Sashenka

  And when he had tasted her lips, his hands had actually started to shake. Her reluctance to return his kiss made her obvious enjoyment of it even more poignant and delightful. Or did I imagine that? he asked himself. Any man of almost forty would lose judgement when faced with that skin, those lips, and the husky bumble-bee voice he had come to know so well. He raised his hands and thought he could divine the scent of her skin, her neck …

  Yet she was his agent. The cause, Tsar and Motherland, always came first. It was a desperate struggle for survival between good and evil and she was on the wrong side. If he had to … Well, he hoped it would never come to that. The Okhrana was special. The battle to defend the Empire was a war that had to be fought with merciless conspiracy – as his colleague General Batiushin had told him: ‘All honour to him who dishonours his name and ends the case with silence as his only reward.’ He wet his finger and dipped it into Dr Gemp’s powder and applied cocaine to nose and gums. He chuckled to himself.

  The door opened. A livid snout and ginger whiskers appeared, followed by a uniformed paunch and the rest of the stationmaster.

  ‘Did you say something, Your Excellency?’ he said. ‘Anything I can do? A note to my superiors would be a help. I’d be so grateful …’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘We hope you’re destroying our enemies, German agents and zhyd nihilists!’ The stationmaster rubbed his hands.

  ‘Absolutely! When’s the next train to the Finland Station? I have a report to file.’

  ‘Five minutes, Your Excellency. God Save the Tsar!’

  30

  The Grand Duke’s crested Benz was already parked among the carriages outside the Radziwill Palace on Fontanka when Pantameilion’s Delaunay swung into the forecourt, the chains wrapped around the wheels just gripping the ice. Samuil and Ariadna Zeitlin waited their turn while the French Embassy Renault dropped Ambassador Paleologue and his wife.

  The Izmailovsky Guards in green tunics, the gendarmes with their sultan-spikes and the Cossacks in leather trousers and high furs, flicking their thick whips, bivouacked around bonfires in the squares and guarded the street corners. The air steamed with horse sweat and manure and sweet woodsmoke; the cobbles clattered with the clip-clop of a thousand hooves, the rumble of howitzer carriages, the metallic rattle of rifles, horse tackle and scabbards.

  The melody of waltzes and laughter wafted down the marble stairs of the palace. The Zeitlins greeted the French ambassador and his wife at the top of the steps. The foursome were just agreeing how quiet the city was when a gunshot echoed over the rooftops. Dogs howled, sirens wailed and somewhere out towards the Vyborg Side the city herself seemed to growl.

  ‘How are you, dear Baron? Are you better, Baroness?’ The French ambassador bowed, speaking fluent Russian.

  ‘Much better, thank you. Did you hear that?’ asked Ariadna, her eyes iridescent as whirlpools. ‘A firework!’

  ‘That was gunfire, Baroness, I fear,’ replied the ambassador, immaculate in black coat, top hat and white tie. ‘There it is again. The metal factory workers are marching in their hundreds of thousands from Petrograd, Vyborg and Narva.’

  ‘I’m freezing,’ shivered Ariadna.

  ‘Let’s go in,’ said the Frenchwoman, taking her hand.

  The ambassador’s wife and Ariadna, both in floor-length furs, one in ermine, the other in seal, walked inside, handing their coats to the staff. Ariadna, like an angel stepping out of a fountain, emerged glistening and pale in a mauve brocade gown embroidered in diamonds with a high bosom and low-cut back. She embraced the richest couple in Lithuanian Poland, Prince and Princess Radziwill.

  ‘You’re so good to come, Ariadna, and you, Madame Paleologue, on such a night. We wondered whether to cancel but dearest Grand Duke Basil absolutely banned it. He said it was our duty, yes, our duty. We’ve spoken to General Kabalov and he’s most reassuring …’

  More gunshots. Zeitlin and the ambassador remained outside on the steps, peering into the night. Puttering limousines and whispering sleighs dropped off the guests. Diamonds and emeralds hung like dewdrops on the ears of the women who moved like animals in their sleek furs. Perfume vied with the biting cold for possession of the air. Zeitlin lit a cigar and offered one to the ambassador.

  They were both silent. The ambassador, knowing how prices were rocketing and the secret police warning of imminent unrest, was amazed to find ministers and Grand Dukes at play on a night like this.

  Zeitlin was lost in his private thoughts. He had lived through riots, demonstrations, pogroms, two wars and the 1905 revolution, emerging richer and stronger each time. Things at home were calm again; his uncharacteristic flash of madness and doubt was over.

  Dr Gemp’s injections of opium had restored Ariadna; the divorce was off; Sashenka was enrolled in Professor Raev’s classes, and Lala seemed calm and acquiescent. The only worry was Gideon. What was that scallywag, that momzer, up to?

  31

  Gideon Zeitlin was on his way home, driven by Leonid the butler in the big touring car, the Russo-Balt, with two hundred roubles in his pocket. Cossacks and guardsmen had erected checkpoints around the official Liteiny cordon that guarded the General Staff, War Ministry and Winter Palace. But as Gideon crossed Nevsky, some workers threw stones at the car.

  ‘Filthy speculator!’ they shouted. ‘We’ll teach you to fleece the people.’

  The stones drummed on the roof but Gideon, always slightly screwed even when sober, was not scared. ‘Me? Of all people? It’s my brother you want, you fools!’ he muttered, slapping his thigh. ‘Drive on, Leonid! It’s not our car they’re smashing up! Ha ha!’ The butler, a nervous driver at the best of times, was less amused.

  They pulled up on Tenth Rozhdestvenskaya, a narrow street of tall new apartment blocks. Gideon leaped out of the car, tugging his coat with its beaver collar around his shoulders.

  ‘I’ll be off then,’ said Leonid.

  ‘Hmm,’ said Gideon, who had promised his wife, children and brother Samuil to spend some time at home. But he could not quite commit himself. ‘I’d like you to wait.’

  ‘Sorry, Gospodin Zeitlin, I don’t like to leave the car out for too long,’ replied the servant. ‘The baron said, “Drop him off and come home,” and I work for the baron. Besides, the motor car could get stoned by the workers and this is a beautiful machine, Gospodin Zeitlin, many times more beautiful than the Delaunay or—’

  ‘Goodnight, Leonid, godspeed!’

  Nodding cheerily at the doorman (while thinking, you informing Okhrana scum!), Gideon strolled through the marble lobby and caught the lift, a beauty of polished amber brass and black carving, to the fifth floor. The cognac and champagne he had drunk with Samuil rollicked through his body, making his heart burn, his bowels churn and his head spin. His wife Vera, mother of his two daughters, was pregnant again and he had spent all his meagre earnings on dinner at Contant’s and games of chance. Oh, the tragedy, he chuckled to himself, of being born rich and growing up poor!

  Once again his brother had bailed him out, opening his handsome teak strongbox to hand over the mazuma in two fresh green Imperial notes. But this time the baron had insisted he would not be opening it again for a long time.

  ‘Oh, there he is!’ said Vera, who was at the stove, in a shabby housecoat and slippers.

  ‘That’s a fine welcome for a returning prodigal,’ said Gideon, kissing her sallow cheek. ‘Me? Of all people!’ Despite his bad behaviour, Gideon was always amazed at how people treated him. He placed a colossal, hairy hand on her belly. ‘How are you feeling, Commander-in-Chief?’

  How firm and tight and tidy and full of life her belly feels, he thought. It’s mine, the fruit of my seed – but who am I to bring another child into this pantomime of a life? The earth is spinning out of control …

  Vera’s strained voice softened. ‘Good to see you, dear.’

  ‘And you, and you!’

  Then her weary face hardened again. ‘Are you eating with us? How long are we to be
honoured with your company, Gideon?’

  ‘I’m here for you and the children,’ answered Gideon so sunnily that anyone who did not know him would be convinced he was the best husband in Piter. Here, no one helped with his fur or galoshes. The apartment was messy and steamy with fat and cabbage, like a peasant’s place. Like many disorderly men who never tidy up anything, Gideon hated mess and he inspected the unwashed dishes, the unmade beds with their yellowed sheets, the piles of shoes and boots, the footmarks on the carpets and the crumbs on the kitchen table with accusatory fury. It was a handsome apartment, painted plain white with ordinary Finnish birch furniture, but the pictures were still not hung. ‘This place is a sewer, Vera. A sewer!’

  ‘Gideon! We don’t have a kopek. We must pay the butcher twenty roubles or we lose our credit. We owe the doorman eight, we owe—’

  ‘Feh, feh, dearest. What’s for dinner?’

  ‘Kasha and cheese. We couldn’t get anything else. There’s nothing in the city to eat. Viktoria! Sophia! Your papa’s here!’

  There was the thud of reluctant feet in heavy lace-up shoes. A girl stood in the doorway, peering at her father with sullen, muddy eyes as if he was a Martian.

  ‘Hello, Papa,’ said Viktoria, known as Vika.

  ‘Darling Vika! How are you! How’s school? And that admirer of yours? Still writing you poems?’

  He held open his arms but his darling fifteen-year-old daughter neither approached nor altered her expression.

  ‘Mama’s very tired. She cries. You haven’t visited for a long time. We need money.’

  Tall, olive-skinned with lanky hair, wearing horn-rimmed spectacles and a dressing gown, Vika reminded Gideon of a censorious librarian. He could not get close to her.

  ‘Where have you been?’ the girl went on. ‘Drinking? Chasing women of easy virtue?’

  ‘What a thing to accuse me of! Me? Of all people!’ Gideon’s eyes fell. Even though his big mouth, dancing black eyes, wild hair and beard were made for grand gestures and belly laughs, he felt hollow and ashamed. Where did she get such a phrase as ‘women of easy virtue’? From that mother of hers of course.

  ‘I’ve got homework to do,’ said Vika, slouching away.

  Gideon shrugged to himself: Vera was poisoning the children against him. Then he heard a cascade of light steps. Sophia, a dark girl with frizzy jet-black hair and eyes, threw herself into his arms. He stood up and whirled her round and round in her shabby nightshirt.

  ‘Mouche!’ he bellowed. ‘My darling Mouche!’ That was Sophia’s nickname because when she was a baby she had resembled a mischievous fly. Now she was older, with black curls, black eyes and a strong jaw, she radiated energy just like her father.

  ‘Where’ve you been? Is there a revolution? We saw a fight at the bakery! I want to be out there, Papa. Take me with you! How are your revolutionary friends? Did you see anything? I support the workers! How are you, Papa? Are you writing something? I’ve missed you. You haven’t been bad, have you? We hope not! We are very prissy here!’ She wrapped herself around him like a monkey. ‘What are you writing, you old papa momzer?’

  He loved the way she called him ‘papa scallywag’ in Yiddish and tickled his beard. ‘Shall we write something now, Mouche? I owe them a quick article.’

  ‘Oh yes!’ Mouche took his hand and dragged him into the study, where it was difficult to step without knocking over piles of papers and journals – yet the fleet Mouche dodged them all and pulled out his green leather chair, adeptly placed the paper on the typewriter and wound it into position.

  ‘Pravilno! Right!’ he said.

  ‘Now, who are we writing for today? The Kadets? The Mensheviks?’

  ‘The Mensheviks!’ he replied.

  ‘So you’re a Social Democrat this week?’ she teased her father.

  ‘This week!’ He laughed at himself.

  ‘How many words?’

  ‘Five hundred, no more. Do we have something to drink?’

  Mouche scurried off to get a thimble of vodka.

  He swigged it and sat down in the chair.

  Mouche settled into his lap, rested her hands on his arms and cried out: ‘Type, Papa, begin! How about this? “The regime’s reactionary follies are almost played out.” Or “In the streets, I saw a hungry wraith of a woman, a worker’s widow, shake her baby at a rich war profiteer.” Or …’

  ‘You’re so like me,’ he said, kissing her forehead.

  Gideon was one of those journalists who, in a few minutes, could dash off an article decorated with ringing phrases and sharp reportage, without any real effort. Since he could never quite make up his mind whether he was a Constitutional Liberal – a Kadet – or a moderate Social Democrat, a Menshevik, he wrote for both their newspapers and several other journals, using different names. He had travelled widely and his pieces contained references to foreign cities and forgotten wars that impressed the reader. His phrases, so carelessly constructed, often hit home. People repeated them. Editors asked for more. He never regretted that he had let Samuil buy him out of the family business, though if he had kept his share he would now be a very rich man. He regretted nothing. Besides, money never stuck to his fingers.

  He had promised the Menshevik editor a rousing article that evening on the atmosphere in the streets. Now, with Mouche excitedly feeling the tendons in his brawny arms as he typed, he worked fast, fingers banging into the keys and crying out, ‘Return!’ at the end of each line. Then Mouche returned the typewriter to begin another line, humming to herself with enjoyment, jiggling her knees with nervous energy.

  ‘There,’ he said. ‘Done. Your papa’s just earned himself a few roubles for that.’

  ‘Which we never see!’ said Vera from the doorway.

  ‘I might just surprise you this time!’ Gideon was feeling virtuous. He had enough cash to pay off the debts, satisfy Vera, buy the girls new books and dresses, and some fine meals. He looked forward to handing over the mazuma: Vera would smile at him; Mouche would dance; even Vika would love him again.

  When Vera served the kasha, a buckwheat porridge, sprinkled with goat’s cheese, she again asked about the money, not mentioning there was a revolution afoot. Outside, the factory sirens started to blare and whine; a shot, more shots and then a barrage rang out; stolen cars raced down the streets, skidding, grinding their gears as peasants enjoyed their first driving lessons.

  ‘Is Sashenka really a Bolshevik, Papa? How’s Aunt Ariadna? Is it true the doctor prescribed her opium?’ Mouche asked questions and hummed to herself as he tried to answer them. Vika glared at her father each time her mother pressed her lips together, sighed or sniffed sanctimoniously.

  No one could ruin a meal for Gideon. Whether it was kasha in his dreary apartment or a sturgeon steak at the Contant, he was a vigorous trencherman, recounting the family news, smacking his lips, sniffing the nosh like a happy dog and soiling his beard without the slightest embarrassment.

  ‘You don’t eat as you taught us to eat,’ said Vika. ‘Your manners are terrible, aren’t they, Mama?’

  ‘Don’t do as I do,’ replied Gideon. ‘Do as I say!’

  ‘How can you tell the children that?’ asked his wife.

  ‘It’s hypocrisy,’ said Vika.

  ‘You two are a regular trade union of sulking women! Cheer up,’ said Gideon, putting his feet up on a filthy chair, already marked by his boots on other occasions.

  ‘No more jokes, Gideon,’ said Vera, sending Vika and Mouche to do their homework.

  The moment he was alone with Vera, everything changed. Her drawn sallow face, made for martyrdom, irritated him. She was always wiping her nose with a green-stained rag. Her prissiness maddened him. He adored his daughters – or rather he adored Mouche – but what had happened to Vera? A child of the provincial bourgeois, the daughter of a Mariupol schoolteacher, she had been educated, an intellectual who worked on the literary journal Apollo, full of vim and enthusiasm, with a high bosom, blue eyes and golden hair. Now the bosom hung around her
waist like udders, the eyes were watered down to a tepid pallor, and the hair was greying. How he had been so foolish as to get her pregnant again, he could barely believe! But on Mouche’s birthday he had been overcome with a sort of erotic nostalgia for how she had been, forgetting how she was now. The fact that he himself had done this to her and that he felt guilty about it made him resent her all the more.

  Only Mouche delighted him, and he decided that when she was a little older he would invite her to live with him. As for now, he could hardly stand it here another moment. Great events were taking shape on the streets; parties were throbbing in the hotels; a writer must see history being made; and he was stuck here with this strait-laced harridan.

  Vera droned on with her complaints: the morning sickness was gone but her back ached and she could not sleep. The doorman made comments about Gideon’s carryings-on. Vika had told her friends that her father was a revolutionary and a drunkard; Mouche was insubordinate and rude, the teachers complained about her, and she was growing out of all her boots and dresses. But there was no money; it was hard to get meat in the shops and impossible to find bread; the neighbours had heard from someone else in the block that Gideon had been seen drunk in the early hours in the Europa Hotel; and how did he think that made her feel?

  A full belly never made Gideon sleepy; it went straight to his loins. It fortified his libido. For some reason, he cast his mind back to the lunch last week at his brother’s house. The Lorises were famous for their happy marriage but the boring count was not at the lunch so Gideon had given Missy what he called the Gideon Manifesto: let us pleasure ourselves now for life is short and tomorrow we die. (Obvious as it was, the manifesto was surprisingly successful!) Now Gideon recalled how, as he was saying goodbye to Missy, she had looked into his face with her crinkly, twinkling eyes – her laughter making creases around them – and squeezed his hand unmistakably, saying, ‘It would be wonderful to talk more about Meyerhold and the new theatre. I suppose you won’t be at Baroness Rozen’s at the Astoria on …’ and she named a date. It happened that it was tonight. Gideon had neglected to follow up – but now his refreshed and well-fed phallus, a brilliant interpreter of female intentions, stirred. He had to get to that party right away.