Strange Are the Ways

by Strange Are the Ways (retail) (epub)

  The confidence was not entirely well-placed. In her anxiety to get away from the main thoroughfare she had taken an unfamiliar turning; in minutes she was lost. It had been so very long since she had walked these streets, and at that never in such distracting circumstances. She spent ten minutes in trying to find her bearings and her way down to the river; another five in hurrying through these quieter streets until at last she came to the familiar corner and turned into the Venskaya to find herself at last outside the apartment building and then the door that she remembered so well.

  The street was empty and quiet. Somewhere not too far distant what sounded like a fully-fledged battle had broken out. Machine-gun fire rattled, punctuated by the sharper shots of rifle and small arms. It was full dark now, a full dark lit to rosy hue by the reflection of fire in the sky. She stood at the foot of the steps that led to the door, memories flooding. It was here she had first seen Andrei, slim and slight, the mop of silver hair like a halo about his head, his angel’s smile lighting his face as he came to greet them.

  Briskly she ran up the steps, pushed the door open.

  Stopped, staring.

  The building, though never particularly impressive or elegant, had always been clean and presentable, its tenants on the whole civil and self-respecting. Now it was a shambles. The door to what had been Andrei’s apartment was all but off its hinges. The room beyond, empty in the guttering fight of an ill-tended oil lamp, was squalid and untidy, the remains of a meal still on the table. The stairs were even filthier, words and slogans were scrawled upon the walls, and the smell was ghastly. She looked up to the door that had been the Shalakovs’. It too was daubed with a slogan in a language she did not recognize. Surely – surely! – her mother could not still be living here?

  The building was very quiet; unnaturally so. Presumably most of the occupants were out in the streets watching, or partaking in, the fun. Very slowly she mounted the stairs and tapped upon the door. The doorbell hung broken and rusty. The muffled sounds of battle still sounded from outside. She knocked again, louder. Someone spoke from inside. The door opened a crack to reveal a young woman, sullen-faced and wary-looking, a child in her arms and another at her skirts.

  I’m sorry,’ Anna said. ‘I’m looking for Varya Petrovna Shalakova – she used to live here?’

  The woman looked at her in blank incomprehension.

  ‘Shalakova,’ Anna said again.

  The woman shook her head violently, tried to close the door.

  Anna put out her hand. ‘Please, I only want –’

  The woman all but snarled at her, spat something in a language that Anna half-recognized as eastern European – Polish, she thought, but could not be certain, and slammed the door in her face.

  There was no point in staying, in attempting to argue. Her mother was not here; patently had not been here for some time; she must surely then still be with her sister in the mansion on the Fontanka. Gritting her teeth, Anna asked herself why she hadn’t started at the Fontanka in the first place.

  She almost ran from the defiled building and back into the ravaged streets of Petrograd.

  * * *

  It astonished her how rapidly it was possible to become accustomed to the sights and sounds of violence. She hurried through the streets within earshot of what in some parts of the city had become a full-blown battle as the remnants of the regiments still loyal to the Tsar fought on against the rebels and the military reinforcements that had defected to the side of the people. Perhaps fortunately she was not to know that this was not the only violence loose in the city that night. The hunt was up for those who had enforced repression for so long; no policeman was safe, nor any officer suspected of old loyalties, nor anyone associated with the Tsar’s hated Interior Ministry. Buildings were stormed, taken, and purged; police stations and the District Courts of Justice set ablaze. Old scores were settled with relentless and savage efficiency.

  At the very moment that Anna emerged once more into the Nevsky Prospekt and realized with a jolt that she was no more than a stone’s throw from her father’s shop, Pavel Petrovich Donovalov was being dragged, struggling like a demon, from his hiding place in the cellars beneath the Ministry a mile or so away and hauled to where an open-backed lorry stood parked beneath the balcony of the building opposite. To cheers a noosed rope snaked down, swung empty and ominous beside another that bore the obscene fruit of an earlier hunt. Donovalov’s demented struggles increased – for a single moment he tore himself free; stood panting with terror within a solid ring of faces; faces in which no scrap of human sympathy, no vestige of compassion showed. He screamed as they took him. By the time that Anna, drawn as by a magnet to the place she had loved so well, stood on the ruined threshold of her father’s shop, the dancing flames of revolution lighting the wreckage within, Lenka’s husband was engaged in his final, mortal struggle, choking slowly and terribly to death as he swung, his last sight those hate-filled faces, the last sound to penetrate the agony of his dying the fierce, animal howl of the mob.

  Anna stepped into the shop. Glass crunched beneath her heavy boots, setting her teeth on edge. The destruction was absolute. There was not a pane of glass, not a mirror, that was not smashed or shattered. Someone had tried to set fire to the counter; the solid wood had defied the flame but still smouldered balefully and the stink of it pervaded everything. Cabinets were splintered, shelves pulled down. Anything movable and useful had been looted. One chair remained, drunken upon three legs, in the corner. Even the sweeping staircase had been damaged, the mahogany banisters and handrail, substantial as they had been, chopped to matchwood.

  Outside, a convoy of lorries roared noisily past, gears grinding. A volley of shots sounded. Upon the barricade a little further up the road people were singing, against the background of machine-gun fire.

  Within the odd, enclosing silence of the wrecked building she walked carefully to the shadowed staircase, stood listening. All was quiet. Slowly, stepping gingerly, she began to mount the stairs.

  The workshop too was gutted. She had not expected less. She stood for a very long time in the gap where the door had been, confronting the senseless destruction. Even in the half-light she could see it. The workbenches were smashed, their padding hanging in ribbons. The instruments and the tools were gone. Again, cupboards and shelves had been ripped from the walls. Debris littered the floor. And in that debris, cast down and stove in by a booted foot, an unvarnished and unstringed violin lay, mute and beyond any repair. Unsteadily she moved through the wreckage, bent to pick up the poor, shattered thing. And froze, as behind her in the flickering darkness she heard a sound. The crunching of a foot upon shattered glass. And then, slowly and steadily, footsteps mounting the stairs.

  She glanced around her at the room, lit by the fitful flare of a fire on the opposite side of the street. Nowhere. Nowhere to hide –

  ‘Anna Victorovna?’ It was a male voice; quiet, reassuring. ‘Is it you?’

  She straightened to face the door.

  He was a tall, narrow-shouldered man in an overcoat that, like almost every other article of clothing she had observed since her arrival in Petrograd, had seen better days. As she faced him he snatched the shapeless fur hat from his head. Faded fair hair fell over a wide brow. Pale, tranquil eyes searched her face in the treacherous, flickering light.

  She knew him. She frowned. She knew that face –

  He waited.

  Then, ‘Volodya!’ she said. ‘It’s Volodya, isn’t it?’

  He smiled, bowed his head.

  ‘Oh,’ it was a small sound, compounded of relief and bewilderment, ‘oh, I am so pleased to see you!’

  He shambled, limping heavily, across the floor towards her. She still held the shattered violin. Very gently he took it from her, tossed it into a corner. ‘I saw you in the street,’ he said. ‘I was coming to check on the shop.’ He looked around. Watching him she saw his pain. There was a long moment of silence.

  She tried very hard but with minimum
success to laugh. ‘And you recognized me?’

  ‘Oh, but of course!’ The reply was remarkably swift. ‘Of course I recognized you.’

  She moved a foot amongst the wreckage upon the floor. ‘Why? Why did they do this?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Senseless,’ she said.

  He said nothing for a long while. Then, ‘They take what they want,’ he said, softly, ‘and they break what they don’t understand, I think.’

  ‘Like children?’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  They shared a small, thoughtful silence. ‘Dangerous children,’ Anna said then, bleakly.

  Her companion did not reply.

  She lifted her head. ‘Mama – you know where she is?’

  He smiled. ‘Of course. She’s at your aunt’s apartment on the Fontanka. She’s quite safe. I’ve just come from there. I thought you knew. She’s been there since your father’s death.’ The words were calm, held sympathy but no embarrassment nor awkwardness.

  Anna nodded. ‘I should have thought of it. I did think of it. But, stupidly perhaps, I went to the old apartment first.’

  ‘Ah.’ He took her arm, helped her back to the doorway. ‘The whole building’s been taken over by refugees –’

  ‘So I discovered.’ Reaction dried Anna’s throat suddenly. She coughed a little.

  ‘So much of the city has been.’ Still holding her arm he guided her, his own steps uneven but his strong grip steady, along the dark landing to the stairs. ‘Be careful, Anna Victorovna, the stairs are dangerous.’

  The formality of his address was absurd. She turned to tell him so. ‘Please, Volodya –’ She stopped. Swallowed. ‘Anna, do call me –’ the pent up emotion she was battling erupted in an undignified, hiccoughing sob ‘– do call me Anna –’ Her knees gave way beneath her. Entirely unable to prevent herself she sank, crouching upon the stairs, her face bowed to her hands, and the tears came. For a few minutes she sobbed, passionately, noisily, allowing confusion and shock to overwhelm her. Nothing was as she had hoped, nothing was as she had expected. She had come home to destruction, to anarchy and to fear. Had come home to this, a familiar shrine desecrated.

  She sensed him as he lowered himself, a little awkwardly, one leg stiff in front of him, to the stair beside her. Felt his arm about her shaking shoulders. He said nothing, made no attempt to quieten her, simply held her, comfortingly, and let her cry.

  It was over almost as suddenly and as surprisingly as it had begun. She blew her nose, loudly, scrubbed at her eyes, lifted her head. ‘I’m sorry. That was unforgivable.’ Tiredly she took a long breath, calming herself. Through the shattered windows came the steady clatter of hooves, as a regiment of cavalry cantered by, steadily and with purpose. The noise of the gunfire had not abated.

  He was watching her gravely, the pale eyes tranquil and untroubled as she remembered them. He shook his head. His arm was still about her. ‘Natural,’ he said. ‘Quite natural.’

  They sat so, each leaning upon the other for a moment; a moment of human warmth, of companionship in a perilous world.

  ‘You would like me to take you to your mother?’ he asked, at last.

  She knuckled the last of the tears from her eyes. Nodded.

  He took her hand, pulled her to her feet. ‘Come.’

  The trip was not without its alarms. Obviously practised, he kept her from the worst of it, but still they were stopped over and again by snipers, by officious groups of workers and students with red armbands and cockades in their caps, by skirmishes and by hastily erected barricades. Volodya calmly talked them through the checkpoints and barricades – indeed in several places he was readily recognized. ‘You seem to know everyone!’ Anna smiled, at one point, intrigued that the quiet and shy young man she had known should show such command of a difficult and dangerous situation. He shook his head, glanced at her, returning her smile. ‘Not everyone,’ he said, and would say no more. Vladimir Pavelovich Yamakov, Anna found herself thinking with a small twist of amusement, was undoubtedly that rarely encountered breed, a man of few words.

  Normally it would have taken less than half an hour to walk from the shop to the mansion apartment on the Fontanka; the roundabout route they were forced to take, their progress made more difficult not just by the uproar in the streets but by the fires that had been set by the insurgents, took at least twice that. As they made their way at last along the banks of the canal an excited young man galloped by on a captured Cossack pony, shouting that the Fortress had fallen. Nearby, soldiers and workers were gathered outside a tall house, jeering and pointing, occasionally firing with more enthusiasm than accuracy in the general direction of the roof. Anna paused to watch. Volodya, with no ceremony, caught her arm and hauled her away. As he did so a shot rang out and one of the soldiers was flung backwards to sprawl bloodily against the wall, screaming. Another shot followed, and another, each finding its mark. The prey that had been hunted into that house was not about to surrender meekly to the cavalier mercies of the mob.

  ‘Come. Quickly.’ Guiding her firmly, remarkably agile despite his uneven stride, Volodya made a last, limping dash to the house. They ran up the shallow flight of steps to the huge revolving door that used to swing so easily but which now creaked protestingly as he threw his weight against it.

  The foyer, which had always seemed so splendid to Anna, was unlit and unnervingly silent, an absurd oasis of peace and false tranquillity. The stairs curved gracefully upwards into darkness. Still holding her hand, Volodya made confidently towards them, their feet making no sound on the thick pile of the carpet.

  ‘Where is everyone?’ Absurdly Anna found herself whispering, as if afraid to wake the echoes that hung in the shadows above them.

  ‘Most of the residents have cut and run.’ They began to mount the stairs. Volodya too kept his voice low. ‘Many people in this building have cause to fear the changes that are taking place out there.’

  Anna stopped, staring at him, her eyes wide. This was something that simply had not occurred to her. Still holding her hand he stopped too, watching her. ‘Uncle Mischa?’ she asked.

  He nodded. ‘He left some days ago. No-one knows where he is. And your aunt’s in Helsinki with her daughter.’

  ‘Katya. She’s still in Finland?’

  ‘Yes. You heard her husband was killed in an accident?’

  It was just one more shock, one more horror in a day of them. Anna shook her head. ‘No. No, I hadn’t heard that.’

  They were mounting the stairs again, slowly. ‘She had a little boy, three or four months ago. Your aunt’s been with her since then.’

  ‘And Mama?’

  They had reached the door of the apartment. He stopped. ‘She’s been living here alone. Anna –’

  She had her hand on the door handle. He put out his own to restrain her, seemed about to say something. She looked at him, surprised. Then with something that was almost a shrug he stepped back, the hand dropping from hers.

  She opened the door.

  The huge apartment, which Anna remembered as always full of people, always full of noise, of light, of laughter, of quarrelsome talk, was still and cold and oppressively quiet. One lamp burned upon the table in the spacious entrance hall, its light gleaming upon the lovely wood, the heavy, expensive drapes, the tall mirrors.

  ‘Where is everyone?’ She was whispering again. Anna cleared her throat, tried to speak normally. ‘Where are the servants?’

  Volodya was frowning a little. ‘I don’t know. I was here just a few hours ago; some had left, certainly, but not all.’

  ‘Where’s Mama?’ Anna’s heart was beating so violently that she could barely breathe.

  ‘This way.’ Volodya, with the most natural of movements, held his hand to her again. Equally naturally she took it and let him lead her across the polished floor of the entrance hall into the corridor that ran behind the ballroom along which Anna remembered the family bedrooms had been situated.

  There was a sharp and
frightening rattle of gunfire from the street outside.

  The corridor was entirely unlit.

  Volodya, his movements becoming more urgent, went back to the table and picked up the lamp. Anna, sensing his anxiety, hurried behind him to a door at the far end of the corridor.

  He tapped upon it. ‘Varya Petrovna? Are you there?’ He pushed open the door.

  ‘Volodya? Is that you?’ The voice was peevish, querulous. ‘Where have you been? Where is everyone? Why haven’t the lamps been lit?’

  There was a brief and appalled moment’s silence. Anna was standing in the shadowed shelter of the doorway looking at the grotesque figure that half-sat, half-reclined in an armchair next to the stove that heated the room in contrast to the rest of the apartment to the temperature of a hot-house. Small, bright eyes sunk in pallid flesh gleamed in the flickering, moving light cast by Volodya’s lamp. For a frightful moment Anna was reminded of nothing so much as a massive and fleshy spider crouched in the corner of a web.

  Varya shifted a little, heaving herself more upright in the chair, moving her swollen legs upon the footstool, peering into the shadows. ‘Who is that? Volodya? Is it you? In the name of God, what is going on? What is all that dreadful noise? Did you bring my chocolates? Who’s that with you? Volodya? Do you have someone with you?’

  It took as great an effort of will as Anna could ever remember having to muster to step forward, smiling, hands outstretched. ‘It’s me, Mama. It’s Anna.’

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Once the demon of violence and anarchy had been let loose upon the city it proved, not surprisingly, all but impossible to capture and confine it again. Not even after the unthinkable had happened and the Tsar had abdicated, just three days after Anna’s arrival at the apartment on the Fontanka, did the disturbances cease. Confusion reigned not only in the streets and amongst the common people but in the halls of political power and amongst those whose actions and ambitions had brought this chaos into being; and who now fought each other grimly for control not simply of the city but of a mighty nation. Most members of the Duma were dismayed by the abdication; certainly they had fought to curb the power of the throne but never had they desired or foreseen this outcome, especially not whilst the country was still embroiled in a bitter and exhausting war. The Petrograd Soviet on the other hand had wanted and worked for exactly this – and having so astonishingly achieved its aim now turned its dangerous attentions upon other targets, not least the Duma itself. The bourgeois Provisional Committee of the Duma might be a constitutionally elected body, and therefore consider itself the legitimate government of the country; but it was the Soviet revolutionary committee that represented the workers that on the whole held sway over the people, and the rebel army and navy, and who therefore truly ruled the city with its anarchic orders and decrees. Yet even now few observers, outside or inside Russia, really believed that these extremist groups could win the day; it was widely held certain that in the end good sense would prevail and a moderate, middle-class government would come in to being. Some did not even rule out the possibility of a constitutional monarchy, though to anyone familiar with the excesses of Romanov rule to date this seemed an unlikely outcome.