Berezovo: A Revolutionary Russian Epic

“No!” Madame Wrenskaya rebuked her. “Don’t deny it for a second time. Are you so blind? Can you not see? It doesn’t matter whatever you say to me… it will make no difference. After all I will be gone in a few months, maybe less. But when you say that you are not in love with him, you are lying to yourself. And each time you do that, you will find the lies come easier and easier until you become as hollow as that poor little tart Irena Kuibysheva. Only you have a lot more to lose. Look around you, Yeliena,” the old woman commanded. “It might not be much, I grant you, but it is your home, yours and Vasili’s. At my age material things matter very little, but you are still young. You would miss this if you lost it. Without your husband, you would have nothing, you would be nothing. No, even worse, you would be less than nothing.”

Energised by the torrent of her own words, Madame Wrenskaya had risen unaided from her chair and had begun to totter unsteadily towards Yeliena. Alarmed by the old woman’s outburst, Yeliena rose and went to support her. As Madame Wrenskaya’s claw-like hands fastened onto her arms, she saw that her guest’s wrinkled cheeks were wet with tears.

“Yeliena, listen to me,” pleaded Madame Wrenskaya. “I beg you, before it is too late, give him up. You are my dearest friend. Promise me you will end this infatuation.”

Yeliena felt the brittle strength of the old woman’s arms bear down upon hers. Confused, she turned her face away.

“I fear it may be too late,” she confessed in a whisper. “I don’t want to.”

Madame Wrenskaya bowed her head as if in prayer. Then, with a sigh so heavy that Yeliena could feel it pass through her frail body, she said: “In that case, I must ask you not to call upon me again, nor communicate with me by way of note or greeting. My house is not open to adulterers nor fornicators.”

With downcast eyes, Yeliena dumbly accepted her sentence of banishment.

The two women did not exchange another word until Madame Wrenskaya’s sleigh had been summoned. Yeliena guided the old woman down the front steps and across the icy boardwalk to the driver’s waiting arm. Just before she was lowered into the plushly upholstered passenger seat, Madame Wrenskaya placed a dry kiss upon Yeliena’s cheek.

“Don’t lose sight of God,” was her final whispered admonition.

Wretchedly, Yeliena watched the driver pack rugs around the frail figure and then resume his seat. As he cracked his whip, she half raised her hand in a sad farewell, then let it drop down by her side. The old woman continued to stare straight ahead, already not seeing her.

Chapter Sixteen

Friday 16th February

Berezovo, Northern Siberia

The following morning the gentlemen of the Drama Committee paid their first visit to the makeshift stage that had been erected in the main hall of the barracks. They were relieved to find that the scenery had nearly been completed. All that remained after the painters had finished their work was for the drapes to be hung and the floor of the stage to be dressed with furniture and carpets. The four trick chairs (commissioned after all from the Jew Averbuch) were stacked carefully out of harm’s way in one corner of the barracks hall and only reluctantly brought out for the committee’s inspection under the Doctor’s watchful eye. Constructed in such a way that a single sharp blow would lead to their prompt collapse, the Doctor assured his colleagues that this coup de theatre would be sufficiently spectacular as to be worth the price they had paid for them. But it was the scenery towering above them, replete with ledges, window sills, book shelves and doorways, that drew the most admiration. The painters’ brushstrokes, cunning with trompe l’oeil, had counterfeited extra dimensions that looked most real from a distance of less than ten paces. Who knew that such artistry existed in the town?

While the builder Belinsky basked in their praise, the Committee’s chairman Nikolai Dresnyakov paced the part of the hall that was to serve as their auditorium. The schoolmaster had calculated that, with a deft rearrangement of the seating plan, it was possible to fit in an extra dozen seats with only a minimal loss of comfort and still have room for those with cheaper tickets to stand at the rear of the hall. Standing beside the stage and preoccupied with his own problems, Roshkovsky was half listening to Doctor Tortsov’s predictions of how successful the performances promised to be, which were interrupted at several points by Maslov who clearly continued to entertain concerns. As soon as he was able, the land surveyor took the opportunity to slip away and leave the hall before the “artistic discussions” degenerated into yet another acrimonious dispute.