The House by the Dvina (47 page)

Ghermosha and I arranged ourselves on the bench round the crewТs dining-table. Madame Ankirova and Mother settled on the floor of the tiny landing at the top of the stair.

Shortly before the trawler was due to sail one of the commissars came out of the cabin and sat down beside me. “So, young lady,” he said, “we are all to be travelling companions.” He sounded friendly. “Yes,” I rejoined politely, looking up at his face. I was not sure what I saw there. After a short conversation on similar lines he casually, perhaps too casually, remarked: “It was a good thing they didnТt find your letters.” Somewhere inside me a little bell began to ring a warning. This friendly man with the warm voice was dangerous. “Oh, no,” I replied in the same friendly tone, “we took no letters.” “Nor money?” I shook my head. “What are you going to do in Norway if you have no money?” “We have relatives,” I said truthfully. There was a little thoughtful silence. “Did they take anything from you?” he again enquired in a gentle tone. “Oh, yes,” I rejoined, just as gently, nodding my head. “They took my motherТs hat and knickers.” He stood up, his manner changing abruptly. “My dear young lady,” he said, in a voice full of venom. “You have been lucky. Some people not only lose their hats, they lose their heads.” He vanished inside his cabin.

Any sailor who has had to travel round the coast of the Kola Peninsula knows how frightening these waters pan be. Shortly after we left Murmansk a violent storm broke over our heads. Ghermosha and I lying head to head, were constantly thrown against the table. Yet it was our only safeguard against landing on the floor and being dashed against the walls. A poor sailor at the best of times, I became desperately ill, as was Ghermosha.

We had not eaten that day and that made it worse. I dared not think as to what was happening on the small landing above. We could not see anything and only heard the terrifying screeching and howling of the wind like a lost soul in the wilderness. It was as if some fiend from hell itself was lifting this frail craft up to the heavens and casting it back into the depth of a mountainous sea. Yet it sailed on bravely, dipping in and out through the churning water, slowly, but surely making headway towards the safe shores of Norway. I do not know how long this journey lasted. Time lost all meaning. I did not think it was possible to survive such a storm and somehow reached the stage where I ceased to care. Suddenly there came a great silence. No wind, no pitching, no rolling. We had entered the sunlit harbour of Vardo. Mother and Aleksandra Andreyevna joined us. They had spent a terrible night rolling on the floor and praying to survive.

Two officials and a doctor boarded the trawler. The two communists and their secretary had their papers and a case stuffed with bank notes carefully scrutinised and apparently passed without any comments. It was now our turn. All the officials spoke in English and Russian. The doctor came over to where I was lying. “This girl,” he said to Mother, glancing at me with compassion, “appears to be seriously ill. If it is something contagious she may not be allowed to go ashore.” “Please, please believe me,” Mother began to explain anxiously, “she is a very poor sailor. It is nothing but seasickness, and besides,” she added humbly, “we have had nothing to eat for almost two days.” The three men moved aside and conferred together. We became deeply alarmed that perhaps after all we would have to return to Murmansk. But with that, one of them turned to us.

“Ladies,” he said, a wide welcoming smile spreading over his face, “you and your children may go ashore. Norway waits to welcome you.”

These wonderful words have for ever remained in my heart and mind. More than six decades have passed since the day when our feet first touched Norwegian shores, but I can never think of that wonderful country in any other way but with deep gratitude.

To the two commissars and their female companion our Norwegian friend used a different tone. “I regret,” he said curtly in perfect Russian, “we cannot permit you to go ashore. Two of our ships will escort your trawler out of the harbour from where you can return to Russia. No one at all,” he continued coldly, “will be permitted to leave this ship.” And so in the end it was us, only us, the trawler took to Norway. It was all strange and some might say miraculous.

We left the trawler and walked slowly along the pier and up a steep incline to a small hotel on the corner of the street. It had been snowing and after the darkness inside the ship, the streets and the roofs of the houses appeared dazzling white. Little, rosy-faced children skimmed past us on their sledges. Groups of people stood silently watching this strange procession with the young boy carrying a large fish over his shoulder.

Inside the hotel in our room a peat fire burned cheerfully. The hot baths, clean sheets, and the food were wonderful and seemed something out of a world we had not known for a long time.

During a short stroll in the early dusk we saw the trawler, like a dark shadow, standing off-shore, guarded by the Norwegian navy. “Strange are the ways of our lives,” Madame Ankirova remarked thoughtfully. “There it is, this trawler told to get back to Russia and guarded by nothing less than the Norwegian navy, and we, who were never meant to be on it in the first place, are safe in Norway.”

Before we left the trawler, the captain had handed back the articles he had kept for us. Unfortunately, when Mother went to exchange the roubles she was told they were worthless. This was a bitter blow, for they had been gathered in exchange for objects dear to her which she would have been wiser to have kept. I still have the roubles, just as they were packed by Mother in little white cotton bags many years ago. Having relied on them to cover our expenses to Scotland, Mother was forced to cable her father for money, which he sent immediately.

On the morning following our arrival in Vardo, several people called at the hotel. There were reporters and refugees who were still living in Vardo anxious to have the latest news from Russia. One reporter translated an article from the local paper which read: “Yesterday a small group of refugees, consisting of two women, a young girl and a boy, reached our friendly shores. They told us they came from Russia, but we believe that they must have come from some other planet. Their faces had a strange unearthly look.”

1920

Two days later we left the friendly island and boarded one of the lovely coastal ships for Bergen. The name of the ship translated into English was Silver Waters. Nothing in our eyes could have been more luxurious than this journey. Our two cabins, Madame Ankirova and Mother in one, Ghermosha and I in the other, were spacious studies in blue and silver.

The white damask tablecloths, silver, crystal, table decorations, excellent cuisine, served by immaculate stewards, all belonged to a world of a bygone age. The glorious moving panorama of the fiords, of sparkling waters, mountains, islands, revived memories of an early childhood when I used to imagine that the houses scattered on the hillsides were toys and the figures hurrying down the paths were the “little” people from some fairy world. When we left Vardo, the island was under a blanket of snow and the children were skimming down on their sledges from the schoolhouse on top of the hill, but as we sailed on through the green and blue waters of the fiords, skirting the North Cape, on to Hammerfest, Narvik and down to the south, the weather grew warmer. At Bergen we saw roses and chrysanthemums growing in the gardens.

There we said goodbye to Silver Waters and set off to walk along the cobbled road to a hotel nearby The salmon was still with us. When first sewn into a linen bag it had a pleasant tang of the sea, but now after prolonged wanderings it stank to high heaven. Ghermosha, a sensitive boy, found it wounding when approaching strangers turned aside clutching their nose “Mama,” he said despairingly, “I just canТt carry this stinking fish any longer.” Mama agreed that enough was enough.

“Aleksandra Andreyevna,” she began in persuasive tones, “I donТt think your dear Mariya would enjoy this salmon any more Ч and as for France, no self-respecting Frenchman would allow it across the borders.” And to clinch her argument she added, “W shall be far from welcome in any hotel here.” Madam Ankirova remained silent for a moment or two. “You are right,” she said at last. “Just lay it on top of that barrel dear,” she said to Ghermosha. And that was exactly what Ghermosha did. No one said another word, bi just continued walking.

As there were no barriers placed in our way, Mother being British, we sailed the next day for Newcastle. Madame Ankirova, to our great disappointment, could not travel with us, as she had to wait for an entry perm from France. We had hoped to continue our journey together to the end, but that was not to be. She came to see us off. We all wept as she blessed and kissed each in turn.

It was another stormy crossing to Newcastle. Then a taxi took us to an hotel. We spent a restful night and the following morning boarded the train for Dundee. From the train we saw again the same orderly houses, neat gardens, fields with the solitary oaks, cows grazing, coppices in gold and crimson.

By the afternoon we were on the bridge, rumbling over the great expanses of the Tay. In the distance was the ancient castle and sweeping from it to the west the beaches of Broughty Ferry Ч our journeyТs end. The train was slowing down now. With screeching brakes it shuddered and stopped at Tay Bridge station. One short lap remained. We had to catch the train to West Ferry from the East station, lying at the other end of Dock Street. An obliging porter arranged our luggage on a barrow and set off along the cobbled street with us walking behind him.

After buying the tickets and tipping the porter, we boarded the train, sharing a compartment with a group of schoolgirls. Their smart clothing, lively chattering, attracted my attention, but we ourselves aroused curiosity too Ч I, in my heavy coat and fur hat, Ghermosha in his grey uniform with the black Persian lamb collar. Being too polite to stare openly, they stole sidelong glances, while continuing their cheerful gossiping Ч I, listening to their carefree voices, happy laughter, was overcome by a deep longing to be like them, to belong, to have both parents, my own home. A few minutes later we drew up at the neat station of West Ferry. From all parts of the train children were spilling out and hurrying to the steps leading out of the station.

It was then we suddenly recognised the familiar figure of Grandfather in his navy suit, stetson hat and flower in buttonhole, walking sedately towards the exit. We had travelled on the same train unaware of each otherТs presence.

“Run,” Mother called to me. “Hurry Ч catch Grandpa.” Grandpa was almost at the top of the steps as I ran. Between us was this jostling crowd of children. Scrambling, pushing through them, I reached out and touched my grandfatherТs arm. “Grandpa,” I said. He stopped and turned, amazement spreading over his face. “Grandpa,” I repeated. “WeТve come back again Ч

we are back.”

Epilogue

We three who got away began our lives afresh in Scotland. I attended a small private school called St MargaretТs where I was taught to read and write in English. My brother was enrolled at the Grove Academy in Broughty Ferry. On leaving school I joined BruceТs College in Dundee, where I received a business training, which enabled me to make my way in life.

On the death of my grandparents, Mother moved to a small flat in town. I later married and went to live in Calcutta and, like most wives in India, spent my life between my husband and our twin sons, who were educated first in Dundee and later in Edinburgh. My brother, meanwhile, was forging ahead with the British-controlled oil company in Venezuela. While on leave in New York he met and married an attractive American girl. As their children were also being educated in Edinburgh, both families settled there and were eventually joined by our mother who much enjoyed the company of her family and grandchildren. She died at the ripe age of eighty-two.

Up to the time of my fatherТs death my mother kept up a steady correspondence with him and tried to ease his tragic existence in every possible way. The Bolsheviks allowed no parcels, but between the sheets of her lengthy letters she always enclosed a few Gillette razor blades.

Blades of any kind were unobtainable in Russia and in this way my father was provided with a steady source of barter. I need hardly add that we never returned to Archangel. We were lucky. Of all the passengers who sailed on the ill-fated Canada I knew only one other who returned to Britain.

One day a young RAF officer called at Bay House. He was Osborne Grove. He accepted an invitation to spend the night and we sat up late discussing many things Ч the tragic death of his pilot Kostya when their plane crashed, the sad fate which overtook so many of our fellow passengers. He left the following morning. We never saw him again.

My fatherТs cousin, Margunya, fled to Norway before the final debacle of the White Army. Her husband, Lieutenant-Colonel Dilakatorsky, continued fighting to the bitter end. When everything was lost and further action was futile he decided to join the remaining refugees on the last ship due to sail for Norway. On arriving at the landing stage he discovered that two of his young officers had not as yet arrived. Knowing the kind of fate which would await them if they were left behind and encouraged by the promise that the ship would be held back, he hurried off to fetch the stragglers. The three men returned to the docks only to find they were too late. The ship had sailed without them.

The only remaining escape route was to cross the border into Norway. The trek on skis in the worst arctic conditions demanded all their willpower and endurance, but they were almost there when, in the last stages of exhaustion, they were tempted by the sight of a cottage to beg for shelter. The peasant was friendly. Heating a samovar and offering some food he invited them to rest a while. There was no need for hurry he assured them Ч all were safe with him. While they sat, warm and refreshed, talking trustingly to their host, the cottage was suddenly surrounded. The peasant had betrayed them by sending out his son to inform the Bolsheviks.