Berezovo: A Revolutionary Russian Epic

Collecting the charge sheets and duty book from the sergeant’s desk, Colonel Izorov pushed open the door to his office. Its familiar dowdy appearance had a calming and restorative effect and he felt his spirits began to rise. Once he had caught up with the remaining paperwork, he told himself, there would be little else to keep him at his desk; he could go home having shaken free the fears of the night. Removing his belt, he sat down at his desk, and made himself comfortable as he started to leaf through the most recent entries in the Duty Book. Friday nights at the Black Cock were usually rowdy and the previous evening had been no exception. Two of Belinsky’s workmen and the blacksmith Chirikov had become involved in a drunken brawl. As could be expected, the blacksmith had emerged unscathed from the melee but the arresting officer had received a black eye during the course of restoring order and arresting the two workmen. Which of the two culprits was responsible it was unclear: they were both still lying insensible on the floor of the detention cell into which they had been flung during the night. Picking up his pen, he dipped it in his inkwell and added “Obstructing a Police Officer in the Course of his Duties” to the imaginative and wide ranging catalogue of offences already listed on their charge sheets.

The next entry caught his attention. The Widow Golitsyna had visited the police station to report the theft of a malitsa from her drying pole. The coat had belonged to her husband who had vanished several years before. To save her feelings, she was popularly referred to as the “Widow” Golitsyna, although not eight months previously someone had reported spotting her errant husband boarding a southbound ferry at Sverdlovsk. Izorov saw that she was blaming her neighbour, Ludmilla Alexandrovna Gretyena, whom she also was accusing of being a witch and a sorceress.

According to the Widow, Madame Gretyena had stolen the malitsa out of revenge and intended to use the coat to weave a spell over her husband’s ghost because he had reputedly spurned her advances during his brief sojourn on earth. Colonel Izorov discounted the likelihood of this being a plausible motive: not because he didn’t believe in witches – in this world all things are possible – but because to his knowledge Golitsyn had never spurned any woman’s advances, whether married or single. He made a note beneath the entry for a search to be carried out on the following Monday of the pawnbrokers in the Quarter. The coat itself was worth probably ten or twelve roubles only, but the theft had to be dealt with and it was in the Quarter that he would most likely find his criminal.

Turning the page of the duty book he discovered a single sheaf of paper, folded and addressed to him by name. The blob of grey candle wax that sealed the note was unbroken. Carefully, he broke the seal and smoothed out the paper. It was a report from the dvornik at the hospital who was under orders to keep an eye on the movements of the prisoner Trotsky. The young man had left the hospital for an hour in the morning of the previous day for a visit to the library. He had received no visitors. None of the exile community had attempted to communicate with him in any way. The trays of food which had been sent over to him from the Hotel New Century (and who was paying for those, the Colonel was curious to know) had been carefully examined and had contained no hidden messages. All was in order. The dvornik would continue his watch.

Colonel Izorov sat back on his chair and frowned. Despite Dr. Tortsov’s insistence, he found it hard to believe that the prisoner was not malingering. He was too young, too sharp and agile, to be the long term sufferer from sciatica he claimed to be. The man was shamming, but why? If he was hoping that he would be rescued by his exiles in the Quarter, then he would be disappointed. The order that had been circulated to all the groups of exiles had been explicit: keep away from the hospital. The Colonel considered the possibility that the newcomer wanted a few more days of relative comfort before the rigours of Obdorsk, but dismissed it as unlikely. Trotsky’s type, he felt, prided themselves on keeping up a stoic exterior in the face of adversity. It was more likely he just want to be awkward; to give the authorities in Berezovo the run-around.

It doesn’t matter if they are Communists or courtiers, thought the Colonel. These St. Petersburg types look down their noses at everyone, even Muscovites who are renowned for their superciliousness.