Russka

by Edward Rutherfurd

  ‘As long as her health holds up,’ her mother would gloomily say. It was true: that nagging problem with her chest was often with her. Sometimes she would have to rest for days at a time, when she was longing to go back to school. ‘You’ll grow out of it,’ her father promised her: and how she prayed that he was right. How she wanted to live her life for music.

  For once Rosa stepped into that kingdom, everything else became unimportant. Sometimes it seemed to her that music was in everything: as absolute as mathematics, as infinite as the universe itself. Music was in the trees, in the flowers, in the endless steppe; music filled the whole sky. She wanted only to pray, and to learn.

  And here was the strange conundrum which had puzzled her for several months, and which today made her thoughtful and melancholy.

  For if God had made this beautiful world, and given it music, and if she, it seemed, might have been chosen to serve His musical purpose and to play for Him, then why were there evil men, planning to kill her?

  Laid out on the east side of the little river, the village’s comfortable thatched houses with their whitewashed walls stretched on each side of the broad dirt road for nearly a mile. Several, like the house where her parents lived, had little orchards behind them. Near the river there was a market square; and just downstream stood a distillery. Indeed, in the poorer Russian north where settlements were smaller than in the Ukraine, such a place would have been called a town.

  It was also quite prosperous. To the huge fields of wheat on the rich black earth of the steppe, two new and valuable crops had been added in recent times: sugarbeet and tobacco. Both were sold to merchants who exported them through the ports on the warm Black Sea, and thanks to this trade and the region’s natural abundance, the peasants lived well.

  Rosa’s grandfather had first come to the region to farm. He had died five years ago and her father had taken over. An enterprising man, he also traded wheat and acted as local agent for a firm that manufactured agricultural equipment down in Odessa, so that they were now amongst the better-off families in the village.

  She was not aware that once, in former times, this southern settlement had borne the name of Russka.

  It was not surprising. The settlement had had two names since then; of its past few signs remained. The little fort on the western bank was only some marks upon the turf; of the church the Mongols had burned down, there was not a trace. Even the landscape had altered somewhat, for centuries of farming had led to the cutting down of many trees, and there were no woods on the eastern side of the river now. The pool and its haunting spirits had gone, dried up. Even the bee forest had disappeared. From the last house in the village, the open steppe of south Russia extended to the horizon, and the only way that the place might have been identified from ancient times was by the tiny mound of an ancient kurgan that appeared upon the steppe in the middle distance.

  Rosa walked until she receded the end of the village, where she stopped to gaze over the steppe. There was a pale sun. High overhead, trailing white clouds coming from the west receded over the endless, browning grassland towards a violet horizon.

  She had been standing there for some time when the cart came in sight. It was a stout affair, containing two people: a huge, thickset man with big black moustaches, who was driving; and a slim, handsome boy, also dark-haired and just a year older than Rosa. These were Taras Karpenko, a Cossack farmer, and his youngest son, Ivan.

  Seeing them, Rosa smiled. For as long as she could remember, she had played Cossacks and Robbers with the Karpenko boys and the other village children; young Ivan was her special playmate. And ever since, some years before, her father had sold Taras some farm equipment which had proved successful, the burly Cossack had looked upon the family with a kindly eye.

  There was also another reason why Rosa’s father had found favour with Taras.

  It was strange to think that the heavyset farmer was the nephew of the illustrious poet Karpenko, whose delicate features still looked out from drawings or prints on the walls of several local houses. Taras was enormously proud of this fact, however, and would mention his uncle’s name in the same breath, and with the same reverence, as that of the most famous of all Ukrainian poets, the great Shevchenko. When he discovered, therefore, that Rosa’s father not only possessed a copy of Karpenko’s verses, but genuinely loved them and knew many by heart, he had clapped him on the back and always thereafter, if anyone mentioned Rosa’s family, he would announce: ‘Not a bad fellow, that.’ Which stood them in good stead in the village and often caused Rosa’s mother to remark: ‘Your father is very wise.’

  He was indeed wise – and very unusual – since this knowledge which formed a bond between him and the Cossack was becoming increasingly rare.

  For the rule of the Tsars in the Ukraine, with each decade that passed, had become even more heavy-handed. The Tsars liked uniformity. True, in their huge empire it could not always be achieved. In Poland and the westernmost parts of the Ukraine, they had to put up with the Catholics; as the empire continued to expand eastwards into Asia, they had to tolerate increasing numbers of Moslems. But insofar as possible, everything should be Russified: autocracy, orthodoxy, nationality – those were the things. In 1863 therefore, with that genius for official blindness in which it specialized, the Russian government announced that the Ukrainian language, which was spoken by much of the southern population, did not exist! In the years following, Ukrainian language books, newspaper, theatres, schools and even Ukrainian music were banned. The works of Shevchenko, Karpenko and other Ukrainian national heroes passed out of sight. Intellectuals spoke and wrote in Russian. As for the people, while in the north education was spreading, in the south it declined; and by the late-nineteenth century, eighty per cent of Ukrainians were illiterate. The Tsars were pleased: the Ukraine was not disturbed by discordant voices. No wonder then if the proud Cossack Karpenko would occasionally remark to Rosa’s father: ‘Well, my friend, at least you and I seem to know what’s what.’

  As the two Cossacks drove by, therefore, they acknowledged her in a friendly manner: young Ivan with a happy grin and his father with a smile and a nod; and seeing this, Rosa felt a sense of reassurance.

  They will not come here. There was nothing to be afraid of, she reminded herself.

  For Rosa Abramovich was Jewish.

  Until a century before when Catherine the Great took most of Poland, there had been hardly any Jews in the empire of Russia. By adding these western lands, however, Russia gained a large Jewish community.

  Where did they come from? The history of the Diaspora is confused and often obscure, but the Jews of Russia derived from Germany, the Mediterranean and Black Sea ports; and also, it can hardly be doubted, from the remnants of the Turkish Khazar community that had spread into many parts of south-east Europe. Of their racial origins therefore, it is hard to say anything except that they were mixed.

  But they believed in the one God of Israel.

  What should be done with them? Some thought the Jews devious, like the Catholics; others called them obstinate, like the Old Believers. But two things were certain: they were not Slavs and they were not Christians, and therefore they were suspect. Like every other nonconformist element in the Tsar’s empire, they must first be contained, then Russified. And so it was, in 1833, that the Tsar decreed that henceforth the Jews must be confined within a particular area: the Jewish Pale of Settlement.

  In fact, the famous Jewish Pale was not the ghetto it sounded like. It was a vast territory comprising Poland, Lithuania, the western provinces known as White Russia, and much of the Ukraine, including all the Black Sea ports – in other words, the lands where the Jews already resided, and some more besides. The purpose of the Pale was, mainly, to limit the immigration of Jews into traditional, Orthodox north Russia, although even in this respect it was often only loosely enforced, and there were sizeable Jewish groups in both Moscow and St Petersburg.

  The Jews lived mostly in towns or in their own villages –
the traditional, tightly knit shtetl communities. They usually spoke Yiddish amongst themselves. Some were craftsmen or traders; many were poor, and partly supported by their fellows. But there were also those who, like Rosa’s grandfather, went to live in ordinary country villages to farm the land.

  But still they were not conformist: something had to be done about that. And the solution of successive tsarist governments was always the same: ‘Let them convert.’

  It was a steady pressure that the regime applied, over decades. Jews paid extra taxes; their own system of community government – the kahal – was made illegal; their representation in local elections, limited by unfair quotas. More subtly, they were allowed into the school system, then encouraged to convert; less subtly, they were recruited into the army, then beaten if they didn’t. Conversion was enough. Though some people might be suspicious of one whose ancestry was Jewish, as far as the state was concerned, once the Jew had converted to Orthodoxy, he was a good Russian.

  This policy met with some success: numbers of Jews did convert. More important, a gradual process of assimilation had begun, for amongst the younger generation there had arisen a liberal movement, the Haskalah, which argued that Jews should participate more actively in gentile society. Rosa’s eldest brother, who was married and lived in Kiev, had told her all about it. ‘If Jews are going to get anywhere in the Russian Empire, then we should go to Russian schools and universities. We have to take part. That doesn’t stop us being Jews.’ But her father was very suspicious. Though he did not take the view of many strict Jews, who isolated themselves as far as possible from the gentile world, he frowned on the Haskalah. ‘It’s the first step down the slippery slope,’ he would say firmly. ‘First you put secular learning on an equal footing with religious education. In no time, the world comes first, religion second. Then you forget even your religion. And at last you have nothing.’ Rosa knew there was truth in this: she had heard of a number of these liberals turning into little better than atheists. So while Rosa’s family kept on good terms with their Ukrainian neighbours, they always observed their religion strictly with the other Jewish families in the area. Both Rosa’s brothers received a religious education, the elder reaching the highest rung, the Yeshiva; and her father had even hoped the young man might become a religious teacher.

  There was one exception to her father’s strict rule, however, for which Rosa thanked God. ‘Studying music in Russian schools is different,’ he had always said. That did not compromise one’s faith. It was the best way for a Jew to advance in Russia.

  They will not come here. Why should they? The village was such an out-of-the-way little place. Besides, they had done nothing wrong.

  Of course, she knew there had always been bad feeling between her people and the Ukrainians. The Ukrainians remembered the Jews as the agents of the Polish landlords. They also usually lived in towns instead of in the country – they were foreign heretics. To the Jews, on the other hand, the Ukrainians were not only gentiles – the despised goyim – they were also, mostly, illiterate peasants. Yet even so, they might have lived at peace but for one thing: their relative numbers.

  Perhaps it was the Jewish tradition of having large families; perhaps their communal self-help saved children’s lives; perhaps their respect for learning led them to pay more scientific attention to hygiene or make more use of doctors: whatever the reason, it was a fact that in the Ukraine in the last sixty years, while the general population had risen by a factor of about two and a half times, the number of Jews had risen by a factor of over eight times. And the cry was beginning to be heard: ‘These Jews will take our work and ruin us all.’

  It was that year that the trouble had begun. No one could say exactly what started it. ‘When people get angry,’ her father had told Rosa, ‘almost anything can set them off.’ But whatever the true causes might be, it was in the year that the Tsar was assassinated that, all over the south, a series of disturbances began which made the world familiar with a grim and ugly word.

  The pogrom.

  Surely not here though? Not in the quiet village at the border of forest and steppe. With this thought in mind, Rosa turned to go home.

  People were moving about in the village as she retraced her steps, but the place was still quiet. A cloudbank had arisen in the west and its shadow was advancing towards her. There was a faint chill now in the breeze.

  She was halfway down the street when she noticed the little group. It was nothing much: just two women, both neighbours, and three men who looked like strangers, standing in the street in front of her house. From a distance, they seemed to be arguing. She saw two more villagers, both men, going to join them. A few moments later, she saw her father come out.

  He was dressed in a long black coat and had put on his round, wide-brimmed black hat. The ringlets that hung down the side of his face were black but his handsome beard was grey. She saw him wag his finger at them severely. He’s telling them off, she thought with a smile.

  And then she heard it: a single shout that echoed down the street, and that suddenly made her cold.

  ‘Kike!’

  She started to run.

  They were already jostling her father by the time she reached him. One of the men knocked his hat off; another spat on the ground. The two village men made a half-hearted attempt to restrain them but then they drew back, though why they should be afraid of three strangers Rosa could not think – until, a moment later, she glanced again down the street, and saw the reason.

  There were six carts. They had just crossed the little bridge over the river; and riding in them, or walking beside, came about fifty men. Some of them were carrying clubs; a few looked drunk.

  Rosa looked at her father. He was picking up his hat, with what dignity he could, while the three men watched him. He was fifty years old, rather delicately built with a fine, thin face and large eyes like hers. Instinctively she wanted to take his hand for comfort, then she realized with a shock that the poor man was as frightened as she was. What should they do? Retreat to the house? Two of the men were moving round to block their way. The party down the street was getting close. Behind her, Rosa now saw her mother coming out to join them; though her husband waved her back, she took no notice. If only her brothers were with them, Rosa thought, but they were both away in Kiev that month. Helplessly, she and her parents stood there, waiting.

  When the men arrived, they formed a circle round the little family. Rosa looked at their faces. Some looked hard, others wore a look of foolish triumph. For a moment nobody spoke. Then her father broke the silence.

  ‘What do you want?’

  It was not immediately clear whether the party had a leader, but one of them, a huge peasant with a brown beard, now answered.

  ‘Nothing much, Jew. We’re just going to burn your house down.’

  ‘And give him a thrashing,’ another cried.

  ‘That too,’ remarked the first, to laughter.

  Rosa could see that her father was shaking, but trying to appear calm. ‘And what have I done to you?’ he asked.

  This was greeted with a chorus of derision. ‘Plenty!’ several cried out. ‘What have you done to Russia, Yid?’ called another. ‘Damned Jewish profiteers,’ screamed a third. ‘Usurers!’ But it was another cry, coming from somewhere at the back of the crowd, that really startled Rosa and made her turn pale.

  ‘Who drinks the blood of children?’ the voice shouted. ‘Tell us that!’

  She had heard about this terrible accusation before. ‘Once,’ her father had told her, ‘long ago, foolish people used to accuse the Jews of the strangest things. They even said we killed Christian children and drank their blood.’ This was the infamous Blood Accusation of the Middle Ages. ‘Simple people actually thought it was true,’ he had said with a sigh. How strange, and how terrifying, to hear it echoed now.

  Yet it was another voice which, in a way, surprised her even more. For now, suddenly from the back of the crowd, a little old man with a completely b
ald head and a white beard pushed his way through and, pointing to Rosa’s father, bellowed: ‘You can’t fool us, Jew. We know what you are. You’re a foreign traitor – a Tsar killer. You’re a revolutionary!’ To which, to Rosa’s amazement, there was a roar of agreement.

  How strange it was, indeed. For whatever her poor father might have been accused of, this, surely, was the most unlikely.

  She knew about the Jewish revolutionaries. Some years before, it was true, a few radical students from Jewish families had joined the movement which, in the famous Going to the People of 1874, had tried to take revolution to the peasants in the countryside. These were the most radical of the Jews who had chosen to assimilate into Russian secular life. Indeed, in a double irony, many – not out of religious conviction but in order to feel closer to the peasants they wanted to influence – had actually converted to the Orthodox Church. These young people were exactly the ones Rosa’s father, and most conservative Jews, hated most. Their example, her father had warned his children, was exactly what became of those who strayed into the world and lost their religion. As for the Tsar: ‘We should always obey the law and support the Tsar,’ her father would declare. ‘He is still our best hope.’ And indeed, until the terrible assassination, the reforming Tsar had relaxed some of the restrictions on the Jews in his empire. The vast majority of Jews at this date were therefore conservative and tsarist; but one cannot argue with a mob.

  For the men surrounding them had already burned down some Jewish houses in Pereiaslav the week before and now they were travelling round the local villages looking for more fun.

  ‘Time to get started,’ someone cried. There was laughter. The huge man with the brown beard, accompanied by the little old man, stepped towards Rosa’s father as she looked around desperately. She wanted to scream.

  And it was just then that, twenty yards away, the stout cart bearing the massive form of Taras Karpenko and his son creaked into the street, and the two Cossacks caught sight of them.