Berezovo: A Revolutionary Russian Epic

By the time he had reached the spot where he had left Chevanin, his good humour had returned. He refused to let Usov’s parsimony spoil his mood. It had still been a profitable morning. He had a rouble in his pocket, and the opportunity to find ten brothers for it from the barracks. He had gained two bottles of excellent liquor, simply by being first with a piece of news that, once the carrier started drinking again, would become common gossip by nightfall. There was a third bottle to come (albeit of inferior stock) after his stint at the Black Cock that evening, along with a hot meal and another thirty copecks. He had buried the Doctor’s bill, and he had a loaf of bread and sufficient nails with which to repair his leaking roof. All in all, it had been a very satisfactory day’s work.

Ripping a corner of the newspaper that wrapped the loaf, he tore off a piece of bread and stuffed it into his mouth. Despite its hardness, it still tasted good. The sesame seeds that dressed its crust reminded him how hungry he was. Looking up, he caught sight of the wooden fire tower that stood outlined against the overcast sky like a stubborn finger and remembered the idea that had come to him as he had talked with Dr. Tortsov’s assistant.

Well, why not? he thought. After all, it’s my lucky day.

The two bottles bumped encouragingly against his thighs as, still chewing the bread, he sauntered along the narrow side street, turning his new idea over in his mind. Its success, he recognised, depended almost entirely on the cooperation of the Hospital Administrator Modest Tolkach. In the distance, the bell of The Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary began to toll for the souls of the dead. Reaching the front of the hospital, he walked up the steps, pulled open one of the wide wooden doors and went inside.

Chapter Five

Wednesday 7th February 1907

Berezovo

Leaving the bank, Irena Kuibysheva made her way along the raised boardwalk towards the crossing point on Alexei Street. She held the sable collar of her cloak closed against the chill morning air as she mentally apportioned the hundred roubles she had withdrawn from her husband’s account. The payment, personally overseen with his customary formality by Fyodor Fyodorovich Izminsky, the bank’s owner and sole director, was the thirty-ninth in a series of fortnightly transactions of equal value. On a monthly allowance of two hundred roubles her husband Illya Kuibyshev, Berezovo’s wealthiest merchant, whose furs lined the cloaks of princes and lavishly draped the smooth shoulders of imperial mistresses, expected her to run the household, clothe herself, maintain their status within the town and entertain his guests in lavish style when he was in residence. Many of her fellow citizens would have been surprised at how frugally she chose to live in her husband’s absence in order to keep to this budget. Out of every hundred roubles she retained a minimum of fifteen roubles, folded within a silk pillowcase beneath her bed. These savings, which never appeared on the meticulous household accounts she showed her husband, had already grown to a useful sum which she privately thought of as her “travelling money”.

Irena winced as a gust of wintry air bit her cheek and felt grateful that the library, her next destination, was located on the same side of Alexei Street as the bank and therefore did not require her to risk a fall while crossing the town’s main thoroughfare. Despite her discomfort, and the knowledge that she was a quarter of an hour late for her assignation with the timber merchant Leonid Kavelin, she did not hurry. Her experience the previous year with the younger and irrepressibly impulsive Dobrolovsky had taught her the advantage of the cautious advance over the headlong rush. It would do them both good, she reasoned, to wait. And Maslov always made sure that the Private Reading Room was kept well heated and comfortable for his special customers. Thus it was more the promise of the librarian’s genial hospitality than the anticipation of her latest liaison with her new beau that made her eyes sparkle and her cheeks glow as she crossed the threshold of the town library and set the small bell above its door tinkling. In answer to this fairy summons Maslov promptly appeared, and greeted her with a courteous bow.

The library was divided into three sections. The Public area, where the two of them were now standing, was the largest space and lined with four sets of shelves bearing aged reference books and a selection of dog-eared catalogues. In the spaces between these shelves were mounted placards bearing neatly pinned issues of the most recent issues of approved newspapers, displayed in the English fashion for the benefit of the working man. Positioned at right angles to the outer entrance so as not to be exposed to the sudden draughts from the street, the librarian’s desk commanded a view of this public area.