Berezovo: A Revolutionary Russian Epic

Janinski leant against the iron handrail at the top of the narrow staircase and watched as, with a desperate slowness, the two prisoners struggled to raise the heavy bureau up another step. It was a large piece of furniture and awkward to handle, being too wide and too heavy for one man to lift. He heard one of the prisoners cried out in pain as his hand was caught for a second time between a corner of the bureau and the wall.

“Get a move on!” the warder growled.

The two men redoubled their efforts. Their physical stamina had been weakened by their spell on their prison diet. By the time they had hauled the bureau up to the landing, they were spent. Sitting down on the top step, they mopped their brows and tried to regain their breath but their overseer would have none of it. Bringing his knout down onto the top of the bureau with a thump, Janinski jerked his thumb menacingly towards the bottom of the steps and, wearily, they climbed to their feet and went to fetch their next load.

Outside in the courtyard Prison Director Dimitri Skyralenko, wearing his dress uniform, slapped his hands and stamped his boots on the freshly fallen snow in an effort to keep warm. Not far from him a trio of prisoners, shackled together by leg irons, were doing their best to unload a small dining room table from the back of one of Lepishinsky’s delivery carts under the bored gaze of two warders armed with rifles. Far in the distance, the Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary’s bell began to toll, summoning its congregation to the morning service.

“Hurry them up,” Skyralenko ordered to the guards impatiently. “They are taking too long.”

Unslinging their rifles, the warders began to prick the backs of the prisoners with the points of their bayonets.

“You heard the Director. Faster!”

With a last heave, the table came free from the tailgate of the cart. Hampered by their leg irons, and their frozen hands, the prisoners lost their grip. There was the sound of a crash followed by that of splintering wood. Skyralenko groaned aloud. Undismayed, the men began to drag the broken bits towards the warmth of the jailhouse.

When at last all the furniture had been distributed amongst the cells, the prisoners were told to collect their belongings and present themselves for the Director’s inspection. Lined up against the courtyard wall, they listened as Skyralenko read out their Order of Parole before dismissing them. A few, including the prisoner Arkov, did not hesitate to take him at his word, but the majority were disposed to remain where at least food and shelter were guaranteed.

“Where can we go, without any money?” one cried.

“Why is the Little Father casting us out?” asked another. “Haven’t we been model prisoners?”

“What right have strangers to usurp us?”

In the end, Skyralenko had to order the warders to drive them out of the prison: by boot and rifle butt if necessary. But as his sleigh took him up Alexei Street, towards the church, some of the more determined prisoners ran alongside, beseeching him with real tears in their eyes to show mercy. Exasperated, the Prison Director, his arms flailing like windmills, swore that if they were still visible on the street when he came out of the church, he would have them shot on sight. Dejectedly, the remainder of the newly liberated prisoners slunk away.

Entering the church, Skyralenko paused in the narthex, allowing his eyes to adjust themselves to the candlelight while he determined at what point the service had reached. He became aware of a figure breaking away from the main body of the congregation and moving towards him.

“Good morning, Dimitri Borisovich,” Colonel Izorov greeted him softly.

“Good morning, Konstantin Illyich.”

“Is everything prepared at the prison?”

“Yes, it is done.”

For a moment the two men stood side by side, listening to the indistinct sepulchral voice of the aged priest rising and falling.

“The text the good Father has chosen,” Colonel Izorov informed him in a whisper, “is from the book of Holy Revelations. It tells us we should be ready to meet the Anti-Christ and his agents and defeat them.”

“How fortuitous!” Skyralenko whispered back.

“One does what one can,” said the Colonel modestly.

On the left side of the church in the women’s section of the nave, Tatyana Kavelina knelt and made her prostration before the altar. Weary from a sleepless night and tormented by her discovery of her husband’s betrayal, she felt herself to be too full of anger to pray for God’s grace.