by Evelyn Weiss
July 30th – I can tell from what the grown-ups are all saying to each other that someone was shot yesterday. No-one will talk to me about it. I haven’t seen Nestor, who is the one grown-up who would tell me truthfully what has happened.
But I know the truth already. The person who was shot is Svea, and she is dead.
Mother has said we are leaving today and going back to St Petersburg. I asked about Nestor. But Mother said ‘Tutor Nestor doesn’t work for us anymore.’ I asked and asked, but that is all she would say.
We are getting on the Imperial Train now, so I will finish up my Diary here and send it to you.
Always yours
Alexei”
Below the prince’s signature is another sketch, this time of a woman standing by the shore of a lake. Emily points to it.
“So that’s Alexei’s impression of Svea Håkansson… are there any clues in that drawing about her?”
We all look carefully at the sketch, but there’s nothing remarkable in the figure, the clothes or the setting. After a minute, Yuri looks up. “If this little picture has secrets, it is not revealing them to us. Better to think about the content of the letter.”
I read it out again, and Yuri sighs. “It doesn’t tell us anything we don’t know. But well done for finding it, Agnes –”
“I disagree, Yuri. On the contrary, Alexei’s letter tells us something extremely important.”
Yuri and Emily look at me in surprise. I carry on.
“Alexei wrote one of his July 29 entries at four o’clock, when the events of the afternoon will have been very clear in his mind. He says that a man, who must be Aristarkhov, came into his room only seconds after he heard the gun. So Aristarkhov can’t have been down on the lake, or in any position where he could have fired a shot at Svea. This letter – it is Aristarkhov’s alibi.”
Emily nods, looking from me to Yuri. “And, the letter also describes where you were when the shot was fired. It says you were in Rasputin’s house on the lake. So the letter is your alibi too, Yuri.”
15 Footsteps in Red Square
Emily and I are browsing the markets of Moscow’s Red Square, just like regular tourists. There’s nothing else we can do this afternoon. This morning, she and I went to the American consulate to inform them that we’re in the city, and tell them what has happened to us. Emily also told them about how she was taken by the Bolsheviks from her flat in the middle of the night. She explained that her belongings have been sent to her at the Metropole, but her passport is missing.
The staff at the consulate took detailed notes, and advised us to co-operate with the authorities’ inquiries. At that point Emily started arguing: how could we co-operate with the Bolsheviks, if they’ve not told us what their inquiry is about?
The man at the desk must have already seen other American citizens in the same position as us. He explained patiently that our situation isn’t unusual, and that in all likelihood in a day or two there will be profuse apologies, we’ll be told we are free, and that we can choose to either return to St Petersburg or travel back to the States.
Either choice would certainly be an easy option in terms of cost. I gasped when I went to the desk last night and found out what my ‘allowance’ is – a small fortune. The Bolsheviks are clearly afraid of upsetting Emily and me, or the consulate, and are throwing money at us.
“This is nice, Agnes. Do you think would suit me?” Emily is standing in front of one of the market stalls; she holds up a beautiful silk scarf. It must have been shipped from some exotic part of the Russian Empire, thousands of miles to the east.
“Emily, why are you a communist?”
“Good question!” She puts the scarf down, and looks at me.
“I must admit, when I was young, I just took things for granted. I never wondered about how unequal society is. Across the tracks, there was a whole town of black people, but it was somewhere I never went.”
“I grew up in a small New England town, Emily. So I never saw that kind of thing. It made me sad, when I started to get older and realised how unfair life is for most people. But it never occurred to me that a revolution was the way to solve things.”
“I think part of what made me a rebel, Emily, comes from deep inside. From my upbringing. My childhood wasn’t happy. My father was a successful attorney – and a drunkard. When I got older, I was glad to get out, to get away as far as I could. I was thrilled, the day I caught that train and went away to college. Ma came to the station with me, and I could see in her face, she was wishing me a better life than she had had. But Pa never even bothered to come to the station.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. I’m still close to my Ma and Pa; I write to them often.”
“Happy families, eh?” Emily poses, holding the scarf against her neck, then passes it to the man behind the stall. “How much?”
“Five roubles.”
“I’ll give you three… Then, Agnes, at college I was involved in putting on a Russian play. Maxim Gorky’s ‘Lower Depths’. I played a character called Natasha who is surrounded by drunks and no-hopers. I realised that there was only one difference between my own family and the down-and-outs in the play. We had money: they didn’t.
It made me wake up to my own privilege – and the injustice of society all around me. So I began to correspond with socialist writers and thinkers. Which led to me writing pieces for left-wing newspapers. After completing my studies, I published my doctorate paper on Russian writers, and since then I’ve written a string of scholarly books and articles. Over the last few years, I’ve become a respected academic. But all the time, I also carried on writing about socialism and communism.
A newspaper called Red Dawn funded me on a reporting mission. Of course, I used a pseudonym for my writings – to protect me, and all the men I interviewed. I spent two years travelling around Colorado, Utah and Nevada, talking to miners about their working conditions, sometimes even going into the places they worked in. They faced – they still face – appalling danger and hardship. Meanwhile, all the profits go to shareholders in New York who’ve never seen a mine in their lives.”
She turns to the stallholder. “Okay, four roubles. My final offer.” He nods; she carries on talking to me.
“Through my work with the miners, I got involved with the Wobblies. They are fighting for something much bigger: worldwide socialism, and equality for all. All workers of the world should unite and rise up against the capitalists. Businesses should be owned by the workers, not by the bosses, Agnes. Injustice and poverty must end. I’ve even written lyrics about it, for the Wobblies’ Little Red Songbook.”
“You say ‘unite and rise up’, Emily. But do you mean take over by force? That’s what Lenin has done, and so far it seems like a nasty business to me.”
Emily doesn’t answer. She hands over the money to the man without looking at him; her eyes are fixed on the scarf. Then she turns to me.
“Is Yuri coming to the market to meet us?”
“No. He said he’d be in St Basil’s Cathedral, lighting a candle and praying for his fellow soldiers who are still out at the front. I said we would join him there. If he didn’t see us in there, he would join us later on, in the Upper Trading Rows shopping mall.”
She pulls a face; I ask her. “Shall we go to the cathedral now, and find him?” The bizarre brightly-patterned onion domes of the cathedral dominate Red Square; they look unreal, like they’ve been tipped out from a gigantic box of coloured sweets.
Emily peers in the direction of the cathedral, as if she expects to see Yuri coming towards us. “You go and fetch him, and come back here. You’ll find me easily. I’ll still be browsing around these stalls.”
“Don’t you want to see inside the cathedral? I do. I think it looks astonishing.”
“No thanks. Churches give me the creeps. All those people bowing and scraping to a non-existent God. If you were an atheist like me, Agnes, you’d understand.”
“I don’t understand – but you and I
will just have to disagree on that, Emily. I’ll come back here with Yuri, in half an hour or so.”
I leave her, and weave my way through the traders and shoppers. At the edge of the market, a tram sails right across my path, then it’s gone. Ahead of me, beyond the tram lines, there are no more stalls. Red Square, hemmed in all along one side by the colossal wall of the Kremlin, is a sprawling, empty space. My feet clack on the cobbles as I walk towards the cathedral.
As I step up to the entrance, I’m hit by a heady waft of incense. “Emily would call it the opium of the people” I say to myself, as I enter the darkened interior.
It’s like walking through a magic door into a different world. Vividly-coloured pictures of saints and Bible scenes are painted on every surface; they loom at me, glistening in flickering candlelight. The smell of wax and the light of the candles is everywhere, like a scatter of stars all around me.
It’s hard to move. Dozens of children sit cross-legged, smiling and playing quietly with marbles and spinning tops on every part of the floor. Ahead of me is a wall of people’s backs; bareheaded men, women in scarves and shawls. The parents of all these children are praying. I can’t see Yuri anywhere.
“Bless you, Miss. And –” A young man in the robes of a monk stands beside me. His eyes signal politely towards my head. I realise that my small button hat is not an adequate cover for my hair. The monk proffers me a white cotton shawl.
“Thank you. And bless you, too.”
We’re speaking in hushed whispers. After a moment he says “You are a stranger to Moscow?”
“Yes, you’ve guessed right.”
“This is the mother church of all Russia. Look, I will show you.”
He points above the heads of the congregation. “See, that is the iconostasis: a great screen, a wall of icons showing the Savior, the Virgin Mary, and the angels and archangels, the saints and apostles. Behind the iconostatis is a hidden space. That is where the altar is, where God himself sits on his holy throne.”
I look at the gilded wall of faces and halos, glowing in the light of a hundred candles. The scent of incense fills my nostrils. I shudder inside: I feel awe-struck.
A voice begins to sing. I can’t see the singer, the priest, through the mass of people. The sound echoes from every painted surface: deep, sonorous and haunting. As well as hearing it, I sense it resonating through my body. I feel a shiver in my bones, and I’m almost choking: there’s a lump in my throat.
Someone touches my hand. I feel, for just one second, cold fingers stroking my palm.
I look beside me, but the monk has gone. I’m now surrounded by tall men, soldiers in uniform, who’ve come up silently and unnoticed around me. Every one of them has his eyes closed: absorbed in prayer, and in the chanting voice of the priest.
Which one of them touched me? The unearthly singing goes on, the men stand around me, my mind is whirling. I feel my knees buckle; I’m about to faint. I have to get outside, into the fresh air.
Through the cathedral door, Red Square stretches out towards the tram-line. Beyond it I see the stalls of the market. I begin to cross the cobbles, walking unsteadily, trying not to fall.
The square is beginning to look blurry: my head swims. I can hear my feet on the cobbles, but I hear other footsteps too, following me. My ears are telling me there is someone close behind me, but when I look round, there is no-one. All around me the vast square is empty, except for one solitary, rag-clad beggar, going his own way across the cobbles. I’m in a waking dream, not knowing what is real. There is still no sign of Yuri: I need to get to Emily.
The clanging of another tram hurts my head; it passes me in a blur, and is gone. I see Emily, standing on the other side of the tracks. For some reason, all I really notice is that she’s now wearing the scarf.
“Agnes – you nearly got knocked down by that tram! And you look white as a ghost. Let’s get you to a café and get some sugar in your blood.”
We’re sitting at a table near the window of an establishment that calls itself “Viennese Patisserie”. Sweet pastries in the styles of Paris, Vienna and Copenhagen form a spectacular window display. Beyond the pastries, I see through the window well-dressed ladies and gentlemen, sauntering among the shops of an enormous mall – Moscow’s Upper Trading Rows. I think: Lenin’s revolution has not reached this place – yet.
“This is delicious.” I munch a mille-feuille pastry filled with confectioner’s custard.
“Glad to see that pastries and coffee are helping, Agnes.” Emily grins at me. “I told you that going to church was bad for you.”
“Someone touched my hand, they really did.”
“Perhaps holding hands is something they do in Russian churches.”
“No, it wasn’t like that at all. No-one else was holding hands, or touching people in any way.” I carry on, trying to put my feelings into words. “It felt – really uncanny. Like a ghost was touching me.”
She rolls her eyes. “You told me that you were surrounded by soldiers at the time. One of them must have fancied you, Agnes! Or maybe your Yankee sex appeal tempted that monk to forget his vows for a moment?”
I laugh, but I can’t quite forget that touch on my palm: chill, clammy fingers that felt uncomfortably intimate.
Among the ceaseless movement of people outside, two men are noticeable, because they’re standing still. They’re dressed in gold-braided uniforms, their hands behind their backs. One of them looks sixteen or seventeen years old; the other is over seventy. They’re obviously the mall’s security guards.
“Grandfather and son?” I point them out to Emily.
“Most men are away in the Army. It’s like all these Red Guards everywhere: most of them are boys.”
The two men take a step forward into the middle of the mall. Even through the glass of the café window, I hear them shouting.
“You’re not allowed in here! Get out, now!”
I can’t see who they’re shouting at. Emily glances at them, then back at me. “They’re just throwing some hobo out of the mall.”
“As a good communist, you ought to go out and stop them, Emily.”
“Very funny.”
We can now see the beggar. He’s arguing with the two men: I catch what he’s saying. “I need to see someone – in here. They came in here.”
“We don’t want to touch your stinking clothes. But if we have to, we’ll pick you up and throw you out bodily.”
“Just give me a few moments – please?”
“No.” It’s the older guard who is more aggressive; he glares at the beggar, then takes a step forward. The beggar doesn’t move. The older guard nods to the younger, who suddenly kicks out; his polished boot strikes the beggar’s knee. The man drops to the ground like a felled tree.
Emily stands up. “Maybe you weren’t joking, Agnes. I’ll go and talk to them. You stay there, though, and eat your pastry. Blood sugar, remember?”
Despite her words, I get up. We both go to the doorway of the café. It’s a horrible sight; both guards are now savagely kicking the fallen form of the beggar and shouting abuse. “Crawl out of here, scum! And don’t dream of ever coming back!” Ladies and gentlemen pass by, chatting politely and not even turning their heads to look at the unpleasant scuffle. I suppose it’s probably an everyday occurrence.
“Stop!”
Emily’s voice cuts like a knife through the busy hubbub of the mall. The guards’ eyes swivel in their heads towards her, as she continues.
“Let that poor man get to his feet. He’ll walk out of here – if you give him a chance.”
Like boys scolded by a schoolteacher, the two men stop their attack. They stare at us, first in anger, then in apologetic embarrassment. They say nothing. But I hear a muffled voice from the floor, emerging from the ragged coat and stained hat of the beggar. “Thank you.” Slowly and awkwardly, the man stumbles to his feet, then turns towards us. For the first time, I see his face.
His cheekbones and chin stick out gauntly
through skin covered with coarse gray stubble. But I can tell that this haggard face was once round, like an owl’s. There’s glass in only one lens of the pince-nez that is perched, absurdly, on his nose.
It’s Mr Bukin.
16 Brave new world
Yuri appeared in the mall moments later. He took charge of his former employer, leading him away. When Emily and I got back to the Metropole, we found that Yuri had spoken to the hotel staff, taken Mr Bukin to his own room, and allowed him to have a bath. Meanwhile, Yuri went and used some of his own ‘allowance’ to buy a new set of clothes for Bukin. The four of us are now sitting in the hotel’s tea room, enjoying the now-familiar ritual of Russian tea. Yuri starts the conversation.
“What happened to you, sir?”
“I was at my office, on the day after the worst of the February revolutionary riots. I was very busy, in fact. Urgent orders had come through to me from General Aristarkhov: I had to pack up all the Okhrana files of suspects, and send them to him.
I finished the final set, and sent them off just before midday. Then, I was eating my lunch at my desk, when a gang of men with pistols and knives walked straight into the office, as bold as brass, and told me I was under arrest.”
“What did they do to you?”
“At first, it wasn’t too bad. I was taken to the Peter and Paul Fortress, along with many other employees of the imperial family, and we were handed over to the troops of the garrison. The soldiers treated us well. I was properly fed, and they even passed on to me a letter from my brother, who emigrated to France, and is my only living relative. I explained to the soldiers that although I had been employed by Okhrana, my main job had been security for the imperial family. Some of them even said that it was just a matter of time, I would soon be released.
Then one day, two men I’d never seen before – great hulking brutes – came to my cell and told me I was to be put on trial, and I’d better confess to them. I said I had nothing to confess, I have only ever done my work, which was to protect and serve the Tsar and his family. Then one of them hit me in the face. I remember other blows, there was just pain everywhere, then I blacked out.