Eye of the Red Tsar

by Sam Eastland

  “No, Excellency. My sight is not impaired. I know what you are speaking of.” Pekkala reached one hand towards his eyes, as if to touch the light which seemed to emanate from them. “But I do not know why it is there.”

  “Let us call it Fate,” said the Tsar. He rose from his chair and, taking the badge from its velvet cushion, pinned it to the cloth beneath the right lapel of Pekkala’s jacket. “You will be known from now on as the Emerald Eye. You shall have absolute authority in the fulfillment of your duties. No secrets may be withheld from you. There are no documents you cannot see upon request. There is no door you cannot walk through unannounced. You may requisition any mode of transport on the spot if you deem it necessary. You are free to come and go where you please and when you please. You may arrest anyone whom you suspect is guilty of a crime. Even me.”

  “Excellency …” he began.

  The Tsar held up a hand to silence him. “There can be no exceptions. Otherwise, it is all meaningless. I entrust you with the safety of this country and also with my life and the lives of my family, which brings us to the second box.”

  Setting aside the now empty container in which the badge had rested, the Tsar opened the larger box.

  Inside its fitted case lay a brass-handled Webley revolver.

  “This was given to me by my cousin, George V.”

  Pekkala had seen a picture of the two of them together hanging on the wall of the Tsar’s study—the King of England and the Tsar of Russia, two of the most powerful men in the world. The photo had been taken in England, with both men in formal boating clothes, after the Tsar had sailed there in his yacht, the Standart. The two men looked almost identical. Their expressions were the same, the shapes of their heads, their beards, their mouths, noses, and ears. Only their eyes showed any difference; the King’s more round than the Tsar’s.

  “Go on,” the Tsar instructed. “Take it out.”

  Pekkala lifted the gun gently from its box. It was heavy, but superbly balanced. The brass grips felt cold against his palm.

  “The Empress won’t have it around,” the Tsar told him. “She says it is too sauvage for a man like me, whatever that means.”

  Pekkala knew exactly what it meant, coming from a woman like the Empress, and he suspected the Tsar did as well.

  “It was she who had the idea of presenting this to you. And do you know what I told her? I said that for a man like Pekkala, it might not be sauvage enough.” The Tsar laughed, but his face became abruptly serious. “The truth is, Pekkala, if my enemies came close enough to require that I use a gun like this, it would already be too late. That’s why it should belong to you.”

  “It is very fine, Excellency, but you know how I feel about gifts.”

  “Who said anything about a gift? That weapon and the badge are the tools of your trade, Pekkala. I am issuing them to you the same as any soldier in the army is issued what he needs for his work. I’ll have five thousand rounds of the correct ammunition delivered to your quarters tomorrow. That should keep you going for a while.”

  Pekkala nodded once and was about to take his leave when the Tsar spoke to him again.

  “This business with Grodek will make you famous, Pekkala. It cannot be avoided. There has been too much publicity since you brought him into custody. Some people thirst for fame. They will do anything to have it. They will betray anyone. They will humiliate themselves and those around them. To be hated or loved makes no difference to them. What they want is to be known. It is a sad addiction, and such people wallow in it all their lives, like pigs in filth. But if you are the man I think you are, you will not like the taste of it.”

  “Yes, Excellency.”

  The Tsar reached out and grasped Pekkala by the forearms. “And that is why I consider you a friend.”

  THE OFFICER FLIPPED THROUGH THE ORDERS. “SPECIAL OPERATIONS,” he muttered.

  “Did you see who signed those papers?” asked the second guard.

  “Shut up,” said the officer. He folded the orders and thrust them back at Anton. “You may pass through.”

  The second guard holstered his gun.

  “Tell no one what you see beyond this barricade,” said the officer. “You must drive straight through. You may not stop. You may not speak to anyone. It is important that you give the appearance of normality. Once you have passed through the village, you will come to another roadblock. You must never speak of what you have seen here. Do you understand?”

  “What on earth is out there?” asked Kirov. His face had turned pale.

  “You will know that soon enough,” replied the officer, “but there is still time to change your mind.”

  “We don’t have time,” said Anton.

  “Very well,” said the guard, nodding. He turned to his partner. “Fetch some of the apples,” he said.

  The second man disappeared inside the hut and reappeared carrying a wooden box, which he set on the hood of the car. Inside, nestled on a padded black cloth, were half a dozen perfect apples. He handed one to each of the men.

  It was only when Pekkala felt the apple in his hand that he realized it was made of wood which had been carefully painted.

  “What is going on?” asked Kirov.

  “When you drive through the town,” said the guard, “you must hold these apples in your hands as if you are about to eat them. Make sure they are seen. The apple is a sign to those people in the town that you have been cleared to pass through. You will be shot if you do not do exactly as I say.”

  “Why can’t we just talk to them?” Kirov tried again.

  “No more questions,” said the officer. “Just make sure they see the apples in your hands.”

  The two guards lifted the heavy beam blocking the road.

  Kirov drove the Emka past the barricade.

  Pekkala stared at the apple. There was even a little green leaf hand-painted beneath a wooden stem.

  They passed fields dazzling yellow with sunflowers. Far out in green tides of barley, they could make out the white headscarves of women standing on carts and gathering baskets handed up to them by men down on the ground.

  “Those baskets are empty,” muttered Kirov.

  When they entered the village, they found it bustling with people. The place looked clean and prosperous. Women carried babies on their hips. Shop windows were piled with loaves of bread and fruit and slabs of meat. The village bore no resemblance at all to the muddy streets and miserable inhabitants of Oreshek.

  As they were driving by, a cluster of men and women spilled out of the meeting hall. They were foreigners. Their clothes and hairstyles were those of Western Europeans and Americans. Some carried leather satchels and cameras. Others had notebooks open and were scribbling in them as they walked.

  Leading the group was a small man with round glasses and a dark suit which, by the length of the jacket and the wide sweep of its lapel, was clearly Russian in origin. He smiled and laughed. He gestured first one way and then another, and the heads of the foreigners swayed back and forth, following his outstretched hands as if caught in a trance by the swing of a hypnotist’s watch.

  “Journalists,” whispered Anton.

  The man in the dark suit turned away from the flock he was leading and stared at the car as it drove by. Once his back turned to the journalists, the smile sheared off his face. It was replaced by a menacing glare.

  Anton waved, the wooden apple clenched in his fist.

  Raising a small camera to his eye, one journalist snapped a picture of the car as it sped past.

  The other journalists bent forward, craning their necks like birds to get a glimpse inside the vehicle.

  The man in the suit spun back to face the journalists. As he turned, the smile reappeared on his face like the sun coming out from behind a cloud.

  Pekkala stared at the people milling about in the street. They all appeared so happy. Then he caught the eye of a man sitting by himself on a bench, smoking his pipe. And there was nothing but fear in his gaze.

/>   A railway station stood on the other side of the town. The single track ended in a siding and a turnaround, so that the engine could go back the way it had come in. The train had been readied for its return journey, wherever that was. Black curtains covered the windows of the two carriages, whose olive green sides were trimmed with navy blue paint. The side of each carriage was emblazoned with a hammer and sickle, surrounded by a large red star.

  Four men who had been sitting on the edge of the platform, legs dangling down towards the tracks, suddenly jumped to their feet when they saw the car approaching, grabbing brooms and sweeping the platform busily. Their sweeping paused as they gaped at the car’s occupants. The men appeared confused. They were still staring at the car as it sped out of sight towards the second roadblock.

  The road dipped down into a hollow, where they suddenly came up against another heavy wooden beam straddling the road.

  Kirov jammed on the brakes and the car skidded to a stop.

  More guards were waiting for them.

  “Did you stop in town?” asked the man in charge.

  “No,” replied Kirov.

  “Did you speak to anyone?”

  “No.”

  Kirov held out his wooden apple. “Do you want this back?” he asked.

  The apples were collected. When the barricade was lifted, Kirov hit the pedal so hard the wheels of the Emka spun in the dirt.

  Emerging from the hollow, Pekkala looked back and saw now why that location had been chosen. From the train tracks, the roadblock was invisible, in case any of the foreigners managed to get a look past the black curtains hiding their view. He wondered what story the authorities had cooked up for keeping the windows covered. He wondered, too, if the journalists from the West believed what they were being shown.

  Beyond, the land returned to the way it had been before—with fields gone fallow, rows of dead fruit trees clawing the sky with leafless skeleton branches, and houses whose roofs drooped saddlebacked from neglect.

  Suddenly, Kirov swerved off the road.

  The two brothers collided and swore.

  As soon as the car had come to a stop, Kirov got out and walked into the field, leaving his door open. He stood there, staring out across the empty countryside.

  Before Pekkala could ask, Anton began to explain. “After the Revolution, the government ordered all of the farms to be collectivized. The original landowners were either shot or sent to Siberia. The people who were left in charge did not know how to run the farms, so the crops failed. There was a famine. Five million people died of starvation.”

  Pekkala breathed out through his teeth.

  “Maybe more than five,” continued Anton. “Exact numbers will never be known. When word of the famine reached the outside world, our government simply denied it. They have built several of these model towns. Foreign journalists are invited to tour the country. They are well fed. They receive gifts. They see these model villages. They are told that the famine is a fabrication of anti-Soviet propaganda. The location of these villages is secret. I didn’t realize this was one of them until we reached it.”

  “Do you think those journalists believed what they were seeing?” asked Pekkala.

  “Enough of them do. People can sympathize with the death of one person, five people, ten people, but to them a million deaths is only a statistic. As long as there is doubt, they will choose what is easiest to believe. That is why you and your Tsar didn’t stand a chance against us in the Revolution. You wanted too badly to believe that the human capacity for violence has limitations. The Tsar went to his death believing that because he loved his people, they would love him back. And look where it has gotten you.”

  Pekkala said nothing. He looked down at his hands and slowly clenched them into fists.

  When Kirov returned to the car, Pekkala and Anton were both surprised to see that he was smiling.

  “Glad to see you looking so inspired,” sneered Anton, when Kirov had them on the road again.

  “Why wouldn’t I be?” Kirov replied cheerfully. “Don’t you understand the genius in what we saw back there? We were taught at the Institute that sometimes it is necessary to portray the truth in a different light.”

  “You mean to lie,” corrected Pekkala.

  “A temporary lie,” explained Kirov. “Someday, when the time is right, the record will be set straight.”

  “You believe that?” Pekkala asked.

  “Of course!” the Commissar replied enthusiastically. “I just never thought I’d actually get to see it for myself.”

  Pekkala reached into his pocket and removed the wooden apple he had been given at the checkpoint and which he had failed to return. He tossed it into Kirov’s lap. “Here’s a little souvenir, from your visit to the town of temporary lies.”

  Anton reached across and bounced a fist off his brother’s shoulder. “Welcome to the Revolution,” he said.

  But Pekkala was not thinking about the Revolution. His thoughts had drifted back to an earlier time, when apples like that had been real.

  He found the Tsar chopping firewood outside the greenhouses of the Tsarskoye Selo estate, which were known as the Orangeries.

  When he emerged onto the terrace of the Catherine Palace, having failed to locate the Tsar in any of its rooms, he’d heard, in the distance, the rhythmic sound of an axe cutting into dry wood.

  From the way that axe was being handled—rapidly, without hesitation, and without the heavy thump of someone using more strength than was necessary to split logs into kindling—Pekkala knew it was the Tsar.

  The Tsar liked to exercise, but not for its own sake. He preferred to be doing something he considered useful, such as shoveling snow, clearing rushes from the edges of the ponds. But his favorite occupation was simply to hide himself away behind the Orangeries and lose himself in the meditation of swinging an axe.

  It was a cold day in late September. The first snow of the winter had fallen and the ground was hard with frost. In a few days the snow would probably melt again. Roads and paths would turn to mud. Pekkala had noticed that these first snowfalls were a special time for people in Petrograd. It filled them with new energy, replenishing what had been sapped from them by the muggy summer months.

  The Tsar was stripped to the waist. On his left rose a pile of neatly stacked logs, each one about half the length of a man’s leg. On his right lay the jumble of logs which had been quartered for use as kindling. In the middle, the Tsar used a tree stump as a cutting platform. Pekkala admired the precision of the Tsar’s work, the way he placed each log for cutting, the effortless rise of the axe, its ash handle sliding through his grip until it reached the height of its arc. Then came the sharp downward swing, almost too swift to see, and the log would split apart like segments of an orange.

  Pekkala waited at the edge of the clearing until the Tsar had paused to wipe sweat from his face. Then he stepped forward and cleared his throat.

  The Tsar wheeled about, surprised. At first, he looked annoyed to have been disturbed, but his expression softened when he realized who it was. “Oh, it’s you, Pekkala.” He let the axe drop onto the tree stump. Its blade bit into the wood, and when he let go, the axe stayed where it was, jutting at an angle from the cutting platform. “What brings you here today?”

  “I have come to ask for a favor, Excellency.”

  “A favor?” The Tsar slapped his hands together, as if to brush away the redness in his palms. “Well, it’s about time you asked me for something. I was beginning to think you had no use for me at all.”

  “No use for you, Excellency?” He had never thought about it like that.

  The Tsar smiled at Pekkala’s confusion. “What is it that you would like, my friend?”

  “A boat.”

  The Tsar raised his eyebrows. “Well, I think we can manage that. What sort of boat? My yacht, the Standart? Or something bigger? Do you need some sort of military vessel?”

  “I need a rowboat, Excellency.”

  “A
rowboat.”

  “Yes.”

  “Just an ordinary rowboat?” The Tsar failed to hide his disappointment.

  “And some oars, Excellency.”

  “Let me guess,” said the Tsar. “You would like two of those.”

  Pekkala nodded.

  “Is that all you want from me?”

  “No, Excellency. I also need a lake to put it in.”

  “Ah,” growled the Tsar, “now that’s more like it, Pekkala.”

  Two days later, just after the sun had set, Pekkala rowed out into the lake known as the Great Pond, at the southern edge of the Tsarskoye Selo estate. Ilya sat in the back of the boat, a blindfold over her eyes.

  It was a cool evening, but not cold. In a month this whole lake would be frozen.

  “How much longer do I have to wear this?” Before he could respond, she asked another question. “Where are we going?”

  He opened his mouth to reply.

  “Is there anyone else in this boat?” she asked. “Why don’t you give me an answer?”

  “I will if you’ll let me,” he said. “The answers are ‘not long,’ ‘not telling,’ and ‘no.’”

  Ilya sighed and folded her hands in her lap. “What if one of my students sees me? They’ll think I’m being kidnapped.”

  “I love you,” said Pekkala. He had meant to save that for later, but it just slipped out on its own.

  “What?” she asked, her voice growing suddenly soft.

  “You heard me.”

  She was silent.

  He wondered if he had made a mistake.

  “Well, it’s about time,” she said, softly.

  “You’re the second person who’s said that to me recently.”