“Good to see you, Talia.”
“And you, Yuri.”
“I hope you plan to stay for dinner.”
She sniffed at the fragrant air. “Mama’s borscht is hard to resist.” But she hardly seemed enthusiastic. There was a strain in her voice that seemed—he hoped, at least—to stem from something other than their problems. “Maybe I’ll stay for a little while, but I didn’t come for a meal.”
“Is something wrong? Is the news about Serbia troubling you?”
“Are Mama and your mother in the kitchen? I think I should speak to them, too.”
Now really concerned, Yuri followed Talia into the kitchen. Anna and Raisa stopped their conversation and greeted Talia warmly, obviously thrilled at the unexpected visit.
“I’m afraid I’m not here for a casual visit,” Talia said. “I’ve just come from Andrei’s place. I went to see him, wanting to talk about events in Europe. But he wasn’t there.” She paused, worry etching her fine features. “I spoke to his roommate, who told me he’d moved out four days ago.”
“Moved out?” said Anna. “But he’s said nothing.”
“You’ve seen him since then?”
Anna shook her head. “Not since—” She stopped and glanced at Yuri.
“I haven’t seen him either,” Yuri said. “I wanted to give him time to . . . you know, cool off.” Talia probably knew nothing of his altercation with Andrei. This didn’t seem a good time to tell her.
“Are you sure of this, Talia?” Anna asked. “I mean, he would have told me. Did anyone say where he moved?”
“The fellow I spoke with didn’t know. He said Andrei was upset when he left. I’m worried.”
Yuri tried to sound casual. “I’m sure there is no cause to worry. You know Andrei, how impulsive he can be at times. He’s just sulking somewhere, probably intentionally trying to make us—”
“Yuri!” scolded Anna. “What a way to speak of your brother! You know as well as I that he had good reason to be upset.”
“Why? What happened?” asked Talia.
Yuri hesitated. Was this thing never going to go away? Would he never have to stop paying for his stupidity?
He said with resignation, “Andrei and I had a bit of a row. He was upset about what I’d done . . . about how I treated you, Talia.”
“Then, it’s all my fault!”
“You know very well that’s not so. It was my fault—all of it. And now it’s up to me to do something about it.”
“What can you do?”
“Find the little brat, that’s what.” He strode into the hall and snatched his coat from one of the hooks there. “Would you keep dinner warm for me, Mama?”
“Where will you go? How do you know where to look?” asked Talia.
“I doubt he’ll be too hard to find. One thing he’s not is devious.”
“Well, I’m going with you,” Talia said. “I know him better than anyone.”
It was well past midnight before Yuri and Talia gave up their search. They had visited all his known acquaintances and none knew a thing—or were not telling. One of Andrei’s Social Democrat friends, whom Yuri had never liked, seemed extremely secretive—but then all of those fellows tended to be that way. Andrei seemed to have disappeared without a trace.
Yuri thought it was rash behavior even for Andrei, a gross overreaction. It was hard for him not to be a little peeved at his brother—after all, he’d had nothing to eat in hours and had been on his feet all day, and now had been forced to traverse the city in this crazy search. Yuri was tired and grumpy when he and Talia paused in a little park to have a rest. They sank down on a park bench, both silent and moody. It was a clear, beautiful night, too, not unlike that night when he had exchanged thoughtless words of love with Talia. All but the weather was different now.
“What do you think he’s done, Yuri?” said Talia.
“I don’t know, but at least he could have let Mama know. It was thoughtless of him.”
“I don’t think he would do such a thing unless something was terribly wrong. More than just being angry at you. What if he’s been arrested? He wouldn’t be the first revolutionary to just disappear like that—oh, I wish I hadn’t thought of that. Now I’m really worried.”
“I’m sure it’s nothing of the sort.”
“Then, what could it be? What could make him just disappear like this? He isn’t so heartless that he’d do this in retaliation for some little row.”
“No, you’re right, Talia. He wouldn’t. But it wasn’t really a little row—not to Andrei.”
“What do you mean?”
“I promised him I wouldn’t tell you . . .” Yuri shifted uncomfortably. This was presenting him with a mental quandary. Andrei would have scoffed at him for agonizing over this and probably would have blurted out what felt right at the moment. But whenever Yuri acted impetuously, it always seemed to backfire. He thought briefly of Katya and his frequently impetuous behavior with her. It seemed it was going to work out now, although he hadn’t heard from her since seeing her in Moscow over a week ago. She had assured him she would meet him in St. Petersburg soon and that she would not turn cool as she had in the past. But he was getting a bit worried since she still had not come.
He shifted his thoughts back to Talia. What would be the benefit of telling her of Andrei’s love? It seemed Talia had a right to know. Perhaps if she did, she would begin to view Andrei in a different light and realize that he was a desirable man for her. In addition to that, it would also help take her mind off her disappointment and hurt over Yuri’s rejection.
And what of the harm? Well, it would make Andrei furious at Yuri—but then he was already mad as a wounded bear at his brother, so, what did that matter?
“I don’t want you to break a promise to your brother,” Talia said magnanimously, though her tone indicated that she wouldn’t fight him if he did want to tell her.
“Now that I think about it,” said Yuri, “I believe this is one promise that should be broken. Andrei can be so glib sometimes with his tongue, yet when it really might do some good, he has chosen to rein it in. He’s been keeping a secret from both of us for years—not unlike the secret you kept from me, Talia. I guess it was inevitable that we three should have had such a complex relationship. Not bound by blood, yet we grew up practically as family. We’ve walked a thin line between different forms of love—”
“Are you saying it was wrong of me to love you as I did, Yuri?”
“Not at all. I mean, what woman could help falling for such a fine specimen of manhood as I.” He chuckled in an attempt to lighten the conversation but only drew a perplexed half-smile from Talia. He began again more earnestly, “And neither is it wrong for Andrei to have fallen in love with you.”
“What are you saying, Yuri?”
“Talia, I didn’t think you were as dense as I am. But perhaps it’s like scientific observation—you can get so close to a problem that you lose your ability to solve it. You have to step back and get a broad picture before you can see the small thing you missed before. Talia, dear, Andrei is in love with you. That’s why he flew off the handle as he did the other day. When you and I were together, it killed him. Yet he was willing to accept that because he knew it made you happy—that’s how much he loves you. Then, when I hurt you—”
“Oh! Poor Andrei!” Sudden tears rose in Talia’s eyes. How well she knew the emotional torments Andrei was suffering—because of Yuri, she had suffered the same.
“I think he left,” Yuri continued, “because he couldn’t face either of us anymore. Me—well, he just plain hates me. You, because he could no longer face you and keep his secret.”
“And he felt it was better to leave than to tell me.”
“Was it, Talia?” Yuri gazed incisively at her.
“He’s my dearest friend in the world. I suppose if I had to choose between the two of you, Yuri, I’d have to choose Andrei—for a friend.”
“I’ve always known that. And it makes se
nse, too, because the romantic feelings you’ve held for me also held you back a bit from me. Not so with Andrei.”
“I had no romantic feelings for Andrei.” It was a statement that ended with a slight question mark. Talia sighed. “And now what?”
“Does knowing how he feels change how you think of him?”
“I’m confused. Earlier this evening when we were pretty certain he had disappeared, I felt so empty. I felt as if part of me would die if I never saw him again. There are things I want to talk to him about—a new routine I’m trying, a problem I’m having with one of the other dancers, the fear I have about the prospect of war. Not long ago we were talking about God, and I know if we could talk more, I could help him unravel his confusion about spiritual matters. I was walking through the Summer Garden the other day and I realized that he should paint some pictures of the lovely, old statues there before they crumble away. I wanted to tell him that, and—”
“Talia, if that’s not love, what is?”
“Of course I love him, but—”
“I’m certainly not one to give advice on love,” Yuri broke in, “but think about what you feel for Andrei and what you feel—or felt—for me. What is more fulfilling to you? Which do you need more? How often did you think of me just when you wanted someone to share some little trivial aspect of your life with?”
She smiled. “I mostly dreamed of you as my husband, whom I would gaze at in awe—”
“But not one with whom you’d share all your innermost secrets.”
“I was too busy doing that with Andrei.”
“Exactly!” Yuri grinned. He was beginning to feel like cupid. “What do you want, Talia? A man to worship or one to share—really share—your life with?”
“Oh, the questions you raise, Yuri . . .”
“I know. They are rather unsettling, even to me. Will you give them some further thought?”
“How could I not think about them? But, Yuri, do you think it’s too late to do anything about it? What if I don’t see Andrei again?”
“We’ll see him again. A bad penny, you know.”
She gave him a playful thump on the arm. “You know you want to see him just as badly as I do.”
Yuri nodded thoughtfully.
“Yuri, let’s pray for him. That God would keep him safe and bring him back to us—soon.”
Yuri prayed as fervently as he had in a long time. It felt good, and he was thankful that his spiritual bottleneck had been opened that night with his mother. How had he managed without his faith? Well, he knew the answer to that when he considered the mess with Katya. He hadn’t managed very well at all. During a short pause as he and Talia prayed, he silently appealed to God to give him direction about his feelings for Katya.
37
In 1913 Lenin said, “A war between Austria and Russia would be a very useful thing for revolution, but it is not likely that Franz Joseph, the Austrian Emperor, and Nicholasha will give us that pleasure.”
Shortly before that statement, the Bolshevik leader had moved to Kracow with the unofficial blessing of the Austrian government. It seemed he was being encouraged to be a thorn in the flesh of Russia’s tsarist regime. Clearly, the enemies of Russia were using the country’s internal and external foes in any way they could to undermine the tsar. And the Russian government was doing the same to their international foes by secretly backing Serbian nationalists to stir up dissention in Vienna. It was a political game, and Lenin was an expert player.
But it was more than politics that drew Lenin to Kracow. Lenin was a nationalist through and through, and he suffered greatly from homesickness for his beloved Russia. Kracow, in spite of the fact that it was part of Austrian Poland, was Slavic and as such held an ambiance similar to Russia. Lenin was delighted to be there, only an hour and a half from the Russian border, and incredibly, only an overnight journey on the express train to St. Petersburg.
Andrei, too, was glad his personal journey would only take him as far as Kracow. Andrei had desperately needed to get away from home, but he hadn’t wanted to be so far that home was unreachable. Yet by going to join Lenin, he was going about as far from home and his loved ones as possible—emotionally if not geographically. Yuri, because of the monarchist that he was, would be cut off completely. Andrei’s mother, as always, would try to be understanding, but she would cringe at the thought of her son consorting with such hardened radicals. Uncle Paul would be appalled and would blame himself that he hadn’t been able to steer his nephew away from the Bolsheviks.
And Talia . . .
It wouldn’t matter one way or the other to her. She would love him anyway—as a brother only, of course.
But he didn’t want to think of Talia. That’s why he was getting as far away as possible, from her and from all that threatened to spark a memory of her. It wasn’t working very well at the moment, but he hoped that as time passed and as he threw himself into the movement with all the passion and zeal they required, he would soon be too preoccupied to think of Talia.
He could have just as well gone to Paris and joined an artist’s colony there—he knew several artists who would have welcomed him. He supposed his present destination happened a bit as a whim, an impulse. He had moved out of his apartment the day after his fight with Yuri and had already made the decision to leave town, though he had no specific direction in mind. In the meantime he stayed with some Social Democrat friends and tried to get together money for a journey by selling off paintings. When news of Austria’s attack on Belgrade arrived, everyone was concerned about the troop mobilization and the certainty that they would be called up to serve in the army. As a group, they swore they would not serve in the tsar’s army, fighting an imperialist war for the ruling classes. Plans were bandied about for ways to leave the country in order to avoid the army summons.
Andrei saw no reason to wait for that. He had every reason to leave now. Another fellow, Semyon Ivanovich, was also anxious to leave the country, because the police were breathing down his neck for his part in several recent strikes. Semyon had procured forged travel documents and was going to Kracow to join up with Lenin. He invited Andrei to come along and was able to get the necessary papers for Andrei as well.
With war seeming so imminent, revolution might not be as far off as they had assumed. If Andrei joined up with Lenin, he might just be putting himself in the right place at the right time. It wasn’t hard for Andrei to ignore his doctrinal differences with the hardcore Bolshevik Party line. To him all the political rhetoric was secondary to action—and Lenin, if anyone, represented action.
But Andrei was not entirely insensitive to the repercussions of his actions on his family. Before leaving Petersburg, he posted a letter to his mother telling her vaguely that he was leaving the country for a while, not indicating any particular destination. He promised to keep in touch and begged her forgiveness for not having the courage to say good-bye in person. She would understand, and since Yuri talked to their mother far more than Andrei did, she probably had some idea about the situation with Talia.
The melancholy that had hung over him since leaving home began to lift as his train crossed the Russian border and was almost entirely replaced with excitement as they neared Kracow. In the Polish city, however, they met a great disappointment. Lenin was no longer there. Apparently his wife, Krupskaya, had taken quite ill, and they had been forced to travel to Poronino, where they hoped the healthful mountain air would help her. When her health only worsened, they went to Switzerland for medical treatment. After her recovery from the surgery there, they returned to Poronino.
Andrei and Semyon arrived at Poronino in the Carpathian Mountains in late July and were greeted by balmy warmth and spectacular mountain vistas. Luckily Semyon was acquainted with Zinoviev, Lenin’s close friend and right-hand man, so they were hailed as friends. Stephan Kaminsky, still Lenin’s bodyguard, greeted Andrei with some hostility but mostly with a hint of triumph that the frivolous artist had finally seen the light. They met Lenin br
iefly upon arrival, but later, Andrei was invited to have a personal interview with the Bolshevik leader.
“Kaminsky tells me you are Paul Burenin’s nephew,” said Lenin without preamble.
He looked exactly as Uncle Paul had always described him, except the receding hairline of his youth had turned into full-blown baldness on the top of his head. He had also aged—in fact, he looked several years older than his forty-five years. His slanted, squinting eyes were still sharp and held very little warmth.
“Yes, sir, I am. I would have said so myself except I was certain Kaminsky would inform you.”
“Tell me why you think I should accept you into my organization?”
“Because I believe in revolution and will do everything I can to help the cause.”
“The Bolshevik cause?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t accept your uncle’s prejudices? He did not try to dissuade you from the Party?”
“My uncle believed I had the right to choose my own path—”
“The path of betrayal?” Lenin’s eyes squinted even more, and Andrei thought a thin, sharp blade could easily shoot from them.
Andrei swallowed but held firm in his convictions against the powerful presence. “My uncle never betrayed you, sir—not in his heart. He always spoke highly of you and even now greatly admires you.” He wanted to tell Lenin that if he hadn’t been so dogmatic and exclusive in his beliefs, he would never have lost a good man like Paul. Instead, he did what he could to be conciliatory—after all, he didn’t want to harm his chances of working for the Party. “Sir, how else could I be here now, desiring to join you? My uncle was a great influence on me. He told me many times that he doubted revolution would happen in Russia without your leadership. I believe that, too, and that’s why I am here.”
“You are not even a Party member.”
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