Berezovo: A Revolutionary Russian Epic

“Which zone is this?” he asked.

Standing up, Izorov crooked a finger at him, and signalled him to follow. Picking up a thick black pencil from the desk, he walked over to the town map that was pinned on the wall beside the door.

When Fatiev had joined him, Colonel Izorov began to draw in the prescribed zone with a series of broken lines.

“From the prison gates to the end of the Market Square. Up Well Lane. Then the length of Alexei Street, from the church to the Town Hall. That is the Zone. All other streets will be off limits to them.”

“Even Hospital Street?” asked Fatiev, his eyes fixed on the map.

“Even Hospital Street,” confirmed the Colonel. “There will be no entry to the Quarter. Everyone back in their cells by four o’ clock. The prison compound is also off limits to local exiles. Is that understood?”

Satisfied that he had memorised the zone and regaining some of his old confidence, Fatiev turned to face the policeman.

“What happens if they stray into the Quarter by accident?” he asked.

Colonel Izorov smiled coldly.

“There are no accidents, Fatiev. You know that.”

“You mean, that they would be shot as attempting to escape.”

Still smiling, Izorov did not reply.

“In that case, Colonel, I accept your conditions.”

With as much dignity as he could muster, the young man offered Izorov his hand in agreement. Ignoring it, the policeman instead clapped him on the shoulder and began steering him towards the door.

“You need some snow on that nose of yours,” he advised him cheerfully as he opened the door for him. “That will take some of the swelling out of it.”

Allowing himself to be propelled through the doorway, Fatiev found himself in the outer office. He sat down on the bench, suddenly too exhausted by what had happened to him to be intimidated by the glowering looks from the sergeant at the duty desk.

For the first time, it occurred to him that not only had he betrayed his Party’s plans, but that he, in turn, had been betrayed; Izorov had already known. Thinking about who he had talked to about the demonstration made no sense, unless it had been someone outside the Party. Someone like the sister of the Jew Usov; the woman who had run past him as he waited across the Alley from Goldman’s.

She must have been worried, he thought, that when the reaction came, it would be directed against the Quarter.

That was reasonable. That made sense, because it showed that he had been right after all. You couldn’t trust any of them.

Getting slowly to his feet, he stared at the closed door to Izorov’s lair. There was still one question that remained unanswered. He had watched him load the Browning, but what about the Luger?

At the desk, the sergeant cleared his throat noisily.

“Piss off, Fatiev,” he advised, “before he changes his mind.”

In his office, Colonel Izorov finished joining up the last of the dashes on his sketch map. The Zone was now delineated by a continuous black line.

Standing back, he admired his handiwork.

He had not been wrong about Hospital Street, he told himself. It was far too near to the Quarter to be included within the zone. If the secret orders he had received the fortnight before had not expressly stated that the exiles should be allowed a certain freedom of movement, none of this would have been necessary. He would have locked them up for the duration of their stay and kept them in leg irons and the keys under his pillow. But that was Peterhof all over: why make things difficult when, with a bit more effort and imagination, you could make them impossible?

Scowling at the folly of his superiors, he went back to his desk and, taking out a clean sheet of paper, began to draft his report to the Okhrana headquarter in Tobolsk.

Conspiracy to riot, he thought contentedly to himself. Fatiev should get at least another two years for that.

Chapter Seventeen

Saturday 10th February 1907

Berezovo

At the same moment that Colonel Izorov was in the uchastok assaulting the exiled revolutionist Fatiev, at the Hotel New Century Madame Pobednyeva was standing in the doorway of its proprietor’s office scowling in displeasure at one of the Hotel’s waiters.

“Proprietor is not here,” repeated the young man stubbornly. “You must come back later.”

“Well,” the Mayor’s wife demanded, “where is he? I have an appointment to see him.”

“I don’t know. Perhaps he is elsewhere in the hotel, or perhaps he has gone out.”

“But I have an appointment to see him,” she insisted, adding emphatically, “an important appointment.”

The waiter nodded his head solemnly.

“Yes, but not here,” he repeated stubbornly.

“Then you must go and fetch him!” ordered Madame Pobednyeva. “I have to speak to him on an important matter on behalf of the Mayor. You will get into serious trouble if you don’t fetch him.”