Russka (80 page)

The sky was overcast. The air was sultry, with a threat of thunder, as the hamlet prepared to sleep.

But little Maryushka could not sleep.

Each night, she slipped out to stand by the river in the darkness, eagerly drinking in what might be her last free minutes. As usual now, she stood near the village, gazing northwards.

Despite the sultry atmosphere, the clouds were thinning. Here and there, as if to light her upon her journey, strips of stars were appearing in the night sky.

It was what the Russians call a ‘sparrow night’. On the horizon, soundless flashes of lightning appeared, like distant white flames, flickering as though to suggest that, vast as the land was, all the great plain on such a night might still be drawn together in a huge intimacy – from the arctic wastes to the warm steppe – to witness this tremulous show.

How beautiful it is, she thought. And it occurred to her that perhaps the earth was bidding her farewell.

An hour passed. Still she did not sleep. Then another. Another still.

And then a boat came slipping swiftly downstream from Russka. A boy was paddling frantically.

‘They’re coming,’ he cried. ‘Soldiers.’

And she turned and ran.

Andrei and Pavlo were lost. The old Cossack was sure that Russka lay somewhere down this little river, but in the many years since he had been there, he had forgotten just where.

It was well into the evening when they had finally given up and made their camp for the night.

The two men were astonished then to be suddenly woken, an hour before dawn, by the sound of voices and tramping feet nearby.

They were good Cossacks. In a flash both men were up and armed. Andrei was with the horses, keeping them quiet. Pavlo was watching, listening.

The sounds were from across the river. They were soldiers
marching through the shadows. In the faint light from the stars, Pavlo saw the outline of bayonets. Two people, the officers presumably, were talking in low tones: in the stillness, their voices carried easily across the river.

‘I did this before once, up by Yaroslavl,’ he heard the officer say. ‘Catch them at dawn, that’s the thing. We’ll have the whole village in our hands before they even know we’re there.’

The tramping feet went on. Pavlo estimated there were forty or fifty men. He waited until they were past.

There was not a moment to lose. The village must be closer than they thought.

Quickly the two men saddled their horses and started downstream.

‘We’ll go down the river on this side and get ahead of them before we cross,’ Andrei said.

It was not easy to make much speed in the darkness. The troops had already got past the little town of Russka when the two Cossacks reached it. As they did so, they noticed the boy who had seen the troops pass sliding down the stream in his little boat.

Daniel moved from house to house, waking the villagers.

They came out in the darkness before the grey dawn, a little confused, obviously frightened, some of them wrapping themselves in cloaks against what seemed to them to be a morning chill.

At each house, Daniel calmly entered and, waking the head of the household said quietly: ‘It is time.’

Maryushka stood inside the little hut they had been occupying, watching her mother. Though she had been up all that warm night in only a linen smock, the little girl had now started to shiver uncontrollably.

Arina seemed very calm. By the light of a taper, she quickly arranged her dress and put her feet into her shapeless bast shoes. She took a long shawl and draped it over her shoulders. Then she tied a scarf over her head. Then she ran her hands once, carefully, down her thighs. It was a little gesture she always made before she went to church.

Today, however, she did one other thing which the shivering girl noticed.

Slowly, rather meditatively, she reached over to her left wrist, on which she always wore a gold bracelet. It was a fine piece of
work, set with a single, large amethyst, and Maryushka knew that her mother was very attached to it. Now however she took it carefully off and laid it down beside the stove.

‘What are you doing?’ the girl whispered.

Arina smiled at her kindly.

‘These are earthly things, Maryushka,’ she said gently. ‘But now we are going to a heavenly kingdom.’

Then her mother went quietly over to a corner of the room and came back with a small container.

She had seen her mother and some of the other women go out into the woods a few days before and return, after several hours, with some unusual berries. They had been several hours more in one of the huts, making something with these berries, and then Arina had come home with this little container; but she would not tell Maryushka what it was.

Now Arina poured some liquid out into a little wooden cup and brought it over to her.

‘Drink this.’

It looked dark.

‘What is it?’

‘Never mind. Just drink it.’

The liquid tasted strange. A kind of bitter juice.

Arina looked at her carefully.

‘You’ll stop shivering soon.’

‘Did the other children get this?’

‘Yes. Some of the grown-ups too, I dare say.’

There were many berries in the Russian forest. Some had extraordinary properties. One, in particular, was used by the
Raskolniki
upon these occasions.

They went outside.

All the villagers were coming out of their huts now, and making their way silently towards the little church. Maryushka looked around for the soldiers, but there was no sign of them yet.

At the church, some of the men were putting the ladders in place. She saw her father, watching over everyone, as they gathered.

For several minutes they waited. She saw Daniel and three of the older men go round from hut to hut, to make sure that no one was missing. When they gravely returned, she saw her father give a nod.

It was time.

Silently, slowly, the villagers began to go up the ladders into the church. As it happened, she and her mother were rather at the back. She glanced around. Still no sign of the soldiers.

Five of the men were to remain outside. Four of them, at the signal, would light the straw in the undercroft. Then they would quickly mount the ladders, pull them up after them, and barricade the door. Properly prepared, the building would be ablaze in moments, and there would be nothing the Tsar’s troops could do except bear witness to the sacrifice.

The fifth man was up on the roof, acting as look-out. It was he who would give the word.

The villagers were mostly in. Now it was Arina and Maryushka’s turn.

Strangely, Maryushka found that she had stopped shivering. She mounted the ladder quite calmly. She even felt a curious, rather agreeable warmth inside her as she entered the church.

The candles were lit – more of them than usual. All around her she saw familiar faces, looking taut and pale.

Soon afterwards Daniel entered.

He addressed them from before the doors of the little iconostasis.

‘Brothers and sisters,’ he said solemnly, ‘it seems the time has come. For those who are faint-hearted, remember, it is an easier death by far that we go to than that which would otherwise await us. And to you all, I say: Our God, in His Kingdom, awaits us. He is with us now, already. His arms are open. He is Our Father and He welcomes us, at last, from this evil world. Prepare therefore to enter, through Christ’s perfect love, into His Kingdom of eternal light.’

Then he began to read the prayers.

How familiar, and yet how strange, it all seemed. Her mother was beside her. Her sweet voice, singing the responses, was so lovely, so comforting. The candles seemed to be glowing with an extraordinary brightness. How sweet, how lovely, their warm flames. She felt a little dizzy.

For it was now that the berries took their effect and Maryushka began to hallucinate.

They were coming. In the pale first light of dawn, the man on the roof saw the figures crossing the river.

He hesitated, then, drawing a deep breath, called down to the men below.

He too must go down now. He knew it. He must go inside. But for a few moments more he remained up there, looking round at the dawn, peering at the figures approaching.

Then he frowned. He stared again. Surely there must be more. But no, into the village were riding not a contingent of soldiers, but only two men. And in the half-light they did not look like the Tsar’s men at all.

They were Cossacks.

Below, he could see that three of the men had already gone into the undercroft with their torches. The fourth was just following them.

He looked all around. The two Cossacks were quite alone.

‘Stop!’ he called down. ‘It’s not the Tsar’s men at all.’

Could it be that, after all, it was a false alarm, a reprieve? Cossacks – why, they might even be
Raskolniki
!

‘Stop the fire! There are no troops,’ he cried urgently again.

It was not until they were actually in the village that Andrei and Pavlo realized what was happening.

‘My God,’ muttered Andrei, ‘they’re burning themselves.’

‘Our work’s done for us then.’

Andrei nodded. ‘As long as the man Daniel dies. We still have to make sure of that.’

They rode slowly forward.

And as they did so, they saw that people were starting to come out of the church, down the ladders.

It was the one thing Daniel had not foreseen. A false alarm. He had not planned for it. Nor, therefore, had he calculated the effect that it might have on some of the congregation. For it is one thing to stand up and face death with the rest of the community; it is another to hesitate when there is an offer of reprieve.

About a third of the village, nearest the exits and hearing the shouts from outside, made for the ladders.

Arina was taken by surprise too. As people pushed past her, she tried to continue the responses. Then, after a few moments, Daniel stopped the prayers. Only then did she suddenly realize that Maryushka was no longer by her side.

Below, meanwhile, everything was in confusion.

The men in the undercroft were now trying to put out the fire they had started. But it was not so easily done, for the straw had been well prepared.

At the foot of one of the ladders, about a dozen people were standing, staring at the two Cossacks, who in turn were calmly watching them.

And no one, it seemed, had noticed the little girl.

In the confusion inside, with people jostling near the window, she had been accidentally shoved into the path of a large man making for the exit. Scarcely troubling to think, and finding the child in his path, he had casually picked her up, tucked her under one powerful arm, and carried her down with him, dropping her when he reached the ground.

Now she was wandering about by the huts, hardly knowing where she was.

‘Where is Daniel?’ Andrei called out.

‘Inside,’ they replied. ‘What do you want with him? Who are you?’

And Andrei was just wondering what to reply when another cry rang out, this time from the roof.

‘The troops! I see them!’

They had arrived.

It was now that Andrei looked up and saw a huge figure coming down the ladder from the other window.

This must be Daniel: there could be no mistaking him, from Nikita Bobrov’s description. And from the moment he reached the ground it was obvious that, whatever his uplifted thoughts a few minutes before, he was now in a furious temper.

‘Get up the ladders,’ he roared at the people who had dared to come down. ‘Get up at once, you fools. It’s probably a trap.’ With a furious glance towards the two Cossacks he rushed to the entrance of the undercroft, moving with astonishing speed.

‘Light the fire!’ he bellowed. ‘The troops are here. Hurry!’

The people were running up the ladders again. Daniel, satisfied that the fires were now lit, was ordering the men from the undercroft up the ladder by the front of the church.

‘Up,’ he shouted. ‘Up and bar the door.’

Already, Andrei could hear a shout from near the village gate. The troops were entering.

He looked at Pavlo.

‘Better take no chances,’ he murmured. And urging his horse forward towards the church, he drew his sword.

The flames were already licking up the side of the building. From the undercroft, smoke was pouring. Andrei saw the ladders being drawn up into the building, heard the heavy doors slam and bars drop into place. One ladder remained, and Daniel was walking swiftly towards it as Andrei reached him.

As the huge fellow turned to look up at the Cossack with his raised sabre, there was not a trace of fear in his face: only anger and contempt. And his expression scarcely altered even when the Cossack stopped, open-mouthed, and cried out: ‘My God, it’s Ox!’

And it was as the two men stared at each other that a pale woman appeared above with a cry which, as he turned to look to where she was pointing, caused old Andrei to gasp once more, and wonder if he might not, after all, be in a dream.

Everything was swaying. But at last she knew where she must go. For now she saw the flames.

The flames. Like a huge candle. So comforting. She knew she wanted them.

She was walking towards them. The friendly flames, and the church, and her parents. Why did the church keep moving? She frowned. But still she pressed on.

Ah, she could hear their crackle. Feel their warmth now. If she could just find a ladder: that was what she needed.

‘Maryushka!’ Her mother’s voice. She smiled, went forward. Wasn’t that her father, with someone else by the ladder? It was. He would take her up the ladder. She cried out, tried to run towards him.

‘Maryushka!’ A man’s voice. But not her father’s. Why did the strange figure on the horse cry out her name? Why was the huge horse coming towards her?

Suddenly she felt herself scooped up, high. She was on the big horse with the stranger.

Yet why was he carrying her away from the flames, away into the darkness?

The destruction of the Bobrov estate at Dirty Place was complete.

That is to say, its principal assets – the peasants Bobrov owned – were completely destroyed.