Fall of Giants

Dewar was the first of a small group of visitors touring the Putilov Machine Works. It was the largest factory in St. Petersburg, employing thirty thousand men, women, and children. Grigori’s job was to show them his own small but important section. The factory made locomotives and other large steel artifacts. Grigori was foreman of the shop that made train wheels.

Grigori was itching to speak to Dewar about Buffalo. But before he could ask a question the supervisor of the casting section, Kanin, appeared. A qualified engineer, he was tall and thin with receding hair.

With him was a second visitor. Grigori knew from his clothes that this must be the British lord. He was dressed like a Russian nobleman, in a tailcoat and a top hat. Perhaps this was the clothing worn by the ruling class all over the world.

The lord’s name, Grigori had been told, was Earl Fitzherbert. He was the handsomest man Grigori had ever seen, with black hair and intense green eyes. The women in the wheel shop stared as if at a god.

Kanin spoke to Fitzherbert in Russian. “We are now producing two new locomotives every week here,” he said proudly.

“Amazing,” said the English lord.

Grigori understood why these foreigners were so interested. He read the newspapers, and he went to lectures and discussion groups organized by the St. Petersburg Bolshevik Committee. The locomotives made here were essential to Russia’s ability to defend itself. The visitors might pretend to be idly curious, but they were collecting military intelligence.

Kanin introduced Grigori. “Peshkov here is the factory’s chess champion.” Kanin was management, but he was all right.

Fitzherbert was charming. He spoke to Varya, a woman of about fifty with her gray hair in a head scarf. “Very kind of you to show us your workplace,” he said, cheerfully speaking fluent Russian with a heavy accent.

Varya, a formidable figure, muscular and big-bosomed, giggled like a schoolgirl.

The demonstration was ready. Grigori had placed steel ingots in the hopper and fired up the furnace, and the metal was now molten. But there was one more visitor to come: the earl’s wife, who was said to be Russian-hence his knowledge of the language, which was unusual in a foreigner.

Grigori wanted to question Dewar about Buffalo, but before he had a chance, the earl’s wife came into the wheel shop. Her floor-length skirt was like a broom pushing a line of dirt and swarf in front of her. She wore a short coat over her dress, and she was followed by a manservant carrying a fur cloak, a maid with a bag, and one of the directors of the factory, Count Maklakov, a young man dressed like Fitzherbert. Maklakov was obviously very taken with his guest, smiling and talking in a low voice and taking her arm unnecessarily. She was extraordinarily pretty, with fair curls and a coquettish tilt to her head.

Grigori recognized her immediately. She was Princess Bea.

His heart lurched and he felt nauseated. He fiercely repressed the ugly memory that rose out of the distant past. Then, as in any emergency, he checked on his brother. Would Lev remember? He had been only six years old at the time. Lev was looking with curiosity at the princess, as if trying to place her. Then, as Grigori watched, Lev’s face changed and he remembered. He went pale and looked ill, then suddenly he reddened with anger.

By that time Grigori was at Lev’s side. “Stay calm,” he murmured. “Don’t say anything. Remember, we’re going to America-nothing must interfere with that!”

Lev made a disgusted noise.

“Go back to the stables,” Grigori said. Lev was a pony driver, working with the many horses used in the factory.

Lev glared a moment longer at the oblivious princess. Then he turned and walked away, and the moment of danger passed.

Grigori began the demonstration. He nodded to Isaak, a man of his own age, who was captain of the factory football team. Isaak opened up the mold. Then he and Varya picked up a polished wooden template of a flanged train wheel. This in itself was a work of great skill, with spokes that were elliptical in cross-section and tapered by one in twenty from hub to rim. The wheel was for a big 4-6-4 locomotive, and the template was almost as tall as the people lifting it.

They pressed it into a deep tray filled with damp sandy molding mixture. Isaak swung the cast-iron chill on top of that, to form the tread and the flange, and then finally the top of the mold.

They opened up the assemblage and Grigori inspected the hole made by the template. There were no visible irregularities. He sprayed the molding sand with a black oily liquid, then they closed the flask again. “Please stand well back now,” he said to the visitors. Isaak moved the spout of the hopper to the funnel on top of the mold. Then Grigori pulled the lever that tilted the hopper.