Russka

by Edward Rutherfurd

  It was terrible.

  But what should he do? Vladimir was his friend. If the great man was being deceived, then surely it was his duty, Alexander considered, to warn him. It wasn’t only the dishonour, either. One never knew what trouble a man like Popov could bring to a respectable family. He would be protecting Nadezhda too. To tell the older man directly was embarrassing, though. Besides, if Mrs Suvorin discovered what he had done, he’d earn her undying hatred: hardly a satisfactory situation when he was hoping to become her future son-in-law.

  If he could just remove Popov from the scene somehow … He was fairly certain that the police would arrest Popov if they could find him; but he couldn’t very well direct the police to him when he was anywhere near the Suvorins. Twice he waited until the early hours and tried to follow the Bolshevik; each time, though, Popov somehow managed to disappear within a few blocks.

  The solution he finally hit upon was straightforward enough. He sent an anonymous letter to Vladimir. It was rather a successful production, made with cuttings from newspapers, and rather illiterate: he was proud of it. He did not refer to Popov by name, but rather as ‘a certain red-head revolutionary’. He continued after this to walk past the Suvorin mansion whenever he could late at night, and for a month or two, catching no sight of Popov, he assumed his letter had worked. But then, some months later, he saw him lurking there again.

  From time to time, then and in succeeding years, he would casually ask Vladimir questions such as: ‘What happened to that damned Popov, the Bolshevik, who came here once?’ or ‘Did they ever arrest that cursed red-head we once saw at your factory? I wonder what became of him.’ But Vladimir never gave any sign that he knew or cared about the fellow and, it seemed to Alexander, he had done all his duty bid him do. ‘I’ll get even with that criminal one day, though,’ he secretly vowed. ‘I’ll put him away.’

  Apart from these secret nocturnal watches, he was quite often at the Suvorin house; and it was partly as an excuse for visiting Vladimir, and partly to give himself something in common with Nadezhda, that he began during these years to take an interest in painting that was almost professional.

  His university studies were not too taxing. In his spare time he worked hard. He made a thorough study of the main movements of Western painting; he also – which he came to enjoy rather more – started to study the ancient art of icon painting in depth. As was his way, he was methodical and serious; but with time he also began to develop a real feel for the subject. More ambitiously, perhaps, he started to venture into contemporary art. Vladimir’s son, who still spent more time in Europe than in Russia, had recently sent back astonishing works by Chagall, Matisse, and a curious new figure on the scene who seemed to be starting a whole new school of painting, full of geometric shapes and unlike anything seen before: Pablo Picasso. And whether he liked them or not, whether they were interesting or quite meaningless to him, Alexander Bobrov studied each new item as thoroughly as if it were a riddle to be solved, asking questions, relating them to other work, until he knew more than anyone else. He also began to have a shrewd idea about values so that Vladimir one day remarked to him with amusement: ‘Funnily enough, my friend, though you’re a Russian noble you actually have the makings of a dealer.’

  Thanks to this knowledge and Vladimir’s good opinion of him, Alexander found that Nadezhda treated him with a respect that was pleasing to him. She would be content to leave the high-spirited Dimitri and Karpenko extemporizing at the piano, and walk through her father’s galleries with him for a few quiet minutes while he outlined some new and interesting discovery he had made. ‘You do know a lot,’ she would say, and look at him with large, serious eyes.

  She was fifteen now and, he often noted with approval, filling out nicely. Soon she would be a young woman. Alexander was very careful, therefore, in his relationship with her, keeping a friendly distance, quietly impressing her with his store of knowledge, and waiting for her to come to him.

  There was only one problem to overcome at present. He hoped it would pass before too long.

  Nadezhda was in love with Karpenko.

  To Dimitri Suvorin, the year 1913 was not just a time of promise, but of wild excitement.

  For never before had Russian culture risen to such dizzy heights. It was as if all the extraordinary developments of the last century had suddenly come together and burst forth upon the world.

  ‘This isn’t a flowering,’ Karpenko liked to say, ‘it’s an explosion.’

  Europe had already thrilled to Russian music, to her opera and the bass voice of the legendary Chaliapin. Now Diaghilev’s Ballet Russe had taken London, Paris and Monte Carlo by storm. Two years ago the astounding Nijinsky had danced Stravinsky’s Petrouchka; last year, he had danced the extraordinary, pagan and erotic L’Après-midi d’un Faune; and in May 1913, in Paris, he had choreographed the event which was to change the history of music: Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. Vladimir Suvorin, by good luck, had happened to be visiting Paris at the time.

  ‘It was amazing,’ he told Dimitri. ‘And frightening. The audience were scandalized and went berserk. I saw poor Diaghilev afterwards. He doesn’t know what to do with Nijinsky: he’s terrified he’s gone too far. Yet it was brilliant, I tell you. The most exciting thing I ever saw in my life.’

  He had also brought Dimitri a copy of Stravinsky’s score and the young man went over it for days, fascinated by its titanic, primitive energy, its dissonances – never heard before – and its jarring rhythms, finally declaring: ‘It’s like seeing a new galaxy being created by God’s hand. It’s a new music with new rules.’

  ‘Russia is no longer behind Europe,’ Karpenko had declared on this occasion. ‘We’re ahead.’ And few could have denied that in this thrilling ferment of all the arts, Russia had become the avant-garde.

  If Dimitri was excited by his musical discoveries, the life of his friend Karpenko was now a perpetual whirl. Since Rosa’s death, they had rearranged the apartment so that Peter, Dimitri and Karpenko each had a separate room, and these shared bachelor quarters suited them all very well. Thanks to Vladimir’s kindness, Karpenko had enough money to continue his studies and rent a small studio besides; and since he was now in the thick of the avant-garde, one never knew when he would show up at home.

  The avant-garde – remarkable in Russia for being led by both men and women – was seething with ideas, and whenever he appeared Karpenko would inform Dimitri and his father about some latest wonder: a riotous abstract canvas by Kandinsky; a brilliant stage-set by Benois or Chagall; and invariably some new -ism, so that Peter would quietly enquire: ‘Well, Karpenko, what’s the -ism today?’

  In 1913, it was Futurism.

  It was certainly a remarkable movement. Led by such brilliant young figures as Malevich, Tatlin and Mayakovsky, the Russian Futurists liked to combine painting and poetry, producing illustrated books and pamphlets whose daring effect has never been equalled. ‘Picasso’s Cubism was a revolution,’ Karpenko explained, ‘but Futurism goes much further.’ In their paintings the Futurists took the broken, geometric forms of Cubism and set them into explosive forward motion. In their poetry, language was broken down, even to mere sounds; grammar changed, creating something new and striking. To Dimitri, the Futurist productions reminded him of some huge, elective dynamo. ‘This is the art of the new age – the age of the machine,’ Karpenko declared gleefully. ‘Art will transform the world, Professor,’ he told Peter, ‘along with electricity.’ He had even put aside his own experiments in painting to write some poems for the new Futurist publications.

  At the age of twenty, Karpenko had grown into a strikingly handsome young fellow. He was clean-shaven, and his slim, dark good looks were so noticeable that Dimitri would often, with amusement, watch respectable ladies in the street forget themselves and stare after him as he passed. Dimitri used to see him in the company of artistic young women who were obviously very taken with him: but Karpenko preferred to keep his love life to himself and which, if any,
of these young women had success with him Dimitri could only guess.

  Occasionally Dimitri remembered his friend’s strange behaviour the day he met Rasputin; but he never saw anything like it again, and gradually put it out of his mind. Indeed, he could find few character flaws in Karpenko. Despite being handsome, he was not vain. Sometimes in the last two years, it was true, he had retreated into short bouts of moody silence; but these, Dimitri thought, might be nothing more than periods of creative concentration. The only fault he could find with his friend, really, was that his witty remarks were sometimes a little cruel; but that was understandable in someone with such a quick and brilliant mind as Karpenko.

  Though their lives were more separate now, the two young men often went out together. Sometimes they would go to visit Vladimir Suvorin. The industrialist’s Art Nouveau house was complete now and it was an astonishing work of art. The main hall especially was breathtaking, with a floor of coloured marble and granite in a spiral design, lilac-coloured walls, stained glass windows that might have come from Tiffany, and a staircase of creamy white marble whose banisters, carved in elaborate, swirling shapes, looked as though they might melt at the touch of a hand. Vladimir was collecting a library of contemporary books which he had decided to place in the new house, and was then spending much of his spare time there. Karpenko, who was helping him obtain a fine collection of Futurist publications, seldom went there without bringing some new item which assured him a warm welcome.

  And, of course, they went to see Nadezhda.

  They were lively visits. Sometimes they would take some friends and then, more often than not, heated discussions would ensue in which Nadezhda, though she was only fifteen, was able to take some part. The subjects, in those heady days, were usually artistic rather than political; but they were invariably argued with extreme passion as only, perhaps, the Russians and the French can.

  ‘Have you read Ivan Sergeevich’s latest poem? What do you think?’

  ‘It’s terrible. Appalling. His attitude is sentimental but without real feeling. He is false.’

  ‘It’s outdated.’

  ‘He’s let everyone down. He’s completely discredited.’

  ‘He is dead. There’s nothing more to say about him.’

  ‘No. You are all wrong.’

  The opinions would fly and Nadezhda would listen, gazing at Karpenko with sparkling eyes.

  Sometimes Alexander Bobrov would appear on these occasions and then Karpenko if, say, the company had just condemned the poet Ivanov, would casually ask: ‘What do you think of Ivanov, Alexander Nicolaevich?’ So that when, as he always did, Alexander made some non-committal reply like: ‘Not bad,’ the company would all look at each other or burst into howls of derision while Bobrov gazed at them glumly.

  ‘Poor old Alexander Nicolaevich,’ Karpenko would say behind his back. ‘He knows everything and understands nothing.’ And to his face he once remarked: ‘You keep studying, Alexander, but you’re always an artistic movement behind.’

  Why did Karpenko hate Bobrov so much? ‘He represents every pig-headed Russian who ever lived,’ the Ukrainian claimed. But one day he confessed: ‘I can’t stand the interest he takes in Nadezhda. I try to expose him to her whenever I can.’

  Yet what did he want with the girl himself? It was increasingly clear that she was in love with him: how much it was hard to know. And he did nothing to discourage her affection. ‘So you truly care for her?’ Dimitri once asked as they were returning home.

  ‘I feel protective, I think,’ Karpenko answered frankly. ‘I can’t bear to think of her being wasted on a booby like Bobrov.’

  ‘But what about you yourself?’

  Karpenko gave a short laugh. ‘Don’t be silly. I’m a poor Ukrainian.’

  ‘Uncle Vladimir likes you.’

  ‘His wife doesn’t.’

  Dimitri had occasionally noticed that, while she never said anything, Karpenko’s charming manner, which usually delighted older women, seemed to meet with a certain hauteur from Mrs Suvorin. ‘I don’t think she means anything,’ he said. And after a short pause: ‘You’re not just letting her love you to spoil things for Bobrov, are you?’

  To which, to his great surprise, Karpenko suddenly let out a little moan. ‘You don’t understand anything, do you? She’s like no other girl in the world.’

  ‘So you do love her?’

  ‘Yes, damn you, I love her.’

  ‘Then there’s hope,’ Dimitri said cheerfully.

  But Karpenko only shook his head with a despondency Dimitri had never seen before. ‘No,’ he declared quietly, ‘there isn’t any hope for me.’

  It was on a December evening in 1913 that the bad feeling that had long been simmering between Nadezhda Suvorin and her mother suddenly erupted.

  The spark which lit the flame was the simple fact that Mrs Suvorin had warned her to be careful of Karpenko.

  What was wrong with him? the girl demanded to know. Was he too poor? Did her mother have social ambitions? But Mrs Suvorin denied these charges. ‘Frankly, it’s his character. And to tell you the truth, I think he’s playing with you. He’s not serious. So don’t lose your heart.’ That was all she would say.

  And Nadezhda decided she hated her.

  She was in love with Karpenko. How could she not be? Was there anyone more brilliant, more handsome? She had admired him as a child, but now, in the flush of her adolescence, she was suffering all the yearnings of first love. She might have forgiven her mother’s attack, however, had it not been for one fact.

  A year ago she had discovered about Popov.

  It had been late one night that she had happened to wake and, wandering out along the passage, heard a faint sound in the hall. To her surprise she had seen her mother glide across the hall to the door to let a stranger in; and crouching by the balcony, just as she used to do as a child, she had seen them mounting the stairs together. Her mother and the red-head, Popov.

  For a while she found it hard to believe. Her mother and the Socialist? And apart from her disgust she had thought: How could she do such a thing to poor Papa? Yet he tolerates her. He is a saint. And ever since, though she said nothing, she thought of her mother as a secret enemy.

  And it was unfortunate, therefore, that on the very evening of Mrs Suvorin’s remark about Karpenko, Popov should have chosen to come again.

  Had Nadezhda known Popov’s mission that night, however, she would have been still more astonished. Even more, perhaps, than was Mrs Suvorin when she heard it.

  ‘Would you like,’ he asked simply, ‘to run away?’

  How strange. When he was younger the idea would have been unthinkable, but now he was wondering whether to give up.

  A few years ago, he had hoped to extract money from the Suvorins for the Bolshevik cause. Knowing all he did, he supposed he might have. Yet he had not.

  God knew, the party needed funds. Not long ago a new Bolshevik newspaper had been started with articles by a strange young fellow from Georgia whose writing reminded one of a priest intoning the liturgy. ‘Stalin’ he had called himself, in the revolutionary manner – man of steel. All that year Popov had tried to find funds for Pravda, but he had never asked Mrs Suvorin.

  She had become a being apart. He supposed he loved her. And now he was thinking, instead, of asking her to finance their personal flight.

  For in 1913, Popov was weary. There was no hope of revolution. Lenin’s attempt to reunite the Socialist left had met with little success. There had been more arrests. Even young Stalin had been exiled to Siberia. Truly, it seemed to him, he had done all that reasonably could be done.

  ‘We could go abroad,’ he suggested.

  And, to her own astonishment, Mrs Suvorin, for a long moment, considered it.

  He was an extraordinary man. She had learned much from him. He had caused her to think long and hard about her life; and he had even altered her political outlook. ‘I do think we must have democracy,’ she had finally confessed. ‘I just can’t see
anything else that’s fair. I still want, personally, to keep the Tsar; but we need a Constituent Assembly.’ It had become a point of secret passion with her.

  Yet he also troubled her. Talking to him about the revolution it was as if, sometimes, he had grown a protective covering – a carapace – that shut out all human feelings that might interfere with the business in hand. At such times she would think: He would kill and never care.

  And now the revolutionary had surrendered. He was smiling almost sheepishly. And she wanted to take him in her arms.

  The door burst open quite suddenly, as Nadezhda stepped into the room. She was wearing a long dressing gown and her hair was loose down her back. She was shaking, yet also smiling.

  ‘Ah, yes,’ she said calmly. ‘My mother worries about my friends. Perhaps she would prefer it if they were Bolsheviks.’

  Popov gazed at her, but said nothing.

  ‘Would you, Mama?’ she insolently asked. Then with sudden fury: ‘Just so you know I know how you treat poor Papa.’ And turning to Popov: ‘You ought to be locked up. Perhaps you will be.’

  ‘Nadezhda, go to your room,’ Mrs Suvorin said promptly. But to Popov she had to murmur: ‘You had better leave.’ And to his look of enquiry she could only shake her head sadly. ‘Impossible.’

  Both mother and daughter knew, from then on, that they would never mention the incident again.

  1914, August

  Slowly and solemnly, through the dusty summer heat, the procession wound through the streets. Priests in their jewelled robes, and wearing heavy mitres, led the way. Some carried icons, others huge banners. A choir was chanting. And as they passed, like waves unfurling themselves along a shore, a sea of hands rose and made the sign of the cross, while heads and backs bowed low. For this was Holy Russia still; and Russia was at war.

  Alexander Bobrov watched with tears of emotion in his eyes. What a summer it had been. There had been a drought, and a total eclipse of the sun. Every peasant in every village had therefore known that some disaster was probably at hand. But now that it had come, here in the streets of Moscow, it was as if some wonderful religious transformation had taken place. Suddenly all differences were forgotten, all Russians became brothers, united in defence of the fatherland.