Russian Treasures

26. THE SAFE

Osip met Klim after the lecture.

“I’ve arranged everything. Get your team ready—you leave at nine this evening.”

“Where am I going?” Klim asked.

“The Whites have broken the front near Kursk. Morale is low, and soldiers are deserting, so, the army’s political administration is summoning all of the propaganda reserves. The propaganda car stays here, I’m afraid. You’ll travel in a separate compartment, and you can find yourself a transport when you get there. Here’s your warrant.” Osip handed Klim a piece of paper. “I called the Cheka office—the secretary will wait for you until six. Bring your team’s employment cards, and she’ll give you all permission to leave. They’re expecting you in Kursk.”

Klim turned pale. “What about you?”

“I’m also going to the front, but not with you. My train leaves in two hours.” Osip squeezed Klim’s hand. “Stay faithful to the revolution! When you talk to the soldiers, remind them that the Red Army has to be invincible. If the Whites defeat us, they’ll restore the Tsarist government, bring back the landlords, and punish the workers for rebellion. They should remember that they have created the world’s first state of workers and peasants.”

Osip called in at the canteen to speak to Lubochka.

She went into the corridor holding a coffee grinder in her hands. “We got a hold of real coffee,” she said. “Smell!”

Osip dutifully inhaled the scent of the coffee but breathed out too hard so that the dark brown powder went all over Lubochka’s dress. “Sorry,” he said, embarrassed.

She shook the coffee grounds from her skirt. “Don’t worry. I’ve gotten ten pounds of the stuff. Do you want a cup of coffee?”

Osip shook his head. “Thank you, no. I’ve come to ask a favor. Do you think you could visit my parents and bring them something—maybe bread or money?”

Lubochka looked at him, frowning. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to the front.”

“When?”

“Now. This moment.”

Lubochka dashed home with her heart thumping and tears running down her cheeks, still holding the coffee grinder in her hands. She wished that she could just drop down dead in the street. One minute she was cursing Osip, and the next, she was remembering how tightly he had held her when he had said goodbye.

She had begun to scream so loudly that the entire kitchen staff had run into the corridor to see what was going on.

Osip had looked at Lubochka with a pained expression. “You have to understand. Now isn’t the time to think only of saving your own skin.”

“I’m only thinking about our baby! Don’t you understand it could be left an orphan?”

She had told him that he didn’t love her anymore and would rather risk a bullet to the head than go on living with her. “Go to hell,” she had said. “Just see if I care.”

Osip had grabbed her by the arms.

“Don’t think badly of me, Lubochka,” he had said. “Drop me a line if you have a chance—I’ll look forward to getting a letter from you.”

On the porch of her house, Lubochka met Sablin. He looked unlike himself in his new soldier’s overcoat with a knapsack on his back.

“Where are you going?” Lubochka asked.

It was clear that Sablin wasn’t expecting to see her there. “I’m going to the front,” he said, tipping his cap.

She took a step backward and hit her back hard on the railing of the porch. “What do you mean? Have you all gone mad? You can’t go! What about your leg—”

She stopped as she heard the gate squeak. Nina and Klim ran into the yard.

“Dr. Sablin, we are ready,” Nina cried.

“Tell me what’s going on!” Lubochka demanded.

Klim looked at Nina. “Go with the doc. I’ll catch up with you two later.”

He took Lubochka gently by her shoulders. “We need to talk. Let’s go inside.”

They entered the house and went into Lubochka’s room glowing with the evening sun. She put the grinder on the table strewn with half-made swaddling clothes.

“Do you still have Nina’s employment card?” Klim asked.

“Yes,” Lubochka said.

“Is it at the canteen office?”

“No, it’s here.” She pointed at the safe that had once kept Klim’s father’s legacy. “The burglars often rob canteens, so I had to bring the papers here. Just in case.”

“Can I have it, please?”

Lubochka looked at him in surprise. “Is Nina going to leave her job?”

“Yes. We want to get out of Nizhny Novgorod,” Klim said. “Without her employment card, we can’t get permission from the Cheka.”

Finally, Lubochka realized that they were planning to escape from the land of the Soviets. She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at Klim. How dare he ask her for anything? She had given him shelter and helped him find work, and now, he was going to leave her alone and pregnant just when she had been abandoned by her husband.

“I hope this is some sort of joke,” she said and, beside herself, hurled the grinder at Klim. It missed and hit the wall, and coffee grounds scattered onto the carpet.

“Lubochka, don’t be ridiculous—” began Klim, but she interrupted him.

“Or what? Are you going to kill me to get into the safe? Come on, then, why don’t you? I know that physically you are more than a match for me, but you’re not getting the code from me no matter what.”

Klim sighed, walked to the safe, and pushed it over onto the carpet. Then he pressed at the bottom of the safe, which gave way. Putting his hand inside, Klim drew out a pile of papers.

“Father got this safe,” he said, “as a souvenir from the insurance company after he’d gotten two burglars sent to jail. They had opened the safe so neatly that no one could guess what had happened to the two hundred thousand rubles locked inside. The door was intact, and the lock closed. It was only later that the investigator realized they had cut out the bottom with a special tool from America.”

Tears streamed down Lubochka’s cheeks. “Why are you leaving me behind? You still don’t understand that I love you, do you?”

“Lubochka…” Klim said in a reproachful tone. “Possessing doesn’t mean loving.”

“Do you think Nina loves you? She wrecked your life. She took away everything you had. And I pulled you out of the mire, and after that, you—”

Klim put Nina’s employment card in his pocket. “I know you’ve done your best, and I’m very grateful. But Nina and I are unhappy here.” He paused, not knowing what to add. “Thanks for everything,” he said at last.

“Damn you!” Lubochka yelled after him as he left.

She stood in the middle of the room next to the overturned safe surrounded by scattered papers. The house was as quiet as an abandoned mine.

Gradually, it dawned on Lubochka that she had no one left. It had all happened so quickly! Clearly, Klim had planned his escape. While she had struggled to guarantee him benefits that ordinary people couldn’t have dreamed of, he had been plotting against her all of the time.

But what about Sablin? How could he have abandoned her?

With a decisive step, Lubochka went into the hall and reached for the telephone on the wall.

“May I help you?” asked the operator.

“Nine-forty, please,” said Lubochka.

Suddenly, the connection was broken off.

“Don’t.” Her father came into the hall holding an unplugged telephone wire. “Don’t call the Cheka.”

“So, you’re on their side too, are you?” asked Lubochka, taking a step back from him.

Anton Emilievich shook his grizzled head. “Let them go,” he said. “They’ll have their necks wrung somewhere along the way. But if we call the Cheka, there will be an investigation, and the first thing they’ll do is come here. Is that really what you want?”

He stepped toward his daughter and took her in his arms. She sobbed on his shoulder like a child.

On their way to the special service train standing on the sidetrack, the “Red propagandists” were constantly stopped by patrols who demanded their documents. Nina held Klim’s hand and kept looking behind her to check that the old countess and Dr. Sablin were able to keep up.

It was horrible—creeping away like this with their tails between their legs and feeling so vulnerable at every moment. All they could do was keep praying silently, “Lord, have mercy on us!”

What if something went wrong? What if there was no locomotive? What if there was some sort of mistake in their documents?

A Cheka man at the footsteps of the railroad car examined their documents for a few agonizing minutes, scraping at the paper with his fingernail while his lips moved. It took some time for Nina to realize that he was holding the permits upside down. The man was illiterate.

Deliriously happy, they got into their compartment and locked the door. Could it be that they had made it? But, no—it was still too early to rejoice.

Klim put the field kit on the top shelf.

“Sofia Karlovna,” he said, “I forgot to ask—should a gentleman carry a lady’s knapsack?”

He was still able to joke.

“What are you talking about?” the old countess sniffed. “A gentleman shouldn’t carry anything for a lady except perhaps one or two books or a beautifully wrapped box of chocolates.”

“We’re fine then,” sighed Klim with relief, helping Nina to take off her knapsack. “Still, I feel sorry for Kaiser. Lubochka is sure to deny him his rations as punishment for our sins, and I’m sure she’ll eat Speckle.”

“Oh, do be quiet!” Sablin pleaded.

At nine o’clock, the train was still standing motionless in the same place. They spent another two hours in silence, devastated and jittery with anxiety. They heard soldiers running on the roof of the train and someone shouting at the conductor on the other side of the wall.

Finally, the engine whistled, the train jerked, and the grim buildings of railroad depots began to slide past the window.

“Rissoles—a hundred rubles each,” the attendant said, sticking his head around the door of the compartment. “White flatbread—forty rubles. Hot water—two rubles.”

Before the revolution, it had been possible to board a train in the evening and arrive in Moscow the following day.

The day after they had boarded the special service train, it had only gotten as far as Doskino two stations away from Nizhny Novgorod. Even the commander of an infantry regiment in the neighboring compartment—a very stern character—was unable to figure out the mysterious ways in which the railroad administration worked. He tried everything, including threats to shoot the staff, but neither swearing nor pointing a gun at the engine driver’s head had any effect.

“What am I supposed to do if I’ve been ordered to let the troop trains go ahead?” snapped the engine driver.

There was no other choice but to watch the boxcars full of recruits roll by. The sides of the cars were painted with slogans: “All forces join the fight against General Denikin!” Soldiers sat in the open doorways with row upon row of heads behind them.

“Cannon fodder,” Sablin whispered under his breath.

The “propagandists” arrived in Moscow the following week only to learn that the Whites under General Denikin had taken Poltava, Kremenchug, and Ekaterinoslav and launched an offensive against Kiev and Odessa.

It took them three weeks to receive passes from the Central Office of Military Communications. Unfortunately, by that time, the papers issued by Osip had expired. The Bolshevik officials were scared witless and claimed to have no idea what was going on at the front. The situation was changing every day, and communications with Kursk were sporadic.

Finally, all permissions were granted.

The “propagandists” boarded another special service train. This time, the neighboring compartment was occupied by a group of Red Army officers newly graduated from military school. Sablin gazed at the peasant boys. They were neatly dressed, polite, and modest, and their heads were filled with Bolshevik propaganda, nationalism, and flag-waving. They were clearly proud of the fact that the important folk in Moscow had such high expectations of them.

With no watches or calendars, the passengers could only guess at how much time was passing. They ate what the cook sent from the dining car and washed using the services of women who came to the station platforms with soap, towels, and buckets of water.

During the first days of their journey, Sablin was still having trouble taking in the enormity of what he had done. Every second took him closer to the frontline, and the only thing he knew for certain was that there was no way back.

He had not imagined how unbearable it would be to live in one compartment with Klim and Nina. She cut up an apple, stood on her bed, and passed the pieces one by one to Klim as he lay on the upper berth. Then instead of sitting down, she remained standing there whispering in Klim’s ear and laughing softly, making Sablin feel awkward, unwanted, and in the way.

The old countess sat playing patience, and Sablin thought longingly of Lubochka and the look she had given him when he had waved her goodbye. Really, when all was said and done, they had repaid her kindness very poorly.

I should have stayed in Nizhny Novgorod with her, Sablin thought for the hundredth time. I don’t care if she’s having another man’s baby. I love her.

But still, he had been right to leave his hometown. The past was dead and buried, and now, he had to learn how to live again just as he had learned to walk again after being wounded in the leg. And while he had no idea how things would turn out, he felt in his bones that soon he would be able to talk, think, and work without idiotic government controls and degrading permits. It wouldn’t be long now.

In the night, when the “propagandists” were sitting in the neighboring compartment talking to the young officers, they heard the distant rumble of cannons.

“It sounds as though we’re close to the frontline,” Klim said, his eyes shining with anxiety.

One of the young men raised his hand as though he were about to smooth his hair and quickly crossed himself. The other officers did the same.