Berezovo: A Revolutionary Russian Epic

Reaching the corner of Well Lane, he turned left into it, and began walking towards Alexei Street. Because of the high walls on either side of the narrow lane, he was temporarily invisible from the Fire Tower. Once he had reached the main street, the guard would be able to watch him all the way. He began to slow down.

If anyone stops me, he thought, I will say that I am going to the hotel for a nightcap, my money is as good as anyone else’s, et cetera. It will suffice.

It was all a matter of confidence, cover and observation. Nicolai had taught him that, and so much more. Tricks like how to shake off a tail; how to use a passing omnibus or wagon as cover to change direction, and how to anticipate that your quarry would do the same. How to use a doorway to bring the surveillance to an abrupt halt or the reflection of a shop window to gauge the closeness of your pursuers. How to recognize feints and handovers; brush offs and box jobs. He had spent five days walking the backstreets of Paddington, alternately following a comrade and being followed. Nicolai had assured him that to assume the role of the hunter was as useful as to practice being hunted.

The skills he had learned in London had stood him in good stead on more than one occasion. During the second day of the Brussels congress, he had been leaving a restaurant with Vera Zasulich when a fellow delegate, a comrade from Odessa, had given them the sign that they were being followed; a casual downward brush of the jacket lapel. Immediately Vera and he had separated, setting off in opposite directions. It was well after midnight, and the city streets were almost empty. He had walked briskly, the tall Flemish detective dogging his every step less than ten paces behind him. Having given Vera enough time to get clear, he had quickly turned on the man and demanded to know the name of the street they were on. It wasn’t much, it was all the French he could muster at the time, but it had been sufficient to startle the policeman who had pressed himself flat against the wall, undoubtedly expecting a revolver, or a knife, in his ribs. After that, the detective had let the gap between them lengthen to twenty paces. That had been enough. Ducking down the first side street he had come to, Trotsky had broken into a run, gaining a few valuable seconds. Once he had recovered from his surprise, the Flemish had made up the distance sticking close behind him as they walked quickly around the three sides of the block. By the time they had reached the main street again the city clocks had struck one and they had both felt tired and angry. Impasse.

And so it had gone on: two strangers, one following the other, threading their way through the night streets. He had resumed his normal walking pace, all the time leading the policeman away from the room where he had taken lodgings. Horse cabs stood invitingly at the kerb, their drivers dozing in their seats, but it had taken a good twenty minutes until he had spotted the one he wanted and by that time they had almost reached the suburbs. The cab had been standing outside an all night bar and it was the only one in the street for perhaps four hundred metres. The moment he had seen it, the Flemish had quickened his pace, recognising the play but there was little he could do. As Nicolai had sarcastically remarked when he had heard his account of the adventure, “With one bound our hero was free.”

Trotsky smiled at the memory. The Flemish had been good; almost certainly there was nobody as good as him in Berezovo. And if there was, they were not following him now; of that he was certain. Without breaking his step, he left the narrow defile of Well Lane and started crossing the broad expanse of Alexei Street. When he had reached the other side, he glanced back across the road. The door to the uchastok was closed; the windows covered with wooden shutters. Ahead of him beckoned the lights of the Hotel New Century. He climbed up onto the wooden boardwalk, his footsteps echoing loudly in the still night air. Raising the collar of his coat, he hunched his shoulders, reducing still further the profile he offered to the Fire Tower. Even if they had a telescope, at best the guards would see the rear view of an anonymous figure huddled against the cold.