The Grand Duchess of Nowhere (26 page)

If I’d been asked, Willie Gerhardi was the very person I’d have chosen to drive me into exile.

‘Don’t look back,’ he said. ‘If I may suggest, just get into the motor and look straight ahead. Think of lovely, cool Finland.’

But I had to say something to Serafim. He’d been so loyal when everyone else deserted us. I told him we’d see him in September. October at the latest.

‘
Da, Barina!
’ he said. ‘Octyabrya, wid many mushroom!’

He smiled but there were tears in his eyes.

Gerhardi didn’t delay for an instant. He pulled away towards Ekaterinovsky Prospekt and then turned south along Voznesensky.

He said, ‘I’ve been instructed to make a little detour, in case your departure has aroused any interest. I honestly don’t think it will have done. Everyone’s too hot and tired.’

I asked him if he was staying on.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘most likely. But my situation’s entirely different to yours. We don’t get any trouble at the British Mission, quite the opposite actually, and Kerensky seems a reasonable type. However my brother, Victor, wouldn’t agree. He thinks Kerensky’s a five-minute wonder. Victor predicts he’ll be out before long. Then the Bolsheviks will start emptying everyone’s pockets. My mother goes along with whatever Victor thinks. So they’ll leave. Probably
when the weather cools down. Mother would hate to leave any of her furs behind.’

We crossed the Obvodny Canal and followed the embankment past Resurrection Church before we doubled back and began to travel in the right direction. The sky was leaden. No prospect of darkness, just hour after hour of gloaming. I hate the White Nights.

Gerhardi never stopped talking. He meant to keep me diverted. He saw how anxious I was. I will also say that his driving was greatly improved.

‘Now here’s something you may not have seen,’ he said.

We’d just crossed the Fontanka heading towards the Alexander Bridge.

‘On your left,’ he said. ‘Do you see what they’ve done to the church?’

The outside of St Panteleimon was hung with red flags. You would hardly have known it was a church. Actually, Gerhardi thought it probably wasn’t one any longer.

‘Churches are on their way out,’ he said. ‘That’s the word. They’ve probably turned this one into a workers’ canteen. Or a Soviet committee room. They do love their committees. And they breed like rabbits. The committees, I mean, not the Bolshies.’

We were nearly there.

He said, ‘I don’t imagine you’ve been to the station since recent events. The old Imperial pavilion belongs to the People now so I’ll let you down at the front entrance. Just walk in and find your family. Don’t worry about your bags. I’ll bring them round.’

My feet had swollen even more during our drive. I hobbled into the station, no idea where I was going. I couldn’t see Cyril though the place wasn’t very crowded. I asked a worker if there was a train leaving for Riihimäki. He shrugged his shoulders but he didn’t walk on. He’d caught my accent.

‘
Vy, otkooda
?’ he asked me. ‘Where are you from?’

‘
Velikobritanniya
,’ I said, and he shook my hand. British was still the thing to be. Then I heard, ‘Mummy! There’s Mummy!’ and Kira came hurtling towards me and threw herself into my arms. When I looked to where she’d come from I saw Cyril and Masha waiting with our bags, but they made no move to join me. In fact Cyril turned his back. His face was quite known in Petrograd, I imagine, even sheltering under the brim of a Montecristo, and he was feeling nervous.

When Willie Gerhardi appeared with my bags, the sight of his British Mission khakis confirmed my ‘
britanskaya
’ credentials. The worker shook his hand too and the three of us stood and smiled at each other idiotically until Willie said, ‘Well, I suppose …’ and our new Bolshevik friend went on his way.

Cyril was tetchy.

He said, ‘Why must you chat to people? One never knows who they might be. One never knows who’s listening.’

I said, ‘I was only playing the British card, as recommended. Did you find our train?’

‘Yes and no,’ he said. ‘A meeting of the rail workers’ Soviet was called so our locomotive has been kept on a low fire. They’re only now starting to get up steam. It’ll be another hour at least before we get away. The girls say they’re hungry and I’ve already dismissed my driver, so perhaps your chappie could go and find them something?’

Gerhardi said there was nothing to be had on the station.

‘But give me half an hour,’ he said. ‘I’ll see what I can find.’

‘Meanwhile,’ Cyril said, ‘I suppose we may as well go and appropriate a carriage. There are no baggage porters, needless to say. They’re all too busy attending meetings.’

Cyril pushed me from behind and I climbed up so he could hand
our luggage to me piece by piece. I felt as though everyone was looking at us. They weren’t, of course. Everyone was absorbed in their own little world and we were just another family getting out of the heat of the city for a while.

Kira said, ‘This isn’t our train. Our train has carpet.’

Masha hissed at her to shut up. A ten-year-old has some understanding of difficult situations, of the need for tact, but an eight-year-old will blunder on and the more you try to silence her, the more insistent she grows.

‘This train is disgusting,’ she said. ‘It smells of poor people.’

It did smell. Of cabbage, I think. It wasn’t so very bad.

Masha wondered about beds.

Cyril said, ‘No sleeping car this time, Mashenka. We’re going to sit up all night. What an adventure, eh!’

She said, ‘You mean all the way to Haikko?’

‘No, just to Riihimäki.’

‘Then what?’

‘The von Etters will send a driver for us.’

‘How will they know when to send him?’

‘I’ll send a wire when we get to Kouvola Junction.’

I said, ‘You mean you didn’t wire them yet? What if they’re not at home?’

‘As you may recall,’ he said, ‘I’ve been somewhat occupied today. Anyway, of course they’ll be at home. Where else would they be?’

‘Send them a wire now. You have nothing else to do.’

‘Ducky,’ he said, ‘I will contact the von Etters when I judge the moment to be right. Kira’s right, there is a frightful smell in here. I should have told your chappie to bring us some Jeyes Fluid.’

I said, ‘He’s not my chappie, Cyril. He’s Second Lieutenant Gerhardi and he’s Alf Knox’s extremely kind and obliging chappie.’

‘Ha!’ he said. ‘And one of those young lady-charmers, clearly.’

Gerhardi was gone a long time but he did return. He brought cheese and salted cucumbers and sticks of barley sugar.

‘No bread, I’m afraid,’ he said. ‘Mother did have some but she wouldn’t let me bring it. She says it isn’t fit for humans.’

He’d been to his family home to raid the pantry.

‘And a little something for the grown-ups too,’ he said.

He’d brought vodka and a pack of cigarettes. We said our goodbyes.

‘I hope all goes well,’ he said. ‘I’m sure it will. An anxious time for you, I imagine. Baby due and all that. But perhaps you’ll be back, if things settle down. I expect we’ll meet again.’

Off he went, and we were left alone.

Cyril said, ‘Did he say he got these provisions from his mother? But he’s one of Knox’s men. He’s British.’

‘British, Russian. His people have been here for years. They have some kind of factory.’

‘You seem to know all about him.’

‘I’ve met him several times. He was often at the Buchanans’. He’s a writer.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘He’s writing a play and a novel.’

‘Good grief,’ Cyril said. ‘And yet he seemed like a perfectly regular sort of fellow. One just never knows.’

So, even on the night we fled from our home with no more than we could carry and our hosts not expecting us, I did find something to laugh about. Bookish people made Cyril uneasy, doubly so if they were men. Pa had been just the same. I don’t believe either of them ever opened a book after they’d passed their trigonometry paper at cadet school. Cyril likes motoring and shooting and
identifying naval vessels through a telescope. He likes to belong to clubs where he won’t encounter any Willie Gerhardis.

*

We finally got underway just before ten o’clock. We had the carriage to ourselves. The girls were wide awake with excitement.

Cyril took my hand.

‘You all right, old thing?’ he said. ‘Not liable to give birth en route, are you?’

I said, ‘I need to sleep.’

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘you do that. Actually it might make things easier, should there be any hitches. A sleeping woman, in a certain condition. They won’t wake you.’

‘Do you think there will be hitches?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘But let me put it this way, I’ll be a lot happier when we’re the other side of Beloostrov.’

Beloostrov was the customs post. But before that we had to get through Terijoki and the border control. The train seemed to proceed at a crawl. Half an hour and we were barely past the mills and the factory chimneys. Kira needed the water closet and so did I.

I said, ‘We have to wait until the train stops.’

She whined. ‘Why can’t we go to Finland in Granny Miechen’s coupé? Why did that man bring us cucumbers for our supper? I hate cucumbers. Why can’t we go to the dining car?’

Masha said, ‘There is no dining car, squirt.’

The train slowed to barely a creak.

‘Terijoki,’ Cyril said. He checked his papers for the hundredth time and we came to a halt beside a platform. The new guards don’t have a uniform. I’m sure they will, before long. A uniform makes such a difference. But for now they come as they are. There was a woman guard in a greasy army greatcoat, in spite of the heat. There was a boy in nothing but an undervest and a pair of wool
reituzi
.
They both carried pistols but awkwardly, as though they weren’t accustomed to going armed.

Cyril asked for the
noozhni
. The Necessary.

‘For my wife,’ he said. ‘And my children.’

‘
Dakoomyenti
,’ the woman barked.

It was my cue to appear. When the boy saw my size, he pointed along the platform to the guard room. The woman paid me no attention at all. She was interested in Cyril’s permit to travel. As he had explained it to me, Kerensky’s signature should remove all barriers. ‘But this is Russia,’ he’d added, ‘so one should take nothing for granted. Some of these types have gone a little power-mad.’

There was no water closet, of course. It was a bucket. Kira said she’d rather die than use it.

‘Very well,’ I said. ‘Die. But do it quickly before the train leaves.’

‘I’m telling Daddy,’ she said.

But she did use the bucket.

Poor child. It wasn’t her fault Miechen had tried to make such a little Grand Duchess of her. It wasn’t her fault Emperor Nicky had bungled things so monumentally and put us out of house and home.

Cyril was still being questioned. A third guard had joined the party and was studying Kerensky’s permit very closely. His face was impossible to read and so was Cyril’s. He said something about me, I don’t know what.

‘
Moya zhena
,’ was all I could make out. ‘My wife.’

The guard gestured to me to get back into the train. I felt it was a good sign.

Masha said, ‘I can understand why they might stop a person coming
into
Russia. They might be brigands. But why would they stop a person from leaving a country?’

It was a good question.

Terijoki station was silent. It was the middle of the night though
you’d never have known it from the sky. Cyril was the last passenger still detained on the platform. Then I heard laughter and he appeared, smiling.

‘All in order,’ he said. ‘Off we go!’

I said, ‘What amused them?’

‘Guard asked me when you were going to have the baby and I said, “Not tonight, I pray.” But I’ll tell you what was really funny. That boy? He couldn’t read. Hadn’t a clue. He was holding Kerensky’s letter upside down.’

We rattled on to Vyborg at a good clip. There are fewer factories out there, just small houses, packed together. Perhaps we’ll end up living in one. Mother would prevent it if she could, and so would Miechen, but they might be poor too, when the war ends. I don’t really understand about money. Only that it can just disappear. I wonder how much those little houses cost.

Masha read to Kira from
Jock of the Bushveld
. Kira was still sulking about the bucket and refused to look at me.

Between Vyborg and Beloostrov, the train crawled again. Cyril’s shirt was stained with sweat. He needed a shave. He pushed open the window. Soot came in, but no air. I tried to think of sea breezes. I imagined taking off not just my second pair of drawers but all my underclothes. I imagined walking into the water wearing nothing but my bathing dress. Not even a pair of stockings.

‘Here we go,’ Cyril said.

He could see we were at last approaching the customs shed. He lit a cigarette.

I said, ‘What do you expect?’

‘Bags gone through,’ he said. ‘Coat lining. Boots. I’m sure they have a routine by now.’

He leaned out of the window.

‘Place is deserted,’ he said.

It was nearly two in the morning. Was it really going to be so easy? My heart was pounding.

‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Hold on. Signs of life.’

Two men were making their way along the platform, stopping at each car.

Cyril said, ‘Nobody seems to be getting down. Close your eyes, Ducky. Or look bleary at least.’

I never saw their faces. They sounded agreeable enough.

‘
Zhena zhdyot ribyonka?
’ I heard one of them say. ‘Wife expecting?’

Another voice asked about money. Cyril showed them what he had.

He offered them each a Park Drive.

‘
Schastlivava pootee
,’ they said. ‘Bon voyage.’

We sat in silence while they continued on along the remaining carriages. A wheel tapper passed by and a cock crowed. Then, very, very slowly, the train began to move again.

‘So that’s that,’ Cyril said. ‘Couldn’t have been easier. The poor buggers just wanted to get back to their cots and sleep. I presume you do have a few gewgaws hidden away?’