Lenin's Harem Read online

  Time passed. I counted missing ceiling tiles, found patterns in the freckles on my arm and fantasized about passionate embraces with the nurse. My pillow leaked feathers and to distract my mind I invented games. After a sponge bath, I’d see how many I could balance on their side across my chest. A lieutenant from Wolmar and I challenged each other to see the number we could keep aloft with puffs of breath. He’d managed three, I five. Unfortunately, the effort agitated my wounded belly. He always won the stamina events.

  Three days before my twenty-first birthday, when I had eleven feathers teetering on their side across my moist chest, I had a visitor.

  A man in an officer’s uniform, guided by the nurse, approached my bedside. He was so unassuming that I failed to acknowledge him until the nurse introduced us.

  ‘Lieutenant Rooks, Captain Vereshchagin.’

  I brushed the feathers off with one hand. ‘Hello, Captain.’

  He had a piece of paper in one hand, a leather suitcase hung from the other. He was a trim, youngish sort. A man who wore a belt to keep his pants up, not his belly in.

  He scanned the document. In a bubbly Russian accent: ‘If I were a doctor Lieutenant, I’d say you’ve got three days at most.’

  I started: ‘Excuse me, Captain?’

  He answered with a preplanned cheeriness, pulling up a stool for a chat. ‘Of course, I’m not a doctor, so you’ve got nothing to worry about.’ He laughed. I didn’t.

  He was an odd, blubbery, smiling, young man: The type of officer who views war as a large, mostly pleasant, upper class game. He bantered about, asking how I was, what it was like in the field, all the while making a plethora of sporting analogies. I wondered if he’d ever been shot at.

  Finally, when my morale seemed appropriately boosted, he got to the point:

  ‘And there’s more good news. The advance, as you know, has been stopped at the river Daugava. The Germans can’t cross it.’

  ‘So I hear, Captain.’

  He pushed back his cap, revealing a freckled forehead and sandy brown hair. His voice went down to a whisper. ‘The Latvians, it seems will fight hard for this country. Truthfully, harder than our boys.’

  He said ‘our boys’ as if I were a Russian like him, yet there was a new gravity in his voice: ‘People will always resist fiercer in what they perceive as their homeland. High casualties, but they’ve stopped the kaiser fiends on the riverbanks. We should have seen this sooner.’

  Was he crediting the Letts for this defense? An astonishing admission from a Russian. I could only nod.

  ‘We’re organizing Latvian infantry battalions, strelnieki in their language. Still part of the Russian army, but with their own officers.’ He picked a feather off my bare arm. ‘We want to attach you to one as a liaison.’

  I thought about what that really meant. Latvian battalions alone in the field. ‘So, I’m a spy?’

  The metamorphosis was complete, he did not laugh. ‘You’re a liaison. Lieutenant Rooks, you speak Russian, you speak Latvian. I am aware that you are fluent in German, which could have many benefits with prisoners of wars, or intercepting any sort of overtures from the enemy. We’ll put you in with troops from Latgale and Vitbesk, they’ll need help with the language.’

  ‘Respectfully Captain, you know I’m ethnically Baltic-German, the Letts despise us.’

  This time he smiled. ‘Well they hate us too, Lieutenant, but we can’t leave them on their own. They might get the wrong idea.’

  I pawed for a way to decline. Alone with four Russians and they’d turned on me. What would happen adrift with hundreds of Latvians? Images of the mob outside our burning house. My wounded insides throbbed.

  He snapped open his case and deposited an envelope on my blanketed lap.

  ‘Letters from home. I’m sorry they’ve been opened Rooks, but they came across German lines.’

  His affability made me daring: ‘Afraid my loyalties might lie in Prussia, Captain?’ Could I risk refusing this duty?

  Again, he laughed. ‘No worries, Rooks. We have your oath to the tsar. And, we have people who will vouch for you.’

  I looked at the envelope. Slit open at the top, it had only ‘Wiktor Rooks’ written on it. No rank, no battalion. I surmised it must have been shipped inside a larger packet. Canned goods, blankets, boots, long taken by other hands.

  ‘Two weeks Rooks,’ and the captain marched off to inform the nurse when I’d be healthy.

  I opened the envelope. Inside was a letter in my mother’s handwriting on white stationary. Unfolding it, a little pink sheet fluttered out. Putting aside Mother’s letter, I read the tiny note:

  ‘Dearest Wiktor:

  I am sorry this is so short, I only learned your mother was preparing a parcel a moment ago. I will send you a proper letter soon. I miss you so much. Everyday I say my prayers for your safe return. I wear your locket always. There are so many troops about, that it is difficult to go outside without crying. Those uniforms make me think of you and how much I miss you.

  The men here are such cads, they don’t bow, they don’t ask permission to speak to a lady. The things they say are beneath repeating. Not one is a gentleman like you. It reminds me why I love you so much.

  I will write you a longer letter tomorrow Wiktor. Just know that I’m always thinking about you dearest.

  Your amore,

  Gitta’

  My thoughts drifted briefly to the girl waiting for me at home. I tried to let them tarry, lingering on her fine features and loving smile, but my mother’s letter begged to be read before the captain interrupted.

  ‘Dear Wiktor:

  I pray this letter reaches your hands, and finds you safe and far away from danger. We have not heard from you for the longest time. There have been many unfortunate changes in our lives. The Kaiser’s Reich troops have entered our lands and have requisitioned the baron’s estate. We are living with two dozen men on our lower levels. To make life more difficult, most of the servants have run off, though dear Erene joined us just before they arrived. It is a terrible amount of work; Anne, Genae, and all of us have had to supply them with food, night and day. They’ve eaten most of the stores, and I don’t think there is a fry left in the fish ponds.’

  My mother was feeding the enemy, the people trying to kill me.

  I hurriedly continued:

  ‘There is mud everywhere and the house reeks of cheap tobacco. Erich is at a loss (and terribly jealous about how some of them speak to Anne). Even though they are German, they are utterly common. They behave more like Letts! We can only hope for a quick end, so they can return to their homes. The baron and Erich are of the mindset that it would best if they actually took Riga, that way the trade routes would be open again. Your father seems to just want them out, but what can he say? Such things are up to the baron and he seems to think we should help the cause. He even suggested that Erich enlist, and that sparked the most terrible row last night. Anne was so upset she could not even nurse poor Carsten. In the end, Erich is staying home with his wife and sons, as he should. I wish you were here too.

  The only good news I can report is we finally heard from Otomars. His letter arrived two months ago. It seems he is still at the Ministry of Trade and Industry in St. Petersburg. He’s been promoted to some sort of administrator role. It sounds like little more than a translator, but you know I never get all the details.

  You are always on our minds. I say my prayers daily for your safe return when we can be a family again. Brigitta has asked to include a message which I’ve enclosed. She is a lovely girl and has been very helpful through all this. You should treat her better, Wiktor.

  I hope this package gets to you before the roads to Riga close. I wish I could send more. Our hearts and prayers are with you.

  Your loving Mother and Family.’

  Supply them with food, night and day!

  Best if they actually took Riga!

  We should help the cause!

  Was she mad? Whether she knew it or not, her
letter was treasonous. What was she thinking?

  I tried to stay calm and focus my addled mind. The letter had been read by other eyes. Presumably the captain’s at minimum. There must be others. Why was I being given an assignment? Why was I not in a room being interrogated? Harshly. With a letter like this, with a family like this, how could they not doubt my loyalty?

  Vereshchagin was off doing his morale boosting routine to another bedridden officer. I interrupted.

  ‘I’m sorry Captain, who was it you said had vouched for me?’

  ‘If I were a doctor…. excuse me.’ He looked over. ‘What did you say Lieutenant?’

  ‘Who was it, sir? Who vouched for me?’

  He frowned: ‘Your brother, among others.’

  ‘Otomars?’

  ‘Do you have another brother?’ He found a seat at the other officer’s bedside.

  I sat up fully. ‘He’s a civilian. Do you know him, Captain?’

  ‘Not personally.’ He looked bemused. ‘People respect him, Lieutenant.’

  ‘He’s just a clerk.’ How was this possible?

  Vereshchagin sighed, stood up, then walked over and put a hand on my bare shoulder.

  ‘If Otomars Rooks says you can be trusted, rest assured Lieutenant, you can be trusted.’

  Chapter Seven

  ‘So why are you here Lieutenant Rooks?’

  The major was a tall man, trim of build with a fleshy, full face, gigantic hands, and what I assumed were enormous feet inside the leviathan boots propped atop his desk. Red mud caked his soles and heels, a clue that he had returned to his office directly from the field.

  ‘I was assigned here by the Twelfth Army Command, sir.’

  ‘Wrong answer.’

  I was unsurprised by his belligerence, he was of course a Latvian, but I still had not solved the puzzle of how to deal with him. Intellectually, I’d known that I’d be taking orders from Alfreds Tentelis as soon as I was given the assignment, but now faced with his condescending hostility, I was finding the reality less than pleasant.

  ‘What would be the correct response, Major?’

  He slammed shut a drawer on his desk, withdrew his feet, and stood at full height with hands on hips.

  ‘To throw the Germans out of Latvia, Lieutenant.’ He looked down at me, huge head eclipsing the paltry light from the window behind his desk. ‘How can you not know that?’

  ‘That is apparent sir. I thought you meant my personal reason for …’

  He shouted: ‘That is the only reason for being here!’ He sat down again; the chair springs tortured by his velocity. ‘If I am going to have to feed you, if you are going to take space in our bunks, Lieutenant, you need to explain to me how you can contribute to driving them back into their lands.’

  There was a long pause. He must be bluffing. I had already been given my post. Would he defy the Russians and send me packing? He could only be testing me.

  With an exasperated sigh, he finally said: ‘That was a question Lieutenant.’

  ‘Sir, I can contribute,’ I chose my words carefully here, ‘to the defeat of the German 8th Army, and the removal of all Reich Germans from Latvia, and the other territories of the Russian Empire, by performing all my duties as a liaison officer to the best of my abilities.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘You still haven’t told me why I should feed you, instead of an additional infantry soldier?’

  I was at loss for an answer. How I wished for an ounce of Otomars’s savvy.

  ‘My duties will include communication and co-ordination with other units, especially Russian brigades, aiding with contact with the High Command, translation of…’

  He pulled out a ream of paper from his top drawer, tossed it in front of me. With disgust he said: ‘Write them down, exactly as they were given to you.’

  I started to unbuckle the large pack at my feet to dig out a pen. He impatiently handed me one from the inkwell on his desk.

  I began to write in Russian. After a few Cyrillic letters, the major ripped off the page, crumpled it, and threw it across the room.

  ‘In Latvian,’ he said.

  It was slow going: I often spoke Latvian but seldom wrote it. My pen kept drying, requiring me to reach across the desk to Tentelis’s inkwell. I copied all orders regarding communication, co-ordination, translation, and clerical work. I skipped Captain Vereshchagin’s words about recording any signs of insurrection, nationalism, socialism or mob ‘psychosis.’ Those were best omitted.

  Finished, I handed the paper to him. He read for a few moments and then tossed it aside. ‘Useless! Bureaucratic, paper pushing.’ He threw up his hands. ‘I already have too much communication with them!’

  ‘Tell me,’ he scanned some document on his desk for my given name, ‘…Wiktor… can you fire a rifle?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well good, at last a skill we can use. Can you shoot something other than pigeons, Lieutenant? Can you shoot a German?’

  There was weight in his words and a hint of implication. I lightly thumped my palm on his desk. ‘Major, my family is in Courland. They are in the 8th Army’s hands. I would like nothing more than to free them.’

  He leaned forward, his tone slightly softer: ‘I repeat: Can you shoot a German, Lieutenant? That’s not an issue for you?’

  ‘I can shoot a German, Major. And I will not hesitate to order men to shoot them as well.’

  He only nodded. ‘Dismissed, Lieutenant.’

  *****

  The officers were billeted in a series of small wooden bunkhouses. Mine was on the end, the last stop before the road ascended a steep embankment covered with fir trees. Despite the dwindling autumn light, I could see the door, open to catch the breeze, a shiny tin ‘5’ pinned to its center. Relaxed, light, conversational Latvian voices caught my ear.

  Might as well get it over with…

  I entered. The room was compact, smaller than I expected. An unadorned wooden interior, a single window, and against opposite walls sat a pair of bunks. In the middle, a little table with three officers about eating a thin, garlicky soup.

  ‘Hello. Is there an open bed?’

  One of them, a slight, wiry officer, with deep-set eyes, and a black pencil-thin moustache clinging to a pencil-thin lip, pointed to the far wall: ‘The top bunk’s yours.’

  I threw my pack on the mattress and waited for them to rise in greeting. They did not, so I pulled up an empty chair and sat down.

  ‘Mind if I join you?’

  Nobody said anything. Was my accent that strong? Or had somebody prepared them?

  ‘Rooks is the name. Lieutenant Wiktor Rooks.’ I extended a hand to the little officer. He didn’t return it, only a slight nod as he spooned his soup.

  Another officer asked: ‘Where are you from Lieutenant Rooks?’

  I looked at him and fought not to show my horror. The speaker’s face was erased; nearly featureless. No hair in the front, only light brown clumps sparsely along the back and side of the head. He had no lips and barely a nose: two uneven holes puncturing a smooth mound of flesh. There was a thick, leathery, red sheen to most his countenance, relieved only by promontories of pink skin coming down from the scalp or up from his neck. In all my months in the hospital, I had never seen such a bad burn victim. Not one that lived anyway. It was as if all his individual characteristics had been sanded away, leaving only pale blue eyes behind a tough, scarred, generic man.

  I bought a little time to recompose myself. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t hear you. What was the question, Officer….Officer?’

  ‘Lieutenant Gaters.’ I said, ‘Where are you from?’ His words were raspy, his lipless sounds truncated, blending. A voice that would take some getting used to.

  ‘Courland. The countryside, south of Mitau.’ My mind was not on my answer. Mitau was the German name.

  The little moustached officer’s voice was full of sarcasm: ‘Really? I’m from Jelgava.’ The same place. One city, t
wo names, it all depended on your parent’s tongue.

  Gaters continued: ‘See, you and Seskis are like brothers. What do you do, Rooks? Trade? Industry?’ He put his hands on the table. One scarred and puffed. The other no different than mine.

  ‘I’m a liaison officer. Though I…’

  ‘No, no, no. Your family what do they do?’

  I stared at his face. Was it possible for him to even display an expression? Was there an agenda? Why was he asking these questions so quickly?

  ‘We own some land. Just farmers really.’

  His blue eyes flared. He could have expressions after all: So, Rooks is that type of German. The worst type of German. His words were acidic: ‘Ever plow a field?’

  My sympathy for his affliction was quickly waning: ‘Not personally. My father takes care of the crops.’

  ‘Has he ever plowed a field?’ The eyes compensating for any expressiveness lost in the face.

  ‘I don’t know. Look, I just arrived…’ I looked around for someone else to speak with. Moustached Seskis only grinned, clearly enjoying the spectacle. The third at the table, a bespectacled blond with thin, center-parted hair, kept his nose down in a book. I turned back to Gaters: ‘Have you?’

  ‘Tell me Rooks, how did you get this land?’

  ‘It’s not mine. It’ll go to my brother.’

  Seskis: ‘A little rich boy with nothing else to do joins the army…’

  I ignored him. ‘It’s been in the family for years, generations.’

  Gaters pressed: ‘Yes, but how did you get it? In the first place?’

  What did he want from me? ‘That was hundreds of years ago.’

  ‘What exactly was hundreds of years ago?’

  He wouldn’t let this go, but I could not let them think I feared conflict: ‘It was a gift from Riga’s Archbishop.’

  The blond got up, and plopped himself over in the bunk beneath my own, his eyes never leaving his book.