The letters themselves were very straightforward. One was to Nicolai Bobrov, his supposed fellow conspirator. It told him that he was leaving, that he was going to try to burn down his grandfather’s factory and that the printing press and the leaflets were safely hidden in Savva Suvorin’s house, where no one would find them.
All that was needed was to give this letter to Misha Bobrov. As soon as the landowner threatened Suvorin with it, the angry old industrialist would be completely neutralized. If he threatens to arrest Nicolai, his own grandson goes too. This was the perfect symmetry he was so pleased with.
The other letter was just a piece of extra insurance for himself, for possible future use. It was from Peter to Popov, telling him that he was about to leave and thanking him for his kindness. Above all, it delivered Popov a wonderful exculpation.
You have been a good friend to Nicolai and to me and I know that you have begged him, as you have me, to stick to the path of reform and give up our ideas of revolution. But you do not understand these things my friend, nor how far this matter goes – and I can’t tell you. I can only hope that one day, when the bright new dawn appears, we shall meet again as friends and that you will see that all has, truly, been for the best.
Adieu.
Having outwitted them all and proved his superiority, it seemed to Popov that he would probably stay a few more days at Russka, shake down the Bobrovs for some money, and then depart.
Only two things had surprised him. Upon entering the yard at the manor house, he had found all his luggage outside the door. Why should Bobrov be so confident he would leave that night? And now, having gone inside, here was the landowner staring at him speechless, as if he had seen a ghost. Yet Bobrov must have known he’d gone out, since his luggage had been packed up.
Popov stared at Misha thoughtfully. His mind was working quickly.
‘Surprised to see me?’ he enquired.
‘Surprised?’ Misha looked flustered. ‘Not a bit, my dear fellow. Why should I be?’
‘Why indeed?’ Why, for that matter, should the landowner be blushing scarlet and calling him ‘my dear fellow’?
And now, as his own mind raced, it occurred to Misha that if the Romanovs had missed Popov, they might turn up at any time now. And then what? Drag him off in their cart and butcher him? No. He couldn’t face that any more. Yet what the devil should he do? Anxiously, without realizing he even did so, he glanced at the door.
It was all Popov needed. He did not know the details but the sense was clear. Someone was coming to get him, and the landowner was terrified. Very well, he would stay ahead.
‘If I could completely neutralize Suvorin for you, what would you give?’ he mildly enquired. And in answer to Misha’s look of desperate hope, told him about the existence of the letter from Peter Suvorin to Nicolai and explained its contents.
‘You have this letter?’ Misha asked eagerly.
‘It’s hidden, but I can get it – for a price.’
‘How much?’
‘Two thousand roubles.’
‘Two thousand?’ The poor man looked flabbergasted. ‘I haven’t got it.’
He was so nervous that Popov thought he was probably telling the truth. ‘How much have you?’ he asked.
‘About fifteen hundred, I think.’
‘Very well. That will do.’
Misha looked relieved; then anxious again. ‘There’s one other thing,’ he said nervously. ‘If I give you money, you must leave right away.’
‘What, you mean now, in the middle of the night?’
‘Yes. At once. It’s essential.’
Popov smiled faintly. It must be as he had guessed, then. Fancy this fool having the courage to have me killed, he thought. And how typical to panic afterwards. Aloud he said, ‘You’ll have to give me a horse. A good one.’
‘Yes, of course.’
That would be worth some money too. It was amazing what power someone’s guilt gave you over them.
‘Go and get the money,’ he commanded.
A quarter of an hour later, he was ready to go. He was riding Misha Bobrov’s best horse. He had fifteen hundred roubles in his pocket, and Misha had the precious letter. Before leaving the house, Popov had paused for a moment, wondering whether to go and wake Nicolai, to say goodbye. But he had decided against it. His friend had served his purpose. He had nothing to say to him. He looked down at the anxious landowner.
‘Well, goodbye until the revolution,’ he said pleasantly. Then he was gone.
It was an hour later that the two Romanovs appeared at Bobrovo to ask if Popov had been there. To make sure they didn’t try to follow Popov, the landowner told them he had not seen him.
The fire at Russka took both the warehouse, another next door, and four of the little row-houses in whose roofs flying embers had lodged. Only the following morning did anyone realize that Natalia and Grigory had gone missing; their charred remains were found hours later.
Because of an interview which took place in the early morning between Savva Suvorin and Mikhail Bobrov, no police investigation of the fire ever took place. It was declared an accident. How Natalia and Grigory came to be trapped inside was never explained. It was remarked, however, that the local police chief and his family all had new clothes a few weeks later.
Varya Romanov had her baby at the end of the year. It was a little girl whom they decided to call Arina. Varya was so attached to the baby, which replaced her only daughter, that the little girl came safely through the winter, entirely unaware that her grandmother and namesake had more than once stood over her cradle and murmured: ‘I know I ought to leave you out there, but I haven’t the heart.’
Nor was the child ever aware of another minor event that had taken place just a week after winter ended.
It was the habit of Misha Bobrov, each spring, to sort out his papers. Since this was a yearly event, there were always plenty to sort. Letters, notes he had made to himself, memoranda from zemstvo officials, unpaid bills … the papers accumulated on the big table in his study, on top of the books that lined the walls, and in the drawers of his desk. He enjoyed this business: it allowed him to survey the previous year of his life and, proceeding in a leisurely fashion, the review often took him three or four days. The letters, in particular, he liked to read over; and many of these he would then tie up with ribbon and store in boxes in the attic. When his wife suggested this was a waste of time he would calmly reply, ‘You never know,’ and continue happily with his work.
There had been much to read and ponder this last year. He had even considered writing up an account of the extraordinary events of the last summer. How strange and interesting for Nicolai’s grandchildren to read about one day, he had thought. However, he had put this task off for the time being – ‘until I’m not so busy’ – and so the only memorial of those days amongst the papers was the letter from Peter Suvorin which Popov had given him. I must certainly keep that, Misha considered. After all, one never knew when it might come in handy against the Suvorins in the future. And since the strange document did not belong with anything else, he tied a piece of red ribbon round it, labelled it ‘Suvorin Fire’, and put it up in the attic with the other letters.
It was the day after he had finished this task that he received an unexpected visitor – young Boris Romanov. The landlord had not seen the young peasant for some time and was surprised that he was not accompanied by his father; but he had him shown into his study, smiled at him pleasantly enough, and enquired: ‘Well, Boris, what is it?’
The speech that Boris had prepared was so slow and convoluted that at first Misha could not make out what he wanted; but there was a look of sullen awkwardness on the peasant’s face that made the landowner uneasy. Carefully Boris reminded him of the family’s poverty, their need for more land, and their loyalty to the Bobrovs. Then, finally, he came to the point. ‘I was thinking about last summer, sir,’ he said.
So that was it. Misha was cautious. ‘Well?’
‘We
had an agreement then, sir. About helping my father and giving my sister a dowry.’ Still Misha said nothing. ‘My sister’s dead now, sir.’
‘God rest her soul.’
‘But as you know, we have a new baby in the family.’ He looked at the floor. ‘So I wondered if you could see your way to helping us like you said, sir? Natalia’s dowry could go to the baby Arina, you see.’
Misha gazed at him thoughtfully. In truth, the young man’s speech had touched a raw nerve. Since that terrible night the previous summer, no word had ever been spoken about the evil bargain he had made with the Romanovs; after all, the murder had not taken place, poor Natalia had died, and Misha had tried to blot the whole episode from his mind. Apart from some help with his repayments, Misha had not thought it necessary to give any substantial sum of money to Timofei Romanov, nor had the peasant dared to ask. Yet more than once Misha had secretly thought to himself: It’s we, really, who brought misfortune on the Romanovs. I ought to do something for them one day. Young Boris’s suggestion of a present of money for the child appealed to him. Perhaps, quite soon, he would give one … And because he was turning the matter over in his mind, he did not trouble, at first, to reply to the peasant.
It was then that Boris Romanov made his great mistake. For misunderstanding Misha’s hesitation, he suddenly looked up and announced: ‘After all, sir, what with my sister being killed in the fire, we wouldn’t want you getting into trouble now, would we?’ With which he gave the landowner a nasty grin.
Misha stared at him in amazement, then he blushed. What the devil did the fellow know?
In fact, young Boris knew nothing at all. But had Misha possessed any idea of what the young peasant suspected, he would have been shaken indeed.
For if the authorities had dismissed the fire at Russka as an accident, Boris certainly had not. The memory of his poor sister Natalia seemed to haunt him; and the more he brooded on it, the more sure he was that the whole business was suspicious. Time and again that winter he had challenged his father. ‘If it was an accident, then how come Natalia and Grigory were locked inside?’ he would demand. Why would anyone want to kill them? ‘Maybe they knew too much.’ And the identity of the killer? ‘That redheaded devil, Popov. It must have been.’ Even old Timofei conceded that this last was possible. But it was the next step in Boris’s logic that his father was unwilling to take.
‘For,’ Boris reasoned, ‘there’s still more to this than meets the eye. Think about it.’ He would jab his finger down on the table. ‘Bobrov let us go after Popov, but we never caught him. Who tipped that devil off? Must have been Bobrov himself. Sent a servant, or even Nicolai, round to warn him. And how come Popov escapes – vanishes? And nothing’s ever said about either the fire or Nicolai Bobrov? There has to be something going on that we don’t know about. And that landowner’s hiding it. He knows who lit the fire; he knows who killed my sister – and maybe a lot more besides.’
To which Timofei would only listen sadly, shake his head and reply: ‘I still don’t believe it. But even if it is so, what can you do about it?’
And here Boris was stuck. He had no proof. The authorities would never listen to him. He’d only get into trouble. Yet as the winter months went by, his sullen conviction became an obsession. He could not let it go. And finally, just as the snows were melting, he decided: I’ll shake down that damned landlord, anyway. I bet I can frighten something out of him.
Though he had blushed, Misha collected himself quickly. In a moment, he was outwardly calm. His mind, however, was working rapidly.
The fire … the peasant was insinuating something about the fire. Yet Misha’s only crime lay in concealing the letter that Popov had given him which revealed the culprit. Was it possible the peasant knew about that? It seemed unlikely. With a face which, he hoped, was completely serene, Misha gazed at Boris and remarked: ‘I don’t think I understand you.’
‘I just mean, sir, you and I know who did it,’ Boris said boldly.
‘Do I? And who might that be?’ It was said with a faint smile, but to his annoyance Misha could feel his heart pounding. Could the fellow really know?
‘That red-haired devil Popov,’ Boris replied with confidence.
Thank God! He knew nothing. The insolent young peasant was bluffing.
‘Then you know more than I do,’ Misha replied blandly. ‘And now, since you are being impertinent, you’d better get out.’ He glowered at Boris. ‘If I hear another word of this, I’ll lodge a complaint with the police,’ he added, then turned his back while, crimson and furious, Boris departed.
This interview marked the beginning of an unspoken but permanent coolness between the Bobrovs and the Romanovs. No further help came from Misha Bobrov even to Timofei: the landlord preferred to ignore them. Timofei regretted this, but as he said to his son: ‘After what you did, I can hardly look him in the eye.’
As for Boris, though he had been humiliated, the interview had done nothing to shake his suspicions. Indeed, as time went on and he brooded about the subject further, he found more and more reasons to confirm his belief. I saw him blush, he remembered. He knew something, all right. And it seemed ever clearer to him that – even if he could not fathom the business – there had been a conspiracy. That red-head, those damned Bobrovs, maybe even the Suvorins too for all I know – they’re all in it somehow, he concluded. They killed Natalia.
And in his rage he came to two decisions which he would never alter as long as he lived. The first, which he shared with his father, was very simple: One day, I’ll meet that accursed red-head Popov again: and when I do, I’ll kill him.
The second decision he kept to himself, though he was no less determined to carry it out. I’ll ruin that landowner who sits on the land that should be ours, he promised himself. Before I die I’ll see those damned Bobrovs thrown out. I’ll do it for Natalia. And so, in the village below their house, the Bobrov family acquired a mortal enemy.
But these undercurrents caused no ripple on the placid surface of the village’s life. By the following year, it seemed that the events of 1874 had receded into obscurity. The red-headed student Popov was apparently forgotten; and in the town of Russka, only occasionally did anyone trouble to ask: whatever became of young Peter Suvorin?
Revolution
1881, September
The Tsar was dead: assassinated. Even now, months later, the ten-year-old girl found it hard to believe.
Why were there such wicked people in the world? For the last three years there had been killings – policemen, officials, even a governor. And now, with a terrible bomb, they had killed the good man, the reforming Tsar Alexander II himself. Rosa could not understand it.
Who would do such a thing? A terrible group, it seemed: the People’s Will, they called themselves. No one had known who they were or how many: perhaps twenty, perhaps ten thousand. What did they want? Revolution: the destruction of the whole apparatus of the Russian state that ruled its people from on high. Month after month, the People’s Will had hunted the Tsar; now they had destroyed him, as if to say: ‘See, your mighty state is only a sham. Against us, even the Tsar himself is impotent, to be destroyed when we wish.’ And now, with the poor Tsar dead, they had supposed the people would rise up.
‘Which shows how little these revolutionaries know,’ her father had said.
For nothing had happened. Not a village had risen, nor a single factory. The shocking event had been greeted only by a huge Russian silence. The Tsar’s son – the third Alexander – had succeeded to the throne and at once imposed order. There had been a huge crackdown; many of the revolutionaries had been arrested and most of the Russian Empire was at present under martial law. The People’s Will had failed, God be praised. Russia was calm and at peace.
Or so it had seemed. Until this new and horrible business – so inexplicable to her, so terrifying – had begun. And once again, as she had done so many times in recent months, Rosa wondered why there were such wicked people in the world.
‘They will not come here,’ her father had promised. But what if he were wrong?
It was early afternoon – a quiet time in this peaceful southern village at the border of forest and steppe. Few people were moving about; Rosa’s parents were resting on the upper floor of the solid, thatched house. Although it was autumn, down here in the Ukraine the weather was still warm. Through the open window, Rosa could see the apple tree in the courtyard and smell the sweet scent of a honeysuckle bush nearby.
Rosa was a beautiful girl. Her pale, oval face, long neck, and a certain slow grace in her movements had made some of the villagers call her ‘the swan maiden’. Her raven hair was worn in a thick braid down her back. She had a long nose and full lips. But her most striking features were her eyes. Dark-lidded, framed under the strong, black arch of her eyebrows, they were huge, blue-grey and luminous, gazing solemnly out at the world like a figure in an ancient mosaic.
She sat by a piano. She was not playing, now, but the music she had been practising that morning – a piece by Tchaikovsky – was echoing in her mind. As she stared out at the blue sky, she went over each phrase, each haunting melody, trying them this way and that until she was satisfied.
Hers was the only piano in the village. She would never forget the magical day when it arrived on a little barge coming upriver. Her father had saved for a year to buy it and brought it all the way from Kiev. All the neighbours had come out to watch as he and her two brothers proudly escorted this wonder to their house. She had been only seven when a visiting cousin, a musician, had told them she was a prodigy. The very next year she had gone to live with that family, during term time, down in the big city of Odessa on the Black Sea coast, where there were fine music teachers. Already she had given a public performance and people were saying she would be a professional musician.