Red Stefan (6 page)

“Akulina talks Russian to you—”

“Yes. She's a Ruthenian, from White Russia. She was born and bred on the Darensky estate, and her daughter Katinka went back there when she married. Yuri is a Ukrainian. Are you any good at acting?”

Her lips moved into that faint smile.

“Yes, I think so.”

“Very well then, here's your part. You come from East Russia. Your father and mother are dead, and you were trying to find your brother, who is in the Red Army. Your name is Varvara. You don't need to talk about any of this, but you've got to know it so as to have a proper background in your own mind. Whilst you're lying here, make pictures of your father and mother and the brother you're looking for. Your mother's name was Marya, and your father was Mikhail. Your brother is Ivan—you haven't seen him for two years. There aren't any more of you. Your mother's house was like this, only there was no partition and the stove was on the other side. Get it all into your head, and then talk as little as possible. You're very shy, and a little weak in the head.”

Elizabeth's sudden faint laughter took him quite by surprise. He explained earnestly,

“I'm just thinking of what will be easiest for you.”

Her laughter came with a rush. After a moment he laughed too.

“I say, I didn't mean it like that! Of course it sounds funny. But you see what I mean, don't you? It's an easy part to play really. You've just to say yes and no, and try to look as if part of you was somewhere else.”

The laughter went out of Elizabeth and left her shaken. She said, “I'll try,” and Stephen nodded encouragingly.

“It isn't the village people who matter so much,” he said—“It's Irina. You'll have to be most awfully careful.”

“Who is Irina?” said Elizabeth.

The question had been burning on her lips. They trembled a little when she had spoken, and she was angry with them for trembling. What did it matter to her who Irina was? She had come here and asked for Stephen. And why shouldn't she?
That was what Stephen had said—why shouldn't she?

Stephen did not answer for a moment. Then he said, “We shall have to look out for her—she's clever.”

“Who is she?”

He laughed.

“You might call her a sort of Communist missionary. She goes round amongst the villages trying to convert the old people and hotting up the enthusiasm of the young. I was hoping she wouldn't be here just now—we've had rather more than our share of her lately. Not but what we're very good friends and all that—” He broke off rather suddenly.

Elizabeth raised herself on her elbow. She looked at him, and he was looking away.

“What is she like? Is she young?”

He turned back, laughing.

“Oh yes, she's young—and most awfully good-looking at that. She's got the whole bag of tricks—brains, and looks, and most of the virtues. And that's why we've got to be careful. I've a great respect for Irina.”

“You said you were friends.”

He nodded.

“Oh yes.”

With a little flush of effort she said,

“Wouldn't you like to tell her—we're not married?”

When Stephen stared, his eyes looked quite extraordinarily blue.

“Good Lord, no! I beg your pardon—but she's the very last person on earth. I say, what put that into your head? Did you think I was in love with her?”

“Why shouldn't you be?”

He frowned, and said with unexpected gravity,

“I'm not. Put it out of your head.” Then he smiled again, a wide, amused smile. “I said we were good friends—not
friends
. There's a difference, you know. She's intelligent, and it's a God-send to have someone intelligent to talk to in a place like this—only I have to keep on taking care not to be too intelligent myself, and that's a bit wearing. We're not pals. We've really only got the colour of our opinions in common. I didn't get called Red Stefan just on account of my hair. No—we're fellow enthusiasts, and red-hot Communists. So if you hear me getting things off my chest like ‘universal socialist materialistic ideology,' try and look as edified as you can, will you?—the dumb upward look of the neophyte in fact. Would you like to wash your face and hands? There's some hot water if you would.”

CHAPTER VI

They were alone again in the afternoon, when Yuri was in the barn and Akulina was milking the cow. He asked her how she was, and she said, “Nearly well.” All day the tides of strength which had ebbed so low had been flowing. She had slept a good deal and waked each time refreshed.

“To-morrow,” said Stephen, “you must go out. They mustn't think we're hiding you. Are you quite warm?”

“Yes, quite,” said Elizabeth.

She was sitting on the edge of the bed which had been made for her. The warmth of the stove struck pleasantly upwards through the earthenware platform and the straw that had been piled upon it. She felt weak, but relaxed and at peace. The terrible bitter strain of the past twelve months had been lifted from her.

Stephen was standing with his back to the door. The sole furniture of the room consisted of the bench and loom which she had seen when she first waked, together with a table and four, rude but solid stools. He took one of these stools and planted himself down upon it in front of her with his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands. He appeared to be in deep thought. Presently he said,

“I ought to practise calling you Varvara.”

Elizabeth's smile came quite easily. The lips that had been stiff and frozen were soft again. She looked down at him and asked,

“Is it difficult?”

“Yes,” said Stephen, and plunged in thought again.

This was a new mood to her. If he had not wanted to talk to her, why had he sat down in front of her like this? But if he did want to talk to her, why didn't he begin? She couldn't really imagine that he lacked either words or assurance.

He hunched an impatient shoulder and said half angrily,

“Akulina will be back in a minute.”

“Yes?” said Elizabeth.

“And I'm wasting time.”

“Yes?”

“The fact is I want to talk to you, and I don't know how to begin.”

Elizabeth looked at him in surprise. It was getting dark and she could not see his features very well. Was it possible that he was shy? She decided that it was not possible.

“The fact is,” he burst out, “I've got to ask you some questions, and I'm afraid of upsetting you.”

“Questions?” said Elizabeth slowly.

“Yes. You won't be upset, will you? I shall hate it if you are. I ought really to have asked you this morning, but then I thought, ‘Suppose she faints again,' so I didn't do it. But I ought to have done it.”

Elizabeth wondered what was coming. She shrank from these unknown questions, but in spite of the shrinking her mind was tinged with amusement. There was something boyish about his clumsy delicacy. And how like a man to be afraid that she would faint. She said,

“Please ask what you want to. I shan't faint.”

He nodded.

“No—you're stronger.” Then, with a blunt directness, “I want to know all about this Petroff affair.”

Elizabeth started. The tinge of amusement faded. A tremor took its place. What he called the Petroff affair belonged to the nightmare region out of which he had carried her. To speak of it was to bring it back.

Stephen reached forward and took her hand.

“I've got to know,” he said. “I can't keep you safe unless I know. I must know what to look out for. You see that, don't you?”

Elizabeth bent her head. He pressed her hand very hard indeed, and then let go of it rather suddenly.

“Well now, let's get it over,” he said cheerfully. “To begin with, what's all this about a formula?”

She said the words after him with an involuntary shudder, whilst her hands went to her breast and pressed down upon it painfully.

“A formula?”

“Yes,” said Stephen gently. “You said something about it in your sleep that first night in Tronsk, and last night you talked about it when you woke up.”

“Did I?” The tremor was shaking her so much that the words shook too.

Stephen went down on his knees before her and took both her hands in his.

“Don't shake like that. Don't be frightened. I won't let anything hurt you—I won't really. Petroff shan't touch you. Is that what you're afraid of?”

She made a great effort and steadied herself.

“I'll tell you.”

He had to wait after that, but he showed no impatience, only knelt there, holding her hands, not looking at her. She felt as if she were being held in a strong grasp on the edge of an abyss. She was to look over and tell what she saw there. She was just able to do this while he held her. If he were to let go, she would fall. She began to speak in a low faltering voice without any tone in it.

“We came out eighteen months ago. It was at the beginning of the summer. Nicolas had not lived in Russia since he was a boy. His father was Russian and his mother American. He went to college in America and took an American engineering degree. I met him out there. I was on a visit to the only relations I've got in the world. I'd been ill and couldn't work. They asked me on a long visit. I met Nicolas—” Her voice died away.

Stephen held her hands. After a moment she went on again.

“He had a friend in Russia—they were boys together. Alexis was an engineer too. He got Nicolas the offer of a job at Volkhov. We were both wild to go. Nicolas was very enthusiastic about the Five Year Plan and everything. But when we got there I began to be afraid. You see, he had the American outlook, the American point of view, but he hadn't the protection of being an American. He was a Russian subject. I used to tell him—but he wouldn't listen. He thought he was going to be able to make money. He'd got a new process—a new aluminium alloy. I don't understand these things, but it was going to make a lot of difference in making aeroplanes—they would be stronger and lighter. A man who died gave him the first idea, and he worked it out. There must have been other men in it too, but I don't know who they were. He used to talk to me about it and say what a lot of money we should have when we got back to America. He was going to make some excuse and throw up his job. He didn't seem to understand what a frightful risk he was running. And then all of a sudden something must have leaked out. They sent for him. They asked him if he had a new process. He said no. They let him go that day. He came in and told me he was going to try and get away in the night. He said he couldn't take me—I should be safer where I was. But before he went he made me learn the formula of his process. He said if he didn't get away and I did, I could sell it and it would provide for me. He made me swear that whatever happened I wouldn't give it to
Them
. I learnt the formula by heart. He didn't dare put it on paper. He told me to say it over every day so as not to forget anything. I think I could say it in my sleep.”

“You did,” said Stephen.

He felt her shudder.

“I know.”

“Go on.”

She shuddered again.

“Nicolas went away. It was night. I never saw him again. He was taken—and—shot.”

Stephen looked up for a moment. His eyes were wild and bright, but when he spoke his voice was very gentle.

“Did you love him very much?”

Elizabeth looked down into the abyss. Her own personal tragedy had been swallowed up there. She had not loved Nicolas Radin, but she had mourned for him. She had loved someone whom she thought was Nicolas, and she had found herself married to a Nicolas who became more and more a stranger. She thought of this self-centred, moody being, with his impatience, his hot fits of anger and his cold indifference, his disregard of her warnings, and she felt again the pang with which she had parted from her first romantic dream. The dream was not Nicolas, but she had once thought it was.

Stephen looked down again.

“Please go on. We haven't much time.”

Elizabeth's voice became a mere whisper.

“Next day Petroff came,” she said, and paused on that. It was a long pause, but at last she went on. “He said Nicolas had been shot as a counter-revolutionary—and all his papers belonged to the State. He took everything. Next day he came back. He asked me about the aluminium process. He went on asking me until I fainted. They scraped the walls and pulled up the floors, but they didn't find any more papers. I told them Nicolas never wrote anything down. If it hadn't been for the process, I think they would have just turned me out to starve like they do if they don't think you are any use to them, but they wanted the process very badly. They didn't think I knew anything, but they weren't quite sure.… Petroff took me to Tronsk where his mother was. He told me I was lucky to be housed and fed in return for looking after her.” She gave the faintest, saddest ghost of a laugh. “She didn't feed me very much.”

His hands tightened over hers.

“Is there any more? You'd better tell me everything.”

Everything? Twenty-four hours in a day—seven days in a week—four weeks in the month and two or three days over—twelve months to make up the year. And every hour of every day filled with the petty, senseless cruelties of an old woman to whom these cruelties were meat and drink.

“Tell me,” said Stephen.

She shook from head to foot.

“I—can't. She made me feel—degraded. It was like living in a sewer.”

Stephen said one word very low.

“Petroff?”

She never knew what a relief her answer brought him.

“No—not like that—no.” She breathed quickly and went on. “He didn't come much—only now and then. I think they stopped bothering about the process. I was just a useful slave. Then about a month ago Petroff was there for a week. He took more notice of me. I got frightened. One night I woke up saying the formula aloud. I had to sleep with the old woman. Petroff was in the next room. He didn't hear me, but after that I was afraid to go to sleep till he had gone. A week ago he came back. In the evening the old woman said, ‘I wish you'd bring a gag for this foreigner of yours! She keeps me awake all night talking in her sleep.' It wasn't true of course, but she must have heard something. Petroff made a disgusting joke, but afterwards they sent me out of the room and talked. When I came back, he began about the formula again. He said, ‘My mother says you say the same thing over and over again, and she doesn't think you're saying your prayers.' Then he battered at me with questions. I don't know why I didn't tell him the formula and have done with it, but I'd promised Nicolas, and then—they hate everyone so, and they talk all the time about World Revolution. It kept coming to me—if they get the process and it helps them to make these stronger, lighter aeroplanes, what will they do with them? That used to haunt me, and I got as if I
couldn't
speak. I only wanted to die. That night the old woman was taken ill. There wasn't time for anything except nursing her. Petroff was unhappy. He cried and behaved like a child. When she was dead, he said how lonely he was, and that I must take care of him, because his life was very valuable to the Cause. He said if I told him the formula he would marry me, but in any case I must be kind to him and comfort him, because he was all alone. He got very drunk, and I ran out of the house.… Then you found me.”