Russian Treasures

16. LUCIFER

Nina is quite weak and can barely lift her head. Her hair has been cut short, and now, she looks like a sick little pixie with her distant eyes, thin neck, and willowy arms. But she already wants me to come and sit with her. She looks forward to my visits and makes a fuss if Skudra keeps me away for too long. This makes me happy. If my darling is annoyed about something, then that means she still has an interest in this world and has no plans to go drifting off to the next.

She’s worried sick about her family. Zhora and Elena were plotting something, it seems, and were caught in the act. As for the old countess, we’ve no idea what’s become of her.

Nina has decided to go back to Nizhny Novgorod as soon as she’s well enough. She asked me if I would go with her as if I have a choice. I have more important questions on my mind, however. What if Trotsky goes off somewhere with his propaganda train and takes Nina along with him? What if the Whites try to bomb the train again?

I don’t want to move Nina from the hospital car—she’s getting the sort of food and medical attention here that the wounded and sick elsewhere can only dream of.

She has no right to this special treatment, and the only reason she’s still getting it is because Trotsky hasn’t yet had time to reconsider the decision he took in a fit of melodramatic generosity. Now that I’ve sold my soul to the devil, all that remains is for me to carry out my part of the bargain as best I can in the hope that he’ll forget about us.

Our angel, Dr. Gabriel, has said that as long as there are no complications and Nina gets plenty of rest, she ought to recover. Sablin asked to have a look at the patient and went into raptures over her perfect stitches.

“I’m green with envy,” he said as he came out of the hospital car. “What I wouldn’t give to be able to suture a wound like that!”

I only hope that the Red Army will stay put for the time being, and Nina will have time to get better.

The military camp in Sviyazhsk is swelling and growing before our very eyes. Every day, new trains bring reinforcements, but the Reds have taken no military action apart from shelling some of the White steamships since most of the recruits don’t know how to handle their rifles and still need to be trained.

Apparently, the Whites are not strong enough to move up the river Volga. Skudra told me there are plenty of White agitators making speeches in Kazan, but very few soldiers prepared to defend the city. The only troops the Whites can count on are the Czechs, but they’re not ready to die to save Russia. All they want is to get out of here as soon as possible.

I spend my days with the propaganda boys in the former telegraph station. We design posters, put together an army newspaper, and assemble newsstands. We also cut printing paper into strips and trade it for raw vodka. The local peasants glue these strips of paper over their windows to prevent the glass breaking from the bomb and shell blasts.

My job is to write the texts for propaganda leaflets debunking religion under the supervision of Skudra, a former pharmacist’s assistant from Riga.

For example, what is the secret of the sacred, luminous inscriptions that sometimes appear on the walls of churches? The truth of the matter is that there’s no miracle involved at all—just simple chemistry. All you need to do is take some softened beeswax, add white phosphorus, and then use this mixture to draw mysterious symbols that will glow in the dark.

Similarly, if you dissolve white phosphorus in carbon disulfide and dip the wicks of candles in the solution, the solvent will evaporate, and the phosphorus will ignite spontaneously in the open air. That’s how you produce the miracle of Holy Fire.

The people who have gathered in Sviyazhsk are like hordes of army ants. Here the survival of every individual depends on the success of the colony as a whole. Anyone who breaks away from their group will find themselves dead in no time. These “strays” quickly meet their deaths either at the hands of the Reds, the Whites, or the “neutral peasants” whose motto is “A plague on both your houses.” Nina and I have found refuge and protection with the Red Army, so we call it “our army.” I am sure the majority of my “comrades in arms” feel much the same way as we do.

Individual desires or ambitions count for nothing now; the collective is our only hope. God help anyone admitting that they want personal comfort or to be safe, well-fed, rested, and satisfied! As a result, we’re all leading a double life. We’re all pretending to be devoted ants—proud carriers of straw and dead caterpillars. But deep down inside, we’re still humans, and the more human you feel, the more difficult it is to pretend that instead of a heart, you have a dorsal vessel in your chest.

It’s a perfect recipe for daily misery. The worst sort of slavery you can imagine. You are bound not by shackles but the realization that if you refuse to be an ant, you will lose the support of the colony, and then you might as well be dead. You have to live your life not as you want to but as the collective dictates. The irony is that you are part of it and, therefore, your own slave.

What should we do then? Toughen up the outer shells of our bodies? Sharpen our mandibles? Arm ourselves with poison? We’ll definitely need it at some point. And we’ll have to master the art of mimicry—to pass ourselves off as ants. According to zoologists, small spiders and grasshoppers use this form of self-defense very effectively.

All day long, Nina stared through the gap in the white curtains at the stinging nettles growing by the fence, the sentry walking to and fro, or the mangy stray dog that had made its home on the station platform.

“Dogs aren’t allowed here!” the nurse cried. “Get it away from here!”

She didn’t know that Nina had been secretly pinching off pieces of bread and throwing them out of the window. When you can’t get up and are bored to death, there are still the pleasures of petty disobedience to be had.

Behind the thin screen that divided the hospital car were two sailors with broken legs who were acting up too. They constantly told ribald jokes and talked about their girlfriends in the most colorful language and shocking detail. For some reason, Nina found this unbearably funny.

Maybe it was just her nerves. The doctor had told Nina not to laugh for fear of bursting her stitches, but now, the slightest tomfoolery would reduce her to feeble, debilitating laughter. She asked the sailors to stop, but they continued to tell each other their outrageous stories, claiming a good laugh is the best cure for any ill.

Klim would come after lunch. The nurses were glad to see him because he always brought them something—a bouquet of daisies picked at the fence, a few cigarettes, or some other small gift. Nina felt proud to see the nurses fussing around Klim but annoyed at them for taking up her precious time with him. Skudra never let him get away for more than half an hour.

When Klim came to visit Nina, he would sit beside her, and the two of them would talk in whispers about how wretched and terrified of losing each other they had been during their separation.

Nina never admitted that Fomin had visited her, but she did hint that she and Zhora had taken part in preparing the uprising.

“Why?” Klim gasped. “Why did you risk so much for the sake of someone else’s interests?”

“They are not someone else’s,” Nina protested. “There is something in this world worth fighting and dying for.”

“What exactly is it that you are planning to die for? Some ‘Just Cause’ nobody will remember in ten years?”

Nina didn’t know what to say when she had realized how upsetting it had all been for Klim. He had sacrificed everything he had had to save her, and it appeared to him that she hadn’t been taking her own life seriously.

“Zhora and I couldn’t just sit on our hands,” she said, looking down. “If you do nothing, you begin to feel that you don’t exist.”

The next day, Klim brought Nina the ring from the safety pin of a hand grenade, which consisted of two rings joined together.

“I’ve found something that symbolizes us in a funny way,” Klim said. “Individually, we’re nothing but zeros, but together, we become a symbol of infinity and perfection.” He straightened the ring into a figure of eight. “We must never part from each other again.”

Nina asked Klim to put the symbol of infinity onto the chain that held the “key from his heart” as well as a small anchor that had been made for her by one of the sailors. The sailor had said it was a symbol of hope, a sign that one day Nina would return to her home harbor.

I wish I could go home and find my brother, she thought.

Klim kissed Nina goodbye and ruffled her cropped curls—he found her boyish hairstyle amusing. “See you tomorrow.”

He paused at the screen, pretending he had something to say but had forgotten what it was. In fact, he was just trying to prolong the final precious moments of his visit.

“Well, bye-bye for now.”

Nina heard his footsteps, the creak of the door as it closed, and then a knock at the window. Then there were more farewells, waves, smiles, and faces traced in the dusty glass of the car window.

Nina stared after him as he made his way down the empty platform.

“You’re truly lucky to have made such a rare catch,” said one of the nurses.

The Red Army troops were lined up on Kafedralnaya Square. As a foreign journalist, Klim had a prime view of the parade from the roof of a staff automobile.

It was a curious sight to see an army of atheists parading against the backdrop of ancient churches. The clouds were riding high in the sky, the golden domes shone brightly, and a little further along next to the cliff’s edge stood a veiled monument to a revolutionary hero.

“The Volga River must and will belong to the Soviets!” shouted Trotsky from the stage in the middle of the square. “There are far many more of us than the Whites. Our forces in Sviyazhsk number nearly fifteen thousand men.”

I don’t suppose anyone knows that for sure, thought Klim.

The Red Army was difficult to quantify, taking into account mass desertion and the lack of uniforms and documents. Some regiments had no more than two or three dozen men, and they only lent half an ear to their commanders.

Klim had talked to the mobilized Red Army soldiers and the captured Whites, who were peasants recruited by force from the local villages. No one wanted to fight.

“What the hell are we doing here?” they complained. “They promised us peace!”

At the first opportunity, both Reds and Whites were ready to surrender just to have a chance to avoid any fighting.

“Hey there!” someone called.

Klim turned his head, and his heart grew cold as he recognized Pukhov standing on the footboard of a staff automobile.

“I saw you from miles away perched up here above the crowd,” Pukhov said. “Where have you been all this time?”

He pulled himself up and sat next to Klim.

Klim was feverishly racking his brain, trying to come up with a story that would satisfy his former boss. Pukhov knew that Klim wasn’t here representing an Argentine newspaper, and if he found out that Countess Odintzova was being cared for in Trotsky’s hospital car, he would have a fit. Why should a class enemy have special treatment while wounded Red Army soldiers were rotting to death in the overcrowded field hospitals?

Klim told Pukhov about what had happened to the tramcar that had taken him away from the bank in Kazan.

“It was derailed, and I suffered shellshock.”

Pukhov looked suspiciously at Klim. “Oh, really? So, what are you doing now?”

“I’ve joined the propaganda team.”

“I need you back. We can’t do without an interpreter. I managed to get my Chinese soldiers away from Kazan and bring them here. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to get the valuables out of the bank, and the Whites have got their hands on all of it. By the time we got here, all we had were thirty pots and twelve spoons between two hundred men. And the supply officer still yelled at us, telling us we had no right to have even that. Come with me when the rally’s over. I need to take the Chinese to the bathhouse. I’m afraid they’ll get lice and come down with typhus.”

“Raise your hands,” demanded Trotsky, “if you want the land go back to the landlords.”

The crowd stood silent and motionless, only a stray goat scratched its burr-covered flank against the corner of the stage.

“Which of you is prepared to slave away in a factory from dawn to dusk? Which of you wants a coddled few to live in mansions while others huddle ten to a room?”

The faces of the crowd became stern, their jaws rigid.

A village idiot by the name of Maxim tried to elbow his way toward the stage. “That’s my goat—give it back, for the love of God!”

The Latvian guards grasped Maxim by the arm and his goat by the horns and dragged them both away.

Trotsky took off his cap and wiped his perspiring forehead. “Does anyone have any questions?”

“When will you allow God to exist?” came the distant voice of Maxim.

Trotsky grinned, descended from the stage, and walked up to the covered statue.

“Here is your god!” he proclaimed, ripping away the canvas.

The crowd winced. The statue he had revealed was the bust of a satyr on a marble column.

“For centuries, priests have told people stories about Lucifer,” cried Trotsky, pointing at the French industrialists’ gift to Alexander III. “Religious bigots have always said that he is the source of all evil. But why was he the figure that they were all so terrified of? The reason is simple—he was the first revolutionary. Lucifer refused to obey a decrepit God and rebelled against his despotism. So now, let this monument to his proud spirit stand in the very place where priests and misguided fools have groveled on their knees for centuries. This legendary figure never bowed down to a tyrant despite the threat of expulsion from paradise and damnation forever and ever.”

The orchestra struck up “The Internationale,” the Bolshevik anthem.

Klim cast a sidelong look at Pukhov staring dumbstruck at the satyr.

“How did that end up here?” Pukov asked. “That’s one of the sculptures from the bank, don’t you remember? It fell out of its box, and Tarasov gave it to you.”

Suddenly, there was a roar of engines, and two planes emerged from the clouds.

“The Whites!” shrieked a voice from the crowd.

The ranks of parading soldiers fell into complete disorder, and Klim and Pukhov dived down from the roof of the automobile and crawled underneath it.

“They’re going to bomb us!” wailed Pukhov, covering his head with his hands.

But instead of bombs, the planes showered Sviyazhsk with leaflets and disappeared with rifle shots ringing out after them.

Klim reached to take one of the leaflets, but Pukhov snatched it away. “Don’t you dare to touch it!”

He began hastily to gather up the leaflets, crumpling and shoving them into his jacket.

“Don’t panic! Fall in!” yelled the commissars, no less terrified than everybody else.

Klim crawled out from under the automobile and ran off behind the churchyard toward the road leading to the railroad station.

Pukhov is bound to ask Trotsky where he got the satyr, thought Klim. And then they’ll figure out between them that I am a deserter, a looter, and an imposter.

The conclusion that they would come to would be inevitable: the swift dispatch of two executioner’s bullets—one for Klim and one for Nina.

It was growing dark over the station. A choir of Red Army soldiers sang a song, and a small locomotive was being shunted along the sidetrack. Nina and the sailors were playing a game of Battleship, and she was giving them a thorough thrashing.

“Stop!” the nurse shrieked suddenly. “You can’t come in here now! Where do you think you are?”

There was the sound of footsteps and the crash of the wheeled table. The room divider was flung aside. Klim rushed up to Nina and bent over her.

“I have to take you away from here,” he whispered. “Put your arm around my neck.”

“What’s happened?”

Klim didn’t answer but picked Nina up along with her blanket.

The nursed tried to stop him. “I’ll tell the doctor!”

“You can tell the pope for all I care.”

The sailors stared at the two of them, their eyes wild with incomprehension.

Klim carried Nina out of the car and onto the cart waiting for them next to the platform.

“We’re going to go to Sablin,” he said, panting as he laid Nina in the hay and covered her with her blanket. “You can’t stay here. If anything should happen, you must tell everyone you don’t know me. You’re just a refugee from Kazan.”

Nina grasped his hand. “What is it? What’s happened?”

“I’ll tell you everything later. This is a bad road, I’m afraid. I hope you won’t be jolted too much along the way.”

Klim kissed her forehead and sat down on the box next to the driver.

“Here, take these,” he said, handing the driver a handful of cartridges. “But mind,” he added in a menacing voice, “keep your mouth shut about who you’ve taken and where, or I’ll wring your neck.”

Nina had never heard him talk like this before.

When the cart reached the hospital that had been set up in the ancient Cathedral of the Assumption, it was already dark. The room was full of wounded people lying side by side on the straw. Here and there, haggard faces loomed in pools of candlelight.

Sablin, disheveled and unshaven, showed Klim where to put Nina.

“Don’t worry. I’ll look after her,” the doctor said.

After the sterile hospital car, Nina was now laid on a bed of rotten straw along with a hundred lice-ridden men in stinking bandages.

Sablin squatted down beside her and brought a candle up to her face. “How are you?”

“Fine,” Nina said in a weak voice. But she was more dead than alive after her journey along the bumpy road.

Klim adjusted her blanket. His head was in a whirl. What was he going to do now? Maybe he could waylay and kill Pukhov to stop him from spilling the beans? Had he done the right thing by moving Nina here? Yes, you’ve found the ideal solution, Klim thought. She’ll come down with typhus in no time now.

The nurse called Sablin away to see another patient, and he went off, leaving Klim sitting beside Nina and holding her hand.

“Who is that?” she whispered pointing at a fresco depicting a holy knight with the head of a dog.

Stunned, Klim stared at it for a while. He thought the knight looked like Anubis, an Egyptian god from the realm of the dead. How had it ended up here in an Orthodox church?

Suddenly, a shell howled, and the cathedral walls shuddered from an explosion close by. All of the candles went out, and the room was plunged into darkness.

“What was that?” voices wailed in the gloom. “They’re firing at us!”

“Quiet!” Sablin shouted. “Don’t panic!”

Klim bent down to Nina. “I’ll be back soon. I have to find out what’s going on.”

He picked his way between the bodies on the floor and went outside.

Everyone had run for shelter, and the street was empty. From somewhere over by the railroad line, the roar of artillery fire could be heard, which jarred shockingly with the serenity of the clear starry sky and the golden domes that gleamed in the moonlight.

“Klim, is that you?” someone called.

He flinched. “Sister Photinia?”

“I’m glad I’ve found you.” She grasped Klim by the wrist and began to pull him after her. “You have to get rid of that devil of yours. You’re the one that brought his statue here, so it’s your responsibility. I’d try to remove it myself, but it’s too heavy.”

Klim looked around. “The Reds will notice it’s gone.”

“I don’t care. Take it away from here!”

They hurried off to Kafedralnaya Square.

Hiding the satyr is not such a bad idea actually, Klim thought. That way Pukhov won’t be able to prove that it’s the same sculpture that I took from the bank.

But when they got to the edge of the cliff, they found the monument to Lucifer gone and the marble pillar lying on the ground broken into three parts. Klim’s heart skipped a beat. Could Pukhov have taken the bust already? A moment later, he realized that the monument had been destroyed by a shell blast and that the satyr had probably fallen over the cliff.

“I hope I don’t end up breaking my neck,” Klim muttered as he clambered down the slope, his feet sliding on the wet grass.

“Can you see it?” Sister Photinia called from above.

The satyr had become lodged in bushes a little farther downhill. The nun went down by the steps and offered Klim a gunny sack. “Put it in here. Let’s drown it in the river and rid Sviyazhsk of this evil pagan spirit once and for all.”

Klim gave a wry smile. Throwing away thirty pounds of solid silver wasn’t the brightest idea he had come across.

“Well, actually, sister, this sculpture belongs to the science museum,” he said off the top of his head. “There was a man in Smolensk Province with horns, and we made a portrait bust of him for scientific purposes. But Trotsky took it and decided to call it Lucifer.”

Sister Photinia crossed herself. “Gracious heavens, what a dreadful thing! I don’t suppose that poor fellow could take his hat off in church without people laughing at him.”

“Let’s bury the sculpture in the sand,” Klim said. “When Trotsky leaves, we’ll dig it up and give it back to the museum.”

They made a shallow pit in the sand on the beach.

“It’s like burying a body,” Sister Photinia whispered. “Anyone passing by will think we’ve killed someone and are getting rid of the evidence.”

Klim smoothed the sand so that there would be no sign of any disturbance and put down a large piece of driftwood to mark the spot where the satyr was buried.

He and Sister Photinia went back up the steps. Over to the west, the sky was ablaze, and artillery fire and rifle shots rang out incessantly. Evidently, there was a fierce battle taking place over by the station.

“I think the Whites have captured the bridge,” Sister Photinia said.

Klim nodded. The unfortunate meeting with Pukhov had turned out to be an unexpected stroke of luck. If it hadn’t been for his former boss, he and Nina could well have been at the station when the Whites had attacked.

Skudra and Pukhov will be looking for me, Klim thought. And if the Reds win this battle, I’ll be accused of desertion.

The best thing would be to make a run for it, hide in the woods, and wait for the Whites to arrive. But how will Nina survive in that overcrowded army hospital without him to help her? Of course, there was Dr. Sablin, but he had so many other things to do that there was no counting on him.

Klim said goodbye to Sister Photinia and went back to the cathedral. On the porch, he met Sablin, who had stepped out for a smoke.

“Where have you been?” the doctor said angrily. “Nina is frantic with worry.”

The nurses had already relit the candles. Klim made his way back to Nina and sat down beside her.

“There’s a big fight going on by the station now, isn’t there?” she asked. “Is that why you took me away?”

“I didn’t know that the Whites were about to attack,” Klim said, exhausted. “That was just a coincidence.”

Each new salvo reverberated under the dome of the cathedral, causing the huge chandeliers to swing from the ceiling, their ancient chains creaking ominously.

“They look like the scales in the ancient Egyptian frescos,” Klim said. “The god Anubis used them to weigh the hearts of the dead and separate the righteous from the sinners. If the dead person’s heart was lighter than a feather, the symbol of truth and justice, then the soul would go to the realm of the dead in peace, but if the heart was heavy with sin, then it would be devoured by a monster.”