Galena nodded. ‘We are Russian women. It is our duty to take part in this protest. We will walk together.’
‘We must keep Nina here!’
‘How do you propose to do that?’
Dr K threw the keys onto the kitchen table, stamped off into his study and slammed the door. I went in the opposite direction, towards the scullery.
‘Stand out of my way, Stefan.’ Galena was using her ‘no-further-argument’ voice. ‘Do not try to stop us.’
‘I have no intention of trying to stop you.’ I lifted my coat from its peg. ‘I am coming with you.’
Chapter 36
We linked arms.
Galena in the middle, with Nina on one side of her and me on the other. I was glad of the bulk of Galena’s body as my anchor. Fear was rising from my stomach like a physical sickness. The twelve-year-old child inside me was crying to go home.
We heard the noise before we reached the main road. A babble of voices; shouts and cries of pent-up frustration rose into the air in a caterwauling of desperation. From houses and huts, wynds and walkways, shops and schools, the women of Petrograd were streaming onto the streets. The world was black with moving figures, gathering together, then swirling apart in a restless tide.
We swung onto the Nevsky Prospekt. There were crowds of women in the middle of the road; blocking the traffic and looking as if they might overturn any carriage which attempted to pass. Some soldiers from the fortress of Saints Peter and Paul were trying to encourage them to return to the pavement. The women were having none of it.
As I approached I heard their officer say, ‘Your cause is just. But for the moment would you please clear the road?’ His tone was light and unaggressive.
When a woman asked about the bread situation the soldiers shrugged and said, ‘We heard there was a consignment of flour due in at the railway station tonight.’
‘How will I feed my children today?’ the woman replied piteously.
‘You must ask the Minister of the Interior,’ the officer replied, ‘whoever that may be this morning. The Tsarina might have demoted him and appointed another since yesterday.’
‘I expect the Tsarina’s children have full stomachs while mine are whimpering with hunger.’
The crowd clapped in support of this statement.
‘Take this, Mother.’ The youngest of the soldiers found a coin in his pocket and handed it to her. ‘It’s all I have.’
‘Bless you.’ She kissed the coin. ‘But if there is no bread to buy, then my baby will be dead within a week.’
The soldiers looked at each other. The young one took off his uniform hat and tunic and threw it upon the cobblestones. ‘There!’ he said. ‘I’m done with this. A soldier is meant to protect our citizens – not do them harm.’
A silence fell over the group as they waited to see how the officer would react.
‘Boy,’ he said, ‘put on your clothes, else you might get yourself shot, for losing your uniform is a court-martial offence.’ There was a growl of dissension from the women. Several of them bent to pick up stones and clods of dirt. The officer was hemmed in. And he knew it. With a grand flourish he waved his hands and announced: ‘Ladies! The street is yours. Roam where you will. My men will not stop you.’
A roar of approval. The soldiers were hoisted high and carried along as the women marshalled themselves into a procession which headed for the government storage facilities. And as we went the numbers swelled, the women from the clothing factories and other work places leaving their posts and spilling onto the streets.
‘No bread?’ From mouth to mouth the question became a statement. ‘There’s no bread!’
Then a demand:
‘Give us bread!
And eventually a battle cry: ‘Bread! Bread!’
In buoyant mood we marched to the outskirts of the city. The security guards at the storage depot fled in the face of our advance. We broke open the gates.
The grain silos were empty.
The crowd turned in confusion. Hundreds of armed policemen appeared and tried to split the mass of people into sections and disperse us. A good number of soldiers had joined the march. Fights broke out between them and the police.
Shots were fired. Then all was chaos. Screaming. Running. Galena and I were wrenched apart and a policeman’s baton struck her in the face.
Before me, in slow motion, she keeled over.
‘Galena!’ I shrieked.
My world twisted away from me, my mind dropping into a chasm. In the absence of my mother, throughout my adult life, Galena had been my rock. I had never seen her lying down. Not ever. Blood was pouring from a wound on her forehead.
‘Get up! Galena!’ I pleaded. ‘Get up! Get up!’
Nina stretched herself across Galena’s body, trying to protect her from the thudding boots.
‘Galena!’ I fell on my knees beside her. ‘Galena!’ I sobbed. ‘Don’t die! Please don’t die!’
‘Think like a doctor!’ Nina’s face was right up against mine. ‘Stefan! You are a doctor. The best way you can help Galena is to be a doctor right now!’
‘Yes. Yes.’ I probed with my fingers as Nina wiped the blood from Galena’s face. ‘Surface wound. Concussion. Cheek swelling. Eye undamaged. Nose not broken.’
‘That’s good.’ Nina’s voice was reassuring.
‘Get her to the hospital,’ I said. I put my arms under Galena’s shoulders.
‘Let’s wait.’ Nina looked up. ‘The women are being herded off in sections. When it’s quieter we’ll ask some of the soldiers to help us carry Galena there.’
In the hospital I cleaned and dressed Galena’s wound, placing an eyepad over the cut side of her face. She was still unconscious, so Nina said she would wait with her while I fetched Dr K. On my way home I had to pass by the university, where a rally in support of the women was taking place. Fyodor was perched on a statue in the square and was haranguing people to join what he referred to as the ‘Red Brigade’.
‘Workers of the world must unite!’ His face was flushed; his eyes sparkled in frenzy. ‘We can take this city! We can take this country! We can stop the war! We can stop all wars!’
When he paused for breath I caught at his sleeve. ‘Get down from there, you hothead!’
He pulled away from me. ‘Lenin is returning to Russia! Stefan, I must motivate the workers. Don’t you see? This is our chance. The revolution is happening!’
Local women had fetched pots and pans and were clanging on them with spoons and sticks. A group of students began to sing a bawdy ballad about the Tsarina that had become popular in the city’s drinking dens. Children ran among them waving makeshift red flags and shouting slogans. But among them were citizens of a different category, and something more alarming was taking place on the outskirts of the crowd.
‘What is happening,’ I shouted in his ear, ‘is that truckloads of Secret Police are blocking off the exits to this square. It’s time to leave, my friend.’
‘I’m not a coward!’ Fyodor cried, struggling against me as I hauled him into a doorway and through to another courtyard. ‘I will not desert my people!’
‘If you are referring to those folk in the square we have just left, half of them are police spies. The army is refusing to act against the women so they’ve brought in the Okhrana to subdue us. The jails will be full tonight, but those like you whom they consider a serious threat will simply disappear.’ I bundled Fyodor down an alley. Instead of being grateful he was beside himself with rage. As soon as we were clear he turned on me, kicking and punching.
‘You always think you know better than anyone else, don’t you, Stefan? High-handed and arrogant beyond belief!’ He flung the insult over his shoulder as he went down a wynd by the river.
Galena was awake when I arrived back at the hospital with Dr K, and was in the process of discharging herself. ‘Not a word,’ she warned him. ‘If you say a single word to me about this you will have to find yourself another housekeeper.’ She refused an
y offer of help, and we were left behind as she stomped off ahead of us out of the hospital.
Then Dr K drew his brows together in a comical face of frustration. Nina giggled, I smiled at her, and we ran to catch up with Galena.
That night Dr K was called to yet another emergency meeting of Duma councillors. He came home weary, and the four of us sat at the kitchen table, almost too tired to talk.
‘Has the Duma any suggestions for solving this crisis?’ Galena asked him.
‘Once again Alexander Kerensky has said that the Tsar should be removed from his position as Head of State.’
‘The last time he made that suggestion the Tsarina said Kerensky should be hanged,’ I pointed out.
‘The official Ministers of State are beginning to ignore the Tsarina … and indeed the Tsar,’ said Dr K. ‘They are approaching the Duma privately for advice.’
‘Who would take the Tsar’s place?’ asked Nina.
‘His younger brother,’ said Galena. ‘The Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich. With the Tsarevich being too young to rule, he is the closest male relative.’
‘In the name of fortune! Why should we have another Tsar?’ The question exploded from my lips.
‘The country requires a leader.’ Galena looked bewildered.
‘But it doesn’t have to be one of them!’ I was too incensed to censor my words. Facing reality was overdue in this house. ‘The Romanovs are parasites! And incompetent ones at that. An ordinary person could do it. My God, Galena. You could do it! A lot better than any Romanov.’
She thought I was joking so she laughed. I was glad to see her laugh, even though the eyepad and bruised face gave her an absurd appearance.
‘I would vote for you,’ said Dr K with unusual tenderness in his tone.
‘Don’t say such silly things,’ she upbraided him, but you could tell that she was flattered.
‘Anyone would be better than Mister Vladimir Ulyanov Lenin.’
‘Huh!’ said Galena. ‘With one hand you give a compliment and with the other you take it away again.’
Nina and I exchanged a smile, happy to see them back in their habitual way of speaking to each other.
‘Fyodor was inciting a crowd while standing on a statue in the square at the university,’ I said. ‘He says Lenin is returning to the city.’
‘If Lenin ever takes charge,’ said Dr K, ‘we may replace one autocrat with another.’
Chapter 37
The next day, after breakfast, Nina prepared herself to go out.
Galena said, ‘I will rest this morning. I am too dizzy to walk without falling and I don’t want to endure yesterday’s shame of being carried by soldiers through the streets like a sack of coal.’
‘Even though one of them was very handsome?’ Nina asked with an impish smile. She continued tying up her shawl.
‘I recommend that you remain at home too,’ said Dr K.
‘The women are assembling again,’ Nina replied. ‘They hope that the male workers will join them today.’
‘I heard a rumour yesterday that the Bolsheviks were happy that the women could not find the secret grain stores,’ Dr K went on. ‘They want to stoke the fires of rebellion even if it builds to an explosion of violence. If the male workers join, it will mean hundreds, possibly thousands, on the streets. They will bring the city to a standstill. The Government will send in the elite forces.’
I knew what the words ‘elite forces’ meant. Cossacks!
‘All we are asking for is bread for the children,’ Nina replied. ‘They have no one to speak for them.’ She left the house without another word said.
Dr K and Galena turned to look at me.
‘I’m going, I’m going.’ I grabbed my coat and cap and headed for the door.
This morning the women were better prepared. They were in organized groups – some carrying banners which read FEED THE CHILDREN and BREAD FOR ALL.
We were mingling with Galena’s friends from the bread queue when Nina pointed to a figure standing on the steps of a block of offices. ‘Look!’ she said. ‘It’s Fyodor.’ She skipped off through the throng, leaving me to trail in her wake.
Fyodor’s normally dour face broke into a smile when he saw her. ‘Nina! I should have known you would be here. You are so brave and principled.’
Resentment rose in me at his familiar way of speaking to her.
‘Will you walk with us today?’ she asked him.
I glowered at both of them and resolved to go home at once if he joined us. But Galena would not let me in the house if I returned without Nina.
‘I can’t,’ he said, ‘much as I’d like to. My task today is to try to persuade the white-collar workers to come out on strike. I’m to speak to the clerks in this building. The Bolshevik Party has the names of those who favour our cause, and’ – he spoke more ominously – ‘the names of the ones who do not.’
‘We should go,’ I said to Nina. ‘Your bread-queue friends are beginning to move.’
‘Which direction are you headed?’ Fyodor asked.
‘The railway station, I think,’ said Nina. ‘We will search for flour in the goods yards.’
Fyodor looked about him furtively. ‘Listen.’ He bent his head close to hers. ‘Try the garages in the street behind the nail works. But be warned,’ he called after her: ‘that the area will be well guarded.’
‘So there is a kind heart beating under that hard exterior.’ I tried to banter with him.
‘Comrade!’ He saluted, and with a bitter look turned away from me.
Even without the efforts of Fyodor and his fellow Bolsheviks it was obvious that a huge number of office workers had not reported for work that day. The women ran here and there, kissing and hugging them and each other and anyone who’d let them.
Then I saw Professor Kirichenko in a group of academics surrounded by a host of students. And as we walked on through the university district, the cafés where the writers and artists gathered closed their doors, and staff and customers merged with the masses.
Chatting and chanting our slogans.
Snow began to fall. Undeterred, we went on under the swinging banners.
I’d made my own banner …
People around us burst into song.
We were singing as we marched along. Flags were waving, and the clamour grew louder, rising into the bitterly cold air.
‘We only want bread to stop us starving.’
My heart was beating to the sound of the singing and tramp of shoes on snow.
The mood was high and hopeful.
Soldiers were waiting in the square. Cossacks and Hussars – with rifles ready.
They were waiting for us today. By the nail works: armed policemen on either side of the street. And lined up, facing us …
Cossacks.
The whisper went through the people like the wind across the steppe.
‘Cossacks!’
I felt my gut melt and my legs shook so that I could hardly stand. Nina was by my side. I moved forward to place myself in front of her.
She stepped up and put her arm through mine. ‘Beside you, Stefan,’ she whispered. ‘I stand beside you.’
‘Cossacks!’
Behind us the crowd solidified as the message was passed back. Today the bread-queue women would not disperse.
The horsemen gathered and formed ranks.
Drew their sabres.
I braced myself.
They trotted forward. Slowly. Deliberately. The distance diminished. Now we could hear the jingle of the harnesses; see the puffing breath of the animals.
Too close to us now to start a full gallop.
Did they think we would stand like sheep and allow ourselves to be butchered? It wasn’t a terrified boy who was facing them today. I was a grown man who could at least try to defend himself. I would grab the stirrup of the officer’s horse. A few more paces and I’d bring him down. Even if he killed me while I was doing it.
Our eyes met.
Flat, alm
ond-shaped. Too dark to read an expression.
Suddenly the woman to whom the soldier had given a coin the day before rushed forward. ‘Take this blood money!’ She flung it at the Cossack. ‘My baby is dead now for want of bread, and I have no need of it!’
He blinked. An almost imperceptible inclination of his head. Thrust his sabre in the air and shouted an order.
The crowd moaned and swayed like wheat in a field. But we held the line, determined to keep ownership of our city.
The officer kissed the blade of his sword. He swiped it across his body in a formal salute to the people. Then he and his company of men swung their horses round and trotted off.
A ragged cheer went up as it became apparent that the way was free for us to progress.
With the Cossacks no longer in our path, we began to move up the street. But on either side the police kept their position. Their Commander put his rifle to his shoulder to start the attack. The Cossack officer sheathed his sword, changed direction and raised his fist. With one blow to the head he brought down the police Commander. Bending in a smooth movement as he swept past, he collected the fallen weapon. Then he reined his horse and tossed the rifle to the nearest striker. The man grabbed it and rapidly fired off a few rounds. The remainder of the police dropped their guns and ran.
Fyodor was right.
The revolution was happening.
Chapter 38
Early the next morning Nina and I crept out of the house. The results of the women’s action were reverberating throughout the city and we wanted to take an active part in the making of our history.
When news of the Cossacks’ defection to the side of the people spread, then so did the strikes. Without fear of execution or punishment, practically every worker left their place of employment and the city ground to a halt. No transport moved, no smoke plumed from factory chimneys, and the smelting furnaces burned empty. The shops closed and shuttered their windows, and knots of soldiers were seen with no officer accompanying them. An outpouring of hope and expectation and promise flowed through the streets. It was a tangible atmosphere that seeped into your skin and infected your mind so that people smiled a greeting as they passed each other.
The Rasputin Dagger Page 18