Andrianov’s mouth opened and he went pale. ‘You can’t be … serious,’ he breathed.
‘Oh, yes. I’m serious.’
Andrianov gave an involuntary laugh. ‘This is … look, this is truly absurd, I’m sure we can make some kind of arrangement, the idea of you coming after me because of some whore—’
Ryzhkov pushed the pistol out so that it was almost touching the rubber sleeve of Andrianov’s jacket and pulled the trigger. Andrianov’s eyes opened wide with surprise for an instant and then he crouched over with the pain of it, not quite falling to his knees.
‘Keep going, it’s not far,’ Ryzhkov said, and slapped the man hard against his ear. When he stood up he had tears in his eyes. Blood was running out of the sleeve of the rain jacket.
‘You fucking bastard … you fucking little shit,’ Andrianov said between his gritted teeth. ‘You think you have any idea at all about real justice? You think you can even begin to appreciate true morality or what is right and wrong? You’re a child, an infant!’
And that was when Ryzhkov shot him again, low down, through the kidney. So that Andrianov fell into the mud with a great moan and rolled over, sighing, the game over, his face gone white. ‘Oh, God …’ he puffed.
‘Get up. Keep going,’ Ryzhkov said, standing above him. Andrianov looked up at him for a long moment, the face slack, like a child waiting for the lights to be turned down. Ryzhkov reached out and prodded him with his shoe. The second shot would kill him, but it would take a while. ‘Go on.’
Andrianov rolled over, braced himself with his good arm, and managed to get to his feet.
They only walked a couple of steps before Ryzhkov heard him say something, something garbled that he couldn’t understand, and then Andrianov finally decided to make his run.
Ryzhkov let him go, watching him lumber down the pathway, Andrianov taking his hand away from his bloody shoulder so that he could keep his balance. He let him run off, opened the cylinder of the pistol to check how many bullets were left.
Enough.
Andrianov was crashing along, stumbling through the bushes, trying to find a place to hide in the reeds. There was enough blood and stamped-down vegetation that Ryzhkov could follow along easily. Ryzhkov could hear him groaning, the labouring of his breath as he tried to slog through the marsh by the side of the raised path.
He walked through the crushed reeds until he found Andrianov, stood there watching him, sunk in the mud up to his mid-thigh. Watched him struggling until the man looked over his shoulder and saw Ryzhkov waiting. Then the fight went out of him and then he stopped, knowing that in the end there was no escape.
‘Do you want to say a prayer, before?’ Ryzhkov asked the man in the mud. Andrianov stared at him for a moment, looked out towards the Gulf, towards the place he’d thought he would be sailing this morning. Towards all the different banking houses in which he had hidden his monies, towards the promise of an America beyond the gathering storm.
From a long distance away there was a rumbling of the salute being fired to cement the alliance between France and Russia, fireworks for Poincaré’s departure.
‘Well, all right then. It probably wouldn’t do much good anyway,’ he said to Andrianov, who was just planted there in the mud, slumping over now, his head slowly bowing as if he were falling asleep. He looked like he was inspecting some tiny plant that had just emerged from the slime.
Ryzhkov checked Kostya’s gun to make sure there was a bullet in the chamber, stepped down and squatted on a hummock of grass and watched Andrianov die. It was as if he had gone to sleep and then he would suddenly wake up and have to figure everything out anew. Then he would try to pull himself out of the muck. He did it three or four times, but it didn’t work. Behind him the mud was stained red from his bleeding.
‘There is nothing … nothing …’ Andrianov said. His voice was almost a whisper and he was staring down at the mud as he spoke. Maybe he was already gone, Ryzhkov thought. He remembered the way the gendarme had put Fauré’s horse out of his misery, and he raised the gun and pointed it at the crown of Andrianov’s blonde head. His finger tightened on the trigger.
‘Nothing …’ Andrianov moaned. Maybe that was all he was left with, or maybe it was all he could imagine. A horse pulled loads all day, never complained. A horse could be your friend, would run itself to death under you if you asked for it. Had Andrianov ever done anything to deserve the mercy you gave a wounded horse?
Ryzhkov uncocked the hammer and stood up, thinking about it.
He stood for a long, long moment without coming up with a single thing, watching the man go through his feeble swimming motions, listening to his muddy whispers.
He climbed back up to the path and looked out over the Gulf. There was a cacophony of whistles, horns and bells as the low angry silhouette of France steamed past the forts. There was a gargling sound; below him Andrianov had sagged over, his face pressed into the mud, his arm outstretched, trying to reach something that would always be beyond his grasp.
So …
The walk back seemed longer. There was a low fog that kept rising over the little Nevka. He heard a low rumbling and the sharp screeching of metal and he looked over to see a train easing through Staraya Derevnya, just across the channel, the shabby little fishing town where most of Petersburg’s smugglers lived.
He thought about going back to Firebird, maybe untying the boat and seeing how much of his nautical expertise came back to him. He thought he might be able to make it out past the Kronstadt forts, lose himself in the exuberance of the regatta. But Andrianov might really have friends on the way, and with the extra money in the pocket of his jacket Ryzhkov had enough; enough to see him into the woods, to see him on his way beneath the darkness of the firs, to see him across the border. Enough for bribes, for fresh documents, for anonymity. Enough for a future.
He knew the future. He could see it, see himself walking all night into the darkness of the forests. Yes, he would take Andrianov’s money and escape first to Finland and then … Then …
He would never be able to go back, he would have to be shut off from her, for her own safety, eventually he would forget about her, lose the memory of her face. It would all be decided by the end of one more day when he sneaked across the border, and he finally would run, limping blindly through the trees, terrified of the shouting of a too-alert guard, the sound of gunshots in the white night.
He caught his breath for a moment as a vision of Vera came to him, unbidden, invading his imagination, nearly causing him to stumble. His eyes were smarting and he tried to make his thoughts reach out to her. Tried to frame his love into a picture postcard.
‘For you,’ he said to the sky. ‘For you and Katya.’ He reached into his pocket and threw Kostya’s gun into the water, skipping it like a stone for a single hop before it tumbled into the murk. Made himself keep walking away. Now there was nothing but the screaming of the birds, the regular pulse of the locomotive across the water.
Away out there he could see the amazing aeroplane, the sound of its engine coming to him erratically on the wind. Buzzing like an addled honeybee, circling over the crowds of boats, above the fireworks and the cheering; high above all the whistles, the bunting, and the flags, as Petersburg wished Poincaré bon voyage.
Sikorsky in his little silken aeroplane, defying gravity, cheating death as he hovered above the heavy black dreadnought.
A real hero.
EPILOGUE
These are the fiery mornings of August.
His manservant, Zonta, wakes him, his gentle purring ‘excellency …’ A light touch on the shoulder. But Evdaev rarely sleeps. He does not need sleep any more, he has become free of the need for sleep, free of the dreaming.
Why dream when each day is unto itself such an ornate dream? A dream of millions of men rushing to meet each other, a dream of urgent messages being delivered, sweating horses, exhausted couriers. Blood and steel. Things burning.
And on the roads, all sorts of
people—peasants, farmers, merchants, priests, Jews, local dignitaries with their hats in their hands, poised, looking up as his regiment rides through their miserable hamlets. Old people, children, their hands held aloft so that you cannot divine what they want; is it a salutation, a wish for Godspeed? Is it because they are already starving? All this strife about, and they have only been at war for a week or two!
He is on his way to decapitate Prussia. The mobilization has gone perfectly, no, better than ‘perfectly’. The armies have been assembled with unbelievable speed. And now the Russian steamroller is driving westward, to divert the Germans from their meticulously planned invasion of Belgium. They are rushing forward, always forward. Forward to save France. A fantastic, glorious, noble gesture. It will be like Tannenberg in 1410 and the destruction of the Teutonic knights all over again. Ha! Yes, history is doomed to repeat itself. And, yes … those poor, poor German boys.
And afterwards there will be time for adjustments, for the memoirs and the alibis, for promotions and forgiveness, for the historians to remark on the ironies, to reflect on the Tsar’s gallant, sacrificial gesture. Time to set the record straight for once.
They have been billeted in a series of houses, this latest a large farmhouse that smells of generations of Polish grime. Every corner, every wall and door betrays clumsy attempts to modernize and repair the sad dwelling. The most you can say is that it is a hideous pile, devoid of character, for decades repaired and maintained on the cheap. The people who lived there, one notch above their own animals.
Still … he is rapidly becoming used to such quarters. He shares these spaces with the officers of the 133rd, an honourable regiment, but nothing, nothing like the Life Guards. He floats through the days like a ghost. Naturally enough there are rumours which swirl around him; lies, misconceptions, fantasies that rarely touch upon the truth. He says nothing. It’s only through Nicholas’s benevolence that he has escaped the gallows.
Undeserved charity from the man he’d planned to kill; the nobility of the Tsar’s gesture brings tears of shame. But he says nothing. Honestly, he is still feverish, recovering from his ‘accident’. Naturally the doctor attends him each day. There are a series of pleasant nurses, some who are interested, some of whom only feign interest.
They have advanced rapidly, outrunning their supplies, their communications, their plans, their maps. A headlong rush towards Danzig, a thrust, a coup that will divide Prussia from the shoulders of Germany. It is all according to plan. Timetables, schedules. Oh! These modern tools of warfare! The telegraph, the railway. It is terrible to contemplate. Opposing them are children and old men. They are so victorious it is worrisome.
Everything is confusing and miraculous in this land of Polish swamps and briar-patches. And all of these poor sods on the dusty roads! Everyone is afraid of being left behind, for in times like this whom could you count on? Some of them would be friends, some enemies, some would give you water if you were wounded, and some would steal your eyes.
A day passes. Another. Zonta’s gentle touch. Another. He waits for orders. Chats with the younger men. They look up to him with respect, measuring themselves against what they imagine him to be. Of course he is a legend, a kind of god. But his fingers, it is absurd, they refuse to heal!
Like an ikon bleeding tears, the fingers are just some mushy substance. They leak, they throb, they stink of infection. The doctor does everything he can, advising salt baths. Zonta makes one for him every night. He bathes his fingers in the hot water until they throb with pain. Each beat of his heart is something joyous, a divine flagellation, a rhythmic blood-pulse chanting to God.
That’s what this bloody hand is, a talisman. He has become proud of it.
To the other officers he offers no opinions, he says nothing that is in any way disagreeable, or controversial, no matter what the topic of discussion. He drinks only a toast to the Tsar, a toast to Samsonov, the commander of their army, a toast to the defeat of the Hun, and then the sad fingers are his excuse to crawl off to bed.
Under the covers he is happy, in a state of bliss, even though his sleep is feverish. Those fragmentary dreams he might have are only nonsensical screaming matches between factions in his mind that he can never identify. The wrong words coming out of the wrong faces.
Zonta touches his shoulder and he wakes confused, not knowing where he is, strange bed, strange house, strange town, strange country. Poland. According to Andrianov’s mad Plan he should have been in Galicia, cutting a swath through the Austrians, becoming a heroic legend by now, and after the short little war, placing himself on the throne. But now, here he is! Lucky to be alive, lucky to have escaped the noose or a cell in the Fortress of St Peter and St Paul. Here he is, an honorary colonel, in charge of nothing much, not even in charge of his own hand. Here he is, a gleaming, embroidered dragoon, a handsome man on a great steed.
Well, whatever happens Khalif must be fed, watered, groomed, everything must be explained to him … yes, everything must actually be explained to his beautiful war horse. It is like a confessional, these talks he has in the stables. Or does the animal know everything already? Why not? It is a mystery, Evdaev thinks. Only the latest mystery, but … sometimes you look into those eyes and …
Each day is the same, another rapier-like thrust into the countryside. Each day there is the smell of burning. Someone’s home, someone’s crops. Someone. The people on the roads lift their arms, reach out. Old women in tears. A dead child.
Well, the days of luxury are long gone, aren’t they? Only a few weeks and look how the world has changed! A breakfast set for him, a meal planned to be light, but he is surprised how hungry he is. That’s a good sign, isn’t it?
And so … the prince contemplates his sin. Each turn of the strap on the harness that simultaneously binds his fingers and holds his sabre in a locked grip, drives home the lesson. His sins are in multitudes. With each spike of pain he prays to his God, to the Virgin, to the Tsar, to Russia, to the men whose lives are his responsibility. He reiterates his warrior’s bargain: I pledge my life for the salvation of my homeland. If only it may be.
Outside he can hear the sounds of the regiment forming up.
He is helped into Khalif’s saddle. He is sweating, hot enough that he worries he will faint and have to be carried away. Wouldn’t that just take it all? To have come so far only to fall apart on this most glorious morning.
They ride. Fifteen kilometres or more. All the while the sound of the artillery grows. The general and his staff consult the ridiculous maps and Evdaev stands politely to one side, nods his agreement. It is all a confusion of woods and nondescript towns, creeks that are called rivers, marshes that are endless, fires, burned-out sheds and farmhouses, weeping women and bad food. Corpses like sacks of spilled rotten fodder pouring out of doorways, splayed out across the rutted roads, stinking in a ditch. The map shows none of it.
Ahead of them is a long valley, a field. Some fences that might slow the horses. Ground higher on the slope where they wait under the cover of the trees. There are names that he can recall if he wanted give a title to this battle. A boy looks over at him and smiles. He is smiling too. There is music running through his thoughts, a martial symphony, a compelling rhythm of cymbals, of bugles, the sound of boots marching, of Russia moving forward into the glorious century.
He looks down at his … hand. What’s left of it. All of it bound into a long bloody stump. The remains of a man’s fist. Smelling and swollen and festering. Bound into a hard leather stump to which his sawn-down sabre’s grip has been bolted.
There is a screamed command. His reverie, and his memory have carried him away for a moment. But … thankfully he has returned. Yes, he is here. His men surrounding him, the magnificent beast nervously trembling between his legs, nearly uncontrollable, muscles rippling spasmodically along his flanks. Now there are sudden explosions in the treetops as German artillery tries to disrupt their attack. And now that they’ve been discovered, the only response is to commit
to the offensive, to charge down into that promised field, yes?
See it there? Dappled with sunlight, the wind gently swaying the wheat, not quite ready for harvest. All of it green, as green as one’s youth.
More shelling in the treetops. There are screams, and men are shouting over the din. Yes. It is time to make a charge. Forward to the field, forward to meet the enemy in a bloody embrace. At the very least it will take them away from the horror of the screaming shells, the screams of the terrified horses, their mouths foaming, their eyes rolling towards heaven.
Is that some mysterious music he hears? A chorus of deep men’s voices, all of them chanting, war, war, war, war, war, war, war.
He has only to touch the spur—
Sources and
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Helen Heller who sparked the creation of this book, who worked with me throughout the process, and whose contributions can be found all through these pages. My sincere thanks go to my editors David Davidar at Penguin Canada, and Susan Watt at HarperCollins UK who have much improved my manuscript. I owe a great specific debt to my partner Suzie Payne who listened, read, and helpfully nudged me along during the entire project, from idea to finished manuscript. My brother, Richard Miller, the one with the imagination in the family, has contributed a great deal to the entire Ryzhkov story, and deserves much more than my thanks given here. I also must acknowledge the very valuable input given by Fraser Gabbott, Suzanne Nairne, Daniel Conrad, John Maclachlan Gray and Irina Templeton-Trouchenko in the middle stages.
The Anna Akhmatova quote is from In the Year 1913, my own translation; the translation of Glinka’s A Life for the Tsar is by Pamela Davidson taken from the notes to the Sony Classical recording by the Sofia National Opera, S3K 46 487, 1991.
Apis was the code name for Col. Dragutin Dimitrijevic, head of Serbian military intelligence —who hatched the plot to assassinate Franz Ferdinand. The Russian diplomats Hartwig and Artamonov were probably involved. They are, along with other historical characters, fictionalized in this novel. The Apis plot and Russia’s complicity is steeped in almost a century’s worth of obfuscation, and any truth-seeker approaching this incident should do so with caution. More on Apis can be found in David MacKenzie’s Apis: The Congenial Conspirator, The life of Colonel Dragutin T. Dimitrijevic, published by East European Monographs, Boulder Colorado, 1989.
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