The Russians Collection

by Michael Phillips

  “Well . . . what do I care anyway? Take the stupid thing. Lenin says all things belong to the people.”

  “Exactly!” Andrei grinned and started to walk past the man, the painting tucked under his arm.

  “Wait, I forgot to give you this.” The man held out a folder. “Make sure it gets to Kamenev.”

  Andrei took the folder and walked from the room, no longer interested in his earlier mission of sketching the mansion in disorder.

  Later that evening, Andrei showed the painting proudly to Sonja and Rudy. Sonja studied it very thoughtfully and somewhat sadly. Rudy examined it for any other identifying marks. He found none.

  16

  In the summer, the Provisional Government began a new offensive in the War. Tremendous pressure had been applied upon them by the Allies, and they had to show their commitment to the fighting despite the opposition within Russia. The United States, having recently entered the fighting, was pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into the Provisional Government, but there was one string attached—“No war, no money.”

  And, for a short while at least, it seemed as if the additional funds would be the trick to turn the tide for the Russian war effort. Troops went to battle well-equipped and advanced on the Germans with success. But as soon as German reinforcements arrived, the Russians were pushed back in a retreat that quickly turned into a rout.

  Andrei heard the news with mixed emotions. While his comrades gloated, he felt sick at heart. He could not feel enthusiasm for the mounting agitation among the Bolsheviks to rush in and seize power. Zinoviev, Lenin’s closest lieutenant, was pressing for action. But Lenin sharply opposed a premature seizure of power. “One wrong move could wreck everything,” he insisted. He feared that even if the Bolsheviks were to seize power now, they would not be able to hold on to it. Lenin must have believed his cautions had been heeded, for he left Petrograd to spend a few days in Finland with friends.

  By the first of July, Petrograd began to seethe with unrest like a kettle reaching the boiling point, ready to overflow. When one hothead, a Jewish-American anarchist, shouted, “Let the streets organize us!” many were ready to follow. Machine-gun regiments rushed to various factories to recruit more demonstrators. Twenty-five thousand workers at the Putilov Works, historically a hotbed of revolutionary ferment, joined the march.

  With Lenin gone, the other Bolshevik leaders were frantically trying to decide what to do. In the boudoir of the ballerina Kshesinskaya, they wrestled with the dilemma for hours. Andrei went home that night hopeful that there would only be a peaceful demonstration, but even a casual observation revealed that arms and ammunition were everywhere, in the hands of workers and soldiers alike.

  Late the next morning he made his way back to the Kshesinskaya Palace and found Lenin had only just arrived from Finland himself. They were greeted with the news that ten thousand sailors from the Kronstadt Naval Base, another revolutionary stronghold, had also arrived in the city that morning. The sailors joined sixty thousand other marchers on the Nevsky Prospect heading toward the Tauride Palace to have it out with the Soviet, which they believed was pandering too much to the Provisional Government and not giving enough heed to the people.

  Andrei stayed at the Bolshevik headquarters waiting for news while halfheartedly drawing a couple of cartoons. But there was business to be conducted at the Pravda office. Others had articles that had to go to press, not to mention Andrei’s cartoons. He was asked to take a sheaf of papers to the office. Perhaps his comrades had sensed that he was using the headquarters to take refuge from the chaos. But maybe he was better off outside, away from the constant debating of the Party leaders still trying to figure out how best to use this unexpected turn of events.

  The minute Andrei reached the street he was swept into the throng, almost unable to move on his own volition. But worse than that was the nearly tangible sense of tension and frustration emanating from the mob. He could feel an undercurrent of violence throbbing through it, seemingly emphasized by the presence of military trucks traveling with the marchers, loaded with armed troops. Andrei wanted nothing more than to retreat back to the palace he had just left. He turned onto a side street to attempt to avoid the main thrust of the mob. But many others apparently had the same idea, and incredibly, even a couple of automobiles were trying to traverse the street.

  Breathing hard, though he was hardly moving fast enough to exert himself, Andrei reached up to loosen his collar. He was perspiring but felt cold and clammy all over. He’d felt that way a couple of times when he was still recovering from his wound or when looking too closely at the bloody injury had made him feel faint.

  But why should he feel this way now? Yes, the crowd was stifling, but he was certainly physically capable of taking care of himself. Yet something he was unable to define was sickening him. That was intensified when he chanced to glance in the direction of a child stumbling along behind his father. Their eyes met, the child’s filled with fear and confusion. Andrei was certain his own eyes must have looked the same.

  Talia had finished practice early, and she and Vassily, another member of her company, were exiting the studio. They had heard of trouble in the city, but there were always such rumors, and it was easy to think little of them. But when they reached the street and were confronted with the crowds—and they weren’t even on a main thoroughfare!—Talia began to think this time was different. She could even hear distant sounds of gunfire. She glanced at Vassily. She was about to suggest they return to the studio, when two men stumbled toward them.

  “Here’s some bourgeois rats creeping from their nests,” slurred one of the men who had obviously found some vodka and had helped himself liberally to it.

  “We’re no such thing!” said Vassily.

  “Oh yeah! You’re too pretty to be a worker.”

  “Get out of our way,” demanded Vassily. Unfortunately he was a dancer, not a fighter, and he looked it. The thugs were not intimidated.

  One of the thugs shoved him. “We’ll see who gets out of whose way.”

  “Yeah,” said the other as he too shoved Vassily.

  Vassily swung his fist but missed both assailants.

  “Please, stop!” cried Talia.

  “I’ll bet the lady can fight better than the pretty boy,” taunted one of the thugs.

  This incensed Vassily and he threw himself at the two men. One easily grabbed him while the other aimed a couple of punches at his stomach. Talia tried to stop them. She caught the thug’s fist as he lifted it for another blow. He shook her away like a pesky insect but with enough force to make her tumble to the cobbled street. Even as she was falling, she silently wondered why someone didn’t stop to help them. Had the whole city gone mad?

  Then before she even remembered to pray for help, she saw a hand reach out to her.

  “Are you all right?” the voice said. “Everyone’s gone crazy around here.”

  “I . . . I’m all right, but my friend . . .”

  The rescuer, a tall, brawny fellow turned quickly—too quickly for her to see his face—and grabbed the thug who was throwing the punches at Vassily. The attacker no longer looked ominous as the rescuer lifted him off his feet and sent him flying against the brick wall of an adjacent building. While that thug was lying dazed on the ground, the rescuer turned on the man holding Vassily. This man, thinking better of continuing his dirty deed, dropped Vassily and ran away.

  “I could have taken him,” panted Vassily, “if there hadn’t been two of them.”

  “I’m sure you could have,” said the rescuer. He then turned back to the woman. “Are you certain you are all right?”

  Talia was on her feet now, but suddenly her legs felt as if they might give out on her again. She staggered back.

  “Andrei . . .”

  He looked at her, but there was something odd, and awful, in his eyes—they were the eyes of a stranger.

  “Andrei . . .” she said again, unable to form any other words. She ran to him and threw he
r arms around him. She had been wanting to do so for so long, had even dreamed of doing so, though she had thought him long dead. Only when he did not return her embrace, or at least not with the enthusiasm she expected, did her rising panic fully grip her. “Andrei!” she cried.

  “Yes,” he said, his voice shaking. “That’s . . . my name. Who . . . are you?”

  “It’s me. Please don’t do this to me!”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be rude. It’s just that I’ve been ill. I have forgotten things. My memory—”

  “I thought you were dead—” Tears filled her eyes and choked further speech.

  “Dear lord . . .” he breathed.

  “You can’t have forgotten me.”

  “I wish—”

  But before he could finish, the chaos in the streets seemed to envelop them. Someone tugged at Talia’s arm. She tried to shake the intruder away, then realized it was Vassily.

  “Come on,” he said.

  “No, I can’t.”

  But he wasn’t listening to her. He kept pulling her until she found herself being shoved into an automobile.

  “I can’t leave him!” But the door slammed, and before she could try to reopen it, the vehicle pulled into motion.

  She looked back, but the mob had suddenly swelled and she could not see him. No!—there he was, trying to fight his way against the flow of the mob toward the departing automobile.

  “You must stop!” she cried to the driver.

  “We’ll be killed if we stop now,” said Vassily.

  The car turned a corner and, suddenly on a quieter street, it picked up speed. Andrei was no longer visible. Within minutes they were far from the demonstration.

  Talia wept.

  Not knowing where else to go or what else to do, she had the driver take her to Yuri’s hospital, praying he would be there.

  Yuri received her news with a mixture of shock, disbelief, joy, and dismay. Finally, when he was certain she had really seen Andrei, the joy overshadowed all other emotions.

  “Amnesia . . .” he said. “That explains much.”

  “It was terrible, Yuri, to look at him, to know he was alive, but to have him stare at me as if I was a stranger. It was the worst experience of my life.”

  “Yes, I can understand how that would feel. But at least he is alive. Thank God, he is alive!”

  “But how will we find him? I don’t think I even told him my name so he could find me.”

  “Don’t worry, Talia. I’ll tear this city apart to find him. I won’t let him get away from us again.”

  “We must go and tell your mother—”

  Yuri felt his confidence of a moment ago begin to ebb. “I don’t think we should tell her. What if something should happen? What if something keeps me from finding him? The city is so insane right now, I just don’t want to risk getting her hopes up—”

  “We will find him!”

  “Yes, of course. But . . .”

  “All right, we won’t say anything to your mother. But we will find him?” The determination in her voice faded when the final words turned into a question.

  17

  Andrei tried to chase after the automobile, but the crowd thwarted him until the car finally disappeared from view. In a daze, not knowing what he was doing or where he was going, he wandered back toward the main street he had tried so hard to avoid before. His own safety didn’t seem to matter now. All he could see was that pale, beautiful, devastated face—that lovely face that had no name. She had known him, and from the look in her eyes, perhaps she had even loved him.

  Why couldn’t he remember? What kind of man was he to forget such sweetness?

  He grabbed his head, as if he could crush the hidden memories from it. But all the motion did was focus his eyes back on the present, making him realize he was once again back in the thick of the demonstration. For a brief time after he had encountered the woman, all his surroundings had receded, and only she and he had existed. It was only fitting for the awful crush of reality to coincide with her disappearance.

  And the reality was indeed terrible. The palatable tension he had sensed before in the mob had now turned into full-blown anger. There were shouts and curses against all supposed enemies. It wasn’t like before when the marchers were singing hymns and imploring the tsar to hear their petition.

  Like before . . . ?

  Andrei stumbled forward, or had he been pushed? He couldn’t tell. His breathing was coming in labored gasps. He began to feel as if all the violence, all the boiling anger of the mob, was directed against him alone.

  “Please,” he murmured. “Forgive me. . . .”

  Shots rang out—the staccato pelting of machine-gun fire. There were screams, and ahead of Andrei there was a sudden scattering of people. He didn’t notice it in time and was jostled by people running in every direction seeking safety. Andrei stumbled forward, images bombarded his senses, but they weren’t real, they couldn’t be.

  The mounted Grenadiers charged the crowd. But the people grasped one another’s hands, still singing. . . .

  But there were no mounted troops, they were in trucks. Andrei felt dizzy and sick. The burst of shots exploding in his ears magnified tenfold, causing his head to throb.

  The foot soldiers broke through the opening the Grenadiers had made and started firing—not in the air this time, but directly at the crowd!

  Blindly Andrei fought his way through the crowd, now in complete chaos. Screams, like the gunfire, echoed in Andrei’s head. He was knocked to his knees and struggled to regain his feet, tugging on the arm of a nearby man. A moment later, he lost his balance again, this time tripping over something in his path. He fell over the obstacle and was kicked as someone ran past him. Then he saw what had caused his fall. A body was sprawled out before him.

  “Oh, God!” Andrei cried. “Help me!”

  He felt lost and weak like a child.

  “Papa! Help me!” Andrei grabbed his shoulder. A sharp pain pierced it, but there was no blood, there was no wound.

  What was happening?

  “Papa!” Andrei cried again.

  He reached for the body, but it was motionless. Papa was dead. Killed by the tsar. Andrei shook the body.

  “Please don’t be dead, Papa.”

  But his papa was dead, murdered twelve years ago . . . on Bloody Sunday. Andrei would never forget that day. He had so wanted to forget, to believe it had never happened. But in forgetting that, he had also forgotten his father altogether . . . and all those who loved him. How could pain and love be so deeply entwined?

  But that is an idea too deep for me to ponder, Andrei thought. It is more for the likes of Yuri. Let him fathom—

  Yuri . . . Mama . . . Talia . . .

  “Andrei!”

  He heard his name called and looked up, expecting to see his brother. But it was not. It was his friend Rudy. He started to acknowledge the man but had only opened his mouth when he felt a painful crack against his head. It knocked him over and all went momentarily black. He was only vaguely aware of an arm reaching down to lift him to his feet. He helped as much as he could, but his legs suddenly felt like limp rags, and with each movement he sensed his consciousness slipping away. That frightened him more than anything, for what if his memories left again? He struggled to keep his head, but the blackness was so strong, it enveloped him and he could not fight it.

  When he awoke, he expected to look around and see Sonja’s flat. But instead he saw from the cot on which he lay desks and chairs and file cabinets and several people. He was in the Pravda office. He tried to get up but his head throbbed when he moved it even a little. Reaching his hand to a particularly painful spot at the back of his head, he felt a lump. Removing his hand, he brought it forward and saw—blood. He felt woozy once again.

  “Well, well, you are alive,” came a familiar voice. Rudy.

  “Yes . . .” Andrei replied weakly.

  “You must start taking care of yourself, my friend. If I have to lug you
r hulk around again, I shall surely break my back.” Rudy’s tone was playful. In his eyes were affection and relief.

  “I’m sorry—” But all at once the scene on the street returned to Andrei. And he remembered. “Rudy, I remembered!”

  “You did? Everything?”

  “All that is important, I think.”

  “I am happy for you, Andrei. Are they good memories?”

  “Not all. My father was killed on Bloody Sunday. I think today’s demonstration trigged those images from the past. I was shot, too, that day.”

  “No wonder you can’t stand the sight of blood.”

  “But my mother and my brother are still here. And . . . Talia.” Andrei paused as if savoring the truth. “The woman I love,” Andrei said with a grin. “But I’ve never told her. And Rudy, I saw her—just before you found me. But I lost her again.” He tried to get up once more, this time swinging his feet to the floor. But his head swam, though he resisted the urge to lie down again. “I’ve got to find her!”

  “Of course you do, but I think it can wait until things quiet down out there.”

  “What’s been happening?” The only reason Andrei did not persist in his desperate desire to find Talia was that he knew if he stood just then he would probably faint.

  “The demonstrators reached the Tauride Palace. They actually arrested the president of the Soviet. Trotsky talked them into letting him go. But even then the Soviet would not support the demonstrators. They could have easily taken the power from the Provisional Government, but none were willing to make the decisive move. Then the Provisional Government played its trump card. They circulated rumors—”

  “How long have I been out, Rudy?”

  “Several hours. Time enough for the government to break up the demonstration. As I was saying, they circulated rumors among some of the key army regiments that were remaining neutral that Lenin is a German agent. They had some flimsy evidence made all the more believable when coupled with the rout in the recent war offensive.”