Berezovo: A Revolutionary Russian Epic

Behind the desk, partitioned by the free standing set of bookshelves upon which the librarian kept books awaiting collection by subscribers to the town’s lending library (subscription: ten roubles per annum), lay the second area, grandly named ‘The Stacks’. Here crude shelves sagged under the weight of past copies of newspapers and journals and unused wrapping materials. At one end of the Stacks stood a locked rolltop desk, the drawers and pigeon holes of which stored the library’s account ledgers and documents relating to the proceedings of the Drama Committee. A strategically placed mirror high on the wall at the other end of this hidden area enabled Maslov to work unobserved at this desk and at the same time keep an eye on the Public area. Below the mirror a second door leading out into Well Street served as the library’s delivery entrance.

The third area of the library – the Private Reading Room – was situated on the far side of the Public Area. Reserved for the personal use of the library’s most prestigious subscribers, it was a small room, lined with bookshelves, heated by a small discreet stove and furnished with a circular baize-covered reading table around which were arranged four chairs upholstered in faded green damask. It was towards this room that the librarian now waved Irena, his neatly plucked eyebrows raised in silent mime as if to say, “Voila! Your lover awaits you within.”

Unfastening the top button of her coat, Irena entered the room and immediately Kavelin rose to greet her. Unsmiling he snatched up her hand and, bowing slightly, raised it to his lips. The abrupt gesture irritated her, dissolving her feelings of mild relief that Leonid had, after all, waited for her. She felt disappointed by his too literal execution of the suggestion she had made at the casting session the previous Sunday that he should take up the French manner of greeting, and by his lack of initiative. Irena felt that he should at least have felt maddened enough by her late arrival to seize her in his arms and rain kisses upon her face so that she could protest at his dishonourable behaviour. Did she have to make all the running?

Pulling out one of the chairs, Kavelin motioned to her to sit beside him. Ignoring the invitation Irena took her place opposite him, noting as she did so the latest edition of the geographical magazine Vokrug sveta that lay open on the table between them. On its pages she saw a map of an unfamiliar coastal region.

“That looks interesting,” she said. “What is it about?”

“Alaska,” he told her, adding with a sigh, “or what used to be called Russian America, forty years ago. The author says that they export over a hundred thousand seal skins a year now, mostly to London.”

“A hundred thousand skins! We should never have sold it to the Americans.”

Kavelin shrugged philosophically.

“We could never have held on to it. Sooner or later the greedy British would have taken it from us, like they have taken all of Canada. Better to sell it to the Americans so that they can form a buffer between us and the British. Let them fight over the spoils and leave us alone.”

“Still, a hundred thousand skins! It’s a fortune.”

“And there is also oil from the whaling,” agreed Kavelin, picking up the journal, “and the thousands of tons of blubber… They got all that for only seven million dollars.”

Leaning across the table, Irena laid one hand on his arm.

“Leonid,” she said evenly, “I didn’t come here to listen to you talk about money, or blubber.”

Kavelin glanced down at her gloved hand on the sleeve of his jacket and then regarded her thoughtfully.

“Just why did you come here, Irena?”

He is annoyed by my lateness after all, she thought, and is waiting for me to apologise.

She looked around the small room, for a moment regretting the necessity of leaving its cosy warmth so soon after her arrival. Removing her hand from his arm, she rose to leave.

“Not for an argument,” she replied lightly. “My intention was not to annoy you, or to interfere with your important study of whale blubber.”

“No?”

“No, I thought you might be enough of a gentleman to escort me to the Hotel so that we could take a coffee together.”

“But we are so comfortable here,” he said with a small smile. “It is a pity that the librarian does not also provide a samovar for us.”

“A samovar? That will be the day!” said Irena, laughing. “Maslov would never let us drink anything so close to his precious volumes. Can you imagine what he would say if we even suggested it?”

“We would be barred for life,” agreed Kavelin and mimicked the librarian’s fussy habit of adjusting his pince-nez before delivering a homily. “Hot water and paper do not mix. That is why you should never read in the bath.”

Seeing that Irena was still standing, he held out his hand to her.

“I’m sorry for being so sharp with you. Please, Irena, sit down.”