Berezovo: A Revolutionary Russian Epic

He looked meaningfully down at the knife and then slipped it back into his sleeve.

“Or else what?” Roshkovsky asked faintly.

Trotsky smiled and leant forward.

“Remember Gapon, the priest who led the march on Bloody Sunday?”

Roshkovsky nodded.

“Didn’t you ever wonder what became of him? He was a police spy.”

Roshkovsky’s jaw fell open in surprise.

“Father Gapon? A police spy?”

“Oh yes! Worse than that, he also stole money intended for the Revolution. That was a crime against the People and he paid for it. My Finnish comrades caught him and strung him up in a corner of his apartment. I hear that it was over a fortnight before anyone found him and cut him down.”

Roshkovsky swallowed nervously but said nothing.

“Tell your moujik friend,” continued Trotsky, “that it must be tonight, or my money back. And fix up somewhere else for us to meet. Last night I nearly froze to death in that graveyard. Come to me after you have seen him and tell me what he said.”

“I dare not!”

“Just do it.”

“No, I can’t,” Roshkovsky insisted. “If Colonel Izorov hears that I have visited you, he’ll know something is up.”

Trotsky shrugged dismissively.

“Look,” went on Roshkovsky quickly, “are you going to the play tonight at the barracks? Many of the exiles will be there, so it won’t look suspicious. I’m on the committee, so I have to go. I’ll meet you in the interval and tell you what Goat’s Foot said.”

“What time does it begin?”

“The music starts at eight o’clock, the curtain rises at eight thirty. Come in a few minutes after, when it’s dark and no one will notice you. They’ll all be watching the stage. I’ll look out for you.”

Trotsky thought it over, weighing the matter in his mind. Every hour’s delay put a strain on his already taut nerves, but the evening meeting would give him the chance to sleep through the afternoon and get back some of the strength he had lost during his ordeal the night before.

“All right. Tonight it is,” he told Roshkovsky. “One more thing. You’ll have to do something about that damned tower.”

“What, the Fire Tower?”

“Yes. You can see the countryside for ten versts around.”

“But what are you suggesting?”

“Create a diversion. Set fire to your house if you have to. I don’t care. Just take care of it.”

He stood up and, clapping a hand on Roshkovsky’s shoulder with a force that made him flinch, said:

“Until tonight, then.”

Chapter Twenty Two

Sunday 18th February 1907

Berezovo, Northern Siberia

Sitting at the lunch table, Dr. Tortsov was roaring with laughter as Chevanin concluded his imitation of the luckless Hospital Administrator’s dress rehearsal the previous day.

“And,” continued his assistant, “when Maslov pressed the birdcage on him and he dropped it, I thought I would die. It was the funniest thing in the world.”

“Vasili, is it true,” Yeliena asked, “that when you went onstage afterwards, you found a soldier’s boot?”

“It’s true as God is my witness,” confirmed the Doctor, “and it was a good sized boot too. One of the men must have thrown it. Obviously a lover of the theatre. Fortunately for us, it missed.”

“Why do you say fortunately?” asked Chevanin.

“If we had lost our leading man in the second play, who would take the part tonight?”

“Just think,” mused Yeliena, “after tonight, it will all be over.”

Chevanin’s brow creased with anguish as if her words stabbed him to the heart.

“Well, there is no reason why it should be,” he said. “We could always produce another play during the summer. What do you say, Vasili Semionovich?”

The Doctor slowly shook his head.

“Another play? People are usually too busy in the summer to bother with such things. And I for one have had enough of dramatic productions to last me a lifetime. Not that it hasn’t been fun.”

“You have genuinely enjoyed yourself?” asked Yeliena solicitously.

“Oh yes, I suppose so. Being a doctor is more than mending broken arms and delivering babies, as Anton Ivanovich will soon learn if he hasn’t already. You stand in danger of becoming immune to suffering. You see pain every day until it becomes such an old acquaintance – I almost said an old friend – that you can find yourself nodding to in the street and think nothing more of it. Just for once, to bring joy and laughter, even unintentionally, instead of anxiety, to people’s lives… that is worth something.”

He sighed, and looked at both of them.

“I used to think it was more important than that, but it isn’t.”

Yeliena clasped her husband’s right hand.

“It’s only an illusion, isn’t it?” she said, looking meaningfully at Chevanin. “Real life goes on. The play ends and the stage is dismantled and the actors go back to living their ordinary lives.”

“But we are real, aren’t we?” asked Chevanin plaintively. “I mean, the three of us. When the curtain goes down and the audience goes home, they will carry with them the memory of what we have done. That, at least, will last, if nothing else does.”

Stretching out his left hand, the Doctor laid it gently on Chevanin’s arm.