Russian Treasures

13. THE RED VOLGA FLOTILLA

The captain announced that the Nakhimovetz would be anchored in Nizhny Novgorod for no more than a couple of hours, and Pukhov forbade the Chinese to go ashore.

“I know you, you devils. If I let you go, you’ll wander off, and we won’t be able to find you.”

He didn’t want his interpreter to leave the ship either, but Klim, enraged, grasped him by the lapels. “I need to go into the city!”

Pukhov tried to escape Klim’s grip. “Stop that! I can’t let you go. What if you don’t get back?”

“If you don’t, then—you mark my words—you’ll have an interpreter who’ll be worse than an enemy for you.”

“Are you threatening a commissar?”

“You promised to help me!”

In the end, Pukhov agreed to let Klim go for an hour but sent two Chinese soldiers to escort him.

“Watch him closely,” Pukhov said to Ho, who had already picked up some Russian. “And don’t even think about coming back without him, or you’ll be brought before a tribunal.”

Nizhny Novgorod had been transformed into one enormous army camp. No longer were there any soldiers to be seen idling in the streets. From time to time, military units, field kitchens, and rattling carts loaded with ammunition came driving by.

Klim could barely bring himself to wait for a cable car to take him uphill and was on the point of setting off on foot when a car finally arrived.

“Where are we going?” Ho asked, studying the green ravines and the houses with elaborately carved wooden window frames.

“To see my wife,” said Klim, who didn’t know how to say “fiancée” in Shanghainese.

The Chinese exchanged glances and smiled.

There wasn’t a soul to be seen on Crest Hill. The streets were overgrown with dandelions, and not a shadow moved behind the blank windows.

Klim caught sight of a dusty truck parked outside Nina’s porch. Written on its side was the word “Cheka.”

Klim felt his blood run cold. He ran up the steps and threw open the front door. After the bright sun outside, it took some time for his eyes to grow accustomed to the dim light of the hallway.

The house was quiet.

“Is there no one here?” asked Ho.

Suddenly, there was a heavy crash, a wild cry, and two men came into the hall dragging Nina behind them.

“Where is that little son of a bitch?” one of them yelled.

The next minute, he had knocked Nina to the ground and kicked her with his heavy boot. Blinded with rage, Klim rushed at the Cheka officer and dealt him a blow to his startled face. The officer fell, knocking over a coat stand. His partner pulled out a revolver, but Ho went for his arm. A shot rang out, and the mirror on the wall shattered.

“Help!” shouted the Cheka officer.

The sound of running feet could be heard from the back rooms.

Klim grasped Nina’s hand. “Run!”

They ran down the steep slope through the thicket of bird cherries with burdocks and branches breaking under their feet. Shots rang out behind their backs.

Klim pushed his way through to the gangplank where stevedores were running back and forth with enormous sacks on their backs. Pukhov was waiting for him, looking at his watch.

“Good God! What happened to you?” he cried.

Klim’s sleeve was torn, his trousers were stained with mud, and there was blood on his shoulder. Pukhov caught sight of Nina being held up by the Chinese guards.

“Who on earth is this?” he asked.

“Please,” said Klim, panting for breath, “save her!”

Pukhov stepped to one side and let them board the ship.

Klim took Nina to the cabin he shared with Pukhov and put her into bed. Her face was ashen, and her lips were caked with dried blood.

“You came for me after all,” she said almost inaudibly.

Klim sat down on the bed. “Everything’s going to be all right,” he whispered. “We’ll be leaving soon.”

He felt dumbfounded. They’ve beaten her up.

Nina didn’t look at Klim. She was panting as though she couldn’t get enough air and kept one hand pressed to her stomach all the time. Klim wanted to take her hand in his, but she didn’t let him. Her muscles were clenched tight, hard as stone.

“Would you kindly explain to me what’s going on?” Klim heard Pukhov’s voice.

He looked behind him. The commissar was standing in the doorway with a crowd of inquisitive Chinese peering from behind his back.

“Please go away!” Klim pleaded. He forced Pukhov back into the corridor. “Thank you for helping Nina. I’m indebted to you.” Klim rubbed his hands over his face, trying to collect his scattered thoughts. His fingers were covered in Nina’s blood. “If I’d got there a minute later, that would have been that.”

“Was it the Cheka who attacked her?” asked Pukhov, frowning.

“Yes. I saw their truck by her house.”

“You’ve put me in the firing line now, you know. What if that woman is a counter-revolutionary?”

“What the hell does it matter?” Klim grasped Pukhov by his shoulders. “Here we are standing in front of you alive—and the Cheka wants to kill us. Remember, you just told me that you couldn’t imagine the world existing without you. We feel the same!”

Pukhov pried himself free from Klim’s grip. “Now, listen to me,” he whispered. “You never said a word about the Cheka. You’ve brought her as a kitchen girl to help the cook peel potatoes. As soon as we set sail, she needs to get to work.”

“Thank you, but—”

“And I need you to interpret for me now. I’m about to read a report to the Chinese on recent events at home and abroad.”

The warship sailed along between wooded shores.

It seemed to Klim that Pukhov was deliberately prolonging his pointless and tedious report. He was reading aloud a summary he had written the night before, the bored interpreters were ready to climb the wall, and the Chinese soldiers were nodding off.

Klim’s gratitude began to give way to hatred. How could Pukhov be so hard-hearted? He knew that Klim hadn’t seen Nina for six months, and now, he had sent her half-dead to the kitchen to work for the benefit of the revolution.

“Counter-revolutionary forces have occupied the Volga Region,” announced Pukhov, shouting in an effort to be heard above the sound of the engine. “Central Asia and Siberia are cut off from us, and Ukraine has been occupied by the Germans. Our most important task now is to defend the major railroads and river routes—Kazan in particular. Whoever has Kazan controls the route to Moscow and the Urals.”

A seagull hovered above the deck as though hanging on an invisible string, and brown smoke crept across the sky.

“So, I urge you, my Chinese brothers,” said Pukhov, “to look sharp and be on your mettle. We are in for some furious battles.”

At long last, Pukhov closed his notebook. “That’s all I want to say for now.”

Klim didn’t wait for Pukhov to ask if anybody had any questions and ran to the galley.

“Where’s Nina?” he asked the cook, a fat man as heavily tattooed as a convict.

The cook wiped the sweat from his face. “What the hell were you thinking of sending me a kitchen assistant like that? She keeps fainting. I’m not a nanny—I haven’t the time to look after her.”

Klim rushed back on deck and asked the deckhands if anyone had seen Nina.

“The curly-haired one?” one of the sailors winked at him. “She’s right there by the gangway.”

Nina was sitting against the wall with her knees pressed to her chin. Her features were drawn and her pupils wide.

Klim sat down next to her. “How are you?” He didn’t need a doctor to tell that she was in a terrible way.

“The Cheka people came for Zhora and Elena,” she said.

“And what did they do to you?” interrupted Klim.

Suddenly, Nina lost her balance, slumped sideways, and hit her head against the wall.

“Nina!” yelled Klim, grabbing her around the shoulders and pressing her to his chest.

Back in the cabin, she regained consciousness. Once again, she pulled her knees up to her chest.

“Show me,” demanded Klim.

“No—don’t—”

Without another word, he lifted her skirt, pulled down her drawers a little way—and froze. There was a huge black and crimson bruise on her belly in the spot where the Cheka man had kicked her with his boot.

Klim had been in fistfights with Italian immigrants in La Boca, one of the roughest districts in Buenos Aires, and he knew what that bruise meant. A strong, direct blow in the stomach could result in the rupture of internal organs, unbearable pain, and eventually death.

There was neither a doctor nor even a first aid kit on board. A Chinese soldier who had recently come down with food poisoning had been treated with nothing but condolences. The limit of Klim’s own medical knowledge was that gargling helps a sore throat and scratches should be treated with iodine.

There wasn’t a thing he could do.

Klim went to Pukhov and told him everything. The commissar swore, annoyed that he now had some stranger’s problem on his hands.

“As soon as we arrive in Kazan, you can send your girlfriend to the hospital,” he grunted. “And don’t stare at me like that! Would you like me to anchor the ship in the middle of nowhere? You won’t get any medicines there, do you understand? And no doctors either—not since the government declared a general mobilization of health-care workers.”

Klim went back to the cabin and sat down beside Nina. “Can you wait a little?” he asked in a wavering voice. “Tomorrow, I’ll find a doctor for you.”

She closed her eyes. “Tell me about something… the way you used to. About China.”

Klim took a deep breath. “China is a very mysterious country. A country where the women wear trousers and the men wear skirts—”

He had imagined so many times how he would eventually be reunited with Nina, and he had kept himself alive with these fantasies. She would be happy to see him, and everything would be fine again even if they had to live on a razor’s edge in constant fear. But everything had turned out so badly!

His mind simply refused to accept the fact that in all likelihood, this was the end. The woman he had loved so much was gone, murdered by a scoundrel from the Cheka.