Lenin's Harem Read online

  Praise for Lenin’s Harem

  "Born to an aristocratic life of wealth and privilege, but driven from the family home by resentful Latvian peasants, a young German struggles to survive and protect his love from the brutalities of a domineering brother, class struggle, war, and communist rule. The attention to historical detail and depth of introspection are worthy of Pasternak or Solzhenitsyn. Enthralling, reads as true as my grandfather’s letters."

  Daniel Wagner, former Dean of the CIA’s Sherman Kent School

  for Intelligence Analysis

  "William Burton McCormick vividly depicts the tragedies of the 20th century through eyes of a single Latvian Rifleman. With Wiktor Rooks, we witness the destruction of traditional society and its seemingly conservative values, to be replaced with new social, political and national ideas, innovations all ultimately perverted to hell by their adherents. The novel considers the eternal problems of humanity as cast through the dark prism of actual historical events."

  Professor Kaspars Klavins, Riga Technical University and Fellow,

  Royal Society of Arts (UK)

  "William Burton McCormick takes us right inside lives that would otherwise be not simply invisible to us but unimaginable."

  Suzannah Dunn, author of The Confession of Katherine Howard

  "An engrossing and well managed piece of writing, chronicling a fascinating and turbulent period of Russian and Latvian history while never once losing sight of the need to drive the narrative through the personal tale of its hero, Wiktor Rooks."

  Martyn Bedford, Costa shortlisted author of Flip

  LENIN’S

  HAREM

  A Novel

  William Burton McCormick

  KNOX ROBINSON

  PUBLISHING

  3rd Floor, 36 Langham Street

  Westminster, London W1W 7AP

  &

  244 5th Avenue, Suite 1861

  New York, New York 10001

  Knox Robinson Publishing is a specialist, international publisher of historical fiction, historical romance and medieval fantasy.

  First published in Great Britain in 2013 by Knox Robinson Publishing

  First published in the United States in 2012 by Knox Robinson Publishing

  Copyright © William Burton McCormick 2013

  The right of William Burton McCormick to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with

  the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Knox Robinson Publishing, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning the reproduction outside the scope of the above

  should be sent to the Rights Department, Knox Robinson Publishing,

  at the London address above.

  You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose the same condition on any acquirer.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN HC 978-1-908483-44-7

  ISBN PB 978-1-908483-45-4

  ISBN ePUB 978-1-908483-23-2

  Map illustrations by Seth R. McCullough

  Typeset in Adobe Caslon Pro by Susan Veach

  [email protected]

  Printed in the United States of America and the United Kingdom.

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  www.knoxrobinsonpublishing.com

  In memory of

  Alice Davis

  Author's Note:

  To ensure this novel is compatible with most e-readers, Latvian letters with diacritic marks have been replaced with their closest English alphabet equivalents.

  Part One:

  Pyrrhic Victories

  Chapter One

  December 1905, Courland

  My brother always said they were watching us. From the fields, or the forest, or roadside, wherever they did their chores. I never gave it much thought. He was the heir and they were his concern. I, heir to nothing, could pardon watchfulness.

  What happened afterwards, though, even Jesus would not forgive.

  While our parents entertained the guests at the two-day Christmas ball inside, I sat on the manor’s steps that evening distributing glasses of champagne to late arrivals, well-wishers and friends who’d enjoyed a walk in the crisp winter air of the Courland countryside. Unchaperoned for most the night, I’d frankly had more than a few glasses myself, too much for an eleven-year old boy.

  It was in those later hours that I caught the voices on the wind. Far down the road, in the hollow, I could hear the singing of the working folk, those Latvians who spent their days farming the land for our family and the other Baltic Barons. Their Christmas songs drifting between frost-covered fir trees, harmonies moving slowly along as unseen carolers passed through the night. Voices, it seemed, from another world, one that touched ours daily but remained forever closed. How I wished to understand those Lettish songs.

  With little to entertain me at the party, I got off the steps and found the old highway leading toward the peasant farms. Sipping champagne, by the time I reached the little thatch and log farmstead at which the carolers gathered, I was slightly cold, reasonably drunk, and completely surprised at the spectacle before me.

  These Christmastime revelers were out in costume, Courland’s native people mumming through the winter night. Letts of all ages wore animal masks, most in elaborate home-made disguises. Hairy stitched bears pranced on chains held by the mythic hero, helmeted Lacplesis. Ceramic goat horns rested on the heads of adolescent girls who danced with fake Jews in black hats and painted-on beards. I spied tiny old men whose trailing cotton beards sprang from their baby faces when they stepped upon them, while women dressed as spirits spun about me, the green stripes of their festive dresses showing beneath ghostly white sheets. All-in-all, a grand procession of adults and children, some dressed for the holiday season, others wrapped in their workers’ clothes, marching together from the snow-covered fields toward the Latvian villages. All singing hymns of Christmas, a joyous chorus reverberating throughout the winter countryside.

  My young eyes widened in wonder. Though I could not understand a word, these Lettish harmonies elated my spirit, brought me closer to the season than my family’s stuffy, aristocratic ball ever had.

  Why had my parents forbidden me to come here?

  Fascinated, I could not resist following this procession as the mummers wound their way along the moonlit path. A Yule log dragged behind, they stopped at every home in forest or field, families dressed in red and green casting a year’s worth of problems onto the timber as it passed.

  For hours, through a string of villages, I trailed this parade. Fantastic figures and singing families joining at every stop until the alleys of the last town were swollen with costumed bodies. Funnelled into a narrow street, the crowd pressed so close my cap was jarred from my head, the champagne glass knocked to the muddy stones by a trio of deliriously dancing ghosts. With no pause to retrieve them, the tide swept me forward, breaking through on the far side of town where the land at last reopened into my father’s fields. They came to rest in the yard of a most ancient farmhouse: stocky square timbers, a four-sided thatched roof and double smoking chimneys at the crown. A faded coat of arms hung from a wooden pole, reminding all th
at Letts were freemen, serfs no longer.

  The march over, the singers gathered around the sacrificial Yule log, preparing for the celebratory burning. As the leaders toiled to light the icy log, the crowd at last seemed to consider my presence, masks turning my way, eyes lingering a bit too long. I suddenly felt outlandish in my fine jacket and shoes, far more foolish than the most absurd of these mummers. How I wished I were dressed as them, devoid of identity, free to mix undetected. How many recognized me as Rudolf Rooks’s son, youngest child of the family that kept them for generations? So many faces, surely, would be familiar without their masks: Father’s stablemen, farmworkers, woodcutters, perhaps even an elevated house servant down for the celebration. They all must be here. Yet there were no greetings, no holiday salutations, not even in the common Russian language. Their Lettish words buzzed mysteriously by my ears, the people passing close, but not once calling my name.

  There was, however, an uncomfortable air of recognition in one silent watcher. Intense eyes beneath a swine mask, he clutched a drunken woman to his chest, her own camouflage slipping low, revealing her reddened face. I saw only a glimpse – Mrs. Bata, the wife of my father’s foreman – then the Yule log caught fire and an eclipsing blaze rose up between us.

  While last year’s troubles burned into memory and the dancing mummers cast bizarre shadows over the snow, I tried to peer through the flames. There stood Mrs. Bata, now alone, her feline mask righted, but her man was gone. For a moment.

  ‘Why are you here?’ he shouted, appearing from the crowd, grabbing my shoulder and shaking me harshly. The voice was surprisingly familiar, the language not unknowable Lettish or even Russian but German, my native tongue!

  This mummer squatted on his haunches, lowering down to my height. He shoved up his mask revealing the frowning face of my older brother.

  ‘Otomars,’ I gasped.

  ‘Wiktor, what are you doing here? At this hour?’

  What was he doing here? Among the peasants. ‘I…I heard the songs.’

  He pulled me close, cold nose against my cheek, sniffing my breath. ‘You’re drunk.’

  So was he, so what? ‘Mother let me have some champagne at the Christmas ball. Why are you dressed as a pig?’

  Conscious that all the Letts were staring, Otomars lowered his voice, changed the tongue from German to a less conspicuous Russian; the adjustment difficult for my tipsy mind, I was not the language master he was.

  ‘Wiktor, pay attention to me.’ He snapped his fingers in my face. ‘Does Father know you’re down here?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, I’m taking you back.’

  So stern for a man in a pig mask. ‘Why?’

  He didn’t answer, simply dragging me from the crowd. He eighteen, I eleven, it was no contest. His face now visible, the Letts gave him a wary distance. Mummers silently watching as he stole me away into the night. Cowed and kidnapped by the first-born son.

  *****

  ‘Why Otomars? Why can’t I stay?’

  We were a half kilometer from the village when my brother finally relented. The Latvians long out of sight, their beautiful songs only a memory, I didn’t understand why we had to leave. ‘I want to hear them sing.’

  ‘Wiktor, listen to me,’ he said, voice firm as Father’s. ‘There’ve been incidents all over Courland. In Livland too. I need you inside.’

  Incidents? What incidents? ‘I was only in the village, I go every day.’

  ‘Not alone, not past midnight, not when they’ve been drinking,’ with his free hand he cuffed my neck, ‘or you have.’

  ‘It wasn’t much,’ I tugged at his grip. ‘You’ve had more than me.’

  He dragged me on. My resistance fading, we fell into silence, listening to the rhythmic crunching of our shoes in the snow. We were close to home now, the high windows of the manor house peeking over the bare trees.

  I played my last card. ‘Then I’ll just have to tell Father about Mrs. Bata and the housekeeper...’

  He smiled, as if I weren’t even in the game. ‘Do that and I’ll mention where I found you tonight. Passed out drunk.’

  ‘I wasn’t.’

  He shrugged. ‘Who’s to say?’ His grin had triumph. As always.

  I was trying to conjure a worthy retort, some offsetting counterattack, as we arrived at home. Pale yellow and brown by day, the manor house was painted in midnight hues of silver and white, tree-limb shadows clawing across the front. The ground-floor windows darkened, the fires dead in the yard cauldrons, there were still a few trailing voices inside, the tinkling of piano keys from the parlor. Anne, at least, was still up.

  In the worn slush before the steps, a crushed bouquet of roses. Flattened petals trampled under a man’s boot print, an arc of purple and red leaves throughout the yard. Down the path toward the stables lay a dozen naked stems, most of them broken. Erich Kaltenbach had been here. Anne had rejected him again.

  ‘Will he ever stop?’ I said.

  ‘Our sister’s captured his heart, Wiktor,’ said Otomars, pulling a petal from the slush. ‘That’s not an easy thing to forgo.’

  Yes, especially for a spoiled baron’s son used to getting his way. ‘Maybe, Father should speak with Erich?’

  ‘No, I will. Tomorrow.’ Otomars let out a sigh, warm breath rising in the winter air. ‘Let’s get you inside.’

  I climbed the steps alone. ‘Aren’t you coming?’

  He remained at the bottom, brushing snow over the roses with the side of his boot. ‘No.’

  ‘Why can you stay out, but I have to turn in?’

  He stretched out his hands. ‘Because I’m a man and you’re still a boy.’

  ‘If you’re a man, why are you dressed as a pig?’

  He laughed, something in him warming at my remark. Otomars came up a few steps, pulled the mask from his head, slipped it gently over my face.

  ‘I’ll tell you what: Go inside, stay inside, and tomorrow night – after our parents are asleep – we’ll trek down to the village together. Agreed?’

  I couldn’t see in this thing. ‘I…’

  ‘One ‘oink’ for ‘no.’ Two for ‘yes’.’

  ‘Oink, oink.’

  ‘Good piggy.’

  He tapped my nose through the mask, playfully mussed my hair, all with a charm that made it almost alright, as only he could. ‘And nothing more about Mrs. Bata.’

  By the time I got the eye holes righted, he was gone, far down the path under the cover of trees. I was alone.

  I considered going back, breaking my word, and following Otomars down to the Latvian villages again to make a point. But I was cold, a bit sleepy. Enough adventure for the night, tomorrow there’d be another volley.

  With voices in the parlor, I could not risk detection. Probing questions at this hour, in this state, would be most unpleasant, especially from my parents. So, I went around the side of the house to rap on Erene’s window and ask the faithful housemaid to let me inside in confidence.

  As I passed round the corner, I gazed over the expansive lawn, divot-ed snow stretching down to grey stables. Still a few sleighs and carriages parked in the shadows, some guests yet to leave, or perhaps, staying the second night.

  Beyond lay the little path that led to the main road to Mitau, a screen of fir trees running along one side. A man hanging by the neck from a branch.

  I recoiled in horror, surprise, one thought in my mind: Erich.

  The roses, the rejection…

  I sprang from the porch, my mind not on the dead man, but on my sister. The guilt she’d feel.

  But as I ran through the snow, I cast off the blinding mask, the corpse became clearer, a focusing silhouette against the moon behind. It wasn’t Erich or even a man...

  It was a burlap sack, stuffed and tied in the shape of a man. Dressed in an old coat, the collar buttoned to the chin, a painted waistcoat and knee-high boots to finish the illusion. The hallmark clothes of a Baltic-German gentleman, it could have been my father, or Erich, or Otom
ars; any of the landowners who ruled Courland.

  I felt the deathly chill of the hour, took a few tentative steps forward, stood beneath the dangling thing, hoarse breath and drumming heartbeat the only sounds.

  Rail spikes pierced the effigy at the head and chest, painted blood snaking down its icy form. And at the center, three words. Running from breast to belly:

  Free

  Latvia

  Now!

  Chapter Two

  The old German gentleman burned in the sawdust sand, his burlap face shriveling to soot beneath the orange and blues of paraffin flames, silently wilting away as if he had never been.

  I stood with Otomars in the loose dirt of the mulching pit, a shallow recess tucked far behind the grain sheds and well-hidden from the waking eyes of the manor house. The two of us worked alone in the late dawn of winter, the world still dark, the snow forever grey. Only our father and his Lettish foreman, Jazeps Bats, were about for company, their distant silhouettes locked in conversation beneath the ‘hanging’ tree.

  My brother prodded the effigy, turning it round with the heavy sod pike, feeding the fire every unexposed inch of fabric, his manner uncharacteristically quiet, his mind clearly elsewhere.

  I fanned the smoke with the bare rose stems in my hand. ‘What do you think Jazeps is telling Father? Down by that tree?’

  Otomars grimaced, a growl in his voice, my brother taking last night’s discovery much harder than I. ‘Bats will promise to speak with his workers, their families, stir up the dust a bit. That’s all, Wiktor. He won’t uncover the criminals. They never do.’

  Criminals? Such a harsh word over a stuffed bag, ugly writing or not. ‘You don’t think they could still be about? The hangers of that… doll?’

  ‘They’re here. The villages probably.’ Otomars turned the pike thoughtfully in his hands, drilling it deeper into the sand. ‘If we’re lucky.’