Berezovo: A Revolutionary Russian Epic

“Eventually,” she went on wearily, “quelle surprise! He becomes her suitor and the curtain falls on them locked in a passionate embrace. The script is quite specific on that: ‘a passionate embrace’. That means they kiss one another. It’s a silly play. It’s meant to show how – even with position, property and money of her own – a woman still needs a man to make her life complete. Perhaps it’s true. I don’t know.”

Suddenly she became more animated, her hands burrowing deeper within her lap as she rocked slightly to and fro on the edge of the bed.

“But never mind that. What matters is that my husband, my husband, Anton Ivanovich, has cast me in the role as the woman and Modest Tolkach in the role of Smirnov. My husband, mark you, expects me to embrace and to kiss Modest Tolkach in front of the whole town. Tolkach! I ask you, is that the action of a man who still loves his wife?”

“Impossible!” exclaimed Chevanin.

“I’m glad you find it as incredible as I did.”

“But… are you sure?”

“Sure?” she snapped, rising from the bed. “Of course I’m sure!”

“And… this is why you are leaving?”

As quickly as her temper had flared up it now seemed to disappear, as if the effort of maintaining her anger had become too much for her. Standing up, she walked back to her dressing table and picked up the last comb.

“Oh, there are many, many other reasons,” she told him. “But this, this is the last straw. The straw that broke my back.”

“No, Yeliena Mihailovna!” exclaimed Chevanin. “You must not say that. You mustn’t go. There has to be another way to settle this. Vasili Semionovich would never have done this willingly.”

“Ah, but you forget, Anton. He doesn’t care for me any more. Or he wouldn’t have allowed this to happen.”

“No, there must be a reason,” insisted Chevanin. “He must have been forced into giving Tolkach the part somehow. I wasn’t there at the casting, so I don’t know, but I do know this much. You can’t just leave like this, at least not until you have found out the truth. Then you can go or stay as you wish.”

Returning to the bed, she leant down and cupped his cheek in one hand.

“Dear Anton Ivanovich!” she murmured sadly. “Always the crusader.”

Taking her hand, he held it tight.

“I am not a child, Yeliena Mihailovna,” he said quietly. “If you leave the Doctor now, you will have no choice but to stay at the hotel until you can find a sleigh willing to take you to Tobolsk. Within an hour, the whole town will know. Then all the Doctor will have to do is go and fetch you back, probably with the help of Father Arkady. You must think of your humiliation. You have nothing to lose by waiting until you find out the truth of the matter. Will you trust me? Will you let me help you?”

Unable to bear his burning gaze, she turned her head away.

“If you can prove that Vasili was somehow forced to give Tolkach the part, then I shall stay.”

Releasing her hand, he stood up. The impulse to do something, to give some sort of a sign of his true feelings, rose within him again. For a second time he resisted it. Walking to the door, he opened it then turned on his heel to face her.

“Unpack your bags, Madame Tortsova!” he declared in dramatic tones that brought a smile to the face of the Doctor’s wife. “I shall not fail you!”

* * *

Goat’s Foot’s izba lay less than two hundred sazhenes as the birds flew across the wilderness at the eastern end of Menshikov Street. But, because the ground was so treacherous with its deeply dug drainage ditches hidden by the snow, Chevanin did not attempt to take the direct route across the fields. Instead, keeping to the road, he turned right at the end of Menshikov Street and walked past the Town Hall and the livery stables. He had not eaten anything since rising that morning but he felt no hunger, only a cold fire within him as he thought of Tolkach locked in a passionate embrace with Yeliena Mihailovna.

She had been right. He had become a crusader, pledged to protect the sepulchre of her body from the sacrilege of the Beast. He shook his head in wonder. Try as he might, he could not imagine how the Doctor had allowed that man to take the role opposite his own wife. Pulling up the collar of his worn overcoat, he quickened his step. It was not inconceivable that the wily peasant he was on his way to visit would already know something about it. Goat’s Foot knew most of what happened in Berezovo; even better, it was said, than Colonel Izorov himself.

The road along which Chevanin now trudged was beginning to widen as it left the town and swung north east bringing the peasant’s shack into view. On the Imperial Map which hung in one corner of the town’s library, the route was marked as the continuation of ‘The Great Tobolsk Highway to the North’. Locally, it was known as the road to Obdorskoye.

Chapter Three

Tuesday 6th February 1907

Berezovo