Eye of the Red Tsar

by Sam Eastland

  “It’s not you I’m thinking of,” said Pekkala. “It’s those grenades.” He nodded at the crate.

  “What do you mean?” asked Nekrasov, staring at the ACHTUNG-EXPLOSIVEN lettering.

  “That case is dated 1916. Those grenades are thirteen years old. A soldier like yourself must know that dynamite becomes very unstable if it is not stored correctly.”

  “I stored them! I kept them right beside my bed!”

  “But before that.”

  “I found them in the woods.” His voice seemed to grow smaller.

  Once more Pekkala stared up at the mare’s-tailed blue sky. “Well, good-bye.” He turned to leave.

  “Go to hell!”

  “As you said.”

  Pekkala started walking.

  “Wait!” Nekrasov shouted. “All right. I’m sorry I threw a grenade at you.”

  “If I had a ruble for every time I’d heard that”—Pekkala paused and turned—“I would only have one ruble.”

  “Well, what more do you want?”

  “You could answer some questions.”

  “Questions about what?”

  Pekkala returned. He sat down again on the crate. “Is it true you were one of the militiamen who guarded the Ipatiev house?”

  “Yes, and the only one who’s left alive, too.”

  “What happened to the others?”

  “There were twelve of us. When the Whites came, we were ordered to hold a bridge on the outskirts of the town. We tipped over a cart to block the way and took cover behind it. But that didn’t stop the Whites. They rolled up an Austrian mountain howitzer. Then they fired two rounds at us on a flat trajectory at a range of less than one hundred meters. At that range, you don’t even hear the gun go off. The first round killed half the people I was with. The second round hit the cart dead center. I don’t remember that. All I know is when I woke up, I was lying in the ditch by the side of the road. I was naked except for my boots and one sleeve of my shirt. Everything else had been torn off my body by the blast. One of the cart wheels was hanging from a tree branch on the other side of the road. There were bodies everywhere. They were on fire. The Whites had left me for dead and gone through. I was the only survivor of the men they sent to hold that damn bridge.”

  “Nekrasov, I understand why you would hate the Whites, but I don’t see what you have against the Cheka. After all, the only thing they did was replace you as guards for the Romanovs.”

  “All? That’s all they did?” Again he struggled to free himself, but the bonds were tight and he gave up. “The Cheka humiliated us! They said we were stealing from the Tsar.”

  “Were you stealing?”

  “It was only little stuff,” he protested. “There were nuns from the convent in town. They brought food in baskets, and the Tsar gave them books as presents in return. We swiped a few potatoes. You can go ask the nuns, if there’re any of them left. They’re closing down the convent. Canceling God! What do you think of that?”

  “Was that all you took? A few potatoes?”

  “I don’t know!” Nekrasov’s face had turned red. “Sometimes a fountain pen might disappear. Sometimes a deck of fancy playing cards. Little stuff, I’m telling you! Nobody starved. Nobody even went to bed hungry. We were told to make them feel like they were prisoners. We weren’t allowed to talk to them. Not even to look at them, if we could help it. What mattered was that the Romanovs were safe. Nobody escaped. Nobody broke in. We were to hold them until the Tsar could be put on trial, and that is exactly what we were doing.”

  “And what about the rest of the family?”

  “I don’t know. Nobody said anything about putting them on trial. And for certain nobody said anything about killing them! Then these Cheka men come in and make a big fuss over a few stolen potatoes. They throw us out and then what happens? There’s no trial! Instead, the whole family gets shot. Then, when those Cheka guards have finished blasting away at unarmed women and children, they get out of town as fast as their legs will carry them and leave us to fight off thirty thousand Whites who’ve got cannons and”—his foot lashed out at the crate—“enough grenades that they can afford to leave cases of them just lying in the woods. And that’s why I hate them. Because we did our job and they didn’t.”

  Pekkala went to the front of the wheelbarrow and untied Nekrasov’s arms from the wheel.

  Nekrasov did not get up. He only lay there, massaging his wrists where the rope had dug into his skin. “In a town this size,” he explained, “a man’s life can boil down to a single moment. One thing he said or did. That’s all he is remembered by. And nobody thinks about us holding our ground on that bridge until they blew us to pieces with a howitzer. All we’re remembered for is a couple of stolen potatoes.”

  With the toe of his boot, Pekkala lifted up the lid of the crate. He replaced the unexploded bomb inside it. “Why didn’t you pull the pin?”

  “I was drunk,” replied Nekrasov.

  “No, you weren’t. I searched this house while you were out and there isn’t a thimbleful of alcohol in here. You weren’t drunk, Nekrasov.” Pekkala held a hand out to Nekrasov and helped him to his feet. “There must be another reason.”

  “I’m nuts.”

  “I don’t believe that, either.”

  Nekrasov sighed. “Maybe I’m just not the type to butcher a person in their sleep.”

  “And what about the Tsar?”

  “I killed people in the war, but that was different. An unarmed man? Women? Children? The same goes for the men who were with me. If shooting the Romanovs is what needed to be done, it’s just as well the Cheka took our place.”

  “So you think the Cheka murdered the Tsar?”

  Nekrasov shrugged. “Who else would have done it?”

  WHEN PEKKALA RETURNED TO THE IPATIEV HOUSE, HE FOUND ANTON sitting on the back step of the house, a slab of stone worn by the countless footsteps of those who had lived and worked here before the house became frozen in time. He was eating something out of a frying pan, scooping up its contents with a wooden mixing spoon.

  Kirov appeared in the kitchen doorway, the sleeves rolled up on his shirt. “Did you find the old militiaman?” he asked.

  “Yes,” replied Pekkala.

  “Have you placed him under arrest?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?” asked Kirov. “He tried to kill us last night!”

  “If he had wanted to kill us, we would already be dead.”

  “All the same, I think you should have arrested him,” the Commissar insisted. “It’s the principle of the thing!”

  Anton laughed. “Just what the world needs more of. A boy, a gun, and principles.”

  “Did he confess to killing the Tsar?” Kirov demanded.

  “No.”

  “There’s a surprise,” mumbled Anton.

  “It’s not the Romanovs he hated,” said Pekkala. “It’s you and your friends in the Cheka.”

  “Well, he can get in line like everybody else,” said Anton. “The Militia. The Whites. The Romanovs. That police chief, Kropotkin. Even those nuns at the convent hated us.”

  “In fact,” continued Pekkala, “he’s convinced that the Cheka were responsible for the death of the Romanovs.”

  Kirov whistled through his teeth. “The Cheka think the militia killed the Tsar. The militia think the Cheka did it. And Mayakovsky thinks they survived!”

  “Well,” said Pekkala, “at least we can rule out survival.”

  “What about the Cheka?” Anton asked. “Do you mean you actually believe we might have had something to do with it?”

  Pekkala shrugged.

  Anton wagged the wooden spoon at him. “Are you placing me under suspicion?”

  Sensing that another fight was about to break out between the brothers, Kirov tried to change the subject. “Don’t you have something else to say?” he asked Anton.

  “I already apologized,” replied Anton, shoveling up another mouthful from the pan.

  “A publi
c apology! That’s what we agreed.”

  Anton groaned. He set the frying pan down on the cobblestones and let the spoon fall with a clatter onto the blackened surface of the pan. “I apologize for calling you a cook. You are a chef. A mighty chef.”

  “There,” said Kirov. “Was that so difficult?”

  Anton sucked at his teeth and said nothing.

  “What did you make?” Pekkala was peering into the frying pan.

  “Chicken with gooseberry sauce!” announced Kirov.

  “Where did you find the ingredients for that?” asked Pekkala.

  “Our new friend, Mayakovsky,” replied Kirov.

  “Make that our only friend,” Anton corrected.

  “He says he can get his hands on anything we want,” said Kirov.

  Anton looked over his shoulder at Kirov. “Wait a minute. How did you pay for this? I’m the one holding on to our cash.”

  “You didn’t wonder about that while you were eating it, did you?” Kirov demanded. “Let’s just say we only have enough fuel coupons to drive most of the way back to Moscow.”

  “Damn it!” shouted Anton. “Why don’t we just raid Mayakovsky’s house and take whatever we need?”

  “We could,” agreed Pekkala, “but I think he knows more than he’s told us so far. Sooner or later, he’ll come back with more information.”

  “We don’t have time for sooner or later,” Anton snapped.

  “Rushing through an investigation,” Pekkala said as he bent down and streaked one finger through the sauce in the pan, “is like rushing through a meal …” He tasted the sauce. His eyes closed. “That’s very good,” he muttered. “And besides, with your help, things will go much more quickly.”

  “I’m already helping,” said Anton.

  “How exactly,” asked Pekkala, “except with eating the food?”

  “I’ll help,” Kirov volunteered cheerfully.

  “You stick to being a cook,” Anton grumbled.

  “The more people we can talk to,” Pekkala pointed out, “the faster this will go.”

  Kirov jabbed Anton in the spine with the toe of his boot. “Do you want to go back to steaming open letters?”

  “All right!” Anton moaned angrily. “What do you want me to do?”

  After assigning each of them a section of the town, Pekkala explained that he needed them to go door-to-door and learn what they could about the night the Romanovs disappeared.

  Anton scowled. “We can’t do that! Officially, the Romanovs were executed by order of the government. If word gets out that we’re looking for whoever killed the Tsar and his family—”

  “You don’t have to tell them that. Just say there have been some new developments. You don’t have to explain what those are, and most people will be too concerned with the questions you are asking them to think about questions of their own. Ask if they saw any strangers in town around the time the Romanovs disappeared. Ask if any bodies have been found since then. If someone from out of town buried a murder victim in a hurry, it’s unlikely to have stayed hidden from the locals.”

  “It’s been a long time since that night,” grumbled Anton. “If they’ve kept their secrets this long, what makes you think they’ll tell us any now?”

  “Secrets grow heavy,” Pekkala answered. “In time, the weight of them becomes too much to carry. Talk to people who work out of doors—postmen, foresters, farmers. If anything was going on in the days leading up to the disappearances, they are more likely to know than those who stayed inside. Or you could go to the tavern …”

  “The tavern?” Anton brightened.

  Kirov rolled his eyes. “All of a sudden, he is willing to help.”

  “People are more likely to tell you their secrets there than any other place,” said Pekkala. “Just make sure you stay sober so you can listen to what they are saying.”

  “Of course,” said Anton. “What do you take me for?”

  Pekkala didn’t answer. He was staring at the frying pan. “Is there any left?” he asked.

  “A bit.” Anton handed him the pan.

  Pekkala sat down beside his brother on the stone step. There was no chicken left, but by working the wooden spoon around the edges of the pan, he gathered up some of the sauce and a single jade green gooseberry which his brother had been too full to eat. The still-warm, buttery sauce, flecked with chopped parsley and thickened with fried bread crumbs, crunched between his teeth. He tasted the sweetness of onion and the earthiness of simmered carrots. Then he let the gooseberry rest on his tongue, and slowly pressed it against the roof of his mouth until the firm round edges gave way, almost like a sigh, spilling warm, sharp-tasting juice into his mouth. Saliva welled up from under his tongue, and he sighed, recalling winters in his cabin in the Krasnagolyana forest when his only food for days on end had been boiled potatoes and salt. He remembered the silence of those nights, a stillness so complete that he could hear the faint hiss which he could only detect when there were no other noises. Often, in the forest, he had heard it: there were times in the winter months when it seemed almost deafening to him. When he was a child, his father had explained that it was the noise of his blood moving through his body. That silence, more than any barbed-wire fence, had been his prison in Siberia. Even though Pekkala’s body had left that prison behind, his mind had remained trapped inside it. Only now, as these tastes formed unfamiliar arcs across his senses, did he slowly feel himself emerging from his years as a convict.

  Following his arrest at the Vainikkala railway station, Pekkala was transported to the Butyrka prison in Petrograd. The Webley and his copy of the Kalevala were handed over to the authorities. He was told to sign a huge book containing thousands of pages. The book had a steel plate covering everything except the space for him to write his name. From there, guards brought him to a room where he was made to strip and his clothes were taken away.

  Alone, Pekkala paced nervously around the small room. The walls were painted brown up to chest height. Above that, to the high ceiling, everything was white. The light in the room came from a single bulb above the door, covered with a wire cage. The room contained no bed or chair or any other furniture, so when Pekkala grew tired of pacing, he sat on the floor with his back against the wall, his knees drawn up to his bare chest. Every few minutes, a peephole in the door scraped open and Pekkala saw a pair of eyes looking in at him.

  It was while he waited naked in the cell that prison guards, searching his clothes, discovered the emerald eye beneath the lapel of his coat.

  Over the weeks that followed, in those few times when his head was clear enough to think straight, Pekkala would ask himself why he had not thrown away the badge which revealed his identity. Perhaps it was just vanity. Perhaps he imagined he would one day return to serve in his former capacity. Perhaps it was because the badge had become a part of him and he could no more be separated from it than he could be parted from his liver or his kidneys or his heart. But there was another possibility for why he had held on to the badge, and it was that part of him had not wanted to escape. Part of him knew his fate had become so entwined with that of the Tsar that even his freedom could not sever the bond.

  As soon as the Butyrka prison staff realized they had captured the Emerald Eye, Pekkala was separated from the other prisoners and brought to a place known as the Chimney.

  They led him to the cell and shoved him inside. Pekkala tumbled down one step into a space the size of a small closet. The door clicked shut. He tried to stand, but the ceiling was too low. Black-painted walls sloped above him, lower at the back and curving to a point just above the door. The space was so narrow that he could not lie down, nor could he stand except hunched over. A bright bulb glared down from a wire mesh cage, so close to his face that he could feel its heat. A wave of claustrophobia washed over him. His jaw locked open and he gagged.

  After only a few minutes, he could not take it anymore and banged on the door, asking to be released.

  The peephole slid back. “The
prisoner must be silent,” said a voice.

  “Please,” Pekkala said. “I can’t breathe in here.”

  The peephole clanged shut again.

  Before long, his back spasmed from bending over. He let himself slide down the wall, pressing his knees against the door. This helped for a few minutes, but then his knees cramped. He soon discovered that there was no position in which he could get comfortable. There was no air. Heat from the lightbulb pulsed against the back of his head and sweat poured down his face.

  Pekkala fully expected to die. Before that, he knew, he would be tortured. Having reached this inevitable conclusion, he was filled with a curious sensation of lightness, as if his spirit had already begun a slow migration from his body.

  He was ready for it to begin.

  THE THREE MEN SPREAD OUT THROUGH THE TOWN.

  Kirov took the houses on the main street. He made sure he had pages in his notebook. He sharpened two pencils. He combed his hair and even brushed his teeth.

  Anton caught up with him as he was shaving, using the mirror of the Emka so that he could see what he was doing.

  “Where are you going?” asked Kirov.

  “To the tavern,” replied Anton. “That’s where people tell their secrets. Why dig them out of their houses when they can come to me there?”

  Pekkala decided to follow up on Nekrasov’s story about the militia stealing from the baskets of food delivered by the sisters of the Sverdlovsk convent. He wondered if the nuns had actually seen the Romanovs during their captivity. Perhaps they’d even spoken to the family. If that was true, they would have been the only people outside the militia or the Cheka to do so.

  His route to the convent took him around the edge of town. Determined to question as many people as he could along the way, he stopped at several houses. No one came to the door. The owners were home. They simply refused to answer. He could see one old couple, sitting in chairs in a darkened room, blinking at each other while the sound of his fist on their door echoed about the house. The old couple did not move. Their brittle fingers, draped over the armrests of their chairs, hung down like pale creeper vines.