The Jewel of St Petersburg

Seven

EXPLOITATION! DEPRIVATION! STARVATION!”

Mikhail Sergeyev was good. He knew how to work a crowd, how to spark the emotions in men and put fire in their empty bellies. Arkin assessed tonight’s crowd with satisfaction. Most were peasants like himself, simple workmen who had flocked from the rural provinces to find employment in the factories of St. Petersburg. Most couldn’t read. Few could even write their name. Oddly, that fact saddened Arkin even more than the terrible conditions under which they worked in the factories or in the mills. The knowledge that the minds of the masses were being deliberately stunted by depriving them of education was to him the harshest injustice of all. It was why he believed in Leon Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution. He had gone with Sergeyev to hear Trotsky address a meeting, and they had both been so enthralled by this man of vision with his bush of unruly hair and forever-glinting spectacles that they had walked the streets all night, unable to rest. He had shown them a new world. One in which justice and equality weren’t just empty words but were the living, breathing heart of every man’s life. From that moment on, they had started to recruit others to the socialist cause.

“Men of Russia”-Sergeyev was passionate in his urging-“we have to fight for our rights ourselves. The iron fist of tsarism must”-he paused and gazed around the room at his audience-“must be overthrown.”

There were shouts of approval.

“They gave us the Duma to shut us up.” Sergeyev said the words mockingly. “Yet Prime Minister Stolypin treats it with scorn. Instead he puts Stolypin neckties, the hangman’s noose, on all who dissent.” Sergeyev yanked up his own tie as if he were being throttled by a rope, and the crowd roared. Arkin added his voice to theirs.

“Does Stolypin care that there is no bread on the table for your children?”

“No! Nyet! No!”

“Does Stolypin care that you are made to work in conditions that even a dog would bite off his leg to escape?”

“No^! No!”

“Does Stolypin care that-”

“Comrade Sergeyev!” The shout came from a whippet of a man who was on his feet, a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth.

“Sit down!” a voice yelled.

Sergeyev held out a hand to demand silence. “Speak, comrade. All have the right to be heard.”

“Comrades,” the man said, raising his voice, “this talk will lead us nowhere. We cannot fight the enemy, we must make treaty with it. The Duma was only a first step. All the time we are working and arguing for more concessions. Alexander Guchkov, leader of the Octobrists in the Duma, is working hard to obtain agreement for better conditions in the mines of-”

“Alexander Guchkov,” Sergeyev thundered, “is nothing more than an instrument of tyranny.”

This delighted the crowd. “Da! Yes!”

Sergeyev drew himself up to his full height. “The only answer is the seizure of power by the workers. Strength to the unions.”

Thunderous applause. Voices clamoring. Hands pushing and pulling at the intruder in their midst until he swore they would all be wearing Stolypin’s neckties before long and stalked out of the hall in defeat.

“Power to the workers!” Sergeyev bellowed.

Against the wall, Arkin lit himself a cigarette and nodded. A dictatorship of the proletariat, Leon Trotsky had called it. It would be a bitter and bloody battle, but it was coming. The only question was when.

THE PRIEST WAS CLEVER. THERE WAS NO QUESTION OF THAT. Father Morozov understood people. He tempted the gnawing bellies into the church hall with a cauldron of hot stew. No meat, of course, just vegetables, but they were pathetically grateful all the same, and it fed more than just their bodies, it fed their anger. That they were reduced to this. It enraged the sense of injustice in them, even before they were funneled into the hall for Sergeyev’s speeches. The only trouble with Father Morozov was that he believed in God and in God’s love for all mankind, however miserable an example of the human race a person might be. That got in the way sometimes.

The priest was standing like a crow behind his cauldron of steaming stew, ladling it out into enamel mugs, listening to the men’s woes, offering a word of advice or a shred of comfort. He never tired. He never changed from the tall patient figure in homespun black with a slight stoop and a thick beard. He was probably no more than forty but he looked much older; his hair had already lost its color. Maybe it was the result of all those years of hearing other people’s pain, or maybe it was the loss of his wife.

Arkin stood beside Father Morozov, waiting for a brief gap in the hungry flow of mugs.

“Father, we have the equipment.”

“Here?”

“Downstairs. Come down when you’ve finished.”

The priest nodded and smiled fondly at the next man in the queue. Arkin admired his coolness. No one would know he dealt in death.

BOMB MAKING WAS A DELICATE BUSINESS. FATHER MOROZOV was the brains, the one with the plans. Mikhail Sergeyev was the provider who acquired the necessary equipment, no questions asked. And Arkin himself supplied the hands. None of the others liked to touch explosives.

The three men worked well together, but today Arkin noticed that his comrade Sergeyev was restless. He was constantly up and down from the table where Arkin was working, irritating him, until Arkin put down the pliers in his hand. The basement room was so cold that their breath curled like smoke each time they spoke, and Arkin worried that the gelignite might congeal if the temperature fell too low. He looked at Sergeyev. His jacket was filthy and full of holes, his scarf so greasy and wound around his neck so many times it looked like a thick serpent that had fallen asleep.

“What is it, comrade?” Arkin asked. “You gave a good speech today. You should be pleased.”

Sergeyev fiddled with the cigarette packet in his hands, the makhorka tobacco smelling cheap and unpleasant in the enclosed space. Arkin had forbidden him to smoke anywhere near the detonating caps. Two of the caps lay on the table in front of him, and his eyes were drawn to them even as he spoke to Sergeyev. Long thin copper capsules containing a small quantity of mercury fulminate. Highly explosive. Arkin always handled them with respect but liked to lay one across his palm, as harmless looking as Sergeyev’s cigarette. So much power in his hand, it made his heart beat faster.

He had been surprised by how simple it was to learn about explosives. In St. Petersburg’s library he’d studied Alfred Nobel’s ingenious invention, so that he understood better the five rough shaped sticks of gray gelignite clumped together on the table in front of him. Gelignite was an explosive compound of nitroglycerine and nitrocellulose mixed with nitrate of potash and wood meal. Twelve percent more powerful than dynamite. Dermo! That was a lot of power. And the compound was unaffected by damp and free from noxious fumes when it was detonated. He wrapped his hand around one of the sticks, felt its cold slick surface on his skin. Mr. Alfred Nobel, he thought, was a man of exceptional character. Who else could inflict so much destruction on the world and still sleep easy in his grave?

“Arkin,” Sergeyev said, “I’m sorry, but I must leave now.”

Arkin raised an eyebrow. “What’s the matter? Not nervous, are you?”

“No. It’s my wife. She’s due to have our baby soon but is still working in the glue factory. It makes her sick.”

“Ah, family.”

“Don’t say it like that.”

Arkin smiled. “Sergeyev, the day will come when families will be a thing of the past.” He glanced at the priest. “Religion too. The opiate of the masses, as Karl Marx pointed out. The only priority will be the state. If you have the perfect state system, you will have a contented population. The state must come before the family. It will be our family.”

“I agree with you, of course,” Sergeyev said, and shrugged awkwardly. “But not tonight.” He stood up and headed for the door. “Don’t blow yourselves up,” he laughed and left quickly before the others could object.

Arkin and Father Morozov turned back to the table.

“He’s a good man,” Morozov said.

“He’s a rousing speaker and he’s committed to the cause,” Arkin agreed as he inserted one end of the safety fuse into the open end of the detonating cap. With pliers he crimped the edges carefully around it. Squeeze it too tight and it could explode. “But he has no stomach for killing.”

“And you?” the priest asked.

“I’ll do whatever I have to.”

“Even working for a family you despise? For Minister Ivanov.”

“Yes, Father, I work for that parasite and yes, I spy on him. Like you, I do whatever our cause requires of me. Ivanov has thirty servants to pamper just four indolent people. If all the servants throughout Petersburg were released to work at something that was of use, what a different city we would have.”

“Have you suggested this to the Ivanovs?” Morozov asked mildly.

The irony amused Arkin. He laughed and wound a strip of wire around the sticks of gelignite with the two detonators clutched in their midst. He measured out the fuse. It consisted of a length of cotton fiber wrapped around a core of fine gunpowder, the whole thing coated in white varnish to protect it from damp. This one was a slow burner, two feet per minute. It gave time for escape. He cut a length of four feet.

His pulse was steady, and that pleased him. Father Morozov said a prayer over the bomb and drew the sign of the cross above it. He always did that.

Before they killed.

JENS PLUNGED DEEPER INTO THE DARKNESS. THE NOISES inside the tunnel were drilling into his head, but still he liked to come down here regularly. He needed to climb down into the sewers to ensure that the work was progressing fast enough, to check for himself that the overseers were keeping the men digging along the lines he had laid down.

The air grew thicker and he had to bend double beneath the low roof. Water dripped onto his shoulders. In his hand a powerful flashlight threw a circle of light onto the curved walls so that he could inspect the brickwork with careful attention, and every few paces he reached out to touch it. His eyes were not enough, he needed his fingers too. A rumble came from up ahead. Under his feet ran the rail for the wheels of the trucks that disposed of the excavated rock and soil, and he felt a vibration skipping through them.

“Truck rolling,” he called out.

The three men behind him jumped to the side of the tunnel wall and stood with their backs pressed flat against it. The noise of the truck was deafening as it passed, stacked high with rubble. The two pushers straining to keep it moving were clothed in anonymous overalls and cloth headgear against the ever-present dripping water, faces black with grime. They could have been men, but they weren’t. They were women. The men did the digging.

“Line free,” he called out.

But he’d spotted a shudder in the movement of the truck. He walked over, kicked at a rail, and felt it shift. He turned to the man behind him. “Get this tightened. I don’t want any accidents.”

He was sick of the accidents, sick to his stomach. It was the darkness. Workers didn’t see things. The shifts were too long, the tools too blunt, the wages too low.

And he was the one they blamed.

BLOOD MADE EVERYTHING SLIPPERY. JENS HELD THE MAN down in the chair with brute force. He blocked out the screams and ignored the curses. He kept one arm locked across the man’s chest, pinning him from behind to the seat, the other fist gripping his elbow tight, immobilizing it. The man arched his body in pain and jerked his head back, cracking it against Jens’s jaw.

“Hold him,” Dr. Fedorin urged.

With one final wrench, which brought forth another gut-churning groan, Fedorin straightened up. His hands were scarlet. Sweat had painted a sheen on his skin and there was a slash of blood across his brow where he’d brushed his hand.

“It’s the best I can do, Sergeyev.”

Through glazed eyes the man stared down at his shattered right forearm and uttered a moan. The bones were still visible through the mat of blood, but there were no longer jagged edges spiking in all directions. Jens felt Sergeyev’s chest start to shake. He released his grip on it.

He rested a hand on the tunnel digger’s trembling shoulder. “The doctor has done a fine job.”

A fine job? How dare he call such a mangled mess a fine job? He knew Fedorin had done all he could, but what in God’s name would this man live off now?

“Give him more morphine,” Jens said.

“What good is morphine to me?” Sergeyev groaned. “I can’t work.” Nevertheless he accepted several drops on a spoon when it was offered.

“It’ll mend,” Dr. Fedorin assured him. “It may not be as straight or strong as it was before, but it’ll mend. You’re young enough for it to heal fast.”

He bathed the damaged limb with boiled water and iodine, then proceeded to stitch the wounds while Jens kept up pressure just inside the man’s elbow to reduce the blood loss. When fresh lint, bandages, and splints were all in place and Sergeyev’s arm fixed in a sling, Jens drew a bottle of brandy from the drawer of the table that made do as his makeshift desk. He poured three slugs into tin mugs.

“Here. Get this down you.”

He thrust one into the good hand of Sergeyev and gave one to the doctor. Dr. Fedorin knocked back half the drink in one swallow and began to scrub his hands in the rest of it over a bowl, shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows. They were in the wooden hut that served as Jens’s office at the entrance to one of the tunnels, but he knew these accidents shouldn’t be happening. Somewhere somebody was cutting corners. He poured the digger another brandy and, now that the worst was over, the man’s gray pallor started to fade.

“Spasibo, Direktor Friis.” He raised his mug to Jens and Fedorin. “Spasibo.”

“Sergeyev, here is money for a drozhky ride home.” Jens handed over a fistful of notes from a drawer. “Take it and feed your family.”

The man set down the mug and took the money. His fingers gripped it hard, smearing blood on the notes, but it was an uneasy moment. Jens laid his hand again on the man’s shoulder. “You are a good worker, Sergeyev. I’ll need you back here when your arm is mended.”

The digger studied the roubles in his hand. “You’ll keep my job open for me?”

“Yes, I will.”

“The foreman won’t like that.”

“The foreman will do as I say.”

The man gave a half-smile. “Da. Of course he will.”

Jens again felt that uneasiness seep into the hut. “Go home,” he said. “Go home and get better.”

“It will need a clean dressing,” Dr. Fedorin pointed out.

Sergeyev still stared at the money. “I can’t pay you, Doktor.”

Fedorin glanced at Jens. “Your Direktor is good enough to cover the costs.”

At last the man looked up at Jens. “Direktor, tell me, do you intend to pay personally for every man who needs a doctor here in the tunnel? To hold the job open for every digger who is injured? Every factory worker in Petersburg? Even for men like me who will now have a crippled arm?”

Jens took a grip on the man’s good arm and hoisted him up out of the chair. “Get out of here, Sergeyev. Go home to your wife.”

Clutching his right arm with his left, Sergeyev headed for the door.

“What I do in these tunnels,” Jens said sharply, “is my business.”

Sergeyev turned abruptly and his eyes fixed first on Jens, then on Fedorin. “Not for much longer,” he said softly.

HE COULD HAVE BEEN MORE GRATEFUL, THE BASTARD,” the doctor said.

“He was humiliated. He wanted to throw the money back in my teeth. It’s work in decent conditions that he wants, not charity.”

“Jens, my good friend, sometimes I think you do not even now understand the Russian soul. Your Danish mind is too rational. The Russian soul is not.”

Jens smiled at him and raised his glass. “Za zdorovye! Good health! To the Russian soul and the Russian mind. May they triumph over the enemies of progress.”

“Which are?”

“Complacency and corruption. Stupidity and greed.”

“Hah!” Fedorin slapped Jens on the back. “I like that.”

“The trouble is that no one is warmer hearted than a Russian, yet no one is crueler. There is no middle path in Russia; it is all or nothing. Look at Tsar Nicholas. He believes he was put on this earth by God himself to rule Russia and is even convinced that God sends him omens to guide him. He has spoken of them to me.”

“Don’t depress me, my friend.”

“He chases after spiritual guides such as Monsieur Philippe of Lyons and St. Serafim of Sarov. And that foul monk, Grigori Rasputin. The tsarina is besotted by him.”

“I’m told she believes the illness of her son, Tsarevitch Alexei, is a curse from God and they try to keep it secret.”

“How bad is it, this illness?” Jens asked.

Fedorin poured himself another shot of brandy. “The tsar’s son is a bleeder. That’s why they hide him away at Tsarskoe Selo.”

Jens did not let the shock show on his face. “A hemophiliac?”

“Da.”

“They don’t live long, do they?”

“Not usually, no.”

“God help Russia.”

Fedorin knocked back his brandy. “God help all of us, my friend.”

He shook hands and left Jens’s office. Jens poured his own brandy over his desk and scrubbed the blood off the wood with it. Whatever Dr. Fedorin said, Jens felt a kinship with the Russian soul, with its black aching moods of despair. He’d come here when only eighteen years old to escape servitude in his father’s printing business and had studied engineering in St. Petersburg instead. During the nine years he’d been here, he’d learned to love Russia with a passion. He wasn’t ready to see it brought to its knees by greed.

EXPLAIN IT TO ME, WILL YOU, FRIIS?” MINISTER DAVIDOV instructed.

The map of the city was spread out before the group of six men. Jens lit a cigarette and narrowed his eyes through the smoke, taking in the tension in the faces around the table. Andrei Davidov was a man whose voice rarely rose above a murmur. At times people forgot to silence their own tongues and listen to his, but Jens knew such people were fools.

“Minister.” Jens leaned forward and picked up a tapered ivory pointer from the table. “Let me show you.” He traced the tip of it along one of the lines that zigzagged across the map. “See this blue line; this depicts the sewer tunnels completed. Notice how they cluster around the central area and the palaces.”

Davidov nodded. His eyes were hooded but watched the pointer intently.

“This one”-Jens indicated a series of green lines-“represents those under construction.”

The minister drew his craggy eyebrows together and flicked the cover of his watch open and shut with a sharp little snip. “Do we need so many?”

“Indeed we do, Minister. Petersburg is expanding every year; the population is increasing as more peasants pour in from the fields to work in our new factories. That is why this one”-he drew the pointer along a thick red line-“shows the planned tunnels that have not yet been started.”

There was a heavy silence in the room while Davidov contemplated the map. It was broken only by a snort from Gosolev, who was in the habit of taking snuff. “I am thinking of the cost. Everything,” Davidov said, “comes down to cost.”

“We need a new water and sewage system in this city, Minister. Sickness and diarrhea are rife in Petersburg’s workforce because of the lack of clean water for hygiene. How can we rid the city of its slums without sufficient sewers and water pipes?”

“The cost,” the minister murmured once more. “Last year we had to strip funds from the Trans-Siberian Railway to find the million roubles for that damn statue of our emperor’s father.”

“Minister,” Jens said in a voice no louder than Davidov’s, “this was once marshland. It floods. We have to pump out the tunnels day and night while we construct them. There have been roof collapses because of-he narrowed his eyes at Khrastsyn farther down the table-“because of lack of wooden supports and shortages of lamps.”

“You shouldn’t pamper the poor,” Davidov cut in.

“How right you are, Minister,” Khrastsyn agreed. “They work better when they are hungry.”

Jens looked from one to the other and placed both hands down on the table, as if to crush their words. “The men work best,” he pointed out, “when they are not afraid of dying every moment.” He drew a deep breath. “The tsar has asked me to report personally to him on the progress this water scheme is making. It is something dear to his heart. Shall I tell him I am prevented from proceeding faster by you, Minister, and by you, Khrastsyn?”

Davidov raised one heavy eyebrow. “Is that true? That His Majesty asked you to report to him?”

“Yes,” Jens lied.

“Khrastsyn,” the minister ordered, “let us rethink those funds.”

Jens lit himself another cigarette, surprised to see his hands so steady. He had just made two powerful enemies.

THE COUNTESS SMELLED OF ATTAR OF ROSES. SHE LAY stretched out on the bed.

“You are irritable today,” Natalia Serova announced.

She took a handful of Jens’s red hair between her fingers and twisted it gently, just enough to pull on his scalp. Sometimes he thought she would like to tear him into little pieces so that she could put each piece in her pocket and own him completely.

“I’m not irritable, Natalia. I am impatient.”

“Impatient for what?”

“For the changes that must come.”

“Oh, Jens, please don’t start that again.” She leaned down and kissed his brow. “For once in your life, silence that whirring Danish brain of yours.”

“Davidov is trying to remove me,” he said.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Jens, can’t you just do what the man asks?” She brought her hand down hard on his bare chest and pushed him away roughly. “You know that he has Stolypin on his side, don’t you? Don’t even think of going up against our prime minister.” She rolled her eyes dramatically. “Because you will lose.” She moved away across her huge bed and slumped among the pillows. “Please don’t tell me you’d be that stupid.”

He reached out and stroked her foot. “No,” he said, “I’m not that stupid.”

“Stolypin is a force of nature. He’s a giant and storms over everyone.”

“Including Tsar Nicholas himself, who is afraid of him. Just like he was afraid of his own father.” Jens sat up. “I am sick of politics. Tell me, how is your son?”

“Alexei is well, thank you.”

He had been having his affair with the countess for a full three months before he learned she had a son. She had once confessed to him that her husband, Count Serov, was not the boy’s father but refused to tell him who was, except to admit she had a weakness for green-eyed suitors. It would explain why Count Serov paid the boy scant attention. Alexei was six now, and Jens enjoyed taking him riding.

“My niece, Maria, is coming to stay with me for Christmas,” she told him as she ran a fingernail down his spine. “You might like to meet her again. Remember the concert?”

Jens recalled the concert with instant clarity. The unforgettable music. The mass of hair at the piano, the huge dark eyes. The anger in them directed straight at him.