Lenin's Harem Read online

  The major looked through his field glasses: ‘Seskis, reform, prepare for a second assault.’

  ‘Major?’

  ‘Not now, Juskevics.’

  ‘We can take the German position.’

  He pulled down the glasses. ‘I’m not going to let them chew up another company. One is enough.’

  ‘I don’t need my whole company, Major. Just give me twelve men.’

  *****

  Juskevics’s soldiers moved in three groups of four; one squad laying down a continual suppressing fire: one riflemen firing, followed by the second, third and finally the last; while the other two groups huddled behind rocks, hills and ditches. When the Germans withdrew to safety behind their dirt walls, the other two groups crawled ahead, advancing a body length or two, and then crouching behind some new stone or shrub to hide. Then, the second began firing, providing ‘cover’ as the first and third picked their way toward the Germans. And so they advanced in rotation, one group firing, as two others crept ever closer.

  At last, Sergeant Licis was mere meters below the enemy fortifications. If the Germans could have raised a gun, they might have murdered him with a single shot. But the bullets from the other groups kept them locked inside. He unscrewed the top of the grenade, pulled it back and prepared to throw it over the embankment.

  In the smog, a dirty, smoke-holed, once white, undershirt rose from the German trench.

  They had surrendered.

  *****

  Two days later I was summoned to the major’s office. Upon being given permission to enter, I opened the door and found Tentelis sitting at his desk across from Juskevics.

  ‘Take a seat, Rooks’ said the major succinctly, skipping preamble. ‘Well? What did they say?’

  I sat down in a chair next to Juskevics. He had an excited, expectant look, as if his next breath hung on my report. Frankly, I didn’t want to disappoint him: ‘Well, Major, Lieutenant, the prisoners were unaware they had been cut off from the 8th army. I feel...’

  ‘Really?’ said Juskevics, with more than a hint of glee. These last two days had been his after all. ‘They didn’t know?’

  ‘They were concerned. They knew a breech existed in the lines, but they were unaware of the retreat.’

  The major was more earthly: ‘Then why did they surrender Rooks? We hadn’t killed a man.’

  ‘I think the best way to characterize it would be frustration, Major. Simple frustration. They repeated, again and again, they could never get a clear shot. We were advancing, they knew, but they never had a moment of unimpeded fire, or an upright target to kill. A couple of men simply quit, they had dissension down there in that mud hole, and it…’

  ‘It… did what Lieutenant?’

  ‘I would say it broke their will, sir.’

  *****

  My palm ached, the muscles on the back of my hand unable to keep a fist. I contemptuously threw the pen in the inkwell. My fingers were covered in ink, the last pink wrinkle falling before the conquering blue-black liquid.

  I stood up, stretched my back, wiped clean my fingers, and tried to find some air in the stuffy silent barracks. Only eight more. Eight more translations of the wretched thing, and then I’d be finished. The major had better remember this.

  Sergeant Licis came to the door of the officers’ quarters.

  ‘Permission to enter Lieutenant Rooks?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah.’ I waved him in and sat down for another pass at the task at hand. ‘I said you didn’t have to ask, Herberts.’

  ‘Well, sir, Lieutenant Seskis gave me quite the going over for it last time.’ He picked up a stack of my translations. ‘Are these getting heavier, sir?’

  ‘No, you’re just getting older. ‘ Another spasm in my hand. ‘Uggh…of course, not as old as me.’

  There was mutual humor in my remark, the sergeant was at least three or four years my senior. A good man for a Lett, from the eastern city of Dünaburg, he had too much to do to complain about the sins of the past.

  ‘Trust me sir, those lines on your face ain’t nothing but ink.’ He stacked one pile on top of the other.

  ‘Don’t mix up those pages. I alternated the sections.’

  ‘Not a problem, sir.’ He leaned back against the wall, papers resting against his chest. ‘You know, you’re really helping him, Lieutenant.’

  ‘Helping who?’

  ‘Lieutenant Juskevics. This might not have happened if it weren’t for you.’

  ‘He’s read a lot of books Herberts; I’m just translating one. Not a lot of thinking involved on my part.’

  He carried the stack to the door. ‘All I’m saying is the major and those types are mighty impressed by him. Hope he’s giving you a hand in return?’

  ‘He’s going to teach me to plow a field.’ I gave a quick, mirthful wink.

  A stern, pensive reflection. ‘Goodbye, sir,’ and he silently exited through the open door.

  Too far. Once again.

  I cracked my fingers, and went back to writing.

  *****

  I lay alone beneath the massive yew tree, fully in bloom in the early days of summer, writing my letter to Captain Vereshchagin. It included a prompt analysis of all the battalion developments, a compliment directed at the ‘initiative’ of Lieutenant Juskevics, and a recommendation for improvement of the courier system to other regiments.

  As I wrote, distant names were being called out at random. A clerk distributed letters to the bunched officers waiting their turn near the barracks. Of course, there would be none for me. A year had passed with my family across German lines. What was happening? Were they still under the baron’s protective wing? Had the Germans taken everything? I thought of my sister, and how I missed her. And our parents. And, yes, Gitta too. I tried to ignore the rumors of 8th army atrocities. They wouldn’t touch the baron’s class.

  Would they?

  I had nearly finished my report: ‘Lastly, as to the matter of improper or counter-productive activities…’

  I scanned the mail group, finding Gaters’s baldpate awaiting a letter. Or perhaps a periodical. Or anything. He had toned down the rhetoric since so many of his men were slaughtered. Still, there was no doubting his beliefs.

  ‘Juskevics!’ the postal clerk yelled out. ‘Juskevics?’

  The lieutenant jumped out of the crowd, a large wrapped package in his hands. He simply radiated energy, bounding away from the others, halting only to recover his glasses thrown from his face in jubilation, before literally falling next to me under the tree.

  ‘They’re here Rooks. This is it!’

  I didn’t need to ask. I knew.

  He ripped open the paper, the tomes fell out into his hands: The Defensive Battle and Manual of Infantry Training for War both in German, and a French work: L’Etude sur l’attaque.

  ‘Which one’s this, Wiktor?’

  I looked at the spine. ‘Manual of Infantry Training for War.’

  ‘And this?’

  ‘Something in French, you know I can’t read…’

  ‘Then this must be The Defensive Battle.’

  I could see a lot of translation in my future. ‘Can’t you get that in Latvian?’

  ‘Are you joking?’

  ‘Russian?’

  ‘Maybe in St. Petersburg. Come On, Wiktor…Look, Infantry Training is thin. We can do that first.’

  ‘No, Juskevics, not this time,’ but I knew he’d convince me.

  Gaters walked up, tears pooling in his blue eyes, his lipless mouth somehow curled downward in a sob.

  Juskevics: ‘Guntis what happened?’

  ‘My family…They’ve found them.’ He dropped to his knees near our tree; sobbing, it seemed, with joy.

  Juskevics crawled over, put an arm around Gaters shoulder ‘That’s wonderful, Guntis.’ Juskevics motioned for me to come over as well, but I decided to remain against the tree.

  Gaters handed him the note. ‘They’re in a work camp north of Moscow. It’d been so long, I thought…I dared
not hope…’

  I watched this scene unfold for a moment, and then returned to my writing:

  as to the matter of improper or counter-productive activities...

  I breathed in the sweet, aromatic summer air, and passed one more glimpse at Gaters’s patchy head crying in Juskevics’s arms.

  …there is nothing unusual to report.

  Chapter Nine

  Letts and Livs surrounded me, pressing against our carriage, their greedy hands reaching in, trying to grasp my uniform, to pull me into their smothering masses. The combined heat of their exhaled calls turned a cool morning into hottest noon. The crowd police could not keep them back, individuals breaking past, their swelling screams unearthing images, sounds, emotions buried since childhood.

  Ahead, behind, trailing us, throngs of these peasants on either side of the road, fighting violently to get closer. So many faces, so many Latvians. The most I’d seen assembled, since, since…

  Since they’d burned down my home.

  Destroyed our family. Ended my childhood.

  It was an unnerving experience. The troops marching down Riga’s cobblestone Kungu Iela, thousands lining the streets, a murmur of obligatory applause as the Russian Battalions passed at the head of the parade, only to be replaced by living thunder at the approach of the Latvian Battalions. I half-feared they’d break into our formations, overrunning the men long before reaching the river. Carried away by their own people, never even facing the enemy.

  I searched the crowd. All were Latvians; so tied to nature, their physical appearance embodied the seasons themselves: hair woven in autumn’s brown, red, and yellow; spring blossoming in eyes of blue, hazel, and green; shawls of winter white blanketing across every woman’s shoulders, and summer’s sun radiating in blinding smiles and warming cheers as the army passed.

  Our kind, our class, was eclipsed today. I could not deny it. Even those not trapped in Courland would have stayed fearfully home. The barons remembered 1905 and had vehemently opposed this army’s creation. Why celebrate another enemy entering the arena? Even the Russians shied away from this display, finding it too ‘local’ for their grand cosmopolitan tastes.

  No there were only Latvians today.

  I could feel it, radiating from every little boy, each old man, behind the rainbow of bouquets held by young women: A pride; a national pride; an explosion of Latvian identity. Everywhere there were flags, icons, symbols founded in folklore and history, hanging from every open window, posted on each free wall, pinned on the fabric of traditional dress. ‘We are not peasants!’ they proclaimed. For them this was a first step, for the Russians a desperate last. What would happen when the Germans were defeated? Could things ever return to normal?

  Even the normally fashionable Riga dwellers were adorned in traditional garb this morning: beneath the women’s shawls, long red, white and green striped dresses flowed from decorated bodices, their hair hidden under pointed white hats, or wreathed in a pinwheel of flowers; the men more modestly adorned in trim black and white tunics, vests and trousers; a wide hat of black shading grandfather’s sun-spotted skin, while young men and boys welcomed the morning sun.

  The car braked suddenly, pulling my attention forward. ‘Free Latvia!’ yelled a young man, darting across the road, slipping between the marching troops and our carriage.

  I followed his erratic run: jumping, waving to the mob, before finally disappearing into the opposite side. Free Latvia? From whom, my friend? The Reich-Germans? The Baltic-Germans? The tsar? Or all of them?

  I tried not to dwell on his proclamation: A simple ‘Good Luck’ sentiment certainly. It was the sort of thing young men do, to stand out, to impress girls, to pry another glass from their peers in the beer hall. But such words taken seriously, enthusiastically spoken inside this euphoria, could be dangerous. In 1905, they had.

  Another rebellion was a real possibility, Captain Vereshchagin would agree, always reminded. And with the kaiser’s forces lurking just across the river, a three-way war could finish the tsar and his army.

  I could not repress a shudder. And without him, what would these cheering people do to our class or our family?

  Or to me? Would these waving hands clench to raging fists? Rain down onto me, a thousand blows pounding my body into a bloody smear on the cobblestones? A stain to be washed away in the spring tempests? I would not forget, even though I walked among them, I was not of their ilk. This was their army. These people did not cheer for me.

  A young Latvian woman, her sandy hair parted beneath the colorful band about her forehead, appeared from the side of the parade, a mosaic of flowers in her hands. As the car slowed to maintain proper distance behind the marching men, she was able to run aside, distributing stems to each in the open carriage: First Major Tentelis, his driver, the surgeon and finally me. Into my hands fell a yellowish carnation, the stem moist and pliable, the end crisp and freshly cut. I thanked her, as she began to lose pace, falling behind the automobile.

  Suddenly it came to another shuddering stop, waiting for the soldiers to take the corner in proper procession. I could see Gaters ahead, coaxing the men to stay in formation as they pivoted. His hoarse commands were pebbles buried beneath an avalanche of cheers. The more it became obvious that the crowd disrupted his orders, the more their good-natured chorus grew. The men only stood stiffly, smiling, absorbing the adulation.

  As we watched them the sprightly woman caught up with the car, pressing one foot on the running board, she elevated herself off the street to our level. To my surprise, she placed her arms around my shoulders, kissing me quickly on the cheek.

  ‘Save us all, my Lacplesis’ equating me with their greatest folk hero. I started to explain that I wasn’t a Lett, when she kissed my lips warmly. While the onlookers howled in approval, this girl clasped my mouth firmly in hers. Then the car accelerated, she stepped off quickly, left behind waving.

  I could not help but be touched. She was so…enthusiastic. A devilish thought: Latvian girls just might kiss better than our own. Otomars had always whispered this. A passion born in the fields, boiling since man’s Vulcan origins, long ago refined out of the proper ladies in our circles. My brother had always spoken with carnal zest about trysts with the maid or a tenant’s daughter, hidden kisses enlivened by their sheer secrecy. How dangerous to be caught with her.

  I tapped my fingers on the black leather seat ahead of me. It was cool, slightly sticky in the morning air; my imprints dissolving slowly in the shiny interior skin.

  No, I was not Otomars. It was improper to take advantage of one’s position. House Master or military hero, I knew it unfair to raise her hopes, when a kiss was not a beginning but only an end.

  I let out a surprisingly mournful sigh. So that was that. I licked my lips softly to wash her taste away, and fought to relax in the car. Trapped inside the swelling crowds, I shut my eyes, and tried to remember the last time I’d held Gitta.

  Chapter Ten

  October, 1916

  The sound of thunder, an enveloping spray of mist punctured by wood and bone propelled fifty meters into the air, and the boat in front of me simply ceased to exist. The explosion shook our own tiny craft, throwing me down into the narrow wooden center, flung on top of a screaming soldier, another falling across my own back. Heavy red water, fragments of hull, lashed our shoulders, buffeted my helmeted head. In shock, I lay there while the boat rocked, rising so high on waves I feared it might overturn spilling us all into the boiling river; I could only cling face down, listening to the cries of the panicked man beneath me, feeling his quick breaths find rhythm with my own, slowly realizing we were both still alive.

  An elbow in the back, the soldier on top righted himself, brought my mind back to our situation. I pulled myself up, our craft now passing downstream of the fizzling spring where the supply ferry had died. Green mists swirled about its bubbling cortex, like vultures hovering over the dead, hungry to settle again. There was no one to rescue, nothing to salvage. The currents
carried away splinters of boxes, tattered pieces of cloth, fully uniformed limbs. A torso rolled like a lumber log against the upstream side of our boat. I used an oar to push it away, clinging tendrils of deadly vapor crawling up the blade from the water’s surface, as if his spirit sought to drag the living down with him.

  Far off another shell landed in the water, sending white foam and mist into the sickly clover autumn air. In this smog, we could not see the German artillery, their mortars seeking our little convoy as it crossed the Daugava stew. Ahead, both upriver and down, invisible cannons belched purple-red flares, a hundred caved dragons unleashing sulfur and smoke on our crusading knights. Their roars quickly followed by the screams of incoming shells. Months ago I’d learned to guess their accuracy, to find the distance by the pitch, reading the anguish in the air splitting around me. Every volley, each lapse between brilliant ignition and falling whistle played a variant of the same tune. Which pitch, which key would serve as life’s valedictory?

  I sailed toward Saulkalne, where we’d spent the last three months in gallant misery. An hour south-east of Riga, Saulkalne was a large bridgehead on the opposite side of the Daugava, one of the few places on the South Bank still in Latvian and Russian control. In many ways it felt like an island, the German front lines cutting off the mainland, the river a barrier behind entered or exited only by a water crossing. For seven months Russian and Latvian battalions, two each in rotation, had held these two square kilometers of shelled earth, despite ferocious German assaults. Supplies ferried across the river often failed to arrive, many boats ending in a geyser of foam, shattered hulls and bodies carried downstream, flowing out to the Baltic itself. Men killed kilometers upriver, mourned from Riga’s widowing bridges, but buried at sea.

  As a liaison officer, I’d taken far too many trips on these exposed boats, often summoned at the whim of some Russian officer who wanted to hear in person: ‘What was going on across the Daugava?’ After one near miss had spilled the entire crew into the muddy river, I began to keep track. Twenty-two crossings before this trip, the same count as my age. Would I make twenty-three?