Berezovo: A Revolutionary Russian Epic

Your greatest enemy is panic, he told himself. Keep calm and maintain your external appearance. You have already committed yourself to this course of action and burned all the bridges behind you. You cannot turn back now, you have no choice but to go on. Be confident and think of Natalya and Baby Lev and the story you will have to tell them when you next see them. You have taken pains to plan and make your preparations. All you have to do now is to see them through. You have escaped successfully before and will succeed this time. Remember who you are, and how blessed you are! Even the problem of the hospital door isn’t difficult, if you think about it…

Surprised by this last notion that he felt had sprung unbidden from somewhere at the back of his mind, Trotsky lowered the newspaper and removed his pince nez.

What am I trying to tell myself? he wondered. I have forgotten something… some detail that might help me. But what is it?

The sole of his right food began to ache and beneath the table he moved his foot to a more comfortable position. The small stone he had picked up from the market square and secreted inside his boot to remind him to limp had bruised his step. It had served its purpose. When he returned to his room at the hospital he would remove it and throw it away. That night he had to be able to run, should it become necessary. He lit a cigarette and tried to unpick the puzzle of how he could get through the outer door of the hospital without rousing the hospital attendants who, he hoped, would be sleeping in their room off the vestibule, but his attention was diverted by the arrival of a fourth woman at a table a few yards away. Like the three women who had arrived separately while he had been drinking his coffee, the newcomer was dressed in sombre dark colours.

Together, he thought, they look like a flock of crows gathering on a telegraph wire.

He watched the woman greet the other women in a perfunctory fashion and draw from her bag a folded sheet of notepaper. As she began speaking she passed the notepaper to one of the crows who unfolded it and the other two crows craned their necks to read what it said.

That, comrade, Trotsky told himself, is a caucus. A caucus of cawing crows. But what is the motion under discussion, I wonder? And who will be the carrion?

* * *

“To whom it may concern,” Lidiya Pusnyena read out quietly. “We the undersigned, mindful of the importance of maintaining public morality and the protection of our homes and our families, give notice that we will not purchase goods or services from any trading establishment that provides its custom to Madame Irena Kuibysheva of Berezovo and that we will maintain this resolve until she has made full restitution to those she has wronged or has departed from our midst. Signed by Anna Christianovna Wrenskaya and Olga Nadnikova.”

There was a deathly hush.

“Oh Olga!” said Raisa.

“Anna Christianovna knows what needs to be done,” declared Olga, “and so do I. We can no longer tolerate this viper in our midst – she must be driven out.”

“But what does this mean?” asked Lidiya.

“This means that we will be telling the shopkeepers and merchants that we patronise that we will not do business with them if they continue to entertain her as a customer. For example, we will not buy our cakes from Gvordyen’s or our meat from Svortsov if she does.”

“So we cannot meet here for coffee and cakes either?” asked Lidiya, disappointed.

“Certainly not. Let us see how Fyodor Gregorivich enjoys the loss of trade.”

“What about the bank?” queried Raisa. “The bank has a legal duty to provide access to depositors’ money. I don’t think my husband will countenance any obstruction to that.”

Olga nodded her agreement.

“Anna Christianovna and I have anticipated that,” she said. “The letter is quite specific: ‘We will not purchase goods or services from any trading establishment.’ The bank is excepted, as are certain professions. We both felt that Dr. Tortsov, for example, and the hospital could not be included in our ban, whereas the library is included.”