The Russians Collection

by Michael Phillips

  Oh, Papa, Anna thought with a sigh, even you would find it hard to rejoice in the midst of the grief that weighs upon me.

  For days after Andrei had been shot, Anna kept hoping he would show up at her door. Yuri might have miscalculated the seriousness of his brother’s wounds and the hopelessness of his survival. But after two weeks, even Anna had to accept the fact that her son was dead. It would drive her insane to keep on hoping. Yet there were times when Anna wondered how she kept her sanity. Despite everything she still could not shake the image of the snow child returning when all seemed darkest. There was a part of her, passed down from her father, Yevno Burenin, that made hope impossible to shake entirely. Although each day she recognized there was a very thin line between hope and lunacy.

  She had to go on—as she had been doing all her life. It was the same for Russia, too. The Motherland would go on, limping at times, full of despair, but it would continue. If there was one thing Russia—and Russians—knew, it was how to go on.

  Anna shivered as a gust of wind swept down the street, seeming effortlessly to penetrate her threadbare coat. It was almost April but winter still gripped the city, as it would for several more weeks. The coming of spring would only slightly ease the hardships of war and revolution. There were still few men to plant spring crops. Anna had heard from her son-in-law Daniel that Russian loss of life in the war had thus far amounted to millions, so that even when the war ended, laborers would be in short supply. Who could tell when food would again be plentiful in Russia?

  Anna’s thoughts quickly skipped to Misha—the one person, besides Andrei, who was most on her mind these days. How desperately she longed for him, for his dear friendship, and for the marriage that had been allowed so little time to be enjoyed. He was a prisoner of war, and there was no telling where he was or how he was. Anna prayed for him daily and, perhaps selfishly, for his speedy return. Secretly, she hoped the revolutionaries who wanted the war ended had their way, even if it meant Russia pulling out prematurely and leaving the battle against the Germans solely to their allies. She didn’t care what it took, if only it brought Misha back to her. Misha himself would probably be the first to chide her for her disloyal thoughts, but he would understand, too. Maybe by now he had also had enough of war and separation. Before he left he had promised her that after the war he would resign his commission with the Cossack Guards so they could be together always.

  Anna was jarred from her thoughts by a stirring in the queue. She was several yards from the door to the bakery, but the grumbling voices, rising in discontent, filtered back to her quickly.

  “This is unjust!” yelled a woman.

  “We have waited all morning.”

  “We must have bread!”

  Even as the voices rumbled back, the queue itself suddenly surged forward. And Anna remembered how this Russian institution, khvost, could very quickly turn from a social gathering into something else entirely. Caught in the tide of the erupting queue, Anna stumbled forward against her will. As the crowd opened up momentarily before her, she caught a brief glimpse of a sign in front of the bakery:

  NO MORE BREAD.

  The door was shut, yet several men lunged toward it like a human battering ram. A crashing sound, as of breaking glass, reached Anna’s ears, then the crowd closed back in and Anna was jostled roughly, first one way then another. She fought to stay on her feet.

  In all the time of food shortages, she had managed to avoid the riots that sometimes broke out in the queues. Mariana had been caught once in a riot last week and had come home bruised and disheveled. Now it seemed as if Anna’s luck was at its end. Her hatred of crowds had begun that awful day at Khodynka Field at the time of Nicholas the Second’s coronation. Hundreds of people had been killed during a picnic when they feared there would not be enough food to go around. Sergei and Misha had been there for her then, but now she was alone. Her heart quickened with dread and fear.

  “Please . . . this won’t help,” she struggled to get the words out. Her breathing felt strangled as if she might suffocate.

  No one heard her small voice. The yelling of those around her continued. Even in her panic Anna noted how the anger of the mob lacked focus. The tsar was gone. Who could they blame now for their woes? But Anna spent little time philosophizing. She had to concentrate on the situation at hand and get away before she was hurt or even killed. And her fear made her struggle with a strength she had forgotten she possessed. She held up her arm to fend off a stick being wielded wildly in the hand of a man who under normal conditions would never think to harm a woman. Then she turned and made one final, desperate, push to extricate herself from the mob. She pushed hard at a body that had suddenly come tripping into her path. The person stumbled and grabbed Anna for support, causing them both to tumble to the ground. Anna used the momentum from the fall to roll away from the crowd. When she finally came to a stop a few feet from the angry queue, she was not alone. The person she had pushed had rolled with her and now bounced on top of her.

  It was an old woman.

  Anna gasped, realizing that in desperately thinking only of herself she had done the very thing that appalled her in others. “Oh, Matushka!” she exclaimed, gently taking the woman’s arm and helping her up. “Are you hurt?”

  The woman shook herself and appeared like a brittle leaf about to fall from a half-dead tree. “No worse than I was when I woke this morning,” said the woman. “And you?”

  “Nothing to speak of.”

  “We are Russian women, eh? It would take more than a mere bread riot to defeat us.”

  “I . . . hope so,” Anna replied, feeling as shaky as the shy girl she had been forty odd years ago.

  The woman parted her thin, dry lips in a toothless grin. “Never doubt it . . . never, deary. Tsars come and go, but matushkas like us will always be.”

  They moved away from the mob even as its initial burst of anger began to ebb. Anna still wanted to get as far away as possible.

  “Good day to you, Matushka,” Anna said.

  “And to you, also.”

  As Anna hurried home, she tried to be encouraged by the old woman’s words, but the empty basket on her arm made her think instead of the proverb, “We do not eat the bread, it eats us.”

  At the door to her building, she met Raisa Sorokin, who had been foraging for food in another part of town. Her luck had been better—she had brought back a pound of dry fish. But without bread it would make a spare meal for the many mouths they had to feed. For a time there had been sixteen of them crammed into the flat, but soon after the tsar’s abdication, Paul and Mathilde Burenin had gone to a friend’s place near the Tauride Palace where Paul was spending a great deal of time. It was still a full household with Daniel and Mariana and their children occupying the big bedroom; while the single women, Anna, Raisa, Countess Zhenechka, and Teddie wedged into the other bedroom. Yuri, Katya, and Irina shared the little cubbyhole room, but Yuri was gone most of the time at his hospital and took all of his meals there to ease the burden on supplies. He also pilfered what he could from the hospital larders for the household, but there was less and less available for that purpose. Daniel also brought back what food he could, using contacts at the American Embassy.

  And so they managed from day to day. No one was starving yet—that was something.

  Raisa gave Anna a quick appraisal. “Your coat sleeve is torn,” she said with concern.

  “How can you tell on this ragged coat?”

  “I mended every tear yesterday. This is definitely a new one.”

  Anna shrugged. “There was a bit of a row in the queue today. Nothing serious, thank God.”

  “Oh, what a sad time we live in.” Raisa opened the door to their flat. “I wonder how—”

  But she was cut off by an exuberant childish yell.

  “Grandma! Auntie Raisa! Look what Papa brought!” It was little Zenia, Mariana’s youngest, as always full of boundless energy. Her mop of yellow curls danced wildly as she bounced toward
them.

  “What can it be?” Anna forced herself to catch the child’s excitement. “The Crown Jewels perhaps?”

  “A loaf of bread would be far better,” said Raisa.

  Zenia clasped Anna’s hand and fairly dragged her into the kitchen. Raisa followed close behind. They found Daniel and Mariana and the other children, all full of excitement and chattering merrily.

  “Ah! Mama and Raisa, you’ve returned just in time,” said Daniel. “Look here.” He gestured with his hand toward the table on which two newspapers were prominently displayed. Russian papers were rare to come by these days, but Anna quickly noted these were in English. One was the London Times, the other the New York Register, the paper Daniel worked for.

  “Word at last from the outside world,” said Daniel. “I’ve managed to get dispatches out, but receiving anything has been next to impossible.”

  “I’ve felt we have been on a desert island for the last weeks,” said Mariana.

  “No more.” Daniel grinned. “And the biggest news is confirmation of the rumors that the United States has recognized the Provisional Government. Now many Americans, including President Wilson, are turning the war cause into a struggle of democracy against absolutism. It won’t be long now before the U.S. enters the war.”

  “Thank God!” said Anna. “That can only bring the end that much closer. But, Daniel, as much as the newspapers are exciting, I can’t imagine them causing Zenia to bubble so.”

  “Not newspapers, Grandma,” said Zenia. “Show her, Papa.”

  Daniel chuckled and picked up an opened parcel lying next to the papers. “My friend from the embassy who brought the papers also brought a few small delicacies—peppermint sticks for the children and real coffee for the rest of us.”

  It had been months since there had been such treats for the children. And as for coffee . . . Anna preferred tea, but real anything would be a delight after months of ersatz brews that had long ago lost their marginal appeal.

  “Can we have one, Papa?” pressed Zenia.

  “I’ll tell you what, you can each have one now. But take them out to the other room so we grown-ups can have a few minutes to talk.”

  When the children exited, each holding a piece of candy, Daniel continued, “I have a bit of other news to pass along. The fellow who delivered these newspapers is planning to return to the States in a couple of days. Mariana, he has assured me he can escort you and the children out of the country.”

  “But, Daniel, I’m not ready to leave.”

  “I know, we have discussed this before, but who knows when a chance like this may arise again. It is getting harder and harder to come and go. Your papers are about to expire, Mariana, and since you are still a Russian citizen, you will be at the mercy of the Russian Emmigration Department.”

  “Yes, but—” Mariana glanced at Anna.

  “I don’t expect you to stay,” said Anna. “In fact, I would feel so much better if you were safely away from here.”

  “Then I would go crazy with worry,” Mariana countered. “I would rather we suffer together than be cut off from one another. Besides, I am certain things will settle down soon. Now that the new government is official, they will begin to regulate and alleviate many of the problems.” She looked to Daniel with imploring eyes. “Let’s give it a while longer. You certainly don’t plan on leaving now that so much is happening. I want us to face whatever comes together. Please, Daniel.”

  He shook his head with defeat. “All right. I really didn’t expect to win this battle, anyway. But I intend to keep closely attuned to the political situation, and at the least sign of things going awry, I will insist upon you and the children leaving.”

  Mariana gave her husband a slight smile. “And I will obey, my dear, as always.”

  This brought a smattering of knowing chuckles from all the others, including Daniel. Then Anna, not wanting this lighthearted moment to end, said, “Why don’t I fix us all some of that wonderful coffee?”

  3

  Yuri Fedorcenko had grown accustomed to death and dying. He was even used to the shortages of the most basic medical supplies. But what he would never become hardened to—at least he hoped it would never happen—was the despair that daily surrounded him. The wretched stare of a mother who knew she was completely helpless to prevent her family’s starvation, or the forlorn eyes of a child who has lost his innocence, along with the childish concept of his parents’ invincibility. And, worse yet, the abject misery of men broken by war and famine and total loss of control over their own destinies.

  It was, of course, the men to whom Yuri most related. Some days he felt as broken as the worst of them. He felt as if he were being carried along by a raging river, clinging to a thin chunk of bark—that alone keeping him from being sucked under the relentless current. If only he could staunch the wild flow, or at least climb, even for a brief moment, to the muddy shore.

  Just a moment’s rest—

  Then he reminded himself that rest was the last thing he wanted. Not a night had passed since Rasputin’s death, and especially since Andrei’s death, that had not been shattered by nightmares. He dreaded sleep, and only his exhaustion at the end of fifteen-hour days—and many nights on call in the hospital—forced him to face his bed at all. The fact that his days were often waking nightmares did not help.

  He wanted desperately to find hope, a small primrose among the ashes of a dying world. He longed for even a fraction of his mother’s faith. He did not know why he could not find in God the comforter she had surely found during these days of grief. His faith had never been as strong as that of his parents, but now the gulf separating him from God was nearly insurmountable. Only nearly . . . ? Then perhaps he was able to concede some hope after all. Perhaps if he prayed harder or went to Mass more often. He had tried to talk to Daniel a few times, but Yuri had a hard time accepting his brother-in-law’s simple assurance of God’s grace. Absolution could not be that simple. One must suffer. But perhaps that was only the Russian way. What if the way to God was indeed as unencumbered as Daniel, and even his own mother, tried to tell him? What if—

  “Dr. Fedorcenko!” A nurse hurried up to Yuri, who was standing at the nurse’s station making notes in a patient’s chart.

  “Yes, Sister.”

  “There is a man in Ward Three asking for you. He is quite agitated and insistent—”

  “A man? A young man? Who—?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t see him. The head nurse just sent me to fetch you—”

  Before she could finish, Yuri was hurrying down the corridor. He bypassed the elevator that was slow and often malfunctioning, like most machines in Russia these days. He went instead to the stairwell, flung open the door, and raced up the steps two at a time. He knew it was irrational but he could not help himself. All reason and medical knowledge told him Andrei could not have survived the blizzard that night with his wounds. Yet Yuri still found himself hoping—ah, maybe he wasn’t as dead inside as he feared! He scrutinized anyone coming into the hospital who even vaguely resembled his brother. Even on the street his heart would leap at the sight of a large man. It was possible Andrei might have been found and taken to another hospital in the city as an “Ivanov,” an unidentified indigent. Daniel had revealed that after entering Russia Andrei had given his travel papers over to Daniel. He had feared being caught on the streets teeming with revolution carrying the diplomatic documents Daniel had arranged for him and being mistaken as an envoy of the tsar. As far as Daniel knew, those had been the only identifying papers Andrei had.

  Yuri rushed into Ward Three, then slowed in order to collect himself. He was still the Chief of Surgery and must at least make an attempt at decorum.

  Sister Elizabeth came to him as he entered. “Thank you for coming so quickly, Doctor. It really wasn’t an emergency, however—”

  “Where is he?” Yuri broke in, eyes anxiously scanning the ward.

  The nurse nodded toward a curtained bed. Yuri now noted two guard
s, wearing the insignia of the Provisional Government, standing in front of the curtain. Yuri strode to the bed and pulled aside the curtain.

  “I said I wanted privacy!” came a harsh, vaguely familiar voice from the bed.

  Yuri saw that it was indeed a large man on the bed—but not the man he hoped for. It was instead his grandfather’s cousin, Count Cyril Vlasenko.

  “Oh, it’s you, then,” said the count. “It’s about time.”

  Yuri swallowed his disappointment and tried hard not to replace it with ire toward this man, his family’s perpetual enemy. He reminded himself that Vlasenko was now a fallen man—a prisoner of the Provisional Government, which explained the guards. It was a miracle that Vlasenko was still alive.

  “So, Count Vlasenko,” Yuri said coolly, “what brings you to this humble hospital?”

  “They wouldn’t take me to my son’s hospital. The idiots feared it would be too easy for him to aid my escape. Little do they know my son. If I did intend to escape, he’d be the last person I’d rely on for assistance. Anyway, if I had to come here, I wanted to be certain I received decent care.”

  “So, you requested me?”

  Vlasenko shrugged. “You had the confidence of the tsar. That’s good enough for me.”

  Rather than attempt to discern the count’s possible ulterior motives, Yuri decided to take the man at face value. He really didn’t care about Vlasenko’s motives, anyway. “What seems to be the problem, Count—the medical problem, that is?”