The Vanishing Futurist (14 page)

We slept little enough that night and by six o’clock Sonya, Slavkin and I were already in the hall of Narkompros, where Pasha worked. Slavkin thought it might be useful to have me with them as a foreigner – perhaps thinking of the magical effect my British passport had had on the militia when, long before, they had come to search the house. I thought he also knew I was good in a crisis, whereas Sonya was shaky and close to tears.

At the Narkompros we waited in a crowd of petitioners hoping for a hearing. Lunacharsky had only just moved from Petrograd to Moscow and he was impossible to see. At any rate, I knew Slavkin would insist we wait our turn. He always used to say in these situations, ‘How do we know what urgent business occupies these fellows?’

‘Oh, Gerty,’ Sonya kept whispering, ‘please, convince him that we must hurry!’

I did no such thing. However, after a few minutes Sonya spotted a colleague of Pasha’s called Bokin and flung herself on him.

‘I’m just the person you need. I’ll talk to the Commissar immediately,’ he announced, leading us into his office. Slavkin to my surprise made no objection, and we followed in the wake of Sonya’s grateful babble.

As always there was tremendous bustle and excitement at the Narkompros, people rushing in and out, banging of doors, posters laid out all over the floor, and so on. After an hour and a half of fidgeting about, I couldn’t help wondering out loud whether we had been right to believe Bokin. ‘After all, we might have been better off without pulling strings, just waiting in the queue like the other petitioners.’

Sonya jumped up, her face set. ‘I’m not sitting here any longer.’

Bokin, we discovered, was standing in the corridor in the midst of a heated discussion about poster distribution.

‘Comrade Bokin, forgive me for interrupting,’ burst in Sonya, thrusting herself between him and his colleagues, ‘but you said you could speak to the Commissar straight away! Comrade Kobelev has been wrongfully arrested by the Cheka – you know as well as I how hasty they can be in their judgements . . .’

Shame-faced, Bokin hurried us into another ante-room. ‘Here, here, just a moment, I have mentioned it to him.’

‘No! We won’t wait another “just a moment”!’ Sonya shouted. Tears were pouring down her face, she could barely speak.

‘Shh, Sonya,’ I tried to calm her, glancing at Slavkin for his approval. ‘This behaviour won’t help.’

She pushed my hand away and turned to Slavkin. ‘Nikita, how can you let this happen? They’ll shoot them!’

‘Nonsense, Sonya, don’t exaggerate,’ I told her sharply.

‘No,’ Slavkin spoke up suddenly. ‘Sonya’s right. Bokin, you could have blood on your hands if you don’t take us straight to the Commissar.’

I couldn’t believe my ears. ‘But . . . the other petitioners?’ I couldn’t help saying.

‘The other petitioners can go to hell,’ spat Sonya. ‘And why don’t you go with them? You seem to care about them more than you do about Pasha . . .’

‘Come on, Bokin, we’re following you,’ snapped Slavkin, taking Sonya’s hand. ‘Let’s go!’

They hurried off through the warren of offices.

‘Ugh, Bokin,’ said his colleague, watching their backs disappear. ‘Like a piece of puff pastry.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘You know what he promised me last week? He’d have public-health posters up in Vladimir, Kostroma and Yaroslavl by Saturday. Now I’ve just found them still in boxes a week later.’ He sighed gloomily. ‘I don’t know where Bokin is taking your friends. The Comrade Commissar isn’t even here. He’s gone back to Petrograd for a few days.’

I stared at him for a moment. An image sprang into my mind of Pasha, blindfolded, arms tied. Adrenalin gushed through my veins. Sonya was right . . .

Running through the streets, sweat trickling down my sides, gasping for breath. Where now was my principled belief in equal treatment for all? Involuntarily I let out a groan.

‘All right, comrade?’ said the guard on the door of the Hotel National, alarmed at the sight of me. ‘Oh, it’s you. Go in.’

I staggered past him and stopped to catch my breath in the entrance hall. To my horror I realised I was about to be sick and rushed outside again.

‘Ugh,’ said the guard, making a face like a little boy.

‘I’m sorry,’ I managed to blurt out.

‘You go in and get warm,’ he said nicely. ‘I’ll cover it up, don’t worry.’

I took the stairs slowly, one at a time, and hung onto the banister. There – Pelyagin’s door. His assistant opened it just as I got there.

‘Comrade Freely!’ she gasped. ‘What’s become of you? Here, sit down.’

‘Oh,’ said Pelyagin, fussing, ‘a glass of tea, please, Rosa – warm yourself.’

‘No, comrade, please, we mustn’t waste time. I’ve come to beg for your help. Two of our commune members have been arrested by mistake.’ Breathlessly I told as much as I knew: their names, the date and place of their arrest.

‘Wait here,’ he commanded. ‘I will make enquiries.’

For a moment I was speechless. How strange, how comforting, to feel myself among friends here. In the next room Pelyagin was making telephone calls – I was too exhausted even to listen. He would tell me in a moment, I thought. With a vast sense of relief I relinquished myself to doing nothing – sipping the carrot tea that Rosa brought me and looking around me idly. Goodness, the realisation flashed into my mind, it’s Rosa Gershtein – the daughter of an acquaintance of Mr Kobelev’s. I had a sudden, vivid picture of her dressed as the Universe in Its Entirety for a New Year’s Eve party at Gagarinsky Lane during the war. How had I not recognised her before? She had been a large, stout girl and was now thin, like everyone, but her hooded eyes were the same.

‘Rosa Gershtein?’ I whispered. ‘Do you remember me – the Kobelevs’ governess?’

Her eyes snapped on mine. ‘Shhh. Of course.’

‘Forgive me, I couldn’t place you.’

‘I’m Rosa Andreeva now,’ she murmured, glancing nervously at the door. ‘Best not to mention it . . .’

Pelyagin reappeared. ‘I think we’ve found them,’ he said shortly. ‘They brought them up to Moscow and put them in a holding cell. There’s a little confusion over their identities, however. I suggest you come with me, Comrade Freely, and identify them formally. They didn’t have their identity cards when they were arrested, apparently – foolish.’ He frowned. ‘We’re on a war footing, you understand, comrade. We have to take all precautions.’

As we left the building a car drew up in front of us and for a moment I gaped at Pelyagin, astonished. I had not been inside a car since the Kobelevs’ was requisitioned; in the circumstances it seemed a bizarre, almost disgusting luxury to purr so gently and warmly along the bitter streets.

‘A treat for you, eh?’ Pelyagin said suddenly, genially, misreading my silence. ‘Perhaps one of these days we’ll go for a drive together?’

 It was an ordinary day for him – I must have looked incredulous.

He frowned. ‘You don’t care to? I see . . .’

‘Oh, no – yes, of course . . . I’m grateful to you, but I don’t . . .’ I stammered.

Pelyagin pursed his lips and looked out of the window. At the Lubyanka I followed him into the building. Pelyagin strode through the hall, past the duty sergeant, motioning me to follow him, and clattered down steps. ‘Through there,’ he said shortly, pointing out a door. He put a paper into my hand. ‘Show this to the officer on duty, he will tell you what to do. They have been alerted to your arrival. Now I must be getting back to work.’

‘Thank you, thank you so much,’ I stammered. ‘Comrade, I am so indebted to you – please . . .’ I don’t know quite what I was pleading with him for, but in any case he was not in the mood to grant it. He turned his back and was gone.

I looked at the paper. It was signed by Pelyagin himself, with his title: Deputy Administrator, Cheka, Krasnopresnensky District. Cheka? Hadn’t he said he was in distribution? I pushed open the door cautiously. It opened onto a gallery with a bench, where two soldiers were sitting with their backs to me. ‘Excuse me? I’ve been sent by Comrade Pelyagin . . .’

The soldiers looked at me dully. ‘What do you want?’

I passed them the paper. ‘I’ve been sent to identify two men that you are holding mistakenly.’

‘Sez who?’ one of them drawled. My hands were sweating; they were obviously illiterate.

‘Says Comrade Emil Pelyagin.’ I spoke in my most schoolmistressy tone. ‘Would you like me to summon him and tell him that you don’t believe me?’

The younger got up wearily. ‘All right, all right. Come and have a look.’

I stepped onto the gallery and for the first time saw down into the cellar below. It was hot and smelt rotten, but it was so quiet my footsteps echoed. I looked down and to my shock saw a large number of people below, unmoving, staring up at me.

‘Gentlemen.’ I cleared my throat. ‘Comrades, please – I’m looking for Pavel Aleksandrovich Kobelev and Vladimir Vladimirovich Yakov.’

Nothing. They seemed frozen.

‘Pasha, Volodya, are you there?’ It came out as a scream, like a madwoman.

Suddenly a faint voice, ‘We’re here, we’re here . . .’

Two old men were pushing through the crowd, thin, ill – my eyes ran over them without stopping, then flicked back onto their faces: it was Pasha, exhausted, but smiling; Volodya behind him, bent over, gaunt.

‘Get up here, lads,’ said the guard. They came awkwardly up the stairs and stood before us, handcuffed. ‘Can you identify these fellows, then, comrade?’

‘Yes – Pavel Aleksandrovich Kobelev, Vladimir Vladimirovich Yakov. Pelyagin has vouched for them. You’ve been holding them wrongly! It’s a disgrace!’

‘Quite a firebrand, isn’t she, lads?’ said the guard, raising his eyebrows at them, but to my amazement he was leading them out of the room and up the stairs to the duty sergeant. As we left the cellar a few voices called out. Pasha and Volodya turned but the other soldier was up on his feet, pointing his pistol over the balcony, shouting at them to be quiet.

There was paperwork, signing this and that in triplicate. The handcuffs were removed, and they were free.

Back at Gagarinsky Lane the boys stripped off their clothes in the hallway to be fumigated and washed. Kolenka ran to fetch Sonya and Nikita from the Ministry. At last we were sitting around the stove preparing the best meal we could run to: slices of sausage, kasha with some onions and beetroot, rusks with raspberry jam and tea.

 ‘We didn’t know you were so well connected, Gerty,’ said Sonya, rather stilted. ‘I owe you an apology.’

I didn’t meet her eye. ‘No, no. It’s me who should apologise to you. You were right.’

‘You appeared like an angel in that stinking room,’ said Pasha, grinning in the old way. ‘I thought to myself, I know that accent, just like the Empress – she murders Russian like Gerty.’

I laughed, and suddenly caught Sonya’s eye, and stopped. Then Vera, who had hardly said a word since they returned, burst into tears and ran out of the room.

‘What’s the matter with her?’ asked Volodya.

‘Perhaps you should go out and have a word with her.’

‘You’ll find things a little changed around here,’ said Fyodor, into the silence. ‘The IRT is now being run with strict attention to efficiency and punctuality. You will see, here, the members’ time cards, which they have completed for yesterday; we had to speak to Vera yesterday about cutting down on the time she took to complete her chore, which was to dispose of the commune’s waste . . .’

‘Oh for God’s sake, Fedya, do shut up,’ snapped Nikita.

‘Why can’t you let him have his say?’ demanded Marina fiercely.

‘Well, you’re cheerful, all of you,’ said Pasha, after a pause. ‘If we’re not having meetings any more, then I think I’ll get some rest. Takes it out of you, being rescued.’

There was a silence, and then Nikita and Sonya shuffled to their feet and announced that as there wasn’t room for all of us to sleep in this room, they would make up beds in his workshop.

‘Won’t you freeze?’ I said stupidly, but they shook their heads, Sonya looking at me a little contemptuously, I thought. Oh, I hated her then. ‘Are you . . . are you keeping the rules, Sonya? You know it’s in the commune’s interest to be told.’

‘Oh, it’s in the commune’s interest, is it?’ mimicked Sonya.

I could barely get my words out. ‘You have a duty to tell the truth! You can’t hide it from us, you know! Are you . . . are you . . .’

‘No, we are not,’ said Sonya firmly, hands on hips. ‘All right? We are keeping the rules. How dare you even suggest such a thing! You should do the Model T for your mean, suspicious thoughts, Gerty. Don’t you trust anyone? Don’t you even trust Nikita?’

In retrospect this moment has the feeling of a great vessel preparing for departure. Doors slam shut, one by one, and rotating locks swivel. Safety checks are carried out, one, two, three; navigation orders given and noted down. Each member of the team is in his or her position; they know what is expected of them; it is too late, now, to deviate from the chosen course. We do not know if doubts assailed the captain of the ship.

After Pasha’s and Volodya’s return, Nikita shut himself away in his workshop. Sonya came out once or twice a day to fetch food. ‘We are hard at work,’ she would only say to my queries. ‘The Capsules are nearing completion.’

Since it had emerged that Vera was pregnant, she and Volodya had ceased to make any attempt to hide that they were a couple. I avoided them as much as possible.

I took one of our last pots of jam with me when I next went to Pelyagin’s office. All the way I rehearsed my thanks. ‘I think you mentioned a drive?’ I saw myself murmuring. It was a windy, dreary day with sleet in the air, and I thought of Pelyagin’s warm office as I walked, swinging my arms to ease a persistent ache in my stomach.

But when I reached the National, Rosa Gershtein was alone. ‘He told me to say that he will not be having any more lessons,’ she murmured.

‘No? Did he say why?’

‘He said it was no longer the best use of his time.’

‘I brought him this, to thank him for helping us,’ I said, leaving the jam on her desk. ‘But did he . . . is he offended with me, do you think? Did he seem angry? Why does he suddenly not want lessons?’

‘I don’t know.’

I peered at her, trying to interpret her expression. ‘When did he start working for the Cheka?’

‘He always did. But he was only recently given this public job.’

‘I liked him . . .’

‘Yes . . .’ She looked at me. ‘I think he felt the same.’

In the half-dark yard back at Gagarinsky Lane stood a silent crowd. Inside, lights were moving about, muffled shouting and banging could just be heard. I found myself standing beside the metalworker from the Volga and his wife. The youngest children were hiding their heads under her skirt.

‘What is it?’ I whispered.

‘Red Guards – they say your lot have been up to something,’ he muttered out of the corner of his mouth. ‘I’d stay out of the way if I were you.’

The lights were moving about in Slavkin’s workshop; crashing metal, splintering glass. ‘Oh no . . .’

I pushed through the crowd and into the house. Prig was leaning against the doorway to the workshop and smoking a cigarette.

‘Ah, Comrade Freely,’ he said. ‘Your friends thought you had deserted them.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘A report came through that there were valuable materials in this workshop, materials that had been illegally requisitioned,’ said Prig. Behind him the Red Guards were methodically dismantling the room, throwing every book and file off the shelves onto the floor, kicking over his half-completed projects. The Socialisation Capsules were dented, wires wrenched out, batteries destroyed.

‘Where is Slavkin?’

He jerked his head towards the end of the room. ‘He’s not being very cooperative.’

I caught sight of Nikita slumped in a chair at the other end of the room. He was so still that I had not registered him at first. ‘Nikita,’ I hurried over. ‘Quick, you need to find the letter of permission from Lunacharsky.’ I began searching through the papers on the floor. ‘Where did you keep it?’

He gazed at me dully, slowly registering my presence; then a little light of venom crept into his eyes. ‘Oh, you’re back, are you? That letter’s gone, I can’t find it. They arrived just after you went out—’

‘Shh,’ said Sonya to him. She was on her hands and knees, picking up papers.

‘Where have you been? To see your special contact?’ said Slavkin and laughed mirthlessly. ‘Perfidious Albion.’

‘What can you
mean
?’ The breath had been knocked out of me; my voice emerged as a croak.

Sonya stood up, swaying a little with exhaustion. ‘I’ve got it,’ she said. ‘The requisition order. It was in the wrong file.’ She stalked up to Prig and handed him the paper silently.

‘Hmm, yes. Very well,’ he said, stubbing out his cigarette on the floor. ‘
Rebyata
!
Boys! I think you can stop that now.’

‘What about the damage you have caused?’ demanded Sonya furiously. ‘You have set back our experiments by weeks.’

Prig raised his eyebrows. ‘Well, you’ll just have to work harder then, won’t you? Make up for all the time you spent lying on the divan in the old days, eh,
mademoiselle
?’

They left, and the other inhabitants filed back indoors to their rooms. One of the factory workers spat on the floor as he passed our door. ‘Scum,’ he said. ‘Sooner we put a full stop through you, the better.’

I went upstairs to the empty dormitory and lay down. My stomach was twisted up with cramp and I was shivering. I lay on my own as darkness fell and let the tears slide into my hair. After a while Pasha came to find me. ‘What times,’ he said softly, sitting by my bed. ‘Now Nikita is accusing Fyodor of betraying him to the Cheka.’

‘Really?’

Pasha nodded. ‘Yes, and Fyodor produced his time card and started proving how it would have been impossible for him to denounce Nikita
and
preserve his productivity level of 84 per cent.’

Despite myself, I laughed. ‘Pasha, you don’t think I would have done such a thing, do you?’

‘I think it would be constitutionally impossible for Miss Gerty to do anything of the sort. Now come on, come downstairs. Slavkin and Sonya are in the workshop. You must eat, and it’s too cold in this room.’

I sat up. ‘Was it just spite on Prig’s part?’

‘Maybe.’

Fyodor, Marina, Pasha and I ate potato soup and drank tea; slowly my stomach relaxed a little. After a while Volodya and Vera joined us. I marvelled at Vera, her prettiness, the delicate flush on her cheeks. Volodya puffed up his chest beside her and told tedious stories of the army.

‘I’ve been talking to the people at Narkompros about an event for Slavkin,’ mentioned Pasha after a while. ‘A bigger hall, we’re thinking of the Polytechnic. Mayakovsky has said he will introduce him. Nikita needs to put across his views more clearly, to get public opinion on his side.’

‘The Camel’s lost it, you know,’ Volodya said.

I was shocked. ‘Volodya, no . . . don’t lose faith in him.’

‘Shut up, Volodya,’ interrupted Pasha coldly. ‘Don’t dismiss what you don’t understand.’

‘I’ll speak if I want! Can you understand how that piece of trash is going to work? No! No one can! It’s madness . . .’

Vera was tugging on his arm. ‘Leave it, darling.’

‘We’re going, anyway,’ he said, standing up. ‘We’ve got ourselves registered to a place on Taganka. It’ll be a bloody sight more harmonious than this place, I can tell you. Commune? It’s a joke. You can’t even bear to all be in one room together. Fyodor mincing around with his timetables, Pasha flopping about like a degenerate, Gerty giving the lovebirds in there the evil eye . . .’

‘You’ve got yourselves re-registered?’ I repeated. ‘That doesn’t happen overnight.’

‘Yes, well, you are not the only one with special contacts, Gerty,’ said Vera with a triumphant look.

Volodya reappeared, carrying their bags. ‘Well, thanks for everything, lads.’

Insomnia was my companion yet again that night, as it has been so many nights since. Sometimes it feels as if I have lived a whole second life lying awake in the darkness, wondering if things could have turned out differently. Remembering, too, how just a few months before, Volodya had adored Nikita.

‘The Camel – well, he uses a lot of complicated language, but underneath all of that, he’s just like one of those calculating machines at the fairground. You feed in the question, whatever it might be, and out comes the answer . . .’ Volodya used to laugh, full of pride. ‘Come here!’ He’d grab Nikita and put his head in an armlock, wrestle with him until Nikita was pink and tousled as a little boy, laughing helplessly. ‘Ekh, Camel, you’re a freak, you are, but I love you.’

Slavkin woke the IRT, and most of the rest of the house, at half past four the next morning by banging the gong.

I ran, my heart pounding. ‘What is it, Nikita? What’s the matter?’

‘Come on, come on, get up, up, up!’ His face was flushed, his eyes glittering with excitement. ‘We need to print posters, you know what a business that is. If we want to get them around town today we’ll have to be at the printer’s before nine!’

One of the factory workers came crashing out in the hall, threatening to punch Slavkin. Pasha laughed and embraced him. ‘This is about the talk at the Polytechnic, is it, you lunatic? Well, I’m glad you’re enthusiastic about my idea—’

‘Of course it’s about the talk!’ exclaimed Slavkin. ‘What else would it be about? Forget breakfast, we’ve no time to eat. Gerty, dear, you’ve got such an eye for proof-reading, come with me to the printer’s today, and we’ll need Vova to borrow that handcart he got hold of before – where is he?’

‘Er . . . he and Vera have gone away for a few days,’ put in Pasha hastily.

‘Oh?’ Slavkin was disconcerted. ‘Gone away? They didn’t tell me.’

‘No, it’s her condition, you know,’ improvised Marina. ‘I advised her to stay overnight at the hospital.’

‘Oh.’ He looked at us dubiously for a moment, then, with an effort, put the subject aside.

‘So! We must busy ourselves! This is a great opportunity, Pasha, I am much indebted to you. It’ll give me a chance to set all those fools at the Centre right. I want you to go to Narkompros today and settle a date – next week would be best, Thursday or Friday.’

‘It will be done,
mein lieber Kommandant
,’ replied Pasha, grinning and patting his arm, and Sonya laughed and sang, ‘
Ach, du lieber Augustin, Augustin, Augustin . . .
’ A favourite of Tatyana’s Day, the students’ drinking festival; the others immediately joined in, even Marina and Fyodor: ‘
Ach, du lieber Augustin, alles ist hin!
– Oh, my dear Augustine, all is lost!’

Slavkin jumped up. ‘I must get back to the workshop. Sonya, come with me, I need you.’

Pasha, Marina and Fyodor hurried out to work together and I, after tidying up the breakfast, returned to my bed. Rather without my admitting it, the number of private pupils I taught had been dwindling, week by week. Pelyagin had been the most regular and much the most lucrative. Now I found myself at a loose end and, without my usual occupations to distract me, tiredness overwhelmed me. I had been feeling nauseous for a couple of months; now my stomach was tender and bloated. Nothing surprising, when one considered our diet; this week we had been reduced to eating linseed cakes – cattle feed – that burnt the throat as one swallowed; yet now I promised myself that I would go to the doctor. However that day, and the next, I felt too weak and lethargic to do anything but rest. No one seemed to notice, for which I was glad: I did not want time to be wasted on my weaknesses.

 Slavkin whirled through the week in a frenzy of preparations. I wanted to talk to him privately, but he was always busy. The lecture was arranged for the following Saturday at the Polytechnic, a huge hall where Mayakovsky had recently given several popular lectures. Posters were printed (without my attendance at the printer’s) and Sonya and Pasha stayed out late night after night, supervising a mob of street urchins whom they had employed to paste them up all over town. Marina lost her temper with Sonya. ‘You are underweight and anaemic. Yet you haven’t eaten for the past three nights! Don’t you understand, you’ll fall ill?’

‘Well, I’ve only got to keep going for another month or so. After that it doesn’t matter.’

‘What are you talking about?’ demanded Marina. ‘What does that mean?’

But Sonya did not reply, only grinning mischievously.

‘She’s talking about their experiment,’ said Pasha drily from a corner. ‘Apparently they’re going to disappear together – poof! – like a magic trick. Whisked away to a better place. Or something.’

‘Pasha . . .’ Sonya warned.

‘They’ll hear about it all at the talk, anyway, won’t they? What’s the secret?’

‘Leave it until then.’

Fyodor cleared his throat. ‘Incidentally, I’m moving out,’ he said suddenly in a thin voice.

We swivelled to look at him. He was scarlet in the face, always a sign of high emotion. ‘I’ve had enough of your childish secrets. Cliques and whispers.’

‘OK, spare us the speech,’ said Pasha. ‘We’re sick of you too, Fedya. Go on, get out now, before I knock you down the stairs!’ and Pasha leapt menacingly to his feet, fists ready, so Fedya jumped out of his way.

‘I didn’t think it of you, Pasha,’ he spat as he left.

‘Well, good riddance to you, you bureaucrat,’ shouted Pasha out of the door after him. ‘You bloody pencil sharpener! You . . . you tube of foot cream! You pallid mushroom, go and cover your nose with mud!’

We couldn’t help it, we started laughing, as Pasha still stood by the door yelling more and more ridiculous insults. ‘You rotten cucumber! You bulkhead! You plug!’

And at that, Sonya started to cry, and then we all did, half sobbing, half laughing at ourselves.

‘It’s pathetic,’ sniffed Sonya. ‘One by one, they disappeared . . .’

‘Who’s next? Gerty, is it you?’ asked Marina.

‘Gerty would never leave. She’s loyalty personified,’ said Pasha, with a certain dry tone that I couldn’t interpret.

In the streets of Moscow was a wind, a sharp, cold, whirling wind that whipped around the piles of rubble and through the parks liberated of their railings. It tore the posters off the walls and rushed their messages through the streets:

It shredded, too, the smudgy posters that Sonya’s band of street urchins had pasted up the week before: ‘The Physicist–Inventor, Nikita Slavkin, will speak about his Ultimate Communist Futurist Technology at the Polytechnic University on 12 January 1919 at 6 p.m. Entrance free. All Hail to the October Revolution!’