Alaska (39 page)

The young seminarian had that touch of grace which ennobles men, regardless of where chance assigns them; he had a calling, a demand from outside as sharp as a sergeant's insolent cry on a cold morning. He was called to do the Lord's work and was eager to do it wherever assigned.

So he was about to announce his preference for the white when Great-Aunt Marina astounded her family: 'Knowing the importance of this meeting, I took it upon myself to consult with the bishop, and I asked him to be waiting outside just about now, to give us guidance. Luka, see if his

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carriage has arrived.' And shortly the bishop himself appeared, bowing to the great lady whose ample funds had so often enabled him to complete work the church had started, especially in the islands.

'Madame Zhdanko, as I told you the other day, you grace Irkutsk,' and she said without embarrassment: 'As did my father before me.' Then, belatedly: 'And as Luka has, in his own way.'

She did not propose to waste the bishop's time in persiflage: 'Vasili thinks that if he is to serve the Lord, he must elect the white.'

'At his age I chose the black.'

'And were you able to perform the Lord's work just as capably?'

'Maintaining a healthy church is perhaps the Lord's most urgent desire.'

Marina did not gloat, but she did want more than platitudes: 'Bishop, tell me truthfully, if this young man takes the black, would you consider him for a post in the Aleutians?'

Members of the family gasped at the impertinence of this inquiry into church politics, but the old woman knew she had few years remaining, and in the islands which her late husband had loved, there was work left uncompleted. The bishop was not surprised at the old lady's frontal approach, for her past beneficences entitled her to some meddling, especially since a member of her own family was concerned. Asking for more tea, he balanced his cup, munched on a sweet, and said: 'Madame Zhdanko, I am, as you well know, profoundly worried about the posture of our church in the islands.

The tsarina has placed on my shoulders responsibility for seeing that the Holy Word is disseminated there and that the savages are brought into the family of Christ.'

Staring at each family member in turn, he sipped from his cup, put it down, and said with what amounted almost to sorrow: 'And I have failed. I've sent one priest after another out there, good men in their time, but old men, too, who have banked the fires of ambition and zeal. They waste their lives and the church's funds. They drink, argue with Company officers, ignore their true charges, the islanders, and bring no souls to Jesus Christ.'

'You make my summary for me,' the fighting old woman cried with that intensity which had never diminished since it was ignited while she was a girl here in Irkutsk. 'We need real men in the islands. That is, if we're to build a civilization there. I mean, if we're to hold that new empire and not surrender it like cravens to the English or the Spanish, let alone those damned Americans whose ships are beginning to 244

sneak into what ought to be our waters.' She was obviously prepared to sail to the islands right now, as either governor, admiral, general or head of the local church.

'I've considered the suggestion you made the other day, Madame Zhdanko, and yes, if this fine young man elects the black, he will do so with my blessing. He has a great future in this church. And he can start at no better place than the Aleutians, where he can launch a whole new civilization. Do well there, young man, and your opportunity for serving the church is unlimited.' Then, with a bow to Marina, he added a practical note: 'What I need to head the church in Kodiak is not some young fellow who will marry a local girl and subside into gentle drunkenness like his predecessors, but someone who will marry the church and build a strong new edifice.'

Encouraged by such words, Vasili Voronov, the most promising young man ever to have graduated from the Irkutsk seminary, chose the black, took vows of celibacy, and committed himself to the service of the Lord and the resurrection of His disreputable Orthodox Church in the Aleutians.

MARINA ZHDANKO, ALTHOUGH OVER EIGHTY, POSSESSED such demonic energy that when she finished instructing her grandnephew Vasili as to how he was to conduct his religious life, she turned with great vigor to the straightening out of her own affairs. Since she was already in Irkutsk, where The Company of which she was a leading member kept its headquarters, she felt she ought to initiate certain changes in management, and the male members of the board were surprised when she stalked into their office with the firm announcement: 'I want to send a real manager to organize our Aleutian holdings.'

'We have a manager,' the men assured her, but she snapped: 'I want a man who will work, not whine,' and when they asked: 'Have you someone in mind?' she replied enthusiastically: T certainly have.'

There was at this time in Irkutsk an unusual businessman, one Aleksandr Baranov, in his early forties and the veteran of rugged Siberian mercantile wars. Marina had seen him occasionally, picking his way about the streets, head bowed as if contemplating some master move, and she had been intrigued by the stories men told about him: 'He's low-born, no family background at all. Has a wife that no one ever sees, because when he first came to Siberia she promised: ”I'll join you soon,”but she never did.

He's served everywhere, honest

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as the sunrise but always wiped out by some disaster not of his making.'

'But he is honest?' she asked, and everyone agreed: 'None more so.'

'What's this I've heard about a glass factory?' she asked, and a most improbable story unfolded: 'I was with him when it happened. We were drinking beer when a maid, a real peasant, dropped a beer stein and broke it. Now, glass, as you well know, costs money in a frontier like Irkutsk, so the barman began to knock the poor girl about for having broken such a costly item. Pavel and me, we berated the man for his brutality, but Baranov sat there with fragments in his hands, and after a while he said: ”We ought to make our glass here in Irkutsk. Not haul it all the way from Moscow.” And do you know what he did?'

'I can't imagine,' Marina said, and another man explained: 'He wrote to Germany for a book on glassmaking, then learned German from a merchant so he could decipher his book, and with no practical experience, never saw one piece of glass blown, he opened a glass factory.'

'Did it fail, like his other dreams?'

'Not at all! He made fine glass. You drank from his work at dinner.'

'What happened?'

'Imports from big factories farther west began to stream in, much cheaper prices.'

When Marina asked if this competition drove Baranov out of business, the men vied with one another to answer her question: 'Not Baranov! He looked at the imported glass and said: ”This is better than I make,”and he closed down his shop to serve as agent for the other people.'

'I'd like to meet a man with such good sense,' Marina said, and when Baranov was brought before her, she saw a short, unkempt, pudgy man, bald as an iceberg, hands clasped over his belly as if preparing to bow before some approaching superior, but with sharp, dancing eyes that betrayed his eagerness to explore any proposition that might be laid before him.

'Do you know the fur trade?' she asked, and for half an hour he described recent developments in the Aleutians, Irkutsk and China, with a recommendation as to how Aleutian furs could with improved routing be speeded to St. Petersburg.

Her next question 'Are you earning much as a salesman in the glass business?' provided him with an opportunity for an oration on how the Aleutians could be developed by someone with imagination and a little assured capital.

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Before the hour ended she was satisfied that he was the man to represent both Russia and The Company in the Aleutians: 'Hold yourself in readiness, Mr. Baranov, while I do some investigating,' and when he was gone she returned to her directors with a succinct recommendation: 'The man we need in the islands is Aleksandr Baranov.'

When the men protested that he had failed in everything, she reminded them: 'But you all said he was honest. I'm saying he has imagination . . . and force of character . . . and common sense.'

'Then why has he failed?' they asked, and she said: 'Because he did not have an old hand like me setting policy and bright young men like you providing him with funds.'

No better summary of Russia's needs in her American adventure than this had so far been voiced, either in Irkutsk or St. Petersburg, and the directors recognized it, but one cautious man protested: 'Baranov may be too old.'

'I'm twice as old,' Marina snorted, 'and I'd sail out to Kodiak tomorrow if I had to.'

'You might as well bring him in,' the men said grudgingly, and after a few minutes of Marina's expert questioning, Baranov revealed himself as a man who had a clear view of future possibilities, and she complimented him on his astuteness: 'Thank you, Mr. Baranov. You seem to have three attributes we seek. A surplus of energy, boundless enthusiasm and a vision of what Russia might accomplish in her islands.'

'I hope so,' he said modestly, bowing slightly.

The directors, aware that Marina was rushing them into decisions they might not wish to make, were so resentful of her intrusion that they started to demonstrate the flaws in her nominee: 'Mr. Baranov, we're sure you understand that The Company has two obligations. It must make money for us directors here in Irkutsk. And it must represent the wishes of the tsarina in St. Petersburg.' When Baranov nodded enthusiastically, one of the directors pointed out acidly: 'But you've never turned a steady profit on anything you've attempted.' Without embarrassment, the chubby merchant smiled and said: 'Always I've made a good start, then run out of money. This time I'd have the same good ideas and your job would be to see that I had the funds.'

'But could you keep the tsarina happy?' they asked, and with a tradesman's simplicity he answered: 'Make money and you keep everybody happy.'

'Well said!' Marina cried. 'That could be the motto of our company.' But now the directors raised an even more subtle objection: 'If you did become, as Madame Zhdanko seems to be recommending, our representative in the Aleutians, you 247

would be Aleksandr Baranov merchant, and for protection you would be forced to rely upon some naval officer of noble lineage.' No one spoke, and then, from an older man: 'And as you know, there can be on the face of this earth nothing more contemptuous than a Russian naval officer looking down his nose at a merchant.'

Another director agreed, then all leaned forward as he asked: 'Mr. Baranov, do you think you could handle a naval officer?'

With the simple grace that characterized this unusual man, he replied: 'I've never been vain. I've always been eager to concede the other man any rights to which he considers himself entitled. But I've never been diverted from the task which requires to be done.' Looking from one man to the other, he added: 'I am only a merchant, and nobility is far beyond my reach. But I have something the noble officers will never have.'

'And what is that?'

In the quiet of this office in Irkutsk, Baranov the indefatigable dreamer gave his answer: 'I know that Imperial Russia must use the Aleutian Islands as stepping stones to a great Russian occupation of North America. I know that the supply of seaotter pelts is already dwindling and that other sources of wealth must be found.'

'Such as what?' one of the directors asked, and without a moment's hesitation this amusing little fellow with the trigger-quick brain revealed his compulsive vision: 'Trade.'

'With whom?' someone asked, and he replied: 'With everyone. With the Hudson's Bay Company at Nootka Sound, with the Spaniards in California, with Hawaii. And across the ocean to Japan and China. And with the American ships that begin to invade our waters.'

'You seem hungry to embrace the entire Pacific,' a director said, and he replied: 'Not me, Russia. I see a constant movement of our empire to all corners.'

His vision was so grand, so all-encompassing that on the morrow the directors, frightened by its implications, brought in an officer who represented the tsarina and the more responsible elements in her government: 'Mr. Baranov, these men tell me that you have soaring visions.'

'The future of Russia demands them.'

'But have you any comprehension of Russian policy? No? Well, let me explain, and I shall use no shadowy meanings or oblique references. Our policy is to defend ourselves at all costs from dangers in Europe. That means we must do nothing to alert or offend anyone in the Pacific. If you become our man in the Aleutians, you must not offend Britain in North

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America, or Spain in California, or the United States or Japan or China or even Hawaii.

Because the fate of Russia will not be determined in these waters. It will be determined only in Europe. Do you understand?'

What Baranov understood was that the temporary concerns of Russia might be in Europe but that her long-term interests lay in the Pacific, and a powerful foothold in North America would, in the future, be of the greatest significance. But he also knew that as a mere merchant, he had no power base or standing from which to put his grand designs into operations, so he dissembled: 'I understand my orders. If I'm sent, I'm to tend the islands and touch nothing else.'

Now he was to receive his first lesson in imperial diplomacy, for the officer looked about the room, lowered his voice, and said quietly: 'Now wait, Mr. Baranov. No one said that, not at all. If you're sent to Kodiak, you're to probe outward in all directions.

A fort here if the natives will allow it. Trade with Hawaii if practical. Exploration deep into California when the Spaniards aren't looking. And above all, secure us a foothold on North America.'

In the silence that followed, Baranov did not say triumphantly: 'That's what I was saying.' Instead, he nodded to the official, then to each of the directors, and said: 'Excellency, you're a wise man, a prudent man. You show me horizons I had not seen before,' and the tsarina's officer smiled bleakly, like a winter sun in northern Siberia.