalia, “I am certain the man will do just fine. How difficult can it be to drive to the Maryinsky?”

  “That’s not the point. New drivers can drive the servants.”

  “Oh, let’s not talk of it now. We don’t want the evening spoiled over such a triviality. But if anyone has a right to be miffed, Viktor, it’s I. You haven’t even mentioned my new gown! Isn’t it delightful? The color is all the rage this season in Paris. They say it’s the color of peaches. Do you think it suits me?”

  “I’ve never seen a peach of exactly that hue,” replied Viktor, making a fumbling effort to show some interest in his wife’s dress, even if the words came out more like a criticism than anything else.

  Natalia giggled. She was not particular. He had said something, anyway. “Well, fashion designers can’t be expected to be greengrocers! But it’s a delicious shade, whatever it’s called.”

  The carriage lurched into motion and the prince and princess settled back into their seats.

  “Cantaloupe,” Viktor observed after a few moments silence.

  “What?”

  “The dress looks more like a ripe cantaloupe.”

  “Really!”

  “In my opinion, at least.”

  “If you say so, dear. Hmmm . . . what an interesting idea!”

  In fifteen minutes they arrived at the Remizov home. Katrina greeted her parents with a warm kiss. A brief frown crossed her brow when she caught a whiff of her father’s breath, but she said nothing. She was so weary of remonstrating with Dmitri over the subject of his drinking—she did not call it nagging, though he often did—that she had no desire to start in on her father. She had, however, noticed him taking to the bottle more frequently. Next thing, she thought peevishly, her father and husband were likely to become drinking cronies.