Field of Mars

by Stephen Miller

  He was a religious man, he said. With a family. Newly become a grandfather, the result of his long marriage and six children, all of whom were doing well. The youngest girl was the wild one of the lot, his favourite, an artist who had moved to Copenhagen to study. Being an executioner did not pay all that well. The fees had gone up over the years, but he supplemented his income by taking a second job.

  ‘Why don’t you stop? All the—’

  ‘Yes. My wife wants me to stop, she can’t imagine that it does me any good. She makes me wash after,’ he said with a shrug. ‘I suppose she’s right, but …’ For the first time the executioner had the beginnings of a frown across his brow. ‘You see … I can do this, it’s not something that I enjoy, but it’s necessary, and I can do it. Can you imagine someone doing it who loved it? Or who brought an attitude of … vengeance? I meet them the night before when I weigh them, I ask their forgiveness, and describe what I can do for them. I try to put them at ease.’ The executioner paused, looked at the open fields that stretched to the horizon.

  ‘I see,’ said Ryzhkov.

  For a long time they said nothing.

  The executioner slept, snoring lightly on the seat across from him. Later in the day they ate together and the executioner excused himself. He had to get off at Kursk. Only family business, he said with a little smile.

  ‘You said you asked for their forgiveness,’ Ryzhkov said. ‘Do they give it to you?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Nearly always.’

  At Kursk he helped the man with his rather heavy suitcases. ‘It’s been a pleasure meeting you, sir,’ the executioner said, a little out of breath, after they had trudged the length of the platform. A gendarme stepped out from a barrier and blocked their way, roping off that portion of the platform. Another train had come into the station and was being given priority.

  ‘Oh, my …’ said the executioner. They put the bags down and waited with the other passengers while a crowd of young peasant boys, still in their rough clothes, lined up in long ranks. Perhaps a hundred of them. Looking around with their open faces, shaking off their sleep. Now Ryzhkov saw that all around them, on the lampposts, on the railings of the station, around each of the windows were garlands of bunting with little shields representing the hereditary arms of Russia.

  ‘What’s all this?’ he asked a gendarme.

  ‘Haven’t you heard the news sir? The red cards are going up soon. On Tuesday they put out the call for the technical battalions. It’s the start of mobilization,’ the man said with a smile. Russia’s peasant armies were beginning to form. ‘The President of France, Monsieur Poincaré, is visiting the capital, too, eh? You know, discussing strategy with the Tsar so we can get together and crush those filthy Huns, eh?’ And now the policeman laughed and walked a few paces away to patrol the other end of his rope.

  Over by the platform someone screamed a command and the lines of boys straightened up and tried to look serious.

  He watched a sergeant and his officer inspect the boys. It seemed to go on for quite some time, and the scene was novel enough that gradually a small crowd gathered to watch. The boys were growing up before his eyes. Now the sly looks were gone. Now their baby faces were hardened, scowling. Their shoulders thrown back, chests open to whatever challenge was coming their way.

  He and the executioner stood patiently and watched the whole thing, the sergeant and his officer walking the ranks, stopping at each boy, grilling them, encouraging them, correcting them. Soon their clothes would be shucked off and replaced with khaki. Soon, instead of carrying the pathetic parcels their mothers had pressed on them the day before, they would be shouldering their long bayoneted rifles. Soon you wouldn’t be able to tell them apart.

  The officer came out on to the platform, the sergeant saluted, spun around and screamed a new command. The boys all turned, raggedly, a little awkwardly. Another command and they began to march, all out of step, towards their train.

  The gendarme untied his rope and Ryzhkov and the executioner continued along the platform with their bags. ‘Well, good luck to you, Monsieur Pravdin. Godspeed,’ the man said happily.

  ‘And you, sir.’ Ryzhkov returned his handshake and watched him cross the street and take a shortcut through a little barrier of shrubbery that separated the tracks from the houses of the city.

  The crowd had begun to disperse. Whistles were sounding from the Petersburg train. For a moment he stood there on the platform with everything swirling around him. He could still leave, he could still save himself. Disappear. Buy a ticket. With the additional money he had stolen from Pravdin he had enough. Enough to run away. Go on, he said to himself. Go on, you’ve done what you can, you’ve already given your life for a Tsar who couldn’t have cared less. You tried, you failed. But you tried.

  Something caught his eye and he saw the executioner across the street waving to him, and he raised his hand to return a goodbye salute as the man disappeared into the throng. Ryzhkov saw that the city fathers had decorated everything with bunting. The colourful fabrics had been tied up everywhere, on the lampposts all along the street and even on the carriages that were swarming in front of the station. Everyone was smiling, a thrill of electricity had engulfed the whole station. In the distance a band was practising the Marseillaise. It was an exquisitely beautiful day.

  It was so beautiful, he thought, that it brought tears to his eyes.

  Vera caught sight of herself in the bright sun reflected off a shop window. She hated the reflection and turned away, crossing over one more street, walking along until she came to a large rambling shop that housed several dressmakers. She debated for a moment about going up to La Fleur on the Nevsky. It would be the best, but she was not shopping for the best. Just something she could afford, something more conservative, something that wouldn’t stand out. She was tired of standing out. She put on her smile and went through the doors, cheerfully greeted the madam and told her that she wanted to purchase a suit.

  ‘Something fit for travelling. Something lightweight but still …’

  ‘Distinguished,’ said the woman finishing her sentence. ‘Elegant …’

  ‘But nothing too …’

  ‘Frivolous? I have just the thing,’ she said giving Vera a brief appraisal and then vanishing into her stock room.

  She idled along the tables and racks, letting her fingers travel over the textures of the cloth. The woman returned and in a few minutes Vera was trying on a brown travelling suit, of linen, with a wide skirt for the summer. It was the kind of thing that wouldn’t show dust or grime from a long journey by rail or coach.

  She put it on, while the woman made clucking noises behind her. Turned from side to side and steeled herself to meet her own gaze in the mirror. It would be better if she were blonde, she thought. She could go to Puli’s salon and have her hair coloured, her brows bleached. The suit would look better then.

  ‘I’ll take it,’ she smiled to the woman. And yes, the fit was nearly perfect. There were only slight alterations required on the hem, and for an extra five roubles Vera said she would wait. There were shoes to match and a hat, something that would guard against the sun. She found what she wanted almost immediately. The woman bustled away, happy at the easy sale.

  Vera sat in the little foyer of the shop while her clothing was being prepared. Stared out at the street traffic. No dark carriages lurking at the corner. No men standing in doorways smoking cigarette after cigarette. No one looking through the windows searching for a secret policeman’s girlfriend.

  She wondered where he was and then stopped herself as soon as she was conscious of the thought, put him out of her mind like a broom sweeping across the threshold. The sun poured through the window and she watched the motes of dust rise and fall.

  Now Pyotr was a dust mote, or as free as a dust mote. On the run, of course. Being pursued by his fellow secret policeman, a target waiting for his assassin. Death could come at any moment; may have come already for all she knew. He might have been captured, put up
a fight or foolishly tried to run … that would be the lie the ones who killed him would tell—but maybe he was, for now—free.

  So, maybe she was free, too. Free of all that, at least. Well, she’d lost all her family things, the half-dozen pieces of furniture she’d inherited, when she’d been made to leave her aunt’s, and if she tried to made a stink Varvara was the type who would hire an attorney and tell everybody about her exciting background with her heels in the air. Get the gendarmes to talk to Izov, have someone come around and check her residency permit and maybe send her back to Yekaterinoslav.

  So, to hell with the furniture and those keep-sakes, to hell with Pyotr Ryzhkov, God bless him where ever he was. She would be free, step out into the new electric world and begin all over again one more time. It was a giddy sensation. A kind of insanity. A sudden recognition and learning of something brand-new and a lot more profound than a dance step. Maybe she had never known anyone who was free, she would have never recognized them if she had.

  The woman came out and apologized for the length of time the alterations were taking; Vera waved her away with a smile, she could sit there all week she thought. Sit there for the rest of her life.

  She leaned her head back against the pillar that supported the window and began to dream about her escape. She had more than sufficient funds to leave the country, that was no problem. She might have enough money for a year in Italy, enough to pay the fee for a visa, enough to take classes, to become established. It would work, she thought as she closed her eyes. Smiling in the closeness of the room, with the perfume of expensive fabrics all around her.

  She would leave a note for Pyotr, on the off-chance that he came back. That was fair enough. A postcard, a seascape from Capri or Corfu, or Corsica, or somewhere exotic and warm. She’d leave it in an envelope with Izov, they were such good friends. And then? Well, it was up to him. By that time she’d be on the way to something better, something where she didn’t have to watch out for every last kopek. He’d be sorry, but … those were the breaks. He should have seen it coming, should have got out too. She would have gone with him if he’d asked. All he had to do was ask. Well, that was his loss, wasn’t it?

  And if he did find her? Then he’d want her to follow him, to take on a new future together, running away from men in black hats, a life of false names, forged papers that might evaporate beneath the first serious scrutiny. She would have to dance under an assumed name, move from city to city, live like a rat. The kind of men Pyotr swam with would not hesitate to reach beyond Russia’s borders. They’d hunt both of them down and garrotte them if they ever discovered his hiding place.

  And maybe that was why he was staying away.

  Or maybe he was dead. But she couldn’t think about that, couldn’t imagine it. It just wasn’t in the cards. Couldn’t believe that someone like him, someone who knew the kinds of things he knew could … No, she thought.

  No.

  So, it was over then. And the sadness of it made her open her eyes to a summer’s day turned cold and joyless. Made her aware that the cost of her freedom was losing him.

  Gone.

  She shifted in the chair, suddenly anxious. Angry at the delay in the back of the shop. There was a pile of old magazines sitting on the low windowsill, all of them thumbed through and dog-eared from countless readings. She was riffling through them when the madam came out and apologized again. Something wrong with the steam in their press. It had just been repaired. Her suit would be ready shortly. She saw Vera with the old magazines in her hand and an embarrassed expression crossed her face.

  ‘Oh, mademoiselle, here is something much more current—’ she handed Vera a pair of more recent magazines to look through. ‘Moments away …’ Smiling as she backed out.

  The magazine on top was the latest issue of Woman, the popular weekly that was subtitled Mother-Citizen-Wife-Housewife. It took her about two minutes to thumb through. A useless rag packed with recipes and tips on how to affect the latest styles of make-up and hairdressing. All of it out of date. Who wanted to look like a Russian housewife? Beneath it was something better, a French fashion magazine, somewhat more general in its outlook. It had lithographs of fashions, the long silhouette was the newest style; she had anticipated the look with the dress that she’d worn to Fauré’s big party. She suddenly choked. Tears sprang to her eyes. She dug a handkerchief out of her purse, dabbed at her eyes, tried to concentrate on the pages in front of her.

  The magazine was much concerned with gossip and the doings of royalty. In the back was a long schedule of gala events planned all across Europe. She read that in June King George and the Kaiser were planning to be in Kiel for the annual regatta. The royal family of Spain had recently returned to Madrid. The King of Peru was visiting King Olav of Norway, just starting to learn how to ski. Peru had many mountains, the magazine claimed, and his serene majesty hoped to take the sport back to his country. In Austria, Emperor Franz Joseph was fully recovered from his illness, a bout of influenza which had sent shivers through the nation. At the height of the deathwatch, the heir to the throne—Archduke Franz Ferdinand—had been called back to Vienna in case the emperor succumbed.

  She started at the words, the irony of what she had just read.

  Now that same young archduke was dead, gunned down along with his wife, and everything had changed. It was all anyone talked about at the Komet. She’d read the papers. She hadn’t even known where Sarajevo was, she’d barely even heard of the archduke. Now these two deaths peppered everyone’s conversations. It was eerie to look at the magazine, written only a month before … before the killings. It was almost as if one could have seen it coming, could have seen it in the art, heard it in the crazy rhythms, almost as if it were pre-ordained. The newspapers were full of war fever and no one could read the future. Would common sense prevail? Diplomats were working overtime, while politicians railed against each other in print. There were conferences, notes were being exchanged and interpreted. Serbia would have to pay for her perfidy, but how much? Would Russia leap into the breach and support her brothers to the south? And how much? What was the price of peace, and who would pay it? The royal dynasties? The industrialists? Or would it be as it always had been—the peasants, the factory workers, the artists and the whores?

  Maybe humans weren’t so smart after all, maybe they were just lemmings with finer clothes.

  ‘Ahh … Finally!’ The madam whirled in, with the suit, immaculately pressed. Just for a moment Vera looked at the woman, not quite realizing where she was; absentminded and a little muzzy because of the sun, and because she had floated away with her musings on the rise and fall of the royal households of Europe.

  ‘I’m so sorry for the wait, mademoiselle.’

  ‘Oh, it’s nothing. Quite all right.’ She gave the woman an affectionate pat on the arm.

  She ran her hands over the little jacket. It was good quality linen, and now that it had been freshly pressed, she would look like any travelling woman about to join her family abroad, or preparing for an excursion to Scandinavia. She smiled at the clothes. Her suit of armour, her cloak of adventure.

  Her new life.

  It would be better if she were blonde. Men liked blondes. They liked them because they were exotic and because they reminded them of little girls, fair and pure and unsoiled. They looked clean. If they were dangerous underneath, well, that was a plus. She would go to Puli’s next. She looked at the woman. She was smiling as well, and suddenly they both laughed.

  ‘You know,’ Vera said, ‘I’ll change …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I think I’ll change right now.’

  FORTY-FOUR

  Now, for the condemned man, the city lay open. Splayed out in the summer light eyes wide, teeth bared, with not even the promise of a dark night within which to hide.

  No one even looked at him as he walked, invisible, through the crowds. Why was everyone so happy? Everywhere people were smiling, there were sly looks, witticism
s. Remarks that drew laughter. Arms were linked through arms. The street was a swarm of summer-dazzled Petersburgers strolling towards whatever awaited them, taking their sweet time; a sophisticated promenade of life. Not an umbrella in sight.

  Ryzhkov moved through the crowds as if through a thick syrup, wafted along on the fetid smells from the canals, the reek of petrol exhaust, the sharp scent of a woman’s perfume as he stepped aside to let her pass.

  Boys were hawking newspapers, screaming things he couldn’t decipher, important things. Things to which he should pay attention: the opening of the Panama Canal had already altered the balance of power; academics had proven the story of Noah and the flood to be true, rebels in Mexico had captured another city … Unrelated facts swarmed about Ryzhkov’s head like gnats, thousands of things which would certainly change his life if—if only he would listen! But no one else was listening, why should he? He boarded a tram, a new electric one, for the long trip up the Nevsky. Even here, people were laughing, happy. Content, giddy, smugly satisfied—the whole range of bliss. One would never know, never suspect that …

  The pistol was a thick lump in his jacket, grown warm from the heat of his body. His own warmth entering the frame of the pistol, the barrel, the clip of cartridges. Warming the powder, the heavy lead of each bullet. So warm that he could only feel it when he moved and it swung heavily against his chest. A part of him almost detached, then returning. I am here, I am here with you …

  They waited while the Troitsky Bridge was lowered and he looked out of the window at the little white passenger steamers plying the river, the heavier cargo vessels on their way out to the Gulf. Gulls were sweeping along behind the boats, wheeling and diving for their food. Not a cloud on the horizon.

  He had telephoned ahead to the barracks of the Guards.

  Prince Evdaev was at his Petersburg residence, the duty officer had told him. Home awaiting orders. The operations of the army were strictly private, undoubtedly with the recent disturbances and the mobilization, the prince was very busy, and for security reasons they would tell him nothing more.