Russian Treasures

6. REVOLUTIONARY PETROGRAD

It took Klim and Anton Emilievich a week to get to the capital.

Every now and then, their train would stop for no apparent reason, and nobody knew what was going on. Later they learned that they were making way for the trains going in the opposite direction, carrying refugees.

The Bolsheviks had promised the deserters that they would demobilize the Tsar’s Army and offer Germany a peace treaty without annexations and reparations, but the Berlin government just laughed in their faces. And now, German troops were advancing on the defenseless Russian capital.

In Petrograd, a crowd was besieging the ticket offices of the Nikolaevsky railroad station.

“The Germans are coming! The Germans!” Klim heard people shouting.

When he and Anton Emilievich turned down Ligovsky Avenue, they saw a line of loaded carts stretching as far as the eye could see. Writing desks and folded banners stuck out from under the tarpaulin covers. Women and children sat on top of the carts wrapped in fur coats and shawls. Cart drivers yelled at one another, whips cracked, and horses whinnied.

Anton Emilievich glanced at Klim. “What kind of exodus is this?”

“The Bolshevik government is moving to Moscow,” a gentleman in an astrakhan hat remarked. “Along with their families, servants, and concubines.”

Mounted soldiers rode toward the excited, anxious crowd.

“Move on, move on!” they shouted in thick foreign accents.

“Latvian riflemen,” said the gentleman in the astrakhan hat with a disparaging shrug.

“What are they doing here?” Klim asked.

“Guarding our new rulers. They are deserters like all the other soldiers. But the Russian deserters have gone back to their villages, and the Latvians can’t go home since it’s become occupied by the Germans now. That’s why they’re willing to work for the Bolsheviks in exchange for their food ration. People say they make ideal mercenaries because they barely speak a word of Russian, so you can’t even bribe them.”

Anton Emilievich knew Petrograd well and told Klim how to find the Argentine Embassy.

“I’m going to visit the Bolsheviks headquarters now and get my pass to go abroad,” he said. “See you tonight at Khitruk’s. Do you remember his address?”

Klim nodded. Khitruk was an old friend of Anton Emilievich, and they were hoping he would let them spend the night at his apartment.

Klim hurried along the street, looking at the beautiful buildings that adorned central Petrograd. Handwritten advertisements had sprung up all over them like mold growing on plaster. The Bolsheviks had issued a decree forbidding advertising in any opposition newspapers to deprive them of their profits, so now all the announcements of items “For Sale” or “Wanted” had spread over the walls and lampposts of the city instead.

Hunched, shivering figures hurried past Klim. Half the shop windows had been broken, and the vacant dark shops looked like caves. Klim saw a sign in place of a storefront that announced in huge letters, “Citizens! Save Anarchy!”

So, now we even have to save anarchy, Klim thought, grimly.

It didn’t take long for him to find the six-story columned building that housed the Argentine Embassy. Polish soldiers in square peaked caps and long cloaks were guarding it. Klim showed them his passport, and one of the guards shouted up for the secretary, a tiny woman with black hair.

Klim told her that he had come to Russia on family business and now wanted to get back to Buenos Aires.

“Follow me,” she said, inviting him in.

The windowsills and cabinets in the lobby were covered with half-burned candles.

“The electricity is only intermittent,” the secretary said. “To tell the truth, it can be frightening at night. A few days ago, some crooks broke into the Italian Embassy and took the ambassador’s wallet and fur coat right off his back. We are lucky to have the Poles here, but if something terrible happens, there’s not much chance they’ll be able to protect us. None of the foreign powers recognize the Bolsheviks and their Soviet government, and in return, they don’t recognize our diplomatic immunity.”

Klim had not expected to find foreign diplomats to be quite so powerless.

“Can I talk to Señor Ambassador?” he asked.

“I’ll announce your arrival,” said the secretary. “Please take a seat and wait a moment.”

The embassy was silent. Even the pendulum of the wall clock hung motionless.

Klim walked around the room and picked up a copy of Pravda newspaper dated February 23, 1918. A banner headline splashed across its front page read:

Who are the White Guards? Klim wondered. Anyone who opposed the Bolsheviks?

“Señor Martínez Campos is expecting you,” the secretary called Klim and ushered him into a fancy office.

The ambassador was about fifty. He was sitting at his desk dressed in an elegant suit with his neat black mustache tips twirled upward and his gold pince-nez glinting in the lamplight.

“Pleased to meet you,” he said, thrusting out his small hand. “How long have you been in Russia? Half a year? It would appear we are witnessing the total collapse of a great country. How could this have been allowed to happen?”

“A series of extremely unfortunate coincidences—” Klim said, but the ambassador had already changed the subject.

“I’ve met Lenin several times,” Martínez Campos said, smiling wryly. “A man of culture but a perfect fanatic. The only decree he has made that is actually in the interests of his country is the decision to switch to the Gregorian calendar.”

Klim didn’t feel inclined to discuss the change in the calendar, so he got straight to the point and told the ambassador about his problem.

“I advise you to leave Russia as soon as possible,” Martínez Campos said. “If you have no money, our government can supply you with a loan. At present, the only route out of the country is through Arkhangelsk in the north or Vladivostok in the far east. All the other borders are shut. You could perhaps try Finland if the Soviets provide you with the necessary pass. If you choose to go there, I’ll give you a paper for the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs.”

Martínez Campos took a pen and a blank sheet of paper from his drawer.

“I need to take my family with me,” Klim said. “The Bolsheviks have prohibited my fiancée from leaving Nizhny Novgorod. Have we any leverage to get them to let her go?”

“Is she a citizen of Argentina?”

“No, but—”

Martínez Campos put his pen away and assumed a weary expression, as though he already knew in advance everything Klim was about to say.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t help you. I have instructions not to grant visas to any Russian citizens.”

Klim’s heart sank like a stone. “But why?”

“The government in Buenos Aires is wary that the Bolshevik disease could spread to our country.”

“But what if she were the spouse of an Argentinean citizen? I’m planning to marry her. We just haven’t had time to draw up the papers.”

“There can be no exceptions,” Martínez Campos sighed. “I strongly recommend that you make a run for it, Señor Rogov, or you may well end up dying here.”

Klim headed back to the railroad station.

The country is becoming the land of red tape, Klim thought as he hurried down the street. People needed official permission for everything. To buy food, Klim needed a ration card; to take a train, he needed a pass; and his personal happiness now depended on a visa.

He attempted to calm himself. It doesn’t matter. The main thing now is to get back to Nizhny Novgorod as soon as possible.

The railroad station was full of passengers who had been waiting for days for their trains. A soldier with a red armband constantly warned them, “Don’t fall asleep! Keep an eye on your possessions, comrades, or they’ll be stolen.”

There was a long queue at the ticket office, and the girl on duty was yelling at everybody who was waiting, “There are no tickets for sale! There’s been a directive from the Chairman of the Central Board for Evacuation. Nobody is to leave the city except women, children, and government officials.”

She was about to close the window when Klim stopped her.

“I’m a foreign journalist, and I need to get to Nizhny Novgorod as soon as possible.”

“Foreigners are not allowed to buy tickets,” she snapped.

Klim dashed to the departure platform. To hell with tickets! If he had to, he would break into the car by force. But the platform had already been cordoned off by soldiers. Nobody was being allowed onto the trains with or without tickets.

A blackout had been imposed on the city. The hazy beams of the searchlights swept the night sky, and factory sirens wailed in the distance. Petrograd was expecting a German airship attack.

Klim found Khitruk’s apartment building on Mokhovaya Street and climbed the dark staircase to the fifth floor. He knocked on the padded door, and it was opened by a round-faced housemaid with a candle in her hand.

“We’ve been expecting you,” she said when Klim introduced himself. “Anton Emilievich told us you were coming. Please don’t take your overcoat off—it’s cold in here.”

Khitruk’s apartment was full of noise and cigarette smoke. Klim headed to the dining room lit by a paraffin lamp. A group of lively and energetic men were sitting at the table in their fur coats.

“Ah! Here’s my nephew!” cried Anton Emiliviech.

Klim greeted people and shook hands with them without registering all of their names and faces. He found himself a place in an armchair by the wall and sat down, feeling suddenly exhausted.

“How are things?” Anton Emilievich whispered, trying not to interrupt the speech of a tall, gray-haired man who was passionately berating the Soviets.

“Things are looking bad,” Klim told him. “I couldn’t get any visas, and now, it’s impossible to buy tickets to get back to Nizhny Novgorod.”

“Did the ambassador turn you down?” Anton Emilievich whistled. “That’s too bad. Are you hungry?”

He ran to fetch Klim some rye bread.

“Khitruk is a rich man these days,” Anton Emilievich said when he returned, gesturing toward the gray-haired man. “His wife and children are in Kiev, and he uses their ration cards and lives like a king. Seven pounds of bread for one person! Not bad, eh?”

“How did your affairs go?” Klim asked.

Anton Emilievich fished a paper out of his pocket. “I went straight to the chairman and told him I needed a warrant,” he said. “And here it is.”

For a while, Klim looked at the paper with a huge purple stamp.

“How much did you pay?” Klim asked disconsolately.

“Five hundred rubles in golden tens,” Anton Emilievich said.

That was the price for one paper, and Klim needed three: for Nina, Zhora, and Sofia Karlovna. Nina had promised her mother-in-law to take her with them. She couldn’t just let the poor old woman starve to death.

“My advice to you,” Anton Emilievich said, “is to go to the Bolshevik headquarters while you still can. The Bolsheviks know that they won’t be in power for long, and they are grabbing any bribes that come their way.”

“I only have two hundred rubles,” Klim said.

“The Bolsheviks have robbed us of our revolution!” exclaimed Khitruk. “They have completely disgraced themselves. Censorship has got so bad that they don’t even bother rewriting articles anymore but just leave blank spaces where the articles should have been. So, what are we going to do about it? We can’t just sit around doing nothing.”

Anton Emilievich had informed Klim that Khitruk was an experienced revolutionary publisher. His newspapers had been closed down by the Tsar’s government, and he had been fined and sent to the notorious Kresty jail for political prisoners. But on his release, he soon went back to his old ways. He had an air of martyrdom about him and a crowd of enthusiastic young followers who were ready to go to any lengths on his behalf.

His opposition to the Tsar’s Gendarmes was as dogged as his current criticism of the Bolsheviks’ thugs.

“I have the funds to start a newspaper,” Khitruk announced. “A merchant who has recently been released from prison will provide us with the money. We have paper, we have an agreement with a print shop, and a front man has gotten us a license.”

This news was welcomed joyfully.

“When will the newspaper come out?” someone asked.

“The day after tomorrow,” Khitruk said, “and it will be a daily paper. It’s safe to say that we won’t have any competition since the quality of the Bolshevik press is very poor. No decent reporter will work for them, so they end up hiring hacks who are so badly educated that they think imperialism is a country somewhere in Western Europe.”

They argued excitedly about the policy their newspaper should adopt and agreed that it should be politically daring. Khitruk set about busily dividing and ruling his minions, allocating them tasks, and giving them advances.

“Would you like to write something for our newspaper?” he asked Klim when the guests had left. “Your uncle told me you have followed in his footsteps and become a journalist.”

Klim told him briefly about his situation.

“That’s not good,” Khitruk muttered. “But we’ll figure something out.”

He led Klim and Anton Emilievich to a freezing-cold guest room and gave them two logs for the stove.

“I’m sorry, but we can’t heat this room properly,” Khitruk said. “I just can’t afford enough firewood at current prices.”

Khitruk turned to Anton Emilievich. “Are you sure you won’t change your mind about leaving? We are badly in need of educated people, and your encyclopedic knowledge would be invaluable.”

Anton Emilievich sighed. “You have so much energy that you don’t notice how cold it is in Petrograd. But I couldn’t live without hot water. My back aches in the cold.”

Khitruk sat down next to Klim on the sofa. “What are you going to do now?”

“I don’t know.” Klim shook his head. “I was at the railroad station and heard someone saying that people are managing to get out of the city on foot or by sleigh.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,.” Khitruk said angrily. “It’s freezing out there, and you have neither felt boots nor a sheepskin coat. You’d freeze to death in three hours. But with your bourgeois appearance, you wouldn’t even last that long before the Red Guards got you.”

Klim said nothing.

“Listen, you need to find a place to stay while you try to get a return ticket,” Khitruk said. “Why don’t you live here for a while? Otherwise, I’m afraid that the Bolsheviks will force me to give over all my rooms to the proletariat. Workers with nowhere to go are being given so-called ‘class mandates’ so that they can confiscate spare rooms in a rich person’s apartment. They’ve already been to see me three times and told me that I can’t live here all by myself. It makes me sick to think of some bumpkin cooking on my stove or using my bathroom. Plus, as you can see, I often have company. We won’t be able to talk about serious things with ignorant strangers around.”

“Why don’t you ask your friends to live with you?” Klim asked.

“All my friends are looking for tenants too. And most decent people have already left the city. Please stay with me! It’s true that ration cards are a problem. The ‘bourgeoisie’ are in the lowest category and only get an eighth of a pound of bread a day. I have no idea if you have any right to a ration as a foreigner, but we can find out. So, what do you say?”

“All right,” Klim nodded.

“Excellent! Tomorrow, you can go to the house manager’s office and register yourself as a tenant. The lady who works there is a little strange though. You’ll see what I mean when you meet her.”

The house manager’s office was in the former porter’s lodge. Klim noticed a sign attached to the door. It said that Petrograd was now in a state of martial law, and all visitors to the city must be registered without delay.

Klim knocked on the door and entered a dimly lit office adorned by two portraits—one of Lenin and the other of the many-armed Hindu god Shiva. A woman in a crimson knitted cap was sitting beneath them.

“Peace be with you,” she said in a disinterested voice and lit a copper incense burner that hung above her desk. A trickle of bluish smoke drifted up toward the grimy ceiling.

“I’d like to register myself,” Klim said.

She stared at him with her round, crystal clear gray eyes. “Thank the gods you’re not proposing to marry me,” she muttered. “I recently had a visitor from Apartment Thirteen who was determined to win my hand in marriage. I’m in charge of the ration cards and accommodations, and that alone is dowry enough to tempt a great many men. Durga!” she said suddenly and thrust out a hand to Klim.

He shook her thin fingers. As far as he could remember, Durga was the Hindu warrior goddess who ensured order in the world.

“Have you heard the news?” the woman said. “The Bolsheviks have paid off the Germans. They’ve signed a peace treaty agreeing to the Kaiser’s terms. The war is over, but the Germans have taken all our western provinces. But he,” Durga pointed at the Lenin’s portrait, “couldn’t care less. If he’s still in power, that means the gods must be on his side.”

The woman made Klim sit on a small oriental drum and focused all her attention on Klim’s Argentinean passport and Khitruk’s petition for a temporary registration.

“So, Mr. Rogov, Kliment Alexandrovich, born 1889,” she said slowly, “you’ve stated that your occupation is ‘writer.’ What exactly do you write?”

“Recently, the only writing I’ve been doing is filling in forms.”

“You too!” Durga cried and gazed sadly at Shiva. “Khitruk writes proclamations that nobody cares about, the man from Number Five writes poetry, and a tenant from Number Ten writes pieces for the violin and divine revelations when he has the money for his cocaine habit. Why doesn’t anyone write anything useful, like how to survive all this madness?”

She stared at Klim disapprovingly.

“My friend sold me a pound of American corn flour and a jar of French margarine,” Durga said. “My pantry is empty. I have nothing but salt and baking soda. So, I have a question for you, sir: What can I do with this latest acquisition of mine? I looked in the cookbook, and all the recipes sound as though they have been made up to taunt me. ‘Take three pounds of veal,’ they begin, but they don’t say where this veal is to be found. I need to know about corn flour, not about veal that can’t be obtained for love nor money.”

“You could make a tortilla,” Klim suggested. “It’s a type of soft flatbread. At one time, it was all I ate.”

“Then why don’t you write about something useful like that?” exclaimed Durga. “Perhaps you have a recipe for potato peelings or fish heads as well? You could write a pamphlet entitled ‘Dinner on a Shoestring.’ That is what people need now! Tell Mr. Khitruk to stop churning out inflammatory nonsense and write something worthwhile.”

Klim shrugged. “He’s just unable to stand by and watch dispassionately—”

“Dispassionately means not being misled by passion,” Durga barked. “If you keep a cool head and act the same way toward everything and everyone, you have no expectations and, therefore, won’t suffer disappointment or disillusionment. Tell Mr. Khitruk to put that in his pipe and smoke it.”

She wrote down Klim’s recipe and added his name to her register. “Come over this evening,” she said. “I’ll treat you to some of your tortillas.”