Artem inspected his Mauser in the back seat.
He said, I should get one of these, Timofei Maximovich.
You should, said Slatkin. But I can’t spare that one, I’m sorry.
Artem gave it back without regret and I pulled mine out of my pocket and handed it over.
Well done, comrade, Slatkin said. You waved it at those officers like a true bandit. I couldn’t tell you before, but the hold-up was a bit of a fake. The men on the gate and half the guardroom were our fellows. We had to threaten them to make them seem blameless. You were never in great peril, Paddy.
I don’t know why but I felt a little disappointed – I’d wanted the peril to be real.
As far as I know, neither before or after our adventure at the fort did Slatkin tell Artem exactly why he was wanted in Petrograd. But I met Federev in the corridor and his face had a sourness it had never had while we were his guests.
He said, Off to Piter? So soon! While the old campaigners stay here whistling as best they can in Kharkov.
We’ll be back, I told him.
Unless Vladimir Ilich considers you too valuable to lose. But better watch out. The gendarmes will be on your trail. He turned and went into his office.
Slatkin had the tickets for us. The next morning Artem took Tasha for a walk in the city gardens – the very ones where we’d seen the thief shot and drowned. When they got back Tasha looked flushed in the face – as if there’d been an intimate conversation and not just an exchange of political ideas.
Finally we said goodbye to Federev. I hadn’t told Artem about my earlier exchange with the lawyer and to Artem’s face he pretended he was impressed by the summons to Piter. He hadn’t known he was harbouring someone so essential to Petrograd, he said. He asked Artem to tell the Central Committee what was happening in Kharkov and how the revolution was on a knife edge – the Germans might renew their offensive or the forces of the Rada might try to take Kharkov. I wondered – was all this talk of knife edges designed to make the people in Petrograd think he was important?
Federev provided his car to take us to the station – a sure sign he wanted Artem’s backing and his words to be dropped into the right ears. Then we were off with Red Guards again draped across the fenders and standing on the running boards. Their rifles protruded either side of the car bonnet like a porcupine’s spines. So we got to Kharkov’s main station – a place I was used to by now. There were people all over the platform. Women sat on bundles of luggage looking weary. Men smoked their pipes and kids made the best of things by chasing each other around the columns. They had borne the summer but wanted to get away to the country for the winter. There were no regular services any more. They waited there on the off-chance that a train would go where they wanted to go – to relatives in the countryside where there were cows and butter and chickens. I knew this would be the scene at any station we visited.
A small delegation of railway workers had met us at the station to lead us to our carriage. Artem – seeing himself as a railway man– was always disappointed that the Mensheviks had now captured the leadership position in the Railway Men’s Union.
Artem said to them, I thought you were all Mensheviks.
Too many of us are, said one man.
In the allotted carriage we had our own compartment. People who wanted to travel north climbed aboard our train and men sat on the roof. Railway guards went along the length of the train yelling at them that they’d get their heads knocked off when the train entered tunnels. They yelled back that they’d lie flat for the tunnels. Soon we were off, overcrowded but leaving hordes of people still on the platform. Slatkin slept and Artem read while I looked out the window and continued my education in Russia – the churches and the country streams. The mines. The clumps of birches. Every country village with houses of old grey wood that looked like stacked and weathered timber. You’d expect crows to come flying out of the windows and flit over the fences of plaited black branches. Children ran after the train, holding up their hands and touching their mouths – they were willing to catch money or food. So much for the countryside! Grain dealers had driven the price up so the poorer families couldn’t afford wheat or rye and might have already eaten their seed crop.
I saw a bare-footed idiot – poor creature – standing without his pants in the dust and holding his privates. Was he the national symbol? I wondered.
As we travelled I also read an English – Russian phrasebook, a ridiculous little book – like a pop-gun aimed at my gigantic ignorance. I felt I would need it more than ever though. Because Artem was right. I did not believe I would be going back to Australia soon. There’s nothing like language lessons to put the teachers – Artem and Slatkin – and student to sleep. I woke as the train was grinding into the Vitebsk station at Petrograd. I saw the platform here was as crowded as the one in Kharkov – maybe more so.
There were sailors, soldiers, families. Pedlars went amongst them selling wizened little apples and oranges and even cups of water from a bucket. Men playing balalaikas and others, strumming a sort of banjo made out of just a few strings stretched across a hollowed-out pumpkin skin, strolled through the crowd hoping to be paid for their music.
When we got down on the platform ourselves a smell of piss and uncollected garbage hit us like a blow. It was the stink of a government falling apart. But strong enough – as Slatkin had told us – to force Vladimir Ilich to flee and to put Trotsky in jail along with the woman hero Kollontai who’d come back from America with him earlier that year. They’d been Mensheviks but they’d since come across to Vladimir Ilich’s side. I would notice that up in the capital the divisions weren’t as sharp as they were in Kharkov. Men and women who weren’t as schooled as Artem or Tasha moved all the time from one group to another.
Outside the station another giant auto pulled up; apparently it was Slatkin’s. We got inside and there sat a tall woman – long-faced and pale – in a summer hat and a long white dress: Mrs Slatkin. Slatkin kissed her on both cheeks and she looked delighted. He sat down, holding her left hand, while Artem kissed the gloved right one.
Kiss her hand, Artem advised me softly. I did it. The glove was of a sort of netting or gauze and I could see the bones running underneath it. Then Red Guards with rifles climbed up onto our running boards – to signal to any mob this was not the sort of burzhooi car ripe to be seized or attacked or fired upon – and we were off.
12
I felt wide awake as we rolled through the broad streets. There was a peculiar smell to this city – something different and more complicated than at the railway station. Artem told me, You can hear the voice of the earth up here in the north. Yelling for rebirth.
Piter had brought out visions and poetry in him – that seemed to be one of the jobs it always did for Russians.
As the sun rose we crossed a canal the colour of soiled gold. Slatkin swung around in his seat.
Two carloads of gendarmes were behind us. They followed anyone who might lead them to Vladimir Ilich.
We rolled down very wide avenues quiet at that hour and full of apartments grander than the best in Kharkov. We pulled up in front of one that even had its own doorman.
Slatkin’s driver left his seat in the front and opened the door on the pavement side. He handed Mrs Slatkin out and she was followed by Slatkin. He watched the police cars roll past as if they weren’t interested.
Goodbye boys, called Slatkin.
Since Artem did not move I knew this was not where we were going to stay. I could see Slatkin giving the driver further instructions.
We moved on a little – the Red Guards still on the running boards – and stopped by double wooden gates further along the street. The driver pipped his horn and the gates opened. We were driven into a cobbled courtyard and through an archway that led into a dim lane. From here we emerged on another street of reasonable size. We did not travel too far from the flasher part of town – the building we eventually pulled up at did not look shabby. We shook hands solemnly
with the Red Guards – just boys but determined ones. They came from the factories in the northern suburbs. Slatkin’s chauffeur insisted on carrying our stained kits and led us into the lobby and up the stairs and then rang the bell for us. Once it was opened by a young servant woman the chauffeur saluted us and ran back downstairs. The apartment we entered seemed very still. But a good-looking middle-aged woman appeared from somewhere inside and greeted Artem. She seemed to know him and her lively green eyes flashed on seeing him.
Speaking softly to him – it turned out the rest of the family who lived here weren’t up yet – she kept her hand on Artem’s upper arm while she gave her orders to her maid. Then she exchanged an earnest hug and kiss with Artem and shook my hand before the maid led us into the kitchen and sat us down at a big scoured table. She fetched us bread and broth and made us tea. Then she said something under her breath. Artem laughed and looked at me.
She told me things cost a lot here so we must appreciate what we’re given. She thinks we’re tramps.
We were still eating when an older man with a shock of grey hair came into the kitchen. He and Artem embraced. This man was a renowned Marxist named Sergei Alliluyev – the owner of this apartment. The woman who’d met us was his wife. Alliluyev grinned at Artem, and Artem grinned back at him – two fellows who’d been through it and were now meeting up again in more promising times.
Artem crinkled his nose. There was a pretty strong smell of tobacco wafting into the kitchen. Makhorka, he complained. It was a word I knew. It was the sort of tobacco smoked by peasants and hard-up workers.
Koba, said Alliluyev.
Ah, said Artem.
The reek got closer to us now and a man about Artem’s age came into the kitchen. He looked at first to be built for endurance and I suppose you’d call him strong. He had pockmarks on his face but I thought he was good-looking in a dark sort of way. His collarless shirt looked no better than mine. And I noticed one of his arms was shorter than the other. I would find out later that it had been like that since his childhood. He stood in the doorway with his eyes twinkling and sang a few lines of a song. Then puffed away and put on a performance fart that was meant to go with the smoking. But then he put his pipe down as if he’d never take it up again. He’d had enough.
The greeting between Artem and this new man Koba was not as warm as the one I’d witnessed between Artem and Alliluyev. There was a simple explanation – they had never met before. Koba – as all Russia would one day know – had been in prison or at least in exile in Siberia for most of the time Artem had been in Brisbane.
Artem kindly introduced me. Koba shook my hand roughly – grinning at me as if I were a hayseed.
Paddy, I mumbled. Pleased to meet you.
In reply he just opened his mouth and let out sounds that imitated my accent. Wah-wah-wah! he said back to me and looked at Artem and Alliluyev inviting them to laugh with him. Alliluyev laughed but Artem abstained.
Now we all sat down and began to drink tea. The conversation grew serious and I was left with the crumbs of it – a word here and there. I realised again that apart from being his travelling companion and taking down his English notes I was as useless to Artem as a two-year-old. We were still drinking tea when two young women burst bubbling into the kitchen. They wore house gowns and light slippers and one of them had curl papers in her hair. They were as pretty as their mother, who had followed them in and stood slightly behind her husband with her hand on his shoulder.
The girls seemed flirtatious with Koba who turned in his chair and smiled at them. Their mother smiled too – though a bit sourly. The girls looked across the table questioningly. Artem introduced himself and once more announced where I was from and the girls covered their mouths in amazement. Then they sat down with us.
At the end of the meal their father Alliluyev said goodbye and went off to work. He managed an electricity station somewhere in Petrograd.
Olga Alliluyeva – the handsome wife and mother – showed us around the apartment. She explained that Koba was living and working in the third bedroom. This left only the sewing room for us. We found two truckle beds there by a table with a Singer sewing machine on it. After she had left we lay on our backs and looked at the ceiling and waited for sleep to hit us.
Artem said, Alliluyev is a brave fellow. But he’s very stupid with his wife and daughters.
I said nothing and let him talk on.
Olga and his daughters all desire that rogue, Koba, and Alliluyev doesn’t seem to notice. Koba’s a likeable fellow in his way but I’d say he’s unreliable with women. A typical Georgian. What do you say in Brisbane? A bullshit artist.
I would find out that Georgians were like the Sicilians of the Russian republic.
Artem told me, If I had two daughters, I wouldn’t let a fellow like Koba sleep between them and me. Not for a second.
More silence. But uneasiness about Koba kept him from resting.
I suppose he’s been very useful to the party. And he’s pretentious – Koba isn’t a good enough name any more – it’s just the name of some Georgian Robin Hood. He’s started to call himself Stalin now. The man of steel. His real Georgian name would be four times as long as that!
By now Artem’s voice was drowsy.
I’d watch those girls, he repeated sleepily. All eyes for Koba.
I still had not heard why we were in Petrograd or what job Artem had been given. But Artem was asleep.
*
When Alliluyev came back from his job in the evening there was a merry dinner. (Koba wasn’t there because he stayed out late editing Rabochii Put – Workers’ Way – in the cellar it was produced in.) Wine was passed around and even Artem had a little. The Alliluyevs’ eyes were a circle of admirable Russian smiles under the light of the apartment’s chief electric globe. They told Artem stories and – without being asked to – left gaps for him to translate for me. The reason Lenin hadn’t surrendered to the authorities in July – as Trotsky had– was that he found out from his sources among the gendarmes that there were two officers assigned by the provisional government to shoot him dead on the way to prison. And so he’d left his sister-in-law’s flat and come here – into this very apartment.
I looked around, amazed. This man they talked about as if he were the centre of the earth had been here, maybe in the kitchen or resting in the sewing room.
So Vladimir Ilich Lenin had to be got away, the tale continued, but he needed a disguise. Koba turned up and started working with the Alliluyevs to disguise him. Olga swathed his head in bandages but he looked like a mummy. Alliluyev suggested he wear a dress. But everyone laughed that idea off the face of the earth. Koba offered to shave him. He became Lenin’s barber, covering Vladimir Ilich’s face with soap and wielding the razor in front of a shaving mirror in the anteroom. Soon the job had been done and the moustache and beard were off. Lenin thought it was a pretty good job and was very pleased that he looked like a Finnish peasant now. Then Koba and Alliluyev took him to one of the railway stations – better not to say which one – and off he went and was still out there somewhere.
We went to bed before Koba came home – though the women were determined to wait up for him.
All right, Paddy, Artem told me when we lay flat on our beds, I’ll be met by a man tomorrow morning, and he’ll take me to a railway station. And from the railway station to a secret place.
There was quite a pause then.
They don’t particularly want you to come along. But I do – because of the people you’ll meet. You see, I want you at some stage after the danger’s over to write a piece for the Australian Worker and the o thers – to show people how autocrats treat men of great talent. Again, mentioning no geographic names. You won’t know a thing about where you’re going even when you get there. But the thing to bear in mind is this: you could in theory be arrested by the gendarmes or the Okhrana and be grilled by them.
More deep thought.
Anyhow, he went on, I talked to Alliluyev and
he said it would be okay on those conditions. So do you want to join me on this mysterious excursion? He laughed as if he did not need an answer.
I told him I’d tag along.
You know what? he asked. They suggested we give you a stick so you can pretend you’re a blind man. But that takes some doing.
Yes. I don’t like that idea.
He grew quiet and I didn’t hear from him again that night.
13
Koba was just stirring himself as we left the apartment the next morning. He appeared from his room in his collarless shirt and pants and embraced Artem and then me. Bon voyage, Comrade Wah-wah! he yelled.
I thought that today there was a bit less malice in it.
We went downstairs and this time there were no Red Guards and no car. Just a wiry little man even shorter than me and with a tugged-down cap. He was smoking and when he saw us he stubbed out the cigarette and put it in his pocket. He said nothing but led us outside to a tram line.
Artem whispered, See the gendarme on the corner.
In case we were followed we kept changing trams, rushing from one to another. Then we’d get off and hurry up a string of laneways until we reached another avenue and a different line. The little man seemed happy with the third tram we caught. We crossed the famous Nevsky Prospekt and I won’t bang on about all the great buildings there – just that it was magnificent with the great white buildings stretching away, as well as a string of palaces and church domes with hammered gold all washed with rain and glinting in the dawn.