Berezovo: A Revolutionary Russian Epic

“Goat’s Foot, I suppose,” he replied. “After all, he is the one who made all the practical arrangements. He is the one who took his money.”

“Nobody would believe that!” she scoffed. “Goat’s Foot might be many things, but he isn’t a police informer. You’ve already said so yourself. No, the finger will be pointing straight at us.”

“Don’t be so ridiculous! What would we have to gain?”

“They don’t need reasons. To them, we are the Bourgeois Enemy. That is sufficient. As you say, life is cheap to them.”

Roshkovsky stood still for a moment in the middle of the room and thought over what his wife was saying. The more he thought about her objection, the more likely it seemed that he, and not the peasant, would be the one who fell under the exiles’ suspicions if Trotsky was caught.

After all, he reasoned to himself, I am a novice in these affairs. If anyone’s nerve broke, it would be mine and not Goat’s Foot’s. It is unlikely that this business has given him the same sleepless nights that I have had to suffer.

The thought worried him. It was well known that once the exiles believed they had unmasked an informer, their desire for revenge was implacable. He only hoped that Goat’s Foot’s cunning mind had not already come to the same conclusion as his wife’s.

Putting on as cheerful a face as he could, he tried to dismiss her fears.

“It’s too late to think of that now,” he told her. “As I say, he will get a good start. And anyway, it’s ninety-five percent certain that he will perish on the taiga. Nobody can blame me for that.”

A smile creased his face as a happy thought suddenly came to him.

“And there’s another thing,” he added. “If a patrol does happen to come across him, which is highly unlikely, they will be more likely to shoot first and ask questions later. He strikes me as the sort of person who wouldn’t give himself up without a struggle.”

Madame Roshkovskaya had been staring moodily at the cleared table. Now her expression brightened as a new thought struck her.

“Is he armed then?” she asked.

“No, I don’t think so. In fact, almost certainly not. But that won’t stop Izorov’s men, believe me.”

Madame Roshkovskaya fell silent again. She did not share her husband’s optimism. There remained that slim chance that this wretched prisoner, upon whom she had never laid her eyes but who now threatened her existence, might be captured by a stray police patrol or a chance encounter with a detachment of guards before he had the opportunity to perish somewhere out in the wilderness. It seemed to her far more likely that, once they had realised the escaping prisoner was unarmed, Trotsky’s captors would make every effort to bring him back alive rather than dead; in short, to cover themselves in glory rather than blood. It was a loophole she vowed she would not have allowed to remain open, in the unlikely event she had found herself in the same position as her more impressionable husband.

Chapter Seventeen

Friday 16th February

Berezovo Northern Siberia

At Number 8 Ostermann Street Yeliena Tortsova was sewing buttons onto a black jacket which had become her mourning costume for the play. The jacket – her own – had eight buttons, all faux pearls and her task that afternoon while Vasili was taking his nap in his bedroom upstairs was to replace them with black fabric buttons she had purchased from Delyanov’s haberdashery that morning. She thought the buttons ugly but at the same time appreciated that this was not important. All that mattered was that she gave the appearance onstage of a widow still grieving for her loss.

She was relieved to be engaged upon such a task. She had taken Madame Wrenskaya’s admonishments of the previous day to heart and had instructed Katya to take Chevanin’s lunch to the surgery. Her maid had been more than happy to do this and Yeliena had felt a twinge of guilt at the way that her face had flushed with pleasure at being given her errand.

Another conquest for Anton Ivanovich, she thought. How smug he must feel at having all these women swooning at his feet! The poor girl does not know that he has only eyes for me. I have become his obsession. But was I not too obsessed for a while? Intoxicated by his presence, drunk with the fact of him?

Holding up the jacket in front of her so she could inspect her progress, she shook her head.