Breakfast in the Ruins kg-2 Read online

  "Mr. Kovrin?"

  The man looked surprised and hesitated before answering. He had pale blue eyes and high cheekbones. There was a redness on his cheekbones which contrasted rather strangely with his pale skin. He nodded. "Kovrin—yes."

  "I have a letter for you, sir."

  Karl drew the sodden envelope from his shirt. The ink had run, but Kovrin's name was still there in faint outline. Kovrin frowned and glanced about him before opening the envelope and reading the message inside. His lips moved slightly as he read. When he had finished, he looked down at Karl.

  "Who sent you? Pesotsky?"

  "A short man. He did not tell me his name."

  "You know where he lives?"

  "No."

  "You know where this address is?" The Russian pointed at the letter.

  "What is the address?"

  Kovrin scowled at the letter and said slowly: "Trinity Street and Falmouth Road. A doctor's surgery. Southwark, is it?'

  "That's on the other side of the river," said Karl. "A long walk. Or you could get a cab."

  "A cab, yes. You speak English?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "You will tell the driver where we wish to go? "

  There were fewer of the immigrants on Irongate Stairs now. Kovrin must have realized that he was beginning to look conspicuous. He seized Karl's shoulder and guided him up to the exit, showing a piece of paper to the official there. The man seemed satisfied. There was one cab standing outside. It was old and the horse and driver seemed even older. "There," murmured Kovrin in Russian, "that will do, eh?"

  "It is a long way to Southwark, sir. I was not told..." Karl tried to break free of the man's grip. Kovrin hissed through his teeth and felt in the pocket of his greatcoat. He drew out half-a-sovereign and pushed it at Karl. "Will that do? Will that pay for your valuable time, you urchin?"

  Karl accepted the money, trying to disguise the light of elation which had fired his eyes. This was twice what the young man had offered him—and he would get that as well if he helped the Russian, Kovrin.

  He shouted up to the cabby. "Hey—this gentleman and I wish to go to Southwark. To Trinity Street. Get a move on, there!"

  "Ye can pay, can ye?" said the old man, spitting. "I've 'ad trouble wi' you lot afore." He looked meaningfully around him at no-one. The rain fell on the sheds, on the patches of dirt, on the brick walls erected for no apparent purpose. Along the lane could just be seen the last of the immigrants, shuffling behind the carts which carried their baggage and their children. "I'll want 'arf in advance."

  "How much?" Karl asked.

  "Call it three bob—eighteen pence now—eighteen pence when we get there."

  "That's too much."

  "Take it or leave it."

  "He wants three shillings for the fare," Karl told the Russian. "Half now. Have you got it?"

  Wearily and disdainfully Kovrin displayed a handful of change. Karl took three sixpences and gave them to the driver.

  "All right—'op in," said the driver. He now spoke patronizingly, which was the nearest his tone could get to being actually friendly.

  The hansom creaked and groaned as the cabby whipped his horse up. The springs in the seats squeaked and then the whole rickety contrivance was off, making quite rapid progress out of the dock area and heading for Tower Bridge, the nearest point of crossing into Southwark.

  A boat was passing under the bridge, which was up. A line of traffic waited for it to be lowered again. While he waited Karl looked towards the West. The sky seemed lighter over that part of the city and the buildings seemed paler, purer, to him. He had only been to the West once and had seen the buildings of Parliament and Westminster Abbey in the sunshine. They were tall and spacious and he had imagined them to be the palaces of very great men. The cab jerked forward and began to move across the river, passing through a pall of smoke left behind by the funnel of the boat.

  Doubtless the Russian, sitting in silence and glaring moodily out of the window, noticed no great difference between the streets on this side of the river, but Karl saw prosperity here. There were more food shops and there was more food sold in them. They went through a market where stalls sold shellfish, fried cod and potatoes, meat of almost every variety, as well as clothing, toys, vegetables, cutlery -everything one could possibly desire. With a fortune in his pocket, Karl's daydreams took a different turn as he thought of the luxuries they might buy; perhaps on Saturday after they had been to the Synagogue. Certainly, they could have new coats, get their shoes repaired, buy a piece of meat, a cabbage...

  The cab pulled up on the corner of Trinity Street and Falmouth Road. The cabby rapped on the roof with his whip. "This is it."

  They pushed open the door and descended. Karl took another three sixpences from the Russian and handed them up to the driver who bit them, nodded, and was off again, disappearing into Dover Street, joining the other traffic.

  Karl looked at the building. There was a dirty brass plate on the wall by the door. He read: "Seamen's Clinic." He saw that the Russian was looking suspiciously at the plate, unable to understand the words. "Are you a sailor?' Karl asked. "Are you ill?"

  "Be silent," said Kovrin. "Ring the bell. I'll wait here." He put his hand inside his coat. "Tell them that Kovrin is here."

  Karl went up the cracked steps and pulled the iron bell handle. He heard a bell clang loudly. He had to wait some time before the door was opened by an old man with a long white forked beard and hooded eyes. "What do you want, boy? " said the man in English.

  Karl said, also in English: "Kovrin is here." He jerked a thumb at the tall Russian standing in the rain behind him.

  "Now?" The old man smiled in unsuppressed delight. "Here? Kovrin!"

  Kovrin suddenly sprang up the steps, pushing Karl aside. After a perfunctory embrace, he and the old man went inside, speaking rapidly to each other in Russian. Karl followed them. He was hoping to earn another half guinea. He heard little of what they said, just a few words—"St. Petersburg"—"prison"—"commune"—"death"—and one very potent word he had heard many times before—"Siberia". Had Kovrin escaped from Siberia? There were quite a few Russians who had. Karl had heard some of them talking.

  In the house, he could see that it was evidently no longer a doctor's surgery. The house, in fact, seemed virtually derelict, with hardly any furniture but piles of paper all over the place. Many bundles of the same newspaper stood in one corner of the hall. Over these a mattress had been thrown and was serving someone as a bed. Most of the newspapers were in Russian, others were in English and in what Karl guessed was German. There were also handbills which echoed the headlines of the newspapers: PEASANTS REVOLT, said one. CRUEL SUPPRESSION OF DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS IN ST. PETERSBURG, said another. Karl decided that these people must be political. His father had always told him to steer clear of "politicals", they were always in trouble with the police. Perhaps he should leave?

  But then the old man turned to him and smiled kindly. "You look hungry. Will you eat with us? "

  It would be foolish to turn down a free meal. Karl nodded. They entered a big room warmed by a central stove. From the way in which the room was laid out, Karl guessed that this had been the doctor's waiting room. But now it, too, stored bales of paper. He could smell soup. It made his mouth water. At the same time there came a peculiar sound from below his feet. Growling, thumping, clanking: it was as if some awful monster were chained in the cellar, trying to escape. The room shook. The old man led Karl and Kovrin into what had once been the main surgery. There were still glass instrument cases along the walls. Over in one corner they had installed a big, black cooking range and at this stood a woman, stirring an iron pot. The woman was quite pretty, but she looked scarcely less tired than Karl's mother. She ladled thick soup into an earthenware bowl. Karl's stomach rumbled. The woman smiled shyly at Kovrin whom she plainly did not know, but had been expecting. "Who is the boy?" she asked.

  "Karl," said Karl. He bowed.

  "Not Karl Marx, perhaps?" lau
ghed the old man, nudging Karl on the shoulder. But Karl did not recognize the name. "Karl Glogauer," he said.

  The old man explained to the woman: "He's Kovrin's guide. Pesotsky sent him. Pesotsky couldn't come himself because he's being watched. To meet Kovrin, would have been to betray him to our friends... Give the boy some soup, Tanya." He took hold of Kovrin's arm. "Now, Andrey Vassilitch, tell me everything that happened in Petersburg. Your poor brother, I have already heard about."

  The rumbling from below grew louder. It was like an earthquake. Karl ate the tasty soup, sitting hunched over his bowl at the far end of the long bench. The soup had meat in it and several kinds of vegetables. At the other end of the bench Kovrin and the old man talked quietly together, hardly aware of their own bowls. Because of the noise from the cellar, Karl caught little of what they said, but they seemed to be speaking much of killing and torture and exile. He wondered why nobody else seemed to notice the noise.

  The woman called Tanya offered him more soup. He wanted to take more, but he was already feeling very strange. The rich food was hard to hold down. He felt that he might vomit at any moment. But he persisted in keeping it in his stomach. It would mean he would not need to eat tonight.

  He summoned the courage to ask her what the noise was. "Are we over an underground railway?"

  She smiled. "It is just the printing press." She indicated a pile of leaflets on the bench. "We tell the English people what it is like in our country—how we are ground under by the aristocrats and the middle-classes."

  "They want to know?" Karl asked the question cynically, His own experience had given him the answer.

  Again she smiled. "Not many. The other papers are for our countrymen. They give news of what is going on in Russia and in Poland and elsewhere. Some of the papers go back to those countries..."

  The old man looked up, putting a finger to his lips. He shook his head at Tanya and winked at Karl. "What you don't hear won't harm you, young one."

  "My father was a printer in Poland," Karl said. "Perhaps you have work for him. He speaks both Russian, Polish and Yiddish. He is an educated man.

  "There's little money in our work," said Tanya. "Is your father for the cause?"

  "I don't think so," said Karl. "Is that necessary?"

  "Yes," said Kovrin suddenly. His red cheekbones burned a little more hotly. "You must stop asking questions, boy. Wait a while longer. I think I will need to, see Pesotsky."

  Karl didn't tell Kovrin that he didn't know where to find Pesotsky, because he might get another sum of money for taking Kovrin back to Whitechapel. Perhaps that would do. Also, if he could introduce his father to one of these people, they might decide to give him a job anyway. Then the family would be respectable again. He looked down at Ms clothes and felt miserable. They had stopped steaming and were now almost dry.

  An hour later the noise from below stopped. Karl hardly noticed, for he was almost asleep with his head on his arms on the table. Someone seemed to be reciting a list to what had been the rhythm of the printing press.

  "Elizelina Kralchenskaya—prison. Vera Ivanovna—Siberia. Dmitry Konstantinovitch—dead. Yegor Semyonitch—dead. Dukmasovs—all three dead. The Lebezyatnikovna sisters—five years prison. Klinevich, dead. Kudeyarov, dead. Nikolayevich, dead. Pervoyedov, dead. Petrovich, dead. And I heard they found Tarasevich in London and killed him."

  "That's so. A bomb. Every bomb they use on us confirms the police in their view. We're always blowing ourselves up with our bombs, aren't we?" The old man laughed. "They've been after this place for months. One day a bomb will go off and the newspapers will report the accident -another bunch of Nihilists destroy themselves. It is easier to think that. What about Cherpanski? I heard he was in Germany..."

  "They rooted him out. He fled. I thought he was in England. His wife and children are said to be here."

  "That's so."

  Karl fell asleep. He dreamed of respectability. He and his father and mother were living in the Houses of Parliament. But for some reason they were still sewing coats for Mr. Armfelt.

  Kovrin was shaking him. "Wake up, boy. You've got to take me to Pesotsky now."

  "How much? " Karl said blearily.

  Kovrin smiled bitterly. "You're learning a good lesson, aren't you?" He put another half-guinea on the table. Karl picked it up. "You people..." Kovrin began, but then he shrugged and turned to the old man. "Can we get a cab?"

  "Not much chance. You'd best walk, anyway, ft will be a degree safer."

  Karl pulled his blanket round him and stood up. He was reluctant to leave the warmth of the room but at the same time he was anxious to show his parents the wealth he had earned for them. His legs were stiff as he walked from the room and went to stand by the front door while Kovrin exchanged a few last words with the old man.

  Kovrin opened the door. The rain had stopped and the night was very still. It must be very late, thought Karl.

  The door closed behind them. Karl shivered. He was not sure, where they were, but he had a general idea of the direction of the river. Once there he could find a bridge and he would know where he was. He hoped Kovrin would not be too angry when he discovered that Karl could not lead him directly to Pesotsky. They began to walk through the cold, deserted streets, some of which were dimly lit by gas-lamps. A few cats screeched, a few dogs barked and a few voices raised in anger came from the mean houses by which they passed. Once or twice a cab clattered into sight and they tried to hail it, but it was engaged or refused to stop for them.

  Karl was surprised at how easily he found London Bridge. Once across the sullen blackness of the Thames he got his bearings and began to walk more confidently, Kovrin walking silently beside him.

  In another half-an-hour they had reached Aldgate, brightened by the flaring lamps of the coffee-stall which stood open all night, catering to the drunkards reluctant to go home, to the homeless, to the shift workers and even to some gentlemen who had finished sampling the low-life of Stepney and Whitechapel and were waiting until they could find a cab. There were a few women there, too—haggard, sickly. In the glare of the stall, their garishly painted faces reminded Karl of the icons he had seen in the rooms of the Russians who lived on the same floor as his family. Even their soiled silks and their faded velvets had some of the quality of the clothes the people wore in the icons. Two of the women jeered at Karl and Kovrin as they passed through the pool of light and entered the gash of blackness which was the opening to the warren of alleys where Karl lived.

  Karl was anxious to get home now. He knew he had been away much longer than he had expected. He did not wish to give his parents concern.

  He passed the dark and silent pub, Kovrin stepping cautiously behind him. He came to the door of the house. His parents might be sleeping now or they might still be working. They shared a room above the workroom.

  Kovrin whispered: "Is this Pesotsky's. You can go now."

  "This is where I live. Pesotsky said he would meet me here," Karl told him at last. He felt relieved now that this confession was off his chest. "He owes me five shillings, you see. He said he would come here and pay it. Perhaps he is waiting for us inside."

  Kovrin cursed and shoved Karl into the unlit doorway. Karl winced in pain as the Russian's hand squeezed his shoulder high up, near the neck. "It will be all right," he said. "Pesotsky will come. It will be all right."

  Kovrin's grip relaxed and he gave a huge sigh, putting his hand to his nose and rubbing it, hissing a tune through his teeth as he considered what Karl had told him. Karl pressed the latch of the door and they entered a narrow passage. The passage was absolutely dark.

  "Have you a match?" Karl asked Kovrin.

  Kovrin struck a match. Karl found the stump of candle and held it out for Kovrin to light. The Russian just managed to light the wick before the match burned his fingers. Karl saw that Kovrin had a gun in his other hand. It was a peculiar gun with an oblong metal box coming down in front of the trigger. Karl had never seen a picture of a gun like it
. He wondered if Kovrin had made it himself.

  "Now where?" Kovrin said. He displayed the gun in the light of the guttering candle. "If I think you've led me into a trap..."

  "Pesotsky will come," said Karl. "It is not a trap. He said he would meet me here." Karl pointed up the uncarpeted stairway. "He may be there. Shall we see?"

  Kovrin considered this and then shook his head. "You go. See if he is there and if he is bring him down to me. I'll wait."

  Karl left the candle with Kovrin and began to grope his way up the two flights to the landing off which was the workroom. He had seen no lights at the window, but that was to be expected. Mr. Armfelt knew the law and protected himself against it. Few Factory Inspectors visited this part of Whitechapel, but there was no point in inviting their attention. If they closed his business, where else would the people find work? Karl saw a faint light under the door. He opened it. The gas-jet was turned, if anything, a trifle lower. At the table sat the women and the children and the men, bent over their sewing. Karl's father looked up as Karl came in. His eyes were red and bleary. He could hardly see and his hands shook. It was plain that he had been waiting up for Karl. Karl saw that his mother was lying in the corner. She was snoring.

  "Karl!" His father stood up, swaying. "What happened to you?"

  "It took longer than I expected, father. I have got a lot of money and there is more to come. And there is a man I met who might give you a job as a printer."

  "A printer?" Karl's father rubbed his eyes and sat down on his chair again. It seemed he was finding it difficult to understand what Karl was saying. "Printer? Your mother was in despair. She wanted to ask the police to find you. She thought—an accident."

  "I have eaten well, father, and I have earned a lot of money." Karl reached into his pocket. "This Russian gave it to me. He is very rich."

  "Rich? You have eaten? Good. Well, you can tell me when we wake up. Go up now. I will follow with your mother."

  Karl realized that his father was too tired to hear him properly. Karl had seen his father like this before.