The Vanishing Futurist

by Charlotte Hobson

  He fell quiet when a tall figure appeared, dressed in black. Her face gave me a jolt – the ancient shrunken look of a woman decades older than her upright posture suggested. After a moment she nodded slightly. ‘Yes, comrades? How may I assist you?’

  I had the uneasy feeling that she had seen straight through us.

  ‘Lieutenant Emil Pelyagin, Special Commission. I believe you have a scientific establishment here,’ Pasha shot back at her.

  She studied him for a moment. ‘This is a closed facility. I am required to inspect all documents before admitting visitors.’

  ‘Good, comrade. I am glad to see you take security measures seriously.’ Pasha handed her Pelyagin’s documents. ‘What are you researching here? Are you a physicist?’

  She looked at him a little strangely. ‘A physicist? No.’

  ‘Introduce yourself, comrade. Name and rank.’

  ‘My name is Sister Serafima. As to rank, I have none.’

  ‘Sister?’ repeated Pasha.

  ‘Nuns, aren’t they,’ interrupted the young soldier. ‘They moved in here from some convent or other.’

  ‘But what on earth are you doing running a research laboratory?’

  Sister Serafima handed the papers back. ‘Follow me.’

  On the door of the first shed was a scribbled notice: ‘Laboratoria 36’. My heart was pounding. Sister Serafima pushed open the door and we were hit by the stench. It was dark inside, and for a moment I read the smell as something chemical.

  I stepped inside the shed and saw – people. Half-naked, gaunt bodies jostled together, and eyes staring out at us, huge blank dirty eyes. Bile rose in my mouth. Some were sitting or lying on the earth floor – ageless and sexless, barely animate. Some shrank back at the sight of us. A few pressed forward, murmuring.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Pasha stammered.

  ‘They call it a laboratory,’ Sister Serafima said impassively. ‘Perhaps in the future they plan some sort of research.’ She paused. ‘For now, these people and those in the two rooms beyond are my charges, a total of eighty-five souls. They are lunatics.’

  A murmuring started up. An old man stumbled towards us; his face was horribly swollen and bruised. ‘Barishnya,’ he said, and giggled. ‘I haven’t seen you before, miss.’ He reached out and took my hand, and everything in me wanted to shrink away from him. With an effort I controlled myself, but Pasha pushed him away, snapping, ‘Don’t touch her!’

  Sister Serafima watched. ‘In this hut they are on the whole peaceable. In the neighbouring hut we keep the difficult ones. You heard them earlier.’

  ‘How did this man get so bruised, then?’ I asked.

  ‘Sometimes there are problems in this hut too. Have you seen everything you wanted?’

  ‘No – no. We were looking for a scientific establishment, a workshop,’ burst out Pasha in fury.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Lab 37. We believe that a certain prisoner was brought here – Nikita Slavkin was his name.’

  For the first time Sister Serafima’s expressionless mask slipped. ‘Slavkin?’ she repeated.

  ‘Yes. We believe he was brought to Laboratory 37 in January of this year, from the Lubyanka. Do you know anything about this?’

  She turned to the young soldier. ‘You may leave us now, Kurotov. I think I hear your comrades returning. You’d better let them in.’

  When he’d gone she turned back to us and her face was suddenly animated. ‘Now – you answer some questions for me. You’re not Chekists, for a start. The Cheka visited me last week, a very different kettle of fish. What do you know about Lab 37, or Slavkin? Tell me the truth or Kurotov’s comrades will get their hands on you, and they are not as meek as he is, I’ll tell you that.’

  The inmates seemed to pick up on her tone and they began to talk excitedly, gathering around us. A woman touched my arm and someone pressed themselves against my back. I took a deep breath and spoke.

  ‘Sister Serafima, we are not from the Cheka, you are right. Please understand. We are friends of Slavkin’s. We have been hunting for him all over Moscow since he disappeared in January. We were told he was working in a laboratory here, in the Church of the Ascension.’

  Sister Serafima looked at us and I was amazed to see tears in her eyes. She turned swiftly to the people around us. ‘Go to your places!’ she barked. They fell back. ‘They don’t understand, they could hurt you without realising. So . . . you are Slavkin’s friends. The IRT, wasn’t it?’

  I nodded. ‘He told you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Her charges had taken up their places on wooden bunks around the walls, four or five to each bunk. Those that did not fit sat on the earthen floor. They were silent and watchful. I gazed at them, trying to take this in. ‘So is this where they brought Slavkin after the Lubyanka?’

  She nodded.

  The baby suddenly began to twist violently inside me, the nausea in me was so strong I felt myself stumble. Pasha caught my arm and held me. I saw he was crying. ‘But’ – it came out in a wail – ‘why?’

  Sister Serafima took a deep breath. ‘When he came here, he was . . . I thought he might not survive the night. As they dragged him out of the van he was having a fit. He lay frothing at the mouth and convulsing for almost half an hour. He didn’t speak for days.’ She put her hands on my shoulders. ‘I fed him like a baby, spoon by spoon. Those brutes at the church there, they make sport of my poor charges. Oh my God, the suffering! But I didn’t let them near Slavkin. He was so weak . . .

  ‘Come with me, I’ll show you. This is the room I kept him in’ – a bare little cell with a tiny window – ‘not comfortable, but clean. And safe. After a week I was washing him and he suddenly looked at me and smiled. “Dear one,” he said, “how tired you look.” I couldn’t believe my ears. His eyes were clear, his speech was a little blurred because he’d bitten his tongue so badly in the fits, but it was calm, reasonable. He had forgotten a great deal, but slowly he began to remember, and to tell me, little by little.’

  ‘Did he tell you about his machine?’

  ‘More than that, he began to build it again. As soon as he could get about, he went out by day and gathered materials – bits of scrap metal, this and that. I thought at first he was still crazed, but then I saw him at work, shaping, hammering. He took a broken engine from one of the Army trucks here and fixed it – even those brutes of soldiers were impressed then. I found tools for him in one of the old stores. What he needed was a furnace, but that was impossible. “It doesn’t matter,” he kept saying. “Victory will be ours.” He worked constantly, eighteen hours a day – I couldn’t stop him. He said, “Thank goodness they arrested me. I had no idea before how much there is to do.” He talked to my poor patients. He explained to them about the machine that he was building, and how it would transport us all far away from today into another world, where Communism is possible.

  ‘I have lived all my life as a nun, but God forgive me, I believe that Communism will come one day . . . and I believed him that his machine could make it possible. Why not? Why not? God will not stand by and watch us all suffer for ever . . .

  ‘But I worried that he was exhausting himself. I was dreading another attack. Sometimes his mind would wander, and he’d start talking gibberish. All of us are starving, every one of us, but he was so thin – his wrists, his shoulders – and yet he burned with energy. I don’t know. He seemed to have some kind of superhuman strength, just for those weeks. I used to look at his bony back, the shoulderblades that stuck right out through his shirt like wings, and I used to think . . .’ She looked away. ‘Never mind what I thought.

  ‘He told me about the IRT, about all of you. He was terrified that you had been arrested. He hunted the streets for the papers to check for your names on the lists. He felt that if he made contact with you it would endanger you. They arrested him on charges of plotting counter-Revolution, but he must have had his first fit almost as soon as they took him in, because he couldn’t remember anyt
hing about the prison at all. So presumably they dropped the case. Once he went to watch you – to spy on the building from some doorway or other. He came back so sad. I think he was hoping to see someone – perhaps someone who wasn’t there?’

  ‘Sonya.’ My voice came out strangely. ‘He was hoping to see Sonya. But she died of typhus the week after he was arrested.’

  ‘Sonya. Yes, he did mention that name when he was ill.’

  ‘But where is he now, Sister? Our . . . our informer said he didn’t know.’

  ‘He was telling the truth. We don’t know.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t know where he is. At the end of March I had to make a trip out to the countryside to try to collect food for my patients. We are starving here, I’ve already said. What food I grew last summer ran out and we receive only third-class rations. I left my patients here in Slavkin’s charge; he was not entirely well, I knew, but still – he was the only person I could trust.

  ‘I came back . . . Oh, forgive me. I came back and that Red Army filth had wreaked havoc. They claimed there was trouble and they had to come in to sort it out. I’m willing to bet that any trouble before they arrived was nothing to what they left behind. And Slavkin had gone. He and his machine – disappeared.’

  ‘And . . . and you don’t know where he went?’ I said stupidly.

  Without a word, Sister Serafima led us out of the cell and through a dank corridor. At the end was a heavy door with two bolts. ‘Be very calm and quiet,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘These patients are anxious about people they don’t know.’

  The sign on the door read ‘Laboratory No. 37’.

  ‘Good morning,’ said Serafima politely as she swung open the door. ‘I hope we are not disturbing you.’

  We stepped inside another long, dark hut. There were many fewer people in here – perhaps a couple of dozen – each sitting on their own, bare pallet. At first the greater order and space seemed to contrast favourably with Lab 36. Then I realised that they were manacled. Many lay motionless, as if barely alive. One man was curled up in the corner, groaning. One, who looked young and strong, was straining at the end of his chain, tugging on it and grunting.

  ‘Grisha, calm yourself. These patients are chained because they have consistently harmed themselves and others. It is unpleasant to see, but it is the only possible course of action.’ Sister Serafima shrugged. ‘If she is able to talk, one of the patients told me something about Slavkin’s disappearance that perhaps would interest you.’

  She led us up to a powerfully built young woman who was sitting on her pallet and gazing blankly out of the window. Very gently, she took the woman’s hand in hers and spoke to her almost in a whisper. ‘Anna, my dear, don’t be afraid.’ The woman looked at her blankly. ‘These are good people, friends of our dear Nikita Gavrilovich. They want to hear about the day he went away. When I was not here. You remember, don’t you, Anna? Be brave and tell.’

  Anna’s eyes swivelled and she caught sight of us. She began to whimper and sidle backwards on her bed. Her face had been horribly burnt and was covered in red scar tissue. I could hardly bear her expression of terror. ‘Hush,’ murmured Sister Serafima. ‘Calm yourself.’ And over her shoulder, to us, ‘It’s best not to look at her – look away.’

  Pasha and I turned away and gazed down the hut. After a moment a croaky whisper emerged. ‘Are they truly his friends?’

  ‘Yes. They are searching for him. They love him.’

  ‘I remember what happened,’ she said hoarsely. ‘I’ll tell them, shall I?’

  And so the story of Nikita’s last journey was told, in Anna’s poor, painful voice, while the inmates gazed dully at the ceiling and Grisha grunted and pulled at his chains.

  ‘It was the day that evil men came in and made misery for us. They said they were coming to help us but then they laughed and hit us and they frightened everyone and they took our food. They took my cloak and laughed and they beat Misha and they—’

  ‘Shh – you needn’t remember all of that.’

  ‘Nikita tried to stop the bad men. He stood in front of them and he spoke a long time to them, lots of words, all about his machine and the world and everything. He thought they were friends, but they weren’t friends. They were laughing at him and one of them hit him and he fell over. And then they made fun of him and pushed him and he banged against the wall, and they made him walk about and prodded him with their bayonets. And they said show us this machine then and he took them outside and I heard them say get in and he lay down in it and they did more laughing. And then . . .’ She sat up straight and turned towards us, and very cautiously I looked back at her, keeping my head bowed in case I frightened her again. ‘Then there was a very loud noise, it hurt my ears so much’ – she covered her ears to show us – ‘and shouting. And we didn’t see our Nikita again.’

  ‘What did the noise sound like?’

  ‘It – it sounded like the air splitting in two, crack! – and crack in my ears – like . . . like thunder right here in the room, like a gun . . .’

  There was a pause.

  ‘And then you talked to the bad men, didn’t you, Anna?’ prompted Serafima.

  ‘Yes, and they said straight out to me, they said, “He’s gone away in his machine.” That’s the words they said. They didn’t say anything else, because they didn’t know about it like we do, do they, Sister? Nikita didn’t tell them everything that he told us.’

  ‘No, that’s right, he didn’t tell them what he told us.’

  ‘They didn’t say that he was coming back, because only we know about that. But they said he had gone away and that was just what Nikita told us they would say.’ For the first time she looked at me full in the face with her big blue child’s eyes, wide and clear and triumphant. ‘He’s gone away in his machine, they said so, in those words. And he told us, if that happens, it means we’ve won. So we’ve won, haven’t we, Sister Serafima? We’ve won the future, and they don’t even know it.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Sister Serafima, and her voice was a little hoarse, ‘I believe we’ve won. Somewhere in the future, we’ve won.’

  21

  ‘Anna.’ I leant forward. ‘Thank you.’ Without thinking I reached my hand out towards hers.

  ‘No!’

  Serafima tugged hard on Anna’s chain. She screeched and fell back.

  ‘Move away, please – go to the door.’ Serafima hurried us out, tight-lipped. ‘You don’t understand. They can’t help it.’

  As we came out into the corridor men’s voices could be heard in Lab 36. Serafima stopped. ‘That’s the Red Guard. I think it best if you leave by this door. Take the path down to the river and wait for me there – I will come as soon as I can . . .’

  She bundled us through a small door and we found ourselves outside again, blinded by the sun.

  ‘Oh, Pasha, I don’t know if I can—’

  ‘Come,’ muttered Pasha, taking my arm. ‘Little by little.’

  We slipped and staggered together like drunks down the steep, narrow footpath to the river. No one seemed to have seen us go; if they had, I doubt either of us would have been able to run. Within a few moments we were out of sight of Serafima’s huts. A few more and we were in a little copse leading down to the river. The trees were like huge swaddled peasant women beneath their layers of snow. We crept beneath the skirts of one and pushed ourselves in among the brushwood. From this place we looked out onto the glittering river and waited. Slowly, slowly, I felt my heart calm and the dizzy, sick sensation seep away. We didn’t talk.

  I don’t know if it was hours, or minutes before Sister Serafima appeared quietly on the path, leading an old donkey with a blanket on its back.

  ‘The Cheka seem to be on their way. I suggest you keep away from the road. At the edge of the park, by those firs, there is a path running north. It will take you back to the river – we are in a huge curve here, do you understand? Follow the river until you see the railway bridge. There you can climb up
to Kotly station, on the Moscow Circular railroad. Let Dusya go when you get there – she will come home by herself. Here, this is all I can give you.’ She pressed a little parcel wrapped in a cloth into my hands. ‘Forgive me if I ask you one thing.’ She looked hard at me. ‘Is it his child?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh, I’m glad. Very glad. Go with God, my children . . .’

  Dusya waited while I mounted her in an awkward side-saddle and Pasha took the rope; and then she slowly, carefully stepped out along the path. Her neat little hooves made no sound on the narrow animal tracks. Light sparkled and snapped around us and the air tasted like iced leaves. Apart from one deserted road, there was no sign of human life, no building, no chimney – just the blank curves of the snowy forest. I had not been out of the city for over a year – a year and a half, since we were at Mikhailovka in the summer of 1917, and we played blind man’s buff in the twilight . . . Dusya’s warm, comforting back moved beneath me and the baby was calm. Pelyagin was obviously after us, but all I could feel was weariness. The sun was sinking in the sky when we finally saw the railway bridge. I dismounted Dusya and we let her go: we didn’t want anyone to see her at the station. She looked at us for a slow moment, blinked, and turned for home.

  ‘Just a moment,’ murmured Pasha. ‘Before we enter the station, I think we should decide on our plans. We may not be able to talk openly there.’

  After the warmth of the day, the woods were full of dripping and the occasional ‘flump’ of melted snow sliding from the branches. We turned our faces to the last sunshine.

  ‘The only course for you now is to go abroad. I’ve heard the Estonian border is open at Narva. We must get to Petrograd and then find out how to make the rest of the journey.’

  ‘And you? What about you?’