To Kill a Tsar (18 page)

What was wrong with him? He was still shouting after her. She cursed herself for taking foolish risks when the party was in need of the intelligence in her possession. As she entered the station hall, she turned to look back; the old soldier was hobbling after her.

‘There’s no reward for catching me, old man, if that’s what you’re thinking,’ she muttered under her breath. A choice: leave the station and take refuge in the town or face it out? There was a train to Moscow in twenty minutes and she had to catch it. Across the ticket hall she could see two gendarmes lolling in a very unmilitary fashion against the wall, casting lazy glances at the travellers gathered about the stove in the gloomy waiting room opposite. Instinct told her they were the sort who prefer things to be simple and do not ask many questions, and she trusted her instinct. She began scurrying noisily towards them. In the middle of the ticket hall she seemed to trip and her case clattered to the tiled floor, drawing the eyes of all on the concourse. With a little cry, she snatched it up again and ran breathlessly on, almost cannoning into the gendarme sergeant who had taken a step forward to meet her: ‘Hey, miss, is the devil at your heels?’

‘An old devil!’

‘Calm yourself, please,’ he said. ‘What is it?’ The sergeant
was in his mid-forties, a little overweight, with bloodshot eyes and a florid complexion.

She dropped her suitcase and fumbled in her coat pocket for a handkerchief. ‘An old man. He’s mad. He’s followed me from Odessa. He says he loves me,’ she said, snivelling into her handkerchief.

The sergeant chuckled: ‘Well, at least he’s got good taste. Is that him?’ And he laughed again. ‘An old soldier, well, that explains it.’

Anna burst into tears: ‘But—’

‘There, there. I’ll speak to him.’

It was quite apparent from the expression on his face, even at thirty yards, that the old man was surprised and disappointed to find Anna in the company of a gendarme.

‘Here he comes,’ said the sergeant, ‘the light of battle in his eyes. What’s your name, miss?’

‘Anna Petrovna. A schoolteacher. I was visiting a sick friend in Odessa and am on my way to Moscow.’ Her voice trembled a little.

‘You have beautiful eyes, Anna Petrovna. Doesn’t she?’ The sergeant turned to the private at his side who was too callow to think of a chivalrous response. By now, the old soldier had made his long journey across the hall and was wheezing consumptively before them, too breathless to spit out his story. Anna shrank from him as if from a leper.

‘You should know better than to chase pretty young teachers at your age, old man,’ said the sergeant, wagging his finger at him. ‘You’ve had your day. Leave it to younger men.’

The old soldier managed to gasp a few words: ‘The Jew . . . the prisoner smiled, smiled at her . . .’

‘Ha. I bet you smiled at her too,’ said the sergeant good-humouredly. ‘I can’t stop smiling at Anna Petrovna.’

‘She was going to meet him, I tell you!’

The sergeant was taken aback by the ring of conviction in
his voice: ‘What does he mean?’ he asked, looking down at Anna.

‘I have no idea,’ she replied, reaching for her handkerchief again. ‘He won’t leave me alone.’

‘She knows. She was going to meet the Jew! The terrorist. He smiled at her.’

‘Is that a crime?’ she shouted angrily. ‘Can I help it if a Jew smiles at me? Why would I be meeting a Jew?’ The vehemence of her attack shook the old man and she saw a flicker of doubt in his beady little eyes.

‘Shame on you, old man.’ The sergeant was losing his patience. ‘Go home and leave Anna Petrovna alone.’

‘I tell you . . .’ he spluttered. ‘At least ask her where she’s going, Sergeant . . .’

‘I know where she’s going,’ the sergeant said irritably. ‘Now get lost before you feel my boot up your backside.’

‘I served His Majesty for thirty years . . .’

‘I don’t care if you served the Frog Prince. Go home before I arrest you for wasting my time.’

The old man turned disconsolately away, pulling his green uniform coat tight about him for comfort, cursing under his breath.

‘Thank you,’ said Anna. ‘He was so persistent, and this crazy story about the Jew . . .’

‘At your service, Anna Petrovna, and be sure to remember Sergeant Alexander Dmitrievich in your prayers.’

‘I have a brother called Alexander Dmitrievich,’ she said with a demure little smile. How Alexander Mikhailov would laugh if he could hear her. ‘I will be sure to remember your kindness, Sergeant. God bless you.’

The waiting room was icy and no one was inclined to give up their place by the stove. For a while Anna was warmed by the recollection of her own audacity. What was more unthinkable
in Elizavetgrad, she wondered, to be a Russian revolutionary or a Jew? Sometimes it was necessary to say and do disgusting things in the name of the people, to lie, to slander, to be someone hateful. They were preparing to blow the tsar and his family to pieces. None of them would take pleasure in carrying out the death sentence on Alexander Romanov, but it was necessary. And she owed it to Grigory.

‘Please,’ she said, edging her small frame between two large babushkas who were sitting as close to the heat from the stove as was humanly possible. The rough telegram paper was still in her pocket. Scrunching it in her little hand, she opened the fire door with the sleeve of her coat and threw the ball of paper into the flames. Fourth coach. Second train. She would be in Moscow by the morning.

T
hey had argued for some time over who should have the honour. In the end they decided that to avoid the suspicions of the neighbours Lev Hartmann and Sophia Perovskaya would connect the wires. Anna was to observe the explosion from a clump of bushes a little way from the track. In the first hours after her return to Moscow the question of who would detonate the mine seemed academic. Surely when word of Goldenberg’s arrest and the dynamite haul reached St Petersburg the Third Section would put two and two together and stop the imperial train? The atmosphere was tense and gloomy as Anna had known it would be when she tramped across the snowy wasteland to the cottage with her news. The burden of Grigory Goldenberg’s arrest had weighed heavier on her shoulders than a sack of dynamite.

‘Will he speak?’ Sophia Perovskaya had asked her. ‘You know him better than me, Annushka.’

Anna did not know what to say. Until tested, who could be sure they had the inner resources to withstand isolation, interrogation, torture? They had talked for many hours about what they should do and resolved to press on regardless, working day and night to complete the tunnel. The gallery kept flooding and they were forced to bail, a tight human chain along its length from the face to the cellar. At the end of each shift the work teams collapsed, exhausted and muddy, on to the pallets that were scattered about the house. Anna and Sophia forced them to eat and brought them warm water to bathe. Nerves were frayed, and it took the quiet determination of both women
to drive the tunnel the last few yards to the track. Alexander Mikhailov had sent a cryptic few lines from the city, urging them to finish the work by the evening of November the 17th and promising to visit the cottage as soon as he was able. But his silence worried them all. Sophia Perovskaya learnt in casual conversation with one of their neighbours that the gendarmes had stepped up patrols along the railway and were carrying out house to house searches. On the evening of the 16th there was a loud banging on the door. Perovskaya snatched her pistol from the table and stepped closer to the bottle of nitroglycerine.

Shivering on the doorstep was a drunken neighbour who had taken such a skinful he was unable to find his way home. Hartmann took him by the arm and led him through a heavy snowfall to his cottage, where he received a hot reception from his wife.

They finished the tunnel on the afternoon of the 17th and sat around the samovar with their own exhausted thoughts. Alexander Mikhailov joined them at dusk, brushing the snow from his beard and black fur-lined coat, his cheeks boyish pink with the cold.

‘Well?’ he asked, slapping his gloves on the table.

‘It’s done,’ Sophia Perovskaya replied.

‘And the mine?’

‘In place.’

‘Good,’ and he beamed at them all like an avuncular older brother. His gaze rested on Anna: ‘And you? I’m sorry about Grigory. They won’t break him. He’s strong.’

‘Yes.’

‘First a toast.’ Mikhailov reached down to the bag at his feet and lifted out a bottle of vodka. ‘Glasses, please.’

And there was more: fresh bread, smoked fish and caviar, cold meats and cheeses and three bottles of Georgian wine.

‘To our work,’ said Mikhailov, lifting his glass to the men and
women patiently waiting on his word. ‘The tsar has left the Crimea.’

Silence at the table. Mikhailov raised his glass again, making eye contact and saluting all of them in turn. After weeks of toil and anxiety the moment was almost upon them.

‘How can you be sure?’ Hartmann asked at last.

‘I’ve received word from “the Director”. The imperial train will pass through Alexandrovsk tomorrow.’

‘And the others are ready there?’

‘Yes.’

Hartmann raised his glass of vodka to return the toast: ‘To the Director, whoever he is,’ and he drained it and poured himself another.

‘The security police are arresting progressives in every town between the Crimea and St Petersburg as a precaution,’ Mikhailov continued. ‘But the route is the same.’

‘And Grigory? Do you know what they’ve done with him?’ Anna asked.

‘He is still in Odessa. The head of the Third Section has been told of his arrest and of the dynamite. Security is tight but they haven’t cancelled the train.’

That night the cottage was still for the first time in weeks, the tunnel sealed, the candles extinguished, but sleep was harder than ever to come by. Anna lay at Sophia’s side, conscious of her warmth and the scent of her hair. A kaleidoscope of images played through her tired mind: the plough at the front of the imperial train forging on through a suffocating wilderness of white, its plume of steam against the night sky, and the tsar at his polished table with gleaming silver, the rich red velvet of his liveried servants. Then a blinding yellow flash and the empire turned upside down.

‘It’s for the greater good, you know,’ whispered Sophia beside her. ‘Only if he dies can we hope for freedom. I wasn’t sure at
first . . .’ She turned on her side and felt with her tiny hand for Anna’s cheek and stroked it tenderly, so delicate, so childlike and yet so strong.

‘But I am sure now. He must die. We are doing a noble thing, Annushka, a noble thing.’

‘Yes,’ she said quietly. ‘Yes, I am sure we are.’

The following day Alexander Mikhailov – a plump raven in his black coat – was on the doorstep again and it was clear from his face as he kicked the snow from his boots that he was the bringer of bad tidings. There was fresh word from the Director; the imperial train had arrived safely in Kharkov.

‘It passed through Alexandrovsk. Something must have gone wrong,’ he said, warming his hands round a glass of tea. ‘There’s been no report of an explosion. Zhelyabov and the others may have been arrested. That leaves us, the Moscow cell. The Director says the train will reach us on the evening of the 19th – tomorrow.’

There was nothing they could do but wait and listen to the steady ticking of the simple kitchen clock. Mikhailov decided to wait with them. The security police were crawling over the Moscow stations like beetles on a dung heap: ‘And they’ve issued a book of photographs – of wanted revolutionaries – I think I’m on page two,’ he said, with a chuckle. ‘Sophia, you are in there too. I’m afraid none of the rest of you make it. But don’t worry, I’m sure you will after tomorrow.’

That night they held a little party, with Mikhailov the master of ceremonies: ‘To celebrate our liberty and the first giant step in the revolution.’ Hartmann played the accordion and they sang Russian folk songs and danced in the flickering candlelight.

‘Dance with me, Anna.’ Mikhailov grabbed her by the hand and pulled her to her feet. ‘The mazurka, Lev!’

He whirled her about the rough floor with aristocratic panache and she was too intoxicated by the dance and the excitement
of what tomorrow would bring to care that he was squeezing her waist tightly and pressing her a little too close.

‘Huzzah, huzzah!’ they all cheered.

‘What a couple we make,’ he whispered.

And later, when she slipped out to clear her head, he followed her and offered her his fine fur-lined coat. She shook her head, but he insisted on placing it about her shoulders. As she stood in the sober night air listening to his talk of revolution and the people, one sad thought held her: nothing would be the same after tomorrow.

‘And have you thought of what I said?’ he asked her. ‘We would be comrades, loving comrades, serving the party.’ He reached out to put his arm about her shoulders.

‘No! No.’ She took a sharp step away. ‘Nothing will be the same. Nothing. How can you ask?’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Tomorrow. After tomorrow.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. As long as we’re free . . .’

He seemed to want to say more but she had turned to the door and was on the point of stepping inside.

‘Please. We’re comrades,’ she said, glancing back at him. ‘That’s all. That’s all we’ll ever be.’

Mikhailov left before sunrise without a word to her. The others followed, slipping from the cottage one by one until only the detonation party was left sitting at the table. For the most part, they sat in silence. Anna tried to occupy herself by darning a hole in the elbow of her coat but she made a poor job of it. Every hour on the hour, Lev Hartmann climbed down to the cellar to check the water level in the tunnel and the detonation wire. He was to fire the mine from the window overlooking the railway embankment the moment he saw Sophia’s signal. At intervals, the floor of the cottage would tremble as a train rattled along the track and they would jump to their feet even
though they knew not to expect the imperial train before nightfall.

They sat and ate a little bread and cold meat together at dusk. They had no appetite, but it would be many hours before they would have another opportunity. When it was over, they were to rendezvous at the corner of the monastery wall, where one of their comrades would be waiting with a horse and cart to take them to Moscow.