Dazzle The Complete Unabridged Trilogy (47 page)

Inge pushed her plate away, saying, 'I'm not hungry.'

'Me, neither,' Tamara grumbled, letting the heavy sterling
fork drop on her plate with a resounding clatter. 'Yech! I
hate
potato pancakes! They taste like newspaper.'

Senda, equally depressed and uninterested in the rubbery,
unappetizing rounds of shredded potatoes, drew on her appar
ently limitless wellspring of indomitability and good cheer. 'I know they're terrible, angel, but they're all we've got today. Tomorrow we'll feast extravagantly and make up for it.'

Inge raised her eyebrows and tartly said,
'
Tomorrow is
going to be as bad or worse, mark my words. If you ask me,
it's all that Polenka's fault. She probably took the shopping
money and ran off with it. I hope at least she and Dimitri are
eating well!'

'Inge! We can't make such assumptions,' Senda cried shar
ply. 'You know there were riots and demonstrations all day.
In all probability, Polenka couldn't get back here.'

'Oh no? And what about Dmitri? He's got your horse and
carriage, hasn't he? I've checked downstairs in the stable and
they're not there. He could have driven her here.'

'Maybe they've been injured.'

'Maybe they're plain thieves.'

'Tomorrow,' Senda said wearily, 'will be a lot better.'

'Tomorrow, I'm afraid,' Inge mumbled pessimistically, 'is
going to be a lot worse.'

Unfortunately, Inge was proven right.

The next morning, crowds of even greater magnitude filled
the streets. More bakeries and food shops were looted, and
the ubiquitous Cossacks, who appeared anywhere at the first
sign of trouble, patrolled the streets once again, although this
time without their whips. The significance of whipless
Cossacks was not lost on the demonstrators—whips were the traditional method of crowd control. The whipless Cossacks,
greeted cheerfully by the mobs, also assured them they
wouldn't use their guns.

But even the lack of whips and bullets could do little to
assuage hunger.

'So now what?' Inge growled unnecessarily. 'It's past noon
and neither Polenka nor Dmitri has shown up. Not that I miss
them, especially that shifty-eyed Dmitri, but we can't wait
much longer for them. If we do, we'll starve.'

She and Senda were in the kitchen going through the bare
pantry shelves and cupboards. 'Meissen porcelain and sterling
silver are very nice, but we can't eat them. We've got to get
hold of some food. The two of us can get along on a lot less,
but it's Tamara I'm worried about. She's a growing girl and
needs all the nourishment she can get.'

'I know, I
know!'
Senda snapped, reaching the end of her
strength and patience and finding herself in a morass of irrita
bility, frustration, and growing anger. She turned on her heel,
marched briskly out to the foyer, and began pulling on her
thick, warm sable coat and matching hat.

'And where do you think
you're
going, all dolled up like the
Queen of Sheba?' Inge demanded, arms akimbo.

Senda turned to blink rapidly at Inge from within the star
burst of sable framing her oval face. 'You know it's cold out.
Besides, I always dress like this,' she said in surprise. 'I'm
going out to try to buy some food.'

'Not in that outfit, you won't,' Inge said grimly. 'The way
tempers are flaring on the street, it's best to melt into the
crowd. I should think it would be a lot safer for you to wear
something old and suitably tatty. Right now, those people
out there aren't going to be impressed by displays of wealth.
They're liable to rip that coat right off your back.'

Senda stared at her, then nodded. Inge was right. In fact, she should have thought of it herself. Silently she slipped off
her coat and hat and rummaged through her closets trying to
find something plain and inconspicuous. She sighed as she slid
aside padded hanger after padded hanger. She'd had no idea
that her wardrobe was filled with so
many
extravagant clothes. Only now, searching for something that would not draw atten
tion from the starving multitudes, did she realize the extent of
her beautiful wardrobe. In the end, she settled for her oldest
astrakhan cape and one of Inge's plain black woollen scarves.
She scowled at herself in the mirror. 'I look like an old
babu
shka,'
she said with a tight grimace.

'Better a live old
babushka
than a dead princess,' Inge
retorted gently.

Senda left, and when she finally returned from shopping, it
was three hours later. She was exhausted and her feet ached,
but considering the circumstances, she'd scored a triumphant
coup. It didn't matter, she told herself, that she'd had to pay
ten times what the groceries would normally have cost; at least
she'd managed to buy some wilting turnips, limp string beans, a scrawny chicken, six brown eggs carefully wrapped in news
paper, a brittle wedge of mouldy cheese, and a box of rice.
Still, in light of the fact that most of the food stores had been
shut, it was going to be a glorious feast.

'If this is any indication of what's to come,' Inge told her
grimly through clenched teeth as they put the precious grocer
ies away, 'then God help us all.'

They would need God's help. The following day, Friday,
March 9, the wheels of Petrograd ground to a complete stand
still. Almost to the last man and woman, the workers staged
a city-wide strike. The trains stopped running. The trolleys
never left their terminals. There wasn't a single cab in sight.
Not one newspaper was printed. Massive crowds, this time
carrying the enormous red banners which were to become a
familiar sight, marched through the streets chanting, 'Down
with the
Nemska!
Down with the war!' The two cries echoed
from the crowded streets throughout the day.

At last the seriousness of the situation was making itself
felt. Even those privileged people at the highest levels of
society could no longer ignore the impending doom. Hardly
anyone went out that night; at the Maryinsky Theatre,
Georges Enesco gave a violin recital to an audience of less
than fifty. The restaurants were empty.

Senda, due to open in a revival of the ever-popular
La Dame
aux Camelias
at the Théâtre Français, prudently decided to
stay home behind locked doors. As it turned out, so did the
rest of the cast, and the audience.

Throughout Petrograd, the food situation became even more critical. Without transportation, the little there was
could not be distributed. If it was, the stores were ransacked before the first customer could purchase anything. The Czar, five hundred miles away and unaware of the extent of the
problems plaguing his capital, naively telegraphed his orders—
carefully veiled instructions clearly meaning that military
troops were to shoot to clear the streets.

As luck would have it, bloodshed was kept to a minimum,
thanks to the lack of disciplined troops. The well-trained vet
erans had long since perished fighting the Germans, and what
remained of the better fighters were entrenched on the far-
away front. The garrison at Petrograd was filled with raw,
inexperienced recruits, many hailing from the working-class
suburbs of the city itself. Due to a severe shortage of officers
and arms, many had not been trained at all.

Still, on Saturday, March 10, fifty people were killed or
wounded on the Nevsky Prospekt after soldiers fired into the
crowds. Altogether that day, the death toll rose to two hun
dred dead civilians throughout Petrograd.

Scores more would have been killed had the soldiers obeyed
orders. One company, urged by its screaming officer to shoot
into a crowd, turned on the officer and shot him instead.
Another regiment emptied their rifles into the air rather than
shoot into a mob.

That night, a telegram was sent to the Czar,
there is anar
chy in the capital,
it read.

The Czar promptly responded by sending reinforcements,
but by Sunday afternoon, scores of soldiers were starting to
mutiny and join the rebels.

By Tuesday, one solitary outpost of czarism remained in the
city: fifteen hundred troops loyal to the Czar were holding the
Winter Palace. The rebels gave the troops twenty minutes to
evacuate or else face bombardment. The troops fled.

It was a scene out of Dante's
Inferno.

The majestic, once-well-ordered city was in the midst of a
revolutionary hurricane. Mobs rampaged, looted, and pil
laged. The rattle of gunfire was heard day and night. Screams
rent the air. At the naval base outside Petrograd, sailors slaughtered one officer and buried a second alive beside the
corpse of the first. Nothing was sacred, life least of all. Centur
ies of hunger and oppression were vented in one ghastly spree.
Armoured cars rumbled through the streets, their tops and sides packed with cheering rebels flying huge red banners.
Arson was in many a heart: flaring red sheens lit the night sky
as buildings were put to the torch. When the fire department
arrived, the firemen were invariably chased away. Killing and
burning were a catharsis of sorts. Mobs danced like driven
devils around the massive pyres which had once been govern
ment buildings and stately homes.

Hearing a volley of nearby shots followed by a cheering roar, Senda stepped to the French window, parted the curtains a
hairline crack, and ventured to peer out. She drew in her
breath sharply and stood very still. Through the icy glass she
could see yet another of the uncountable manifestations of
violence. Directly across the frozen river another building was
going up in flames. Sparks exploded through billowing smoke,
their fiery spores racing skyward in the wind. The dancing
orange glow was mirrored on the ice-sheathed river, doubling
the terrible sight.