Berezovo: A Revolutionary Russian Epic

Together the two men bore her towards the door, the crowd making way for them as the chanting rose and fell.

When they reached the door, Dr. Tortsov said:

“Take my sleigh. Tell the driver to take you home and then return here. I shall call in this afternoon and prescribe her a tonic.”

“No, no,” Nina murmured. “Please don’t go to any bother. It’s just the air and the smoke. It was very close. I shall be all right once I am home.”

“I should still like to see you,” insisted the Doctor.

“The Doctor is right, Nina,” agreed Roshkovsky.

His wife sighed and then shook her head again.

“Very well. But tomorrow. Yes, tomorrow. You look weary yourself, Doctor. You should take a rest too, you know.”

Dr. Tortsov bowed and held the door open for them as they passed into the daylight.

Leaving the church, the Roshkovskys stood for a moment on the steps: he trying to pick out the Doctor’s sleigh from the half dozen that were drawn up outside the church, she drawing the fur collar of her coat up around her elegant throat to protect herself from the freezing cold.

“He’s beginning to look old, Andrey,” she said, half to herself.

“There it is!” Roshkovsky said, beckoning to one of the sleighs. “Come on, we’ll soon… Oh!”

Glancing up quickly, Nina Roshkovskaya caught the look of surprise in her husband’s face. Following his gaze, she saw a dark figure walking slowly and deliberately towards them down the middle of Alexei Street. The man’s features were indistinct, and even when he had come nearer, she did not recognise him as anyone she knew, but she could deduce from her husband’s stricken expression the identity of the approaching stranger.

“No, Andrey,” she cried, gripping his arm desperately. “Come home, I beg you.”

Her husband was not listening. He stood as if mesmerised, his eyes widening with disbelief as the figure approached them. The street was deserted; apart from the occasional muffled cough from one of the drivers and the singing from the church, the world seemed to have grown silent as if magnetised by the aura of menace emanating from the ragged figure in the roadway. When the man was no more than a dozen paces from the bottom step to the church, it halted. Beside her husband, Madame Roshkovskaya stifled the urge to cry out as, raising an arm, the stranger crooked a finger at Roshkovsky and, beckoned him to follow.

“I must go,” said Roshkovsky weakly.

“No Andrey!” she begged him again. “Leave it to Colonel Izorov.”

Seemingly deaf to her pleas, he propelled her down the step and hurried her towards the Doctor’s sleigh. All the time the man stood watching him, and remained silent. When at last his wife was safely seated in the sleigh and the driver had whipped up his team, Roshkovsky stepped back and, drawing back his shoulders, raised his eyes to meet Trotsky’s accusing stare.

Turning, Trotsky set off down in the direction of the Town Hall, with Roshkovsky following him a few yards behind. The two men walked at an even pace, the distance between them neither lengthening, or shortening. When he came to the entrance to Well Lane, Trotsky changed direction and began heading diagonally across the breadth of Alexei Street. The snow that had fallen the night before crunched beneath their boots. When he had reached the Hotel New Century Trotsky pushed open the glass doors and entered without looking back. After a cautious glance towards the closed doors of the uchastok opposite, Roshkovsky followed suit. The exile’s stained coat, with its ripped pocket, hung from the coat stand outside the public dining room. Inside, Trotsky was sitting hunched at a table near the door. He did not look up when Roshkovsky sat down opposite him.

“Well?”

“I d… don’t understand,” stammered Roshkovsky. “You shouldn’t be here.”

Slowly Trotsky raised his eyes and the land surveyor saw that they were ringed with black and that the pupils shone with an unhealthy, feverish light.

“What happened, Roshkovsky?”

Roshkovsky shrugged and watched helplessly as the man opposite him reached inside the frayed sleeve of his prison uniform tunic and with infinite slowness drew out a knife.

“Start talking,” demanded Trotsky.

“I tell you, I don’t know,” said Roshkovsky unhappily. “Goat’s Foot told me everything was arranged. You should be a hundred versts away by now.”

“If you’ve double crossed me, Roshkovsky,” said Trotsky quietly. “You know I’ll have you killed, don’t you?”

“Yes, yes, I know!” replied Roshkovsky, his voice rising in desperation. “But I haven’t! I swear to God I haven’t. Look,” he urged him, “let me go and see Goat’s Foot. I’ll find out what happened, I promise you. There’s obviously been some mistake.”

“That’s an understatement.”

“Perhaps he was being watched,” Roshkovsky suggested. “He’s always in trouble with the police. If he thought they were waiting for him, the last thing he would do would be to lead them to you.”

“Go and see him then,” ordered Trotsky, “and tell him this. He’s got seventy roubles of mine, so either he keeps his side of the bargain or else…”