Berezovo: A Revolutionary Russian Epic

Turning, she led the way to a third door which opened into a much larger room. Sparsely furnished, it contained a rickety table, one leg of which was supported by two books. Four chairs were arranged around the table upon which lay scattered piles of newspapers, bottles of ink, some empty cups and a couple of ashtrays brimming with dead cigarette butts and spent matches. In a corner stood a small black stove and, jutting out of the wall next to it, a stone sink. A single dull brass tap dripped monotonously onto a stack of unwashed plates and cups, while on the stove’s single plate, two small, battered, cheap tin saucepans, also unwashed, vied for space. Crossing the room, the woman wrestled for a moment with the sash of the window above the sink, making its panes, opaque with the dirt of years, rattle in their loose frames so that minute flakes of paint dropped onto the cutlery and crockery piled in the sink below. With a last desperate effort, she flung the window up and taking the cigarette butt from her lip, tossed it into the unseen yard below. Smiling with satisfaction, she turned back to the two men, and patted her unkempt hair in a theatrical fashion.

“This,” she declared gazing around her, “is what we choose to call the common room, for the simple reason that it is very, very common.”

She paused, allowing the observation to sink in and then, with a vague fluttering motion of her hands, invited him to take a place at the table.

“Please sit down, Mr…?”

She hesitated, deliberately waiting for him to introduce himself properly.

“Trotsky. Leon Trotsky. And you, Madame?”

“Me?” said the woman, gathering up the papers from the table as she spoke, “I am Vera Ivanova Zasulich and very hungry, in that order. Jules, why is this place in such a mess? When will you men learn to tidy up?”

“Vera,” said Martov quietly, “this is ‘Pero’.”

She stared at Trotsky blankly.

“You? You are Pero?”

She seemed to find the idea absurd, for she clapped her hands together and laughed.

“But you are so young, even younger than little Martov here. How old are you?”

“Twenty-two.”

Her brow darkened in mock anger.

“How dare you be so young and yet write so well? Who taught you? I have read some of your reviews and articles. They flow like a river, while I have to sweat and struggle over every word, every sentence… How dare you be so talented and still so young!”

Warming to her, Trotsky responded with a shrug and a shy smile.

“Jules! Run and fetch some meat from the butcher on the corner,” she commanded Martov. “Then call in at the public house for a pail of beer on the way back. You’ll find some money on my bedside table. Tonight, we shall celebrate the arrival of our comrade, the Young Eagle!”

Snatching up the remaining papers that lay strewn over the table, she dumped them unceremoniously on one of the seats. Then, pausing only to untie a small bag of tobacco which she wore fixed to a belt around her waist, she sat down heavily and beamed across at him.

“So, Pero,” she exclaimed, nodding him to take the other chair, “you have come at last.”

Leaning forward, she offered him her tobacco. Taking the pouch, he began to roll a cigarette.

“Now, tell me about Russia,” she said.

Tired as he was, he had talked far into the early hours of the following morning, answering her questions between mouthfuls of a mutton casserole that Martov had prepared. He could tell at once that much of what he had to tell disappointed her, for she craved news of a different Russia to his; a Russia of bustling streets and rapturous theatre audiences, of music and literature and tumultuous mass meetings, and above all, of St. Petersburg. The nearest he had to offer her was his account of the Butyrka transfer prison in Moscow. But as soon as he had begun to describe the long journey that had led him from exile to London, she had visibly brightened. The name of Kler, the Iskra courier in Samara who had helped him get out of the country, meant nothing to her but the merest mention of Adler, the leader of the Austrian Social Democrats, sent her into paroxysms of delight.

“Dear Victor! How is he? Still working too hard, I suppose? And how is Max and his beautiful wife, Katya? Oh, she is such a darling! Almost a daughter to Victor instead of a daughter-in-law. Did you meet her? Yes? She’s Russian, of course. A curious marriage when you come to think of it, Russian and Austrian. Our peoples are so different. But that means nothing to good socialists, eh, Jules? And what about Adler’s old assistant, Austerlitz? Did you meet him? My God, never have I heard a man shout so much! He has a voice that was made for a parade ground! But I am being unkind. I heard him try to whisper once. It was like a foghorn across the Neva! Old Fritz would die for Victor Adler; there is no doubt of it. But what a voice! And after Vienna? Where did you go then? Zurich? Then you must have seen Axelrod! Tell me, that butter business he runs, is it true that he is nearly bankrupt?”