Russka (149 page)

As he stood there, watched by Popov, Alexander felt physically sick. It was not only the blow from the rifle, nor the fear: it was the complete humiliation of having to swear to these pathetic lies in front of the man he hated and despised the most in the world. Unwillingly, he met Popov’s eye.

‘Why?’ he asked.

For a moment Popov did not reply. It seemed that he, too, was contemplating. ‘Do you remember that you once called me a liar?’ he said. ‘I used a false name too. That disgusted you, didn’t it?’ He paused, still looking at Alexander coolly. ‘You called me a coward too, I recall.’ He nodded slowly. ‘And why did you lie just now, so eagerly, Alexander Nicolaevich? I will tell you. You didn’t do it for a cause. You haven’t got a cause. You did it to save your skin.’

Alexander couldn’t deny it.

‘I just wanted to see,’ Popov said calmly. ‘It was interesting to watch. Tomorrow, or the next day, or the next, you’ll be caught. And then I shan’t save you. You’ll be on your own. If they ask me, I shall tell them exactly what you are.’ He paused. ‘But in the meantime, you see,’ and now it seemed that Popov was speaking for a lifetime, ‘you will know that you are no better than me. In fact, you are worse. You’re nothing. Goodbye.’

He walked away.

And Alexander Bobrov, looking after him, wondered if he was right.

The next day the Bobrovs left for Finland.

In the months leading up to June 1918, a rather unexpected change began to take place in Vladimir Suvorin. Whether it was the effect of the events surrounding him, or whether it was one of those physical changes which sometimes occur rather suddenly with age, it was hard to say.

The events of that spring might have shattered a lesser man.

A week after his wife had left, the Cheka called him in to ask him where she was. He told them with perfect truth that she had gone to Finland. ‘We estimate your fortune at twenty-five million roubles,’ one of the men remarked. ‘What have you to say?’

‘I didn’t know I had so much,’ he answered blandly.

‘You won’t for long,’ they promised.

In March Vladimir was informed that the Art Nouveau house belonged to the state; two days later, the great Suvorin mansion became a museum. In April, the factories at Russka were taken over. Late in May, after asking him to spend several days explaining various aspects of their workings, all the Moscow plants followed. By the month of June, Vladimir controlled nothing.

It was strange. He had never taken a great interest in affairs outside Russia except in so far as art was concerned. He had no overseas investments. The only deposits in foreign countries that the great industrialist possessed were the accounts in London and Paris that his son and he used for purchasing works of art and enough for Mrs Suvorin to live on for a while, but no more. By June, therefore, Vladimir was poor.

He was not personally harassed. When the house became a museum, he received a personal visit from the minister, Lunarcharsky, a kindly man, who with his bald pate and pince-nez perched on his nose looked more like a professor than a revolutionary. Lunarcharsky was straightforward: ‘My dear fellow, the museum needs a curator. Who better than you? Nadezhda can be your deputy.’ And they were permitted to inhabit a small apartment at the back of the house, which had once been used by the housekeeper.

Each day, therefore, Vladimir would solemnly lead round the parties of workers whom Lunarcharsky would enthusiastically send along in lorries, while Nadezhda would try to explain a Picasso to puzzled peasant women, or quietly sweep the floor.

The physical change in Vladimir was two-fold. In the first place, he lost weight, so that now his clothes hung somewhat loosely on his large frame. But secondly, whether it was his weight loss which showed the bone structure of his face, or whether some other process was also at work, his physiognomy began to change. His jaw seemed longer, his eyes more deepset, and his nose appeared to be longer and coarser. By the end of June, though not quite so tall, the resemblance had become extremely striking – he looked just like his grandfather, old Savva Suvorin.

And perhaps hardship had given him something of Savva’s temperament, too. For now the man for whom all things were always possible had become rather silent and cautious. And determined.

He watched events closely. Since the spring, two important developments had taken place. First, the capital was transferred from Petrograd to Moscow. Second, under Lenin’s direct instructions a peace had been signed with Germany at Brest Litovsk. It gave way to all Germany’s demands. Finland, Poland, Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia all became independent. So, under German control, did the Ukraine. The loss was devastating in terms of agriculture and mineral resources. But as Russia was then in no position to fight, it may have saved the Bolshevik régime. Since Russia was no longer their active ally, however, the peace also caused the western powers to look carefully at the new Socialist government whose leaders had long and actively espoused the cause of world revolution. By summer, a British force had already established a beachhead in the far north, officially to guard allied ammunition supplies; and soon a Japanese force, encouraged by the United States, had landed upon the Pacific shore in distant Vladivostok. Other forces were also at work. In the far south, the Don Cossacks were preparing to resist the Bolsheviks; other opposition was gathering in the east beyond the Volga. Lenin, clearly anxious, was busily recruiting a new Red Army. Trotsky was in personal charge. In Moscow, they had been offering steadily higher salaries all spring to get recruits. ‘There’s going to be a civil war,’ Vladimir told Nadezhda. ‘Though God knows who’ll win it.’

Quietly, carefully, Vladimir watched. June passed, then July. And then, in the last part of July, the news came which decided him.

They had shot the Tsar.

Dimitri looked thoughtfully at his Uncle Vladimir and then his father. It was the first time he had seen a tension between them. Still stranger was it to hear his father, standing in the dining room, say in almost cutting tones to the great man: ‘I am surprised you should even ask me to desert my country.’

They had been talking for half an hour and reached only an impasse. Patiently Vladimir had explained his reasoning. The increasing terror from the Cheka, the danger from outside. ‘Only one thing can result when a régime is in this kind of position,’ he argued. ‘Either it falls, or it imposes a tyranny. I’m sure now that the Bolsheviks will hold on to power. And the killing of the Tsar signals their intentions. They’ll stand and fight. And I for one will certainly be destroyed.’

‘The Tsar was killed by the local Siberian Soviet anyway,’ Peter objected.

‘I don’t believe it. And history will prove me right.’

But Professor Peter Suvorin wasn’t very interested in the Tsar.

There was no doubt, Vladimir considered, as he looked at his brother, that Peter could be irritating. He thought sadly of Rosa; then, with a grim smile, of his old grandfather. What, he wondered, had poor old Savva made of Peter? Not much, it seemed. To Vladimir’s deep and wide-ranging mind, accustomed to weigh causes and intentions as well as to appreciate the beautiful, his brother’s intelligence, however fine in its way, was superficial. Carefully he had questioned him about the events of recent months: the Bolshevik seizure of power, the ousting of moderate Socialists like the professor himself. All these things, Peter agreed, had disturbed him greatly. ‘But in the long run, don’t you see, Vladimir, it may have to be this way. We have the revolution. That’s the point, die revolution.’ And he had smiled with that sweet, clear look in his eyes which made Vladimir shake his head and remark grumpily: ‘I may be wrong, but I think you see what you want to.’

Yet why, Dimitri wondered, despite my father’s refusal, should Uncle Vladimir still be putting such pressure upon me to go? For I haven’t the least desire to.

Indeed, the last few months had been thrilling. In the ferment of the revolution, the artists of the avant-garde had been taking to
the streets. Posters and proclamations were signed by artists like Mayakovsky. ‘Every artist is a revolutionary and every revolutionary is an artist,’ a young friend of his had declared. Huge murals were appearing. On top of a building near their apartment, a bristling sculpture made of metal girders towered up as if to proclaim the new, scientific age to the blue sky. There was a huge banner by Tolkin draped halfway down a theatre nearby. Each day, he and Karpenko had roamed the streets in wonder. Karpenko was painting busily and he, Dimitri, planned to astonish them all with his new symphony – a hymn to the revolution. How, therefore, could he possibly want to leave?

It was only when Peter was out of the room for a moment that Vladimir confessed to him: ‘I must beg you to come, Dimitri, because I promised your mother that I would.’ He paused. ‘It was really her last request, you know.’

‘But why?’ Dimitri asked. ‘Why should she be so anxious for me to leave?’

Vladimir sighed. ‘She had dreams.’

‘Of what?’

‘That something would happen to you if you stayed.’ He paused. ‘The dreams became very terrible to her, very vivid, just before the end.’

‘Before the accident?’

Vladimir looked at him sadly. ‘Quite.’

But the boy was shaking his head. ‘I couldn’t leave my father – I don’t want to go anyway.’ He looked down. ‘My mother always told me I’d be safe as long as I was a musician, you know.’ Then he looked up again and grinned. ‘As you see, I am.’

And so, reluctantly, Vladimir gave up. Only one person in the professor’s apartment agreed to go. And this was Karpenko who, after hearing the debate, said quietly: ‘I will come with you to Kiev. I want to get home.’

It was the following day that Dimitri asked his father a favour. The Symphony to the Revolution was going well, but in the slow movement he wanted to incorporate some material he had written out, fully orchestrated, when he had been down in the country two years before.

‘And the devil of it is,’ he explained, ‘I must have left it down at Russka, in Uncle Vladimir’s house. As I hear the place was hardly
touched, it’s probably still sitting there; but I haven’t really time to go down there.’

And Peter had smiled. ‘I’ll gladly go for you,’ he promised.

Nadezhda had got used to her new life. She liked the simple workers she took round the house. She was even used to having them watch her sweep the floor. For sheer convenience now, she often dressed like a simple peasant woman herself, with a scarf over her head. And above all, she was glad to feel that in this, the great crisis of his life, she was there beside her father. I at least, she thought bitterly of her mother, remain always at his side.

Only one thing made her angry and caused her to fall silent for an hour or more. And this was the presence of Yevgeny Popov.

‘Why does he come here?’ she would moan aloud. ‘Does he come to taunt me? To gloat?’ Two, sometimes three, times a week Popov would come by, curiously inspect the house, look in at their apartment, and then with a brief nod, depart. ‘I’d like to slam the door in his face,’ she once said bitterly to her father, but he only warned her quietly: ‘Never annoy a man like that. He’s dangerous these days.’

Did her father know about Popov and her mother? She had always supposed he did, but never asked. How dare the man come around like this to look at her poor father now?

It was understandable therefore if, as their departure approached, she should dream happily of being rid of the intruder.

Vladimir’s plan of escape was very simple.

He had noticed that the Bemsky railway station was, at certain times, a scene of general chaos. And it was from there that trains left for the Ukrainian frontier. It was still not too difficult to get forged papers. The main thing, in his position, was not to be recognized. The plan was kept secret. Once the date was decided, not even Dimitri or Peter were to be told.

Everything seemed quite normal, therefore, on the afternoon before their departure, when Popov came by the house.

He made his usual round of inspection, then carefully looked in upon the apartment, where he found Nadezhda alone; no doubt he would have gone without delaying if she had not glanced up at him and remarked: ‘Well, have you come to gloat as usual?’ Adding drily: ‘No one’s stolen anything – unless you have, of course.’

He looked at her curiously. ‘Perhaps you should be more polite to a People’s Commissar. But then, you do not like me.’

She shrugged. She had said too much already and it would be madness to say more. But because she knew she was leaving, she foolishly gave way to her feelings.

‘I’m sure you are a thief. I imagine you are a murderer. And you tried to steal my mother from my father, who is an angel. Why should I do anything but despise you?’

For nearly half a minute, Popov said nothing. Why was it, he wondered, that the bourgeoisie so often lived a lie? Why should this impertinent girl, who was old enough to be someone’s wife, continue in complete ignorance of the simple truth? So he told her about Vladimir.

After all, it wasn’t so important. Then he left.

For a long time, Nadezhda did not move. Her mouth had fallen wide open in shock, and as she sat, very pale in her chair, an onlooker might have supposed that she had died.

Surely it could not be true. She had heard of such things, of course. There was a rumour that had been whispered to her, a year ago, about Tchaikovsky. But her father – the angel she had adored and looked up to all her life! She was too shocked even to weep.

And still she had told herself it was not true until, early that evening, Dimitri had looked in, and she had said, with calculated lightness – ‘So, Dimitri, do you know about my father and Karpenko?’ And poor Dimitri, caught offguard, had gone bright crimson and asked hoarsely: ‘How the devil did you know?’

It was evening. To lessen the risk of detection, they did not enter the ornate Bemsky station all together.

Vladimir, as he strode along the platform dressed in his peasant’s shirt and belt, his heavy hand holding a bag on his shoulder, looked exactly the Russian
muzhik
his grandfather Savva had been. Some minutes later, a bashful young peasant couple, the boy dark and handsome, boarded another part of the train. Nobody particularly remembered them.