Berezovo: A Revolutionary Russian Epic

“Shouting, weeping, even complaining I can understand,” he declared, “but this silence baffles me. Surely she should be wanting me to stay at home and pay more attention to her, not pushing me away?”

Furthermore, he maintained, Tatyana had carried on her campaign of silence for far too long; so long that it had simply stopped being effective. If anything, it had now put her in the wrong. What, he demanded, was a man to do in such a situation? If he hadn’t been such a gentleman and a considerate husband he would have already found himself a little seamstress off Jew Alley to spend his evenings with. As it was, he was making the best of a bad job and using his evenings to go over his account books and plan his buying for the spring; for once uninterrupted by her inconsequential prattling.

Agreeing that this was probably the best course of action to take, Shiminski had comforted his friend with the thought that, like the weather, sooner or later there would be a thaw in his domestic relations.

Chapter Nine

Wednesday 14th February

Berezovo, Northern Siberia

There had been fighting in the barracks. Watching the squad of defaulters being marched out to the snowfield behind the stables, Captain Steklov reasoned that some sort of scrap had been inevitable. The convoy’s arrival had worsened the troops’ already cramped living quarters. His men were sleeping two or three to a cot and having to wait their turn at mealtimes until the convoy’s escort had finished eating. It had not helped that the convoy escort contained a bad element.

Fortunately for his men the sergeants had stepped in before any serious injury had occurred; there had been barely enough time for a few noses to be bloodied and eyes to be blacked. Honour had been satisfied and punishment meted out. The garrison troops that had been involved were to round up what they called “the Mayor’s deer” that stood grazing on the nearby riverbank and herd them toward the sleighs. The defaulters amongst the escort were to help the drivers harness the deer and to carry provisions to the sleighs for the journey ahead of them. Standing by the open window of his room, the young officer listened to the distant sound of his men hallooing and clapping their hands as they drove the ungainly beasts through the darkness towards the sleighs. He consoled himself with the thought that in a month or two the whole business would be forgotten; unless the Duma politicians changed their minds again and called for an amnesty.

If there is a political amnesty, he decided, I will take personal command of fetching the Red swine back from Obdorskoye myself. I might even take them all the way to Tobolsk. There and back in less than a month, maybe twenty days; it could be done. I’ll have myself etched by the newspapers riding at the head of the column, alongside a published account of the journey. It will make a pleasant break from the tedium of life here in Berezovo. And how it will upset Prince Michael!

Grinning at the thought of his uncle’s choleric response he closed the window and went down to the officers’ mess to eat a solitary breakfast.

It took the soldiers over two hours to catch and harness all the deer. By the time the last one had been led into the shafts, the sun was casting its weak light across the rooftops of the town. One by one the sleighs were drawn out of the water meadow that in the summer doubled as a parade ground and made their way across the Market Square. Because of the newness of the teams, the drivers eschewed the shorter and more direct route to the police headquarters – via the narrow Well Lane – in favour of the breadth of Hospital Street. Once all forty sleighs had been assembled in a long queue that stretched from the police headquarters all the way down Alexei Street, a sizeable crowd of onlookers had gathered to see them depart.