Zugzwang

by Ronan Bennett

  Lychev grabbed my arm.

  ‘There is,’ he said.

  Lychev drove past St Petersburg Metals. Workers were pouring from the factory gates. It was too early to be the end of their shift. I saw some men unfurl a huge banner with the legend: ‘Freedom and Bread!’ Further along we passed men, women and children forming up with more banners and placards, proclaiming the Metal Workers’ Union to be on strike.

  ‘Petrov’s called a strike,’ Lychev explained. ‘This is his own union, this is where he started. He joined when he was fourteen. By the time he was sixteen he was one of the local leaders. Have you ever heard him speak in public?’

  ‘I tend to avoid political meetings,’ I said.

  ‘You don’t know what you’ve missed. Gregory Petrov is electrifying. When you listen to him, the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. You shiver and you think: I will go to the ends of the earth for this man.’

  Lychev had to make a detour to avoid getting caught up in the procession. It was after three by the time we got to Alexandrovski Bridge; scattered advance parties of strikers and their families were already crossing it. They were chanting ‘Bread and Freedom!’ and the name of their hero, Gregory Petrov.

  ‘Are you still interested in what happened in Kazan?’ Lychev said out of the blue as we were crawling across the bridge. ‘Before I had to disappear, I received a full report from my former colleagues there.’

  ‘Go on,’ I said.

  ‘You remember there was an unexplained killing?’

  ‘Of the intruder?’

  ‘It turns out the intruder was not bent on robbery, but on revenge.’

  ‘Revenge on whom?’

  ‘There were two men in the house, though neither lived there. It belonged to the mother of one of them. His name was Oleg Yuratev. The file, or rather files, on Yuratev are large.’

  We weaved in and out of the traffic. We passed a captain of gendarmes trying to turn back the marchers.

  ‘Yuratev’s grandfather was a serf. His son, Yuratev’s father, was conscripted into the army, though not before impregnating a young woman – Irina – in his village. The rumour-mongers and gossips claimed there had been no legal marriage. The child did not see his father until the soldier returned home at the conclusion of the Crimean War, by which time he was almost ten. By all accounts, he was precociously intelligent and already beyond his mother’s control. His father soon disappeared again and his mother turned to drink and probably also to occasional prostitution. Apparently, a local priest took an interest in young Oleg and saw that he got an education. But he had a hard time at university – he was a peasant, after all, and illegitimate.’

  Lychev turned and gave me the kind of look that usually presages surprising information.

  ‘It was at university that young Oleg became involved in a terrorist group, the People’s Will. According to them the only hope of saving the Russian soul was by action, by the deed, the bomb and the gun. In 1876 the district governor was assassinated by a young man with a pistol – none other than Oleg Yuratev. His deed propelled him up the hierarchy of the organisation and he became a member of its executive committee. More assassinations followed. Police officials, government officers, local governors, tsarist ministers. Yuratev’s efficiency and dedication solidified his reputation among his comrades. There was just one problem: the man they so admired for his commitment to the revolutionary cause was a traitor.’

  We were almost across the bridge.

  ‘It’s not clear whether Yuratev was a double agent from the beginning of his terrorist career or whether he had become disillusioned and offered his services to the secret police. But he was instrumental in destroying the People’s Will and for his achievements he received a new name, amnesty and the seed money with which he later made his fortune.’

  ‘Zinnurov?’ I said.

  ‘The files do not give Yuratev’s new name, but there can be little doubt. Peter Zinnurov and Oleg Yuratev are one and the same man.’

  Lychev let the information settle.

  After a time I said, ‘What does this have to do with the killing of the intruder in Kazan?’

  ‘Yuratev had travelled to Kazan to meet the officer from the Okhrana with whom he had worked while he was a member of the People’s Will. Somehow one of Yuratev’s former comrades found out they were in the house of Yuratev’s mother. He broke in and tried to kill them both – and he nearly succeeded. Both men were very seriously injured. They would have died had not a young girl been found wandering the streets covered in blood and crying that there had been a murder.’

  ‘Who was the Okhrana officer in the house with Zinnurov?’

  ‘I’m sure you’ve probably already guessed.’

  ‘Colonel Gan.’

  ‘He was a captain then.’

  We were on Liteiny Prospect. The turning for Kirochny Street was coming up.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ I said. ‘I have to see Rozental.’

  ‘There’s no time,’ Lychev shot back.

  ‘Saburov’s house is just up here. We’ll be ten minutes.’

  ‘No,’ Lychev shouted.

  ‘I’ve let Rozental down badly. I have to see him.’

  Lychev let out a curse as we passed Kirochny Street and continued towards Saburov’s house.

  The ballroom accommodated three of the five tables and smaller adjoining rooms the other two. By the time we arrived the games were well under way. Groups of spectators milled about, shifting from one table to another as battles flowed and ebbed. Rozental was nowhere in sight.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I whispered to a spectator, ‘who is Rozental playing?’

  The spectator pointed to the middle table in the ballroom at which Lasker sat, his legs crossed high up, his right arm dangling languorously over the back of his chair, a cigar between his fingers.

  ‘Whose move is it?’ I asked.

  ‘Lasker’s. Rozental played his pawn to d2.

  I searched the room but still couldn’t find him. ‘Where is he?’ I whispered.

  ‘Have a close look over there,’ Lychev put in, directing my attention to a large potted palm to my right, behind which, after a moment or two, I discerned the lurking figure of Rozental.

  ‘It’s bizarre,’ the spectator put in, only then registering my singed hair; his gaze passed discreetly over it before he went on. ‘He makes his move then goes off and hides behind the palm. He only comes back when Lasker makes his move and presses his clock. He’s losing a lot of thinking time. He’s second from bottom – can you believe it? Who would have thought the great Avrom Chilowicz would perform so badly?’

  I told Lychev to wait. ‘Don’t be long,’ he said as I approached the potted palm.

  ‘Avrom Chilowicz,’ I ventured. ‘What are you doing there?’

  There was no reply.

  ‘Shouldn’t you be at the board, studying the position?’

  ‘I have no need to study it,’ Rozental answered, his voice barely audible.

  ‘But why are you hiding like this?’

  ‘I’m not hiding.’ His face was partially obscured by the palm’s sharp fronds but I could see his nervous, sad brown eyes.

  ‘Then what are you doing?’

  ‘I don’t want to be any trouble to anyone.’

  ‘Who would you be trouble to?’

  ‘Dr Lasker,’ he said after a moment. ‘I don’t want to cause my opponent any offence.’

  ‘But you’re not offending him.’

  ‘My presence offends him. I am offensive to everyone.’

  ‘That’s not true,’ I said. ‘Please, Avrom, come back to the table.’

  He shook his head – no.

  I felt angry with myself. I had not succeeded in helping him in the least. And I felt desperately sad: Rozental’s talents were no less considerable than those of the greatest players present, but I saw all too clearly now that the man from the shtetl would never achieve anything like the success even of his inferiors. It was not that his chance for greatn
ess had passed – the chance itself had never been anything other than an illusion.

  ‘Goodbye, Avrom,’ I said.

  ‘Goodbye,’ he said. The word had as much meaning for him as it did for a child responding to an adult he did not know.

  As I went back to Lychev, there was a stir at the table. Lasker had made his move, pushing his b-pawn one square forward to b3. One of the spectators gasped, ‘Zugzwang!’ Rozental trooped from his refuge and stared at the position. It was true. He would now be forced into the role of author of his own destruction.

  Lasker-Rozental, St Petersburg 1914

  After 60 b3. Zugzwang. The black pieces must now give way to

  the white.

  Looking up, I saw, to my horror, Saburov standing in good-natured clubby conversation with two other members of the St Petersburg Chess Union. He was nodding in vigorous agreement with something one of his companions had just said. For a moment I thought he might not see me, but then he suddenly looked up, instinctively alerted by the scrutiny of another, and his eyes met mine. His jaw dropped and his face went white.

  I went up to the table, where Lasker was still sunk in thought, and whispered to Lychev, ‘I’ve been recognised. Let’s go.’

  As we started away, the spectators sent up a sudden murmur of speculation. Looking back, I saw Lasker taking the knight on d2 with his queen. He pressed his clock to start Rozental’s ticking. As one body, the spectators turned their gaze to the potted palm, from which Rozental duly emerged, eyes cast down, arms rigidly at his side, hands clenched. He took his seat and, after the briefest glance at the new position, moved his f-pawn one square forward. He suddenly cocked his head and started to swipe at the flies tormenting him. He pressed his clock, whispered ‘Excuse me’ and went back to the palm. One or two of the spectators sniggered.

  Saburov and his two companions were staring after us.

  We descended the stairs and walked briskly to the door. As we got to the street, someone shouted, ‘Stop those men!’

  We ran for the car, which Lychev had parked outside the Marie Hospital pointing towards the Nevsky. He jumped into the driver’s seat while I cranked the engine. Looking past the car to Saburov’s house, I saw half a dozen or so men emerge onto the steps. They shouted and pointed in our direction. Then two braver souls started sprinting towards us.

  The engine spluttered into life and I leaped in beside Lychev.

  ‘We’ll have to double back later,’ he said, making for the junction with the Nevsky, 250 sazheni away.

  At this time of day the Nevsky is always crowded with people, buses, taxis, droshkies, lorries, carts, cars and private carriages, and I was worried that we would be overtaken by the men coming after us. But today the great avenue was almost deserted; what little traffic there was on the road was heading in the opposite direction, the drivers peculiarly grim-faced.

  ‘We’re in luck!’ Lychev said as he pressed the accelerator.

  We left our pursuers behind at the corner with Liteiny Prospect. Lychev continued over the Fontanka, a smile of satisfaction playing on his lips.

  Something was wrong.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I said.

  A woman hurried past us, following the carriages and droshkies going in the opposite direction. Then came four or five men. They stopped and stared back the way they had come with what seemed like puzzlement and apprehension before running on. People were stampeding, spilling out onto the road, colliding with one another in their desperation to flee.

  But from what?

  At the Armenian Church sheer numbers forced us to a halt. Lychev shouted and blew the horn but there was no question of going forward. He threw the car into reverse and tried to back up, but the crowds flowing around us made any movement impossible.

  I looked at my watch. It was almost 4 p.m.

  ‘We’ll have to go on foot,’ Lychev said, springing out of the car. ‘Come on!’

  I climbed out after him.

  A child stumbled and fell in front of us. A youth running behind cleared the prostrate form with a leap but those who followed could not avoid him. A dozen or more people were caught up in the collision. Men started screaming.

  That was when the first shots were fired.

  One of the men who had been crawling away from the pile-up pitched violently forward, as though someone had kicked him in the behind. I saw another man stagger, his legs uncertain, his arms reaching desperately for support. He got to a lamppost and clung to it like a sailor cleaving to a mast in a storm. There was a large bloody wound at the small of his back. The ground beneath his feet was treacherous, his legs could not be trusted, yet still he would not give up. I watched horrified as he gathered his forces for one last effort. He let go of the lamppost, tottered a step or two and collapsed face down in front of me.

  I bent down to him. He was still breathing. The bullet had torn through the seat of his trousers, fractionally to the right. I turned him over. He breathed out heavily and gasped ‘Mother’.

  ‘Spethmann, come on!’ Lychev shouted.

  I glimpsed a soldier outside the Duma, his bayonet fixed. We stared at each other for a moment before he seemed to lose interest in me and ran on, perhaps to some other quarry.

  Lychev pulled me up. ‘We have to go!’ he shouted.

  ‘Help me get this man off the street,’ I shouted back.

  There were more shots, three or four, though it was impossible to tell where they were coming from or what the intended targets were.

  ‘Leave him!’ Lychev screamed. ‘We have to get to Kirochny Street. Now!’

  ‘We can’t leave him,’ I shouted.

  Lychev threw me a disgusted look, then started off by himself. I struggled to lift the man but he was a dead weight. Someone came up, a worker by his dress, and said, panting, ‘Is he hurt?’

  ‘He’s been shot.’

  ‘Quickly,’ the man said, ‘before the soldiers get him.’

  With some difficulty the two of us hauled him up.

  ‘Get him into the church,’ I said as we staggered forward. ‘What’s going on down there?’

  ‘We were coming up the Nevsky,’ the man said breathlessly, grunting under the strain. ‘Everything peaceful, and all of a sudden the soldiers started shooting. God knows how many they’ve killed. It’s Bloody Sunday all over again.’

  We were less than twenty sazheni from the church when two Cossacks bore down on us.

  ‘Save yourself!’ the man shouted, suddenly dropping the wounded man. ‘They’ll kill us!’

  He took off but did not get more than ten paces before he was overtaken.

  The second Cossack was bearing down on me. I was mesmerised by the extraordinarily beautiful, flowing movements with which he controlled his mount. His long moustache was grey and we were so close I could see that his skin was pitted and flecked with red. He adjusted his weight in readiness for the strike, leaning smoothly to the right.

  He stretched his sabre, then jolted sharply back in the saddle before flopping forward and galloping harmlessly past. The sabre that clattered to the ground next to me was already stained with blood; I would not have been the Cossack’s first kill of the day.

  Lychev was holding a pistol in his hand. I looked down at the man I had tried to help.

  ‘Leave him – he’s dead.’

  Lychev pulled me into a narrow passage that ran alongside the church. Within minutes we were on the Fontanka Embankment. We crossed the canal and quickly found ourselves, once again, on Liteiny Prospect, somewhat north of Saburov’s house. I had to pause to recover my breath. I felt light-headed and weak. At the Cathedral of the Transfiguration, where Kirochny joins Liteiny, a tram had been set on fire.

  Twenty-Eight

  Number 19 Kirochny Street was the address Berek Medem had given to Yastrebov in Moscow when he had recruited the ardent young idealist. As far as the conspirators were aware, they were still safe there. They did not know that Yastrebov had told Catherine about it and that through me it had c
ome to the attention of Lychev.

  Kavi was in the building opposite, in a second-floor apartment Lychev had rented. He was bored and frustrated, the more so for having heard something of the commotion in the city. A man of the street, a fighter, he bridled at the inactivity his role as monitor forced on him. He was further disconcerted when Lychev told him why we were there.

  ‘I won’t cry if the tsar is killed.’

  ‘It won’t just be the tsar who dies,’ Lychev said tersely. ‘Gan and the Baltic Barons will use the assassination as an excuse to crack down on us. We’ll be annihilated.’

  Kavi scratched his chin. ‘I don’t know, Mintimer,’ he said. ‘If the Central Committee has decided to let it go ahead –’

  ‘They only decided because Petrov persuaded them. The double will be leaving for the theatre soon. If we’re going to do this, it has to be now.’

  ‘There has to be discipline, Mintimer. Once an order is given it has to be carried out.’

  ‘You know in your heart, Kavi, that I’m right. You know that this will be a disaster for us.’

  ‘Not just for you,’ I put in. ‘For everyone.’

  Kavi scowled and Lychev examined the floor. I had nothing to say here.

  ‘I don’t like to go against the Central Committee’s orders,’ Kavi said.

  ‘If we don’t, there won’t be a Central Committee. There won’t be a Party. The Baltic Barons will be in control.’

  Kavi paced the floor, grunting and gesturing. ‘We’ll be in big trouble,’ he said.

  ‘Bigger than hanging from a lamppost?’

  Kavi stopped, looked up at the ceiling and exhaled. ‘All right,’ he said at last. ‘But you can do the explaining.’

  ‘I’ll tell them I lied to you,’ Lychev said, clapping him on the back. ‘I’ll say I told you that the Central Committee changed its mind.’

  Kavi took out his knife and tested its sharpness.

  ‘There’s no need to kill him,’ I said. ‘All you have to do is keep him from the recital.’

  Kavi shot me a pitying look.

  ‘Wait for me here,’ Lychev said to me. ‘When I come back we’ll make our way to the Finland Station. It’s not yet 5 p.m. Even if we have to walk all the way, we have plenty of time.’