Russian Treasures

35. THE IMPOSTER

Colonel Guyomard received his bribe and promised Sofia Karlovna to settle the visa issue, but apart from this, Nina’s plan didn’t work out as expected. Fomin stopped going into the office. In fact, now he never left her alone at all but constantly demanded her presence.

When Fomin and Nina were sitting on the second floor, Klim could hear almost every word they said. It drove him mad to even think that he must hide from this scoundrel and remain silent while Fomin was tormenting Nina.

She could come up to the attic only late at night when everybody else in the house had finally sunk into a heavy sleep that brought no relief. Klim could only feel the touch of Nina’s hands in the darkness and hear her agitated whispers: “Be patient. It won’t be long now.”

Sometimes a searchlight shone straight in at the dormer window, and then Nina’s pale, dark-eyed face appeared to Klim for a second. There was an otherworldly, terrifying beauty about her features.

Nina kissed Klim and made him promise to keep quiet so as not to expose himself to any danger.

“Fomin has ordered the guards not to leave the house,” she told him. “There’s looting going on all over town. He’s afraid we’ll have unwelcome visitors.”

Klim hated himself for his enforced idleness, but there was nothing he could do. There was only one bullet in Nina’s revolver, and with no more ammunition than this, he could never hope to challenge Fomin’s bodyguards.

During the daytime, the sun came streaming in the dormer windows, and the roof heated up like a furnace. From down below, Klim could hear the roar of engines, the clatter of hooves, and the shouts of the frenzied crowds. It wasn’t even possible to stretch his muscles in case he gave himself away with a single careless movement. All he could do was sleep, read, and think.

Klim was surprised at how much Nina had changed in two and a half years. While the war had not broken her entirely, it had warped her character ruthlessly. He admired Nina for her efficiency and resilience but was alarmed to witness her sudden fits of cruelty. Klim heard her arguing with Fomin and wouldn’t have wished such harsh words even on his worst enemy. Fomin loved Nina, yet she kept telling him that she didn’t even regard him as a man and that the White cause had been lost because of people like him. Once, she told him that he could expect nothing good in exile and had better shoot himself now.

Nina made Fomin suffer for her own feelings of fear and dependence.

While there was no love lost between Klim and Fomin, Klim would have liked to see Nina behaving more kindly. The callous cynicism she displayed was a natural consequence of the deep wounds she had endured.

It will be a long time before she’s herself again, thought Klim. In the meantime, I have to put up with it. Somehow, I have to try to guarantee her a life of peace, comfort, and spiritual warmth. That’s the only way to help her get better.

If the war had made a cynic of Nina, it had made a stoic of Klim. What was it that Epictetus had said?

As Klim saw it, unhappiness was either the result of guilt from the past or fear of the future. It is not the present moment we fear but sufferings that still lie ahead. However, in fact, we will never actually live in that terrible future. All we can only ever live is the present, and we generally manage to deal with it.

The ancient Stoics wouldn’t have approved of Klim’s passion for Nina. Those wise men of old had frowned on such strong attachments. But then again, they were probably not the best authorities in matters of the heart.

To find out what love is, you have to look at its opposite, and the opposite of love is not hatred but war. When you are loved, you are seen as something sacred, and even when people hate you, you are at least important enough to deserve their hatred. However, war devalues people utterly until they die like ants accidentally crushed underfoot. They become nothing and nobody, and that is something impossible to bear.

During the war, Klim had seen hundreds, maybe thousands of dead people. These priceless human lives had been cut short, and no one cared. That fact was more terrifying for him than death itself. How could you hang onto your moral right to life? How could you prove—at least to yourself—that someone needed you on this old blue sphere? There were only two ways of preserving your integrity in this life, and that was to prove to yourself either your heroism or your love. As military exploits consist mainly of killing others, there is often little choice.

Nina had told Klim that she had kept all his little gifts: the key, the little white feather, and the symbol of eternity he had made out of the safety pin of a hand grenade. Recently, she had added a yellow pebble to her collection: it reminded her of a petrified heart and a candle flame. Nina had decided that it was a symbol of commemoration.

During his time in the attic, Klim also made himself a new treasure—a simple metallic button with the Greek letter Λ that he had inscribed on it. It was his personal symbol of love: each side of the letter holding the other up to keep the whole from collapsing.

All morning, there was a continuous cannonade as the Whites detonated shells at the railroad station. The oil tanks were ablaze too, and the air smelled strongly of burning.

Shushunov had taken Sofia Karlovna to see Guyomard at nine o’clock to fetch the visas. But it was already afternoon, and still, they had not returned.

Beneath him, Klim could hear Fomin’s heavy tread as he paced his room.

“It looks as though your mother-in-law isn’t coming back,” Fomin said eventually to Nina. “She’s either died, or somebody’s killed her. What do you think?”

“How should I know?” Nina snapped.

“I knew I should have gone myself—”

Klim tried to figure out how many bodyguards were still in the house with the driver and Shushunov gone. Had Fomin sent any of the others with them?

He kept wondering what to do when the old countess returned with the papers.

If Klim could only have been sure that the visas would be ready today, he would have left the house the night before to wait for Nina and Sofia Karlovna at a prearranged place. But now what? Should he—in the best tradition of Robin Hood—suddenly rush in on Fomin and rob him?

Klim would have been capable of killing if necessary to defend himself or his loved ones. But this was different; something like grabbing someone else’s lifebelt to save himself—even though it was his own passport at stake.

He would find out soon enough, he supposed, when he was forced to make a choice. Besides which, there was a good chance that Klim would be shot himself. Fomin and his Cossacks wouldn’t think twice about finishing him off.

“It’s one o’clock,” announced Fomin presently. “What do you propose we do, Miss Nina? All hell has broken loose in the port. The military is seizing the ships by force and throwing civilians like us overboard.”

Nina didn’t answer. Klim heard a sudden commotion and running feet and then an order in a stranger’s voice, “Go downstairs, ma’am.”

Klim froze.

“Counterintelligence has honored us with another visit,” said Fomin with forced gaiety. “How can I help you?”

There was the sound of chairs being scraped back.

“Listen, Fomin. I know that you’ve given up your official duties, but I also know that this January, you got ahold of a stack of promissory notes confiscated from the Kharkov Bank—”

“What are you talking about?” broke in Fomin in a menacing voice.

“You know perfectly well. You never made any record of those notes on the balance sheet. It’s as though they’d never existed—isn’t that right? I imagine you’re hoping you can use them to live comfortably in exile, but they don’t belong to you.”

“Whose are they then? Yours?”

“I have a proposal for you. If you can relieve me of the necessity of searching your house for the notes, you get a place on the steamer. That way will be in all of our best interests. I don’t have a lot of time, and as for you, well—notes or no notes—you’ll die without my help.”

Klim was unable to catch Fomin’s answer. He listened intently for a few long minutes, but now, all was quiet downstairs. Suddenly, there was the roar of a car’s motor in the backyard.

“The British mission!” he heard Nina shout suddenly, but her cry was abruptly cut short.

Forgetting all caution, Klim rushed downstairs. The house was empty. He ran outside to see a large black car driving full-speed toward the port.

“Damn it!” Klim kicked at the gates in exasperation, sending an iron echo ringing around the yard.

The British mission is right on the other side of the bay, Klim thought. By the time I get there on foot, the steamer will have left.

Another car drove slowly up to the gate.

“What are you doing here?” exclaimed Sofia Karlovna. “Where’s Nina?”

“Fomin’s abducted her!” Klim cried in despair. “Just a minute ago! They left without waiting for you.”

The old countess gasped. Shushunov and the driver exchanged glances.

“We couldn’t get back any earlier,” Sofia Karlovna said, confused. “We had to wait, but now I have your papers.”

Klim pocketed his passport without looking and grasped the handle of the car door. “Please take me to the British mission!” he pleaded with Shushunov.

The Cossack pulled out his tobacco pouch and began to roll himself a cigarette. “How much will you pay?”

Klim hesitated. He had nothing. Those thugs in the pay of counterintelligence had robbed him of all his money.

“I must get to the British,” he said.

“Not good enough,” Shushunov said as he lit his cigarette.

Sofia Karlovna sighed, shook her head, and took a five-franc note from her purse. “Here, take it,” she said. “A gentleman should always have enough money to pay his own passage. If not, he risks finding himself in a very unpleasant situation. Now, get into the car.”