“Are you all right?” Rudy asked.
“Yes, just a bit tired, I suppose.”
“Do you want to leave?”
Andrei shook his head, not so much in refusal as in frustration and confusion. “Why can’t I remember, Rudy?”
“Something happened, didn’t it?”
Andrei nodded. “I belong here, I know that. . . .”
“Andrei, is that you?”
Andrei heard the voice coming from behind him but did not respond. Why should he? It was the name of a stranger being called. And the name was called again. Still he did not respond until a heavy hand grasped his shoulder. He started, then spun around, staring into the face of yet another stranger. A large man, as tall as he, hefty in weight and muscular development. His craggy features were rather stern and imposing, but his appearance at that moment was not entirely unfriendly in spite of the absence of a smile of greeting.
“Yes . . . ?” said Andrei.
“You look at me as if I am a stranger. It hasn’t been that long.”
“I . . . I’m afraid I—” He was too nonplussed to find a response.
Rudy interjected. “Please excuse my friend. He means you no disservice. Even if you were his brother, you would be a stranger to him.”
“I don’t understand,” said the man.
Andrei finally found his voice. “I was injured a few months ago—”
“He nearly died,” put in Rudy.
“In the process,” Andrei continued, “I seem to have lost some of my memory.”
“Lost your memory?” The man first looked incredulous, then he laughed. “Well, well! That’s too fantastic of a story to be a lie.”
“I assure you it’s true.”
“Some thought you were dead. Others, that you had perhaps rejected your Party loyalties. I, for one, hated to believe the latter.”
“The Party . . . ?
“Perhaps I should start at the beginning.”
“That’s a marvelous idea,” said Rudy, “but not here. My friend is growing fatigued. There is a tea shop around the corner. Let’s go there.”
The three shouldered their way through the crowd, found the tea shop, and ordered tea before sitting at a table in the corner.
“Names first,” said Rudy, and he followed his order by giving his own.
“I’m Stephan Kaminsky.” The stranger paused, obviously confused at the peculiar looks on his companions’ faces, then it dawned on him and he added, “You are Andrei Christinin.”
If Andrei had hoped hearing his true name would open the floodgate of memory, he was greatly disappointed. The name proffered was just as foreign as the one he had been using these last months.
Andrei.
It meant nothing. And yet this was his identity. It was the key to who he was. It was the portal into the man he was seeking, into—hopefully—his own heart and soul.
“How do I know you?” Andrei said, trying to force logic instead of emotion into this monumental encounter.
“You were in exile with us—with Lenin himself. You are a Bolshevik. You remember none of this?” When Andrei shook his head, Stephan continued, “You don’t remember Malenkiy Soldat?” Stephan reached into his pocket and withdrew a newspaper. Across the top was the name “Pravda.” He pointed to the cartoon on the front page. It was of soldiers in the trenches. They were gaunt and hungry, garbed in ragged uniforms, some were holding broken weapons while others were merely throwing stones at the well-equipped and hardy enemy. Standing over the poor Russian soldiers was a Russian general, well fed and groomed, seated on a white stallion. The caption with the cartoon was simply, “Whose war?”
Andrei’s first impression of the drawing was that it was terribly obvious. Hardly art even if the drawing was good and the characterizations vivid. “I drew this? But how?” Andrei pointed to the current date on the paper.
“It is a reprint. You drew it in Switzerland. I watched you do it.”
“You must tell me everything, Stephan.”
And for the next hour as several pots of tea were consumed, Stephan Kaminsky did just that. Andrei learned of a young revolutionary, fervent and passionate in the cause. He had joined the exiles shortly before the beginning of the war and had quickly become an integral part of the propaganda machine. Stephan embellished his tale with much of his own propaganda, liberally interjecting Leninist philosophy into nearly every statement. Finally, he told how Lenin had sent Andrei back to Russia in order to distribute newspapers and to report on the status of the Bolshevik Party. That had been a mere handful of days before the revolution had begun.
“We heard nothing from you,” Stephan said. “We weren’t overly concerned until Lenin arrived in Petrograd and still you did not show up.”
Several moments of silence followed before Andrei could ask the question most strongly on his mind.
“Do you know of my family, Stephan? My parents . . . anyone . . . ?”
Stephan sighed as if terribly regretful over what he must reply. “Andrei, it is our practice to speak little of our families—you know, for their protection. It is possible even the name I know you by is a pseudonym. I know nothing about your family, not their names, not even where they are from. You did mention your mother—but only in general terms, mind you. I believe your father is deceased.” He shook his head sadly, then added with more enthusiasm, “But, Andrei, you must remember this if nothing else. Your Bolshevik comrades are your family now. You were part of us, and we will make you part of us once more.”
“Yes, I suppose so . . .”
“What? Still reluctant?”
“What do you mean?”
“I . . . that is, I only meant that after all you have heard, you still wonder about your identity?”
“I’m hearing your words as if they are about someone else. Yet I must admit I do feel an affinity for the revolution. There is something inside me that knows the Russia of the past was not right.”
“There you have it!” said Stephan with enthusiasm. “What is there to question? There can be no true revolution without Lenin. What we have now is a bourgeois sham, run by a prince no less! They are but a breath away from a monarchy.”
“What about Kerensky?”
“Bah! He talks like a revolutionary, but in action he is still in awe of the monarchy. He treats the deposed tsar as if he is still royal. He would have the man exiled to live in luxury in England.”
“And what would Lenin do with the tsar?”
“The tsar and his heir belong in prison. They are criminals.”
Andrei decided to change the subject. “How will Lenin go about taking power?”
“A physical battle for power is the only way. Even now he is trying to find ways to arm the Proletariat. The question I would ask, Andrei, is will you be part of it? Will you take up the place you abandoned and continue the fight? And do not be fooled—the fight has only begun. We have yet to see the true revolution.”
“You must understand—” Andrei began.
“I understand only that I have asked a simple question. Are you for us or against us?”
“It is hardly simple.”
Stephan leaned back and studied Andrei for a long moment. Then he said in a quiet voice, as if he had decided upon a new tact, “You have been through a great trauma, I realize. Why don’t you just come and have a look around our operation? It will all come back, I’m certain.”
“Yes, that’s a good idea. I’ll come tomorrow.”
15
Andrei tried not to think that he joined the Bolsheviks simply because of the sense of identity it gave him. And he did not let himself dwell on the disquiet he felt around many of the Bolsheviks. Often the hard-line rhetoric shocked him or amused him. He did tell himself that there was much to be admired in the Party, and that it especially needed level-headed, questioning men such as himself to keep the Party on an even keel. It didn’t make him feel any better when Rudy joined the Party because, though it was never spoken, Andrei had a feelin
g his friend had done so merely to keep an eye on him.
At the Party offices, Andrei met others who had known him before. Some were able to add touches to the growing picture of Andrei Christinin, but none had enough information for Andrei to initiate a successful search for his identity. And none were able to jar his real memory. One said he had family in the city, but that Andrei must have been estranged from them, since no one had met them. Then again, it was probably as Stephan had said. The revolutionaries had been careful in not involving their families.
Andrei did attempt to find some Christinins, but the two families he located by that name did not know him. The name was probably a pseudonym, anyway, so it meant little. That was probably why it did not bother him that Sonja still called him Ivan. A rose by any other name was still just as confused.
Andrei was weary and frustrated with the empty void in him. Sometimes the limbo of his life made him angry, but neither the anger nor his attempts to force his memory to ignite made any difference. He began to wonder what he would do if this was how he was fated to spend the rest of his life.
He spent most of his time at the offices of Pravda, which were separate from the Bolshevik headquarters. He let himself become absorbed in his work and, if nothing else, it did help him cope with life. It was quite time-consuming coming up with a fresh, new political cartoon every day. Moreover, he was also kept busy proofreading and doing other tasks necessary in the publication of the Party organ.
He did not dwell on the fact that drawing cartoons was not nearly as fulfilling as the drawings he had made for Sonja, nor the ones he did in his spare time in his little sketchbook.
The most unsettling experience of his new life as Andrei the Bolshevik was meeting his new superiors. He met Lenin only once, besides brief encounters in the course of his work. The Party leader welcomed him back but lacked any real warmth. Andrei had expected no more, for they had not been bosom friends by any means.
Andrei had hoped that his relationship with his editors at Pravda would offer more. He had at least hoped they could have been men who inspired loyalty and respect. But both Lev Kamenev and Josef Stalin were such bureaucrats by nature that they inspired little in anyone.
Kamenev was thirty-four and, with a thick, drooping mustache and goatee, looked uncannily like the ex-tsar—though the Bolshevik would have vehemently denied the similarity. He was married to Trotsky’s sister. The fact that he was currently lining up with Lenin, while a couple of months ago he was among the moderates who backed the Provisional Government, clearly demonstrated his vacillating nature.
The same could be said of Stalin as well, but in his case that was not the worst of his characteristics. Physically, he was a small man—Andrei towered over him by nearly ten inches—but he was powerfully built. His arms and legs were disproportionately long for his torso, and his left arm was rather stiff from—someone said—a bout with blood-poisoning as a child. His pock-marked face was the result of smallpox. His small eyes were cold, and indeed, nothing about the man emanated warmth of any kind. This probably contributed to the fact that he had few friends in the Party—few friends at all, according to some. Another factor most assuredly had to be his notable rudeness. He took no pains at all to be considerate of others, and, in fact, appeared to go out of his way to criticize and belittle.
Andrei immediately judged Stalin to be a highly vindictive man who hated, above all else, for anyone to excel him in anything. This was quite a problem, since Stalin was such an average man in so many areas that it was difficult not to excel him. He was a dull speaker, a mediocre writer, and a completely uninspired thinker.
Lenin had once called Stalin “that splendid Georgian.” Andrei could only guess that Stalin had so impressed Lenin because he was such a workhorse, reliable and able to follow orders. As for being a Georgian, this was clearly something Stalin would like to underplay. It seemed to grate on him that he was not a true Russian and that he could not shake that pesky Georgian accent.
At least Andrei did not have to work closely with these men, for they were often assigned other duties. Stalin, for example, was frequently off to one factory or another organizing workers. But it was not only Stalin and Kamenev who raised Andrei’s inner doubts and disquiet. He was constantly trying to bolster his Party enthusiasm, telling himself that the success of the revolution was foremost. Then, the apologist in him would argue that the revolution had already succeeded, and it was the Bolshevik Party that was trying to undermine it—not the revolution, of course, just the philosophies it pandered.
That’s when Andrei became more confused than ever. He simply did not care about all the intricacies of philosophy that most of his comrades found so important. They could argue for hours over a tiny precept, putting Andrei soundly to sleep. If he knew nothing else about himself, he was certain he was no philosopher or intellectual.
He did have his opinions—who didn’t? But too often they went counter to the Party line—Lenin’s line. For instance, he believed the war was a matter of honor, and to back out would not only betray Russia’s allies but also those Russians who had already sacrificed their lives to the war. He would, however, never voice this opinion to his Bolshevik comrades. He was beginning to feel as if he was leading a double life—quite an irony for a man who did not even know what his real life was.
He tried to keep a low profile in the organization, drawing his political cartoons, and doing whatever other inconsequential jobs were assigned to him—passing out leaflets and running errands, mostly. His greatest joy, however, was to go home, visit with Sonja and Rudy, and make his own private sketches. This, more than anything, made him see that even if he had once been a loyal Bolshevik, he truly did not belong now. Maybe losing his memory helped him see things in himself that he could never have seen otherwise. It was probably like stepping out of one’s skin and observing oneself as an objective bystander. But even that thought was too deep for Andrei to want to ponder for long.
One afternoon when Andrei had been working at Pravda for about a month, he was asked to take some papers over to the Bolshevik headquarters—the mansion of the prima ballerina, Kshesinskaya, who had been the first love of the now deposed tsar. With coarse Bolsheviks tramping in and out, the expensive Persian carpets were now stained by the imprints of muddy boots. Many of the finer furnishings had been put into storage, but those things that remained had been moved about and replaced haphazardly. The chintz and brocade upholstery was soiled by the grimy clothes of the new proprietors. Shards of broken glassware and such lay where they had been carelessly bumped by peasants and workingmen who were not used to having such finery about. The arched, carved ceilings also were incongruous with the desks, file cabinets, and other office gear that had been brought in to accommodate the new purpose of the house. The palace now was always crowded with masses of workers, soldiers, and others on Bolshevik business. And there were frequently huge rallies in front of the palace where there was a fine balcony from which Lenin often addressed the gatherings. But essentially the aristocratic air remained, if rather askew.
Andrei got the idea of sketching the scene. It would make an interesting surrealistic subject. After he delivered his papers and received other papers in return, he decided to roam around the house in search of a good setting for his sketch. He looked in many rooms and made several quick drawings. But when he reached a parlor on the second floor, he forgot all about his initial mission.
He was suddenly captivated by a painting hanging in a corner of the room. He could not explain exactly why it drew him so because in itself it was not great art, which was probably why it had been overlooked when other valuables had been stored. Andrei could readily see that the famous ballerina had probably not purchased it because of its cubist style but rather because it was of a ballerina. Andrei could not tell if it was meant to be of Kshesinskaya herself, because not only was the face too muted to tell, but he didn’t know what she looked like anyway. Nevertheless, it was clearly apparent that the artist had been
highly inspired by the dancer. The passion of the work came through to him and nearly took his breath away.
“I wonder how my painting came to be here. . . .” he murmured.
A full moment passed before he realized what he had said. If his breath had been caught before, he was staggered now. Why had he said such a thing? And yet . . . he could explain his strange feelings about the painting in no other way. He walked up to it, within a few inches. And there it was. In the lower right hand corner was the signature—initials actually, A.C. He stared harder at the painting, trying to recapture the feeling he’d had when he murmured the words.
But it was gone. Like when a word you are trying to recall is on the tip of your tongue and just as you are about to speak it, someone interrupts and it is lost. Perhaps forever.
He reached up to remove the painting from its hook—he would not be the first revolutionary to loot a palace.
“There you are.”
The voice jolted Andrei and he nearly dropped the painting, which he had just about liberated from the wall.
“Are you talking to me?” he asked, turning to find the fellow to whom he had delivered the papers.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m going to find a new home for this painting.” Andrei lowered the painting to the floor.
“I don’t think that’s allowed. I mean you can’t just walk off with what you wish.”
“Why not? This is my painting—that is to say, I painted it.”
“Still, you must go through proper channels.”
Andrei pulled back his shoulders and stepped forward until he was within a few inches of the smaller man. “What channels would those be?” he asked with just enough of an edge to his voice to make the man pale slightly.
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