Berezovo Read online

  Staring into the lamp, he thought of Alexandra, Grigory, Illya and Ziv. Sitting in this freezing and ill-smelling room he found himself a long way from that sunny nursery garden where the five of them used to meet to discuss politics and to plan subversion. Frowning he tried to recall the name of the old peasant who had let them use his hut as their ‘hideout’. What was he called? Shipansky? Shibilsky?

  He had seen Ziv only eight or nine months previously, quite by chance in the House of Preliminary Detention. For half an hour they had shared the same exercise yard. Ziv, at least, had not changed: he was just as shy as ever. Whether it was because of that, or the different paths they had taken, Trotsky was not sure, but they had exchanged no more than a few minutes’ conversation. Yes, Ziv had seen Trotsky’s wife, Alexandra: she was looking old and worn out. Both of his daughters, Zina and Nina, were well. There was no news of their uncle Grigory. Illya was rumoured to be dead. That was all.

  Shvigorsky, that was it. The gardener’s name had been Shvigorsky.

  Trotsky removed the pince-nez from the bridge of his nose and, leaning back in his chair, rubbed his tired eyes. Remembering Ziv’s news brought back the memory of the last time he had seen Alexandra at the exile settlement at Verkholensk.

  Escaping from Verkholensk had been easy.

  No, he corrected himself. She had made it easy for him.

  It had been autumn and security had been minimal. He had heard later that it had taken the local police two weeks to discover the dummy he had left in his bed. And he hadn’t been a Somebody then; just L.D. Bronstein, another snot-nosed student on the run. Even now he could remember the terrible excitement he had felt lying quaking beneath the bundles of hay in the peasant cart as it rolled slowly past the western gate of the settlement, expecting at any moment to hear the guards’ shouted order to halt. Discovery would have meant an extra three and a half years’ penal servitude. As it was, it had been a miracle that one of the cart’s wheels had not been smashed on the long road to Irkutsk.

  At Irkutsk he had received more assistance, this time from sympathisers of the Social Revolutionaries. How the world had changed, he reflected. The Essers wouldn’t lift a finger to help him now. After Irkutsk, the three-day railway journey to Samara. From Samara the Party’s underground had moved him through the territory of one empire to another: from Vienna to Zurich, from Zurich to Paris, from Paris to London. What a journey it had seemed!

  In Vienna he had had to knock up Victor Adler himself, in the middle of the night, to beg for a loan to continue his escape. Old Adler had been none too pleased at first, but in the end even he had agreed to help.

  “Young man, if ever you bring news of a revolution in Russia you may ring my bell, even at night!”

  He had remembered that…

  But Obdorskoye was not Verkholensk; and now wasn’t autumn, it was winter. The forces of time, space and nature, the eternal allies of Father Tsar and Mother Russia, were combined against him. Obdorskoye was in the Arctic Circle and over fifteen hundred versts from the nearest railhead. In Obdorskoye, a single night would last six months. And he was no longer unknown. When he escaped his description would be permanently posted in every uchastok from Petersburg to Vladivostok. Above all, he had no friends left.

  Perhaps Deutsch was right after all, he thought glumly. Maybe we should have broken out of prison while we could.

  Replacing his pince-nez, he forced himself to pick up the pen and resume his letter to Natalya Sedova.

  Almost in every village since Tobolsk there have been political exiles, most of them ‘agrarians’ (peasants exiled for rioting) soldiers, workers and only a few intellectuals. Some are ‘administratives’, a few are settlers i.e. exiles condemned to settle there. Altogether we have not yet encountered really desperate poverty among the exiles. This is because life in these parts is extremely cheap: ‘politicals’ pay the peasants six roubles a month for board and lodging. For ten roubles a month you can live quite well. The further north you go, the more expensive it becomes and the more difficult it is to find work.

  Yes, he thought, money will be a problem.

  He reckoned that he had enough to pay his way south again, but who knew when that opportunity would arise? In the meantime the cost of living from day to day would chip away at his capital. One thing was certain: there would be no more journalism. Even if he could smuggle out a manuscript, no Russian publisher would dare to print it.

  Ah well, he thought, a man has to recognise the consequences of his own actions.

  It had been his choice, he told himself sternly, to take the first step along the road that had now led him to Obdorskoye and there was no use grieving over this. Instead, he must put a brave face on it and stir himself. Besides, who knew how many pairs of eyes would read his letter before it reached her? It was imperative that he showed them he hadn’t surrendered. At the same time his instincts were warning him to be careful. There was a real danger that the unseen eyes would interpret optimism as confidence in some pre-conceived plan for escape. In his next letter he would invite Natalya to join him and to bring the baby with her. It was essential that he appeared to be resigned to his fate. Cheerful but resigned: that was the way. He picked up his pen and began to write.

  We have met some comrades who used to live in Obdorskoye. All of them had good things to say about the place. The village is large with more than one thousand inhabitants and twelve shops. The houses are built on the town model and good lodgings are easy to find. The countryside is mountainous and very beautiful, the climate very healthy. The workers among us will find jobs. It is possible to earn some money giving lessons. Life is quite expensive, it is true, but earnings are also higher. This incomparable place has just one drawback: it is almost entirely cut off from the rest of the world. One and a half thousand versts from the nearest railway, eight hundred versts from the nearest telegraph office. Mail arrives twice a week but when the roads are bad in spring and autumn it stops altogether for six weeks to two months. If a provisional government is formed in Petersburg today, the local policeman will still be king in Obdorsk for a long time. The fact that Obdorsk is so far from the Tobolsk Highway explains its relative liveliness, for it serves as an independent centre for an enormous area.

  Reading the paragraph through, Trotsky winced. It was mostly lies but sufficiently credible to convince any prying eyes that he intended to stay put. At the same time it also served to reassure Natalya that she need not be anxious for his safety. He knew her too well to delude himself that she would ever entertain the notion of coming to join him in exile. She would remain safe in Finland, looking after their baby son, Lev. For himself, as bad as the situation was, it could be worse. He had had to endure enough prison before the trial; a period of rest at Obdorskoye after the rigours of the journey might not prove to be too bad. And, he reasoned, enforced exile was better than the alternative: the death cell at the Shlisselburg fortress. As for what life in Obdorskoye would be like, he knew no more than the others in the convoy. He had no choice but to wait until he reached his destination and see what the locals did.

  For the sake of appearances he had pledged with the other Soviet Deputies not to attempt an escape en route. They all feared the immediate reprisals that might be taken on themselves and on their families. But this promise meant little to him. When he escaped he would do so alone; it was the only possible option that he would consider. Not that any chance had so far arisen. They had been locked in every night and counted several times during the day while they were on the road. At no time had there been an opportunity of gaining more than a six hour start and the telegraph was always within reach. The telegraph would outrun any man.

  Leaning forward, he rested his elbows on the table and forced himself to concentrate on the unfinished letter before him. The words had grown cold on the page. Quickly reading through what he had already written, he tried to regain their flow. He read the last paragraph through once more then, dipping his nib into the saucer’s puddle of ink,
he resumed his letter writing.

  Exiles do not remain in one place very long. They wander incessantly all over the province. The regular steamships on the Ob River carry ‘politicals’ free of charge. The paying passengers have to crowd into corners while the ‘politicals’ take over the whole ship. This may surprise you, dear friend, but such is the firmly established tradition. Everyone is so used to it that our peasant sleigh drivers, hearing that we are going to Obdorsk, tell us, “Never mind, won’t be for long. You’ll be back again on the steam ship next spring.” But who knows under what conditions we of the Soviet will be placed in Obdorsk? For the time being instructions have been issued for us to be given the best sleighs and the best sleeping quarters en route.

  He sat for a moment, stroking his pursed lips with the end of the pen. The conditions of travel had gradually worsened. If they continued to decline he could not hope to escape before the convoy reached Obdorskoye. Once they had arrived, he might have to wait three, maybe six months before the guards’ vigilance began to lapse. By then the brief Arctic summer would be over.

  By Christmas, he promised himself. By Christmas he would be with Natalya and Baby Lev in Finland. Either in Finland or Geneva, unless events at home took a turn for the better. The Duma was due to be recalled and the prospect of an amnesty was being widely discussed. It was unlikely that the Kadets would support a call for the return of the Soviet’s deputies from exile, much less their release; but stranger things had happened. Until then he must work harder than he had ever worked before.

  Pushing thoughts of Natalya and his baby son to the back of his mind, he bowed his head as he thought of the task before him. The Party was trapped between Nicolai’s ruthlessness and Julie Martov’s squeamishness. Of the three of them, only he had had the breadth of vision and the animus to nearly topple the throne. But, as Nicolai was so fond of saying, ‘nearly’ didn’t count. And with what could they have replaced the autocracy? The first order of business of a bourgeois reformist provisional government would be to find common cause with the military general staff and smash the Soviet that had brought it to power. The priority now was to acquire fresh data. He needed data even more than he needed money. It was essential that he should secure a constant flow of information from the outside world.

  He began to write furiously.

  Obdorsk. A minuscule point on the globe… perhaps we shall have to adapt our lives for years to Obdorsk conditions. Even my fatalistic mood does not guarantee complete peace of mind. I clench my teeth and yearn for electric street lamps, the noise of trams and the best thing in the world – the smell of fresh newsprint!

  He signed the letter and carefully blotted the wet ink with his handkerchief. Folding the sheet of paper, he slid it carefully into the torn lining of his overcoat. At least Nicolai still allowed the Deputies to use the Iskra couriers for their personal correspondence; that was something to be grateful for.

  As quietly as he could, Trotsky rose from the chair and stood for a moment massaging away the stiffness in his legs. Then, steadying himself against the edge of the table, he wearily slipped off first one boot and then the other. All around him rose the heavy sounds of sleep. Turning, he extinguished the lamp. Darkness enveloped him as, clutching his boots in one hand, he began to step carefully over the huddled bodies of his comrades and made his way towards his allotted portion of the floor.

  Chapter Three

  Tuesday 30th January 1907

  Berezovo, Northern Siberia

  By the flickering light of the four candle stumps that sat like squat toads on the wooden ledge above his washbasin, Colonel Konstantin Illyich Izorov, Chief of Police of the town of Berezovo, peered at his reflection in the bathroom mirror.

  He saw the head and shoulders of a middle aged man stripped to his underclothes, the lower half of his face masked beneath a thick lather of soap. Above the mask a pair of grey eyes betrayed the anxiety of the last thirty-six hours. Dipping the blade of his razor into the basin, he shook off a few drops of water and raised it to his throat. He had worked at his office in the uchastok, compiling list after list of the arrangements that had to be made. It was now someone else’s turn to have sleepless nights. There would be no shortage of those before this business was through.

  He began to shave with slow, deft strokes. Through the floorboards he could hear his wife entering the breakfast room beneath and begin cursing their sullen maid. The sound cheered him and he pulled a grotesque face at his reflection. Other than his wife’s pride, there was no reason why they should have a maidservant at all. Their only child, a son, had long since left them to serve in the force at Perm. Neither of them were particularly untidy nor irregular in their habits. His wife could cope perfectly well without a servant.

  The blade flashed down into the basin again and swirled around in the soapy water as he washed away the tiny lengths of shorn hair. Smiling, he drew the blade carefully upwards across his jawline as he half listened to the morning ritual downstairs. As usual, nothing the girl did was satisfactory. Whether it was chopping the wood, laying the fire or carrying the dishes to the table, Madame Izorova found grounds for criticism. It would end as it always ended, with the girl sent back to the kitchen in tears and his wife laying the table and lighting the samovar herself. And for this privilege he paid almost one rouble a week!

  Laying the razor on the ledge beside the candles, he stooped over the basin and began rinsing the remains of the soap from his face. He never felt washed in the morning unless he had shaved, although he himself had once had a fine beard when he had been on the beat in Tobolsk. He could not remember feeling dirty then. Almost certainly, when one was young and in the company of other men, such things did not matter so much. There had often been no hot water in the barracks so, he believed, he had probably been no cleaner or dirtier than the next man.

  Straightening up, he regarded himself once more in the mirror, brushing away the droplets of water that remained in his moustache. There was much more to shaving than mere cleanliness and tidiness, he reflected. It was a daily accounting with life. So many people just splashed water on their faces, dragged their fingers through their hair and rushed off without having a good look at themselves and at what they had become. A few moments every morning regarding oneself in the mirror, he was certain, would vastly improve the behaviour of his fellow man. It would teach the magnificent humility; the coward resolution, and the potential malefactor caution. He thought sadly of his clerk Nikita Molodzovatov who had taken his own life the previous year, blowing his brains out in the fire tower and recalled that Nikita too had hardly ever shaved. What a pitiful waste that had been, as well as a crime against God and the Tsar. It had meant a lot of paperwork too.

  Picking up the razor again, he began to carefully dry the blade. He had few illusions about the population of Berezovo, beardless or not. Once the fearful news leaked out, they would be like startled chickens in a coop hearing the wolf scrabble at the door. He had done as much as he could in the brief time since the rider had handed him the leather pouch bearing the Imperial seal, but nothing could stop them from panicking.

  Through the floorboards he heard his wife calling up to him that his breakfast was ready. He carefully laid the razor back into its polished wooden box and smiled grimly at his reflection in the mirror. The whole town was on trial now, including himself.

  * * *

  Two hours later, Anatoli Mikhailovich Pobednyev sat in his mayoral parlour gnawing anxiously upon a misshapen thumbnail. Before him on his desk lay a single piece of headed notepaper, bearing the legend ‘From the Office of the Chief of Police, Berezovo’.

  The note read:

  From : Col. K.I. Izorov

  To : His Excellency, the Mayor

  STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL

  Your Honour,

  Please present yourself at my office at 9.30 a.m. this morning. I wish to discuss a matter of the utmost urgency. On no account discuss this letter with anyone. I will explain everything when we meet.
r />   Yours, with respect,

  K.I. Izorov

  P.S. Burn this letter now!

  Picking up a small handbell – a clumsily fashioned replica in brass of the great bell at Petersburg – he summoned his secretary. As he waited for the man to arrive, the Mayor’s eyes darted to and fro over the carefully rounded letters of the policeman’s handwriting, seeking vainly to divine the purpose behind the peremptory summons. But when, at last, the secretary appeared he was none the wiser.

  “Boris,” he demanded, “what is all this about?”

  The secretary, a pale-faced sandy-haired fellow with a tall stooping body that in profile resembled a question mark, approached his desk warily.

  “All what, your Excellency?”

  The Mayor prodded Izorov’s letter disdainfully with a stubby forefinger.

  “This note. What does it mean?”

  The secretary shuffled a few steps closer.

  “If I could just take a look,” he suggested, “I might be able to shed some light on the matter.”

  The Mayor was on the point of passing the letter across to him when he remembered the colonel’s postscript. Irritably he snatched it up and laid it face down upon the desk and eyed the figure bending over him with suspicion.

  “You mean you haven’t read it?”

  “No, of course not, your Excellency!” his secretary replied. “It was marked ‘Personal’ and in the circumstances…”

  Mayor Pobednyev dismissed this denial with a gesture of irritation, well aware that every piece of correspondence addressed to him, whether it was of a personal nature or not, had almost certainly been the subject of the closest scrutiny by his misshapen subordinate.

  “Who brought it here and when did it arrive?”

  “Colonel Izorov brought it here at about eight o’clock,” the man replied. “He left instructions that it was not to be opened by anyone except Your Excellency.”